The Big Middle

You're going to adore these two delightful founders of a very cool startup that features delectable world cuisine, social inclusion, and age and cultural diversity. Yuru Guo and Frankie Docker were Durham University students when they launched Hey! Food is Ready two years ago. They batted back ageist remarks about their ambitious plans - Yuru was 23, Frankie 19 - and got busy building an online platform that's thriving in the hyper-competitive world of corporate events catering. Their USP? Home cooks from across the world - immigrants, refugees, retirees and carers among them - making food magic to liven up lunch tables and party trays usually laden with soggy sausage rolls and beige sandwiches. What's more, their startup is a social enterprise. The platform opens the door to carefully vetted, certified home cooks to make some good money from their skills. And event participants often get to meet the cooks as they savour their creations. They've got more than 60 cooks on their books now from 40 countries, including Iraq, Egypt, Ukraine, Lebanon, Thailand, Greece, Portugal and South Korea. Yuru and Frankie won grants from Durham University and the Inclusive Innovation Award from the government's innovation arm Innovate UK. That distinction includes a £50,000 grant to develop inclusive innovations within their business. They'll be looking for investment soon in keeping with the maxim Yuru learned from her father: "Always dream big and make it happen". Links Hey! Food is ReadyPortfolio NorthYuru on LinkedinFrankie on LinkedinFollow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

Can you harm yourself by eating too much spinach? Should those baby leaves we know and love as a "superfood" come with a health warning? And what about almonds? Both are super-high in oxalates. If you’re not already rolling your eyes and saying Nooooo Susan, I’ve maxed out on worrying about what to eat when, this fascinating conversation will make you think again. Sally Norton is a nutritionist and public health leader from Richmond, Virginia raising awareness about oxalates,chemical toxins found in many plants. She suffered decades of ill health before discovering they were the cause of her misery. Why focus on oxalates when all plant toxins - lectins, phytates, tannins, glycosylates and goitrogens - can damage our gut and immune system? "What makes oxalates special is they're nearly impossible to remove from foods. They accumulate in the body and create long-term damage. They're tiny and get everywhere, messing up cells by stealing essential minerals and electrolytes and causing both physical damage and oxidative stress in cells and their mitochondria. The preparation methods used to disarm many of those other compounds, such as fermentation and high-heat cooking, don't adequately lower the toxic actions of oxalates. " "Remember too that the affected cells include our immune system, nerves and brain, glands and critical organs. By the time we reach 40, we all have some degree of a toxic load of oxalate compromising our glands, bones, brain, etcetera. They cause us to miss out on our potential for enjoying our lives, beyond our youth." Toxic Superfoods, Sally's new book on oxalates, is out this month. Enjoy learning all about oxalates. No more heaving plates of spinach for me - just a handful or two! Links Sally's websiteSally on Twitter InstagramFollow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

NEW EPI of The Big Middle drops tomorrow

How to keep your skin at its healthy best on this episode of The Big Middle, the podcast exploring longer, healthy midlife by design, learning from the sharpest thinkers around. Regulars will know and adore the sharp thinker I’ve invited back on the show. It’s Dr Fayne Frey, crusading age-positive dermatologist and skin cancer specialist - my guiding light as you may have heard last week through my encounter with a malignant melanoma. Episode 49 is when you'll hear her style herself as "the ultimate wrinkle defender". Dr Frey's book The Skincare Hoax rocketed to the top of various Amazon sales charts even before it was out. In it she lays out how our sexist, ageist and lookist culture fabricates insecurities the skincare industry exploits. “Kindness matters. Health matters. Accomplishments matter. None of those things come in a tube or bottle.” And remember, she says, your top layer of skin is 20 layers of dead cells. No lotion or potion with a dollop of this vitamin or that mineral can penetrate it to do anything more than moisturise it and plump it up, temporarily. Tune in to hear her shoot down the cultural norms, marketing buzzwords and predatory industry practises that abound in the glossies and on social media. And if you're addicted to an intricate skincare routine of 10 steps and as many expensive products, you'll be fascinated by Fayne's pared down route to her healthy, glowing skin. Enjoy! Links The Skincare Hoaxproduct selector tool blog here Fayne on Twitter Follow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

