Dr. Lori Spruance on Nutrition Policy, Australia, and Public Health Research

In this episode of the Y Health Podcast, Dr. Cougar Hall welcomes back one of BYU Public Health’s most dynamic voices, Dr. Lori Spruance, to share insights from her recent Fulbright Fellowship in Australia, her groundbreaking work on nutrition policy, and her run for public office. 

Dr. Spruance dives into what it was like living in Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia, complete with kangaroos on campus, sunburns from extreme UV levels, and a front-row seat to the unique cultural and geographic landscape of the country. Beyond the adventure, she breaks down her Fulbright research on dietary greenhouse gas emissions, explaining how our food choices—especially meat consumption—impact the environment, and how Australia compares to the U.S. in terms of school nutrition policy. 

The conversation shifts to the U.S., where Dr. Spruance shares updates on her latest research: 

• A study examining carbon footprints in children’s diets and how healthier meals can be more sustainable.
• A groundbreaking look at Pacific Islander families' perceptions of school meals, revealing key insights for improving participation and cultural sensitivity.
• An evaluation of Utah’s alternative breakfast models, shedding light on how policy changes play out on the ground.

She and Dr. Hall also discuss the importance of federally funded school meal programs, how school nutrition affects academic success, and why careful messaging matters—especially for children who rely on school meals daily.

In the final segment, Dr. Spruance reflects on her experience running as an independent candidate for the Utah State Senate, sharing candid thoughts on navigating politics while staying true to BYU’s politically neutral standards. She offers encouragement to anyone interested in public service and public health policy, emphasizing that change starts with showing up.

From advice for parents and students to small steps you can take to make your diet more climate-friendly, this episode is packed with practical tips, personal stories, and powerful research—all grounded in Dr. Spruance’s deep commitment to public health, equity, and community engagement.

Tune in for an inspiring episode that blends global perspective, local policy, and personal action.
 

Recorded, Edited & Produced by Christy Gonzalez, Harper Xinyu Zhang, Kailey Hopkins, and Tanya Gale

Transcript

 Cougar: [00:00:00] Welcome to Y Health, a podcast brought to you by the BYU Public Health Department. I'm Dr. Cougar Hall, a professor here at Brigham Young University where the, you are a student parent, or BYU fan. This podcast will help you navigate the world of public health. Our podcast strives to help individuals receive accurate information regarding public health, so whether it's global or local, we will discuss how it pertains to you. 

Just kick back and relax as we talk about why health. Dr. Lori Spruance, welcome to Y Health. 

Lori: Thanks. Excited to be here again. 

Cougar: Again, you are one of our first kind of repeat customers, so to speak. 

Lori: Well, I hope I didn't ruin it the first time. No, you're 

Cougar: awesome Laura. You know, you're one of my favorite people ever, so I don't need a butter yet 'cause you're already here, so good stuff. 

Yeah. To. [00:01:00] A lot has happened since you were here last time. Mm-hmm. Uh, I want to kind of tackle maybe two or three of those things and pretty big events really. Will you start with your sabbatical to Australia? 

Lori: Yeah. 

Cougar: The highs, the lows, 

Lori: absolutely. So for those of you unfamiliar faculty, every seven-ish years roughly can take a leave of absence, kind of a sabbatical, which is really meant to help develop skills, get a different experience. 

There's a lot of things you can do on a sabbatical. There's a lot of things you can't also do on a sabbatical. Right. But I applied and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, and that goes through the US Government Department of States. And really the purpose of a Fulbright is to help build cross cultural collaborations so they look different in every country. 

And I did mine in Australia, where I was there for three months working on a research project. 

Cougar: I love it. Oh my goodness. Was this your first time in [00:02:00] Australia? 

Lori: Yes, first time in Australia. I wanted to pick a country that spoke English, 'cause I don't speak another language and I do mostly domestic based public health issues. 

But Australia has a lot of the same issues we do in terms of especially food and nutrition. That's kind of my main specialty. So it made sense to do a lot of the things I was doing here and apply it to a new setting. That wasn't so drastically different like Bangladesh might be Or Sierra Leone. 

Cougar: Yeah. A little more apples to apples as far as policy. 

So before we jump into your work, you know, play first, work second tonight. Yes. Tell us about Australia. I think it's on everyone's bucket list. 

Lori: It's a really unique place. It's about geographically the same size as the us. But only 30 million people. Whereas we have hundred, 300 plus million people. It's so, it's less than a 

Cougar: 10th of our population. 

