**Jim Hill:** Welcome to “Weight Loss And…”, where we delve into the world of weight loss. I'm Jim Hill.

**Holly Wyatt:** And I'm Holly Wyatt. We're both dedicated to helping you lose weight, keep it off, and live your best life while you're doing it.

**Jim Hill:** Indeed, we now realize successful weight loss combines the science and art of medicine, knowing what to do and why you will do it.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yes, the “And” allows us to talk about all the other stuff that makes your journey so much bigger, better, and exciting.

**Jim Hill:** Ready for the “And” factor?

**Holly Wyatt:** Let's dive in.

**Jim Hill:** Here we go. Welcome to another episode of “Weight Loss And…” I'm Jim Hill along with Holly Wyatt. Holly, today we're going to explore a topic you don't hear a lot about in the weight loss community. And that's the role of herbs and spices in weight management. And when you think of herbs and spices, what comes to mind?

**Holly Wyatt:** Well, you know, I don't cook. So when I think of herbs and spices, I think of little shaker bottles with things inside that can bring out the flavor or help make something that's not very flavorful taste better. That's what I think about.

**Jim Hill:** That's true, but you might be surprised to learn there's actually a lot of research around the impact of herbs and spices on human physiology and behavior in ways that maybe useful if you're trying to manage your weight. So to help us make sense of this, we have a guest, Dr. Guy Johnson. Guy is a principal for Johnson Nutrition Solutions and he has a PhD in nutrition sciences from the University of Illinois and he's worked in the food industry for over 30 years. He worked with companies like Kellogg's and Pillsbury and Gerber. He now has his own consulting firm, but one of the companies he works a lot with is McCormick, the spice company. And he's really in a position to help us learn about some fascinating research around herbs and spices in a way that may be useful to our listeners. So Guy, welcome to Weight Loss And.

**Guy Johnson:** Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. One of the first things we're going to have to do is make sure Holly starts to cook more.

**Holly Wyatt:** Is microwaving? I microwave. That's cooking, don't you think?

**Guy Johnson:** That counts.

**Holly Wyatt:** That counts. Okay.

**Jim Hill:** Guy, we can talk about that because again, I think in this country, people like to watch cooking shows but not necessarily cook and that's actually been a big factor in nutrition. But before we do that, tell us about yourself. Give us a brief summary of your background.

**Guy Johnson:** Sure. So I have an undergraduate degree in food science and a graduate degree in nutrition. And the trick is to combine those two to help people eat healthier. So essentially I'm a nutrition guy that's bounced around the food industry for a while. And sometime in the late 70s, early 80s, baby boomers like myself discovered that they were not immortal and they were worried about their health.

And food companies realized that there was an opportunity to grow the business by providing food products that have a nutrition story to tell largely targeted to boomers. And they need a guy like me to help them figure out how to do it on the basis of sound science. So I've been having a lot of fun over these years doing it for the companies you mentioned. Then as a consultant, I do it for a wide variety of companies and commodity groups and so forth. It's been a lot of fun.

**Jim Hill:** So Guy, you and I work together in a group called the McCormick Science Institute. Tell us briefly what that is.

**Guy Johnson:** The McCormick Science Institute is an institute that's fully funded by the McCormick Company that there's a bright line between the company and the institute. We call it church and state. So the company does not dictate what the institute does. But our mission basically is to increase scientific understanding of the potential health benefits of culinary spices and herbs, rolls right off the tongue.

Essentially what we're trying to find out is, do the herbs and spices that people buy at the grocery store and add to their food really have health benefits beyond taste? And And now been at it for 18 years. We've funded more than 70 studies. We have many peer-reviewed populations. And we're guided by a wonderful scientific advisory committee. And somebody on this call is a member of that committee.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, I've really enjoyed being on that group. And it's actually some of the top scientists in the field that work together on this. So So have a bunch of questions, Guy. But the first one is, why is McCormick interested in funding this project?

**Guy Johnson:** Well, back in the early days, Dr. Hamed Faridi, who is the current executive director of MSI, was the chief science officer for McCormick. And he realized that there was a lot of information about potential health benefits of herbs and spices, kind of anecdotal information like spices and herbs have been used for health benefits for years in places like India and part of traditional Chinese medicine. But when you really looked for hard western-type science in countries like the U.S., there really wasn't very much. And And herbs and spices were not really used for their health benefits in the West. And so in order to change that, we needed to generate the science that would get the research community engaged and ultimately policymakers and nutrition educators. And the message gets to the public. So it was just a way to really showcase the fact that herbs and spices did more than just add flavor to foods.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, I love that. I love the idea that we're going to have the science, you know, generate some of the science that then can be translated really into that practical advice. And so kind of what you're saying is there's a lot of people using them, but we didn't really have the science to say is it being used effectively or what it's actually doing.

