Well, so I've been all over my little social media channels today, Facebook, Instagram, and responding to somebody… So in the newsletter this yesterday, I send out a newsletter every Saturday, folks, it will have special deals in it, it's always about kidney stones, general nutrition stuff, all kinds of great things in that newsletter.
Every single week goes in your inbox on Saturdays, check it. So yesterday, go sign up for it at kidneystonediet.com. Yesterday, an email went out that was trying to explain to people what their plate should look like.
Because we can sit there and write and write and write, but people are like, "Jill, give me a visual. What should my plate look like? When I'm sitting down at dinner, what's it look- what's it- what am I looking at?" So, roughly half of your plate should be fruits and vegetables.
Really, should be. Maybe just vegetables, a little bit of fruit. Doesn't have to be fruit on your dinner plate, but throughout the day, on your plate should be fruits and vegetables, half the plate.
A quarter- that's Fin in the background. A quarter of your plate should be a protein. "I don't eat meat, Jill." Well, if you don't eat meat, get your regular non-meat protein source, that's a fourth of your plate.
And the other fourth of your plate is complex carbs. That means you don't want just white rice all the time, but you want a whole grain where it hasn't been refined and stripped, so there's fiber in it. Things like lentils, things like sweet potatoes, "They're high in oxalate, Jill." A portion, not perfection, folks, you know?
Things that are nutrient-dense like that, okay? So, and then I was talking about, you know, people don't get any vegetables. They're just not eating enough vegetables.
We're supposed to get the minimum one cup of fruit and three cups of vegetables a day, and none of you, many of you, most of you ain't getting that much, and that's the minimum. So I was giving an idea, lots of ideas, but also get the steamable, microwaved bags of vegetables in the frozen food section. In five minutes, you have vegetables on your plate.
Well, I got some emails that said, "Oh my god, you've lost all your credibility. I'm unfollowing you. There's no way.
Microwaves are going to kill us with the radiation, with the whatever." Okay? So, microwaves are killing us. So I wrote these people back and I said, you know, "You don't have to- you don't- if you're not using the microwave, that's just fine.
I don't think people are dying from using a microwave, but you're allowed to believe whatever you want. And as far as my credibility, you've got to rise up. I'm trying to look at the bigger picture and show people they're not eating any fruits and vegetables, and people are getting larger and sicker as the months and years go by.
75% of adults are obese. Kids, I think it was something like three in five, one in three, whatever, obese! And so, "Oh, you're fat shaming, Jill?" I don't care how large you are, I care how sick you may, most likely, get!
That's what I'm trying to do here. So, if Bobby eats more vegetables because he puts them in the microwave, because they're done quicker and he doesn't have to worry about how to prepare them, how to season them, because they should be low salt, "Now, what should I do?" and all the things, we've just won, folks! Because there's trillions of dollars leaving our country every year in just healthcare costs.
Healthcare costs that we can control! We are so out of control. Trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars every year go to our medical system just to manage chronic disease, which can be managed if we eat more fruits and vegetables!
"I'm diabetic, Jill, I can't eat fruit." You can eat some. Count your carbs in them. Berries are good for you, put them in yogurt.
You, too, can eat some fruit. But that again, don't get mired down. The point is all of us, me, Jeff, Fin, everybody should be eating more fruits and vegetables.
We don't. I'm going to tell you right now, "Jill, how do you know?" Because I'm talking to thousands of people a year and they tell me! "Jill, I'm not eating any vegetables.
Jill, I don't like vegetables." Well, how long have you been saying that, Kathy? "Well, I- listen, I've been saying that since I'm five, because my mom used to make me eat vegetables and I hated them." You're now 72. It's time to rethink and maybe open up your eyes to the produce section in your grocery store.
I cannot tell you how many people get a kidney stone, they come to me, we talk about their urine collection or we deep dive into an hour consult and we're talking about how to change their diet, not so it makes me happy, but they're happy, too. And we actually work on getting more vegetables. I have helped thousands of people change their mind on vegetables.
Once you learn how easy it is to just roast them on 400 for 20 minutes in a baking sheet, put a little herbs on there, I have so many no-salt seasonings on my website, super easy, you're done! Make a huge batch, you got them for four days. You don't have to worry about a vegetable or a side dish, you got them.
So, what I'm saying here is we have to look at the bigger picture. I'm not afraid of microwaves. I'm afraid of people having diabetes, having hypertension, having heart attacks.
That's what I'm afraid of because that's what's going on, because people continually eat crap! That's what they're eating. "Jill, I don't have money for fruits and vegetables because they're- I can't afford organic." No one's saying anything about organic.
I don't care about that. I care about whatever vegetable and fruit you can eat and afford, please do that. Again, the bigger picture, because, Fin, there will be people also that say, "Oh, I can't believe, Jill, that you're not talking about organic fruits and-" Honey, people don't even have a car to go to the store and get fruits and vegetables.
Do you know how many people in our society are shopping at the corner store for their food because they're on food stamps? There's not a lot of extra room for fruits and vegetables, so, certainly not organic. Again, we've got to rise up.
This is very elitist thinking with this food shaming. I loathe it. And a microwave?
If we have people not eating fruits and vegetables, I think that's way more detrimental to their health than what's going to happen to them with a microwave, okay? So, or people who are like, "Jill, I can't believe you're letting people or you're making things in your meal plan that has stevia in it." I'm just getting Bobby Sue to try to get rid of four Cokes a day.
So, if she uses some stevia here and there, big picture, maybe her A1C will go down, maybe she'll get off her diuretic, maybe she'll stop wheezing because she's so obese and get to the gym eventually. So, you see, there's so much going on behind the scenes on what Jeff and I are trying to do here, so much more. What bothers me is not that people aren't thinking out of the box, what bothers me is they're not thinking outside of themselves.
