Steph: Hi, Julianne, and welcome to the show.

Julianne: Hi, Steph, thank you, thanks for having me, it's great to be here.

Steph: Yeah, looking forward to this discussion. It's your first time on the show though, so before we dive into today's topic, could you tell us more about yourself and your background in relation to health and certainly hobbies?

Julianne: Sure. So, my first training was as a registered nurse, so I became a nurse way back in the '80s, since then I've also had a couple of different careers. I was a designer of equipment for people with disabilities for about 10 years, and then in 1995, the Zone Diet was really popular and I changed my diet to that particular protocol and I experienced a huge health impact. So that got my interest in nutrition, I just became kind of passionate about it at that stage. Since then I've experimented with a couple of other different dietary protocols. I think the paleo diet for me made the biggest difference because I've got autoimmune issues and discovered that gluten was a real trigger for my joint inflammation. So I've just been exploring diet ever since then and decided to go back to university and retrain. So I did some level 3 papers and then went on to post-grad nutrition, and completed a post-graduate diploma and I'm currently a registered nutritionist and that's what I work in.

Steph: Yeah, great.

Julianne: Yeah, and hobbies, yeah so my current hobby is a powerlifter. So I started CrossFit about 10 years ago, learned how to do the basics in powerlifting, and then three and a half years ago I started training specifically in powerlifting just to see what would happen to my body and how strong I could become. And I was really surprised that after about a year I got to a point where I started getting really strong, and a year later I was up to competition level. So since then, I've just thrown myself into it, had a powerlifting coach and within a year went from regionals, nationals, and then represented New Zealand as a masters powerlifter during this year in Sweden.

Steph: So cool, I love it. So great that you really, I guess, worked your way through to understand those basics and spent the time developing the strength and now, reaping

the rewards, so I love that. I really wanted to get you on the show because you wrote an article titled The Game Changers Movie: Techniques of Persuasion. So, as we were talking off-air, it was quite a different angle because there were already a lot of debunks coming out, like in the episode that I recorded with a Kale Brock. We sort of unpicked the science and the lack of research and yeah, debunked allot of their claims, whereas you've taken this slightly different angle, which I love. Can you talk to us first about why you took this angle and your background in relation to documentaries?

Julianne: Sure. So, back in 2012, I was asked to do some research for a documentary. So we have a psychologist here who does a lot of shows and TV shows, and he was doing a series on different pertinent topics, and one of them was on diet, and he took the topic of sugar. So I was asked to do research for that documentary, and research involves kind of finding out all about the topic, searching for the right people to be on the show, to be interviewed by the presenter. Kind of looking at the topic from all different angles, and finding out as much information as you can, basically. So I did that, it went really well, and then I was asked to do further research on a three-part documentary, which is actually on Amazon Prime if anybody wants to see it, it's called Why Are We Fat? And it was basically about the obesity epidemic. So I really delved into that, it was three one- hour episodes. Talked to experts all around the world, set up people to interview, talk to or presenter and got him up to speed on everything he needed to know.

Yeah, so really, that was my background in making TV documentaries, and in that second series, in particular, I saw the original proposal, helped to work on that a little bit. Found all the people to be on the program, and also took part in setting up the interviews, writing interview questions, preparing the interviewees, and helping to structure the final documentary so it made sense. So, I saw a documentary series and participated in making various aspects of it right from the very beginning to the very end. So, as a result of that, I could see a lot of the techniques that were used in this particular documentary to persuade people or to present a one-sided view in a way that was persuasive, I guess. And I really wanted to educate people on what were seemingly documentaries, but actually were one-sided presentation of a point of view.

Steph: Yeah, yeah absolutely, and I think, like you also said off-air, you obviously can perhaps see that more than someone who hasn't had your experience in previous documentaries. So I wanted to really unpack what ... I guess, to set the scene, I know in your article, you were quite strong in saying that you don't have a problem with someone choosing to be vegan. But what you had a problem with is the way they presented the science, and probably yeah, I think you're going to agree with me that there was quite a lot of incorrect information and really weak anecdotes. So yeah, talk to us about your thoughts there to sort of set the scene, and then we can go into some more specifics?