A skin cancer update for you now if you’re a regular listener or viewer of The Big Middle - a mix of the personal and the general. Eighteen months after the first of two operations to cut out a malignant melanoma, I’m happy to report the scar on my outer calf has smoothed out impressively; it’s kinda bumpy-wavy now, nicely faded. I thought it would never settle down. It resembled a shark bite for the first six months after the surgeries. I still can’t quite believe the dark brown splotch that suddenly appeared turned out to be malignant. I can’t rave enough about the first-class treatment I got from the UK’s National Health Service, the NHS. I’ve edited together the two skin cancer podcasts I put out last April - in the thick of the pandemic when I wasn’t sure what that thing was on my leg. And a couple of weeks ago I had a new patch of strange checked by a lovely skin cancer nurse. Not to worry, she said, but good I’ve seen it. Whew. So please heed the advice you'll hear in this podcast, even if you haven’t been baking on beaches and been that bit careless about sunscreen. Links How do I know if I have skin cancer? – Dr Frey writing for thedoctorweighsin.comMelanoma: What you need to know about diagnosis and treatment – Dr Frey’s article on thedoctorweighsin.comDr Frey’s skincare education website FryFace.com – check out the Product Selector toolFayne on TwitterFollow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

It’s playtime on The Big Middle. I'm celebrating the oft-forgotten fun side of living as older by staying switched-on and active. This is a very particular celebration; we’re meeting five of the 26 winners of a big-money design competition here in the UK. Fun factors into all their design projects. The competition winners are sharing a £20 million pot of government money for design innovations to help us all as we age. All projects are either on the market or close to it and all have potential to scale. Competition leader Julia Glenn of Innovate UK, an arm of UK Research and Innovation, is along to tell us more about how the winners were chosen and what's next for them. Who won for what: Lily Chow - Holly Health is partnering with charity Age UK's branches in the London boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark to develop a digital coaching service. It will improve the physical and mental health of older adults to slow the onset of chronic conditions. Clara Sbraccia - KYMIRA through MISFIT is making a new smart garment bio-monitoring service to help Ida Sports create appropriate sports footwear to help women of all ages, and specifically older women, participate safely and more confidently in sports. Afroditi Konidari - Tendertec’s FitBees, a service led by women, is integrating home sensors with smart garments to monitor people's activity. This is linked to a programme of community fitness for older adults, including those living with carers. Howard Blackburn - Yorkshire company Innerva is making power-assisted exercise machines more user-friendly for older people and the machines more readily available throughout the community. Ben Wilkins - Good Boost Wellbeing is transforming leisure centres into community musculoskeletal treatment hubs with artificial intelligence (AI) and gamified exercise monitoring in gyms and pools. Using gamification extends the service to more people by including those who are less mobile. Full scroll of winners here. Enjoy! Links UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)Holly HealthKymiraTendertec's FitbeesGood Boost WellbeingUKRI on TwitterHolly Health on TwitterKymira on Twitter Innerva on TwitterGood Boost Wellbeing on TwitterFollow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

I'm back with another fascinating guest in my ongoing quest to better understand how our food system became so badly broken and our nutrition beliefs so skewed. Animal foods are demonised. Biologically-dead, factory-made fare that’s poisoning our bodies - and draining health care budgets - is being promoted in the guise of planetary preservation. Where’s the truth? How do we get to solutions? How do we make the right healthy and ethical choices? My guest is long-time vegetarian Nicolette Hahn Niman, an environmental activist lawyer-turned-beef farmer who’s been touring her latest book, the second edition of Defending Beef, across the UK from her ranch north of San Francisco. We get into everything about the practise of regenerative farming, the environmental and health benefits of raising and eating grass-fed beef, and, in an interview first for Nicolette, discuss menopause and the challenges it brings to staying healthy and strong. Most of us need to take stock of our food choices and lifestyles at midlife, especially now that we're ageing differently. I know you'll find this as fascinating as I did. I reverted to being an omnivore after years of vegetarianism so we talk plenty about what needs to change to make the lives of animals raised for food a whole lot less miserable. Nicolette joins other #RealFood advocates in saying "It's not the cow, it's the how." Links Defending Beef Facebook Twitter Follow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

...on moves to treat animals raised for food more humanely. First, sugared insects:

