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Mindfulness and Food with Katie Evans
Your Green Voice
Wednesday, 5 February 2025 - 46 minutes
On Your Green Voice, presenter Xan Phillips welcomed Katie Evans from the Good Evans Kitchen.
The discussion centered around improving health and well-being through mindful eating and gut health. Katie shared her journey of promoting modern movements such as mindfulness and gut health, while emphasising the importance of seasonal, nutrient-rich diets, and the positive impact these have on mental and physical health.
Katie, inspired by her childhood and grandmother's gardening practices, talks about educating children and adults alike on sustainable eating habits, mindful practices, and the importance of fermented foods. She also delves into her mission of reducing food insecurity and promoting food education in Southampton.
The segment highlights practical tips, along with Katie's upcoming workshops and classes designed to foster healthier, more mindful lifestyles.
Transcript
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): On sunny Southampton's Voice FM, that is Ben Brown and let go a very good afternoon to you. My name is Xan and we're putting the environment centre stage, highlighting the positive and hopefully inspiring you to help our lovely blue planet go a little bit more green.
Later we'll have our usual variety of local green stories and some national and international items, but first our guests. Now, we seem to be waking up from a giant slumber, rubbing our eyes and realizing that we've been treating our bodies and minds really badly by eating highly processed foods and living stressful lifestyles.
The solution to this comes in many shapes. ancient practices such as yoga and meditation and more recently the mindfulness and gut health movements. Our guest today has her feet in both pools and here to tell us more about these modern solutions to a better you is Katie Evans from the Good Evans Kitchen.
Katie, a very good afternoon to you. How are you?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I'm good, thank you. Thanks, Sam, for having me.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): That's a pleasure. You're more than welcome to return, because you brought a beautiful lunch with you.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I did, indeed.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Tell the listener what you prepared.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Well, it was very simple, a 15 to 20 minute salad for you, in season, with squash, kale, broccoli, some nice fresh quinoa, and a delicious Nutty salad.
Um, not a salad. It was a dressing. A dressing. And
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): yes, that was one of the nicest dressings I've ever tasted. And can you just tell them what it was? It was a
Katie Evans (Good Evans): mix of nut butter, a dash of maple, miso, hot water, some two in one olive oil, um, all mixed together with some tahini.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): It was beautiful and, um, because I'm more used to the old traditional oil and vinegar kind of dressing, which is a bit sharper, you know, which
Katie Evans (Good Evans): still work well, but it's nice to have an alternative up your sleeve.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Yeah. And as far as, um, gut health goes, it's. Have a little chat about that. Um, miso I'm aware of is something that is quite active and in the gut. Is that right?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Yes, it's soy based and it's rich in protein.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): And the rest of the, the nut butter and everything else that was in there, um, is that just good protein, good health?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Yeah, it's all just good fat and good protein. Everything that I cook and I teach is not just in season. Um, but it also reflects what our body needs, which is protein, fat, and fiber. And I Everybody, including myself and my Children to each meal to always have protein, fat and fiber. I'm not too bothered about the other things being in there on.
So the dressing was rich in those things.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Are you on a mission? Then
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I'm on a mission. I'm on a mission to educate and inspire and grow confidence in everybody.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Well, the next classic question is where did this mission come from? What inspired you to turn yourself into this direction?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I think having lots of Children, um, and raising them.
I thought how everybody else raised them initially, um, seasonally eating seasonal food. I soon realized that's not how everybody raises children. Um, I, I instinctively did it. I grew up with a grandmother who grew vegetables, who plotted down where her rotational crops were going in the garden. I sewed things and picked things.
And, um, she just lived up the road in Totten. Um, and we did it in her backyard. back garden from her semi detached house. Um, but as a child, I was very, very sick as a child. Um, always had lung issues. Um, and that got worse as an adult, um, from COVID times, I was very sick and I was very interested in how the body can heal itself and went on a journey of understanding food and health and connecting together.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): So when you look around at the options most people have. For example, if you were to go in a supermarket or when you're seeing people eat in the street, the fast food options, does that make you despair or does that make you? It just makes me sad,
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I think, because I just feel that there's a lack of education.
Um, I don't know if they don't know if it's processed and most people know it's processed, um, usually to a lack of stress, a lack of, um, with tiredness and stress, busy lives and the enormity of. easy grab and go food that people market to us as people buy all the time. It's really hard to get away from and if it's going to be quick and simple and doesn't always tell the truth on the front, it's really difficult to know if you're buying something that's good for you or it's going to nourish you or give you what you need in your body or not.