Julianne: Yeah, so the main thing I saw in the documentary was everything was designed to give you one side of the picture, it wasn't a representation of an accurate way to look at vegan athletes, which it was really designed to look at to tell us that you can be athletically great on a vegan diet. Yes, I agree, actually, some people can, but at the same token, they set up this dichotomy where it's an either/or. So either you eat food and you are brilliant, and meat is bad so don't eat it. It wasn't a balanced

documentary looking at both sides, and it was set up right from the beginning to be unbalanced.

Steph: Yeah, I think that's a really important point because it was definitely only presenting one side, and if we sort of dive deeper, most people that have been paying attention to the film and the conversations will appreciate some of the vested interest, especially with the producers. But yeah, what about your thoughts on those that were interviewed? To me, it looks like they all have quite a strong vegan business or they're passionate vegans themselves. So you don't need to even have a degree in nutrition to appreciate what their opinion might be and why they were interviewed for this specific documentary.

Julianne: Yeah, so I mean, that's one of the things you do in a documentary, you want to present a certain point of view or information. So then you go out and you look for people who will present that information in the way that you wanted it to be presented. So, every doctor, expert interviewed had a point of view that a plant-based diet is the healthiest diet for you, and that meat is bad. So there is no way they would say anything other than that point of view, they didn't go out and get anybody that represented an alternative point of view, could have looked pretty bad for the documentary if they had. And that's just what you do, and then I guess the other thing about interviews people don't realise is that an interview can be anything from one to two hours long. So, it takes some time to set up a camera, lighting, you've got your interviewee set up, they have prepped with a set of questions and possible bullet point answers even, depending on the documentary, things they want them to talk about. And then, the final cut, you've got two hours of talking that you can cut and present in pretty much any way you want.

So it can be used to really make specific points and soundbites for that documentary, and that makes it even more persuasive, because you get like, "Oh, this is exactly what I want to say and where I want to say it, let's put this in this particular place to answer this particular question."

Steph: Yeah, absolutely, and of course then, those snippets are the ones that are shown in that sort of entertainment sense as well, because that's how the documentary was formatted. But yeah, I mean, it's really interesting because I have had a lot of conversations, especially since this documentary was released. I've been having a lot of conversations with vegans online, and a lot of them believe that, or only get their nutrition knowledge from nutritionfacts.org, and they're really passionate about referring to this as their scientific backbone, and it's like their bible, right? And whenever having this conversation online, they've always got links or arguments that come from this source, and again, if we look at I guess the two main people that run nutritionfacts.org, we've got Dr. , he's in very anti-meat, and Joseph Pace who was also the film's writer, and he's an environmental activist and a vegan of 30 years.

So it's the same conversation, you've got to really understand where the information is coming from, not dissimilar to a scientific study if there is a vested interest, to unpack is it actually Independent research? And often it's not.

Julianne: No, exactly. So that's exactly right, Dr. Michael Greger was the main science advisor on the program, and interestingly he said on one of the websites that he reckons this is one of the best plant-based documentaries of all time. I mean, not surprising because it represents everything he thinks.

Steph: But I'm actually really embarrassed by that statement. When I first watched it, for me it was laughable and I thought to myself that it was going to be an opportunity for those that are actually really passionate about to come out and say something along the lines of like, "I'm really happy to see that we're having this conversation on such a large platform, but I don't agree with anecdotes and weak science." And maybe sort of almost own up to the fact that it was not strong in it’s science, and that a lot of the examples like the erection conversation, and the comparison of deep-fried chicken to whole foods, that's embarrassing to me. Yet we've got these people with all the letters after their names, years or decades of experience, and in Australia or in my little sort of online world, so many people that are just blind to all of that because they're so blinded by that veganism message, and I find that really disappointing.

Julianne: Yeah. I think you and I would find it disappointing, lots of scientists would, but if you're in the documentary sphere, the whole point is to make it entertaining and all of those demonstrations were about entertainment.

Steph: Yes.

Julianne: Yeah, they were just entertainment, and I mean, when I've made or researched documentaries, one of the things I'd go and find is what are some really fascinating sort of either experiments or demonstrations or things that we can have in the documentary that isn't just people talking like what we call talking heads, talking heads are pretty boring and they turn people off. You want something that's really, really memorable, you want something that people are going to go away and talk about and probably not ever forget. Like who would forget that guys have more boners at night? You just don't forget that stuff and you want people to get scared of things as well, or excited by things. So, that's the other point of the demonstrations. Yeah, pure entertainment, memorable moments, something to make people talk about, yeah.

