Joshua Delgado: Welcome to Centennial College Fit and Healthy on-campus podcast, the podcast that gives you tips and resources on how to live a fit and healthy life on campus. I'm your host, Joshua Delgado. Thanks for joining us for episode three's topic, Healthy Eating on Campus. I'm joined today by our guests, Jordan Tam and Jane Skapinker. So we're going to get right into it talking about healthy eating on-campus. First I want to ask you, Jane, the first question, what does healthy eating mean to you?

Jane Skapinker: The answer, I'm going to give preface with, it's in my practice and in my opinion, health is a state of general vitality that is combined with a good probability of living a long life based on the choices that you make. Specifically for diet, it means eating a variety of foods as much as possible in their natural state, so we're talking lean meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, minding portion sizes, and then making sure that this is sustainable for you. I don't only mean good for the planet, also important, but really a way of eating that you know you're going to be able to maintain for the long term. If I can define healthy eating in two words, I would probably use holistic and contextual. Contextual meaning to promote health. Food needs to deliver nutrients that we need and limit ones that we do not need. This could mean different things for different people depending on their life stage. Today we're focusing on students in higher education, in a specific age group, health factors, what is available to them and other factors that affect their choices. So, their socioeconomic status, their food skills, lots of different things. Contextual means also food technology over time. So we've seen in the last 50 years the food industry changes hugely and it really depends on what the diet trends are and then the products that become available as a response to that. We've seen fat being the bad guy and then you see this proliferation of products that are low fat but full of sugar become available on the market. You'll see other things like carbs have been demonized, gluten has been demonized, all of these different things. An example I love to use is breakfast cereals. Breakfast cereal that is loaded with sugar and salt does not make it a healthy food. No matter what concentration of vitamins and nutrients are added to it. Nutrient fortification can make a good food better, but it's very difficult to make a bad food good.

Joshua Delgado: Agreed.

Jane Skapinker: And then the other word I would use to describe healthy eating is holistic. A food needs to be looked at holistically to determine whether it's overall healthy and not only looking at one nutrient. So I love to tell people that a calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie. I'm going to pause so you can think about what that means.

Joshua Delgado: Yes.

Jane Skapinker: So a calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie, which means that it's not enough to just look at comparing products in terms of the their caloric intake. You should really be evaluating the entire product. What other nutrients are in there, how are the ingredients, what are the overall nutritional benefits of that product, and how does it compare to the maybe the detriment of that item? And based on all of those things, you can determine if that's a healthy choice and it fits into your healthy eating pattern.

Joshua Delgado: Absolutely. No, I agree. 100%. Jordan, you want to add to that?

Jordan Tam: That's a great question. So I'll put it this way. So me being an athlete, we eat for performance. So when I say performance is we need to be able to eat the optimal foods to help us perform right and be able to train, have the optimal energy to be able to train during training sessions, right? So to put it this way, if students and Centennial staff, they should be putting food in their system to help them be able to either, study or be able to help them have high energy throughout their either nine-to-five jobs or be able to have high energy be able to study. So how I think of it is if they're kind of eating all the, let's say, "junk food" or all the greasy foods, most of the time they're not going to be at their best level of energy, right? So how I think of it is if you're able to find healthier options, you're able to put in the nutrients, like Jane's mentioned from before, if you're able to put in the proper foods in you, you're able to get the right nutrients, you're able to feel your body for the right things, right? And so I think that's really important factor to think about when eating the proper foods to help you not just perform right and think better, but just overall be overall healthier. Food is like a lot of it has to do with behaviour and psychological factors and things like that. So I think healthy eating doesn't just mean that oh you should eat your vegetables, you can't just eat meats and things like that. So it just means like it's different for everyone.

Joshua Delgado: Right, contextual, as Jane mentioned and holistic. And I think you mentioned also, most importantly, one that's sustainable for each person.

Jane Skapinker: Exactly.

Joshua Delgado: Yeah, and so I want to know what you guys think about why students and staff at Centennial should be looking to eat healthier on campus.