So I think it's around education and I just, I think I feel, I don't feel despair but I would like to have more education in every area of people's lives so they can make informed decisions.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Because the meal that you brought in, um, I felt like a king. You know, it was a, it was a lovely meal. It looked fan, it looked fantastic.
First of all. I saw it with the eyes, which is part part of it. Yes, part of it. Um, and then I ate it and, uh, it was just, as I say, with the dressing, fabulous dressing. And, um, it was. It's just really tasty, but it took 15 of your Earth minutes. It
Katie Evans (Good Evans): did, and it's full of the colours of the rainbow, which is what a lot, you know, we teach a lot about.
But it's similar to do with where you buy your clothes and how you buy your clothes. You don't Always just go on cost. You go on color or you go on how it feels. You go on the shape, you go on where it was made or what it's made from. Food is very similar. You know, I want food to be nourishing you. I want it to do a good job in you.
I want it to be visually appealing. I want it to be able to serve lots of different people. So you had a quinoa salad, so it was gluten free. It was dairy free and it was rich in seasonal. Fat protein and fiber
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): fat protein and fiber
Katie Evans (Good Evans): protein fat and fiber
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): is Protein fat and fiber Um, you're gonna get a t shirt with that.
I
Katie Evans (Good Evans): should do it rolls off the tongue nicely protein fat and fiber.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): That's great and how quickly Could you bring someone up to speed on this? So I mean You were taught by your grandmother in a way. You, you had a, I mean, I'm, I don't think she realized I'm doing rotational crops in a, in a, in a garden in Toson.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I don't think she realized she was teaching me. It's just how life used to be. It was quite normal. Everyone did. Everyone grew food. I think we've just got into such a fast paced life now that people forget that their gardens don't have to be a green grass to mow. It can look differently. It can be full of vegetables and produce and fruit and, and soil health and teaching to understand for children and for adults where food comes from.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): And you make a good point there. The garden has become like a living painting.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Yes.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): That you look out the window and think, oh, isn't that nice?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Let's take a photograph. Yes, it looks nice.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Maybe you might sit in it during the summer. Maybe not. Maybe the insects might be there. Um, but the thought if you said to someone, why didn't you turn that lawn into a planting area and grow loads of food and stuff like that?
And it'd be like, I think there'd be a gas. Yes.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Or not know where to start. Maybe.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Well, definitely not know where to start because that would be me. Um, because I wouldn't know what to plant, how to plant it. I could learn.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I think that's where my learning journal journey as an adult came from. I was intrigued from my, my own personal health issues and raising children and had that gap in my corporate previous life, um, that I went and studied horticultural science at college, went back to college, raising the children and understood where food came from and how important soil health is and how many billions, um, of good bacteria is in every teaspoon of soil, more than we can ever see or imagine.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Good bacteria is, um, is, is vital. But once again, I think we've avoided the question how quickly can you bring someone up to speed let's say to make a salad like that Remember how to do it and make it part of their natural Weekly process
Katie Evans (Good Evans): very quickly. I have, um, businesses and one to ones and children and people that come for half an hour, 40 minutes and jump onto a lunch and learn online with me.
And we build a salad that they really enjoy and they replicate it. And then they book onto a workshop with me, or then they might go on and do a four week or a three month course with me, because they want to build that confidence or they want to build that knowledge in some way. But, um, we often do it in a lunch and learn in half an hour to 40 minutes.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Lunch and learn. That's great. And there's something pleasant at the end as well.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Absolutely.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): All lessons should be like that, shouldn't they? The. Do you think that in fact actually while we were eating you mentioned, um, there was a study of Southampton, which I think is very important that the listeners should hear about.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Absolutely. It's about mapping, um, food health in the city and Southampton University did a really big study on the people in Southampton. They did a survey on their food health and the quality of food that they were having. and how they felt about it. Um, a study came back that 42 percent of children aged 10 to 11 were found that they were obese, which was just so saddening, and they also found that over 40 percent of adults felt a food insecurity around making food and, and um, connecting buying and eating healthy food, which was just so sad.
Eye wateringly high
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): and by food insecurity. Can you just explain what that means? They didn't
Katie Evans (Good Evans): know what to do with it. So if I bought Carbonara to put in the microwave it will tell you on On the front, what to do with it and how to in 15 minutes, how to eat it. If you buy a cabbage, it's in season. It doesn't come with instructions on it.