Yeah, 

Lori: exactly. So it's the same geographically in terms of size, but almost everyone in Australia lives on the coasts and almost No. People live in the [00:03:00] middle. And then even from city to city. I mean, you think here in Utah, you know Provo runs into Orum. Orum runs into Pleasant Grove. The list could go on clear up to like past Ogden, but their communities are pretty isolated unless. 

They're big, big cities with suburbs and so I lived in a small town called Rockhampton. It is the beef capital of Australia, so if you're thinking like it's not the sexiest place on the planet, but it was like a real unique and probably in some ways very typical Australian experience and geographically pretty remote. 

The closest. Most recognizable city is Brisbane, and that's a seven hour drive from where I was. Wow. I was just in this little town of like 80,000 people with nothing else around, so it was unique. I mean, I lived close to the beach and so that was fun to be able to go to the beach. Lots of sunburns. We can talk public health in a minute about Australia and their skin cancer [00:04:00] issues. 

I did not know that the UV index went above 10, but I learned that it does in Australia. Kangaroos on campus. So I'd wander around and there'd be kangaroos on campus and that was unique. All sorts of crazy animals and insects. And I fortunately didn't see many of them, but I was very nervous about seeing them. 

Spiders bigger than your hands and crocodiles. Salt water, crocodiles. Yeah. They can be in the ocean and you know, deadly jellyfish. I had a rule of thumb that I did not get in the ocean unless there were five or more people also in the ocean. Because I was like, I don't know what's safe and what's not safe. 

Cougar: Trust the locals, right? 

Lori: Yes. And the locals would always tell me, well, you live in North America. There are cougars and bears. And I was like, yeah. And cougars are not in my home, like spiders are here. 

Cougar: I love it. Oh, so it sounds cool 'cause that's probably not a tourist [00:05:00] destination. 

Lori: No. I would say Rockhamptons, it's not exactly the same, but maybe compared to like a Burley Idaho that's not on your bucket list of places to go in Australia. 

But Fulbright did provide a lot of fronts for me to do a lot of other travel. So I did get to go to some really cool places that are probably on people's bucket list, the Great Ocean Road down in the state of Victoria. You bet. Beautiful scenery, rocks, ocean. So I got to do, drive along that and do a presentation in Melbourne and I got to go to Sydney. 

So I got to see all the cool things in Sydney, like the Opera House and you know, the Harbor Bridge. Those are big bucket list items. I went to a really popular place that lots of people go to, to surf. In in Queensland, so I got to see a lot of things too. But I'm sure most people when they go to Australia don't go to Rockham. 

Yeah. Oh, we went up to Cannes, which is where the main place out of the Great Barrier Reef and got [00:06:00] to go snorkel and scuba dive, see the reef and so we, there was lots of other. Very fun things in Australia that, like I said, Rockhamptons, probably not bucket list, but I did get to do a lot of bucket list items. 

Cougar: I love it. Thanks for indulging me with all the fun stuff before we get into the work. 

Lori: Yes. 

Cougar: How is the meat, the beef? Are you a beef eater? 

Lori: I am, and the main thing I guess about beef in Australia is it's all primarily grass fed. It's really unusual for them to think about beef in the us, which is mostly corn fed. 

That's. Yeah, unfamiliar to them, but I wouldn't say like, oh, it's. I noticed a difference or it's way better or different, but I was out of town the week they had Beef Week in Hampton, but it's international people come from all over the place. And the reason I was not in town is because when I rented my to stay in Australia for my Fulbright, there was nowhere to stay that week 'cause it was already booked for Beef Week. 

[00:07:00] So I had to leave while others stayed for Beef Week. 

Cougar: That's awesome. We don't have beef week. No, that's great. I will tell you this, this is kind of funny. I was once with my family, we went to a burger place in Europe. I think it's the best hamburger I've ever had. Hmm. So I, I literally told the server, I said, you don't understand. 

This is the best hamburger I've ever had. Like, what did you do to this? How did you, you know, season the meat, what, and. Brought out the cook and he was just like, thank you. You seriously made my year. Like you're from the states. Like we're, we're trying to do it the way you do it. And I'm like, you do it better than we do it. 

