Big Fat Hello!

A big fat hello to anyone who’s arsed to read this lovely blog. My name is Mairéad Mary Cecilia Francis Keane, the most farmer name in rural Ireland. My friends call me Máidí, pronounced Mawd-ee. People may ask “God Maidi why do you spell it so awkwardly?”, and I would reply “because i thought I was being very patriotic giving it an Irish spin by throwing in some fadas.” Through many years of Irish study, I later found out that Maidi directly translates to “sticks” in english which makes no sense but it sounds kinda gangsta so I just go with it.

About Me 🙂

I’m currently a 20 year old second year nutritional science student in University College Cork. I live part time in the bustling metropolis of Cork city (lol) and part time in the back arse of nowhere on a quaint little dairy farm in rural Limerick. Currently, I’m living my best life as part fancy city gal blinded by the lights and part super hick frolicking in the cow shit.

So Why Have You Decided to Make This Blog Maidi?

There are a few key reasons why I’ve decided to share my wisdom with you all:

• Our work experience advisor said that people got job positions for having food blogs. That was the first reason because my CV needs a bitta thickening. Thing is though, this isn’t a food blog, which brings me to reason number two.
• I want to share what I’ve learned about nutrition and diet and whatnot from class and from my own experiences and what I observe from the people around me.
• I also want to emphasis the link between mental health and diet because personally, I feel like this isn’t discussed as much as it should be and I think it’s extremely important considering so many of us struggle with our mental health in this day and age, myself included.
• I also want to chat about my own experiences with mental health and maybe throw in a few mental health orientated posts where I can share what helps me deal with my shit and just some lovely mental health opinions of mine that I can vent about.
• I enjoy telling everyone my opinion because I’m really annoying. I also love writing and want an outlet that allows me to do that. This way I can combine my passion for all things nutrition with my love of writing and hopefully help a person or two with what I have learned. Because obviously at 20 years old I am extremely wise to the ways of the world ;).

My Philosophies

Real quick I’m gonna share my main ideals and values when it comes to nutrition just so we all know where my mind will be at in these posts.

• Nutrition is a science, Eating is a behaviour, often based on emotion. This is veeeerrrrrryyyyyy important when it comes to a person’s concept of diet. I can tell you exactly what to eat in a day, making sure I incorporate all the key nutrients in your meals through intricate calorie counting and weighing out food and doing all these lovely mathsy calculations. Your boyfriend could leave you on read while your boss shouts at you for accidentally forgetting to send an email and then it starts pissing rain. So you naturally decide fuck my meal plan I’m guzzling a pint of Ben and Jerry’s like it’s a pint of water and I’ve spent a week in the desert. When looking at diet we must take into account the factors that influence diet.
• Nutrition is complicated. Annoyingly so. Every country has a different recommended daily allowance for the vitamins and minerals and these are constantly being updated. Every nutritionist has a different opinion about what the most accurate values are which can be very confusing. As well as this, there are countless bloggers, fitness influencers, weightloss gurus distributing contradicting nutritional advice which can be really frustrating for people. There is nothing simple about this science so don’t feel bad if you’re struggling to understand what’s considered a healthy and unhealthy diet.
• Weight loss and weight gain are simple in theory but can be quite difficult in practice and I think it’s very important to acknowledge this. To lose weight you must be in a calorie deficit. We get in a calorie deficit by either reducing energy intake or increasing energy output. Simple right? So why are people overweight? Are they just lazy? Stupid? In love with McDonalds? I want to make this very clear. Losing weight is never simple or easy. It often involves changing your whole mindset, educating yourself, reducing mental stress, improving your relationship with food and learning to love yourself. These are extremely difficult things to accomplish so no one should ever be shamed for struggling to lose weight. It can be the exact same challenge when it comes to gaining weight. Compassion is key.
• It’s fucking hard to eat a healthy diet these days. There I said it. We live in such a busy society that often food just isn’t a priority or else it’s the total opposite where we live in such a busy society that we rely heavily on food as a stress reliever. Either way it’s not ideal. As well as this, advertisements and marketing psychology are making us crave shite food more than ever before while celebrities and influencer’s are making us feel shit about ourselves by posing with their skinny teas in bikinis saying it solved all their problems while their personal chef whips up a salad in the background, their personal trainer organises their next workout or their plastic surgeon has just come off the phone to them about their next liposuction appointment. So we’re here hating ourselves for eating food because we’re walking around in a stressed out daze unconsciously taking in a KFC advert, ordering chicken to feel better, scrolling instagram to also distract from our stress and seeing these influencers flaunting their societally desirable, unrealistic bodies, feeling even more shit that we don’t look like them and seeing an ad for dairy milk chocolate, buying a dairy milk because we feel shit and then throwing on the news and hearing about how we’re all fucked because we’re all overweight and we’re costing the HSE millions and feeling even worse. So ya, eating healthy is hard. Phew.

