In this solo episode of Everyday Ayurveda, Kate unpacks one of the most frequently asked questions: How much protein do I actually need? But instead of following mainstream nutrition trends, she offers an Ayurvedic approach — one that moves beyond counting grams to understanding the role of protein as a grounding, nourishing force in the body.
She discusses how dietary needs shift with age, why protein consumption isn’t a one-size-fits-all equation, and how the imbalance between sugar and protein in modern diets has led to confusion about what our bodies truly need. Whether you’re vegetarian, a lifelong meat eater, or somewhere in between, Kate shares insights on choosing the right sources of protein, optimizing digestion, and using food as a way to create balance, not stress.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
• The Ayurvedic perspective on protein and why it’s about more than numbers
• How sugar has shaped modern protein consumption (and why it matters)
• The role of elements in food and why balance is key
• Best sources of protein for midlife and beyond
• Why digestion matters more than the amount of protein
• Kate’s personal story of discovering protein’s impact on her body
• Practical tips for integrating more grounding foods into your diet
Resources & Links:
• Grab Kate’s books: The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook
• Follow Kate on Instagram: @kateodonnell.ayurveda
• Check out Kate’s favorite grass-fed whey protein: LifeSpa Whey Protein
Ready for a Spring Cleanse? Learn more here.
🔗 More on Panchakarma & Cleansing
🔗Best practices for a gentle seasonal cleanse (Podcast ep. 11)
Love the show? Leave a review! And if you’re curious about deepening your Ayurvedic practice, subscribe and stay tuned for more solo episodes and expert interviews.
Health Disclaimer:
The information shared on Everyday Ayurveda with Kate is for educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your diet, supplements, or wellness routine.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Welcome, welcome, my pod pal today in this solo cast, I'm answering one of
Speaker:your questions, which is about protein, how much protein is the right amount.
Speaker:And I feel like culturally we've been talking about hearing about
Speaker:protein for a really long time.
Speaker:So what I'd like to do is.
Speaker:Let's talk about this question through the Ayurvedic lens.
Speaker:So we'll be using a different language that maybe will
Speaker:simplify and help you understand.
Speaker:And also, I think a lot of us potentially here are maybe in
Speaker:our thirties, forties and beyond.
Speaker:And the question of what kinds of foods to use nourish the
Speaker:body as we get older changes.
Speaker:So that's a part of our conversation as well.
Speaker:How to manage sort of changing.
Speaker:Needs of the body as we age and in relation to our exercise and very
Speaker:important question, whether a person is currently healthy or is
Speaker:currently working with an imbalance.
Speaker:And that's a really big.
Speaker:Difference in how we're going to approach this question.
Speaker:So stay with me today to talk about protein from the Ayurvedic perspective.
Speaker:All right, so as with anything food related in Ayurveda, we don't make
Speaker:these sweeping generalizations.
Speaker:Like, you know, everyone should have this amount of protein.
Speaker:It's the utility of food depends on so many factors, such as the time
Speaker:of day that you're eating the food, how much of the food you are having,
Speaker:the current state of your diet.
Speaker:Digestion will govern what kinds of food digest well and what kind
Speaker:ultimately turn into toxins in your body.
Speaker:Also your time of life.
Speaker:So are you young?
Speaker:Are you middle aged?
Speaker:Are you older?
Speaker:And how much activity are you doing?
Speaker:What are your stress levels like?
Speaker:So we're gonna look at all this and.
Speaker:What I like about using the ayurvedic lens for this conversation
Speaker:is that I'm so sick of everyone talking about protein consumption.
Speaker:I feel like my entire life.
Speaker:I have heard this conversation and in part, I think it has to do with
Speaker:an imbalance that's been created in many bodies due to the added sugars
Speaker:and carbs in everything, right?
Speaker:I mean, I've been on planes a lot recently, so I'm around, uh, soda.
Speaker:You know, I don't even see soda usually in my life.
Speaker:But I'm looking at the, or even like I order a cranberry juice, right?