And he did mention, he said, the only thing I can think of is we get our Be from Australia. I. I'm like, well, that might be, it is. This is a really tasty burger. Yeah. And I'll be back and it's a 10 hour flight, but I'll be back like, this is awesome. I'm coming back. That's awesome. Yeah, so really cool. 

Lori: I, like I said, Rockhamptons probably not known for it. 

I mean, it's known for beef and [00:08:00] ranching, but in terms of cuisine, uh, it's pretty average. Okay. So I wouldn't say you have to go to this x, Y, Z restaurant in Rockhampton. It's small town. That's average. 

Cougar: That's fair. That's fair. Okay. Sounds like you had a lot of fun. That's for sure. You also did a lot of good work. 

So tell us about the nutrition side of things, especially the nutrition policy schools, that this is really your wheelhouse, Lori. 

Lori: Yeah, so I mean, there were some challenges, unfortunately with the project I intended to do in Australia, but happy to give more of the landscape. So what I was going to do in Australia was to look at dietary greenhouse gas emissions. 

So try and make this not so boring and digestible. All food has greenhouse gas emissions associated with it. The idea is though, that there are some foods that have higher greenhouse gas emissions associated with them, and some foods that are of lower. And usually when we're thinking about greenhouse gas emissions and diets, we're thinking about. 

[00:09:00] Transportation cost, not just cost, but like the process, the life cycle to grow the food, this sort of thing. So you can imagine, I'll just take beef for example, like to feed a cow. We, especially in the US, are usually feeding it corn and other things. And it takes a lot of that to a lot of corn to feed a cow to then produce ground beef. 

Mm-hmm. Uh, corn obviously has a much lower dietary carbon footprint because all you're doing is growing the corn and that's where the life cycle of that particular food ends. So I've done some work recently here in the US to look at. Dietary greenhouse gas emissions in children. Just with this assumption that, you know, as our climate changes, we need to be thinking about how we can be thoughtful about the stewardship of the earth. 

Food is one way that we can do that. And what does that look like in kids' diets? And we were essentially trying to replicate this same study in Australia, which was also very interesting to be doing this study in the [00:10:00] beef capital of Australia. 

Cougar: Yeah. Can I ask not to be crude, but. Included in those greenhouse gases, do we count the methane from both ends of the cow? 

Lori: Yeah. There's lots of different ways of quantifying. Carbon footprint of a diet. Some people look at dietary greenhouse gas emissions, and mostly that's just looking at the lifecycle from start to end of a food. Okay. It's not often including transportation or the packaging, but those are other ways that you could consider the carbon footprint of a food. 

You could also look at carbon footprint of a food through how much water does it take to grow that? Yes, so there's lots of different ways of thinking about this. This one is really just looking start to finish. So it does include that methane piece because that includes that start to finish. That is the life cycle. 

Yeah, exactly. Research shows that, and the database that my team uses quantifies all of this already for us. So I'm not trying to quantify the dietary greenhouse gas of items. I'm just using a database to connect what [00:11:00] those numbers are with what people are eating. So I would interview students, what did you eat in the last 24 hours? 

And then we take what they ate and quantify it with. The database that already exists, so I'm not quantifying any of that. But the research does show that. Individuals who consume diets higher in fruits and vegetables tend to have lower greenhouse gas emitting diets. Those who have higher consumption of beef, red meat particularly tend to have higher greenhouse gas emitting diets. 

Most of the research also shows that the lower your carbon footprint, the healthier your diet also is, which, you know, fruits and vegetables. Case in point, if you're eating more fruits and vegetables. They have a lower carbon footprint and they're also better for you in terms of like heart disease and cancer. 

Cougar: Yeah. 

Lori: So there's like two good reasons why you should eat fruits and vegetables for the planet and for your own personal health. 

Cougar: That's cool when things align like that, right? Yeah, 

Lori: for sure. So that was the project [00:12:00] and. Schools work and look much differently. In Australia, they do have public school system, but they have a large Catholic school system network, and a lot just in general private school network. 

Typically their education or public schools are primarily more low income. Individuals from that are Aboriginal or from Torres Island, so it's pretty hard to get into public school system in Australia. In fact, the policy is that if you wanna do research, you have to apply to do research through the Department of Education in Australia one year in advance, because they're really protective of these populations because they're at risk for a lot of different things. 

And it's like these aren't just for you to come. Do studies on these children. So I tried to get into some private schools and it ended up being challenging for a variety of reasons, so that my project didn't go quite as well as I wanted. We're still doing some work in this [00:13:00] space. I probably won't elaborate too much on. 