Much of the world - rich north and poor south - is drowning in an ocean of hyperpalatable, addictive fakery masquerading as food. Much of that fakery has fed our disconnect with natural food production cycles and practices. And it’s left most of us in a food muddle - moral, environmental, nutritional. We latch on to our dietary tribe with conviction but what if our beliefs are based on a limited understanding of the evolution of global food production? And no understanding of how powerful multinationals control every aspect of it. James Connolly is our guide to how we became the unwitting victims of a food system captured by big corporations driven by profit, not public health. "You’re taken out of the equation. The consumer has no real choices. They walk through the supermarket and think they’re getting a variety of products but really it’s wholly owned by about 13 multinational corporations that control about 90% of our system." He views the American capitalist system as “socialism for the rich” and farmers as “modern-day heroes in a feudal state, they have no control over their land, it’s owned by the bank”. James questions how it has come to be that all so-called solutions to global warming take industrial capitalism as a given and nature must conform to it. "Monoculture seems to be the biggest problem we have whether it's chickens, almonds or avocado farms... When you build a system based on that, you in essence have to destroy everything in that environment to grow the food. You have to bring in enormous amounts of resources, water...You build a system that has no resiliency other than excising this stuff from all different parts of the planet.." James is a chef and Real Food advocate who transformed the food systems of inner-city schools in New York with his non-profit The Bubble Foundation. At no extra cost to the city's food budget, kids sat at round dining tables and helped themselves to nutrient-rich dishes cooked on site. He co-produced the documentary Sacred Cow, directed by Diana Rodgers, financed the marketing of Michael Moore's provocative Where to Invade Next (a must watch), and is producing Death in the Garden, a documentary promising a sober look at industrial civilisation, our "misguided attempts to resolve climate change", and how life always involves death. James is a voracious reader with an historian's head for facts and stories. You'll love this episode and want to read every one of his desert island book picks. It was tough, but he managed to confine himself to just the five I asked for. Links Sacred Cow Death in the GardenThat Climate One podcast on CowspiracyClimate One debate about CowspiracyIshmael by Danial QuinnIf They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways by Daniel QuinnThe Wizard and the Prophet by Charles MannShibumi by TrevanianThe Tragedy of American Science by Clifford D ConnorDiscover his work hereJames on TwitterJames on InstagramFollow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

COMING UP: The producer of the documentaries Sacred Cow and Death in the Garden (in production) on how our current food fights pull focus away from what's really wrecking our planet.

Don’t Shoot the Messenger - an admonition I’m invoking right off the top of this episode of The Big Middle. The messenger is my guest Jayne Buxton - journalist-author of The Great Plant-Based Con: Why Eating a Plants-Only Diet Won’t Improve Your Health or Save the Planet. As you might guess, Jayne's been shot and trolled multiple times on the socials since her book launched three months ago (June 2022). But she's also been praised for her courage in stomping on the equivalent of the third rail of the nutrition wars between those who eat meat along with their plants and those who don't. "Somebody on Twitter likened the treatment of me to the stoning of a heretic. So that was interesting. But I have to say that hasn't been the entirety of the experience. There's been a lot of positive response to the book as well. A lot of people seem to have been waiting for somebody to open up this discussion and to bring a new narrative to the table because it's been far too one-sided for far too long." We're bombarded with the seemingly incontrovertible message to reduce or quit consuming meat or dairy to stand a chance of saving our melting planet from imminent collapse. But that prevailing dogma is at odds with the facts Jayne found in her forensic search for the truth about the environmental and health impacts of food. Jayne stresses that she's not anti-plants or anti-vegan. She's an advocate of ethical, regenerative farming and real food to benefit human, animal and planetary health. Her sole - and fully-independent - motivation is to reveal facts and evidence to counter nutrition propaganda, sloppy journalism and the hidden agendas of powerful stakeholders. I've learned so much from this conversation and guarantee you will too. More learning to be had in the many links below. Enjoy! Links Jayne's bioBuy Jayne's book on how current metrics exaggerate the warming impact of biogenic methane​writing in Naturesoil biology and the role of ruminants​the influence of the Seventh Day Adventist Church​church influence ​on ​dietary policyCows, Carbon and ClimateJoel interviewed about his mobile chicken structures Jayne on TwitterFollow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

