In the latest episode of the Midlife Makeover show, we had the pleasure of hosting Phoebe Lapine, a renowned chef and author known for her insightful approach to nutrition and health.
Phoebe, the mastermind behind the award-winning blog Feed Me Phoebe, has taken the culinary world by storm with her latest book, “Carbivore: 130 Healthy Recipes to Stop Fearing Carbs and Embrace the Comfort Foods You Love.”
Phoebe’s journey began with her own health challenges. Diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis at a young age, she found herself at a crossroads between conventional medicine and holistic approaches.
Her quest to manage her autoimmune disease without lifelong medication led to the creation of her second book, “The Wellness Project.” This personal journey provided Phoebe with a unique perspective on health, focusing on balance rather than restriction.

In our conversation, Phoebe debunked common myths about carbohydrates, emphasizing that not all carbs are created equal.
She introduced the concept of the “slow carb diet,” which focuses on the timing and combination of foods to manage blood sugar levels effectively. Phoebe’s philosophy of “healthy hedonism” encourages us to find joy in our meals while nourishing our bodies.
One of the standout moments from the episode was Phoebe’s discussion on the importance of breakfast.
She explained how starting the day with the right foods can set the tone for balanced energy levels throughout the day. Her insights into food sequencing and the role of fiber in our diets were enlightening, offering practical strategies for anyone looking to improve their nutritional habits.
Phoebe also touched on the differences in how carbohydrates affect men and women, particularly as we age.
Her research highlights the need for a personalized approach to diet, considering factors like hormonal changes and individual health conditions.
For those navigating autoimmune diseases or simply seeking a healthier relationship with food, Phoebe’s work is a beacon of hope.
Her recipes, grounded in science and filled with flavor, offer a path to enjoying the foods we love without the guilt.

Tune in to this episode for a deep dive into the world of carbs and health with Phoebe Lapine.
Whether you’re a food enthusiast or someone looking to make dietary changes, this conversation is packed with valuable insights that could transform your approach to eating. Don’t miss out on the chance to learn from one of the leading voices in culinary wellness.
Listen now and start your journey to becoming a happy, healthy carbivore!
👉 Connect with Phoebe!
Watch it on YouTube!
FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE
Wendy Valentine: Welcome back to the Midlife Makeover show. I hope you’re ready for an amazing episode, because today’s guest is going to change the way you think about food, especially carbs.
Phoebe Lapine: Yes.
Wendy Valentine: I’m super excited to introduce Phoebe Lapine, a Brooklyn based chef, founder of the award winning blog feed me M Phoebe, and the author of four incredible books. Wow. Her latest book, Carbivore 130 healthy recipes to stop fearing carbs and embrace the comfort foods you love, is all about showing us how to make carbs part of a healthy, nutritious lifestyle without the guilt or fear.
Phoebe Lupine: Yes.
Wendy Valentine: Phoebe combines science backed strategies for managing blood sugar with mouth watering dishes that feed our cravings. We’re going to dive into some common misconceptions about carbs. How her journey with autoimmune disease shaped her views, and how carbs can play a key role in women’s health. Hello. Especially in perimenopause and menopause. So get ready for some delicious insights and strategies you can use in your everyday life. Let’s give a warm welcome to Phoebe.
Phoebe Lupine: Hi. That was so much energy infused into my bio. I really appreciate it.
Wendy Valentine: You know what? I hear the word energy a lot. Like, people always describe me energy. I’m like, yeah, I feel like, you know, it’s the least I can do. So I was looking on your website before we started, and there was one thing that really stuck out to me, and it was in a video of you, and you had said, how do I do right by my body without giving up my life. Let’s start there. Pick that sucker apart for me. Where did that all start? Yeah.
Phoebe Lapine: So that was actually the subtitle of my second book, which was called the Wellness Project. And I bring that up not as a plug, but because it represents.
I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis when I was 22
I’m going to talk about the origin story, my villain origin story, for how that book came to be in my life, which was, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when I was 22. Hashimoto’s thyroiditis by my regular doctor, which was very fortunate because so many women do not get the right diagnoses for their ailments. At the time, however, I didn’t think I was ailing at all. I was just, you know, living my life in the big city in New York. And so I was told this, like, very disconcerting piece of news, and my doctor was like, you know, you can just go on medication. It’s totally common, and especially common for women in their mid twenties to kind of develop these issues. And, yeah, the only thing is you’ll have to be on the medication for the rest of your life. And I was like, oh, what? Say what? Like, record scratch. And so I just went on living my life and did the super mature thing of just ignoring everything that had transpired in the doctor’s office and then learning the hard way, through life, what that autoimmune disease actually was and meant, because I just completely wound myself down to the bottom of health mountain and landed on my a** and had all of these horrible symptoms. at the time, I had just quit my corporate job and was trying to become a full time chef and food writer. So my daily. My daily day at the office was quite strenuous. especially in New York City, there’s a lot of schlepping involved when you are cooking for other people on a daily basis. And eventually I just started to notice, like, gosh, I’m exhausted all the time. I’m not able to sleep through the night. I’m, like, covered in sweat, just, like, walking up the subway steps. But every time I try and exercise, I have this, like, horrible cramp in my abdomen, so I can’t even run anymore for more than a block like I used to. my hair was falling out, and I had this, like, really attractive rash on my face called perioral dermatitis. And so I would say, like, vanity eventually got the better of me and I started to pay attention and I said, okay, I did what I probably should have done when I was 22, but didn’t have the wherewithal or, maturity to do so, which was to say, okay, well, if I’m not going to go on medication for the rest of my life, let’s look at some of these more holistic ways that I can tackle this problem. So I started seeing a functional medicine doctor, and the first thing that I did was do an elimination diet and discover that gluten and I did not get along at all. So I took that out, and that was deeply jarring. especially, you know, I mean, this was almost 15 years ago, so gluten free was not the wide embraced and known, dietary trend that it is today. And more importantly, and I think this still exists today, it’s really hard to be in the food industry if you have any sort of dietary restrictions. so I was like, oh, gosh, what does this mean for my career? for a while, I kind of just, like, faked certain. Like, I would do some recipe development for, like, regular glutiny things and just, like, have someone else try them. I mean, it was kind of a mess. I had to work my way towards it. But this is all very long winded answer, to your question, which is that, you know, for a while, you know, on the one side of the coin was, you know, western medicine being like, it’s no big deal, just take this pill. And then once I started dabbling into the more holistic side, it was the other side of the coin, which was, oh, you have to do these hundred plus daily self care practices throughout the entire contents of your apartment and replace them with baking soda and cotton. And if you don’t do those things, like, you’re just going to be destined to a life of, like, very intense autoimmune symptoms. so I.