So they didn't feel secure in knowing that if they bought seasonal vegetables and they put them in their fridge, that they'd know how to make a complete meal that the whole family would enjoy, um, and replicate and eat again. So I think for me, that. Just screams that there's a lack, not just of access of fresh food, but also if they do access it, how they can put it together in the education of making food that tastes good, that's in season with confidence.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): I mean, for example, the quinoa you had was just, I mean, you could just put hot water on that, can't you? Just put
Katie Evans (Good Evans): hot water on
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): it. It's like a, um, it's like a noodle kind of base dish, but it's actually much better for you and sits in a packet in your cupboard.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): It takes 12 minutes to make foot water. And then you just add lots of seasonal food and vegetables into it.
You could add protein and meat into it. You could add tofu into it. You could add chicken into it, chickpeas into it. And then make a nice dressing to complete.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): So if you were on this mission then, and you've lived in the area all your life, um, do you, It's going to be something hard for you to do on your own, I can imagine.
There's only one Katie Evans at the moment.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): There is at the moment, there absolutely is.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): You can always clone yourself online, that's a good way of cloning. I know, it's a team
Katie Evans (Good Evans): of one at the moment.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Educational videos or something. Are you finding other people within the area who have got similar thoughts, or?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Definitely in the city, there's something called, um, Food in Partnership, that, um, businesses, um, The university, um, the hospital, charities, not for profits are getting together to try and collate a sort of a group and a hub of how can we help food poverty, food insecurity, and how can we build this. But that's sort of a collective, a wider range of things.
There isn't anyone at the moment that's in my walk of life that's jumping on the Goodheaven's Kitchen Cookery School bandwagon yet.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Right, okay. But you, um, can come into businesses?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Yes, I do regularly. I've, I've, even tomorrow we're teaching a hybrid business online because they're all around the country.
They only get together a few times a year. They're having a team training day online and they're breaking with me for an hour to make a lunch, to step away from what their usual day to day is, to connect as a team, to learn something fun and in season and make lunch together.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): What's on the
Katie Evans (Good Evans): menu? Tomorrow is a Greek themed Chicken meatballs with an avocado and butter bean dip.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Avocado and butter bean dip? Yes, because they're dairy free. Right, okay. And are they going to have to cook the chicken beforehand?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): No, we're going to cook it together. I'm going to be live with them and I'm going to take them through step by step. Um, and we're going to make lunch together and they're going to make lunch as a team.
Have some fun and just really connect in a different way.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): That sucks, that really does, apart from the chicken, apart from the chicken. But
Katie Evans (Good Evans): you can, the options are to do it with tofu, the options are to do it with pulses or with lentils. There's lots of different ways of making a similar dish fit for all dietary requirements.
I mean, you seem like a very confident
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): person. Have you, did you find it easy to move into the Zoom YouTube world and be videoed?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Not at all. It is not my forte. I have had to learn how to do it and just to be brave because the need for education and the desire and passion to help people to feel confident in the kitchen outweighs what I look like or how I, the fear of something, uh, a video being on me.
Um, so I just get on and do it. Warts and all.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): And, and do you watch it back? Are you, are you brave enough to watch it back?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Oh, no, I tend to just record and post.
Editing is, I've not found my editing skills just yet. So if anyone's a brilliant video editor, please do get in touch. I'm always in need of one.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): What do I, well, but at the same time, um, sort of, you're happy with your presentation. It's probably the, the only other way, reason for look at it is just to say, So it's like a footballer looking at their performance.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Yes. No, I think, I think so. And I think for me, a core value of the business and of myself is to be, is to always be authentic. So anyone that I connect with, anything that I cook, anything that I discuss, any relationships that we build with the business, it has to be really deeply authentic. And I think hopefully that's how we come across or how I come across in my videos when I'm teaching.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): But if it's anything like the food that I've had just now. Very similar. Then it's a brilliant thing to have. Um, we're talking with Katie Evans from Good Evans Kitchen. Uh, the website is actually goodevanskitchen. co. uk If you want to have a quick look now, you can. You might see what we're going to be talking about next, but, um, to be honest with you, we were meant to be talking about mindfulness in this section, but we just somehow went straight into food.
But I think that was, uh, um, everything that I could taste. I thought, we've got to get this. But in the next part, we're talking about mindfulness and I'm sure the two are connected. They are indeed. Lovely. This is your green voice on Southampton's Voice FM.
On sunny Southampton's Voice FM, that is Sir Gala, Ellie Oakes, and with you, my name is Anne. This is Your Green Voice. Every Thursday from two o'clock, we're talking about the environment. Don't forget you can join me for breakfast, Your Green Breakfast, environmental breakfast show from seven o'clock every weekday morning.