Steph: Yeah, yeah, except it's not science. So that's the problem for then those that take that to be gospel and I guess quite fear-based, think that they have to cut out all animal protein because it's-

Julianne: Well, that's it, I mean, the experiments were designed to give you fear of meat, and also the whole false dichotomy of some of the science. So, for example, one of the things I noticed was about meat, meat has all these bad things associated with it, and plant has all these good things associated with it. I mean, that's just completely not how nutrition is, and it shocks me that scientists would actually allow that. But when you're trying to put people off something, they use those fear tactics, and it seems to be pretty strong in that kind of vegan dialogue lately.

Steph: Yeah, and in your article, I think we could probably speak to this next as a good segue that you mentioned that, of course, it could have been the other way around, of course, there's plenty of great nutrients in animal products that weren't mentioned, and conversely plants can be quite harmful in their own way in context, of course. So do you want to talk to us more about those points that you discussed in your article?

Julianne: Yeah. So, some of the things they mentioned ... And they gave the impression that meat is only associated with negative things, that's the other thing. It's not like, "There are some negative aspects of meat, yeah, if you overload with iron that's going to be problematic because it's pro-oxidant and that does happen to some people. But on the other hand, if you're a young menstruating woman cutting out heme iron, that's probably a really bad idea because you may end up becoming anaemic." So they didn't bother to put that out, and then they've made some of the things in meat a lot scarier than they actually are, and they missed out a whole lot of positive things about meat. They could have said, "Meat's got B12, you can't get that from anywhere else, therefore eat meat. Fish has got long-chain omega-3, EPA and DHA, eat fish." And we know, for example, that people that eat fish are probably some of the healthiest on the planet and they completely ignored that.

So part of it is not only making something look bad, it's ignoring anything good associated with it, the after form of vitamin A, retinol, is only found in animal products. Choline is pretty much only found in animal products and that's pretty good for your liver and your brain. And then they've only pointed out positive things about plants, but they neglect to say, for example, if you're eating plant protein, they are anti-nutrients that slow down or block the absorption of all the protein and it's not a great source for some people who have to actually compensate for that by eating more protein. So yeah, I mean, and also, their whole false dichotomy is like people only eat pants or only eat meat, and that's just not how most people with nutrition knowledge eat. We eat whole and unprocessed sources of animal protein, and whole, unprocessed sources of plant food as well.

Steph: Yeah, I agree. I think there was that really exaggerated conversation, like all of us that eat meat sit down to an Atkins type diet of when it was first invented, and I think that's a real issue because as I've said, and I've said many times before, I eat predominantly plant-based. And I think a lot of us do because we know that when we source the right type of animal protein, free-range, grass-fed, grass-finished, wild-caught, etc, that you only need relatively small amounts. And I'm building ever plate from plants, from non- starchy veggie and small amounts of above-grounds. And I think that's something that was just not discussed in the film. It was like we were all eating the worst of the worst, deep-fried Kentucky Chicken, and buckets of it, and again, that's so incorrect.

Julianne: Yeah, exactly.

Steph: But entertaining.

Julianne: It's very entertaining, and that brings me to the other point of when people change from any sort of standard western diet, high in kind of processed food, fast food, junk food, ultra-processed food, to whether it's plant-based or an omnivorous whole food, they're

going to get health improvements. But they made it look like it would only happen if you ate a plant-based whole food diet, which is completely untrue, as we know.

Steph: Yeah. Look, we understand, obviously, everything that went into the documentary was to really destroy that myth that you need animal protein, but then, of course, it leads us to discuss, yeah, more fallacy in the film. What else do you think is a really big flaw in the science that they presented? Whether it is about performance or looking at plant protein and how many of those athletes ended up needing to take so many supplements as a result?