Health is wealth and expect the unexpected - surely the two most apt truisms of these crazy days on so many fronts. Both ring truer than usual for guest Catherine Foot. She’s been a year in her post as head of Phoenix Insights, a new UK think tank set up to transform the way society responds to the possibilities of longer lives. It’s a workplace milestone fate served up with the kind of surprise we can all do without - a long recovery ahead after a freaky accidental stumble that has her calling herself "a bionic woman...with Frankenstein scars". You'll hear the full rundown of her ambitious plans for maximising social and policy impact in her new role, "my dream job". "Funding is critical but my experience of working in the think tank sector is that everybody needs to try these things for themselves and own the solution. You can't go around selling even the solution that works 30 miles down the road and expect them to doff their cap and say good then we'll copy that." Central to her team's mission is finding ways to engage the public to open closed mindsets and influence behaviour: "Thinking about where people are and how to reach them is the perennial problem of social policy when trying to do something with working age adults". The hope is to spark many more living room conversations about longer lives. She aims to "break out of the delightful but cosy longevity bubble and begin to stretch our fingers of influence into the decisionmakers and policymakers who have yet to see ageing and longevity as their business. Links Phoenix InsightsLinkedin post about her accident Linkedin post about the first year Catherine on Twitter Follow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

NEXT EPI drops tomorrow, Thursday: The brilliant Catherine Foot on breaking out of the "cosy longevity bubble" - "We need to meet people where they are." In this taster, why Greater Manchester is a stellar example of integration of public services to deliver the social support longer lives demand.

Oh our frazzled brains. Help clearing that fog, curbing that anxiety, finding your focus - and that elusive word - in this fascinating episode with neuroscientist Dr Andrew Hill. He's one of the world’s leading practitioners of neurofeedback. Dr Hill age-stages his best bio-hacks to nourish and rewire our brains for peak performance. Meal-timing is critical, he says. As is getting enough deep sleep. And he tells us intermittent fasters we'd be better off shifting our eating windows to earlier in the day. He explains why kids shouldn't be allowed to play contact sports until their brains are finished developing: "Half of all brain injuries are silent and have no symptoms. They show up years later as slowed processing, degraded quality of sleep and word-finding." He also tells us why loves the meditative power of Ashtanga yoga and performing West African drumming in crowds on mountaintops. Dr Hill is the founder of Peak Brain Institute, a global chain of "brain gyms" headquartered in Los Angeles. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCLA’s Department of Psychology, where he lectures in psychology, neuroscience and gerontology and researches attention and cognition. He's been practising neurofeedback since 2003. Notes “Delta is the heartbeat of the brain” “Alpha waves are the idle speed” “You don’t want to diagnose off of this stuff, you want to come up with ideas and if they ring true, then you’re on to something” “If you find things that are real, you can change them almost always. Understanding brains is hard but changing brains is not that hard” “We spent a year teaching someone to use a fork”“I was moving 9,000 times faster than everyone around me, chewing through books..I dug into everything” “Women have autoimmune stuff and most forms of classic dementia are not infectious diseases but metabolic diseases” “The strongest cue for circadian rhythm is not light, it’s not when you sleep, it’s when you eat”“If you go to bed with any insulin that’s high, any blood sugar that’s high at all, you suppress growth hormone completely”“it squeezes your liver and feeds you breakfast” "There's definitely an epidemic of childhood anxiety and sleep issues but there's no more ADHD than there was 50 years ago""You shouldn't let your kids play contact sports.. non-contact is ideal until your brain finishes developing"Links Peak Brain InstituteHow to prioritise sleep for peak brain performance Andrew on Twitter Follow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