Jane Skapinker: I'm absolutely biased in this area because I've spent the better part of 10 years of my life not only learning but also teaching others as to trying to convince them why healthy eating is so important. But simply put, you can't live without food. Food is one of those things where you have no choice but to have a relationship with it and it is in your best interests develop a healthier one. It is different than all other substances in life because you cannot go cold turkey, pun intended, when it comes to food. You get one body, you need to learn how to nourish it in the best way that you can for your lifestyle, for the time in your life, for your preferences, the things that are going to encourage overall health in your own body, I mean every aspect to support your mental health, to support your physical health, to support your social wellbeing, to support your academic performance. You can't study without your brain having fuel. You can't exercise without your muscles having the right energy. You can't travel without learning the food culture in a new place. It's just a waste of a trip, in my opinion. Food is the ingredient of life that really binds us all together from students that travel from all around the world to be here to ones that were born and raised. But I really also wanted to put some research just to back up my answer. So a study published in the Healthcare Journal in 2017 had some really interesting results that supports why it's so important for students and staff and faculty alike to really put a lot of importance around healthy eating at school and in their life. Here's a little excerpt of the study that I found to be really interesting. Here's what it said. "Globally, the number of students enrolled in university or college education is high already and is increasing. The future success of university and college graduates in terms of career, income, and associated health and quality of life is significantly influenced by academic achievement while at university. As such, it is in the interest of both individuals and universities and colleges to determine the factors associated with higher academic achievement. The effect of a range of health behaviours and indicators on academic achievement in university and college students have previously been established. For example, we know that excessive alcohol use, sleep deprivation and poor mental health status have all been shown to be detrimental to academic achievement. But the link to diet and academic achievement, however, has had a lot less attention in this population group." There's been a lot more research done in this in younger kids, so in kindergarten to grade 12 but less in higher education. So I found this study really informative because it took basically a meta analysis of 365 different studies. For the purpose of the discussion, they actually only included 13 studies that we will share this study after the podcast for those interested in reading the whole thing. And basically what it showed was the majority of studies demonstrated a strong positive correlation between diet and academic achievement whereby students who reported consuming regular meals, including specifically a breakfast meal as well as students who reported higher consumption of fruit were found to have high academic achievement. So there you have it, folks. Good nutrition equals higher chance of getting better grades.

Joshua Delgado: And a couple of quick easy points to grab from that. Having breakfast and eating more fruits.

Jane Skapinker: Yep. And consuming regular meals.

Joshua Delgado: For sure, for sure. And those three key points alone will help students perform better in class and will help instructors teach better at the school, et cetera, et cetera.

Jane Skapinker: Exactly. We don't know that it will necessarily have a cause and effect, but we know that it has a very positive association.

Joshua Delgado: Right.

Jane Skapinker: We don't want to promise and under deliver.

Joshua Delgado: Right. And there is research backing it.

Jordan Tam: Yeah. I'm glad you brought the research up to. Again, most of my answers is going to be almost from my perspective as an athlete. So how I think of it as why students and Centennial staff should be really conscious about what foods they put in on campus is again, what Jane mentioned is that again, healthy eating, putting in the proper foods in you will help you sustain better throughout the day. So let's say students and faculty members, they're pretty much on campus or at school from nine to five or they have long, long days ahead. So if you want to put it that way, you have to think of it yourself. It's almost like you're an athlete. Everyone's an athlete. If you're able to move, you're an athlete, right?

Jane Skapinker: Yes, I'm an athlete.

Jordan Tam: Exactly, right?

Joshua Delgado: Interesting. This is good.

Jane Skapinker: I've never been called that before.

Jordan Tam: Exactly, right? So whether you're sitting on a desk job or you're studying for so many hours, you still have to invest in your health in terms of putting the energy into you so that you're able to get the academics, you're able to sustain your work hours from nine to five, and after you're done work, you're still high energy. Sometimes I know a lot of staff members, they kind of work from nine to five and then they're kind of dreading to go home because they're so tired, right? Most of the time they're not putting the proper foods in them. So I think it's really important that you have to treat your body just like an athlete, right? Whether you're not playing sports or not, you still have to invest in your body. It's a vessel for nutrients essentially, right?

Joshua Delgado: For sure. And talking about healthier options, I want to know from your guys' perspective where are sort of the better places to find higher, healthier food options on campus.

Jordan Tam: Jane, can you start us off?

Jane Skapinker: Sure. So I'm going to give you kind of my top three go-to's when I come to visit of healthy options that I love to include in my lunch when I'm lucky enough to spend the day here with you guys.

Joshua Delgado: Awesome.

