Investigating Vegan Life With Patricia Kathleen

Today I am talking with Paige Ohliger. Paige is an entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Plantricious LLC. In addition to Plantricious, her over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience includes partnerships in a successful environmental consulting firm and a meal assembly service where she specialized strategic development, marketing, PR and relationship building between the public, private industry and government agencies.  She is on the Plant-Based World Expo Advisory Board, is a graduate of the Rouxbe School of Cooking Professional Plant-based Cooking Program and has a Plant-Based Nutrition Certification from T. Colin Campbell Center For Nutrition Studies and e.Cornell.  Goal: Leaving this world a better place than I found it.  Plantricious is on a mission to make healthy food choices easy. Our Plantricious seal provides the food industry and the public a trusted and transparent way to identify healthy, plant-nutritious foods, and our curated ecosystem provides food brands with access to a large community of healthcare practitioners and health-conscious consumers. Key points addressed were  Page’s company called Plantrious that provides a seal for the food industry communicating a transparent and honest way to identify healthy, plant-nutrious foods for the medical community to prescribe and the greater public to trust when looking for healthy foods

Today I am chatting with Kylie Alla. Kylie grew up as a fussy eater so never thought she could be a chef. Instead of culinary school she embarked on a degree in Food Science and Nutrition and during her first year of studies made the transition to a plant based diet. After graduating she landed a position at little bird organics, a frontier in raw vegan food and her love for plant based cooking spiraled. Kylie has worked in vegan and vegetarian restaurants around the world. She is a recipe writer, food stylist and development chef and is currently running her own all vegan and gluten free recipe site, blue border.

Today I am chatting with Tracy Vogt. Tracy is the Founder of Charlie’s Acres- Farm Animal Sanctuary. Charlie’s Acres’ mission is to care for abused, homeless and rescued farm animals in a safe environment for the entirety of their lives. They also aim to provide public education on animal welfare issues, change the way society views farm animals, and promote compassionate living. Starting in 2016, Tracy combined her passion for animal welfare with her non profit management experience to create an organization focused on not only rescuing animals, but also changing minds through education and compassion. Key points addressed were  The logistics and educational programs behind Charlie’s Acres Animal Sanctuary located Just outside of San francisco in the rolling wine country hills of Sonoma in Northern CaliforniaWe also discussed Tracy’s future plans for educational programs and building expansion on Charlie’s Acres over the next year.

Today I am speaking with Ben Kanbour."My name is Ben Kanbour, I have been an entrepreneur for 7 years now, owning two different Restaurant/Hookah Bars and a Digital Marketing / Web design agency. I also work as a marketing manager for a company called Sparta Movers. I am also an aspiring astrologer, and hope to dedicate more of my time to making the world a better place. I have been vegan for just over a year now and I made the lifestyle transition mostly due to spiritual and moral reasons. Always having claimed to be an animal lover, I one day realized that my actions were not in alignment with my beliefs. I enjoy playing sports and keeping myself active as well as playing board games and spending time in nature." Key points addressed were  Ben’s personal vegan journey and how his story affected his professional life and continuous to shape his career and activism

Today I am talking with Nicole Faith. Nicole is an NYU educated personal shopper and blogger. She works with a high profile and discerning clientele to make living a luxury vegan lifestyle effortless. Her blog Plush Society offers shopping guides, product reviews and highbrow thoughts- and is, as she says, "cruelty-free through a luxe lens."

Today I am talking with Jade Crawford. Jade is a Vegan Chef & Nutritionist. She is Head Chef at Forest Green Rovers, the greenest and only vegan football club in the world. She is passionate about teaching people the benefits of a plant-based diet and wants to spread the word through cooking delicious vegan food for all to enjoy Key points addressed were  Jade’s work as head chef at Forest Green Rovers the only Vegan Football club in the worldWe also discussed particular products, substitutes and aspects of vegan cooking Jade uses to unite all people looking at converting to vegan and plant based cooking and eating as well as those already fully ensconced in the lifestyle

Today I am speaking with Danielle Lowy. Danielle started her career as a prosecuting attorney in Southern California (Riverside County) where she prosecuted countless animal cruelty cases due to her interest in pursuing justice for the voiceless. During this time she also completed her yoga teacher training, and after connecting with the truth and unity of ahimsa and became vegan overnight.  Danielle has also headed up the animal rights conference at Loyola Law School and has served on several animal rights boards including currently sitting as President of the Board at Switch4Good, founded by Dotsie Bausch.  She currently lives in New Zealand where she owns and operates Moove Studio. She offers Yoga, the Gyrotonic® Method and Pilates.  She lives with her husband,  5 rescued sheep, and 2 rescued chihuahuas and continues to carry on her vegan leadership despite living in deep farm country.  Key points addressed were  Danielle’s work as president of the non-profit switch4good and the education and campaign efforts the organization focuses on in regards to the harmful nature of the dairy industry and inaccurate studies done as to the health benefits of milkWe also discussed Danielle’s personal vegan story as it pertained to her professional life as a prosecuting attorney in Southern California and current yoga studio owner in New Zealand

Today I am speaking with Clarisse Flon. "My name is Clarisse Flon. I am a French pastry chef with year of experience in the fine dining industry. I founded The Sunny Spoon, a fully vegan French patisserie in 2012 and since then it evolved and changed a lot. I now sell my products on our website and send tins of cookies and biscuits by post all over the country." Key points addressed were  Clarisse’s translation of the classic pateesaree techniques into her vegan products she sells on her site the Sunny spoon.co.ukWe also discuss Clarisse’s major efforts to implement Sustainability efforts in the sunny spoon and her hopes to further this as the the sunny spoon expands

Today I am talking with Sarah Murphy. Born and raised in Essen, Germany. Thirteen years Waldorf School. I studied fashion design, worked as a costume-designer and fitness-instructor, graduated a trainee ship as editor and TV host. Hosted my own TV Show. Moved to Los Angeles and found love and happiness. If she could, she would rescue an animal a day. She wants to dedicate her life to helping animals, humans and this planet, save the ocean and the environment. Key points addressed were  Sarah’s personal story as a vegan from Germany now living in LA We also discussed Sarah’s personal experiences and opinions on raising a vegan child and her predictions as to how vegan communities and industries are slated to grow and change in the upcoming 5 years

Today I am chatting with Brittany Peet. Brittany is the deputy general counsel for the PETA Foundation's Captive Animal Law Enforcement division. She works on behalf of animals who are held captive in roadside zoos, traveling shows, and the film and television industries through legal and regulatory actions and public advocacy campaigns. She also negotiates and coordinates the rescue of wild and exotic animals for PETA and has overseen the rescues of more than 400 chinchillas, 73 bears, 75 big cats, 13 chimpanzees, and two baboons. Key points addressed were  Brittany’s history as a General Counsel for PETA and her most recent work in the Big Cat Rescue Act that involved the infamous Tiger King Joe Exotic’s roadside zooWe also discussed the major wins PETA has had over the last few years and anticipates celebrating in the next 5 years regarding Captive Animal welfare in the Entertainment, zoo, and sanctuary industries. On A quick technical note, we suffered some internet delays and disturbances which  sped up speech and slower dialogue in the first few minutes.  Because  the issue does abate for most of the interview our team made the decision to go up with this version rather than edit these parts out. We appreciate your understanding and know that the interview with Brittany will be worth putting up with a few audio imperfections.

Today I am speaking with Christine Elise McCarthy. Christine has been acting professionally for over 30 years and is recognized primarily for her roles as U4EA-popping bad girl, Emily Valentine, on Beverly Hills, 90210 -  a role she reinvented (playing a heightened version of herself) on the 2019 Fox hit - the BH90210 reboot. She is also known for Harper Tracy on ER, and as Kyle, the gal who killed Chucky in Child’s Play 2 and returned to fuck with the Chuck some more in Cult of Chucky. She has also appeared in recurring roles on China Beach, In the Heat of the Night, and Tell Me You Love Me.  Among her other film roles are Abel Ferrara’s Body Snatchers and two films starring Viggo Mortensen: Vanishing Point and Boiling Point. She maintains an irreverent, vegan cooking channel on Youtube called Delightful Delicious Delovely - found at www.VideoVegan.com.  The accompanying food blog is called www.DelightfulDeliciousDelovely.com for which she has provided recipes, photographs and sometimes shares details of the triumphs and, more frequently, the humiliations of her own life since July 2012. Key points addressed were  Christine’s Blog and YouTube channel where she has spent several years developing and sharing vegan recipes and insights with her audienceWe also discussed some of Christine’s personal opinions about the difficulties in pleasing everyone in regards to one’s personal vegan journey and how some of the anger that exists in the online communities are counterproductive to the Vegan cause

Today I am chatting with Liz Marshall. Liz is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker. Since the 1990s she has written, produced, directed, and filmed diverse international and socially conscious documentaries. Her work has been released theatrically, been broadcast globally, made available digitally, and has screened for hundreds of grassroots communities around the globe. Marshall’s visionary feature-length films explore social justice and environmental themes through strong characters. The impact of Liz’s critically acclaimed documentary The Ghosts In Our Machine (2013) is reflected in an extensive global evaluation report funded by the Doc Society. Marshall’s current feature documentary Meat The Future(2020), chronicles the birth of the “clean” “cultured” “cell-based” meat industry in America through the eyes of pioneer Dr. Uma Valeti. Previous titles include Midian Farm (2018), Water On The Table (2010), the HIV/AIDS trilogy for the Stephen Lewis Foundation (2007), the War Child Canada/MuchMusic special Musicians in the Warzone (2001), and the 1995 music documentary archive of folk-icon Ani DiFranco. Key points addressed were  Unpacking Liz’s 2020 documentary film titled Meat the Future and the cellular agriculture industry the film explores through the personal story of Memphis meat Founder Uma ValentiWe also discussed a myriad of aspects that accompany educational films as well as the zeitgeist of the global vegan conversation with the advent of clean cell based meat

Today I am speaking with Jane Busemi. Jane obtained a certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition through the Center for Nutrition Studies. With over 100 healthy recipes in her kitchen portfolio, she’s cooked and shared my culinary creations with family and friends—even non-vegans became fans of these tasty dishes. Best of all, she has been able to demonstrate how anyone can manage the preparation and cooking of these dishes within their own schedule. Now, she’s passionate about helping others take-off weight and demonstrating the health benefits of a plant-based lifestyle. Healthy eating CAN be delicious, satisfying, and help her clients and audience lose those excess pounds. Key points addressed were  Jane’s knowledge and philosophy basis behind her recipe development and curation on her website as well as the core tenants behind cooking oil free with alternative natural whole food sources of fatWe also discussed Jane’s opinion about the different populations engaging in vegan cooking and food and where the future is headed in that regard TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with certified plant based nutritionist and founder of Vegan and Under Control. Jane Buscemi. Key points address where Jane's knowledge and philosophy basis behind her recipe development and curation on her Web site, as well as the core tenants behind cooking oil free with alternative natural Whole Foods sources of fat. We also discussed Jane's opinion about the different populations engaging in Vegan cooking and food and where the future is headed. In that regard. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Jane Buscemi. [00:00:41] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen Acom, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:38] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I'm excited to be sitting down with Jane Buscemi. Jane is a certified plant based nutritionist and founder of Vegan Under Control. You can find out more on her Web site. W w w dot Vegan and under control dot com. Welcome, Jane. [00:01:56] Thank you. Good to be here. [00:01:58] Absolutely. I'm excited to kind of climb through everything that you've done. You've got a really unique and personal narrative and history with Vegan. Vegan world in general for everyone listening who might be new to our podcast. I will first read a bio on Jane before I pepper her with questions. But prior to that, a quick roadmap for the line of inquiry will first ask Jane to kind of unpack her personal story with Vegan life and begin cooking. And as that ties into all of her work endeavors, and then we'll ask her to define some terms before we unpack her Web site, the Vegan, and under control of the services and information she offers there. And then we'll look at actually unpacking the Web site. We'll look at the recipes, some of the services that Jane has there and everything else. Then we'll get into some rapid fire questions just about the industry in general. Those of you who follow this podcast who've written in and we always like to honor that with including some of your lines of inquiry with every guest that we have. So, as promised, a quick bio on Jane, before I start peppering her with questions, Jane obtained a certificate in plant based nutrition through the Center for Nutrition Studies with over one hundred healthy recipes in her kitchen portfolio. She's cooked and shared many culinary creations with family and friends. Even non vegans became fans of these tasty dishes. Best of all, she has been able to demonstrate how anyone can manage the preparation and cooking of these dishes within their own schedule. Now she's passionate about helping others take off weight and demonstrating the health benefits of plant based lifestyle. Healthy eating can be delicious, satisfying and help her clients and audience lose those excess pounds. So, Jane, I truncated your personal bio it incredibly because I was hoping that you could start us off today by explaining and further elaborating about your Vegan journey, which I know from your Web site and researching your information started in early adolescence. Can you share that story with us? [00:03:55] Sure. As a teenager, I wanted to I I knew firsthand about animal slaughter and I wanted to get away from eating meat. And I told my parents I would like to stop eating meat. And they said, you can't because you will die. And they were you know, they weren't lying. They just honestly believe that. And I learned that I could and I tried and I became a vegetarian. And then later on, I became a beacon. The path Vegan was about. It was about maturing and health levels being not as good as they could be. And it was about learning, about factory farming and my. And then the environment and my convictions just led me to become a big. And after that, I, I got more and more into health. As time went on, took the nutrition class, I am plant based Whole Foods, which means that I. Use primarily Whole Foods. My cooking. I don't use any oil. [00:05:12] And I am low fat and I have low fat because not that nutrition things. That's exactly where to be nowadays. But I am low fat because that per count per calorie is twice the amount of calories is carbohydrates and protein. And that way I can eat more. I'm not a portion control person. [00:05:34] I love food. I love to eat. I'm a foodie. I like to explore recipes. That's how I create them. [00:05:41] And at the same time, I want to be mindful of health. [00:05:45] Yeah. And I think a lot of I've spoken well, the majority of people I've had on this particular podcast are not portion control fans. If you write a lot of people who practice veganism, it may be a byproduct of not needing to unless you're more of a junk food vegan as the term goes. [00:06:04] But it does seem to be a common thread among this industry that you've kind of sussed out, which is people they want to really engage with their food and in abundance, in color amount and things of that nature. And you've kind of dropped this into a really great area now at two defining terms. And I think this is really important to do with all vegans among each other, because it's important to know what we're all talking about when we use the words Vegan plant based. You also mentioned Whole Foods, which I would love for you to kind of define for everyone listening as what these terms mean to you. So when you speak about Vegan and plant based, what do those terms mean to each other and on their own? [00:06:47] OK, v n is a general term that people like to reserve for. I am in it for animal rights and animal advocacy as. And I will be anything as long as it does not come from that in any way, shape or form. And plant based means that it's health care, that you're not only a beacon, but you are also concerned about health. And so generally, when people say plant based, that's what they need, at least in this country. I think it's used a little bit differently abroad. [00:07:29] Absolutely. How do you define Whole Foods? I think that's one for a lot of people who are not kind of up to current term terminal. [00:07:38] Right thing can be seen as a whole food. How do you personally define it? [00:07:42] When something is highly refined, when it's processed, it basically does things like turn to sugar right away in our body when food is whole. It has fiber and fiber is very important because fiber helps to satiate us and makes us satisfied with our food, which is what you want to be if you don't want to over eat. And it helps regulate blood sugar and does a lot of good things. So generally, Whole Foods is foods that contains fiber. [00:08:15] And so it might be whole week as opposed to white flour, whole grain, as opposed to processed grains. [00:08:28] And goes on from there. The way you're describing it, is it kind of as close to its natural form as one can get? Because it is. It is as close to its natural form. But make no mistake, I'm cooking. So cooking is, in a way, a process itself. [00:08:48] And so is putting stuff in the blender, which sometimes is not a good idea nutritionally. And some buns. It is a good idea. But yes. So it is close to the natural thing. But but, you know, I'm not going outside picking something and just eating that way. I for more or less doing something with it. [00:09:09] And then you get into the wrong conversation and things like that. I think it is you do that cooking in itself is a process and you're processing the food with that. [00:09:17] Right. I'd argue that Raul also can be a process because if you marinate something for a long time, you're also changing the chemistry. But OK. [00:09:25] Yeah. Yeah. And Sitrick, I mean, if you're you know, you can cook things without any heat. Right. You cook them with citric acid and things like that. I love getting into the minutia. It's so fun. I'm wondering you, before we start unpacking your site, you have this overarching emphasis that started out as it was kind of narrated by your personal story, where it was an analysis of fat. [00:09:49] And as you mentioned before, looking at the calories in fat and plug and cultivate and curate your recipes through this. It's you very much so, you know, upfront with all of your recipes, our calories from fat. And I mean, you can first start off by explaining to us if you differentiate between different fats. Which ones are good for you? And under your umbrella. Which ones are bad? Do you have any of those lists? And how do they make sense to you? [00:10:20] So the fats I use are not really added fats. They're the natural fats in the food. [00:10:27] So I don't use any oils, whether they're unsaturated, modern, monounsaturated, poly saturated or or saturated. But certain foods that we become a very good few, like avocados, have a little bit of saturated fat. [00:10:46] So it will eat some comes into their. [00:10:53] And my concept is that if people want, they really only have to use at that. Look at that fat number to get an indication of of how much one can eat of it, to get indication of quantity. Because if you are a tall male, you can eat a heck of a lot if you're a small female like me. You can not eat a heck of a lot. [00:11:21] And even though I don't do portion control, you know, there are better choices and worse choices. So the lower the fat, usually, the better it is for weight loss. But having said that, coming going forward, I've discovered that there are these personal nutrition apps that some people like to use. I'm going to be putting up on my Web site over the next couple of weeks some additional numbers so that if people want to use those personal apps to track their calories or nutritional values, they will be able to. So it won't be the only number in the future. But it's a number that I go. [00:11:55] Nice. Yeah, absolutely. Let's get into it now. Let's unpack. Vegan Vegan and under control dot com. First of all, the name. Where did the name come from. I love it. Vegan and under. [00:12:09] Thank you. The cake. [00:12:11] The name came from the fact that I have a very talented niece in advertising who some brainstorming with me and worked out what would be the best thing to use. And that's how it came about. [00:12:25] It's great. [00:12:25] I think a lot of I love plays on common perception and I think one of the most common perceptions that anyone who's been Vegan and have the pleasure of running into people who aren't and maybe not as red in as what the Vegan environment is, is that it's a hyper militant out of control philosophy and the people involved in it are terrifyingly no. [00:12:48] And I think it is the opposite. It's very much in control. But some people say to me, well, whose control do you want me to be under? And the answer is your own. So your body is your body if you want to control your own destiny and your own fate and your own body. [00:13:06] Absolutely. So we if you enter the site, if you if you the landing page, you're immediately kind of confronted with, you know, a lot of your core tenants in this. This great visual display. [00:13:17] One of the things that you have is you've got these recipes. And I first want to claim to that before we get into the classes that you offer. And I'm always curious, when someone is a chef and cooking Vegan foods and developing Vegan recipes and sharing them. My first question is, what is your curation process like? How do you decide what goes up and what doesn't make it onto the site to share with your audience? [00:13:44] I just went through and I tried to. [00:13:49] Avoid recipes that would be a lot of other recipes to work on. [00:13:55] But I basically just picked a few of my favorite. A few of the things that I think that people would look at and say, wait, how could that be dietetic? That sounds really good. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to say to people that it isn't dietetic in the old fashioned sense of the word. It is something delicious that you eat because you want to respect your body. [00:14:22] Yeah, I like it because I think that what you just said is is really true. I was looking on in the hearts of Palm Caprice. That was just on very close to the top. And I hadn't really it's a return to a lot of classics that just kind of read. [00:14:36] I think regardless of how long you've been Vegan or not Vegan, you can kind of lose inspiration or sight and start cooking the same things over and over again, particularly if you're satisfying more palates in just a couple in the house, like myself and I, you know, reintroducing ideas of, you know, a caprices or brussel sprouts or you had one on grilled zucchini that inspired me when I was researching you to up and grill some zucchini on the barbecue, of course. Those are beautiful things, you know. And so I think that it's not just the simplicity of the recipes, which I love not only for re inspiration for vegans, but also this, you know, mild conversion, which you speak to on your site, where people who are not being can kind of say that's enjoyable. That's really nice. I'd like to, you know, endeavor in that. So I'm a big fan of small processes and like you said, recipes that don't require other recipes. Right. Clearly, when trying to reach the masses, you know, and things of that nature. Do you have audience? Right. And do you take suggestions from pupils that you have in your classes or other people about recipes? They'd like to be seen as Vegan ised switched from non Vegan to a Vegan format. [00:15:52] I sometimes have that kind of welcome ideas because it's fun to pick things that people want and like. So I encourage people to give me feedback. And I've designed a few recipes for a few different people in a few different events and it's been kind of fun. [00:16:11] I have this tofu benedek thing that I did once or as a brunch request and it's one of my favorite to help. [00:16:22] Yeah, it sounds beautiful. I'll have to take a look at it. I want to turn now to your cooking classes. This is something that may have changed with them latter day events of the Cauvin 19 pandemic. However, I'm curious to see if you've pivoted or so the cooking classes. Did they take place in person or online? You have to cooking them. And so I. I've never done any online. [00:16:45] I've been I've been a little bit camera shy, I confess, but I'm getting there. I've made one video, which is not up any place at this point in time. So everything that I've done is in person. And you're right, I cannot at this in this climate, you know, I have no way of doing that type of thing. So what I pivoted to is enriching myself. I take more nutrition. That's what I'm doing. [00:17:18] Fantastic. That sounds wonderful. I think that cooking classes could very, you know, seamlessly be transition to online and then just service as a package. It can also help with people's schedules. You know, I hear there's an accommodation that happens, I suppose. And I know that you lose some of the interpersonal when it's not live, but sometimes it's like those. [00:17:39] I want to look at your past cooking classes because I have questions regarding this. And we had a lot of people write in. So this will be mixed in with our audience members that wanted me to ask Vegan chefs that gave instruction and things of that nature. What are some of the top misperceptions that a lot of people who are coming to your classes had in regards to Vegan cooking that you kind of saw be unfolded? [00:18:04] Well, I think that I've had a lot of non Bekins being introduced to my food. [00:18:12] So I I think that they kind of didn't really, you know, know what it would take to cope or what it would take to make something taste good. [00:18:29] And I'd like to think that they were surprised that that it comes together so, so well. I mean, it is not the same as a carnivorous type of diet. It's in terms of preparation. [00:18:42] But that things can be managed really, you know, with things like putting something in2 in electric pressure cooker and being able to turn it on whenever you want to turn it on and making a meal happen. [00:18:59] Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of tools like that that I think that bring about this organic moment. It turns people away from the pantries and cans and things like that and really makes for me my insta pot. This, you know, pressurized pot cooker opened up the entire world. I haven't bought a can of beans or dried peas or legumes or things of that. [00:19:21] Absolutely. Five years of experiencing that. It tastes better that way, too, doesn't it? Particularly chickpeas. [00:19:28] So, yeah, I just had some last night and it's so the process I've taught my eleven year old, you know, how to do it. It's so simple. The amount of chopping up an onion and quickly starting it and throwing in some spices and then the water and the beans and letting it go. [00:19:45] It's surreal how quickly it can become a stew or just beans or it would never occur to me to go back to cans because it's faster than actually going out and purchasing the cans. And you're right, the taste with the lack of sodium. We had a lot of people right in asking about cooking oil. Asli and I haven't been able to ask a lot of guests about that because I have had and haven't had a lot of Vegan guests that have gotten into this oil free cooking. [00:20:09] And I love the idea of it. I have to say, I was new to the concept as of last year. [00:20:17] You know, it didn't even occur to me that you could satay an onion and a little bit of water. And why couldn't you? You know, this idea that you have olive oil was silly. If you think about it. But we have to kind of get down to questioning all basics. Do you have oil substitutes or how are you, sir? Taking things when things people naturally think of oil, they're thinking of that you need the vehicle of the fat or something like that. What do you substitute with? [00:20:43] Well, food will taste totally bad if it has no fat, but there are natural fats in many foods. So most of my recipes contain some items that have higher fat than other items do and taken altogether. They just work sorting itself. You can do braw or you can do water, and that works out very well. [00:21:08] I think the areas that I tend to add a substitute for oil is for a recipe like a salad dressing. So last night I made a salad dressing and instead of oil I formulated using some water and some brown chive seeds. And depending on the recipe, I might use something like flax, which is even, you know, a higher pack type of thing. But sometimes you'll taste it. You use different types of seeds or whatever. That pretty much makes. A moist paper. [00:21:43] Absolutely. And you're right. I hadn't thought about beans and things of that. I was the person putting in for no apparent reason. Like four tablespoons of olive oil when I was doing my cook, my pressurized cook of dried beans. [00:21:56] You know, can I removed it? There was no missing it except for the four areas that it lacked. That's it. It's a lesson in kind of subtracting. [00:22:08] You know, we frequently even I think as vegans have these extra added ingredients that it's like, do you need all of that? Like, you know, like, let's say tracting and kind of honing into the classical French flavoring where it's like, you know, these singular pillars that you want to taste. Salad dressing is a good one because it's one that kind of boggles my mind as well. So you mentioning this cheese seed and water moment and as well as the broth? You know, I think broth is another thing that I always I create batches of it when I cook in my pressure pot. The electric ice pie and say, you know, you cook this vegetable stew, but then you extract all of this wonderful broth that you can satay with and perhaps make a salad dressing as you're munching. I hadn't even brainstormed that. So I'm learning something new and wondering, is it difficult to show people how when you're doing your cooking classes, is it difficult to kind of instill the idea of no animal products? Or does the switch happen quite quickly for them when they're non vegans? Do they kind of think, oh, yeah, there's a whole world out there that can substitute in? [00:23:15] I think that I have a lot of people that are still flexitarian. And that's OK. [00:23:22] I want them I want them to get used to it as much as possible, because that's a transition point. I think everybody transitions in their own way. [00:23:33] And there is no you know, there's no telling other people. So. [00:23:42] I think they get used to how to how to cook Vegan in this way. [00:23:50] Yeah. When you started your focus on looking at calories coming from fat, you know, and this kind of being a lens that you looked at. Most recipes that you're doing through, was it through a personal desire? Was it about weight loss? Was it about heart health? What was the motivation for that? [00:24:08] I had I had heard it. [00:24:11] I had I had seen the work of Dr. Esselstyn and Dr. Kim. And they are of the no oil school. And I seen it work for people. And I knew it was healthier. And I had tried it and I had lost some weight. But I didn't want to embrace it because I was used to my oil. So I went back to my oil and the weight crept back on and I said, wow, this really does work. [00:24:47] This one difference is so huge in whether or not I gain weight or not. And so I just said, OK, I'm going to formulate it that way. And then I found that you go overboard with nuts. And I know cashew nuts are our basis for a lot of different sources of mayonnaise, again, all different types of things. And so I you know, I didn't particularly like that. [00:25:15] But then when I learned how to balance it all and use a nutrition program, everything fell into place as far as making any recipe work. So I basically create them on a nutrition program. [00:25:28] And that's the key, I think a lot of your recipes and. I would think perhaps easy and seamless for you now, but I'm doing that dance between simplicity of ingredients, paint, being very, very cognizant of fat content from cow calorie content, from fat. [00:25:46] All of the things that you're paying attention to and keeping the, you know, the ingredient list. Very concise and things like that. From the recipes on your site that I've seen, it's it's a beautiful dance, you know. And really keeping that algorithm. Thank you. Place. Absolutely. I'm wondering, you've got resources on your site and one of them is about blood tests and interpreting them. Have you created that yourself? And can you talk a little bit about how you've looked at blood tests to incorporate? [00:26:11] You know, I didn't create that myself. That refers to Dr. Clapper's work. [00:26:17] And so I felt a need at one point in time to understand blood tests. And I said, what a great consumer vehicle. For me, this is all about consumerism. So I want to present to people things that make a difference and that teach people. How to empower themselves with taking care of their health. [00:26:41] And so I came across that video and a presentation by him actually saw in person at first and decided it was worth putting on there. [00:26:55] Absolutely. It seems like another attachment that you have is the brain and ideas of Alzheimer's with the Alzheimer Solution book. And I'm wondering if you like myself. There's there's incredible connection between heart disease and dementia and Alzheimer's causing things. [00:27:13] And these are paid attention to by people like Dr. Joel Kahn, who is, you know, very he's a I think, one of the fly in the nation. I've been a Vegan that are very much so considering Fat End and the Vegan diet as part of these massive contributors to heart disease. But what's interesting for me is there's always a marriage between heart disease and then, ah, Alzheimer's later or early onset dementia, things like that. Have you yourself done studies towards that? Was that part of your inclination of reaching away from oils or was it mainly the physical basis? [00:27:49] It was mainly the physical basis for me. But I have to add to that is that I have family members who have been so afflicted. [00:27:59] And it's I can tell you that I had no influence on changing anybody else's diet in that respect and that the fact that diet and keep one's vascular system intact can help that type of thing is an amazing gift. And I wish that more people knew about that and were inclined to do it. Yeah. [00:28:26] Yes, absolutely. I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts that you can share with us today regarding the covered 19 pandemic? And you're in dire endeavors to have this Vegan diet and kind of share your information on the Vegan cooking realm. Do you have a conversation that you've had with yourself about the covered 19 pandemic and the intersection between that and veganism or not so much? [00:28:50] I, I have read other people's work, which it said that. [00:28:56] Our immune system is strengthened through our diets, and I am happy to hear that. What is particularly alarming to me is that this whole thing may very well have been caused by a wet market and animal treatment and that if people didn't eat the way that they did, maybe this virus would not have happened in the first place, you know? [00:29:24] And, you know, if there is humanity, there is how we care for our fellow creatures. [00:29:31] And it would be a lot better of a world if we were all what we want to be. [00:29:36] Yeah. Very, very interesting thought. I was ruminating with a guess not too long ago who was talking to me. [00:29:46] And he said, you know, listen, it's my firm belief that in a decade or two, our grandchildren are going to look at us and say, did you really, like, continue eating animals? Like, did you continue living in this cave person like manner in 2020? And that even after the pandemic, even after it threatened to wipe out civilization and cause a whole new legs, you know, all of these warning signs. I just I feel like I can already hear the narrative coming through in my just being like, I. I don't know why we kept doing it, you know? If anything else, the food is such an attachment. [00:30:22] If there's anything that proves the emotional attachment to the cultural of food, it's it's things like this because if it were hairspray, that would be off the market in the hot second. Right now, every dog would say we're not using that kind anymore. It's we don't need it that much. We will switch formats, you know. [00:30:41] But digging your heels in and even if the wet market, you know, I don't believe it's been definitive and proven. I personally believe it probably had something to do with it and things of that nature. [00:30:52] I stay away from conspiracy, but I know that everything has an origin. And for that purpose, I simply want to learn of the origin to help prevent things like that from happening again. And if there's a play that, you know, it's e consumption of animals is dealing with future pandemics. The idea that we would not entertain switching when we have such amazing universes of alternative foods and beyond Bergrin for those hard core cattle raising people that just need that meat flavor. I think we've nailed it. You know, I think we have it. There's food. There's meat alternatives. It tastes so much like meat. I don't prefer them, you know. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that we have these ideas and I agree with you. And to that end, I wanted to ask you, because you've been so candid, where for you do you see the future of Vegan eating going? [00:31:45] Do you do you have an idea? Do you suspect, given what's happening, where people are headed with it? Do you see an opening, a continuing opening? What do you see happening there? [00:31:55] I see the Vegan world as being a large world with different groups of people doing different things. [00:32:03] I think you're you're gonna have your people hoard junk food because you're going to have your health minded people and you're going to have your super health with people. [00:32:16] I mean, you have a lot more restaurants that are opening up with different type of things. And I love it. Being a Mexican is one of my favorite. And I see I see a whole lot of differences in in the Vegan world as far as how we cook. But I think there is a place for what I do and there is a place for the way other people might like. [00:32:42] Absolutely. I agree. Well, Jane, we are all out of time today, but I wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us. I know that this is not your favorite format being on video and you took the time to do everything. [00:32:55] I really do appreciate you unpacking all of the work that you do on your Web site and all of the information that you have. [00:33:01] Thank you very much. I appreciate this interview and I appreciate all the work you put into it and getting to know who I was and the questions that you been back look at. Thank you very much. It was our pleasure. It's my pleasure. And for all of you listening, we've been speaking with Jane Buscemi. She's a certified plant based nutritional nutritionist and founder of Vegan Under Control. You can find out more on w w w dot Vegan and under control dot com. Thank you for giving you us your time today. And until we speak again next time, remember to stay safe, eat clean and responsibly and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am chatting with Crystal Bonnet. Crystal is an International Raw Food Chef, Instructor and Cookbook Author. Her culinary passion started with living, plant-based food in her own kitchen which led her to train at industry leading culinary schools: PlantLab (formerly Matthew Kenney), and Pure Joy Academy. Key points addressed were  Crystal’s training as a Raw Food Chef and how her work seeks to incorporate aspects she found missing in her own culinary education in her work with RAW food development and businesses that deal with RAW foods.We also discussed both of her e-books as well as her in-depth online raw desserts course

Today I am talking with Sharon Palmer. Known as The Plant-Powered Dietitian, Sharon has established an award-winning career in the field of nutrition and sustainability. One of the most widely recognized registered dietitians in the world, Sharon is an accomplished writer, editor, blogger, author, speaker, and media expert. In particular, she has gained recognition for her expertise in plant-based nutrition and sustainability.  Key points addressed were  Sharon’s prolific writing career with over 1000 articles in publications like Oprah Magazine, the LA Times, and Better Homes and GardensWe also discussed Sharon’s prolific blog with over 400K members and she curates the content for that platform in dealing with subjects that revolve around plant-based and vegan diets and cooking

Today I am speaking with Lindsay Rubin. Lindsay is the Vice President at v-dog, a San Francisco-based vegan dog food company. Forever obsessed with animals, she ran her own dog sitting business in high school and went on to college where she became vegetarian. After learning about the dairy and egg industries, she went vegan and became an animal rights activist. In 2013, she met Dave, the late founder of v-dog, and started working with the company as the first full-time employee. Fast forward to the present, Lindsay is proud to help lead v-dog - the current largest ethical, vegan business in the pet food space. Key points addressed were  V-Dog’s history and presence as the largest ethical vegan business in pet food industryWe also discussed many myths and unknown aspects of Dog’s and their propensity and proclivity toward loving a vegan diet.

Today I am chatting with Penelope Fry. Penelope is the international consultant and vegan market expert founder of vegan marketing agency jacoi.com and manager of sites like veganireland.org, where she helps people work and do business in the plant-based market. At home, she loves vegan market statistics, bicycles, vegan junk food, and cat memes. Key points addressed were  Penelope’s extensive expertise and advice therein regarding company’s incorporating vegan aspects into their curriculumWe also discussed the rapidly changing global ethos regarding vegan products, companies, and financial markets TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with international consultant and Vegan market expert Penelope Fry. Key points addressed where Penelope's extensive expertize and advice there in regarding companies incorporating Vegan aspects into their curriculum. We also discuss the rapidly changing global ethos regarding Vegan products, companies and financial markets. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Penelope Fry. [00:00:33] My name is Patricia Kathleen. And this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen Dot, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:29] Hi, everyone, welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I'm delighted to be sitting down with Penelope Fry. Penelope is an international consultant and Vegan market expert. You can find out more about everything Penelope is involved in, as well as everything we talk about today on her company Web site, decoy dot com. That is Jayce. Oh, I dot com. Welcome, Penelope. [00:01:51] I'm very happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. [00:01:55] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, I will read a brief bio on Penelope. But prior to getting to that. A quick roadmap for today's podcast. You can find follow the trajectory and the line in which our inquiry will be based out of. We will first have Penelope unpack her personal story and narrative as it relates to veganism. And then we'll look at Chicoy and the efforts and endeavors that Penelope involves in the Vegan efforts within that. We'll also look at the consulting and different narratives that Penelope. Techniques and things like that that she has involved in in her Vegan life. We'll wrap everything up with looking at some of the ethos of what Dacoit is, as well as where Penelope is headed with her future endeavors and goals. [00:02:38] And then we'll wrap the entire podcast up with rapid fire questions that we have pulled from people who have been listening in our audience and submitted to our website regarding questions of one inquiry with her area of expertize. As promised, a really quick background and bio on pilot Penelope. Penelope Fry is the Internation International consultant and Vegan market expert, founder of Vegan marketing agency Chicoy AECOM and manager of sites like Vegan Ireland dot org, where she helps people work and do business in the plant based market at home. She loves Vegan market statistics, bicycle's Vegan junk food and cat names. So Penelope and I know you function in a lot of different areas and I kind of want to have you unpack that for everyone listening, because I know you you kind of get around the globe, so to speak. And so I'm hoping you can kind of draw us a picture of your platform or your personal Vegan story comes from and kind of all the different areas that you're working in right now. Before we unpack, Chicoy, Acom. [00:03:39] Sure, no problem. I started my life in Australia and my family is split between the UK and Australia. So. I basically started in the beef capital of Australia, of all places, which is a small town called Rockhampton. From there, I've managed to have some great opportunities through a couple of university degrees and then into consulting work, which was largely soul destroying standard corporate consulting work. And from there, I've established a very large network, both professionally and socially within the Vegan scene and the broader plant based scene. And I had the opportunity to bring these two together. And so it's been a fantastic journey from the beef capital of Australia. Now to the Middle East, where I'm sitting today stuck with Cober 90. And yeah. And and the UK as well. So it's essentially. For me, Chicoy is quite simple. It's as we as we said, it's helping people work and do business in the Vegan market. My focus is really quite straightforward. I work with teams on copywriting web page development, market research, confidential surveys as well, and general content development aligned with business strategy in terms of my origins in the Vegan lifestyle. I started off looking after ducklings, of all things, my friends. My friends are given ducklings by their father. And. We raised them as children together for a year, and then my my father, my friend's father killed the ducks and served them to us for Christmas lunch, and the poor chap stood there completely confused by the fact we were sitting around the table crying together, rather rather upset because we'd really bonded with these lovely, friendly little souls that would greet us in the garden as we came home. Go. And from there, I went to visit a friend's house and they had a cattle station. And I witnessed some really dreadful animal cruelty when I was helping mustering on horseback, and I had sort of made the decision I didn't want to eat duck. And then I I made the decision. I just want to eat beef anymore. And I had no idea that a vegetarian or a vegan even existed until my tastes. But I just knew that I I was I was really uncomfortable with the way that we were treating other sentient beings. Then through my environmental science degree, which is my first degree, I learned about fisheries economics and the impact on the Great Barrier Reef, which is adjacent to the town of Rockhampton. And I moved into capital city life and big city life. And I met other people who shared my values and I learned about vegetarianism at first. And then, yeah, I had the opportunity to go vegan around the time they were inventing the very first soy based ice cream, which really wasn't. It wasn't all that great, but it was just enough to be the final gift for me. And I haven't looked back. [00:07:49] Yeah, I have to say, the advent, I say this a lot. And I'm sure the audience is tired of hearing me say it. [00:07:55] But I feel like even in the past five years, Vegan substitutes for other articles, not just meat. I never preferred the taste of meat as a child. So that wasn't difficult. [00:08:05] But cheeses and things like that that I think Greece nailed about 10 years ago. It just took forever to come over to the states. But ice cream and things of that nature, you know, they've in the past five years just leaps and bounds from what it was, say, 10 years ago. [00:08:21] So I feel your pain and remembering the beginning versions of that thing. Kind of a weird consistency in flavor. I'm curious with you personally, how do you feel about cooking and Vegan food? You've called yourself a kind of a junk food vegan. How can you explain a little bit more about Stree with that? [00:08:45] Yes, absolutely. A junk food vegan. And I'm a very lazy B into. It's terrible to admit it that I really have to earn it. [00:08:56] My friends are fantastic cooks and I have a reputation for the worst meal at the potluck lunch when we have our own get togethers. But I continue to have enthusiasm in my cooking, much to everybody's dismay when I go out. That's when I get to really enjoy great Vegan food. [00:09:22] So I'm willing to spend good money for parties satisfying tasty, incredible food that I can't get at heart. And there's so much more to the vegan lifestyle than, you know, than food, obviously. [00:09:39] But when you're cooking, isn't that flash? You really appreciate a really great meal, especially if it's a greasy breakfast. It's just fantastic. [00:09:53] Absolutely. And it's I mean, it's kind of you know, you've talked about how it's the impetus for you kind of climbing into Chicoy. I think that Jacoway is well, and I'm not sure we will get into when it was launched and things of that nature and how long you've been around. [00:10:08] But I feel like now is the time for companies like yours and Dacoit. You know, this idea of you talked about how, you know, Vegan already Vegan companies are obviously welcome, but you also have this endeavor to kind of help, you know, persuade current companies swopping in Vegan alternatives for products that they have. Can we climb into you like at this point? When was Decoy launched and what was the impetus for you starting it? [00:10:35] Officially, it started just at the start of last year. So. My background is in international consulting, and I've dealt with both Vegan and non Vegan businesses and products. And it was, as I said before, it was really quite soul destroying to to work on on projects that weren't aligned with my values. So I saw an opportunity to sort of bring discipline into my own side, hustle activities and just rule out working with with people and on projects that I didn't feel comfortable with. So out of that sort of those a couple of years where I was integrating some of those side hustle activities and also my in my professional life and that I formalized Chicoy at the start of last year. And it's it's been fantastic to have support and to have fabulous people working with me on the journey. And now was covered 19, unfortunately, but also fortunately, there's been a really great opportunity to bring talent into the Vegan market as people have unfortunately lost their their core roles and they've pivoted to their side hustle. So we have fantastic Web developers and other talented people now really throwing that their energy into work that they love. And we've we've had some good opportunities associated with that. Also, the demand for Vegan products and services has has shocked everybody. There's been a huge growth in especially plant based protein alternatives, meat alternatives. It's it's just incredible. And that's we could talk a little bit more about that later. [00:12:43] Well, there is. And that was building. It's interesting. [00:12:46] And the pandemic, you know, has had a narrative all unto itself, of course, but it was building, especially in other markets. I've just kind of started learning about. I was in Australia actually, when the pandemic and the shelter in place order was put into place. And I was kind of covering more about the Vegan enterprise there as Visit Ireland yearly. And so I'm very well aware of how that scene has eventuated there. But there are different parts in Europe. You know, Europe as well. For myself, being from the states, it's smaller per country, but it has its own theme is particularly when it comes to things like that are so culturally integrated as veganism, but within that, within the economy of each country, I think it's been received very differently as well. But in the States, you know, you had beyond burger and be impossible burger beyond meat. All of these things starting to gain a lot of financial viability and become very lucrative. And then that was affecting things and then the pandemic hit. And I think that that really satiated. You know, we also had the documentaries that came out. Yes. Finding people to have reexamined their dialog with their diet, you know, as it related to the environment, as it related to sustainability. In addition to health and Lenz's, I think that we're already being applied. But that's why I was curious, because it seems like it was auspicious for you to launch Chicoy right. During this time period because you couldn't have known, you know, Kovac was coming out and no one could. And are treacherous nature that would take place. But also this kind of this force of nature to have. You know, most people on this globe reexamined their relationship with food and its origins and what we're doing. And so I think that the economy, once it comes back, there will be a great deal of effort in the globe over towards looking at Vegan endeavors. And so when I looked at your company and dacoit, I thought, this is just fascinating. And I want you to kind of unpack what it is, what clientele, what is your profile of your client look like? Who are you helping and what kind of techniques? What endeavors are you doing with your efforts? [00:14:58] Oh, well, the average client at the moment is twofold. One is your your sort of small scale small business operator who's looking for practical help as they set up their their website or they try to upgrade their website. And we're talking about subscription packages for regular content where we can help them by understanding the message they'd like to give. And we'll research the key words and really understand how they can position themselves in relation to the competition. [00:15:40] And also in the face of the pressure of search engine optimization and all those sorts of practical aspects as well. And, you know, the role is really a doing role as much as an advising role. [00:15:54] At the end of the day, you have to actually create content that you can then market. If you don't have anything to say, you really you're invisible and you're not competitive. So part of my role is to work directly with the clients. I'm supported by freelancers and subcontractors. But I try to make sure that I do as much of the actual doing work. You know, the content development work myself. And also the other aspect is creating content that I'll use for affiliate marketing revenue and influence revenue for the businesses itself as well. And finally, although it's not necessarily profit driven, it's cost recovery driven. You know, I'm really keen to continue to work with people who are looking for work within roles that are aligned. And I could be compatible with with Vegan values because that's something that I struggled with for well over 15 years, you know, to have to do work that you're uncomfortable with. Inner and craving the ability to just work with people that you love, doing work that you feel right about and and just looking forward to each day. So we've got information available for job seekers. And I'm also actively working with job boards on a sort of cost recovery basis to help them promote and grow their services so that people who are looking for work that's aligned with big and values can find it. And likewise, people who are trying to recruit can find the knowledge and team members cost effectively without the sort of random lucky dip of the big search. [00:18:07] The big search engines in the job market, I think, is we start to become more aligned. [00:18:13] It is true. I you know, I think that when people endeavor to talk about veganism, they they define it in terms of one area or the caveat in which they were baptized. [00:18:24] So it's health or ethical or sustainability, environmental ism, things of that nature, morality. All of those. But what they quickly discover is that it's, you know, as the reason why the podcast is labeled Vegan life, you know, is because it's it becomes this environment. And I think this is such a clever way of looking at it. You're the first person I've spoken to the talks about these kinds of, you know, clauses that one wants to ascribe to the work that they're endeavoring in, you know, and likewise, a Vegan company wanting people that were, you know, aligned with those values as well makes a ton of sense. And I think that it's an area that people haven't really considered. I'm curious with your clients and where you see yourself, do you function in your in so many different environments, you know, across the globe? Do you find yourself functioning better with clients that are based in one country or another? Or do you truly feel it's like a global effort because things like MCO and that are global efforts? Or do you think that you you serve a client better to this point in a different country? [00:19:27] It's absolutely a global effort. I like like your work. You know, we really do have a it's a it's not necessarily an integrated market or an integrated community, but there are common themes. And we can take lessons that we learn from one country and and test them and experiment them with an experiment with them and learn from them to see if that might help somebody in another market. That's an opportunity for people to support each other without feeling threatened about competition. But it's also yeah, it's also an opportunity to sort of, I guess, learn and grow and compete because we are competing with the dairy industry who are doing very unhelpful, you know, advertising campaigns where we're seeing a lot of pushback associated with success when it when a small business starts to reach a point, which is this is the area I'm really interested in when it's starting to reach a point that they're getting traction, you can get pushback and it can become very difficult to step it up to the next level. You'll see everything from the David Young and the team that are doing Omni Polk, which launched in in Hong Kong technically. But it's a global prospect and they're fairly and squarely, squarely targeting something as ubiquitous as spam. [00:21:09] Like who would have thought you'd find a Vegan spam? That's ridiculous. [00:21:14] Yeah, it's it's a it's a really strange. It's a really strange market. I have a language barrier in that, you know, there is a lot of opportunity at the moment. [00:21:28] In Germany, for example, Google Trends statistics are going off at the right in terms of the intensity of interest in veganism in Germany, not just for recipes, but in terms of the the lifestyle. [00:21:46] And I'd love to get involved, but I'm unfortunately not multilingual. I speak a little bit of German in that respect. So, yeah, we're limited by our abilities, but I do see it as a completely integrated global market. Absolutely. [00:22:08] And mentioning Germany, we had a guest on not too long ago, a couple of weeks back, who is. In Burma, and I was saying, you know, it's it again, you know, you think you have an understanding of where veganism is. You know, Germany to Ireland is a couple states away, in my terminology, fee. And it's a completely different scene. And, you know, and it's it's this incredibly mainstream, the amount of restaurants, you know, it's just the fashion designers who are completely married to the vegan lifestyle just burgeoning in Germany is it's enthralling. [00:22:39] I myself just found myself dying to get over there. And, of course, you know, can't right now. [00:22:44] Terrible. [00:22:46] Yeah, it is a little heartbreaking. [00:22:49] I'm curious with you and your team, and as you kind of start to expand and look to the future, I'm wondering where we can all kind of see or guess or hope that, you know, this this wave building will begin to just kind of envelop and become so much more of a not just a more profound but more diversified, you know, conversation as it looks into veganism and the planet and all of these things that kind of get wrapped into that. Where do you personally on a business trend, do you see? Because it's starting to spike. You know, people would argue, at least economically, United States economy, that the funding alone for Vegan products and research and things of that nature has just skyrocketed to end. And that shit is paralleled all over the world to certain degrees. Do you own a business scale? Do you see it continuing to go up? Do you see it flattening out? What are your some of your predictions for that? [00:23:47] Well, twofold. Firstly, I think one of the biggest signals that we've seen has been associated with Carpet 19. I I've I'll be honest, I was completely shocked that, you know, meat alternatives like fresh meat alternatives grew at two hundred and seventy nine percent year on year in March this year, at a time when you'd expect people to suddenly be very price sensitive, hunk like bunkered down fresh chicken sales were up, but they're running up fifty one percent, for example. So you can't say that it was it was equivalent to people panic buying, you know, in a in a normal scale of a response. You know, there was there's been a real, really profound shift in consumption behaviors. So that I think signals a change in terms of price sensitivity in the future. And a lot of people complain about veganism not being possible because it's too expensive. You know, it's inconvenient. All of those excuses are starting to dry up because the large volume of activity right across everything from food to fashion to education. You know, prices are coming down and it's becoming more accessible for people to learn and and also to take on Vegan lifestyle choices. So with that, I do see some risks associated with profit margins reducing as as price competition starts to drive prices down. We are going to need to embrace people like me who are lazy. [00:25:45] Junk food pagan's. They've just want a really great meal. You know, after you finished the working day and you really can't be bothered making, you know, something incredible is made me. I want to go to bed. So, you know, it's it's. [00:26:09] A risk where profit margins could become a little bit tighter. It could become a little bit more competitive. But if you're in the supply space. So if you're the manufacturer of pineapple leather or you're the manufacturer of these inputs, you've got a bigger opportunity because they there are going to be more companies, manufacturing products that are big and friendly. There are going to be more consumers, obviously looking towards your types of products. So it really depends where you are, if you will. Customer facing. You're going to need to really be on the front foot to compete and to maintain your profit margins. That's why we stay pretty lean. We we expand and morph depending on the work coming in. Secondly, really want to move back into the supply chain so that you've got a good, steady stream of opportunity where it doesn't matter what type of bags in fashion next month you're providing the raw materials or some other value that will will carry through trends and changes over time. And internationally. So I think that's going to be that's going to be the most important aspect of the next probably two years. But you're right. Mean, you mentioned, was about interest and investment in this. You've seen the stock market changes. Obviously, everyone knows about the beyond meet listing. And there are other IPOs that have been brave enough to move forward during this period. But there really is an appetite for. Investing not only in the ETF and other financial products that align with the sector. I think that's lagging. So if people are working in finance or they're looking to raise funding, that could be an opportunity in the next two years as well. [00:28:21] Absolutely. And I know that there are funds in the United States that at least two that I know of and there's probably more but directly devoted, you know, to pennies. And I think we'll see a burgeoning with those funds as well, because there is obviously there is a market for it. You know, in scrap there's going to be money. If there's a market for it, there's going to be an investment. So and that will be exciting. I think that those will kind of start to define and hopefully change even that industry. We could use a serious tightening up and judging of the investment industry in general as this is a woman, I think we're highly underrepresented, you know, in a lot of those industries and a lot of things like veganism and even environmentalism, things haven't been really represented in areas like funds that they should be. [00:29:08] And I think it's just starting to take hold. So hopefully there's change. I'm wondering, it's when you speak about your clients and what you're doing and looking at the markets and you kind of allude to a lot of this education and it struck me looking at Dacoit, that a great deal of what you do as you encounter a new client. It sounds like there's a great deal of translation and education in regards to substituting out products and talking about buzz words and key terms. Is there any area? Do you have like a five pillar roadmap or a like a basic outline that you kind of use when you encounter new clients, where you educate them as to how to engage in a substitution of, you know, Vegan products or how to kind of make that transition? Or do you just use every client individually as they come and kind of do the narrative with them? [00:30:03] It's definitely a case of every client as they come. [00:30:06] But if you're looking in the food space, there is a traditional model called menu engineering, which is used both in the restaurant sector and also in food manufacturing, where you have a quadrant in terms of your your star products, your workhorses, your puzzles and your dogs. So there's a general model where you'll have and I love dogs. I don't know why they've called the terrible products dogs, but I love dogs. You'll have a workhorse which doesn't have a high profitability, but it has a really solid performance of pretty good sales. You'll have your stars, which are menu items or other products you offer that are really profitable and they're really popular as well. So you want to leave them to it. You can have puzzle's, which is sort of quite profitable, but not particularly popular. [00:31:16] And you might be able to judge or do something with those. But then you have in any set, they'll be part of the data that falls into. It's not really very profitable and you don't sell a lot of it. So those are the ones where we'll we'll talk the businesses and say. [00:31:36] That's pretty low risk if you're going just rather than take on the additional expense, risk and investment by adding Vegan products to your your offering. Why don't you just swap out a dog? It's a pretty low risk strategy. And it's also something that you can do in a systematic way to look at the what's a star and see whether or not something like that in a in a Vegan ised version could be brought in to give you another star and get rid of a dog. So that's kind of the general framework that we find applies pretty well to a lot of cases. But it honestly, it really does come down to the business itself and the competition that they're facing. So if you're looking at an opportunity, you're going to take one approach. But if you're looking to defend your business, you're definitely going to take another. [00:32:39] Do you ever bring in studies done? And if so, do you use global studies? [00:32:44] I mean, there's got to be data about, you know, using the restaurant model of, you know, people who are offering Vegan options and how successful those are as kind of this persuasion technique, or do you just kind of use it for whatever they are? Because food and particularly restaurant owners that I know of here, there is an emotional attachment that's to the, you know, millions level with them. And I think even Gordon Ramsay, people that go into, you know, on these public scales and kind of talk to people, you have these menus that don't make any sense. And they're there because it was what their mother made them when they were six, you know, and that's how on a more microscopic level, how we all, I think, come into this world knowing food. And the reanalysis of that is part of, I think, the Vegan journey. But do you personally use substitutions or studies done? And if so, are there a lot of studies done? How do you kind of help with the persuasion technique of swapping out a dog? Because dogs really shouldn't be on the menu. They're clearly there is some kind of an irreconcilable difference that, you know, the owner is having. What techniques do you use? [00:33:52] Essentially, your best friend is daughter in relation to reviews, for example. So, yes, we do find that there are there are a few surveys around, like there was a survey last year that looked at the issue of the impact of using the word Vegan versus plant based in food based products. And we know that, you know, statistically, you're you're going to have the better potential for the market to be receptive if you're using plant based. [00:34:30] But then are potentially you really still need to include Michigan in there somewhere? Because there's going to be people like you and me that go, really? Is it actually Vegan or you just saying plant based? And you know what's in there? [00:34:43] So the survey, I think you're right, there's there's a few studies. And by the time something gets into an academic paper or it makes it into a report published by a consultancy like those I used to work for. It's usually about a year, maybe a year and a half out of date anyway. Yeah, we prefer to actually look at the most recent activity that the business has experienced. Have a look at public reviews that are legitimate, but it reviews an activity of competitors and the business in the public domain and really look at search trends within the location itself. You know, using Google search data and those sorts of things to see what are people really interested in. Like, I don't know why, but for some reason, during Kofod 19, statistically, people across the world started getting really excited about Vegan banana bread. [00:35:44] I don't know what I'm missing. Maybe I need to learn the recipe, but it seems to be life changing if you're stuck at home. So, you know, if you're if you're if you have a cafe and people are starting to to be free to come in and engage with you again after social isolation, some of those comfort foods could be something that's quite attractive. If it has been very popular in the recipe search activity in your community. People like me might have searched for the recipe, tried to make Vegan banana banana bread and failed dismally. But we've still got a bit of a hankering for that sort of comfort food. [00:36:25] So if it comes down to the type of business that somebody is doing. You know, there's a big difference between people looking at investment products or fashion compared with food. But, you know, it really comes down to understanding. The how to define the market itself and then having a look at some sort of indicators of not only interest, but whether or not people are going to put their money where their mouth is, because we want. We want people to have a good a good experience. If you take. Somebody that has an emotional attachment to the menu with a business and they like reluctantly being dragged into this hole. All right. A bit a provide some sort of Vegan option. You want them to go wowsers like Greg's sausage rolls. [00:37:19] Greg Zaken, sausage rolls. You can imagine the skepticism initially and then it pretty much saved their save their cash flow at a critical time. And then all of a sudden. Oh, oh, yes. You know, we're gonna add this. We're gonna do this. And it adds momentum. And that makes me it just makes me feel great. Gennari that. If somebody is going to get a really good outcome from accommodating and embracing sort of Vegan requirements and really looking at those sort of supply chain opportunities, I really want them to be successful because I want to keep doing it. [00:38:03] I want to do it more and preferably shift all the way across it. [00:38:08] We have to take baby steps sometime. [00:38:10] Absolutely. And I think that it's, you know, the best form of persuasion is example and success, as you were mentioning prior to that, states, you know, a lot of fast food chains. [00:38:21] The majority of them have started offering a Vegan alternative, even ones like Kentucky Fried Chicken, that their entitlement was based on chicken. And they have this meat alternative now and it's economical for them. That's the most hysterical part. You know, I used to tell people for years who were just adamant about, you know, they just loved their burger or their sandwiches. You know, those are like 40 percent. So I already like them. They mix, they're like movie and they look it up and it's this daunting shock and awe. And I was like, you're paff Vegan already. Don't worry about it. Be there. But I do think that that helps persuade smaller models and things of that nature. And, you know, it's a win win. [00:38:59] I tried to explain to people, particularly in my humble way of educating, which is a far less refined than yourself, but it's hardly your podcasts are fantastic. [00:39:11] Oh, you're so kind. It's, I think saving the environment, saving money, saving your health. There's not one angle that being Vegan does not help, you know. And, um. And I think when you when that's introduced, it's it's kind of this. Why haven't we all been doing this? I was talking to a good friend and a colleague, a mentor of mine. And she said, you know, one day in the very near future, we're going to be turning to our grandchildren who looked at us and said, did you really eat meat ever? Like, when was that? OK, like, how was how were you sustaining that mental framework? And I thought, I guess it just doesn't make any sense when you play all of the mathematics out, the economy, the health, all of it is it answers to the one human condition that will outweigh that will start wars that will make us irrationally fall in love. And it's our own emotional attachment that we've put onto food. It's you know, it's a mother's kiss. It's all of these things that it's not just the burger, you know. And so. And realizing that, I think is the first step of unpacking it. And you you endeavoring to do that with clients is is definitely something that would get me out of bed in the morning. We are coming towards the end and we always honor our audience who reaches out to us. Penelope, we've had a bunch of people kind of want us to speak with these business advisor roles in regards to, you know, Vegan. We've had a lot of people write in with their own Vegan based endeavors. And so I'm going to just pradel off some of the questions and let you kind of give us your expertize on those in our Rapid Fire segment. [00:40:46] So the first day, I'll just brace myself. [00:40:51] Give it a whole bunch of. It's just more questions. I don't know. I love it. Let's do it. I want our audience to understand that we are hearing them because I think I've been so rewarded by having this interaction that I didn't know what we would have with podcasts. And so I love it. And I want people to know that I'm hearing them. And. And I definitely look at all the questions that come in. And I want to make sure that they get proffered to the right expert yourself today. We've had a lot of people writing about buzzwords and you just spoke about SVO and things like that. But people, they feel like they're reading this tightrope. We've talked about plant based versus Vegan. And and I didn't have you clarify those because I know that your expertize does that. And, you know, and like you said, plant based is not in for Vegan. It's this friendly term. But people are now using it that have non Vegan items. You know, it's supposed to infer health. As I understand it, it's the new way of saying, like fortified with vitamins. You know, it's the advertising industry has come in. And because of that, you can't really depend on it. However, it still has a lot of cachet with, you know, SVO and things of that nature. But we've had people write in and ask to ask you and your expertize about when you're navigating some of those terms. Do you have like the top five that you stay away from or a lot of people talked about? You know, I don't want to use Vegan, but I do. And, you know, they're talking about massaging it in and sandwiching it in with other terms. Do you have advice to people who are kind of looking for buzz words? I suppose that to stay away from or to navigate around. [00:42:26] Well, depends on on what the products are. So if you're dealing with makeup, for example, Vegan and cruelty free are real positives. You know, like get it up there in lights. [00:42:43] You know, the market responds really well, obviously. [00:42:48] If you're dealing with products like shoes and fashion plant based doesn't quite work because of exactly the points you made. I think you can really hit the nail on it. People do resident with plant based not only as a beacon indicator, but also in terms of nutritional health. So they get a little bit confused. And it not as powerful when you use it with with fashion and those sorts of accessories, those sorts of products. So in that sense, the phrase Vegan friendly does tend to it seems to work. And I think when you move into the food space in terms of this, there's a difference here. If you're looking at visual branding, the buzzwords you use in your your menus and your visual presence in terms of your your website content and your other collateral, you definitely want plant based in there. [00:43:58] Your food based business. But interestingly, when you actually crunch the numbers in terms of search activity, plant based is microscopic. So people are looking for plant based this. They'll just use the word Vegan. Know if you're. Yeah. In terms of your content ACOR and your inbound marketing type activity, you've really got to keep Vegan in the picture. So other aspects in terms of cruelty free, cruelty free can can pivot into a couple of different markets in terms of plant based. But it confuses people because they start thinking of humane meat. [00:44:49] Right. We all know is not cruelty free at all, ever. So it's it's ridiculous. But people start to get confused. So, you know, plant based in the forefront. [00:45:02] But Vegan as the the the sort of working the working keywords in the background is something you can use. And if you use it together, it's also quite powerful. [00:45:15] Yeah, we had an end to that. [00:45:17] And we also had like another flurry of questions around people worried about redundancy with advertising and marketing, because this is an area I think maybe vegans themselves are too educated on to understand. But I'll have you answer it because I definitely don't want to. And it's people talking about if they're using the word Vegan, do they need to say environmentally friendly? Because being Vegan as as we understand, you know, and using Vegan alternatives, these were largely people and they involved in the evolve erupting food scene here. Are people dealing with online a lot of people. Right. And who are these Vegan foods that they were selling online and bakeries and things like that? And they talked about ask. They want to know how much is too redundant. So saying, you know, cruelty free, Vegan environmentally friendly, like all of these different words. Would you advise that they use all of them or pull back because some infer the meaning of the others? [00:46:16] Oh, this one that differs depending on the country. And you touched on this earlier, you know that there are real differences in nuances between different cultures. The American markets very well educated. And so that could be potential for redundancy. But then they can also be the potential for backlash because environmentally friendly is is a term that you might want to use because of the comparable benefits of of veganism and Vegan supply chains for climate change and for other environmental factors. But if you're using insecticides and you're not an organic based product, then you can actually get backlash because it's all you say that you're environmentally friendly or eco friendly. But you know, the way that your product is being developed, you know, doesn't have this this this this little law issue here. That's that's. Yeah. Then something that's quite significant. So we have to respect that. People's interpretation of people's values differ. So there's a lot more complexity in the American market. I think in that space. And it really depends on what type of business, Syrian and landline you don't want to step on. If you're in the European market and Asia Pacific, eco friendly and environmentally friendly isn't redundant. There's definitely some different varieties in terms of people's choices, in terms of why they're choosing Vegan. We also have a spiritual dimension. In places like Israel and and other countries where we aren't adding Vegan enough to be able to have to help people who have Vegan diets associated with certain types of Catholicism and other religions. [00:48:22] You know, it's it's a spiritual practice as well. [00:48:25] So it is something that we should put front and center to help people. Even kosher, for example, people from the Middle East will try to go towards Vegan products in some cases when they travel to the West because they know they can avoid breaking their religious religious principles. [00:48:49] Just if I just know that it's Vegan, I've got no worries about, you know, issues associated with the way that the meat is butchered. Right. [00:48:57] So there's a really complex array of drivers, motivators and reactions that people have to these sorts of words across the world. But generally, if you try it first listen and then you respond more. Look, as I said before, this is where you're looking at people's reactions, reviews and discussions around your competitor's products and activities of your own. The case is really just to listen like you're doing to your your listeners at the moment. You're asking you're responding to their questions and bringing it into the conversation to see if you can unpack it and use that as you develop your content. Moving forward, it's a really good model. I think as an example of this. [00:49:46] Yeah, I agree. And I always overlook that, like Google Analytics. I mean, I think that really paying attention to, you know, what your trends are doing as you use different words. There are great testers, you know, particularly in times when focus groups don't really happen right now. And that definitely person. But, you know, like using those kinds of measurable data have been game changers for most American companies that I talk to, you know, models, people like Netflix who started off just mailing DVD to people. They have this room built in-house for focus groups in their headquarters because of the importance of how it developed that company, you know, and wanted to listen to their users. And so I think that's a key and a key concept that gets overlooked with a lot of business owners is really paying attention to your audience. I agree with you. [00:50:37] I didn't know that. That's a great example. I'm going to steal that Netflix example and have a look into it. Thank you. I have an up close and personal relationship with somebody who kind of was with Netflix before they became that, you know, the magnet that they are. And so it was great to watch that company kind of come into their own and really reach adulthood. I'm wondering. Not me. I'm sorry. We've had a lot of people write in regarding your personal elevator, elevator pitch or pitch dark or however that translates to your neck of the woods. [00:51:10] But when it comes to veganism, you know, this very kind of siccing, do you find yourself? Ever returning to these like five or six things that, you know, kind of tend to want to relate very, very quickly, either with clients or anyone else that you feel like really encompasses the importance of Vegan or anything like that. So a lot of people are just like, I want to know what someone who is advising people towards Vegan business. They're like quick and fast. You know, this these core tenants that you have that you kind of quickly try to communicate, you have anything like that in your lexicon. [00:51:47] Yeah, well, twofold to personally, a phrase I'll often uses, you know, if I can live well and have a really happy life while not hurting other people. Why would I. Know while not hurting others? And in terms of the business space, it's again, it's it's it's kind of related to that. It's it's like if you can if you can make great money in a way that's compassionate, then why wouldn't you? Yeah, and that's basically it. So I accidently turned a neighbor, Vegan. [00:52:27] I didn't realize until a couple of years later she said, do you seem to just be so happy about the new substitutes that you found? And you should pace things that I brought home in. And it seemed to be so. I always seem to be so relaxed and and at pace that she started looking into it herself. After I'd moved. Actually, and she got in contact with me and she'd been Vegan for about a year at that stage. And she was really happy. [00:53:03] Well done. That's a notch on your belt. [00:53:06] It made my day. It made my week. Absolutely. [00:53:10] Absolutely. Lead by example. I love. That's what I'm always telling my children. That's wonderful. Penelope, we're out of time. And I'm kind of bummed because it was a fascinating walk. And I know that our audience is really going to appreciate everything that you've shared with us today. All of your advice and expertize. I really do appreciate you giving me the time. [00:53:30] Thank you so much. It's been an absolute honor. Joining you on your podcast. Thank you very much. [00:53:35] And for everyone listening, we've been speaking with Penelope Fry. She's an international consultant and Vegan market expert. You can find out more about her consultancy as well as her company on their Web site, Chicoy dot com. That is JHC. Oh, I dot com. And thank you for giving us your time today. I appreciate you all so much. [00:53:55] And until we speak again next time, remember to stay safe, eat clean and responsibly and always better yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am talking with Sailesh Rao. Dr. Sailesh Rao is a Systems Engineer who worked on the Internet Infrastructure, Human, Earth and Animal Liberation (HEAL) activist, husband, dad and since 2010, a star-struck grandfather. He has promised his granddaughter, Kimaya, that the world will be largely Vegan before she turns 16 in 2026, so that people will stop eating her relatives, the animals. He has faith that humanity will transform to keep his pinky promise to Kimaya, not just for ethical reasons, but also out of sheer ecological necessity.  Key points addressed were  Dr. Rao’s extensive research regarding climate change and climate healing as they relate to animal agriculture and the future vegan worldWe also discussed Dr. Rao’s nonprofit called climate Healers and its key initiative called Vegan world 2026 in which a vegan world can be brought to light by engaging in a concept of a new Game or way of living and thinking called: Aquarius. Dr. Rao explains how Aquarius will endeavor to allow everyone to stay ecologically responsible and aware using the app climate healers is developingWe wrap up the chat with Dr. Rao explaining some core aspects of The White paper he authored in response to vegans’ desire for a document with the scientific data supporting the aspects that animal agriculture has in regards to climate change and the subsequent deterioration of the earth.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

