[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:00:01.73 Jala Hello world and welcome to Jala-Chan's Place. I'm your host, Jala Prendes (she/her), and today I am joined once more by Mike, who should just be a co-host at this point. 00:00:12.72 Jala Hi, Mike (he/him). 00:00:14.87 Michael Prehn Hello, how's everyone doing tonight? 00:00:17.57 Jala Yes, we are um back in the kitchen today and we are going to be discussing cooking 101 and also nutrition 101. 00:00:17.89 Michael Prehn It's me again. 00:00:27.72 Jala So ah both of us have some experience in both of these things, but one of us is more experienced on the nutrition side and the other one has more professional experience in the cooking side. 00:00:38.98 Jala So ah we are teaming up today to do a basic class about nutrition. how to do these things. how How do you do a nutrition? How do you do a cooking? 00:00:49.78 Jala um Because we've had two episodes now talking about flavor, the science behind it, and how you craft it and how you think about it and how you talk about it and what influences it all this cool stuff. 00:01:01.74 Jala Right. But now we have to get into the nitty gritty of how to do it. 00:01:07.57 Jala So that's, that's the idea that we're running with today. So Mike, how are you? 00:01:15.23 Michael Prehn I'm doing all right. Cooking my butt off, as always. um Not looking forward to it being a thousand degrees in the Louisiana summer, but otherwise, okay. 00:01:25.22 Jala Right, right. And that was something that I wanted to tell you about. i mentioned it in the green room, but now I get to actually tell you. So um this last weekend, I went to the farmer's market and we were picking up some things for, you know cooking what we were cooking last week. 00:01:39.72 Jala um But when I was there, I came across a new bakery that was there. And when I tell you like their sourdough was amazing, their sourdough was fucking the bomb. 00:01:49.54 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 00:01:50.96 Jala And not only that, but this was like a traditionally leavened, no yeast. We're talking about like, I just read the book Cooked by Michael Pollan and I've been telling this Mike about it this whole time listeners. 00:02:02.47 Jala And like, um i I've just been been, you know, yammering on about this book. And one of the things that that book talks about is all the different ways that people cook. And it has a whole chapter on baking and about sourdough and how, you know, like bread, the history of bread and all this other stuff. 00:02:18.76 Jala And it really made me want to make an awesome sourdough starter and actually finally, finally, you know, start making it. And this is not the time ah for somebody in Houston to decide bake because we are, we are ramping up very swiftly towards the Southern summer. 00:02:33.70 Michael Prehn Nope. 00:02:40.36 Jala And, uh, that's not going to be fun for it anybody, but, um, 00:02:44.72 Michael Prehn Yeah, you're going to put that east in your garage to rise and it's just going to keel over immediately. 00:02:50.14 Jala yeah Right. Well, so, so this is traditionally leavened. So they made a sourdough starter and they use that and the flour and the salt and the, the flour is milled fairly locally up in, uh, I think they said dripping Springs. So, um, it's fantastic. I'm like, wow. Um, I'm, I'm a fan of this. We're going to have to keep coming back and getting some of their other, you know products that they have. 00:03:15.37 Jala because this is amazing sourdough. And was like, this, this is the bread that Michael Pollan was talking about in that book, you know, cause he goes into, you you know, the crumb shot and, and how the, the crust, you know, the needs to be and have the inside and the air pockets and all this, this, this detail. Right. 00:03:32.76 Jala And I'm like, this is the bread that I, this is the bread that he's talking about right here. This is fancy bread. 00:03:37.35 Michael Prehn Yeah, bread is one of those things that is easy to do but difficult to master, and I'm far from it myself, but a good sourdough is really a miraculous thing. 00:03:37.76 Jala This is the best. Yeah. 00:03:49.44 Jala Like, i I wish I could just mail it to you. Not that that's going to work, but in the, in the, um the farmer's markets on Sunday. So it's not like I could get it on a weekend or like on a Friday or something and then drive over there and go give it to you because you don't like, yeah yeah, for sure. 00:04:04.01 Michael Prehn Yeah, no, that'd be too much for a bread run for sure. 00:04:10.58 Jala and But next time I'll take a picture of it before we devour it. I can at least show you the bread. That's very awesome. So. 00:04:19.36 Michael Prehn That would be the ticket to getting Brittany to go to where you're at because she loves sourdough with a powerful passion. And if anything could drag her across state lines, it'd be that. 00:04:27.06 Jala Oh. 00:04:30.44 Jala Right, right. Well, I mean, I can always buy it and put it my freezer and then like pull it out for y'all when you get here, you know, so that way you've got it reserved. 00:04:35.17 Michael Prehn Yeah, sure. 00:04:41.07 Jala But so either anyway, um so i'm I'm still fighting the internal deep urge to make a sourdough starter so I too can make my hand flavor you know into the sourdough. I am curious what my bread would taste like and how it would taste different from Dave's bread, you know. 00:04:57.74 Jala um, that kind of a business. I was like, Dave, you've got to make a sourdough starter too. And we've got to have, have a bake off. And I don't know that that's going to happen. Um, when our temperatures are what they are in the humidity is always creeping up, but, um, stay tuned. Maybe one day, maybe in the fall, maybe in the fall, we'll do that. 00:05:16.64 Jala So, 00:05:17.09 Michael Prehn We'll do a baking competition for Jalcon number two. 00:05:21.09 Jala Yeah, there you go. Although I'm still kicking around the idea of what we want to do for Jalocon. I'm thinking, I've been talking about doing Fireheart Festival online and I haven't, you know, I want, I was like, oh, well, Jalocon's anniversary came and went recently. 00:05:31.00 Michael Prehn Okay. 00:05:36.34 Jala and the world's on fire so it's like uh i don't know i think we're gonna do it online i got everything set up to stream i just have to test everything and get the kinks worked out and everything um so i can actually plan that um there's been a lot of random stuff going on like i have i was telling you offline off uh the mic that um 00:05:39.11 Michael Prehn Yeah. yeah 00:05:58.82 Jala and We have the electrical panel at my house going to be replaced. And so that's going to be a whole thing. And so we won't have power for a day. And that kind of throws everything else on the back burner. And then, you know, it adds a whole new set of chores that need to be done around that. and So, yeah, I don't know. was kicking around like maybe for my birthday. 00:06:21.00 Jala That's in July. 00:06:21.60 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:06:21.86 Jala That might be doable. 00:06:24.28 Michael Prehn Give you roughly three months to prep. 00:06:24.37 Jala Here's April. 00:06:27.51 Jala Right. 00:06:27.54 Michael Prehn Might be okay. 00:06:27.87 Jala Right. Maybe, maybe we'll see. We'll see. don't, I, I have a history of like, Oh yeah, we need to do X and saying it on the podcast. And then like, it doesn't happen for like three years or something. 00:06:39.69 Jala So, yeah. 00:06:40.40 Michael Prehn Well, yeah, I mean, how many times have you turned to me at the end of the show and been like, do you have anything to announce, Mike? And I'm like, ah, coming soon. And then soon does not happen. 00:06:49.51 Jala Hmm. 00:06:50.77 Michael Prehn So, 00:06:50.96 Jala ah Soon as soon is very vague. It could be any length of time. What is soon to the infinity of the universe, Mike? I mean, like, who's soon are we discussing here? You didn't specify. 00:07:03.32 Michael Prehn I prefer to use geologic time. so you know, when say tune. 00:07:05.46 Jala and There you go. Right, right. So, well, anyway, Mike, you still don't have anything else on the internet at this time, really, other than your Blue Sky account and um the various things that you do now with me. 00:07:20.88 Jala on this show. 00:07:21.69 Michael Prehn Yep. 00:07:21.92 Jala So I will, of course, have links in the show notes to those other episodes that you were on. As for this show, you can follow us on Ko-Fi. It's ko-fi.com slash fireheartmedia. And you can kick us a few bucks if you like to help us keep the lights on. It's extremely appreciated, especially right now with as many things as ah are are out there in the world rising constantly. 00:07:49.05 Jala So like prices of food, but anyway, 00:07:54.64 Michael Prehn As a famous person once said, our world's on fire. How about yours? 00:07:59.12 Jala yes, indeed. So all-star, are you ready to talk about cooking? 00:08:05.71 Michael Prehn I'm ready. 00:08:06.75 Jala Okay, cool. This is your, your domain. I, get to sit back and listen to you and I will make comments. Okay. 00:08:15.37 Michael Prehn Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, this is a big topic. Obviously, cooking, as we've discussed in previous episodes, is like a fundamental human experience. Everyone has done it at least a little bit. 00:08:28.33 Michael Prehn ah Some people have done it quite a lot. And it's a topic that you could literally record podcasts about until the end of time and never cover it. um What we're talking about. 00:08:39.21 Michael Prehn here today is kind of 101 techniques. ah So we touched on this a little bit in a previous episode, but we're going to be talking more about the actual kitchen techniques here. 00:08:50.78 Michael Prehn Like when you read on a page, saute, some of you out there might be thinking, what on earth does that mean? i have no idea how to pull that off, what it entails. 00:09:01.64 Michael Prehn That's kind of what we're here to talk about today. So we talked last time about flavor. um And a critical foundation for the process of building flavor is the actual cooking method itself. 00:09:14.49 Michael Prehn A cooking method can develop or add flavors to ingredients, which in turn can be further built using seasonings and spices. 00:09:23.04 Jala Mm hmm. 00:09:23.06 Michael Prehn So you're talking about two kind of things here, which is enhancing the natural flavor of food, like cooking beets to bring out the sugar that's already in there, right? 00:09:32.60 Jala Mm hmm. 00:09:32.74 Michael Prehn Or you might be frying something, which ah contributes a totally different flavor because you're essentially ah cooking flour onto the thing and also enhancing the food's natural flavor. 00:09:45.83 Michael Prehn This is ah very extremely varied field, and there are many, many techniques, but maybe not as many as you think. um I went to culinary school about 10 years ago, and it's the foundation of my career. 00:10:01.05 Michael Prehn And ah whenever I went to culinary school, they focused primarily on cooking methods rather than specific recipes, which is why we're leading with this today. You know recipes, there are billions of them out there, if not trillions. If you tried to learn every recipe in existence, you would never get even close. 00:10:21.05 Michael Prehn So that's why in school they taught us about cooking methods and how to kind of parse recipes And that way you can look at something, even if you've never cooked it before and go, okay, I think I know what this is going to be about. 00:10:35.52 Jala Right. 00:10:35.51 Michael Prehn And, 00:10:36.69 Jala Right. And um part of it too, is that if you really think about the recipes that you have, that you use the most often, ah those recipes think about what the first time you made them whenever you first got this recipe, wherever you got this recipe from, and think about how your method of actually making that recipe has changed over time, because invariably stuff is going to change in a recipe as you make it over and over again, because You either accidentally or on a whim change something and then find that you like it better that way or whatever. And then you just start to cook it in a different fashion as well. So if you were to focus on a recipe, that's going to have a million different iterations, even if everybody's given the same recipe, if they're out there for a year cooking the same thing every week. 00:11:24.25 Jala you know, it's going to come out different by the end. Every single person's dish is going to be very different, even with the same ingredients. So ah dealing with the emphasis on like the method of cooking and how you go about that is much more sensible of an approach, in my opinion, as well. 00:11:42.28 Michael Prehn Sure. And, you know, there's a million variables about cooking that can change. 00:11:46.03 Jala Right. 00:11:46.22 Michael Prehn You can have a different stove. The ingredients are always going to be a little bit different because they're organic. You know, no two chickens are the same. 00:11:52.95 Jala Mm hmm. 00:11:54.22 Michael Prehn No two stalks of celery are exactly the same. So that's why recipes ultimately, and no matter how precise they are, are really more of a guideline 00:12:04.36 Jala Isn't it? 00:12:04.49 Michael Prehn And believe me, I believe very strongly in the importance of a good recipe. I mean, I'm a food scientist. The whole point of my work is to be able to reproduce the recipes that I make. 00:12:15.72 Michael Prehn But the amount of precision that a recipe conveys is limited to a certain extent. So it's always going to be a little bit different, which is why those techniques are so important, because it allows you to adjust on the fly as needed. 00:12:28.42 Jala Oh, yeah. and And that's something else, too. So Dave, for a long time, um he when he was a bachelor, he didn't he would cook some, but he didn't really follow recipes. He just kind of like threw stuff in a pan kind of thing. 00:12:42.51 Michael Prehn Right. 00:12:42.84 Jala um So now that he's married to me and I go and I work with recipes, I have tons of cookbooks, I have a bunch of different things, and I'm always like... working with those cookbooks, but there's also notes in all of my cookbooks where I changed things or adjusted, adjusted this or that, you know, to my preferences. 00:13:00.72 Jala And, you know, like I even have my own handwritten note, you know, notebooks full of recipes, throughout all of this time, he's he started out with this whole, I've got to read the entire recipe through and I've got to measure everything exactly and this, that, and the other. 00:13:13.58 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:13:15.30 Jala And meanwhile, when I'm doing the same recipe, I'm i'm doing the casual, like throw it in, looks about right, it smells like it's right. 00:13:23.11 Michael Prehn yeah 00:13:24.03 Jala you know and And he's starting to get to that point now. um But like he started out with that that kind of rigid, I've got to follow all of the guidelines kind of thing. He's starting to get more comfortable though. 00:13:36.08 Jala And, you know, like that's the thing, though, because as you say, the ingredients are going to be different depending on the time of year and like even stuff like say, for example, that humidity I mentioned, that's going to do different stuff to bread at the below sea level where I live versus if you live in Colorado, you know, like um different different environments and different factors are going to change everything about how, you know, your cooking comes out. 00:14:01.19 Jala So. 00:14:01.79 Michael Prehn Right. 00:14:02.57 Jala So yeah, being flexible is like the best approach to cooking overall. 00:14:03.07 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:14:07.13 Michael Prehn Yes, I think so too. And, ah recipes are good as a framework for things. 00:14:11.10 Jala Yeah. 00:14:11.74 Michael Prehn So if you're a new cook and you're listening to us talk about how there's a million variables and, ah that recipes don't actually matter you just got to figure it out, you go, how on earth do I even get to that point? 00:14:24.94 Michael Prehn Uh, yeah, that basically. 00:14:25.26 Jala You make stuff over and over again and eventually you get, I mean, you know, 00:14:29.83 Michael Prehn Yes, ah it is very much experiential, but you can have a process for it. 00:14:32.89 Jala good 00:14:34.64 Michael Prehn So I'm going to talk about what my process is for this stuff. 00:14:34.90 Jala Right. 00:14:38.04 Michael Prehn And hopefully ah those of you all out there that are trying to learn a little bit more about cooking or reconsider the way that you cook might be able to glean some useful info from it. So I have a process for this. 00:14:47.69 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:14:48.92 Michael Prehn I call the IMST method. i believe I talked about this a little bit briefly last time, but we're going to go into it a little more detail. 00:14:55.86 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:14:57.87 Michael Prehn So IMST stands for ingredients, moisture, seasonings and spices, and timing. So these are kind of the four questions you have to ask yourself ah to think up an idea for how you want to cook these ingredients in a way that's going to come out good. 00:15:16.52 Michael Prehn um So ingredients being the first step, this is pretty easy to do. All you really have to do is think about what sounds good for yourself. We're going to touch on this a little bit in the nutrition section, but listening to your body is sometimes very useful for figuring out what would be very wholesome for you to eat. 00:15:37.68 Michael Prehn ah I tend to find that when I'm craving vegetables is because I'm going not getting enough nutrients. 00:15:43.47 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:15:43.65 Michael Prehn So I usually think about like what kind of ingredients I might want in a dish and to help with choice paralysis, I use kind of like a flow chart approach. So I think, 00:15:54.16 Michael Prehn think What sounds good to me right now, ah chicken or fish or beef or tofu or tempeh or just straight up vegetables or a salad, whatever the case may be. 00:16:05.40 Michael Prehn And then i kind of think about a overall flavor palette that I might want, which is like, do I want something that's very herby? Do I want something that's just rich, like junk food kind of stuff? 00:16:17.68 Michael Prehn Do want something spicy? Things like that. And then I usually pick sides to go with that if I'm making sides. 00:16:25.76 Jala Right, right. And for me, what it usually looks like for ingredients is I, I, since I am not a a science, ah food science person, I am just a a lowly person who cooks in the kitchen for themselves and likes tasty things. 00:16:43.36 Jala i I tend, like I said, I have a lot of recipe books. So I will go, i think I want something from the crock pot. Or, you know, because that's easy to do, I could throw it in there and then leave it alone. 00:16:51.69 Michael Prehn yeah 00:16:54.84 Jala um You know, like I just i consider my time, ah consider my time priority as my priority, actually, um because ah time and then protein, like what what nutrients are in there? 00:17:07.61 Jala are my primary primary concerns ah for me because of my shortage of time. 00:17:07.83 Michael Prehn Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:17:14.45 Jala But those ingredients considerations, was something that i wanted to say is I find that when you look through cookbooks, especially if they're cookbooks from different cultures that you're not as familiar with or even different styles of cooking, 00:17:27.95 Jala Such as, for example, if you are an omnivore and you look into a vegan cookbook, you may see some combinations of different vegetables or, you know, spices or this, that and the other that you have never thought of before that could really open up some doors in your own cooking and you can benefit from seeing what other people are putting in their food. 00:17:40.78 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:17:47.19 Jala um So even just looking, browsing through cookbooks and stuff just to see what people are putting together in a recipe helps you to kind of figure out what goes good together for you personally as well, in my opinion. 00:18:01.83 Michael Prehn Yeah. Like, um just like at a restaurant, you can substitute ingredients, right? 00:18:06.77 Jala right 00:18:07.08 Michael Prehn Like I find The vast majority of cooking methods that are good for fish protein, particularly white fish, is pretty good for tofu as well because they kind of have a similar, don't want to say they have a similar texture, but they have a similar consistency. 00:18:23.49 Michael Prehn um So you can kind of adapt those things as you, again, experiment a little bit more and learn more about what's out there. 00:18:31.50 Jala Right. Right. 00:18:33.87 Michael Prehn Yep. So that's ingredients. And then the second letter M for moisture. So this is a big one for me is that I always think about whether or not I want to dry out an ingredient when I'm cooking it, or if I want to add moisture to it when I'm cooking. 00:18:50.21 Michael Prehn um This is something that ties into the classic culinary approach where they teach us about what are called wet cooking methods and dry cooking methods. um And every kind of ingredient out there, 00:19:03.29 Michael Prehn takes better to one type of cooking or the other, generally speaking. um So wet cooking methods are things where ingredients are cooked in a moisture-rich environment. 