Fat is one of the six nutrients your body uses every day—not a villain to cut out for a smaller number on the scale. In this episode of The Healing Plate, we talk about what dietary fats actually do: build cells and hormones, carry fat-soluble vitamins, and help you absorb the good in your food. You will hear why “low-fat” as a lifestyle often backfires, how to tell fats that work for you from the ones that mostly work to you, and how to keep fat on a balanced, plant-forward plate in the right types and amounts—without another restrictive diet.

Episode 1 of The Healing Plate takes on carbohydrates without the diet-war noise. It explains simple versus complex carbs, how starch and sugars digest down to glucose, fructose, and galactose, how those sugars are absorbed, and why glucose is the body’s everyday fuel—including glycogen in liver and muscle versus starch in plants. It names the myth that “carbs make you fat,” puts the keto craze in its place as emergency metabolism rather than everyday eating, and points the real American problem at added sugar and refined, packaged carbs—not oats, beans, or fruit. Drawing on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025–2030, NIH/MedlinePlus, CDC intake data, and Mayo Clinic, it closes on moderation, whole-food complex carbs, movement, and the reminder that carbohydrate is one of the six nutrients the body is designed to receive every day.