Today I am speaking with Rosalind McCallard. Rosalind (Roz) McCallard founded Snackrilege in 2014 with her husband Clayton McCallard (their last name is a portmanteau of their birth surnames, Ballard and McCartney) with a love of heavy metal, puns, and the hope of making the vegan sandwich option the easiest, tastiest option.  Rosalind has been a vegetarian for over 30 years, and vegan consistently since 2008. Snackrilege has raised thousands of dollars for sanctuaries in the Portland area through parties, raffles, and fundraisers. Roz is an active member of the Main Street Alliance, and is currently a member of Commissioner Jo Anne Hardesty's Business Council. Roz and Clayton have both spoken at various VegFests and other events, and Roz has presented on councils, panels, and committees on her experience starting a business from the ground up. Snackrilege sandwiches are currently in stores in 5 states.  Snackrilege also operates the only 100% vegan commissary kitchen in Portland that provides affordable kitchen space to small vegan businesses with an emphasis on BIPOC and woman-owned companies.  Key points addressed were  The particulars of her vegan sandwich and snack company called snackrilege and the particulars of launching and growing a vegan food company over the past 6 yearsWe also discussed Rosalind’s personal vegan story and the Portland community she thrives in and contributes to This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

Chatting with Sonalie Figueiras. Serial social entrepreneur Sonalie is the founder & editor-in-chief of Green Queen, an award-winning impact media platform advocating for social & environmental change in Hong Kong with a mission to shift consumer behaviour through inspiring & empowering original content. She is also the founder & CEO of Ekowarehouse, the global sourcing platform for certified organic products, with a mission to make safe, quality food accessible & affordable for the whole planet. With over a decade of experience in publishing, digital marketing, organic trade and health & sustainability, she is an eco wellness industry veteran with a keen eye for market trends and a sought-after international speaker and moderator, sharing her expertise on stages across Asia and beyond, including TEDx and Harvard Business School. Key points addressed were  Sonalie’s immense impact media platform called Green Queen and how it has risen to be one of the most prominent media platforms for vegan issues in all of Asia.We also discussed Sonalie’s predictions as to where the vegan world is headed in the next 5 years and how she believes this pivotal time will not only reshape the worldwide economy but also require a mental adjustment for the current vegans in it This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

