How to Hydrate Your Way to Maximum Energy and Better Health with Kristen Coffield of The Culinary Cure
Show Snapshot:
Feeling midlife sluggish, out of whack, in need of a reboot? You may need a hydration tune-up, says Kristen Coffield of The Culinary Cure. Kristen walks us through why simply drinking a few glasses of water doesn’t cut it as we age and shares ideas for refueling your energy and your health with simple, doable kitchen lifestyle choices.
Ready to turn the food on the end of your fork into fuel to power your days? Want the energy boost and glowy skin that optimal hydration delivers? This show is for you!
In This Episode We Cover:
The power of food and habit to create health and happiness.
How Kristen overcame a tsunami of personal challenges by first focusing on food and nutrition.
Feeling sluggish? You may not be adequately hydrated. Plus, why hydration is the foundation of wellness.
A simple two-week strategy to hydrate on a cellular level.
Simple steps to reboot wellness after an indulgent summer.
The trifecta for a power breakfast.
Foods to feed a healthy gut biome.
Arabica coffee, herbal tea, and what to buy at the farmer’s market.
How to reboot when the sh*t hits the fan.
Quotable:
One day, in my mid-50s, I woke up and I realized, I was at the end of my rope...That was the point at which I had to decide, am I going to freefall, or am I going to pull myself back up this rope? In that moment, I knew I couldn’t control any of those [challenges] but I could control what was on the end of my fork.
Water is free—hydration is the low-hanging fruit of wellness. When we’re properly hydrated, everything else is better, our sleep, our mood, our energy, our food choices.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty [0:30]:
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. You know we keep it age-positive on this show; we are confident in midlife, not looking backward, wishing we were still 26, 36. We are excited about making the most of the days that lie ahead. But there are still times when we can feel midlife sluggish, out of whack, and in need of a reboot. My guest today has ideas for refueling your energy, your health and for turning the food on the end of your fork into fuel to power your days.
Kristen Coffield is the founder of The Culinary Cure, a platform that helps women use the power of food and habit to create health and happiness. The author of the book, How Healthy People Eat, Kristen, is a big believer in small steps to drive change and create resilient wellness. If you want a simple way to make healthier food and lifestyle habits part of your day-to-day, stick around, this show is for you. Welcome, Kristen.
Kristen Coffield [1:34]:
This is so much fun Katie, because there are a couple of times of the year when people really feel the need to reboot stronger than other times, and that tends to be after summer and at the beginning of the new year.
Katie [1:47]:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I love summer. I’m a big fan. I spent my summer eating lobster rolls, I spent my summer eating ice cream, I spent my summer drinking rosé, and I love all of these things. But I am feeling that September fresh start that the school year always triggers, and I am thinking about what changes I can make to be doing a little bit more healthy eating?
We’re going to dive into all of these things. I’m super excited, I also love your phrase, resilient wellness. I cannot wait to explore that. But I thought we could start with some very quick stage setting. I know from reading your website, you’ve had a long-time career in food, you ran your own catering company, you’ve been in the hospitality industry for a number of years, but you pivoted in midlife, and you launched The Culinary Cure, why?
Kristen [2:39]:
Well, I pivoted because my story is a little bit of every woman’s story. My seemingly perfect life, from the outside, really was fraught with some troubles underneath the perfect veneer. I was struggling, our marriage was in trouble, we had some financial issues, my mom’s breast cancer came back, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, my last kid went off to college, and my daughters had... both of my girls were assaulted, and then I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. [laughs]
Katie [3:21]:
Oh my gosh, this is...
Kristen [3:22]:
It’s kind of like this tsunami of overwhelming events. It took place over about ten years, and like many women, you don’t see it coming because it happens over time, not overnight. And one day, in my mid-50s, I woke up and I realized, I was at the end of my rope; the rope was long, and then I got to the end and there was no more rope. That was the point at which I had to decide, am I going to freefall, or am I going to just pull myself back up this rope? In that moment, I knew I couldn’t control any of those things that I just described to you, but I could control what was on the end of my fork. So, that’s where I started, that’s where I had my comeback from a devastating decade. I don’t even think I said it... the last thing that happened was my beloved dog died.