And we are now going to talk about, um, mindfulness. It's another part of, um, what, Is happening around us. This is, as I said in the introduction earlier, we seem to be waking up, realizing that as humanity, we're not only eating things that are really quite harmful for us, but also our stressful lives are affecting us quite badly.
A lot of this can be seen in young people at the moment, especially with anxiety. Am I, am I right in saying that, Katie? Yes,
Katie Evans (Good Evans): absolutely. This
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): is Katie Evans from the Katie, um, Good Evans Kitchen.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Hello.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Um, and Katie, uh, anxiety, is it something just for young people or are a lot of people in your, in your experience?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): No, me included. I think even my teenagers have definitely experienced enormous anxiety with the system of school they're in, with the pressures, with time pressures, with adults, with commuting, um, with Doing everything and getting our children to every gymnastics play and swimming event on time and parking and dealing with the weather and Christmas and financial pressures and it just goes on and on and on I think as humans we have put so much Into our lives that we are we are prone to anxiety
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): How does mindfulness help?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): well mindfulness is about being present and It's a lovely way of Of receiving a gift, being present. And, I teach about being present with your food. And I teach about being, in the moment, being present. So we, we teach being, um, Pause, eat and reflect. Is what I teach at the Cookery School.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): We didn't really have much chance to do that earlier, did we?
No, we didn't.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): But I've slowly been introducing it at home. I teach it at the school and it works really well, but it's a nice way to introduce mindfulness. So instead of eating at your desk or eating in front of the television, say in the morning, Having those extra few minutes while your porridge is making or while your eggs are cooking or whatever it is that you're having.
Light a candle. Sit down to eat. Be present with your food. Engage your mind. Engage your senses. Get everything in your body prepared to eat. And it might sound a bit woo and a bit out there, but actually pausing To slow your mind down, to slow that, calm that vagus nerve down, which by all means is the nerve that attaches from our gut to our brain and our brain to our gut, sends receptors in saying, Oh, our body is getting ready to eat.
And it also, It's always, it's just always much more digestible, it's always more positive, it's almost more pleasant experience to be able to pause before we eat. And there are certain triggers, like a habit stack, that you can do. Mine at home is to light a candle. So you light a candle and you're, it's a trigger to know you're going to sit down to eat.
It could be something else. It could be sitting on a favourite chair. It could be choosing a certain coloured bowl. It could be picking up your favourite fork or spoon or something, or nicest cup from the cupboard when you're going to make a coffee.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): I can imagine that the listener, when having a moment of time spare, is more than likely to pick up their phone and
Katie Evans (Good Evans): check.
Indeed. That's a challenge.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Whatever, whatever it is. But you're saying to be present is trying to, well, avoid the phone. Avoid the phone. It's about thinking about what you're going to do next.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): It's about valuing yourself and your body and your mind enough to pause. and it helps digestion, it helps anxiety, it helps your brain's fog and brain space and it really helps you connect to food.
If you ask your children at lunchtime when they pick them up from school and they say, what did you eat today? I don't know, can't remember. Because it's so busy and bustly. If you've been to a canteen sometimes or you've been busy answering emails when you've been eating, your brain doesn't always register that it's eaten.
Because you've been so busy forcing it to do so many other things, that often, an hour later, you're hungry and you eat again. But actually, if you pause, and in a mindful and intentional way, your brain is allowed to register, your senses are allowed to register, and you get good digestion, you know you've eaten, and then you can actually take a break from whatever it is, stressful or not, enjoyable or not, and then go back to it, and go back to the activity or the task that you were doing.
And I think it just really helps you. In life generally not just with eating
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Try to be present everywhere you go.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I try to be in the moment, but it does make you a more poor at planning ahead
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Event management as i've heard it called it's not time management. It's event management. Maybe Yeah, it's um, which was which I thought was actually fascinating but not for now But I think There seems to be an awful lot of colouring in going on with mindfulness, or is it that I'm just seeing mindfulness colouring in books?
I think you're
Katie Evans (Good Evans): not wrong. There are a lot of colouring in books and I, as I said earlier, I have a nine year old daughter who loves colouring in and loves mindfulness. We've taught her over the years to really understand what her body is saying to her, to be able to be intuitive, to listen to her and and she's understanding that even at school.