Today I am chatting with Chef Jennifer Markell. Jennifer is the creative mind behind the website and blog veganitreal.com and founder, owner and operator of Vegan It Real Personal Chef Services located in the Tampa Bay area. Since 2017 Jennifer has been standing at the forefront of the plant-based movement with a mission to “veganize” the planet, one meal at a time. As a certified holistic nutritionist and a certified plant-based chef, Jennifer embraces Hippocrates’ concept that “food is thy medicine and medicine is thy food.” She is driven by her passion to bring delicious and nutritious meals to hear clients’ tables along with the knowledge that real, whole food is good for the environment, the animal and your health! Key points addressed were  Jennifer’s education and certification regarding nutrition and plant based whole foods within the arenas of vegan diets, cooking, and healthWe also discussed Jennifer’s collaborative efforts via her services as well as her prediction as to where she thinks the plant based and vegan food scenes are headed in the next 5 years This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with chef, blogger, founder, owner and operator of Vegan, it real personal chef services Jennifer Markell. Key points addressed were Jennifer's education and certification regarding nutrition and plant based Whole Foods within the arenas of Vegan diets, cooking and health. We also discussed Jennifer's collaborative efforts via her services, as well as her prediction as to where she thinks the plant based in Vegan food scenes, are headed in the next five years. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Jennifer Markell. [00:00:41] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen Acom, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:38] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today I'm excited to be sitting down with Jennifer Markell. Jennifer is a chef, blogger, founder, owner and operator of Vegan Real Personal Chef Services. You can find out more on her Web site about herself, her services and everything we talk about today on her Web site. W w w dot Vegan it real dot com. That is BGA and i t r e l dot com. Welcome, Jennifer. [00:02:05] Hi. So happy. I'm so happy to be here. It's so great to be here. [00:02:09] Absolutely. I'm excited to climb through everything with you. I really love your web. I like the services that you offer. And I know our audience is really going to benefit from everything that we talk about today. For those of you listening, that might be news on this podcast. I will proffer a quick bio on Jennifer. But before we get to that, a roadmap for the line of inquiry, the trajectory that will that line of inquiry will go. We'll first look at Jennifer's academic and culinary nutritional background and training, and then we'll turn towards unpacking her personal Vegan story if it hasn't already been mentioned in the aforementioned. And then we'll unpack Vegan it real Web site, the services, info, education, collaboration, all of the kind of efforts that Jennifer has involved with that. Then we'll turn our efforts towards answering rapid fire questions. For those of you that are returning, these are questions that you have submitted to our Web site, w w w dot, Patricia, Kathleen, dot com and reached out. We always encourage our audience to ask questions based on any profession that we might run into if any of our series and we will get those up on air. And under that we will get to about seven to 10 rapid fire questions that some of you have for Vegan chefs and people in the Vegan food industry who wrap the entire podcast up with them. Thoughts that Jennifer has for things that may be on the horizon in the Vegan food scene and services and collaborative work in culinary enterprises and all that good stuff. [00:03:27] So, as promised, a quick bio on Jennifer. Chef Jennifer Markell is the creative mind behind the website and blog, Vegan it real and founder, owner and operator of Vegan it real personal chef services located in the Tampa Bay Area since 2017. Jennifer has been standing at the forefront of the plant based movement with a mission to organize the planet. One meal at a time. [00:03:51] As a certified holistic nutritionist and a certified plant based chef, Jennifer embraces Epocrates concept that food is a medicine and medicine is the food. She is driven by her passion to bring delicious and nutritious meals to her clients tables, along with the knowledge that real whole food is good for the environment, the animal and your health. So, Jennifer, I love, you know, a lot of your focus. I've looked through all a lot of your information across your social media accounts, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, on your Web site, of course. And you you really do hit that points hard. And so I'm really happy that it's in your bio, this kind of food, as they medicine, let it be as such. And before we climb into your Web site and some of the ethos and the philosophy behind it, I was hoping you could draw out a little bit further your academic and culinary and nutritional training that you've had that led you to launching Vegan. [00:04:44] Oh, sure. Sure. So it's really, you know, one of those stories where I had spent almost most of my adult life until almost middle age in the corporate world. [00:04:58] And after a horrible, you know, layoff in 2013, that was when I had an opportunity to reevaluate things and submerge myself into learning what it was. [00:05:12] That was going to be my next step in life, my next career. And I wasn't going settle. So what I did was I started doing my own research on food. I learned a lot about organic food. And it was solely just self driven research podcast and TED talks and working actually part time for an organic farmer. So just moving myself closer to the food food systems, food producers. And then in two thousand and eighteen, early 2018, when my mother became ill, very, quite ill. [00:05:55] I was really to the tipping point of deciding, you know, do I want to go back into the corporate world or really just take that leap of faith into my education and my knowledge and learning about food for medicine. So I enrolled in what I could at the time, what I was able to do for my work life balance. I was, you know, a mom of a mom of four kids, two of my own, two stepchildren. You know, I run a home and I had other part time work that I was doing so I couldn't just go and roll into, you know, the call the local college and become a full time student. And I couldn't go to culinary. Well, that was pretty much out of the question for me. So what I decided to do was investigate some holistic nutrition opportunities. There's a few out there and I enrolled in a six month training program that was fully online, a one on one coaching program through American fitness professionals and associates a f, p, a and graduated at top of the class for it with my holistic nutrition certification. So I really understood I had that piece, that credential to really tie food to the body. And I understood how food was both making a sick and healthy at the same time. But that wasn't enough for me. I knew that it worked well, but I really still only knew how to cook, you know, the vegetables that I was used to. And I really didn't know how to take advantage of all the great products out there. [00:07:36] So then I decided to get a little bit of culinary credential and again, did a lot of investigative research, talked to a lot of chefs out there. [00:07:46] What did they do? And again, knowing called actual culinary school was out of the question. I enrolled in Ruby R.O. you. It's so funny. Everybody thinks it's are you b y? But it's not. It's a French word. R o u x b e. And it was a Ruby International online culinary program and they had what was a very focused plant based culinary professional program. [00:08:11] And it's a six month self-paced program where you have access to actual chefs through an interactive program online. So I was able to take that six month program, graduate within four months and really have a really great understanding of not only how food is for your body, good for your body, but also how to actually make it taste good and try to work to convert some of those folks who think that tofu and kale are bad and disgusting. [00:08:46] So I really then I felt like, wow, I have a really good grasp on that knowledge. So, you know, it was important for me, even just when I was a blogger, but definitely when I was going into a culinary profession to have some kind of credential, I just didn't want I wanted to have that education. However, I could get it something that I could say, yes, I took the time to do that. And then just to kind of add on to that and we'll talk about the business in a minute. This year I went and received my certification as a food safety manager. [00:09:21] So funny enough, in January of this year, I learned all about cross contamination and food safety. And now, you know, I could technically go in and, you know, open a restaurant and be part of that food safety and security part of it, because I've been certified there, too. So education was really important to me and I couldn't go mainstream. So I kind of piecemealed my education. And to this day, I just just get involved in lots of different research and my own driven research and try to keep a very diverse and inclusive set of resources that I go to that are also unbiased. That's one thing I learned in my training. Follow the source of the funding. [00:10:07] Thanks. You know, I hope that answers your question. [00:10:10] I'm curious, given that you have this NFPA mixed with Ruby, you know, so from from a layperson's term, NFPA sounds kind of like the holistic dietary, you know, nutrient side of it. And the ruby sounds like it was teaching as flavor you flavors technique, how to bring in some of, you know, those aspects to your cooking. And in that sense, I'm curious which one leads Flagship to your recipe development? Do you first think about nutrition or do you first think about flavor? [00:10:41] OK. That's a great question and here's why. And here's why I developed Vegan it real and there's a story behind that. So I like to keep veganism real. So I, I started off really becoming focused on the nutrition and plant based piece of it. [00:10:59] But then I realized the way to people and the way to maybe transform people's lifestyles is to keep the food real. So I then started focusing on the flavor side of things and the Shefi side of me kind of came out and I, I wanted to play with the new products out there and I wanted to see if I could fool my friends or my family with, you know, the latest plant based sausage. And so that's where I kind of got away from that Whole Foods plant based. [00:11:34] No oil, salt, sugar menz. Ality, but still with that said. I try to really I don't submerge myself in, like, the deep fry and, you know, oil frying and things like that. So I'm very conscious. And I was so thankful for that training. But it's it's a great question because initially I thought I would go into that coaching about food for health. But then once I got into the kitchen and started playing with food, I couldn't get out. [00:12:05] Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like a great love for flavor and the culinary arts. You know, that's those dimensions. Is it the French, the triangle of of spices or flavors that affect you? I can't remember. I was talking. It's not my forte, but I was speaking and chef one time when they were talking about the simplicity of patissier and things like that and really getting into the French flavors and the classical techniques that are developed around those very simple moments and deaths. It's an absolute art, you know. No doubt. No doubt about that. I want to kind of unpack Vegan it real for a minute now before we start getting into, like, the key components that someone will hit when they hit your side, some of the services you offer and the collaboration and things like that that I'm actually quite moved by. I want to first know personally how you define the terms plant based. You've gotten into the Whole Foods and how, you know, keeping it real was more an introductory and a conversion from people who were eating meat. But how do you personally define plant base as opposed to injecting position or next to defining Vegan? [00:13:11] Absolutely. And it is confusing. And that's why I use. I usually say I'm a plant based vegan because veganism is really a movement. [00:13:24] Veganism in itself is a movement. So when in vegans, you know, true vegans who are passionate about the animals and driven towards that activism will definitely call you to the mat on how you define yourself, you know? But so veganism itself is a movement. However, when you are when you eat a vegan diet, you will allow for those processed foods. So you might go get the annys mac and cheese and you might go get the Gardein bagged, frozen, you know, check on Nugget's, you know, the fake chicken nuggets and the plant based processed foods to incorporate into your daily life as a supplement when you are living a Whole Foods plant based lifestyle, those processed foods are very, very, very limited. If if you incorporate them at all. And it's funny because one of the things I learned in my research and doing my through my education and tea calling Campbell is a hero who who's book who whose books I have read, sometimes more than once. And in reading those types of resources and folks material, I didn't realize that you can still incorporate fish and meat and cheese into a plant based diet. Right. Plant based diet is really 90 percent of what you are consuming is whole. It's, you know, so whole grains. It's it's not your process greens. It's not your process. We test your whole wheat, your, your whole Raices, all of those foods and your fruits and vegetables. But it allows for a very small portion of animal based products. Veganism does not allow for any portion of animal based products. I mean, and so that's why as far as when I define myself, some people will relate more to the plant based side of things for the health. And some people relate more so to the veganism for the movement. And interestingly enough, I started to be plant based and Vegan for the health. And now I am holistically for everything, the animals, the health and the planet, because I have just learned so much. It's kind of you kind of have to embrace all three. [00:16:00] Yeah. I feel like that's kind of the narrative that's really common along a lot of people's lines. You know, the gateway into what led to plant based vegan lifestyle. It starts to curing itself. You know, I, I just haven't spoken to a vegan who's been Vegan for five years that still trying to score, you know, the Gardein chicken stuff as much anymore. It starts to be right off. If they came at it from the environment, again, that has something to do with age and education. But I think that it's an interesting tie in. So given your personal Vegan. [00:16:37] I mean, you've you went along this whole path you had. Did you have a health improvement when you came Vegan? [00:16:43] Well, funny enough, I will say I'm novice, so I have only been completely Vegan for three years. It was three years. June 24th, I believe, was our anniversary. June 24th was my anniversary. And then my husband and my stepdaughter, me and her, her. Their anniversary is, quote, a goal. They say July 1st. So two thousand seventeen. So three years. I'm I'm I'm very, you know, very early in my veganism compared to some folks who I have come into contact with who have never eaten meat or have never eaten a plant based product or, you know, plant or I'm sorry. Animal based product before. So, you know, I have so much to learn and I never, ever want somebody things that I have it all figured out because I am not the expert. But I did notice changes and we noticed changes a lot, especially initially, because you think you're going to lose weight and you don't. Some people don't. And we gained weight. And then, you know, and then we felt, you know, bloated all the time. And so you start to question yourself in the commitment. Same thing with any other, you know, change or trying to make. And we did. And, you know, my husband had suffered for, gosh, since almost since the time I had met him in 2012 with what was called chronic to Carea, which is chronic hives. And you don't know why and you can't figure out why. Surely after I would say within six months to a year of going Vegan, his hives disappeared completely. And this is by no means and this is just my personal story. I have TMJ and I've had diagnosed and received cortisone shots for pre arthritis conditions, you know, pain and things like that. Wow, what a difference. I now I hardly ever have pain where I used to have pain. I'm not not saying that I don't get older and we don't have pains, but I just saw an overwhelming sense of. Feeling young. Just feeling better. [00:19:02] I don't know how to describe in a lot of vegans, it's hard to describe. You just feel. And I. I almost think that there's a connection between the animal consumption and, you know, your your mind and where your head that because you just feel a little lighter. No pun intended. But over the course of three years, for instance, I do not. I eat as much as I want today without having to worry about a calorie. I don't. I try to just eat a little bit of everything that the Earth has given us. You know, every day I don't stress about what I'm going to, you know, if I'm going get on the scale and it's going to say five pounds heavier or not. Because I just know that's gonna all, you know, just just shake on it. And I have seen over the course of the first two years, my husband and I equally lost between 15 and 20 pounds. And people would look at us and they said, well, you didn't need to lose 15 or 20 pounds. But clearly we did because it it just you know, now we are at optimum weights, you know? I mean, I weigh less now than I did in high school as. And he's the same way. And we are you know, he's fifty one and I'm hearing that a hitch. [00:20:19] Yeah. And there's, I mean there's future payoffs as well. [00:20:23] I think, you know, the immediate health turnaround. I've never spoken with anybody who was under the age of 30 that didn't go from eating some kind of animal byproduct or animal based diet to Vegan that didn't have an alleviation from everything from occasional pains. Athletes that just have less inflammation to, you know, turnaround's of chronic issues, you know, with autoimmune and diabetes and all sorts of things that I'm certainly not the first to chronicle these. You know, there's them what the health and conspiracy and all of these stories that kind of implement that health aspect and people that dedicated their lives to it. But it is a common theme. And when you don't speak with anybody who doesn't have a story like that, it just becomes like, wow. And then there's the future. You know, there's there's less of Alzheimer's with, you know, with. Yeah, Vegan Dice's. There's correlation studies being done. There's just some of the things that come to get all of us in our older age seem to be at least a lesser extent, which is kind of a nice aspect in addition to saving the planet for our future generations, as well as being kind to other sentient beings. [00:21:32] Oh, absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head. I had mentioned, you know, my mom was was very ill and she suffered from Crohn's disease for many, many, many years, many undiagnosed years as well prior to that. And along with some of her other conditions that I visibly expert, you know, saw and experienced firsthand in what she went through, I chose that, you know, to make a lifestyle change. I you know, I chose that. I didn't want to experience those things because a lot of Alzheimer's runs in my mother's side of the family. She had several sisters that were diagnosed with it as well. And you know it. [00:22:15] You start to think, gosh, do I want to start taking pills to try to avoid these things that I could genetically, you know, inherit? Or do I want to change those and try to repair those broken DNA as cells to actually repair them and not just put a Band-Aid on them with the actual food that we were meant to eat. So you made a great point it all. [00:22:41] It all began and continues to this day because I don't want to have to rely on, you know, a medicine cabinet when when I'm much older. [00:22:51] You right? Yeah, absolutely. It's it's a great fear of mine to discover how many of my colleagues were on, you know, Daily Pharmaceuticals at the age of 40 was daunting for me. [00:23:02] I am not sure I could keep up with the time getting up on the same time every day. [00:23:08] I'm wondering, unpacking your Web site was interesting for me. I want to know about some of the impetus that when you went to launch it because it's different then. You know, I can't get enough of Vegan food Web sites anyway. I'm a kind of suer of sorts. But yours has a very unique and different tone to it. And I'm thinking that had something to do with some of the reason, the impetus behind the inspiration. Can you kind of speak to what inspired you to launch it? [00:23:35] Sure. Well, it's been it's been a long time in the making. And I was actually fortunate enough to have a great web designer that helped me push it over the edge there and get it launched, because I'll tell you, if it was up to me, I would I would have never pulled the trigger because it was never good enough. But thank you. Thank you. Because it's gone through a few different transformations. I initially, as mentioned when I started looking at a new career in food, was going to look at the consulting and the coaching and the the blogging and being able to get my voice out there and my message heard and try to just bring more awareness to veganism and the really real ness of it. [00:24:25] And so it started off as more of like, hey, I'm gonna sit here and I'm going to blog about food and I'm going to coach people. [00:24:33] And then again, once I got submerged into the food, I was getting asked a lot of questions about my recipes. And I would post a picture. And, you know, obviously people want to know what's in it. And. And so I just said, you know, I got to start documenting it. And so I do have a good amount of recipes out there. [00:24:56] I'd love to have more recipes out there. I focus on my blog. I was also doing some big in travel with my husband a little bit, whereas when I say Vegan travel, we would pick a destination that had a big Vegan footprint so I could go taste all the food. I mean, I'm a foodie. That's we were driven by food at some point. So there's some on there about my art Vegan travel that's kind of been nipped in the bud right now. [00:25:24] But then up until just recent. So I was really focused on the informing, you know, let's inform people. Let's share my experience. Let's share the products that work for me. Share the food tips that work for me. And then once I started seeing that my recipes were making a difference and that I was going to pursue the actual culinary piece of it. That's when I have been transforming. And it's still going through a transformation if you go out there into the personal chef services. So I wanted to make. I wanted to keep Vegan it real the brand altogether because I love my brand and I wanted to also incorporate that services piece into the Web site where my locals could go out and take advantage of the services that I do offer from a personal chef's perspective. So it's gone through quite a few transformations, and I'm pretty certain that when my web designer receives an email from me, she shakes her head and, you know, it's it against the wall or something. But yeah, she I'm to the point where I can go in and just not break it. [00:26:35] But it's definitely going through transformations and I do get a lot of feedback on it. I'm not big into advertising, you know, right now. [00:26:45] I like I like people to just go get the information and keep it raw and real and transparent. I'm not necessarily out at my site to make money. I just want people to really profit off the information that I bring. [00:26:59] And that's what it seems like. It really feels like it's even curated the recipes that you have. [00:27:04] Yeah, photos are beautiful and the stuff that you're making. And I fancy myself, you know, in a fairly tidy, Vegan, self-taught chef. And they're beautiful. You know, I was looking at some of the reinventions, even the cheesy, like sausage and tartar torte, Vegan casserole and just different things like that. You know, I really it was inspirational. [00:27:28] The Tater Tots casserole. [00:27:29] Yay, not tartar casserole. I have children. These are the types of things that I'm thinking. I could make that a little bit more fun, particularly when they have friends over that. You're trying to kind of woo into this whole like, no, we're not a weird household. This is this is a great way of eating. I'm curious, you have a collaboration. You kind of tapped touched on it. It's this seems like the future of you know, it's the fact that you're constantly evolving the site and things like that that's, I think, evolve or die. Right. And the collaboration aspect of it is really the area that I feel a lot of chefs in general, Vegan chefs, you know, they go and they might eat at someone's establishment or get some information or get on someone's Instagram feed. But you never hear about this collaborative moment, like, let's work together, let's apply my lens to yours. Where do you see that heading in your future? [00:28:20] Well, I'm fortunate because I have a ton of an area that's very new to the Vegan world where I live in the Tampa Bay area. I would say it's fairly new compared to, say, like Portland or, you know, something that has a much bigger Vegan footprint. So Vegan Vegan restaurants are popping up all over. And which means that the Vegan footprint, the plant base, cost conscious eater footprint is growing every day. So I recently plugged into, you know, all the restaurants because we we like to convert more vegans. We're never going to. [00:28:59] For everybody, so we I think and this is just this is I think a lot of the business owners around here would say the same thing. We promote each other's business. We don't compete for their business, the business, the client business. So I may go to my local Vegan Deli and, you know, take a picture and promote, promote, promote on my pages. And they're certainly gonna scratch my back, too. They're gonna promote my food, even though, you know, I'm cooking for other people. And it might feel like I'm taking away from their business. They know I'm not going to make a dent necessarily, you know, because I'm doing my own thing. I'm not trying to do their thing. So I think that there's a big collaboration just in general in the Vegan community where I live. [00:29:47] And then, you know, I have been fortunate to be approached, to be part of some of, you know, opening of Vegan restaurants and whatnot, to be able to even have the opportunity to, you know, lay the groundwork for some of the places around here, even as just a subject matter expert, whatever the case may be, whatever the role may be, has been really great. And there are a lot of Vegan small business owners outside the restaurant that are product owners around here as well that I'm hoping, you know, we've already made connections, but I'm hoping that we can make much deeper connections. Right now. Social media is everywhere. It's everything. Live. Live collaboration's kind of hard right now because of Hovig, you know, so you just think outside the box. And I just think that as far as in just a step back to apologize. But with branding as well, we have a lot. We were having the veg fests around here. We have several per year. I don't know how that's gonna go, but just the brand collaboration in the community seems very cohesive and noncompetitive. And I maybe that's naive of me to think, but it just. And in the future, I'm sure it will become more competitive. But I think the collaboration's I like to take part in are those who bring transparency to their company, their brand, their their food, their product. And just making sure that their their future forward thinking model is, you know, all about sustainability and still aligns with my fundamental beliefs. Yeah, absolutely. [00:31:44] And I think so, too. And kind of to that end, I want to move into one of our rapid fire questions is kind of in that arena. [00:31:50] And we have a lot of people right in asking where do you, as you know, in your food and culinary expertize, do you have a hit on? Do you have a feel for where Vegan food or plant based food in the industry is headed? If you could toss a prediction out for the next five years, what do you see growing in track or any trends? [00:32:10] Well, the financial predictions are in the billions. And I, I personally every say here's a great indicator that when you when you go to your store, go to the Vegan section and I'm talking in your produce section and I'm talking over the course of, say, three months, six months. Anybody can do this. Look at the brand expansion in those categories. That's that's a great way to see how that trend is going. The trend is going up. I talked to everybody in it. Let me put it this way. The people that I talked to in the industry, I've yet to meet somebody who says, gosh, I wish I would have picked printing or I wish I would have gone in to accounting. I mean. [00:33:04] Pretty much it's not only is it going to be in, it is consistently a profitable business. I saw my business launch immediately at the beginning of this year and covered hit and I was going through my launch during Koven and I saw great demand. So I just foresee. The Vegan movement is no longer going to be a movement. It's going to become a lifestyle for more people than not, especially when we're going through times like like now with Cobh. It it's a it's a great example. And, you know, again, I'm not a medical professional, but sadly, through a lot of these cases that that I've been reading and researching and the underlying conditions, so many are preventable. And so that saddens me. I mean, I get so sad because I know that if folks would just do their own research and be open minded and, you know, bite the bullet and make hard lifestyle changes, you know, it might take three years like me, but you will you will feel the benefits of it. But yeah. So I think I when when Burger King is offering impossible burgers and KFC is offering getting ready to be on offer beyond meat nuggets. I think the trend is definitely going in the right direction. [00:34:27] Yeah, absolutely. And that's funny you say that it leads address into the direct next question with Rapid Fire, which is what do you think about the main offenders in the meat industry and the propagators of kind of everything that's been wrong with, you know, not just the animal rights issues, but also the environmental impact that these places like Burger King and KFC and McDonalds, if it ever joins, which it doesn't really need to, because they have like 40 percent soy products and half of their meat products anyway, they've partly joined. But what do you think about the different kind of soy you think? What do you think about? Do you do you welcome the change? Because any change towards, you know, this sustainable, healthy vegan lifestyle is good? Or do you think that it's tragic that they're kind of benefiting yet once again? Or was it just destined to be do you have, like, a takeaway on that? [00:35:25] I do it's a hard question because, you know, I think the easy answer for vegans or is, you know. Well, if we can Kimber anybody, it's it's a step in the right direction. And I don't necessarily have that belief because I'm not into GMO, like I'm not into genetically modified ingredients, which is why I tried to personally stem my my processed foods. And I'm definitely one of those folks who's who tries to live more on the organic side of of the lifestyle. If, if and when possible. So, you know, holistically, I don't like, you know, the large scale models because it is propagating the same systems more or less, you know. So sometimes it can be within the system, the processes that need to be fixed. For instance, here's an example is we mentioned C.M.A soy. So, you know, subsidizing for soy. Our governments subsidize for, you know, GMO tons of, you know, soy. So why are we supplementing those folks when we could. Across the board, change diets by supplementing and subsidizing organic farmers? You know, why are we right. Supplement. It's almost like we're we're focused on the wrong things. And of course, this is just me looking in. But I think that. It's it is they are profiting off of Vegan for sure. And I mean, that's that's a great case in point, because, you know what? If it goes back to your last question, if the trend wasn't growing, they wouldn't want to have a footprint in the market. So I think that we definitely need laws change within the system itself. And this this goes I mean, I could talk all day about our food system that goes into the school systems and our hospitals and, oh, my gosh, don't get me started. So, yeah, I am definitely I keep a very conscious mind, especially with the brands I work with and for about that exact thing. So no where I'm glad burgling has the impossible burger for people. I don't eat it. Right. James, your question. [00:37:56] Yeah, I think it kind of does. [00:37:57] And I it's it's quite similar to my own narrative, which is, you know, I interviewed Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA, not too long ago. And I believe while I didn't ask her that exact question, she would say, you know, when support like any anything to get away from the abuse and suffering of animals and and to promote a healthier future. But that being said, I don't think she's running out to try one anytime soon. Right. You, myself as well. My final question for today is get a lot of people who want to know your personal take away. So your elevator pitch, your top three. You know, if you were sitting down with someone who was open, not angry, which there is a huge difference, but I heard you were Vegan and you were writing up to the 20th floor in an elevator and said, what are like the top three reasons as to why do you have kind of things that you find yourself prattling off as to kind of give people as this gateway moment? [00:38:53] Yeah, only if they ask. And I say that because I have already learned that you can't sell things to people who aren't listening or who aren't open to that. So once they ask and I don't have elevator speech and I probably should because I just ride alone all the time. But what I do is I will just tell them my personal story and I tell them about basically I'll just, you know, plants. There's no food out there today that you cannot basically enjoy that wasn't made from plants. And I say that because I've tried it. So, for instance, if I wanted to become vegan 20 years ago, it's not the Vegan as veganism it is today. So I would say that before you poo poo the whole idea, let me cook you a meal and then we can talk about whether it was vegan and whether it was cruelty free and whether it save the planet or not. [00:40:00] Nice. That's a good pitch. You don't need an elevator pitch. That's it. I don't know. [00:40:05] I don't. I can't. Do I? You know, you're supposed to have that. That three 30 second pitch. I'm a rambler. [00:40:14] No, you don't need one. You're fine. And you're willing to have someone to dinner, you know, and to put in the legwork so you don't need an elevator pitch just right. Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I appreciate your time. I know you're busy and I really appreciate your candor and all of your information. [00:40:30] Well, this was a great collaboration. This is where it's at. So I appreciate. I appreciate your time as well. This is great. Thank you so much. [00:40:39] You bet. For everyone listening, we've been speaking with Jennifer Markell. She's a chef, blogger, founder, owner and operator of Vegan at Real Personal Shefford Services. You can find out more on her Web site. W w w dot Vegan at real dot com. Thank you for giving us your time today. [00:40:56] And until we speak again next time, remember to stay safe, eat responsibly and well and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am talking with Janani Kumar. Janani is a plant-based recipe developer and lifestyle coach at The Vegetarian Carnivore. Her mission is to inspire people to transition to a lifestyle that is compassionate towards all animals, the environment, and their own health. She emphasizes creating comfort food recipes, many of which are vegan recreations of traditionally non-vegan comfort foods. Janani enjoys nerding out over nutrition facts and binge watching puppy videos in her spare time. Key points addressed were  Janani’s efforts of showing people how to veganize their favorite non- vegan meals and comfort foods to show everyone how they can lessen their carbon footprint and contribute to a healthier lifestyle whether or not they are vegan themselves This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with plant based recipe developer and blogger Janani Kumar Key Points Addressed where Janani efforts of showing people how to Vegan ize their favorite non Vegan meals and comfort foods in order to show everyone how they can lessen their carbon footprint and contribute to a healthier lifestyle, whether or not they are Vegan themselves. Stay tuned for my wonderful chat with Janani Kumar. [00:00:31] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen Acom, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:29] Come back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I am so excited to be sitting down with Janani Kumar. She is a plant based recipe developer and blogger. You can find out more on both of her Web sites. My veggie hacks, dot com, as well as my plant mood dot com. Welcome, Jenny. [00:01:47] Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. [00:01:50] Absolutely. And for those of you listening, I will proffer a quick roadmap of the inquiry for today's podcast, and then I will read a bio on Janani before we get started. So everyone has a good basis of who we are talking to today. The roadmap will begin with looking at Janani's education, professional and experience, as well as her personal story with Vegan Vegan life. All of those things will ask her then to unpack her blog. My veggie hacks ask her to look at terms as a Vegan that we all use, but I think are individually defined differently. And we'll also look at my plant dot com and what the work that she's doing there. And then we'll look at some of the particulars about recipe curation, how she decides what goes onto each of those sites. And we'll unpack the course that she offers on my plant, me dot com and other things like that. And then we'll get into we'll wrap everything up with rapid fire questions. These are based on questions that you, our audience has written in asking that we ask some of the experts in the field and the guests that we are bringing on regarding Vegan life and your inquiries within that, as promised, a quick bio on Janani before I start peppering her with questions. Janani is a plant based recipe developer and lifestyle coach at the vegetarian Carnivore. Her mission is to inspire people to transition to a lifestyle that is a compassionate towards all animals, the environment and their own health. She emphasizes creating comfort food recipes, many of which are Vegan recreations of traditionally nonbanking comfort foods. Genitally enjoys nursing out over nutrition facts and binge watching puppy videos in her spare time. You and me both generally. [00:03:35] It's nothing short of mandatory for my wellness and health. That's hysterical. [00:03:41] So before we kind of unpack your your two different sites and the endeavors and the work that you do within that, I'm hoping you can draw out a quick educational and professional background and experience it as well as your personal story as it kind of interrelates. I know that you draw this out really well on my veggie hack's dot com. You've got a great bio. Can you kind of enumerate on it for everyone listening today? [00:04:04] Yes. So I was actually praised vegetarian from birth. I was born into a vegetarian household. Traditional, indeed, a vegetarian. And I really never questioned it. It was kind of just a given that I would say no to the hot dogs at school or the burgers at recess. And I never really questioned it. And and it really wasn't until I got to college and I was studying. I studied engineering. I have an engineering background. And as I was doing research into engineering and now understanding, well, why does this happen? Well, why does that happen? And I was really getting stuck down into, like, really, really the basics. I started to apply that in to my into my personal life, into my food choices. And I really started to become more interested in finding out where my food came from and really the supply chain, if you will. For it to, you know, get into the grocery store and play. And that was really where I learned that the diet in this country was really not all as compassionate as I could be because I learned about the dairy industry and I learned about the egg industry. And that was something that was incredibly difficult for me to stomach because I was a cheese addict, like I would be eating cheese every single day. And I, I really I didn't know the impact of that of the dairy industry. And so the college was really the dividing point for me, because college was where I had a lot of friends, you know, go from being a vegetarian to seeing, oh, well, I'm a I'm away from family, so I'm going to start not being vegetarian. Or I saw people going the other way saying, OK, well, this is my chance to actually make a change to my life that I might have not been able to make when I was living with my parents. And so for me, I went the other way and I said, I am going to start, you know, eating more plant based food and I'm going to start really understanding, you know, my impact and, you know, understand the impact that my choices are making on the world and the welfare of animals and my own health. And actually, when I started cutting out dairy and eggs, honestly, I started feeling so much better. I like my bloat, went away and I started having so much more energy. And and that was something that I was not expecting because something that the media keeps pushing on us is that, you know, you need eggs, you need dairy for it to be a strong person and to have strong bones and and all this stuff. So I was I was getting all these like I was getting all these results that were so contradictory to. What we are. We have been taught. And and so that just made me go deeper down. That's when I started vegetarian Carnivore. It started out as a vegetarian blog. And and since then, I have had a slow transition to to veganism where I've been cutting out dairy, cutting out dairy, cutting out dairy. Until one day I was, you know, I'd need any dairy at all. And so that that was probably the biggest. The biggest thing that I've done in my life is to understand that this transition is. It's not what you see on social media that you have to do it all in one day or that you have to do it. You know, in a very certain way. And you can take it at your own step. And that and that's really what I. And that's really what I did. I'm very glad that I did it. And so because of my engineering background, everything that I read and I believe and that I that I teach and that I share with my audience has to be rooted in in data. I do not believe in supporting. I do not believe in presenting any kind of claim without winning like a random eye, some piece of scientific peer reviewed journal that kind of backs it up because there is so much garbage on the Internet and it's so easy to become a statistic like that. So, yeah, that's a little bit about my thought process and how I think about it and how I think about my journey into where I am today. [00:08:39] It's interesting because when I hit, you know, my veggie hack Starcom, I think that there is sometimes a disconnect between generations and there at least when I started out, you know, veganism, it felt like you needed to be a chef. The advent of the industry itself in the Vegan culture and plant based foods in general, but also Vegan foods and things like that are starting to really take over by storm over the past five years. But also the voice of it, you know, it was this very esoteric industry. And if you didn't come from a culinary place and you didn't know it like Gaga was, you were just up a creek. And now, especially with what your blog and things like that really exemplify for me is it's this voice of the young, you know, of the young Vegan, your mac and cheese recipes. You incorporate, you know, store bought cheeses, you know, in it. It's not making your own from scratch. And I think that that kind of brings in this younger, maybe college based individual who is, you know, entertaining the vegan lifestyle. And does it want to be immediately taught that, you know, you can make a cheese out of coconut oil, but rather just that there's one out there that you can make great vak, mac and cheese substitute or, you know, all of those things that we all kind of care about in addition to going to restaurants that serve those things, you know, Vegan nature as well. So I think you do a really well at kind of exemplifying this younger voice and this next generation of vegans coming up. And I love that. I'm wondering before we get into unpacking each my veggie hacks as well as my plant, Mediacom, if you can kind of suss out a couple of terms for us. I'd like to know how you define Vegan as well as plant based. And what if they are different or similar, how they connect to one another? [00:10:26] Sure. And that's a great question. So I think the the general consensus among the the community, the general community is something that I don't agree with. They kind of lump Vegan and plant based as the same thing. And and I don't necessarily agree with that because for me, veganism is more of a lifestyle where it doesn't just extend to your food choices. It extends to cruelty free health care, care or makeup or, you know, choosing ethically sourced clothing. And and so to me, that's what veganism is. But but plant based is where you focus more on your food choices and where you focus on more whole foods in in a plant based diet. So that's not exclusively only only plants, but for the majority part, it is. And and so I would definitely put myself in the category as both Vegan and plant based, because there is such a term as a as a junk food vegan. And and as much as I love you and junk food, I, I love it. Those Magnum Vegan ice cream bars are you know, they're my kryptonite. But I, I do really emphasize that the importance of eating, you know, Whole Foods plant based for optimal diet because, you know, you you can't just sit around and eat, I don't know, chips all day, even though they're Vegan and expect to achieve good health. [00:12:00] Yeah, absolutely. All right. And then how do you define Whole Foods? That's another term that you dropped. What what do you mean when you say that? [00:12:11] When I say Whole Foods, I mean fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, grains. I eat a lot of fero, Bulger, brown rice, Qin Y. And I think those are such nutrition powerhouses that we don't necessarily see. Really, the only grain that I think in Western culture we have heard of is rice, brown, rice and now wa. But the idea of like amaranth and buckwheat and millet is still making its way to making its way up. [00:12:51] Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. OK. Let's get into some of your sights. [00:12:55] I first want to start with my veggie hack's dot com. When when was it launched and what is the main goal of that site? [00:13:05] So I launched my veggie tax Starcom when I was a senior in college, so that was in 2000 and a teen 2018 and I it was with the sole purpose of showing people that you could have a really delicious and nutritious meatless meals. The name the vegetarian Carnivore. You know, it's kind of a it's kind of a shocking Jux juxtaposition that that really came from like a defiance. I was just I had just had it with people telling me that I couldn't eat good food, that I was missing out somehow and I just wasn't having it. I didn't want to hear that. And so when they said, I can't have chicken, I can't have Bolognese, I can't have all this stuff. I just decided that there had to be a way to. To do it without hurting the animal, to do it without hurting our bodies and to do it without, you know, emitting tons of methane into the atmosphere. So I realized that there had to be a way so that I really started the vegetarian carnivore with that intention. [00:14:24] And you still have the Instagram account. You still have on Instagram. It's the vegetarian carnivore. Yes. [00:14:31] OK. For everyone listening, there's that kind of connection there. There's a few different labels were throwing around. I want to read from your Web site something that kind of reached my team. [00:14:41] And I said one of my goals here is to create a platform for people to read and experiment with my recipes in a way that gives them the opportunity to have more than one measly option on a restaurant menu. I want to encourage people to incorporate more vegetarian meals into their diet to give it a chance. I want us to leave a smaller carbon footprint on this planet and move toward a more sustainable future. And I think it's interesting because, you know, a lot of vegans and rightfully so to their own degree, just you know, they do not communicate with non vegan environments. They want to push people into veganism, whole vegans. But you have this kind of Meatless Monday approach in this in this rhetoric right here of years where you're like, just give it a shot, start incorporating some of these things into your diet. And because you have a reach into the younger audience, I think it is interesting saying, you know, look at some of these meatless alternatives like what you were saying before. Have a look. It doesn't always have to be this. And I do think a lot of people resonate. People with any dietary restrictions that, you know, there might be something on the menu for you. But it's one. And you'd better like whatever it is they made Vegan because there's not. Oh, yeah. You know, and I like your site for that reason. My veggie hack's does do this example of saying it's like a plethora of things like you were just saying it's everything from comfort food to, you know, these these other aspects. People think of Vegan if they're not the intent to think of salad or pasta, and that's it. And I think you do a really good job of kind of showing people that I want to switch now to my plant mooed dot com. What do you do with that? And can you tell us a little bit about the course? [00:16:19] Yes. So my plant moved dot com is a Web site, you know, predominantly for hosting my course, which I launched actually this last week. My course is a plant based transition course. It is where I teach about. Well, I guess I'll tell you where it came from. First, it was born out of this. This gap in the industry that I saw about, you know, are you Vegan or are you not? Are you. It's like, are you destroyed? Are you there? And I realized that that is the single most daunting thing for someone who is who is looking for a change. But it's like you can't ask someone to, you know, just uproot their everything that they have grown up with all at once. And that is a very scary thing. You know, I'll speak for myself from experience. And so, you know, I grew up in a traditional Indian household. So even though I didn't eat meat, we ate a lot of dairy. So that goes for milk and butter and key and and cheese and and just all of our stuff is just absolutely slathered with butter and milk and and yogurt. How could I forget that? That was literally my kryptonite. Yogurt. Yogurt. Rice was like a staple South Indian comfort food. It's like our chicken soup for the soul. And and so for me, when I decided to go vegan, I realized that I couldn't I couldn't say, OK, today I eat yogurt tomorrow. I don't. I realized I had to create a sustainable transition, but there was no there was no support community for that. There was no the you know, people on the Internet, they are so polarized. You're either, you know, a vegan who is totally, like going to die of protein deficiency or you are a hardcore carnivore that. That, you know, doesn't believe in eating plants. You know, it's so there was no nice middle ground. And I really wanted to help people understand that there is a middle ground and that every every. Choice that you make should be a deliberate choice. And it doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing. I think that is what really resonates with my own audience, is that it's not an all or nothing thing. You don't have to do that. And so I decided to create this course as a as an introduction to plant based nutrition and as a way to help people tramp's transition into eating more plants, whether meet them to achieve whatever goals that they want to achieve, whether they want to become Vegan, or whether they just want to, you know, improve their life and lessen their impact on this world by eating more plants. So that is what this course is intended to do. It's intended on focusing on on basics of plant based nutrition, as well as my tips for eating outside. So you don't just have that one lame option on the menu as well as like some mindset shifts. [00:19:33] A lot of people say, well, I tried going vegan and I, I just I fell off the bandwagon and now I'm just eating like 10 steaks a day, you know? And it's kind of like, you know, it's it's it's not a one or the other thing. You can fall off the bandwagon. It happens. We we're all just human. Right. But what's more important is to recognize that it's OK and to get on track again. [00:19:57] Yeah, absolutely, I agree. How long is each course? How is it set up? What are the particulars? How would someone get on to learn more about it? [00:20:06] Yeah, so there's one course currently. I just I just launched it and it is it's an hour and a half long and you can sign up through my website. My plant, MEDCOM. And there are some really cool bonus resources that I've included as well. I've included my personal grocery shopping list so that I don't forget anything at the grocery store. It really sucks to go to the grocery store with no less. They come back and realize that I left out the maple sirup or oh, I left out like the literally the main ingredient and you don't have something left. So I've included that. And I've also included my favorite and Vegan junk food, treat, cheat. And I don't think it's really important to do that because a lot of people think of veganism as restrictive and Vegan still eat burgers. You can still eat ice cream. Vegan still eat. You know, we still eat a lot of this stuff. And I think that that a treat day shouldn't compromise on on ethics. It shouldn't compromise on taste. [00:21:13] And so that's and that's the reason that I've included a vegan cheat sheet, is that the same thing is your plant based alternative checklist or is that completely different? [00:21:23] My plant based alternative checklist. Is oh, gosh, I can't remember how I how I named them right now. Windrush looks like it would be like a dairy alternative. [00:21:34] Like you mentioned, a lot of cooking with, like, dih and different kinds of cheeses that melt. I have these great different flavors and things and I. Right. It would be an introduction into that. And along that same line, I kind of wonder, do you feel like there will be a maturation with your as you start to garner more of a community and an audience than you already have? [00:21:55] Do you think that you'll start getting into, you know, vegans who want more than just this store bought substitute? You know, there's a there's a huge line of vegans, but a lot of those cheeses, as magnificent as they taste and don't get me started on like this milk howdah and stuff like that that they've really nailed, but that don't want to deal with a lot of the ingredients that are in. There are some of the vegetable oils that people don't sign off on. You know, there's a huge body of work I won't get into it about, you know, the difference between canola versus olive oil for one's body. And I'm wondering if you will ever think that you'll take on the. Or endeavored to kind of unpack from a culinary standpoint how to make your own cheese or how to get this or get that, or do you think you'll kind of just stay with this shopping substitution, that type of it, as a Slaínte with it? [00:22:44] So that's a great question. And so the primary reason that I use store bought cheeses in my recipes is to show people that it's not all that different from what they're already doing. You know? So if you go to the grocery store and you buy dairy cheddar, there is a there is a way that you can go to the store and buy plant based cheddar. So it's that comes out of a out of a desire on my part to demonstrate to people that it doesn't have to be this this complicated, long, winding method to getting your your mac and cheese. You can get your mac and cheese. And that's not a problem. But I have experimented to a really nice extent, too, with Viðga and cashew cheeses and my my Vegan spinach artichoke dip, which is on my website, actually does use cashew cheese that I made from scratch at home. And and I think that. I think that in veganism should be accessible to people who there are some vegans that I know who. Who who've never set foot in the kitchen, you know, they don't like cooking. They don't care about cooking and minimum work is the best for them. But for someone like me who you know, I thrive in the kitchen. I love being in the kitchen. And I just, you know, with the Gaga and the, you know, the the cashews and all that, all that good stuff. And so, yes, there is definitely a lot of scope for developing out more of the artisanal cheeses, if you will, and the artisanal wool substitutes. [00:24:40] And to that end, how do you cure it? Which recipes you go up with? Is it kind of self led and self designed or do you take a note from your Facebook groups or people who are looking for more translations? How do you decide which recipes you're going to throw up and which recipes? [00:24:55] You're not both, actually. So I always love getting feedback from from my from my followers, my viewers. [00:25:05] And and to that extent, I love creating comfort food and like we've mentioned before, but when I get when I get the recipe requests for can you recreate this as a comfort food for me, that that really that really hits a really special place for me. And then I will pretty much go out of my way to to to make it, because I believe that everyone should be. It's the it kind of goes back to the to the curd rice example, the yogurt rice that I was talking about earlier. For me, that was literally the the biggest achievement of my life when I was able to make that Vegan. And and that was really the the push off point for me to say I am. I'm able to fully not eat any animal products now. Yeah. So, yes, to vote for that. And to that end. So I do like getting examples from from people. And also, I'm sorry that there might be a little lag in the connection. [00:26:15] Yeah, no, it's great. I was I was just pointing out that you kind of enumerate you fully elaborate in your on your blog about that yogurt, you know, revolution and kind of the shout out to anyone, you know, of Southeast's like the Indian descent of like, you know, it's like the yogurt's here, which is true. Every culture has their, like, break of like, you know, I think the impossible burger in the States, you know, if Americans are attached to burgers, which my America isn't, but let's just say it is, you know, the impossible burger and things that we're really creating this like you cannot differentiate the moments and you really experience still that same culture. It really broke that barrier for people, which it sounds like your yogurt did for you. So I love and wondering how we're into our rapid fire questions moment now because we're kind of peeling out of time here. Janani And I'm going to ask you just a quick few questions, and this is for everyone who's listening. This is a segment that we kind of added in because we have so many people writing in and we love our audience and we want to honor you and your inquiry's with everything. So those of you that wrote in asked us to kind of posture questions to plant based recipe developers and bloggers. Here we go. Where do you see the vegan food scene in the USA headed in the next three years or California in particular? [00:27:38] I am actually very, very positive about the. You can see an expansion, I follow a lot of I follow a lot of I follow veg news and I follow live kindly and I follow a lot of these Vegan news outlets on social media. It seems like every other day they're coming out with a new pop up or a new advent or a new or a new invention. And also, I think that if if Corona virus has done nothing else, it has really alerted people to the to the dangers and to not only the dangers of eating animal products, but also to the benefits of shifting to plant based. And because of this, Vegan sales have skyrocketed across the world. And and I feel very, very positive about it. [00:28:25] Nice. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you. What are the top three things you wish people just starting off cooking Vegan recipes would know? [00:28:35] OK. Right. I think the most important thing to do is to incorporate as much color as you can into your diet. Right. So if you go to the farmer's market, you go to the grocery store, try to find something in every color, red bell, pepper, beetroot, broccoli, kale, something and every something and every color. And then just try to saute it together, try to try to experiment with it. And I mean, really, what's the worst that could happen? It it turns out botched. But but really, that's that's the most important thing. I think my and my thing. The second most important thing would be to. Don't be so hard on yourself. Right. So don't be so hard on yourself. Even if you're trying if you're cutting out meat from one recipe but really, really want to use butter. Fine. Go ahead and use the butter. It's like I said, it's not an all or nothing thing. It is about taking the small steps. And the third most important thing would be find some inspiration. Definitely. Think back on the recipes that you like. Think back on what you what made you feel happy and warm and fuzzy on the inside when you were little and. An experiment. I mean, there's there's mushrooms for me. You can make chicken tenders out of oyster mushrooms, you can use soy crumbles as a beef substitute. You can use Sainte-Anne as a chicken substitute. And oh, and while some of these are getting into the. Into a little bit more advanced, I would say style definitely. Look, to get enough calories, getting enough calories is so important. And people who are trying to restrict themselves will always feel hungry on a vegan diet or even an omnivorous diet. So get enough calories. [00:30:29] Nice. Yeah. All right. And the final one is, what are your go tos forgetting Vegan inspiration and knowledge for cooking. [00:30:39] Vegan inspiration and knowledge for cooking. Google, Google, Google, Google. Yeah. So I'll tell you something I'm going through right now. Actually, I'm not much of a baker. I'm I'm just just venturing out into baking. And so while I'm pretty well versed in the cooking world, the baking world is kind of like crazy. So when I when I discovered applesauce as an egg substitute, that was kind of like a like an aha moment. Like, I can make cookies now, you know, so it it's not always what you think. And and so some of the my other go to inspirations are just looking at cooking videos. It doesn't even have to be Vegan cooking videos. I look at a lot of cooking videos and then I think of stuff that I can substitute instead of the meat. So maybe beans instead of beef or or lentils or or whole grains or something. But it doesn't have to be even like a Vegan video system. So don't limit yourself by only looking at Vegan stuff. Look at everything and then see where you can substitute something out. Just put a different source of protein, put a different source of put nutritional yeast instead of parmesan. [00:31:58] Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And I'd love to make some nutritional yeast with hem parts. [00:32:04] It's going to feel like palmy oceanic moment to it as well. And also going on off your tandem, the just a quick tent, like a side note, is cheap seeds and tablespoon of water. Ground seeds is a great substitute for an egg. Yes. Which I love. And I love applesauce. I love doing both of those because the applesauce cuts out half the sugar. Right. [00:32:27] Getting healthy. Yes. Absolutely. Those things really do as the chief seeds add like the omega 3s too. And they're filling. They're filling like I put them into cookies actually last week. And I had one cookie and I was like, well, I don't feel like having a second cookie. So that kind of cut down that craving. [00:32:46] Yeah. I won't make any baked goods without throwing in flax. And she said I won't just because it's such an easy way to deliver your omega 3s and they are so righteous for you and the studies being done on them, vegans and non vegans alike is just you know, it's it's they're tantamount to not having them in one's diet. And we are out of time. And and I want to say thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate like all of that. You're so expansive. You know, you have so many different areas you go into. And I really do appreciate you kind of like drawing out each point of what you're doing. Hopefully we can bring you back around after another year or so and find out where all of your endeavors with, you know, my plant mood and maybe other courses that you have moving forward have kind of ended up. [00:33:33] I would love that. Yeah, it's been great to be here. [00:33:36] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been speaking with Janani Kumar. She's a plant based recipe developer and blogger. You can find out more on both her Web sites, my veggie hack's dot com, as well as my plant mooed dot com. And until we speak again next time, thank you so much for giving us your time. [00:33:53] And remember to stay safe, eat responsibly and clean and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am chatting with Yvonne O’ Halloran. Yvonne is an accredited practising dietitian who has a passion for plant-based nutrition. She completed her studies in Griffith University on the Gold Coast, Australia where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in public health in 2010, followed by a master’s in nutrition & dietetics in 2012.  Having gained experience as a private practice dietitian for her first years as a new graduate dietitian, she then started up an online business in 2014. In 2016 she went vegan for both health and ethical reasons and has since spent her time learning about plant-based nutrition by researching the literature, attending plant-based conferences and completing the plant-based nutrition course through e-Cornell university. Yvonne co-founded Living Vegan with her husband that launched early 2019, which is a news and education platform aimed to help people navigate a healthy vegan lifestyle. She is a content writer for various plant-based companies and writes columns on a monthly basis for Vegan Life UK magazine. She is currently working on her first book that will be a sort of vegan starter kit featuring nutrition and psychology-based information which she hopes to complete by early 2021.   Yvonne is a mother to 3 healthy, thriving vegan children and currently lives on the Gold Coast, Australia, but she grew up in Ireland. Check out her website www.livingvegan.com Key points addressed were  Essential principle of Yvonne’s work with clients regarding acquiring a vegan dietWe also discussed the core basis of both of Yvonne’s books tentatively publishing in Early 2021 and 2022 the first of which is what I surmised to be something of a vegan Bible covering information on every imaginable aspect of the vegan diet and health and the latter of which will address pre-prenatal and pre natal health with a vegan diet This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with dietician and upcoming author Yvonne O'Halloran. Key points addressed were essential principles of Ivana's work with clients regarding acquiring a vegan diet. We also discussed the core basis of both of Enns books tentative in publishing in early 2021 and 2022. The first of which I surmised to be something of a Vegan Bible covering information on every imaginable aspect of the Vegan diet and health, and the latter of which will address prenatal and pre prenatal health with a vegan diet. Stay tuned for my informative talk with Yvonne O'Halloran on a quick technical note. We suffered some audio disturbance, which presents as a subtle pounding noise in the background. But because the issue does abate through most of the interview, our team made the decision to go up with this version rather than delay and rerecord. We appreciate your understanding and know that the interview with Yvonne will be worth putting up with a little static. [00:01:00] My name is Patricia Kathleen. And this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen. Com where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. [00:01:59] And today I'm excited to be sitting down with Yvonne O'Halloran. She's a dietician and her website is w w w dot living Vegan dot com. Welcome, Yvonne. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. I'm excited to kind of think you guys are doing on living Vegan as well as some of your other endeavors. [00:02:17] I know you contribute to weather Vegan outlets, and I'm excited to unpack that with our audience today. For those of you that are on offer, a roadmap for today's podcast. As to other line of inquiry in which way we'll be headed. And then I'll also read a quick bio on Yvonne so that everybody has a very good purview of a little bit of her background. So the roadmap for today's podcasts will look at a Von's academic and professional life that brought her to launching Living Vegan with her partner, live living Vegan dot com. And we'll also look at her Vegan story as it's intertwined. Within that, we'll get into some of the logistics as to when it was launched, how it's curated, if they have sponsorship or funding, any affiliations that they're kind of attached to. We'll look at goals for the site and audience ship and who they're hoping to reach. And just look at unpacking some of those Vegan dialogs in between there. And then I'll turn to also asking her about some of her endeavors with them writing in contribution to different Vegan, things like that. And as I promised before, I start asking even a bunch of questions. A quick bio. Yvonne O'Halloran is an accredited practicing dietician who has a passion for plant based nutrition. She's completed her studies in Griffith University on the Gold Coast, US in Australia, where she graduated with Bachelors Degree in Public Health in 2010, followed by a Masters in Nutrition and Dietetics. In 2012. Having gained experience as a private practice dietician for her first years as a new graduate dietician, she then started up an online business in 2014. In 2016, she went Vegan for both health and ethical reasons and has since spent her time learning about a plant based nutrition by researching the literature, attending plant based conferences and completing the plant based nutrition course through Cornell University. Yvonne co-founded Living Vegan with her husband that launched early 2019, which is a news and education platform aimed to help people navigate a healthy Vegan lifestyle. She's a content writer for various plant based companies and writes columns on a monthly basis for Vegan Life UK magazine. She is currently working on her first book. That will be a sort of Vegan starter kit featuring nutrition and psychology based information, which she hopes to complete by early twenty twenty one. Yvonne is a mother to three healthy, thriving Vegan children and currently lives in the Gold Coast of Australia. But she grew up in Ireland. You can check out more, as I said on her website, w w w dot living Vegan dot com. So, Yvonne, before we start unpacking the site and all of your work within that, I also wanted to tell you I have a bunch of rapid fire questions at the end of this that we've reached out to people who subscribe to our podcast and emails and always ask them questions that they would like. Ask our guests. And as a dietitian, as a Vegan dietitian, we've got a slew of those for you. We'll do those at the very end of the podcast. But before we get to all of that, I'm hoping you can kind of we I just unpacked a great deal of your academic and professional life, but I'm hoping that you can kind of give your own personal narrative as to how you incorporated your academia into what you're doing now with living Vegan dot com. [00:05:26] Yes. So as I said, I graduated in 2012 for the master's in Nutrition Dietetics. And Michael was always defined my name. [00:05:35] I didn't know at the time that I was going to be plumpness nutrition. But I was waiting to see what what I would find. But in 2016, I started to look into the ethical side of what I was eating. And I didn't like what I saw. And it was quite confronting, actually. I think for anybody who looks is actually still fits. It's it's I call it like an awakening for me. It was shocking and that's horrifying. And obviously, when I when I look at the side of it, for me as a dietician, it was very important for me to look at the health side of it. Is this healthy? Is this is this good for me? Is this good for my clients? So I started going down a rabbit hole and I started to speak to campus doctors and research company sectors, other companies, dieticians all over the world. And yeah, I learned a lot. And because in university, you don't really talk much about the nutrition that we basically just touched on it in one class. I think they mentioned veganism and what it was that it was highly restrictive diets and that kind of thing. So I didn't think too much about it back at that time. But I always kind of questioned the dairy industry. I never read he was a huge fan of this and never seemed to sit right with me even when I had to recommend dairy to my clients. I didn't feel right about it, but it was what I was told is unique. So I thought, well, I mean, if this is what I was taught, this is what I'm supposed to do. So, yeah. So I started looking into the dairy industry and things like that, and it was shocking. And the evidence based research that's behind us about the dangers of dairy and how how it's so unhealthy for us. So it's highly inflammatory and it's got dioxins and hormones and estrogens and IGF one, which are all things that we shouldn't be having in their bodies. It's it's far you know, it's far different matter. Like, so. And I also noticed in in my work that a lot of people actually favored cow's milk over, sometimes over, even breastfeeding, which is amazing. So it's just I think it's been so indoctrinated into Intel us for so long that it's actually considered completely normal. Yeah. So I start to dip into it more. And I went off dairy initially for a long time, and I also went off meat meat with something I never really liked. Even as a kid I would break open Arden's. So it was a very meat heavy lifestyle as. As children, like we'd have bacon, encourager, meat and veggies and potatoes. I was everyday and I never I never was a fan of eating these. I didn't even understand back then it was an animal. It just wasn't for me. We as time went on and I started learning more about nutrition, I and I started to see where I was going to go. I am I start looking to Taipei's dieticians and what they were doing to. I realized that there was a big mischer and then something that I was really passionate romance, very excited about. You're doing more. More with that side of things. [00:08:40] Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's it's I felt the trend coming more, at least for the United States on a lot of different level economically. A lot of different areas. Sustainability. The new generation Gen I, they're kind of being called right now with just almost this inherent knowledge of is it sustainable? Is it good for the earth? Yes, a bunch of different ways that people were coming at Vegan nutrition. But I definitely and then Kova just kind of at least in the States, it put the conversation and forefront. And then I'd like pinning up much to your line of work. People are really starting to ask themselves. I know so many adults that don't know that there's protein and vegetables, crazy amount of people and wonderful professors that don't know that there's protein and vegetables because it just hasn't been discussed and educated enough. You know, a lot of people on this podcast are doctors who are Vegan because MDA, United States, I'm one of the most hysterical things is that they don't take even one nutrition course or they're not required to to become. And I'm absolutely explained to me that, you know, doctors treat disease and ailments and internal workings. They were never meant to be these these people advising diet. It was not ascribed to their part of work. But for some reason, we all turned to them when we know when we need to prescribe things with diet. For me, I feel like you could not look at medicine without in unison of diet. You know, there's so many diseases that are abated or helped or cured or all of those things from allergies with changing diet that so many documentaries have come out about. So I really think that there's a great use to that. And I kind of wanted to start off by asking you. [00:10:24] Have you ever worked in Congress with an M.D. or like a medical doctor and throughout any of this time period, have you ever had conversations with them and kind of unarrest how much they do or don't know about a healthy diet? [00:10:42] Yeah, well, I have some friends who are doctors, and I've obviously worked in private practice, so I've been exposed to doctors for they really I mean, for the doctors I've spoken to, they really get Minimoog like education and nutrition. [00:10:54] It's very, very, very broad, very minimal. I think it's like four hours in the whole seven years of study to get something like that. So, yeah, it did. Definitely don't understand, like maybe general nutrition a little bit, but it's nutrition for most doctors is completely crazy to them if they just didn't understand it or the. [00:11:15] It's very restrictive and it's what they're just not educated in that area. And I think the doctors who are educating the area actually do really well. I mean, the likes of Dr. Michael Kofman, Dr. Grinton. You know, there's lots of doctors out there, especially in America. They do. They do really well because they've actually looked into the research and they know it's it's effective. You know, Doctor, as a student, he just did a lot of research on heart disease. And these are really well with his patients getting great results. I think the doctors who are more open minded to be with patients when they're looking to progress actressy. [00:11:46] Yeah. And it had generally have been heart disease. [00:11:50] I was going to say there's a kind of a gateway disease which has a horrible term that I just. But as a gateway disease to kind of open up the Vegan conversation. We've spoken with Dr. Joel Kahn over here who is, you know, one of America's premiere's ologists. And I'm a devout Vegan for 30 plus years. And he has such incredible I think that the success of reversing, you know, coronary issues, episodes and disease is one of the most powerful blood in the Vegan attributes, at least over here as well. So it's it's interesting to hear that there's a tandem over in Australia. I one out before we start unpacking living Vegan dot com, which is I love because it's the educational platform. I'm wondering if you can kind of describe I like it. You decide as you can kind of unpack for me. You've got Ireland and then you have Australia and the respective regions that you're from and that you've been to I personally great a longer history as well with Ireland. Dublin has some of the oldest Vegan restaurants of all of the European countries that I visit, which was shocking for me. [00:13:01] And they introduced me to better cheeses than we had in the States for just the United States did not get the memo that Vegan cheese amounts and it was the Greek. It's just, you know, she's out of it. But that aside, that tirades. But I'm wondering if you can kind of describe the latter day, the current day like us or vibe around Vegan. [00:13:31] Dietary consumption in Ireland and Australia right now. Are people open to it? Has it spiked over the past five years? What is your personal take on that? [00:13:42] Well, I have to say, I actually went Vegan while I was in Ireland, which is a bit crazy. [00:13:47] And we move back there for eight months, back in later, Towsend 16, and that's when they actually turned 18. It's definitely more accepted back there now. There definitely are more options like I know for a few more years. And there was actually Vegan options, which I was surprised about. I mean, it's quite ten years ago. [00:14:04] I don't know. I don't know what it had anything to eat back there. So it's definitely open Kofman more mainstream for sure in Australia. It's incredible. Like you could go to. There's so many Vegan restaurants where I am here, the locals, so many options, compas options. [00:14:20] So I feel Australia is definitely ahead. And, you know, comparing to Ireland border to both countries are doing really well. They're getting more becoming more open minded because I feel like the demand is there now. So the restaurants want to meet the demand for the. So there's not really any restaurants I went to in Arden's that didn't offer something Vegan. Now I have to say some places were pretty poor. What was offered water in Australia? It's really incredible. The Vegan auctions are here. Here. Amazing. Very easy to be Vegan in Australia, that's for sure. [00:14:55] Yeah. And eat out. I mean, they're all Vegan restaurants. We were talking off the air before eating, but I was explaining to you that I had just returned as the pandemic kind of set in. On the global scale from Sydney, Australia. And I was actually viewing Vegan restaurant owners there. And just it's an amazing scene. And there's so many people doesn't terrify people. You go to a non Vegan restaurant. I love Vietnamese food and fur and things of that nature. And and any of those communities, you go in and say, you know, it's I needed to be made Vegan or whatever. It's a very popular term. And I would as they always I mean, they're the first for a lot of health trends. And, you know, I learned about a great deal about Crossfade when that hit from the Aussies, even though it was in. And all those things they really embrace and get into it. And I love and then the YouTube about it. [00:15:43] They're prolific YouTube hits, which I have yet to pack. [00:15:48] I'm living Vegan with you now. I read that you launched it with your husband in 2000 and nineteen. So it's still in some it's in C to its target as it's and it's there for education. Can you kind of unpack what inspired you? What's the ethos of you and your husband to launch it and what the site endeavors to do? [00:16:12] For sure. So I am actually had a Web site prior to DEC called Page, which is gone now. That was before I went Vegan. [00:16:19] So I always knew I wanted to kind of work predominantly online because we travel quite a lot as well. So online, it seems to me. Then obviously once I would Feig and I wanted to change my Web site to be happy. So me, myself, my husband were very passionate about the Vegan movement. So we wanted to do something that would, you know, help help people to get there, to have a healthier lifestyle and to understand the education side of it, like basically a platform that had everything because there are platforms out there that are more use based kind of. [00:16:50] But I wanted to see how the educational component as well. So and that's how we came up with the BBC and we thought it was a bit of a dairy name because I think a lot of people shy away from the word Vegan like we kind of considered doing something like more campus, but then we decided, no, you know what this is? This is about veganism. Let's just let's just face this and and let's have our, you know, a good name that people under it, as soon as they see the name, they know exactly what it is. [00:17:16] So that's that's how we coined the term living big and that's how we came up with it. And so initially when it was launched into Taza 19, I had just had my first daughter. So I was pretty busy. So it was more news based initially because I was busy with my daughter and my sleepless nights. But as time went on, I got more involved. So now I'm and I'm very involved in and I'm trying to do more educational stuff to try and help people to learn. You know, it's not that hard to be Vegan. I find the first four months of being Vegan can be quite challenging for people because they're just generally even if they're highly motivated, they just do not know what to eat because we've been educated to eat, you know, certain food for breakfast, lunch and dinner for, you know, 20, 30 years. It's very hard to change. So it takes a lot of guidance and motivation and have I think once people get over to treat formants, don't they tend to be OK? You know, most people. So that's how we do it. We design the packages and them aiming towards that. Now, I'm actually going to update the packages this year. I'm going to offer more dietician focus packages, you know, like consultations and guidance over a longer period, six to twelve months and things like that. So the packages are going to be updated soon. But it was basically just to. I wanted to be there to help people, I find a lot of women who are pregnant. [00:18:44] It is specifically the go to the doctor to tell them their Vegan and the doctor scares the life and says, you know, you need to eat eggs and usually have meat for your baby. This and all these people are like, I don't know what to do. My doctor says, I need to eat this. [00:18:59] So I just felt like there was a huge pressure. People just need some help. They need some guidance in this lifestyle. [00:19:06] That's why I am going to write a book about which we can talk about it or read a book about Vegan pregnancy. [00:19:12] I'm excited to Vegan pregnancy. Yeah, it's in the book and all the information. We need a ton more Vegan dietitians out there because men are one thing that people are terrified of is their nutrition and they need an expert opinion assuring them you, Isaac, your steps. I mean, I fancy myself a wildly educated woman. And when I became I turned to the worst like junk food Vegan that there was this prenup frozen, preserved, but didn't even live like that before. But it was just this Hypercom, like, I've got something ready made in the fridge. And it's it's I think it was just that lack of having the expert advice. OK, I want to go back to asking you about that, the packages a little bit more because it feels like so for me, as I was saying about my own education and things of that nature and needing dietitians, it's a tenuous line. [00:20:15] You would have to dance because I feel like people are capable of getting P.H. and things, but not upfront, you know, and having this onslaught of information on diamonds and minerals, even if you have a great deal of that information, keeping it all straight in your index, when you're switching diets over, how do you navigate tenuous line between educating just enough for your clients to feel empowered but not too daunted with just too much information? [00:20:42] Know, I definitely think less is more. I think if you go too deep. People just get scared off, like because nutrition is so complex for most people. [00:20:54] Mostly people just want the basics. They just want to understand. You know, for example, how do I get my B twelve or, you know, what is vitamin D or you know, they just want basic stuff. They don't want you to dove too deep because for most people that's too much. So what I have to try to do is keep it very simple. I find, you know, as a dietician, you have to learn all the complex, deep stockman and then you have to really get back really simply to your comments. So that's basically what I do. So, you know, I do a lot of email consultations as well, which is actually very popular. People prefer people love to do e-mail concerns because they don't actually I don't know what is, but they don't actually speak to me. Exactly. They just email me to all the details and then they ask me all questions and I look to their meal plan or I look to what they eat and everything. And then I suggest what they should eat. And I send them a meal plan and then I give money, information I need. And a lot of it is just basic questions. Like the most common questions are where do I get my protein, which is a crazy person. You know, what is beach one? You know, am I going to get nutritional deficiencies or if I'm pregnant, you know, as my baby go to grow. Things like this, it's really, really basic stuff, you know, as a dietitian. But it's stuff of people need reassurance. [00:22:07] Absolutely. And it's empowering someone and, you know, give them those informations and be in the United States. I'll say that culturally, I'm speaking just for my own country. And particularly among women or women identified individuals that I encounter, there's a great deal of defense even around somebody who feels very confident about their way of life. You know, when you start to top it, there's it's deeply interwoven. It's very, very personal and food obvious and do so much more than, say, it's attached to our heritage, to our ideas of love and reward and all sorts of crazy things psychologically for you. I mean, these are things that you must have to consider. You know, when you're kind of encountering your clients and best how to serve them and things like that, it makes sense. [00:22:54] The email part of it, I'm like, oh, that sounds more not it sounds less judgmental, you know, to be able to write it out of you write it. I think there's a great deal of emotion that goes into food that you kind of have to unpack as well. When I got on your site and this is part is this actually plays into that concept as well. As you know, great big picture with Vegan dietitians and things like that. Like you have education, you know the aspect of that. Then you have implementations to your site, has recipes, news. And I'm wondering I love how I love the curation of the news that you have selected that you did for that site. How do you do that? [00:23:34] What's your curation process for how you kind of select which news you want to represent? I'm living. [00:23:40] It's hard because there's obviously so many stories every day could write 100 stories a day. So you really have to be specific, be specific and pick what you think is going to attract the audience and bring them in. [00:23:52] I suppose I find ethical stuff really brings in the audience stuff about animal welfare or, you know, stuff about somebody who went Vegan on the health results they got from that. Things like that. I find that people really are drawn to. So I think what I do is I see I go on the Vegan news alerts, you know, to Goob and I research all of the Web sites to do news stories. And, you know, I constantly looking to the Internet, trying to find, you know, the most recent story of what's happened or, you know, I go to attract my audience is going to be a good read for them, is going to educate them vertical to learn anything from this. [00:24:30] So things about, you know, like I said about animals, Udalls, something ethical, something that's, you know, you know, it's something that happens to animals and plants and animals, slaughterhouse or abuse or in the Persian farm, things like that. People are like, oh, you know, it really brings them in. And I find the visual stuff as well as very effective. You know, so if you post a picture with text underneath about animal welfare or something, people really it really hits them. And I find that I am getting a lot of people e-mailing me saying, you know, the picture you put up really struck me and I did more research and now I want to go Vegan, which I do. So it's it's obviously working know it's it's affecting people in a positive way, Brooke. Probably I mean, it hurts to see it, but we need to look because what do we look or we don't it's still happening. So what I want to do is bring awareness to this because it's happening every single second of every single day. And we're the ones that are giving it the power to consumers. So if we change what we buy, then the shops are going to have to change what they provide. [00:25:31] You know, so it's the knowledge is power, I to say so, yeah. So it's working. Kind of. [00:25:40] I went with the you mentioned a little bit about, you know, during the curation process and looking at impact and things like that. And I just interviewed the founder and president of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, and I was and do you affiliate with organizations such as PETA or PETA itself or other things based out of Australia, or do you kind of keep living? Vegan dot com, like a little bit more separate. [00:26:09] Yeah, I keep it, I pretty much keep it separate, I'm not really affiliated. I've been approached by many companies to post, you know, ads on my side. [00:26:18] So that's enough for now. I'm not doing that because I feel like if the site is full of all these affiliations and all these ads kind of takes from the information. So for now, I'm just keeping a nice team and doing it myself and, you know, people like that. But you don't who knows in the future what would happen. But for now, it's just living Vegan on. So do many. [00:26:40] I love it, too. I mean, it's very simple. You know, you have resources, recipes in your packages. It's it's very, very clean. Even the recipes, the pictures, they're very easy to digest. [00:26:52] What I'm looking at, it is like I really appreciate that. I think a lot of people do in their clutter, you know, to do just kind of like I think down to axiomatic, like core principles is right. So I kind of wanna talk about your work. And before we dove into the book that you are currently writing, I want to talk about the work that you submit to. I wouldn't be surprised if there's like some Segway is there from Healthy for a Vegan Life U.K. magazine as well. Some places in tribute writing to keep your roles there. And like what genera and veganism do you speak to? Obviously, the dietician is going to come into play, but do you have a roadmap that you follow for those different magazines? [00:27:36] And Sobecki about was about a year ago, I approached I approached from a five magazines and offered to write some content for him. And big, in my view, you were interested. [00:27:47] So ever since I've been writing Monkey Country contributing monthly to them and sometimes to give meaning to topic, and sometimes I decide on topics. So it could be anything from, you know, pregnancy, breastfeeding. What is V12? How to boost your libido, you know, Vegan diets and skin health, things like that. You know, so it's it's very varied, but it's very interesting. And I really like to write. So I noticed and yeah, I get like a full two pages in their magazine every month, so it's great. [00:28:18] I think everyone should require their dietician to be like a writer as well, because. Because it's keeping you up eight and soaps, halloumi, all of you Certina, any time someone's contributing to any monthly platform or anything like that with content, writing, YouTube and whatever, I'm I'm much more prone to think that their current, you know, and that's the idea. Yeah. Because I'm with their past principles and things like that, nothing's current. Medical books aren't updated too frequently. [00:28:46] You know, no nutrition is ever changing. We learned so much to learn all the time. So when you have to write content, you obviously have to do a lot of research. So you're like you said, you're current, you're up to date, you're learning. I'm always learning as a dietician. You never stop learning. You're learning every day. [00:29:03] So, yeah, it's important. I think that's exciting. [00:29:08] Okay, so I want to kind of get into the book. I love, like previews and I love being on the front end of that. So what can you tell us about it? It's it's about Vegan pregnancy, prenatal about. So yeah. [00:29:21] So I've got two books and two books. So one I'm hoping to launch early next year. That is see the reason it's like a resource type Vegan and starter tool kit book. [00:29:31] So it's going to be very illustrative, very graphic, lot like not graphic, lots of bad pictures, very easy to read, colorful, bright. You know, it's not just going to be text. It's going to be very easy to read book. So this is basically going to be talkable, all the nutrients in detail. We talk about different diseases like chronic diseases, autoimmune diseases, talk fatuity, you have breastfeeding, pregnancy, all these topics to be covered. And then there's also going to be a psychology side of this as a psychologist based. So I had a psychologist help me out. Would it have been a content as well? So there's a lot to promote speciesism and things like that about animal welfare and all of that. So it's very comprehensive, very, very interesting. And it's really for people who are thinking about going vegan, there's a lot of stuff about getting started as a vegan, like a weekly meal plan, shopping, what you should buy at the shops, you know, documentaries, you should watch all that stuff. [00:30:26] But it's also for people who are Vegan long term big and they just want to know more about the benefits of it. And, you know, why is it good for my health? And, you know, I go into a talk with a lot of dairy in the book. You don't need to know what's in it, like bad animal protein or some protein, all that kind of stuff. So it's really, really exciting. It's a really interesting book and I'm very excited to get it put together. [00:30:49] So that's how we treat the Vegan best. So Vegan I love it. I've covered everything I normally say, but where is the action item? Where's the implementation? You know, a lot of people who author Vegan books either go one side or the other. It's all recipes and No. A scientific study and no implementation. And I'm like, there's like a a good mixture. [00:31:15] Yeah. What do I do with this? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Obviously the second book is will probably not be ready to about twenty two, but that's the problem. Vegan pregnancy. [00:31:25] So that's I have started it but I'm in the very early stages. So the first movie, the Vegan starter to Bible and the second one would be the bigger pregnancy the following year probably. So you're working on two books. [00:31:38] That sounds flagship. I have not heard of it and I haven't done a search, so maybe there's a few out there, but it's taboo. And, you know, you kind of mentioned that earlier, but I have four children and know vegetarianism alone. But Vegan to certain obis, it was actually the way I vetted getting an OPG Y and, you know, it was pregnant, a new one. I mean, I was at a bit while I was forming my family and it's it's a rocky road. Have some. Oh yeah. Thousands of babies in their lifetime. Look at you and say you're going to damage yourself and your child. You know. I think they're all crucial to get information out there, and I haven't heard of any books and I certainly are certain that we weren't any on when I was doing my gestation. It's really. Can you tell us a little bit about, like some of the elements you're going to include in that? [00:32:30] Yeah, so like I said, it's in the very early stages. Look, I basically just want I want women to know a lot of women. It's basically to be for women who are considering getting pregnant, who are Vegan, because obviously nutrition partners in nutrition begins before conception. [00:32:44] So this book isn't just for why you're pregnant prior to as well or just people who are interested in you, what you eat while you're pregnant to begin to how to be healthy. So it's just I want to walk through all the nutrients, you know, what's important and how much you should be having and also obviously the sources of these foods. So people will have to be trying to figure it out for themselves and then maybe comparing, you know, Vegan pregnancies to not be the pregnancies and things about, you know, certain like fish. Fish is highly toxic and they can pass all that, all lots of Kompass to the baby through your placenta. A lot of women don't understand or realize that. So, you know, dove to all of that as well. Like the difference between animal protein and this protein in pregnancy. [00:33:31] Yeah. So it's like I said, it's very early on in money in my chapter one. So it's what it's going to be an exciting book and it's going to be everything in there. [00:33:41] It's going to be important for a woman who is having a baby and wants to have a healthy pregnancy and ensure she's got no nutritional deficiencies. Obviously talk with supplementation as well, because when you're pregnant, you do need to supplement to ensure that you're getting everything that you need. [00:33:56] So that's also going to be good. I'm excited because I've had so sorry. I've had so many women emailed me in the last bubbles months. [00:34:07] I've had a lot of women email me about the third week of pregnancy and, you know, just concerns and stuff. So I feel like this book is is is a must. It's very important for sure. [00:34:17] Absolutely. I think that it's going to be a game changer for me. I'm going to push it out to everybody I know, because I women's health is so under and over. You know, it's not just the states. Like every country I've gone to, all of the health studies have been done largely on men, you know, and we don't have the same as we're all discovering. But I think it's it's so imperative. Little research until the fertility crisis hit, we really didn't understand a whole lot about pregnancy, which is amazing because it's responsible for the propagation of our species. You think you'd be the most funding out there? Well, we have more patients about erectile dysfunction than we have. So I know that's true that I'm wondering if you can kind of enumerate for me. You have these two books that are on the horizon, but where do you see some of the trends within the Vegan like diet alter heading? I'm kind of speaking to, I guess, products in particular. There was that huge push on net milks and things like that in the USA economy and things. When soy people were getting there, there was arguments about soy being bad and so everyone trying to net. But then there's no allergies. It's all about oatmeal. You know, Starbucks is getting oatmeal and everyone's oatmeal fanatics and things like that. But I'm wondering if you can kind of point towards because it's your it's your science and your trade and your education. Do you feel like there will be a return to, like a whole food Vegan diet? Or do you think there's going to be more of these, like foam meats and things like that as as this next five years kinds of unfolds? [00:36:02] Yeah, I think a lot of these big companies can see, you know, where it's going. And where the money might be. And so I think there's going to be a lot of food meets and a lot of process to Vegan food. I mean, as a Vegan, I say, look, you know, in moderation, small amounts of processed foods and treat fruits are fine. [00:36:19] But I feel like like you said when you started your Vegan journey to get a lot of that process still, as I think most vegans do. So I think the trick is to teach food. And that's okay in the short term when you're learning for, you know, a new one. But over time, you need to push more towards the whole food trampas approach because that's the healthy diet. That's I don't I call it a diet. That's the healthy lifestyle. Let's have the Vegan. I says eat wholesome campus. So, yeah, I think to be the junk food thing is going to shoot through the roof because I think these big companies who have a lot of money are just see where it's going and they know that that's where they're going to. They want to do well. So they've got to be another option, which is good for us both. We need to just ensure that we don't go crazy on the stuff. You know, focus more on Whole Foods than this. [00:37:05] Yeah. I mean, for all of a lot of American economy, you know, there's billions of dollars being funded into this like impossible burger and faux me. And I don't think they all have it bad. In fact, I think with a boom in the industry, they'll they'll actually be these ones that are a little bit less perfect for you. I do want there to be a return to conversation about, you know, something being good for you. You know, being. Real food and not a bunch of preserved goals that are animal based, but still are really bad for the human body. All right. I want to turn towards we've covered your goals with these books and things like that. And now, I mean, to have you indulge me, if you would, with about 10 questions from our audience that we're very curious to find out. [00:37:52] I've boiled down about 50. So for everyone listening questions, but I could I coagulated them, if you will. I correlated them together. So the number one is a lot of people ask about how do you personally start educating someone and about Vegan nutrition. [00:38:10] Do you have like a top five? A lot of people were like, what are her top five? You know, like most important key concepts to understand about nutrition and the Vegan. [00:38:18] Do you have any. [00:38:22] Yeah, well, OK. So basically, when people are I have ever heard of. Melanie Joy to psychologist when Joy. [00:38:31] She kind of turned Peronism and she talks about the trillions of justifications so people feel that what they're eating is normal, natural or necessary. [00:38:40] So it kind of. [00:38:42] And when someone comes to me and a new Vegan or they want to be in a kind of you have to kind of touch on that stuff. [00:38:47] So you actually start with the psychology side of it. You know that it's it's just it's been so ingrained in this for so long that we believe in it so much in this story. But in fact, it's none of those. So I usually kind of talk a bit about speciesism. [00:39:06] And all of that stuff. But at nutritionally, I take the top five, I would probably focus on what protein is a big one, even though for me it's one of the easiest ones, because basically, if you're if you're eating enough calories is a big beacon, you're getting enough protein. [00:39:20] It's that simple. Unless you have, like an eating disorder or something, then you've got to protein pretty much. I mean, also necessary. And Chris Taito is every day. Chris, every day. Sorry. That's Irish. Irish for Chris. We are hearing a pretty well balanced diet. Proteins on issues, subprojects formidable because you just need to about two weeks. People always ask the second one would be big twelve because people are concerned. How we get eaten up as a big red. Generally, I recommend everybody supplemented beachwear finisher. Really. They can really focus on eating fortified foods every day at the same amount. You know, it's just so much easier to take a spray of V12 every day. So would you recommend that vitamin D would probably another one. [00:40:04] Because as a beacon, you don't you don't get any very deep through your diet. So you need to obtain it either to supplement or from the sun. So we talk about that a bit. [00:40:16] So protein vitamin D. and it'll make a series of mega cheese would be the next one of thing to dissolve. Is this the fourth? I'll make it through so healthy fats. So basically, people are worried about, you know, if I don't eat fish, what's going to happen? Malcolm, you're going to have the fat spill. What you don't realize is that fish contains a lot of dioxins and these are mad. And all this stuff that you read, you don't want your body and omega 3s fish to get. I make a cheese from reentry into water. So if you take a rain, I'd be happy supplement. You're gonna get the same omega 3s of the fish conserving what I'm consuming the fish, take out the middleman as such. So Marina B or you can just take, you know, almost two seeds, hemp seeds and stuff. So I'm Vegan three years out of the womb. And then I would probably go with iron. [00:41:02] I think I'm a few people as well. [00:41:04] So, you know, some people are more exposed to no iron levels when they're Vegan. But I think once you focus on eating foods containing ARED, then you do want to do OK. You know, like cooking your spinach. And having that every day or having lots of leafy greens, beetroot, blackstrap molasses, things like that, dried apricots, all that kind of thing. Ungood, stuff like that book. Some people will need to supplement bananas. Well, it depends on your art levels. But I always recommend to begins to get a low test maybe every six to 12 months, especially as a new Vegan just to ensure that everything is going as it should do. [00:41:45] So they will probably I think that's fine. Make 3D printing doesn't fit. [00:41:53] I'm wondering. And so we had another question along that same line and people were asking if you personally subscribe to a specific brand or kind of Vegan multi vitamin. There's millions out there. [00:42:04] And I think sifting through the right ones and there's a lot of people that worry about certain areas that one is obtaining their vitamins like organic Vegan vitamins and things like that. What are your thoughts on that? Or do you have one that you recommend to your clients? [00:42:19] When I recommend art wise? I take flooding sort if you have an eye over America, Florida, it's Nordics and Sparta. One is something that I recommend because Fashloom is just like a liquid art. [00:42:31] It has no side effects. It doesn't cause constipation or anything like that. And it's very easy to take even for kids. So that's a really good aren't supplements. And then there's a product over here called by a sushi. Those if you happen over there, maybe not. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's the range I try Mike for me. One of the things I quite like my sentiments now. I don't think they're actually organic. What did you can get organic even better. Something always organic is better. [00:42:57] You have Salu grow your own. We're very big up gardens right now in the States. I mean, there. Has a lot of different things that it's launched. But one of my favorite that I proudly contributed to is a vertical garden. Oh, wow. Yeah. Fornia. And space is on the ocean and prized possessions. So you don't donate your lawns to gardens. It's good they go up. [00:43:23] Very good. Now, I take I'm sorry there's a delay. I think self-sufficiency is definitely the future. I have been growing your own products. Your own crops is definitely the way to go, even for people like me. [00:43:36] And I always try to express my audience is sick of hearing me say it, but I feel like the only thing I can help thriver children like plants die on me. I'm not the greatest at that. I don't understand why I buy the fertilizer. I do the research, but I can actually. So if I can do it, everyone can. It's out there. [00:43:56] Yeah. Yeah. [00:43:57] Can two people ask if what the most important books are resources for you. Where do you glean a lot of your knowledge from? How do you stay up to date. Do you posture like your protheses and then go Fedder out the information, or do you have like these news feed rolls that you get it from? [00:44:17] Well, I do. I spend a lot of time on progress. Twitch's has on the latest journal articles. So as a dietician, I have access to that. [00:44:24] I mean, I'm sure I know people probably four, too, but I think you do have to pay up. See, I remembered Dieticians Association of Australia, so I'm on that every day. You know, that is Atkins for this year and stuff. [00:44:37] But, um, also, like I said, I read for four people. I suggest they read books by campus doctors, you know, Dr. Gregor and Dr. Kofman or Colin Campbell. And there's some great books out there to China study. I highly recommend to your audience How Not to Die. All those books are really good. Read, read, educational, fantastic book. Basically for me it's more of the journal articles so I can read information from and if I hear something about new new research that's come out, then I go in and investigate myself, medical journals, different issues. And so sometimes I might hear it from somewhere else or someone else post about it, or a different dietician or different doctor. And then I go in and learn about research and sense. Yeah. So it's it's a constant study, constant, constant study. As a dietician, you you're always working on studying all this, trying to keep up to do. It's ever changing. [00:45:30] Yeah. Ours. I wonder there are put in and asked about how you personally and your private practice, what is the most common reason that people are looking for your assistance is you people come to you for weight loss, disease, sitting them until what is like. Is there a larger category than others as to why people consult you and are turning Vegan? [00:45:56] Well, I would say the main thing is health wise would be chronic disease, so tied to it. I just got diagnosed with Type two diabetes. [00:46:03] My doctor said, if you're going to get a heart attack, I don't change my diet or put a huge amount of people as well for weight loss. So a lot of people like, are you go Vegan, but I want to lose 20 kilos or 40 pounds. [00:46:17] Yes. So I think chronic disease maybe would be the reason. And then I cassadaga a lot of women asking questions about being in pregnancy. So they're probably the main main ones. Women with young children who have been told by their doctor that a child needs strong cow's milk to be healthy and stuff like that. So I try to educate them, teach them, and obviously, like so generally Cosulich recommended for one one year old. Well, basically, I recommend Stop the Child Once to finish breastfeeding and see breast all as best as long as possible. Once the child's finished breastfeeding, we recommend to unsweetened soy milk. Organic soy milk is as close to an cowslip without all the bad stuff. And or I can repeat with Campina, which is also good, but that's only after the child's turn. One would recommend that APC's comes with a tiny constipating two babies and children. So it's not recommended. [00:47:13] Absolutely. I we had a bunch of people learning that you were a Vegan parent right in. And they were wondering about how you personally, because you have so much information. How do you educate your children and kind of arm them with the proper amount of information, given their respective young ages, you know, to your can handle very little. Eleven year old can handle a lot. But how many them and things like that. How do you kind of provide them with information for when they socialize. [00:47:45] Yeah. So basically one of my obviously my youngest is fifteen and so she has no idea yet. I have a tree and a half year old and almost five year old. [00:47:53] So they're they ask a lot of questions when we bought a lot of books about veganism and you know, to teach children in a very easy way, why were Vegan and stuff like that? Do you understand that? It's amazing. They're so accepting of it. And you know that dad told people we don't eat animals because we love them. We want to be happy. It's very cute. But I didn't tell them about you know, I explained to them that we need to look after our bodies and healthy foods from the flesh of animals that is good for our bodies. And it's not so nice for the animals because they have suffered and they understand the green, leafy green vegetables and colorful fruits and vegetables are very good for their bodies. And they're very aware. And you know that to be not your move to understand. It's it's a really good, good way to start them in their life, to understand the importance of healthy plants and, you know, not. It's enough to see, you know, some people say, oh, you know what? You're restricting your child and you shouldn't. It's not fair. We like people who are raising their child or niece or are not teaching or childhood. If it's coming from one teacher teaching, why should it? Since coming from so, I believe that you can only guide them a certain amount. And once the research reach a certain age, it's going to be up to them. So I'm hoping that what I've taught them would be enough for them to continue on campus. So I agree. Yeah, they're pretty knowledgeable for their age, so I'm pretty happy like it. [00:49:14] I always tell people it was. It was. Sounds terrifying. Is actually an open door opens a door for me to link other principles and core core values that my family employs, you know, compassion and ability. Global citizenship. You know, these ideas about know what we can't see. It doesn't mean it's not still happening. Yeah. So it allowed me I used it as, you know, as an opportunity and continued to, you know, and also to reexamine my own dialog. We're doing, as any parent will tell you, is that's the main thing with having children. It allows you to just completely reexamine your relationship with some once thought, you know, first year. Yeah. I go I to find it as a source of education. And, you know, I think that having a child and they really in childhood, they are forming a relationship and bringing that to the forefront, that you are building a relationship with food, whether or not knowledge it, every adult world has a billion relationships with food. Absolutely. And unhealthy and sudden realize that as you're doing it, bring it to cognition is. Aw, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So the final obvious question and that we had a ton of people ask about and so I'm going to ask the kind of broad and let you just go where you want with it. But it was naturally about Cobbett, the teen pandemic. And there's so many different facets and I don't ascribe lineage or blame to any country. There's a ton of talk about what markets, particularly with begins, and that's fine. And, you know, I have my own private foundation there with what I believe. But you as a dietitian. Again, because you have a lot of people coming in with health that there will be eventually, you know, people coming in wanting to prevent Koven and things like that, moving forward as a reason why they're consulting with you. But do you a sound bite that you offer people who do have clients currently, they ask you about it. You have anything that you can kind of state about diet and things like pandemic's, you know, or the current state of Cauvin that you advise people with regularly. [00:51:24] So are you waiting in order to boost immune system, prevent coded or post covered worlds? You have that like all of it. You know, good advice you have. [00:51:36] Yes, well, obviously, as a stronger your immune system, the less likely you are to catch anything. So if you're healthy and you eat an antiinflammatory diet and you get plenty of rest and you know, you exercise and you eat lots of fiber and colorful organic whole foods, you're going to be much more likely to fight off poverty if you patches or maybe prevent yourself from getting because the stronger immune system that's like you to catch things. Bacteria, viruses, salt. [00:52:05] And in terms of the post-Cold War, the world still I mean, you know, like you said, people put blame on things like I really believe that the factory farming and all that stuff is is obviously always taught or is wrong. But after the cold. But it just shows that, you know, it's risky. What we're doing, what we're doing is risky. I mean, animals carry diseases. You've got animals, not even wet markets. We're just inside and these chicken houses and all cooped up together. They got diseases and they're sick and, you know, there's a risk of passing on stuff to humans. You know, so I just think that that kind of food is not we wanted to put it in your body. So I think. Stay away from it. Stay away from animals products even more so ethical that I need a morsel. I definitely wouldn't be wanting to eat animal products after after Kofman 19. [00:52:59] But, yeah, just generally, there's not really anything specific. But just keep your immune system healthy. Just easy eating a healthy, wholesome thomkins diet, exercising every day, getting enough sleep. Not too much stress because people find this very stressful. [00:53:14] This whole thing is very stressful. When you're stressed, you're more likely to catch things. So you need to do what you need to do. Yoga, meditation. Take a hop wrestle for. Do whatever works readable. We live in a very stressful world and I read a post code. I find paper even more niche, more anxiety. More people are just scared. And also it's very important to look out for mental health and physical health. [00:53:39] Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Well, Yvonne, we are out of time, but I want to say thank you so much for taking the time today and giving us all of your information. I am Perman woman and I will circle back around once your book goes up and you are on your tour to be part of that circuit so that our audience can have this follow up with the first the the first Vegan Bible, as I've turned it. [00:54:03] Maybe that would be the new thing. Do you have a title for it? No, my guess. OK. What do I do now? [00:54:12] The app. Don't call it that. I would do that. Should they name people can look it up first and then the subsequence, you know, pregnancy and begin and pre pregnancy and Vegan fertility and Vegan, you know, all of those areas that book I will keep pestering you for as well. But thank you so much for giving us your time today. No problem. Thanks for having me on. It's good for everyone listening. We've been speaking with Yvonne O'Halloran and she's a dietician. You can find out more about all of her work. I assume her future books will be posted there as well. It's w w dot living Vegan dot com. [00:54:48] And thank you for sharing your time with us today and with myself personally. Please stay safe, eat responsibly and clean and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I chat with Ania Mroz-Pacula. Ania is a CEO of FERRON, a vegan luxury designer brand, that enables her to be creative and talk about things that are important to her- sustainability, cruelty-free lifestyle and empowering women entrepreneurs. When she's not working or researching ways to lower her negative impact on the planet, Ania is usually busy with her rescued babies, 4 year old Beagle- Harrier, Oscar, and 3-year-old Husky cross, Maya. This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with the CEO of FERRON, which is a Vegan luxury handbag brand Ania Mroz Pacula key points addressed were on his work that tie her humanitarian efforts into FERRON brand. We also discussed key elements of her handbags, products and her efforts to ensure that every stage of the production was as clean as possible, given the infancy of her company's age. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Ania Mroz Pacula. [00:00:36] My name is Patricia Kathleen. And this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen Acom, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:33] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today, I am so excited to be sitting down with Ania Mroz Pacu. Ania Is the CEO of FERRON. [00:01:42] It's a Vegan luxury brand. You can find out more about it and Ania as well on her Web site. W w w dot FERRON dot c o. That is Effy r o n dot CEO. Welcome, Ania. [00:01:55] Thank you. Thank you for having me. Absolutely, I am excited to climb through. [00:02:00] We were talking before we got started and I really love both your company, the ethos, the philosophy, as well as the product and kind of like learning out on. [00:02:09] I'm a little obsessive and I have to get myself one. But before we get to all of that, I will tell everyone who's listening who hasn't listened to our podcast before. I'll give you a quick roadmap in which our inquiry will be based today. And then I'll give you a brief bio on Ania before I start asking her all of our wonderful questions. So a roadmap for today's inquiry will be we'll first cover Ania's academic and professional background and then we'll look at kind of unpacking her Vegan story if it hasn't already come to fruition within the academic and professional background. Then we'll turn to the logistics around FERRON, namely the who, what, when, where, why, how of the company. And then we'll turn to the philosophy and the ethos based around it and all of its endeavors. [00:02:49] We'll get into the Vegan nature, the UK, where unus based out of the difFERRONces and then some of the stylistic choices of her products, things like that. [00:02:59] And then we'll talk about future plans and also just particular's with the Vegan story as it pertains to FERRON and yet in particular. [00:03:06] So, as promised, a quick bio on Ania, Ania is as sustainability and waste reduction advocate with a passion for working with people and building relationships. She's the CEO of Feron, a Vegan luxury designer brand that enables her to be creative and talk about things that are important for her sustainability, cruelty free lifestyles and empowering women entrepreneurs. [00:03:29] When she's not working or researching ways to lower her negative impact on the planet, she's usually busy with rescued babies, with her rescue babies, her four year old beagle, Herry Harrier Oscar and three year old Husky Cross. I'll have to get into those names, Maya, who love exercising more than she does. She volunteers at Launch Pad Reading, organize and attends meet ups in the Reading and London area. And she travels whenever she can as well, which is a little put on hold. I'm sure right now. I'm so excited to climb through everything that you do and everything you have kind of postured here. But prior to getting to that, I'm wondering if you can kind of walk us through your academic background and early professional life at book as it led to launching Feron. [00:04:21] Sure. Yes. Thank you. So to be completely honest. My education and early kind of experience, job experiences are ups and nothing to do with what I do at the moment. [00:04:38] So I am fresh. I moved to the UK. Oh, gosh. Way too long now. And then I went to university. This was my dream come true. Basically, I like the challenge. When I arrived, I didn't speak any English. I went to a community college, got the English language lessons that took me about a year to be ready to enroll into what was, again, my dream, a journalism with criminology. [00:05:10] So I finished the degree and then it kind of a kind of I move from job to job. And then I ended up working in H.R.. [00:05:25] And as much as long as I like some bits, some parts of the H.R. role. [00:05:31] I've been doing it was too structured for me, if you will. Mind you, it was a I.T. sector. So obviously everything is kind of fast paced and moving. That's what I liked the most. And then. Yeah. Meeting, meeting people, meeting various people, coming from difFERRONt backgrounds, difFERRONt cultures. That's why kind of. I appreciated at the time, but I always kind of knew that this isn't this is not it. I've been doing a lot of outside work activities that kind of led me to explore the sustainability and Vegan passion more and more. [00:06:18] Um. And yeah, the the way I kind of ended up launching fire on is just by a lot. [00:06:27] I met this beautiful couple that that cared about the animals. And whenever for, you know, for a cruelty that fashion is sadly intertwined with at the moment. So we came up with the idea, with the product. They've done a lot of legwork for me, too. So I have to mention that, unfortunately. [00:06:58] They kind of they say they take their personal circumstances have changed and they weren't able to dedicate as much time and resources into the brand. [00:07:09] So after careful consideration and obviously discussion discussions with my husband, I decided to buy the brand fully and so effectively, officially off the last last year. April Theran is as is my my band, my on any front originally. [00:07:37] Peggy, when was it launched originally from? [00:07:42] It was launched in 2018. March 2018. That's where our first baby came out. [00:07:51] Nice. Yeah. In those first five years, there's so much transition that happens within myself. It's all about staying flexible. Right. For the pivot. That keyword pivot I climb through Feron and it's attachment to. It's big in values, in the sustainability that it sounds like it already was. But before we get there, do you can you describe. So are you yourself. Vegan. And how did you attach. How did you know that you wanted to. How did all of the people that began the project understand or know that they wanted to make sure that it was sustainable and Vegan in nature? [00:08:28] So I come from a family that was obsessed with meat and. [00:08:38] And not only in terms of food, but also animals used for fashion. So I vividly remember and bless her heart. I love my mom to bits that it was this old fashioned old generation of people where she would she would be making sure that all the investments she does is it's in leather because it's high quality. It's it's versatile. [00:09:07] It's obviously it's more kind of sturdy. [00:09:13] And, you know, it's going to last us for a longer time, longer period of time than any synthetic material. And I just I don't know. I think I was very empathetic, sympathetic, um, child always. And I kind of I never agreed with with usage of animals for for the sake of fashion or anything, really. So I'm I'm Vegan at the moment. Yes. But I've it's not I've been vegetarian most of my life, but I transition to Vegan is probably around three years ago and. [00:09:53] And that was a very conscious and very obviously adult driven decision. [00:09:59] It was I just I just knew I had to do that to move even further from being vegetarian to Vegan. [00:10:10] Yeah, there's a lot of difFERRONt ways to come at it. And it sounds like you have several in your own personal story. You know, a lot of people come in, particularly some of the younger generations coming up right now. You know, Generation Y or whatever, we're going to name them as well as generation ahead of them. But there's been a lot of people that come at it from the accountability and sustainability. And I think some of the older guard, and maybe this is too general, but come at it or you came to the Vegan lifestyle from compassion, you know, from these kind of animal rights moments that were happening and really big in the 80s and 90s when they were hitting their genesis. But it doesn't really matter how you get there. I think it sounds like you have a combination of this, you know, empathy and compassion for animals as well as this, you know, this huge push that you have in your every day life towards sustainability and, you know, and being fiscally proactive in conservation of the Earth and its resources. I'm curious when you so let's unpack it really quickly. So everyone who's listening. So it's a it's a Vegan luxury designer brand. And it's you mainly deal with handbags, correct? [00:11:19] Correct. So at the moment, it's an online store. So it's it's a designer bag. So you are closely in touch it with with the design of the back. So. And we aren't sure at the moment. [00:11:38] Oh, we we only have three difFERRONt colors. There's the same design in three difFERRONt colors. Obviously we hoping to grow and expand on our designs. But the moment this is just one classic piece, it's our signature collection. And hopefully we'll be able to grow from here. [00:12:01] Yeah, I love it. I was talking to you before we started. And because of a history in fashion photography and I've had fashions, my my safe space where I go to explore and have fun. And that includes handbags and accessories and things like that. And people who follow a lot of my podcast know that I'm I'm nothing short of a fan of Stella McCartney, both in her clothing and handbags. And for a long time, she was kind of one of the only major designers that was overtly, you know, vegetarian and had Vegan products. And so but we were talking about the classical. I love the style of your. I have to say the signature cross body in Camel is such a. It's bull. It's so in one. And I leave things that are classic and iconic, like the Coco Chanel era. And yet so contemporary. You know, your lines are so clean and everything is so. And here's my tie in with with Vegan and that because I feel like a lot of designers, clothing and accessories who deal in leather substitutes or leather like materials become very scared of that kind of modern clean line because they're terrified that the it will be perceived as immediately not leather or, you know, sub sub leather. And I love that you guys kind of took that full on, you know, not only in kind of being this luxury design, but also this minimalistic where imperfections do show, you know, that's there. They say if you want a really great paint job, don't put anything on the walls or the floor and look at it because it's like there's nothing to hide anything, you know? And the same is true with design. And I'm wondering how that how that's been perceived and also how that kind of has been received. Like, you know, if you go on your Web site, you see that you have an attachment to Vogue and things like that. How is your reception since hitting the market ban large? [00:13:50] I just love what you just said. Yes. So the idea was to always to go for a timewell timeless staple and very versatile piece. And I think we managed to do just that. And to date, I've been receiving a really good reviews not only from our customers, but also from the people that have seen the bag. I think that one of the best, this compliment that we've received today was the fact that I'm a cobbler person, that, you know, he's been working in difFERRONt industries, difFERRONt not my being justice, but he's always been working with the leather. [00:14:37] And he he actually said that he he thought that is leather. It's just so well made. And the material is super, super doable as well as beautiful. And it gives you just a leather like feel to it. So I love everything about the back and the fact that you can unhook destruct and use as a handbag or a body or a shoulder bag. [00:15:09] And I think I think everyone kind of appreciates the versatile versatility of it. [00:15:18] Yeah, it has that. And it has both masculine and feminine qualities. I don't mean labels like that. However, you know, if you were to kind of denote the classical, you know, masculine and feminine, it has both like classical brands. Did you know Chanel in particular is always coming to mind? Because it was a very structured look and that was usually used for men, you know, and and and to have that come in and also represent the women. And I love that for your your pieces, they feel incredibly versatile and that they span, you know, this new awakening we're having regarding, you know, gender and fluidity and all of that. It just speaks to all of those things so well. And I like the simplicity and not having too much of a variation right now. I think people branch out and many, you know, too many versions of something too quickly and yours. It really does just kind of exemplify it. You can tell I'm a fan. I'm wondering when you went your product that the materials that you did, were you involved in that process? And if so, what? Did you kind of sample. Like, what did you consider before you landed on the material that you landed on? [00:16:25] And can you tell us a little bit about that material through material that is used at the moment is PITU and I'm not going to be lying. It's a synthetic material, so it's not the most sustainable one at the moment. [00:16:40] And there are difFERRONt Matute, you probably know that are difFERRONt fabrics being developed and being sort of developed and also trialed. And I'm more than happy to explore all the options for the future humpbacks and difFERRONt designs for fibrin. However, at this stage, I must say that's when we kind of this side is on the materials that we use for the bags. We just knew that we the most important part part for us at the decision of this decision in the decision process was to make sure that the material is it's is it gives you the luxurious feel and touch to it. And that was that was. And we did sample a few other materials, but we just we were quite disappointed with the whole look. And we actually made some samples out of the materials that we sampled. And then the result wasn't as beautiful as thoroughness today. But again, I'm conscious. [00:18:04] I'm very conscious of the fact that, you know, not the most sustainable material. And I'm happy to explore some other options. [00:18:14] And this is time. I mean, I think, you know, that's it's cool that you're being honest and open and years. Yeah. Kind of your only option. And now, you know, people are still playing around, but you've got pineapple leathers coming out. Apple leather is like it's a great time to, you know, be able to consider it and really sample the market and switch when you feel comfortable. I'm curious about like the hardware and things like that. Wood, did you pay great attention? Because when I think of luxury, I think of those details, you know, that Birkin bag moment and obviously not being something I own or it's not Vegan. It's just a very, very classical, iconic, you know, handbag that people think of. And it's the Birkin hand stitching, right, that everybody talks about. There's very tiny details. And for me, with with your brand, I think that the hardware would become very thoughtful. So can you tell us a little bit about that and how you guys are sourcing that as well as your production? Is that happening in the UK? Is it being outsourced to overseas? A little bit about that. [00:19:13] Yes. [00:19:14] So we went through a great deal of research in terms of their hard work, is that the back is so simple that, you know, the hardware we knew straight away that it's going to stand out is just going to stand out. So we need we need it to make sure that it's enhanced this luxurious look as well as the rest of the bag. So we've sampled quite a number of Hardwell details elements. So, yeah, it was a long, long process as well as the logo itself. So I don't know if you know this, but we do have a logo of our elephant. And we kind of that's linked with the charity work that we do. So we do support the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, where we donate 10, 10 pound of each box sold to the orphanage in Kenya, which is absolutely amazing. And we we love collaborating with the with the charity days. They state is such an amazing job. But let's move to the materials and hardware, etc.. So. So their bags are actually manufactured in China. And again, that's I know that that's very disappointing to some of their customers. I actually had some people contacting me and saying that they are not going to be supporting a brand that manufactures in China. And I do understand it and. And I myself, as a customer, I would be concerned and I would be doing a thorough research about the brand by what I can tell you, I can I can promise you that myself, as the ex colleagues, we made sure we made the trips to China, to our manufacturer sites. We made sure that not only our factories, that the factories are Vegan and don't use any animal survival products, but we we just want to to make sure that we get to know them. And we are in contact with them and we appreciate what they do for us, because let's face it, it is the most economic lead, logical point of manufacturing the products at this stage. Again, this is something that I'm more than happy to explore, investigate and potentially move the factories that we use into Europe. And I've done some research and this might be something that we'll be investigating where we think at this stage it's it's China. [00:22:14] Yeah, absolutely. I see on your website you talk about FERRON, the name actually being Latin and mean iron gray hair or one who is well dressed in gray. How does that tie in to the brand? What is the communication there? [00:22:31] So we always want to give back to the charity that supports supports orphaned elephants. So that was, if anything, that was the starting point for us. [00:22:43] So we always want to make sure that the brand evolves around elephants given back, spreading the message about Vegan and more sustainable lifestyle and hence the name. Again, I was a lot of research and investigating and voting in. But we came up with a with the with the brand name. And I, I honestly, I do love it. It's, it's kind of it's strong. [00:23:17] It gives you this simple message and kind of bold boldness of the, you know, of of what we want to present to the world. [00:23:28] I think it ties in beautifully with with the image on the label as well as this. It's a very simple line drawing. That is your your logo or if you will, of the elephant. I think it's all very beautiful. You have a blog on your say. I feel like this is where you kind of really connect. Aside from the materials and things like that, you talk about, you know, difFERRONt Vegan aspects that are environmentally affecting things, how silk is made. You have difFERRONt person, things like that. How do you decide what is curated? Like what what makes it into the your blog or not? And do you yourself compose it or do you outsource that? [00:24:06] So I compose a composer. [00:24:08] I very often collaborate with other people, so I believe that the blog post you mentioned about silk, I kind of I wrote that with another lady. She has her own band. She's in an organic cotton clothing industry, if you will. So, yeah, I do. I kind of do my research. [00:24:35] I go online and I see what what is the most viewed kind of and researched. What are the most researched terms for Vegan fashion in general? [00:24:52] And I research Piton Web site. I go to my absolute guru. You probably know him. Joshua Kotcher. He's he's a Ments menswear fashion brand owner, brave gentleman. So I just I reach out to the Vegan fashion and entrepreneurs for kind of inspiration because I think we're in this together. And the more we spread awareness about veganism and sustainability, the better for the world in general. So. So, yeah, I honestly, I do believe it's a teamwork. [00:25:38] I agree. Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious about what the scene over in the UK is in London and difFERRONt areas of the UK regarding fashion that is Vegan in the States it's becoming it's over. I would say over the past at least five years, it's kind of not just blossomed, but taken off, you know, and it's it's due to all of these difFERRONt areas. The conversation about long before covered nineteen pandemic and took over. There was a huge conversation, particularly in fashion in the United States, about really being accountable, you know, and and talking. Having those conversations about sustainability, being more transparent about fashion, like littering the landfills. Designers are doing a lot of what you did with your brand, which is kind of going down to very few options and then being classical. That could stand the test of decades. As you know, you don't need to buy a new handbag every year. This is the one you can have for a decade, you know, hand down to your your sister or your daughter or something, your friend. So those kinds of conversations really start taking over. Designers that weren't Vegan had those conversations because they, you know, they were being asked the questions. And so I'm curious if it's the same in the UK, if you've seen it in the trajectory kind of spike with people being interested. And also with people wanting to own items that were eco friendly and sustainable and Vegan and accountable for not impacting the animal kingdom. [00:27:10] Yes, it's a very, very good question. So. [00:27:15] I opted in for the for the Vegan bags because as I did mentioned before, I, I, I just wanted to save the animals from being the victims of the fashion, vanity and like of thoughtless pursuit of of of stay on trend. So it's it's shocking to think that, you know, our desire for for cheap clothes, our desire and kind of sense of entitlement to feeling that we can take someone someone's life in the name of fashion is just horrendous. And whilst I'm seeing I'm noticing a big spike in the does that are more and more people are happy to invest in organic food and cruelty, food and Vegan and plant based food. There's still I believe there's still quite some times quite some work to do around clothing and fashion in general. Don't get me wrong, there are fashion shows. So last year in August, Tharon was actually one of the participants of the fashion show. It's a it's the only UK Vegan fashion show. And there are exhibitions and shows and pop ups coming up every now and then. But I think that's yet in terms of the clothing in general and fashion, if you can fashion, there's still some work to do and believe it or not. Quite recently I had a lady contacting me. She'd email to the mailbox and she said that she loves the back. She loves the look of it. She loves the design. But at this price point, she prefers to buy a real leather bag. And and, you know, I didn't respond. I just didn't because I got very upset, not by the fact that she doesn't want to invest in fibrin. But that kind of defeats the whole point of investing in cruelty free fashion, you know. Yeah. And maybe I shoot maybe in a in a while when I'm kind of I'm going to cool down. I will respond to, you know, provide a structured answer because that's that's what I mean. People they don't you think about how something is made. They just think about the price. And let's face it, if we you know, if we need to be be ready to spend a bit more for something dies environmentally friendly and. [00:30:13] Yeah, I agree. I completely concur. And I feel like that's why Stella McCartney and people that have come out as you know, as being vegetarian and big and brands are so powerful because it is still luxury that the price point is still designer runway. And and and I don't think that the continuity is which mean, in fact, there's a divorce from it. And a lot of industries where you get something environmentally friendly and there's more labor, it could because it's new. You know, things haven't come down in price. There's not enough competition and things of that nature. But it's also the caring shouldn't be free, you know, I mean, like as far as like with efforts that we put into, things should mean something to us. And I agree with that. I think attributing a lower price point to non leather is absolutely silly. I think you should, you know, perhaps pay a touch more for that new effort and things like that going through. That's neither here nor there, though. I'm wondering, what do you see? So this obviously with the pandemic, this has changed for a lot of people. And I'm wondering if it's changed really being a solely online enterprise, perhaps, and perhaps not. And what is the future for FERA? Do you are you going to expand on designs? Are you going to keep it where it's at? Are you going to expand it to difFERRONt marketplaces? You're available online? Does it shipped from the UK or are you going to try to get a United States presence? Is that down the road or not at all? What are the future plans for on. [00:31:39] So I never wanted FERRON to just be an online store. [00:31:43] If that makes sense. Oh, well, one collection even. So I really want to be a part of a bigger picture of the change in the fashion industry. And, you know, the cinema cottony. Courtney, this is this is this is my guru, too. This is an amazing example of how things should go in fashion. So I'm hoping down on the good path, on doing that, on expanding. So I'm planning on expanding the brand with more designs to really offer more kind of scale up model. And then the plan is to obviously do the whole wholesale and distribute much larger quantities. At the moment, we only an online store. However, we are we are part of a few marketplaces around the world. Actually, we do have some marketplaces in the states. And then I say that a majority of my customers are funding enough. They come from United States, especially Canada, which I'm very curious why that is. So, yeah, I'd love to open a boutique in London, too. Who knows? But at the moment, I think I'm being a very positive person, so I'm not trying to jump ahead and, you know, dwell on things. But unfortunately, I think that the current situation will kind of impact my plans. And and I'm going to have to brace myself and be more patient, which I'm struggling with. [00:33:27] Well, I think everyone as well. So much for talking with me today. We're out of time, but I really appreciate you kind of unpacking FERRON and what it's doing and just all of your honesty and transparency. I really appreciate it. And I hope all the success in the world for, you know, your future Vegan endeavors with their on and outside of that and very projects spoken to you today. [00:33:52] Thank you. Thank you for having me. He was a real pleasure. [00:33:56] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we have been speaking with Ania Mroz Pacula. She is the CEO of FERRON. It's a Vegan luxury brand. You can find out more and purchase those items on. W. W. W. Dot. F. E. R. Oh. And c. O. And until we speak again next time. [00:34:14] Remember to stay safe, eat responsibly and clean and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am talking with Vanita Badlani. Vanita is a sustainability activist, entrepreneur, CEO, and Founder of LaBante London. She has an MBA in International Business from Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Business in Arizona, USA. After a career in investment banking, she switched to her true love – pursuing her childhood passion for fashion and worked her way to making fashion sustainable and cruelty-free. Key points addressed were  Unpacking Vanita’s efforts to base Labante’s ethos of sustainability into the brand and products social messageWe also discussed some of the difficulties in finding vegan leather products that did not contain harmful ingredients such as PVC as she went into manufacturing her products This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with activist, entrepreneur and founder of the Vegan handbag line called Libonati London Vanita Badlani. Key points addressed were unpacking vanity's efforts to base Labonte his ethos of sustainability into the brand and products social message. We also discussed some of the difficulties in finding Vegan leather products that did not contain harmful ingredients such as BVC as she went into manufacturing her products. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Vanita Badlani. [00:00:40] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen .com, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:37] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today, I'm very excited to be sitting down with Vanita Badlani, she is an activist, entrepreneur, CEO and founder. You can find out more regarding what we talk about today, as well as her products on Labonte, a dot com. [00:01:52] That is L.A. b a n t e dot com. Welcome, Vanita. [00:01:58] Hi, Patricia. Thank you for having me on your show. [00:02:01] Absolutely, I I'm excited to climb through everything that you're doing with Liban Day and your products as well as your history for everyone listening. [00:02:09] Who hasn't listened to my podcast before. I will offer you a quick roadmap of where the line of inquiry will be coming from and going to the podcast today. And then I will also read a quick bio on Veny to give you a platform as to where she's coming from. The roadmap that today's trajectory will follow is we'll look at events, does academic and professional background, and then we will look at unpacking her vegetarian slash Vegan journey. As it stands on a personal level, if it is not already tied into her aforementioned information, then we will look at unpacking Libonati and the logistics around her company when it was started. Who? What funding? All of those things. And then we'll start unpacking the ethos of how she embraces a specific philosophy with a company. We will also address goals for the brand and how that ties into vegetarian and vegan endeavors. We'll look at who her customer is and then we'll wrap everything up with future work that Venita looks at having over the next one to three years. As promised, a quick bio on Vanita. Prior to asking her questions that Neeta. But Loni is a sustainability activist, entrepreneur, CEO and founder of Libonati London. She has an MBA in international business from Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Business in Arizona, USA, after a career in investment banking. She switched to her true love, pursuing her childhood passion for fashion and worked her way to making fashion sustainable and cruelty free. So, Venita, I know that and we kind of crawl through everything quickly. I'm hoping that you can kind of divulge just a little bit more information about your academic and professional background and how that catapulted you into launching Libonati. [00:03:52] Absolutely. [00:03:55] To start off with, I was born in India, and through my years I actually worked in fashion in my uncle's business on and off and all my summer holiday. So I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I guess by the age of. Thirteen, fourteen. Quite young, Ben. And I always say the single minded focus grew into like a business I did a undergrad in business. And then after working a couple of years in India, I went to. Came over to Arizona, where I graduated international business from Thunderbird, which is ranked number one for its international business program because I knew. While I was working in my uncle's office, working with a fashion merchandizers designers, we used to supply two big box retailers like Calvin Klein, Macy's. So it really wasn't my blood from a very young age. And when I landed up doing the international business degree, I did it in finance because, as you know, the backbone of any business is cash flow and how it performs. Not only on profitability, but also at the same time keeping all the fundamentals in the black. [00:05:22] Yeah, after that relationship as well. [00:05:26] Cash flow as it goes. I'm interested about the relationship between cash flow and sustainability as we speak later on. But go on. [00:05:33] Yes. Yes, I did. And I will cover that when we discuss a bit more about sustainability as well. But when I graduate from business school, it was straight after 9/11. It was really hard to get a job at that time. But finally, after six to eight months of really Grilli like really trying really hard and managed to get a job in investment banking in Chicago. Whereas working for Bank one, which then later got acquired by JP Morgan. So I moved I worked originally for in Chicago, loved, loved Illinois and then moved to New York. Where I worked for JP Morgan. But I had to move to London, where, again, I continued in investment banking with Commerce Bank and Dresdner Kleinwort, where I worked in strategy and the strategy team for the CEO and CEO's office to help get prisoner Kleinbaum to be bought over by Commerce Spang. [00:06:38] So that was really where my professional life. When did was purely numbers oriented? But always, Patricia. There was like a niggling feeling in the base of my stomach that my calling was always to do much more. And I saw a window of opportunity when I decided to have a baby. And I said, OK, it's now or never. It's now or never. I'm going to do it. I took all my savings and I put it into a brand called Alabam. Take Lavonte by the waste comes from the Sanskrit term to truly achieve where it means. It's about the circle of life. It's more about giving back than it is taking from the planet. And that really became the ethos of the pillars of the brand that I set up. [00:07:27] So when you launched Liban today, did you have a clear idea of the product that you were building and the direction that you were headed, or did it kind of gradually unfold? [00:07:39] I think it's a that's a great question for show. [00:07:42] I knew that as a brand, it's always going to be easiest to spread the word about sustainability and cruelty free fashion if it's a bit more in your face. So handbags don't have a brand name on them. Whereas with clothing, it's a bit harder where the labels are hidden. [00:08:00] So originally, because I had only started with my own capital, my hard earned money that I put into the business, I did not take any outside investment. I started a really small way, the sterling silver ethically made jewelry business, which I supplied into big box retailers. But as I grew that business, I knew that the trend would be to go into handbags next. So I had planned it so that I would launch the handbags with a bit more capital. So as the business grew, I was able to take that into the handbags business and build a line which I knew really from the beginning would be Vegan cruelty free and sustainable. Because, you know, Patricia, I don't know if you remember, there was the days when you would go shopping and you would try to local, beautifully crafted handbags and which were cruelty free. But quite frankly, only thing all you found on the shelves will ever handbags. And if you will look for the non leather bags, they would be like the P you the cheap feeling kind of quality. It looked tacky and looked like not so great. The top felt like plastic. And that's not what I wanted our brand to be. I wanted it to be premium. I wanted to have the same craftsmanship as the leather bags. But I don't want to give a quality to the customer. But I knew that in order to get this true to the right customer base and spread the sustainable message, it would have to be at an accessible price point where most department stores or stocks would be happy to stock it so that there's enough potential in their return. [00:09:46] They get enough return on investment as well for the retail space to give to us. So. So that was a gradual transition into handbags. And then coming up with the handbag line, which also took a year or two to get the esthetic of the brand looking and feeling the right way that it should be, because that was we did quite a bit of research, really find the best materials. That was what was time consuming and that was really what makes the essence of the brand. [00:10:13] So when did you what year was it that you were shopping for materials and how did that curation process work? So we haven't spoken to too many. I will say we are speaking with a few more Vegan handbag makers currently and for the podcast, and a lot of them are in different parts of the world. So it's interesting to find out how your experience in the UK was. But when you went shopping, first of all, what was the year and what was the material selection and is it different now? [00:10:44] Yes. [00:10:45] So when I went so when I would sort of go about it was about twenty thirteen. And by the time we launch the first time my collection was twenty fifteen. [00:10:55] So took two years really to get that process perfectly nailed. Because what happened. Patricia, is that in the shopping process. We found that there were lot of materials available, but a lot of them contained QVC. Now PDC is nothing but plastic. So the whole planet can block these PDC handbags will be flying in space. I mean, it's that ridiculous of a material. And that's something I did not want to contribute towards because I cannot say that we truly Vegan cruelty free, which means we don't harm animals. We're truly sustainable. Which means we don't want to harm the planet. And then I go about making handbags, which my which put PPC in them. And then essentially I'm harming both the planet. And essentially, there is no point in saying that because then I'm not being true to myself. If you care about the animals and you care about the planet, then it's like a circle. It's like the circle of life, which is technically what Levante also stands for. I mean, the three pillars. We are very, very clear on our view Vegan, because we believe no animal needs to be killed in the name of fashion. We're ethical because we believe that our workers have the right to correct wages as a great working conditions. And we are sustainable because we believe we all have a responsibility to reduce the amount of waste in the world. So that's what our pillars are. So I'm coming back to your question. It took us two years to get the process of the right fabrics because now we use a bunch of vegetable leather, we use apple leather, we use premium. The other recycled materials are premium Bluestar, Vegan leather. So we have a couple of combinations. [00:12:37] And the second part of your question was what? Remind me again, Patricia. [00:12:44] It was just that. It was when. How is it different as Europe as it would have been before in Europe? [00:12:52] Yeah. So basically, we took really classic styles which everyday women can take to the office and be proud to wear. And that's where we took Solomont. They makes a lot of classic fashion. So it's something you can wear on a regular day to work. You get married in the evening when you go out. We tend to do, you know, similar cuts. [00:13:14] But with beautiful Hardway, our our devil is in the detail. We pay a lot of attention to the hardware. Everything is custom made for us. And that's really what the lavonne, the woman and the Levante bag is. It's plastic. It's beautiful. It's sustainable. The insides are made from recycled plastic bottles. We put a little empowerment messages inside which are sustainability related in our women. Empower empowerment related because I think these women have a tough enough. [00:13:41] We need some, you know, really. Go, go, go. Kind of our empowerment messages as well. And that all comes from me because I guess that's a part of what I stand for and what the brand stands for, really. [00:13:57] And that's what I want women to enjoy. Just having these really beautiful pieces that they go into work in the office or just a regular day out. [00:14:06] Absolutely. I'm interested. Stella McCartney is probably the most famous handbag designer from the UK that I see most in the United States, particularly on the West Coast where I'm currently located. And I am an avid fan of Stella. For those people who follow me on Instagram, they know that I can't I can't get enough. I think it's nearing an addiction standpoint of Stella. But I'm curious with what your data says, what is your acceptance and popularity and growth in the United States with Labonte in London? [00:14:41] That's a great question, Patricia. So Stella has been doing this a lot longer than us. And I will come back to the US part of the question in my second half of my answer. So originally, I'd like to sort of talk about the UK because that's where the brand was born. And just so that, you know, we've been part of the fixing fashion bill, one which was discussed by the Fabio network, which is a think tank for the UK government to encourage the UK government to take more stands to help sustainable businesses in the United Kingdom. So I have been a part of that. And I will also tell you that, I mean, I was asked by those ladies to join that network. It was along with members of parliament, with the curator of of BNA Museum and quite a few of the fashion sustainable CEOs. [00:15:34] And I was asked to that conference and that fixing fashion bill only because our handbags are more excessively priced than the other brands in the market. Because what I was also told that which I didn't realize, which with me make complete sense in retrospect, is that not everybody can afford these expensive brands. The idea is to have a larger group of people wearing sustainable cruelty free bags, but which are also accessible pricing. And that really had hit home to me because I was inadvertently really trying to do that for quite a long time. But she put it in such beautiful words and really made me feel very happy because I'd really worked really hard to make such a beautiful, you know, a really expensive, sustainable product and pretty much charge what I think is a very fair price for such a sustainable product. And I think it's very important for us. And then the second part of the question is about the popularity in the US. I think that's a great question. Be launched in America late December, twenty eighteen, January twenty nineteen. So we've only been going in the states industry for a year and a few months, given Koban ninety nine. [00:16:52] I have to say the response from America has been great. We have now stockists in the States. We're going to be part of QVC next big find and we're going to be launching on QVC on our 200 million home in America. In August this year. So what I would be very happy to tell you maybe in a month or two is a very well-known brand in the States. But I would like to say. But just a month away. [00:17:19] Yeah, I know a lot of designers kind of it's up there on their Everest. You know, it's Europe has like this great ability to share in film and information about designers. [00:17:29] All of my girlfriends in Dublin are aware of the latest Greek designer or Italian designers. But finally, you know, kind of permeating the United States is is it tends to change people's growth factors a great deal just for the sheer scale of people. I like the idea that you kind of attach and not kind of directly attach sustainability and accountability, environmentalism with your brand. And so, you know, an individual carrying one of your handbags is certainly attached to your brand and to those ideals. Do you find it difficult to make that connection or do you feel like when someone hits your website and experiences what it is and realizes that it's a Vegan handbag made with recycled plastic, plastic lining and things of that nature that it's already implied? Or do you spend a great deal of time educating people to those facts? [00:18:21] I think that's a great question. We hope that our Web site does educate our customers because our customers do appreciate and know that they are buying into a sustainable Reagen product. Now, the only part that we think we need to do a better job of is to bring in the people who are not Vegan minded but are sustainable minded as well, because they need to understand that there is a core relation and we hit all the sweet spot. So that's one point, which I think is something that we've really been trying to tackle as to how we can communicate that better. [00:18:54] Yeah, absolutely. That's a. A key connection, too. And I like that you guys are doing it. I'm wondering about growth, about future growth. Surely you have a one to three year plan and surely over the past four months that one to three, your plan has changed with the dial up covered 19 pandemic. [00:19:12] It sounds like QVC to hit. That is going to be an incredible marker of change. But do you have other things on your horizon? Do you have more products that you're designing, things of that nature for the next one to three years? [00:19:25] Absolutely, Patricia. I'm glad you asked me that. [00:19:28] So 19 has obviously made a huge impact on all the retailers business plans. But we still what we are doing is that we have not we're not slowing down, but we're very now strategically placing our products so that we're introducing new collection, slow and steady, much slower than what we would have done without the Koven 19. So that's been a way of just, you know, still getting feeling the market, making sure that we're still on the right fit. But the good news is because our products are affordable, customers are still coming back to us. And that's what's great, especially now that the economies are opening back up. But yes, we're introducing our apple leather collection for fall this year, which is going to be made, which is made from apple core and apple skin, apple waste. And it's completely biodegradable. We're also introducing men's laptop bags. So we're trying to improve the product categories. And a lot of men shop on our Web sites for their or for their better halves. And we think it's a great way to get them into that opportunity to buy sustainable as well. And of very soon, we're going to be looking at introducing leather jackets and then gradually drawing this. Absolutely. [00:20:40] Yeah. I've wondered how long a line the line apparel would come because you've got your hands so deeply entrenched in these, you know, alternative leathers that have been brilliant in coming out over the past five years. I'm curious, as a designer, I know that you probably keep, you know, your ear to the line as to trends and things like that. Do you think that some of the more major and luxurious brands will start coming out with Vegan alternatives to their bags, or do you think they'll still just hold that old guard? I don't know of anyone who thinks that wearing leather or buying a leather handbag is sustainable or friendly anymore. You know, I think people do it for ideas of durability and all of these old guard arguments. But I'm wondering if you think that some of the traditional brands will start to kind of bow down to the idea of sustainability and Vegan alternatives. [00:21:30] I think, Patricia, some of the older I would say, what's the right word, old luxury old luxury brands like maybe Louis Vuitton would not do it. But I think I've already seen in Macy's, Calvin Klein do it and they write the Vegan option. [00:21:48] But it's very interesting because buyers because we're stocked in stores now and buyers have given me feedback, is that they don't know if a brand, which is generically a leather brand, actually understands the nuances of producing a Vegan bag and a sustainable bag. So they will probably call something Vegan just because they do not use animal skin on the outer element. But there is a lot of nuances which go into Vegan bag, including having Vegan free glue, animal cruelty free glue into the eyes of reinforcements. We check every single part of that item, which every small Hotan and small hardware like a nail in the bottom of the bag. We know where it's coming from and what's gone in it. Let me put it that way. So that level of detail is not something every brand can do. So, yes, you can go ahead and buy this Vegan bag from this generic leather brand, but you generally don't know what you're getting. At least I know it works as a brand. [00:22:49] And if you put that in perspective, which is a purely Vegan sustainable brand, because then you know that the PWI Vegan, they've got all these certifications there. We sort of signed documents that none of our products are going to contain any animal animal products. [00:23:06] So with your sustainability activism, do you get into that playing into the manufacturing arm as well with Levante London, where are you manufacturing and how do you kind of safeguard some of those practices? [00:23:21] I think on the sustainability element, what we do is we actually know where our suppliers are getting the fabrics from and we have all of that certified. We've gone and pretty much landed up at headquarters and said, OK, this is what we need, this level of certification. So that's the level of detail that has gone into it. So absolutely, when you say that is the sustainability part sort of featured into your production process, a lot of that has been so everything comes from a nominated supplier. So, for example, when a factory is manufacturing, they cannot actually just get one of our fabrics or anything from any supplier, from anything which looks similar. They actually have to show us invoices of that. It's come from our database of suppliers. So everything is is really detailed, that level. [00:24:10] That's wonderful. Are there conventions or any opportunities for you to get together with other Vegan or vegetarian lines based out of the UK or in Europe, the United Kingdom? [00:24:21] It kind of reaches our borders where you can kind of caucus with these individuals and share ideas and incentives and things of that nature. Is that kind of in the distant future? [00:24:30] I think that's actually even the very near future. And that's something which actually I don't know how you got this insight information. But we're actually looking at doing that quite quickly because as the need for sustainable cruelty free brands grows, it makes sense to start getting everybody have a dialog, come together and show ourselves as one enough unified front where a lot of consumers can have an auction and understand that this is this is regulated. This is you know, this is a common platform where like minded brands and like minded brands are available. So this is something it's actually a work in progress and it's something we're looking to rule out relatively quickly. [00:25:09] That's exciting. I can't wait to hear. I think great things come when people share information and best. Absolutely. [00:25:16] You know, and I think that the old days of the competition scaring those things, those kinds of practices offer gone. So I looked at the collaboration of minds and things that come from it. Well, you know, we are out of time. Vanita. But I want to say thank you so much for giving us your time today and talking with us about Libonati, London. Your line. I think the product is beautiful and exquisite. I encourage everyone to get on and have a look at it. The hardware and things, I haven't seen them in person, but I can imagine when people, you know, kind of tell it something about their products. I find it to be true because otherwise everyone's going to discover otherwise. And I really do appreciate you coming on and enumerating all of these different areas and details about what it is to have like this Vegan product handbag line. [00:26:00] Thank you so much for your show, for having me, it's been such a pleasure. [00:26:03] Absolutely. And for everyone listening. I have been speaking with Vanita Badlani. She is an activist, entrepreneur, CEO and founder of Labonte, a London. [00:26:12] You can find her products and more information about her brand and her philosophy on Labonte dot com. That is L.A. b a n t e dot com. [00:26:21] Until we speak again next time. Thank you for giving me your time. Remember to stay safe, eat well and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am speaking with Jane Elizabeth. Jane is a best selling author, personal trainer, empowerment coach, motivational speaker, athlete, and animal lover who has been active in the animal rescue community for over a decade. She went vegan for the animals two and a half years ago and has been an active advocate for veganism ever since. Key points addressed were  Jane’s book titled become a badass rebel runner We also discussed Jane’s personal journey from being obese to health and a vegan lifestyle as a long-distance runner, mother of a toddler, and coach This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with bestselling author, personal trainer, coach and Vegan athlete Jane Elizabeth. Key Points addressed where Jane's book titled Become a Bad Ass Rebel Runner. We also discussed Jane's personal journey from being obese to health and a Vegan lifestyle as a long distance runner, mother of a toddler and coach. Stay tuned for my inspirational talk with Jane Elizabeth. A quick technical note. We suffered some audio difficulties on our hosting end of Zoom. However, as the less than ideal audio is only suffered on the part of my questions and this portion of the podcast, DANZ is 25 percent of the interview. Our team made the decision to go up with this version rather than delay and rerecord. We appreciate your understanding and know that the interview with Jane will be worth putting up with a little static. [00:00:56] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen, dot com, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:52] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today I am elated to be sitting down with Jane Elizabeth. Jane is a best author, personal trainer, coach and Vegan athlete. You can find out more about her work and get in contact with her on her Instagram handles. She has two. One is at bad ass dot rebel letters. And the next one is C Dot. Jane, Dot, do dot everything. Welcome, Jane. [00:02:21] Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. [00:02:23] Absolutely. I'm excited to kind of comb through your book. I read that last night I was talking to you before we started recording. I really love it. I think you have some core tenants that equal to that. I don't hear a lot of women athletes were begins in general speak about. And I'm really excited to kind of enumerate those with you before I do that for anyone listening who has been following this podcast. I always offer our listeners and Volquez viewers a roadmap of where we're headed today. And we will be looking at Jane's academic background and early professional life. But and then we'll turn straight to unpacking her Vegan story if it hasn't been already enumerated within her background of academic and professional level. And then we'll turn towards unpacking her book, which I'm excited to talk about, is called Become a Badass Rebel Runner The Ultimate Guide to Being a Fit Mom Without the Diet Bullshit. And I'm excited to climb through a lot. As I said, those core components that I feel like really differentiate, Jane, from a lot of the leading athletes that I've spoken to. And then we'll turn towards the ethos and what she was hoping, the ethos of the book and what she was hoping her readership would kind of garner and gain from, as well as the audience that she had in mind when she was writing it. And we'll wrap everything up with that. Looking at the future and the goals that Jane may have within it's one, two years, this is a conversation that people has changed a great deal for those of us in the world as of late with the public pandemic upon us really quickly. As promised before I'd start peppering Jane with questions of bio. Jane Elizabeth is a bestselling author, personal trainer, empowerment coach, motivational speaker, athlete and animal lover who has been active in the animal rescue community for over a decade. She went vegan for the animals two and a half years ago and has become an active advocate for veganism ever since. Although she originally went vegan for the animals, Gene discovered the health benefits and the vast environmental benefits of building begin to be incredible. Using her own transformation story as a platform of hope, she inspires others to take care of the animals and the planet by taking care of themselves. Her Vegan fitness mobile app, Batak Rebel Runners, has empowered hundreds of people to get fit and healthy. Her book become a badass Bevell runner and the ultimate guide to being a fit mom. Without the Diet, Bullshit shares her personal journey and is available now on Amazon. She believes strongly in being a voice for the voiceless and standing up for what is right, even if it means standing alone. And so and I do also I neglected to mention I want you to kind of put across through your app. I have read the book. I have not gotten on the apps side. Have you kind of just pull that out? All of us. Before we get to all of that, I'm hoping that you can kind of draw us this platform of your early academic and professional background that led you to where you are now. [00:05:07] Sure. Well, thanks so much for that question. It's really interesting because, you know, from an academic standpoint, actually started in music. That was my first love. That was my first year. I drove into that thinking, you know, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. I went to a trade school that was focused on the performing arts. So it was called music tech. And then it changed to McNelly Smith. And unfortunately, it doesn't even exist anymore. Back in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So I did that. I had a rock band for about 13 years. And that was a lot of fun, a lot of fun times with that. And all that time, I had to work, too, because, you know, when you're in a rock band, that's not something typically that is going to pay the bills. So I was in sales and management, which actually led me down a different path professionally than I thought I was going to to go down. So I hadn't intended on getting into the realm of corporate America. But that's what happened. And so, you know, getting into management and seeing the result of really mentoring people and figuring out or helping them really figure out what they wanted to do with their professional careers became a passion of mine, too. And so actually, in my thirties, after getting into human resources or from sales management to human resource, it seemed like a natural progression from a professional standpoint. And what I was doing that I thought, well, this is probably what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. So I actually went back to school in my early thirties and I, I got my undergraduate degree and my graduate degrees, both with human resource management thinking, you know, if I can help people and mentor them. And actually help them figure out what it is they really want to do with their lives, help them feel fulfilled from a professional standpoint, that will help them then in their personal lives, too. So it is really, you know, trying to also help corporations find that that win win, that's good for the company, good for employees, good for management. And, you know, being in human resources, you see kind of the underbelly of organizations. [00:07:19] You see people at their very worst. And, you know, people come to you with all their crap. I mean, people, you know, are hurting. They're frustrated. They're angry. You very rarely get to see people on their best days. So kind of being that voice of, you know, it's OK. You know, let's figure this out. There's a solution here. [00:07:41] You know, tell me how you're feeling. Tell me what you're thinking. Tell me your perspective. And taking that in as not right or wrong, but your perspective is your perspective. And giving people that space to actually just be heard was something that became second nature. And I think that's actually helped me in where I am now. But what happened is I actually got pregnant on purpose. I was always wanted kids. And I got pregnant with my daughter. And at that time, I was in grad school and I was working full time in human resources. So it was a bit of a struggle, you know, like waddling around downtown Minneapolis, going to work and, you know, going to school and all these things. And, you know, when you're pregnant, you're exhausted all the time. And I had this funny thought in my head. I remember thinking they're doing my my papers for preschool and handing them in and being so exhausted and thinking, gosh, you know, when she's born, I'll probably have more energy. But anybody who's out there who is a parent knows that that is so not true. Less than I do. And she was worried because I didn't get any sleep, but I managed to push through. So I finished grad school when I was on maternity leave and I had my my newborn daughter who didn't want to be held by anybody else but me. And she is a breastfed babies. So, you know, I was her only source of nutrients. She wouldn't take a bottle like it was just me. But I finished grad school anyway, and I just said, this is something that I need to do. And part of it honestly was showing her that she's capable of doing this. You as a mom, I think a lot of people, a lot of women feel like they can't go to school, they can't work. There's so many things they can't do because their mom is doing all these other things is selfish. But I wanted to show her that it's not that you can live this full, fulfilling life in so many aspects and be an amazing mom. So that's really, you know, what kind of my background from an academic standpoint, once I finished grad school, that's actually kind of when my life completely changed because I realized everything I had been doing and all these goals I have from a professional standpoint, they were good. [00:10:04] They were all really great goals, but they weren't really aligned with what I wanted to see from my life. And so I had this little, like mini celebration, took some pictures finishing grad school. Big deal, right. I was super, super excited to to be done, quite honestly. I mean, I was I love school, but at that point, I was so exhausted. I was really happy to be done with it. To be able to move out and have a little bit of time at least to do something other than writing papers. So I was looking at these pictures and I was holding my daughter. And, you know, looking back at these pictures, you know, when you're in that moment, you don't think about looking down at yourself. You don't think about looking at your at your body. I had been avoiding mirrors at that point for, well, quite a while, honestly. I already knew what I was going to see in the mirror, so I just didn't even want to go there. And when I looked at these pictures, it was right there staring me in the face like I didn't even recognize this woman holding my daughter. [00:11:07] And the woman was me. And that was that moment I fired. Holy crap. [00:11:12] How did I get to this point? You know, I was so busy doing all of these things for so many years. And I had let myself go. I wasn't focusing on my health. I wasn't focusing on anything other than the busyness that had come along with everything I was doing. And I had a lot of emotional trauma and suffered several losses. [00:11:36] And there was a lot that was a lot that really played into that. And what I saw in those pictures was this person, this woman who was hurting so much, just completely helpless. And all of the emotional things I had gone through were manifesting in how big I was. [00:11:56] I mean, I went from having like five, 10 extra pounds to being obese. And that was the moment I thought, oh, my God, I need to do something about this. Because I was holding my daughter and I kept thinking, you know, all of these limiting beliefs and unhealthy behaviors. This is something that if I continue going the way I'm going, I'm going to pass it on to her just like they've been passed on to me. So I could do that or I could stop that cycle. I could be the last person in my family to live my life that way and give her a clean slate. And that meant that I had to completely change my life. But she's my daughter. She's totally worth it. And that's what I found my wife to completely change my life. [00:12:47] Yeah. Your book, you can hear why and talk about your daughter being your why. [00:12:51] And then. And it does a good job of kind of mixing and matching the time here of what you're talking about. I'm curious how the relationship and the conversation between exercise and the Vegan diet, you kind of climb through, you pass out when meat left your diet and then, you know, we have an identical experience nursing your daughter, you know, that immediately turning you off the milk. And then you also kind of unpack later on how the extraction of milk enables you to start your exercise. But I'm hoping you can kind of make sense of that being a Vegan athlete yourself and being this pro distance runner that you are. You a lot of people here are Vegan. And this is running is about the last thing that weightlifting did. They're like, no, Vegan don't do that. I love talking to people who do it that way. And I'm wondering if you can kind of form the relationship between becoming Vegan as well as your weight loss journey like they didn't come spontaneously or did they kind of did, because, you know, what I did is I was looking at my life and what needed to change. [00:13:55] And, you know, eating meat never resonated well with me because I love animals. So I've been involved in animal rescue for a really long time. [00:14:03] And I've rescue dogs. We fostered dogs. I mean, this is something I mean, I love cats, too, but I'm allergic, so I could never foster them. But they are really cute and they love me, especially, I think, because I'm allergic. They like to crawl up, man, get lost and hurt, which is fine. I just make sure I, you know, shower right after. [00:14:20] But, you know, we had, you know, animals like cows and pigs and turkeys come into rescue as well. And these are animals that are typically killed for food. And their personalities were the same as my dogs. And I couldn't help but thinking, you know, why are we rescuing these animals? But, you know, killing these animals? I mean, obviously, the ones who came to rescue those were safe. But, you know, my my point is, you know, these farmed animals are the exact same as the ones are coming into rescue. So we're saving some and then paying to have some meat kill the other ones. And it just didn't sit right with me. It didn't resonate with my spirit. So I just thought, you know what, I have to change this because this isn't right. It's it's been bothering me for a long time. There's gotta be another way. And I mean, I was raised in a very I mean, almost a.. Vegan household, as I mean, most people were. And, you know, back in that day when I'm going to 80s, baby and, you know, meat was where you got your protein. And if you want to if you wanted to be strong, you eat eggs, which I never actually really liked eggs. But if you wanted strong bones, you know, you drink a lot of milk and. But, you know, cutting that meat out was like that first thing and it felt so right to do that. And then, you know, from there, that was the what I was planning to do would just, you know, for the well-being of the animals. It wasn't really about me. It was about them. And I just wanted to do something to reduce the suffering I was causing because, you know, I've got I feel like I have a lot karmically to make up for. I mean, so many years of harm that I caused. Not really even realizing it was harm, because we're not taught that it's harm. But it's like once you know better, it's your responsibility. It's my responsibility because I know better to do better with my actions and to show my daughter. What this means, you know, we're saying cruelty free. That doesn't just mean the products you buy from a cosmetic standpoint, it doesn't just mean what you're using in your household. A cruelty for your life also means not eating animals and causing the least amount of harm possible and not wearing animals, not exploiting animals. So, you know, so that was a big turning point for me. And what happened from there is right at that same time, you're right after I made that decision that I had to change my life. I decided to go Vegan and. But then there was this moment of, gosh, you know, I don't know, dairy. I gave up cheese like that was okay. There are a lot of substitutes out there. And, you know, that was fine. But that half and half was really difficult to to give up. So I had started trying to run. I mean, this was like me trotting along. This is jogging, really. I mean, this was like three days a week. This was not even a mile. I suffered from chronic asthma. And so, you know, I was trying, though I knew running would work. It's that one thing I knew would help me get fit. And, you know, people always think, well, what is it I can do? You know, and there are so many things that don't require equipment and running is one of them. Walking is not is another one. You know, they're really great ways to exercise that. You're, you know, how to do it. And so, you know, I was I felt really heavy. My knees were were hurting, but I knew I had to keep going. But I always need to my rescue inhaler before I would even start because my asthma was that bad, that I had to actually kind of give my lungs a little boost in order to open up enough for me to actually run that not even one mile that I was going to run that day. But once. Yeah. I was nursing my daughter, like you said. You know, a lot of moms, I think, have this this revelation when they are nursing moms. And if you are in tune at all to what animals go through and I was nursing her and I saw this this video at that time, I only had half and half left to give up. That was the only thing I thought. Well, it's it's one thing. It's only one thing. No big deal. Right. Because it's just one thing. But yeah, I saw this video. It popped up. And, you know, Facebook I really I'm not a fan typically of Facebook algorithm's. You know, they totally screw with businesses and like, you have to pay if you want anybody to see anything. So I I'm not a huge fan. But in that moment, I can tell you that Facebook knew exactly what I needed to see. So I'm so grateful for that one moment because that's what I needed to see to change that one thing. And it was this video of a mammoth cow who is chasing her baby who had been stolen away from her. And I'm nursing my daughter. And I just broke down. I started crying like, OK, I said, I don't care what I have to do to give up. This happened half. It's done. I poured it down the drain. I was. That was it. I didn't care if I had to try a thousand different Vegan Kramers, which I probably did, you know, that was it for me. And then so that that was about the animals too. But then within about a week my asthma just completely reversed. It went away. So, you know, yes, it was still a struggle to run because I had an extra 80 plus pounds on me, but I was that I could breathe when I was running. And that feeling of that, that almost liberation, being able to have my lungs be clear while I was running with something I had never experienced before. And I've been an athlete, you know, in grade school and high school, I played sports and I always had a stop kind of like mid game to take a puff of my rescue inhaler, you know, is made fun of as a kid for being an asthmatic, which is also really crappy for kids to do. But it's what happens sometimes with when you're in school. And but that feeling of just. Oh, my gosh. I can do this. I can actually run. So that allow me to run further. So I could go for a longer amount of time. And then it was four more, you know, four more days during that during the week. I could run. And it started being this this thing I could do. And as a weight dropped off and because I could actually breathe with clear lungs without asthma, I could just keep going. And I appreciate that so much because, you know, as an asthmatic, you know, I would always be limited by something I couldn't control. But now, because I was able to go fully Vegan because of that one video, I saw that give up that last bit of dairy. All of a sudden, boom, it was done. And I could actually feel myself becoming stronger as an athlete. And, you know, and it took a while for me to get to where I am now. I mean, that was that's practice. That's work that's actually putting in, you know, grinding, putting in that work every day. But it all was sparked by finally giving up dairy. [00:21:27] And also what's interesting about that is I had gone to begin for the animals. So that wasn't negotiable. I mean, I'm never going back to any animal products. But when my asthma went away, I was like, there's got to be more to this. This is researching veganism for my health benefit standpoint. And so. Yeah. And then I started getting more into, like, whole food plant based because it's so incredibly healthy for your body. And I mean that just everything kind of took off from there because I found just this wealth of information about how, you know, going vegan and particularly eating mostly wholefood plant based is so incredibly impactful for people from a health standpoint. And I just remember thinking, where the hell has this information been my entire life? It's like this is where where were they hiding this? I mean, you know, you've got people who are dying of diseases that are, you know, by and large preventable by getting rid of cruelty, by getting rid of animal products. So that was something that was shocking to me. Absolutely shocking. So now I really even though I went Vegan for the animals, I like to use my platform to tell people about the health benefits as well, because, quite frankly, a lot of people are drawn in for that reason and then makes a connection to the animals down the road, which is fine. [00:22:52] Absolutely. What a curious case. When you said you're asthmatic, you know, in the book and I agree and I thought, oh, this is kind of clean. [00:22:57] Right. Or one of the most common things I've heard when it comes to disease of any sort with them. People who turned to a vegan lifestyle, either by knowing or being suggested that we interview will help or by accident is that things clear up allergies, as mothers can do immediately. They don't just go a little bit away. They completely eliminate chronic migraines, all sorts of things that, you know, these things that really impact all of your life. And I was curious when that happened with you and because you are kind of a community based spirit, you kind of hear it throughout different threads of your book. Did you ever have a coach or a mentor throughout your 18 months? Because in your book, you kind of lay out and talk about a solid 18 months from what you remember being your heaviest to your true fitness and and wondering, did you ever have a mentor or anyone that you leaned on or Vegan group that you identified with? Or was it all just you? [00:23:53] Yeah, that's a really great question. It was all just me. So I actually, you know, what's interesting is that kind of leads to why I do what I do. So, yeah, I took, what, 18 months? I was over 80 pounds and went from not being able to run a mile. So now I run between like seven and 20 plus miles a day just because I love to. And now that I can do it, I appreciate having that ability, which is so different from a lot of people who do it because, you know, maybe they feel like they have to or it's a punishment or whatever. Look at, you know, as far as exercise is concerned. But for me, it's this thing that I couldn't do before. And so now I'm so grateful just to be able to physically do it. So it's like every time I run, it's this time to distress and unwind and gain clarity and work through anything I'm going through. But during that 18 months, it was pretty lonely because, you know, in the Vegan community at that time in Minneapolis, there aren't a whole lot of vegans. And I did that finding a couple different Vegan groups, but they weren't really into fitness. It was something where if you even talked about the health benefits, they're like, well, you're not really Vegan if you are doing it for health reasons. I'm like, no, I did it for the animals. But I'm also very interested in the health and fitness. But you're kind of shame, you know, by the people who are, you know, ethical vegans, which I am. But I'm so shamed by people who think, oh, no, it's selfish to do it for health reasons. Well, OK, but. That's also a part of being Vegan is that it is a healthy, all of a healthier alternative, even if people are junk food Meagan's, it's still healthier than being a junk food omnivore. So, I mean, this is something that know people shouldn't be ashamed to talk about. [00:25:36] But I didn't have this integrated with draconian measures. Let's be clear. Yes. You know, enforced compassion and things like the large part of the Vegan theory is based on with like a weikel. [00:25:49] That doesn't make any sense. The love one another for the motives. Things like that seems a bit oxymoronic. [00:25:56] It does. It does. And that was I kind of pulled back, honestly, from the Vegan community for a while just because I knew I was doing it for the right reason. And honestly, there's no wrong reason to go Vegan. The animals don't care why you go Vegan they just want you to stop eating them. So it's like I don't care whether people do it from a health standpoint, for the environment, for the animals, just, you know, the animal just wants you to stop eating them, exploiting them and wearing them. Right? Yeah. So. So I celebrate anybody along their journey and whatever people's dreams look like. But as far as having a mentor, I couldn't really find anybody who spoke to me whose story resonated with me because you as a mom, she's my number one priority. There are a lot of Vegan fitness trainers that are more into, you know, like body building. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted to run. I wanted to be an endurance athlete and I wanted to get fit and healthy and have like long lean muscle, but not build bulkier muscle. I mean, it's a beautiful esthetic and I have a lot of friends who do it. And I'm not saying it's wrong. It's amazing. It's just not my thing. So I can find anybody that was really, you know, speaking my language in a fitness center from a fitness standpoint. So I really figured it out on my own. And I'm assuming so that's kind of one of the reasons, too, why. You know, once I went through this journey, I thought, oh, my God, there are probably a lot of other people who feel exactly like I felt they're doing this brand new thing that's breaking tradition from everything they've known. And they're probably feeling really isolated and lonely and unsupported by people who should who should show support. But I mean, in a sense, then my I have a lot of friends in the Vegan community who are super supportive. I have a huge support group now from, you know, friends and followers and things like that. But, you know, a lot of that has just stemmed from, honestly, my place of saying, you know what? I'm going to do my thing. I'm going to be authentic to who I am. And if people are attracted to that, great. If they're not, that's fine, too, because I am not going to be for everybody. And that's OK. Yeah, I know what that taught me when I got a sense of that. [00:28:19] We were talking off the record. And I think you do address a couple of values that you hear from Vegan offers and prep because they don't cross wires as much as you do on how you get into your personal, your health. All of it plays, you know, you as a package with this book. But I was telling you in Chapter seven and eight, when I was kind of climbing through those, you have a lot of conversation about show in the early part of this book. You talk about the the onus of responsibility to your daughter. And then you kind of you kind of explain that further. In Chapter seven, you talk about relationships and how we adopt these from, you know, people before us and how we look at those things. And then we hand them off subconsciously to the next generation. This unhealthy relationship with food being candy, particularly as you know, as women. And then also you talk about the social influences over diet and mind bodies. You get into limiting beliefs and mental handicaps, reverting self sabotage and things like that that also, I think, play into like, you know, illustrating quietly in this kind of subconscious way to the next generation. You can kind of understand how you came to that and how you came to talking about it, because it is one of the first big injuries. People always say it's Vegan. I really reexamine I have a very different relationship with them, but they can't stop there. They never kind of go into and that's that's a very blanket statement that if you haven't lived it, you may not even know what that means. And you have to do a good job of unpacking that sentiment. This idea of my, you know, food being the enemy, self sabotage and how it was handed quietly to you, you were getting ready to quietly handed on to your daughter before you became aware of it. How did you come to know those things and how did you come to write about them as being part of your Vegan story? [00:30:12] That's a really good question. And, you know, it was just this idea of realizing, you know, how I grew up. It wasn't. My parents said that the best they could with the information they had at that time, but I saw the women, particularly in my family, dieting all the time. So there was always this focus on getting skinny. It wasn't about getting fit. And the focus was there were, you know, the weight loss plan that only work right. If you stick with them and the weight loss companies are banking on you failing and coming back and then failing and coming back. And that's how they're making money. They don't really make any money off of you if you succeed. So then you've got like diet pills. You've got your shakes. You've got like the gadgets, the late night as seen on TV. You've got these really, really fit people advertising these things they probably don't use. And, you know, so all of those things, there's this mindset of food is it is the enemy. It is something that you use to reward yourself on a good day. But then on a crappy day, you dove in and you indulge and you binge and you're like, it's OK because it's a bad day. And looking at even how you create a plate of food, it was like, meat is your main course. And then everything else around it is kind of like secondary and vegetables are gross. But you have to eat them if you want dessert. I mean, that's like the mindset. I mean. And I think most people remember their parents saying if you want dessert, you gotta eat your vegetables. So it was this punishment like, OK, the punishment is that you the you know, you have to eat your vegetables. But if you can make it through that, you can have dessert. It's this terrible way of thinking about food and super unhealthy to you. Make it about, you know, if this than this in a negative way. So, you know, once I went Vegan, I it's almost like you're a rebel anyway because you're completely going against the grain with everything you've been taught about food. And so what happened is I was looking at, you know, these all of these unhealthy, you know, behaviors that were handed down to me with exercise and food. And, you know, that idea of bingeing or of limiting calories so much that you're basically starving yourself. And it's really funny. I will tell you something that there is there is a shock. Golden Girls, I mean, everybody knows the show, right? There is one particular episode. And I think there's mostly be in their 50s or something in that show. And these ladies, it was just having me on late at night and I was it was before I went Vegan. But my daughter was OK. She was always I got like two hours and she was always awake and so having me on. And I remember in this one episode, these women who are middle aged women, they had an event coming up in like a week or two weeks or something like that. So they all went on a diet to get thin before this event. And I remember this this moment thinking to myself. I do not want to be middle age and still be frickin dieting like this. This whole mindset, though, has been handed down and it's through my family, too, that it's you know, you have to starve yourself if you want to get fat. And it's about getting fat. It's not about getting fit when you exercise. Gosh, you know, if you can do the most punishing thing to your body for, like, a short amount of time, then you should see results. But if you don't see results, then you're not doing the right thing. It's not about consistency. It's about, you know, that quick fix. And if it doesn't work right now, then it's then it's the fault of the system, the product, whatever it might be, to the program. And there is a lack of personal accountability. And so looking at food and the way I want my daughter to look at food, that was huge for me. What do I want her mindset to be for food? I don't want it to be about restriction. I want it to be about abundance. So when we're when I'm looking at food, I'm looking at all of the findings that is there from a nutritional standpoint and how beautiful it is to be able to choose from all these things. You've got vegetables, fruits and grains. I mean, I haven't even tried everything that's available to me because there are so many things I'm not even aware of at this point, even though I've eaten a lot of them. I've tried so many things. But there's always something new to try. And so with her, I want her to look at food as something exciting, not something that she has to constantly restrict. And so, you know, looking at it from a healthy standpoint and saying, yeah, OK, there are these potato chips here and I'm MacIntyre's, you can't have them, because when I grew up, it was you can't have any junk food, which then made me kind of veer off. It didn't make me. I chose to veer off in that direction of, you know, fast food and junk food and all that. Yeah. But with her, it's like, OK, this is an option if you want to have that. I also have this green apple and you know, I'm going to have this you can choose. And nine times out of ten, she wants the apple because I'm not making it a negative thing like these are these chips are so bad for you. It's you know, it's your choice. How do you feel when you eat the apple versus how you eat those or how you feel when you eat those chips and having them available so she can make those good choices and healthy choices in an environment where I'm there to support her and encourage her. Then as she gets older and she's only four years old right now, but as she gets older, she's gonna be making decisions that impact her health and her life in so many ways. And so, you know, teaching her to choose something that makes her feel good. Choosing something that is cruelty free, that, you know, is Vegan and helping you kind of see that difference between a dead animal and something that is going to actually bring you so much life and so much nourishment and fueling your body. That way, when you feel good, you want to keep feeling good. Right. Is that that's been missing, I think, from the whole narrative about food and fitness for so long. But it takes a lot of effort because, you know, all of these beliefs and there's a lot of societal pressure, their social conditioning that teaches us what fitness looks like, what health looks like, what good food looks like. [00:36:57] And it's this it's all shit like you could. It's horrible bullshit. [00:37:01] I think in your book, there's a really good job that might kind of just setting that stage and letting your readers kind of run with it. You know, the concept that would exist in a vacuum, which would then become healthy and thin and break one day. It's a it's an incredible medicine. It's a drug. It's your grandmother's love. It's so many things as human beings to just think that you just switch it, you know, or not analyze the level I think is is one of the greatest fault for being fat is definitely pushed on me, you know, as a father, as a concept, like you said, that helps infomercial, didn't Summerside after I did so many of ridiculous things out there, then I said, why worry? She's going to look back on that, if you really like. I think that really looking at it because your book is the great job of your journey, talking about things, talking about how you implement things, but then also talking about, you know, ends with this like emotional, sociological look at having to impact the brain eventually. And I think that if that happens, whether you want it to or not, you know, if you're eating healthy and you're exercising and you're returning to a state of health, even if you thought you were insulin, you will naturally have another conversation with yourself, not unlike Kobe. You know, I think a lot there was a large part of the population that would say they were pretty fair on who they were, what they were doing, what job they rented, and that they liked it. And everyone I talked to had completed the evaluation with themselves of their new internal. Dialog about reevaluating what quality of life means to them, what family actually means, how much they should be spending time with their family and things like that. Something stripped of freedoms taken away or implemented again. We analyze and I think your book does a really good job of setting the reader up for that until I really. I was delighted to find that can attend it thinking, you know, about handing it off to the next generation. It doesn't matter if you have children or have or want them. You should care about how you depart this earth. And I think most people do and be slightly better at speaking. But I believe that better is thoughtful and that begins with how we analyze and look at food in the animals, the industries, the system. It's not just the animals. Veganism is tied up into a lot of this endeavor. It ties into everything from sustainability, responsibility, the earth to the farmers. The economy is a lie. You know, anytime you start to pay for things like milk and eggs, like our country does, to subsidize it, to make sure that we stay dependent on it, it cripples an economy that could exist in its place. So there's just so many aspects, and I love that your how your book kind of came at it from that emotional and mental one as an athlete. Let me ask you realistically, we had some people write in. We would take questions from our audience and they know we're getting Vegan athletes on the slopes of Quick Fire question. Rounds of people write and off at the same time. I get to ask a couple right now, as a Vegan athlete, do you feel like your endurance has ever suffered, particularly as a distance runner or benefited from it's benefited. [00:40:08] So I have more energy and stamina now than I've ever had in my life. So one great example is the first two races I did this year. [00:40:17] They're the only two races I have been able to do this year off of my whole list. I did a half marathon in January and a marathon in March and before both, I have maybe an hour of sleep just because, you know, you've got this nervous energy. I had my oatmeal. What's fruit and cinnamon like I always have in the morning and some water and coffee and went out both times and ran without stopping. Both races finish strong. And that is something I never could have done without going Vegan. So it's. Well, because what you do with asthma, too, there's no way to pluck it that mile anyway. But but now definitely my stamina, my endurance has increased. And I've learned also how to fuel my body, you know, so that what I'm eating is actually energizing me for my for each one. So that's something that I've learned to do as well. [00:41:10] And we had a lot of people write and ask if you've ever had a conversation with your doctor and M.D. of you and any doctor about being Vegan and what he was. [00:41:20] Yes, actually, last year I broke my foot. I was walking down the stair, holding my walking down the stairs, holding my daughter. [00:41:27] And my dogs kind of swirled around my feet and I fell, managed to, like, fall backwards. And so my daughter wasn't injured Jews in my arms because she was my. But one thing I could think about in that moment. So I ended up breaking my left foot and I had like had my way into the doctor and they noticed the significant weight change from where I was before. And it was like over 80 pounds, like eighty five pounds or something like that. And they just kind of looked at me and I said, I'm a I'm a long distance runner and I'm Vegan. And they're like, oh. And they said, you know, you haven't been in for an asthma check recently. And I said, Oh, I know. You know what, I I'm I can tell you it's cured because you have to be very, very careful using that term. I said, but I haven't had any flare ups since I went Vegan. And I run every single day and the doctor looked at me. They did an asthma attack and they took it off my chart. So by an actual doctor, it was taken off of my chart. And I say that because a lot of people had that question. Did an actual doctor as a fair like a doctor? I mean, I don't even know why he will say that. But yes, an actual doctor at a clinic took asthma off my chart. [00:42:41] So that was critical, like what we're experiencing. I don't know why we need it validated by him. Like it's always easing for me. Would you feel like what did the doctor say? I don't know if you're feeling pretty good. I hope they agreed. And then we also have one of the last questions that kind of breakthrough through is people asked if the baby's parents have received budget from other parents or if you at your daughter's pretty young. But if you convey that information and if we have any of our people interested, are they judgmental? How is that kind of weighing on the. [00:43:14] I've had both I mean, I've had a lot of people, Judge Mantle, from you know, from my growing up like, you know, friends and family. And, you know, I can't believe you would deprive your daughter of meat and dairy. [00:43:27] And I'm like, well, I can't believe you feed your child death and illness. So, you know, I'd rather feed my child the food that is going to give her life, make her feel good. I don't actually see it that way because I'm much more compassionate when I'm speaking to people. [00:43:45] But I have had a lot of judgment. And, you know, I always try to remember that I wasn't always Vegan. So, you know, when people ask me questions or they come at me with an aggressive manner, I just say, you know what? [00:44:01] I was in your shoes before. I understand that. It's really scary to think that there's this possibility that the way we've always done things isn't the correct way to do things. It isn't the healthiest way, the kindest way and the most compassionate way. And that's really scary. Do you have questions for me or what questions can I answer for you about the way I'm living my life? Because that sometimes will open the door, even though they came at me in an aggressive manner sometimes. Yeah, that'll be any on some people, though, don't want to have any conversations. And people have been ridiculously judgmental. And if they don't want to actually have a conversation and they're just going to come at me with no judgment about my parenting style or about me or whatever it is, those are people I don't need in my circle. And I will I've learned to set boundaries so that the truly toxic people will not ever infiltrate this. You know, Joy, I have this healthy lifestyle. I've learned how to eliminate those people from my life. So, yeah, and guess what? Those people the door's open. If they actually want to have a conversation, that's totally fine. That's cool. I'm here. But if they're going to continue to be toxic and documental, then I don't have time for it. And with other people, you know, with Vegan parents or people who are really curious about having Vegan children, when you're doing the right thing for your child's health and wellbeing, that should matter to you so much more than anybody else's opinion. You know, if there's something that comes up, let's say you do go to the doctor and maybe your child is deficient in something that can happen, whether you have, you know, meat and dairy in your diet or whether you are Vegan. I mean, there are times when as kids, like my daughter is four, they're really picky eaters. So, you know, there are gonna be times when maybe you do have to adjust things a little bit or like add a multivitamin or something like that. So that might be something that, you know, you want to talk to a plant based nutritionist about. [00:46:01] It's okay. It's OK to not have it all figured out. But just knowing that you're doing what's right for your child and for you and for the animals in the environment that matters more than anybody else's opinion anyway. [00:46:15] Absolutely. And, you know, it's a personal testimony. I don't know a lot of Vegan, if they're quite young that haven't had an incredible health turnaround. You know, when I became vegan, I was incredibly healthy and I just went to see if I shouldn't sleep. When I started being able to it was, you know, just being a little teachers of good day, regardless of how healthy. I just don't know anyone who became healthy way on like this whole basis, you know, that doesn't have some kind of wonderful story that they should want for their children. And think, before I let you go, I want you to unpack your the bad ass rebel runners. He helps a little bit about what it is. [00:46:55] Yes. So, you know, along the fitness journey on my fitness journey, like we're talking about before, I didn't have a lot of support. So what I wanted to do actually went back to school and became a certified personal trainer and life coach. And so that's something I do. And I felt like, you know, even though I just finished grad school before I started, my journey is like, you know what, though? This is what I'm supposed to do. And so I finally found my purpose and I created this app because this is what worked for me, kind of struggling through all these roadblocks and finding my way, finding my journey and creating a healthy lifestyle, going from just eating anything that was Vegan like Vegan izing anything and everything, using meat substitutes and two substitutes and then eventually going wholefood plant based. And don't get me wrong, like I still will treat myself and indulge in something really deliciously, you know, Vegan that's super indulgent sometimes. So I want to make sure I say that because there is such thing as going too far one way. And I do balance. I do believe in having balance. Gotta have Vegan Lozano's every now and again. Right. Reagen Kates or something. [00:48:02] But so I created this app so that people would have something like one thing they could look at. That would teach them what they need to do on a daily basis as daily work. It has Vegan meal plans, but they don't look like other meal plans because you do have things like pizza and lasagna. And then you do have other things are hopeful, plant based. So people choose their breakfast, their lunch and their dinner and then they portion it out for the week because this is about portion control instead of counting calories, because for a lot of people who are raised like I was, calorie counting is extremely triggering and can go so wrong because people are freaking out. If they have like, oh my gosh, I had an extra 100 calories that I wasn't supposed to have or, you know, they get to the end of the day and they're starving. So you should never feel like you are so restricted that you're light headed or, you know, you're having trouble focusing. I mean, these are things people do in order to lose weight. And I want people to know that there is a healthy way to do things. It's not about being so restricted. It's about balance, portion control, making sure you're satisfied with what you're eating. [00:49:18] So that as all of those things included in it and it is a running app, but for people who don't want to run, it's OK. You can walk. And it's something. It's what worked for me. So there's the beginners intermediate and advanced levels for people who do want to progress and maybe become a distance runner. So it is pretty specific. That's why. Bad usera wheel runners. For anybody who is veg curious or Vegan and they want to get themselves in shape. They want to get healthy their support. Right. In that app. So I come on in beginning the week at the end of the week to tell them what to expect of beginning and then to congratulate people at the end of the week, get moved into the next week. And it's just it's something I wish I would have had. And that's one thing I really tried to do. Now, with anything I'm doing on social media or anywhere else in my life is I really try to be that person. I wish I would have had on my journey. So other people are just going Vegan whether they're just starting their fitness, Sturdee, whatever kind of progress they're making. I like to encourage them and support them and celebrate them and just be there because I think we don't need anymore people really saying, like, this is exactly what you need to do. And if you don't do it my way, it's not good enough. Instead, we need people who are uplifting and encouraging and supportive. And so that's what I try to be. That's what I try to do for people. [00:50:44] Yeah, it's great. And I can answer to when I asked you earlier, if you had a mentor, someone who became the mentor you needed, would you kind of fill up that if you haven't found it become? Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Jane. We're out of time today, but I really appreciate your candor and your story and all the personal information you put out there for everyone to learn from and glean all of your wisdom. And I really appreciate your time. [00:51:11] Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Patricia, have a great rest of the day. Absolutely. For everyone here today, we have been speaking with Jane Elizabeth. She's a best selling author, a personal trainer, coach and athlete. [00:51:21] You can find out more on her two Instagram handles, one, his bad ass rebel dot oners, and the other is C Dot, Jane Dot, do Dutch everything. Her book is called Become a Badass Rebel Runner. Her app, the mobile app, is called Bad Ass Rebel Runners. [00:51:38] And until we speak again next time. Thank you so much for giving us your time. And remember to stay, shake, eat well and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am speaking with Niki Webster. Niki is a cookbook author, freelance food consultant, recipe creator, food stylist, photographer and qualified Holistic Health Coach. Niki shares her easy and accessible plant-based recipes packed with fresh seasonal organic veg on her award-winning food blog Rebel Recipes. Her debut cookbook 'Rebel Recipes' was released December. Niki has a social media following of over 300,000 and works with a range of household brands including Sainsburys, Riverford and Kenwood. She is the co-host of the podcast What the Focaccia and regularly teaches workshops and appears on panels. This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with cookbook author, food consultant stylist Niki Webster. Key points addressed were Niki's Web site, blog and new cookbook titled Rebel Recipes. I also had the chance to ask Niki about her perspective regarding the Vegan scene in the UK, where she is based, as well as about some of the core philosophies and values she has based all of her cooking, writing and podcasting around. Stay tuned for my interesting chat with Niki Webster. [00:00:35] My name is Patricia Kathleen. And this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen .COM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:33] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today, I am so excited to be sitting down with Niki Webster. Niki is a cookbook author, food consultant and stylist. You can find out more regarding everything that she does. Her cookbook, as well as her podcast on w w w dot rebel recipes dot com. Welcome, Niki. [00:01:51] Hi. So thank you for having me. [00:01:54] Absolutely. I am so excited to cleanse you everything that you're doing. We've spoken to your good chum. Bettina recently on this podcast. I'm very happy to get the other co-host on the podcast as well as I love nepotism and kind of friendly relationships like that for everyone listening. We're going to go over a quick bio for Niki to kind of garner a sense of who we're speaking with today. But prior to that, I'll give you a roadmap for today's podcast so you can kind of follow the trajectory in which I will be basing the large portion of my inquiries from. I'll first ask Niki to describe a little bit about her academic background and occupational history, so can garner a sense of what her history has offered her up until this point. And then we'll look at her personal history and rhetoric regarding her Vegan or plant based journey and where it brought her to now and then. We'll turn towards unpacking her website, blog and podcast and we'll get into the logistics of who, what, when, where, hi, how founding time period, all of those. And then we'll turn to the ethos and the philosophy behind her work and how the threads kind of pull through her podcast, her book, her recipes, all of those good things. And then we'll get into some of the particulars just around the Vegan culture and a lot of the issues that she's brought up on her podcast. I've had the pleasure of listening to quite a few of those, and I would love to kind of climb through some of those core tenants and get Niki's opinion on a lot of those things. That will wrap up our half an hour podcast so quickly. As promised, a bio on Niki. Niki Webster is founder of Rezac Rebel Recipes. She is a cookbook author, freelance food consultant, recipe creator, food stylist, photographer and qualified holistic health coach. Niki shares her easy and accessible plant based recipes packed with fresh, seasonal organic veg on her award winning food blog, Rebel Recipes. Her debut cookbook, Rebel Recipes, was released in December. Niki has a social media following of over 300000 and works with a range of household brands, including Sansbury River, Ford and Kenwood and Kenwood. She is the host of the podcast. What the Focaccia and regularly teaches workshops and appears on panels and What the Coccia is the podcast. I was listening to and referring to and I hope everyone jumps on and checks that out. I will have Niki kind of drop. You can find that on her website, rebel recipes dot com. But I'll have her kind of enumerate more of those. Those podcasts in a minute. But Niki, I'm hoping you can start us off talking about your academic background, occupational life and some of your Vegan story as it transpires through both of those. [00:04:32] Yeah, of course. Okay. So in terms of my academic background, I think like many people, I can really go to where you have an interesting route to, actually owes the Bloods it up now. But I basically went to university and I studied sociology and criminal justice, completely unrelated to anything I'm doing. Yeah, but there were just subjects I would sort of secret interest in and I love doing. And then I sort of finished university, went back home, had absolutely no money. So I just needed to get a job. So I basically worked in a bar and I got a job as a graduate trainee at a breakfast roll company. [00:05:15] And yes, basically I did graduate for you. Always get a broad understanding of the business. Some Chinese and I thought that was sort of a good place to start coming from the bases. [00:05:29] I literally was so broke I just had to get a job. So an opening came, became available in multi departments with breakfast or company, and that sounded eminently more exciting than the projects and the things I was doing working in the factory and various things at the time. So I am very sort of I'm quite determined, criticized when I put my mind to something, I sort of go all out and try and get it. And that sounds like a better option. So the marketing. That sounds exciting. No, I'll go in and see what that's all about. So what's the role? And yet I really liked it. It was tiny. That was it. The company was in sort of transition and turmoil and also sort of thrown deep end. And I had no idea what was doing. But it just seemed like a fun, exciting, interesting, relatively creative role. So. So, yeah. So I stayed in marketing. I worked in that role for a couple of years, sort of changing roles as a product management and brand management role. And then, yeah, sort of got him to a stage where. Wanted to progress further. I was only young. Opportunity is also getting a little bit ahead of myself, I felt like I knew everything, knew absolutely nothing. Yeah, and then. Right. Well, I've had enough. I'm not not moving forward enough, so. Well, I'll move on. So at that time, I'd started seeing a guy he would he was at you need finished duty. [00:06:53] So he was living in Birmingham. [00:06:56] I'm from Shropshire. That means anything to you. I mean, I was living in Birmingham, finishing at eight. So I went to looking for the jobs and the recruitment company that I was looking jobs through, said Nicky. Would you like to. We'd be interested. Working agreements. I had absolutely no idea about recruitment. I think they were luring me in with the promise of huge bonuses. Lots of hot work. I've never been afraid of hard work. So the challenge was quite appealing to me. And yes, I basically went to work in recruitment, sales, recruitment for about 18 months. I think it was in the end. But honestly, it was such a horrific shock to my system. Yeah. I was genuinely awful at it initially. And but I you know, I'm I like to absorb things. I like to be good at things if I can be. So I you know, I work really hard. It's so intense. We need to work twelve hours a day. Yeah. You know, it's a sales role. So it was it was difficult. But it honestly, I feel like it changed my genes, my career trajectory. I would say just for the fact that I got the opportunity to pay off all of my student loans, which, you know, I felt a weight off. No. Yeah. I mean, kids leave school and they have loads of major debts, basically. And and it sort of is relatively prohibitive to what you can actually do. And I didn't feel right for you having all these debts. So I basically paid it all off and then decided much to my mum's horror because I was you know, I've always been maybe a little bit rebellious and naughty and didn't necessarily do the things that, you know, people expect me to do. And. And so I just got myself in. A situation is more financially secure. I had a stable, if not exciting career improvement. Yeah. Right now, my boyfriend. So I was just going one evening were to go traveling for six months. So, yeah, much mum's horror. She was just, you know, up in arms and said, how can you do this? But we're off. So spent went to Asia and India for three and a half months and feels a bike traveled round the whole of the south coast, although the end of India. And. And then, yeah, I did a huge tour, really three 1/2 months in India. And then we went over to Thailand for Christmas. It's very exciting. And then went to Cambodia like Vietnam, back to Bangkok, flew to Nepal to track him in the Himalayas and then went back down through northern India. So brilliant. [00:09:35] That's was right track. Well done. I mean, he know so young. Yeah. Absolutely. And those countries are not frequently picked, at least not by the young Globetrotters I talked to today. You know, that's an amazing journey. [00:09:48] It was. And this is I still find it quite sinding in six months. My boyfriend and I only spend fifteen hundred pounds each. [00:09:59] Excellent. [00:10:01] I mean, that's a book unto itself. That's an advisory board at the very least. [00:10:07] That included it need to the flights and visas. We were it was it was one big sort of negotiation and anything that's really where my no comments talking about my recipes and things. But that's that's one of the things that really instilled my sort of, you know, passion for the food and different cuisines. And, you know, vegetarian never would've been sort of vegetarian begin for a long, long time. But, you know, those countries, they just did the most amazing, you know, vegetarian food. So that was just such a joyous experience, I think, even though we spent so little money. Most of the most that time is actually deciding what we're going to eat every day. So that was a highlight there. That was so inspirational. So anyway, I came back from traveling again, once again, this pending situation, and then went back home to Shropshire. And I hope Ryan's going to see what I can get back into marketing. And and so I did. I worked in a in a dairy company, yogurt company and a brand management position for a couple of years. That company was sold. And then what went to work in salad? What there for a number of years. So, yes, it's sort of produced by healthy eating. And I moved around a little bit from management, then sort of marketing. Mok's manager and I specialize in social media and digital marketing. [00:11:31] Nice. Were you Vegan when you were traveling throughout India and Asia? [00:11:35] Yeah, vegetarian, but sort of Vegan because I've got a dairy allergy. So. So yes, I would have said I was vegetarian, but mostly vegan because, you know, I've always had an issue with dairy. So even though I can sort of tolerate it a little bit and sometimes how to avoid things. Yeah. Most vegetarian. [00:11:58] It's foretelling. [00:11:59] I was talking to you off the air and I listened to a podcast or somewhere where you were mentioning, you know, as a child, your introduction, your baptism into curry paste and how you were putting that on everything because it was like this new found first spice, you know, in the kitchen as you kind of walked into the kitchen and were introducing yourself to that whole scene that you ended up in India, you know, kind of eating. [00:12:20] But I always tell people my relationship with being Vegan changes so drastically with every new country I go to. And it's the investigation of the local cuisine of not just the local cuisine, the local agriculture. [00:12:34] You know, I was in Fiji recently and cassava is just not something they serve a great deal in the United States, at least not on the West Coast where I live and researching cassava and the differences between the nutritional differences between that and a potato and why that kind of plays into how you cook it slightly differently and how the locals use it. And it's just it's always growing. My relationship with it. And so it's for you to have traveled through all of these countries. I think people think of a lot of Asian and Indian cuisines and and don't realize how many, like just sharply Vegan, naturally Vegan recipes there are, as well as how many ingredients kind of augment, you know, Vegan cooking today all over the world. So I think it's an awesome baptism into what you did. I'm curious, what was the springboard into this? You know, you you career travel back to your career, what took you into this entrepreneurial? I'm going to launch my role. I'm going to start creating recipes. How did that all come together? [00:13:32] Yeah. I've been into cooking and food for ever. [00:13:37] I've just been the biggest foodie. And, you know, you you mentioned meats. I'm starting to use curry paste, things like that. I've just I've just got this really sort of strange taste buds, I think. And even though it's grew up in the UK, you know, my mom was my mom's a great cook, actually, but it's just very traditional, sort of, you know, in U.K., British cuisine, potatoes and meats and vegetables and use this funds a little bit now. But, you know, definitely growing up digital and I just didn't find exciting tool. I just find it super bland because I was I've never, ever been interested in eating meat and I always have a dairy allergy. [00:14:17] You know, it was just a bit limited, you know, what I could eat. So that's where the sort of, you know, this whole world exploded when I suddenly discovered concretized. Sounds really simple, but. Oh, my goodness, I can get food. I find that Blanton's suddenly exciting. And then. Yeah, so I suppose it is driven by me always sort of cooking for myself and having to create the food I like to eat. So yes, we've been cooking these recipes and I've been thinking about starting a blog for quite a long time before I actually start today, because I think, like, I would just have never crossed the nation and why would I do it would be would be interesting. All of this sort of physical barriers haven't gone along. How can I get one? You know, I'm really busy working with Chris, really important. Just things just busy. [00:15:07] So when they get press donated. [00:15:10] For many years, few years, and then and then suddenly there was just more of a sort of burning urgency to actually do it. And, you know, as things get to the stage where if you don't do it is actually unbearable, you know, mentally that you just have to do so. [00:15:27] So, yes, my my husband is a graphic designer. He builds websites among many things, many, many hats like me. And so finally, I persuaded him kindly make my first Web site. And yeah, I just started to put things online. I sort of because I had a background in food marketing and digital marketing, I sort of sort of knew I was doing. So I decided to, you know, software platforms at the same time. Instagram five years ago was not that huge right now, right? Yeah. But I loved it because I'm incredibly visual, sort of creative person. So for me, even though the things I was putting on that were. Hideous, freezing. Awful. But excellent, really lovely creative outlet. Yeah. And just something that I could see myself doing for myself because, you know, doing all sort of stuff at work, which was fine. The job was good. But I just I was feeling increasingly more frustrated that I just had to work for myself. And, yeah, it was getting uncomfortable even. Yeah. I was rationalizing at that stop. That job is good. It's provides a steady income. You know, I've worked hard to get AM, but I've just really wanted to work for myself and see what I could do it. [00:16:49] Yeah. And that's I mean, it's an interesting point I like from your background. I don't talk to a lot of it. I think maybe some are more well versed than they like to give credit to. [00:16:59] I think that the great fear with chefs is that you'll take away from the recipe design and things of that nature. If you talk about the stylization or the visual aspects of the food, they bring photographers in. You know, they have it done. But that part is very unspoken. For the cookbook and I like your attention to and you're honest, you know, candor with the idea that you like stylization of food and, you know, and menu design and recipes, it's like you're not afraid of that design aspect. And I'm really curious because I haven't had the honor of cracking your cookbook yet, which I promise you I will do in the near future. [00:17:34] But I wonder when you went to create that. How much of the conversation was about. I like it. [00:17:41] There must have been some kind of a rapport between the two because you're visually and stylistically in very in tune with, you know, the appearance of food and stylizing food. [00:17:52] How much of the creation or the direction or the route that the cookbook take took was based on that aspect as opposed to the recipes? You know, was it was there any conversation that directed the flow or which foods made it in which you didn't? Because you're so keen to be open and honest with some of those visual aspects of food? [00:18:13] Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And I suppose my whole business, unsuccess, my business is stems from from online and from Instagram, which is clearly a visual platform round. And so it's all intrinsically linked. So so, yes. I mean, I don't get lots of thoughts on that, actually, because. Yeah. [00:18:38] Everything I make. I'm sort of thinking about it from a visual perspective. And I I think I can pretty much make most things attractive because a lot of the food I chose to eat in my cookbook and online. They're quite brown, actually. I mean, I eat a lot of lentils and curries things because I always want to post authentically what I'm eating. And that's the essence of it comes I can write about things that visually and also assuage people's Marxian plan in terms of sort of, you know, online. And I know that lots of craters absolutely create food purely for the visual aspect, because I know that that's popular. And that's part of that business model. And it is in my mind, and I will think that I need to make this look attractive. However, it is still a bite. For me, the taste in January wasn't eating and having sort of a, you know, documenting. This is what I'm eating. This is what, you know, on a day to day basis rather than creating specific content. [00:19:44] And it does. And I think that to actually have a lot of conversation between each other in an unspoken way. Bettina, your buddy and I were talking about I'm eating seasonally, you know, and she converted me. [00:19:57] I feel like I talk to so many nutritionists and vegans a week that you couldn't possibly introduce a new idea. And bam, there it was with Bettina. And she said, you know, I'm even with the greenhouse's, even the ability to eat year round. It doesn't taste the same. She doesn't believe it does the same thing for your body, which I don't now either. And she's like she was talking about genuinely tasting, you know, a strawberry in season. And what that tastes like from a responsible farm and comparing that to the difference of one grown year round. [00:20:27] And I was thinking when I hung up with her, even the vibrancy like I was at the market, you know, strawberries are in season. And she was right. They have never. If you look at the most vibrant, saturated foods in real life. Right. I r l then you are looking at things that are very much so in season and then that's having a conversation with the visual, with the taste. You know, if it's looking vibrant and you haven't shoved chemicals all over it to get it that way, it's going to taste beautiful. [00:20:55] Yeah. Because you absolutely eat with your eyes. So, I mean, it looks vibrant and juicy and gorgeous. You're gonna wanna read it, but I can. I completely agree. You know, I'm a huge fan of, you know, organic veg boxes. I said, what about it all the time? Because it's just such a sort of superway, super easy way of knowing first and knowing what's in season. And secondly is having this gorgeous seasonal product. [00:21:21] It's all organic, all grown, perfectly delivered to you. And it's like an education in itself because, you know, with it, with a weekly box, it's. It's fresh. It's you know, it's hopefully, you know, locally ish. If, you know, it's always a bit of a challenge in the UK because it's not the water supply climates. It's so but obviously it's something that we're benefiting from losers'. I you've raised muchly. Yeah. [00:21:46] Yeah. You're literally getting the best on produce at the moment, so it's just the best time. And that in itself is super borrowing. That's again how I tended about recipes I would take. The raw ingredient for me is sort of the the veg, the seasonal veg, and then basically create sort of, you know, recipes around that. And that's it. I use that sort of guide, how I how I develop. And then it's yeah, it's not only fresh, but it's healthy, it's in season and it's like a Yes. Little roadmap of how to eat seasonally. And I'm curious about that. [00:22:18] I was wondering how one, because you're kind of guided by your own light. So the curation process, it sounds like what's in season and then do you take any following feedback? Do you ever hear fans say, listen, I want you to show me how to cook this? Like how much of it is directed by what you're doing and what you think is cool at the time? And if it is just all based on you? Where do you get your influences? Do you go out? You talked. I mean, obviously, the pandemic has put a damper on these kinds of inquiries. But prior to that, do you do you kind of expose yourself to influences that will then curate what you're making? How does all of that come to be with what you're creating right now? [00:22:57] Yeah, it's sort of a combination of everything I'd say, because I've been sort of developing continents Vegan recipes for quite a while now. I do I do sort of know what people want from me. [00:23:08] So but of course, that in itself is driven by those type of things I like to produce and eat, so. Yeah. So, yes, it sort of feeds into each other. I think people have come to expect from me a certain type of recipes so they know they're going to get the whole food recipe. It's going to be natural products can be seasonal VegFest commercially can be organic, it's going to be pulses, it's going to be, you know, veg based food. You know, that's the center. So they sort of expect that. And then I'm always having a conversation myself with, you know, maybe I should be doing a few more cakes. They may make or Rakestraw. They may want chocolate. But it's you know, I mean, I'm sort of instinctively drawn to them. Some people so passionate about baking. They love making all the desserts. But it's not something I typically eat that much. Yeah. I don't I don't I don't really do it. So it maybe is producing things quite selfishly. But then I also think it's coming from a place of natural food. Whole Foods and, you know, seasonal veg. So hopefully if I can make it tasty enough, which I'm always trying to do, sort of inject layers of layers of flavor and spices. And also, I think that that's what food is quite accessible. You know, store cupboard is quite cheap. [00:24:26] You know, if you if you've got the basics pulses and some grains and some nuts and seeds and then you add some nice seasonal veg. But, you know, that's cheap. But not, you know, big batches of food. And you make it delicious. It sort of takes quite a few boxes. [00:24:41] Absolutely. How many of your recipes did you take for your cookbook? Rebel Recipes from your website. Rebel recipes? About 25. [00:24:52] Yeah, I went in publisher. They felt that that was because some recipes in which some recipes over the years just have just superseded popular. So I think it's nice for people to have it in a Walker handheld format rather than accessing online. [00:25:10] What are your baptismal recipes? And when I mean that, I mean from non vegans. What do you like to serve most? On a personal level or recommend other people make who are kind of getting societies and communities? A big conversation happening among Vegan and non vegans that isn't angry is one of like, how do I introduce them to this? Without that, there's a great deal of fear with people who think that, you know, they're going to be missing out on dairy meat. All of the things that they've been used to. Do you have, like go tos that you recommend for yourself or for others that people make? [00:25:43] Yeah, I think it's you sort of have to think about making people really satisfied and happy. So, for example, if you set someone up, you know, big place of salad, it might be healthy and might look gorgeous and be very vibrant and might be seasonal. [00:26:00] But I don't know, I wasn't necessarily going to be really satisfied from that. So I really loved the big, hearty sort of comfort foods type dishes. [00:26:11] So I would, you know, probably have a really lovely spiced curry or something or stew, but then not just that, because that's good in itself. And you can be feel comforted and happy, but then you have some layers of flavor. I mean, I always have big with great big feasts. So that is a problem I have. I can't just create one day she'll have to think is my main dish. And then let's just sneak three others and some flatbread and some crunch. And I think that's, you know, some tips and then a bit of salad and then some people. [00:26:41] And I think that's what, you know, people are missing. Sometimes when I'm not eating meat, that's sort of like different flavors and textures. And so if you have that's something that's like big and hearty and comforting and you've got some, you know, vegetables and roast veggies and pulses, but then you've got something sharp, that pickle, and then you've got some flatbreads mochi up and you've got some creamy hummus. I mean, you could feel pretty excited and satisfied by that meat because it's just the amazing texture combination. [00:27:10] Yeah, absolutely. I agree. [00:27:11] And I think that one of the negative associations people have with veganism, which I'm not sure where it stems from. [00:27:16] I think it comes from the early punk movement that was in the 80s where a great deal of people expressing the Vegan philosophy were very, very like anorexic looking white boys walking around. And so I think that that was like somehow, because I feel like one of the negative associations is that vegans don't eat where. Pound for pound my meals and the amount of food I consume because it's so much, you know, raw and whole fruits and vegetables. It's actually quite, quite much a great deal larger than someone who's actually eating meat or cheeses, which are dense and kind of like on your plate, you know. And so I think that this huge abundance visually of food is kind of this like. [00:27:55] And now we feast, you know, kind of flips that on its head, which is delightful. I'm wondering with that. So I forgot to go over for all of my nerdy little founders out there. The logistics of can you just run us to rattle off really quickly when the website was founded? Did you have co-founders? Did you take any funding to found it? And what was originally the content of it? [00:28:17] Yep. Founded in 2015. [00:28:19] And it was basically all just purely myself and just done at the same time as my marketing job. So for the first 18 months, I was doing it alongside some needed income. [00:28:29] So just working really hard, getting used to sort of exercise at six a.m. for work. And then I just swapped it. And so instead I would get up and create content. Yeah. And then. Yes, of successively creating content constantly. And as I said, pretty badly initially. But I really wanted to work. You know, I studied hard to, you know, make myself look a bit more appealing. And then. Yeah, and then it was quite slow initially. And what I said was working at the same time. And then I got better gain, more followers, more opportunities preparing. [00:29:08] I want this organization over the award, which is amazing, about sort of eight months after I started, which was just incredible. And yet things to Rome, really. [00:29:22] And I just felt that, you know, there was only so much I could do. I'm just going to sort of take this scary leap and resign and see what happens. And then, yeah, it's just been sort of like up and down sort of rollercoaster, but absolutely amazing. And I think, you know, I always say that. And I sort of felt that if I Johnson did take the chance. I mean, at the end of the day, I could, I'm sure, get a Moxham job again. So it is when you take the risk that exciting things happen and if you sort of have confidence that you have the sort of work ethic sort of to work. And I was literally, I think most people's saying yes to absolutely everything. Yes, I can do that whether I can. But I'll I'll give it a go. Make it your house. All sorts of crazy things. And some things work. Some things were not so good. But, you know, it's all a learning process. And yeah. And then it's just sort of evolved and things have definitely changed over time. But yeah. [00:30:23] Well, to that end, I kind of want to pull on that thread a little bit just because I you know, you're across the pond and I can go on and on about the Vegan community here over the past 10 years and the change it's currently even undergoing this incredible spike. I actually really adore being on the flagship, as it were, of know the second wave of veganism in this. Because I think it's exciting to see things change and manifest, and this is where the podcast. This podcast is built out of the rhetoric and the growing change of Vegan worlds. But I want to know about the UK, which I haven't. I'm. I visit Ireland a great deal. And so I know a little bit about their scene. And I was just in Australia and Fiji and bunch of those places. [00:31:02] But the UK, it's interesting. I've spoken to about 30 people so far for the podcast and about seven or eight of those have been people located in the UK and they talk about. So there's been two schools of thought. One of them was that they felt as though, you know, the US had a greater threshold and strong stronghold on the Vegan culture and the UK was kind of behind, if you will. And taking notes from it. And conversely, I've spoken to a great deal of Americans that believe that. Well, they had one of the first institutions in, you know, just outside of London that was certifying and talking about the philosophy of the Vegan culture and had like an actual certification program in Vegan dietary cuisines and things like that. And so they believe that the UK was the four founder of it. And neither of that's important as to who was really the granddaddy or grandmother of the whole thing is not here or there for me. What I'm curious about is right now and the past, you know, over the span of your professional life, what is the growth and tone been like for the Vegan culture? I know it was neach and tiny and small, but what has it been as of the past five years in your eyes as it relates to food and your industry? [00:32:19] I think it's it's been so interesting, firstly, because when I started on my channels, my blog. It was absolutely in that initial stage. There was no one talking about it at all. [00:32:31] And, you know, a few people across the world that I had the pleasure of connecting to to make me feel less weird. But, yeah, tiny. [00:32:43] And then I don't know. It was like for me, it felt like a wash, just an explosion. And I felt those you know, there's some resistance in the press. And then it just it was like a tidal wave of acceptance, I think, in the U.K. And now it's unbelievable. [00:33:01] Of course, you know, there's been no restaurants or anything for the past few months, but. Pretty much all restaurants, you know, even in obscure areas now that they've got. Vegan options. These markets are incredible. My friend Derek Sonna has been instrumental in developing the Tesco Vegan range. And then all the other retailers pretty much followed suit and they've got huge ranges. So from our perspective on all lines, eating natural foods. Yeah. And I provide recipes that don't necessarily aren't necessarily replacement for meat. But if you if businesses are just moving into veganism or you do want something that emulates that sort of meaty taste a little bit, the ranges are huge. So, you know, there's so many options everywhere. I mean, I'd love to live in London. But, you know, directional seed in London is amazing. So, yeah, it's it's exploded. It's sort of secret. [00:34:01] So two time cookbooks, online platforms, everything. What year do you think that that happened? Can you say it like a year or a time period in which you really felt like that that change happened? Yeah, I think it was a couple of years ago that things really escalated. I think the year before it was moving and then a couple of years ago, it just exploded. You personally. [00:34:23] Do you find that with the acceptance you're able to bring in not more centric, but maybe more eclectic or, you know, it's like, let's see, maybe baking like arrowroot? [00:34:35] I mean, I couldn't find it 10 years ago without going, you know, a bit outside of town. And now, you know, those types of things are even coming down in price because of the commonality of Vegan bakers cooking with things like that, that those kinds of thickening agents. But I'm curious, do you find yourself being influenced by it as as a creator? Do you find yourself kind of broadening what you are inspiring people to cook? Like, how has that kind of infiltrated you, the way you cook and your business with this kind of acceptance opening up? [00:35:06] Yeah, I just I. [00:35:09] I don't think I've ever really created recipes specifically for vegans. I've I've always just created. I hope I try. This is my aim. [00:35:19] Really tasty, plump based food, Vegan food that I hope is accessible to everyone. Because, you know, again, this is a huge thing in the UK. And I think this is instrumental in terms of people's acceptance. It's really now, you know, this is Stovall's of people that like die hard meat eaters that, you know, would never, ever eat a Vegan meal, you know, that just quit. And now I know personally people that, like, aren't unique from Monday, I'm reducing my meat content. So that's just for me that indicates the real shift change. [00:35:51] So how would you. So how are they about recipes is. This is some really delicious veg based food. And I hope. Viegas, I like it, but parents don't like it. People that reducing meat will like it. [00:36:04] So it's open to anyone. But in terms of ingredients. Yeah, I think there's a lot more a lot more awareness night because of so much stuff in the process, so much stuff on TV, it's becoming more mainstream. Sort of weird Nishu readings. It's definitely becoming more accessible. I mean, eat. I mean, you know, I mean, there's always been these like plant based milks, but I mean, not from walks. [00:36:24] There's 20 plant based milks, you know, this far. Vegan Jesus. You know, it's just it's just amazing everywhere. And one of the sudsing workshops like what is nutritional yeast? Is it. Is it just the Yeast Munch workshops? They've provided the ingredients. I've got like a little pot of diesel, fresh yeast and like. No, no, no. Right, right. This terrines. People people know that. [00:36:51] Yeah, they do. I agree. And I like that. [00:36:53] I like I like all knowledge, you know, I don't care which can't be subscribed to you, but I want everyone to read the same information so that we can argue adequately, especially when it comes to nutrition and health and things like that, that I think are direct byproducts of the Vegan culture, which is another reason why I think the covered nineteen pandemic has resurged in, you know, acclimated regardless of its roots. And I don't even get into the wet market conversation with anyone other than friends. But the conversation with health has always been here. And I'm glad to have that be like one of the things that's most quickly attached to the Vegan lifestyle. You did drop the word and I usually wait for all of my guests to do it. You said plant based three times. So I'm going to ask you, what is your key and fundamental difference between being plant based and being Vegan and how do you define each for yourself? [00:37:42] Yes, so Vegan for me is a lifestyle choice. [00:37:46] And for me, that's more. That's that is an ethical choice, a move, a commitment to being sort of Vegan in all aspects of your lives, making commitment to have a crew, to feed lifestyle, not one lever, you know, not not having cruelty free makeup and beauty products. And it's it's a much broader lifestyle thing for me. [00:38:06] Plant based is much more centered around having a plant centric diet and embracing, you know, could be Vegan. But it's more about having a sort of, you know, a plant focus. That's OK. [00:38:22] And to that end, does plant based denote health? Because that's been the next connection that everyone's making that the marketing industry has just attached on to that and flown off into the sunset with plant based denoting organic health healthy, those types of things. [00:38:40] Does that work for you to degree? [00:38:44] Because I think that, you know, on a really basic level, including more plants and tump based derivatives and sort of natural products in your diet, for me, that's sort of an easy way to make you a little bit healthier if you're eating natural foods and plant based fruits and vegetables and fruits and things like that. [00:39:00] Vegan. In my mind, it's it's an ethical commitments. You could be healthier. Big Vegan. But it doesn't Nessus. It doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand because you can be a vegan and just eat sort of, you know, processed Vegan food. But, you know, do it for purely ethical reasons, so I find know separate. [00:39:24] Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's important to separate them regardless of how one defines them. They need to be defined. I think it's crucial also to have individuals define and companies how they're using those terms. You know, because I do find that most vegans believe that that title Vegan is much more of a lifestyle and philosophy and those who are not Vegan view it as a dietary restriction. So it's an interesting, you know, disconnect, if you will, that I think is solved by defining terms, which is I think we should do more of across the board in all of society and civilization. Defining one's terms would clarify a lot of things. I want to jump quickly into the podcast. I know we're kind of coming in on time, but I loved it and I loved listening to it. And again, I spoke with Bettina, who is on this podcast series a few weeks back. [00:40:14] And I told you off the air and I kind of want to bring it back on to record right now. What I liked about it is I'm kind of picky with my podcast. It's not just because I'm a podcast host, it's because I care about information and knowledge. And then I also, you know, I care about show person, ship and flow and those types of things. And I really like your podcast. I've listened to four of them. And I think there's seven or eight total that I could find online. And I want to know when it was founded. But I really I have to put it out there that I think that the flow of information is very succinct and different. And you would think that it might be the same. I thought, oh, they're both going to be saying the same thing and simply agreeing with one another. And it's simply not what happens. You just have such different perspectives on things that you bring and augment. And then when you bring your guest on as well, I think it's just this kind of beautiful round table and you're keeping your times tight at like 20 minutes. I have to applaud you for all of those things, but I want to know when you launched it and how you kind of develop what you're going to speak about around it, because you come into some very core topics about Vegan food, Vegan culture, you know, aspects of nutrition, all of those things. So how do you curate the show? When was it founded and how do you continue moving forward? [00:41:27] So we started just recording. I think it was October last year, and then it took some time, as I'm sure you know, it's that get the guest Pennsylvanian actually available. And on the show, the producer sort of edited a little bit and then just to cut out the repetitive stuff. And then it launched in January. And then we basically launched one every week for, you know, six, seven weeks. So actually, in terms of the content, it's really quite organic because petite and I know each other really well and have quite a good sort of. Bantry dynamic, sort of slightly challenging each other and definitely aren't sort of too polite and were happy to disagree with each other. I think that's sort of naturally works. And that's really why we thought that we might be okay doing a podcast together. And then we just sort of think about what we would love to hear and what we think the audience would love to hear from the person that were having on the podcast. And of course, it doesn't necessarily always go to plan because, you know, people it's conversation and people, you know, say whatever they want, but that's what we do, really. So it's really quite organic. And we didn't necessarily know know. We didn't. We did. We did it. Yeah. Point intuitively, I would say. So if you think it's good that that's what it is. [00:42:51] I idea. And I'm picky. I think it's magnificent. I always have to preface that I am really pick and picky with my fashion and my podcasts. I cannot I don't have any leeway there, so I really do enjoy it. I hope everyone gets on. Where can everyone find it? You can find it on your website. You guys are on iTunes. [00:43:05] You're on Spotify, all the normal places. Yeah. And it's called something. So a bit cheeky. Yeah. Gotcha. I love it a lot. Yeah. I think it's appropriately titled too. [00:43:19] And it's it's easy to remember. I like that, you know. And the name I'm wondering as we wrap up today, I wish we could talk longer. I always wish that. [00:43:30] But with you particularly so I'm wondering how what you think I do want you to be brazen here, because I think that those are kind of the best answers and people are afraid to talk about the future, particularly more so now. But where do you see some of the biggest changes and movements happening for the Vegan industry in so much as it affects health as as a subsequent effect from diet and and food? Where do you see the next five to 10 years playing out? If you had to kind of surmise from everything you've experienced thus far. [00:44:10] Honestly, I don't know. [00:44:11] I think the world is in such flux at the moment. I mean, I think that, you know, the ground for me, I feel it's shifting by the day. So things which felt normal and you can maybe make prediction last week. Something is happening today and everything's changed, so. [00:44:29] But I do feel that on the whole, people are just becoming way more aware, you know, in terms of society and health, in terms of that diet, in terms of, you know, ethical and moral decisions. And, you know, I think this lockdown situation has given people the headspace to actually think about things in a way that isn't important. You know, what do I want to do? [00:44:52] Am I going to change things? [00:44:53] And you know what's good, what's good for the planet, what's good for me. But, you know, am I do all this stuff and I don't need to be doing it. So I don't know. I'm really hopeful because I think that. [00:45:04] Yes, it's like it's like a weird reset and people thinking things much more. [00:45:10] And also in terms of sort of what food people are cooking more, so they're thinking about what they're putting on the table, having to think about it, you know, three times a day and getting more engaged with it. So so generally, I think I'm I mean, I didn't think, you know, being a strength was going away anyway. But just because people are much more conscious and aware now, I think, ever before. I think you just continue to grow. [00:45:37] I agree with you. [00:45:38] And I think the demystification of food and the the re conversation that people are having with the food that they thought they knew, you know, is is part of that beautiful natural evolution that you describe happening. That is, it wasn't going away before and is probably augmented with the most recent endeavor. [00:45:58] Well, Niki, we're out of time, but I want to say thank you so much for all of your conversation today. I really enjoyed it. And I hope everybody tunes in, listens to your podcast, jumps on your website and checks out your cookbook. [00:46:09] Thank you so much for having me. All of it. Absolutely. And for all of you listening, thank you so much for giving us your time. [00:46:15] We have been speaking with Niki Webster. She's a cookbook author, food consultant and stylist. She just had her first book come out. Rebel Recipes. And you can also jump online. W w. W. Rebel recipes, dot com. Check out her podcast from there as well. She's got a ton of wonderful YouTube, blogs, recipes, consultancy information. There's so many great things. And thank you for giving us your time today until we speak again next time. [00:46:40] Remember to stay safe, eat well and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am speaking with Katrina Fox. Katrina is an award-winning journalist, publicity consultant, editor of the vegan business blog VeganBusinessMedia.com, host of Vegan Business Talk podcast and author of Vegan Ventures: Start and Grow an Ethical Business, the first global book providing success strategies for aspiring and existing vegan business owners, and founder of the Plant Powered Women’s Network global ethical leadership community.  Key points addressed were  Katrina’s animal advocacy and how her written journalist and book work have all been in effort to aid the core tenants of that advocacyWe also discussed many common issues vegan businesses have in regards to PR and market engagement and how she has designed tools to dissolve these problems and enable vegan companies to thrive. This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:01] In this episode, I speak with journalist, author, founder and PR consultant Katrina Fox. Key points addressed were Katrina's animal advocacy and how her written journalist and book work have all been in effort to aid the core tenants of that advocacy. We also discussed many common issues Vegan businesses have in regards to PR and market engagement and how she has designed tools to dissolve these problems and enable Vegan companies to thrive. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Katrina Fox. [00:00:43] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen .com, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:40] Hi, everyone. Welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I am elated to be sitting down with Katrina Fox. Katrina is a journalist, author, founder and PR consultant. You can find out more about her services as well as everything we talk about in today's podcast at w w w dot. Katrina Fox dot com as well as w w w dot Vegan business media dot com. Welcome. Katrina. [00:02:04] Hello, Patricia. It's a pleasure to be with you today all the way across the pond. [00:02:10] Thank you. Katrina earlier today, I'm excited we could make our schedules work as well. I look forward to diving into everything that you're doing, just talking off the air that Katrina is kind of based her consultancy in an industry that I think is going to blow up and is already blowing up, but perhaps even more so. [00:02:29] For those of you that are new to the podcast. I will give you a brief bio on Katrina before I ask her to further elaborate on that and her history and then get into some of her current endeavors. But before we get to that, a quick roadmap for today's podcast. We will look. As I said, it triggered some of Katrina's past histories, professional, academic, anything that ties into her current story as it pertains to what she's doing now. I'll also ask her to unpack her personal Vegan journey as it pertains to all of the areas that we'll be talking about today. And then we'll look at unpacking Katrina's work in three different sectors. Namely, we'll look at her podcast, her book and her online courses, and we'll see if we can kind of suss out her ethos and business philosophies as they stand within that. Before we do those three things, however, we will also ask Katrina to kind of decipher and self-defined key terms that tend to create heated debate and topic within the Vegan world and community will climb upon those just asking for some personal definitions. So we all have clarity as to how we're defining things. And we'll wrap all of the podcast up with advice for those of you that are looking to get involved with Katrina, as well as maybe some of the predictions that she has for the next five or so years on the horizon. Things have changed greatly over the world landscape with the covered 19 pandemic. So this is an area that's changed a lot for people when they go to look forward. As promised, before I start peppering her with questions, a quick bio. Katrina Fox is an award winning journalist, publicity consultant, editor of the Vegan business blog Vegan. Business Media dot com, host of Vegan Business Talk podcast and author of Vegan Ventures Start and Grow an Ethical Business. The first global book providing success strategies for aspiring and existing Vegan business owners and founder of the plant powered women's network Global Ethical Leadership Community. [00:04:20] Oh, can I Pause you there. Sorry. That must be an old bio. It's actually now called the Vegan Women's Leadership Network. [00:04:27] OK. All right. [00:04:28] There was a trademark issue. So I changed the name. It's called the Vegan Women's Leadership Network. Sorry about that. I thought I'd updated the BIOS ladder first there. [00:04:38] Anyway, better. So well done. She has. Let's see. She's written extensively for niche and mainstream media for 18 years on animal advocacy, ethical business and was a regular Forbes contributor for years specializing in writing about Vegan and plant based businesses. A Vegan of 22 years, Katrina teaches Vegan business owners how to do their own PR and get free media coverage through their signature on through her signature online courses and group coaching program begins in the limelight. A passionate animal advocate, Katrina one, the voiceless, the Animal Protection Institute Media Prize for her article, Speciesism The Final Frontier for Australian National Broadcaster. The ABC is the drum Web site. Her work has been featured in the books Circles of Compassion Essays Connecting Issues of Justice, edited by Wil Tuttle and Plant Power of Women. Pioneering female Vegan leaders share their vision for a healthier, greener, more compassionate world. Edited by Cathy Divine. She lives with her wife Tracey and loves glitter and Internet cat videos. And as I said before, you can find her on W WW Katrina, Foxconn and Vegan business media dot com. So Katrina, before we kind of climb into all of the endeavors that you're currently involved with, as well as a book that I know came out in, I think 2015, I was hoping you could draw us a landscape of where you kind of came from regarding your academic and professional life and your personal Vegan story as it brought you into what you're doing now. [00:06:13] Yeah, sure. So I've always had an affinity with animals, and I actually went vegetarian at the age of 11, although I didn't know the word. I asked my mum what the beef burger was made of that we would eat. And when she told me it was a cow. I was absolutely horrified. And I made the connection between the roast chicken on Sunday and the fish fingers. And so I just said, I'm not eating animals anymore. That didn't go down very well. So I was brought up in class at a working class family just outside of South London in the UK, where I'm originally from. But, you know, I stuck to my guns. It took me a while to get to veganism. It took me till about 1997, 96, 97, to learn about the dairy industry and the cruelty involved in all of that. But once the penny dropped, then, you know, I was all in. And, you know, I've been involved in animal rights activism as well as other social justice issues and in terms of professional career. [00:07:05] For the first sort of part of my earliest of adult life, I basically was involved in performing arts. So my original degrees in performing arts and then around the Yes brand, about the similar time that I went vague and actually I retrained as a journalist. And so it worked on mainstream Masche and specialist trade media throughout my career, freelanced and written all pets on animal advocacy and other topics for mainstream media. And as you mentioned, they had a column in Forbes for a year writing about Vegan and plant based business. So I ran about to 2015 when I wrote the book was really when I tried to meld my I guess my my passion with my profession. And so I wrote the book because there was nothing else on the market specifically for Vegan business owners and entrepreneurs. And I interviewed over 60 Vegan entrepreneurs and waved their insights throughout the book, which is a how to guide on how to start and run a business of any kind to run it on Vegan principles. [00:08:10] Then I decided to start a podcast because I love interviewing people. And once I finished the book, I was like, Oh, I've finished my interviews. I want to carry on interviewing people. So that's why I launched the podcast and then the blog. So I didn't really, to be perfectly honest, I didn't really have a business plan per say. I just kind of I just was drawn to doing these things. And I thought, well, I'll just kind of put them out there and I'll work it out as I go along. I'm not necessarily recommending that as a strategy, although I do know other business owners who have done something similar with different businesses. But that's just the journey that I went on. And then I created the course. I realized people needed to know how to get into the media and do PR. [00:08:47] Not everyone's got a budget to hire a publicist or a PR firm. So that's why I created the online course. And now I do consulting and coaching and just working with my ideal clients, which I love, which are a Vegan business owners and entrepreneurs. [00:09:02] Yeah, it's interesting you so you have this kind of gateway. It is as a young child into the vegetarian life, you know, through compassion and animals. What was do you think it was the same kind of moment of compassion and animals that led you on your Vegan journey, or was there a distinct difference between that and how it impacted? Because you have this unique view of, you know, being able to approach it from a business standpoint, too. And there's obvious relationships and correlations about sustainability that tie into good business measures and things like that. But what was the churn from you into switching from vegetarian to veganism, or was it kind of a natural progression? [00:09:38] I only wish I would've done if I'd have known then what I knew about the dairy industry back when I was a child 11, I would have stopped eating dairy and stopped wearing an and all of it. So it was definitely my I've definitely come from. I know some people. I know you're gonna talk about terminology. I mean, a little bit. But if veganism is about doing the least harm as as is practically possible. You know, in terms of not using, abusing or exploiting or commodifying animals. And that's a paraphrase of the UK Bacon Society's definition back in I think it was around nineteen forty five. So that's basically ice by two veganism as a philosophy, as a way of living, of doing the least possible harm. So eliminating animal products as much as you practically can from your life. So I've been involved in feminist movement and when I was at college, at uni and when I was on an animal rights demonstration, actually about vivisection, about kittens being bred for baby section in the UK. And a lovely school teacher was on the coach of the bus taking us up to this demo in Oxford. And I pulled out my sandwich. I still would you like a Vegemite and cheese sandwich? And she said, Oh, no, I'm Vegan. I don't eat cheese. And I said, Oh, it's vegetarian. Cheese is no animal ran in it. And then she explained to me about the dairy industry and about all these myths of happy cows and what actually happens to cows, you know, the female reproductive system being hijacked and forced, you know, forcibly inseminated babies taken away from. And I was just shocked. And I was I was extra shocked because as a feminist that really, you know, as someone who obviously believes in, you know, women having. Body autonomy. I was just horrified and shocked and I thought, how did I not know this? How did I miss this? You know, I've been involved in and around sort of animal rights for a little while back in the late 80s. But I kind of I don't somehow miss the bacon memo then. So it was very much an ethical decision. And once I knew I was one of those people that pretty much went Vegan straight away. I mean, obviously, there were some things that needed to be phased out gradually but quite quickly. And I was obviously a privileged enough to do that in terms of shoes, you know, switching out the leather shoes. But food wise, it was pretty much I got home and I said to my wife, Tracy. Right. I said, we're now. I said, well, I'm vague. And I said, if you want cheese, you'll have to buy it yourself. I was responsible for doing the food shopping. And we kind of went from there. And I can tell you, it was 24 years ago now. I think I went Vegan. And back then it was it was quite tricky, especially in terms of the cheese. They were tasted rubber back then. So it's been pretty exciting seeing that developments that were going on, but very much an ethical decision for me. [00:12:15] Yeah. And I have your your fellow country mate, Bhavani and I spoke some number months ago about cheese. Actually, I kind of I think I went off on a terror. Just Vegan cheese has been one of those things that in at least in my humble Vegan tenure of under a decade and the Greeks, God bless the Greeks because they were the first people that got, you know, Vegan cheese right for me. And I think it was their perception of olive oil and things like that. But it's over the past five years, it's the change of Vegan cheese has been astronomically to my life. [00:12:46] It's so brilliant, isn't it? And we recently now in Australia, like Pizza Hut and Domino's of Pizzas with the Vegan cheese on. And it's just so nice. So I'm I deliberately have one, you know, like at least a couple of months just because I can I can lie after 24 years, I can finally have pizza with cheese on again. So yeah. And it's just amazing, all the brilliant products that are coming out that are, you know, just so realistic, full of flavor and just. Yeah, it's game changing. [00:13:14] Speaking of products, this is a good gateway into kind of defining some terms. And I'd like to kind of jump right into the hottest one, which is how do you get between Vegan and plant based? What do each. What does each term mean independently to you and how do you define them? [00:13:30] Yeah, it's an interesting one. I wrote a whole article for Forbes on that because it is such a, I guess, a hot potato. So Vegan as always. I think Vegan up until now, until it became I guess started to become more mainstream, more mainstream, started to accept a little bit more, became a little bit more, quote, trendy. It typically always meant, you know, the ethical side of things that you as someone who you know, who didn't eat or consume or where you know, any products that involved any kind of use of animals or animal ingredients, etc. Then when it started to kind of take off, people started to describe themselves as Vegan, whereas actually they were plant based. So the difference really for me in terms of plant based, plant based is when you eat it, it's very much based on food, because generally think about plant based shoes, for example, a plant based fashion, but it's typically what you eat. And it's kind of about you. It's not you know, typically people go plant based for health, for example, or perhaps for the planet. Some people might go plant based for the animals, but typically it tends to be, you know, for your own reasons. And it's very centered around food. So someone could be eating plant based but still wear leather. So that could kind of give a little bit of a differentiation. Now, unfortunately, what's happened is some companies, while using the term plant based to say, oh, it's mainly plants. And that's really frustrating because, you know, for most with plant based simply meant that you don't eat any kind of animal product. But now they're trying to kind of twist plant based a little, which is why personally, I love the word vague and because it literally kind of means, you know, you don't eat. I mean, sometimes people again, sometimes people are using the term Vegan when they mean plant based. So it can be a little bit of a mix up. But for me, Vegan is he knows it's someone who lives by the philosophy of veganism. So, you know, you eliminate animal use, ingredients, products, etc from all areas of your life, whereas plant based is more about eating food. And then of course, there's whole food plant based, which is people who don't eat, they don't have oil or gluten or a whole bunch of other stuff. To me, that's quite different to veganism. And how do you do? [00:15:42] If I look at foods, I always say it's it's I feel like my Whole Foods brothers and sisters are the ones that talk about whether or not it's head of factory and like the Whole Foods people, if it's been industrialized or more than likely going to kind of shun it, you know, anything that had to be extracted or. [00:15:59] Yes. Or processed. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of. Yeah. There are other terms that you or other ways you clarify Whole Foods. It's not really. I mean, I just see I mean, I see a whole mix actually, even on the whole food. Based, you know, like I subscribe to a male to live a plant based meal delivery service and some of the products that they describe as whole food plant based, you know, some of them got like some white rice or some basmati rice in. And I, I get a bit confused about that because I thought only brown rice is, you know, no. So I think, again, it tends to be different definitions. But I guess at one end of the this the stream around that is, you know, like like I say, no salt, no sugar, no oil, no gluten. For me, that's quite restrictive. And I, I don't like whatever people want to do as long as not eating animals. I don't care. But, you know, I will not post photos of my salad or my fruit shake because people know that. And I, I kind of want to get people over the stereotypes of what eating vague and particularly is. So I will post my pizza with its MLT egg and cheese. I will post my cheeseburger from all Vegan, you know, a burger joint, you know, because then people can kind of go, Oh, I can go Vegan, I can still eat burger, I can still have pizza, I can still have a bacon steak. You know, I can have all of these kind of things, you know, be on me. I've just got their new TV commercial out, which is brilliant and I love it. And the burger I got, it just looks like a regular burger. Thank goodness. Finally, you know, it's not some little lentil pâté that we've had since, you know, the whenever 70s and 80s. So, yeah, I'm kind of I will tip an oral poached chocolate cakes like naughty stuff. And it's not all I actually do eat really healthily. If you look to my social media, you would think I only eat junk food, but I don't. But I post that because I want people to know that, you know, they don't have to go from having their steak and chips to only eating salads and lentils. You know what I mean? They can still have their favorite foods. And arguably, you know, no one's trying to claim that, you know, these kind of things are all necessarily healthy. But I would still argue they're healthier than having the animal products, you know, the animal based counterparts anyway. [00:18:14] And the founder of Impossible Burger did come out and say exactly that. You know that as well. It might be processed. It's definitely leaps and bounds ahead of the. Yeah. Alternative. I'm wondering, you your your industry, you help clients kind of define themselves and in addition to, you know, finding resources and getting good PR out and things like that, but it seems like you would do some advising work about really capturing or meditating on what, you know, one's product design and things like that. And you've mentioned this kind of it seems to be an industry based as well as kind of just individual company based. But whether or not people identify with the words plant based or Vegan, some people believe that Vegan is powerful and helpful. Others believe that it's exclusionary. And it's this kind of politicized term. It seems like I've spoken with a lot of Vegan clothing designers and handbag designers and they're very attached to the term Vegan leather because they said plant based leather doesn't actually make a lot of sense, which is funny because they're leather's directly. It's pineapple, the apple leather whose. But they specifically say Vegan leather, usually to get away from PMU, you know, the polyurethane that that isn't sustainable and environmentally friendly. And I'm wondering when you go to advise your clients this this role where you kind of help them qualify and quantify and you begin the PR process with them. Is this a conversation you're frequently having and is it industry based or is it very company by company based as to what term you help them identify with and use? [00:19:46] Yeah, I've got a whole chapter about it in my book, as well as well as writing the article on Forbes, where I expanded on it somewhat. And it really does depend on the business, I always say. And I asked people that question on my own podcast, Vegan Business Talk, why they choose to use the term Vegan or plant based or otherwise and why. And there's no wrong or right answer. It really depends on the company. It's definitely it's not industry wide because, for example, you've got me Kerschner Chinna, who uses Vegan loud and proud. She's got a big tattoo on her arm. You know, she is all about branding and marketing. The packaging is got Vegan up front because she wants to demystify the word Vegan and have it be associated with lovely things. In her case, you know, amazing Chazen and Vegan butter. And then there are others like beyond maids and other brands that specifically don't use Vegan, or they might have it in tiny letters. And that's an option, I think, for products that are package. You can have the word Vegan in very small letters on the back for people like me who want to know it's big and who will look for it. But then you can have plant based, you know, as the, you know, one of the key descriptors. So it really does depend on it depends on a couple of things. Who your market is. So, for example, my wife, Tracy's a clinical hypnotherapist, psychotherapist, doesn't have the word Vegan on her website anyway. She has sheep and cattle farmers come to see her. And depending on what they're coming to see her, she's also a natural path. You know, she's got quite a few of them on to Vegan, a plant based diet. So it does depend on who your target market is in terms of what words use and also as a founder, what your mission is and what you were comfortable with as well. [00:21:20] Yeah, absolutely. It does it does seem like it would be case by case. It's weird, though, as that's changing. I feel like there's going to be even a third term proposed, I think, plant based with vegans. Now, most of the at least the passionate vegans that I know, they they don't like the term plant based because at least in the United States, it's become very kind to fortified. You know, in the 90s, in the 80s, all of these these fortified cereals and things where they were ripping it out of its stripping it of its real content and then just shoving vitamins and minerals back in there and the same things, plant based. You flip over over a package and it's not Vegan at all. You know, they've they've thrown. They've infused it with some kind of a plant based material. [00:21:59] And so, yes, that's that's what I meant when I said earlier about the term plant based is, you know, it's starting to become twisted and hijacked. So. Yeah, yeah. And they could well be. I mean, we're seeing a little bit of not necessarily with food, but plant powered, you know, there's the whole free from movement. So sometimes, you know, we've seen animal free. Yeah. Well, we'll see what happens in terms of terminology. But I guess I mean, for me personally, like for my own business, obviously I love the word Vegan because it's kind of in everything that I do, but everybody's different. And at the end of the day, if it gets people to stop consuming animals, use whatever term you like. [00:22:39] Yeah. That's the goal, right? Yeah. The humane washing in greenwashing. In fact, that has been kind of come up and labeled by I don't know if it's GenZE or the millennials, but I love looking at the sociology behind all of those terms. I want to turn now to unpacking the kind of the three cause of what you do. So first one to unpack what you've gotten into the book a little bit. But I was hoping as an author when you were writing it, you know, I find coming from a family of authors that there's there's two scores, at least in my lineage, and there's ones that couldn't possibly stand to think about the audience because they would never publish. And then there are ones that keep the audience in mind the whole way through. And I was wondering if you were keeping your audience in mind when you wrote it. And if so, if you can pull out five or six of the main core tenants that you really hoped the take home would be. [00:23:28] Sure. Well, I definitely have my audience in mind, so for this particular book. So it's it's my first book on my own. That is it. I have coauthored and I've also coedited a couple of anthologies in a completely different field. So I've been published by mainstream media, by mainstream publishers, traditional published in the past. For this particular one, I basically because I wanted to move into this field, I started hanging around with entrepreneurs who were asking me how do I get people to get into the media? And then I thought of the people I really want to help Vegan entrepreneurs. I must be a book about that. And there wasn't. So I thought. Right. I guess that's a sign from the universe. I need to write it so because it was a very practical book. I very much had my audience in mind. So my audience was mainly aspiring Vegan business owners and entrepreneurs. But I also wanted to have enough in there for existing Vegan business owners and entrepreneurs as well. So for those who haven't yet set up a business, you know, it's got all the stuff about how to set up the structure, what your Y is, you know, staff. And then there's also marketing, PR and branding, which is helpful for anyone who's starting out. But also a lot of the existing Vegan entrepreneurs. I've found those particular chapters quite helpful. And also, I waved in as I did over 60 interviews with Vegan entrepreneurs in all different sectors from across the globe. And I waved some of their insights throughout the book. So so I very much have my audience in mind. And that the aim really is to I guess one was to inspire more people to start a Vegan run business, because basically, I think I say in the beginning in the intro, my mission with this book is Vegan World Domination One Business at a time, because I think as an animal activists, which I do consider myself, I think it's so, so important we've got to have Vegan products easily and accessible both financially and physically so people can get these products. We've got to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to buy their Vegan makeup, skin care, fashion, food, etc.. So that was one of the key things that I wanted, was to inspire people, to give them ideas. So that's why I interviewed quite a few of the Vegan entrepreneurs, because some people would say to me, I want to start a business, but I'm not sure what kind. So that kind of Gibson's my ideas. And then basically the book is really kind of a step by step guide for people to get going and to at least avoid some of the pitfalls. I think as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, of course, you're always going to make some mistakes. But I think when you equip yourself, you know, with as much information as possible, you can at least avoid some of the key pitfalls, too, you know, to go ahead and start a business and run it on Vegan principles. Yeah, it was your advice applicable to people with products or products and service, all products. And so I wanted it to be very universal. So whether you were making products in any sector, you know, any kind of product, not just food and also. Yeah, for people who are offering services as well. So there's quite a range of interviews with with a mix and mix of entrepreneurs from from all different sectors, service providers, product makers, etc.. [00:26:38] Did did the book give birth to the online course or coincide or was it. How did that like how did that all play out timeline wise? [00:26:49] Yeah, I think I sort of touched on earlier. I really didn't have a plan, to be honest. You know, sometimes you just get a gut feeling that you've got to do something. And I just knew that I had to do the book. And I gave myself a deadline of a year from conception to publication. So that was a really full on year. And once the book was out, I mean, I think I did put like a thing at the back a bit like, you know, you can contact me for a consult, but I hadn't really built the business around it. And so the podcast came next. And then the Web site came and I started producing, you know, some extra content, some blog posts. I took some extracts from the book and turned them into a blog post to kind of put them out there. And then I, I, I thought, right now I'll add an online course in there. So that's the kind of the timeline. So it kind of, I guess, really stemmed with the book. Then the podcast consulting and coaching, which I've added some of the coaching packages of, actually added quite recently. But I've been doing the know the consulting and I've done some done for you PR services as well. So do you still, though, it's kind of happened organically and I guess it sounds like it's working. [00:27:59] So that's good. Did you do one consulting? Do you still take clients on on a one on one or is it turns me. [00:28:06] Yeah. Yeah, I do. So basically, if somebody does a lot of free information on the website, on the blog and in the podcast as well, people. [00:28:15] So they get a you know, it's basically the podcast is a free training tool really, because, you know, entrepreneurs that I interview were very generous in sharing their challenges and their strategies to success. There is a lot of free information there. But if someone wants. Taylored, one on one advice on an as and when basis, so there's no long term commitment, they can just book like a one off hourly consult with me. We do that by Zoome video. And then I will take on a limited amount of one on one coaching clients. If it's if it's a fit because that's obviously a lot more intensive where I'm working with them, I might be looking at their copy, giving them no strategy and tips and advice and we get on regular calls and stuff. I may introduce them to some of my connections, you know, try to get them. I don't really did the dunk for you PR in terms of the coaching services, but I've recently got, for example, one of my clients, a regular column on Vetch economist because she's a specialist in a particular field. So, yeah. So that's that's kind of what I do at the moment. And then there's the online course and plus the new project, the Vegan Women's Leadership Network is is something I'm doing as well, which is a membership, global membership based ethical leadership community for Vegan women to help them become leaders. So we have live webinar trainings, just the members, the premium members for that. So what a busy. [00:29:38] It sounds like it. What about female identified or non binary individuals? Can they join the Vivienne's women literacy course? [00:29:44] Basically, anyone who supports it can join. It's very inclusive. My partners involved trends, activism. She's a trans woman, so I'm very, very inclusive. And I've written that's the other areas I've published in and written about. Right, for the gay press. And I was one of the first journalists in Australia to write about non binary people and sex and gender diverse people. So, yeah, it's a very inclusive network. [00:30:08] Yeah, it sounds like it. I can't wait to look into it further. And I like like I said, I like the new name even better. Getting into Vegan business talk. Your podcast. So when you. I like to talk to other podcasts. I think it's fantastic because in the States in particular, but I find globally still I consume podcasts, you know, versus wait. But I think that it's and it's still the Wild West. It's still very you know, it's anything goes. Any time, any subject, any format, people can start off very formal and within a season become very informal. It kind of spans the gamut. Do you have a structure to yours? How do you cure rate it? How many times a week or a month did you release it? And when you started out, did you have any of those things figured out? [00:30:54] Yeah, it's evolved a bit over the years, I will say. I mean, I started there. I think it is about 2016. So it was. Yeah, early 2016, I think. And the book was published late 2015. That was a few months in between. I think initially I kind of went, right, I'm gonna do this. And I think I kind of, you know, was doing it weekly. As time has gone on, I'd shifted it to fortnightly, which I know Americans don't always know what a fortnight is apparently. So it's every two weeks. I just I didn't know there wasn't a term in America. And then sometimes it's gonna allow kind of some podcast host to have seasons. And I think that in a way that's quite clever, like you do a season and then you have a pause. But I've kind of gone away through I've kind of had a couple of hiatuses, like I had one recently when I was launching the Vegan Women's Leadership Network, and now I've come back to it. So I'm aiming to put out show every couple of weeks in terms of the structure. I'm actually I'm actually changing that a little bit as well. Previously, I would prerecord the bio on my own and after I'd done the interview and have the bullet points and then I would also have some news at the end. But from going forward, it she from the next interview that I'm doing, which is very shortly, I'm changing that slightly. I'm gonna do some it's similar to what you're doing where I actually introduce the guest on the show itself and I'm missing out the news because there's so many. Back when I started the podcast, there wasn't a lot of Vegan news out of Vegan business news outlets particularly. And now there is there's like a plethora of the mainstream media covering a lot of Vegan business news. So I'm missing that, BEYDOUN. And that's going to actually be less work for me to do. And the real value, I think, is in the interviews, you know, people typically say they can kind of get the news anywhere, but the real value is in the interviews. So basically, my my my criteria is that businesses ideally would have been running for about three years. And the reason for that is because this particular podcast is giving other big and entrepreneurs insights into your challenges and success strategies that don't typically interview startups unless they've been in business and run their own business in other areas. And the reason for that is I think it can be quite easy to start a business, but maintaining it over a period of time is a lot more challenging. And I think you you've just got more to give and more to share when you've been running your business for a little while. So that's my key criteria. But other than that, you know, as long as the business, the whole brand is Vegan completely bagan. And you've been running it for around about three years. I would typically interview. Entrepreneurs in all sectors, service providers, product makers, sometimes have specialists, some as well like specialist marketing or CEO, etc., people on to share. I will always try and source those first from the Vegan community. But I did. I think I had one woman on who wasn't Vegan, but she was a. really mega food scientist that I had on about three years ago. So I will occasionally have non Vegan guests on if they have know if I can't find their expertize anywhere else. And I feel like they've got a lot of value. The Vegan business owners can use. So, yeah, that's my structure at the moment as is. I'm just kind of shifting it a little bit going forward. [00:34:09] And is your audience. Is it intended for Vegan business owners themselves or for everybody to educate? [00:34:16] It's mainly for Vegan business owners and entrepreneurs, both aspiring and existing. Sometimes I might have. I've heard interview quite a few investors. You know how to get funding. It's a very practical podcast. Like, I really kind of we really kind of focus on, you know, what were their challenges when they started out? What are the challenges now? How are they handling them? What marketing strategies are they using? How is it funded? If they've got investment, how did they get investment? It's very practical. It's literally like they're almost like little mini training courses almost, but they're done in kind of interview format. So it is very practical. So I'm not sure that anyone who's I mean, look, if someone's got an inkling or, you know, perhaps in the back of their mind and they're nowhere near getting started yet, but they know that maybe one day they would like to start a Vegan business and run a business and run on Vegan principles, they might tune in, but otherwise it really is for. Yeah. Aspiring and existing Vegan business owners. [00:35:14] Nice. Absolutely. All right. I wanted to quickly unpack the Vegan Women's Leadership Network. So you've just kind of it sounds like, you know, you've just kind of built, launched, renamed it rebranded maybe. Tell us what it is. What is the network for? I mean, that you've clarified that it services everybody who's who wants to be included. But what does it do? What is the network about it? Does it meet? What's its functionality, all of that? [00:35:41] Yeah, sure. So basically I pre launched it in the middle of a pandemic. So pretty much during lockdown. I I've been working with a business coach and because I knew I wanted to do something else in addition to baking business media. And so it kind of we came kind of full circle as I have been involved in the women's movement and feminist movement. So we kind of came up with this idea and it was gonna be a physical event in London, actually, original plan. But then obviously Cobbett 19 happened. And so I thought, right, I'm going to look prelaunch. I'm gonna see if there's. I knew it had to be sustainable because in the past, I've launched projects out of pure passion, but they haven't been sustainable. And I end up getting burnt out. And then, you know, things come to an end. So I knew that this had to be sustainable. So it's a paid a membership based global ethical leadership community for Vegan women. And it's to provide them with resources to help them become leaders in their field, whatever that looks like for them. So it's not it's for big business owners and entrepreneurs, but it's also for people who work in the corporate sector, work in a job, working entertainment, sport, any sector work for NGOs. And what we provide. So I put it out there. I put the prelaunch out there just to see if it was staged. I thought if I get a certain amount of women by this date, then I'll go ahead with it and get the, you know, the website and membership site. Bill and I got the numbers. I was pleasantly surprised even during lockdown, you know, when people were losing their jobs left, right and center are still able to attract, you know, a number of women who said, yes, this is so needed. This is the perfect time to be launching this. So got the Frontin website and the membership POOLESVILLE. And essentially what we have at the moment, we have regular virtual meet ups via Zoome, and that's proved to be really popular because the women are really getting to know one another. And this collaboration is happening left, right and center. People are really supporting one another. And then we've got live webinar trainings on a number of topics around kind of leadership, self leadership, quite broad there. And we've got the front facing website. We have got something else coming up, which I can't say quite at the moment. But that's gonna be, I think, quite exciting. And yeah, and we're we're looking we're also working with VegFest UK. We've partnered with them to elevate women's Vegan women's voices. [00:37:58] So providing, you know, Vegan women with opportunities to present and to speak. And I'm hosting a couple of panels with Vegan women. One's on Bakan Women in business. One's on how to find your voice as a leader in the bacon and animal advocacy movement. So it's really about supporting Vegan women, elevating them, providing them with resources and connecting with them so that they can collaborate. [00:38:22] That sounds exciting. And it's just in its infancy. That sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. Will you after there is add and add a cure? Will you go to back to opening up to like a physical event, or do you think you'll keep it virtual just because this is the space you're in now? [00:38:41] Well, it's an interesting one, because, I mean, I do like virtual because it is like this community is very global. Yes. The majority of women at the moment from the US. But then there's plenty of women from the U.K., all different countries in Europe, Asia Pacific. Women are joining. So I like the virtual obviously is is good because it's easy in some ways. You just kind of get on your computer and get get women together. But I'm certainly not ruling anything out. I mean, I say I love I do love to go to to go back to my hometown of London. I love to go to New York. So, you know, I am certainly not ruling out some kind of physical event, either a stand alone event or being part of a bigger show, because, you know, it is nice to just kind of hang out with people and physically meet them. So I think down the track when we you know, I'm not sure when that will be, but I think we will do some kind of fiscal events as well. [00:39:36] Exciting. All right. Well, we're almost running out of time. Katrina, which is to save a million questions, but I want to get to fire questions. And I neglected to tell everyone in the roadmap. But we have a lot of you writing in and asking us questions. And we have a team of people that have put them together in different categories. And so I'm going to we've combined a lot, but I'm going to just get a few that people who write in who want us to ask people of your expertize in specific about the Vegan world. And one of the first ones is what is the number one mistake you see most Vegan businesses making? I think this was more. We had a bunch of questions about ones that have products. So products across the board. But what do you feel like? What are the number one PR mistakes that Vegan businesses that you run into make, not putting aside a budget for marketing and PR? [00:40:24] I see a lot of Vegan businesses putting a lot of time and effort into their product, which of course you need. Do you want to get a good quality with it? Is a product out there or if it's a service, you want to make sure you're giving value to your clients, whatever you do. But a lot of them, I'd say a second mistake would be underestimating budget required. I think you always need to at least triple what you plan to spend. Whether that's, you know, for machinery, equipment, etc.. But put some kind of budget aside for marketing and PR. Yes, you can do a lot organically, of course, and everyone jumps on social media and what have you, and that can be be good. But I think it's always good to have some kind of budget, whether you use that for paid ads or for PR or for some kind of digital marketing. I think that's really important because you can have the best product to the best service in the world. If no one knows about it, then you got a business. [00:41:13] Okay. And along the same lines, you've had a lot of people write in and say, what is the number one thing that a small business, small Vegan business can do on their own to really help their bottom line with PR like this, some bad technique or a tool or posting or anything along those lines? [00:41:29] Yeah, I think learn how to do your own PR so so that you can actually pitch yourself to media. So, you know, certainly, yes, you can hire a publicist or a PR firm if you've got that kind of budget, which is several thousand dollars a month. A lot of small businesses don't have that. So learn the tools and techniques and tips. You can get that information for free on the Internet. Obviously, you know, little plug, you can do my course, but, you know, you can find that information out on how to pitch to the media and get into, you know, find out what target media is best for you and and how to approach journalists, because that can really help, I think, getting media coverage. And, of course, having a presence on social media. Make sure your way, your audience is and show that behind the scenes stuff and tell your story. You know, see, I'm not just kind of every post is by this, by this, by this, but showing people who you are. Brand storytelling, I think is really important nowadays as a founder, don't you can no longer afford to hide behind your business. You know, you're no longer the faceless founder. You need to be there front and center. Let people know who you are. And remember, not everyone will love you or your product. And that's okay. You're not trying to serve everyone. Nobody can serve everyone. You're trying to attract to you the people who who feel passionate about you and your brand and will want to support you. [00:42:51] Right. Right. And I will say to kind of further that plug that I did appreciate your I'm you to take three minutes, maybe two and a half minutes on YouTube, kind of explaining Vegan, Vegan business, media, like the course and what it means in the limelight begins in the limelight and and what the course was about. And a quick synopsis that really imparted a great deal of information. I felt like what you were going to give your people, including interface, you know, and and how there's question and format, but it's this more loose for the calendar online and things like that. I think it did a good job of answering that for anyone who's thinking about it. And you can jump on it seems great. Absolutely. We do a lot of people right in asking if I'm OK. A lot of going along the same lines. Social media do end this kind of delineation between founder and. Yes, I don't think the younger generations think that that needs to or even could exist anymore either, which I agree with you, I don't think it can or would a lot of people wonder if they should be linking up their business and their their personal accounts. This kind of communication between the two people talked about, you know, linking one to the other or probably closing one down. There was a lot of questions as to what you would advise on that level, because it's a Vegan business and they've been a Vegan individual. [00:44:08] Yeah, it's an interesting one. And again, I think it comes back to the terminology question that you asked, and there's it's going to be different for everyone. So, for example, I do know people who have got their own personal, but they have a personal Facebook account and they've just got a handful of literal family and friends like people that they know. And that's just for sharing their personal stuff. And then they've got their business page, which is totally separate and that that can work for them. But then like someone like me, I've got my personal Facebook. Everything I post is public and I've also got my various pages. And I think when you're, I guess, a personality, for example, then. I think what you can't assume that people won't find out what you've posted on your personal side. For example, if, say, you were running a Vegan brand and then you posted a pay, I don't know, the weekend you or a plant based branch to send in the way. Can you post a picture? You've been trophy hunting or whatever on your personal Facebook. That's obviously going to be, you know, a complete mismatch. And just because it's on there, like someone may still see it on screen, grab it. Same if you're going into groups, for example, say you're hanging out and Vegan groups on Facebook, for example, as you as you want your personal account, then people will screen grab it, even if it's a so-called private group. So I think you need to be wary of or be aware of what you put on your personal social media. Don't assume that what you put on. So when your personal stuff won't somehow be connected with your business because it can be so, just be wary. But having said that, I do think it's nice for people like if you are willing to put yourself out there. It can be nice for people to say, oh, look, here's, you know, so-and-so in their family and their cat or dog, what have you. But just be aware of that. My rule of thumb is don't post anything in public, whether on social, on your website, that you wouldn't be happy for anyone to say in five years. Now, five years and 10 years time, like I am so glad. Social media didn't exist. It's for example. So that's my kind of rule of thumb. You know, be comfortable with what you're sharing, but be aware that, you know, it could be connected with your business. [00:46:23] Yeah. And finally, we had a lot of people write in and I have my own personal take on this. I'm interested to hear you have to say we've a lot of people talking about sponsorship, and I'm assuming they also mean partnership. But regarding their brands and other this kind of, you know, uniting to be a stronger voice together, there are people asking for your personal business advice in regards to reaching out for a sponsorship or partnership with a young Vegan business. [00:46:50] OK. So this sponsorship or investment, I'm not sure whether they mean I'm not quite sure what they mean about sponsoring it is typically a Vegan business would sponsor like a nonprofit, for example. So I don't know if they mean kind of help, financial help or investment or fundraising. [00:47:10] There's a lot of advice in the States right now. Kind of casually whispered, I would say through the grapevine that I'm not sure I can hear a voice that's actually saying it. But this idea of becoming a partner or a sponsor. There are new platforms. In fact, there's new startups where, you know, they're joining people together, particularly women and women, identified businesses and things like that, and kind of bringing two disparate groups together to have a greater reach, if you will. So though, you know, there are these companies that are matchmaking, like cosmetics with a new Levi's, you know, company and bringing them home. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. And people that are now hearing that and writing and going, what does it all mean? I get it. Should I be doing this? Do I need to reach out for sponsorship? And we've had a lot of people ask, you know, what's the terminology around and ask like that. So if you had a client saying, listen, I want to reach out to a partner or ask someone to sponsor me or let's just say partner up with somebody to encourage increase your reach. How would you advise they go about that? [00:48:11] Yeah, I think you've always got to look at what is in it for them, not just what's in it for you. A lot of the I find with with small business owners and I find this particularly around PR as well, is like they're like, oh well, I want free publicity for my products and services. That's not a journalist's job. And the same with a partnership. If you're gonna go to someone and say, right, I would like this, I would like us to partner because I want this, this and this. You've got to say, well, what's in it for them? And that's particularly if you're then approaching someone who's already got a big platform and has already got a big market. You know, why should they help you? What's going to be in it for them? So I think that's a really important thing. What can you offer them? Why would this partnership be a positive thing for both? So I think that's my advice, particularly with a larger company. So, you know, if you were looking to partner with a larger company and they perhaps haven't got into a plant based or they just kind of dipping their toe in it, you know, you can kind of go in there and say, look, our product is innovative. You know, this is what we know about the plant by sector. And this is how I feel it could work. This partnership could work for both of us. When I wrote the book, I've got a whole chapter on collaboration, because what we're seeing, certainly with Vegan business owners and entrepreneurs is they've been collaborating for years and continue to do so. So, for example, there was one there were three Vegan shoe brands that all decided to share a store or a booth at a particular trade show or event. So they pooled their resources. Technically, they're all in competition. You know, they're all Vegan shoemakers. But obviously they that they're that different, you know, different products, slightly different. But they were technically all in competition, but they pooled their resources, bought this booth, and then they each staffed it at different times and promoted everybody's brands. Sometimes you might get a bacon cheese partnering with a vague, you know, some kind of cracker company to do a promotion. We've certainly seen a lot of that and in lockdown, actually. And I think Bhavani, who we've mentioned from the Green Line, which is a Vegan eatery here, has done that as well, and as well as a Vegan chocolate brand here. So they partnered with another company. I can remember what they were. It was like a savory and a sweet. So people would go and collect. They could order and then go and collect their savory and their chocolate treat together so that that can work to be it. It's all about the mutual benefit. And I think that's really important. So definitely focus on what's in it for them, rather them. I've got this great product on it. Money on eight marketing. I need support. Can you help me? You know, that's not gonna fly. Because they're gonna get lots of people that always think about what's in it for the other person. [00:50:46] Yeah. And I think that's it's. So I think it's true for any good business measure, you know. Yeah. Business meeting to kind of look at the other point of view before you go in for the ask, the elevator pitch is really important. And and I think we all need to be very concise and very clear about what we're doing, you know, as as business owners or anyone kind of walking throughout today's world. But in that kind of gets lost in translation, the concept of like really listening and and ascertaining prior to meeting with somebody, you know, what they could possibly use you for as well. [00:51:17] And then honing that pitch a bit. Yeah. Our final area of inquiry is kind of looking at the future. And this is I love this question. The further we get into this year, because it's changed so much for people on a daily basis. But as far as the Vegan industry, particularly someone like yourself, because you have this this bird's eye view of so many different companies that you're helping and advising and speaking to and all of these different areas and venues that you're involved with. And you and I were talking off the record a little bit on the record about. Now, hyperspeed, you know, the Vegan industry world seems to be in the past five years, 10 years, as opposed to 20 years ago. The 50 before it, I've written an article saying, you know, for the 50 before the last before the arts, it wasn't even a microscopic dot as opposed to what's happened in the past 10 years with just IPOs alone, economics, all of that. And then with that comes to follow suit of culture, all of these things. But for you personally. What do you do? You see a continuing with hyperspeed. Do you disagree with me on that in the next five years? Where do you see some of the biggest changes happening within the Vegan world? What are some of your predictions? [00:52:28] Go to hell. Yeah. Cool. I loved it. I think I definitely agree with you. I think it's going to continue along with the hyperspeed that you mentioned, because of various reasons for human health, for sustainability, and also more and more people coming aware of animal welfare. I think we're seeing that. But we've got major investors. I mentioned on my website, I've got a whole list of Vegan and Vegan friendly investors, and I keep having to add to it. You've got Mioko, who's got no Kerschner of Yoko's. He's got investment from Ellen DeGeneres, and her wife, Portia. You know, we've got big name celebrities, Bill Gates, you know, really kind of big names who are getting on board with this even. And then, of course, you've got these big corporate companies who not don't necessarily have great ethics in terms of animals, people or planet, but they're kind of jumping in on this plant based brand. And they're buying up Vegan brands as well. And that can be, you know, see, there's pros and cons up with the pros, all the bacon products then get way more distribution and become way more available, you know, in places like Wal-Mart and, you know, these to make them more accessible. So I think we're kind of seeing that happening at the moment. We're kind of seeing these kind of partnerships, though, bedfellows that you wouldn't normally have seen. You know, all those years ago. I think potentially what's going to be happening and I know there's people working in the space is that they is that they're creating a vague and economy so that at some point we won't necessarily have to partner with these big brands or we will have an impact on how these big companies, corporations operate. We're almost like force them to be ethical because consumers will demand that they're not just going to be demanding cheaper products, but they want to know where the products came from, what the ethics behind the brands are. I think we're going to see more nations. We're already starting to see that. So in terms of, say, Vegan Italian, Vegan Indian, Vegan Mexican in terms of eateries, I think we're going to get even more and more niche. And I think and cheeses, I mean, we're just we talked about the earlier we're just at the cusp now. You know, if you look in the supermarket, how many dairy cheeses there are. So there's a lot of room in this category to provide animal free versions of all the different dairy cheeses. You've got companies like Perfect Day that are making dairy from bacteria. [00:54:45] So they they're replicating the casing that is in regular dairy, but they're creating it from yeast and bacteria. So I think we're seeing a lot of high tech three day. We're seeing 3D printed steaks, for example, Vegan steaks. So I think the technology is going to continue and we're seeing, you know, billionaires, you know, investing in this kind of technology. So I think, yeah, we're going to see more IPO shows. I think it's just gonna get bigger and better. I think as well, the fashion space is really starting to come into its own. The big in fashion, partly as part of the overall sustainable fashion, the move away from the all the push to move away from fast fashion beauty. We're seeing celebrities when they are launching their beauty products, they might not be Vegan themselves, but they are producing their products as big and by default because it just makes sense. So, yeah, I think we're really kind of seeing Vegan tourists. I know of at the moment of this interview were in, you know, still in Cobbett 19. But, you know, there's Vegan tourism, Vegan travel. You know, I think veganism is is literally a Vegan interior design. That's another growing market as well. You know what you're using in your home. It's not just about eco friendly and natural and sustainable. It's also people want cruelty free now. So that's another growing market. So I think it's really exciting. I think that paganism is pervading everything. And to create a world where what we buy, what we consume is good for people, good for animals and good for the planet. And I. I love you, too. [00:56:20] And I completely concur. I love the areas you're getting into, too. I'm gonna have to bring you back on because it's a huge passion as it. Yes. As a Vegan parent for Vegan children and I Globe-Trotting yearly and Vegan, I just don't there's not enough Vegan travel blogs for me. I think that there are some, but like people really speaking to people so much and happy cow. And I'm like, there's got to be more, we need more of them, you know. So I think that it's it's true and it's burgeoning and it's growing and it needs to be kept up to date and. It's an exciting time, and there's so many different industries, like you say, the fashions, a big one for myself as well. You know that the beloved daughter of England, Stella McCartney, is one of my most favorites. And she was one of the first in the major industry, I think, to actually come out and just say it's it's humane, it's right and it looks better. It's all those things. And I think that once we have more artists and people like that that are coming forward, really marriage, the ideas, it will just continue to fact track it all. I completely agree with you and I'm excited to venture into that future with you. That's going be. Absolutely. Thank you so much for meeting with us today. I really appreciate it. I know you're incredibly busy and I appreciate you taking the time and giving us some of your candor and information. [00:57:30] It is a pleasure. I'm really great to connect with you and find out more about you. And it's been lovely chatting with you. [00:57:36] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we have been speaking with Katrina Fox. She's a journalist, author, founder and PR consultant. You can find out more about her, all of her services, her books, her online courses and her podcast on both of her Web sites. W w w dot. Katrina Fox dot com as well as w w w Vegan business media dot com. [00:57:57] And until we speak again next time, remember to stay safe, eat clean and responsibly and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am SO EXCITED to be speaking with Jane Valez-Mitchell. Jane is the founder/editor of JaneUnChained News, a non-profit, social media news network reporting on animal rights, veganism, health and climate change. With more than 70 volunteer contributors around the world, JaneUnChained’s videos are seen by millions. JaneUnChained.com's daily vegan cooking show via facebook.com/JaneVelezMitchell features some of the best vegan chefs in the world. This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with social media journalist, activists and prolific author Jane Velez Mitchell. Key points addressed where Jane's endeavors with her nonprofit social media news site, an educational platform called Jane Unchained dot com. We also discussed her documentary titled Countdown to Year Zero and how its narrative uniquely links animal agriculture to climate change and action items one can take to participate in the cessation of the ecological crisis the world is facing. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Jane Velez Mitchell. [00:00:43] My name is Patricia Kathleen. And this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen Dot, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:40] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today I am elated to be sitting down with Jane Velez Mitchell. Jane is a social media journalist, activist and author. [00:01:49] You can find out more regarding everything that she does, as well as what we speak about today on her Web site. Jane, unchain dot com. That is J and E, you n c h h i n e d dot com. Welcome, Jane. [00:02:03] Thank you for having me, Patricia. [00:02:04] Absolutely. I'm excited to unpack everything that you're doing and have done with your company, your documentary and all of your other endeavors for those of you that are new to the podcast. I will proffer up a bio on Jane to give everyone a good foundation. But prior to doing that, a quick trajectory of the line of inquiry in which this podcast will be based. Today, we will first ask Jane to briefly describe her academic and professional background that brought her to her current day endeavors. Then I want to turn to unpacking. Jane, unchain dot com. It's a news and begin animal rights Web site. I'm going to get into questions of curation, obviously, when it was launched, logistics around the launch partnership, sponsorships, things of that nature. And then I'll turn to unpacking the documentary Countdown to Year Zero, in which she directed all of the endeavors within that. And some of the response that the audiences have had with that will then turn towards our rapid fire questions. These are questions we've taken from you, our audience, who has written in and asked us to ask experts such as Jane about the various endeavors and areas of expertize that she can answer best. [00:03:14] And we'll wrap everything up with advice that Jane has for the future of Vegan warriors, as well as some of her predictions as to where certain industries in the Vegan world are headed. As promised, a quick bio on Jane. Jane Velez Mitchell is the founder and editor of Jane and Jane News, a nonprofit social media news network reporting on animal rights, veganism, health and climate change. With more than 70 volunteer contributors around the world, Jane and Chanes videos are seen by millions. Jane and Jane, dot coms daily Vegan cooking show via Facebook dot com. Jane Velez Mitchell features some of the best Vegan chefs in the world. Jane Unchained has launched a new daily New Day, New Chef, a popular Vegan cooking series streaming on Amazon Prime and public television stations around the nation. She's documentary Countdown to Year Zero now on Amazon Prime. It lays out the animal agriculture's leading role in climate change and how we must transition to plant based culture or face ecological apocalypse. It won best documentary feature at the Studio City Film Festival and Jane won for Best Director documentary feature at the Culver City Film Festival. Jane Unchained has also partnered with software developer artist Wave to create plant based Nabor dot com, which is a beta testing set to become an AP later in 2020. [00:04:41] This AVP, the app, will connect vegan's with the other vegans in their community and encourage the vegan economy. We Jane is has one for Genesis Award commendations for from the Humane Society of the United States for reporting on animal issues. Veggie News named Velez Mitchell. Media Maven of the Year in 2010. For six years, she hosted her own show on HLN. HLN, CNN Headline News, where she ran weekly segments on animal issues. Previously, she was a news anchor and reporter at Cakehole TV in Los Angeles and WCB s TV in New York. Her first documentary, Anita Velez Dancing through Life, won a Graciella to work in Two Thousand and one. She's the author of four books, including two New York Times best sellers, and she is active in the LGBTQ community and lives in Los Angeles with her five rescues for dogs and cats. So, Jane, I am so excited to kind of unpack everything that you're doing currently and really climb through some of your projects, possibly not all of them, because you're too prolific. But before we get to that, I'm hoping you can draw a narrative of your early academic and professional life that led you to launching Jane. And tain't. [00:06:03] Well, I grew up in midtown Manhattan, directly across the street from Carnegie Hall. And my mom was from Puerto Rico, from the island of Vieques, which is part of the Puerto Rican Commonwealth. My dad was Irish American. He was an advertising executive straight out of madmen with the pipe rack in the hat and the whole outfit. And he had a ad agency on Madison Avenue. So he was truly a mad man. And they met my mother was the last of the board bills. They were both born in 1916. And my mother formed a successful  dance troupe when she came to New York from Puerto Rico called Anita Velez Dancers. They danced all around the hotels of the Caribbean, North America. And when she met my dad, because her her agent was my dad's best friend, Charles Conaway, who happened to be Jeff Conaway's dad. The the actor. Anyway, they met. They hit it off. They love to dance. They would stop the show. It was how they put it. When they started dancing, everybody else just formed a circle and watched them dance. And they were married and growing up. I actually thought I was vegetarian because when my mom was a child, she had a pet pig. She thought she had a pet pig. She thought she had a companion the way we have dogs and cats. But it turned out the pig was a food pig and was slaughtered. And my mother fainted when she came home from school and saw the carcass and she shunned meat from that point on. My dad was very meat centric when he met my mother. Corned beef and cabbage, etc.. But he changed. So we were pretty much a Pescatarian household growing up. So I went to various schools in New York. My mom wanted me to be a performer in some way, shape or form. But she was a nice stage mom. She wasn't one of those meanies. And I graduated from Rudolf Steiner, which is small private school, went to New York University, majored in broadcast journalism because I had been on television a couple of times. I'm pretty much the same person I was back then. If you look at my high school yearbook picture, it's all about animal rights and protesting. And so I have been interviewed a couple of times. And even though my initial desire was to be a syndicated columnist, I just switched it out to broadcast journalism. When I was looking at the form and said broadcast journalism, I said, OK, I'll do that. And I graduated from NYU. My first job was in Fort Myers, Florida, as a reporter anchor, a place I still love to this day. And in fact, I've gone back there to protest because a nearby county, Hendry County, Florida, had decided they wanted to become the bio farming capital of the world, which means breeding and accepting monkeys from foreign countries for laboratory experimentation. We didn't put it entirely out of business, but I think their idea of becoming the bio farming capital went out the window because we had protests, court fights, challenges. We went to town and just as a little aside, they called us radical animal rights activists. And the funny part was I was staying with this lovely lady, Madeleine Duran, an old Fort Myers right near the Thomas Edison Summer Home Museum. [00:09:20] She's in her 80s. Whereas tennis shoes and actually wears a little hat with a little orange on it. So when we bought it, brought everybody, the media came out and that the commissioners were saying these were radical animal rights activists and about 40 old ladies in tennis shoes showed up from Fort Myers. I pointed to the to the senior citizens and I said, here are your radical animal rights activists, all in your homeowners from Fort Myers, Florida, who love animals. Anyway, then I went and worked in Minneapolis for a couple of years, and I worked in Philadelphia for a year and a half at WCAU. Then I got a job in New York, which was my hometown, right down the block or up the block from where I grew up. I grew up on fifty seventh and seventh, and the CBS Broadcast Center is fifty seventh between 10th and 11th. So I literally had come back home. [00:10:10] That was my goal. Worked there for eight years. I was exhausted. I was the weekend anchor and a weekday reporter and you just literally go from one crime scene to the next disaster. And after about eight years of that, I was like, I want out. Friend of mine had gotten a job at Cakehole TV, which was owned by the Disney Studios. They had taken it over and they were hiring all the staff at once and they needed an anchor. They suggested me I got the job and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I moved out here to L.A., which was Oh Way is my favorite place. [00:10:42] I had been to L.A. a couple of times prior with my parents once when I was 13. And I remember we had a great time and parents didn't argue with Sunny. I like this place is great. And then I had been also out to L.A. when I was in college to visit my best friend who had moved to L.A. She took me to the beach and honest to God. We sat on the beach at a spot where I look back and I said, I can't believe people get to live on the beach. And guess what? That's exactly just by total accident where I live today. So I always felt like my heart was in L.A. and when I got the job at Cakehole and we were at the Paramount Studios and I had a great parking lot, I had a parking spot on the Paramount Studios, which is. You know, everybody wants a great spot. A parking spot, the Paramount Studios. Honestly, it was it was to this day, I would say the most fun job I've ever had. It was great. You've got you'd walk to work and you'd see people dressed as Star Trek. Captains walking in the other direction. So after about eight years of that excuse me, 12 years, I was 12 years at cow and then they had imagined change. [00:11:52] I was no longer an anchor. I said, OK, I'll just wait out my contract. And basically, after five minutes, a case CBS. Harvey Levin, who is now the head of TMZ, had started a show prior to that called Celebrity Justice. And he was a good friend of mine. We used to go karaoke ing together. [00:12:12] That was our thing when he was a reporter at CBS that I was in a great cake. And so he says, hey, I'm starting to show celebrity justice. You want you, would you? I'm looking for reporters and I can't find any. Or something like that. I said, What about me? You said you'd be interested. Heck, yes. Everybody warned me against it. Like it's a tabloid show. You'll laugh. It'll last 13 weeks. Then you'll never get hired again because you're gonna be tabloid. I said, you know what? Life short. Harvey's the smartest guy I know. If he thinks it's a good idea, I'm going to take a shot. Suffice it to say, it lasted. [00:12:49] About, oh, gosh, three or four years, I guess. Anyway, I ended up covering the Michael Jackson trial in Santa Maria, California. It was the biggest global trial of that particular time period right up there with some of the other biggies that we all know. The whole world was there. I was on Larry King Live the night of the arraignment, the night of the verdict. I was on Nancy Grace pretty much every night as the reporter. Then that that show wrapped the trial, wrapped the show wrapped. And I got asked to fill in for Nancy Grace on HLN, which I did for a while. [00:13:27] And then. [00:13:29] What happened was, I believe I was told that Glenn Beck, who was the host of prior to Nancy, stormed off the set or had a hissy fit of some sort and marched out you don't do on TV if you want to come back. They wanted to replace him quickly. They call me up and they said, Would you like a show? I said, yes. I was sitting right here drinking a cup of coffee, wondering what am I gonna do with the rest of my life? I wasn't free, Dad. I was just like, what's next? [00:13:55] I like to let the journey of life take me, take me here, there and everywhere, like Niagara Falls anyway. I said, yes, I'd like a job. They said, OK, we'll call it ISSUES with Jane Velez-Mitchell. I said, great, because I got a lot of issues and I'm a recovering alcoholic. Twenty five years sober. I'm gay. I'm a Vegan. Perhaps the most controversial of all. Not anymore. Anyway, when I got the job, I literally they said, OK, do the show today from L.A. and come to New York. It was Friday this weekend. That's exactly what I did. Once again, the job was two blocks from where I grew up. Fifty seven and seven. This was Columbus Circle. So I moved right back in with my mother, who had a huge rent controlled apartment right across from Carnegie Hall. So I went back to my old bedroom and I was there for seven years, six years on the show. And that was that was great. It was a gift. And what I did when I would ask, see, I started to do animal rights news at Celebrity Justice. Cut me off when you think I've said enough because I could go on all day. [00:15:03] Starting with the issue on HLN, CNN. I thought that that was when you started bringing in the focus on the animal rights. You started at Celebrity Justice. [00:15:13] Oh, yeah, I did start at Celebrity Justice. What happened was I don't know if you've ever seen the show TMZ, but Harvey stands in the front and goes that other than all the producers have to come up with ideas or whatever, it was exactly like that. He got the idea because that's what we used to do. It got ungodly hour of like 7:00 a.m. ET Dale when I lived in Venice. Do the math. It was up early and so we'd have to have a couple of story ideas and he would go, where's the celebrity? Where's the justice? And it was stressful. So all of a sudden I went bingo, because I was an animal rights activist. At that point I was Vegan I thought I go to these great PETA galas. I love Peta. I'm going to call PETA up. They know all the celebrities. I started work with the guy, PETA, and he would get celebrities who would normally run in the other direction from us because I literally chase celebrities down the street with my own little camera and. And the publicist, by the way, this is not an ankle. This is not a police monitoring device. This is my exercise, my arm exercise anyway. Well, when we'd call, the publicist would just click what celebrity? So it was very hard to get celebrities to participate in any way, shape or form. But these celebrities who cared about animal issues were so passionate about their animal issues, they would literally push their publicist aside and talk to me about whatever their passion was. I even interviewed Robert Redford about his passion for saving the whales from the horrors of military sonar. Imagine. Hollywood royalty speaking to moi, who is with a tabloid show. But that's how much he's a great guy. Wow, what a nice person. That's how much these celebrities cared about their animal issues. So I was doing that. That's how we got a couple of Genesis awards. Then when I got the job at CNN Headline News, I said, would you mind if I did a little animal segment once a week, like really innocently because I am innocent. And they said we don't we don't see a problem with that. [00:17:10] Well, maybe this was going to be pet adoptions. I did hardcore animal rights for six years every Friday. And we also introduced some of the of the. But the budding Vegan entrepreneurs like Josh Tetrick, who had just started just Mayo, and we put him on the air and a lot of these people were able to use their segment, take that copy of that segment on CNN Headline News and go out and pitch their projects. So I felt very blessed. I will always think CNN for allowing me to do that. They were true to their word. They let me do it. They never stopped me. And then after I left, I had a good run and the show wrapped up. And then I moved on to create a nonprofit that focus exclusively on animal rights and veganism. [00:17:59] And is this Jane and Jane dot.com that we're speaking about now? [00:18:04] It is indeed. So this is an interesting platform. [00:18:07] It's done what's, I think, a most latter day survival platforms do. You've got a lot of news and you've got a lot of resources. And I'm wondering, I first want to talk about how you carried it. What is the editing process? Do you have a team of people? How do you decide which news makes it on to Jane Unchained? What do you decide gets featured? How is all of that done? [00:18:31] Well, I'll tell you the genesis of it. As after I wrapped the show and I was in New York, I said, oh, I can go to protest because I was a journalist for my whole life, with the exception of a few years where I wasn't fully employed, but I was still working freelance. You can't really go and participate in protests. So actually, my girlfriend at the time was still a dear friend, Donna said. Yeah. Jane, your unshaved. You can go to protest. You can protest. And I was like, Yeah, Jane, Jane. It just had a ring to it. We laughed about it. I remember were walking down 9th Avenue and we were laughing, get Jada Jade and. So I started going to protests immediately, I noticed there was a missing component, A. It was freezing out at the time. People are rushing to get indoors, so they're not really stopping to study it. B, people are shivering and doing all these incredible things, but they're not documenting what they're doing. Remember, this is too late, 2014, 2015. So really, the idea of documenting everything hadn't become ubiquitous. And so I said, OK, here's my niche, because actually an executive at their old cable channel had said, you're obviously passionate about animals. You need to focus on that exclusively. And I said, OK. Good advice, because I always ask people for advice when I'm about to go on the next leg of my life adventure. And so I said, OK, now I found my niche, that little segment that I did every Friday. I can do it all the time. And I can I. They gave me my social media, which was very nice of them. I started putting it on Facebook. I started putting it on Twitter. And soon enough I realized there's so much happening here that I can't do it alone. And it gradually evolved into a Facebook life, which means you don't have to edit for hours and hours and hours. You can just do what I was always a live reporter or host. And we also then decided to expand it. And now we have 70 contributors around the world going live at all sorts of events, protests, VegFest conferences. And we also now have anchors who do their own shows on Facebook. And so we have animals in the law, which is Krista Krantz, a Vegan super lawyer. She's been voter super lawyer. She's Vegan from birth based in Florida. We have Lisa Carlyn who interviews doctors who are Vegan nutritionists and doctors. We had some of the top doctors. We have Lindsay Baker, who does animal rescue stories. We have Chef Babbette who run stuff I eat here in Inglewood. She's an incredible vegan chef, entrepreneur. I don't want to leave anybody out, but we would be here for an hour listening. Everybody is involved. We've got a great team of people, all of whom are working for free. This is a nonprofit and otherwise known as a money pit. I said people used to ask me before I became an OB. [00:21:27] How are you going to monetize it? I was like, oh, how did they monetize the Underground Railroad? [00:21:33] Then they would just look at me and turn on their heels and walk away because they couldn't handle it in our society. People don't even understand if you're doing something that's not motivated to make money unless it's a nonprofit. I realize that I was like, why does everybody keep asking me for my angle? I don't have I have an angle. Yeah. Save the world from extinction. But apparently that's not good enough. So I decided to make it a nonprofit, and I'm really glad I did. Because people need clarity on what? On what's what it's all about. And also, we have to raise funds to do this. This is not it's certainly cheaper than running one of those other networks, but it's not 100 percent cost zero. There's a lot of costs involved. [00:22:16] Yeah, I think it's interesting. I do think it's some of the areas you've touched upon, too. And there's just such an incredible void. [00:22:24] And speaking to, for instance, the show that you have where she's speaking with Vegan doctors, you know, I've had a ton of guests on. And one of the areas that longstanding vegans will still talk about are, you know, finding a pediatrician or an O'Bagy y and it's comfortable with one being Vegan. You know, there's this and just this. It almost seems on real like a surreal moment of lack of information with professionals that we ascribe to health, such as M.D. when it comes to diet and the Vegan nature of health and things like that, or the health nature of veganism. So. And I think those are crucial points to have and need to be continued on. What is the future of it? What is the future of Jane and Jane? What is the next one to three years, five years look like? [00:23:09] Well, we're constantly pivoting and you never know what's good news or bad news. So, for example, when the quarantine happened and we had all these people all the time going live at Cubes of Truth where they hold up the signs and the monitors showing animal abuse at VegFest at all these things that were not happening. So immediately I said, oh, well, I saw within one week all of our content had dried up because except for lunch break life lunch break, like we do every single day since we started it at the advent of Facebook, like we've never missed a day. I'm talking Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, New Year's Eve, Fourth of July, Election Day. We never miss a day. Kind of like the post office. Ale's sleet. Snow will not stop us from our appointed rounds. And post office isn't that bad. Don't, don't don't knock the post office. We need that post office them to vote. And so that we still have going and we still continue to do. It's going to happen today. Just happened already. It's 130 here. It's twelve, thirty p.m. Pacific every single day on Facebook. Dot com slash. Jane Velez-Mitchell. So where we have almost nine hundred thousand followers so. I thought about it and I thought, well, cable news networks have anchors, right? That's what they have, a slate of anchors who talk. Let's do the same thing. We've got all these great people who are super articulate and talented. So we just reached out and sure enough, we got everybody stream yard, which is a great platform to go live on. And next thing you know well, Jed's a millionaire. You know, everybody was doing their own shows and having a great time doing it. Now, you asked a little bit about curation and editing. We are not investigative journalists. And we do have a code of conduct. Anybody can read it. You can go to Jane and Jane dot com. By the way, please sign up, get our biweekly newsletter. We are not in a position to be investigative journalists because when you're alive, look. Investigative journalism obviously takes months, even years, sometimes many years. So we're more appealing to the consumer. We do not. When you're live, you don't have an opportunity to vent and do all the things, the lawyerly things that would normally be required for an investigative story. So I tell everybody. Don't pretend to be Woodward and Bernstein, OK? We don't need that. What we do need is bringing people to these events and being their eyes and ears. So if there's a pig vigil, for example, which we go to regularly, and they still are happening with social distancing now in downtown L.A., right near downtown L.A., where it's heartbreaking to see these baby pigs six months old going into the slaughterhouse and we go wiv and we bring people there. We're not playing Woodward and Bernstein trying to make allegations of specific against any company. This is happening at slaughterhouses around the world. It's a global tragedy. What we do is try to be the eyes and ears of a consumer who might be about to pick up that package of bacon. And they see that and they go, wow, that that's really horrible. I don't want to be a part of that. I consider myself a kind person. I consider myself a loving person. I'm going to make a different choice. So we really are appealing to consumers more than anybody else. Everything we're talking about is a consumer issue. If consumers stopped eating these products, dead animals and the breast milk of cows and the menstrual period of chickens, in one week, our entire society would transform. We would stop accelerating climate change. If nobody ate animals, we'd stop destroying the rainforest. That means we'd stop destroying the habitat of wild animals. That means we'd stop participating in wildlife extinction. And because animals eat so much more than they produces food. More than 70 percent of the soy produced in America, we'd stop contributing to human world hunger. We'd stop contributing to human diseases like heart disease like that prior to Cauvin, kill one out of every four Americans and is still killing plenty of Americans, except some of them are also dying from Kolbert or and or Koban. So for all these reasons, if we just took the power back with our food choices, we could change the world. So that's why we talk to the consumers. Everything we talk about meat, dairy, pharmaceuticals is a consumer issue. [00:27:58] Yeah, the purse strings hold the power. Right. And some of the change. It kind of leads us into unpacking the documentary Countdown to Year Zero. [00:28:07] I will tell you as a viewer and someone who grew up in the documentary film industry and I was the most moving part for me was maybe 15 minutes in. Then you've got Dr. Salish, Rao Rayle. He said very simply in a way that I think only he can. He said, you don't try to change the corrupt current culture. You build a better one. And you bring people over to it. You know, it was then I am butchering it. That's not a direct quote. But this concept of and I really appreciate people that set up frameworks and this concept of stop not trying to fix the current broken structure, but rather developing a new format in which people can envision belonging and want to belong. Because, you know, if you can get through this life, another quote that someone on your show said, if you can get through this life, you know, living well, eating well and not hurting anyone with the same quality, why wouldn't you? You know, this concept of just constantly perpetuating something because you were born under parents that didn't know better. I mean, all of these weird forms of hereditary nature and things like that being dispelled all at once. And what I like about the documentary is that it has a very distinctly different voice than all of the really mass major heavy hitter ones out there. And I want to get into how you decided that you were going to come at that, because you have things like conspiracy, what the health, all of these, you know, game changers, big ones that came out. But you took a very much a more microscopic view with this documentary. You kind of developed the entire ethos around, you know, the attachment between veganism and the future of our planet. And and I think a lot of other documentaries had that muddled into their narrative. But they really didn't pass it all out as clearly as you did. What made you decide that you were going to take that direct narrative or did it unfold as you were filming? [00:30:11] Well, we didn't really start out to make a documentary. I had made one small documentary before about my mother, Anita Velez, dancing through life because she had thousands of incredible photos of her and her dance troupe back in the heyday and the last days of vaudeville. And there were just all Averitt costumes. [00:30:33] You could you couldn't you couldn't miss a documentary like that up, especially with my mother, who was incredible character and very ahead of her time, she was doing yoga. Ortiz, she was the first hyphenate. She kept her name and added my father's name. She was Anita Velez Mitchell. [00:30:47] And that's why I added my mother's name to my name. I was born Jane Mitchell. But in tribute to her and also to fully express who I am, I use my mom's name as well. And so I wasn't really thinking about making a documentary. What happened was somebody asked me, well, what happened? Was I. Met, talked around. I was at the rowdy girl's sanctuary in Texas at a one of these VegFest and. This guy gets on the stage and it was a big, big grassy area. So not that many people were paying attention and there were all a bunch of food booths back there. And so I was sort of like by myself alone with my live camera getting the next speaker. And what he said just blew my mind. And I said, this is what I've been waiting to hear my whole life. He said very matter of factly, we are going to create a Vegan world and we're gonna do it by twenty, twenty six. You know, you have to have a deadline to get it accomplished. We know why we have to do it. All we need to find out is how we do it. And we I'm a systems analyst and I'm an engineer and we have methodologies for doing that. And that's how we put a man on the moon. And that's how we increased Internet speeds so rapidly. And that's how the Internet went, something when we all got our first computers. Those little weird things that look like spaceships, we didn't know how to use them. And now can we live without this for four minutes without panicking? Rapid social change can and does occur. And so he was actually instrumental in the development of the rapid acceleration of Internet speeds. I hear this guy. I'm going. He's a genius. I don't say that about very many people. I do not have a bumper sticker on the back of my car. This is my two. I will mix's are Mensa members. They are very smart, though. But this guy is a seriously. He's a genius. And so I was just taken with this idea. It's like I remember reading about the women who stop the troubles in Northern Ireland, who some trial was shot on a grassy front yard and some woman came out and said, enough, we are going to end the troubles. And, of course, all the men her. Guess what, they ended up doing it and winning a Nobel Prize. And they had said, you can never achieve something unless you can express what you want. If you can't even express what you want to achieve. How the heck are you going to achieve it? So when he said that flat out, we're gonna create a bigger world, we're gonna do it by twenty, twenty six. I was totally taken with him. So I got involved in his campaign. Climate Healer's Dawg and Vegan World. Twenty, twenty six. And then he sent out an e-mail. It said, I'm going to Costa Rica. I'm going to look at a former cattle ranch that has been reforested and we're gonna show whoever comes along. How reforesting can occur very rapidly, because that's part of what needs to happen when we eliminate animal agriculture that's eliminating most of the farmland. It's only like a fraction that's actually growing food that we eat like vegetables. It's mostly food that's fed to farm animals. So we get to reforest all that foreign land. Then that begins to sequester carbon. That will begin to reduce the temperature back to maybe 200 years ago. And we as a species will survive. Trees sequester carbon, they absorb carbon. That carbon makes the earth harder. The world's harder. So I decided to go down there with my partner at the time, Donna. We said, let's go. Let's hurry up. And then somebody who I work with very closely said, why don't you take? Because I have. I have usually issued 90 percent of stuff, but I do have two good cameras. So once you take a good camera with you and shoot some of it. So, of course, having the attic mind, I can't shoot a little bit. You know, I've got to always shoot everything. So I had my camera in their face the whole time and he was so gracious about it. It's just like nothing ruffles. And I'm shooting the people arriving at the airport and the rioting and everything, he said. Anyway, at the end of it, we actually made a like a new constitution, we created a declaration for the Vegan world and what needs to happen. And there were just, interestingly enough, twelve of us. So it was kind of like this mystical kind of thing, like here we are together and I travel at twelve of us, creating like a constitution for a new world so that the planet can survive. It felt very heavy. And I got all the debating about the Constitution or the declaration. And so when I got back, I was like, what do I do with all this? Then I went to North Carolina to speak at the Hilton Head VegFest. And that was at the time, way before. This is a couple of years, several years ago, where, you know, VegFest, I try to support small VegFest because those are the important ones to Hilton Head. Boy, that's great to have a beachhead at Hilton Head. Right. A beachhead of the organism. So I went down there, lovely people. And this editor and videographer, Jeff Adams, who lives in North Carolina, called me and he said, you know, I really feel like in North Carolina, I don't have a lot of Vegan friends and I'm feeling kind of alienated. Can I come down to Hilton Head and videotape your speech? Because I was giving a speech there. I said, sure. So we all went out to dinner afterwards and I said, Do you still feeling alienated? And you want to project? And he said, Yeah. I said, OK, I'll put you to work. Come to Vegan world. Twenty, twenty six. I'll buy your plane ticket. You go to Viðga World twenty twenty six in Arizona. Mesa, Arizona. And you film it all. I said because I'm participating in it and it's hard enough for me to do the live videos, much less do love videos and shoot a good video camera and participate. So he flew in and he shot the Vegan World twenty twenty six conference where people came from all around the world to do exactly what Dr. Rao said. We know what we have to do. We just need to know how to do it. We all created questions of what needs to be answered. He didn't call it problems. He called it questions that need to be answered in order to create a Vegan world. So we had all sorts of people there, doctors and lawyers and scientists and cryptocurrency. I mean, it was just like a huge group of maybe 200 people with a lot of varying backgrounds. We all wrote questions on the board. Then we divided it up into maybe a dozen different topics like agriculture, finance, workers, you know, those kinds of things. [00:37:28] And then he creates committees and those committees will create subcommittees. And he explains. This is exactly how they do engineering projects. They create committees and subcommittees. So he's moving full steam ahead on this. Anyway, after that, he shot all that. We had pretty much what we needed for a documentary. Also, I have tons of footage that I shoot constantly and some of the best moments of the documentary or lie videos that are contributors shot Leive one. To me, one of the most emotional moments is when one of our contributors in our book or at Jane and Jane Page fastens Roach happened to see a truck filled with cows driving on the road. And she he pulled over, she pulled over and she just started videotaping these animals and talking to them. It's gut wrenching. It's just it brings tears to my eyes. You couldn't catch that if you decided to hire a crew and go out. And now we're going to look for trucks. No, these moments, the power of why video is that you capture moments that are completely spontaneous, that are not staged in any way, shape or form. The same thing with some of the visual moments. We had moments where we were seeing a pig thirsty drinking water and then turned right to some woman who's crying and talking about people need to see this. These were really emotional moments that were captured alive that we took and we added to the documentary. I mean, I think that considering we did this in one year, pretty much the whole thing. I'm used to doing things quickly. I totally respect people who take years on a project like the game changers. And it's spectacular and it's game changing. But we all have to contribute what we know how to do. I was a day of air a news reporter. I, I just I have to turn things around quickly unless I have a personality change. So we shot it. We edited it. And with one year within a year, it was on Amazon Prime. [00:39:27] Well, I have to say, that is auspicious. Maybe at the very least. And at the very most, it's definitely just it's it's being very latter day. [00:39:37] You know, GenZE is the non filter generation. You can't put a filter, you know, photograph up without having a 20 year old house. And I love that because they speak very much so to the mantra of my heart, you know, with this this desire for a platform for authenticity and honest rhetoric and engagement and transparency. And that, I think was part of the moving part about it, the length. None of it was confined by some of these other magistrates that controls other documentaries, even good ones in the industry. You know, this this it did feel shot by obvious different mediums and end it. You'd have to either plan that or just have it happen. And so I think it's very interesting that they narrowed the narrative, curated itself just by a year's format and and your hustle and bustle to put it together. I love it. I think it's one of the best ones out there. And I like its scope. Again, the imagery that you're talking about, you know, she is actually apologizing to the cows when she reaches through the crate and says goodbye. Those you're right. You just you can't write that. And I think a large problem with some of Dowagiac documentary filmmaking is that it's written, you know, and there is that the hypothesis re needed to head and you didn't do that. And so the narrative really does just write itself with a realistic and honest tenor. And I think that it's it's delivered in immeasurably. So I encourage everyone to get on Amazon Prime. And it's a figure, a prime member. It's free. And if not, it's pennies on the dollar. [00:41:04] So what you're going to gain in education, Jane, we're running out of time, but I'm going to move to our rapid fire questions so that we honor our audience members and talking to you about you in particular. We have some very directed ones for. We've had people we reached out to people on our mailing list and we give them this some trajectory of who's coming on. And so let me give you. OK. So the number one thing that we had I tried to take. So for everyone listening, I hear you. But I'm trying to condense a bunch of your questions into one with a lot of people that wanted me to ask you directly about the KFC and the Burger King, these substitution meat alternatives that these major offenders and problem causers of the industry. Do you support the efforts that they switch because any animal saved is a good idea, or do you think that they are the propagators of the problem and still shouldn't be sponsored? How do you view that? [00:42:00] Well, I think that's an age old problem. But let me say this beyond me. For example, we did an entire tour with Ethan Brown, the CEO and founder. It's right here in El Segundo. He's a vegan. He's making a completely plant based product. And he went public. [00:42:18] So I don't know where the bad guy is there. [00:42:21] I mean, and and as this his not competitor, his associate at another company, Impossible Foods CEO, pointed out, just because it says process doesn't mean it's bad for you. It's much better than dead animals. It doesn't have cholesterol because plants don't contain cholesterol. It doesn't have hormones, antibiotics, all these other things that animals bring with them. Also, it's a completely pure product that's untouched by human hands as it's manufactured, unlike meat, which is produced obviously in concentrated animal feeding operations. And then these animals are slaughtered in slaughterhouses that are riddled with corona virus. And where are the workers who tens of thousands of tested positive are sweating onto the meat? OK. So there's obvious benefits there as far as looking at, for example, beyond meat burger or an impossible burger at a fast food joint. The way I like to look at it and honestly, the first time I've ever been in a Burger King was for the B Army burger, the impossible whopper. That was impossible. I mix them up a little bit, but that they're my two, you know, Burger Biondi and impossible. But these are just boxes. OK, these are corporations are are not people. I mean, they can be led by a very dominant personality, but they're not people. They can't be changed. Who pays the price for the purity of us? For example, suing because a Vegan burger might have been cooked on a grill that had also grilled meat and some vegans did sue. I believe it was Burger King and the suit was thrown out. Who pays the price for that purity? Animals? Yeah. We don't want to be an exclusive club. We want the world to be so Vegan that the word Vegan doesn't even need to exist, that there needs to be a code word for Cardus and that you go into a restaurant and the menu is one or two percent Vegan. Well, I don't engage in magical thinking, just like I don't think the virus is just going to disappear. I don't think we're just going to magically one day wake up and I'll be Vegan. It's a process and we have to open the door. As Jean Bauer says, to accept everybody wherever they are on the journey. Very few of us were born Vegan. I wasn't born Vegan. So it was about learning. That doesn't mean I'm not for confrontation on for peaceful, nonviolent confrontation. In cases where it's necessary. But, guys. [00:45:06] We have to get into the major institutions. If we don't get into the major institutions, we're gonna be marginalized. We can get in there and we can change those institutions. I've gotten calls from people, unnamed executives in major, major food companies who will tell me. Wow. This plant based me is coming here. Send your folks over there. There are people in these organizations that want to help. If we just demonize them and say we're not going to deal with them, they're very powerful. OK. So what we can do is convince them it's in their self-interest to convert to plant based. McDonald's could be a 100 percent Vegan company if it wanted to be. And it should become that because some very powerful companies like Woolworths no longer exist. Do they want to be the walrus? Or do they want to be the veggie girls of the future? So we know that they can convert. [00:46:03] The question is consumers need to prove it to them. That means we need to support those products when they appear in those institutions that we may not love. That's my personal, Ben. OK. [00:46:16] Interesting. Yeah. I wasn't sure you were gonna go that way. I like it in countdown to year zero in the documentary, as well as other tidbits of you on YouTube in places you've kind of had this rhetoric about that I find very integral and fascinating regarding the differences between generations and marketing to them and what the marketing to generations now consisting on social media means that they are no longer beholden to old stereotypes and things like that of marketing enterprises that relay horrible information. [00:46:50] And we had a lot of people write in and ask, what is the best utility for social media and getting the word about veganism out there. Like, what is a good action item for the average person who just wants to help the Vegan cause? [00:47:05] Here's a great action item. Every time you make a Vegan meal, take a pretty photograph of it and post it and post a hashtag. You could post boycott me. Skip meat plant based party. I love Vegan. Whatever you want, whatever you want to post, because there's all those hash tags are all circulating out there. It takes a second. You make your food, you post it. This is the most powerful tool we have. This is a network. What's a network? And that work is a production company with a distribution pipeline to an audience. Everybody who has a phone has a Facebook page and Instagram page, a tick tock page. Look at what Tabitha Brown accomplished with one tick tock video on making carrot bacon, 12 million views. A show now with the Ellen Network. [00:47:57] I mean. [00:47:59] I do. And by the way, I really want to urge people to watch our cooking show on Amazon Prime, New Day, New Chef. It's a new day. You can be a new chef. Please watch it. Write a review. It's very successful. Watch it with people who are not yet Vegan and recommend it to people want to go plant based. We have a lot of fun. Every time we turn on the blender, we dance. [00:48:22] Epic, who who's hosting that? [00:48:25] Me. And we have a lot of celebrity co-hosts. Nice. New Day, New Chef. [00:48:32] On Amazon Prime. They're your best days. No question that we had we had a lot of people right in around this topic as well. And there's a lot of people looking at launching nonprofits, a lot of entrepreneurs that want to get involved in starting a nonprofit based with a Vegan tone or ideology behind it. And we had people ask, what are your top pieces of advice? And beginning off with a nonprofit with a Vegan focus. [00:49:00] Well, realize right off the bat, it's a lot harder than you think. Oh, I am one of these people. I just want to go live. I wouldn't be on camera. I want to go shoot videos. Paperwork. Paperwork. Paperwork. Paperwork. And it's important. You've got to do the paperwork. So create a system. So we have people who help us and thank God. But it's complicated and it requires attention to detail and setting up a system and being organized. So this know that there's that part of it. And I would say do it. I mean, that's really the the only thing that I would say was a little bit once I got into it, like, overwhelming. But I've set up a system and I try to adhere to it and I ask for advice. So we just got a great attorney on our board. So that was wonderful because she can give us a lot of insights into how to do everything her as best as we can and as pay attention to details. But do it, do it and get started and try to figure out how to make it support itself, because there's expenses in just having a nonprofit board of directors insurance and the accounting and all the other things that you might need. So there's it's not free. Let's put it that way. [00:50:29] No. What do you do you think the sponsorship or partnerships are both a collection of both. How would you advise someone head into, like, solving some of that difficult financial aspect? [00:50:41] Well, that is probably the biggest issue. And I know everybody's asking right now for all the many nonprofits. It's a high class problem in the sense that, for example, 30 years ago, there were maybe three farm animal sanctuaries. I mean, there was. Farm Sanctuary. The the the biggie we have animal place that I think was founded in nineteen eighty nine of Woodstock Central. I don't wanna leave anybody out. Indro Local. There's a lot of great sanctuaries, but there were not that many 20 some years ago. Now there are like hundreds if you include myco sanctuaries and all of them need to support themselves. So we've been I've been thinking about when I do work and just associate in whatever manner, whether it's a a rescue of animals or whatever, with nonprofits that are sanctuary based. How can you make yourself self supporting? [00:51:34] You have to think outside the box. You have to be creative. [00:51:37] Let me say that one of the sanctuary started something called goat to meeting. I mean, sanctuaries are hurting now during the pandemic. They rely on people coming to visit. They created a goat to meeting. You can Google go to meeting where people can have a zoom and they invite a farmed animal at a sanctuary to participate. They basically put a camera in front of a farmed animal. It is a success. He had to hire more people. That's what I mean about thinking outside the box. Now, we don't want to turn those sanctuaries into petting zoos now, but there are ways to make it creative. Without that, zoos obviously need to go away. They need to either shut down or turn into sanctuaries. Zoos are designed for the better for the people. Sanctuaries are designed for the benefit of animals. But there is a way to make these sanctuaries intriguing enough, whether it's a theme or a value added in terms of maybe concerts or things like that, that where the animals are perfectly protected, they're not exploited in any way, but that they can support themselves. That's a big challenge. But I think if we think creatively, like go to meeting, it's great. I think those are the kinds of solutions we need to come up with. [00:52:59] Absolutely. I agree. I had that creative thought. I hadn't even gotten into that. But sanctuary in a support is a big one. And you're right, with the pandemic, it's it's a rough situation. Well, Jane, we are out of time today, and I'm depressed because I have a billion more questions. And I went by your book, so I'm going to have to lure you back on in a few months and see if we can unpack some more of your work. [00:53:20] I love it. And by the way, one last thing I'd like to say, I have a cup of coffee every morning and it's brewing good coffee and a percentage of all their profits goes to animal sanctuaries. So right there, when you have your Morning Joe, you can order for brewing. Good. They deliver right to your door. And that's how we're going to keep that Begoña me going. Every single thing we buy is a political, environmental, moral. And, you know, it's a choice that affects our world. So I just picked up the coffee and I thought I'd end with that. [00:53:55] And it's absolutely true. You have a million choices towards veganism and fighting that with them. Consumerism a day. I truly believe it. Thank you so much for your time. And I appreciate all of your candor and your information. [00:54:09] Thank you. It was fun, was a great conversation. Thank you for everyone listening. [00:54:13] We've been speaking with Jane Velez Mitchell. She's a social media journalist, activist and author. You can find out more about everything we've spoken about as well as the documentary. [00:54:23] It is countdown to year zero and find out all the information regarding her news and all of the projects in her endeavors on Jane Unchained dot com. [00:54:34] Thank you so much for giving us your time today. And until we speak again next time, remember to stay safe, eat responsibly and clean and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am chatting with Elena Theis. Born and raised in Germany, Elena traveled the world extensively before she decided to settle in Berlin. She left a successful career in online marketing and went on a trip to Hawaii in 2013 that changed her life for good and marked the beginning of her vegan journey. Today she is dedicated to promoting plant-based and cruelty-free living around the globe as a vegan writer, artist and coach. Elena is the creator of #VeganVentures - Plant-based around the world, a vegan travel blog which also features occasional recipes. This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors [00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with author and creator of the Vegan travel blog, hashtag Vegan Ventures, Elena Theis, Key Points addressed where Elena's world travel and expertize developed within that travel. Regarding Vegan life both in Berlin and the world over. We also discussed Elena's point of view on the Vegan scene as it is in Germany today, as opposed to five years ago. Stay tuned for my wonderful talk with Elena Theis. [00:00:33] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen .com, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:30] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. [00:01:33] And today I'm excited to be talking with Elena Theis. She is the creator of hashtag Vegan Ventures. It is a Vegan travel blog. You can discover more about it. And Elena herself on w w w dot Vegan hyphen ventures dot com. [00:01:47] Welcome, Elena. [00:01:48] Welcome. Hello. [00:01:50] You started to unpack everything that you're doing. You've written a couple of books as well that I'll kind of try to pull into the threads in the conversation regarding the rhetoric of hashtag Vegan ventures for everyone listening, who's perhaps new to this podcast and broadcast, I will offer a quick roadmap of the trajectory in which we'll base our inquiry out of. And then I'll also give you a quick bio on Elena before I start asking her questions. So the roadmap for today's podcast will we'll look at unpacking Elena's academic and professional background and then we'll also look at her Vegan story as it's interwoven or not within that previous inquiry. And then we'll look at the logistics around Vegan ventures, unpacking that the who, what, when, where, why, how, when it was founded. All those good things. And then we'll look at the ethos of that site. Its intention, Elena's intention for the future with it, the goals, the audience that she's approaching and speaking to and the efforts that she hopes to make with it. And then we'll wrap everything up with advice or future work that Elena Theis's seeks to endeavor regarding all of her work. So, as promised, a quick, short bio on Elena before I start asking her my questions. Born and raised in Germany, Elena traveled the world extensively before she decided to settle in Berlin. She left a successful career in online marketing and went on a trip to Hawaii in 2013 that changed her life for good and marked the beginning of her Vegan journey. Today, she is dedicated to promoting plant based and cruelty free living around the globe as a Vegan writer, artist and coach, Elena is the creator of hashtag Vegan Ventures, a plant based around the world. Vegan travel blog, which also features occasional recipes as if you can ambassador. She shares her lifestyle and recommendations on social media, as well as on the Vegan platform. A billion veg, which donates one dollar for each roo, review to animal sanctuaries and cruelty free products. Molina holds an M.A. in Mass Communication and Media Arts from Southern Illinois University, a coaching for transformation certification from the leadership that works and is also and is a licensed realtor in Germany. She's the author of several books, including Shampoo Thoughts on Happiness and Tag a Nasha. This is going to test my German Derice Vineet. I probably butchered that, which is soon to be published in English as hash tag a Nasha. The journey begins. It's a n a. S h. The journey begins. So know I'm excited to crawl through. I have read your original. Well, one of your several books. Shampoo. Thoughts on Happiness. And I'm excited to kind of climb through that with you as well as what you're doing with hashtag Vegan ventures. But before we get to that, I'm hoping you can draw kind of at a platform or description of your academic background and early professional life that brought you to the point of launching Vegan Ventures. [00:04:45] Sure, I'll be happy to. So, yeah, as you mentioned, I gather a master's degree in mass communication from southern Illinois back in. Oh, my God. 2005, I believe it was. And after I decided to move back to Germany to be closer to family and started working for a really small advertising agency, like one of those things, you know, you're out of college, you get the first job that you get. And that's how it went. [00:05:14] And one day, however, a Google recruiter found me and offered me to work for Google. So back in the day, I didn't think about it too long. And I accepted the job and I moved to Dublin and started working in marketing for Google and. But realized quickly, I'm not the kind of person that's gonna be very happy in a big corporation. So I left that job, moved back to Germany and work for what was at the time, Germany's biggest social network. That was before Facebook took over the world, actually, where the biggest platform and I headed the sales department, sales and Partnerships Department there. [00:05:58] Yeah, I spent pretty much most of my traditional professional life and online marketing and sales to some extent, and also at some point realize this can be it. It was a fun journey, an interesting journey. But I came to the point where everything I was doing seemed to be missing something. I realized I wanted to make a difference in this world with this lifetime that I have. So. A process started that took several years, actually, but it started with a thought. With this wisht of, you know, doing something meaningful for the world. So I started venturing out and got a couple of certifications about different things and finally decided to leave that corporate world and then traveled on my own. [00:06:53] So what was what do you cite as some of the impetus? It sounds like, you know, it was a journey, the coaching for transformation, certification and things like that kind of coming into play. [00:07:03] But and your book, Shampoo Thoughts on Happiness, kind of starts to climb through, you know, a lot of the the main axioms or montreaux, if you will, of kind of this idea that I think has shaped a lot of what you're doing with your future endeavors following that. But you talk about mindfulness and frustration. There is, you know, unemploy. You have a period underneath a description or neith that where you stayed, you were unemployed and you were telling people that it was your intention to stay that way. It sounds like you kind of crawled through this journey slowly. But do you have any specific key point in your life that pushed you towards it, or was it mere unhappiness that made you desire something more? Or was there ever any point that you were introduced to something or an incident that happened that started the journey? And was this when you started thinking about Vegan life? [00:07:58] To the first part, yes and no, I mean, there was underlying unhappiness, but I wasn't aware of that. The real trigger, the major event that triggered this this quest for something more was actually I had a miscarriage in 2008. It wasn't a planned pregnancy, but I had just arranged myself my life, my ideas around the thought of having a baby. And then I had a miscarriage. So my entire life changed completely. Within a couple of weeks, twice, first in one direction than in the other. And that for me, was really like my whole foundation shattered. Everything that had mattered before just didn't matter anymore. I mean, I had a successful career. I was making a lot of money. I had all the glory. Fancy names on my resumé, but I just didn't care anymore. Nothing mattered. Yeah. So that was really the. The starting point, I would say, back in the day and but then it still took a couple of years, actually. So like I said, this happened in 2008, late 2008, and it wasn't until 2008. Well, I believe that I left my last corporate job. But in the meantime, I did a whole lot of other things. So, for example, I spent some time at a Buddhist Buddhist monastery, which I would describe definitely as another milestone. I over the years, I spent two, three retreats there. But the very first time being there and getting in touch with Buddhist philosophies, which back then were completely new to me. I mean, I knew nothing about all that mindfulness and that I was busy being busy. And so I would say those two were the major milestones in everything from there really happened. I never. Your second question, I never consciously decided to be Vegan. But one day I was. And it was just this process that started with a dietary consultation, actually, with an innovative dietitian. And she I was. I have to tell you, I looked a lot different back then. I was 60 pounds heavier. One of the things and I just actually went to see her because I was struggling with allergies. And so looking at my eye, you're Vedic type. She just recommended to leave out certain foods. And I did not completely, but I tried. I was experimenting and I could tell the most, mostly that is red meat and dairy at the time. And I realized very quickly how much better I was feeling. And so for me, it's all interwoven. I didn't think about being Vegan at the time, but once I started or I stopped consuming edible products or reduced them, at least at this point, I could see the connection not only to my body and mind, my health, but also my mental state. Yeah. So and this journey led me to a point where I just first of all, my body was craving any of these foods that I used to love before, but also how my mind something was started. I started to question things and how, you know, I can lead this lifestyle on one hand, but not look at the entire picture. And for me, food, body, mind and spirit, it's all one. So at one point I realized I can't do this anymore. And suddenly I was Vegan. [00:11:54] Yeah, after that path. I've spoken to, you know, this series, this podcast endeavors to look at the Vegan world from all angles, not one in particular. And it's interesting how all roads lead back to Vegan. You know, it's a there a like maybe I've unearthed about I'd say well over 30 so far in my 50 podcasts that I've done. [00:12:18] Reasons why, you know, there's health, there's optimal mental clarity. There's spirituality, there's animal welfare, there's economy and ecology. There's environmentalism, there's accountability and sustainability, all sorts of things. But it all kind of leads back to people questioning all of the other arms of it as well. You know, so if someone came at it from the environmental aspect, they eventually come back to describe having questioned the cruelty aspect and things like that. It doesn't really matter where you begin. Everyone ends up at the center with a lot of very similar ideas, which is unique because it's not true in a lot of ways of life, you know, and certainly not in a lot of dietary, which a lot of people consider vegans to just be a dietary thing. And I think what's interesting about it is I titled the podcast this after doing research of realizing that it's truly a way of life for people after they've encountered it enough and much like yourself, you know, allergies and things like that. I don't think that people who are adults who don't suffer from allergies. I was one of them. Understand how much mental fog accompanies them. Allergies from food even and from the environment. There's a description of just like a haziness constant like sleepiness. And when that's lifted, along with the allergies like you, you speak about this mental clarity that goes along with it, which I think sounds like a brilliant side effect. I'm curious, after you, it sounds like everything was interwoven within this time period. You know, you were experiencing this idea, Vedic help with the diet. Then you're going to, you know, Buddhist retreats. You're studying this philosophy and you wake up one day and your Vegan. Is that when you chose to write shampoo thoughts on happiness? Or was it during that transition? Was it during that journey? [00:14:02] Actually, Champi thoughts the book as the book was, it was just published last year. Dories, I'm right about we're a part of this journey. And actually back then I started blogging. I started a blog which I called Mindful Vision, which still exists. But I don't really use it anymore. But that's how it all started. I woke up one night in the middle of the night, I remember, and I had to start this thing and I started writing. So the idea for this book came last year on a trip, actually, and I started not just using the block. A lot of the things I published on the blog first, but they've been edited and enhanced. But the foundation was really that blog. And then it's it's a continuation also of my first book, Nasha Deviser Begin. You were close with that, by the way. Thank you. But it was really the the idea of taking all these learnings, taking all my baby steps that I took at the time. You know, I took so many steps in different directions. Sometimes I was walking circles. Sometimes I took one step ahead and three back to to use that and share it. And like, I have all this and. I mean, you read it, so, you know, it spans quite, quite some time. Yeah. This little episodes. But that's that's how the champloo thoughts came about. But really, as a library of inspiration, sharing my own way, sharing my own doubts and thoughts and stumbling stones along the way. [00:15:51] Yeah. It talks a lot about core tenants that I think speak to a lot of things that Vegan practitioners from all different rooms kind of come into concept with. [00:16:00] And I hadn't really thought about it until it was leaked as part of your bio. But you talk about addiction to stress and things of that nature that, you know, these these moments of of having to do to use as a, you know, radical honesty in an effort to really analyze things we'd rather not look at. We've spent a lot of barriers. I think a lot of people would tell you the majority of people I know would say that they don't like stress. And you unpack it as this like. Indeed you do. And you enable it. And, you know, you're quite addicted to it in one's life unless you're looking at it, because it's part of, you know, I was too busy working to consider work. You know, think all of these f they kind of turned in on themselves, which I think is a lot of the Vegan things as well. You know, people talk about, you know, I was too busy eating to consider my diet, you know, things of that nature. I was too busy being addicted to food to realize why I was addicted or to realize that it was killing me. So I want to climb into the I want to know. So let's get the logistics for everyone listening out of the way. So when was hashtag Vegan Ventures, the blog launched? And did you take any funding? Did you have any co-founders? And what was the impetus for it? Like what was the beginning phase of it? [00:17:13] It was born out of necessity, actually. The blog, as it is now, I would say, was launched sometime in 2016, maybe seven, early 17. I can't even give you the exact date because also everything in my life, you know, I start something. I don't know where it's heading. And one day I see the result. So Vegan Ventures was really started out of necessity. And I went Vegan in 2013. So it's been seven years and a lot has changed in the meantime. And I've always loved traveling. So when I first went Vegan and I was traveling, I was on my own. I mean, you couldn't just go to the grocery store and pick up five different kinds of plant based milk and Vegan cheeses and whatnot that you can do now everywhere, at least in Germany. I mean, all the major grocery stores everywhere carry a good amount of Vegan products back in the day. [00:18:13] Not the case, let alone eating out when you're traveling. So a part of my travels for me was not just the travel, but I enjoy it. But I also wanted to. [00:18:27] Help other Vegan travelers at the time sharing. You know what I found out, caring about local places or sharing the best tips about how to go about something. So, for example, I learned very quickly that you can't rely on really getting a Vegan meal on an airplane even if you ordered it. Just little things. But it was really things I discovered along the way that I just wanted to share to make it easier for others. And also in the second set, that was the first step, how it came about in the second step. [00:19:09] I just wanted to share my Vegan life as an inspiration to show people you can do this. And this is not just munching on carrots and celery. And you don't stop living a decent, fun life because you go Vegan just the opposite is the case. How much more very colorful, healthy fun this can be. And that was really the second step that I still wonder. That's still my aim until today. [00:19:39] Absolutely. So you and you kind of mix in everything you said. You know, you've got some recipes. You do this. You do that. [00:19:46] How do you what does your curation process like? How do you decide what makes it onto the blog? What's important enough to feed you? Take audience readership feedback. How do you do that? [00:19:56] A little bit of everything. So as I told you before, I'm kind of I just do it and then I see where it goes. But I had to be a little more considerate at some point. The recipes, for example, that was I wasn't planning on putting recipes on there. And there are not a whole lot up there yet. I still have a lot more to go on there. But this was. Yeah. Reader feedback. Yeah. [00:20:25] Actually on Instagram because I'm posting a lot of my food on Instagram that I make and I'm making a lot of Vegan German food as well. So this was actually this came from a German speaking following mostly like, oh, can you send me that recipe? And then I send the first recipe in a sense a second recipe like, oh, that's a lot of work, something out each recipe by itself, like, okay, I'll put it on the board. [00:20:51] So this is reader feedback. I started doing little videos, promotional videos as well. And this also just happened because I happened to be in Greece and I met a wonderful Vegan chef with German roots. [00:21:10] And finally his his place is also called Roots, Foods and Cultures. [00:21:15] And I loved his story. I loved his food. I love his place. And his vibe was like, I need to share this with others. So I started making a little video to catch up, catch the vibe of the entire situation. [00:21:30] So really, it evolves as I go along. Yeah. And I would respond. [00:21:36] Speaking to that, I still think one of my my great narratives that I like to draw vegans and non vegans alike through is the story and chronicles of Vegan cheese. And I don't know how, but the Greek the Greeks got it right, like Fast and Furious, like 10 years ago when Vegan cheese over here was terrifying. Like, you just couldn't get near it. It didn't melt. It was horrible. It was filled with more preservatives than plastic. And the Greeks just came along and used olive oil. You know, it was a genius thought. So I and to that end, I kind of want to unpack because you have this great finger on the pulse for a German begins. And I have to say, I have a lot of stereotypes to unpack when I start traveling as a Vegan because I think of Germany and I think of schnitzel, you know, and like very, very few things I can think of eating are like Kraut or something like that, you know, like very few items. But I want to kind of unpack with you how your perception of the Vegan scene in Germany is and how it's changed if it has changed over the past five years. [00:22:39] Oh, definitely. Absolutely. I mean, I live in Berman, so this is not really a good example for the rest of Germany because this is, I think, the Vegan capital of at least Europe, if not more. I think we have now I'm not quite sure, but I think we have in Berlin alone about 80 all Vegan restaurants and cafes or stores. So here, whatever you crave, it's a Vegan schnitzel. You'll have at least two or three places to get their Vegan schnitzel. So Berlin, different story. But even the rest of Germany, major, major changes. So when I first I remember 2014, I was traveling throughout Germany, the southern area of Germany, mostly rural. [00:23:28] So I was Vegan already. It came to a point. I didn't even bother asking for Vegan options anymore. Right. It just didn't exist. Maybe they had something vegetarian, but it was surely stuffed with cheese and. Other things I wouldn't. So I went on a raw vegan diet for a while because I didn't have I didn't I couldn't cook or prepare my own food. That's fine. So that's OK. [00:23:58] But nowadays I want to say, of course, you you still see different agencies. If you go to a bigger city, even if it's not Berlin, it's a bigger city. [00:24:09] All of them have Meekin restaurants by now. And unless it's it's a very nice old fashioned place, I would say most places either have a vegan option on the menu or will be able to free something for you. [00:24:34] And an issue without getting angry, like back in the day, I would say five years ago when you told someone you were vegan, it was like a call to arms. You know, they were immediately, like, offended if there was an immediate education and perhaps it a de-escalation of being offensive to them. And I think now a very least, people are willing to hear the word without like that reaction, at least in the states. Is it the same over there? Can you kind of use the word Vegan? And what is it in German? [00:25:03] Is it is there a word for it? It's almost the same. It's Vegan. [00:25:10] Do you think that if you were traveling through, let's say, South Germany and you bumped into a little town or even over towards like the Polish border would if you said that word would in a delicatessen or a restaurant, would you think that people would know what it was? [00:25:29] Hard to say. Most I would. I mean, if you're in a very, very small town, let's say older people, your chances are getting slimmer. But overall, I would say overall, people know what it means. I mean, not necessarily everything that it means. So I always I learned that very quickly that if you say I'm Vegan, I don't eat animal products. Sometimes it needs more explanation than that. [00:26:01] So I usually just run through the list, you know. So that means that I don't eat and then I just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when they suggest something I think about and everything they could possibly put in there. [00:26:14] And I double check and ask again. But overall, this people I don't see this. What you see this. I think it's an anger. Something like that. It's more. [00:26:28] Amazement or so, how can you live like that? Oh, my God. Or why would you do that? But it really has changed over the years. It's much more accepted and no. Like I said in the May, all the major supermarkets here in Germany, they have increased their Vegan a product by I don't even know a lot. [00:26:56] And I think that well, I believe that were some of the anger that a lot of people may have experienced five, 10 years ago is based out of veganism, was introduced as this restrictive, almost cultish way of life that a group of people lived who were kind of obsessed with the welfare of animals and militant and not caring values and beliefs like the rest of us. [00:27:16] And since that time period, at least in the United States, there's been so much media and propaganda and films and scientific studies that have come out and proven the benefits and the longevity, you know, on the disease reversing and health aspects of veganism. But I think a lot of people now don't necessarily attribute it to this militant way of life, but rather people who may be seeking health or may have allergies. It's just been attached to something else. And so I think that the anger portion of it has definitely dropped off. No, I will stay say that. As a mother of four children, there's no faster way to get, you know, people kind of throwing up their arms with me than to suggest that my Vegan child's coming to their child's birthday party even when I'm like none of them know that they're good. [00:28:03] They don't eat anything that you wouldn't worry about it. [00:28:06] You know, there's there's this sense of difficulty, whereas children who have any type of allergies, you know, I don't think that there's that same sense, at least not to their face, perhaps behind their backs. But this inclusiveness, I think, is starting to reach out. I like it there. So Europe is tiny, but so different, you know, especially with the Vegan culture. I visit Ireland a great deal. Dublin and my husband's family is, you know, it from there. And then we travel all over. And Dublin did a good job. Over the past 10 years, they've had some really staunch old historical Vegan restaurants that have been around for 20 years. And and since that time period, the vibrancy has kind of come up. But I really see it as a product of you had a few of the old guard, but it's the youth. It's generation, you know, it's the millennials, definitely. But GenZE who are actually coming at veganism, not necessarily from a health standpoint, because the youth tend to be healthy, but rather from an environmental and a responsibility standpoint that they all have. And it's very different from there when I go to Australia or somewhere else. The youth and the vegans there have a very. They come at it from exercise and fitness. You know, there tends to be that influence over there. I'm wondering, where do you think the larger population of the Vegan members of the community are in right now in Germany? Is it in the younger? Is it also spreading into the older? How does that work? [00:29:37] They're everywhere, of course, but I do think the younger gender a generation is. [00:29:44] Is making a difference and bringing more awareness to veganism. And also, you know, tying in like environmental aspects. The odor. I mean, this is by no means. A general assessment. But from what I see or from the people that I know, I would say the older generation, most of them, not all of them, but a lot of them did come to veganism because of health or for for health reasons. And like with myself, you know, that's the start. And then along the way, a lot of them open up like, oh, they're a million more reasons to be Vegan. But this was the starting point. I see that with with the older generation in general, but especially the young ones. Environment. Animal rights activism. All of that. I would say is probably the driving factor. Like the young folks are willing to go out in the streets and do all the protesting and all that. Definitely. And I also think that from my experience. It's a lot more normal. And the younger generation to be Vegan. [00:31:02] Yeah, and they're gonna grow up. So it's going to get you know, it's going to be normalized one way or another. I'm wondering, with the Kovik 19 pandemic and the set in for you personally, obviously not on a political scale, but has there been conversation in Berlin that you've seen about Acom returning to looking at food or sources of health? Not even I don't get into the cause of Cobbett or anything like that, but it's returned a lot of people to a conversation about diet and what we are eating and and what will keep immune systems healthy in a way like hasn't happened over the past 50 years. And I'm wondering in Germany, if there has been a return to considering, you know, even just like increasing the amount of vegetables or things that do kind of speak to the Vegan lifestyle. Have you seen an increase in that with anyone personally or on the news or anything like that? [00:31:55] Personally, I'm trying to have these conversations because that's exactly my arguments. Like, we do have an immune system. It's it's made for things like that. I mean, I'm not saying that this is not real and people aren't suffering and dying. I do see that yet. We do have an immune system. And for me, this I have to say, I don't follow the news daily. I just don't. But from what has come to my attention, what I've seen, I'm not seeing that at all. It's more about, you know, trying to what can we do to go back to our weird way of normal life that we had before? No, we're wearing masks. We're doing this, doing everything possible so we can go back to our routine behavior, which was the most convenient. And we don't have to look at it. Nobody's publicly, at least, and that's a nobody. But this is not the news that the majority of Germans hear about, like a discussion about, well, what can you do with your immune system? How can you boost it? All these things? And it's really I find it very annoying because I'm trying to have this conversation or at least have the conversation. Why don't we hear about this? I do trust in my system. I do. And so right now and this is really a very sensitive topic, because just this or last week, they found a huge outbreak in a slaughterhouse in Germany. I don't know if you've heard about that day. [00:33:30] And I had wondered kind of what the local conversation was about around that. [00:33:36] So. [00:33:38] I just heard on the radio today as I was driving in my car, I just heard that apparently one major politician won. One of the conservative parties said we need to reconsider. [00:33:53] Our animal agriculture was like, ha! [00:33:59] I didn't hear what he said in detail just so I can only give you what I heard on the radio. But apparently for him, we need to go back to small slaughterhouses. [00:34:08] That's not the discussion we need to wrap up. [00:34:11] But at least, you know. But not the discussion. I want to have, but it's at least a step and still I mean, a lot of major outbreaks. [00:34:22] I mean, from what I know, this has been the biggest in Germany and the slaughterhouse. But there have been major ones at the slaughterhouses before. [00:34:30] And I can't believe that we're not having other discussions then. How long do we need to have. Wear a mask? How can we keep our kids out of school? That's not the solution to the problem. That's just masking it with a mask. [00:34:46] Yeah. And as endurance wanes, I think the desire to stop questioning, you know, the endurance, to continue staying at home, the endurance to continue questioning, like, exhaust the mind. But I agree. And the cool thing about science and pandemics, if there ever were a cool thing, which there isn't, is that it doesn't let up just due to human exhaustion. So it will spike again if things aren't considered and changed, you know, it won't let go until it's had its way, until we figured out a way through its way. [00:35:16] So I agree with what you're saying. I'm wondering. It sounds like you've had a lot of interpersonal dialog. You've wanted to have conversations with your public, with everyone around. And I'm wondering if that has changed your goals and what some of your goals are for hashtag Vegan ventures, for the blog, for your investigative efforts. Will you continue traveling once travel restrictions are lifted, once there is an immunization to covered? And if so, will it change your dialog with the world? What are your future goals? [00:35:50] It kind of has, actually, I mean, I can give you like an exact direction where see the setting. But what I what I found is, I mean, I started this, as I said, more as an inspiration for others or sharing my knowledge. And I've come to the point where I really want to speak up for those who don't have a voice. I want to help this planet move in a plant based direction. I don't know if I'm going to see this in my lifetime, but at least I want to say be able to say at the end of it, I try. And so for me, this entire thing has been to be a lot more outspoken about that and to also have the uncomfortable discussions, which it's not that I didn't have them before, but it wasn't really my my focus. But to to wake people up, to show them what's going on. And also, I mean, I was one of them. I mean, I eat meat for thirty four years of my life. I not once questioned that really before. Not seriously at least. So to have these discussions knowing I know where you're coming from. I know this is very uncomfortable and I know this will maybe be a little. Challenge here and there, but. We live in the year 2020. There is so much information out there. You literally it's harder to close your eyes and not see or hear any of them. Then it is true, as it was, let's say, 20 years ago, you had to go out and find these pieces of information. Absolutely. I agree. I think it out there and there is not one ethical reason to keep doing what we're doing, not for humanity, not for the animals, not for the planet. And there is no planet B and we need all of us on this planet. [00:37:58] Well, that just shows you the incredible attachment to the only thing I can equate it to is practicing breath work during meditation and things like that when people tell me to control my breath. There is an innate like almost automatic anxiety that creeps in to the body without even realizing in the mind when you go to control that because you're controlling your life source. Right. You're controlling your air. You need it. And I feel like the same is true for food when we go to question certain things about food. You are not just thinking about one aspect of your life that you might change. You're thinking about the love that your grandmother gave you. You're thinking about all of these things subconsciously. You know, the way that you reward yourself, the way that you hide from things, the way that you get through a tough situation. All of these different things are very much so attached to food in every single person's life, all over the world from, you know, South Africa to Antarctica. And so I think that analyzing it needs to come from, as you're saying, this place of compassion, you know, that we get that the people who have gone through it and thought through it and gone through these these testing things that we're very much so attached to for existence and coming out saying it's fine to be a little bit nervous, you know. But I think it's also proof that it is so clearly ingrained in just more than nutrition. It's more than just we're eating what we're eating to live because there is no evidence on Earth that says eating meat anymore is a good idea. There's just no thought given for the sustaining of our civilization. And so the idea that people are still doing it, it's because it's so attached to other things that we fight wars over, you know? And so I think that it's really great to come at it, as you say, with this very patient. Like, I understand this is a little scary. And I was where you were at those types of things. I have yet to actually speak with someone who was born Vegan. I will find them. Hopefully it's a her or a female identified or non binary individual because that's the company I like to keep. But I would love to find someone who was born and is a Goldstar Vegan never, never varied away because I just haven't met one yet. [00:40:06] I have some good fortune. I wish I could say I can put you in touch with her, but I can't because one of the things that I do are used to do. [00:40:17] I do Vegan tours in Berlin and one of my guests. Which wasn't even looking for it was a different tour that I did. But we started talking about veganism and she told me she was born vegan. Remarkable. Her dad was vegan and. Yeah. [00:40:36] I'm jealous, seeing as you have never even questioned it. [00:40:44] You know, and so I think it'll be. Yeah, it'll be fascinating. My children will be able to say they were born vegetarian. My youngest won't be able to remember not being vegan. But to be able to say you've never is an interesting idea, you know, and to kind of crawl into that. And the majority of the rest of the vegans are walking around, you know, needing to exhibit the compassion that we once should have for having realized, you know, the truth and things of that nature. We're slowly car crawling into being out of time. [00:41:12] But I wanted to ask you before I let you go. Elena, if you have, like, a taut piece of advice for anybody who is listening, who is not Vegan, but kind of analyzing it, listening to this podcast, we've had a lot of people right in saying I really like the idea that you're coming at it. We've interviewed a whole bunch of doctors and, you know, just as I've said, different characters and experts from different parts of life. And you're coming at it from this traveling standpoint, from a very personal testimony. And I'm wondering if you have any piece of advice that you can offer anyone who's kind of listening just to educate and understand a little bit more about the Vegan world. [00:41:49] Two things, actually, one. I get that, too. A lot of messages from people who are not Vegan yet, but they see the benefits for whatever, like all the reasons mostly, but they struggle. And for me, this this has led me to think about offering some Vegan coaching. As you mentioned, I am a coach. I'm a certified coach. I never really before I thought about going in the direction of seeking coaching, but doing exactly this, helping people along the way with their struggles. But that's a general approach. But overall, have compassion with yourself and take one step at a time. I mean, you don't have to be the perfect Vegan overnight. Some people can do it. Most people can't. And you don't have to. It's OK. Take the step that you can look at your life as it is right now and look at, OK, what's the first area I'm going to take on? What can I do? What can I change? How can I create new rituals, new things to reward myself? Join Vegan groups like acquaint yourself with the lifestyle with little bit and then go step by step by step by step. And you'll always be you know, you'll do it at your own pace and eventually. Don't beat yourself up if you can't keep your goal that maybe you had in mind. Turned out you couldn't reach it. Yes. It takes time for most people and have compassion with yourself as much as you do with the others and the animals, and I love that. [00:43:31] That's perfect. Thank you so much for coming on and giving us all of your advice and your expertize today. Elena, I really appreciate it. [00:43:39] Thanks for having me. [00:43:41] Absolutely. For everyone listening, we've been speaking with Elena Theis. She's the creator of hashtag Vegan Ventures. You can find out more. It's w w w dot Vegan hyphen ventures, dot com. And thank you for giving us your time today and having your thoughts with me. [00:43:57] And until we speak again next time. Remember to stay safe, eat well and always bet on yourself. Slainte. 

