In this episode of the podcast, I'm chatting with Betsy Castaneda about foods to eat for health and wellbeing.

We talk about avoiding certain foods to reduce inflammation, as well as specific super foods that can help.

We also discuss how nutrition can help prevent disease, and Betsy shares when she felt burnt out and how she overcame it. Tune in to hear all about it!

Hello and welcome back to the Be Well, Do Well podcast.

Today I'm really excited to be chatting with Betsy Castaneda, and we're gonna be talking about nutrition and holistic wellness.

we're also gonna be talking about a little bit of challenges that Betsy had, in her life and her career, and the pivot that she made, and I'm really excited to have this conversation.

Betsy, welcome to the.

Thank you, Amin.

I'm really happy to be here and thank you for having me here.

Oh, you're very welcome.

So tell us a little bit about yourself.

I know you're in Vancouver.

I'm in Edmonton, and the Canadian medical system doesn't always look at wellness.

So tell us a little bit about your background and how you see health, from your perspective as a nutritionist.

Yeah.

I was born in Colombia.

I immigrate here in 2011.

and I came from a background of, nutrition and dietetics.

I did a study in the university in the National University of Columbia and before immigrating to Canada, I did practice from 10 years.

since I was a child, my parents introduced me to all the holistic work.

So, my perspective of health.

Has been, like, around that, not just the normal medical system or the Western medical system because when we talk about this system, they, they treat people based on their symptoms, but they don't look beyond that.

What is the root causes of that symptoms?

when my parents, since I was a child, brought me around this world, I always understand and I learned that diseases are not only about symptoms or there are some root causes that are deeper than that.

And if you really want to help a person to heal, you need to explore the causes and address the causes because if no, the symptoms are going.

came back.

So you give the person the medicine and they get better, the symptoms disappear and maybe they are okay, but there is something that trigger that, again, I need come back until the root cause of that is addressed.

So I have experienced that kind of medicine since a child and I know what are the benefits and how well it works because, I think the relationship between a doctor and a patient need to be more, Address in a different way?

No, the way that medicine school or the, western medicine approach is, is doing it.

, I think it lacks of some components that are also important.

. Amin Ahmed: Yeah, absolutely.

I, I totally agree that in our Western medical system is, is really good for treating things, but you're right, in most cases it treats the symptoms.

It doesn't look at the causes of it and fix the cause.

Now, part of it, part of the problem that I see is that when you have a health issue, you go to the doctor and they prescribe medicine and gets rid of that and potentially causes other issues.

But is there something that, from a nutrition standpoint specifically, which I'm really interested in that.

, our listeners can use that simple, but it can help from a preventative standpoint.

So I'm, I'm thinking of different kinds of foods or foods to avoid and maybe foods they eat more of as well.

Yeah, totally.

And also I am going to talk also about holistic nutrition.

That is because we are not only what we eat, we are in part, we are what we eat, but we also are what we thought, our emotion, our spirituality, how we relate with other people.

Hmm.

So it need to be seen in this perspective to be really addressed and all kinds of levels, right?

And talking about a diet, it is really important that we eat whole foods.

, eh, society and maybe, eh, our TV commercials and everything is, are leading people to just eat, I will say in quotation marks, whatever.

Mm-hmm.

, but they are not teaching people how to choose their right food for them, because everybody has individual needs.

But if you ask me what foods everybody, needs to avoid.

There are like processed food.

Mm-hmm.

, processed food, sugar, obviously alcohol and all of these things that are artificial and have been developed just to make society poorly addicted to certain things that in reality are not giving real nourishment to your body.

And what kind of things do people.

a) Need to eat in order for your body to function in its a hundred percent potential will be whole foods like veggies, fruits, things that have fiber and that have five nutrients that are rich in nutrients that are essential for the body to function properly.

Because if your body lack of that nutrients, . It's like a car, right?

Your boy is like a car.

If you don't give them the right fuel, it's not going to work very well.

And in some point, I have meet people, let's say, oh, I eat all of this junk food and processed food and I don't have anything.

But at the end, At some point, it's like a load.

It's going up and up and up, and it just explode.

. And in some point you are going to have some health consequences if you are not aware or educated of what are the right things to eat.

And the food industry, in my own perspective is being leading people to believe that certain things are good.

In the truth, they are not really good.

Interesting.

So, Is there certain foods that, you mentioned whole foods cutting out alcohol and sugars and now we're, my family is vegetarian and when my wife was expecting everyone around us was saying, oh, you, you should eat meat.

It's healthy for the baby.

Cuz we weren't always vegetarian.

We've been vegetarian for the last maybe 13, 14 years.

But I remember, you know, family was very concerned, oh, your child won't be healthy unless you eat meat.

