We're speaking with Dr. Uma Naidu today.

She is the author of This Is Your Brain on Food.

And she's joining us today from Boston, Massachusetts.

Uma, so wonderful to connect with you.

It's lovely to connect with you, Asha, and Dean.

I've been so excited to speak with both of you.

We are big fans.

We love what you do.

We love the fact that you're a feeling of psychiatry. Actually, I started my journey. My undergrad was in psychology and biochemistry. And then my thoughts were I'm going to go to psychiatry. You know, life just pulls you this way or that way. And I went to neurology. But even in neurology, I'm a behavioral neurologist. So more psychological than, yeah, so we love that aspect.

So this conversation is going to be about your journey and why you're doing this.

I mean, at the end of the day, the why is the most important thing because the how and the what comes out of that.

So if you want to tell us a little bit about your

background, even as early as you want to take it. I would love that. So I, you know, I grew up in a

very large South Asian family. And I skipped going to preschool, but I preferred to stay

with my grandma during the day. And she was a home cook and a homemaker.

And my mom, part of the reason I was because my mom was in medical school. So my mom was studying.

And I would be surrounded by a very large family growing up. And so my daytime was spent with her

and weekends. The entire family would get together. So there was a lot of food, a lot of fun,

a lot of nurturance and love. But, you know, here's the thing. As with certain cultures, you know,

half of them were physicians, allopathic physicians and a few Ayveratic practitioners. So there was

that very strong influence in the middle of which around age five I wanted to be an astronaut

because I was fascinated

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