**Guy Johnson:** Really. And it's been really interesting to see that thought process evolve. Now there are stories every day about the health benefits of herbs and spices. And it's really becoming aware, much more awareness among consumers. And also the government policymakers are very interested in using herbs and spices to make healthier diets more flavorful. I think the public health community has not been focused on flavor in the past, but it's finally dawning on people that make dietary recommendations that it is impossible for people to maintain a healthy diet, whether it be for weight management or anything else, if it isn't delicious. People just lose interest. And And this is becoming a more of a focal point in the nutrition and public health community.

**Jim Hill:** So, Guy, let's dive in. Herbs and spices, first of all, I love it because they don't contain calories. They add flavor, but what else do they do? What has the research done by sponsored by MSI and done by other people in the field? What does it tell us about the benefits of herbs and spices beyond just making food flavorful?

**Guy Johnson:** Well, the first studies that were funded by the McCormick Science Institute looked at the potential physiological benefits of herbs and spices. And since we're talking about weight management, there are a couple of them that come to mind that are really important. One of them is the effect of spices and herbs on energy metabolism.

In other words, how many calories you burn. And we're finding some very interesting things there. And then also the effect of herbs and spices on appetite, hunger and satiety and so forth. If you'd like, I can talk about a couple of studies we've done to look at those things specifically.

**Holly Wyatt:** Well, tell us about the metabolic rate or increasing the calories, because that's what everybody wants to know. Can I sprinkle something on and does it affect my physiology? And And talk about the appetite, because I love it that you're separating those two, because they're kind of different animals, right? Different things. So you can talk first about that physiology, the metabolic rate. Can you increase how many calories you burn? Anything like that, I think people would really love to hear about.

**Guy Johnson:** All right. So we sponsored a study at Purdue, and it was a very interesting study. And they just looked at red pepper. And the way the study worked is healthy, young college kids had a serving of tomato soup. They'd either had red pepper in it or not. And there were a couple of different levels of red pepper. One was just one gram of red pepper, which is like maybe a third of a teaspoon, not very much at all. And then another amount they gave was they tested the preferred level of red pepper from the students.

So they had different levels, and they picked the one that they found the most pleasing. And so the way the experiment was run is the subjects would come in and do the tomato soup with their pepper, and then they would wait for four hours. And during that four-hour period, they measured their CO2 expiration, which allows you to calculate the number of calories that they're burning. And then after the end of the four hours, they got to eat a meal of macaroni and cheese. They could eat as much as they want. Well, what they found is that after one gram of red pepper, and that's not a lot of red pepper, there was a significant increase in the amount of calories that they expended compared to the same soup without red pepper. And there was a dose dependency.

And what was really interesting too, as you say, well, okay, well, that's interesting. What they did was they measured the core body temperature of these subjects, and they found that after they ate the red pepper, the core body temperature increased a little bit. So basically what you're showing is that red pepper turned the calories they had into heat rather than stored bath. It definitely increased their basal metabolic rate.

**Jim Hill:** That's what I love, Guy, about the herbs and spices. It's something that makes the food taste good. And oh, by the way, it helps you burn a few more calories. And again, red peppers, you're not going to lose 50 pounds. But the idea is we give people advice so much for stuff they don't like to do. Here's one where it's something that makes food taste good. And oh, by the way, it has a little positive effect on managing your weight.

**Guy Johnson:** So you know what, I would not eat pizza without sprinkling it with red pepper on there and I feel good about it. And I know it's not going to make me melt away to nothing, but it's not going to hurt either.

**Holly Wyatt:** Right. It doesn't take very much energy to do it, and it may make it taste better. But about how many calories can we quantify a little bit? And we know it's a little effect, these little things adding up over time. But it was significant. But what was the amount of calorie change?