Speaker:And they give me this minute made can has, what is it like 50 grams of
Speaker:sugar or something, and that's crazy.
Speaker:The amount of sugar that humans consume in a day is 50 times what it was.
Speaker:50 years ago.
Speaker:So we've kind of created this like super sweet, right?
Speaker:But with the refinement of sugar cane products and also we refine
Speaker:sugar from beets, from coconuts.
Speaker:I mean, there's sugar from everywhere.
Speaker:thing, right?
Speaker:That, that we different kinds of sugar that we can see in our products.
Speaker:Corn syrup is the big one.
Speaker:That's what's in all the sodas.
Speaker:And, you know, sugar cane products in Ayurveda are actually beloved.
Speaker:sugar has a lot of minerals in it.
Speaker:For example, back in the day, some of you might remember your
Speaker:parents making you take a spoonful of molasses periodically, right?
Speaker:Black strap molasses for the iron content.
Speaker:And a lot of women still find that really helpful.
Speaker:for especially those who are in the bleeding time of life.
Speaker:So the problem is what we've done to sugar, right?
Speaker:And that's what that refined sugar that doesn't really have any opposing
Speaker:fiber or minerals present that just kind of goes directly into the Rasa
Speaker:or directly into the bloodstream and the nutritive factor in the body.
Speaker:And then imagine that these excess amounts of highly refined sugar is
Speaker:washing through your tissues, right?
Speaker:That's going to cause.
Speaker:pain.
Speaker:One thing I notice, is excess amounts of refined sugars cause pain in
Speaker:my body the next day, whether it's coming from alcohol or cake, right?
Speaker:And, you know, alcohol is definitely one of those, those simple sugars.
Speaker:That we take too much of so it's kind of, you know, even the other thing is
Speaker:like Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, again, the amount of sugar in one drink can
Speaker:be like 60 grams, like your pumpkin spice latte, 60 grams of sugar.
Speaker:I mean, that's like three days worth of sugar that you.
Speaker:suck down through a straw and it's gone in like 15 minutes, right?
Speaker:So obviously, you know, I think our question about how much protein also begs
Speaker:the question of how much sugar, right?
Speaker:And so the way we look at food substances and Ayurvedas is due to their tastes
Speaker:and the elements that compose the foods.
Speaker:And the idea is that we want to bring.
Speaker:A balanced plate of elements into the body, and there's five different
Speaker:elements now on any given plate.
Speaker:We want more earth and water elements and smaller amounts of things that are
Speaker:fiery, salty things that are bitter things that are astringent, and that's
Speaker:going to bring in , the air element and the space element, and those are
Speaker:the lighter elements, which we want to balance heavy foods with smaller
Speaker:amounts of light things, right?
Speaker:So proteins are primarily earth element.
Speaker:Especially like flesh foods.
Speaker:Meats are primarily earth element.
Speaker:You're basically eating the earth element from the creature, and
Speaker:that's a direct line to feed the earth element in your body.
Speaker:And that's your muscle tissue.
Speaker:Also, any solid structure in your body.
Speaker:So, right, uh, anything you can grab ahold of and squeeze in your body
Speaker:has a, an earth element component.
Speaker:And as you've probably heard me say by now, if you go down to the beach to
Speaker:build a sand castle and you have sand without water, it won't hold together.
Speaker:So there's a certain amount of water element necessary in The
Speaker:tissue building process in the body.
Speaker:So we're generally looking at our building foods as a combination of
Speaker:earth and water elements, right?
Speaker:So something like dairy is a great example.
Speaker:It's a liquid like milk.
Speaker:It's a liquid, but it's also unctuous, uh, When you look at it, it's like
Speaker:fatty, collagen is another example.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:You're going to find that that combination of moisture along with the earth element.
Speaker:that's how you build the tissues.
Speaker:And we want our tissues to have the right amount of moisture in them.
Speaker:So when we talk about protein, we're talking about earth and water.