Jane Skapinker: So Healthy Kitchen is one of my always go-to's. So it's in the marketplace, in our main retail space, and as the name suggests we developed this concept with health and kitchen in mind, so healthy offerings and offerings that were prepared in the kitchen from scratch using the best ingredients that we can source locally when possible. And they always include a lot of better for you choices, right? So the way that the concept is built is that you can choose your meal depending on the size that you want. So a protein with one side, a protein with two sides, you can choose the vegetarian entree. Those are always available every day.

Joshua Delgado: Awesome, yeah.

Jane Skapinker: It is a cycle menu. So if you go there for lunch in a week, you shouldn't be seeing lots of repetition. It's on a three week rotating cycle menu, and the menu is prepared every day freshly made. The way that the meal is kind of composed is you'll always have your protein starch and carbohydrate in accordance to Canada's food guide of wanting to have all the macronutrients on a plate. Another thing we do at this concept specifically is we always include items from our Get the Good Stuff program. So our Get the Good Stuff program is our better for you and nutrition wayfinding program. So it's kind of like if you go to Loblaws and you see PC blue line, it's kind of like our PC blue line. Really easy to recognize the icon and you know that those recipes have been chosen by a registered dietitians to be as better for you choices and they follow a specific nutrition criteria.

Joshua Delgado: What's the logo again?

Jane Skapinker: It's called Get the Good Stuff. It's like a square logo with a flat background.

Joshua Delgado: Square logo. Look for that.

Jane Skapinker: It's got the good stuff on the inside. You can look for that on Grab and Go products and you can look for that on our menus.

Joshua Delgado: For those that don't know who are listening, the Healthy Kitchen in the marketplaces in C block in Progress Campus.

Jane Skapinker: Correct. Exactly. Exactly. Another place that I love to go is Greens to Go, so it's actually in the same C block in the marketplace, but it's a vertical salad bar, and it's a pay by weight so you can decide how much you want and exactly what you want in terms of toppings and amount in your salad. It's awesome because it's convenient and extremely quick. It's great if you have dietary restrictions. Some of these better choices that I'm talking about, like the Healthy Kitchen, like Greens to Go, they lend themselves really well to students or staff of faculty to have dietary needs. A lot of these better for you made from scratch options will likely also be gluten-free depending on the choices that we have, always contained vegetarian or vegan options. Just make sure to ask a chef or manager if you do have some of these needs. They can definitely guide you. But you know that the options are available.

Joshua Delgado: That's great. That's great to know for sure.

Jane Skapinker: So that's awesome. And then in the greens to go, we always try to make sure to include a selection of toppings that change every day. But you'll always have greens, you'll always have a grain, you'll always have proteins, plant-based and animal source proteins. You always have toppings and you'll always have a selection of dressings. And then the third one is also kind of, I would say in the convenience category, which I love talking about as a dietitian, because I find that convenience products, whether they're packaged or serve yourself, tend to be really indulgent or perceived as so. And so we kind of decided to flip that on its back when we started working on our grab and go program called Express, which you'll find at all of our campuses at Centennial. And so where you'll find these products is Grab and Go fridges. So you can just help yourself to products that are already packaged. They have what the product is as well as the full nutrition facts panel, ingredients and any allergens listed right on the product.

Joshua Delgado: Wonderful.

Jane Skapinker: They're made fresh in-house and we have selection of products including salads, sandwiches, and different snack cups.

Joshua Delgado: Good stuff. So all convenient items to grab. So Jane, can you tell us a little more about Aramark's healthier options at other campuses?

Jane Skapinker: Yeah, absolutely. So two out of three that I mentioned actually, the Express and the Smart Snacking program, is available at all other campuses. And then we have a chef's corner at Morningside and Story Arts, which is similar to the Healthy Kitchen. A lot of the same kind of principles apply, just maybe a different menu that day. And then we have a greens to go, so another vertical salad bar also at Ashtonbee and Story Arts.

Joshua Delgado: Good stuff. Good stuff. That's good to know. And so Jordan, you want to jump on answering that question too.

Jordan Tam: Both Josh and I pretty much go to this place called the Local. The Local is a small kelo cafe over at the hospitality building, and it's meals that are prepared by students in the culinary program. So they have a lot of varieties ranging from ready, prepared meals for $6. It's really affordable and they have all the macronutrients in each meal. So it's a little source of small carbs, proteins and vegetables each meal. So the good thing about this is that they change it up every week. That's something that other students and faculty members can go do. I believe lunch, they have like a buffet as well, I think.