Katie [4:28]:
Kristen, this is just such a series of challenges. I had no idea that you went through all of these things. I am delighted to hear that you’re on the other side of this and I know that so many of my listeners are probably shaking their heads and identifying themselves in a lot of these challenges that you went through. Maybe people are experiencing different things, but I love that you looked at yourself and said, what can I be doing to be more in control of my health? Why The Culinary Cure? Why focus on nutrition?
Kristen [5:08]:
Well, because it was the only thing I could control, [laughs] it was what was on the end of my fork. I started with food because my background is culinary. I have always been that person who believed that food had the power to heal us. So, when my kids were little, and my son is 34 years old, he was getting probiotics and he was getting organic baby food. So, I’ve always felt strongly that food is our biggest tool in our wellness arsenal, and many of us just don’t know how to use it.
So, I couldn’t control all that other stuff, I could control what I was eating, so I started making sure I was only eating things that really served me, that helped me feel better. The fact of the matter was, that I wasn’t sleeping at all. So, I started eating better food, less coffee, less wine because that’s a slippery slope for women when life gets tough, they can open a bottle of wine at 5:00, and before you know it, you’re taking those last sips. And I just, I needed to feel better, so I started eating different, and then I had more energy, and I wasn’t sleeping anyway, so I started going to the gym at 5:00 AM. And then everything sort of started to change.
I started to feel stronger and more in control, and that’s where The Culinary Cure was born from. It really started from my own personal journey, my downward spiraling journey, that turned into a roadmap that other women could use to pursue pivoting when life gets complicated.
Katie [6:52]:
Yeah, absolutely. Kristen, you shared that this all started in your mid-50s. How old are you now, and how long have you been doing The Culinary Cure?
Kristen [7:01]:
So, I’ve been doing The Culinary Cure for a decade, and I am going to be 64 in December, and I feel like I have more energy than I’ve had at any other age of my life. I wake up every day excited for the day, I do go to bed early. My husband and I like to go to bed anywhere between 8:00 and 9:00. I get up at 4:00 AM. I have a powerful morning routine. And you know, I have no special skillset. Any woman can do these things and, you know, this is a perfect conversation for the end of the summer, trying to get back on track, wanting to feel like the best version of you, because summer is one of those times where every night can be Saturday night for like, three months.
Katie [7:55]:
Yes, I totally agree with that. First of all, I want to stop for a minute because you said you have no special skillset, but I believe you have a special skillset which I’m calling grit. I think that the fact that you were able to create something new for yourself, that you’re able to prioritize your health, that you’re able to do the things like get up early, workout, exercise... I’m saying you do have a special skill set.
But I’m so thrilled we’re having this conversation now because I feel personally, like I’ve been running at half-mast for a couple weeks now. The end of the summer, the launching of kids, two kids back to college, the packing, the shifting of gears, I caught a summer cold. I’m not feeling like my most energetic self. I know from conversations with other women in my life that they too are overwhelmed. September brings a lot of challenges for women as they return to careers, they get kids back into school and reorient their rhythm. So, this conversation is coming at the perfect time for so many. If a woman is sitting here thinking, I’m ready to make a few changes and to put those simple steps into action that Kristen talks about, where would you encourage them to begin?
Kristen [9:16]:
Well, all of my programs, all of my coaching begin with hydration. I love to say, first of all, this is free, anybody can do it, you don’t have to have a lot of money or extra time because water is free, hydration is the low-hanging fruit of wellness, and when we’re properly hydrated, everything else is better, our sleep, our mood, our energy, our food choices. But the thing is, most people don’t understand what it takes to become properly hydrated. So, we’re drinking water but we’re not actually becoming hydrated on an inner cellular level.
