Salad With a Side of Fries Nutrition, Wellness & Weight Loss

Tired of eating the same boring veggies every week? Let's talk about nutrient diversity—the health hack nobody's buzzing about but should be! It's not about being perfect or following strict rules; it's about bringing more color, flavor, and fun to your plate while feeling amazing.

In this episode of Salad With a Side of Fries, host Jenn Trepeck explores why micronutrients matter just as much as macronutrients. Learn how eating a variety of colored vegetables, embracing seasonal eating, and experimenting with different vitamins and minerals can improve gut health, support immune function, and enhance healthy aging. Hear practical strategies for adding dietary variety without complicating your routine, plus why the holidays offer a perfect opportunity for nutrient-rich foods.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

✅ Why nutrient diversity and micronutrients are just as important as tracking your macros, and how eating a limited variety of foods puts your body into survival mode, affecting everything from energy levels to bone health and metabolic function.

✅ The power of eating the rainbow—how different food colors indicate specific vitamins and minerals like iron, folate, beta-carotene, and antioxidants, and why incorporating plant-based foods with various phytochemicals supports immune support, digestive health, and reduces chronic disease risk.

✅ Practical strategies to increase dietary variety without overwhelm, including shopping at farmers' markets, using frozen organic vegetables, cooking with global spices, and creating rainbow meals that make seasonal eating easy and affordable.

✅ How the holiday season offers a hidden opportunity for nutrient diversity through festive foods you don't normally eat, and why developing a sense of culinary adventure helps improve gut microbiome diversity and overall wellness.

The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast, hosted by Jenn Trepeck, explores real-life wellness and weight-loss topics, debunking myths, misinformation, and flawed science surrounding nutrition and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store.

TIMESTAMPS:  

00:00 Introduction to nutrient diversity as the overlooked health tool and how micronutrient variety impacts satiety, energy levels, and overall wellness during the holiday season

06:59 Understanding micronutrients versus macronutrients and why vitamins and minerals deserve more attention in wellness conversations than just tracking macros

08:48 The World Health Organization recommendations for daily fruit and vegetable intake

10:12 Why we're not getting nutrient diversity: the food industry focuses on taste over nutrition, lack of crop rotation, and produce picked before ripening loses connection to soil nutrients

14:42 Three crops (rice, wheat, maize) provide over half of the world's plant-based calories, yet lack the phytochemicals and bioactive compounds needed for optimal health

16:46 Research linking dietary variety to reduced type 2 diabetes risk, lower metabolic syndrome, improved cognitive function, and better gut microbiome diversity

18:26 Eating the rainbow: how different food colors signal specific nutrients—green for iron and folate, orange for beta-carotene, red and purple for antioxidants

22:39 Cravings and listening to our bodies

33:17 Practical tips for becoming a "varietarian," including organic options, seasonal eating, using global spices, and shopping at farmers' markets for inspiration

38:35 Using frozen organic vegetables for affordability and convenience while maintaining nutrient-rich variety throughout the week without food waste

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

💎 Nutrient diversity through micronutrients is critical for preventing chronic diseases—studies show eating 30+ different plant foods weekly creates a favorable gut microbiome compared to eating 10 or fewer, impacting everything from cognitive function to metabolic health.

💎 Different food colors represent distinct vitamins and minerals: green vegetables provide iron and magnesium, orange foods offer beta-carotene for immune support, red and purple contain antioxidants for blood flow, and white foods like mushrooms support bone health and circulatory system function.

💎 Limited dietary variety triggers sensory-specific satiety, causing you to eat larger volumes to compensate for missing nutrients, while also creating metabolic adaptation where your body enters survival mode rather than thriving with optimal energy levels.

💎 Simple strategies make nutrient-rich eating accessible: shop farmers' markets for seasonal produce, use frozen organic vegetables for affordability, cook foods in different ways (roasted, steamed, in soups), experiment with global spices, and challenge yourself to create rainbow meals with multiple food colors.

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Feeling like an emotional mess lately? What if the secret to calming your anxiety and depression isn't in your head—it’s actually in your gut. This episode breaks down why your digestive system might be calling the shots on your mood, and the simple supplements for emotional vitality that actually work.