It’s as if she’s got a hotline to your head. She gets inside your mind, rummages round all those piles of messy-feely thoughts, even the ones in the darkest corners, then heads for your heart. Scottish writer Donna Ashworth translates our thoughts and feelings about life, love and loss into poetry that stuns in its simple complexity. Her beautiful words proved a salve for our battered souls and minds at the height of the pandemic. It was then that her precious poems went viral online. Her heartfelt musings were picked up by organisations as diverse as the UK's National Health Service, Amnesty International and Doctors of America. Celebrated actors recited her work, including Michael Sheen, Griff Rhys Jones and Vicky McClure. Her empathy, compassion and reassurance served as a beacon and blanket of comfort as we struggled under the weight of uncertainty and grief. This episode was a joy to make. Donna reads six of her poems for us, tugging at our heart strings as we go. She shares the astonishing fact that her artistry is not the product of endless tweaks and revisions. Her poems arrive overnight, fully-formed for delivery in the morning, her first drafts her final drafts. The six poems are copied below. Not a chance you won't enjoy this one! Please share your thoughts on my website and subscribe to my baby YouTube channel (links below). I'll get the video up in the coming days. Poems So Old You’re so old they say and I laugh with a deep roar rising up from my very soul because how could that phrase ever be anything but magnificent? She let herself go they cry and I smile with every tooth in my head because Mother Nature and I know what a miraculous act letting go truly is. You’ve changed they say and I am at once completely fulfilled and at peace with my life’s purpose because if I did not come here to grow then what was it all for? Don't Prioritise Your Looks Don’t prioritise your looks my friend, they won’t last the journey. Your sense of humour though, will only get better. Your intuition will grow and expand like a majestic cloak of wisdom. Your ability to choose your battles, will be fine-tuned to perfection. Your capacity for stillness, for living in the moment, will blossom. And your desire to live each and every moment will transcend all other wants. Your instinct for knowing what (and who) is worth your time, will grow and flourish like ivy on a castle wall. Don’t prioritise your looks my friend, they will change forevermore, that pursuit is one of much sadness and disappointment. Prioritise the uniqueness that makes you you, and the invisible magnet that draws in other like-minded souls to dance in your orbit. These are the things which will only get better. History Will Remember When the World Stopped History will remember when the world stopped And the flights stayed on the ground. And the cars parked in the street. And the trains didn’t run. History will remember when the schools closed And the children stayed indoors And the medical staff walked towards the fire And they didn’t run. History will remember when the people sang On their balconies, in isolation But so very much together In courage and song. History will remember when the people fought For their old and their weak Protected the vulnerable By doing nothing at all. History will remember when the virus left And the houses opened And the people came out And hugged and kissed And started again Kinder than before. You're Not Imagining It... You’re not imagining it, nobody seems to want to talk right now. Messages are brief and replies late. Talk of catch ups on zoom are perpetually put on hold. Group chats are no longer pinging all night long. It’s not you. It’s everyone. We are spent. We have nothing left to say. We are tired of saying ‘I miss you’ and ‘I cant wait for this to end’. So we mostly say nothing, put our heads down and get through each day. You’re not imagining...

They call themselves retirement recidivists. My guests Bruce Hiland and Ted Kaufman tried but failed several times to call time on busy, high-status careers. They’re the authors of the book Retiring?: Your Next Chapter is about Much More than Money. They say figuring out what you're going to do is job one after you've sorted your financial future. To win at retirement, they say much more attention must be paid to planning how you're going to feed your mind, body, heart and soul. In their eighties now, Bruce and Ted decided to write their practical guide to the non-financial aspects of conventional retirement after hearing the frustrations of their contemporaries. Many had mistakenly thought ticking off bucket list adventures and hanging out with their grandkids would be enough to sustain them. There was little awareness of the fact we're living longer and in better health so need a plan for 25 to 30 years of freedom from full-time, all-consuming work obligations on someone else's clock. Ted is a former US senator from Delaware, Joe Biden’s former chief of staff when the president was a senator and head of Biden’s presidential transition. He lives between Vero Beach, Florida and Wilmington, Delaware. Bruce is a former management consultant and chief administrative officer for Time Inc.; he also lives in Vero Beach when he’s not hanging out with his family and savouring the natural delights of Middlebury, Vermont. Links Buy their book Retiring?: Your Next Chapter is About Much More than Money Bruce + Ted's blog Contact them Support The Big Middle Follow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin Koc

I’ve always given the notion of retirement shortest shrift on The Big Middle. What does it even mean in 2022? We don’t retire these days, we shift gears, we make transitions. We keep earning if we need to (and most of us need to) while we grow our minds, feed our passions, soothe our souls and figure out how to give back - do something that matters to more than ourselves. Two fascinating guests join me on The Big Middle to talk transitions: gerontologist researcher and author Deborah Gale, based in Ascot, west of London, and journalist and author Rich Eisenberg, newly UNretired; he tells us what that means from his #WFH office in New Jersey. Links DEB GALE The Age of No Retirement The Purpose Exchange Robert Kegan on the Further Reaches of Adult Development, the video Deb said "blew my mind" Deb on Linkedin Deb on Twitter RICH EISENBERG Rich's new Marketwatch column The View from UNretirement Rich's podcast Friends Talk Money Rich on Linkedin Rich on Twitter *** Support The Big Middle Follow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin Koc