Today I am talking with Dr. Joel Kahn. Joel Kahn, MD, FACC of Detroit, Michigan, is a practicing cardiologist, and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine.  He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Michigan Medical School. Known as "America’s Healthy Heart Doc", Dr. Kahn has triple board certification in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine and Interventional Cardiology. Dr. Kahn has authored scores of publications in his field including articles, book chapters and monographs. He writes health articles and has five books in publication including Your Whole Heart Solution, Dead Execs Don’t Get Bonuses and The Plant Based Solution. His 6th book, Lipoprotein(a): The Heart’s Silent Killer, is about to be published. He has regular appearances on Dr. Phil, The Doctors Show, Dr. Oz, Larry King Now, Joe Rogan Experience, and with Bassem Yousef.www.drjoelkahn.com This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors[00:00:00] In this episode, I had the fortunate opportunity to speak with America's healthy heart doc, Dr. Joel Kahn. Dr. Kahn is a practicing cardiologist and a clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Key points addressed were Dr. Kahn's books, titled The Plant Based Solution, published in 2018, and his most recent book, Leipold Protein Little, a published in March of 2020. We also conducted a Q&A with Dr. Khan regarding some of the most common inquiries. Our audience had regarding cardiovascular health and Vegan diets. Stay tuned for my informative talk with Dr. Joel Kahn. [00:00:45] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen, dot com, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:42] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. [00:01:45] And today, I'm delighted to be sitting down with Dr. Joel Kahn. He is a practicing cardiologist and a clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine. You can find out more about all of his endeavors on his Web site. W w w. Dr. Joel Kahn, K. H and dot com. Welcome, Joel. [00:02:05] Thank you very much. Excited to be here. [00:02:08] I am excited to have you on as well. We were talking prior to recording and you're involved in an insane amount of endeavors. But today I'm going to kind of forecast for everyone listening. We're going to unpack a couple of Dr. Kahn's works and then get into some general questions that our audience has reached out and kind of wanted to know on the medical forefront. Before I get to all of that, for everyone listening, I will offer a brief bio on Dr. Khan, as well as a roadmap for today's podcast. Let me start with the roadmap. We'll look at unpacking a couple of books, as I mentioned. One being the plant based solution published in 2020. And then we'll look at another book, Libro Protein A and kind of is the latest launch. And then I'll get into the general questions that a lot of you have reached out regarding some of the covered 19 pandemic inquiries and future scientific research being done as it relates to the Vegan diet and heart health prior to getting into all of that. Let me quickly do a bio on Dr. Kahn. Joel Kahn, M.D., F.A. of Detroit, Michigan, is a practicing cardiologist. Any clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan Medical School known as America's Healthy Heart Doc. Dr. Kahn has triple board certification in internal medicine, cardiovascular medicine and interventional cardiology. He was the first physician in the world to certify and metabolic cardiology within a four m m m I and the University of South Florida. He founded the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity and Bingham Farms, Michigan. Dr. Kahn has authored scores of publications in his field, including articles, book chapters and monographs. He writes healthy health articles and has five books in publication, including Your Whole Heart Solution Dead Exacts Don't Give Bonuses and the Plant Based Solution. His sixth book, Lipoprotein A., was just released, I believe, in March of this year. The Heart Silent Killer. He has regular appearances on Dr. Phil the Doctor Show, Dr. Oz, Larry King, now Joe Rogan experience and with Bassem Youssef. He has been awarded a Health Hero Award from Detroit Crain's Business. He owns GreenSpace and Go, a health restaurant in suburban Detroit, and he serves as medical director of the largest plant based support group in the USA. W w w dot p and s g dot org. Dr Con again can be found at w. W. W. Dr Joel Corn. Dot com. So I'd like to launch straight into your book and the inquiries that we have within that, namely the plant based solution that was published in 2020. We grabbed a quote from online. That's no disease that can be treated. Oh I'm sorry. It's the dedication that you did in this book that I found to be so pertinent after reading it. And it's no disease that can be treated by diet, should be treated with any other means by an old philosopher in the 12th century. I can't remember. Moloney's how do you pronounce that? [00:05:17] My Munadi My Money is a Spanish Moroccan born rabbi. Physician and I lived in Egypt most of his life. Quite a remarkable history in and of itself. [00:05:30] Yeah. And I like the quote. It reminds me a lot of like let food be thy medicine. People getting into some of the Aristotle and things. The book is described as a passionate, compelling and scientific argument for plant based nutrition. [00:05:45] You get into. For everyone who's listening and hasn't read it or would like to get a brief overview on it. It explores weight loss, how most people get it wrong when it comes to calcium protein, carbs. It's a relationship between lay people's knowledge and the heart health. And then you kind of unpack these different areas. The links between Vegan diet and your sex drive, gut health, brain chemistry, why plants might hold the key to better aging, eating out, stocking your pantry. And the whole thing is kind of wrapped up with this 21 day meal plan and advice for, as I call them, action items or this implant implementation into one's life. And my first question for you is in in your previous book, Dead Exists, Don't Get Bonuses, you focus on the coronary heart disease and you talk about a lot of the statistics and the science behind it. And this one seems to be like an application guide as you and. Talking about earlier. And I'm wondering what the impetus for the change in that was, what what the kind of inspiration behind writing this was. [00:06:50] You know, I spent decades practicing as a cardiologist. And that book called that exact I don't get bonuses and even my previous book, first book called Your Whole Heart Solution at a Real Cardiology Focus. It's my training. It's my practice. It's my primary avocation. But I had not written a book that went deep into plant based nutrition, that went deep into the science and went beyond her disease because the plant based solution goes well beyond our disease to speak about some other entities you talk about. And I wanted to do it. I just needed a resource to give to my patients. And people were asking in a way that didn't require, you know, a month to read, wasn't thick enough to know if your table were shaking. It was the heavy book you'd pick to balance it out. So I wanted it to have content and medical support, of course, but to be an easy read for people. And as you say, to be practical. So it ends with recipes. It ends with pantry, stocking solutions or the very challenging what do you do when you go over family or go to restaurants? Well, you know, very, very grounded in the science literature. I was always amazed. You know, there are a growing number of plant based cardiologists and there should be a growing number of plant based nephrologists and pulmonologists and gynecologists and all the others. I don't like dividing the body into organs. It all works together in one symphony when it's working well. But there really wasn't a book by a cardiologist. And with all respect, Esselstyn trained as a surgeon and Dr. Ornish trained as an internist and others. It just wasn't a bug out there with the experience I had over decades of treating heart attacks and congestive heart failure. And now I'm being part of hospital faculty. So I put that all together. And thank you for your kind words about it. I think it's a practical book. [00:08:47] Absolutely it is. I'm wondering how you chose. How did you curated? [00:08:50] Was it combined from patients that you had over the years or was it from areas that you found to be most integral for the person picking up an informational moment about diet and cardio health? [00:09:03] It was clearly based on, you know, by the time I wrote that book, it came out. I think you mentioned 20, 20, but actually came out in twenty eighteen, to be fair. No problem. I wrote most of it in late twenty seventeen. I mean I've been plant based since nineteen seventy seven. I started cardiology practice in nineteen ninety. So literally by the time I wrote that book I had twenty seven years of experience recommending to heart patients, high blood pressure patients, weight challenged patients, cholesterol patients, diabetic patients, auto immune patients. That there was science to suggest I would add multiple sclerosis patients. There was science to suggest shifting their diet to a complete or nearly complete whole food plant based diet would be of some potential therapeutic benefit. I had so many wonderful results and stunning results and people that avoided surgery and people that hit their goal, reduced their medication. Ever get on a medication, avoid surgery? So it certainly was based on that. This is the real deal. There's nothing theoretical about the science base and the practical application of whole food plant diets. The frustrated group is the small group that are trying hard and don't reach that goal. They're not getting enough blood pressure meds and they're not getting off cholesterol medicine. And that's what I try and help them with in my clinic in suburban Detroit is what are we missing? You know what's missing in their physiology, their chemistry, their genetics, their toxicology or their diet itself? [00:10:29] But majority people respond dramatically well and really just need a little push. A book like mine, watch a couple of videos, have a couple simple recipes. And, you know, you don't need to hold their hand for 30 years. They'll get it because they're gonna feel better in two, three, four weeks. The majority of the time. [00:10:49] Yeah. And ideally, there wouldn't be a lot of handholding, particularly between your clinic. What I like about the book is it talks a lot about prevention and not just treatment of heart disease. I feel like, you know, and when one goes into a cardiologist, there's already an issue. You know, you have a specialty that a lot of people don't talk about prevention. It's more about treatment once there becomes a problem. And so I like the idea of a book coming from the concept of prevention. [00:11:17] Do you feel like we are moving towards that as a society, into a prevention based model, or are we still based in a treatment moment when it comes to cardio health or crawling or crawling if if a average person walked into or maybe you say if a person walked into an average cardiologist office and said, I feel great, I just want you to check me. They probably would be told we don't do that here. Yeah, it's that in every case, in a large practice, there might be one cardiologist in twenty five that has that preventive interest. You know, you'd end up getting a stress test you probably don't need and some routine bloodwork. It's what I do know every day of the week in my clinic and people don't need to have a problem. In fact, I had a wonderful follow up phone call today with a woman who we went through the process of checking her advanced labs. She already was on a excellent diet of plants. And all we did was celebrate the fact you're healthy, you're healthy or healthy. You'll see in 10 years. I mean, that is a wonderful thing. And it ends the relationship and it ends anxiety. Allow these people have a family history like she did of a father with a heart attack at a young age and able to share such good news. But very often it's not such good news. There is heart disease, there is inflammation, there is metabolic abnormalities, vitamin abnormalities, and there's just lots to do. And food is the basis and food fix is most of it. But if you're low in vitamin D, if you're missing, I have to. I mean, I got to be very specific with some of the testing we do. I know nutrition science. Just you know, the reason I wrote the book in part, nutrition science is tough and that's why we see this war of Quito Paleo, you know, Mediterranean diet. There's a Mediterranean diet aren't as aggressive as the pro paleo pro Iquito. Prokhanov for the vegans are weak ninnies and meat eaters are strong and incredible. It's just amazing how contentious it is. It's also difficult to do good nutrition science. It's hard to get a thousand people to eat in different patterns for 20 years and really make measurements. So you've got to do the best with what you have from basic science, from epidemiology, from the few randomized studies like Dr. Ornish. Just you got to take a jam, put it all together and try and be very honest with the data. I mean, once in a while, an article comes out that low fat dairy may be decent for your blood pressure. Well, I'm not going to recommend my patients start drinking milk if they're not. But after recognizer is some data out there. So you got to be fair and authentic. [00:13:52] Yeah. And you mentioned in a previous interview, I think it was a podcast or something we dug up on YouTube. But you talked about and it was kind of a divisive rhetoric, you know. [00:14:02] I think was it more aggrandize than when I watched it at a Google talks between yourself and some experts with them? The names are escaping me, but with Anderson from what? [00:14:13] The Health and Dave Asprey from Bulletproof Coffee. Yeah, well, reporters in California. [00:14:20] Yeah. You talked a lot about in the clip I saw the divisiveness is concerning for someone who's trying to get, you know, good health out of good health information and things like that. [00:14:30] Because you stated in this clip your concern was that if if you hear one camp saying one thing, one camp saying directly opposite the, you know, the client or the public walks away and does nothing and they're walking and they walk and they walk into McDonald's in one days because they say the experts can't figure this out. [00:14:48] I'll just eat what I want to eat and doesn't seem to really matter. So it does really confuse the public. I just give an example. 60 years, a science suggests the more saturated fat, rich foods you eat butter, cheese, pepperoni, bacon, the more likely to develop heart disease and a lot of other things. Diabetes, cancer, dementia. Decades of science. The last 10 years that got very muddied by some very poor science that got big headlines like Time magazine butter's back cover in 2014. But about four or five weeks ago, the most prestigious science group independent of funding did a review paper. Saturated fat causes heart disease. When you cut back butter and cheese and pepperoni and croissance and pizza, you will reduce your cholesterol. You reduce your risk of having a heart attack or stroke. This is the most respected group. So I wrote a couple blogs. I did a interview. All that stuff came on the last week. It did nothing to bring any real unity, even though the science is pretty well unified. If you're entrenched, meat, cheese, butter, eggs, pro science are good for you. You know, you ignore the science. You find some flaw in it even when there really isn't much of a flaw. So it's unfortunate that food wars exist. But it really what I always come back to when I lecture and I'll be quiet. And if you look at the Harvard School of Public Health, they have a food plate from 2011. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy protein. If you look at Canada's food plate, 2019, same beautiful food plate. We look at peace. Cierra physician, Kabbani, responsible medicine, all plant food. There actually is tremendous unanimity around the world by reasonable people that your diet should be brightly colored, whole fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes. I don't add in small amounts of extra meat. Some of these food plates give you the option of adding in small amounts of eggs and meat. I think diets are better when they don't include that. But we're really talking about truly a very tiny debate with tremendous unanimity. But, you know, if you've got a platform and a, you know, a YouTube channel, Alhurra, a blog, you can create a mountain of what is really a molehill of differences. [00:17:09] Yeah. And I like the celebration of unifying factors. You talk a lot about how a lot of these people, you know, everyone is in unison that white flour, sugar, processed foods, these things should not be in one's diet. And beginning from that standpoint, I think is good. And yes, the the visual representations that have come out since 2016 and the advice they're all very similar to looking can turn the old food paradigm where it needs to be, which isn't just on its head. [00:17:37] I think just to complete rubbish. I want to look at the book like a protein A and I told you before we started, I hadn't thought it had launched yet. I was corrected. You said it's been out since March. I think I've been in a little bit. There it is. I think I've been in a little bit of a cave. But what I did see, what I did do is find research from you yourself online, making up a recipe of overnight oats. I'm always amazed. I fancy myself as a very adventurous Vegan cook. And I've been doing a search for 10 years. And it's always amazing to me how there's just this the overnight oats I haven't ever made. And it's so ironic. But I think that it's it points to the utility of books like this. And I'm hoping you can speak because I haven't read it a little bit about the impetus for writing it and what it contains, aside from recipes. [00:18:27] But as I say, started out writing kind of cardiology books for the public, wrote a couple books directly on the Vegan topic. This actually brings the two together. It's a very interesting story I'll blurt out in about two minutes. But it turns out about 60 years ago, a kind of cholesterol. This we get a little science, see that you can inherit from mom and dad was identified in the blood and it is called it's a terrible name. If you're were in the marketing field, Lifebook Protein Live Olay. Anybody can see the cover, the book. The word liberal isn't there. It's lowercase A.. But that's how it's pronounced scientifically. Lipoprotein Little A, you could ask your family doctor, your internist, your gynecologist next routine physical. Can you add a light poke protein little a blood level to my standard blood. It's a form of cholesterol you inherit from your mom and dad. And if you inherit it and if it's high, it can clog up your arteries. It can lead to heart attack, stroke, erectile dysfunction aneurysms and even destroy one of the heart valves in the heart. And it does it very slowly and very progressively because since you inherit it, it's in your blood. From the time of conception forward, the dramatic statement is 25 to 30 percent of people inherit it. So that means 90 million Americans, one point eight billion people worldwide and hardly a doctor in the United States checks the little box to measure it. It's been researched. There's hundreds and hundreds of very high quality research articles and it has been mentioned. If you have a family history, if mom had a stroke at age 48, if dad had bypass surgery at age 52, maybe your doctor should order this. But that's rarely done, even though that's been in the mainstream. But just recently, there's a growing incentive. Maybe everybody should just ask, is it twenty or thirty dollar blood tests? It's not like a fancy genetic test. It's just a blood test. And find out early in life. Did you inherit it or not? It's kind of that's why it's a silent heart killer, because it's silent in part because we don't test for it. And also, by its nature, it's slowly, slowly, slowly can damage vessels. And this tradition also you can get your routine cholesterol. Your cholesterol is one hundred and eighty and your HDL, your LDL. It won't show up on that. And it could be that your lipoproteins is still very high, the standard treatment of cholesterol. Exercise. Change your diet. Take your lipid tour. Take your Crestor or do very little to lower it. If you inherit a high level, I have a whole practice full of people with very high blood levels, and many of them have had a bypass, heart attack, a stroke and other problems, heart valve surgery. The vitamin niacin can lower it, but there's at least some science at a Whole Foods plant. Diet can also lower it. And even if it doesn't lower it much, it'll probably lower the blood pressure to lower the blood sugar, to lower the more commonly checked LDL cholesterol at a lower inflammation. So, you know, that's why the book is Half Science and half beautiful recipes, including the overnight out recipe that I did a little YouTube video on. [00:21:41] I mean, I brought in one of my favorite plant based recipe writers, Beverly Lynn Bennett. I've worked with her before. So it's kind of like the plant based solution, their science. And then there's some practical steps. There's all this gorgeous food and the food and the recipes were specifically selected to be very likely to help control cholesterol, blood pressure, inflammation, blood sugar. They're delicious, but they emphasize things like oats, oats, lower cholesterol by the soluble fiber and the glue cans and a lot of chia hemp flax seeds, which can lower cholesterol and blood pressure. So there it's kind of a heart healthy, delicious diet book with some fascinating science and probably somebody listening right now. Undoubtedly, somebody watching this has a high lipoprotein egg because it's come it's the most common genetic heart risk that exists. But we never talk about it. I'm trying to break that there. But, you know, somebody is going to benefit just by thinking, God, my whole family's riddled with heart disease and they keep telling me we don't know why. No, nobody smoke and nobody has insulin required diabetes. I'm telling you. Check your libro protein, literally. [00:22:53] It reminds me when you're saying this. [00:22:55] We've spoken to a few autoimmune experts about veganism, you know, the vegan diet and the auto immune triggers and things of that nature. And I know from the sound of it, it's going to build regardless, except for, you know, these these things that you can do with diet and maybe niacin. [00:23:13] But he isn't similar. It's not a trigger. It's not a switch that's getting switched on like the autoimmune. Right. It's just destined to build more than genetic. [00:23:22] We know what chromosome we know and which genes are involved. And the trigger is conception. Right. Unlike the idea that there might be a gut issue that triggers lupus or a toxicity from Roundup that might trigger an auto immune disease, a gut damage. So nothing triggers us. It just sits there circulating in the blood, knocking into arteries, knocking in the Arpels, causing a reaction that, again, slowly, slowly, slowly. But by the time you're forty five, you might be sitting on a little ticking time bomb you didn't know about without scaring anybody. But it is possible. Yeah. You talk about the big famous just so people can relate. A lot of people used to watch The Biggest Loser show and there was Jillian Michaels looking repped and there was Bob Harper looking. Well, three years ago, Bob Harper at age 51, had a massive heart attack and almost died. And he announced a couple months later when he had recovered from a very long illness, that he found out he had inherited a very high level of late pope protein, little ache, and he was under treatment now and very optimistic for the future. But what if he found out 10 years before we can argue? What could he have done about it? There is a drug in development that will be the answer to the problem. But in the meantime, get your diet right exercise. Get your weight right. Know your numbers. I mean, take super good care yourself. [00:24:47] Yeah. You talk a lot about kind of affecting. I think it's important, especially for scientists as well. Particularly when you get into book writing and things like that to consider all groups and industries within, you know, the people they are talking about, which are all masses of people in your society. And to that end, I was curious, you know, you talk a lot about fast food. And in even in something I watched you talked about, you know, just as the sad irony of having a Wendy's or McDonald's in their hospital green room before the rat reception. Yeah, but I'm wondering to that end to kind of speaking to everybody, all socioeconomic classes and things of that nature in the book, Libo Lipoprotein Little A.. When you went to form your recipes, did you consider like the nationwide availability of the products of the ingredients that you were putting in those recipes, income, status or other like necessary moments to think about when you were trying to make. Accessible to everybody, but also have the same or the necessary ingredients to help the condition. [00:25:53] You know, in general, a well constructed whole food plan diet is an inexpensive and widely accessible diet. You just got to get back to basics. A lot of the recipes have brown rice. The recipes have Ghinwa. The recipes have beans and peas and lentils. The lagoon family, which if you know, you go to a bulk store and you buy big bags of dried rice and dried beans, you know, you need access to produce. Could be frozen big bags. The book doesn't stress organic because that becomes a price point. Many people get it. It's a nice add on when it's available and when you can afford it. But nonetheless, any well constructed whole food plan diet, even if it's not organic, is going to beat out from a total health standpoint. Almost any plant based plant, animal based meal, whether it's organic or not. So I think it is sensitive to all that. And there are other great resources. I wrote a book two ago with coauthor Ellen Jaffe Jones. She has a great paperback called Vegan on Four Dollars a Day that I would recommend anybody who's really trying. And it was written probably seven, eight years ago. So maybe it's Vegan and six dollars a day now. But there are so many tips in a book like that that you could adapt a few. But it takes a little preparation and, you know, a little bit of courage to dove into these recipes if you're coming from a place that has never really cooked. You've just got to have a chopping board and some good nice. [00:27:25] You mentioned on one of the episodes I saw that an average C.T. scan tips to obtain artery health reports and calcium scan ESAN. [00:27:35] Seventy five to one hundred dollars in most major hospitals. And this is a piece of information. I had no idea. I think you get thousands. I don't have a great idea about how much medical tests cost since the bills. Always astronomical from anything I hear about. And I'm wondering if you have a basic elevator pitch style pieces of advice like that within the cardiac health industry that you give people who kind of run into you and are looking for like your top type five pieces of advice. You talk about men being between the ages of 45 and 50, getting there for a C.T. scan if they haven't had one. And things like that. You have other little pieces of information that you like to give off to people as quickly as possible when you run into them. [00:28:12] Yeah. You know, I have a few little things that roll off my tongue over and over. And one of them is, you know, we can talk about recipes and food, but it takes technology added to great lifestyle to really cement the security that you and I are going to have a sudden medical adverse event or particularly cardiovascular heart adverse event. And, you know, talking about getting a blood test for Lipoprotein Little A is actually a very technical topic. I could go on and on and refine that about the genetics of it, but we don't need to simply just check a box and get it. Similarly, you know what I bring up all the time with patients. Just think about it. You know, somebody recommended you to get a mammogram at age 45. If you're a woman, somebody recommended you get a call and ask could be at age 50 at an annual physical. Did anybody want to check your heart in all that? And even if you say, I know my father had a stent at age 59, did anybody recommend anything? So that's where the entree is to talk about that. There actually has been a test, quick CAT scan, no dye, no needle, no pain, no claustrophobia. It used to be a thousand dollars 20 years ago, but in the hospitals in suburban Detroit and usually around the country, it's one hundred dollar range and you just pay out of pocket and you immediately know I'm weathering life well with clean cut, flexible arteries that are degraded by calcium deposits, which make your arteries hard, hardening of the arteries, or there's a problem. Something's going on. I'm walking around with heart disease. I didn't know about it. You need to find that preventive doctor in your community and work with him or her and get a handle on it and get your diet. You know, the plant based solution done of approved diet. So test, I guess, comes out of my mouth. Prevent, not stent. Lot of people are getting invasive procedures. Stents bypass. All the data, including just in the last six weeks is for the majority of people. This is hardcore science data at the best centers in the world can be approached with medication, diet, fitness and avoid stents. A bypass or prevent that stent is a nice little one. You know, you mention, you know, I just like the word reversal. So many people come to me. They've had heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, erectile dysfunction, gut issues. And just to open Pandora's box, that it may be related to their lifestyle and it may be possible to reverse some or all of it is to most patients an idea that's never been brought up with them before. You know, I had no idea there's a chance I might be able to reduce my blood pressure, blood sugar, blood. Heart medication, if you worked very hard at it, you're going to have to work very hard at it. But gives people a lot of hope and a lot of actually empowerment to know that they know it's not all about the prescription pad the doctor has. It's a lot about the pantry, the grocery store, the fridge aerator, the freezer, the treadmill, the sidewalk, the pillow. You've got to sleep at night. The whole lifestyle that I educate patients. [00:31:17] Yeah. And speaking to lifestyles, I've been on YouTube. And it seems like some of the videos since the Cauvin 19 pandemic has really set in and the stay at home quarantine has been advised. [00:31:29] You have a lot of little I like your videos, the very brief, very succinct, and I'm very diversified. You have a lot of things, combination of exercise and stacking, a combination of exercises, movements, connection to the earth, conquer thing. You talk about melatonin and the recent research being done in treatment, or at least alongside the Kovik 19, the microbiome of an Apple nutrition of sprouts and the sprouting book with a colleague of yours that came out nitric oxide. Are there any other things that you're kind of looking at right now? Vitamins, exercise, et cetera, that you do like that that are kind of at the forefront of what you're what you're looking at with health as diversified as they might be? [00:32:11] Yeah. You know, so just since you brought up the word covered, 19, you know, nobody can authentically say we actually know how to prevent it or treat it. We're struggling to find that pathway. There's a lot of people talking about that. There isn't prominent professor of what's called pulmonary critical care medicine in Norfolk, Virginia, who suggested it might be reasonable to add in some vitamin D, some vitamins, C, some zinc. These are supplements. You can do it in your food. Of course, you know, zinc is a quite rich in soy like hemp and tofu template of melatonin at night is one of his recommendations. And there is finally an antioxidant called quercetin, which is finding garlic and apples and onions and cherries. But there are people that are taking a course. It's an supplement based on reasonable recommendations. Do we know? Has it been studied? We don't. These are very safe, very inexpensive supplements. Pennies a day. Good night's sleep. Maintaining proper body weight, excess body weight has been a risk factor for not doing well if you do contact Koven 19. You might be in a state of constant inflammation. Here you got a virus that triggers massive inflammation. If you started a high point, that's going to be a little easier to reach a critical inflammatory status. And of course, wash your hands and physical distance as appropriate and wear your mask as appropriate for sure. Those are all interesting. There is actually just to mention there's a theory. Again, remember, 25 to 30 percent of people have lipoprotein little they elevated in their blood. One of the bad actions of this special cholesterol inherited Mollica is it can cause blood, the clot. And one of the tragic circumstances in a lot of cases, sick people with Cauvin, 19 in the ICU is all of sudden there's clotting everywhere. There's clotting in the heart, there's clotting in the lungs, there's clotting. It's a theory that lipoprotein the delay may be partly to explain why some people just explode with this terrible issue and others don't. So not now, but maybe the God forbid, the next pandemic will have more people that are where they have lipoprotein little a inherited problem. I'll have a better therapy for MRSA or anything else. I'm working. I'm always working on something. I'm deep, deep right now into the endocannabinoid system. You know, the fact that we have a chemicals in receptors in our body, that when you access cannabis or hemp or know CBD, why does that activate reactions and about. I'm just reading a lot about it. Oh, it is. These are phyto cannabinoids, plant based chemicals that are hacking into our own internal system. Most people don't know we make a series of chemicals in our body that are the authentic cannabis like chemicals, and it just happens to be many plants. But cannabis is the most famous plant. You don't have to smoke it. It could be a hemp oil capsule or A-S, but many plants have a response in the body, just like our own internal system. Some people there may be the future diagnosis. Maybe you have a hypo cannabinoid system. You better add in some cannabinoids like hemp oil. It's a fascinating pathway right now being looked at in anxiety, poor sleep. Some metabolic issues, some pain issues. So I'm pretty deep into learning as much as possible on that. [00:35:50] Excellent. I look forward to your findings. And I reached out to some of our audience members and colleagues when I knew I was going to be speaking with a cardiologist today. And I asked them about any questions that they had late or not. I told them I wasn't going to quote any of them. And I have a few I'd like to run by you. One is and kind of a general inquiry that how would one know without pain or some kind of a cardiac arrest moment if there was an issue with their heart. [00:36:22] Yeah. So I don't wait for the cardiac arrest. Very bad way to find out. You have heart disease because recovery from that is very low. Again, just succinctly. Get a few extra blood tests, get blood tests. Go see your doctor. Get your blood pressure check. Get the routine stuff. Maybe ask for the lipoprotein little lei and maybe a test of inflammation. The C reactive protein. [00:36:46] But I'm going to reach over. And just so a visual is always better. This is a practice for sure. But again, if people aren't familiar, there's a great documentary you can find on Netflix called The Widowmaker movie, and I'm not in it. It's about seven, eight years old. But this is a picture of a CAT scan of the heart. That's the bones on the outside. The lungs are black, the heart and the metal. And there's a yellow arrow. If you want to know if you're walking around with silent blocked arteries that you're not aware of, you get is called a coronary artery calcium scan. And you need a prescription generally from your doctor. And you spend, as I say, seventy five. One hundred dollars. If you're being charged more than that. Just call the next hospital. And if you want to learn more about it. The Widowmaker movie, Boom, you'll have all the data you need. And that is now recommended by the American Heart Association and others. This is not a unique viewpoint that I have. Yeah. [00:37:44] OK. And how so? Olive oil, coconut oil and other plant based oils have been something that a lot of people that we've reached out to feel like they've had misinformation about. [00:37:55] And how do you feel about these particular oils when added as condiments or sources to a vegan diet? [00:38:03] So very hot topic when I know a lot about. And I'll give you again a quick answer. You've got to go back to science. Number one, people have been using olive oil for thousands of years. That's not true of coconut oil. It's a basic component of the Mediterranean diet, which we learned in the 1950s resulted in a much lower rate of diabetes, cancer, dementia and heart disease than junky Western foods. So you could ingest in Crete and the island of Crete off of Greece. They drank olive oil like a liter a week. It constituted 40 percent of their calories of their diet. And they had very low rates of these diseases. But it wasn't butter and it wasn't lard and it wasn't ghee. And there's no coconut trees in Crete. It wasn't coconut. There is also very strong data from the Harvard School of Public Health that if you're using butter or if you're using lard and you switch over to extra virgin olive oil, you will def. And actually, it's also true of other plant oils. You will definitely drop your risk statistically of developing heart disease. So olive oil has gotten a very bad rap in some portions of the Vegan world because if you're the very small slice of the pie. It is terrible heart disease. And when somebody comes to me and says, I'm supposed to have bypass surgery next week, what do I do? I'm going to definitely advise them. Whole food, plant based, no added oil diet, because that's consistent with the studies by Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Ornish, Mr. Nathan Pritikin and such. But that's a very small slice. If you're sitting at home and you're healthy. Maybe if add your calcium score down and it's great and you want to drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on your Froogle a salad. God bless you. Enjoy it. It's a delicious way. [00:39:47] And it may actually help you absorb fat soluble vitamins like vitamin D, invite him and even vitamin A out of your foods a little better. So I'm not as rigid that nobody can have oil. Coconut oil has a unique position. It's very high in saturated fat where olive oil, avocado oil and canola oil are very low in saturated fat. And there's just no data that coconut oil actually supports healthy heart lifestyle. It's not part of the Mediterranean diet. Some people mentioned that it just doesn't exist. It's a it's a tropical plant. It's not a Mediterranean basin plant. And there is concern that oil raises cholesterol. The official word to the American Heart and American College of Cardiology Associations is we're concerned avoid eliminated from your diet. Put it on your skin if you want, but don't eat it. There was this trend by Dave Astbury. Here's a cup of coffee. Here's a couple tablespoons of coconut oil. Your brain will be fired up for super function, but some people's cholesterol go insane with that approach. Two hundred to five hundred in three weeks. So if you're going to do it, do it with an experimental mind to at least check your blood work. But I don't use coconut oil. I do use extra virgin olive oil. But I know my arteries are wickedly clean. Thank you. [00:41:09] Absolutely. Well, and to that end, yeah, I did. And once I heard it was going to produce all sorts of brain clarity, I myself down just a straight tablespoon, never felt any clarity. There's that personally. [00:41:21] Try getting a lot of it. You will find clarity in your colon because it causes a very rapid diarrhea. You do. [00:41:28] I did not do enough. That would have stopped me as well. I'm wondering. We've had a lot of feedback from people who've spoken to either advisors, health advisors, to people that said they spoke with doctors, just general M.D. and that said that they shouldn't fast because their calorie intake as vegans is both a little bit more fickle and different from that. They're carnivorous or milk eating counterparts. And Dan, a lot of vegans that are watching the show and listen to it have a relationship with fasting. You yourself have talked about what the doctor, Longo and Autophagy, those things, you know, kind of have been heated conversations even in the Vegan community with cellular repair and things like that. How do you personally stand about vegans fasting from, oh, mad one meal a day, too intermittent or longer? Fast. [00:42:26] On average, a well constructed plan diet has fewer calories in a day than a general American or meat based diet. It's, you know. The food is nutrition dense, but not very calorie dense. If you're eating big salads and beans and peas and grains, you will change up a little bit of use, too much extra virgin olive oil because of the density of calories. And you can bring it up. So we are some people talk about we are like leaning towards fasting naturally day after day after day, because even if it's two or three hundred calories a day, less than our compatriots are eating meat day after day after day, that is less of a metabolic stress on the body. But there is a magic to going a period of time and it may take three or four or even five days of reduced or no calories. I don't do no calorie fasting. I don't do water fasting. I could I'm healthy enough to some people are not healthy enough. Too frail to diabetic to nutritionally imbalanced for heart failure. Some people should. So Dr. Longo created this five day, 800 calorie day plant meal based program called the Fasting Mimicking Diet. That's a trademark name or prolon. That's a trademark. And I'm a big, big advocate because there's some magical responses when you deprive the body of glucose and protein for five days. And this program is a very low glucose, very low protein, high fat, high complex carbohydrate program. With all the food provided, you can you can inhibit some pathways that cause damage and aging. You can activate some pathways that cause rejuvenation, regeneration. You can stimulate stem cells. It's all very high level science. And you will see in 2020 that this particular program, fasting, mimicking diet, combined with cancer, chemotherapy, combined with other programs, is revolutionary, revolutionary, revolutionizing the way we're using nutrition as an adjunct to treating serious disease. But it's a perfectly great choice for somebody just wants to enhance their health. So, you know, there has not been a study. You've got a perfect plant based diet. Will adding on fasting give you some even further health advantage? But there are some people, as I mentioned, they're struggling, they're eating all food based diet, but their weight still isn't at target. Their blood pressure still isn't at Target. Doing fasting with that whole food plant based diet may be the key to turn on metabolism the way they want and get the results they want. Interesting. [00:44:59] Yeah. And finally, we had just a general inquiry as to what your personal thoughts were. And there's been a lot of people a little bit more shocked than not regarding how little their personal doctors or cardiologists and specifically know about nutrition. And I'm wondering if you can speak to your own personal testament as to whether or not you feel like the majority of your colleagues are educated in the science of nutrition and particularly latter day nutrition. [00:45:30] You know, the answer is generally no. There are some that are just completely resistant to the topic and you're not going to get them away from their steak and potato diet. There are some of the younger ones that just can't help but notice the game changers movie they heard about or Tennessee Titans football team or Serena Williams. I mean, it's just too much in the public culture. So they're aware and they may have done some readings from research. There's a growing number of plant based doctors and plant based cardiologists that as many as there should be. But it's growing. But it is frustrating. And again, when you walk into a hospital and there's a Wendy's or you walk in the doctor's dining room and there's fried chicken on a regular basis, you know that there's mixed messages and inconsistent education, that the board exams to become a doctor rarely have any nutrition questions. So that means the curriculum is not going to have much nutrition because one of the goals are going to training is to pass the darn test. And why spend too much time on a topic that's not been tested for? So there's a movement to get more nutrition questions on these board exams, forcing the curriculum to be more nutrition based. I think everybody listening should buy a copy of the plant based solution and gift it to their doctor and we can start a revolution. You know that it's going to take things like that. I mean, I've had the pleasure of giving grand rounds at cardiology departments on nutrition as recently as last week by Xoom and other ways. And it's frankly now 10 percent of the audience has any clue what I'm talking about. And the rest of them are just blown away that there's data about this. But are they blown away and they're going to make changes or are they blown away and they're on to the next topic? I'm only hopeful that it's altering some of their opinion about spend four minutes of your 20 minutes talking to people about nutrition or just tell them to watch forks overnight. I mean, that's what I did for years. I had 15 minutes. One minute was prescription pad. Please watch this movie. I usually actually had at that time DVD they could take home. Now it's just online. So one little statement to a patient can change your life forever. [00:47:41] Is there any index to find or locate cardiologists who are open to or entertaining Vegan or vegetarian diets? [00:47:50] A cardiologist, not exclusively. There is a website article on it called Plant Based Doctors Dot Org. And if you type in your zip code and twenty five mile radius, you know, it might be a therapist, it might be a nurse practitioner and it might be a general internist or cardiologist. But at least from the meetings I go to, there's a few dozen cardiologists, maybe, maybe there's one hundred, but that's out of thousands in the United States. [00:48:18] That's terrifying. Well, I want to say thank you so much, Dr. Khan. We're out of time. I do appreciate you indulging me in our questions and unpacking your books. I really appreciate everything and all of your candor today. [00:48:32] Well, I always appreciate the opportunity. I'm very passionate about talking about what we talked about as one, two, three, four, five people that are listening and maybe 10 times. And many are going to you'll find out something. And even if it's just that blood test lipoprotein little. Hey, but, you know, if you're eating plant based, you are making a quality decision. Don't give up. And if you're having a struggle with it, reach out to somebody in your community or, you know, my clinic does cancels. Let me help you figure out why I click in for you. [00:49:00] Wonderful. Thank you for everyone listening. We've been speaking with Dr. Joel Klein. You can discover more about him, all of his research on W WW, Dr. Jill Concow. You can also purchase all of the books mentioned here on Amazon until we speak again next time. [00:49:17] Remember to eat clean, eat responsibly, stay in love with the world and always bet on yourself. Slainte.  