Cougar: No, that's a great overview. How 

Lori: failure it was. 

Cougar: Out of curiosity, does Australia have the equivalent of a federal school lunch program? No. 

Lori: No. So school meals are not subsidized by the federal or the state governments in Australia. They do not have any national school meals program. They would love one. Um, there's some states within Australia, Victoria particularly that just really tried hard to push for some of them, but not something that's happened. 

Just interestingly, and I think this makes more sense when people know the history of school meals in the US school, meals in the US were primarily started as an intervention after World War II when we had a lot of malnourished soldiers. And so it was really a military intervention. And I think when people realize that, it makes a lot more sense why. 

The US has a school meal program, but Canada doesn't and Australia doesn't. Is it because of the military component? Yeah. So Australia doesn't have one. They would love one, I think. [00:14:00] Well, some people would love one. In Australia it's, you know, nutrition policy, school meal policy, school policy, you know, of course there's a gamut of opinions on should the government do that or not. 

Cougar: Yeah, and I'm well aware of those discussions for sure. I'll just say for our listeners. Properly nourished, children are across the board, much better learners. So if we're going to invest in education, and we are, and we recognize that in our society, that is one of our best investments, if not our best investment is to have an educated populace. 

Lori: Yes. 

Cougar: So if you're gonna put those dollars into education, a few more dollars, making sure they're properly nourished and ready to learn. I mean, from a public health perspective and from a school health perspective, no brainer. 

Lori: Right. 

Cougar: So I do think we've been very blessed in the United States. Our federal school lunch program at times has felt broken and at times has needed [00:15:00] some adjustments for sure. 

But I think you're seeing that it may or may not be the government's responsibility to feed children. Breakfast and lunch programs, but if it's our responsibility to teach them and to help them prepare for the workforce and a productive life. It's a really good investment for sure. Um, w would you agree with that? 

I mean, yes, I'm a school health guy, so you may say, Cougar, you're way off on this, but I thoughts, I mean, you 

Lori: preaching to the choir here because this is my area as well, but Yeah, the research is really strong in terms of the benefits of school meals. Both from an academic standpoint, from a food insecurity standpoint, even from an obesity prevention standpoint. 

Of course, there's always need to potentially provide better, do better, that sort of thing. But within the resources that the school meal program are given, they follow really strict and stringent guidelines and recommendations. It's really great. I feel like I'm always rebutting. Folks about school [00:16:00] meals. 

What the actual research says is they tend to be healthier than any other place kids can get, meals, convenience store, of course, fast food, but also the food that kids bring from home. I think there's an assumption that the things that. All kids bring from home are great and healthy, and that's not the case always. 

And I try and always explain. We try and be conscious about the foods we eat at my house, but we do not have requirements. If my husband brings home a loaf of white bread, I don't throw it in the garbage and say, well, that doesn't meet the requirements, but the schools would have to do that. So there's a lot of good things about the school meal program from both academic and health perspectives. 

Cougar: Yeah, so true. I'm not gonna mention the country or countries. I think that feels unfair, but I've done some research outside of the United States in schools with students. It's very uncommon that there's a national school lunch program. I. Yet, students will be given a break at the middle of the day, and what you find are food [00:17:00] carts right outside of the school. 

And we may have failed to export a federal school lunch program to other nations, but we have exported our food options. Yes. Mm-hmm. So these food carts. Entirely candy, so think chips in candy and soda. We've had a tremendous influence on countries around the world as far as their dietary choices because we've created these unhealthy. 

Nutrition options and made them incredibly inexpensive. Yes, and it's been heartbreaking to be totally clear, it's been heartbreaking in places where they're really struggling to fund education, to pay teachers to build schools, and they just don't have the resources to provide the school lunch program. 

The options right out, literally right outside the school. 

Lori: Yeah. 

Cougar: Are not great. Do not support learning or health for that matter. 

Lori: Yeah, and I mean when I was in school there were next to no regulations. I shouldn't say no regulations. There were of course [00:18:00] food safety, but in terms of what could be fed to children at school, you know, pizza Hut was there. 

There were all sorts of companies trying to create brand in the school. That has all changed. As of 2010, really, where we had implemented a lot, the US government implemented a lot more regulations on this, but it did improve the food environment in a variety of ways, and I think that's kind of what I'm thinking. 