Joshua Delgado: Yeah, they definitely do have in the restaurant sit-in options. But there's buffets there regularly, which is also a very affordable buffet option.

Jordan Tam: Yeah. When I went to the buffet too, they have a lot of options. They have a salad bar. They have pasta proteins, they have salmon, a lot of seafood there as well. So it's really, really good option for students and faculty members to really check up on.

Joshua Delgado: Yeah. And the Local, they pride themselves in being locally sourced. They sell a lot of juices too. They have a lot of fruit and vegetable juices. We also want to talk about the Student Centre Bar and Grill. Have you guys tried Student Centre Bar and Grill at all?

Jordan Tam: Yeah, I had a really good experience in terms of what they had to offer. They had a lot of variety there. They have something called bowls. It has quinoa, chicken, and some sort of vegetables. So it's like a hummus bowl, a shawarma bowl, protein bowls, things like that. So there's a lot of options there. And they also have a lot of fruits. And to give you a comparison, I was a student here back in 2016. Back then they never had bowls. You didn't really see like the healthy options, the bowls and the fruits and the veggies and the salads, things like that. So that's something that I've seen over the last three, four years as a student and now I'm working here as a faculty member that they kind of improved on.

Joshua Delgado: Yeah, for sure. They definitely have a lot of great options there. They also have the smoothie bar, the smoothie and shakes bar where they have different fruits that you can combine and blend. So lots of good stuff to have at the Union Bar and Grill. I want to know in terms of snacking, what are your guys' go-to's for snacks on campus?

Jordan Tam: You want to rock, paper, scissors?

Jane Skapinker: Yeah, I do. Best out of three?

Jordan Tam: Sure. Paper, scissors. Okay, I'll go. So I'll go first.

Jane Skapinker: I lost and he goes. Yes.

Jordan Tam: Yeah. So my personal go-to snacks, I'm going to give you my perspective as an athlete and I'll give you some recipes on how I approach it. My goal is for performance. So I need to put in the food that helps me perform well. So I usually have some kind of complex carbohydrates such as sweet potatoes, quinoa, things like that. And I'll that as my base. But obviously it's a snack, right? So I'm not going to be eating like a big bowl of sweet potatoes. And some sort of fats and protein just to kind of keep me satiated.

Jane Skapinker: Like a mini meal.

Jordan Tam: Exactly right. But it's not overeating where I'm going to feel too heavy. So I'll make a sweet potato hash with a little bit of sausage and maybe put an avocado, kind of mix it together. Maybe I'd cut up a half a sweet potato, bake it in or pan-fry it with a little bit of olive oil and then use the sausage from leftovers or whatever protein I have the day before. And then I add a good source of fats, either coconut oil, pumpkin seeds or olive oil. I kind of just mash it or avocado, just mash it in like a bowl. So it's ready to go to eat, right? So I kind of do it before my day starts, so I can make it in the morning. Sometimes I eat that for my breakfast actually. So just to really get a good start through my day. So something like that. Go-to snacks as well. A lot of fruit, a lot of fruit, but I try not to tend to eat a lot. A lot of fruit just because again, food does contain fructose, which is a lot of sugar. The fruits I usually eat are kiwis, blueberries, blackberries, a lot of antioxidants. I try to stay away from bananas just because again it's really dense in terms of the calories. It's really sweet. But again that's really good for me before I go to the gym just because it kind of gives me a little bit of, not a sugar rush, but it gives me a little more energy. Kale chips, actually really good.

Joshua Delgado: You make them by yourself?

Jordan Tam: Yep. Yeah. I make them. Just go to grocery stores. You get kale. You just kind of break off the leaves from the stem and then you kind of just put it, scatter it. Just make sure it's dry. Because if you're making kale chips, you have to make sure there's no water, there's no moisture. So that way it kind of gets a nice crispy texture. Just kind of replaces with chips. You save tons of calories. A handful of kale chips is probably like, Jane, I'm not sure...

Jane Skapinker: Very negligible.

Jordan Tam: Exactly.

Jane Skapinker: Depending on what you put on them, I guess.

Jordan Tam: So pretty much you just wash it off, make sure it's dry, rip the leaves off the stems. And you sprinkle some olive oil, salt and pepper. If you're feeling a little bit fancy, you could put a little bit of chili flakes or some paprika or cayenne powder.