**Guy Johnson:** Well, it's hard for me to come up with a specific number. But what I can tell you, if we pivot to the appetite aspect of red pepper, in that study that I just mentioned, I mentioned that after the end of four hours, they were able to eat as much macaroni and cheese as they wanted. And after the one gram of red pepper in four hours ahead, the subjects ate something like 65 fewer calories of macaroni and cheese after the red pepper. So it filled them up more.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yes. Now that's impressive. I like that. Not only is it increasing your metabolic rate, it impacts how much you eat later. So you kind of get a double, a bang for your buck, two ways instead of just one.

**Guy Johnson:** That's exactly right. And And another experiment that looked at this was actually done in the Netherlands. In this one, they put a subject in what they call a metabolic chamber.

It's just a room that has a bed and a treadmill and a TV and that kind of thing. But it's able to very accurately measure the CO2 that people expire. So again, it's a very accurate way to measure basal metabolic rate. And And they did was they put people in the metabolic chamber for about a day and a half. And they fed them a diet that contained red pepper or not. And it was like each meal had some red pepper in it. And then they measured their food intake and their basal metabolic rate and so forth. And once again, what they found is that red pepper increased the number of calories that they were burning. And then they also measured their appetite after each meal. They also gave people energy-replete diets. So they gave them just the number of calories that they require.

But then on a separate occasion, they gave them 75% of that. So they kind of put them on a diet. So the people that were getting all of their energy experienced a decreased appetite with the red pepper. And then the people that were on the replete diet, it it red pepper didn't affect their appetite, but when they compared the people who were eating the full calorie allotment without red pepper with the reduced calorie people with red pepper, they had the same appetite ratings. So essentially, you were able to eliminate 75 or 25% of your calories. And if you added red pepper, it made up for that appetite difference. So this was a very elaborate, sophisticated experiment, but that was one of the most interesting takeout messages.

**Holly Wyatt:** It sounds like it could be really good for weight loss maintenance, right? Almost rate loss maintenance when you're trying to maintain a reduced body weight, that that could be a really, really good rule. And And pepper, I just want to make sure black pepper, it has to be red pepper. I mean, this is, I don't know much about pepper, but let's clarify, what is red pepper? And that's the only type that we're talking about.

**Guy Johnson:** Yeah, that's the only type we're talking about because it has a thing, a substance called capsaicin, which gives pepper its heat. So black pepper does not have capsaicin, but red pepper does. But other things that have capsaicin would be like hot pepper sauce. So anything with heat has capsaicin and would give you that effect. So it doesn't have to be just the flakes.

**Jim Hill:** Guy, let's talk about maybe some other spices and physiological effects. I hear about cinnamon and turmeric and ginger. What are some other spices that might be of interest to people that are looking to both add flavor and help in weight management?

**Guy Johnson:** Absolutely. Well, ginger is an interesting one. We did another study where people ate ginger for eight days, and then they did intense exercise, and they either ate ginger or a placebo and went into the lab and did this intense exercise. And what they found out was that the ginger group after ginger actually experienced less pain from the exercise. So that's a good thing. And we're all supposed to be physically active.

And so this makes it a little bit better. But also these are not MSI studies, but there are a fair number of studies in the literature to suggest that ginger actually does impact body weight and has other physiological benefits too. So as I said, this is not an MSI study, but one of the things MSI has done is really spur interest in research in this area.

And so there are a lot of papers on spices and herbs that are not funded by MSI, but probably would not have been done had we not taken a leadership role in this area.

**Holly Wyatt:** I love ginger. So I'm excited about this one. How much ginger? How much ginger do I need to be eating? I love it before I work out not to be sore. I mean, you got me interested here, but how much?

**Guy Johnson:** It was about two grams of ginger in the study that MSI funded.

**Holly Wyatt:** Two grams a day?

**Guy Johnson:** Two grams a day, yeah. And so that's roughly a teaspoon.

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh, not that much.

**Jim Hill:** And again, what we're talking here are small effects. None of these on their own are going to cause you to lose a lot of weight, but they're things that can be added day in and day out, adding a little ginger, adding a little red pepper. That's why I love the herbs and spices, because they give you a small positive effect.

**Holly Wyatt:** Well, but Jim, this ginger one, let's say you eat the ginger and then you're not a sore and so you can go work out harder or you can walk an extra mile. Now talking some bigger amounts of energy expenditure.

**Jim Hill:** Absolutely. Another one, Guy, I know that MSI has done some work on is cinnamon and sort of control of insulin and glucose. What do we know there?

**Guy Johnson:** This is one of the more well-studied spices, I think. I started actually a long time ago with a researcher at USDA who got interested in cinnamon, and he found that people were eating apple pies at lower blood glucose than not.

