 You're welcome back, it's still breakfast and we're talking a lot of things, but right now we want to talk nutrition. And the experts say that the intake of salt and sugar should be regulated because there's an amount that you take and it will be too much. But I don't know much to say about that. We've been told all the time that is it that you take the drugs that you are given by the chemist or you take food that is good enough for your body and avoid the other kind of drugs. So there are two types of drugs, it's your choice to make which one you want to take. We have nutritionists here in the house who are telling us much about what we need to know, especially about the standard intake if I may use that word of salt and sugar. And it's my pleasure to introduce Mrs. Oluwakemi or Larry Wajju, a registered dietitian. Welcome to the program. Thank you so much. Okay, let's just kick off with what you would define as the good nutrition, what constitutes, what you eat and can call, can say that you've had good nutrition. Okay, having good nutrition is having a balanced diet, meaning that you have all food groups in your plates when you want to eat. All. All food groups, meaning you have carbohydrates, you have protein, fats, vitamins, minerals and most importantly water. Does it always have to be all of them in every meal? Yes, to be considered a balanced diet. So when I'm taking my tea now I need meat. Not exactly, tea is supposed to be like a side, it's a beverage, so it's not considered a meal. But when you're considering having a meal, like a standard meal, then it must be a balanced diet. Okay, oh well, I was just wondering. And there are some people who say tea is good enough for me, I take it in the morning and that's good enough. Yeah, it's good to help you start your day, but that's not considered a meal. So the day will start in an imbalanced way. Not even green tea. Those are start-up days like your tea time. Okay, interesting, talking about tea time. Yes. I'm just to digress, I have a senior man who doesn't take his tea with milk. Most times when he has an area of green tea in his house, we go in the morning he would sit down, have breakfast, a lot of green tea and stuff. He doesn't put milk and as we said, it reduces the potency of the green tea. Well that's true, for green teas or some type of tea, you don't require milk sometimes in them. Because they contain antioxidants and they are nutritious the way they are. So adding milk would invariably reduce the potency. So it's best to take them without milk. But here are Nigerians buying malt and then adding milk and then telling you that it gives them blood. I suspect you are good. I've seen it a lot. Well that's just meant to compensate people when they don't need their blood. It's not necessarily that when you take malt and milk it will increase your blood levels. The one you have given out no. But it's just a compensation that okay you have given something, we need to give you something back in return. But are there foods that are blood builders? Yes there are. You have beetroots, you have some vegetables that are rich in iron which are good for blood building. Okay. Interesting. So let's talk about you. How did you become so interested in nutrition? Okay. That's a very personal question. My dad was diabetic, hypertensive and he had kidney disease and had to help him with his nutrition to help. Because at some points when you come down with some types of diseases you need more than medication to help you. So you need the right food along with the medication. So that was why I had the flair of going into nutrition. You know we helped something in common because I also had the opportunity to take you up my dad. The opportunity in his health and everything and I can relate. I can relate. It's very important. Wow. So that's the story right there. And so far you've enjoyed your foreign to the world of nutrition. Yes. So far so good. I've had five years experience in nutrition. Fantastic. Okay. Let's just look at the basic things. I know some people who buy a bag of salt, a bag and keep in their house and they challenge themselves. Let them see how much of this salt they can eat before they die. Weird. But I've seen that. That's really weird. Weird. Yes. That's weird. I've seen people who take like you know in a day they could take up to six bottles of the big cola, big soda drink. You know in a day six or even more. And I'm wondering experts warn us that these things are too much. How much is too much really for salt and sugar intake? Okay for salt and sugar there are invariably things that we get in our diet. Every food or most food that you eat it contains the part of salt because they are in answers. They make the food taste good. They give us a good mood as well because when you eat food that contains salt and sugar you feel better. You feel good. That's why you find out that when people are low on energy the first thing they want to go is get a bottle of soda to help them boost their sugar. But in the real sense we need about just 3.5 grams of salt in a day. That's about one tablespoon of salt in a day throughout the day regardless of what you are eating. But you find out that people take as much as seven to ten grams which is about two, three teaspoons. How do they take this in? Yeah because they are not measuring. Most people eat out. So when you find out that when you eat out and you get junk food some snacks are salty. So all those things are added. That's interesting. So we need just a tablespoon? Just one tablespoon of salt in a day. I think that should be enough for you. Yeah but it's not measured. You will now go and measure it. Even if when you are cooking you have a pot. So it's not as if you are measuring oh this is the amount I want to have for breakfast, lunch, dinner. But when cooking is advised to reduce your salt addition. Because you find out that even the spices or sodium in them which is supposed to be regulated. I see. So when it comes to salt and blood pressure, tell