00:19:15.05 Michael Prehn ah Usually you want to do this whenever you're cooking an ingredient where you want to make sure it doesn't dry out or you want to maintain the moisture that's in it. For example, going back to fish, um poaching fish or steaming it is very popular because ah fish protein tends to dry out very fast. 00:19:32.79 Michael Prehn So those cooking methods that have a lot of moisture do wet or better with that kind of thing. um And then dry cooking methods, conversely, are cooking methods where ingredients are cooked in a dry environment, usually with ah rapidly circulating air or something else to move ingredients around. 00:19:51.75 Michael Prehn And it's designed to help remove moisture from an ingredient. ah The premier example of this is grilling. ah which is something that has very high heat and moves the air because of the high heat. 00:20:03.97 Michael Prehn And so this helps develop like a crust or crispiness or develop sugars and proteins in the ingredients, which can be desirable. um Baking is another popular one because that's very dry environment. There's almost no moisture in it. 00:20:18.68 Michael Prehn Okay. 00:20:20.47 Jala Right. And so um when you mentioned this, two things that come to mind for my particular diet as a vegan are seitan, which you you always want to keep seitan moist because seitan is a type of protein that is made using wheat gluten. 00:20:34.13 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 00:20:39.54 Jala So wheat gluten is found in bread. If you get an artisanal bread or you get a bread from the bakery and it's especially chewy, and stuff, that's the gluten. So seitan as a protein source, when you put the different spices and stuff in, it can end up having a texture that is very similar to, um you know, like different different types of meat, like chicken or beef or whatever. 00:21:03.14 Jala um It can come out with those kinds of of textures, but it has to be cooked in a wet environment. If you put it in a dry environment, it's gonna turn into rubber. 00:21:14.52 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:21:14.94 Jala So ah you have to definitely keep that wet. 00:21:15.14 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:21:18.25 Jala Now, when it comes to something like tofu, tofu is a little complicated. um My preferred method of cooking tofu, for example. So so tofu is a long process. um It's not it's not hard if you eat tofu regularly because you just have this stuff, um you know, in mind and you're you're prepping it basically all the time. 00:21:27.92 Michael Prehn yeah 00:21:37.07 Jala So like I, I get hodo tofu from the grocery store because it's really high protein and really firm. So it gives you a really um good, satisfying texture. And i take that. It doesn't need to be pressed because it's so extra firm that you can squeeze some water out of it, but otherwise you don't really need to worry about it. 00:21:55.67 Jala So I will put it in the freezer after I get it. And then I will take it out of the freezer and let it thaw. And that, that freezing actually makes it um a chewier texture when you get it out. Um, 00:22:06.83 Jala and Then i squeeze the water out of it when I open up the the container, but then i will just dry fry it just to get some more moisture out of it. And then i put a sauce on it. Either i put it in a marinade or I put a sauce into the pan and then I saute it and cover it and let it simmer. 00:22:26.48 Jala um just to let the tofu that has now been dried out, soak up all of that sauce and then just gain all of that flavor and go from there. 00:22:37.64 Jala ah You could also alternatively put it in the air fryer. That'll also do the same thing or bake it. That'll also dry it out a little bit, depending upon your preferences about how dry you want it and how much time you have and what kind of environment you live in. Like baking is not really a thing here. So yeah, 00:22:55.82 Jala you know but um that's the the various sequences that i go through to make my tofu the kind of hearty tofu that has a great flavor to it uh that i prefer and again like i've got blocks of tofu in the freezer right now so if i want tofu all i have to do is pull it out of the freezer let it thaw out squeeze water out and throw it the pan it's not a big deal but um So anyway, like those are just a couple of examples of these are definitely ingredients that like, if you put tofu in a wet environment, it's just going to turn into mush. 00:23:29.42 Michael Prehn Right. 00:23:30.14 Jala It's not going to have like a chewy, satisfying kind of texture. 00:23:30.41 Michael Prehn Yep. 00:23:34.09 Jala I liked, I liked it actually chew my food. So, um, you know, like that, that's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for silken tofu, you know? So, 00:23:42.52 Michael Prehn Yeah, unless you're trying to make a sauce or something like that. 00:23:45.02 Jala A sauce or if you want to make a dessert, silken tofu is real good for that, too. 00:23:49.84 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:23:49.93 Jala ah But yeah, like not not for a main dish now. 00:23:51.40 Michael Prehn Yeah, so. 00:23:54.20 Michael Prehn Yeah. So those are two good examples from the vegan side of the diet about like ingredients that are take better to dry or to wet cooking. 00:23:56.57 Jala Yeah. Mm 00:24:03.26 Jala hmm. 00:24:03.54 Michael Prehn Generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking, you're kind of trying to head towards the middle with that. Things are very, that have a lot of water in them. ah You kind of want to dry out a little bit and things that have a lot of water to start with, um or sorry, I just repeated myself. 00:24:20.29 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:24:20.75 Jala yeah 00:24:21.63 Michael Prehn things that don't have a lot of water, you kind of want to add or preserve it. 00:24:26.23 Jala Right. 00:24:26.27 Michael Prehn um 00:24:26.55 Jala And, and, you know, like say for example, cause there was a time when I wasn't vegan, we've all had that chicken, right? The chicken that's really dry and you're like, oh my God, this is horrible. 00:24:33.46 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:24:36.80 Jala It just needed to be cooked differently. But then we've also had, you know, like that, that boiled chicken or whatever, that just doesn't have a whole lot of, lot of flavor to it because it's just, you know there needs to be more going on than just basic boiling. 00:24:48.53 Jala But you know, just kind of depends on what you're going with and like what you're doing. 00:24:49.79 Michael Prehn Yep. 00:24:53.27 Jala Like if you're boiling chicken to put it in like a soup or something, that's different than, you know, presenting it on a plate, you know, like here's your meal, you know. 00:25:01.01 Michael Prehn Yeah. The grilled chicken breast at restaurants is a pet peeve of mine because this might be, this might be highfalutin of me to say, but I think that basically no one does it right. 00:25:02.15 Jala Mm hmm. 00:25:12.71 Jala Yeah, you you wouldn't be wrong. 00:25:13.45 Michael Prehn Cause like. 00:25:14.41 Jala Like it's it's so hard because like to retain moisture inside the chicken to make it juicy on the grill. It it takes somebody who knows what they're doing with that chicken to to make that work. 00:25:24.82 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah, for sure. 00:25:27.00 Jala Yeah. 00:25:27.63 Michael Prehn um 00:25:27.76 Jala Yep. 00:25:28.25 Michael Prehn Yeah, so those are some good examples of kind of how to select your cooking method, ah which goes back to moisture. You could really say M was method or moisture. um 00:25:37.53 Jala Mm hmm. 00:25:38.45 Michael Prehn Then you have some weirdos, aside from the wet and dry cooking methods. You have some that are considered both wet and dry, ah such as frying or sauteing as cooking methods, which are basically the same thing, ah but people call them different terms for various reasons. 00:25:45.48 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:25:54.79 Michael Prehn um The frying dries the breading of an ingredient to get that nice crisp outer layer, but also maintains the moisture of the ingredient because the inside of the flour kind of forms a barrier and traps the moisture. 00:26:07.57 Michael Prehn That's ah possible because fat is kind of a unique ah um ingredient. It acts a lot like water while also repelling water away from it. Everyone's always put vinegar and ah oil together and they don't mix very well. 00:26:24.04 Michael Prehn Any fat is kind of like that and any liquid is kind of like that. So it allows you to do some really interesting things culinarily, which is why fried food is so darn good. 00:26:34.47 Jala It is so darn good because again, like we can all picture in our heads or or in our stomachs that really great, perfect crispy fry or whatever, like any number of different fried foods. 00:26:47.57 Jala A fry is just an an easy one that everybody can think of off the top of their head, I'm sure. But you know, like... 00:26:53.99 Michael Prehn Yeah, i' I'm going to be thinking about those potatoes I made this weekend for a long time, I think. 00:26:59.15 Jala I know, i know you were sharing about that and I was so excited for you. i was like, oh, that sounds good. Good job, Mike. 00:27:05.22 Michael Prehn Yeah, it was delicious. So um I have ah just a quick couple of lists of personal ah suggestions that I like for cooking methods. This is not the Bible. 00:27:15.62 Michael Prehn Everyone's got different opinions, but I like ah frying and sauteing for tofu, tempeh, beef, ah chicken, pork loin, shrimp, the skin on fish specifically, not the fish itself, ah any kind of eggs, and basically all vegetables. I'm pretty much sauteed vegetables all the time if I'm just cooking for myself. 00:27:39.85 Jala Right. um I will add, and I mentioned this last time, I got to mention it again. Tempeh, if you steam it for 10 minutes or so, will lose a lot of the bitterness and a lot of that stronger flavor that you get from it. 00:27:45.35 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 00:27:47.96 Michael Prehn Yes. 00:27:52.55 Jala And then it will better take to sauce and and kind of better blend with things where it's not just fermentation flavor, you know. 00:28:01.28 Michael Prehn Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. um You know, obviously, Jala's got a lot more experience with vegan cooking than I do. It's a horrible blind spot of mine when I was in culinary school. They didn't even have a class for vegan cooking. 00:28:13.99 Jala Oh, no, of course not. 00:28:14.42 Michael Prehn They had like, I know it's horrible, South Louisiana guys. 00:28:18.59 Jala Yeah. 00:28:19.15 Michael Prehn But um they ah they had a fruit and vegetable class, but it was one class ah in one semester, which like, good Lord, is that woefully insufficient. 00:28:19.18 Jala Yeah. 00:28:27.89 Jala Yeah. 00:28:30.88 Michael Prehn Now, To Nichols State University's credit, they now have a full course of vegan and vegetarian cooking classes ah that you're, I believe, required to take at least a couple of them. So they've gotten better about it. 00:28:43.62 Michael Prehn But it is a blind spot for me. I'm trying to learn more about it. But that's why me and Jala have such great complementary skill sets here. 00:28:51.18 Jala I will say about vegetables. So something that I, I got hooked on is, uh, the awesome fried cauliflower, but before you fry it, you have to like really quickly blanch it, uh, to get it like pre-cooked before you do that. 00:29:03.69 Michael Prehn Yeah, 00:29:06.12 Jala And if you don't know that and you don't do that step, then it is nowhere near as awesome as it can be. 00:29:13.20 Michael Prehn yeah it's crunchy in a bad way. 00:29:15.15 Jala Right, right. 00:29:17.14 Michael Prehn That's been a very common thing that I've seen on recipes or restaurant menus recently is ah buffalo cauliflower, which I like because I like anything with buffalo sauce on it. 00:29:27.59 Jala Well, see, there was a vegan restaurant here that recently closed and then has changed labels to a new one. And I haven't had the opportunity to go to the new one yet because money. But um the the old restaurant had orange cauliflower instead of orange chicken. 00:29:37.93 Michael Prehn right 00:29:44.30 Jala And you would never... 00:29:44.80 Michael Prehn oh nice 00:29:45.18 Jala i And I swear to God, like I've had... orange chicken you know i you know have again i've not been vegan slash vegetarian forever you know like i i did eat omnivore style for a long time and um yeah like i tasted it i'm like i i i would not even know that this is a vegetable this is amazing this is fantastic so uh that's mm-hmm 00:30:08.49 Michael Prehn I say it all the time, but any food item can be good if it's prepared with care and intention. 00:30:14.09 Jala I didn't even like cauliflower at all before I had that. 00:30:16.93 Michael Prehn Okay. 00:30:17.41 Jala And like, I I'm tolerable to, to cauliflower now, of course, like I can even, I, I, I even eat it raw, but like for a long time, I didn't like cauliflower and I didn't, I like, I was convinced that it was never going to be a thing I liked and, and I do like it now. 00:30:31.69 Jala So 00:30:32.45 Michael Prehn It's a very tricky vegetable, it and broccoli, because unlike most vegetables, it's actually fairly dry because it's just so it's kind of it's a tree. It's woody. Right. 00:30:42.42 Jala yes. 00:30:43.34 Michael Prehn So it's really difficult to introduce flavor into it without either overcooking it or mistreating it some other way. So little bit hard to do. 00:30:52.32 Jala Overcooking is the number one worst. And so like what I find is that for me personally, like a lot of times I will just steam broccoli or cauliflower if I'm just having them as like part of a side with like some light spices or something on it. 00:30:55.42 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:31:09.12 Jala But again, if I'm going to put like a sauce and do like a whole, I'm doing a fried cauliflower thing, then you have to blanch it and put it in the and the pan and do all that mess first, you know, like so. 00:31:18.91 Michael Prehn For sure. 00:31:19.66 Jala Yeah. 00:31:20.46 Michael Prehn Now I'm just hungry, but 00:31:20.57 Jala But anyway, yeah, vegetables, vegetables are chronically overcooked, in my opinion, um chronically overcooked, for sure. 00:31:25.16 Michael Prehn yes, most things really are. um Speaking of, 00:31:29.52 Jala Yeah, except except for except for like the onions that you you cut up that need to be in like your mirepoix or something like that. Those really need to like low and slow like they they're they're cooked too high for too short a time. 00:31:39.16 Michael Prehn yeah 00:31:41.33 Jala They really need to like simmer and sit if you're going to make it right. 00:31:46.45 Michael Prehn And a lot of that has to do with the fact that onions are fairly rich in sugars ah for a vegetable. So if you cook them very, ah very fast, it's kind of like if you put something in the oven, um a sugary treat at a really high temperature, you just kind of get burnt mark on your pan. 00:32:03.83 Jala right right sorry to interrupt and derail you but uh right 00:32:04.32 Michael Prehn but So similar kind of thing. Now, this is the danger that we have with talking about food because we're both passionate about it that now we're just like, Well, this was, I had this the other day and this was really great. 00:32:16.37 Jala mm-hmm 00:32:17.36 Michael Prehn And then, ah but 00:32:17.58 Jala Right, right, right, right, right. Let us get back on the subject of baking. Tell me about baking. 00:32:21.88 Michael Prehn yeah, sure. Yeah. So baking, AKA roasting, they're the same technique. um yeah I like to do this with anything topped with cheese, obviously, because who doesn't love golden brown cheese on top of something? 00:32:35.49 Michael Prehn ah I like it for shellfish aside from shrimp. because I find that shrimp overcooks really easily. So baking's a little too rough on it. 00:32:43.08 Jala Yeah. 00:32:44.97 Michael Prehn But any other kind of shellfish, really good for that. 00:32:45.61 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:32:48.61 Michael Prehn ah Potatoes, other root vegetables, obviously anything that's like a large cut of something, like a big roast beef or something like that, or even just heartier vegetables like we're talking about broccoli, 00:33:00.64 Michael Prehn I mean, roast broccoli is a classic, right? um Because it's such a durable thing that you really want to cook it ah over a long period of time, which baking is really good for. 00:33:12.39 Michael Prehn And tomatoes, which I will roast tomatoes at the drop of a hat for no real reason. Like if I have just taken it. 00:33:18.54 Jala I will roast peppers because I love roasted peppers. I love roasted peppers. 00:33:22.74 Michael Prehn too. 00:33:23.94 Jala But yeah, um also I wanted to add, so in Cuban cooking, there's a lot of things like we'll do, say for example, a pork roast and we don't roast that. I mean, like there are, there are, um you know, like doing the whole pig over the spit kind of barbecue things that happen in Cuban culture. 00:33:39.64 Michael Prehn yeah 00:33:41.07 Jala But there's also just a pork roast that you make that you have your, your sauce with and everything. And that is most of the time, at least in my house has always been in the pressure cooker. If you want to cook it wet, wet and to where it'll just like fall up to pieces and things. 00:34:00.16 Jala A pressure cooker is a good way of doing that. That works pretty well with a lot of these things as well. I feel so. I'm not the cheese, not the cheese, but, but like a lot of these other things, like we will, we'll put them in the pressure cooker and Cuban cooking. 00:34:10.01 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:34:13.32 Jala So, so yeah. 00:34:14.96 Michael Prehn Yeah. And it's worth mentioning that these are not hard and fast rules. 00:34:17.88 Jala Oh, no, no, no, no. 00:34:18.20 Michael Prehn It's not like you can't really, you can't, you know, poach beef. Like you could do that if you wanted to, it's just not typically something that people do, but um pretty much any cooking method can be used for almost any ingredient, as long as you master the timing of it, which we'll talk a little bit more later 00:34:37.41 Jala Right. But, um, my real reason for mentioning that is just like, I actually want to get into more pressure cooking because that's like time conscious, you know, pressure cooking is great for people who don't have time. 00:34:46.10 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah. 00:34:49.42 Jala Um, and so like, there's that, but like, if you in, in largely what we would use it for is for, you know, like large, uh, meat, large cuts of meat. Um, but then also for stuff like black beans. If we're cooking black beans that are dried and we are trying to cook them instead of doing them on in like a pan on the stove or or whatever, a pot on the stove, ah we'll just do them in the pressure cooker. And that's always been the way that we cook beans. So like when other people cook beans, like in a pot on the stove, I'm like, huh? 00:35:19.50 Jala Huh? We've only ever used the pressure cooker. 00:35:21.15 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:35:22.82 Jala So yeah. 00:35:24.34 Michael Prehn Pressure cooking is interesting because it's essentially poaching or braising, but it operates at three times the timescale. 00:35:24.53 Jala so 00:35:30.97 Michael Prehn So you can do a lot of cool stuff with it. 00:35:31.86 Jala Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but that's like an advanced as an advanced technique. Like if you didn't grow up doing that, um, pressure cooking is not the first place to go do do the baking or the roasting first. 00:35:45.69 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:35:46.14 Jala and So yeah, we, we do have to do that. 00:35:46.51 Michael Prehn I guess we got to schedule up a kitchen equipment episode. 00:35:50.42 Jala So, uh, let's move on to poaching and braising. Tell me about poaching and braising. 00:35:54.46 Michael Prehn Yeah, so poaching and braising, which are similar but not exactly the same cooking techniques. Poaching is kind of like a slow braise or a lower heat braise, and then braising is a little bit higher heat over a very long period of time. 00:36:07.56 Michael Prehn ah These cooking techniques are good for, in my opinion, fish, turkey, lamb, ah green beans, or any other durable vegetable. ah ribs or pork shoulder, any of those big cuts of meat like Jala was talking about, and a pressure cooker, you can also cook that way on a stove. 00:36:26.08 Michael Prehn Now, which one of these two you select might be based on the food. So I like fish poached. I probably wouldn't braise it because most fish isn't going to survive that long of a cooking method. 00:36:36.77 Jala Right. 00:36:38.14 Michael Prehn It would just kind of fall apart. And then conversely, you couldn't poach lamb because it takes a very long time for all the connective tissue to break down in it because lamb is a very muscular animal. 00:36:49.67 Michael Prehn So you have to cook it for a long period of time before it's not going to be chewy or anything like that. 00:36:55.89 Jala Right. 00:36:58.17 Michael Prehn Yeah, so that's moisture or method, if you will, just thinking about. 00:37:00.94 Jala Ooh. Ooh. 00:37:03.67 Michael Prehn Yes. 00:37:03.80 Jala um Do you have much experience with like a game year types of meat, like venison and things like that? Which way would you recommend for something like that? Or dude is that not part of your usual wheelhouse? 00:37:15.00 Michael Prehn No, I do have some experience with that because ah game meats is a very big thing here in Louisiana. You know, purport ourselves as the sportsman's paradise. 00:37:24.45 Jala Yep. Hunting state. 