And so, I like to say, Tom Brady and I have this in common. [Katie laughs] Tom Brady, every morning gets up, his first beverage of the day is water, he boosts that water with electrolyte drops, and he has about 24 ounces of water. I do half of that, I do 12 ounces, and I add the juice of half a lemon, my electrolyte drops, and I add some liquid minerals, and that’s my first beverage of the day. So, if people want to feel better after a summer... I like to say it was my summer of amygdala overload; we had a flood in our condo – we had an upstairs neighbor who is not a plumber who did a plumbing project, and that didn’t turn out well – we became first-time grandparents, we have a second home that was pretty much booked solid with friends and family all summer, and we take care of my husband’s parents and my stepdad, and they’re all in their 90s. So, I was, like everybody else, COVID came, and we dialed everything back a little bit because we couldn’t do all the things we were doing in our regular life. And then this summer was kind of like, the gates were opened, and our summers were so full of activity. I am hearing from women everywhere that they felt, and still feel, overwhelmed.
Katie [11:33]:
Absolutely. we’re going into a quick break. When we come back, I want to explore this notion of overwhelm.
[Ad Break]
Katie [12:57]:
Kristen, we’re back. You used the word “overwhelm.” My head is nodding so hard I almost knocked my headset off because we, you know, women have a lot going on. I don’t want to sugarcoat it; we have a lot of balls in the air. If we are looking to grab one ball, adopt some of these healthy habits that you have so much experience in coaching clients. Hydration is the number one place to start. What would be number two?
Kristen [13:28]:
Well, I want to tell people how to get properly hydrated.
Katie [13:31]:
Oh, okay, let’s do it!
Kristen [13:32]:
If there is one takeaway from this podcast, it should be that every listener understands what they need to do to become properly hydrated. So, hydration is a little bit complicated because we... First of all, water is an essential nutrient. That means our bodies can't make it. We have to get it from an external source. There are really two sources for that: food and liquids. We should be eating largely plant-based diets. There are just no two ways around it. If you want to look and feel your best, you’ve got to eat more fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds. And those fruits and vegetables will help you hydrate.
But what most people don’t do is they don’t understand how to use water as a practice. Here’s the formula: when you wake up in the morning, the first beverage of each day needs to be water. When we’re asleep, our body is fasting and that’s because all of our major organs, including our brain, need to detox. So, they’re going to run all their metabolic detoxes while we’re in that deep sleep. All of that metabolic waste ends up in our lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is the trash can of the body, it’s located between our skin and our muscles, and the lymphatic system can’t move itself. There are two ways that we help the lymphatic system take that metabolic trash out; we hydrate because of water. Those fluids help the metabolic system get moving, and we move. So, those are two things that should happen every morning within your first hour of waking up, you should hydrate, and you should do some movement.
Now, to properly hydrate, you’re going to start. I’m just going to make it simple. Your first beverage of the day is water. It’s best if you can boost your water with electrolyte drops. You can get these on my website at TheCulinaryCure.com. In my Amazon store, there are lots of electrolytes out there. So, boost your water with electrolyte drops because that’s going to add these important minerals to your water that makes it seem more like your blood when it's in your body, so it’s more easily absorbed into your blood cells with those salts and those important minerals. So, 8 to 10 ounces of water when you first wake up, and then you’re going to drink 8 to 10 ounces an hour, for 8 to 10 hours a day. So, not drinking 100 ounces at 3:00, rather, you’re going to take 8 to 10 sips an hour, because a sip is about an ounce, and you’re going to drink 8 to 10 ounces an hour for 8 to 10 hours a day, for two weeks.
So, you don’t get hydrated because you drank much water today. You get hydrated by consuming water consistently over time so that all your major organs can start to use that water and function better. You’re going to feel better, your skin is going to look amazing, and you’re going to be like, "Who is that woman? Where do I find Kristen? This is unbelievable! How come nobody told me this before?” [Katie laughs]
Katie [17:06]:
Okay, you had me at my skin is going to look amazing. [Kristen laughs] I am starting this tomorrow morning! I’ve got that kind of fair, freckly skin. Summer sun is not always kind to it.