Julianne: Yeah, yeah I was going to say that, and it's something that they completely neglected to put in the movie, which I think does people a real disservice if they're switching to a plant-based diet because, I gave a talk at a gym a couple weeks ago, and this young man said, "Oh, I'm switching to a plant-based diet, I just watched The Game Changers, I made my Mum watch it, I made my sister watch it." And I said, "What are you interested in?" He said, "I want to get stronger, I want to get better performance, I want to feel better." And in the documentary, they showed athletes and strong men and bodybuilders eating what looked like unprocessed food. Lots of plant food, obviously, but then like and and things like that, what they didn't show and when I went and looked it up was all the supplements, especially the stronger men and the bodybuilders took in order to get adequate protein. And this is one thing that bothers me, were actually some of the guidelines, even the standard guidelines that legumes, in particular, can be a direct swap for animal protein.

So this is one thing they didn't point out, for example, to get 30 grams of protein from chickpeas, you need 420 grams of cooked chickpeas compared to 100 grams of cooked chicken. And in the process, you're going to get huge amounts of fiber, which is fantastic, but you're also going to get about 50 grams of carbohydrates. So people don't do an automatic swap, and if they do, they're probably only going to get five to 10 grams of protein. So to make up the difference in the amount of protein you get from legumes, those guys absolutely, 100% must supplement with refined sources of protein isolates, plus additional amino acids like creatine, beta-alanine. Sure, as a powerlifter, I would take some of those as well because they're known to improve your performance and to help you build muscle. But I don't have to take those, whereas those guys would not be able to get as strong or as muscular as possible without taking isolated plant protein supplements, and they neglected that completely in the movie, which I think is negligent.

Steph: So do I.

Julianne: You're going to have these kids like I saw the other day like this young man wants to get strong, goes to the gym, starts eating legumes and , wonders why he's getting weaker because he hasn't added 100 grams net of protein supplements and specific amino acids to make up the difference.

Steph: Yeah, I just don't understand the logic, I just don't understand how these either athletes or vegan proponents could be so strongly attached to the nutrient value of their dietary choices, yet also be looking down the barrel of lifelong supplementation. I can't

understand why they can't see that it's not the best choice if you can't get everything you need from your plate alone. To me, that's just something they're choosing to turn a blind eye to, to justify their decision, and young people especially, they're probably not in the position ... I mean, I am making some assumptions. But I don't think they're unfounded from my experience, that they're not going to be in the position to always eat a really well-designed vegan diet where they're looking at their macronutrients. Their calories, they're understanding if they are getting enough protein rather than just doing a blind one to one swap, which as you discussed very rarely will be equal. And yeah, they're not really taking the time to understand it, whereas I'm not against veganism, I think it can be done in a select person.

But it does take time to really understand what you need, how you're going to consume the volume of food that you need, and then I have issues further when we look at things like our soil quality. We're having to start to consume so much more food because the nutrient value is decreasing over time, that it's starting to become really impractical when you can't get that really nice, dense source of B12, or like you said, a long-chain fatty acid from a small piece of salmon.

Julianne: Yeah, yeah, exactly and you do see people over time, at least I've read lots of accounts online, of people over time who get less and less well on a vegan plant-based diet, and I think it really depends on your motivation to do. If somebody is ethically really, really opposed to eating animal foods, then you really do, like you said, need to go out of your way to eat what is missing in a diet that includes animal foods. But if you are eating a plant-based diet in order to improve performance, which is what this Game Changers makes people think, then I think people are going to be hugely disappointed in the long run because a lot of people aren't going to thrive over time. I know that when I was eating pretty much a plant-based diet when I was younger, I did it completely the wrong way, and I had a lot of inflammation. I was really fatigued after going to the gym because I never had enough protein, I didn't have long-chain omega-3s, I didn't have retinol, because I'm a really poor converter of beta-carotene to retinol, and it really just didn't work for me.

When I added animal protein back in it was like a revelation, I was like, " there is energy, there is wellness, this feels great." So-

Steph: And how long were you plant-based for?

Julianne: It was kind of on and off, back in the '80s in the day of sort of , or semi- vegetarian. So, probably about three years, I would say, yeah.