How do I do right by my body without giving up my life
The how do I do right by my body without giving up my life was really, you know, a predicament that I found myself in. That was my central question as someone who is young at the time, in my late twenties, you know, who really cared a lot about my financial wellness, my social wellness, and I kind of wanted to just figure out, like, what of this laundry list of things is actually worth my time, money and energy. Because I suspect my hypothesis was, you know, if you’re stressed all the time about what you’re eating or what you’re doing to the body, like, no amount of kale will make you healthy. So I crafted this whole, like, little curriculum for myself, looking at, you know, all sides of wellness, but really starting with, like, some of the common sense, big picture things like, you know, eating real food, moving your body, hydrating, de stressing, sleeping. and those are, at the end of the day, what everyone can agree on. And I developed this, this little routine, or I guess, curriculum for how to do little sub changes within those categories, to get myself onto more solid ground, I guess, on Health Mountain, to slowly climb back up Health Mountain. And that experiment ended up becoming the wellness project. And that was really kind of my foray into writing about autoimmune disease and putting myself out there for that. And I think that that subtitle, that tagline, whatever you call it, did resonate with a lot of people who, just really didn’t know what to do with, with their chronic health predicaments.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah, because you still, you want to be healthy, obviously, but you still want to be able to live your life. And I was like, if you’re watching on YouTube, I was, like, smiling the whole time because I could totally relate to what you were saying because I had, I shared with you I had an autoimmune disease. I had. I think I did, black mold toxicity, hypothyroidism, lyme disease.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah, yeah.
Wendy Valentine: Perimenopause. Blah, blah, blah. Then being a french pastry chef, I did share that with you. But then finding out, no, I cannot have gluten. And I’m like, okay, how am I going to make these fluffy, buttery croissants? Right?
Phoebe Lapine: And we need you to figure it out. There’s a, ah, population out there.
Wendy Valentine: Back then, it was kind of like the gluten free thing was like, ew, no, thank you. I’d rather have brick, you know?
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah.
Wendy Valentine: and I own a functional medicine practice at the time, so just like you, like, we had to become our own guinea pigs. You have to kind of.
Phoebe Lapine: Exactly, yeah.
Wendy Valentine: And it’s. It’s tough because, oh, take a pill. That sounds really attractive. Then on the other end of it, it’s like, okay, you can’t have this. You can’t have that, you can’t do this, do that, but you can have maybe this. And then it’s like, ah.
Wendy Valentine: But there is balance. There is. And you’re living proof that it. There’s hope. You just have to figure out what works for your body.
Phoebe Lapine: Exactly.
Wendy Valentine: And it’s. And thanks to people like you that you go through it and you’re able to go, here, this is what I did, and this is what you can do, too.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah. And I say my philosophy is something I call healthy hedonism. And it is like, I feel like how you can envision that tagline, but there’s like a Venn diagram of all the things that nourish your body and then another circle of all the things that feed your spirit. And I think the beauty of integrative health is that there actually is. There are enough things out there that you can pick and choose. You know, the few items that, you know, meet in the middle for you that both feed your soul and nourish your body, because we all have, you know, self care practices that we genuinely enjoy. It’s not all doom and gloom, but I felt like, you know, so many of the doctors out there were just cramming, like, ramming in this message of restriction and abstinence, and it just didn’t resonate with me. And then I also. I mean, as someone who was in this industry, I got to hang out with a lot of those doctors, you know, in social settings, and they didn’t live by their very intense, rigid mantras. Like, they actually lived a life with a lot more healthy hedonism in it than they let on. So, as a non credentialed person who’s just like a big nerd and researcher and writer, I was like, I’m going to, you know, stand in my soap. Soapbox and advocate for this.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah. And I love you. Made the point about causing more stress in your body by being stressed about.
Phoebe Lapine: What to eat or what not to.
Wendy Valentine: Eat and how to eat and all that other stuff, because you can cause more problems in your body by the stress, worrying about it all.