**Jim Hill:** I love it.

**Guy Johnson:** It turns out it's a cinnamon that does this effect. So there have been quite a few studies, and we just did one. We supported one at UCLA with Zhaoping Li and David Heber. And what they did was provide cinnamon. I think it was two grams, and they did it in capsules. So they had a placebo capsule and a cinnamon capsule, and the subjects ate those capsules for a week and had their blood glucose measured over a 24-hour period.

So it was a continuous glucose measurement over a whole day, which is very accurate way to look at blood glucose. And so they compared when they had a cinnamon and a placebo, and there was this significant lowering of blood glucose in the cinnamon group over 24 hours. So that's the most recent study, but there are quite a few studies in the literature that look at this effect and have found positive results. You tend to get a bigger effect if your blood glucose is a little higher. So if you're pre-diabetic or even type 2 diabetic, you're more likely to experience a significant decrease in blood glucose. But this is one that's fairly robust database supporting.

**Jim Hill:** I love that because I love cinnamon. I put cinnamon on everything. I put it on my oatmeal in the morning. It just makes things taste great. And I love this concept of making your food taste better, and it's doing good things for you.

**Guy Johnson:** Absolutely.

**Holly Wyatt:** And in the study, it didn't lower your glucose to a low level. Let's say you're not pre-diabetic or type 2 diabetes, and your glucose is in the normal range. You didn't see any side effects of it making it too low, right?

**Guy Johnson:** No, no, definitely not.

**Jim Hill:** So it can be incorporated. Anybody can incorporate it in it. And you don't have to take the capsules, you can. But But using it in preparing dishes, cinnamon makes things taste good.

**Guy Johnson:** Yeah. The only reason that that study used capsules is they wanted to double-blind the studies so that the subjects didn't know what they were taking.

**Holly Wyatt:** Right. The power of the mind. If you think you're taking it, it's amazing what it can do. We talk about that all the time. But how much? So I want to always make sure we're given practical stuff too. So how much cinnamon? Is Is just a few sprinkles, or do we really got a teaspoon it in? Or what do we do with this cinnamon?

**Guy Johnson:** Well, two or three grams of cinnamon a day would do that trick. And so that again, that you're talking about probably a teaspoon full, maybe a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon. Another way that people do this sometimes is if you have a coffee maker, you put a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon in with the grounds and it gives the coffee a very interesting flavor.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, I love that.

**Jim Hill:** Before we turn to the behavioral stuff, I want to talk about one more, turmeric. I hear turmeric does all kinds of wonderful things. What does the science tell us?

**Guy Johnson:** Well, I think that's a developing story. One thing that turmeric is probably best known for is chronic inflammation. And there's pretty good data to suggest that turmeric has beneficial effects in measuring various inflammatory markers. I think that's probably the most consistent line of investigation for turmeric.

But it does things like, there's this compound called NF Kappa B, which is a bad guy, and percumin, which is the purported active compound in turmeric inhibits the formation of NF Kappa B. So there's real science behind this. But like many of the studies, we need bigger studies with more people. And with turmeric, many of the studies are with the active ingredient rather than turmeric, the spice itself. I think we really need more and better studies with turmeric spice in itself.

**Jim Hill:** But inflammation is very important because in most cases, obesity is associated with inflammation, which is thought to lead to some of the negative consequences. So anything that helps is going to be great. So where do people get turmeric? Where do they usually eat foods containing turmeric? And how much?

**Guy Johnson:** Well, curries, think about foods in India. Turmeric is a very popular spice there. And be honest, I can't give you a guess as to how much would be effective. I would have to go back and look at the literature on that.

**Holly Wyatt:** I think what you said is important. I've looked at some of the studies on this, because I'm very inflammatory. That's something that's personal. I'm always trying to look at ways to try to decrease my inflammatory response. And you're right. It's like, is it the turmeric? Or what is the real compound that's having the effect? And so there, I agree with you. It's exactly how much of which, is it the parent compound? What it is could do it? But it does have some potential, I think, definitely.

**Guy Johnson:** Well, and one thing that is also well known is that combining turmeric with black pepper dramatically increases its bioavailability. So it appears to be more effective if you have it in combination with black pepper.