Kristen [17:17]:
Katie, start it when we get off this recording!
Katie [17:20]:
I’m having water right now, but I’m looking at my cup and thinking, it’s not enough! So, you had me at hydration. I’m definitely doing that. And I love this notion too of doing something that, you know, you’ve spelled it out, you’ve broken it down very clearly and simply, and I know when I spend two weeks doing this, I’m going to get that glowy skin boost that you talked about, but I’m also going to be reminded that by taking these simple steps, that I’m in action on something that’s good for my health. Because I’m the kind of person that when I’m doing one thing well, I feel more confident about doing and adding other things. I know that I’ll be opting for maybe a salad versus a bagel because by drinking the water, I’m reminding myself that I’m doing something good for my health. And I think that kind of knock-on effect that we have when we do one thing right, it produces other, better results. Do you find that in your own coaching?
Kristen [18:20]:
Absolutely. And I think we could just add to this water. So, seeing as we’re talking about morning, let’s just give your listeners this one job: they’re going to work on hydration, and they’re going to work on the first hour of each day because what we do in that first hour of each day sets the tone for the day. We all know what that’s like, "Oh, I had a great morning, then my whole day is really easy.” So, you’re going to start with the hydration, but women so often shortchange themselves nutritionally.
Healthy fats got a bad rap, so women are always trying to avoid fat and, in its place, very often end up being refined carbohydrates or just too many carbohydrates. So, breakfast or the first meal of each day is really the most important meal of the day. And for women, we need the trifecta of a great breakfast; that’s fiber, fat, and protein. And we really need those healthy fats. So, some women, they hop out of bed, they grab a cup of coffee, they drink their first cup of coffee. Well, what that does is it jacks up your adrenals, so now you’ve got cortisol shooting through your veins, it’s going to affect your hormones, and as women, balanced hormones is like the holy grail. [laughs]
Katie [19:47]:
Absolutely, it makes all the trains run on the tracks.
Kristen [19:50]:
Exactly! So, this first meal of each day gets overlooked. It doesn’t get the kind of attention it needs to change our lives, to give us that energy, to help us get back on track. So, hydration is absolutely essential. I mean, it’s free. Anybody can do it. I’ve given you the formula. But the next thing is really making sure that you start each day with healthy fats. Because healthy fats are what our brain needs, they help us stay fuller longer, so now we’re not running out to grab a bagel because we’re actually feeling good because we had half an avocado and a fried egg, and maybe some tomato slices and some sprouts and that’s your perfect breakfast.
We also need that fiber. We get the fiber from fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds, so the more we can incorporate those into our diet, the fiber provides us with the prebiotics, the food that the pro, or good bacteria in our gut, need to function. So, breakfast is really setting this tone for the day because our gut sends thousands of messages to our brain each day, but our brain only sends a couple hundred to the gut. So, our gut is really calling the shots, and we want those messages the gut is sending to be the good ones. Not, “Go get a chocolate chip cookie,” but “Gee, I really feel like a salad.”
Katie [21:26]:
Right, absolutely. First of all, I love the notion of this healthy breakfast. I really have taken this on myself. I had a wonderful guest, Heidi Skolnik, who is a nutrition pro, she’s the co-author of a book, The Whole Body Reset, and she talks as well about the importance of taking in more calories, the importance of having protein in every meal, scattered throughout the day, and using protein timing to build healthy muscle and get your whole system working. So, she too echoes what you’ve just shared about the importance of breakfast as a cornerstone of health.
Very quick question before it enters and exits my mind. When you talked about hydration in the morning, the importance of starting with water for the listener who might be thinking, I like coffee, I like tea, is that 50% of my water? What would your answer be about those types of beverages?