Phoebe Lapine: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it’s the biggest, it’s the biggest factor, in so many chronic health issues. And it’s an unfortunate, self perpetuating one. But, you know, they say it’s, it’s never really one thing, thing. for any chronic condition, there’s oftentimes, like, kind of a triggering moment or factor, but it’s not, you know, just reliant on that straw that broke the camel’s back. It was like all the straws that were added beforehand. And I think, and from talking to a lot of people in the chronic health community over the last ten years, that the straw that broke the camel’s back is almost always stress. Not always, but, it’s a lot of people can point to, you know, a stressful period of time. And certainly when I was diagnosed at 22, like, I had been adding tinder to the box for a long time, but I had a horrible breakup. And I really do think that that was the match that lit the whole thing on fire. Just my, my nervous system was completely dysregulated. and I saw it again when I’ve dealt with chronic gut issues. Sibo is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, unfortunate acute gut issue that I had off the back of writing the wellness project, ironically. And that was, the subject of my third book. But it’s a similar situation where there are so many, kind of comorbidities and so many risk factors, and it’s usually you’re picking out, you know, five from the list.
Wendy Valentine: Well, and it’s kind of. I mean, I think it’s probably good that you figured all this out in your twenties, because what if it wasn’t until you’re in your forties, and then you would have had, an extra 20 years of, like, doing the same behaviors and eating, things that were aggravating your body? And that’s the thing, too. It’s like, I feel like sometimes we do. We’ll wait until there’s that official diagnosis to make any big changes in your life and your health and your body will tell you, right? Like, it will scream at you. Like, if you’re having symptoms, it’s trying to tell you something. Yeah, I mean, even my, like, we’re all busy in life and we’re go, go, go, go. And even for myself, I have to be like, okay, wait a second. What? You know, why has my stomach been upset for, like, the last two? Hello, girl. Like, there’s something, you know, and sometimes you do have to be, like, a little detective and kind of figure it out. Like, maybe I should like the elimination just, okay, let me eliminate, you know, wheat or dairy and just see what happens. You know, it’s like. And I think you had said somewhere, like in a video about making one change per month, which is, I was just.
Phoebe Lapine: I was just about to interject and say, and with that elimination diet, there is, you know, one way that’s recommended by people, but you can do it more of a slow and steady way.
80% of people give up on New Year’s resolutions by end of January
You can say, this month, I’m only going to take out this one thing and have it be less, you know, less of a dramatic change to your lifestyle.
Wendy Valentine: I mean, it’s just like the same thing in January, right? People are always like, let me. I’m going to do this. And then they are like, I think it’s 80% give up on their new year’s resolutions by the end of January because they’re trying to do two weeks.
Phoebe Lapine: Is usually their lifespan.
Wendy Valentine: Oh, yeah. It’s like, just ease into it.
So what was the inspiration behind carbivore? Yes. I think the process of doing the wellness project for me was figuring out
So what was the inspiration behind carbivore?
Phoebe Lapine: Yes. So I felt like, again, I. You now know my philosophy. I’m not very omission based, unless you absolutely have to be kind of. I think the process of doing the wellness project for me was figuring out where my hard lines were and where there can be more wiggle room. I thought that was kind of an empowering part of it. in addition to just, like, building a diverse toolkit of things to pull from, but, you know, in having conversations with people with Hashimoto’s and autoimmune disease and then later, with the IB’s and Sibo community off the back of my third book. And by the way, there’s a huge overlap with the autoimmune community with that particular, particular issue. I’ve just felt there were so many people who were having a really, controversial relationship with carbs, partially because of the diet industry. So, you know, keto is soaring, but, you know, paleo and various low carb, trends had already been underway for many years. But, you know, I think with Sibo, a lot of people go on something called the low FODMAp diet, which is different categories of carbohydrates, an acronym for them. But just across the board, there was just a lot of fear when it came to carbs. And I think it’s not just, the chronic health community that are feeling those things, that are getting those directives from their doctor, because, again, diet culture is just so influential to the point where we just start to moralize food. And here, carbs, bad, bad. So I, as someone like you, who loves food, will always come at the culinary conversation from, a point of pleasure and hedonism. I wanted to say, well, okay, you know, these chronic health conditions didn’t exist 100 years ago, and we got the majority of our. Of our calories from carbohydrates. So what has changed? Is it that, you know, various carbs are made differently? Is it that we’re eating them differently? I mean, there are many things. Are we growing them differently? And it is all of the above to a certain extent. But I want to really hone in on what we can do today to implement some strategies to make sure that our carbs don’t have such a negative impact on us while still keeping them in our diet. And what I discovered from all my research is, like, that it is absolutely possible, like, you can, keep carbs in your life to some degree, in some capacity, without taking such a rigid omission, based approach, and not experience some of the downsides.
Wendy Valentine: Now, when you’re talking about carbs, referring to all carbs, like veggies, pastas, bread.
Phoebe Lapine: I’m so glad you brought that up. So, yes, carb is like a slang term for what in reality is a starch. So, you know, bread, grains, pasta, corn, legumes, those are just some of the chapters in my book. But carbohydrates is a macronutrient that includes all plant life on earth. So every vegetable that you think of as healthy and so many other things, literally every other plant in between. So if we were to remove all carbohydrates, although I’ve gotten into arguments with some people with the carnivore approach, you know, I believe that we would be significantly, like, upping our risk of mortality. I mean, the majority of the data out there just points towards eating plants as a positive. Yes. but no. So the book is kind of slang term for the starch category. Yeah. Inclusive of potatoes. yeah. Whole grains from around the world and talking about those a little bit more. So, again. Yeah, the things that people take out when they’re doing, quote unquote low carb.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah. What are some of the, misconceptions about eating carbs? What do they think? What do most people think is going to happen if they have too many carbs?
