Why I do this podcast

For this week’s podcast, it’s a break in the normal episode format. Instead, this episode is a bit of self-reflection where I’ll answer many of the common questions I get asked about this podcast and why I do what I do.

Episode transcript
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Transcript

Welcome to the Thinking Nutrition podcast and for this week’s episode, it’s a break in the normal episode format. Instead, today’s episode is a bit of self-reflection where I’ll answer many of the common questions I get asked about this podcast and why I do what I do. 

I started the Thinking Nutrition podcast in January of 2020, inspired by colleagues who were already doing great things in the podcasting world and getting huge reach. And I have kept to a weekly episode format for the entire time since then.

So, why do I podcast? Simply, it’s a great medium for me to communicate through. And the podcast format itself works well for many people as you can dip into and out of episodes at any time of the day or night with only your phone needed to stream the audio – all done while you’re walking, pottering around the home, driving or commuting, or wherever.

It was a bit of work getting the podcast launched – learning about hosting services, microphones, audio editing software, getting listed in all the main podcast directories, and even album art. But once the learning curve was climbed, then focusing on the actual weekly episode content was the easy bit. Which here is mostly a brain dump of my almost 30 years of research experience in the medical and nutrition field plus the experience of a lot of media and social media comms in explainING that research to the public.

And despite me continually thinking that I’ll run out of episode ideas, I’ve made it to 71 episodes, and I still have a long list of planned episodes. On that note, thank you to everyone who has reached out with episode ideas as I do store these away and many of them see the light of day. But really, my content is based on what’s popular and topical, what I get asked about a lot – and most importantly to keep the podcasting passion alive each week – what interests me!

The work involved each week in putting out a new episode is well worth it when I see this podcast has been placed in the Top 10 of all nutrition podcasts in Australia since launch and ranked in the top 0.5% globally for all podcasts. Simply put, why I podcast is because of the reach this podcast can have as another medium to spread what I consider some pretty sensible evidence-based nutrition messages in a world of very average online information so as I say at the end of each episode: it’s all about balancing out the crazy.

Thank you to everyone that listens in and shares the podcast which keeps it growing and me busy putting out new episodes.

Why I don’t do interview format

So, you would have noticed that all my episodes have been just me doing solo presenting. There is no right or wrong way to do a podcast as some podcasts work well with the interview-an-export format. While others adopt a co-host chat model. All formats have their pros cons. For me, solo presenting is a natural fit as it is rare there is a topic that I’m not up to speed on so I don’t really need to pull in external experts. Plus doing it solo means I can control all the audio quality which is super important for me – you can have the best content in the world, but if your audio is crap then that is a sure-fire way to turn off new listeners before they’ve gone a few minutes into your first episode.

It doesn’t mean that I won’t do interviews in the future as there are some great people out there I’d like to chat with, so watch this space. But with solo presenting, I can get to the crux of most episode ideas in under 20 minutes and you’re done.

Why no advertising

Something else I’ve received a lot of positive feedback on is how this podcast is free from any advertising or affiliate marketing of products. Firstly, I have no issue with podcasts that advertise as a way to earn some income as there is a lot of time and effort that goes into podcasting. And with the success of this podcast, if I wanted to go down that path, I probably could make some nice coin from it. But it will never happen. Ever.

There is already enough overt conflict of interest in the nutrition world and I want to keep this podcast as neutral and unbiased as possible. Of course, I am biased by my scientific background and the lens I view the nutrition world through. Every person is biased in one way or another and it is a deluded person indeed who thinks they are truly unbiased in any way.

But I still have a ‘day job’ and that is my post-academia life as a freelance health and medical writer and scientific consultant – we all have to eat and superfoods ain’t cheap. Jokes. And yes, that also means I have conflicts of interest that I have to manage from some of the consulting work that I do, but you will never see it leak over here into this podcast.

Anyway, what I trade off in my professional career is giving a fair and balanced view of the scientific literature for whatever nutrition question is being asked – not parroting some food company social media influencer script. It’s why you’ll never see me linked to or promoting any particular food or brand.

What I eat

One final thing that I want to touch on is the fascination some people seem to have with what I eat – I mean, what with all my scientific knowledge in nutrition, I must have everything optimised to a tee? A comment I received a while back that I take as one of the best compliments I could get about the podcast is that despite the person listening to so many episodes, they had no idea what sort of diet I follow.

If I were vegan, vegetarian, low-carb, grain avoider, or any other dietary pattern, it doesn’t seem to come through in my podcasts when discussing all matter of nutrition areas. And that’s a good thing. Because it doesn’t really matter that much which of those ways you eat to get close to a healthy diet – there are many roads you can travel on to get you there.

It is getting the basics right of eating mostly plants in as close to their natural state as possible, not having a lot of highly processed foods and added sugars, and if you choose to eat animal foods, then maybe the only thing to look at is not having a lot of red meat – dairy foods, fish and chicken all have lots of positive nutrition aspects to them if you choose to have them in your diet. Because, I really don’t care what sort of diet you eat – your diet, your business. And I’m not here to only present one way of eating – instead present a fair view of the evidence for you to make up your own mind.

As for what I eat? I pretty much eat whatever I like, my pantry is devoid of any trendy superfoods, and the goal of eating 5 servings of vegetables each day is a long-term aspirational one of mine – still some work to do there. I love carbs and the more gluten in my life the better. And a life without cheese would make me sad.

So that’s it for today’s show. You can find the show notes either in the app you’re listening to this podcast on if it supports it, or else head over to my webpage www.thinkingnutrition.com.au and click on the podcast section to find this episode to read the show notes.

If you find this podcast of value, then please consider sharing it with your friends and colleagues. Or maybe even leave a review. This all helps increase the ranking and reach of the podcast which means a big win for credible evidence-based nutrition messages while helping to dilute out the crazy and making the world a slightly less confusing place.

I’m Tim Crowe and you’ve been listening to Thinking Nutrition.