Kristen [22:24]:
So, your water, you’re going to measure separately from your coffee. Coffee can be actually very good for us, and I would encourage people to seek out fair trade, organic coffee. Most of the Arabica coffee out there tends to be pretty good. So, if you have a local coffee shop and you can find out a little more about the beans, that’s always helpful. But what we don’t want to do is jack up our system with caffeine first thing. So, you can still have your cup of coffee, but make sure that cup of coffee is after you have that water. Because remember, the body is fasting when we’re asleep, and we want to end that fast by rehydrating. So, you can still have your coffee. Just have it later.
However, herbal tea does count toward your water for the day, and another pro tip here, a lot of people like sparkling water, mm-mm. Sparkling water is kind of a treat, it shouldn’t be used in your water for the day, and I’ll tell you why. Water doesn’t come out of the ground carbonated, so the carbonation is added to the water, and the addition of the carbonation actually increases the acidity level of that water, and we do not want to increase the acidity levels in our body. We want to lower the acidity because acidity is associated with inflammation. So, what we’re trying to do is dial down the inflammation in our bodies because inflammation actually loves to hold onto calories and store them as fat, and I don’t know anybody who is looking for too much more fat.
Katie [24:16]:
No, exactly. And it also creates disease. We know it’s at the root of so much of the body’s ills. Quick question for you about carbonated water, about seltzers. During the summer, even though, as I shared at the top of the show, I was enjoying some rosé, a drink that I love, I also went through several weeks of the summer where I was doing sort of a dry time, where I was avoiding all alcohol, simply drinking water. And I was drinking. Instead of my after-dinner glass of wine, I was having sparkling water with maybe a little mint in it. I was sometimes putting in some muddled watermelon and making it, kind of like a mocktail. Where do you stand on sparkling water in the evening as an alcohol substitute?
Kristen [25:02]:
Absolutely. And that’s the perfect way to have it is to have it, is kind of as a treat and not as your water, as part of your hydration practice. So, that’s kind of an extra bonus beverage. So, you’re really going to want to work on drinking filtered tap water as your primary hydrating beverage.
Katie [25:28]:
Okay, terrific, that’s good to know. So, once we’ve started with hydration, once we’ve prioritized the healthy breakfast that you outlined, what does the rest of the day look like in terms of when we want to have our biggest meal? Do you believe in lunch? Do you believe in later dinners? Are we looking to have... obviously we’re looking for primarily plants, very vegetable-heavy. Where do you land on lean protein? Seafood, salmon, chicken, steak?
Kristen [26:01]:
I eat it all, personally.
Katie [26:03]:
I’m delighted to hear that because I do too.
Kristen [26:06]:
I eat it all, but plants are the main portion of my diet. We’re the only country in the world that ever started eating these massive quantities of animal protein, and the reason for that is we changed the way we raise our animals. We have this industrial farming complex. Animals are being raised in high-rise apartment buildings, they’re being given hormones, and all of a sudden, animal protein got really cheap. So, it was inexpensive and readily available, and people started eating a lot more animal protein than they had traditionally because protein was always very expensive, and we used the whole animal.
So, our food has changed more in the past 70 years than in all of human existence up until that time, and that’s the way we farm. As you know, Katie, because you interview so many interesting people on this podcast, we also have become a sicker population because we’re wasteful. So, now we don’t eat all the parts of the animal. We throw them out. People used to get... Let’s say you had a cow, you used every part of that animal for something, and then you boiled the bones and the carcass, and you made broth, and we got all this lovely collagen from eating that broth, and that was a great source of protein too. That was a great way to stretch protein in times when people weren’t able to eat protein the way we are today.
So, a serving of protein is like a circle drawn on the fist of your hand. So, if you’re having a piece of meat or fish, think about a circle drawn on the fist of your hand as a protein serving. You don’t need to eat a ton of protein in one sitting, but you do need to have protein throughout the day, whether that’s animal protein or plant protein. Again, remember all those combinations when we were in high school; beans and rice create a protein. So, there are lots of combinations like that for plant-based eaters. But we do need protein, and we do need to eat it throughout the day.