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah, so I think it’s just, you know, the concept of blood sugar, which people are getting, you know, a little bit more savvy, too. so I think where people get a little bit bogged down, there’s, like, the group of people who don’t pay any attention and are not aware of, you know, what role our metabolic health plays in our body. And then again, like pendulum swinging back and forth, then there’s a group of people who are a little bit too aware and maybe getting overly stressed out about the concept of a glucose spike. So every time we eat, anytime we put food in the body, it can be a steak, it can be almonds, it could be things that are. Yeah, again, theoretically lower in carb, our blood sugar still rises and falls, like putting gas into a car. We’re just refueling, and that’s great. That’s just the way our bodies work. The issue comes when we have too much volatility, too much of a good thing all at once. A huge rush that then comes with a huge crash, or if our blood sugar is just going up and down all the time. So, you know, that is not just something that has to do with carbs, of course. Carbs that, and sugar in particular, that are really quick to break down. So anything, in the simple sugar umbrella, would fall into that. But then also some carbs, you know, like white rice bread on an empty stomach that can also be broken down really fast because starch, ah, is essentially just, a sugar molecule, a complex sugar molecule. so I think kind of one of the misconceptions is that, you know, taking out all carbs is going to be, like, the solution to your blood sugar struggles. And, yes, I think it can get you onto a more even playing field. It can improve insulin resistance or sensitivity if you’re having some dysfunction around those things. And of course, anyone who has, because, you know, diabetes or pcos or other types of, like, specific insulin related dysfunction, is going to have to do something different than you or me. But I think there’s so much focus always in food and diet culture on the what? And not enough focus on the how. And in reality, that’s true. With digestive issues like sibo and even, like, with Hashimoto’s and a lot of hormone balancing issues, I really do think that the how can be just as powerful, and for a lot of us, can create a lot more mental, a lot less mental monkeying around food and just more pleasure.
Wendy Valentine: Yes, exactly. But that’s the thing. Like, we still would enjoy our food, right?
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah.
Wendy Valentine: You don’t want to sit down and be like, am I eating the right thing? This is so stressful. How am I going to feel 30 minutes from now or tomorrow? And it’s so nice. Right? Like, once you get it right, and once you make your body happy with the foods that you’re putting into it, it’s like, oh, gosh, then you can just relax. Totally.
In your book, you talk about a slow carb diet
I think in your book you talked about, is it slow? Slow carb diet?
Phoebe Lapine: Yes. Slow carb, not low carb.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah. So good. Love, all that cool stuff. so slow carb. Tell us more about that.
Eating fiber prevents simple sugars from making it through intestinal wall very quickly
Phoebe Lapine: Okay. So, again, the idea is to just not have too much of a good thing all at once. So to kind of slow our carbs roll to our bloodstream, and there are a lot of different ways that we can do this. in terms of the what side of things. Eating fiber is a huge boon to how our digestive system was meant to work. So fiber literally forms this kind of protective slurry in our intestines that prevents simple sugars from making it through the intestinal wall very quickly. So the analogy I like to give people is like, okay, if you were to be making, let’s say I actually have, a raspberry lime curd tart in the book. So if you want to just picture making that tart, we’re making our curd. We’re muddling our raspberries and pushing them through a fine mesh sieve. Now, because raspberries are a whole food with all of their fiber intact, you’re going to see lots of those seeds, you’re going to see some pulp from those raspberries just coating that. That sieve. And that means if we were to pour in pure raspberry juice after that, it wouldn’t be this unobstructive waterfall, which would happen if we were just doing it over the sieve to begin with, adding something without any fiber. So the raspberries with all of their fiber removed, which is what happens with juice. But once we have that fiber in there, anything that comes after is going to hit our bloodstream much more slowly. So that’s one of the strategies. And carbivore and just with blood sugar regulation in general, is just to have some sort of fiber first and to never have sugar on an empty stomach. so I like to talk about this in particular with breakfast, because what happens at the beginning of the day has a much bigger impact on our blood sugar volatility for all of the hours, you know, that proceeded than if we were to have, you know, something at lunch or dinner. And that is because it is when our stomach is the absolute emptiest. We have been fasting overnight. So if we just, like, start with a glass of orange juice on an empty stomach, all of that sugar is going to go straight into our bloodstream in under five minutes. And that is, again, going to be just a huge rush of energy that we can’t necessarily use. Unless you’re like an extreme athlete about to, like, run a half marathon in the morning, in which case eat whatever carbs you want, you’re going to be burning off that energy really quickly. but, you know, especially in the US, breakfast has become literally like the sweetest meal of the day. It’s just dessert, you know, at the beginning of the day. And I don’t know, maybe it was just nineties marketing that led us to believe that we need all of that energy to fuel us for the rest of the day. But reality is, if we have, you know, if we’re not able to use all of that sugar entering our bloodstream, it’s going to get converted for later I into fat, which is the low fat movement of the nineties kind of got us into trouble. So I’m not saying we need to just, like, reverse course and just eat carbs all the time and carb a load. I think that there’s definitely some learnings that can be had from the nineties and where we went wrong. but there’s a path forward that’s a little bit more of a middle ground, and it involves, again, just being a little bit more strategic. So if you absolutely love sugary cereal and you cannot get enough stuff, that’s fine. You’re gonna have an easier time actually eating that cereal for lunch or dinner than you will for breakfast. And ideally, since it is so high in sugar, depending on whichever cereal you like, you’ll eat it for dessert. And you know what? If you really, really, really want it in the morning, try eating something with a little bit more fiber first. So maybe have, I don’t know, an avocado toast your cereal, but then you’ll.
Wendy Valentine: Be full anyways and you won’t want it nuts.
Phoebe Lapine: And then eat your cereal. But there’s a lot to be. This is called food sequencing, in various studies.