Today I chat with Kristin Lajeunesse. Kristin is a published author and founder of the award-winning website Will Travel for Vegan Food (based on a two-year van-dwelling excursion that took her through all 50 states and an eight-month-long around-the-world trip). In January 2011, Kristin quit her 9-5 desk job in an effort to eat at every single vegan restaurant in the country. Kristin continued to travel full-time for 8 consecutive years while building her business from all over the world. Kristin has a Master of Arts in Integrated Marketing Communication from Emerson College. Follow Kristin’s travel excursions at @wtfveganfood.com (Instagram) and her dancer meets copywriter business at @kristinlaj (Instagram). This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

Today I am talking to Tina Newman.Tina is the author of the new vegan children's book series 'Vivi the Supervegan.' She is a writer, makeup artist and qualified Animal Nursing Assistant living in Suffolk, UK. Tina shares her home and life with her husband, dog and her two own little supervegans; Lyla and Ada. She has created 'Vivi the Supervegan' with the hope that her stories will encourage children to take a stand and empower them to be compassionate and kind to all kinds. This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

Corinne is currently a writer at Inner Bombshell and Vegans From Venus,  two different lifestyle blogs featuring vegan, organic, plant-based, and cruelty-free brands, companies, and products.  She was a vegetarian for over 20 years who turned vegan four years ago to better her health and that of the planet. As a fitness instructor with over 15 years of experience, she has challenged her client's mindset to adapt to a healthier lifestyle by incorporating more vegan/plant-based food choices. She has also worked as an actress, fashion designer, dancer, choreographer, and scriptwriter. She is a wife, mother to three beautiful little girls, and five adoring animals. Her life's commitment is to be the "Voice" for the "unheard" specifically the magnificent animals of the world. This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

Ingrid Newkirk is the founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)—the largest animal rights organization in the world, with more than 6.5 million members and supporters worldwide.She is the author of more than a dozen books that have been translated into several languages, including her latest,Animalkind: Remarkable Discoveries About Animals and Revolutionary New Ways to Show Them Compassion.Instagram: @peta  Facebook: @official.peta  Twitter: @peta  Snapchat: @OfficialPETA  Pinterest:  @OfficialPETA  Ingrid Newkirk's Twitter: @IngridNewkirk  PETA's official website: PETA.orgThis series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. 