00:37:24.82 Michael Prehn So there, yeah. So there's a lot of that stuff going around. Generally speaking, um game meats are really good with these low and slow methods that are, have a lot of moisture like poaching or brazing. Really brazing is kind of the king of the one for this. 00:37:42.01 Michael Prehn because most game animals, you know, they move around a lot. Like they're very strong animals because they got to run around through the forest and forage for things. And they also tend to have a very strong natural flavor. 00:37:54.98 Michael Prehn So a brazing liquid that has its own strong flavor, stand up to that, is a really great way to cook, you know, venison, lamb. We do squirrel sometimes. 00:38:05.00 Michael Prehn I know that's gnarly and everything. 00:38:05.65 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:38:07.99 Michael Prehn Jala's probably like, absolutely wincing on her side of things. 00:38:12.16 Jala Oh, no. I have ah one of one of the uncles that lives close to us and is is has always been close to our family. He hunts. So um when I go to his house, literally all of the walls have like deer heads on them and everything's got deer antlers and shit everywhere. 00:38:21.61 Michael Prehn No. 00:38:26.07 Michael Prehn Oh, wow. 00:38:28.14 Jala So, um yeah, it's it's wild. It's a taxidermy paradise in his house. so um But he he's respectful. 00:38:34.53 Michael Prehn Yeah, I'm not quite that far on it. 00:38:36.13 Jala Yeah. Yeah, he's respectful towards me. I'm respectful towards him. And my personal opinion is that if you are a hunter and you eat the thing that you kill and you use as much of that thing as you can, ah then good on you. 00:38:50.76 Michael Prehn Yeah, that makes sense. 00:38:51.35 Jala That's it. That's it. 00:38:52.66 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:38:53.24 Jala It's just though the waste of that animal's life. If you are just you know getting getting an animal from like a factory slaughterhouse or something like that, that's that's not and that's not my jam so much. 00:39:02.39 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:39:04.37 Jala But ah that's that's a whole different topic. Either way, ah squirrel is is, yeah, whatever. 00:39:08.11 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:39:11.10 Jala i mean, people eat possum, people eat armadillo. um As much as they can possibly contract leprosy from armadillos, they eat those too. 00:39:18.25 Michael Prehn yeah 00:39:18.54 Jala And gator. ah All kinds of stuff. The Texas Renaissance Festival, they sell skewers of gator meat. So. 00:39:25.69 Michael Prehn Yeah, for sure. It's big business down here. I don't cook with game meats a lot myself because they tend to run kind of pricey. 00:39:28.24 Jala Mm hmm. 00:39:31.88 Michael Prehn But yeah, anything that has a strong enough flavor complement to stand up to game meats, a strong natural flavor, and generally something that's low and slow is going to serve you pretty well with those. 00:39:44.17 Jala Right, right. I just figured we should hit that since that is a thing and there are a lot of weirdo meats that are out there that people are eating again. 00:39:47.58 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah. 00:39:51.46 Jala Like, you know, it I say weirdo meats only because like our society was real shy away from from eating anything other than the established standards for a long time. 00:40:02.65 Jala So. 00:40:02.90 Michael Prehn Yeah, for sure. yeahp Anything that works well for lamb is generally going to work pretty well for any like hoofed animal. 00:40:10.13 Jala Game. 00:40:11.29 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:40:11.57 Jala Got you. 00:40:12.42 Michael Prehn um So moving on to the S part of the equation, seasonings and spices. This is obviously tricky because there's lots and lots of them out there. um And a question that I get often is what is the difference between a seasoning and a spice? 00:40:29.32 Michael Prehn Because people tend to use them interchangeably. On a previous episode, we talked about how English in particular is very limited with describing ah like flavor words, and it's just a natural limitation of this. So people tend to flip-flop these two terms, but the way that it was taught to me, in school at least, is that a seasoning is something that complements another ingredient's flavors without taking the forefront. 00:40:56.35 Michael Prehn So examples of seasonings might be salt, pepper, ah garlic, onion, citrus juice, some vinegars, depending on how you use them and in what quantities. 00:41:08.06 Michael Prehn These are things that are supposed to like enhance or be backup players. Whereas a spice is typically something that is adding a flavor to a dish. 00:41:18.97 Michael Prehn So these are things like curry powder, nutmeg, paprika, mace, Worcestershire sauce, sriracha, lot of herbs, rosemary, oregano, and basil. These are something that are going to add something new to the dish, which hopefully is still complimentary, but you can tell when you eat it, like, oh, this is rosemary. 00:41:37.41 Jala Right, right. 00:41:39.76 Michael Prehn Yeah, and those those are used interchangeably, like I said. 00:41:39.80 Jala So... 00:41:43.28 Michael Prehn ah You're never going to get two different people to agree on those definitions, but that's how they taught it to me in school. 00:41:49.60 Jala Yep. Yep. So, and that's already like kind of counterintuitive to what I was taught because of course, like in my garden, the rosemary, the row, I have a rosemary plant. 00:42:01.10 Jala And, um, of course, when you go and you get seeds for this rosemary, it's under the herbs section and it's, it's not labeled as, as these are a spice plants, you know, they're labeled as herbs. 00:42:11.71 Michael Prehn Right. 00:42:13.72 Jala So, but, um, 00:42:15.12 Michael Prehn Yeah, the way they described it to me is it's like a squares and rectangles thing where ah all herbs are spices, but not all spices are herbs. 00:42:19.24 Jala Sure. 00:42:24.60 Jala right it It doesn't. 00:42:25.03 Michael Prehn And it's a semantic difference. It really doesn't matter. You can call it whatever. i don't think anyone's going to call it, call anyone out on it, you know? 00:42:33.18 Jala Oh, so so talk about potatoes and roasting, ah roast potatoes and put like when when you're prepping them, put a little bit of maple syrup and put some fresh rosemary that you just kind of lightly cut and, you know, have it be big chunks of it, but like lightly cut some of those leaves up and then sprinkle that on there and then roast it that way. 00:42:36.41 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:42:54.61 Jala Mm. So good. You can also do that. I tend to do that with, uh, Brussels sprouts too. I put rust Brussels sprouts and potatoes and toss them in to roast, uh, with this way. 00:43:05.41 Jala It's very good. 00:43:05.82 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's because maple syrup, even though it's so sugary, so you can't really tell, but it has a strong bitter component because it's boiled for so long when they make it. 00:43:12.61 Jala Mm. 00:43:15.38 Jala Yep. It's very good. 00:43:16.60 Michael Prehn So it works really well with the bitter flavor on rosemary and Brussels sprouts and stuff like that. 00:43:21.64 Jala Mm. 00:43:21.64 Michael Prehn But um when you're thinking about seasonings and spices in a dish, ah you're going to want to find ingredients that either complement or counterpoint the main ingredients. So a couple examples of complementary seasons and seasonings and spices. 00:43:36.70 Michael Prehn Worcestershire sauce, onions and mushroom with beef. That's a classic. Everyone's had a Salisbury steak at some point, probably. um Soy sauce and eggs go fantastic ah with each other because they have kind of similar umami flavors. 00:43:51.63 Michael Prehn ah Parmesan and black pepper because they also have those umami flavors, but they also have very strong floral notes if you really examine them. And then, of course, the classic basil and tomato, which works because basil is floral and a little bit bitter and tomato tends to be sweet and tangy. So you kind of hit all of the bases with that. 00:44:12.38 Jala One of my favorite soups is tomato basil soup. 00:44:15.75 Michael Prehn Oh yeah, you can't beat it. It's just such a classic. 00:44:17.32 Jala Yeah. 00:44:18.44 Michael Prehn It's so good. 00:44:18.63 Jala Well, especially if you make it creamy. 00:44:19.24 Michael Prehn it Yeah. 00:44:22.46 Jala Put a good sourdough with it. 00:44:22.86 Michael Prehn Definitely. Really 00:44:24.91 Jala Yeah. 00:44:27.20 Michael Prehn sourdough pilled right now. 00:44:28.82 Jala Yeah. i'm I'm on a kick. I'm on a kick for sure. 00:44:31.34 Michael Prehn It's funny. It's the only soup that I have ever successfully been able to sell in my restaurants because we we have we have tried many of them and I don't think any of them were bad. and but it's just like the one that everyone can agree on is tomato basil. 00:44:46.87 Jala Yeah. Well, um at the winery that Dave and I love, Messina Hoff, at their restaurant, when we go there, they always like they don't have anything that's vegan or even vegetarian on their menu, but they always accommodate us when we go. 00:45:00.80 Jala And so um like we went and we had a creamy creamy mushroom soup, but it was vegan. 00:45:01.17 Michael Prehn That's nice. 00:45:11.31 Jala And it was just like the best soup that we've ever had. And then like we we had like two bowls of it. 00:45:16.36 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:45:18.53 Jala And this is like after a multiple course meal. and This was for Dave's birthday. So we were going all out. And then like we ended up buying more of the soup to take home with us to eat later because it was so good. 00:45:29.60 Michael Prehn That's great. 00:45:31.57 Jala And i I wish I could I could replicate that soup. It was so good. 00:45:37.28 Michael Prehn Yeah. Mushrooms are divisive. There are a lot of people who don't like them, but I think you and I are in the same camp where it's just like, give me all the mushrooms you got. 00:45:46.05 Jala Well, and there's so many different types and they all have different textures and flavor profiles that there's just like kind of an endless amount of there's different things to try with them. 00:45:56.86 Michael Prehn Yeah, absolutely. So those are our complimentary seasonings and spices. And then a counterpoint seasoning spice, which is something that contrasts with the primary ingredient, can also be very good. 00:46:07.66 Michael Prehn So ah fresh lemon on fried fish, you know, that's a classic. ah Fried food is so rich that a little bit of citric acid does a great job of breaking up the flavor. 00:46:18.37 Michael Prehn for a bunch of complicated science reasons that we talked about on the previous episode. ah And then fresh melon and the seasoning blend, tagine, is very popular because, again, it kind of contrasts with the sweetness of the melon. 00:46:23.67 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:46:33.01 Michael Prehn Sugar and salt on grapefruit. And then, of course, buffalo wings because same reason, acid counterpoints the fried wings really nicely and the heat kind of breaks it up too. 00:46:44.05 Jala Right, right. We talked a lot about this on the last episode where we were discussing different things that balance out and talking about like sharp flavors versus rounded flavors and all this other kind of mess that if this sounds like Greek to you, go listen to that episode. 00:46:47.67 Michael Prehn yeah 00:46:58.63 Jala It's worth it. So... 00:47:01.25 Michael Prehn Yeah, and the way you might apply this in cooking is, ah say you make a pot of something and you taste it and you're just like, man, this really went in a different direction than I thought it was going to. And it's like salvageable, but it's not really what I'm looking for. 00:47:14.76 Michael Prehn A counterpoint can be really great for bringing it back towards the middle and making it awesome. 00:47:18.99 Jala hmm. 00:47:20.36 Michael Prehn Like, um ah you know, I grew up Cuban as well. A big thing is that they put ah sherry vinegar in their beans, um or at least my mom's family did. so That works really well because beans are there rich in iron. They have very earthy flavors, so that vinegar kind of pulls it back towards something more well-balanced. 00:47:42.74 Jala Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, like, the thing about it is that, for me, um my family particularly really likes citrus things. So like, my solution for many, many problems 00:47:58.28 Michael Prehn Okay. 00:47:58.39 Jala is to put a little bit of citrus in whatever it is. And and most of the time that that is something that will perk up the flavor of pretty much anything. 00:48:02.56 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:48:07.58 Jala Now, what exactly type of citrus I'm going to use? Am I going to go out to my lime tree and pull some lime leaves to get just a little bit of that flavoring in there, but without overpowering it? Am I going to use um some fresh zest? Am I going to use juice? 00:48:21.70 Jala You know, like what am what am I going to, am I actually going to use the pulpy flesh of the thing? Like that that's up for debate, depends on the dish. 00:48:26.32 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:48:28.71 Jala But yeah, right. 00:48:29.16 Michael Prehn Do you add it when it's hot, which will kind of mute mute the citrus a little bit or you add it when it's cold, it'll be more predominant. 00:48:32.23 Jala Uh-huh. 00:48:36.41 Michael Prehn There's lots of different things you can do with that. 00:48:36.78 Jala Mm-hmm. Oh, yes. 00:48:40.02 Michael Prehn Yeah, and citrus is great because it adds acidity and it neutralizes a lot of other flavor types. So if you have something that is too spicy, too salty, too bitter, anything like that, a squeeze of citrus juice can help mellow it out a lot. 00:48:56.73 Jala Yep. Yep. 00:48:57.07 Michael Prehn So we pretty much always have limes and lemons in the pantry here at the print house. 00:48:58.10 Jala yep 00:49:01.76 Jala Mm hmm. Same over here. We have lots and lots of this available. That's why we had a lime tree. I'm so sad that the freeze killed it. It's trying to grow back, but like it's growing back from rootstock. 00:49:09.29 Michael Prehn Oh, that sucks. 00:49:11.74 Jala So it might not ever actually produce again. So I'm very sad because those limes were so cool. They were ah spicy limes. I don't even know how to explain it. 00:49:20.55 Michael Prehn Oh, interesting. 00:49:21.36 Jala They were spicy. And I don't know, like I i cannot, I've looked around. i cannot figure out what species. It's some kind of a hybrid that somebody made. And I don't know what it was. 00:49:31.21 Michael Prehn Interesting. 00:49:32.28 Jala I don't know what it was. Cause we had that tree for like 20 years. So. 00:49:36.77 Michael Prehn Yeah, we had a Meyer lemon tree when I was growing up. I still do, actually. It's still around. 00:49:41.36 Jala ah 00:49:41.43 Michael Prehn And Meyer lemons are interesting because they almost have like a flowery note to them, unlike regular lemons. they're great in desserts. A little bit useful and savory, but you can still find things to do with them. 00:49:50.63 Jala Oh yeah. 00:49:55.03 Jala Right. Right. So let's talk about the broth. 00:49:56.85 Michael Prehn Yeah, so 00:49:59.61 Michael Prehn yeah um so you might be thinking if you're listening to this and you're not familiar with the field of cooking, oh my gosh, there's so many seasonings, so many spices. How do i even figure out which one would be good for a dish? 00:50:11.93 Michael Prehn This is a question that I get a lot from people who are less experienced with cooking is like, well, what even do I do with thyme? What do I do with rosemary? Things like that. um I do what's called the broth method, which is basically like I make a weak broth of ah either vegetable or chicken a little bit of salt, and then I mix in a good bit of whatever that flavoring ingredient is with some oil, and then let it hang out for a minute and take a sip of it. 00:50:42.95 Michael Prehn And that, because you have it in a neutral solution with both water and fat in it, it's going to draw out a lot of the flavors inherent to those herbs or spices and allow you to taste it in a vacuum, which should give you a good idea of how you might use them. 00:50:56.83 Jala Well, and also the salt helps to enhance the flavor just a bit as well. 00:51:02.34 Michael Prehn Right. Yes, absolutely. So then you can take that knowledge and internalize it And next time you're cooking something, go, you know what this needs? Dot, dot, dot. 00:51:14.09 Jala Yep, exactly. So i ah I was just going to say, I've told you before that, um you know, my method of this was not, it was much more primitive than that. 00:51:16.60 Michael Prehn Yeah. And the final note. Oh, sorry. 00:51:25.53 Jala It would be like, I just eat the spice out of the jar. It wouldn't even have the solution. 00:51:29.74 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:51:29.81 Jala And that i would just, you know, and the thing is, is that the problem is that I am a very strange person. So like I will eat a completely plain potato. for example, just to eat the flavor of the potato. 00:51:41.87 Jala i am also the same person that will be hooked on like smoked paprika and just want to eat smoked paprika by itself. Like, I just like the flavor of it. 00:51:50.28 Michael Prehn Well, that's just smoked paprika is delicious. 00:51:53.08 Jala I like it so much. 00:51:53.22 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:51:54.52 Jala I'm like, I just, I want this flavor, but you know, it's too much. So don't let me into your spice cabinet is I guess what I'm trying to say. i am kind of a gremlin. 00:52:05.12 Michael Prehn Especially not with the smoked paprika. That stuff ain't cheap. 00:52:07.53 Jala Oh, no no, no, no, it's not, but it's so good. Anyway, so moving right along. 00:52:11.94 Michael Prehn Yeah. Sure. ah One last note on seasonings and spices. They do interplay when you're building flavors. So dry cooking methods will char seasonings and spices, which transforms their flavors. 00:52:19.94 Jala hmm. 00:52:25.31 Michael Prehn You know, here in Louisiana, we have the blackened ah chicken or fish or whatever you have. That is the primary cooking method for ah or the premier one for this kind of um way of transforming spices. 00:52:38.11 Michael Prehn then wet cooking methods can allow a stronger infusion because you're drawing all of the flavor compounds out of something. If you're eating the herbs dry out of the spice cabinet, like my co-host, you might not get as much flavor ah out of them as if you ah were to poach them for a while and allow it to break down a little bit. 00:52:53.70 Jala I don't know. 00:53:01.54 Jala right right so and and something else i wanted to add too is that in a lot of recipes for example if you're doing a slow cooker recipe they will tell you take all of the take the onions and then also these spices and these other things and cook the onions in the pan and then put the spices in and then mix them and then put this liquidy thing in that's part of the sauce or whatever and do all this other stuff in the pan first before you put it in the crock pot 00:53:03.97 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:53:29.20 Jala And a lot of people I know are like, why don't I just put it all in the crock pot? 00:53:32.99 Michael Prehn my mother yeah 00:53:34.19 Jala And it's like, no, it does something different when you put it in the pan and you do the thing there. They are telling you to do that for a reason. And it comes out better when you do it that way. ah It's transforming those ingredients ah before you get them into the crock pot for the rest of the cooking time. 00:53:50.12 Jala And you want it to have that good taste that it's already got from that pre-cooking cooking, if you will, you know. 00:53:56.54 Michael Prehn Yep. Anyone who has ever had pepper raw versus ah pepper when it's like cooked in a pan, especially with some oil where it's effectively fried. They're totally different things. Or another example is like garlic. Like raw garlic has culinary uses, but it's very different than cooked garlic. 00:54:15.52 Jala Yes, I've tried all of these things raw. i've also tried I've also tried them. 00:54:18.79 Michael Prehn yeah 00:54:21.06 Jala Sat there and tried to eat the chichuan. found some chichuan peppers, but they were like the holes or something and they didn't give me any tingle. 00:54:26.69 Michael Prehn Okay. 00:54:27.06 Jala I was so sad. I'm so sad. 00:54:29.31 Michael Prehn Hey, a heart to find. We will continue our crusade to locate them. I did talk to my powder guy. 00:54:33.23 Jala I need to find them. 00:54:34.51 Michael Prehn Didn't find it yet. 00:54:35.78 Jala Yeah, i I need to find some Xichuan pepper because I need to experience this for myself. See see the ah first the science of flavor episode when we were talking about Xichuan pepper for a while. 00:54:45.48 Michael Prehn yeah 00:54:46.81 Jala But 00:54:47.19 Michael Prehn Yeah. so the final part of the ah technique is timing. um So this is the last thing you want to think about. And part of the reason why this is the last thing is because it's the trickiest one to master. 00:55:02.16 Michael Prehn When I'm talking about timing in the ah con in the context of this particular cooking technique, I mean, how do you time your ingredients in such a way that they're cooked and ideally? 