Speaker:Elements and the building tastes, the building tastes in the body that bring
Speaker:us tissue as opposed to taste that cleanse and reduce the body, like things
Speaker:that are astringent, like the skins of fruits and vegetables, things that
Speaker:are bitter, like all of your greens.
Speaker:So we have smaller amounts of those to balance our basically grains.
Speaker:And proteins right so whole grains are totally different than refined grains
Speaker:as you're probably aware of by now you want to take in all your food with it's
Speaker:naturally occurring fiber and that's.
Speaker:Awesome, right?
Speaker:You can make, puree it into a soup.
Speaker:A lot of my recipes in my books are soups, I'm sure you've noticed.
Speaker:And that makes it easier to break down that fiber, right?
Speaker:So it goes in in a smooth way.
Speaker:So soups are just a great way to get building taste.
Speaker:And if you're eating meats, soup is the way.
Speaker:The Ayurvedic way to take meat is in a soup.
Speaker:So instead of like a big slab of a flesh, it's a smaller amount, like
Speaker:say four ounces or something gets in like a bowl with vegetables,
Speaker:potentially with some grain or a whole grain noodle and a broth, right?
Speaker:That's the ideal way to improve the digestibility proteins, of meats.
Speaker:And we do the same with legumes.
Speaker:We have them in these water Water based, you know, preparations, whether
Speaker:it's like a black bean soup or a lentil doll, those kind of things.
Speaker:Those are great protein sources and spices are absolutely essential when
Speaker:you come to eating the earthy foods.
Speaker:You do want to make sure that there's some warming spices in there, which will
Speaker:improve your body's ability to break down these heavier items and render them
Speaker:into that liquid nutritive juice that we call ahara rasa, the juice of the food.
Speaker:And that's what then washes through the tissues and As it's
Speaker:washing through or irrigating your tissues that nutritive juice, which
Speaker:is the result of your food is.
Speaker:in a state of balance because you've balanced the tastes in your food.
Speaker:So that's moving through in a state of balance.
Speaker:Then your tissues are all going to get what they need.
Speaker:All the different tissues.
Speaker:Some of them like more earth.
Speaker:Some of them need a little more fire.
Speaker:Some of them need lots of water, right?
Speaker:So all the elements from your plate with the help of your digestive
Speaker:spices, they sort of break that down.
Speaker:Get that into that nutritive precursor that washes through your body.
Speaker:And it's just like, just visualize that, you know, your food's
Speaker:washing through your body.
Speaker:This is a totally different conversation friend than eating X number of grams
Speaker:of protein in a day and just like shoving it in your face no matter what,
Speaker:because it's a certain number, right?
Speaker:We don't do that here.
Speaker:We don't do that here.
Speaker:Everything is a result of the sensations, the stories that your body's telling you,
Speaker:the messages that it's giving to you.
Speaker:So, I think a lot of people, women especially as we're aging, are
Speaker:noticing some feelings that Lead us to the question of how much protein.
Speaker:I think that's why you are asking How much protein should I have you because
Speaker:you don't feel good right because you feel exhausted tired Your resiliency
Speaker:distress is down you're maybe feeling constipated you're bloated or hanging
Speaker:on to water or hanging on to fat tissue and You're wondering where's
Speaker:the imbalance coming from, right?
Speaker:And, um, I think the conversation in the space right now keeps going
Speaker:towards protein protein, especially for women and perimenopause and menopause.
Speaker:So let me just break that down through the Ayurvedic lens for you, uh, why that
Speaker:might, you know, why that might be and how that makes sense according to Ayurveda.
Speaker:When do you transition into perimenopause menopause, uh, this
Speaker:period of time in your life where maybe you're in your forties, fifties.
Speaker:It's a transition from the Pitta time of life into the Bhatta time of life.
Speaker:So the Pitta time is that time that's really governed
Speaker:by fire element and activity.
Speaker:. Getting stuff done, having responsibilities, , being most active,
Speaker:you know, so you're running a business, you're having a family, raising that
Speaker:family, providing for them, you know, trying to pay off your mortgage, like
Speaker:all these things are happening during that time of life, and your metabolism
Speaker:likely is going to have an easier time of it when there's more activity and
Speaker:more fire present, um, In the body, you know, as well as in the life.