**Jim Hill:** And Guy, as you know, we're doing a study here. My colleague, Daniel Smith, had just completed a study with turmeric and pain. And what he showed is that turmeric can help reduce pain, perception of pain in people with chronic pain. And chronic pain is endemic. There's so many people suffering from chronic pain. And turmeric helped reduce that pain a little bit. It didn't make it go away, but it helped reduce it. So again, this idea of small changes.

**Guy Johnson:** Absolutely. And as I recall, the turmeric in that study is part of meals, right? So it's a very culinary appropriate level.

**Jim Hill:** And it was, it was basically, he did several doses, but he had an effect from 300 milligrams all the way to a gram. So again, doesn't hurt to include it, makes your food taste better. And it helps. So I want to switch gear. One aspect of the study is looking at physiological effects. But another avenue MSI is pursuing, and this is one that really excites me, is how herbs and spices can make healthier diets more acceptable, taste good. Talk a little bit about line of research.

**Guy Johnson:** Absolutely. Turns out to be one of the most exciting things. It's so intuitive. Gee whiz, if you make things taste better, people might actually like them and eat more of them. But there was really no science. There was nothing in the literature to actually test that out.

So let me talk about some studies with vegetables. So the first thing we did, again, if you can increase vegetable intake, that's probably good for everybody, including people that are interested in managing their weight. It's kind of like the king of the nutrition community right now. It's all about vegetables. So we did several studies where we simply did taste tests, if you will. So we used vegetables with and without different forms of seasoning in a controlled setting. We asked people to rate their liking from a scale of one to nine. And almost invariably, the subjects, and we did this with rural middle school kids. We did this with high school kids. We'd done it with adults in a university setting. Almost invariably, the vegetables preferred with different seasonings on them. These are very common things, garlic powder, cumin, dill, seems like, is a particularly effective one. Anyway, so then we also, in real live settings, tried to see if, by providing vegetables with spices, we could increase consumption.

And the most exciting study we did was in inner city Baltimore in high school. And their cafeteria had just plain Jane vegetables. And what we did was add different spices to them. So this is broccoli carrots, broccoli carrot cauliflower medley, peas, black beans and corn, green beans, just vegetables that were fed in the cafeteria.

And so they measured at baseline what the consumption was. And then, for another period, use the season vegetables. And they found that just by adding the seasonings to the vegetables, the kids ate 20% more, just a real life setting. So if you could increase vegetable consumption by 20% in this country, the public health community would have a rate in our honor. I mean, that's amazing. And so again, the spices that we used, like for broccoli, was dillweed, garlic powder, onion powder and black pepper. For carrots, it was red pepper, ginger, garlic powder and onion powder. So very ordinary, everyday spices.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. And you're doing it in a big study too, not hard, easy, right? An easy fix. It's not like you're cutting up a bunch of stuff and having to do a lot. I might could even do it. It sounds like something I could do.

**Jim Hill:** Holly, you're going to start cooking. I love it. You're going to invite me over for a cooked dinner with herbs and spices.

**Holly Wyatt:** I'm going to add some spices to my microwaved food. Yes.

**Jim Hill:** So, Guy, herbs and spices can be used to increase the consumption of the good stuff. How about getting rid of the bad stuff? Sugar, salt, fat, what do we know?

**Guy Johnson:** Yep. We also did a huge study on herbs and spices with sodium. This was a very sophisticated study where we took subjects and put them on a controlled diet, low sodium diet, 1500 milligrams, which is actually kind of the lower end of the recommendation for sodium intake. Typical sodium intake in the U.S. is like, what, 3500 milligrams?

It's so much different. And so, though I put them on a controlled diet with 1500 milligrams of sodium, but the foods were seasoned with spices and herbs. So, the idea was to see if spices and herbs could help people maintain that level of sodium. So, after a period of time, they randomized those people. Half of them got a copy of nutrition education materials and said, now you know how to do it.

Keep doing this, and we'll see you in four months. And then the other half got support with herbs and spices. So, they got the recipes that they had been given before, that they had been eating. And they did cooking demonstrations, and they got a spice rack to use spices with. And after five months, the total period of the study was five months, the people in the group that got the herbs and spices, they didn't maintain 1500 milligrams of spices, but they were 1000 milligrams a day, less sodium in their diet than the people that did not have that ongoing support.

And again, these were just a wide range of very ordinary spices added to foods. Probably the biggest, the most common spices for sodium reduction are garlic powder. They sort of like a catchphrase, garlic is the new salt, because garlic has some of the same properties as salt as it brings out other flavors. So, you don't necessarily have to make it so that it tastes garlicky, but it does enhance other flavors. Onion powder is another one that is common to help people reduce sodium.