Steph: Yeah, well it's such an interesting space at the moment, I was vegetarian for 10 years, so it's obviously not veganism, but I mean, I certainly wasn't healthy. But there's more to that story, I just think that what's really fascinating is that as you would know, it's absolutely becoming quite common to see the decline because we know that there's the capacity to store B12 for a couple of years. So you might feel fine, or even great, for the first few years if you're starting to eat more plants and less processed food, that goes without saying. Yet now we're seeing vegans convert back to either a standard real food template or further, a carnivore approach because they've got a number of symptoms

as a result of a longer-term vegan diet. There's at least two quite popular vegan influencer, one is Alyse Parker, and I believe you know of Tim ... His last name has escaped me.

Julianne: Sheiff was it? Who was originally interviewed for The Game Changers?

Steph: Oh, tell me that story, I don't know that part.

Julianne: Oh okay, so there's an athlete-

Steph: Time Shieff, it's S-H-I-E-F-F, if I'm saying that correctly, yeah.

Julianne: I'm not sure if I'm saying it correctly, but that's okay. So I understand, if you look up, which is quite fascinating if you look him up, there are actually some interviews with him online in the early days of The Game Changers, this film took six or seven years to make. They have thousands of hours of footage, and Tim Shieff was a passionate vegan plant-based diet proponent, and he was interviewed for The Game Changers and if you listen to early interviews, he will talk about how he's on this plant-based diet and he's participating in The Game Changers movie. And then he got more and more unwell, decided to go on a fast, which he lost lots of weight, came out of that, had his first piece of salmon I think and some eggs, and felt amazing.

Steph: Had a wet dream, I believe.

Julianne: Yeah, had a wet dream.

Steph: I mean, we've got to talk about erections don't we, for it to be scientifically valid?

Julianne: And it's kind of interesting that he had his first wet dream, and yet these guys in the movie eating one day of plants measured more erections. I mean, who knows… whatever. Yeah, so he wasn't included at all, wasn't mentioned at all, which again is interesting, it's like, "We will only mention the people that tell us they are thriving on this diet, we won't mention anybody that doesn't thrive or has switched back to an omnivorous diet for their health."

Steph: Yeah, that's fascinating, I didn't actually know that, I've just seen the more recent stuff where his quite recent YouTube clip titled Veganism is Wrong For Me: Why I Started Eating Meat, and it's attracted so much attention. One, because he's a very well known previous vegan activist, and then as a result, two, he is receiving so much abuse bordering on death threats, I believe, from his followers, or his ex-followers who can't believe that he's crossed to the dark side. So it's heating up, for sure.

Julianne: Yeah, it happens, for sure. I mean, I've gotten a lot of abuse on some of my Facebook pages, to be honest, and I've just removed those posts, it's just not worth it.

Steph: Since you've posted this article in particular, or just over the years in general?

Julianne: There was a comment I made probably over a year ago now, and it was some people noticed it, it was in an article where I talk about a whole lot of other things and said that there's some young children and babies who have been really quite damaged as a result of B12 deficiency being on a vegan diet, and I said there was even a couple of deaths." And as a result of that comment, I got an enormous amount of abuse and hundreds of people doing one-star reviews on my-

Steph: Oh, the same thing happened to me.

Julianne: ... Facebook page. So-

Steph: Facebook, yeah.

Julianne: Yeah, I mean, I wasn't saying anything that wasn't factual, and that's what happened.

Steph: Well yeah, I mean, I'll share my story. So, when I first watched Netflix, I just created a meme for a bit of a joke and it said, "Friends don't let friends take their nutrition advice from Netflix." And it was so tongue in cheek. I didn't think anything of it, I put it up, and then I didn't go back online until let's say the next lunchtime, right? So maybe even, I don't even know, let's say it was 16 hours later. It had been obviously shared into a number of vegan Facebook groups because these weren't my followers. The abuse that had been thrown at me was out of this world, like nothing I've ever experienced and I've been talking about fat and cholesterol in the low-fat era and I used to get a lot of criticism back then. But this was next level, this was personal attacks, criticisms on the way I look, my health, my qualifications. I won't waste more time on it, but it got really horrific that I actually took the post down.

Then the minute I posted my article with scientific literature, references, etc, they were absolutely quiet, they did not say a word. So that was quite an interesting contrast, but I just don't see why it's necessary to start to get personal when we're just looking at the science.