Speaker:But as we move into the Vata time of life, which menopause is that transition for
Speaker:women and men, it's happening as well, but maybe on less of a tight curve, right?
Speaker:More of a slow, gentle, movement in this direction of aging and
Speaker:into the vata time of life.
Speaker:And vata is that combination of space and air elements.
Speaker:It is characterized by cold, dry, light, hard, rough qualities.
Speaker:So imagine coldness, Lightness, hardness, right?
Speaker:That sounds like pain to me.
Speaker:That sounds a little bit like some joint pain.
Speaker:it sounds like the coldness in the digestion is going to give
Speaker:you the gas and the bloating.
Speaker:Maybe some sluggishness of the stool.
Speaker:Your lightness, that it's when, so your body, you feel less grounded in your body
Speaker:as the body is like transitioning into lighter elements and that can make you
Speaker:feel more prone to the effects of stress.
Speaker:It can make you feel, less grounded emotionally and mood wise, like you might
Speaker:feel there's more swinging happening.
Speaker:And this is because, think about air, the nature of air.
Speaker:It is a mover, right?
Speaker:It's going, woohoo, it's expanding, it's moving and shaking, you
Speaker:know, think about the weather.
Speaker:Like, I'm on a, kind of an island right now, so it's like, oh, the weather is just
Speaker:like, it's doing this, it's doing that.
Speaker:And you might feel like your energy levels, your moods, your
Speaker:emotions, your ability to cope with life is doing that, right?
Speaker:Is moving like a, like a maelstrom in the sky.
Speaker:And the great news for you, my friend, is that that.
Speaker:Makes sense, doesn't mean you're crazy or that you're doing something wrong.
Speaker:It is the increase of Vata.
Speaker:So how do we balance that is to take in more earth and water elements.
Speaker:So here we arrive at the protein story.
Speaker:So Ayurveda would say, as we transition into more Vata,
Speaker:we need more grounding foods.
Speaker:So the amount of flesh food, if you take it, or dairy or root vegetables, sweet
Speaker:potatoes, tubers of any kind, those are a great way to really ground the body down.
Speaker:You might enjoy more seeds.
Speaker:Nuts.
Speaker:If you digest them well and not butters.
Speaker:I'm a huge fan of seeds.
Speaker:I'm always toasting them and adding them to things.
Speaker:I grind them into butters and slather them on sourdough bread.
Speaker:If you could get good quality sourdough.
Speaker:Heirloom wheat bread, which I know some of you can and some of you can't.
Speaker:If you can get that, there's actually a decent amount of
Speaker:protein in that, in wheat.
Speaker:It's a building food.
Speaker:It's a stabilizing food.
Speaker:It really sticks there and holds energy in your body.
Speaker:Builds the tissues in your body.
Speaker:So it gets harder to be a vegetarian, I'll tell you that.
Speaker:That is true.
Speaker:It gets harder.
Speaker:I will, divulge that I am an addict of grass fed whey protein powder.
Speaker:I think, and everyone's like, what kind, right?
Speaker:I always just look for the one that doesn't have any other ingredients,
Speaker:but grass fed whey, and It'll be kind of yellow in the same way that your
Speaker:butter or your ghee when it's grass fed will have that like deeper color to it.
Speaker:, Lifespa.
Speaker:com I think is one of the most trusted sources that I recommend for finding.
Speaker:, Dr. Dilliard has really done a ton of work to source that protein, but
Speaker:my story around that is that this happened to me early on in my thirties.
Speaker:I've been an athlete.
Speaker:I've been super athletic my entire life basically, since I was like 15.
Speaker:So I've been a vegetarian also that whole time.
Speaker:What I started to notice is, and this was actually something that Dr.
Speaker:DuYard, I think he had a blog or something about like the dangers
Speaker:of low protein, you know, and I was having joint pain and exhaustion.