It used to be the Wild West, anything goes. You could have pizza and french fries and. Gatorade and like this was all part of the school meals and now they have to follow so much different guidelines, which I think have improved significantly. In fact, one paper that I just read a couple of days ago said that without those changes, they did a simulation of what they expected without the changes to the school meal program in 2010, they estimated that obesity in children would be up 47% than what it is now. 

Wow. So. We could be in a much different spot if we didn't make some nutrition policy changes. More to come hopefully. Of [00:19:00] course. It's always one of those things that we have to revisit programs, we know programs change, develop, we learn more about an area nutrition as we learn more, our programs change too, but I'm grateful for the changes that got made. 

10 years ago now. 

Cougar: Oh, me too. As, as one who was fighting for those things. I really, really fought against machines in the school where I taught and was not always successful in that. But there really has been a sea change there. And you know, in public health, we, we tinker sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong when we get it wrong. 

As long as we learn like, oh. This is where, this is where, you know, here's the lever we need to pull. And so there's a lot of tinkering in our profession for sure. 

Lori: Absolutely. 

Cougar: I just hope we're always moving in the right direction. Speaking of, so you're just, and thank you for sharing that paper that you just read. 

How about your papers, anything new that's just been published or anything under review or in the works? You're, you're very productive. You're one of my more productive colleagues [00:20:00] here. You're making me look bad. Thanks for that. But, so on the research front, Lori, what's going on? 

Lori: Yeah, so we, I mean, hopefully a paper almost ready to be accepted. 

I think any day now looking at that, like I mentioned that dietary greenhouse gas emissions here in the us so that's getting ready to hit here soon. So hopefully that here in the next. I don't know. You never can predict, right? Yeah, it might be, might be another year from now. But again, most of my work is always kind of in this school meal space, so I've just been working with a student recently. 

We just finished collecting data, looking at the perceptions of school meals among Pacific Islanders, American Pacific Islanders, and one of the reasons we pursued that paper is because there are so many different research studies out there that indicate that how parents perceive school meals to be. 

Related to if their kid participates or not. So if you have positive perceptions of school meals and their benefits and their value, your kid's more likely to participate. And on the flip side, if you have negative perceptions, you think the food that they serve [00:21:00] as junk or whatever, your kid's obviously less likely to participate. 

But all of these research studies that come out about this, typically lump participants in white, black, Hispanic populations, and then everyone else. Gets grouped into one category, but we know, of course, that Pacific Islanders are different than someone from India. So it's just sometimes we need to tease out those data further. 

And so this study was specifically looking at how we tease that out, particularly because. Pacific Islanders in the US tend to have high diabetes rates, chronic disease rates, so they're an at-risk population. And so if school meals can be a protective factor for some of these things because they offer fruits and vegetables and whole grains, then how is this particular population perceiving? 

School meals. So we just did a study where we collected data from 150 Pacific Islanders across the us excluding Hawaii because we assume that they're an outlier in terms of the percent of Pacific Islanders who go to school, [00:22:00] et cetera. I mean. They're a different population. Yeah, so we just dived in and asked questions to parents about these and you know, found a lot of the same things that you would expect that if parents perceive school meals positively, their kids were more likely to participate. 

We have more Pacific Islanders percentage wise participating in these programs. For example, almost half of the Pacific Islanders in our study. Their kids participate in school breakfast, which is much higher than if we were to collect these data from a non-Hispanic white population. So that was important, I think, adds to the literature. 

Again, I wouldn't say it's most earth shattering news, but I think it adds to the literature that we understand how these programs are benefiting different populations. And then another paper we're working on, it's almost ready to go, is an evaluation of a policy that passed in Utah in 2020, which required schools with a percentage of their kids who qualify for free or reduced price meals [00:23:00] to operate what we call alternative breakfast models, which means. 

They are offered after the school day starts, so maybe a high school student has a break between first and second hour, maybe in those 15 minutes. Then there's a breakfast option for kids, and so we did an evaluation, a qualitative evaluation on how stakeholders in the schools are perceiving and how it's working. 

I think it should shed some light into how these policies are or are not working as they were intended. 

Cougar: Yeah, that second one's interesting, really measuring, you know, if the policy is achieving its intended goal. That first one though is really cool because it feels like, hey. Now we realize just how important the messaging is with those specific islander parents. 

Seems like now we can take this and students in our classes can start to develop some, some public health communication messaging, some campaigns. So I, I just love how all of those are really practical and moving together. 