They wouldn't agree that she didn't like sausages, or they didn't do some good inside her, they made her feel unwell in some way. And because I hadn't written in, they made her eat these sausages, so she pretended she was allergic, so she didn't have to eat the food that didn't love her back. And that's something else we talk about.
Really simply, eat the food that loves you back. So if you eat something that isn't happy there, then maybe it's not for you. That's another way of doing it. Have coloring books we do lots of mindfulness and as I previously said I know that it's a really great way for cross Or you're stressed having that coloring in isn't a bad thing.
Actually.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): No, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it's a Go to no, but it's it's something I think I would really enjoy I don't feel I've got the time I can't I can set aside that amount of time to do it Not having
Katie Evans (Good Evans): the time and setting aside time is very different because there is one thing in this world that every single person has, and that's the same amount of time, 24 hours in every day.
It's how we choose to use it that's important.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): I see. I've got to make different choices, or you say not better choices, but different choices.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I don't know, but I think Looking at it from that perspective really helps us to think about how we spend our time and what we want, what we choose to spend it on.
Do we want to spend it scrolling and eating and not having a good gut digestion or a mindful moment to let ourselves pause and allow ourselves to be free of some anxiety or some overwhelmness or do we want to spend our time being a little more intentional a bit more intuitive a bit more mindful and stepping away from screens or from things that aren't serving us in the right way
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): sometimes i think um especially in the environmental side we're very good at saying what we shouldn't be doing we should be doing this absolutely We don't really talk about the benefits enough.
Like the environmentalists really should be saying, look, we're going to live in a fantastic planet. The air is going to be clean. The soil is going to be clean. The water is going to be clean. You're not going to have microplastics. You're going to feel absolutely fantastic. We don't seem to do that. We just say, look, everyone's doing bad and we should change.
With mindfulness, after a certain amount of practice, what changes would you see?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): As I've said before, I think you would see better sleep. I think you'd see more kindness to yourself, uh, more self value. I think you would almost feel like you've created time because you've stepped away from wasting time.
Um, you'd have better gut health, digestion, less brain fog, maybe.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Um, let's go back to the stomach and gut health, but also briefly, you mentioned talking about eating food that loves you back. I can imagine someone's probably going to be saying chocolate. Yes,
Katie Evans (Good Evans): absolutely. I love chocolate. Right. The right chocolate though.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): What is the right chocolate in the Katie Evans land?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): For me, it's a dark chocolate. And people often say, Oh, I can't stand it. It's so bitter. But that's because we are unconsciously always eating sugary foods. So it's in our bread. It's in our cereal. It's in our And it's in the toast that we're eating.
It's in the sugary snacks that we choose to eat. It's in the treat that was going to be once a week, but it's crept into every other day or every day. And then we eat a piece of dark chocolate and it tastes really bitter. If you take out your daily hits of sugar and then you have a piece of dark chocolate, it's not bitter.
It's actually quite a sweet. delicious taste and they are so many of them and there's lots of chat about chocolate. We choose to try and find chocolates without emulsifiers or binders or adders or gums that are in lots of chocolate. Most, um, milk chocolate has got a lot of emulsifiers in which aren't great for your gut health.
Um, But I'm still yet to turn the children on that one. It's much more of an adult decision than a child decision. But we are getting there.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): That's very good. But I know what you mean about, um, dark chocolate and I'm quite happy with a 70 percent dark chocolate now. I think it's a treat.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): And if you're happy with a 70 cents.
80%. I would challenge you to get to try and get to 80 or 85. Really? Because it's really good. It's got so many polyphenols in it. It's really good for our system. I would really promote a piece of dark chocolate every day.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Right.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): But it depends what's in it.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Or how large that piece is.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): A couple of squares of chocolate a day is a really healthy decision.
It depends which chocolate you're eating.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): We talked about, um, well you talked about gut health and that's another Something that I find gut health a remarkable subject because there seems to be so many projects for So many products from Asia they've already been using for gut health and that's a and in this country That there seems to be very little fermented food
Katie Evans (Good Evans): We don't ferment as much as other countries.
It's not in our culture generally to ferment I
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): think the
Katie Evans (Good Evans): more education we have on gut health, on anti inflammatory foods, on using simple cabbages in season that cost between 40 and 70 pence to make a fermented dish like a kimchi or a sauerkraut or a salsa that can feed you with really good bacteria, then I'm all for it.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): If you had said to me as a kid, one day, you're going to be eating sauerkraut,
Katie Evans (Good Evans): I know
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): I would be like, no, because a, the name sounds, it sounds. Horrible for a start and um, it was just something that Germans ate and you sort of think no I'm not eating that and The fact that it's actually good for your health good for your guts
Katie Evans (Good Evans): really good
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): But why because that's that's the thing we're talking you and I know about this But we've got to tell the listener why is fermented food good for the gut
Katie Evans (Good Evans): because it's full of good bacteria You get good bacterium bad bacteria and you want the good bacteria to feed your gut with lots of flora and fauna which is all the microbes in your tummy that feed off it.