We’re recording this episode of The Big Middle 35 days after Russian President Vladimir Putin started his savagery in Ukraine, compounding our state of psychic trauma just as we learn to live with COVID. The courage and resilience of Ukrainians is breathtaking. The images of the immense suffering of innocents pulverised by Russian shells in their homes and as they flee is horrifying. I’m betting you too are finding it harder than ever to manage your seesawing feelings of fear, anxiety, helplessness, anger and grief. The always inspirational Dr Andy Cope is back to help us find a measure of emotional balance. How do we square the guilt we feel as we witness Putin's barbarism from afar while striving to recover optimism and joy as COVID fades? He says self-care is critical now. You won't be of any benefit to anyone else if your empathic distress overwhelms you to the point of incapacity. "You can't pour from an empty jug." And beware what he calls "destination addiction" - kicking your happiness into the long grass of an uncertain future in an imperfect world. "If you're waiting for the perfect world in order to be happy.. you'll die waiting." Andy’s a Doctor of Philosophy with a PhD in positive psychology or, as he prefers, human flourishing. He’s written more than a dozen books and delivers keynotes and workshops on motivation, leadership and wellbeing across the world. His flagship programme is called The Art of Being Brilliant. And brilliant sums up how we end this episode. Andy sends us off with one of his tried and tested proper hugs. Trust me, you'll want one! Links The Art of BrillianceThe Russian RevolutionOur conversation last yearAndy on TwitterSupport The Big Middle Follow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin Koc

Women in the demon grip of menopause - those of us who don’t sail through it with nary a care - might well scoff at men who clamour for attention for their struggles with andropause, the male menopause. Are they even comparable? And don't only a small percentage of men experience it? Questions I put to Dr Jeff Foster, a men’s health specialist here in the UK. We cover the men's health fundamentals - the importance of testosterone and estrogen, erectile dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, prostate cancer, turtle bellies, "moobs" (man boobs) and more. Dr Foster is the author of the excellent, practical book Man Alive: The Health Problems Men Face and How to Fix Them. Alongside his work within the National Health Service, the NHS, he's a co-funder of H3 Health, a private clinic in Warwickshire for midlife men and women. Loved learning from Dr Jeff. Video version up soon on my newborn YouTube channel. Do have a gander and subscribe - massive thanks if you do! Links book Man Aliveclinic H3 HealthJeff on InstagramJeff on TwitterFollow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle

She's been called Queen of Orgasms and The Lube Queen. On the socials, she goes by SamTalksSex. Sam Evans is a sexual health and pleasure expert who's exasperated that frank talk and clear, practical information about all aspects of consensual sex is still hard to get, mired in stigma. A former renal and occupational health nurse, she's a tireless campaigner for better information and understanding of how to keep enjoying the many health benefits of sex no matter what life throws at you - illness, bereavement, menopause, relationship breakdown. And let's not forget age. Sam is all about blowing up the stubborn myth that sex has an age-expiration date. Sam advises health care professionals and gives talks to cancer and other charities when she's not running Jo Divine, the online sexual aids company she set up with her husband in 2007. The site has become a rich, public health service, an education hub about everything to do with healthy, consensual sex. And don't forget to use that 10% discount code for purchases from JoDivine.com from now through March 10th. The code is The Big Middle. Oh and there is a show and tell aspect to our chat. Video out soon (if it passes YouTube muster)! Links Jo Divine:Breastfeeding and sex Want Thrush? Use a bath bombMenopause and LibidoWinning Back our Sex Life after Prostate Cancer - a personal story by Elvin BoxSam on Instagram Sam on TwitterTrekstockPiece in The Guardian about those Swiss sheds for sex workers (there is a laudable safety angle of course) I mentioned from 2013, when they were set up X8gw1bbBxtRYvKYGAh45 Follow The Big Middle WebsiteTwitterInstagramYouTubeSahin KocSupport The Big Middle