Questions I’m Always Asked As a Nutrition Student 😀

Let’s brighten this post up again with a bit of fun question time.

What’s the difference between a nutritionist and a dietitian Maidi?

A nutrition is someone who studies the science of nutrition which basically means we study the process of obtaining what the body needs for health and growth through food. A dietitian studies nutrition but also the application of nutrition to help treat and prevent different conditions and diseases. Another key difference is that any fucker who has done a two day online nutrition course can call themselves a nutritionist so the term ranges from those enlightened individuals to people like me who do a four year degree. Only a qualified and registered dietician can call themselves a dietitian. In terms of degrees there are advantages and disadvantages to each. Nutrition has a broader subject matter than dietetics when it comes to the science of nutrition itself. We study animal nutrition, sports nutrition and nutrition on an international level where dietitians would be much more specialised. Nutrition also has broader career opportunities than dietetics as they are trained solely in a clinical setting but we’re more geared towards lab stuff so we have more wriggle room when it comes to career choice. The obvious advantage to dietetics is that it sounds a lot better. The fact that someone who has done a four year nutrition degree and someone who has done a free online class have the same title is understandably annoying. Dietitian’s also work with patient’s which appeals to a lot of people. At the end of the day, they’re both very interesting and worthwhile degrees it just depends on personal preference.

How interesting! But what about nutrition and food science Maidi? What’s the difference there?

People often seem to think that food science is just a nutrition course for people who don’t get enough points in the leaving cert. to do nutritional science. This is not true at all, in fact they’re both very different courses. Food science is much more focused on the manufacturing, processing and storage of food as well as the scientific properties of food. Nutrition has more of an emphasis on the effect of these foods and the nutrients within the foods on the body. These do overlap at times but they tend to focus on two very different aspects of food. Ultimately, food science mainly focuses on what happens to food before it enters the body and nutrition mainly focuses on what happens to food once it enters the body. Both are very interesting sciences and again it just depends on personal preference.

What about food and nutrients Maidi? What’s the difference between a food and a nutrient?

The difference here is that a nutrient is present within food. The nutrient is what is absorbed and utilized by the body to perform various functions like allowing the body to grow, providing energy, keeping the immune system going and things like that. The food is the vessel for the nutrient.

How fun and sciencey! Ok one more, what’s the difference between a vitamin and a mineral?

Someone asked me this before and I was like uuuuuuhhhhhhhh you know what I do not know how to describe it. So I made it my business to figure this out cus it’s kind of an embarrassing one not to have a proper answer to as a nutritionist in training. So basically, vitamins are considered organic and minerals are considered inorganic. Organic in this case basically means that the vitamins are made by plants or animals. Minerals however, come from the earth, soil and water and are absorbed by plants or eaten by animals. They cannot be made by plants or animals, they must be obtained. In terms of chemistry, vitamins have much more complicated structures than minerals. For example, vitamin D has all the lovely bits of organic chemistry in its structure with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, a few double bonds and a few circley structures. Meanwhile iron is just an element, it’s just iron. Much simpler. Despite these differences both vitamins and minerals are essentials for a healthy diet and we must make sure we are reaching our daily vitamin and mineral recommendations to make sure we stay healthy.

In Conclusion…

I actually had a lot of fun writing that intro so I’m excited to dive into this little lockdown project. Me and my lovely blogging colleague Susan hope we can provide our readers with helpful, relevant and easy to understand information on all things health and nutrition that we feel we can write about from a place of experience. Hopefully, we can all chill and enjoy a bit of stress free nutrition together as a community.

Lots of love,

Máidí xx