Wendy Valentine: So, yeah, and that’s like, that’s. It’s more about how you’re eating. Right. I mean, we have a tendency, myself included, that I’ll think about, like, what did I eat today instead of what am I eating right now? And how is this on my plate and this on my plate and this on my plate going to affect me? And then, like, the harmony between it? All right.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, so that’s a strategy that obviously it’s a cookbook. So I can’t, you know, tell you to eat fiber first, but I have some starter salads in there. And then I think kind of like the crux of the slow carb, strategy that’s incorporated into the recipes is what I call carb companions. So that’s just making sure to add as much fiber, as much protein, as much healthy fat as possible to your carbine meals because that will have, you know, it won’t be kind of as impactful as having the fiber first, but it’ll still slow things down in a positive way if you incorporate them into your, into your meal. So it’s not rocket science. I mean, it’s just about adding as many different plants as possible to your plate. I love using seeds and nuts. Those are, I have like five different recipes for seed sprinkles and nut sprinkles in the book. And those are things you can just make in advance and have in a jar on your kitchen counter and just like, sprinkle it over your pasta or sprinkle it over your fried rice, what have you, depending on what cuisine you’re, you’re eating on a given night. And then, of course, you know, just vegetables. Again, it’s not rocket science. Most of health, data out there coalesces around the idea that we want to have as many, as much plant diversity as possible to feed our good. Got critters.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah. I even talk about my book, like, just going back to the basics. Like, it’s, like, it’s not rocket science. Just, okay, like, and if you get confused, go to the largest aisle in the grocery store. It’s aisle one. It’s got lots of fruits and veggies over the. Eat as much as you want. But I’m glad you brought up earlier about, like, the seeds or like, adding spices, like, we think.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah. yeah.
Wendy Valentine: If we eat veggies, it’s like, oh, that’s gonna be boring. I mean, it can be, but you can add paprika, you can add cinnamon, you can add, like, all sorts of things to, like, really, like, give it some oomph. And actually, some of those spices, as you know, can have so many great benefits in itself.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah. On your blood sugar metabolism in particular.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah, yeah.
Wendy Valentine: Oh, go ahead. I don’t know if you’re gonna say.
Phoebe Lapine: Oh, no, I was just gonna say, you know, nutrition science is, I think, a really tricky subject because there are so many things that can’t be proven, and yet there’s so many, so many studies out there. A lot of the times, with, personal interest conflicts, in terms of who’s funding it, that can be cherry picked to prove a given point. And so I hate litigating via the data with people. yeah, I agree. Yeah. I think it’s just much more useful to think about the common sense to look at the way people were eating again 100 years ago, before these chronic illnesses were, being diagnosed on the regular, and to just kind of pull from there. So, I mean, I use tons of different spices in the cookbook. I use a lot of different global, culinary influences, because, again, it’s like, this is the way people have been eating for hundreds and hundreds of years. And there’s wisdom in there.
Wendy Valentine: Yes. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Because you’re exactly right. There’s different bodies, there’s different foods, there’s different cultures, different environments, and, I mean, just like over here in Madeira and in Portugal in general, they have more restrictions on genetically modifying their food, you know, pesticides, things like that.
You have to be careful about where you’re buying your food from
And even over here on the island, they grow a lot of their own fruits and veggies and things like that. I notice a huge difference when I’m living over here versus when I’m back in the states. Nothing against the states. I love the states. But you, I have to be more careful over there as far as what I’m actually buying. Right.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah.
Wendy Valentine: And then when I. When I had found out, about my celiac disease, and I started researching that, too, like, I was like, why is this, all of a sudden, everyone has celiac, or everyone is gluten intolerant or sensitive or whatever. And then I started researching about wheat and how back, I think it’s in the 1950s, that’s when they started genetically. Genetically modifying the wheatley, and that, became.
Phoebe Lapine: It’s not a GMO crop. They hybridize it. They hybridize.
Wendy Valentine: Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So now, like, that’s our. Our new modern dwarf wheat, which they never tested it. And here all of a sudden, everyone is starting to, like, get sick, you know, a couple of decades later. But I learning that for myself back then, I realized I was like, you know what? Maybe I’ll try, like, Einkorn wheat, like the original weeds. Like, I started trying, and I could tell a difference of my body. So, point being, it’s like you. You have to just be careful about what you buy, just how you know where you’re getting your food from. And, if anything, I think I had someone on the show not too long ago, and he’s like, if you have a yard, grow a garden. It was, like, simple as that. Then that way, you know where the food is coming from. Right.
Wendy Valentine: so question for you. Oh, go ahead.