We've got to knock it off. Here's what I hear every day. "I don't know- I don't know what to eat." Guys, stop lying to yourself.
You're giving yourself an excuse every time you say that. Everybody knows since you're four years old you're supposed to be eating fruits and vegetables. We're taught that.
We may not eat them when we're four, but we are taught that. We know that. But there's so much industry, diet industry chatter and bullshit that we don't know how to eat anymore.
Do keto, do carnivore, do paleo, do anti-inf- do anti-inflammatory, whatever it is, anti-inflammation, the anti-inflammatory diet. Look what I do for a living, I can't even say it. Okay, so all these diets, do the Sirt diet, do this diet, count points, count- counting points is just another way of counting calories, by the way, folks.
Listen, there's a million ways to skin a cat. My job is to keep this simple so it's doable for you, not something every January 1st you got to do a new diet. No!
You want to prevent kidney stones, you want to eat lower salt and added sugar, you want to get more fluids? Eat more fruits and vegetables. You'll get all of that.
If you crowd out your plate, I'm not going to tell you what, you can't have Doritos, you can't have- that's not my job. What I'm asking, what I'm asking you to do, let's- let's bring so many new things on your plate that there's no more room for the crap that was there. So, let's not focus on what we can't have, let's focus on what we're going to bring in.
And like I said, I've worked with folks for years that never- "Jill, I hate fruits and vegetables. I hate them." We sit, we talk, they're coming to me because they're scared, they got a stone, they never want to go through that again, so now they're more open-minded, instead of saying the same thing and repeating the same thing in their little neural pathways that they're digging deeper and digger- deeper and deeper, now they're like, " maybe I will go to the produce section and visit that instead of bypassing it and just going to the, you know, rice and Dorito section." Okay?
There's so many fruits and vegetables, just try one. I'm not asking you to have 20 fruits a week. I'd like you to get there eventually.
But I'm not asking for that. I'm saying, could we incorporate one fruit this week and one vegetable two times this week? That's all.
We got to start somewhere. Nobody's going to become a vegan tomorrow, and I don't even ask that you do that. But I am asking, can we open our minds to that?
Can we stop being so closed-minded on both ends? People need to be more open-minded about eating fruits and vegetables, and other people with their elite food thinking and shaming need to open their mind that they're not the only person in the world, and that they need to rise up and see the bigger problem in our country, obesity, which leads to chronic conditions.
And people will say, "Well, Jill, it's not a big deal. I got my- I got my- Losartan, I got my statin, I got- my pills! I got my Metformin, I'm good, girl!
Why do I got to pay attention to you?" Because those drugs are not healthy for you! "Oh, Jill, also, this is another one, "Jill, why aren't you talking about ashwagandha, galangal? Why can't we take that?
Why can't we smoke that? Why can't we take this pill? Why can't we do this?
Why can't we do that pill? Why can't we do that supplement? I want natural things, Jill." Those pills ain't coming out of no bee's ass, people!
There's nothing natural about them, they were made in a factory! Wake up! What am I doing every day?
I'm talking about the most natural thing in the world that was grown in the- in the ground, fruits and vegetables. It don't get more natural than that! So, stop telling me about your pills and potions, too.
I'm trying to get you off pills and potions with fruits and vegetables, whole foods. Whole foods mean it came out of the ground, basically. Also, if you want to do meat, that's fine.
It's- it's natural. It hasn't been really tampered with, and mutilated, and transformed into a food-like substance. That's what we're talking about here.
So, the microwave comment really got me mad. Not for me, I don't- You think I care who follows me and who doesn't? It's nice, because we like to help people, that's what we're doing here, but you don't need to tell me you're not following me.
Bye-bye! That's fine. You're not- You obviously you don't need my teachings if you're so worried about Red 40, too.
And, by the way, there is always one more thing with me. I love it when people are like, "Jill, I would never do stevia." Meanwhile, they're drinking a freaking martini. Alcohol is a- is a- Is that alcohol?
It is toxic! But you're going to sit here and try to tell people they should never do an artificial sweetener because they're going to die from it? People have lost their mind.
And the hypocrisy runs rampant. I can't tell you how many social influencers I know, social media influencers with their diet stuff, you see them in the next post they're having three glasses of wine, all buzzed! And I can assure you that when they get home, they're not chomping on kale, because nobody does when they're buzzed.
That doesn't happen. So, Jeff's like, "Jesus, Jill." I know, I'm going all over the place. But we've got to be mindful.
People, you've got to start eating more fruits and vegetables. I'm on a mission this year for it. I'm just on a mission.
It is- Well, and things that are high in oxalate, stay away from spinach. Honestly, it's really- there's so few vegetables I take away, you all know that. So, don't even start barking about the oxalate.
Take away spinach, don't overeat beets, some of them are a little high, within portion, don't eat them every day, get your calcium needs met. Don't use oxalate as an excuse to get rid of all your fruits and vegetables. It's really important.
If you can just get a couple fruits and a couple vegetables a week, in the entire week, if you just start doing that, you're going- you're going to feel so much better about yourself. And just things like put some- put some berries in your yogurt, you know? It's just a natural sweetener, then you don't have to get the artificial sweeteners one if you don't want to use that or added sugar.
Use real fruit. "Well, Jill, this is- this is Dannon. It has raspberries on the bottom in a bunch of shitty syrup." Get some plain, good old yogurt, Greek yogurt, plain, nonfat if you're into the no-fat, get some berries, put it in there!
That's natural, the factory didn't make that, okay? So, just think about it. And microwaving people, don't waste your- don't waste my time with telling people they shouldn't microwave.
If- if that's what gets them to eat a vegetable, please microwave your vegetables. That's absolutely fine, everyone's got to start somewhere.
