The Daily Dollop with Kate Freeman

Weight management is the most common reason why someone would embark on a diet.  And by definition, a ‘diet’ is: “a special course of food to which a person restricts themselves, either to lose weight or for medical reasons”. In Australia, millions of people are on a ‘diet’ at any one time. After 16 years of helping people with their nutrition, I’ve found that focusing on weight loss is often coun...

Carbohydrates are the most demonised of nutrients and the area of nutrition where most people are confused. Veery low carb and ketogenic diets are hugely popular right now and just browse through the Apple Podcast charts in nutrition and you’ll find A LOT of carb hate. With all the confusing messages and carb confusion I meet many people who are struggling with their nutrition, often because they...

It’s one of the most common complaints made by my clients at their first appointment: “Could you please help improve my  energy  levels, I feel so tired all the time.” It’s also an extremely common reason for a person to visit their GP. The problem is, for the majority of people who do decide to investigate why they may feel excessively fatigued, they don’t usually get a definitive answer. In fact...

We all know that we should eat more vegetables. It’s irrefutable that they are good for us and that diets high in vegetables are protective again a huge range of diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. However, to be honest, sometimes they’re hard to eat…  especially when they’re served boiled and mushy… Here are some easy and delicious ways that can help you include more vegetables i...

Snacking is an important part of anyone’s daily food habits. What you regularly choose to eat as your snacks in the context of your whole diet makes a big difference when it comes to your health, as opposed to whether you choose to snack or not. Being organised is a key to ensuring healthy food is available to snack on. Having some forethought, planning your snacks and doing a small amount of prep...

As easy as it seems to sign up to an online program, download a meal plan or hook yourself up with a new app, one thing is for sure: the majority of people find it hard to consistently stick to a healthy eating pattern long term. The truth is, dietary change is hard because, at its core, long term dietary change is behavioural change. If you started exploring all the reasons why you eat what you e...

Do you get any of these gut symptoms: bloating, constipation, distention, wind, pain, discomfort? Chances are, you may have a food intolerance: an extremely common condition experienced by many different people in lots of different ways. Don’t confuse food intolerances with food allergies. They are quite different. Food intolerances are wide and varied, and besides causing you discomfort and decre...

Do you go through periods where your healthy lifestyle choices have gone out the window and you feel like you can’t get back into them again? Do you feel tired, sluggish and unmotivated? Does the thought of trying to improve your eating and exercising habits just seem too much? If you answered ‘yes’ to the questions above, you are not alone. Most people, including me, go through periods when we fe...

Long term weight gain is the result of a complex interaction of a number of environmental, behavioural and genetic factors. We can never blame it on just one thing, one nutrient, one type of food. When it comes to our diets, we do know that an excessive intake of energy, more than our body needs, prolonged over time leads to weight gain. A major contributor to our energy intake, that we can often...

Weight training does put a certain amount of  stress  on the body. It’s really important that you complement any training program with a good quality diet. Eating well gives your body the best chance of building muscle and recovering adequately after a heavy session. Here are 8 foods that, if you eat them regularly, will ensure your diet is nutrient dense, rich in particular vitamins and minerals...

There are lots of opinions about protein. When you should eat it, how you should eat it and what you should eat! In this episode, I’ll chat through the 3 keys tips for eating protein that you should actually pay attention to so you can get maximum protein for your effort and stop worrying about all that extra stuff! Life's too short to live with food stress, to become a habit builder and not a cra...

Healthy eating is a skill. And like any skill you need to learn, develop and practice it until you become proficient in it. The best way to learn this skill is when you’re a kid, and learning how to shop for, store, prepare and cook food. My 12-year-old daughter Asha loves cooking and is chatting all about developing the skills of preparing food!  Life's too short to live with food stress, to beco...

If we met for an appointment, is this is a conversation that you’d have with me? New client:  “Can you please help me eat well? I want to change my lifestyle and form healthy eating habits.” Me:  “Absolutely, I can definitely help you with that.” New client: “ Cause I live a really busy life and don’t have time to cook, prepare food and do anything complicated.” The tips that I’ve included are the...