Phoebe Lapine: No, I just want to riff for. Because it’s one of, I think, the most interesting examples as, related to carbs. So, as you mentioned, there are a lot of people with gluten sensitivity that don’t have celiac disease. I am one of them. I’m in, like, kind of the autoimmune bucket of that. But a lot of people go to Europe, and they’re like, I can eat the bread in Paris, no problem. I can eat the pasta in Italy, no problem. And I do, you know, wheat has changed over the years, but then there’s some people who are like, it’s not actually enough of a change to be producing, like, this level of dysfunction in the population. And I think that, like, the missing piece of the puzzle that so many people don’t talk about is just how the products are made with that wheat, how our bread is made, how our pasta is made, and the pasta one I actually didn’t even really know about until I started researching this book. but if you look at a lot of italian made pasta brands, gluten free or regular, it’ll say lenta on them or slow dried as the translation. And that is a completely different type of way of making pasta than the industrialized way. So what happens is. And so sorry, like, back to the misconceptions. A lot of people are like, oh, well, you know, the pasta is just naturally lower in gluten in Italy. And the reality is, is that it is not lower in gluten. And in fact, it is higher in gluten because semolina wheat, which is used for pasta, is a high protein that is high gluten. Gluten crop that is specifically useful for making pasta, because gluten is what gives pasta all of that texture, that chew to it, that bite. So it’s usually that type of wheat that’s used. But the difference is that instead of, making it in industrial factories, a lot of the time it’s being handmade and hand dried. Well, hand dried, whatever. Slow dried being the. The operative difference. So if you think about what happens to protein when we make it at home, if you have like, an intense temperature change, if you take, you know, a piece of steak from the fridge and put it right into a hot pan, you see that protein immediately shrinks up, seizes up, and gets tighter. And it’s, you know, it’s a lot, it factors into a lot of our culinary techniques in terms of how we prepare animal protein. You know, you got to let it rest afterwards. Again, it’s all about kind of giving the protein a slow amount of time to adjust to new temperatures. So what happens with the pasta is usually, you know, in the slow drying process, that gluten is just going to be a lot more relaxed. And when you flash dry it, and I don’t know the actual number in terms of time, but let’s say five minutes, if you flash dry it, in five minutes, that gluten structure is going to be a lot tighter, and that’s going to impact your digestion. It, you know, it’s. If you think about your digestion as a machine that’s trying to break down food, you have something that’s like, kind of a loose knit sweater versus, like a tight micro knit sweater, like the one I’m wearing right now. It’s going to be a completely different process. It’s going to require more digestive fire. It’s going to require more time. And so I just think it’s not, it’s never one thing, as I mentioned earlier.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah, that’s true.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah, there’s the hybridization, there’s the rise of autoimmune disease. But I feel like people do not talk about enough the fact that we make pasta completely differently than we used to, that we make bread completely differently than we used to, and, ah, that some of our dysfunction might be a result of that.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah, it’s the same thing. Like, you can’t say, okay, all carbs are bad, right? Or, all gluten is bad. It’s like, okay, it depends on how. Where the gluten is coming from. And like you said, how it’s being processed. So, yeah, very, very, very interesting. I’ve learned. So I think you’re the first person, I’ve had on the show that’s a chef that has come on to talk about, like, health and how the body, you know, is how the body reacts to these foods and how the foods are prepared. I mean, it’s so, so fascinating and science, really.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah, science. Science.
Is there a difference between how carbs affect men and women? Absolutely
Wendy Valentine: what about men versus women? Is there a difference with carbs, how carbs can affect men and women?
Phoebe Lapine: Absolutely. Well, first of all, I can eat a piece of cake and have a completely different reaction to you eating that exact same piece of cake in terms of our blood sugar. I can have a completely different reaction eating that same piece of cake tomorrow than I did today. And I certainly can have a completely different reaction eating that piece of cake in ten years.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah.
Phoebe Lapine: So we’re all, you know, very sensitive. We’re an open plan in terms of how our health evolves and interacts with all these other lifestyle factors, stress and sleep being, you know, big ones. so in terms of finding kind of the right carb adventure, it’s a very individualized process. But by and large, on a macro level, yes, women do struggle m a little bit more with carbs than men. However, women also struggle more with low carb approaches and extreme restriction than men. And it’s because we’re so finely calibrated. And the blood sugar metabolism is a hormonal process. Insulin is a hormone, and all of our hormones operate together in kind of this very delicate tango, from the same motherboard. So when we start having dysfunction with one hormone versus another, that can be your thyroid hormone, like me, or, you know, insulin as one of those. Those things, cortisol, another hormone, it really does affect. It has a cascading effect on all these different bodily processes. So women in particular, you know, our carb tolerance, which I is like a term that I refer to, it’s not specific to insulin sensitivity, but that’s part of the picture. But just our ability to process carbs, again, without some of the downside, our carb tolerance is going to be different at different times of the month. in particular, like, when we’re ovulating, that’s the best time to eat carbs. that period after we ovulate, the luteal phase, that’s when we’re going to have a little bit more volatility. So it’s just something to keep in mind. And then, of course, as we age, unfortunately for both women and men, we do experience more insulin sensitivity. And then specifically for women, once we hit menopause, we do have to be a little bit more careful because when our, again, hormonal relationships, our estrogen levels really do impact our insulin sensitivity. So once our estrogen levels plummet a little bit, we don’t have that kind of protective feature as much anymore. But again, I don’t think it means that everyone who is going through menopause needs to be super low carb. but it’s something that you can experiment with, and I do think it’s the time to start to implement some of these strategies. and I think one of the easiest places to start is breakfast. Honestly, if you can kind of make that first choice, in terms of what you’re having to fuel the rest of your day, it does have, again, that cascading effect on, what we have later on.
Wendy Valentine: I’m curious, what do you usually eat for breakfast?
Phoebe Lapine: I’m m terrible. I didn’t even eat breakfast today. you know, I should say I didn’t land the plane on the women versus men, too. So that’s one part of the picture. But then our hormones are so sensitive that if we do something drastic like eliminate all carbs, that’s a real sign to our body, a primal sign that there is nutrient scarcity. So, particularly for women in their childbearing years, especially women who want to improve their fertility outcomes, going super low carb is. Is really not recommended by a lot of ob gyns, and fertility specialists, because we know that in times of nutrient scarcity, that’s not the time to incubate a new life. So you hear about a lot of women going on super low carb diets who lose their period. I mean, that is a really big red flag. If you do anything, if you make any dietary change that causes you to lose your period, yeah, you might want.