00:55:14.87 Michael Prehn ah 00:55:15.10 Jala Mm 00:55:15.49 Michael Prehn So without proper timing, um the flavors you built in your dish aren't going to be at their best. Obviously, overcooked ingredients tend to be off-putting texture-wise, and they don't usually make the best contact with your taste buds, so they're not only going to be tough, they're not going to taste that great either. 00:55:32.70 Michael Prehn Likewise, if an ingredient isn't given enough time to cook, flavors might not combine properly, or, ah God forbid, they'll be unsafe to eat. So mastering the element of timing is very important with dishes. 00:55:41.76 Jala oh 00:55:46.34 Michael Prehn Another important aspect of timing is recognizing that ingredients don't all cook at the same speed. 00:55:52.67 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:55:52.89 Michael Prehn So if you're cooking a big dish of something, that especially something that has many ingredients in it, a lot of different steps, you may want to consider cooking them in phases or even separately. 00:56:05.44 Michael Prehn This is a cardinal sin of mine about soups, every soup, basically any recipe for soups that you can find online or even in cookbooks. is a lot of time they tell you to kind of like dump everything into one pot and just boil it until it's done. 00:56:18.83 Jala No, no, no. 00:56:20.81 Michael Prehn No, don't do that. ah Because like beef doesn't cook at the same speed that onions do. And, you know, so if you throw it all in there, something's going to be overcooked and something's going to be undercooked probably. 00:56:29.60 Jala Right. Well, and... 00:56:36.30 Jala Well, for example, if you have peas or something and you put those in at the same time as the beef, oh God, you don't want that in at the same time as the beef. 00:56:40.36 Michael Prehn yeah 00:56:45.51 Jala That's going to be a mush is what that's going to be at the end of Right. 00:56:49.35 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:56:49.98 Jala so 00:56:50.29 Michael Prehn Everyone likes most ingredients to have some kind of toothsomeness and mastering timing is a good way to understand how to maximize that. I think this is a big part of the reason why I like a lot of Americans don't like soup, for example, is because it is extremely mushy because it's you probably have to overcook the vegetables to get the meat where it needs to go. 00:57:03.80 Jala right 00:57:11.11 Michael Prehn Um, 00:57:11.32 Jala Right. 00:57:12.88 Michael Prehn Unfortunately, timing is probably, again, the hardest thing to master. It's very experiential. It's the type of thing that you just kind of have to play around with. ah But a good starting point, if anyone's out there wondering, is um we use a a vegetable base to cook a lot of things in classic French cuisine. 00:57:32.29 Michael Prehn You've seen this before, although they maybe not call it this term, but mirepoix is what it's called, which is a mixture of onions and ah carrots and and celery. 00:57:43.52 Michael Prehn um These things don't cook at the same speed. So like typically when I'm cooking them, I do like a three, two, one method. I put the carrots in first because they're most durable. They'll stand up the best to the cooking. 00:57:55.21 Michael Prehn And then I add the celery about a minute later and then cook that for a minute. And then finally add the onions because they break down the fastest. And then might continue to cook it after that point. But it it means that those vegetables are going to kind of be where they need to be whenever they're done cooking. 00:58:12.46 Michael Prehn And again, not a hard and fast rule. It's just something I've found useful over the years. 00:58:17.17 Jala Oh, right. And that's the kind of thing where um it's like, when Dave was learning how to cook, all over again when when we were cooking together. 00:58:29.02 Jala And um you know he's like, well, the the you know the recipe says it needs to be in there for five minutes. The onions need to be cooked for five minutes. And i'm like, yeah, but it also says that they need to be translucent. 00:58:39.97 Jala These are not translucent onions. 00:58:40.87 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:58:41.65 Jala You need to cook that a lot longer than that. But also onions are tricky. Onions really need like to to get them to the point that they don't have that bitter note. like you might You might want that bitter note for something that you're cooking. 00:58:54.83 Jala But if you don't want them to be bitter, you really need to cook them low and slow for like a long time. 00:58:55.16 Michael Prehn Right. 00:59:00.11 Jala You know, like we're talking like half an hour of low and slow cooking to really let that do its thing. Because onions are very complex and they do a lot of really great things in cooking. And that that's why it's in everything. 00:59:12.18 Michael Prehn Yeah, yeah, exactly. 00:59:12.26 Jala but But like they are so tricky to get right. Because even the cutting method will possibly fuck up your onions. 00:59:21.42 Michael Prehn Yep, exactly right. 00:59:22.76 Jala So... 00:59:22.84 Michael Prehn If anyone's ever had a French onion soup at a restaurant and then tried to reproduce it at home and couldn't figure out why the restaurant soup is so much better than yours, it's because they do cook it for a surprisingly long time. 00:59:36.04 Jala Right. 00:59:36.31 Michael Prehn That is a recipe that is frequently used as a hazing method for new restaurant ah employees because... it's the most boring thing in the world. Cause you just have to sit there stirring a pot for, you know, sometimes hours, depending on how much you're making at a time. 00:59:50.05 Jala Oh, yeah. Right. 00:59:53.71 Michael Prehn Um, but that can be very different than, for example, if you're trying to make fried onions to go on top of something that's going to cook very fast. 00:59:59.39 Jala Oh, yeah. 01:00:00.91 Michael Prehn So it just, it, it depends on what you're going for. 01:00:01.03 Jala Mm hmm. 01:00:03.50 Michael Prehn Right. 01:00:03.70 Jala Oh, absolutely. 01:00:03.86 Michael Prehn Again, it's like adding moisture, subtracting moisture, developing sugar, what you want to do. um 01:00:09.63 Jala Right. 01:00:10.15 Michael Prehn For the uninitiated, if you're not familiar with timing, especially when it comes to proteins, a temperature probe is an invaluable tool to help with this. 01:00:19.03 Jala Oh, yes. 01:00:20.37 Michael Prehn um If you're cooking chicken or beef or anything like that, especially a big cut where it's kind of difficult to estimate when it's done, ah temperature probe can really take a lot of the guesswork out of it because once you get the chicken or whatever you're cooking, 01:00:35.29 Michael Prehn to a certain temperature, you know it's going to be done at that point. You don't even have to cut into it. So it's very useful for that and also for food safety purposes. And you can also use it as mile marker where you cook a recipe and you know, okay, this was the point when I pulled my soup off the stove. 01:00:54.12 Michael Prehn It was 165 degrees or whatever it was. so And it came out perfect. So I know in the future, want to get to 165. It gives you like a specific number to work with And they're cheap. 01:01:06.24 Michael Prehn You can get a really good quality one at a restaurant supply store for maybe 30 bucks, if even. 01:01:12.17 Jala if hu And also on the note of temperature things, this is not food related, but it's drink related. So tea, Mike, I don't know if you know, if you have really seen me talk about tea a whole lot. Dave and I have gotten into loose leaf teas and learning all about teas and now we're tea snobs. 01:01:31.24 Jala We're tea snobs. We've learned enough about ah different types of tea to have like a discernible, like, oh, I can, I can taste like we do tastings of tea now, like we do for wine. So um we're those people now. 01:01:44.56 Michael Prehn Yeah, the problem with tea is that there's no one who's in it a normal amount. 01:01:44.70 Jala And. 01:01:49.42 Michael Prehn It's like either you're ambivalent to tea or you're on that end of the spectrum where you're just like, oh, I don't buy that brand, you know? 01:01:49.60 Jala Right. 01:01:53.78 Jala Right. 01:01:57.11 Jala Yeah, right, right. Well, so like we do like the loose leaf single origin from a certain estate in India, kind of tea type of thing at this point. um Like we try a bunch of different stuff, including bagged stuff, but like it's it's a whole thing. And like we judge the quality of a tea by looking at the leaves and and all the other stuff. Like we know all about the tea grades and stuff. 01:02:20.27 Jala Anyway, the whole point of mentioning this is that The temperature at which you steep a tea makes a huge difference because say a black tea has to be steeped at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. 01:02:28.41 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:02:33.41 Jala That's very, very hot. 01:02:35.32 Michael Prehn Yes. 01:02:35.40 Jala So um you have to steep that. And then you also have to steep it usually for something like five minutes. But a green tea, if you steep it, it needs to be at 180. If you steep a green tea at 212 for five minutes, you're going to get a bitter, 01:02:51.03 Jala horrible tea that's been burned by the water because the leaves are more delicate. 01:02:51.48 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:02:54.04 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 01:02:56.03 Jala So like the temperature is important also in your beverages that benefit, like also go alongside your foods. So I only mentioned that just for that one thing, you can learn all about it on the internet. 01:03:08.00 Jala I promise you, I won't go into it here because i will nerd out on tea for a while, but just wanted to add that since we mentioned, since we mentioned temperature gauges, I have a temperature gauge for my tea. 01:03:09.86 Michael Prehn ah yeah 01:03:14.54 Michael Prehn We can add it. 01:03:19.54 Jala So 01:03:21.33 Michael Prehn Yeah, absolutely. And ah we we can add it to the bingo board of potential future ah episodes we talk about regarding food and beverage. It's just a beverage episode because I've done a lot of mixology work too. 01:03:29.68 Jala Oh, yes. oh 01:03:33.29 Michael Prehn And I live in Louisiana. 01:03:33.60 Jala ah 01:03:34.69 Michael Prehn i drink too much. 01:03:35.12 Jala yeah Oh, man. 01:03:36.41 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:03:37.02 Jala And Dave loves mixing drinks. So like that would be that that we'd have to have Dave on too for that one. 01:03:39.93 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:03:42.86 Jala Yeah. 01:03:43.60 Michael Prehn Ah, the triplicate, the triumvirate. 01:03:43.78 Jala So. nothing yeah 01:03:46.89 Michael Prehn Yeah. So, you know, temperature, it's everyone interacts with it. 01:03:47.48 Jala so 01:03:51.84 Michael Prehn It's easiest thing to learn. Hardest thing to master. A lot of professional chefs I know haven't mastered. I haven't mastered it. I don't think anyone really does, but it's something that you have to think about a little bit. 01:04:03.03 Michael Prehn um So some other general, tidbits about cooking. ah This is kind of my list that I go through. If someone's like, Hey Mike, how do I cook things? 01:04:15.23 Jala sir 01:04:15.82 Michael Prehn Which is a broad topic, but the these are some key advices. um Taste foods, taste it early, taste it often, taste it all the time. Try not to burn your tongue when possible. 01:04:26.67 Jala Right. 01:04:27.63 Michael Prehn Have someone else taste it as well, because obviously it's very personal experience. 01:04:29.86 Jala Mm hmm. 01:04:32.54 Michael Prehn I'm a salt fiend. I was raised Cuban. I've worked in food service my entire life, basically. My palate is a pretty, i don't want to say wrecked because i've I've trained it a lot, but it is definitely on the salty side of things because that's the kind of stuff that I eat most of the time. 01:04:49.95 Michael Prehn ah You want to have someone else taste it to make sure it's all right. um 01:04:53.63 Jala Right. 01:04:54.83 Michael Prehn If something tastes flat or without an appropriate backdrop, quote unquote, for your star ingredient, herbs are usually a good way to round out a dish. um Talking about herbs, dried herbs and fresh herbs often have subtly different flavors. 01:05:12.49 Michael Prehn Dried herbs are also going to be more concentrated than their fresh counterparts. This varies from herb to herb, but it's roughly three to one. So if you're ah using three teaspoons of thyme fresh, you would probably use one teaspoon of it dried. 01:05:30.17 Michael Prehn um And then quite a lot of flavor compounds and herbs don't spread within a dish without a fat component. So if you're using herbs, you want to also use fat. This is doubly true for dried herbs, and you even want to probably introduce some additional moisture as well because they really don't flourish without that. 01:05:49.51 Jala oh yeah and speaking about like the differences between the taste of a dried and a fresh herb this last weekend one of the things that dave and i made was a creamy mushroom risotto and that was tarragon and it called for fresh tarragon we have dry tarragon and i was like oh dave no 01:06:01.03 Michael Prehn Oh, yeah. 01:06:08.98 Jala He's like, well, we have dried tarragon. And I'm like, no, no, we cannot. um And so we ended up getting some tarragon, fresh tarragon and brought it home. And I was like, Dave, here, try this dried tarragon and now try the fresh tarragon. 01:06:25.20 Jala And he was like, oh, my God, those are not even the same thing. I'm like, exactly. That's why we had to go get the fresh one. 01:06:31.29 Michael Prehn Yep. Yeah. Tarragon is an herb that relative to some of the woodier ones like rosemary, it's got a lot of water in it. So like the drying process affects its flavor much more than a lot of other dried herbs. 01:06:45.15 Michael Prehn And look, I'll be the first to say like dried herbs and spices aren't necessarily worse or useless. They're just different. 01:06:56.06 Michael Prehn Like there are a lot of recipes that I actually think garlic powder or granulated garlic is better than fresh garlic. 01:07:03.39 Jala Right. 01:07:04.20 Michael Prehn And just kind of, it just depends on what you're going for. 01:07:04.41 Jala A hundred percent. 01:07:07.87 Michael Prehn So, you know, don't, and you you don't want to write off the humble dried herb. It's just recognize that they do have different applications. 01:07:12.55 Jala ah 01:07:15.70 Jala Right. Right. And especially if for example, that fresh herb is going to be like the star part of the star flavor profile of your thing. 01:07:24.57 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:07:25.43 Jala Like with this risotto, there weren't a lot of things going on in that. Okay. Like it was pretty mild. 01:07:30.81 Michael Prehn Yeah, risotto has three ingredients. 01:07:32.90 Jala It's very, very mild flavor. So like to put that tarragon in there, that's the star ingredient. If you're, if it says fresh and you're using dry, it's, going it's not going to come out. It's going to come out a lot weaker and not, not the kind of flavor that you're looking for in that particular dish. 01:07:50.55 Jala So Yeah, but I love dried, I love my dried herbs and in spices. 01:07:55.44 Michael Prehn yeah 01:07:55.87 Jala Absolutely. But um there are certain instances where you do want to have fresh, like say, for example, if you're doing something like how you mentioned, like, or if you do something like tomato caprice, and you put like basil or something in there, um, 01:08:10.08 Michael Prehn Yeah, you would never want to use Stride for that. 01:08:10.64 Jala you know, like you want fresh basil. You don't want it. You don't want dry basil in that. um And also to speak about Terracon, I have a recipe that's one of my favorites. It's one from when I was vegetarian and I have a vegan goat cheese I can use for it, but it is spring leek hash with polenta and goat cheese. 01:08:28.71 Jala So it has leeks and it has 01:08:29.90 Michael Prehn sounds delicious. 01:08:30.96 Jala Yeah, it's got leeks. It's got yellow bell pepper. has fresh tarragon in it. um Polenta slices. Like you you use one of those little rolls of polenta. This isn't like you make a fresh batch or anything. 01:08:42.01 Michael Prehn Yeah, for sure. 01:08:42.64 Jala and And then you top each of the little slices with a bit of goat cheese. It's so good. Like the tarragon goes so well with the goat cheese. 01:08:51.53 Michael Prehn Terragon's a really useful herb and I think underused in America probably. 01:08:51.78 Jala so 01:08:56.18 Jala Absolutely. Like, it's so hard to find in the grocer. There's only like one grocer that even has it here. so 01:09:03.89 Michael Prehn Yeah. And, um, Talking about dry spices as well, ah here's part of the reason why they can be inferior is that they're inherently volatile in nature. They don't spoil like a fresh herb would, but they do lose a lot of their flavor over time. 01:09:18.72 Michael Prehn So if you've had that bottle of allspice in the back of your spice cabinet like all of us do, and it's been there for six months, You may not want to use it just because it's not going to be unsafe, but it's really not going to taste like a whole lot. 01:09:31.96 Michael Prehn Same thing with black pepper or anything else. That's why a lot of recipes recommend ah grinding it as you're cooking it. I don't necessarily go that far, even in my professional life, but you know there is a time span in which these things peak. 01:09:46.80 Jala um right and that's that's something you say a few months come on let's be real mike most of america probably has shit that's in their spice cabinet that they have had for five plus years that it's in their spice cabinet and they're like i'm not gonna get rid of this this container of cloves because i needed cloves for something once and i still have cloves and Now granted, cloves have such a strong taste to them that, you know, it's probably still got a lot of punch in there. 01:09:58.57 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:10:15.87 Michael Prehn yeah 01:10:18.56 Jala But, you know, anyway, like. 01:10:21.12 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's um there's a can of tomato paste. I guarantee you, listener, and I as well, and probably you too, Jala, a can of tomato paste in the back of a pantry somewhere that has seen World War II. Okay. 01:10:34.60 Jala Not my pantry. ah We go through so much tomato paste. I don't even know what all like but know what all we're making that it uses so much tomato paste, but we use tomato paste all the time. 01:10:37.82 Michael Prehn Okay. 01:10:43.80 Jala We're always like, do we have any tomato paste? No. God damn it. Now we have to go to the store for tomato paste or whatever. 01:10:49.88 Michael Prehn You know what it probably is is because I've seen tomato paste in a lot of vegan recipes because it imparts some of the same kind of flavors that you might get from like a meat, like an animal protein product. 01:10:49.94 Jala Yeah. 01:10:55.29 Jala yeah 01:11:02.12 Jala Probably because like, I think in a lot of, a lot of recipes it's used in conjunction with something like soy sauce to give it like umami, you know? 01:11:08.63 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:11:09.93 Jala Um, so that's probably part of it. So, yeah, I don't have that in particular. 01:11:13.05 Michael Prehn Yeah, I would think so. 01:11:14.55 Jala I'm sure I've got something in my pantry that's old, but it's not that. 01:11:18.55 Michael Prehn Yeah. ah That was always the thing for my mom is she would buy tomato paste. And then the next time she'd go to the store, she forgot that she bought tomato paste. 01:11:26.89 Jala And she'd buy another one. 01:11:27.20 Michael Prehn So she bought another can. 01:11:28.00 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:11:28.43 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:11:28.60 Jala Yeah. 01:11:29.67 Michael Prehn So um viscosity is an important part of flavor as well. And one that a lot of people don't pay super great attention to, I think. 01:11:34.69 Jala Oh yes. 01:11:38.24 Michael Prehn um Or it just doesn't come to mind ah more often than not. So a lot of time, especially if you're making a dish that has a lot of water in it, like a soup or a big ah pot roast or something like that, um if the viscosity on it is too low, it can really affect the quality of its flavor. And we talked about this in the previous episode about and the the science behind flavor. 01:12:03.38 Michael Prehn This is simply a surface area thing. Your taste buds want to make contact with everything in the dish that you made. but if it is a runnier dish, it runs away from the taste buds. So you want to make sure that you have some viscosity to basically everything that you cook. 01:12:20.96 Michael Prehn This can be achieved a lot of different ways. Um, cornstarch, very popular. Anyone who's eaten at a Chinese buffet has seen this before because cornstarch is very popular ingredient, particularly in, in, uh, Asian dishes. 01:12:34.04 Michael Prehn Uh, If you're cooking with cornstarch and you've never messed with it before, do not add it directly to the dish. You will have a big problem on your hands. 01:12:42.62 Jala yeah 01:12:43.27 Michael Prehn Uh, it cooks very fast. So it turns into these horrible little globs and you're not going to be able to save your dish probably. 01:12:50.71 Jala Yeah. 01:12:50.77 Michael Prehn So you want to mix cornstarch with cold water and then add it to the dish. And that way it cooks evenly and spreads throughout. Uh, Doesn't really have much flavor, but it will impart a little bit of a shininess to a dish and viscosity, importantly. 