I’ve struggled with iron deficiency ever since I gave birth to my daughter 12 years ago. If you’re a woman of childbearing age, like me, you may be at risk of an iron deficiency too. In fact, iron deficiency is the most common nutrient deficiency across the globe. It’s estimated that 30% of the world’s population is anaemic primarily due to iron deficiency (World Health Organisation). Here’s some...

There are no wrong or right ways to eat. There are simply overarching principles that if applied to an individual’s diet consistently, the individual increases their chance of good health. Snacking is a common area where people try to stick to different rules and regulations only to struggle with it, rather than giving themselves the flexibility to listen to their body or change based on what thei...

Every profession has its challenges and being a nutritionist is no exception! I’ve been running my own business for nearly 10 years now and what started as a tiny blog when my son was a baby is now two dietetic clinics, an online program and a staff of 8 amazing people. And it is not without problems!  Part of the challenge of being a nutritionist is that I’m working in an environment that is rife...

In this ‘Ask Me Anything’ episode I answer a listener’s questions who asks about drinking water and eating red meat. How much water should you be drinking a day? Is eating red meat for dinner, such a bad thing? These are great questions! Tune in to find out how I answered them!   Life's too short to live with food stress, to become a habit builder and not a crash dieter check out Kate's course at...

Clare Wolski is a senior dietitian at The Healthy Eating Clinic and after 7 years of working one-on-one with clients, she knows how important food awareness is when it comes to making realistic and sustainable food choices. I chat to Clare today about how she helps her clients find awareness and use the power of habit tracking. Clare loves eating pudding, enjoys apple paired with blue cheese and h...

Disclaimer:  Chocolate  is an incredibly delicious tasting food that is high in saturated fat, added sugar and overall energy density. 30g (1 row) of chocolate provides enough energy to power 15 minutes of continuous pushups on your toes (with no rest). This is equivalent to the energy found in two slices of bread.  It offers no measurable nutrition in the way of fibre, vitamins, minerals and anti...

School lunch box packing can be pretty challenging. You want to feed your kids healthy food but they’re fussy, there is pester-power to buy certain foods, kids have a high preference for sweet and salty foods and they don’t want to eat vegetables. There is no exception for a nutritionist’s kids. In today’s episode I’ll have a candid chat with Carter Freeman, my 10-year-old son on lunches boxes, he...

I want to rock a bikini. I want to look good naked. I want to wear a size 12. I want to have abs. I want to be healthy. I want to feel good about myself. I want to be happy. There are all legitimate wants, that many of us have. I have some thoughts about the societal norms and pressures that drive us to want these things, but at the end of the day there is nothing wrong with wanting to feel good i...

White bread, high fibre white bread, wholemeal bread, multi-grain bread, wholegrain bread, rye bread, sourdough bread…. Ahhhh! So many options! Bread is a staple in our diets, however, it’s often demonised due to its carb content and gluten content. Should you really be eating bread? Are there better types to eat?  And what about high-fibre white bread? Is this actually a better choice? I’ll answe...

You’ve just walked in the door from a sweaty session at the gym and you’re like: ‘Now what?’ You’ve read somewhere that you’re supposed to eat something special, otherwise, you’ll lose your gains or not recover properly. Maybe you try not to eat after exercise, fearing you’ll undo all your hard work. Or maybe you don’t care, grab a Mars Bar and move on. Choosing healthy foods after your workout is...

Due to the way nutrition has been portrayed in the media, it’s easy to assume that health is all about what you shouldn’t be eating. Common messages we hear every day are: No sugar. No soft drink. No chocolate. No gluten. No dairy. No carbs. No junk food. No preservatives. No meat. Just to clarify, none of these rules are actually necessary, although many people live their lives believing they are...

Work lunches can be a challenge. Shift work. Days full of meetings. Being unorganised in the mornings or the worst: bringing a boring tuna salad for lunch when your colleagues are coming back to the office with BLT and chips! A healthy, filling, delicious work lunch that you look forward to eating is a key part of getting through the day with your spirits high and your sugar carvings low.  In this...