Lori: Yeah, I mean, [00:24:00] really a lot of my research areas about how are the programs doing, evaluate them, let's make changes if we need, and then thinking about, okay, if we need to, we, I'm not gonna be the one doing that. 

But if we need to work with our school stakeholders to think, Hmm, maybe there needs to be some culturally different meals from time to time, because what. Gets served to some kids at school is not what gets served to them at home. And so it may be unfamiliar and there might be opportunities to integrate some cultural pieces into our school meals too. 

So I think that the goal is to have people, whether it's our students and future professionals, or the current professionals, take some of this research and implement it to make our programs better and more effective. 

Cougar: Love it. Really cool. Okay, can I switch gears on you? Yeah. So this past fall you ran for office. 

That's true. And this is so courageous and brave of you. You did not win, but. Rarely does a first time candidate win. There's a significant uphill battle there. Yes. [00:25:00] Help me understand a couple things. One, what motivated you? Two, you're a professor at Brigham Young University and we are politically neutral in all things in the church and on campus, and so how did you navigate that space? 

I'm really proud of you for doing it. It's not an easy thing to navigate, so maybe, yeah. What were you running for? What is it? What is it that got, you know, under your skin and like, you know what, I need to do something about this. And then how did you navigate the whole campus and church culture with that? 

Lori: Yeah, for sure. So I ran for the state Senate seat in the BYU area. 'cause I live in this area. I. Provo Orem area, and I ran as an independent candidate. So I was not affiliated with either political party, which in and of itself was probably an interesting strategy, but it felt like that fits my belief system. 

And I mean, I could talk forever about that, but I think what motivated to me to run first, it's been something that's. For whatever reason on my mind for several years, in fact, [00:26:00] before Covid, that's how we do things right now, before and after Covid. So I know it was before Covid because I took a political development series. 

Just thinking, well, what does that entail and what would that be? Especially from public health, effective public health programs. Often have a component of policy. You know, you think about seat belts and there's policy components to wearing seat belts. And seat belts are a good idea because they save lives. 

But now there's a policy component and great way to change behavior is have policies surrounding it. And we have so many public health policies, types of. Tobacco and alcohol that can be sold and how much nicotine can be in them, and what age you have to be, and I mean that your restaurant has to be clean and can't have rats all over the place. 

I could probably enumerate thousands of policies. And so oftentimes in public health, we think of the framework of health in all policies. So. I tell my students in intro to Public Health that public health is everything. And I said, if you gimme something, I bet [00:27:00] I can find a public health connection to it or I'll make a public health connection. 

And so that's the same sort of thing. Policies. Almost all policies have some sort of. F Health, either that's its primary purpose or has an impact on health at some point. And so I was just interested in maybe taking my expertise and being able to pull the health lens into some of our policies, our current legislature, a lot of lawyers, a lot of real estate developers, and of course I think those folks need to be represented, but I think we're probably overrepresented in that area and maybe underrepresented in some other aspects that need to be considered. 

So I thought, well. Why not give it a go? 

Cougar: I love it. If it's gonna be, it's up to me, right? Like, yeah, go for it. 

Lori: Sometimes you just have to say, sure. You don't always know what you're getting yourself into, and then you learn along the way. And it honestly was in so many ways a good lesson and reminder to me to help put myself in. 

My student shoes to some degree is big unknown. I don't quite know how it's all gonna work [00:28:00] out, but I'm gonna try and figure it out. And I haven't done that for a long time. So that was, that was great. And then you asked about navigating the space. So BYU does have a pretty strong politically neutral stance, and so even on campus, there's not to be. 

Political events, they're pretty strict about that. So in order to run for office, I actually had to get permission from the president of the university. So chain of commands go up and make sure that I am going to follow the policies. So what I would do on campus is I just really did not mention or talk about it if a student. 

Or someone asked, I of course, would acknowledge that yes, you have seen my name on Signs across the City, and yes, that's what I'm running for. But usually I would just kind of leave it at that and just, I wouldn't really talk about it much here on campus. And then. Nights and evenings were spent doing a lot of political campaigning, so it took up a lot of time and energy. 

Cougar: Must have been a busy fall. 

Lori: [00:29:00] It was very busy. I say I'm in my wintering season right now because I still feel tired from it, and it's been three months. 

Cougar: Really Cool. Any lessons learned? 