Joshua Delgado: Good stuff.

Jordan Tam: You pretty much just bake it for anywhere between 40 to 60 minutes at a very high temperature, about 400 degrees.

Joshua Delgado: Jane, do you want to tell us some of your snack options on campus?

Jane Skapinker: Those are really good. I think he has it covered. Okay. I'll give you a few. But my classification of a snack is anything that is smaller than a meal and bigger than like I stole two bites from a friend. I love having roasted beans and legumes, which is probably an unpopular opinion but they are so delicious. Don't knock until you try it.

Joshua Delgado: No, love it.

Jane Skapinker: So you can either make it at home and just take beans or legumes. Chickpeas work really, really well or lentils work really, really well and you roast them with seasoning and flavour profile of choice. Chickpeas, I love like barbecue chickpeas are fantastic. Lentils with a herb blend are really beautiful. I mean you can use them for all kinds of different things. So you can add them to a meal. You can do chickpeas as a salad topper instead of croutons. But it's so tasty.

Joshua Delgado: They're hard when you roast them.

Jane Skapinker: Yeah, they're crispy. Exactly. But anyways, they're phenomenal and a beautiful punch of protein, fibre, healthy fats. They are definitely energy dense. So in terms of the amount that you need to be satiated, a lot less than like a traditional snack in terms of volume. And another thing I love is fruit. Absolutely. I love doing fruit. I love coupling it together with another macronutrient. So adding like a nut butter. It doesn't have to be nuts. It could be like a seed butter as well. You can do that. It really is just a mashed up whatever it is and blended into a nice peanut buttery kind of texture. So all you need is a tablespoon or two tablespoons of it, and it makes a beautiful addition to a snack. Fruit or veg. Yeah, really loves that. It really gives you like a great punch again of fibre protein that adds it to your carbohydrate from the fruit or the veg. And so it gives them a nice balance of the snacks you're getting. Kind of like all the macronutrients, just in a smaller variety, which is perfect.

Joshua Delgado: When you say veg, are you talking about the traditional carrot sticks snacks, that sort of thing?

Jane Skapinker: Totally, yeah. I mean yeah, you can do carrot sticks. Weirdly enough, celery's really nice with peanut butter. It's really-

Joshua Delgado: Not weird.

Jane Skapinker: Not weird. Perfect. I preface weird in case people think of that. It's not. Another one that I really love to do is overnight oats. People also like trying like a chia pudding. Depends what base you like, but the idea is you take either the chia or the oats and you soak them in liquid. The proportion is typically like a third of a cup of oats to a cup of liquid to give it like a consistency that's not pasty and then whatever toppings that you want, like everything under the sun. I've done like an apple pie overnight.

Joshua Delgado: Fruits for sure. Yeah.

Jane Skapinker: Really nice themed ones.

Jordan Tam: Getting really hungry right now.

Jane Skapinker: Pumpkin spice ones for fall. That is the idea. A dietitian should make you hungry.

Joshua Delgado: It's working. And you portion them for snacks.

Jane Skapinker: Yeah. So I would do a half of a portion of what I would do for breakfast. So if you're doing like a third of a cup for breakfast, I would do half of that. And then I love doing adult Lunchables. Lunchables are terrible in terms of nutritional profile. But I love using that analogy because it's literally like you get a little bento box container and you put a mishmash of all the little picky things that you can pick out throughout the day that don't need to be in a fridge. Hard boil a bunch of eggs on Sunday. You can put an egg, cut it in half in there, put a tablespoon of hummus and some carrot sticks. Put a tablespoon and nut butter and some fruit. Just everything in one little adult Lunchable. And they're super easy to make a bunch of them ahead of time. And then you have all of your snacks all in for picking purposes. And then my other favourite one is a category that I have created called stuff on toast. I love stuff on toast. You get a healthy toast. So like a pumpernickel. I love doing a rye, like a marble rye. They're so pretty with seeds in them, like a nice multi-grain toast and then literally anything that you want. So my favourite savoury combination is doing a mashed hard boiled egg with avocado. So instead of using mayonnaise in an egg salad, you would do an avocado. Like you mentioned, avocado is beautiful in terms of a kick of healthy fats.

Joshua Delgado: Easy to mash.

Jane Skapinker: It's very energy dense. Yeah. And you make it into a mash and just top it up onto your toast. I usually put a little drop of lemon juice, like a fresh lemon juice.