Speaker:And I mean, I was having difficulty keeping up with my, I had a
Speaker:job that was a manual labor.
Speaker:And I was having a hard time keeping up and so he had suggested at that
Speaker:time to try to have this grass fed whey protein like three days a week, right?
Speaker:And I'm like, oh no, Ayurveda doesn't like protein powders, you know, but
Speaker:here I am a vegetarian just kind of eating legumes like they're going out of
Speaker:style and still, struggling, you know?
Speaker:So I did that.
Speaker:I had it, uh, three days a week for two weeks and my nails changed.
Speaker:My nails changed.
Speaker:They went from brittle to strong and, , like they look juicier.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I thought, oh my goodness, this is something big because in Ayurveda,
Speaker:your, your nails are an upadhatu.
Speaker:They're an auxiliary tissue of your bones.
Speaker:So your nails give you information about the health of your bones.
Speaker:And I thought, wow, I mean, I am too young to be worrying about my bones here.
Speaker:So that was a big aha for me.
Speaker:And to this day, was it 10 years later?
Speaker:I still notice that if I'm not using the whey protein that I don't have to use it,
Speaker:you know, regularly, but if I come off it, I just like don't use it for a month
Speaker:or something, I'll notice a difference in the nails and then I get back on it.
Speaker:I have it just a couple times a week, two or three times a week,
Speaker:and My nails get strong again.
Speaker:So that says something to me, right?
Speaker:That is undeniable.
Speaker:So, , I know that my body digests it.
Speaker:I think the question with protein powders in Ayurveda is are we digesting them?
Speaker:They're light and dry, right?
Speaker:You've sort of powdered this thing that was milk, right?
Speaker:For me, if I were to just drink the grass fed milk and eat the ghee, unfortunately,
Speaker:it It does sit a bit heavy in my digestion, so I can't, I don't notice
Speaker:the same thing with the nails, uh, when I increase my ghee or, uh, drink, I do
Speaker:notice it when I drink more milk, I will tell you that, I do notice it when I
Speaker:drink more milk, like I'll make hot milk, turmeric milk on the regular, so I'll,
Speaker:I'll cycle in of sort of doing that, especially in colder weather, I'll just
Speaker:do that with, good quality milk, and then I can be fine without the whey protein.
Speaker:In the summer is when I move into it more, I'll say because I start to feel
Speaker:like hot milk doesn't sound as great and I kind of want a smoothie, right?
Speaker:I love smoothies.
Speaker:They're like my guilty pleasure because again, smoothies
Speaker:are really hard to digest.
Speaker:They're like kind of cold and damp.
Speaker:So what I've learned to do is not put bananas in smoothies.
Speaker:So if you are using a protein powder and you're putting a banana in there,
Speaker:that's a very hard to digest thing.
Speaker:So if you have a super high metabolism and your stomach runs
Speaker:hot, maybe it's working for you.
Speaker:For me, I can't, uh, I can't do that.
Speaker:I'll just burp bananas all day long for like six hours.
Speaker:So I don't put bananas in there anymore.
Speaker:I'll use, water.
Speaker:I used to put like almond milk or peanut butter, all sorts of crazy stuff in there.
Speaker:Now I just use a cup of water, a scoop of the whey protein, and some spices.
Speaker:I'll use cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon.
Speaker:My sweet spice mix from the Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook, which many of
Speaker:you are probably familiar with.
Speaker:That sprinkles right in there.
Speaker:And that's it.
Speaker:I don't put ice in it, you know.
Speaker:Oh, yes.
Speaker:The other thing I put in is chia seed.
Speaker:So I'll put in two tablespoons of soaked chia seed.
Speaker:I just soak them in water for a couple minutes and then I throw them in there.
Speaker:And the chia seeds, they have fat in them.
Speaker:So I'm getting a little bit of the good fats there and it also makes it thicker.
Speaker:So I get more of like a shake kind of a thing.
Speaker:So I'm not like throwing a bunch of fruit in there along with.