If you put sugar in and it only feeds off sugar because that's all you're putting in, which isn't great bacteria, then You get not just overweight, not just your skin changes, you get brain fog, you get inflammation issues, you might be prone to more diabetic issues, you will definitely be more anxious, you won't sleep very well, um, the lists of issues go on and on and on.
If you choose to put more fermented foods foods in each day. And it can be as simple as a spoon of kefir. It can be a tablespoon of fermented salsa or a tablespoon of a kimchi or a sauerkraut on your salad or on a burger or in any way that you, you choose to have with it. It's just putting all of those good bacteria in.
So you're giving your stomach and your gut a chance to feed on something that's going to promote good health. good health and support you in reducing inflammation and getting rid of all those diseases and things that I've just spoken about.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): It does help with the passage of things through the body as well, doesn't it?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): It does. If you haven't got good health, you will know, depends on how long it takes to sit on the toilet. And you should be having and, and experiencing a really positive experience, being regularly, going regularly on the toilet. If you don't, then your body is clearly saying to you, you know. You are inflamed.
I'm unhappy or my vagus nerve is upset. My gut health isn't great. And I probably need to think about what I'm eating. And am I eating the food that's loving me back?
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): You've mentioned the vagus nerve twice and we haven't, um, discussed it.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Just because it connects. It just talks from your tummy to your brain and your brain to your tummy.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Yes. Well, I thought it didn't. Doesn't it sort of connect most of your vital organs? It does. It's
Katie Evans (Good Evans): just a massive nerve, but it is the main. receptor and chatter between your, um, gut and your brain. And your brain is just over 60 percent fat. So if you choose to eat a low fat diet, and you only buy zero fat yogurt, and only eat low fat foods, you are not giving your chance.
The chance your brain and your vagus nerve to function properly, which is why I talk about protein, fat and fiber Because the other 40 percent of your brain is protein, water and a bit of carbohydrate So you you need to put good fat in for your nervous system and your brain to function properly For you.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): No one thinks about the brain do they?
Katie Evans (Good Evans): They don't And they don't see, and I think they've heard that the gut is like the second brain, but they don't know why or how. And actually, to have a good mental health, you need to have good gut health. Amazing.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): That sort of explains how this conversation starts, in a way, because we were talking about a lot of people being anxious, especially young people. And in some respects, it's potentially what they're eating. And all they need to do is just make a A couple of meals a week, three or four meals a week, a meal a day.
What kind of change do you think they should start doing to implement? Small,
Katie Evans (Good Evans): consistent change. It just takes one step, one intentional action, one physical change at a time. It's, it can be, it's taken us two years to get rid of. Cereal out of our household Because of teenagers and we have finally done it and if it's not there, they can't eat it I don't want them to start their day with sugar.
So we've replaced it with protein
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): and Give us a good example of a breakfast now in the Evans kitchen
Katie Evans (Good Evans): a protein pancake Made up in a Nutribullet an egg Some ground almonds whizzed up Fight And eaten. Wow. There's a bit of yoghurt on the side. You could add a bit of vanilla if you wanted to. You could add a bit of cinnamon if you wanted to.
You could add a bit of cacao if you wanted to. You could add some honey if you wanted to. Might have, um, scrambled eggs and broccoli. They might have a protein smoothie. They would make all of this themselves, I would add. Please note that I am not waking up at 6am and serving all the children a platter of breakfast.
My children have been taught that we're an independent family, we're all very busy and we all need to make food in less than 10 minutes every single day for breakfast.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): That's brilliant. Less than 10 minutes. Absolutely. Tell us about your emergency yogurt this morning.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Oh emergency yogurt is amazing. I ran out of yogurt, but there's always a pot of cottage cheese in our house.
And if you whiz cottage cheese in a neutral or a high speed blender, it goes completely smooth. And if you add in either fresh or frozen berries, you get a berry yogurt that is high in protein, slow releasing, full of goodness and fat, and it's going to set you up for the day. It's like really good. Game changer on the go in the car on the way to work.