Julianne: Yeah, I would like people to stick to the facts, and with respect to health on a plant- based diet, I would have loved to have seen a lot more information in The Game Changers about how you as an athlete can thrive on a plant-based diet if that's what you chose. But it was missing, and as far as I can see, it's not really included in The Game Changers website either.

Steph: Well, I'm just wondering what's going to come next, I mean, they could never have predicted the hype that has been created, I'm sure that was their intention. But it has just completely blown up. I wonder what else they're planning on doing if they've got further products or programs, or merchandise or what that looks like from a financial point of view a well.

Julianne: I wonder too, and who knows? They've got lots and lots of footage, they could very well be making that into more documentaries, I'm not sure.

Steph: Yeah.

Julianne: Yeah.

Steph: Yeah, who knows? So, obviously, you're a fan of plants, I mean, do you work with vegan athletes and/or what do you think that someone needs to do to be plant-based and thrive?

Julianne: Yeah, so I don't tend to work with vegans, I think if anybody looked me up and they would see that I'm probably not of that persuasion, they would probably be a bit worried about working with me. However, I've had a couple of clients who go, "Look, I really want to switch to much more plants in my diet and get away from eating so much meat." So we talk about what they would need to do to do that, and especially with athletes, it depends on what type of athlete you are, of course. Strength training one's like myself need to be really particular about protein, so I would talk a lot about getting adequate protein, and if they wanted to grow their muscles, hitting that leucine threshold three times a day and how you can actually do that with a plant-based diet, pretty difficult. I'd say there's probably only a couple of plant-based protein sources that you could do it with, the rest would have to be done with supplemental protein shakes.

And then depending on each person and what your predisposition is. So if you've got a predisposition for inflammation, I would definitely have people take both plant omega-3 and some algae DHA to get that long-chain omega-3 and be careful about not overdoing omega-6 and getting their balance wrong. I'd probably make sure people supplemented with a good quality vegan multi and vitamin D in the winter, but I get most people to do that anyway. And retinol is another thing, if you're not a very good converter of beta- carotene to retinol, you could become deficient in vitamin A. Pyridoxal is another one that's not often mentioned, which is your B6, only found in animal forms of B6. The plant form is pyridoxine, and there's been a study I noticed a couple of years ago which found that people who take high doses of pyridoxine, it blocks the action, or the receptors of pyridoxal, the active form. So, they end up getting B6 deficiency, which is interesting, so yeah, a lot of nutrients that you need to be really careful of.

An athlete, I'd probably suggest they take creatine as well if they were interested in growing new muscles, but also an omnivorous athlete I'd recommend that to as well.

Steph: Yeah, so yeah, back to our point about probably needing a lot of things that aren't available from your food. So that might be a deciding factor for a lot of people aside from those that have that very strong ethical reason, who often aren't actually doing it for their health, unfortunately.

Julianne: It’s the animals.

Steph: Still understanding that there's a lot that you need to know about and a lot of work that can really help optimise your choice if you're that way inclined.

Julianne: Yes, exactly, and I mean, some plant-based people are really, really aware of that. But I thinks people coming out of watching The Game Changers just will not be aware of that because it wasn't something other than B12 that they mentioned was important. Oh, yeah, that does bother me.

Steph: Yeah, me too. Definitely, because it's become so popular, every second person knows of someone, or is becoming a vegan themselves, and yeah, I have a huge issue with that, that it's going to lead to a lot of health issues when their intentions are the opposite. They think they're doing it for health, for the right reasons, when it's because they've been fed the wrong information, sadly.

Julianne: Yes, exactly, yeah.

Steph: I just wanted to touch on the environmental conversation as one of our final pieces because it is something that I'm really passionate about discussing because one of the strongest, I mean, aside from cancer and cardiovascular disease, that fallacy. The third biggest fallacy that we often see around meat, in particular, is how damaging it is for the environment, and greenhouse gases, and global warming and climate change, etc. But what's not discussed is what we see in this day and age with mono-crops of soy and wheat, how that's really impacting our soil, and how quite truthfully, we're not going to be able to feed the world off mono-crops with the current state of soil depletion and the lack of available land. What are your thoughts on what was presented in the film around the farming methods and the environmental impact?