Speaker:the other digestibles.
Speaker:I really just want the cleanest kind of protein experience that I can get.
Speaker:And if I start buying one of the fancy sort of vegan ones, I mean, I've
Speaker:experiment spent a long time since I have, but I have experimented with some
Speaker:of those fancy ones that have the really long list of ingredients and all the
Speaker:thises and the that's, and I just, I don't notice the same thing in my nails.
Speaker:When I'm using like a pea protein, you know, a lot of those vegan ones are pea.
Speaker:I did used to use NutriBiotic brand rice protein and Again, I can't say
Speaker:it did the same thing for my nails.
Speaker:I do think the dairy base has a certain, has some certain amino acids
Speaker:that are making a difference for me.
Speaker:Uh, and I think putting it with the chia seed, mixing it with
Speaker:fat also is, it's good for me.
Speaker:And there's fiber in there.
Speaker:So I have that, um, sort of shake, you know, a couple
Speaker:days a week as my breakfast.
Speaker:And instead of having, say, oatmeal or in warmer weather, I might get
Speaker:into, like, the Refresherama recipe, which is going up on social media.
Speaker:Month at Kate O'Donnell dot IR beta.
Speaker:Don't miss that one.
Speaker:It's like a grapefruit base thing I do in the springtime.
Speaker:So there's other breakfast, but twice a week three times a week.
Speaker:I'm doing this protein thing For the love of my bones.
Speaker:I do it and I'm trying to trying to eat meat I still don't digest beef.
Speaker:I just, I don't know.
Speaker:I think I'm 80 percent Hindu at this point after spending so much
Speaker:time in India in the last 25 years.
Speaker:So I just don't, I don't digest the reds.
Speaker:, I'll try to make a chicken soup like once a month, you know, where you boil
Speaker:the whole chicken and the whole thing.
Speaker:And it's still not easy for me.
Speaker:but I also am looking at longevity of this body, health
Speaker:of this body, and I do get pain.
Speaker:I do get pain, as I know a lot of you also do in the, joints and in
Speaker:the tissues at large, and I really am keeping an eye on that, but know
Speaker:my friend that you can watch the hair and nails to get a lot of information
Speaker:about how your deep tissues are doing.
Speaker:And they're, they're right there in your face, you know, so like the luster
Speaker:of , the hair and the nails, and the moisture that's present there is, is
Speaker:going to give you , a lot of info.
Speaker:So if you're doing like a, chicken soup and you're making a bone broth.
Speaker:With the bones, you know, I'll, I'll sort of use that as a base for all sorts of
Speaker:suits and dolls and things like that.
Speaker:And I know I have friends who have gotten to the point where they're doing that
Speaker:once a week instead of once a month.
Speaker:And, these are women in their late forties.
Speaker:They're feeling great from, from doing that for sure.
Speaker:Fish.
Speaker:I do less of because I don't love what's happening to our oceans.
Speaker:I don't love the industries of fishing.
Speaker:Uh, I feel that poultry is less problematic.
Speaker:If I can get my hands on wild game, I feel like that's actually the
Speaker:best thing and the way to go.
Speaker:And I do live in a part of the country where there's more hunting.
Speaker:There's more of that kind of thing available.
Speaker:But I know a lot of, Women in later life are looking at this, at this question
Speaker:and the thing about this movement into the Vata time of life, this
Speaker:perimenopause and menopause time is that everything is going to hit you harder.
Speaker:Everything is going to show up in your face more and it
Speaker:won't be like that forever.
Speaker:So it's like, we're in this time of change.
Speaker:So the way that you are eating begins to just not work for you.
Speaker:And that's not fun.
Speaker:You know, you want to think, Hey, I've got this figured out, but you'll never
Speaker:have it figured out because your body and your environment are always changing.
Speaker:Right, so there are things that worked that won't work anymore, or you
Speaker:just start to realize, Oh, I need to make sure I get more grounding food.
Speaker:I would say in this protein question, the way I think about it, I don't think
Speaker:protein protein, I think grounding foods.
