Nutritionist Laura Jennings separates wellness fact from fiction
Seed oils are toxic. Everyone needs more protein. Breakfast is essential - unless we're fasting. We need probiotics, greens powders and approximately 47 different supplements before we've even left the house.
Welcome to modern wellness.
In this episode of the Elle Sera Podcast, Elissa sits down with registered associate nutritionist Laura Jennings to cut through the noise surrounding nutrition, supplements and the latest health trends.
And the biggest takeaway is refreshingly simple:
There is no supplement that replaces looking after yourself properly.
As a supplement company, we're very happy to say that.
Supplements should supplement. Not substitute.
One of the things Elissa discusses with Laura is something we've always felt strongly about at Elle Sera: you don't need a supplement for everything.
Good health still starts with the relatively boring stuff nobody can turn into a revolutionary wellness hack — eating well, moving your body, sleeping, managing stress and creating habits you can realistically maintain.
Laura describes trying to live healthily in the modern world as almost like “swimming upstream”. We sit more, convenience food is everywhere and most of us are trying to fit looking after ourselves around jobs, families and generally having a life.
So perfection isn't the goal. Consistency is.
And supplements should sit alongside those foundations, rather than attempting to replace them.
Stop looking for one ingredient to blame
Seed oils are one of the wellness world's current favourite villains.
But Laura encourages us to look at the bigger picture. Seed oils frequently appear in ultra-processed foods, meaning it's easy to blame one ingredient when the overall quality of someone's diet may be far more relevant.
The same principle applies elsewhere.
A product isn't automatically healthy because HIGH PROTEIN is written across the front. A greens powder doesn't magically become nutritionally identical to eating vegetables. And taking a probiotic doesn't automatically mean you've “fixed” your gut.
Health is rarely about one hero - or one villain.
So where do supplements fit?
This is where the conversation becomes particularly relevant to how we formulate products at Elle Sera.
Laura explains that when choosing supplements, it's worth looking beyond the headline ingredient.
What form is it in? What's the dose? What else has been included? And why are you taking it in the first place?
During the conversation, Laura discusses Vitamin B6 and its active coenzyme form, P5P — the form we use alongside our Liposomal Magnesium Bisglycinate.
It's a tiny formulation detail most people would never think to investigate, but that's exactly the point.
Two bottles can have the same ingredient written across the front and still be very different products.
Different women. Different needs.
Laura is also cautious about blanket wellness advice because our needs aren't static.
Our lifestyles change. Our hormones fluctuate. Our nutritional requirements and priorities can change. What worked brilliantly for you ten years ago might not necessarily be what you need today.
That's something that sits at the heart of The Golden Pill™ too.
Rather than promising to magically “balance hormones”, The Golden Pill is our non-hormonal botanical formulation created specifically with women in mind.
It's not a replacement for sleep, nutrition, movement, medical care or HRT where appropriate.
It's another tool in the toolbox.
And what about collagen?
Collagen is another perfect example of why we need to look beyond the biggest number printed on a packet.
More grams doesn't automatically tell you everything you need to know about a formulation.
Elle Sera's daily collagen contains 2,600mg Liposomal Tripeptide Collagen, including the tripeptide Gly-Pro-Hyp, alongside selected supporting nutrients.
But our collagen isn't intended to compensate for a poor diet any more than our magnesium is intended to compensate for never sleeping.
It's there to complement the things you're already doing to look after yourself.
You can't hack the fundamentals
Perhaps the best part of this entire conversation is how spectacularly unsexy Laura's ultimate advice is.
Eat nourishing food.
Move your body.
Prioritise sleep.
Drink enough water.
And do those things consistently.
Because we're living through an era obsessed with shortcuts and sometimes there simply isn't one.
At Elle Sera, we absolutely believe in supplementation. It's quite literally what we do.
But we also believe supplements should have a reason to exist.
The Golden Pill™, Liposomal Magnesium Bisglycinate and Liposomal Tripeptide Collagen aren't there to replace the foundations of good health.
They're there to complement them.
Food and lifestyle first. Intelligent, purposeful supplementation where appropriate.
And perhaps we could all do with a little less wellness noise and a little more of that.
Hear Elissa and Laura discuss seed oils, protein, fasting, gut health, probiotics, ultra-processed foods, supplements and some of the biggest wellness trends online.