Lori: I think one thing I learned was it gave me more grace for our elected officials. I had to think a lot about, okay, I am passionate about these things and I find these things really important. 

But I heard from a lot of people who were trying to learn about me as a candidate who had different perspectives and different priority issues. Than me. And it just made me think a lot about how challenging it is to represent a community who has varied interests, beliefs, things that they think are the most important. 

And so it helped me develop a little more compassion for our elected officials. 'cause I thought it's hard to represent such a large group of people. 

Cougar: That's awesome. Okay. I wanna be fair to you and your time. You're, you're a busy woman. I have maybe three more questions. Are you good? Yeah. Okay. And really I'm looking for [00:30:00] actionable items for our listeners. 

So the first, let's start with parents. So you are now a school lunch, early childhood nutrition, especially within the United States, expert in this space. Couple tips, one or two tips for a parent when it comes to navigating lunch for their kiddos? 

Lori: Yeah, I think there's a couple things. Um, first I think we have to be very careful about the way we talk about school meals. 

They often get stigmatized, and I think it's important to remember that for some people, these are their only choices. In fact, I get college students all the time coming in and saying, oh, I know you do school meal stuff. This was my experience, which oftentimes. The people I hear from are kids who would skip lunch and go to the bathroom because they had their peers making fun of them and they could not afford food. 

So I think we need to be very careful, especially as parents, the way we talk about other people's food, because some people don't have the choices. So [00:31:00] I think we need to be careful about that. And I think food and parents is hard 'cause it's always like, my kid won't eat this. So I think everyone's just trying their best. 

And so I think we just need to be thoughtful about how we. Talk about those things, but I think parents can be great advocates for their programs in their school if they are unsure how something works. Go, go talk to the child Nutrition professional at your school and there are stringent requirements and you can learn about them, but there's likely a reason that your schools are operating the, the way they do, especially in the lunchroom. 

And oftentimes it's from federal requirements. So I would, you know, encourage parents to get involved if they want, and then of course, think about the way that they're talking about. School food and food in general to other kids. 

Cougar: I love it. Thank you for that. Can I give you one more actionable item as you talk about carbon emissions, greenhouse gases, and food choices, and I really do think this is something we should all think about. 

As a disciple of Jesus Christ and with this belief [00:32:00] paradigm that the Earth was created for us and yet we have a stewardship to care for it. We've made a couple changes in my home. Uh, we are meat eaters. I. So probably we could just go vegetarian and be doing the earth a huge favor. But we're meat eaters. 

We are too. And we've, we've transitioned, we haven't entirely cut out red meat, but it's a fraction of the meat that we eat. We almost always choose chicken and more recently costs a little more, but more recently fish. So we'll get a salmon or a steelhead filet at Costco. So very little red meat. And largely that's because I. 

We've, we've just seen some things and read some things now that kind of show, okay, red meat versus chicken, you know, it's about one 10th or one seventh. You know, as far as. Taxing the ecosystem, whether that's methane gases or the amount of water it takes to produce a pound of red meat. Right? [00:33:00] So I'm not saying other people need to do that. 

I'm saying that we're just starting to engage and to look at how the food choices we make impact the entire planet. Can you give me another maybe one or two things that someone could do if they are concerned about how their dietary choices. Impact the environment. Are there one or two other things that they could start to think about? 

Lori: Yeah, I think you're hitting the nail on the head with these just simple things. In fact, one research paper we did was what are simple substitution items? We're not asking you to go vegan. Most dietary changes are. Really hard. In fact, they're hard for me. They're hard for everyone. Even when I'm thinking, how do I eat more fruits and vegetables? 

It's hard. These things are hard when you like certain items, that sort of stuff. So I think you've really described the goal, which is are there a few items that we could maybe once a week, or not even once a week, but occasionally. Um, make some switches like chicken or red meat for chicken ground Turkey for ground beef. 

I think [00:34:00] those are just all really simple ones that can be made, and I always am just on the fruit and vegetable train, like more of those, do what you can to eat more of those. I think that's both good for the environment and for our bodies. We also know this from a spiritual perspective, as you hit on the word of wisdom, we have through the gospel of Jesus Christ is pretty clear about. 

Meat consumption. I think we forget that part of the word of wisdom a lot, and I'm not trying to harp on it too much, but we're often, no tobacco, no alcohol, those sorts of things. But the word of wisdom also includes grains of the earth, fruits and vegetables, and eat meat sparingly. And I think we just kind of forget about that. 