Joshua Delgado: Love that.

Jane Skapinker: It keeps it from going off from oxidizing and also gives it a nice flavour and a nice Himalayan salt, just a pinch.

Joshua Delgado: Definitely getting hungry.

Jane Skapinker: It's gorgeous.

Jordan Tam: Delicious.

Jane Skapinker: And then I love a sweet combination too doing a fresh fig or a dry fig on a base of a cottage cheese which is super nutrient dense or ricotta or something like that.

Joshua Delgado: Right. Those are great examples.

Jane Skapinker: And then putting a teaspoon even of a flaxseed or chia seed or a pumpkin seed. You mentioned pumpkin seeds are great. And it's super Instagrammable for all the social media folks.

Joshua Delgado: It looks nice in pictures, yeah.

Jane Skapinker: It is. You will impress your followers.

Joshua Delgado: Figs. I forget about figs.

Jane Skapinker: Figs are my favourite underappreciated food. I love figs. Or doing even, if you want a nice kick of sweetness, another underappreciated food that I will put a plug in for are dates. Love dates. You can do a date paste or a date jam or figs if you don't want to buy them fresh because they are pretty expensive. You can buy a fig jam. It's phenomenal. And just try to add in natural sweeteners where you can. So rather than doing a ready spread, do something that is more of a natural variety. So do a maple syrup.

Joshua Delgado: There we go.

Jane Skapinker: Or honey rather than maybe a prepared Smuckers jam.

Joshua Delgado: Right. The good stuff. Adding onto that, the sweets, okay, but going the other direction. So a lot of people get into the bad habit of eating sweets to sort of fuel their day, especially when they're hitting that afternoon wall or they need a bit of energy at the end of the day just to finish off to keep going. And then they'd start to develop cravings. People often crave sweets and things like coffee towards the end of the day. So I want to know some recommendations on how people dealing with that can sort of either substitute or work with that in a better way, compromise, like you said earlier, to build better, healthier habits.

Jane Skapinker: We're not going to rock, paper, scissors for this one?

Jordan Tam: You deserve this one.

Joshua Delgado: Go for it.

Jane Skapinker: So I think sweets get a bad rep because there's a lot of products that are sweet, right? Fantastic. But when we're talking about cravings, I also find it a funny misconception that it's our learned behaviour that we need sweets to combat the afternoon fatigue because it's not necessarily sweets that your body's craving. It's just a learned behaviour that we have.

Joshua Delgado: This is true. Good point.

Jane Skapinker: Which is really interesting. So a few things. I think that you don't necessarily need to cut these things out of your life, but rather learn to compromise and include items that are still letting you kind of fulfill that need of needing something in the afternoon while not maybe compromising some of the diet goals that you have or nutrition goals, not diet, nutrition goals that you have.

Jane Skapinker: So in the instance of coffee, if we're talking about just wanting a source of caffeine, there's lots of different sources of caffeine. But typically what I find is the reason that people try to cut down on coffee isn't for the coffee itself because caffeine does have some functional benefits in regards to performance and things like that. But typically people try to cut down coffee because of all the cream and sugar that they dump into there.

Joshua Delgado: Yes, 100%.

Jane Skapinker: Which I mean, I'm no stranger to loving me a double-double. So I'm not judging anyone there. But if you're trying to work on reducing these as a goal, my recommendation is just not to go cold turkey like from a double double to black coffee. That's just setting yourself up for failure. But really if on Monday of day one you're going to say I'm going to have my double double but my maybe my afternoon coffee I'll have one cream in it. And then the following Monday you're going to have one coffee that is your double double in the morning because that's your vice. And then in the afternoon you're going to have maybe milk and no sugar. You'll put something else like a maple syrup or honey.

Joshua Delgado: Maple syrup in coffee.