Julianne: Yeah, to be fair, this isn't an area that I've looked into an enormous amount. One thing that bothers me about mono-cropping and it affects both plant-based people and omnivores is how to fix the land. So the soil becomes depleted, the microbiome in the soil is depleted, the insects are killed with pesticides, the small creatures that live in the soil, mice, etc, get killed. The insects that feed the birds, the birds don't have their food, so we need to be really careful about well if we're not eating animal protein, what is it going to be replaced by and what environmental impact does that have? When I see animals grown here in New Zealand where I live, you see pastures full of dozens of different types of plants, there are bugs all over the place there are creatures, there are birds feeding, the animals look pretty happy munching on grass. The soil is probably an awful lot better than the mono-crop soil, so I think how we grow our food definitely needs to be improved in both plants and animals.

I mean, like you, I don't like to see in huge holding with bare ground, munching on or , I don't think that's the right way to go either. I think all around we need to do better in growing both plants and animals to support the environment and obviously human health, yeah.

Steph: Yeah, and I think it's time to stop putting our heads in the sand around that, we definitely need to vote with our dollar around where we buy our meat. So, really important that we're not supporting factory farming, which is what a lot of the literature looks at, the poor quality meats or worst of the worst cured meats and then extrapolating that to meat direct from the farm, that's pasture-raised, grass-fed, grass- finished, etc. So, that's a real issue with the science, but hopefully, it does highlight the

importance of purchasing meat with quality in mind and then understanding more about our environmental impact from both animals and plants, and I think educating ourselves is really important because climate change is real, and unfortunately our politicians don’t seem to be doing much so we need to start to make those changes at a grassroots level.

Julianne: Yeah, and for any of my clients that can afford it, I ask them to consider the meat they buy, the free-range, organic chickens or whatever, and also imported meat is another thing that I try to keep away from as well because we have no idea. Is it grown on what was Amazon forest land? Are they fed on soybeans that come from the Amazon? What do your animals feed on? Where does that food come from? So yeah, if we can vote with the dollar, for sure, but it needs to be bigger than that, unfortunately, yeah.

Steph: Of course, of course, it does. Yeah, so we have to keep the conversation happening so change happens at a much higher level, of course.

Julianne: Yeah, mm-hmm.

Steph: Absolutely. All right, I just wanted to give you this space to add anything that you would like to, to the conversation and then you're welcome to share anything else that you've got going on, on your plate at the moment, and then where our listeners can find you online.

Julianne: Sure. I think the other thing I wanted to add was this techniques of persuasion isn't just in plant-based documentaries on health, you will see the same techniques used even in documentaries that you agree with. And I think we need to be super aware of any documentary or TV program about, well, any topic. But I'm just talking about mainly nutrition and health topics, that present a point of view and question who’s making it, why they're making it, who have they chosen to be on the program? Is it balanced? And ask a whole lot of questions rather than take it at face value, it's like, "I don't agree with that." Or, "I agree with it." It's like, "Why's it being made, and what's the point of view being presented here?" And question it, is it accurate? Is it balanced? Is it showing both sides of the picture or is it just one-sided? So, yeah, any documentary I would say that about.

Steph: Yes, absolutely true. Any research article, any piece of literature, I think it's really important that we take a deeper drive, for sure, rather than just believing that top level.

Julianne: Yes, yeah, for sure. And yeah, so about me, what I'm interested in. So, my main area of interest currently is diet and autoimmune disease. So in my post-grad diploma, I did a little research topic, a qualitative research interviewing people with rheumatoid arthritis who used an autoimmune paleo, or paleo diet, which they say or they experienced as reducing their symptoms and disease markers and fatigue and pain and improving their quality of life. And I'm currently planning some masters research testing a paleo, or probably more likely an autoimmune paleo diet in a small group of people with rheumatoid arthritis. So, that I will be starting next year, so that's a little bit scary and quite exciting, and I look forward to doing that.

Steph: Awesome, I love it, keeping yourself nice and busy.

Julianne: Busy, yeah, keeping the old brain ticking over.

Steph: Yeah, for sure. So I'll pop your article up in the show notes, it's hosted over on paleozonenutrition.com, and thank you once again for sharing your knowledge, it was great to have you on the show today.

Julianne: Thank you, thanks for having me, it's been great.