But it's both good for our health and good for the environment. So I think if you can think about one or two dishes, you could either swap out occasionally or eat less of. We do a little. Begrudgingly to my husband, a little less red meat than he probably would like. But I think there's a variety of reasons to cut back. 

Cougar: I really appreciate that. I think there is a balance, and I [00:35:00] think what you're suggesting is, Hey, you know this for that, we don't need you to change everything about your diet. When we try to do those things, we often experience pretty quick and significant failure, but we can start to make tweaks and make a little change here and there. 

I'm a protein lover. I'm all about protein and. I have just recently realized, you know, I can keep eating mixed nuts and protein bars, but I could also cut up some celery and bring in some baby carrot sticks and cut up an apple and dip that in my favorite protein source, which is peanut butter. And so I'm finding that I can still be. 

Very satisfied and get the protein that I need just, and now I'm mixing in more fruits and vegetables, which I would normally bypass for a protein bar. 

Lori: Yeah, 

Cougar: so saving some money too. To be honest with you, I, I spend a lot of money on protein powder and protein bars. That's another discussion. I love it. 

You have been such a wonderful guest yet again. What are you reading? What are you doing [00:36:00] right now? Whe whether it's work related or just in your personal life? Is there something that's got you excited? It could be another podcast you're listening to. I don't know. 

Lori: Yeah, that's a good question. I, like I said, I feel like I've been in this somewhat of a wintering season, so I've been kind of a little bit lazy, I guess, which means more TV than probably reading. 

But have you found something 

Cougar: good? 

Lori: I like terrible tv. Like the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and 

Cougar: Lori, I can't be friends with you anymore. Oh, it was good while it lasted. 

Lori: Like a few of our listeners might relate to that. Most of my students tell me after, they're like, oh, have you seen that episode? 

I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. Like guilty pleasure. Yeah. Ly I have tried to get back into running. I had hip surgery a few months ago, and so I've been trying to get back into running and I am working on getting my first pull-up too. 

Cougar: Hey, very cool. Pull-ups are so hard. 

Lori: They're hard. I used to be able to do a lot and now I can't. 

And so now I'm gonna try and get back to where I can do [00:37:00] one. 

Cougar: I had a student just the other day say, Hey Cougar, how many pull-ups can you do? And my immediate answer was, oh, when I was 17, I did this many. He's like. But you're 52. How many can you do now? Exactly. Yeah. So I was gonna talk to you about your paper. 

Yeah, 

Lori: I know. I read something at the beginning of the year, and I am not always one to be like all of these goals, but it was something that every woman in their forties should be able to do or goals to achieve in. One was a pull up and there were some other fitness measures, but I was like, you know, I really wanna try. 

So I have not mastered yet, but I can do one with a really thin band. So maybe. In a few more months, 

Cougar: Lori. Good for you. That's awesome. Well, in my YouTube feed, you know, in early January where all these health related videos and one was about doing just a bar hang, so you get in. Pull up position, but you just hang. 

So I'm like, I'm gonna do that. Well, that's one 

Lori: thing that they suggest to do to start building the muscle, to be able to actually do the pull-up, is to be able to hang for a [00:38:00] while. Yeah. So that's part of my practice routine. 

Cougar: Yeah. I'm doing it every morning and I'm embarrassed to say like, I think the YouTube video that showed up in my feed was like, do the three minute bar hang? 

And I'm like, oh, okay, I'll do this for three minutes. So it's, we're a couple months into this and I'm now to a minute and 25 seconds and I'm like, yeah, 

Lori: those muscles are hard to build. 

Cougar: How am I gonna get to? Three minutes? What the heck? 

Lori: It's March. You have plenty of time. 

Cougar: All right, well I'm not gonna give up good times. 

Awesome. You, you're just a gem of a person and a colleague. Just I love and appreciate you so much. 

Lori: Well, thanks. 

Cougar: Anything you wanna share with our listeners before we say audios? 

Lori: I think that's probably it. Go to Australia. If you get a chance, I'd be happy to give you some tips. 

Cougar: Love it. Thank you, Lori. 

Thanks for being such a great guest on the Y Health Podcast. 

Lori: Thank you for having me. 

Cougar: Thank you for joining us today. Catch us on our next episode, and don't forget to subscribe to Future Y Health episodes.