Jane Skapinker: For sure. Tons of different options for something to sweeten up your beverage without it needing to be white, refined sugar. And then over time you can work towards a black coffee even if one of your coffees of the day was a black coffee or even if you were to do one coffee, one tea. So you were doing one black coffee and then one tea where you're not feeling the need to mask the taste if that's what you're trying to do. So coffee I would say gradually because I know especially for university students it's like a lifeline for a lot of people, or so they perceive. So for sure be kind to yourself. And then when it comes to sweets, like I said before, a calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie, and it is no different when it comes to the sweets category. They definitely just get a bad rep. But if you do need something to go alongside your coffee, there's definitely healthier sweets that you can do. So as a first step there's no reason not to have your favourite brownie. Have your favourite brownie and cut it in half. But then couple of together with your friend's fruit portion and you can share that snack. So you're getting some fruit and then some brownie and you're still feeling satiated. And then over time you'll go to just fruit some of the time and half a brownie some of the time. And then once you become a real expert, then you're going to do fruit most of the time and a sweet sometimes. But that sweet is going to be a healthy sweet that you baked at home, and it's going to have a nutritional kick that you're going to hide in it, and it's going to be fantastic. And people are going to be so impressed with you and your skills. So some really fun ideas. I love doing a healthy play on a brownie. You can do a brownie baked with black beans. It gives it so much moisture. They're so fantastic. Nobody would ever know that you hid beans in their brownies. You can do a vegan chocolate mousse with aquafaba, which is like chickpea water, which is so nice and it's still gives them a rank.

Joshua Delgado: It doesn't sound delicious, but...

Jane Skapinker: It doesn't.

Joshua Delgado: I'll take your word for it.

Jane Skapinker: But that's the whole point. You're not going to tell people that. You're just going to feed it to them. They're going to love it.

Joshua Delgado: We're going to have to taste test this.

Jane Skapinker: A hundred percent. I'm going to do a blind taste test and then I bet that you won't know.

Joshua Delgado: Okay. That's interesting.

Jane Skapinker: I have that much confidence in these items. Yeah. Just so many different ideas that I'd be happy to share of not necessarily removing these things but doing them in a more mindful way and maybe in more mindful portions and frequency.

Joshua Delgado: Right, right. Because people are often coupling coffee and a pastry or something like that at the local Tim's.

Jane Skapinker: Totally.

Joshua Delgado: It's just cutting down on certain ingredients in the coffee or replacing them with healthier ingredients and then the pastry maybe making it a healthier version of that pastry.

Jane Skapinker: Correct. So instead of doughnut, if you really need something with your coffee, get a Timbit and I need an apple. That would be like a good step one.

Joshua Delgado: Right. Step one. For sure.

Jordan Tam: Yeah, totally makes sense. Because me being an athlete, I don't have a sweet tooth but I definitely do have my sweet cravings. So it makes sense for me to, what Jane said, if I really want a doughnut, it's not like I'm going to buy like two or three donuts. I'll just have maybe half a doughnut and I'll eat it with something to supplement just to feel satiated. Another point that you kind of brought up was compromising the sweets and the coffee is we're not trying to eliminate things because again, like Jane said, food has a relationship with all of us, right? We can't live without food. So if you think about trying to eliminate this and eliminate that, it's just going to haunt you back, right? You're just going to eat more of it. So for people who kind of want to put less sugar or kind of alternate the sugar, you can add Stevia as well to the coffee as well, right, if you want that sweetness, right? So you cut the calories because pretty much Stevia is extracted from the plant. It has zero calorie sweetener, right? So you can kind of add those zero calorie sweeteners to not just coffee, like baking, like Jane mentioned, some recipes. I'm pretty sure you can add the Stevia into that just to cut the sugar back, right? So another thing too, for cravings for sweets, if I know I'm kind of craving for sweets, I'll find another alternative. Let's say if I'm craving ice cream, right? I'm pretty sure everyone here loves ice cream, right? And it's really, really calorically dense.

Jane Skapinker: Absolutely yes.

Jordan Tam: I've been to the grocery stores many times and I'm starting to see a lot of alternatives for...

Joshua Delgado: This is true.

Jordan Tam: The low calorie ice creams. I know Halo Top, some other brands that have a... It's almost like a hundred calorie per serving. So there's a lot of alternatives, right? I don't think it's just kind of eliminating it. It's just kind of finding ways around to supplement into your lifestyle.

Joshua Delgado: Right, right.

Jane Skapinker: I mean that's a good point of alternatives for sure. Something to note about our bodies is that as clever and smart as we are, our taste buds are actually like the least smart organism probably in our body. So they live a very short time and their memory is very short.

Joshua Delgado: How short?

Jane Skapinker: Their life span is I believe three weeks.

Joshua Delgado: Oh.