01:13:05.80 Michael Prehn And it's also very affordable. um So cornstarch is a great ingredient. Shelf-stable. It's awesome. um Cooked starches like potatoes or rice or even pasta can be blended until smooth and added to a dish to thicken it. 01:13:20.89 Michael Prehn I make probably at least twice a year a orzo soup, and I always cook 01:13:26.52 Jala Hmm. 01:13:28.43 Michael Prehn about 25% more of the orzo than I actually need. and add it to a blender with a little bit of water and I make this like, it's just pasta paste basically. But you add it back to the soup and it's like, I hear it all the time when I serve it to people they go, oh my God, the soup is so satisfying. 01:13:44.92 Michael Prehn Soup's not normally like this. And it's like, well, it's because it's got all this pasta in it. Of course it's good. Yeah. 01:13:52.30 Michael Prehn um A culinary technique that's pretty popular in the professional word world is something called a beurre manier. ah This is useful because it both thickens a dish and adds fat, which is flavor to it. 01:14:06.95 Michael Prehn So beurre manier is just a French term for a paste made by mixing butter and flour together until it's mostly solid. So all you really do if you want to make this at home is you just take a little bit of butter. You don't really need a ton. couple tablespoons for most dishes is the most you're ever going to need. 01:14:25.37 Michael Prehn And then you let it warm up a little bit until you can work it easily with your hands. You add flour. You roll it around in your palms. If it's still ah sticky to the touch, like butter tends to be, you add more flour. You roll it around. And then you keep doing that until eventually it's going to form a ball that kind of has the consistency of Play-Doh, if you've ever messed with that, but a little bit looser. 01:14:50.27 Michael Prehn That's a beurre manier. You can stick in your fridge and save it. If you don't use all of it, you want to do it covered because butter and flour both absorb flavors. But this is a really great thing to add at the end of a dish, right before you turn off the heat and stir it in. And it makes it, it gives it this good thickness and this good richness and it's just a great thickening method. So very useful. 01:15:12.33 Michael Prehn I highly recommend trying it. You can even freeze it if you want to, if you don't want to make this all the time. 01:15:18.69 Jala Awesome. Awesome. Secret techniques. 01:15:22.28 Michael Prehn Yeah, beurre-mognier is really useful. um And it's worth mentioning that these methods can only be used if the dish is hot. Cold dishes usually need to be thickened via some kind of chemical treatment or emulsification because much like the cornstarch, 01:15:38.27 Michael Prehn potatoes, rice, pasta, and even beurre manier, they're not going to distribute in a cold liquid. They're not going to melt. So then you get clumps and nobody nobody really wants that. 01:15:47.44 Jala Mm-hmm. Absolutely. 01:15:51.43 Michael Prehn So my next cooking ah tip, and y'all have probably heard this before, but you always want try and, yeah, from us, probably, i think we've mentioned it at least once in every episode we've recorded, 01:15:56.89 Jala From us on the last episode. Mm 01:16:03.83 Jala hmm. 01:16:03.95 Michael Prehn But ah you always want to use stock in the place of water if you can. um Making stock from scratch is very easy to do. It's time consuming unless you use a pressure cooker. 01:16:16.48 Michael Prehn ah 01:16:16.96 Jala Mm hmm. 01:16:17.66 Michael Prehn But for those of y'all that may not be familiar with the technique, a stock is really just boiled scraps of food. And this can be scraps from an animal product that you are cutting up for your dish. 01:16:30.04 Michael Prehn This can be scraps from vegetables. Basically, almost any part of a meal that is organic, but you can't really use it in the final product, can be good for a stock. 01:16:42.31 Michael Prehn So I like to use lemongrass, mushrooms, the tops and bottoms of onions and potatoes. ah Any kind of bone from an animal is fantastic for this stuff. 01:16:53.69 Michael Prehn um But, you know, if you're not going to make a stock, this week, because it is a time consuming process, you throw all those scraps into like a gallon Ziploc bag in your freezer. 01:17:05.44 Michael Prehn And then whenever you're ready to make a stock, you can just dump it out into a pot, cover it with water, and then you want to boil it for at least two hours ah or as long as you feel like it. 01:17:05.56 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:17:16.28 Michael Prehn The longer you go, the more flavor you'll extract from the ingredients up to a point. Vegetables tend to be go very fast, so you really only need a couple hours. If you have animal bones in there, you're going to want to do a little bit longer on that. 01:17:29.51 Jala yup Yep. Yep. And so ah we talked about this before. I'll mention it again. i use all of my little scraps, like, you know, the tops of the celery with all the leaves and stuff that I'm not going to use or any of that other stuff. 01:17:39.27 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:17:41.01 Jala And especially if there's any vegetables in the fridge that are about to go bad, but they're not bad yet. and And I'm not going to use them for anything because I've already cooked all the things I need to cook. 01:17:51.59 Jala And that's not one of the things that I have. 01:17:52.57 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 01:17:53.71 Jala I'm going to go ahead and freeze it and put it in my stock. Okay. And, um, when I do that, I'll throw it in there. I'll put the water in there. ah but then I'll also add some other stuff. Like I will tend to put, um, like if I don't have mushrooms on hand to throw in there, then I will do mushroom powder, ah you know, like mushroom, uh, bullion or mushroom powder, depending upon, whatever, or like they also have a very specific like umami, you know, thing that's based off of mushrooms. 01:18:10.77 Michael Prehn yeah 01:18:20.64 Jala That's like a mushroom extract or whatever you, whatever version version of that just gives kind of like a fullness to that flavor when you put it in there. And I also add usually some miso paste as well. 01:18:33.78 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:18:34.19 Jala um I don't throw salt by itself, but when I put the miso in there that has salt in it, I do low sodium miso cause I try to watch my salt in general. Um, but, uh, I put that in there and that, again, that gives it more of a richness and everything like that. 01:18:50.55 Jala Uh, and it really kind of brings out a lot of flavors that are in some of the other things. So, um, and every time that I make veggie stock, it's different because it just depends on whatever I've got that's left over from the last, however long of cooking. 01:19:04.40 Michael Prehn yeah 01:19:05.97 Jala So, uh, it's different every time, but it's fun to do because then I'm like, Oh, I have no idea what this one tastes like. you know, we'll see. But it's definitely hands down so much better than just using water in any recipe. 01:19:14.45 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:19:18.99 Michael Prehn Yeah, most stock tends to be a background flavor. So even if there are minor variations, depending on the ingredients you use, it's not going to come up very much in the final dish. 01:19:28.12 Jala Right. 01:19:29.78 Michael Prehn Yeah, so um essentially you boil the ingredients for a couple of hours, then you strain them out, retain the liquid. The only reason why I specify this, I feel like most of our listeners probably know how to make stock, but I had a friend of mine who ah was looking it up on the internet and they strained their stock, but they kept the solids instead of the liquid. 01:19:49.69 Jala Oh no. 01:19:50.79 Michael Prehn They had never made stock before. um So, you know, specificity in your recipes is very important, folks, is what I'm trying to say. ah If you don't have time for a full stock or space, there are a variety of stock bases that are available in grocery stores. 01:20:08.82 Michael Prehn You've probably seen these before. They come in usually five ounce jars. ah Better than Bullion is a very popular brand that's out there. 01:20:16.46 Jala Oh, yeah. 01:20:17.18 Michael Prehn These are basically, yeah, me too. 01:20:17.49 Jala We have that. Ha, ha, 01:20:19.75 Michael Prehn I got ah lot of them. um I should buy stock in that company. No pun intended. 01:20:25.05 Jala ha, ha. 01:20:26.91 Michael Prehn But ah bases are really great because they're essentially just highly concentrated versions of stock. ah So you can make stock very fast in a pinch. I do it all the time. 01:20:38.55 Michael Prehn um They are very salty naturally because they're supposed to be a shelf stable product. So if you are making stock from base, just make sure you taste it and account for it in the salt levels that you do in the main dish. 01:20:52.32 Michael Prehn ah Alternatively, it doesn't say this anywhere on the label, but I've actually talked to the people that make these things before. The bases are actually supposed to be used with the vegetable scraps as well. 01:21:04.92 Michael Prehn ah You don't have to, they're perfectly fine on their own, but their intention when they're making them is that you would throw your vegetable scraps in there, which soaks up a lot of that salt stuff. 01:21:14.51 Jala o 01:21:14.59 Michael Prehn ah But again, they're great by themselves ah and you can get a lot of flavor out of a really small package with those. um Moving on from stocks, fermented products like tempeh, cheese, soy sauce, kimchi, any kind of alcoholic product that can bring a really complex, rich flavor to a dish. 01:21:35.34 Michael Prehn There's more of those than we could ever talk about. Like we could talk about fermentation until the end of time and you know what all goes with that. 01:21:38.60 Jala Right. 01:21:42.23 Jala ah Yes. 01:21:45.05 Michael Prehn ah But it's truly like nothing else in terms of flavor. So if you have a dish that's a little bit flat and it doesn't quite have that special something in it, a fermented product can do a really great job of punching it up. 01:21:59.99 Michael Prehn I use fish sauce and just about everything that I cook to one degree or another. 01:22:00.15 Jala ah 01:22:05.62 Michael Prehn Um, and that's just one example of it. Uh, there are so many of them out there. 01:22:11.16 Jala right right if it were up to dave he would put kimchi on everything 01:22:15.65 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah. I'm with him on that one. Kimchi is delicious. 01:22:19.46 Jala ah 01:22:20.57 Michael Prehn Very good for you too. 01:22:22.02 Jala yep absolutely 01:22:24.09 Michael Prehn But, uh, and talking about timing a little bit, if you're in doubt about how long to cook something, cook it less and just monitor it closely. ah you know, it's cliche to say, but you can always cook it more, but you can't uncook it. 01:22:37.37 Jala Yep. yep 01:22:37.51 Michael Prehn um It's perfectly fine to pull something out of a pot and either temp it with your probe or cut it into it to find out. But the last thing you want to do is go over because that's not good food. 01:22:48.56 Jala Right. And then to also, if you are keeping in mind that you are doing meal prep for a week or something like that, like I do so often, you also have to consider how cooked does this need to be considering the fact that I will put it on a plate and then microwave it to warm it up, because that will also do additional cooking, especially if you have something like veggies. 01:22:49.10 Michael Prehn And then... 01:22:56.46 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 01:23:07.25 Michael Prehn Yes. 01:23:13.04 Jala you have to really consider ah how long your cooking time is when you are warming it up if you are doing any kind of meal prep. 01:23:13.52 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:23:21.93 Jala So that's just an additional factor I felt I should say. 01:23:25.87 Michael Prehn Yeah, no, it's very true. a lot of time when I'm cooking for myself at my house or i have friends over and they see me cooking things, they tend to go And you're going a little bit under on that, aren't you? And it's like, well, because most of this stuff is going to be heated up later when the rest of the food's ready. 01:23:43.30 Michael Prehn So I prefer to go a little bit shy of what would be considered fully cooked, especially if, like you say, it's going to be microwaved later or something like that. I do meal prep for the whole week at a time as well. So definitely important to think about. 01:23:57.00 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:23:58.67 Michael Prehn And speaking of, if you're saving things for later, if you freeze food, make sure you taste it after you thaw it. Salt and heat levels fluctuate a lot whenever you freeze things. um And it's kind of unpredictable which way they'll go. 01:24:15.30 Michael Prehn Sometimes they'll get saltier. Sometimes they'll lose salt. Heat levels ah can escalate or de-escalate. It just kind of depends on how much water is in the dish, how you froze it, things of that nature. 01:24:28.01 Michael Prehn Eventually, you'll learn to account for these things and predict them, but in the meantime, what you want to do is just taste it after you thaw and make sure that everything's hunky-dory. 01:24:39.58 Jala You know, one of the episodes that I was thinking about that we should do sometime is just like devoted all to knives. 01:24:46.94 Michael Prehn Oh, yeah, I could write a book. 01:24:47.79 Jala Knives and cutting. but 01:24:50.12 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:24:50.86 Jala Knives and cutting your stuff. So. 01:24:53.50 Michael Prehn i I shopped for kitchen shears earlier this year and I was doing it for like a month and a half. And my friends thought I was losing my mind. i'm like, listen, it's important that I get the right shears. Okay. 01:25:06.66 Jala It is very important. It is so important. And like I i have um like I started off with just like my family has ah standard knife and that is the one knife that my parents use to cook cut anything. 01:25:19.74 Jala Right. 01:25:19.75 Michael Prehn That's funny. 01:25:20.63 Jala And then like I went from that to now. No, I want a whole knife set. And I thought I was fancy because I got like Calphalon or something. And that that was, that was like my first set of knives or whatever. 01:25:28.06 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 01:25:31.23 Jala And then, you know, like now I'm starting to get into like, no, I've got some Santoko knives and things like that. But like, they're not, they're they're still just like generic. They're not like, I'm, I know all about knives and I'm really deeply searching for like the best quality. 01:25:47.15 Jala I would like to get to that level. I'm not there right now. So yeah. 01:25:51.17 Michael Prehn Yeah, I am extremely extra about my knives like I am with most of my tools. It's the only thing that I splurge on, really. I don't like go do big social events or go out and party and all that stuff. My main chef knife is a nine-inch meteoric steel Japanese knife made in the French style, and the handle is made of ah finished rosewood from a tree that I planted when I was a kid. 01:26:18.29 Michael Prehn So that gives you the idea of of extra I am about my knives. 01:26:22.50 Jala That is so awesome, Mike. ah Yeah, definitely. 01:26:25.91 Michael Prehn ah that 01:26:26.52 Jala We need to do an episode just about knives and cutting up your stuff. Cause like there's knives and then there's also like the use of the knife and the care of the knife and all of that. 01:26:34.83 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:26:36.10 Jala it's It's a whole thing. So 01:26:37.92 Michael Prehn Absolutely. 01:26:39.12 Jala Anyway, so that I believe is the end of your cooking 101 notes as of today's episode. I mean, there's obviously a lot we can talk about forever for the end of time. 01:26:50.64 Jala But did you think of anything additional that you wanted to add in there before we shift over to nutrition focus? 01:26:51.56 Michael Prehn Sure. 01:26:58.05 Michael Prehn Uh, no, I think that covers it for today. i did my best to provide a basic primer, but sometimes it's difficult for me to imagine what people might find confusing. Um, so at the end of the episode, we'll talk about, uh, how you can pester me if you want cooking tips. 01:27:17.41 Jala Right, right. And ah ah cooking methods could be like, we could sit on any one cooking method for any length of time. 01:27:24.01 Michael Prehn Oh yeah. 01:27:24.06 Jala But um just like an episode just about cooking methods, I think would even be a worthwhile endeavor. 01:27:24.38 Michael Prehn 100%. 01:27:30.87 Jala So 01:27:31.52 Michael Prehn hundred percent 01:27:33.10 Jala So ah moving right along, let's shift it over to nutrition 101. So ah we talked about basics on how to cook the things and we've talked about flavor and things like that. 01:27:44.40 Jala But let's talk about how you get your your goods out of this stuff that you're eating. So what is nutrition? Nutrition is fundamentally about eating a balanced and healthy diet. 01:27:56.92 Jala When your nutrition is on point, you not only fuel your body for the present, but also safeguard against illness and dis-ease in the future. Of course, myriad other factors play into poor health outcomes, but Americans in particular seem to be rather adverse to cleaning up what they eat. 01:28:14.45 Jala It's like, ah yeah I think um I've shared it before in the server and possibly the socials. um That meme where you see two different lines, there's like two different windows and there's a long, long, long, long line for pills, medications. 01:28:30.37 Jala And then the other one is like dietary changes in lifestyle. 01:28:30.67 Michael Prehn and 01:28:33.97 Jala And there's like nobody in that line. Everybody's in the the pills. Give me a pill. I don't want to actually adjust anything about my life. it help 01:28:43.71 Michael Prehn Yeah, because it's easy, right? 01:28:45.11 Jala Right, right. So, ah so the goal about talking about nutrition here, though, ah keeping that in mind is to just drop a little bit of fundamental knowledge here and give you some very simple recommendations. 01:29:00.03 Jala So something that's very important to understand is that nutrition is not dieting. Dieting usually involves a short-term removal of some element of your usual eating habits in order to drop weight. 01:29:13.06 Jala Nutrition is about sustaining better lifelong practices. So um diets come and go like all fads. It's important to note that diets consist of removing something from oftentimes something important. 01:29:28.13 Jala Carbs, for example, have been like an enemy. It's in in popular media and stuff for a long time. People go on the keto or ketogenic diet, which is all protein and fat. 01:29:39.59 Jala And what do you think all that fat is is doing to your arteries exactly as you eat nothing but fat and protein for years and years and years? 01:29:40.27 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:29:46.58 Michael Prehn Nothing good. 01:29:47.67 Jala Like, yeah, there are specific populations for whom a ketogenic diet diet makes sense because they have actual specific medical conditions that are lessened by this diet. 01:30:00.18 Jala But for everybody else, it's not recommended by any major health institution. ah Yes, there is... differing science out there. There's a lot of conflicting data, this, that, and the other. 01:30:10.76 Michael Prehn Right. 01:30:10.80 Jala Oh, well, it's a good for but blah, blah, blah. Okay. In general, people have lived on this planet for a very long time and they usually have been eating a variety of things, right? 01:30:23.53 Jala ah People and all animals, as a matter of fact, and they eat a variety of things. They are not ah sticking to, I'm only going to eat proteins and and fats because that's going to get me in my beach body. 01:30:33.97 Michael Prehn right 01:30:35.70 Jala Okay, come on. So anyway, ah there is conflicting science. If you are a keto fan, ah More power to you if that's that's your decision. I respect anyone's decision, whatever that decision may be, even if I don't agree with it. 01:30:50.81 Jala But you can follow any number of diets, meaning here as in vegan or vegetarian or omnivore or whatever, and still maintain good nutrition. 01:31:01.52 Jala However, current science supports following a plant-based diet such as the Mediterranean diet as and and its various permutations such as DASH and MIND. 01:31:12.08 Jala Note that plant-based is not necessarily a vegan or a vegetarian diet. That doesn't mean that you are, um ah plant-based diet does not mean you are 100% plant eating, you only eat like a vegan. 01:31:25.84 Jala That means that you are basing most of your nutrition off of plants, you know? So a Mediterranean style diet. consists mostly of fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds with olive oil as a primary fat source and limited. That means low to moderate amounts of dairy, eggs, fish, and poultry. There's not red meats. 01:31:49.51 Jala ah You do have dairy, eggs, fish, poultry, but you're just not eating like red meats or pork or things like that really. Vegetarians, who are also called ovolactovegetarians, don't eat meat but will eat eggs and dairy. 01:32:06.00 Jala Vegans, such as I, do not eat any animal products. There are also various primarily plant-based diets such as pescatarian, which is basically the same as vegetarian, but they also eat seafood or fruitarian, et cetera, but these are less common. 01:32:24.00 Jala So you don't usually see people who only eat a fruit diet. um There are certain subsects of monks over in ah Southeast Asia, for example, that are fruitarian, but that's not a common practice. 