You could put some pumpkin seeds or some walnuts in there, or you could, um, add, I put in cucumber cause that's what I had in mind. I quite like the sweet and savory mixed together. You could add some avocado chopped up in there. You could add some chia seeds in there. Loads of different options.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Chia seeds.
We'll talk about those in a moment actually because they are curious little fellows. They are aren't they? Where do they come from? We're going to talk about that with uh, katie evans because she's from The good evans kitchen dot co dot uk. Um, we've been talking about mindfulness. We're talking about gut health And I think the next stage is your green life and that's all coming up on Your Green Voice.
My name's Xan. This is your green voice. Uh, in the, uh, studio we have the delightful Katie Evans from Good Evans kitchen.co.uk, uh, where you can do workshops for business wellbeing. You can do a popup, cookery session, online courses too. And it's all about mindfulness. Good gut health. Becoming at one with cooking, understanding what vegetables, uh, can be, uh, what you can do with vegetables.
They have no instructions, as Katie said, no instructions, um, on the outside. One thing, Katie, you might be able to help me with is avocados. Because I firmly believe that everyone pinches the end of the avocado to see if it's healthy or see if it's edible. And then so by the end of the week, the avocado is really soft at the top.
You think it's fine. You can take it home and it's really hard. They're
Katie Evans (Good Evans): a bit like a pear, aren't they?
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Oh, I don't, I don't eat pears. I'm not, I'm not a pear kind of guy.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): They're a bit like a pear. You never know when they're fully ripe. And then the next day they're too ripe. Exactly. That's where
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): guacamole comes from, isn't it?
That is what you do with a
Katie Evans (Good Evans): guacamole. If in doubt, make a dip.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Yes. Mash it up. Absolutely. In a fast blender.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Brilliant. Just mash it with the back of the fork, add some chilli seeds, add a squeeze of lime with a nice egg, fried egg on top. Great breakfast.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Lovely. And Your Green Life, because we talked about mindfulness so far, we talked about gut health.
It's very interesting. And if you have missed this conversation, it will be on Catch Up. podcast as well. But Your Green Life sounds like it was inspired by your grandmother in Tottenham.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Um, I suppose indirectly, yes. Uh, I think as I've grown up and we've become this really fast paced don't mend it chuck it away and buy a new one attitude, it hasn't sat right with me and Um, being sustainable and reducing food waste is definitely part of my business and it's definitely part of my ethos, my makeup as a person and how we raise our family.
Um, so it's a really important topic and it's important to know that actually a small change always makes a big impact eventually. You may not see the change in the impact, but you're, it's accumulative. If we all make a small change, it makes an impact.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Not to treat your children as specimens in a jar, but are they naturally green?
Uh,
Katie Evans (Good Evans): it depends on which ones and which generation we're in. Sort of my early twenties children are very green and very conscious. They talk about it. They, uh, naturally have gone away from alcohol. They've gone to uni not drinking alcohol. They are cooking more. They're recycling lots. Um, they're very conscious about, um, what's in a cream or what's in a pan or what they should and shouldn't use a microwave for.
They are questioning. They're curious about being green. I would say that my middle teens aren't quite there yet. And then my younger one, my nine year old, is, um, banging the green drum day and night.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Wow.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): We're always in trouble if we don't do something green. Are
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): we talking like plastic? We're
Katie Evans (Good Evans): talking reusable plastics or For us as a household, clothes has been a really big one.
Shopping is a huge part of her life. Who knew after having four boys and never ever going clothes shopping, I'd have this little girl that just wants to go shopping and it's my worst nightmare. I'm an eight minutes in and out kind of person. And actually we've talked about sustainability and ethics and the ethical side of running a business, uh, of scaling a business and how that can impact things just as like going shopping or going to the supermarket.
Um, and so we try to educate as much as we possibly can with good intentions in that. So now we use a lot of secondhand shops and we use vintage. So when we don't want it anymore or it's grown out of us, or it's just not our style, we fall out of love with it. We put it onto Vinted or we sell it on something or we give it to a charity shop and, but we don't just give them away and, and get rid of things we don't want.
We utilize it ourselves. So we buy things from there too.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Right. And do you think sewing and sewing machines are going to come in at some point? They have in
Katie Evans (Good Evans): our household.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Already, yes? Absolutely. I was actually talking about your household, but yes. We, they
Katie Evans (Good Evans): absolutely have. So my daughter started a sewing club and has made a hot water bottle holder, a cold water bottle holder, um, a patchwork quilt, um, um, a little handbag.