Getting back to breakfast, we should be eating breakfast like a king. Our big meals should be the earlier meals in the day when we need those calories for fuel. Not at the end of the day, when we’re getting ready to go to sleep and now our body is confused because it wants to go to sleep and wind down so it can do that metabolic detox, and all of a sudden, it’s got all this food, and now it’s got to go into digestion mode. So, breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper.
Katie [29:07]:
It’s a great analogy. When you think about where we are in terms of species and evolution, we used to be going to bed very early because we didn’t have electricity. We ran on a different clock and a different cycle. We certainly were not sitting down in a cave to eat a gigantic meal at 9:30 at night and have several glasses of wine. That just wasn’t happening. Our bodies are just not programmed probably to deal with this kind of intake of food.
But I think dinner is tough. Dinner is tough for me because it happens every night. I mean that, seriously! Every single night my kids want to be fed, and I’m like, oh my god, again. It’s hard because, at the end of the day, sometimes you’re out of energy. If you’re a parent, you need to feed the people that live in your house; if you’re not a parent, you still need to feed yourself, and I think at the end of the day, I personally find that sometimes, it’s harder to feel energized around creating a healthier meal, it’s easier to lean into things like ordering in food or something that’s super easy. What are one to two simple dinners that you would recommend to listeners as a building block that they can easily tweak that offer both health, ease, and variety?
Kristen [30:30]:
I’m glad you asked this question because I am the queen of quick, tasty, and healthy.
Katie [30:37]:
Yay!
Kristen [30:37]:
So, one of my favorite meals is the classic roast chicken, and nothing could be easier than getting a chicken ready and popping it in the oven, wrapping up a couple of sweet potatoes, and then steaming up a little broccoli. It takes no time to prep. I have two different recipes on my website, TheCulinaryCure.com, for roast chicken. One of my favorite hacks is you slice an onion into thick slices, and you put it in the bottom of the roasting pan, and then you’ve got your whole oven stuffer roaster that you’ve rubbed with Herbs de Provence, and salt, and you’ve stuffed it with a lemon, and you’re just going to plop it on those onion slices and roast it in your oven at 325 for two hours or until the juices run clear. Your house smells so good. People will be in the kitchen waiting for dinner, they’re going to be so excited. It takes no time at all to steam up some broccoli. And sweet potatoes are so nutritious. They’re a superfood; you just wash them, put them in some foil, and pop them in the oven with that chicken while it’s roasting.
Katie [31:49]:
Yeah, I love that. We do roast chickens a lot because I agree. I think some people are intimidated if they’re not cooks, but it’s very easy to roast a chicken. If you do it on Sunday night, we then turn the chicken into other foods throughout the day. We’ll do sometimes a Mexican taco bowl with chicken; you could do that on a Monday. Or you can take the chicken and roll them up into burritos. There are a lot of different ways to repurpose it. It could become a chicken Cesar salad a little later on in the week. I love preparing one or two big things that give me different options throughout the week.
Kristen [32:24]:
You know, another great thing, people don’t eat enough salads because guess what? Bagged salad is just kind of yucky. It’s like, “Woah, what did they spray in those bags with that lettuce?” I would rather make my own salad on Sundays, buy a bunch of beautiful heads of lettuce and fill my sink with water, cut them up, let them soak and get clean, and then I’ve got a bag of lettuce for the whole week. I also make my own dressing, my famous five-ingredient dressing: lemon, shallot, olive oil, salt, and pepper. People are always like, “Now, what’s in this dressing? It’s so tasty.” It’s so simple! But when you get away from prepared foods, bottled dressings, and bagged salads, you actually save money, you’re getting more nutrients for your consumer dollars, and the food just tastes better. And when it tastes better, you’re going to eat more of it, and we all need to be eating salad at the end of the day, every day.
Katie [33:28]:
Yeah, absolutely. You can make those salad dressings in mason jars, and again, you make them maybe on a Saturday or Sunday when you’ve got a little bit more time, get your kids involved. They love stirring and shaking things, and then it can sit in your refrigerator for a week.