Wendy Valentine: It might be a red flag that.
Phoebe Lapine: Is definitely a symptom that you do not want, and it’s a sign of. Yeah, of something that’s not necessarily working for you. and I bring up my skipping breakfast as maybe a negative in that other diet. Trends that mimic that scarcity are intermittent fasting, which, again, can be super useful for people and all of these things. By the way, I believe in. In therapeutic doses, even keto, if you want to do keto for a month, that’s, you know, the majority of data out there is studying it in short term therapeutic doses, like a month. same with the low fodmap diet. You know, after four to eight weeks, like, you reach a point of diminishing returns. But as a therapeutic experiment, you know, it can be really useful.
Pay attention to what your body’s craving. Sometimes it’s screaming for something nutritious
Wendy Valentine: I think the key is, like, just being aware, right, of, how you’re feeling if you decide to do something that, would, you know, totally change up your diethyde. Just be aware of what’s happening with your body while you’re going through it. And made me think back of, like, you were talking about the diets earlier. Remember the Atkins diet when it was just like, all protein, no carbs? Yeah, I don’t, I don’t think it lasted two and a half days. I was like, I can’t do this.
Phoebe Lapine: I was like, and that was, like, disgusting, too. It was like, I feel like, on all the, all the media pamphlets, it was like, sunnyside up, eggs next to steak. Yeah. I’m like, where’s the salad? Like, where’s the vegetables? Here.
Wendy Valentine: And you know what? Too, again, going back to the awareness, like, pay attention what your body’s craving. Cause, like, matter of fact, earlier today for lunch, well, it’s already. It’s almost dinner time over here. for lunch, I was, like, craving vegetables. I was like, I want a salad. Like, I wasn’t planning on doing a salad. And I was like, you know what? I’m just gonna have a salad right now. But pay attention to what your body is wanting, because, again, kind of going back to the scream. Sometimes it’s screaming for something nutritious.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah. And by the way, I feel like I actually didn’t answer your question honestly. I just, like, kind of blacked it out. I was like, oh, I ate something right before I could. So it was like an early lunch. and I just ate leftovers. Like, I had some white rice with, like, a huge pile of, like, cucumber cabbage on top, which was actually, I made last night, my recipe for the simplest pokemon bowls, which are in the book. and I don’t have any of the salmon leftover, but I did have some leftover rice and some leftover of the, the vegetable portion. And again, like, food sequence, this is a good example. Food sequencing doesn’t have to be crazy. So what I usually do when I’m making a meal like that is I just put the rice on the bottom and I pile everything up on top, and there’s a slight shift in, in the quantities and the ratios. I mean, I probably have a lower ratio of rice in that bowl, in that recipe than most pokemon recipes. but then it’s like, I have to work my way through that slaw, through the fish in order to reach the carbs. You’re like, I want that.
Wendy Valentine: Right?
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah. And I’m not crazy about it. I’m not like, I must have five bites of slaw before I eat a bite of rice. I don’t think you need to live that way. You don’t need to live with that kind of, like, again, mental monkeying. But you can set yourself up for success in, like, these really small ways. Like, literally, even if you’re changing, not changing the ratios at all, just bury that rice under some other things.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah, there’s little tricks there that, you know, the poke bowls. I’m so glad those kind of. I don’t know if they were around forever, and I just didn’t notice, but I love those because I’m like, I look, I actually had one a couple of days ago, and it’s. It’s like a little party in a bowl. You know, you have, like, ten different ingredients, and then you’re like, oh, this is funny. You feel like a little kid again, you know? but I also want to point out, I love the fact that you mentioned that, you know, what worked for you. Like, what works for you now may not work for you ten years from now. Like, you have to, again, be aware of how your body is responding, because, yes, I mean, we’re. Our bodies are evolving whether we like it or not. Right? Whether we’re paying attention to it or not. Our bodies are changing. We got hormones, we got stress, we got different environments, blah, blah, blah. And you have to pay attention. And sometimes it’s like. And if you’re not, it’ll creep up on you and you’re like, oh, my gosh, you know?
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah.
Wendy Valentine: I think for me, like, especially with traveling, I’ll. I’ve been trying to be better about that. Like, paying attention as I’m traveling, because my body will go through different altitude changes, and I’m like, where I sometimes will need more of those. I don’t want them. I like, but I almost, like, I know I need to have more vegetables. Like, I feel like I need a. That to kind of get me through those little, you know, potential fatigue phases.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah. And I will say, you know, one another very easy way to, you know, kind of eat the foods you want and then offset them a little bit is to just, like, go for a walk after lunch or dinner, to just move your muscles. again, if I ate that slice of cake before I was to work out or go play tennis, it would have a very, very different impact on me than if I ate it on an empty stomach in the morning without doing that afterwards. Or, you know, there’s a reason why dessert comes at the end of the meal, eating it after I’ve had all these other savory, fiber filled, ingredients beforehand. But yeah, I think, you know, I, I hate there’s such an epidemic of disordered eating and I never want to pile on and add to that. If anything, all of my work is, is to advocate for being a little bit, more flexible and finding that wiggle room in your diet. so I would never say, like, eat the cake if you’re going to offset it afterwards by working out. That’s not the point. That’s not the point. You don’t need to, like, work off those calories. However, our bodies are machines that need fuel. And so it’s the reason why marathon runners are like, literally eating liquid sugar in gel form because they, they need that quick energy, to fuel their muscles. so if you want a way of just feeling, you know, not feeling the blood sugar crash after eating a carb heavy meal or a sugary meal, one way to do that is, and it doesn’t have to be anything considered, exercise is just move your body, just go for a walk around the block, take the stairs up a flight and down, do some jump, like five jumping jacks at your desk. Literally, just like little small things to integrate during the day. can really change how you feel. It can make you, you know, have steadier energy throughout the day. And I think the tricky thing with carbs is that, you know, you want to listen to what your body’s craving, but then part of that is also completely biological and driven by sugar. So to avoid some of those cravings, you know, later on, what we can do is just try and, and steady that, that glucose spike.