I've made some cushions and some blinds over the years, being budget. I've learnt how to sew with one hand in Pinterest and YouTube and the other on a sewing machine. I am no expert, but I love trying and I love a project and seeing how things can come together.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Because, of course, with your daughter and the clothing, there was no hand me downs,
Katie Evans (Good Evans): were there?
No. The boys just, um, and I have got brothers. So, all my older children were in my brother's clothes, and then all my older children, younger children were in my older children's clothes. So, we did very rarely, it wasn't a new thing. If someone needed a pair of football boots, uh, one of them will fit someone.
But, times have changed.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Yeah, no, times have definitely changed. Um, I know, I know, um, some households where, You know, you have to have the latest, um, the latest piece of kit that's new
Katie Evans (Good Evans): that never used to be like when I was When I was growing up, it wasn't like that. Maybe it was the cost of living for us as a family We didn't grow up in a very affluent family um, and I just thought it was quite normal to borrow other people's things for a time or To repurpose them and I think Now it's got to this, Oh, we've got to have a new iPhone.
We've got to have the latest brand on our coat. We've got to do this. But I think the more you educate about marketing and about being intuitive, being mindful about your finances, mindful about your eating, mindful about your clothes, having mindful choices in your life. If you can, it's always a good thing.
And that's what we try and teach at home. It doesn't always go well, but we're doing the best that we can.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Well, it sounds like you're having a great time and also bringing a lot of joy and education to people. Um, what what online courses do you have coming up? So should someone be interested in Joining you and yes, we've
Katie Evans (Good Evans): got a mini mindful morning for children and adults.
They have to bring an adult with them Um, they're not allowed to leave their children I firmly believe in education for adults and children. It's a really nice fun morning in Southampton in February half term. You can book on my website or my social media, Instagram, LinkedIn, Linktree, it's all there. We have an adults fermentation class on a Saturday morning coming up at the end of February.
We also have an online evening pop up that you can just pop in and cook whatever we're doing in season. Um, there's an There's a day in February that you can book onto again, through my social, through my website or through my link tree.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Tell me about the fermentation, because I'm, I'm actually interested in that.
It sounds scary. It sounds like, it sounds like a thing like I really want to do, but I need someone it to guide. It's not scary at all. It's scary. You gotta, you got, it's, it's, you're growing something within something.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Yes, but that's the beauty of it. And it's just a basics essentials guide to fermentation.
You'll make two or three ferments and I'll bring a few ferments with me that you'll try. Um, I'll show you in how to do it in a canapé style when you're I have got friends around. I'll show you fermentation in a stew for a dinner. And then you get to taste a few things along the way and make some things too.
So you get to bring your Tupperwares with you and take home whatever you've made to ferment in the cupboard or the fridge to try in some time to come.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): So are you, are we talking, um, kimchi? Because I really, kimchi seems to suit me.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): Yeah, we usually make a fermented salsa, a sam, a sauerkraut and a kimchi, um, depending on the class that we're doing.
Sometimes we make a kefir as well, or sometimes I just bring kefir to try. Um, and we use the dishes that you, that you make. learning to make. I will have made some dishes with them so you can try what it tastes like to have it as food in your everyday rather than just in a box to take home.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): And on an educational note, what's the difference between yogurt and kefir?
Because they both seem exactly the same. One's fermented and one's not. One's
Katie Evans (Good Evans): got extra good bacteria in and one's just got protein and fat.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): And that's the yogurt. Yes. Fantastic.
Katie Evans (Good Evans): So
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): kefir is more like a Greek yogurt, is it or? Uh,
Katie Evans (Good Evans): kefir is a more like a fermented milk, I'd say. It's a thinner in texture generally.
Um, and a Greek yogurt is higher in, is really high in fat, um, and is not fermented.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Well, we started off by talking about your mission, and I think it's a fantastic mission that you've got. And, uh, I feel enlightened. Um, I feel much more relaxed. And, um, I'm, I'm, I'm very grateful for the, the plate of food that you brought in that we had a little earlier.
You're very
Katie Evans (Good Evans): welcome. It's lovely to be here. It's lovely to chat about mindfulness and gut health and sustainability and how businesses and families, adults and children can think about Mindfully about what goes in and how to eat the food that loves them back.
Xan Phillips (Voice FM): Brilliant. Well, Katie Evans, thank you very much for being with us.
And if you want to find out more about what Katie is up to, go to https://goodevanskitchen.co.uk/ based in Southampton and doing good around the community.