01:32:38.18 Jala Yeah. So i I don't have any nutritional advice for a fruitarian that is very specific. 01:32:39.84 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:32:45.17 Jala So. 01:32:46.30 Michael Prehn Yeah, I don't think I've ever met anyone that adheres to that particular diet. um You know, ah i didn't want to interrupt you there, but, you know, the. The balance of everything that you eat is so important, and Jala knows more about this than than me for sure, but I have found just through my own lived experience that I do a lot better whenever I don't go too extreme in any one particular direction of excess or deprivation. you know 01:33:17.64 Michael Prehn This is an ancient, ancient story. I don't even know if you remember this, Jala, but way back in the day, I was ah grilling you about like nutrition facts because I was like, I work a sedentary job for the most part, lot of desk work kind of thing. 01:33:31.68 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 01:33:32.60 Michael Prehn And it's just like, man, in the afternoons, I'm dragging. I have a really hard time focusing. And it's like, I'm not sleeping very well at night and all this stuff. And I'll never forget your first response was, how many carbs are eating in a day? 01:33:46.99 Michael Prehn i was like, oh, like none, ah because I'm trying to lose weight. 01:33:47.09 Jala ah 01:33:50.46 Michael Prehn And you're like, nah, you got to eat some bread. And ah sure enough, like introducing some carbs into my diet, not a lot because I'm not exercising a ton, but just a little bit. I felt a million times better. So like a lot of it is about understanding what you specifically and your body need. 01:34:09.51 Jala Right. And that's part of the thing. i am not, I, I am educated about nutrition. I have a nutrition certification from NASM, which goes along with my personal training certification, but I am not a nutritionist. I'm not a registered dietitian. I'm I can't give you super detailed for you specific instructions about what is best for your particular body because everyone's body is different. 01:34:26.28 Michael Prehn Right. 01:34:35.39 Jala Different people process things differently. And so there are people for whom, you know, carbs make like cause their body to do different things than it does to other people. 01:34:46.86 Jala Um, certain people need more fat in their diet than other people do, just depending upon what they need in order for their brain functions and things like fat soluble vitamins are important, for example, uh, to your brain functioning. 01:34:47.41 Michael Prehn yeah 01:35:00.85 Jala And you need a certain level of fat in your diet because low fat was a big thing in like the nineties and, and, and whatnot, especially, um ever, you know, fat was the enemy at that point. 01:35:08.51 Michael Prehn Yeah, for sure. 01:35:13.07 Jala And, um, nobody ever gets mad about protein, but everybody gets fat, you know, angry about everything else in the macro world. 01:35:16.81 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:35:19.67 Jala But, um, 01:35:19.78 Michael Prehn I think about that a lot, actually. The fact that like protein hasn't had a turn on the chopping block. 01:35:25.73 Jala Right, right. So, uh, although, you know, it might actually have had a chop, you know, like a turn on the chopping block over in Asia, because I know that in Japan, for example, a lot of the women over there are obsessed with being as small as possible, like the heroin chic kind of thing that was in America, you know, in the nineties again. 01:35:35.33 Michael Prehn Oh, yeah. 01:35:45.51 Jala Um, They are obsessed with like melting away. They have advertisements in Japan for things to melt away the muscle off of your body because they just want to be small and smooth and like that, that kind of thing. 01:35:56.02 Michael Prehn Oh God. 01:36:00.97 Jala So, um, that's, that's the kind of beauty aesthetic that is being touted over there to them. That's super tops toxic, but, um, Anyway, so there's probably a lot of people over there who need more fat in their diet than they actually get ah as part of what I'm i'm mentioning here. 01:36:16.24 Michael Prehn Yeah, probably so. Yeah. 01:36:18.32 Jala So um as in a lot of this is just like to understand how your body best responds is really like a trial and error kind of thing. It's kind of like if you were trying to figure out if you have a food allergy, you start with like a process of elimination and you take out you know, all of these things and slowly reintroduce them one after the other, these common allergens to see which things make you feel bad and and start feeling, you know, whatever. 01:36:44.64 Michael Prehn yeah 01:36:45.61 Jala And it's that kind of a situation. So like for you personally, you might want to try a lower fat diet or a higher fat diet, or you want to do you know, more or less carbs or something like that. 01:36:57.41 Jala Please don't ever cut everything out completely. Like you, the, the macronutrients of fat, protein, and carbs are important for your body to function properly. 01:37:00.95 Michael Prehn no 01:37:08.07 Jala All of these things are required to some degree. It's just a matter of what degrees work best for you and for your goals and and situation like, you know, your, your energy levels and and your requirements, you know, what you're doing with yourself. 01:37:23.01 Jala So ah that's that that's a whole detailed conversation to have there. More broadly speaking, about nutrition, I just mean, you know, like the big takeaway for this opening segment is diets are fads. 01:37:38.73 Jala Diets usually require you to take something out of your out of your eating habits. Now, if it's a diet that says, hey, cook everything at home and don't eat processed food, that's pretty good. 01:37:49.09 Jala Like, I'm i'm a on board for that one, right? 01:37:50.07 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:37:52.44 Jala But like, if it's telling you, hey, don't eat these foods, they are the enemy, that that is a problem. There's a problem there, you know? So... ah Moving right along, let's talk about nutrition labels. 01:38:04.88 Jala Boy, are these messed up. I could go on a tear about how deceptive nutrition labels in America are and how poorly regulated food is. 01:38:06.99 Michael Prehn yeah know 01:38:13.80 Jala But instead, we're going to talk about just some basics about food labels at this time. Maybe we'll have a rant later on in future episode. So when you look at a nutrition label, you want to start with the serving size and the number of servings per container, because those numbers are not going to um like equal what you think they're supposed to equal. Like i swear to you, if you look at a bag of chips and you look at the back of it and it tells you like what the serving size is and how many servings are in that bag. And you're like, oh shit, I ate half the bag plus, 01:38:46.46 Jala Um, how many servings was that just now? 01:38:46.96 Michael Prehn Yep. Yeah. 01:38:48.99 Jala You know, like, uh, you want to but really like take, take a gander at this information, just be aware of it. You know, like part of what I recommend to a lot of people is track your eating for a week, not changing your eating, just tracking it in something like my fitness pal or whatever fitness tracker you want to use that, that does food tracking. 01:39:10.44 Jala Yeah. And, um, put that information in there and just see what you're eating. 01:39:11.47 Michael Prehn you know 01:39:16.10 Jala And then once you have that information, you can start tweaking it and go, Oh, wow. I didn't realize I was eating 70% carbs in my diet diet. Well, okay. Well then maybe you need to adjust those numbers a little bit, you know, and see how you feel and what improves how you feel. 01:39:32.93 Jala so 01:39:33.48 Michael Prehn Yeah, a lot of studies out there that I've seen um say that like even just the act of counting your calories can do quite a lot to improve your health because you're just aware of what you're eating. 01:39:41.99 Jala makes you more conscious oh yeah 01:39:46.11 Michael Prehn like um The thing that always gets me is like you get that five-ounce bag of beef jerky, and you read the nutrition label on the back, and it's got 10 servings per container. 01:39:57.85 Michael Prehn It's like, holy cow, this is three times as much sodium as I need in a day. 01:39:58.98 Jala right 01:40:02.70 Jala Right. Absolutely. Well, and then too, here's the, here's the other part of it. So this is a ah bridge farther than most people are going to want to do, but just as an exercise in, ah humbling yourself and learning about how much you're actually eating when it the serving size says a cup, or if you're trying to log how much of rice or vegetables or whatever you're eating, 01:40:28.43 Jala Actually measure out, get a kitchen scale, get some measuring cups, measure out a cup. It's not what you think it is. I promise you it's not what you think it is. A cup of that is not what you think it is. 01:40:37.83 Michael Prehn Probably not, no. 01:40:40.29 Jala Unless you're a cook, like Mike, you probably know what a cup looks like, but most people don't know that. So um it's going to be a lot less than you think. So um all of this to say, you know, this this information is important for you to understand how to better improve how you feel overall and what you're doing with yourself that will will be productive towards whatever your goals are. 01:41:04.53 Jala So, um, yeah, my next recommendation is run the numbers, figure out how many calories are in that container of whatever pre-made thing that has this nutrition label on it. Like how many calories are in that bag of chips or for me, how, how many calories are in that bag of that granola that you love so much that you are obsessed with eating? 01:41:23.34 Michael Prehn sort 01:41:24.87 Jala Um, figure that out and go, Oh God, I tell you, well, no, no, i will tell you, I use that to my advantage once I have, there's like, there is, there is actually a granola that I'm just obsessed with eating and I want to eat it all the time. 01:41:29.45 Michael Prehn I've made a mistake. 01:41:39.30 Jala It has like little dried, uh, dried strawberries and and other red berries in it and stuff. And it's got little chocolate chunks. It's so good. And, um, I ran an ultra marathon powered by, 01:41:52.89 Jala uh granola i i ate that granola in the morning and then i went and ran my mar marathon and that's fine because that's like well over a thousand calories for that bag bag of granola so i mean like i ate my day's calories or you know like a large chunk of the day's calories and then supplemented with the um you know like dates and other stuff i would eat i dates and bananas and stuff on the way on the ultra marathon 01:42:03.24 Michael Prehn Right, right. 01:42:17.54 Jala But like I already, you know, fueled up with that granola. So, so anyway, ah limit your sugars and your sugar alcohols, as well as sodium saturated fat and trans fat. 01:42:31.28 Jala So sugar alcohols, they're being used a lot more these days in place of actual sugar. Something to keep in mind is that very much like the um sugar so yeah substitutes, 01:42:45.12 Jala the sugar alcohols also will trend towards giving you gastric distress. So um certain ones, now some people are like, oh, ah this this ah sugar-free sweetener I like better than this one. 01:42:51.42 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:43:00.86 Jala That's like, know, we covered that in the flavor episode. There are actually like, there's different bitter receptors in everyone's mouths. So that's part of it. 01:43:08.86 Michael Prehn yeah 01:43:09.26 Jala But also some of them can actually disrupt like your your bowels in ways that you don't want. So sugar alcohols and sugar substitutes, you just need to keep that in mind when you use those. 01:43:22.64 Jala So of course you need to limit your sodium. If you have a lot of sodium, you retain a lot of water, you get bloated up. ah That also starts to mess with your blood pressure. ah That's the reason that I watch my sodium. 01:43:34.22 Jala It's mostly for the blood pressure aspect because my family has a history of high blood pressure. 01:43:35.33 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah. 01:43:40.33 Jala So we watch that. ah saturated fat, ah some saturated fat is can be good. 01:43:43.33 Michael Prehn yeah 01:43:47.64 Jala um There's mono unsaturated, and you know, it's ah unfat. and There's different types, there's different types, we will get into fat, probably on another episode in much more detail, we're not going to get into it here. 01:44:00.50 Jala Some saturated fat is okay, and but you don't want tons and tons of it. 01:44:00.89 Michael Prehn right 01:44:05.06 Jala You really, really don't want trans fat. Trans fat is something that is basically created during the yeah food processing process. It is a new type of fat that is, that is a hundred percent man-made basically. 01:44:14.78 Michael Prehn yeah 01:44:19.02 Jala So, uh, you, uh, huh. 01:44:20.34 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's a lab created ah kind of fat. And as a result, it it was originally created as like a healthier kind of fat, basically, but it accomplished the opposite. 01:44:31.74 Jala Right. 01:44:31.93 Michael Prehn And it has a really negative impact on your kind of cardiovascular health. 01:44:36.87 Jala Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Also, uh, you want to choose foods with 5% or less of the daily value of sugar, sugar, alcohol, sodium, saturated fat, or trans fat. 01:44:49.90 Jala So also you want to seek out higher fiber, iron, potassium, vitamin D and calcium content. Your goal is to find anything with 20% or more of your daily value. 01:45:03.01 Jala um There's a lot of fortified food out there. So there's a lot of stuff that has this in there. The one that you're not going to find as often is that that fiber. 01:45:09.56 Michael Prehn Yeah. Mm-hmm. 01:45:12.39 Jala um If you eat meat, you probably get your iron, especially if you do like red meat. If you are a vegetarian or a vegan, you would want to look at your dark leafy greens to get more of that iron content. 01:45:27.27 Jala um In terms of the fiber, though, um if you're a vegan or vegetarian, you probably already get your fiber. um But if you are omnivore, you most likely don't have enough fiber in your diet. 01:45:40.93 Jala Uh, that's a chronic problem that most Americans have. So fiber comes in a variety of forms. 01:45:44.59 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah. 01:45:46.42 Jala A lot of people think that it's just like breads and stuff like that, but breads actually don't have tons of fiber. Um, most of the fiber that you're going to get is going to come from like beans and legumes. 01:45:57.90 Jala It's also going to come from things like, uh, celery, for example, is very fibrous and there's, there's different types of fiber. Yeah. Because of course, there's there's different types of things like celery, the fiber that's in celery is, you know, like the the ah insoluble types of fiber, you know, like it's the the stiffer stuff that makes the celery like the stick form and things like that, ah versus the kind of fiber that you would get in like lentils or something. 01:46:06.60 Michael Prehn yeah 01:46:25.05 Jala or or chickpeas or whatnot. So um these are just some things to keep in mind. You want these because these are important to your overall health and wellness. ah Fiber, especially if you have a high protein diet, helps a lot with making sure that you don't get constipated. 01:46:42.37 Jala um Because if you have a lot of If you don't have enough fiber in your diet, you will have constipation problems. So ah fiber is important for that. 01:46:49.02 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. 01:46:51.17 Jala Iron, of course, is for bones and for various other health issues. i can go through the whole list. You can, you if you don't already know what these are good for, look it up yourself. We're we're doing basics. 01:47:02.67 Jala The more ingredients that you can recognize as whole foods in anything that is pre-made 01:47:03.30 Michael Prehn yeah 01:47:08.68 Jala that are whole food items. Like you see, it says potatoes and not like, you know, processed potato starch or something, whatever, whatever kind of nonsense. 01:47:18.03 Michael Prehn but the Modified potato gluconate. 01:47:18.34 Jala That's important. Right, right, right. ah if it has an unpronounceable chemical name, it's probably going to be ah more alarming of a thing here. That's more of a flag than something that says potato, you know? 01:47:33.35 Jala So um the if you can see whole foods on that label though, it's generally going to be less processed than the things that have all the unpronounceable chemicals and stuff like that, or the hydrogenated blah, blah, blah, blah blah you know, of what we, mm-hmm. 01:47:46.96 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. Yeah, and generally speaking, there are a lot of ah buzzwords that end up on the front of a box or container of food that don't necessarily mean what you expect them to. Like something being labeled as organic doesn't necessarily mean that it's wholesome. 01:48:06.96 Michael Prehn ah So it is important to read that ingredient declaration and form your own opinions about it. 01:48:07.20 Jala Right. 01:48:13.62 Jala Yeah, absolutely. Some other tips. Avoid high fructose corn syrup as much as you can. It's in basically everything processed because it's cheap. 01:48:23.18 Michael Prehn Yep. 01:48:25.11 Jala Also recommend to avoid palm oil, sugar, salt, and food coloring as much as you're able to. Studies have shown links between certain food dyes and cancer as well as exacerbating or potentially even causing neurodivergence in children. 01:48:42.39 Jala In Europe, these dyes are required to include warning labels. So studies um have studied, for example, blue one, blue two, green three, red three, red 40, yellow five, and yellow six. 01:48:57.80 Jala I just kind of as a rule tend to stay away from anything that has food colorings to the extent that I'm able to. Sometimes that's not an option for me, just depending upon the situation. But I tend to cook almost everything from whole food. I have like a very limited amount of processed food that I eat. 01:49:14.83 Jala Um, so, you know, like that's a little bit easier for me because I cook a lot. So 01:49:20.42 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's like the high fructose corn syrup. These food dyes are and darn near everything, but especially things that are heavily processed. 01:49:25.13 Jala everything. 01:49:29.78 Jala Yeah, absolutely. So I will say something that's fun about ah processed vegan foods is they usually use stuff like beet powder or something for their coloring. 01:49:38.31 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:49:38.92 Jala And so like they're using natural stuff because ah the vegan ethos includes trying to get away from, you know, um as much of that as you can, for the most part. 01:49:49.39 Jala I mean, of course, there's junk food vegans and things like that. But, you know, 01:49:53.64 Michael Prehn Yeah, they'll use turmeric instead of a yellow food dye. 01:49:56.25 Jala Right, right, exactly. So where do we start when we walk into a grocery store? So what I would recommend is shopping primarily around the perimeter of the store. 01:50:09.02 Jala Most of the highly processed foods are found down the aisles. So by focusing your grocery shopping on the produce, proteins and other foods found on the perimeter, you will inherently be eating better. 01:50:20.58 Jala ah This includes frozen veggies and fruits, but obviously not the microwave meals and other processed stuff in the freezer section. So um and of course, you can also have canned veggies, canned beans, canned meats, things like that. You can get those as well in those aisles. 01:50:38.89 Jala ah But you also have to be aware that anything that is canned is going to have some degree of salt in it. So um you have to take a look at that and, you know, do your numbers, run your numbers, look at everything else you're eating and figure out, you know, like how much sodium is this really, you know. 01:50:45.99 Michael Prehn right 01:50:56.96 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:50:58.08 Jala So I usually go for the no salt added or low sodium option if there's one available for pretty much everything canned. 01:51:06.34 Michael Prehn Yeah, I try my best to do that. Don't always succeed. 01:51:10.28 Jala Yeah, sometimes it's like, but I really like this one particular roasted fire roasted tomato and they don't have like a low sodium version of this. It's just this one fire roasted tomato and like it's too damn good. 01:51:18.57 Michael Prehn Right. 01:51:21.82 Jala And there isn't another one that is low sodium. So we're just going to have this one. You just accommodate that in your cooking by, you know, like adjusting everything else around it. 01:51:32.79 Jala So. Mm-hmm. 01:51:33.35 Michael Prehn Yeah, for sure. It's all about self-awareness, right? 01:51:37.70 Jala So nutrient density, while calories are important, the top priority is nutrients, including protein, carbs, fat, vitamins, and minerals. 01:51:48.69 Jala A large number of fruits and veggies, as well as nuts, yogurt, fatty fish, and egg yolks are a nutrient nutrient dense. Some are low calorie and some are high calorie, but high calorie does not mean it's the enemy. 01:52:02.62 Jala A lot of people are like, oh, that's got so many calories, I can't eat that. But that's wrong. 