Kristen [33:42]:
Exactly, you could make two weeks’ worth of salad dressing! Just make your life easier. What happens is, a lot of people, when they shop, they buy the food they don’t buy meals, and that’s the biggest mistake. When you buy meals, you have a plan for everything you buy. You’re more likely to use it. When you buy food, sometimes you’re like, "What am I going to do with all these random things that I bought?
Katie [34:08]:
Yeah, absolutely. I just saw a very fun hack on Instagram, and it was a woman who takes the tail end of her jar of organic peanut butter. You know how you can never get all the stuff off the inside? Then she makes a salad dressing in it and shakes it up, and it’s like a peanut butter-based salad dressing, or peanut butter baste for chicken or different things. You already have that remnant peanut butter, you’ve got that jar, and you can turn it into something that you can continue to use throughout the week. I thought that was such a fun hack, and I’m literally eating peanut butter this whole week, waiting for my jar to empty so I can use it. [both laugh]
Kristen [34:48]:
You can't wait to do it. It’s so fun.
Katie [34:51]:
It is so fun. So, what are some of the simple hacks that you use every week when you stock your pantry? I want to make sure that our listeners have a sense of what it is that they should be leaving a supermarket with that will make their life easy to create simple, healthy meals.
Kristen [35:10]:
Well, of course, it depends on how many people you’re feeding in your household. My chili powder chicken thighs are a staple for us. I’m mad for chicken thighs. Bone in, skin on, I just love them. I’ve got a great way of cooking them, you cook them skin side down, and you turn them skin side up and broil them. They’re perfect every time. So, I’m a big fan of pick your protein, whatever that’s going to be. So, I would probably pick up chicken thighs or a piece of fish of some sort. I have a great recipe for salmon with fennel and grapes on my website. Super easy, super delicious. But I always have a lot of fruits and vegetables. I like to start my morning with fruit, that might be avocados because avocados are a fruit. It could be whatever is in season.
So, here’s a big tip for people: buy what is in season, buy what’s local. Even better, go to your local farmer’s market. Because when we’re buying food, what we’re paying for is nutrients. So, you want to get the most nutrients for your consumer dollars, and you’re going to get more nutrients in food that’s grown locally, that didn’t have to travel, that is seasonal. So, try to eat seasonal and local and won't be buying blueberries in January that are coming from South America.
Katie [36:40]:
[laughs] Oh my gosh, I love it. Or watermelon in February. You’re always like, how did that happen?
Kristen [36:47]:
So, you should be leaving the store with whatever is in season. We’re getting into the fall, so now we’re switching from... there’s still a lot of zucchini and summer squash looking gorgeous, and tomatoes and corn, but then we’re going to move into mushrooms, and winter squash, and those dark leafy greens like kale. So, you want to be thinking seasonal, you want to be thinking local, you want to be thinking nutrient dense. And some of these things, people just don’t know how to cook them. Everything is available to you on the internet now. You can figure out how to cook just about anything. But most of what you buy should be fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds.
Katie [37:30]:
And a great tip is to do it at your local farmer’s market because that helps us simplify our choices. When you walk into a gigantic supermarket, and there are a gazillion things out there, sometimes you leave with a full shopping cart and nothing for dinner. I think the idea of saying, "I’m buying what I see at the farmer’s market today, and that’s what we’re making,” simplifies your choices and helps narrow things down.
Kristen, we’re going to be heading into our speed round in just a minute. I could talk to you all day long about this. I love food. I love eating it; I love making it, I love preparing it. I’m excited about some of the ideas you’ve given me about getting myself to the farmer’s market and doing more of that. I do want to quickly ask you about The Culinary Cure, about your book, How Healthy People Eat. I’m always fascinated. Do you think you could have written this book, do you think you could have launched The Culinary Cure when you were younger, or did it take getting to midlife to realize these creative projects?