Speaker:I think, did I have stabilizing foods today?
Speaker:twice, right?
Speaker:Two times.
Speaker:And the whey protein is something that it's a crutch for me, right?
Speaker:Like I have to really lean on that because I don't eat meat very often.
Speaker:And if I am eating meat for whatever reason, more like say I'm staying
Speaker:with somebody who cooks it, then I don't do the whey protein, you know,
Speaker:I just, I feel like I don't need it.
Speaker:So I am always toasting pumpkin seeds.
Speaker:I love tahini, uh, sesame tahini.
Speaker:It's got high mineral content.
Speaker:It's really easy to work with.
Speaker:It tastes good with sweet stuff.
Speaker:It tastes good with savory stuff.
Speaker:So that's always, I'm making a sauce with lemon and tahini.
Speaker:I'm putting it on things.
Speaker:I just eat it straight.
Speaker:I mix it with a little maple syrup and just eat it with a spoon.
Speaker:So I put some cinnamon.
Speaker:So it's like it's my, it's my sweet treat.
Speaker:It's also like a spread and it's also a sauce.
Speaker:So there is always tahini in the fridge and that is a really.
Speaker:Great food to keep around better than say peanut butter.
Speaker:Peanuts are very heating, so especially if you're in perimenopause where you've
Speaker:got a lot of heat ranging around, I would lay off the peanut butter and
Speaker:go more for almond butter or tahini, you know, sunflower butter is fun,
Speaker:but you got to watch the ingredients.
Speaker:Sometimes there's weird oils added to it, and I mean, I like to make
Speaker:nut butters, but man, is it messy?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So I do, but it's like a whole production to clean the, uh, the food processor
Speaker:after I'm not always in the mood.
Speaker:So I would say I go back and forth between making and buying like every other batch.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So I think the thing about proteins is you, you want to find what the
Speaker:things are, you know, what are the grounding foods that feel like they
Speaker:digest well for you and make sure you have them, make sure you have them.
Speaker:I know that greek yogurt is one that a lot of people lean on because if you
Speaker:look at the label it's like an absurd amount of protein in this tiny little
Speaker:cup that you can like eat in your car while you wait for your kids, right?
Speaker:I totally get that.
Speaker:The thing about the greek yogurt is it is heavy, sticky, slimy, hard to digest.
Speaker:So don't mix it with a bunch of other stuff.
Speaker:I treat the Greek yogurt the same way that I treat my whey protein.
Speaker:If I'm going to have it, I'm having it because I need that
Speaker:heavy dense earth water hit.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I, it's something, especially when I travel, I'll buy a couple of those
Speaker:little yogurts because if I get caught, you know, in a pinch or whatever,
Speaker:I know it's something I can have.
Speaker:it can go in my bag and I can eat it because One thing I noticed that
Speaker:I'm sure you notice now too, if you're older, is you can't not eat.
Speaker:If you don't eat, I think the body goes into a catabolic mode, and it's
Speaker:harder when you're in a BATA stage of life, it's harder to get out.
Speaker:It's like you get an imbalance of BATA by moving into that very light space
Speaker:where there's not enough calorie in your body, or not enough dense, dense calorie.
Speaker:In your body, like if you just eat sugary stuff, right?
Speaker:There's no density to it.
Speaker:It's like fluff, marshmallow fluff, you know?
Speaker:So if I get enough density in my food and Greek yogurt's a great
Speaker:example of something very dense, you know, if I get enough of that,
Speaker:I don't move into that imbalance.
Speaker:And this is what is different about now that wasn't there
Speaker:five years ago, 10 years ago.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:For me and for any of us who are getting older is that our need for
Speaker:density in our food is greater and it needs to happen with a regularity.
Speaker:You can't like skip it for a day or two because your body will go
Speaker:literally into a stress response.
Speaker:It'll start tweaking out, right?
Speaker:It'll feel uncomfortable, ungrounded, and then your body does all sorts
Speaker:of weird things to try to balance that feeling of ungroundedness.