01:52:06.86 Michael Prehn yeah 01:52:07.21 Jala That's incorrect thinking. It just means that in an overall balanced diet, you need to portion out according to your specific macronutrient needs. We'll talk more about macros in a little bit, but like, say for example, pet a lot of people were like, oh, i avocados are supposed to be really good for you, but they're so high fat and high calorie. There's no way I can eat them. 01:52:27.92 Jala You can eat them, but you have to eat them in moderation and you have to consider all the other things that you're eating around that. So you can balance things out, you know? 01:52:34.90 Michael Prehn Right. 01:52:36.82 Jala Um, and that will be something where like, you need to take into consideration, you know, like maybe you want to work with a dietician. Maybe you want to work with a, you know, nutritionists, something like that. Maybe you just want to muddle around in my fitness pal and look at all the little graphs and numbers and and get into the weeds with that kind of thing and do the research yourself. If you were, your name is Jala. 01:52:59.12 Jala Um, but it's, you know, whatever form of person that you might be, uh, I assure you there's some kind of path to sorting out this information. So another important, Hmm. 01:53:09.78 Michael Prehn Yeah, as was long as you're looking at it. 01:53:12.03 Jala Yeah. 01:53:16.76 Jala had more to say ah okay the yeah yeah marker right there okay so another important thing is diet diversity a study some number of years ago found that in america people tend to buy the exact same 25 or so items in the grocery store 01:53:18.42 Michael Prehn No, sorry. 01:53:22.18 Michael Prehn Barker. 01:53:38.84 Jala week in and week out. That is, there's no diversity to the diet. And when I say diversity, I don't mean eating a different brand of pre-made cookies. I mean, taste the rainbow where the rainbow is not Skittles. 01:53:48.80 Michael Prehn Thank you. 01:53:52.24 Jala It's the number of colors of produce you're putting in your cart. So I usually pick the most unfamiliar thing in the produce section and Google recipes for it. And then I set out to introduce the new veggies or fruits into my diet. 01:54:05.05 Jala I also do this at the farmer's market, which is very fun because I have found some weird looking things there and I don't even remember what some of them are. And I bring them home and I'm like, I'll ask the little farmer guy. I'm like, Hey, 01:54:17.69 Jala what do you do with this? And then the farmer guy will tell me some things to do with it. 01:54:19.55 Michael Prehn Yeah, 01:54:21.69 Jala And I'm like, huh, okay, let's try this thing. And then like, we take it home and and try it out and see what we think about it. And sometimes if we don't know, we we get it again and we try preparing it in another way to see if maybe we just need to to make it differently, you know? 01:54:37.85 Michael Prehn yeah you should have seen the pandemonium that I caused at my local grocery store whenever I tried to buy some Romanesco. That really, they could not figure that out to save their life. 01:54:48.90 Michael Prehn which was pretty funny because it was like, it's your store guys. Like it's not that hard anyway. 01:54:52.44 Jala Right. 01:54:55.22 Jala Well, they're like, no one has ever bought this before. Yeah. 01:54:58.49 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 01:54:59.38 Jala Mm hmm. 01:55:00.09 Michael Prehn They're like, what is it? Weird broccoli? It's like, yeah, pretty much. 01:55:04.70 Jala Mm hmm. So, uh, yeah, I make it a point though, to kind of like look for stuff that I haven't tried before and then try it. Studies have shown that diet diversity promotes healthy gut bacteria, a healthy weight predict protects against chronic disease and promotes longevity. 01:55:23.18 Jala Now, um, I do intend, I, so I still intend, let me, let me put the little asterisks. I still intend to do the microbiome of the body episode that I mentioned last year on the episode with Ollie. 01:55:36.13 Jala um That will include discussing the bacteria of your gut and how important those are and what all those do for your body. But um having an unhealthy gut microbiome is something that is kind of like a self-perpetuating cycle with having an unhealthy weight. 01:55:57.12 Jala Because the bacteria in your gut, like if you are eating a bunch of processed food and junk in general, ah the bacteria in your gut will basically turn, you like the only bacteria that are going to live in there are going to be the bad kinds of bacteria you don't want in there. 01:56:12.23 Jala And that is actually going to um affect the way that your food is processed in your body, which will then kind of continue the cycle of you staying at an unhealthy weight and not processing the foods the way that they need to be. 01:56:12.72 Michael Prehn All right. 01:56:25.60 Jala So they pass through your body and this, that, and the other. it causes a whole um you know cycle that goes on So ah focusing on your gut and eating for your gut health in terms of the the flora that live in there. 01:56:42.77 Jala is a way that you can improve your health. And part of that is by eating a more diverse diet. And also, as we've mentioned, and basically every episode, fermented foods, fermented foods also help with that. Probiotics help with that. But really the diet is the number one thing. 01:56:59.82 Jala Did you know, Mike, I think I told you this before, um that there are bacteria in your gut that are that can ah form in there that they love sugar and they will make you in your brain crave sugar. 01:57:13.57 Jala And it's your gut like bacteria in your gut that are are telling you this that are are pushing you to eat more sugar because they are hungry. 01:57:23.61 Michael Prehn Oh, yeah. No, it's a whole thing. There's a lot of ah studies out there about how your microbiome can, like, compel you to eat certain things. 01:57:25.27 Jala It's a whole thing. 01:57:29.48 Jala Aha. 01:57:32.34 Michael Prehn And, yeah, it's ah that's a little disconcerting to think about your you know intestines riding you around like a zombie or something. 01:57:42.08 Jala Right, right. But it's really, um so there' there's actually even a movement out there to kind of like reconstruct the way we we conceptualize ourselves and our bodies as more of a colony of living things because of the the variety of things that actually live inside us and cohabitate with us and with whom we make our lives. 01:57:56.84 Michael Prehn right 01:58:04.57 Jala So yeah. But that's a whole different episode that I've still got to do some studying for. Returning to the um nutritional part of it, though, let's talk about those macros. 01:58:16.22 Jala So macros or macronutrients are something that you hear about thrown around in the fitness world, especially. They're just the primary nutrient sources you get from food, carbs, including fiber, fat and protein. 01:58:30.98 Jala The more balanced your nutrition is around these nutrients, the more filling your food will be. For example, if you're eating an apple, you'll find yourself hungry faster than if you had the same apple with some peanut butter. 01:58:43.90 Jala If you add more fiber from vegetables, legumes, and or whole grains to a protein-rich meal, you will feel fuller, but it also helps to prevent that constipation I mentioned earlier. 01:58:52.57 Michael Prehn Thank you. 01:58:56.17 Jala So your nutrients or your nutrition does not have to be balanced all the time. Think of diet and exercise as being zoomed out while you're eating a piece of cake or binging three of them on your birthday might screw your macro balance for the day. And depending upon how much you binged and how rich that cake was, it might actually throw off your whole week. 01:59:21.09 Jala But if you overall eat well, and that cake isn't going to make a dent in your healthy eating or your overall well-being. So um I mentioned the same concept in the fitness ask me anything and myth busting episode. 01:59:36.53 Jala I'll definitely have to put a link in the show notes for that as well. So, um you know, like a lot of people, they have this doom or gloom. 01:59:40.63 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:59:44.10 Jala Oh, I ate this piece of cake, so I have to do extra sit-ups tomorrow. In the end, those sit-ups are not going to make a difference. You ate the thing. So what? 01:59:55.61 Jala Move on with your life. As long as you're overall eating well, you're fine. Okay. Unless you are a bodybuilder who is doing a competition upon whom, upon which like all of your um like well-being and livelihood depends on you you know, being this certain way and not eating that piece of cake or whatever, then it's not a problem. 02:00:20.82 Jala It's not a problem until it becomes a habit and you are not eating well as a general rule, you know? 02:00:27.81 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's a long game kind of thing. 02:00:27.92 Jala So, right. 02:00:29.94 Michael Prehn Like, ah you know, an instance of poor eating or an instance of good eating isn't really going to make that much of a difference over time. 02:00:40.15 Jala ah 02:00:40.44 Michael Prehn It's more like the habits that you have. 02:00:42.95 Jala Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a hundred percent about making a lifestyle. And that's another thing I wanted to say, um about diets earlier. So diets, when people go on a diet, they are going on a diet with this intention of going on a diet temporarily to reach some goal, ah after which time they will go off the diet and return to their normal eating patterns. Um, 02:01:06.20 Jala But if you are eating for nutrition, you are eating for life. 02:01:06.41 Michael Prehn Right. 02:01:10.63 Jala This is a lifestyle. You are eating better, healthier, you know, et cetera, for your life to prolong your life and reduce your, your negative health outcomes and things like that so that you can have a better and more fulfilling quality of life for longer. Okay. 02:01:28.24 Jala So, you know, it's a different mindset. It is really a long game. Now, will you mess up your diet if you eat that piece of cake? Sure. But a diet is not a nutrition. 02:01:40.15 Michael Prehn Right. They're two different kind of tracks. 02:01:40.53 Jala So. Mm hmm. So counting macros and following a specific macronutrient plan is not necessary for most people other than athletes, those people that are seeking specific body composition or people needing to put on muscle or fat for medical reasons. 02:01:59.91 Jala So um what it's useful for and why I recommend using MyFitnessPal for a week and just see what you're eating is because having this information will help you understand what is in your food, how many calories, how many grams of fat, how many grams of carbs or whatever ah is in the stuff that you're eating already. 02:02:21.11 Jala So, you know, like, again, going back to that cup suggestion, if you measure a cup of food, and if I went around and asked people three different people to tell me how much is one cup, they will all give me an amount that's drastically larger than a cup unless they happen to be a chef or a fitness enthusiast or a nutritionist. 02:02:40.16 Jala So I will, I will guarantee you that's going to happen. So do it for your own curiosity, just to see, you don't need to get obsessed with the numbers and start trying to to work through all the the detailed information on that. Again, unless you have very specific goals that you're working towards or you have medical reasons for doing so. 02:02:59.29 Jala But, uh, we, yeah. 02:02:59.62 Michael Prehn Yeah, and ah what I find funny is that that cup exercise 02:03:04.43 Jala Yeah. 02:03:04.59 Michael Prehn is that people tend to drastically underestimate how much one cup of protein is and drastically overestimate what one cup of rice is in a weird way. 02:03:16.99 Jala Yeah. Yep. 02:03:19.36 Michael Prehn It's like contextual. And i don't know what it is about the human psyche that does that, but yeah. 02:03:24.71 Jala Yeah, absolutely. So we already talked about probiotic foods before probiotic foods are very, very good. Um, and something that I found out is that there are a bunch of fortified foods that have probiotics in them. 02:03:40.23 Jala Like I was getting some ingredients for a recipe for Moroccan chickpea and tempeh stew. And it's very good. Well, if you know anything about Moroccan cooking, you know that Moroccan cooking always involves some kind of a fruit in there. 02:03:55.10 Jala So this one happened to have prunes and apricots. 02:03:55.40 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:03:58.85 Jala So I was going to go and pick up some prunes. And then I found out that SunSweet has a probiotic prune available. 02:04:05.58 Michael Prehn Oh, interesting. 02:04:06.12 Jala So ah not only prunes are high in fiber, so you've already got a lot of fiber right there. but then you also have like probiotics in these prunes. 02:04:11.98 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:04:15.60 Jala And there's a lot of stuff these days that are fortified with probiotics. So, um, if fermented foods like yogurt, cottage cheese, tempeh, kimchi, sauerkraut, and so on and on, um, if these are not your thing, there is some option for you to get that probiotic, um, you know, blend in your body. 02:04:36.94 Jala So, 02:04:37.38 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's um it's very trendy nowadays, just because people are starting to become more aware of their kind of gut biome health and things like that. So food processors have ah taken note and they've sort of started developing new options for that. 02:04:53.27 Jala Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And something to note, too, is that ah just because you take a probiotic, like there's there's a lot of different strains of bacterias that live in your gut. 02:05:04.28 Jala And so um it if you are going to take like a probiotic supplement, it's important to try to get a bunch of different types of strains. Like it doesn't have to be like, you know, the highest number of strains possible that you can get in a whatever form. 02:05:19.03 Jala it doesn't have to be like that, but you need a variety of different bacteria in the gut because they all have different kinds of specialized functions. So, um, the more variety you have in your gut, the better it is for you overall. 02:05:33.49 Michael Prehn Yep, biodiversity is important. 02:05:33.82 Jala So, um, Mm hmm. So, of course, avoid highly processed foods as much as possible. They are stripped of their nutritive valuable value and a pump full of salt and fat to make them taste good. 02:05:48.29 Jala And they're designed to be easy to eat. So you overindulge and they're not nutritionally balanced. So you stay hungry and want more. This is all by design. They want you to stay hungry. 02:05:59.04 Michael Prehn yeah 02:06:00.02 Jala They want you to want more. They're easy to eat. So they don't spend a lot of time in your mouth digesting and and like, you know, like your, your saliva doesn't have time to start kicking in, um, you know, like the digestive process to get everything going. 02:06:14.90 Jala And, you know, like you don't feel full because it's so fast to eat. So that's, that's part of the problem actually. So because they're easy to eat, that reduces your body's ability to absorb the nutrients added back into the food because it doesn't stay in your mouth long enough to start breaking down. 02:06:34.16 Jala You want to cook at home as much as you can. And that's why we're talking so much about flavor and food. We need to put this to good use in the kitchen. 02:06:39.91 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 02:06:42.79 Jala It's also about progress and not perfection. Your nutrition isn't going to be perfect. No one's is, but any change for the better is still a win. So you don't need to think about this in terms of all or nothing. It's not a black and white, you know, kind of thing where somebody's grading you in the corner with a little like, you know, notepad and stuff. 02:07:02.84 Jala That's not what's going on here. You're eating for your life. Okay. For your entire life. Okay. The span of meals that in time that you have for eating for, you know, however many number of years, you know, you you project for your life, you know, that's a lot of time. 02:07:19.51 Jala It's, it's progress. It's not perfection. You're not going to be perfect. I'm not perfect. You know, no one is perfect. 02:07:27.12 Michael Prehn I know I'm certainly not, but what's that old dodge that they say? Like, it doesn't matter if you fall off the horse, but whether or not you get back on it, right? 02:07:35.61 Jala Right, right. And that's the thing too. Like if you are like, man, i've I've really gotten off the rails and I'm just eating a bunch of crap, that doesn't mean you can't go back to eating healthy again. 02:07:46.40 Jala You know, i'm so especially right now, we have a situation in this country ah where everyone is in a very dire kind of state. 02:07:51.87 Michael Prehn yeah 02:07:55.49 Jala Everybody's in a situation right now. And it's not just this country. It's really like the whole world. But yeah, But, some you know, we are living right now in as usual, the unprecedented times, right? 02:08:10.42 Jala I'm sick of seeing all the historical events happen in my lifetime, right? 02:08:10.89 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:08:14.08 Jala That kind of thing. So ah that's the situations that we've got going. And um as many of the mental health episodes of the show kind of underline, you have to be kind to yourself. 02:08:26.89 Jala So if you fall off of that, um you know, track of eating healthier because you need a convenience eating, because you don't have any spoons left. then it's okay. you know Do your best with whatever you know whatever version of this that you're going to do. And like if your cooking looks like I'm going to get some some freezer veggies and then maybe I'll cook a meat, that's fine. 02:08:51.48 Jala That is still way better than you know um going and getting a McDonald's or something. you know like there's there's There's steps, there's variations, there's different things you can do. you know, to adjust and and kind of like make some kind of progress towards your goals. 02:09:08.77 Jala So yeah, absolutely. 02:09:08.80 Michael Prehn We're all just trying to make sure we live to fight another day, you know? 02:09:12.64 Jala And that's what this is about. Like i the reason why I'm so passionate about wellness in general is because I saw in my early to mid twenties, how my parents did not take care of themselves. 02:09:27.71 Jala Right. ah for one or another reason, either lack of education about how to do so, or because of just other things going on in their lives or this, that, and the other. 02:09:38.73 Jala And they just, that was not their priority. And now they're paying for it. And now by extension, I'm paying for it because now I have to ah take care of them because they're disabled and immunocompromised and, and a lot of things. Yeah. 02:09:51.81 Jala And um i I want to prevent as much as possible other people falling into that trap where they look back and go, if only i had just understood this or that important detail about this wellness thing, i would have been okay. You know, like I would have had the, you know, like the the aha moment that I needed, right? 02:10:13.38 Jala Something like that. And my aha moment came when I was in like my early to mid 20s. But, um you know, like, i'm um that's a part of why this podcast continues to hover on wellness as one of the two main things that I do other, you know, i tried do this. 02:10:29.08 Jala And then I talk about media, just to have something fun and relaxing. 02:10:31.33 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:10:33.97 Jala So, so yeah, uh, this important to me and this is important to all y'all or it should be. So, uh, let's continue on and talk about cheat days or cheat meals. That's a sign that your overall nutrition is unbalanced. 02:10:47.88 Jala It's also a sign that you could drop off the lifestyle of eating better way more readily because if you need a cheat day or a cheat meal and, and, and, That means you're not really 100% committed to ah doing like the healthy eating or eating in moderation. and You know, like, ah so when I first started changing my nutrition, a main thing that I would do is I wouldn't deny myself anything. Right? 02:11:12.92 Jala What I would do is say, I'm going to eat that ice cream that I want, but there's two two things I have to do. One is that I have to pair it with something fresh and wholesome and and good for me. 02:11:24.41 Jala So berries in the case of ice cream, or if I wanted chips, I would have to have vegetables, fresh vegetables with it. 02:11:27.39 Michael Prehn Right. 02:11:30.88 Jala And so I would eat both things. And I would allow myself to eat some chips. But the other thing is ah when I was eating the junk and everything, I would eat it more slowly, consciously eating it slower so that I don't delve into that whole, it's so fast and easy to eat that i eat the whole bag. 02:11:49.80 Jala I would measure out a bit and put the container of the ice cream or the chips away. And I would have that with my healthier thing alongside it. And over time, i stopped wanting to eat the processed food because I felt better eating the other thing that I was eating with it. 02:12:07.14 Jala And because I wasn't telling myself no, i was just telling myself, eat it slower, really enjoy it, you know, spend time relishing this flavor and then, you know, um just have something healthy with it. 02:12:07.53 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:12:21.42 Jala And like, that was all I needed because I wasn't telling myself no, I wasn't craving it constantly. Because when you tell yourself no, that's all you're going to do is plan your cheat days, plan your cheat meals, you know. 02:12:32.57 Michael Prehn yeah 02:12:35.20 Jala So... 02:12:35.44 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's a forbidden fruit kind of thing. It's like if you're telling yourself, oh, I can't have that. 02:12:37.58 Jala Oh, absolutely. 