Jane Skapinker: So that's why see these lifestyle change plans and you'll have a phase one, it's about a month. Because if you change your behaviour for some amount of time, some of that learned behaviour habit will change. It doesn't mean that you're not going to want sweet things, but your palate will change and it changes over time. So it is important to treat yourself, but it's important to remember that sometimes a little bit of a hump and that's okay. It's just working towards habits that help you meet your goal.

Joshua Delgado: Absolutely. 100% and that sort of ties into the idea we created with the very first episode that you have to create long term habits to see long term results. Same thing with food. And we see people in the gym every day who are working out hard. They may not necessarily be seeing the results because they're not developing those healthy food habits, right? And so we have to talk to people in different ways, including in a podcast about how to start to develop those healthier habits and taking small steps to develop those healthier habits so they can see results not just in the gym, but better results in their health.

Jane Skapinker: Do you guys agree with the beach bodies are made in the kitchen? I've always wanted to ask fitness people that.

Jordan Tam: Oh yeah, for sure. There's some truth to that as well. But I think again, it's not be all end all. But again, nutrition is such a huge important part of physique and performance and everything, so it's the first, first step to get that foundation first.

Joshua Delgado: It's a tricky thing to answer because I've known some guys with great physiques and girls with great physiques that eat crap, right? And some people are more naturally gifted and that's not to say that on the inside there isn't something else going on, but everyone's a little different. But of course for the most part, physique has more to do with nutrition than it has to do with what you do in the gym for sure.

Jordan Tam: Agreed.

Joshua Delgado: And so I do think we have a lot of great options on campus. I think we're almost spoiled here with the amount of healthy options we have on campus, but looking to the future, looking towards bettering our situation, do you guys have any recommendations or things that you think we can continue to work on to build healthier options for eating on campus?

Jordan Tam: Yeah, for sure. Like Jane brought up a good point, it's just habits, right? We're creatures of habits. We kind of pick one thing. We kind of like it. We kind of just stick to it. As soon as we have that habit we're so resistant to change, right? So I think it all happens to be down to our choices, our personal choices with food. So I think maybe kind of incorporating like a seminar or some kind of one hour shop on campus, just kind of teach people how to make the right food choices for themselves and just kind of give them a general education. I believe education is something that a lot of people, it's kind of...

Joshua Delgado: They're lacking maybe.

Jordan Tam: Exactly.

Joshua Delgado: When it comes to food.

Jordan Tam: Exactly. I mean as much as we've seen the changes as the marketplace and the things that are implementing in the kitchen, which is good, I think it all comes down to the individual's decision.

Joshua Delgado: The education, yeah.

Jordan Tam: Exactly. So having some kind of seminar, a little bit of workshop here once a month, that would be something that-

Joshua Delgado: Maybe a podcast.

Jordan Tam: Exactly right. Hopefully, people listening right now are picking some stuff, taking some note down.

Joshua Delgado: Right, absolutely.

Jane Skapinker: So absolutely. I couldn't agree more with the need for education. I think nutrition and education is incredibly important at all stages in your life. And now in higher education where for some students for the first time they are completely autonomous in their food choices, and it could be a new and extremely scary experience first when you're in a residential environment and then even scarier when you're not. So nutrition education could not agree more that especially with this age population, unbelievably important. In terms of the food options on campus, I agree you guys have a phenomenal amount of healthy options on campus from all the different providers that are here serving food. So that's fantastic. But there's no better mechanism for change than feedback from the communities. So I 100,000% encourage everybody that comes to Centennial to share their feedback. What are you wanting to see more of? What are you loving? What are you looking for? What are you missing that you get at home from healthy choices and otherwise? Because we use a lot of consumer insights to inform the decisions that we make and follow the marketplace and see what's happening out there and what people are asking for. But it needs to be specific to the community that we're serving. So we want to make sure that those choices are consistent and the things that we're choosing are consistent with the feedback from the students here. So I encourage you and we will share the contact information of our team here.

Joshua Delgado: Yes, we will.

Jane Skapinker: I encourage everybody listening to send the feedback that you have to our team, and we will do our best to consider those very, very strongly when we are planning for the future.

Joshua Delgado: Agreed, 100%. Feedback to build a better, healthier Centennial. Thank you for joining us for episode three, Healthy Eating On Campus. Make sure to join us for next week's episode on the topic, Building Your Summer Body: the Best Ways to Get Fit Quick, where we will be joined by special guests, Kristin Smart, Jordan Tam, and Ron Simeon.

Episode 3 - Healthy Eating on Campus