Jenn Trepeck is joined by natural health educator Jared St. Clair on Salad With a Side of Fries to get real about the brain-gut connection. They're dishing on everything from spore-based probiotics to why your gut microbiome might be eating all your serotonin before it reaches your brain. Plus, Jared shares which magnesium and omega-3s are worth your money, and why your self-talk matters more than you think. 

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

✅ Why gut health and mental health issues are connected and how fixing your leaky gut and microbiome first (before your brain) can dramatically reduce anxiety and depression—plus the specific spore-based probiotics that actually rebuild your gut long-term

✅ The five essential supplements everyone should consider: a great multivitamin, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium bisglycinate, probiotics, and digestive enzymes—and why these support neurotransmitter production and brain-gut connection

✅ How ATP energy production in your brain affects mental clarity and mood, plus why creatine isn't just for athletes but is actually a "no-brainer" for preventing brain fog and supporting mental wellness

✅ The power of mindset work and your reticular activating system (RAS)—why what you tell yourself matters more than any supplement, and how to stop sabotaging your health with negative self-talk

The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast, hosted by Jenn Trepeck, explores real-life wellness and weight-loss topics, debunking myths, misinformation, and flawed science surrounding nutrition and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store.

TIMESTAMPS:  

00:00 Jared St. Clair introduces the gut health mental health connection and why he always starts in the gut when addressing anxiety and depression

04:59 Jared shares how early exposure to health concerns shaped his passion for natural wellness and supplements

09:58 The origin of Vitality Radio and how Jared transitioned from local radio to podcasting after 12 years, building a platform for health education and supplement formulation

13:33 What emotional vitality means and Jared's wife's journey from five medical diagnoses, including bipolar disorder and IBS, to finding hope through gut health transformation

20:09 The Vital Five supplements everyone should consider: a great multivitamin, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium, probiotics, and digestive enzymes for filling nutritional gaps

23:11 Spore-based probiotics explained: why soil-based strains like Bacillus coagulans survive stomach acid, rebuild microbiome diversity, and create permanent change 

27:12 Healing leaky gut and the gut barrier with L-glutamine, marshmallow, slippery elm, and holy aloe vera juice to support neurotransmitter production

29:04 Why creatine is essential for brain health: supporting ATP energy production, preventing Alzheimer's, reducing brain fog, and helping with mental health issues

35:36 The power of mindset and the reticular activating system: how self-talk and subconscious beliefs matter more than any supplement you can take for achieving vitality

37:29 Placebo and nocebo effects explained: why believing a treatment will work (or won't) directly impacts outcomes, including medical procedures and supplement effectiveness

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

💎 The vagus nerve carries more traffic from gut to brain than any other pathway in the body, which is why addressing gut dysbiosis and leaky gut must come before treating mental health issues—when your microbiome is out of balance, your neurotransmitters like serotonin and GABA can't reach your brain properly

💎 Magnesium bisglycinate is the single most important supplement if you can only take one, because nearly everyone is deficient due to depleted soil and high stress levels that burn through magnesium—it calms the central nervous system, reduces anxiety, and supports overall emotional vitality

💎 Traditional probiotics only provide temporary relief because they die at room temperature and in stomach acid, but spore-forming probiotics like Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus coagulans survive digestion, eliminate pathogens, and rebuild microbiome diversity for permanent change within 30 days

💎 Your self-talk and reticular activating system determine health outcomes more than any supplement—telling yourself "I am fat" or "I am bipolar" creates confirmation bias where your brain proves you right, so shifting from "I am" to "I have" language is critical for healing and creating change

ABOUT THE GUEST: 

Jared St. Clair is a natural health educator, supplement formulator, and host of Vitality Radio. With over 30 years of experience, he has dedicated his career to educating people on natural wellness, helping them achieve vitality through lifestyle changes and the use of supplements. As the owner of Vitality Nutrition, a family business founded in 1977, Jared continues to lead in providing personalized health solutions. His podcast, Vitality Radio, further extends his reach in promoting natural healing and wellness education to a broader audience.

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