**Jim Hill:** So, the idea here is if you've been told you need to reduce your salt intake, you really need to look at enhancing your diet with herbs and spices, because it can take the place of some of the, quote, liking that salt brings.

**Guy Johnson:** Absolutely. Absolutely.

**Jim Hill:** And what about fat, Guy?

**Guy Johnson:** Well, you're the expert on fat, Jim.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, we did. I'll jump in here, because we did a couple of studies when I was at the University of Colorado, and people are told to reduce fat, particularly saturated fat. The problem is when you do that, people don't like it as well. So, we did a really simple study where we gave people a meal. One was a high-fat meal. Guess what? Guy, they loved it. One was a low-fat meal, and it's like, eh, that tastes, I don't like it so much. We worked with McCormick to do a spice blend that we added to the low-fat. Low-fat plus spices, they liked just as well as the high-fat diet. So, herbs, just like for salt, it takes the place of some salt-liking. Herbs and spices can take the place of some fat-liking. So, it's a way of sticking with the low-fat diet, because you like it better than without the herbs and spices.

**Guy Johnson:** And that's so important from a public health perspective, to be able to eat a diet because you want to, rather than because you have to, it's such a positive message.

**Jim Hill:** So, the takeaway here is herbs and spices can have some physiological effects, but man, they can help you stick to the kind of diet you're trying to eat to be healthier.

**Guy Johnson:** Which also has health benefits. So, from a public health perspective, we could care less whether the benefits come from magical things and herbs and spices or just the fact that they enable you to eat a healthier diet. It's a win-win.

**Holly Wyatt:** I love it. I think so many people think they have in their mind when they go on a diet to lose weight that it's going to be bland. I think they think that chicken and broccoli, you know, the plain chicken and broccoli, and they think I'm going to have to suck it up and suffer, you know, to get through this. And I think what I'm hearing is not necessary. There's things you can do that can make this food that has less calories, less fat, that type of thing taste just as good, or at least getting a lot closer than some of the, you know, so it really is a change in thinking, I think. We tend to think we've got to have bland food to lose weight and then sound like that's true.

**Jim Hill:** So, I love it that we've talked about herbs and spices can have a really important benefit on physiology and behavior. Now, what about people like Kali? They don't cook. They don't know necessarily how to use spices. You know, much of the world uses spices way more than the U.S. We have salt and pepper, and that's about it. How do people that are listening to this and saying, hey, that's pretty cool. I want to start adding this to my diet. How do you get started, Guy?

**Guy Johnson:** Well, I think the best thing is to just jump in and have some fun. First of all, there are recipes that use herbs and spices all over the place. I mean, if you go to the McCormick website, they have recipes in all kinds of categories, including better for you recipes that are all simple and flavorful. Another great place is the government, the MyPlate Kitchen website has over a thousand recipes, and you can use them to increase your vegetable intake or various aspects of your diet. And that whole MyPlate system will enable you to personalize a diet based on your own gender and age and body weight and so forth. And the government is getting, as I said, more and more excited about incorporating herbs and spices into those recipes to make those things taste good. But I think the most fun way to do is just experiment. When I look at these studies that we've talked about on vegetables, I think it would be very difficult to make them less appealing with spices and herbs. So one thing you could do is just bring a variety of spices and herbs to the table and allow people to shake different ones on their vegetables and experiment that way.

**Jim Hill:** Holly, you love challenges. Our listeners may not know that, but Holly loves challenges. Why don't you give our listeners a spice challenge?

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So what I was thinking, we always like to do kind of what we call pie in the plate where we take some of this and we kind of say, okay, you've learned all this great science. Now, how can you actually go out and do it?

**Jim Hill:** Apple pie with spices.

**Holly Wyatt:** Apple pie with spices. So one of the things we were thinking of as an experiential challenge, and my state of slimmers know what I mean by that, you go out and you try something. I'm going to put you on the spot. Top five spices to try. And we're going to, we're going to, each week we're going to go out and try one kind of related to weight. Now, we learned lots of different things. What might be related to kind of metabolism or might be related to decreasing soreness, but are also just increasing vegetables. But if you had to say, here, let's try these five spices. What would be your top five spices to try?