My perception of pasta has changed since I’ve been over in Europe
Wendy Valentine: Yes. You know, I was going to say, too, that, one of the things, my perception, I guess, of eating pasta has changed since I’ve been over in Europe because in the States it was like, when you’re going to sit down and have some pasta, like that thing is like this, like a huge mound of it, and here it’s like, oh, no, I’m not having. You don’t have to eat like, it’s just a little bit like, it’s. And, and then you find yourself like, oh, I don’t feel so awful afterwards from eating the pasta because I didn’t have to eat like, that much of spaghetti that we’re used to. You know?
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah.
Wendy Valentine: and. And also, yeah, like you said to the. The quality of the pasta, I’ve been going to this place, down the street here that does make their own pasta. And I can tell you, I do notice, like, it doesn’t bother me.
Phoebe Lapine: Amazing.
Wendy Valentine: I know, I know. Go, pasta. No.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah. Love pasta. Yes. This book all stemmed from my love of pasta and bread and potatoes.
Wendy Valentine: I know, I love it. It’s such a good looking book, too. I mean, I just want to. I, like, want to eat. I’m looking on the back of your shelf there. It’s like, I just want to eat the COVID right now. Yeah, yeah, right there, right there, right there. so how can we find you and how do we get the book?
Phoebe Lapine: Okay, you can find me@feedmefeby.com. dot. That’s my blog. I have a lot of free recipe resources there. And then the book you can find@carbivorecookbook.com. i will say that most search engines, including Amazon, will auto correct it to carnivore. So just pay attention. If you can’t find it, just pay attention to that, and you’ll have to click that secondary link. That’s like, did you mean carbon? Did you. You mean carnivore or carbivore? Carbivore. or just go to carbivorecookbook.com. and that will give you all of the links, at least in the states. But it’s available on Amazon, I’m sure, elsewhere in Europe and the UK.
Wendy Valentine: And I could hang out on your website all day. There’s so much good stuff on there, like the blog and the recipes and the videos. So, yeah, definitely check out her website and definitely get your book. Yeah.
Phoebe Lapine: Yes. And I’m ebeelupine on Instagram as well, where I’m always doing little.
Wendy Valentine: No, I just followed you, actually, right before. Yeah, you were making, some dessert, and you were saying. I think you were saying something about, like, okay, don’t just replace with syrup or. Yeah, because then there’s sugar in that. Or the honey.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah, it’s people who. My healthy dessert pet peeve is when people take the regular sugar and just replace it with maple syrup or, honey. And by the way, people, I got some very snarky comments on that one, as is the way on Instagram. But isn’t to say I don’t use maple syrup and honey when I’m making dessert. I mean, in the book, that is my preferred sweetener, but it doesn’t make it healthier or better for your blood sugar. Just with that one substitution, you have to use less.
Wendy Valentine: So, yeah, because your body looks at it like, oh, is this sugar or sugar? Or maybe I’ll have sugar. Like it’s sugar.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah. On a molecular level, it’s all the same thing. Some of them are slightly higher in fructose, which is worse. Worse. However, you know, at the end of the day, it’s quick glucose that’s going to reach your bloodstream pretty fast. so there’s that. And then the second thing I would say, instead of just taking away, and this is, you know, my recommendation for everything, think about what you’re adding. So the example I gave was the. The buckwheat black sesame banana bread in the book, which has a really. So it has tahini in there, which is, ground sesame paste. Again, so many amazing nutrients, healthy fats, whatnot. And then it’s also kind of layered with all of these whole black sesame seeds in there. And it’s a really moist, delicious, earthy loaf, but is relatively high fiber compared to a lot of the other banana breads out there.
Wendy Valentine: I’m so hungry right now.
Phoebe Lapine: I know. Good thing I ate my, you know, slaw and rice.
Wendy Valentine: Yes. Well, I am so glad you turned your diagnosis into something good for the world.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah. Yeah.
Wendy Valentine: And for yourself.
Phoebe Lapine: Yeah, it’s been a journey for sure. But, you know, my hope is that other people can find a similar piece with their diet and find that happy medium. It’s not about feeling 100% all the time. Like, those are really, really hard benchmarks to meet. you know, in terms of where I was at the beginning of my autoimmune experience, like, I feel like I’m definitely 80, you know, living an 80% better life, and that’s a really beautiful place to be. I have no complaints.
Wendy Valentine: Yeah, that’s such a good point. That’s really good. No, I mean. Cause I think about for myself, I’m like, God, I don’t have to be 100% all the time, but am I better than when I was, you know, 1015 years ago when I was going through all that? Heck, yes. Yeah.
Thank you so much, Phoebe. Be a carbivore. Yes. Thanks for having me
Thank you so much, Phoebe.
Phoebe Lapine: Thanks for having me.
Wendy Valentine: Yes, everyone, have a great day and get her book. Be a. Be a carbivore. Yes.
Fun Links For You
🎥 Subscribe to my YouTube channel
🥰 Get Your Free Happiness Hacks Download