Speaker:So while baby greek yogurt is really hard to digest, if we have it without
Speaker:a bunch of granola and a bunch of sprinkles on it and a bunch of fruit,
Speaker:right, if we just eat the yogurt, then it's going to digest better and I'll put
Speaker:cinnamon on it or my little spice mix.
Speaker:I always put ginger powder or cinnamon In the yogurt, right?
Speaker:And that makes it easier to digest.
Speaker:So I'll often buy just a whole milk plain when I'm traveling.
Speaker:And that's like the thing that I will eat when I'm in a pinch.
Speaker:And it's definitely a lifesaver, right?
Speaker:So if it's something you depend on, I would just consider how many
Speaker:things are we mixing that with?
Speaker:And then look at how does it feel in your gut?
Speaker:Are you having like burps, you know, Right.
Speaker:For a long time after you eat it, that kind of a thing is telling you that
Speaker:it's, creating byproducts in your belly.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We want everything to just be as smooth as, as possible.
Speaker:So I'm a fan of the food thermos.
Speaker:You know, I put my, my dolls in there.
Speaker:I put my soups in there.
Speaker:I bring those with me and honestly, it's just as easy, to
Speaker:eat that as it is to eat a yogurt.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:Preparation being prepared right becomes really becomes really of the of the
Speaker:moment here knowing what the dense.
Speaker:grounding foods are that support your body that digest well and always adding some
Speaker:warming spices cumin, ginger, turmeric.
Speaker:again, the cinnamon, if it's a sweet tasting thing, that
Speaker:is always going to help.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Always going to help you break it down.
Speaker:Even just black pepper and a garnish with lemon.
Speaker:Lemon's another one that really aids the digestion.
Speaker:So keeping the spicing around and knowing what nourishes you, and maybe
Speaker:you're in this process right now trying to figure that out, so I hope some of
Speaker:these ideas are things you can try, and you want to move into it like an
Speaker:experiment, where you're like, okay, Kate talked about, you know, boiling
Speaker:the chicken and making the broth and then using that as a Base for doll.
Speaker:Let me do that.
Speaker:You know, let me do that for a week or two and see how I feel.
Speaker:Or let me try the whey protein and see if it does the thing to my hair and
Speaker:my nails like, like Kate talked about.
Speaker:And you, you got full permission here friend to do the experiment, right?
Speaker:I think a lot of the way the conversation about food goes for us is.
Speaker:This is right and this is wrong, you know, and if you feel like crap,
Speaker:it's because you're doing it wrong.
Speaker:And here's the I've got the answer for you.
Speaker:I will never tell you that I have the answer for you.
Speaker:I'll give you some options and I'll invite you to experiment and sort of
Speaker:make suggestions of what are the signs of
Speaker:good health and what are the signs of deteriorating health, right?
Speaker:So we talked about sort of the hair and the nails, even the skin,
Speaker:seeing a dryness in the skin or allergic reactions in the skin.
Speaker:Not always, but sometimes that's coming from digestion.
Speaker:Also, the joint pain, the stress, the exhaustion, right?
Speaker:All of these things can be signs that we're not getting enough
Speaker:of those dense grounding foods.
Speaker:So rather than look at the number of grams, we want to look at the signs.
Speaker:In the body, and usually that's going to take a week or two for you to see
Speaker:a difference in your digestion or your skin or your nails, for example.
Speaker:So a great thing to do is to just jot down, jot it down, especially
Speaker:if you're busy, jot down, you know, week one, this is what I'm doing.
Speaker:This is how I feel starting out and then come back to it two weeks later.
Speaker:And just how are those symptoms?
Speaker:Have you noticed any changes?
Speaker:And let the experiments continue, my friend, and I hope to You find
Speaker:this helpful and then it gives you a larger context in which to
Speaker:explore your grounding food story.
Speaker:Thanks so much for tuning in.
Speaker:Everyday Ayurveda with Kate.
Speaker:I'll be here again with you next week.