Kristen [38:31]:
What a great question. I’m going to tell you a really quick little story. I remember picking up my daughter. She’s 27 now. I remember picking her up at school, she was in 3rd grade, and I was in the carpool line, listening to NPR, and I heard them talking about this new thing, this new platform called YouTube. At that moment, I knew that I should do that. I’m the perfect person to be on YouTube. I could create my own wellness show and share it with people. But that was a long time ago, and we all didn’t have cell phones that would have made it possible self-record. We didn’t have Amazon. None of that was out there. So, I would have required all kinds of professional gadgetry, and it would have cost me a lot of money to self-produce.
So, I think the timing is everything, and the timing was right with the technology, with my extra bandwidth because I didn’t have kids at home anymore, and with what had happened in my life that led me to believe that other women must need this information. If I needed it, other women needed it, and nobody had created this sort of roadmap to midlife and how you reboot when the shit hits the fan. And the shit hits the fan a lot!
Katie [39:58]:
“The shit hits the fan.” No truer words have been spoken. Not a single person listening to this show has not had something in their life go sideways. Sometimes people suffer great losses. Things change, marriages end, jobs come and go, and health is an issue. Everyone who has made it to midlife has gone through something hard. And that I think is our superpower. That is why women in midlife knock it out of the park when they try new things because we have that confidence, and we have a lot of lived wisdom, and we know we can make things happen because we have survived the shit hitting the fan.
Kristen, this has been such a treat. We are moving into our speed round; I love closing on this high-energy note. This is just a quick one- or two-word answer to complete these sentences or these thoughts. Are you ready?
Kristen [40:53]:
Sure, let’s do it.
Katie [40:53]:
Let’s do it! Launching The Culinary Cure was: _____.
Kristen [40:59]:
Exciting and fun.
Katie [41:00]:
Nice. My favorite healthy snack: _____.
Kristen [41:04]:
Avocados.
Katie [41:05]:
This food is always in my grocery cart: _____.
Kristen [41:09]:
Butter.
Katie [41:10]:
You will never find this food in my kitchen: _____.
Kristen [41:15]:
Anything with artificial ingredients. [laughs]
Katie [41:18]:
Surprise! This health food superhero doesn’t do it for me: _____.
Kristen [41:24]:
Liver.
Katie [41:25]:
Liver, all right. I’m echoing that.
Kristen [41:28]:
Blergh.
Katie [41:29]:
[laughs] Best nut: _____.
Kristen [41:33]:
Brazil nuts.
Katie [41:34]:
Sprinkle this nutritious topper on your salads: _____.
Kristen [41:39]:
Sesame seeds.
Katie [41:42]:
You say food is medicine. What’s a food that we haven’t talked about yet that keeps the doctor away?
Kristen [41:49]:
Hmm... That we haven’t talked about yet... Mushrooms. We didn’t really go into mushrooms, but mushrooms are incredibly medicinal, and they have all kinds of properties that can really heal us from within, so mushrooms.
Katie [42:07]:
Mushrooms. Very nice. Finally, your one-word answer to complete this sentence: As I age, I feel _____
Kristen [42:15]:
Powerful.
Katie [42:16]:
Love it! What a great note to end on. Thank you, Kristen. This has been such a treat. Before we say goodbye, how can our listeners find you, your work, and The Culinary Cure
Kristen [42:26]:
TheCulinaryCure.com is home to all of my recipes and programs, and coaching information. People can follow me on Instagram @KristenCoffield, and I post stuff every single day. And I’ve got my 21-Day Detox and Reset coming up, so if anybody feels ready to double down on their habits, become fully hydrated, and learn a ton of good habits to take with you, for the rest of your life, you can join me at The Culinary Cure and sign up for my 21-Day Detox and Reset.
Katie [43:05]:
Absolutely fantastic. I’m putting all of those into the show notes. Thank you, Kristen.
Kristen [43:10]:
Thank you so much. This was a joy.
Katie [43:12]:
It was a total treat!
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. Join me next week when Dana Hilmer of Camp Reinvention shares ideas to shake up and redesign the next half of your life.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini, who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time, and until then: age boldly, beauties.