**Jim Hill:** Drum roll. Here we go. Guys’ top five.

**Guy Johnson:** Well, we were talking about turmeric. I think that has to be on the list. Okay. Turmeric. I also, I would not be comfortable leaving red pepper off the list.

**Holly Wyatt:** I agree. That's already on my list. I'm going for the red pepper. You got increasing energy expenditure or metabolism a little bit and decreasing appetite. That is something I want to try.

**Guy Johnson:** So then there's some less popular ones that might be interesting, but keep coming up in these recipes that made vegetables more appealing like coriander.

**Holly Wyatt:** Coriander. I'm writing that one down. Coriander. We're going to be trying that one.

**Guy Johnson:** And cumin is another one that I really like. And then how about another kind of less used one is dill.

**Holly Wyatt:** Dill. Okay.

**Jim Hill:** Oh, great. Great five.

**Holly Wyatt:** Woo. So we're about to do a kind of summer challenge, I think, to assign one of these a week to try. And so listeners can do this too. Take a week, say, okay, this week I'm going to try some turmeric and see how that works. Next week I'm going to try the red pepper and really do that and kind of make that a challenge to see how you like it, what changes.

**Jim Hill:** And you can go on the MSI or the USDA website to look at recipes that incorporate these specific spices. I love this, Holly.

**Holly Wyatt:** I do too. Get ready, state of slimmers. You know what's coming for your homework, but anybody can do this. And so we would love to hear what happens when you try these spices out.

**Jim Hill:** We always like to put our guests on the spot with some personal questions. You have one for Guy?

**Holly Wyatt:** Let me think. You go first, Jim. I'm thinking I want a hard one.

**Jim Hill:** Well, I don't know how hard this is, but Guy, what spices do you make sure that you regularly include in your diet?

**Guy Johnson:** Well, so I'm a red pepper guy. I use a lot of red pepper. I get a bang out of you know, the heat. If you're eating a bowl of chili and you don't break out into a sweat, it's not a good chili.

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh my goodness.

**Guy Johnson:** So I use a lot of red pepper. I use pepper sauce, like Frank's or something like that. That's probably my favorite spice. Also, I love black pepper, especially from a grinder. I think it makes a big difference if you grind it yourself, then you use the pre-ground stuff.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So I'll say I'll go the opposite. What spice do you not like? You know, there's a lot of personal preference. Is there a spice that you're like, not for me, not something I enjoy?

**Guy Johnson:** I can't think of one for myself, but my spouse, for some reason, it's not wild about garlic powder. So when I'm cooking a recipe that has that, I reluctantly leave the garlic powder out. But as I said before, I think that's actually kind of an important one for helping to lower sodium.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, but you have to keep a happy home, Guy.

**Guy Johnson:** One thing I do is, I started to not take the amount of spices and recipes too literally. My mom made cardamom coffee bread. It's really good. It's really good. And I was making her recipe, and I was talking to my sister one day, and she's kind of twice as much cardamom to that recipe as mom did. And I thought, okay, so I did. And wow, it's a lot better. So then I thought, well, maybe I should be adding more spice to everything. So I tend to double the spice content that I add to recipes that I cook.

**Jim Hill:** So experiment. Be bold. Try some things. See what you like. See what your family likes. Have some fun. Okay, so the take home messages here, adding herbs and spices to your diet can help in a lot of little ways. It can have some real positive effects on your physiology that can help in weight management.

But it can also have important impacts on your behavior. If you're trying to adhere to a healthier diet, adding herbs and spices can help make that diet more acceptable, which means you're much more likely to stick with it over the long term. So experiment, have some fun, try these different spices. See what happens. Guy, thanks so much for joining us.

It's been great. And I think these are tips that people can really implement. And at the end of the day, we're telling you to add something that tastes good, not that doesn't taste good.

**Guy Johnson:** Absolutely.

**Jim Hill:** So thanks. And we'll talk to everybody on the next episode of Weight Loss And. And that's a wrap for today's episode of Weight Loss And… we hope you enjoy diving into the world of weight loss with us.

**Holly Wyatt:** If you want to stay connected and continue exploring the “Ands” of weight loss, be sure to follow our podcast on your favorite platform.

**Jim Hill:** We'd also love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or topic suggestions by reaching out at [weightlossand.com](http://weightlossand.com/). Your feedback helps us tailor future episodes to your needs.

**Holly Wyatt:** And remember, the journey doesn't end here. Keep applying the knowledge and strategies you've learned and embrace the power of the “And” in your own weight loss journey.