So I'm curious from your perspective, you know, . Is eating meat a good thing, a bad thing, or is it just individual preference?

I think it depends on the person.

I do respect if the person can be, want to be vegetarian or vegan, or if they can eat meat.

Where I will recommend for people that eat meat is that don't do it in a, in a way that is no balance.

Because the body needs vegetables and fruits need that kind of fiber, need that kind of nutrients to function well.

And the studies has shown that meat has can be inflammatory.

Mm-hmm.

. So I will say for some people that have certain conditions to avoid that meat where they correct the problem, the cause, and if they want slowly introduce it and if it's really good for for you or not.

Your body is very intelligent.

If you learn to listen, it will tell you what is convenient or not.

For example, a person that has iron deficiency, maybe this person don't eat all the time meat, but in.

Points, the point can tell you just eat this because I need it at this time.

Mm-hmm.

, it's not something that need to be, be doing every, every day.

And what I found also with people that are vegetarian or vegan, is that third diets are very high in carbohydrates and are out of balance.

So if you are going to choose to be vegetarian and vegan, you need also some guidance and orientation in how to meet.

Requirements that, you know, body needs to function properly and not go into the other side because if you're going into the other side, there are some problems that can show up in the future.

you mentioned inflammation in your body.

Now most people that, study any kind of nutrition or you know, wellness, they know that inflammation is bad.

But can you tell us what happens when your body has too much inflammation or when you consume food that causes too much inflammation?

Yeah, so inflammation is not like, In some point when it's showing you that there are something bad in your body that need to be corrected, and it's called acute inflammation.

Hm.

That happen.

And if you just treat and here it goes away.

But when the inflammation is chronic mm-hmm.

And it's something that you don't notice.

You don't notice that you insides are inflammated or your body in general.

Are Inflamma, for example, people that has obesity, has chronic inflammation, and what happened is that that triggered the immune system always.

So their immune system is not working properly because the immune system is thinking, oh, there is something that I need to fight.

the body need to correct.

Right.

But it's no, it's like this chronical condition is making your immune system to activate permanently and is not going to help you in any way.

Yeah.

So, so it's, it's important to differentiate that inflammation is not totally good if it's necessary.

It's a mechanism from the body to show that something is not going well over there.

But if it converts to chronic is a problem, it generates a problem.

I see.

Are there any foods that help reduce inflammation?

Yes.

Vegetables.

All the foods that ha are high in phytonutrients and micronutrients, vitamins and minerals help the body to reduce inflammation.

So veggies and also, fruits and also superfoods that they are called now.

Superfoods, they reduce inflammation in the boil.

What are some examples of super foods?

For example, a spirulina or for example, there are other components that are high in antioxidants it helps to reduce inflammation course.

. Amin Ahmed: I see, I see.

Yeah.

We have a breakfast shake that we make every morning.

Mm-hmm.

, and we put a little scoop of spirulina and chlorella in it.

I'm not sure, you know, it's not something that I notice soon as I take it, but I've noticed over the long term, by having it, I just feel generally better, less tired, less irritable, less hungry.

Sometimes it's quite fascinating,

Yeah, because you are given to your body there right nutrients to work with, right?

And your cells, the foundation that are really nourished and helping you, your body to perform a hundred percent.

So that is, when you change your diet, sometimes people, when they change their diet , they are going to notice that their body respond differently, and you also are going to notice that you are nourish.

and your body are going to start to say, oh, I don't want that anymore.

Right.

I don't want, for example, I don't wanna that Coca-Cola or I don't want that candy because the body.

now that it is detoxified because you are getting, avoiding all these other foods.

What is really important for for it to function for the body to function?

I totally agree with that.

I remember when I first, tried to become vegetarian, I said, okay, I'm gonna try for one month.

And what I did is I ate the exact same food, minus the meat, and at the end of the month, my body was craving meat like a really, really wanted meat.

Then a couple of months later, we decide, okay.

you know, we're not gonna try to become vegetarian, but we just happened to eat no meat for the whole week.

But we were eating other things.

Like our Indian diet has a lot of lentils, has a lot of, beans and, and rice and that sort of thing.

And I remember at the end of the week I was, I was fine.

I, you know, I wasn't craving anything.

So we said, let's try for a month.

A month became six months, and it became a year.

And I remember at one point, I had the option, we went to a wedding and they had roast beef at the end, and then they had the, dinner buffet and there was this broccoli and carrots and, and that sort of stir fry type thing.

And I remember thinking, I really want that broccoli and I don't want the meat much at all.

And that's when I knew, I was like, okay.

You know, I, I think I'm fully vegetarian now because I actually want broccoli over meat.

And it was an interesting thing.

Yeah.

