If you've ever stood in a supermarket aisle holding two packets, genuinely unsure which one is the healthier choice, you are not alone and you are not failing at anything. Food marketing is designed to make that moment confusing. So in this episode the tables were turned — one of our former interns, Raoul, took over as host and fired at me the healthy eating questions he'd collected from friends, family and anyone who'd ever wanted to ask a nutritionist something without booking an appointment.
Here's what came up, and what I actually told him.
Are nutrition labels misleading?
The label itself, in Australia, is regulated. Calories, sugar, fat, protein — that information has to be there and it has to be accurate. What's far less regulated is the front of the packet.
That's where the buzzwords live. Gluten-free. Sugar-free. Fat-free. Low-carb. Whatever's trending this year gets splashed across the front in a nice font, and we reach for it on reflex. So my advice is simple: if the front of the packet attracts you, turn it over. Read the nutrition panel, and then read the ingredients list — because ingredients are listed from highest quantity to lowest. If sugar is first, that product is mostly sugar, no matter what the front says. You want sugar at the tail end of that list, or ideally not in the conversation at all.
Is gluten-free actually better for you?
For some people, absolutely. If you have coeliac disease, an inflammatory bowel condition, or a genuine intolerance, gluten can be a real problem and avoiding it is genuinely helpful. Gluten is a protein, and for a sensitive gut it can be inflammatory.
But it's not a blanket rule for everyone. If gluten doesn't bother you, there's no prize for cutting it out. Pay attention to how you actually feel — bloating, lethargy after eating, constipation or loose stools are worth investigating, and there are tests that can give you a clearer answer. What I'd steer you away from is going gluten-free because the packaging suggested you should, and then eating gluten-free products that are loaded with sugar and fat instead.
Do I need to buy everything organic?
Organic produce is generally cleaner — fewer pesticides, sometimes none — and it's also generally more expensive, because supply is tighter than demand. As more farmers convert, that gap narrows.
In the meantime, you don't have to buy everything organic. Look up the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists. The Dirty Dozen are the ones worth buying organic: berries, stone fruit, apples, leafy greens — produce with no protective skin, heavily sprayed and eaten whole. The Clean Fifteen have a peel or shell doing the work for you, like bananas and avocados, so conventional is fine. Buy organic where it counts and conventional where it doesn't, and your grocery bill stays sane.
Can food really affect my mental health?
Yes, though I want to be precise about how. Research looking at large populations with anxiety and depression has found higher rates of deficiency in certain nutrients — zinc, magnesium, vitamin D, omega-3 fats among them. That's a contributing factor, not a direct cause. Good zinc levels don't make you immune to depression, and poor ones don't condemn you to it.
What eating well does is build resilience. It lowers the likelihood, and it tends to shorten the dip. Anxiety and low mood are cycles we all move through; nourishing your body gives you more capacity to come back out the other side. And if you're struggling with your mental health, nutrition sits alongside proper support from your GP or a mental health professional — never instead of it.
Can you eat healthily without compromise?
This is the question I care most about, and my answer is an unqualified yes.
Healthy eating is a lifestyle you can sustain, not a sentence you serve. When someone cuts out an entire food group — no carbs, no sugar, no alcohol, no fat — what usually happens is they start counting down. Dry July becomes a calendar they're ticking off, and the first of August gets hit twice as hard. The restriction creates the rebound.
What I aim for with clients is the Goldilocks principle. Not too little, because excluding things creates deficiencies and misery. Not too much, because that isn't healthy either. Just right — and your just right, because the foods I love might be the ones you can't stand.
I've been on this journey myself for decades. I've tried veganism and vegetarianism, I've tried eating to a blood type framework — which has no real scientific backing, so I'm not recommending it. But I kept what suited me: more vegetables, more fish, less red meat, nothing banned outright. That's trial and error, not a protocol. Find the version that fits your body and your life, and you'll never need another diet.
What about skipping meals, supplements and probiotics?
On skipping meals: if you skip one and eat genuinely balanced meals the rest of the day, you'll usually eat fewer calories overall, which can support a weight-loss goal. There's also interesting research on the repair side — giving your gut lining a break, rebuilding digestive enzymes, and some evidence around renewal of the mitochondria that produce your cellular energy. It suits a sedentary worker far better than an athlete, who's chasing fuel rather than cutting it.
On multivitamins: useful when there's a real deficiency to correct, or when a parent is genuinely struggling to get food into a fussy child. Less useful as a permanent crutch, because a pill can quietly give you permission to stop improving the diet underneath it.
On probiotics: it depends entirely on why you're taking one. After a course of antibiotics — which wipes out good bacteria along with the bad — a multi-strain probiotic helps restore the population. For a specific condition, specific strains have specific evidence. And you can feed the bacteria you already have with prebiotics, which is really just fibre: fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes. This is one of the better arguments against cutting carbohydrates entirely — your gut bugs live on the fibre in whole carbs.
Why eating well doesn't have to cost more
Buy seasonal. Buy local. A farmers' market naturally stocks what's in season, which is why it's often cheaper than a supermarket flying produce in from another hemisphere. Use the Dirty Dozen list so you're only paying the organic premium where it matters. And lean towards whole foods over processed ones.
That last one surprises people, so here's the logic. A fast-food meal is cheap, but an hour later you're hungry again, because your body got sugar and fat and very little actual nourishment. Whole foods satisfy you with less. Cook the meal yourself and you do even better — the smells and the preparation switch on your digestive enzymes, and eating slowly with other people gives your fullness hormones time to reach your brain before you've overshot.
And if you've got no appetite at all? That's increasingly common, and it's usually stress. When you're stuck in fight-or-flight, digestion gets dialled down. The fix isn't forcing food — it's doing whatever genuinely relaxes you. Time in nature, a swim, a laugh with a friend, some gentle breathing, eating away from your desk and your inbox. That's what switches on rest-and-digest, and appetite follows.
Key takeaways
- Ignore the front of the packet. Read the nutrition panel and the ingredients list, where the first ingredient is the largest.
- Gluten-free, organic and supplements all have a place — but the right answer depends on you, not on a trend.
- Nutrients like zinc, magnesium, vitamin D and omega-3 support mental health as contributors, alongside professional support, not instead of it.
- Apply the Goldilocks principle: don't eliminate, don't overdo. Restriction is what creates the rebound.
- Save money by buying seasonal and local, going organic only for the Dirty Dozen, and choosing whole over processed.
- Cook it yourself, eat it slowly, and eat it with people. Your fullness signals need time to arrive.
- Pick the one area you're struggling with most and make it small. One minute of breathing. One consistent bedtime. Momentum does the rest.
If there's a thread running through all of this, it's that there is no one-size-fits-all. The weight-loss industry does very well out of short-term diets precisely because they're short-term — you finish, you revert, the weight returns, you come back. I'd rather set you up for a lifetime. That's the holistic approach I take at me&my wellness: we look at your food preferences, your goals, your sleep, your stress and your movement together, and we build something you can actually keep doing when life gets busy.
Want to go deeper on this? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Anthony at meandmywellness.com.au