02:12:39.92 Michael Prehn It's like, it's all you can think about, like you said. 02:12:43.77 Jala and ah So something else that's really critical that nobody talks about hydrate. Hydrate. 02:12:51.73 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:12:52.89 Jala Drink water. Water is necessary for all of your bodily functions. If you don't like plain water, get yourself unsweetened flavored water or infuse your water with cucumber or lemon or other fruits. They have those little bottles that you can stick fruit in there and then and do infusions. 02:13:08.93 Jala You can do that. There's even those little like um flavor drops or whatever, but be careful with those because a lot of those flavor drops have those um like food colorings and artificial sweeteners in there. So you have to like make sure that that's something that, you know, is safe for you. 02:13:26.64 Jala So I would recommend looking up the ingredients, you know, and and taking a look at what those dyes, you know, what the the track record of those dyes are. 02:13:26.65 Michael Prehn Right. 02:13:35.22 Jala And, you know, so just double check those sweeteners and make sure that whatever artificial sweeteners in there are okay by your gastric, you know, um processes, you know. 02:13:46.78 Jala But there are options. There are things that you can drink, but you don't want to drink diuretics. So you don't like want to have an inordinate amount of coffee or tea, you know, like caffeine is a big diuretic. 02:14:00.24 Jala um 02:14:00.67 Michael Prehn yeah 02:14:01.07 Jala And that leaches water out of your body. You need more water in your body. So ah what I do for myself, since I have a desk job, is I put myself on a water drinking schedule. 02:14:13.61 Jala So by a certain time of the morning, I have consumed this bottle of water or this much of this or or whatever. And I have myself on a water drinking schedule. So at the minimum, during the week when I'm working, i am getting an adequate amount of water. 02:14:28.88 Jala So um that's something I would recommend to people. If you are thirsty, it means that you were actually needing water a long time ago. Thirst is like the alarm signal. 02:14:39.92 Jala So you don't, you should never be waiting until you are thirsty to drink. 02:14:40.09 Michael Prehn right Yeah. 02:14:45.89 Jala So. 02:14:47.30 Michael Prehn Yeah, I like that idea of the water schedule. That's really clever. I'm a um bad about hydrating properly, so maybe I'll give that shot. 02:14:54.79 Jala And another thing I would recommend too, is that if you are trying to adjust your overall eating and you find that you like gorge too much at lunch or something like that, if you're in a situation where you can during the morning between breakfast and lunch, have a snack, or if you can at at least do something like a protein shake or something that you can do, you know, ah one of those kinds of things, 02:15:18.79 Jala Um, have that and make sure that you have a snack somewhere like breaking up the time between breakfast and lunch so that you don't binge on your lunch break. Because if you get to the point where you're too hungry, it's the same thing as you're too thirsty. 02:15:29.14 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:15:32.99 Jala Your body is now in an alarm state when you were hungry and now, you know, you're starving. But on a similar note, um when you're eating, pay attention to your body and when you feel adequately full. 02:15:47.56 Jala And if it's like if you're at home and you are eating something at home at night, stop when you're full. You don't need to keep eating just because it's on the plate. You can put it away and eat it later, you know. 02:15:59.48 Michael Prehn Right. Yeah. 02:16:00.39 Jala So, like, there there are a lot of times that I find that people have ah like reasons for eating are um it's time to eat. And so they eat even if they're not hungry, which, you know, you should probably have a little something, but you don't really need to go all out if you're not hungry for it. 02:16:18.45 Jala Um, they are eating, um a lot because they are so hungry that they ate too fast. 02:16:18.75 Michael Prehn yeah 02:16:24.79 Jala Your body takes like your, your stomach specifically takes about 20 minutes before it registers as being full. So the slower that you can eat your food, if you have the luxury of time to eat it a little bit slower, the more conscious you'll be of when your stomach is full. 02:16:41.84 Jala You don't want to be in that over full state. And, um, boredom is another one that I hear a lot. And so if you're eating cause you're bored, get some gum, do something, find something to do. 02:16:55.17 Jala and also chew gum. I chew gum all the time. Cause for me, it's like, i have a lot of energy and I need to burn it. And I like chewing things. So, uh, I like gum. I chew gum, sugar-free gum all the time. 02:17:07.06 Jala So, 02:17:07.69 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah. If you're eating because you're bored, you need to find better television or something. 02:17:12.90 Jala Right, right. For sure. So also some other recommendations. If you don't like it, try it again, cooked another way. But if you've tried something several times and you still hate it, don't eat it because it's healthy. 02:17:26.22 Jala That's not the way to maintain a lifelong habit. There are plenty of other alternative foods for that nutrient, I promise you. So I say try it and then try it again cooked another way just because sometimes it's like a matter of the cauliflower that I mentioned earlier where you just never had it prepared in the way that really makes that, like unlocks that food for you, you know? 02:17:50.28 Jala And you may really enjoy that food and you should give it a shot and just, you know, don't rule it out completely because you had it one time and you hated it. Like if you've only ever had canned spinach, for example, you don't know what a spinach salad is going to taste like, you know. 02:18:06.45 Michael Prehn Yeah, very different thing. 02:18:09.04 Jala So, so yeah, that that's, that would be my recommend on that. Another thing is to consider a multivitamin involved, multimineral. And this is because due to factory farming, monocultures, soil leaching, and so many other factors, our food overall is drastically less nutrition than it was 20, 30, 50 years thirty fifty years ago And this is science has studied this, they have looked at the nutrient density in our foods. And even if you buy fresh whole foods, if you're buying them from a typical grocery store, where they are those monocultures that are factory farmed, and they're the same soil, the you know being used over and over again for the same stuff, it's not going to be as nutritive. 02:18:52.81 Jala That's part of the reason why we try to when we can, get stuff from the farmer's market because that at least is, you know, like small scale farmers who do this as part of their side income or whatever. 02:19:05.07 Jala um 02:19:05.70 Michael Prehn right 02:19:06.24 Jala And they're they they care for their land in a more like wholesome way that is, you know, much more beneficial overall to the quality and the taste of the food that you're getting. Like the the veggies I get from the farmer's market taste so much better than the stuff that I get at the grocery store. 02:19:25.15 Jala And that's another future episode. We'll talk about like the grocery store produce and how many years they're stuck in freaking, you know, like wild um storage facilities and stuff like frozen, you know, to be thought out to put on your on your shelves and stuff. 02:19:42.33 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's super scary. 02:19:42.62 Jala It's wild. You know, anything that you see that's, yeah, it's quote unquote fresh and it's not fresh. Yeah. So all of that to say, ah multivitamin, multimineral might be important for you, especially if you go for your annual physical, which you should be doing if you have insurance and they'll cover it for you. 02:20:03.89 Jala um If you have blood work and it comes back that you have some kind of deficiency, what you can do is just start taking a multivitamin and then that'll make sure that you are in the range you need to be consistently. 02:20:17.51 Jala And that'll also help with like weird tiredness things that happen. Like a lot of people ah will get tired and it's like a vitamin D deficiency because they work a indoor job. They don't get outside very much or, you know, for us, Mike, it's, it's so horrible, hot outside and, and, and, you know, nasty. 02:20:33.79 Michael Prehn yeah 02:20:34.70 Jala Nobody wants to be out there to get their son, you know, yeah. 02:20:38.98 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 02:20:39.46 Jala So, um you know, that this is something that would be important to consider if that is something that is ah pertinent to you. Also, I would recommend getting some good healthy recipes collected. 02:20:48.16 Michael Prehn yeah 02:20:52.39 Jala So um while yes, you can kind of cook whatever and just be, you know, avant garde in the the kitchen. For a lot of people until you have a lot of experience cooking stuff, you probably need a recipe as a guideline to learn how to cook new things. 02:21:09.99 Jala Because unless you're just going in there and just doing experiments, you're not going to know what to do with this unless you're following some kind of guideline. So that's where these recipes come in. 02:21:18.91 Michael Prehn Right. 02:21:20.50 Jala That's why I have so many cookbooks because I have cookbooks of varying degrees of of complexity, ah some of which are really like su food science-y and um you know, others are are just like quick and easy recipes with combinations of things that I wouldn't think to put together, for example. 02:21:40.53 Jala So 02:21:41.91 Michael Prehn Yeah, it takes all kinds. I mean, you can't make a humongous masterpiece you know buffet every time you cook. 02:21:49.48 Jala right. 02:21:49.50 Michael Prehn It's important to have some small, not very time-consuming, but still nutritious and tasty recipes like your ah your pressure cooker things. 02:21:58.54 Jala Mm hmm. Yep. Yep. Pressure cooker, steamer. If you have an instant pot, people love those things. I don't have an instant pot, but I hear tell that those are real important and and fancy to a lot of people. 02:22:10.81 Jala ah Invaluable in cooking. 02:22:11.32 Michael Prehn It's ah effectively a pressure cooker. 02:22:14.48 Jala Yeah. 02:22:15.04 Michael Prehn um It's like a little bit different, but it, yeah I mean, there's they're pretty much the same. 02:22:20.67 Jala Yeah. Yeah. It's got buttons and timers. A pressure cooker is a pot. Yeah. 02:22:25.74 Michael Prehn Yeah. Yeah. 02:22:26.93 Jala At least mine is. It's a pot with a little like steam release valve thing on the top. That's all. 02:22:31.07 Michael Prehn Yeah, I guess I should say the modern pressure cookers are very similar to an Instant Pot where they're digitized like that. 02:22:33.87 Jala Right. There you go. 02:22:37.35 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:22:38.23 Jala I'm old school, Mike. Old school. So... 02:22:40.54 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's true. And I'm all sciencey over here. I'm in the lab. So everything I have has buttons. 02:22:46.03 Jala Yeah. So another thing I'd say is start small, focus on a meal or two here or there and work on changing things from there. This also allows you to try out recipes and find out what you like best. 02:22:58.77 Jala This also will help you feel like feel the difference between when you eat junk and when you eat better food that you are cooking. you know, and um if you meet, if you make something and it's not hitting like, Oh, man, I feel so much better eating this than I do the the junk, then maybe look at that recipe and and like consider, um you know, what what it means, maybe look at the nutritional information on that, like run, run it through my fitness pal and see what actually is happening with that food. 02:23:15.20 Michael Prehn Thank you. 02:23:28.49 Jala You know, because it might be a junk food recipe that you you picked up possibly. So or something that's imbalanced that needs a little bit of tweaking. So another thing I'd say, and this is going to be my last little recommend for general nutrition tips, pick a day to figure out what you're going to be eating that week, getting the shopping list done, going to the store, and then set days or times for cooking those meals. 02:23:54.91 Jala So you can make extra portions. You can store for later that will help you keep on track. And the easier that something is to warm up and eat, the more likely you will go with that option rather than going out. 02:24:07.85 Jala Inertia is for real. And inertia in this case can be towards your advantage if you have meal prepped. 02:24:10.24 Michael Prehn yeah 02:24:15.33 Jala What I used to do when I had more fridge space devoted just to me, um aka before Dave was around, I would not just cook the meals. I would also pre-portion them into containers that were already each meal. 02:24:30.87 Jala So like I could just grab the meal box and warm it up and eat my food and that's it. And that's all I had to do. If I wanted something and go out to eat, I would either have to spend an arm and a leg to get DoorDash or something, or i would have to go out and go drive to the place to go get the thing. And even if it's a drive-through, I still have to get up and get dressed and go out there and go do all this mess. 02:24:54.71 Michael Prehn still whole process. 02:24:55.18 Jala We're... Right. It's a whole process. Whereas as I had this food right here that I could eat. That was just fine, you know, and I do the same thing with snacks too. um 02:25:05.01 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:25:05.25 Jala Everybody who has seen my blue sky account and anybody who's in my server knows that I make snack box. I make a snack box every day that I work. um I don't do it on the weekends because I'm usually running around on the weekends. So a little bit more variable there, but during the week I make a snack box every day. 02:25:21.96 Jala And this has usually a fruit, maybe two fruits, a veggie, maybe two veggies, and then some kind of a protein source in there. And it's like basically four little cups in a little box. 02:25:34.20 Jala And I put four cups of different things in there. And then those are my snacks that I eat in the afternoon while I'm trying to finish up my day that keep me going between lunch and dinner. 02:25:44.80 Jala And I have my snack box. It's prepped every day. Um, I used to do prep where I would just have individual cup containers or half cup containers that would just already have pre-portioned. Like if I was cutting up a pineapple, I would pre-portion it out into the little snack cups so I could just grab it and go. 02:26:04.31 Jala And, you know, like if I went somewhere, if I knew I was going to go out and be out all day going places, I would pack a little lunch bag and I would throw some of my pre-made snacks in there so I wouldn't get hungry and go buy something out. 02:26:20.15 Jala Because I had better food. 02:26:20.81 Michael Prehn yeah 02:26:21.95 Jala so 02:26:22.71 Michael Prehn It sounds a little counterintuitive, but sometimes having a snack will end up saving you calories in the long run. 02:26:28.79 Jala Absolutely, because here's what happens. If you get to the point where your alarm system is going off and you are like your body is screaming, I'm starving. What you're going to do is go, man, I worked so hard and I waited so long. I deserve blah. 02:26:44.20 Jala And you're going to treat yo yourself differently. to way more food than you really need. Plus, because you're hungry, you're going to eat fast, which means that your stomach isn't going to register when you're full. And frankly, you're not going to care at that point because all of your fucks have flown out the window when you got hungry because you're hangry now and you're just going to eat whatever and not care. 02:27:00.96 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:27:05.99 Jala But then later you're going to care and feel bad. And then the whole cycle goes, you know, yeah. 02:27:10.91 Michael Prehn Yeah. trip Triple cheeseburger with fries. 02:27:14.01 Jala Yeah, right. Exactly. So, so, you know, um, and, and it's interesting, like I go between two different modes of thinking about food and these are kind of interchangeable to me. 02:27:26.89 Jala So, um, it didn't start out this way, but eventually I got to the point, especially when I was realizing how I was feeling relative to the food that I was eating. 02:27:31.63 Michael Prehn Thank you. 02:27:37.00 Jala where I just consider food to be what it is, which is fuel for my day, for my body, for for whatever, my performance as a human. yeah it It rides on what I'm eating. 02:27:48.25 Jala So that's one way that I think about it. And the other way is, yes, I enjoy my food. But the challenge for me is I want to make it healthy and nourishing, but I also want it to taste really good. 02:28:01.34 Jala So what can I do to not deny myself stuff that's tasty, but make it healthy and nutritious and, and all of this other stuff. 02:28:01.71 Michael Prehn Right. Yeah. 02:28:10.33 Jala And oftentimes, like when I'm planning meals for the week, there'll be one that'll be like specifically like the comfort food kind of calorie heavy item usually. And then like, I make up for it by adjusting the other things to lighter fare. 02:28:20.50 Michael Prehn yeah 02:28:23.98 Jala That's something that I haven't eaten in a while. Another trick is I don't eat the same thing all the time. I vary my diet a lot. We eat all different kinds of foods in this house and we change up what we're eating. So we don't get bored because if you get bored eating the food that you're, you're making, that's probably because you're eating the same things over and over again. 02:28:44.99 Jala And that not only does that, you know, not serve your microbiome and your gut, but 02:28:45.65 Michael Prehn right 02:28:50.52 Jala And it doesn't serve, you know, like your overall health. It also doesn't serve your palate. Like, you're not going to love that thing and go, man, this is so fucking good If you eat it all the time, you know, like. 02:29:04.46 Michael Prehn Yeah. Even your favorite meal, if you ate it three day or three times a day, seven days a week, you'd get tired of it. And then the problem is that when you get tired, you tend to reach for the triple cheeseburger or the other convenience food that's not so good for you. 02:29:16.21 Jala Right. 02:29:18.96 Jala Right, exactly. So, you know, this this is the the flavor is intrinsic to the sustainability of your nutritional plan. 02:29:29.27 Michael Prehn Yep. 02:29:29.94 Jala So that's why the flavor episode happened. That's why we're still still talking about this and going to keep talking about it because it's super important. So. 02:29:41.25 Michael Prehn Yeah, they're intertwined and they play off of each other and neither one can exist without the other really. 02:29:48.49 Jala So those are all the notes that I have for today in terms of general, general stuff about nutrition. Again, I did talk about it a little bit along with Marty and Dave when I did the um fitness AMA and myth busting episode. We did talk a little bit about nutrition there. 02:30:06.16 Jala So there is more there. Otherwise, though, um if folks are interested in this topic, we can delve into it a little bit deeper. Um, but you'll have to let me know what you want. 02:30:17.42 Jala But for now, I think that's it. Unless you had some additional comments you wanted to make Mike about nutrition or cooking in general. 02:30:26.10 Michael Prehn yeah I would say that if you're not familiar with cooking, it can be intimidating. But ah the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. I'm full of cliches tonight for some reason. But, you know, just get out there, try and educate yourself and practice and start small. 02:30:43.02 Michael Prehn Like Jala said, you know, if you're not super familiar with the process, just try cooking one chicken breast, you know, and you can go up from there. 02:30:50.04 Jala ah yeah 02:30:52.77 Jala Yep. Absolutely. So I am now officially hungry. it is officially past my dinner time, but I did have a snack before we started. 02:30:59.83 Michael Prehn ah Same. Mm-hmm. 02:31:04.39 Jala So I'm not starving, but I do want to eat. I'm interested in eating food. So without further ado, Mike, where in the world can people find you if you are to be found on the internet? 02:31:20.94 Michael Prehn Well, aside from this podcast, which is my primary online presence right now, i can be found on BlueSky michaelprenn.bluesky.social. 02:31:31.67 Michael Prehn If you have any specific questions about food or a topic that we didn't touch on today, I'm always happy to take questions on it. Jala can attest that any conversation we have on the Discord server, if someone brings up food, or even if they don't, 02:31:49.79 Michael Prehn I will probably derail it into food. So please ask me. I love to talk about it. 02:31:57.65 Jala And of course, you can find me anywhere that I may be found at Jalachan, including Jalachan.place where you found this episode and all of the others. So until next time, take care of yourself. Remember to smile and go look at what a cup of food is 02:32:17.08 Michael Prehn Bye folks. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]