And something important that you mentioned is at the beginning your body was craving meat because maybe you were not giving the essential amino acids that, or the, or the panel of the total amino acid acid that you have.

That is something that meat has, right?

But when once you learn how to transition to that and give to your body, Nutrients that are essential.

Cause you know, amino acids are the building blocks of protein.

And protein is what our body are made from, right?

Mm-hmm.

for the muscles, the organ and everything.

So when you give your body from the plant-based perspective, all this pool of amino acids, it, the body knows how to work with that, right?

So it's when you say, okay, now I understand how this works.

. Amin Ahmed: Exactly, And when it comes to nutrition, one of the things that I think a lot of people try to do is they use nutrition to either lose weight or to feel better and have more energy.

but the other side of this is preventative, so preventing diseases and illness.

And I know that you had worked, with patients that had degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, and also cancer.

, can you talk a little bit about how nutrition played a part in, in, in helping those patients?

Yeah.

I, I work with people with degenerative diseases and cancer and in, in that perspective, first while the studying of the cancer that the patient has, it has different approaches.

And what is the therapy that they are receiving too?

But at the end, the goal is to nourish their bodies really well because, for example, chemo is getting, like is killing all your cells.

Not only the cancer cells is also killing the good cells in your body.

So how we can nourish these people in a deep level with whatever they are accepting.

of the therapist, they don't accept everything.

They sometimes reject some foods, and that is individual, with them, you need to really understand how their body is going to accept or reject certain things and how you help them to nourish the cells in order for.

them to rebilitate on an extreme way.

It's a beautiful work.

It was really like, close to my heart.

Mm-hmm.

. I really also, eh, like to work with them because they are very honest.

They are very open, they are very authentic.

They just like, yeah, I'm here.

and they can be vulnerable and they are not thinking, what is this person going to think?

Or, eh, I better don't say this because I, I know she told me otherwise that I did other thing, or no, they don't have that kind of judgment.

it must be really, meaningful and if, you know, rewarding to work with patients that are receptive, first of all, but also see results from it.

Now, one of the things we talked about a little bit before we, hit record on this episode is that you were working in a role where you felt, emotionally and, physically just overwhelmed with the amount of work and you burnt out.

Can you tell us a little bit about, how that felt and when you realized that you actually had burnt out.

Yeah, so I was working as an employment counselor and I was working with people that experienced or were victims of domestic violence and abuse.

So emotionally, that role was very charged.

And also in terms of the load of work that I needed to do, it was also a lot because these people don't function normally.

So, You can give them some time instructions, but they cannot follow the instructions.

So at the end, if I need it, I told them, let's, I want explain you how to do your resume.

We are going to start the resume together and you go home, you finish the resume and I just review it the next time.

Right?

But next time it was like, no resume, because they don't have the capacity of doing that work.

Their brain is affected.

in its functionality.

So I was doing their work, my work , everybody's working . So, and also the emotional, sometimes the, the appointments, eh and no being like about employment counseling.

It was ending about just counseling because they need to get out, right?

The things that they were going through, and they were not in a place that me explained.

How you can maintain a job, how can you interview well, or how they can just do a resume in a proper way.

So they were not in the space and I need to respect the space that the person was at the moment.

Right?

So it was emotionally very hard too.

I think that, I, I am very highly intuitive person, but also I am highly sensitive and sometimes energy and emotion.

affect me as well.

Mm-hmm.

, so it was a point that I start feeling really tired.

I start having panic attacks.

I start feeling that I didn't have energy for anything, not even for cooking my own food.

I have two friends that were sometimes going to my apartment and cook for me.

. And if they cook, I eat.

If they don't cook, I don't eat, or I eat whatever.

Like really, I cannot even say , like even a like pizza, what?

Whatever I found.

Right?

and it was a hard time, so it was a day that I tried to went to work and I a right day, but I was not able to do anything, so I went to.

A walk in clinic and I talked to the doctor and the doctor just assessed me and told me, okay, you need a break and you need to really think if this work is really for you or no.

And he start to asking me also, what would you doing when you were in Colombia, how that works for you?

How, how is environment?

How you feel.

This was a doctor in the medical system with a, with another, Perspective about medicine.

So it was like, I think I was blessed to be seen by him because it wasn't, it was in a walking clinic.

Right?

So he really listen and he really tend to understand things that usually doctors don't do.

in, in our system here.

Mm-hmm.

so, I, I start thinking and, and I just decided to go back to my passion with nutrition and to, eh, help people in different way with, with, with nutrition, no, with, employment.

C.

Right.

And that's an amazing, realization that you had there.

And I know we, we often say that our medical system is flawed in that sense, but there are doctors that, you know, I wanna acknowledge that there are doctors that are really good and they listen to that and they, you know, they, they prescribe exercise sometimes, right?