us about that. Oh well. Because people who have blood pressure issues struggle to manage it because they can't eat food without salt. Some will say okay they use the seasoning. The normal ones that we know. The seasoning to replace the salt and that's okay. Okay for people that have potency we place them on low salt diet. But people always confuse it and say it's no salt. We are not supposed to have no salt diet. It's supposed to be low salt diet. Why not know salt diet? Because salt has its own functions in the body. It helps to regulate the fluid in our body. Even the blood flow in our body is regulated by the salt. So you find out that when the salt intake is too high it would affect the blood flow and irregularly cause hypertension. So you find out that even the condiments, the spices you are talking about, most of them contain salt as well. So we have to put into consideration that okay all these ingredients I'm putting into this meal contain salt. So it has to be regulated. It's always good to read labels. Even when you're buying things, canned foods are mostly preserved with salt or sodium. So most times we advise that when you buy canned food it's best to rinse them to reduce the salt. So if you compensate for salt now, if you have intensive with all these star and all those little cubes. I don't call the names. The seasoning cubes contain salt. So it can still have an effect on your blood flow? Yes it will have. So it's best that people say oh I don't want to use salt. They said I should stay off salt but they use the cubes. Normal quantity. People had now in our homes we don't measure the salt for putting. It's just discretion. You find out people just say oh this salt is enough and they will taste. But that is when you taste the salt that's bad. You shouldn't taste the salt in the food. That means you're tasting the saltiness in the food. That's absolutely not. There's a local belief that if you have stomach upset for instance. You just mix salt, high concentration on water and drink and it goes off. How dangerous is that? Well it's experts say that it's not always a solution. But that's mostly the first thing that people think. But taking a proper medication or knowing the root cause of that stomach upset. It can be because it took something that is upsetting your tummy. Or it took something that is not well cooked. So you need to know why you have that upset before you go around and take salt. Taking salt is just going to increase the cells. You used to have ORT when we were growing up. Yeah that's good. You have that constitutes sugar and salt. That's supposed to increase the electrolyte because when you find out people have diarrhea and they go to the restroom as often as possible they lose some electrolytes. So we ask them to take an ORS which is good. I remember back in the day the government used to spend a lot of time making in advance of ORT. They used to add two tablespoons of sugar and they used to do that if you have some alcohol. Let's go back to you as an nutritionist. What have you found to be the biggest challenge in trying to help people with their nutrition and diet? People are not conscious and they are not intentional. Until we get to that point where if people are intentional about their health then it helps us too because we try to promote preventive health care for people. But you find out that is when they come down with a certain disease they start looking for us. And at that point the damage is done. We can only try to correct but it's not going to be totally corrected. We can only try. So you need to have a dietitian or nutritionist every day in your life. Yeah you can make one your friend. We are lucky. So is it different between a dietitian and a nutritionist? What? Is it different between a dietitian and a nutritionist? Okay now all nutritionists are dietitians but not all dietitians are nutritionists because a dietitian is regulated by law. You have to become registered and certified to be a dietitian. But people can just study a course and see they are nutritionists. So for a dietitian you need to have clinical experience to become a dietitian. Now the lifestyle of a regular Nigerian, what we eat in Nigeria, could you describe it as being healthy or harmful when it comes to sugar and salt being a part of our diet? Okay most Nigerians live on junk food and they don't even eat a balanced diet. Have you had breakfast this morning? Why are you attacking? Please answer the question. This is breakfast. Yes I've had breakfast. Okay so we say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Because that keeps you going. You start your day with good nutrients and good source of energy. So that keeps you throughout the day. But you find out that most Nigerians don't have breakfast. They try to push it to lunch and they tend to eat heavy. So that would affect what they are going to have for dinner. Can you spare us? We are doing intermittent fasting. We are doing intermittent fasting. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. Really? No it's not. So that would lead to weight gain. 16-8 or do 18-4. Intermittent fasting is generally not sustainable. Really? No it's not. She is busting my bubble. Some form of fasting is healthy. Yes it's healthy but you don't have to subject your body to fasting. For a long period of time. Intermittent fasting should be for a short period. It's not a long term solution. So you have been healthy. We have to go. If you were to give people out there some advice. Just one shot. You have one chance to tell people. What is the most important nutrition tip or advice they need for their lives? What would it be? I will tell them to cut down on salt and sugar intake. I will tell them to eat a balanced diet. And also to live healthy. Thank you. Interesting. It's been fun having you. Thank you. Although I came here with Larry Wajio. He is a registered dietitian and nutritionist. She has been our guest on this segment of the breakfast. We will take a break. Thank you for being with us.