Like those are, you know, really good, well-rounded doctors.

we just need more of them, I think.

Yeah.

And he told me, just go out to nature.

I remember he told me he, he was new here.

He come from Ireland.

Okay, so yeah, he was an Irish doctor and is, yeah, different, different perspective.

He then told me, because I went before to my like regular doctor, my bad family doctor.

Mm-hmm.

, and he said that I was depressed and he want to put me into depression pills, and I told him I stand, I stand up for myself.

That I think is really important for every to everybody.

Doctors has a lot of educations, but they are no, they don't have the last words.

Sometimes if it's a trauma situation, yes, they do have the last word.

Right, because they are saving your life.

Yeah.

But in these kind of situations, It's important that people see their perspectives.

And I knew I wasn't depressed.

Maybe in the assessment I was showing some symptoms of depressions, right.

Of depression.

But because I was burnt out and I, I was telling him I'm not depressed, I'm just extremely exhausted.

But he didn't listen.

And I say, okay, I'm not going to take your medicine.

, I'm out of here.

, literally . And that, that's why I went to the walking clinic because a really close friend of mine told me he has, injury.

And he went to that walking clinic and he say, oh, this doctor received me.

He's new.

And I, I think he's a really good doctor.

He really listen, go there.

And I was so blessed enough to be received by the same.

. Yeah.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it was like, yeah, different perspective.

He say, go to nature.

Go outside and I see you in three weeks and we assess again.

That's wonderful.

I love that.

that's, that's a great doctor.

I like hearing the full circle where you started with nutrition, went to something else that you thought you may like, and then you came back and you have this realization that nutrition is your thing.

So is, is there something right now in, in your, in your life, in your work that you're really excited about that you know, helps you get up in the morning and you're just ready to go for it?

Yeah.

I'm building my own business.

So that is very exciting.

It has like a lot of ups and downs.

. Yeah.

And yeah.

But I'm excited that I am in my mission and I'm excited that with this work I can really impact people's life and help them to be the best version of their self.

Mm-hmm.

I'm, I'm happy.

I'm happy every day that I'm doing like steps to like grow my business and, and reach my goals too.

Right.

In life.

But it's, it's really nice to know that you can, at least put a seed on people's life.

Mm-hmm.

, that maybe the seed needs time to grow, but at the end when you see the changes in your client.

and you see them happy.

That is very rewarding.

Hmm, that sounds amazing.

That sounds amazing.

businesses are always challenging in the beginning to get started and, you know, when you start to see results and you start to help people, that that feeling is, you know, I don't, I don't wanna use the word addictive, but it's, it's, it sticks with you and you, you want that more and more.

So I'm really excited.

For you, is there a specific clientele that you want to work with?

Is it women or men?

younger, older.

I'm now actually shifting my, my business a little bit.

I'm focusing on entrepreneurs right now that want to learn and understand how nourish really well their bodies so they can be the way, the best version of themselves and how to prevent or burnout and how to manage the way.

In, healthy manner.

And also how to make their digestive health really well because there's, these are foundations and as I was born out before, I know where are the consequences and I know how, how hard that is in people.

And so if I can, if they can prevent.

, they don't need to go to pass through, that situation.

it takes time to recover from that.

Definitely.

I think you've, you've chosen an audience that really needs this right now.

As an entrepreneur myself, I know how hard sometimes things can be.

I always say that it's like a roller coaster ride at the top.

It's really good, and at the bottom it's really not good.

And, uh, you, you go through that back and forth.

, the toll it takes on your, on your body and your mind and your, your, your soul right, is sometimes quite difficult.

And if there's something that can be done to help with that, that's amazing.

Yeah.

And also I think that entrepreneurs sometimes they say, oh, I don't have time.

I don't have time.

I cannot cook.

I cannot choose good food.

No, there is time and there is a way to choose what is nourishing for your body.

There are many ways that you can.

So it's like it's educating the person to learn how to do that.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So, well, this has been really interesting.

I'm really happy that we had a chance to connect.

this has been really enlightening for me.

If somebody wanted to learn more about you and your services, where can they find.

So I do have my Instagram page, which is, elite with double E at the end Food Therapy by Betsy.

Okay.

Elite Food Therapy by Betsy.

We'll put that in the show notes.

And also my website is www elite food therapy.com.

Okay, perfect.

And yeah, and also they can contact me by email, And is info@eliteefoodtherapy.com.

Perfect.

I'll put all of that in the show notes.

Betsy, thank you so much.

I really appreciate your time and your energy and all the knowledge that you've shared with us today.

Thank you, Amin, for having me.

You're welcome.

Take care.

Yeah, you too.