Today I am speaking with Fiona Oakes. Fiona has been vegan since the age of 6 years old.  She is a World Record-breaking Marathon runner currently holding 4 Guinness World Records including being the fastest woman to run a Marathon on every Continent and the North Pole in both days and time elapsed.  She is an Elite road Marathoner having top 20 places in 2 of the World's Major Marathons - London and Berlin and the Great North Run - along with many Marathon wins and course records around the world.  She is also an accomplished ultra runner having completed Marathon des Sables 3 times winning stages of some of the most grueling multi-stage ultra events in the world - all this despite a disability which Medical Professionals advised would render her incapable of running at all due to multiple orthopedic surgeries in her teenage years.  She is co-founder of the Vegan Runners - now a global resource for all plant-based athletes and 'go-to' destination for anyone interested in combining plant-based living with running events.  She is an Honorary Patron of the Vegan Society, Patron of Freedom for Animals.  Fiona is the Founder of her own animal sanctuary Towerhill Stables, where she currently cares for over 600 rescued animals.  This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.TRANSCRIPTION*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors[00:00:00] In this episode, I had the rare opportunity to speak with founder of Tower Hill Stables, Animal Rescue and Sanctuary and co-founder of the Vegan runners Fiona Oakes. Key points addressed were Fiona's title of four Guinness World Records in distance running, including being the fastest woman to run a marathon on every continent and the North Pole, and how this endeavor was merely the vehicle to carry her true life's work of rescuing animals and expanding positive imagery about the Vegan lifestyle and philosophy. Stay tuned for my talk with Fiona.  [00:00:44] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen dot COM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Podbean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:40] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today I'm elated to be sitting down with Fiona Oakes.  [00:01:47] Fiona is the co-founder of the Vegan Runners and she is the founder of Tower Hill Stables. Animal Rescue and Sanctuary. You can find out more.  [00:02:02] Hi, Fiona. We're so excited to have you on today. Fantastic. We have a little bit of a time delay, but we're gonna get through that for everyone listening. I'll read a quick bio on it. Absolutely. For everyone listening, I'm going to read a quick bio on Fiona.  [00:02:19] But before that, I'm going to proffer you a quick roadmap for today's podcast. You can follow the trajectory in which our inquiries will be based. We will first look at unpacking Phiona's Vegan story and her life becoming a prolific marathon runner. We'll look at some of her childhood before we launch straight into her marathon running and ultra running career, distinct between our draw distinctions between marathons versus ultramarathons. The reasons why Fiona has been running them. And then we're going to look at some of the particulars within those communities being a Vegan athlete as they pertain to Phiona's story. We'll look at injuries. We'll look at running world records, breaking everything that she has done. And then we'll also unpack. We'll turn our efforts towards looking at a brief overview of the documentary. It was based on Fiona running for good. And then we'll start unpacking the work that she's doing at Tower Hill Stable, which is an impetus for a lot of her work. And we'll wrap everything up with goals and advice that Fiona may have for those of you who are looking to get involved or kind of follow her. A brief bio, as promised on Fiona. Fiona Oakes has been Vegan since the age of six years old. She is a world record breaking marathon runner, currently holding four Guinness World Records, including being the fastest woman to run a marathon on every continent and the North Pole in both days and time elapsed. She is an eat elite road marathon marathoner, having top 20 places in two of the world's major marathons, London and Berlin and the Great North run, along with many marathon winds and course records around the world. She is also an accomplished ultra runner, having completed the marathon, their seventh three time winning stages of some of the most grueling multi-stage ultra events in the world. All this despite a disability which medical professionals advised would render her incapable of running at all due to multiple orthopedic surgeries in her teenage years. She's a co-founder of the Vegan Runners, now a global resource for all plant based athletes and a go to destination for anyone interested in combining plant based living with running events. She is an ordinary pay honorary patron of the Vegan Society, Patron of Freedom for Animals. Fiona is the founder of her own animal sanctuary. Tower Hill Stables, where she currently cares for over 600 rescued animals. Again, you can find out more on w w w dot. Tower Hill Stables dot org. Fiona. Before I begin unpacking a little bit about your running story and your Vegan story within that, I'm hoping that you can draw us. The story about becoming Vegan at the age of six is in and of itself rare. And you had a very unique childhood. I'm wondering if you can.  [00:05:19] Yeah, I mean, I went to the Vegan when I was six years old. I didn't understand the word Viðga and I have to say I've never heard of it. I understand its principle behind it.  [00:05:30] If you love something, you don't harm it. I loved animals. I didn't want to hurt them. I went vegetarian when I was three years old. Simple equation. I don't want to eat the flesh of animals. And as the years went by, I asked my mom, you know what? Why do these other products come from? Where does the letter come from? Where the eggs come from? We never really have milk in the house. And I'm very lucky in that my mom was honest with me and she told me the truth. It was a big thing at the time. This is in the early 1970s. We were lucky in that my mom had a role model, intensive music teacher that taught my mom when she was a child. She was actually a Vegan lady that a new Donelle. What's in the founders of Egen Society in the UK? My mom was kept in touch with them because my mom was a musician. So she was able to articulate to my mom in adult terms what I was going through with trials. It wasn't an easy path for us. Not my parents. You know, parents and my family were vegetarian. Viðga, not even particular big animal Lafitte's. I have to say. And I was very lucky to have the support of my mom. When I went to the hospital and had my surgeries in my teenage years, it was wasn't very, very difficult. Times may in terms of a I was in in plaster, cast a lot on crutches for about three years on and off. But more than that. Veganism was aligned to an eating disorder. And my mom was accused multiple times of child abuse for allowing me to be taken, which was a very, very bad thing because my mom at the time was a nurse. And so obviously she was working in the hospital and it came out, you know, the daughter was following this, what they call a weird diet. And it was very, very difficult time. I got through that, but I missed most of my education. I then went to also study privately to get some sort of qualifications behind me. I was going to be secretary and I came to London to work and. But it was always in my heart. I wanted to be around animals and it was always a dream to start an animal sanctuary. I never thought that dream would ever become a reality. In fact, people write to me now and say, you know, how do we get an animal sanctuary? And I had to say, be creative. Grab every opportunity. Can. There's no kind of set formula. You know, a must be will see. You got a sanctuary. To me, it happened by accident. I was doing a lot rescued from a rented accommodation that was living in and working in London. One of the horses I got a from had an accident. He was taken to the vet. It was 13 weeks. And at that point we decided we can no longer continue with this model, which was basically giving all the people all our money to cast the animals in a way that we didn't find satisfactory. So while I was at the vet having surgery rates we set about.  [00:08:24] Try to trying to get and get trying to get a property with some land, which wasn't easy to live quite near to London. It was a major struggle. I still don't know how it happened. I mean, I always joke and say at the time, my mom was always a great support. She probably got more mortgages in some time, that building society at the time. She'd like borrowed money, my family money. I've got a great aunt who is 98 years old and she got her funeral money under her bed in a and that came out to I to try and get and probably try and get the animal safe. And twenty five years ago, we managed to get a small property, which is Talil Stables. We didn't set it up as a sanctuary or a business or anything like that. It was a place of sanctuary for the animals I'd already rescued and it started from there. But after a few years, probably a couple of three years, I realized. I know I can rescue animals, I can rescue 40 active, rescue 400 animals, but I can't stop the cause of why they're needing rescue, uncomfortably hitting symptoms. I need to do something positive to promote veganism, because if the world were more more vegan friendly or more people were Vegan a plant based, then less animals would go through the factory farming train and hopefully the balance would be tipped at some point and veganism would become the norm. But back in the early notice, it was a struggle. How do you do this?  [00:09:50] You know, there was no you know, for younger people, they forget they don't really know what time before social media, before you could just put something on Instagram or Snapchat or Facebook. It was hard. You have to use the mainstream media and press you probably to do that. You have to do something bad, something good, or something very sensationalistic. Well, the only thing that I could think of was to do something good. Always been quite sporty. I was supposed to be for my surgeries. It put an end to my running my network my whole career. When I was in Oxford, up in cycling, because that was continuous motion, like strengthening. So I knew that I was. But, you know, the only sport, especially women's sport, that was garnering any attention in the U.K. was marrison winning that for all the hashtags attached to it because Paula Radcliffe was selling and kind of it was being billed as the toughest thing in athletic event on the calendar. It was grueling if you could do a marista. And he was punishing April. All right. So mentally and physically. So I kind of thought to myself, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could just come PTM and hopefully complete a Morrisson to show definitively that being Vegan is not prohibitive in any way to this most kind of extreme endurance sport. So that's kind of how the marathon running started purely to promote veganism. I didn't do it for any other reason. I still don't run for any other reason than to do that.  [00:11:22] Yeah, I think that's one of the most. I've never heard of another distance runner that doesn't talk about this. This rush or this high or this other emotive.  [00:11:31] This other physical pay-out that running does. And it is using it as a soul for a force of marketing is really unique. I'm wondering, when you started off, you already had your sanctuary, correct? When you started marathon running, it was to get word and promote word out about veganism. Let's really quickly, I kind of want to get on to Tower Hill Stables because you don't run it a lot of sanctuaries, at least in the United States. I'm not sure about UK, but they have a business model behind them. They lead Torvill. Is it all donation based? How is it based?  [00:12:08] Well, actually, when we started it, it was all off funding. We put money into it. And I always said that I could never look anyone in the eye and take their money unless I could very well say I was 100 percent invested in my own sanctuary, financially, physically, mentally, spiritually. I'm giving everything. I've got 100 percent on the line if you want to help me. That's great. And we still put all our own money into it. I work part time as a firefighter. I would say merchant banking for many, many years. My parents live with us all that pensions go into it. And people support the sanctuary. You know, in the membership, you know, that they join and they give regular donations. They fundraise for us. But it's kind of it was it stopped. Everything I've done, it's been kind of starts from gut instinct and the heart with the head kind of adding little bits along the way. So it's not it's not a business model. There isn't a business plan behind anything I've done. When I started running, I didn't think, you know, by year one, I want to do this. By year three, I want a world record. I had to be creative and I've gone with the flow. It's kind of organic and it's grown with me. And yeah, the mogul behind Tower Hill is still it's a very much it's not a business. It's a play.  [00:13:27] It's a home forever home. So the animals. So we'll go I've got 600. I still deliver the day care. It's the way I can do it through continuity. I like to be very, very hands on here, even though I didn't do a lot of mileage with my running. And it's hung to them. It's not a business. It's not a it's not like a petting play store. It's very much geared around them. They I always said, you know, it's not kind of a fun place for me to be if I'm having fun.  [00:13:58] There's something wrong. They're the ones that supposed to be having fun. Ananda The supposed to be providing it for them with me, overseeing it, making sure they've got everything that they need, which is a big project in itself. I mean, 600 animals. I haven't got like six on tiny little hamsters. I've got like 150 pigs. I've got 110 horses. I've got like sixty six cows. I've got over a hundred sheep sheets. I've got a lot bigger animals. So just project managing everything that they need to be where and when they need it. It's a big ask, but it's something I do. It's just from the heart. I love it. I can't imagine not being here for the animals. And the running is always very secondary to running the sanctuary. And I think that's been a great move. Probably my greatest motivator with my running. It's been lack of time. If I don't go out and do it when I get a small window around the animals, I can't find tools. So I'm kind of never got much time to think about or running. I'm just flat out back back into the wellies and back outside doing the sanctuary. And that's what I wanted to portray in the film. I'm very much an amateur amateur running boxing way above my weight when I actually get to races. And I think obviously I've been Vegan for a very, very long time, nearly five decades. And one of my strengths. Some people ask me what my strengths are. My strengths probably is that I know very little, but I always want to learn more. So I don't put myself on a pedestal and think, you know, I am Vegan Svengali. I know everything I've done. I mean, I'm always learning more and more and more whether is sanctuary about my running or my own personal abilities and inhibitive. So when I, I always yeah, I do everything from the heart and go in saying I never really have much time to think about what I'm doing. In fact, when Keegan came and made the documentary and started to ask questions, I had to really delve inside myself for answers because I'd never really stopped to think why I'm doing this. It just feels right. The time grabby go on with it. That's that's how I thought to be, because, you know, veganism over the last few years, it's kind of exploded. But it's been a very, very long, hard struggle for me. And there's been no road levels in terms of what I want to achieve. So I've had to go and set the benchmarks for myself. But, yeah, so it's it's a constant, constant struggle. But it's a long day. I mean, people ask you, how can you see only perhaps three in the morning? I've told you know, it's it's it's three decades I've been doing that. It's the only way I can get done what I need to do in a day. So as I say, you have to be creative if you want to do something. And there's real desire, motive behind what you do. And I believe you can do it. And with my running, I'm always very keen to tell people. I know I have no talent. That is where my strength is. I know that I'm going to have to work very, very hard to achieve what I want. To do the motive is the better I can run, the better. I can do the job I'm out to do, which is promote veganism in a positive way. Obviously, the faster you can run, if you can win races, the top place in races, that's the incentive to get to the finish line quicker. For me, not a trophy or a medal or Keagan came and it's like, where are all your medals? Where all your trophies? I don't know, because when I get home, that's that's the running back door. I'm back out with the animals. I hope that the the the achievement so the results speak for themselves. But I'm not I'm not a big person to talk about what I've done, particularly because I always want to do more. And it's always a great leveler to see that, you know, 70 billion animals go through the animal agricultural industry every year. I've got six hundred rescues here, which is a tiny fraction of what I want to achieve. And, you know, whether people choose to go Vegan or not, we are pushing for that. We're pushing for a better world, for a fairer, more just Woelfel. But it's slow progress. So whatever the animals are suffering while other people are suffering, while ever the zone distribution of resources around the world, I figure that I haven't got an awful lot time or need to sit back and congratulate myself because my job isn't done yet.  [00:18:25] So I'm wondering, you use your body, as you know, in your endeavors, this activity, the sport, you know, you're using it as the ultimate marketing campaign.  [00:18:35] And and because of that, you know, you just said you didn't you had to go back inside and think as the documentary was being filmed. You hadn't had a lot of answers. You were the answer. You know, you were showing people that this this sport could be done by someone living a Vegan lifestyle. And you want to draw attention to Vegan issues and efforts. And I'm wondering when people did approach you along the way. First of all, when you ran your first race, how did you train for it? Did you have a coach? A lot of really intense distance runners have coaches that they're involved with and they come with. How did that all work?  [00:19:14] OK. When I started to think about marrison winning, I thought, I mean, there was no resource on the Internet. So I mean that, you know, it was early notice there was nothing you could not Google Google search, you know. So three hour marathon training program or anything like that. So I started by kind of finding a local short distance race, you know, like a half marathon, seeing if I could do that. And I did. And I won eight an OK. Well, marrison running. I was under the very, very silly misconception that a marathon with two 1/2 marathons back to back. How wrong could I be? No, I heard all these kind of spurious told that a marathon begins at 20 miles. No, no, no. It's like thirteen point one mile. That's halfway through Miles. No, not it's completely wrong. And Marathon really does begin at twenty miles up to that point. You just on cruise control, the last thing, the way you can suffer. So honestly, I learned by trial and error by winning a few local show distance races. I had attracted some attention regarding coaching, but the deal breaker was the veganism. Nobody wanted to coach Vegan isolate. Nobody wanted to waste that time with me. So as I explained, promoting veganism is the only reason I'm out there. So it's it's a deal breaker tonight to take the next level in tomorrow's ceremony was quite a hard decision for me because I realize that the training was going to be so much more specific and time consuming, basically, than for short distance races. You can block your way through a 10K and a half marathon. You can't do it through a marathon. I started off like with trial and error, lots of trials, loss. I was just thinking I could do lots of miles and I would get quicker by doing lots of math. You will get on by running lots of distance, but you won't get a whole lot faster until you do specific speed work. So I kind of looked at what all the people were doing and I formulated my own idea. I realize that you've probably got to do two or three speed sessions a week. That was difficult to me. I did look at joining a local running club, want to say locally quite some distance away. And that speed session was not going to see it because it was done on the track. And I can't when the benefits, that money is too bad. So I have to do my speed, work on a treadmill. I always have done and I always do on it. Some people are a bit sniffy about treadmill work, but that's how I have to do it. And the only thing I do say is on the positive side of treadmills, they don't lie to you. They run at the speed that, you know, they're running out. So, you know, you kind of get a good kind of judge away wrap. But I just formulated my own way and it was all going to be had to be hard pressed to me. So nine sessions a week, three speed sessions with recovery runs longer mid weight on the Hill sessions and a very long run on Sunday. I think the one thing about me that I'm very robust in terms is physically very strong. And I can take the training. And I think that's a testament to my plant based lifestyle. Over two decades, I still put out the results for Cubby. Hey, I was representing my country for Half-Marathon and 10K and Chip to do very well in my race in the South. And so I've got a wide, wide range of events I can do. And I've never had a running injury. I've had injuries which have impacted my running and indeed my knee. It does bother me when I run. When I started running on road marathons at about 20 miles, the continuous motion, the pounding of one stride length was very, very painful. But I realized quickly if I stopped running the pain stop.  [00:23:02] So I realized once it damaged myself, it was just if I could write to the mental barrier of pain, I did. It was Paula Radcliffe that I once listened to and she said, You do not want to go to the start line of any race, least of all a marathon, knowing that you are carrying an injury. I've never been to the start line of any race knowing that I'm not carrying one, but I don't focus on it. I put it behind me, a place on the elite staff. I'm not making excuses for money. I was told I wouldn't work properly. I do live when I run. I didn't realize how much I lived till I saw the film. But I know I'm I'm there on my own merits. I don't want to make excuses. And I started with the Daily Road races purely because it was some time effective for me to Big Morison's a year, autumn and and spring. You literally probably spend four months how training three weeks cycling and go and hit them hard. And it was always I could probably not do that every local race or county race that was on the calendar. But I just wanted something more than that. I wanted to be able to in one soundbite say. A polite place overall in the Amsterdam marrison drunk, a world class race, was also financially very, very struggling because obviously I've got 600 mouths to feed, so mine is better off than the last one I'm actually considering. So being invited to races was cost effective. It wasn't costing me anything to go. It was a strange, bizarre kind of juxtaposition. I mean, I'm literally miss amateur runner, you know, bumming around the house, looking for my trainers and my thoughts and whatever. And then you're on a flight to a race you picked up by a chauffeur driven car. You taken to the elite hotel and you find yourself in a technical meeting with Heilig Guy. So I think it's like, whoa, what's going on here? But it's really it was never planned. I never really thought about it too much. I've never had any problem motivating myself to run because the end goal is always that I want to be the best representative I can. So the animals and for veganism. And if one person sees what I'm doing and he's interested or wants more information or can be convinced that it can be done, then that's my job done. So, yeah, I use the running.  [00:25:27] I mean, I kind of watch how it's gonna be and it's gonna be time consuming to do what I'm doing. It's gonna be really, really hard to run a hundred miles a week, but it's free advertising for the animal sanctuary in terms of people say, you know, hey, what do you do? You know, I run an animal sanctuary. That's great. And also later, after a couple years, it was literally to promote veganism because I haven't actually thought about the potential of starting a dedicated Vegan running clip that came about in 2004 when I got my first elite star in a major marathon that was London. And the guy that I was running with live in. The only kind of running club that had any connection with the reason I was out there was the vegetarian cycling and athletics. And Vader actually said to me, you know, hey, you know, you do realize that you're going to be standing shoulder to shoulder with the best runners in the world. You're going to be going up forty five minutes ahead of the main field. You're going to be you a handful of women, and you're going to have the streets of London to yourself. And the crowds are going to say, well, I'm not. Let's start a vague and running plot. They need to see that word. And it was that simple connection. And, you know, people see you in the elite club just so they know you're a good runner. You don't have to tell people you're a good runner. They know you while you do that with the best. And if you're literally a billboard going through London on private roads with a camera on you, you know, the BBC or whatever, filming it with this big investor, what what could be better? A positive advertising. Can you have to the call if you're out there doing. So that's when we start to Vegan run us back in 2004. And people do ask me, you know, what is your proudest moment within running? And I have to say. I think our big surprise it's being that co-founder of Vegan run is because now I mean, when we started it, I was pretty much the only Vegan in the village in terms of running. Now we've got thousands of members worldwide going out and doing this job. So it's so much more effective than just one first, me doing it. And to be part of that at the beginning does make me, you know, enormously proud of my my fellow Vegan, my fellow Vegan athletes on the job that doing being ambassadors for what we all believe in.  [00:27:40] What do you think? On to that same vein. In that same light. What do you think the most major impact has been for this thing that came?  [00:27:48] Was it the shoe deal was at the drop of the documentary? Was it cofounding Vegan runners that you saw a significant shift, both sociological and financial, that you kind of contributed towards the Vegan effort? Was there any moment over the past decade and a half that you saw this? This thing that I did really shifted it? Was it when you were in the Guinness World Records? Was it obtaining that for the cause for the industry, all of that stuff?  [00:28:16] Yeah, I mean, actually, it's quite controversial in terms of the way veganism has actually moved over the last certainly decade, five years, perhaps Vegan run has grown steadily through membership. That started in 2004. But what I actually found along the way is that I got quite a lot of media interest for what I was doing, but the focus was never on the Vegan part of it. You know, so you might get, you know, the big national newspaper, The Daily Mail, you know, kind of helping you most inspirational woman of the year. So you run off, you buy 50 copies of the newspaper. You know, we do that in ten or eleven and you reading through and, you know, this amazing woman is run across desert and she's done all this to the animals. And you think it's not mentioned the fact that I'm Vegan. And even when I broke the world's records, I had a kind of a newspaper deal that when I came back, you know, I kind of said, look, I'm not spread. One will record. I've broken three, you know, it's story. And eventually they explained to me, look, we've made an error. It was coming up to Christmas. And there were two major supermarkets, Aldi and little, that were trying to break into the kind of luxury market, you know, like Tesco and Science and Waitrose in the U.K. And they were doing a lot of advertising, really, really pushing advertising at the time. And he said, you know, we can't, like, contradict what they're advertising of turkeys and exotic foods by promoting inside our newspaper veganism in such kind of, you know, work out that way because they pay all, they pay our wages, the advertisers pay our wages.  [00:29:54] And it's always been a real struggle to get people to talk about veganism. And I know hopefully is asked about. I was doing the London Marathon and I had the BBC sports correspondent came up to the sanctuary to film me before the race rights and actually challenged him with this. And he said it's basically open until about 2015, 2016. Veganism was aligned with terrorism because a lot of activism was illegal activism, and so they weren't going to promote it. So up until that point, it was really, really difficult and I didn't really know why. So I'm not doing anything. You know, I'm just going out there and hitting the road. How can you top 20 places with a real amateur runner? And I've got this disability, but I think after about 2016.  [00:30:44] Truthfully might be a bit controversial. Now I know she's the real big shift in the Vegan movement. It went to a little bit more plant based and I it's quite well recorded and documented that I was actually filmed for the game changes. So James Wilkes came out in 2013 and filmed wait for this idea. He'd had to make a film about veganism and went back to Hollywoods. And it was it went on hold. You couldn't get the fundraising then back in 2015. He got the fundraising from the Avatar Foundation. James Cameron put money in and he wrote to me and said, Hey, Fjellner, want to come back with Louis Savoy us and we want to film you Sanctuary because you are basically the foremost Viðga athlete that I want in this film. And they came out and they filmed over two or three days only running film with the animals still running up to Morrisson to solve little time. And they went way over that year. I detected a change at kind of a shift in terms of veganism. The diet was becoming more credible, but not the ethic behind it. It was shifted to more plant based. And I think that I was dropped from the film because it looked a bit of a ridiculous juxtaposition that you got athletes on, that you haven't been Vegan that long. And we're talking about performance spikes and benefits of veganism. And I was coming it from a completely different angle to saying I'm vegan because it's the right thing. It just right is wrong time animals. And it was kind of a bit too much of that sense for me. KEAGAN Labor unions. Good.  [00:32:27] That was kind of kind of.  [00:32:30] A pivotal point in, you know, a lot of people became aware of me rich role did the narrative for it. So that helped. And I'm quite low paying, you know, to say what I've done. I don't push myself. I'm not a celebrity. Instagram tried several. I don't particularly want any recognition for myself. Fiona, I only want recognition for the animals and justice. So I'm not somebody who wants to push themselves forward, particularly because I've got my feet on the ground. And I know that what I've done, although it seems enormous to a lot of people for my my own reasoning, I haven't done enough. And I want to do more. Also, I think that a lot of people kind of felt a bit threatened by me because a lot of people are talking a rhetoric, but they have to kind of walk the walk. I haven't got the credentials and I've got like eons of credential. There were many, many years. And I think that they failed in some way negates what they're doing, which is which is not at all, you know, not what I'm thinking. You know, I just want to encourage people to to be vague and not to I don't want to sell them anything. I don't want to. Is stopping me a little bit. You know, the game changes. It was hitting. It's an audience that they felt that they got to sell them something. But, you know, you're going to feel better. You're going to feel great. You're going to have this massive performance by and it's kind of a testament to human beings that they always want a return for. What they're doing was returned return to me. It's just knowing that what I'm doing and it's the right thing and it's not harming others.  [00:34:07] Yeah, my father used to always say, you don't do the right thing to get in to heaven. You do the right thing to do the right thing. It in itself is the reason. And I think that that's crucial.  [00:34:19] You're kind of hitting on a very interesting point that this series has unearthed and really looked at it, particularly from people across all different industries that we've been speaking with. And it's this conversation that's blown up over the past five years. And it's it's fueled by marketing and money and Hollywood, as you are now bringing up. I did notice that you weren't attached to game changers and wondered why, because you are such this, your history and your legacy. I understand the the rebuking of the personal fame and things like that, but it does need a body to be hosted on. And we've chose you've chosen that body as you and your running, you know. And so within that, you have kind of risen through the ranks as a name that gets tossed around a great deal about these prolific athletes that are Vegan and carrying the word about veganism through places like sports where people just thought it couldn't exist.  [00:35:10] And I'm curious where you personally, if someone who didn't know anything about any of this industry was talking with you tomorrow and said wouldn't plant based in being Vegan, what how would you quickly discern that for that?  [00:35:26] Well, plan based is about what you eat. Veganism is the reason behind what you eat, and it's everything in your life. It's the S8. I mean, for instance, could you be plump based and wear leather shoes, you know? Is it just about your food and you? Or is it about the animals and the wider picture and the environment and other human beings suffer because of your food choices? You know what I mean? Yes, me. Veganism is the food.  [00:35:58] The diet is it's just one tiny part of it. It's the it's the ethical sounds about justice for all that's most important. And people are a bit shocked when they you know, they learn about what what how, i.e., I eat like I've always eaten, which is very bright. Basically, I go to a lot of these athletes forums and they're all trying to sell protein powders. And they sat in the other I don't have any of those things. I don't endorse any of those things because it would be a lie to say that I do use them. I have a very, very basic lifestyle. I eat fresh vegetables, i.e. whole grains. I eat, you know, not siy beans, chickpeas. And I have to think very, very carefully about the cost of my food because I have got this massive burden of responsibility caring for the animals. And I would rather see than me, the myself, the and I only one meal a day as well, which people find extraordinary. But since May it suits my lifestyle and happy with that. I don't try to tell the people what to do and how to do it. It's their choices of how they live. That's me. And I'm not top of my list of priorities. When I don't think much about myself, I genuinely don't.  [00:37:20] I think I get the greatest fulfillment is helping others, and that's honestly the troops. It's not a natural reaction to me to want to walk Kammerer. I felt when I went to Hollywood thoughtful. The film premieres when it's good. Rich Well came up to me and congratulated me on the film and said, Oh my God, it's amazing and you're incredible and what you think to it. I said, No, no, I'm saying it. Yeah. And he kind of looks at you haven't seen the film. And I said no because like, who wants to watch itself on a screen, you know? I mean, I don't know. So it made me kind of dragging me down to the front of the auditorium to watch it. And I'm kind of hiding out. I've got to look decent. Yeah. I mean, the desert, you know, it's got all the gear on, you know, the scenery and everything. And the first thing I see is this little kind of crazy moto figure limping out the desert. I look like crazy, but I've got to go right big backpack on. And I say, oh my God, I really love what I run. And I know it looks good when I run into races and people come promoted to news that, hey, you feel right. I've seen your film. Yeah. You know, I was in it and there's like, you know, I thought it was you because I noticed you were limping when you were. Well, you really. Oh yeah. But, you know, I yeah. I mean them to me, the you know, the greatest achievement is that people have seen what I've done and say, you know, hey, I can do that. And I can just mean within the Vegan. So I mean within the disability as well. You know, a lady wrote to me last week coming on social media on Instagram, she said, I've had two surgeries on my patellar and I've now been told that I've got to have it removed and that I will not be able to run or continue with cross country that she did. I will wear a brace for the rest of my life and somebody directed it towards what really good said. I'm right. Thank you. I don't expect you right back. Is there any hope on I said, you know, that's exactly what I was told you got thirty odd years ago and I hope I can inspire you to you know, nothing is written, you know, nothing is written. You can you can write your own book if you choose to sell it. That's that's what I can hope I can inspire others to do. And, you know, if people do want to, you know, are doubtful about Vegan, it's a you know, and I remember once I went to a race now it was a big, big intercounty championship and it was a marathon on a train for it. And my mom would come with me and she was standing with them. The people were handing out the prizes. The lady my risk was there and the race organizers and they said, oh, who you want to forge that? I'm raising my daughter. And this is a really real tough cause. I don't think anybody's ever beaten three hours on this cause it's like ninety. And they said, you know what, you know what time she looking for. And my mom was desperate to say she's not looking for a time. She's looking to win because, you know, winning is what she wants to do for the animals. And I came out to say China was winning. I've broken three hours. And the lady, my rest, when she presented me with the prizes, she said, oh, my gosh.  [00:40:19] She said, I was talking to your mother. And, you know, you've been Vegan said ages, years and years and years. My daughter wants. Vegetarian and I was reluctant to allow it to. I was worried about a growing process, whether it be detrimental. But seeing you at your age thriving, that I've got no issues with it now. So I hope that that's the kind of role model I can offer in terms of the fight. You know, if you're interested, what you're going to be like in 10, 20, 30 is to be plump based or are you going to whatever then look at me because I'm still thriving. I was due to go back to my roots in salt. It's the fourth time I say representing my country on the road, you know, and I'm healthy. I mean, I don't take any medications. I don't take any supplements. I still try, you know, like today I did a three hour room with an eight kilogram backpack and KG White's on my hands. And I look after all the animals and I still am a firefighter.  [00:41:11] Amazing. I want to get into it for everyone listening who doesn't have a background really quickly so that they know what we're talking about. The marathon disserves is really quickly a quick description.  [00:41:22] I scrubbed from the Internet. It's a six day, 251 kilim kilometer ultra marathon, which is approximately the distance of six regular marathons. The longest single stage is ninety one kilometers long.  [00:41:34] This multiday race is held every year in southern Morocco, obviously not this year in the Sahara Desert. It has been regarded as the toughest foot race on Earth. And indeed, as a documentary cited, you're required to purchase funeral insurance prior to entering the race because people have died on it.  [00:41:54] I'm curious first. My first thought was because it didn't capture any footage among your colleagues and fellow runners. What kind of rhetoric do you have before races, particularly on one like this, where you were in a tent with, you know, several other runners? Does anyone ever talk to you about your diet?  [00:42:11] Does anyone ever get into, you know, veganism or how relations with other runners or did they kind of like, let you be?  [00:42:21] Yeah, no, I mean, the first time I did in 2012, veganism was enough, people weren't aware of the word Vegan is little what he wasn't. I remember you literally turn out and you find you take it into the desert a military vehicles and you find 10 very often in the dark. It's late night and you find a place to put your sleeping bag. And that's where you will be for the eight days that you that so you wake up and you kind of me. I probably don't even get to know him the night before. And so the first year with I, you know, some of my guys walking around say, oh, my God, you know, you think you've got about ten. We've got like an Irishman, a Scotsman, a Welshman, an Englishman and a Vegan woman. And it's kind of, you know, you have to kind of convince them that way. Is the bigger woman that was actually. Bethany, if you're running well, if you're strong, if could beat them, they have to kind of look and listen. That year, I had a really, really tough race. In the week before I broke two toes at the animal sanctuary I hosted on them. So I was challenged with either not going to in the cell or going out there with two fractured toes. I elected to go. I had a really, really tough time. It was appalling. By the time the race finished to run alongside, you could see the bones sticking out a little toe. It was it was brutal because, of course, your feet swell in the hay. You get sand in your shoes. It's a really, really tough challenge. But the guys were, you know, took it well because that was the strongest among them. So, you know, they've got to kind of respect you. In 2014, I was in the race and I was riding really, really high in the rankings and top place. But unfortunately, one I templates needed me more than I needed to place in the marathon assailable. He had leukemia and he was on chemotherapy. And by day two, he was wanting to tackle. And I said to him, look, Mike, you know, there are love. I know what this is like. In 2012, I was the first Vegan woman to complete this race. All eyes were on me. I hadn't made a big thing about the fact of fractured toes. It was a tough loss. I was carrying a huge backpack because there was no ethical Vegan like sleeping bags. For me, everything was very, very heavy. I said, I know what you're right. And there are a lot of people around the world looking at you to know that, you know, you've got leukemia. It's not defining what your limitations are. And, you know, tobacco is going to be a really, really bad thing. So if you can get through the next day, which was like 30 or 40 K whatever, it was a long stage you were frightened about. I was frightened about being out there in the Sahara Desert alone in that kind of heat going through the night chemotherapy. I said if no one else will stay with you and you still want to do it all. So we took my rights away and I'll be there at your side. And he came back I and student self into my arms, you know. Each state was taking me about four hours. Was taking him 11 or 12 hours. And he said, does your offer still stands tomorrow? Because I really want to try and do it. And so I mentored him round the long stage. It was very, very tough. He was in a real state. But for me, the running I think the definition of my running is it is compassion over competition, whether that compassion be towards non-human or human animals. It's that's the reason I'm out there. And so in 2017, the guys I shared with I was I didn't have any license as the film or what Keegan was going to show. I mean, a lot people don't realize I'd done the race two, two times before. You did interview someone that's templates. And I was very flattered that one of them did say if you asked them if you had to come back to this godforsaken place, what would you bring? And it was Tafawa, a guy from Kuwait, who actually said to me, except Keegan. I bring Jonah because she just, like, knows everything. Will help everyone. She's funny and I love being around her and I thought that was the very, very great compliment. But, yeah, I mean, you do. I mean, in a race like that, you live very, very close, close proximity with your teammates. You can make or break your race. You don't want to be trudging along saying, you know, I don't want to get back to that goodness awful ten. I'm sharing this, but I've never had that. I've had some really good guys. And even though the experience is particularly brutal, whoever you are in that race, however you're going. It's hard. It takes some very, very dark places. I don't know whether he's just the British or whatever, but we always laugh real. We always want to cue the award invasion and laugh about it, although it's so horrible. You probably don't know why you would be crying. You get through it. It's it's it's a real privilege and a learning curve to be out there. And I think the most appreciated you become when you come back into your civilian world is the resources you turn the tap on and Walter comes out. That's a miracle. You know, you don't think is the Evian or Paria or sparkling or fruit flavored water. And you can drink it because you're so used to being limited and challenge to food. I mean, you carry everything you've got for the whole week. You have to carry from day one on your back. So you pack weighs about eight kilos. It gets lighter as the week goes on because using your food, but you're getting weaker as the week goes on. So everything that's in that pack you appreciate. So I've seen people like trading a piece of toilet paper for a painkiller. You know, it's literally make grown men cry. But it's it's a great leveler. And I think that the main thing you realize is that, you know, at any point in that race, you can put your hand up and say, I've had you know, if I can't go now, I need to go back to the five star hotel. How much is that? Thank you. Some people can't do that. They're living in worse conditions and they've got no hope of ever having anything better. So when you do come home, you cannot allow people to go out that it's a bucket list. You have to Morrisson salt with which you go and take. What is a real living life experience? It can really fulfill you and change your life for the better and a hope that it's still not for me.  [00:48:13] Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like by proxy as you've helped to do it for other people.  [00:48:18] I'm wondering with cofounding Vegan runners in 2004, what the growth has been said in your bio.  [00:48:25] You know, it's become this resource not just for Vegan runners, but Vegan athletes of all kinds. Can you kind of speak to some of the work that you're doing with that? One to three to five years that you're doing with the Vegan runners.  [00:48:39] Well, obviously, to grow the club and obviously grow the club through a positive way for veganism, so obviously, especially now with the cockpit. If you've ever been told to get out there to get exercise and of course, I'm saying even now round where I live and I live in Raleigh, more people out running. So to grow the club and set a satellite is obviously as a club we don't meet into. We do meet for an AGM. But what does sit around all over the country? All over the world. So we've got little satellite groups in towns, which is, you know, going out, training together and growing kind of animal local level. It's been a kind of a national resource up until now. But we want to kind of, you know, start little coaching weekends. I mean, we have we we did one last year here at the sanctuary where we can kind of interconnect on social media. Give each other advice. Give people who are Vegan curious advice. You know, just literally, I suppose we want to get a wider group of a range of Rhona's. I mean, we've got everything from like, you know, Sun Brothers couch to five K open to elite runners, but it's really grow grow the potential of promoting veganism in a positive way through running. Just get the best out there. Make people familiar with it. I mean, it's amazing when you go to races, you know, all round the world and most people have seen a green and black vest now, which is like, wow, you know. So I think internationally we'd like to grow it now and get more Vegan rolls out in in different, different countries. That would be great. Not just the goat, you know, bridge going out and running. And if you can run the best Badgley satellite groups in different countries, because I think it's a really positive way and you've got a really receptive audience on running starts because everyone's out there because they want probably want to improve and constantly looking at new ideas, new diets.  [00:50:28] And we see now with Corona virus and the weight started. Animal agriculture is becoming under intense scrutiny. So people are looking for alternatives. But a great positive alternative is, hey, we're Vegan, we're running. We've been doing it for like nearly two decades. Come and join us. We want to be very welcoming of all people and encourage people. I think that's the main thing to encourage them in a positive way.  [00:50:56] Absolutely. And I think that the compassion coming out of, you know, one of the greatest tragedies in the past hundred years, I think, is to be met with compassion and knowledge.  [00:51:08] You know, a reinvestigation, every conversation with one's self questioning, not just the philosophy and the ethics behind the world and disease, but food sources and sustainability and agriculture. And what we're doing to the Earth and then by proxy to ourselves, you know, and re recognizing the entire cyclical nature of everything that exists on this planet. One cannot be impacted and not affect to the other. And I think that the pandemic, you know, kind of being a reminder of that and reopening investigation and analysis and the attachment to things like running and things like that are it's one of the few silver linings. If there were one to the tragedy, I'm curious, with you moving forward, where would you like to see the movement? There has been this attachment and I've gone on in other episodes, so I won't go on here. But, you know, the attachment that the plant based has been kind of poached and repackaged and used to mean that people are labeling things in the states as plant based when they have egg product in them, it no longer even means vegetarian. You know, it's it's this way of use to fortify everything with vitamins and minerals, milk and things like that are still done. And it was a big thing in the 80s to fortify everything with vitamins because they were stripped of them and they needed to be replaced. And so the same kind of trajectory is happening with plant based. But I'm curious, with the Vegan community as you see it, like gaining the traction that begins all over the world. I was speaking with begins in Australia when Kofod broke out. And there's been this resurgence of people, you know, kind of in all these different pockets really getting excited about it. And this interest level.  [00:52:52] Where do you see it heading? Do you see the conversation kind of expanding and having getting towards the inclusiveness of the humanity and the compassion angle for animal to play more? Or where do you see the future of the Vegan conversation heading?  [00:53:08] Well, I have hope with coronavirus. People might look at the source and not sort of, say, a Wetmore case, but look at all animal agriculture. And apparently, you know, I mean, because obviously, let's not forget, we've had outbreaks in the Western world with swine flu, with avian flu. This intensive farming industry, it seems to be a little bit overlooked in the UK. We seem to be searching for vaccines and killers and treatments for cholera, but actually not the cause behind it. And I'm not saying branding China any of the you know, we're all guilty. We're all guilty. And for me, what has concerned me a little bit is that. Veganism has been railroaded with this would come based on people misinterpreting what plump face is. And it's being turned into a very consumer based and commercial based entity take when actually veganism is anything but. That is a very ethical. It's how it's considering always how your choice is not just your food choices impact all this. So I would I mean, obviously, there's not there's not going to be one route that suits or so for me if people are Klamt based. That's great. But I think that one concern is that any are rubbish processed food. They think they can put product based on it and people are going to think it's healthy when it isn't. And it can be highly processed and just as bad for the consumer as animal based products. It's only for the animals that it's better. So that's kind of okay for me. But labeling all based as healthy is kind of misleading and I don't want it to backfire. And people then realize, well, actually, that's not the case. I'm eating all these Vegan processed burgers and I'm no healthier and I'm not losing any weight. So I would like it to be strictly a little bit back and say, you know, hey, let's think about the ethics behind this. Obviously not just the delicious food, but let's think about the ethics and why we're making these choices and why we're trying to change. You smuggle. Because for me, the old model of. Commercialism, consumerism, greed, selfishness, just completely raping and pillaging the planet. I've got to stop because we just haven't got a big enough planet. And maybe Mother Nature has been sending out these warning signs for quite a few years and we're ignoring them. And I get the horrible feeling that in the UK, certainly we're looking for. Others say a vaccine. Kobe, 19. So we can go back to the old model. We can't do that. We've got to reinvent from the foundations upwards. A new, more beautiful model for us. Old coexist. Yeah. I mean, I would certainly like veganism to be at the forefront of that ethical veganism in terms of, you know, unfair distribution of resources. You know, so having grown to feed humans, to fatten humans, basically to make them and it's controversial to say it, but one of the groups most susceptible to this, to copy 90 or have an inability to recover from it. Are people who are obese. So surely we should be looking at healthy lifestyle choices for all. And that doesn't seem to be that much focus on not certainly in the UK. It's about go. Well, let's let's find a cure. Let's let's find some way know, you know, fighting this virus. But what if Coffee 20 comes along with coffee. Twenty one comes along. What we're going to do better. So, you know, for me in animal agriculture. What is the most frightening things is the use of antibiotics. We use antibiotics routinely because animals are kept in such appalling conditions. But it's causing antibiotic resistance in humans. So if there are a few outbreaks of things, this antibiotic resistance, which would be cataclysmic to the whole human race. So we need to be addressing these issues rather than just focusing on getting nobody's heard and getting back to normal. We need to really use this as an opportunity if any good can come out of it, of creating a better world for all.  [00:57:23] Absolutely. I agree. And I'm hoping I'm optimistic. You know, I hold a candle out for humanity.  [00:57:31] I think we we have a chance to get it right. You know, we've been getting it wrong for a long time. I truly believe that if you give someone space and time to have a safe and healthy conversation with these issues, they come to the right decision. You know, it's it's affecting all of us. And yet providing for the next generation and their generation and their generation is something that we should all have in common that we want. You know, we want to provide a good life for ourselves, our animals, every creature on this earth, but also the children and their children and people coming after them, the animals that come after that. You know, this idea that you're kind of handing off something that's completely unsustainable and walking away and dying is is. I don't think that most people do that. I think that it's in human nature to be better. And I think it just takes space. And to have these conversations in a healthy and open environment where people can look at actionable.  [00:58:23] And we look back at issues. Yeah. I mean, we look at back at certain issues in history and we think, you know, in the 21st century, how on earth did that ever happen? How on earth did we as humans allow that to happen, perpetuate that happening? Certainly for myself. I don't want to be one of those people that look back home with disgust and vilified. I want, you know, some you know, we tried to make a difference. And I believe if we work together, we will peacefully. I'm not confrontational person. I think that's something with my form of activism. I my rolling out to see its activists and being active to the animals. I don't want to go and pick arguments individually on the street and show horrendous images. I want to show positive images because I actually think from positivity breeds positivity and negativity the same. It breeds anger and aggression. And, you know, obviously we know there are horrendous things happening around the world. But let's look at what we can do to change it. You know, and that's where I'm coming from more. So all I want to be able to say to people is, you know, well, I've done it. You can do it, too. It's not going to be death. I understand people's health concerns. It's not going to be damaging. It's not going to be limiting. And there are so many benefits. It's very liberating. And people say, you know, when I have been out, oh, you can't have that. You can't have it. You'll be you can only go. I can't. It could quite easily have it. I choose not to. And that's the liberation, you know, because we're all been brainwashed all the time. We've got the time saying you should have. They should look this way. You should go to these places. You should have these products. It's going to make you happy. Very liberating to say. Actually, not when my own person and I realized that's not going happen. I need to forge my own path in life, which is going to make me happy. And happiness comes from within and exudes outwards decomp by it. And Collingwood's and that's that's the important message. And, you know, as I've seen people, I have hope that I look quite well, really. And I've seen so many people out now on by out walking with the families on a Sunday afternoon on the beach, you know, doing the things, you know, connecting with nature. And I hope that actually they realize that this is this is better than going around a shopping mall or now and you need a computer or playing a game on the television. This is actually what life really is about, connecting with each other and our environments.  [01:00:44] Absolutely. Yeah, it's a it's another great offshoot from it.  [01:00:48] Well, Fiona, we are out of time, but I want to say thank you so much for taking the last hour and time today.  [01:01:00] Thank you very much. Absolutely. For everyone listening, we have been speaking with Fiona Oaks. She's the co-founder of the Vegan Runners. She is also the founder of Tower Hill Stables. Animal Rescue and Sing. You can find it online at w w w dot. Tower Hill Stables Dot Work. Thank you for giving us your time today. And until we speak again next time.  [01:01:20] Remember to eat clean and responsibly, stay in love with the world and always bet on yourself. 

Today I am talking with Diana Laverdure-Dunetz. Diana holds a Master’s in Animal Science and is an award-winning dog health writer, vegan canine nutritionist and passionate animal activist. She went vegetarian in 2009 and vegan in 2017. Diana’s mission is to end animal abuse and exploitation in all forms and to increase legal punishments for anyone perpetrating animal cruelty. Diana is the founder of two vegan movements: The website She Goes Vegan (www.shegoesvegan.com) empowers women to create a compassionate vegan world that respects all animals, the environment and future generations. Plant-Powered Dog (www.plantpoweredog.com) educates dog guardians on the health and ethical benefits of feeding nutritious plant-based diets to our canine companions. In 2019, Diana created the Plant-Powered Dog Food Summit (www.plantpowereddogfoodsummit.com), which featured 17 global leaders in the fields of plant-based veterinary nutrition, science and animal activism to discuss the facts about plant-based vs. meat-based diets for dogs. Diana and her vegan husband, Rodney, live in South Florida and are involved with many animal rights organizations.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note this is an automated transcription, please excuse any errors or typos[00:00:00] In this episode, I had the opportunity to speak with founder, author and Vegan activist Diana Laverdure-Dunetz. Key points addressed were Diana's Web site and its information and services titled She Goes Vegan. Dot com is designed to empower, educate and motivate women from all walks of life to create Vegan lives. We also discussed her recent interactive journaling book titled F Asterix C.K.. Yeah, I'm going Vegan slated to be a game changer when considering implementing veganism into one's life. You can find that on Amazon.com. Stay tuned for my riveting interview with Diana.  [00:00:43] My name is Patricia Kathleen. And this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen dot com, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:40] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today I'm sitting down with Diana, Leverdure-Dunetz.  [00:01:46] She's a founder, author and Vegan activist. You can find out more on her Web site. She goes Vegan dot com. Welcome, Diana.  [00:01:55] Thank you so much for having me. I'm really, really honored to be here.  [00:01:58] Absolutely. I'm very excited to get into your story and talk about everything that you're doing, as well as the new book you've put out, the new journal, Interactive Journal for everyone listening.  [00:02:08] I'll read a quick bio on Diana to give you kind of a foundation, but before that, a quick roadmap of today's podcast and where we'll be headed so you can follow along and have a forecast. We'll first look at Diana's academic and professional history, as well as her personal Vegan story and how that kind of plays into her current endeavors. Then we'll look at two unpacking. She goes Vegan, the Web site, the future classes and services it offers and the current information that she's providing her audience. We'll also look at logistics when w where, why, how are their co-founders? Did she take funding? And we'll get into the ethos behind it. The impetus for launching that Web site. And we'll also look at her interactive journal just recently published on Amazon F Asterisk. C.K.. Yeah, I'm going Vegan. We're gonna get in to a first and foremost the name behind that. There's a reason behind that wonderful title. And then we're gonna talk about what that journal offers its audience and its users. We'll wrap everything up with goals and advice that Diana has for those of you who are looking to follow her or get involved or perhaps emulate some of her career success. As promised, a quick bio on Diana. DianaLaverdure-Dunetz holds a masters in animal science and is an award winning dog health writer, Vegan canine nutritionist and passionate animal activists. She went vegetarian in 2009 and Vegan in 2017. Diana's mission is to end animal abuse and exploitation in all forms and to increase legal punishments for anyone perpetuating animal cruelty. Diana is the founder of two Vegan movements, the site. She goes Vegan w w w dot. She goes Vegan dot com empowers women to create a compassionate Vegan world that respects all animals, the environment and future generations. Plant power dog w w w dot plant power dog dot com educates dog guardians on the health and ethical benefits of feeding, nutrition, nutritious plant based diets to our canine companions. In 2019, Diana created the plant parad dog food summit w w w dot plant Power Dog Food Summit icon, which featured 17 global leaders in the fields of plant based vegetable, veterinary nutrition science and animal activism. To discuss the fact about plant based versus meat based diets for dogs. Diane and her Vegan husband, Rodney, live in South Florida and are involved with many animal rights organizations. So, Diana, I think that's fascinating. And you and I talked off the record. I was using Vegan dog food for the past 10 years, and I'm really excited to see more companies join that revolution and can kind of unpack that. But I want to first start off with, if you could give us a brief summary of not all of it, but the pieces that you feel pertained to where you are now, of your academic background and early professional life and your Vegan story as it's kind of intertwined throughout all of that that brought you to creating. She goes Vegan.  [00:05:05] Sure. And I think, like all of us, it's been a journey. And I actually started out in life and professional life as a writer. So that's what I did since I was a child. I wrote stories and and really, as a kid, didn't think I'm going to grow up to be a canine nutritionist or I'm going to grow up and start any Vegan movement. That certainly wasn't on my mind. I hear so many Vegan stories where actually they say when they were a child, they couldn't look at meat. I wish I had been that enlightened, does a child, but I was not. You know, I grew up in a family where my mom served meat and made need and animal products. My grandfather was a kosher butcher. So there you go. And that was just a fact of life. So what happened was I adopted in 2002, the dog that changed my life. His name was Chase, and he was with me for 16 and a half years. And what happened was having adopted a rescue dog. I learned, of course, so much. I got immersed in actually the shelter where I adopted him from and immersed in the community of an abused cats and dogs, which many people are into that. But what happened with me was I couldn't stop there. You know, we often think of abused cats, dogs, companion animals. And we shudder at the thought, of course, but we don't think about the torture and abuse and brutality and the hell that all of these other species endure every single day. So adopting chase expanded my mind to the abuse going on in all species. By that time, I will make a very long story short also due to health issues that Chase had. I was feeding him a fresh food diet in order to create a healthier individual. It was not Vegan and that led me into the world of canine nutrition and hence the Masters, because I was now working with veterinarians and serious scientists and I wanted to show that I was also serious and academically educated in the field. But what happened was, even as a vegetarian for many, many years, I was continuing to create meat based diets for dogs because, quite frankly, I bought into the bullshit and the hype that dogs need to eat their wolves and they need to eat meat to thrive, that you're a little Pekinese or Pomeranian or whomever is really a wolf inside and even even your German shepherd generic, which is what Chase was, you know, that they're that that they're really wolves. And when I decided I could no longer myself harm any animal in any way and said, that's it, you know, told my husband, we're not going to be vegetarian, we're gonna go vegan. He pointed out the hypocrisy of what I was doing every day and I could no longer do this and create these meat based diets for dogs. It was killing me inside. And I decided, well, maybe I'll just leave the business and my husband said, don't leave the business. Do some research and see, you know, look into this. And I did. And it turned out, thankfully, that actually plant based diets for dogs, not only can they thrive, but, you know, can they live on them, but they can thrive on them. They're super healthy. Many veterinarians believe that it's these high meat diets and the bio accumulation of toxins in animals and tissue that are causing all the cancer that we're seeing and all the chronic illnesses. Yeah. So that's what led me to create a movement called Plant Power Dog and to create the plant powered dog food summit. And now I'm just so grateful to be able to combine the dog nutrition knowledge and and help dogs without harming any other animals. So VegFest been amazing. And then I decided, well, I don't want to stop with the dog food world. You know, not everyone has a dog. What. What more can I do? So that came to she goes Vegan and why she goes vegan and not everyone goes. Yeah. Because I truly believe that women have an innate empathy. There is unfortunately my cheese mo surrounding meat eating. And you know, that's that's been more qualified people than I have studied and written about that. But women really I feel are innately. Veganism and sexuality and how women have been treated in a sexual manner. You know, as body parts, it's it's it's a really parallel type of issue. So I feel that women can really relate to what animals go through. And so I feel that we also have about seventy five, seventy seven percent of the purchasing power in the country and in the world. So, you know, we have the power, we have the empathy and we can make the difference. So that's my goal was she goes Vegan is to really empower all women to go Vegan and to create just a kind of world for everybody. And I love that.  [00:11:04] And I love that you have like an audience. You know, I think that people get nervous about excluding, especially when you're trying to educate. However, it's not saying men can't get on your Web site, but that link is really fascinating.  [00:11:17] And I know a lot of feminist theorists have made that comparison and analogy. Use the metaphor of, you know, a lot of the abuse that's happened towards women and women identified or populations considered other, you know, this comparison to making them animal like so that we can disassociate and actually abuse them. And therefore, even, you know, acknowledging that that's how we disassociate with animals, you can treat them less than humane.  [00:11:44] And I think it's a fascinating that you've made that connection. And that's one of the impetuses for you, targeting it towards women. Women identified people. I'm wondering, when you jump on your site, you have your story there. You have articles you've presented. I know that, you know, you have classes that are there and you're kind of coming forth because this is all a very current endeavor. And I also know that you work one on one still with clients that have ailing dogs who need your personal expertize and things like that. I'm wondering, I like the articles you chose and I wonder how you curate them because you have a very specific tonality with your Vegan mission and as an animal activist and things like that. And so I'm wondering, is there any way that you choose to pepper? It must you must be aware that it brands you, you know, to to put other people's information on your site. And so I'm curious as to how you go about curating it or if it's just like a pleasure of your own and you know of your moment to, like, go through and post things for your audience.  [00:12:48] Sure. Well, I write everything myself. I always have. I don't accept. Well, an unplanned powered dog. I have. I have. Except a couple of guest post from veterinarians and true experts in the field. But in general, I everything is written by myself. And as far as the content, it's very purposefully directed towards the. And I hate to use this word because none of us are average, but towards the everyday woman who wants to make a difference and who is facing her own challenges in life, whether she is a caretaker for her parents or whether she's raising children and whether she has a partner, who it's it's causing a rift in the relationship because the partner doesn't want to be Vegan. So my niche, if you will, are everyday issues that women aspiring to what we know to veganism go through. I think there are a lot of people who do great things, bringing together Vegan business people and Vegan business women, and that is completely wonderful. I want to address the everyday needs of the person of the woman who wants to go Vegan and create a kind of world. Yeah. Everything I write is is is really geared for her.  [00:14:12] That's it, and it's a wonderful guide.  [00:14:13] I think that people overlook this kind of need for people addressing all angles of the life, you know, because Vegan is not everyone freaked? Well, the majority of people I speak to who don't have a lot of information about veganism view it as a diet. And there's people who are involved with it, know that it very quickly becomes a lifestyle, a philosophy. It's it's a spirituality. It becomes a lot of different things quite quickly for most people who practice it, regardless of one's entry point, you know, regardless of your gateway drug, as I always say, you can come in there having just suffered a heart attack or having a spiritual awakening. But usually you'll start looking into the benefits of the health or the spirituality or the welfare of the environment and the beauty and humanity of the animals and all of those things within time. And so it's it's it's good to I think it's fascinating because your site is one of the first ones that I've seen where it's approaching veganism from that aspect. You know, you are coming at it from these social interpersonal relationships, like all of those things would matter if it wasn't just a diet, if it was really a way of living, you know, and it a reality.  [00:15:19] So I'm hoping that you say that. That's exactly right. And that's sort of my credo, is that I put a plant based is a diet. Vegan is a lifestyle.  [00:15:32] Yeah. OK. And that brings me to I'm really glad you just said that, because it brings me to my point. I always I wait for people to drop it.  [00:15:42] I always say, you know, the podcast is called Investigating Vegan Life. And so I'm not afraid of the V word, but a lot of people I interview are. And there's a marketing reason behind that. There's a lot of other reasons. But so for you, I always ask people to define those to the second they drop in the word plant based or Vegan to differentiate. So plant based is a diet and Vegan is a lifestyle for you.  [00:16:05] Correct. And as a matter of fact, I have an article just dedicated to that. What's the difference between plant based and Vegan? And why does it matter? And it does matter because so many times someone will say to me, Oh, I was vegan for ten years, and then I decided to, you know, not to be one day. You were plant based for 10 years, OK? Because that isn't Vegan is based on plant based is based on what is in it for me. And I'm not saying this in a derogatory manner, but you kind of put the nail, the nail hit the nail on the head when you said if if you're entering it from the health standpoint, that type of thing is really generally when someone becomes plant based. They've had a health crisis. Vegan is not focused on the ME. It's focused on the individual outside of us that is being harmed. Okay, so plant based, what is really this diet doing for me? What is this lifestyle doing to create peace for other individuals? So for me, when you when you're looking at what goes on in factory farms and what goes on with animal testing and what goes on with or you don't one day decide that doesn't work for you. Right. Because you have it's a core value. Right. If that's your quote, you don't. At least for me, you don't change your core values. You know, in a snap. But you might I heard I was once you don't you ever go down the Internet rabbit hole. Right? I got on a Gwyneth Paltrow Web site. And I don't I've never done that before. But something that I was researching led me there. And there was a conversation, much like you and I are having, that a woman was having with when, if and when it was disgusting how much she loves to cook. And it was all going quite well. And then I heard this woman say something that if my head could have exploded, it would have. The woman said to Gwyneth Paltrow, I was vegan for ten years and then I smelled you cooking sausage, pork, sausage, and it just smells so good. I had to have that sausage and you made me not vegan. And that just blew my mind. Yeah. That woman is not was not Vegan. That woman, if she were Vegan would have been disgusted by the sausage. She would have seen the sentient, intelligent, beautiful, loving animal. Not not a sizzling pork sausage. Right.  [00:18:59] Yeah. And it sounds like the motivation for what had the way she was eating may have already been obtained.  [00:19:07] You know, I know that a lot of people look into veganism for when you're not dying of a cardiac arrest, it's to lose weight or other things like that. I've had I've spoken to several people, male and female, that say, you know, idea I did that to lose some weight. Bill Clinton was Vegan for a bit. So, you know, I went for it and. And they lost the weight and they went back. And I it's it's a very similar thing. I usually try to remind them, like, well, I think what you did was engaged in a diet that worked for you, that eliminated animal products. But Vegan, I think you're right about that. That term does carry heavier.  [00:19:42] And I think that's why some people stray away from it. I think that, you know this. If you have a product you're peddling, you know, you kind of want to include everybody. And now there are tons of products that there's a lot of anger in the communities, plant based Vegan and everything else, and even organic communities, because marketing is, you know, Mad Men are no stranger to adaptation. And everything was fortified in the 80s and now everything is plant based. So you can have something that has egg and, you know, gelatin in it, have this plant based like little logo on the front. And so it's clear it's I think it's good to delineate it from people who are looking for the safety label of Vegan.  [00:20:21] That's right. And, you know, I want to be cautious in that. I am not. I'm grateful for everybody who eat plant based, because if you do eat plant based, then you're saving animals regardless of what your motivation is. So if everybody a plant based. That would be amazing. But I just think it's really important to understand the difference between a diet and a lifestyle. Absolutely.  [00:20:50] What I'm looking at that I kind of want to unpack the interactive guided journal just published on Amazon. And it's f Asterix C.K..  [00:20:59] Yeah, I'm going Vegan exclamation point. And prior to us starting to record this, you and I got into it, you know, from one writer to another. I said, how are we going to go about this? Do you want to say the F word? And you had said it just came out. I haven't really thought about it. You know, auditorily, the spoken word was a little bit different than that written. And then we got into very, very quickly we got into the ethos of why you chose that title. So. Can you kind of enumerate on that now for us?  [00:21:28] Yeah, and it's it ties in so well to what we're just talking about, I don't think. And I'm just going to say it. I don't think you'd say, fuck. Yeah. Go and plant based. OK. It's true. It does not have the same cachet that they have with say shit.  [00:21:45] So it's like, yeah, I'm not just I'm not I'm not just going be in, you know, it's ongoing. Vegan fuck. Yeah. I'm go and Vegan. Yeah. You know, because it means something to me. And in the values behind it means something to me in in the concept that all animals have the right to live in peace means something to me. So it's like yeah, it's meant to purposefully just kind of really grab you. And the rationale behind it was there are tons of amazing cookbooks out there. I am not a recipe developer year. I own most of them. And, you know, tons of great books to tell you why you should be Vegan and all of that sort of thing. But what I wanted this to do was. To capture the person on an emotional level and kind of hold their hand as they explore their own their own motives and get to know them in their own self discovery journey, because I think that most of us who are Vegan will say it's a journey of self discovery.  [00:22:58] And so in Ewing, ever changing, you know, I don't there is no Everest. I haven't summited yet. And I'm going on 10 years. And it's just, you know, and that's the kind of the beauty of it.  [00:23:09] You know, our bodies don't stop changing. Like, why would you know your faith and your belief system and your analysis? I do want to touch on some of the aspects of the book that I scrubbed from online. The Journal you list off these things and you just said that it's kind of this accompaniment. And I'm glad that I was able to really dove in because I when someone talks about an interactive journal, I expect them to deliver.  [00:23:34] And I think that that's what your analysis frequently does, even the way you come at your writing. You know, you come at this kind of whole person effect from your Web site and the way that you write things like you just mentioned, writing for the social relationships and how those can be strained by veganism. But in fuck you. I'm going vegan. You mentioned that it gets you. It's meant to get people clear, set goals get motivated. It's simple steps, easy plans. You recording options like being able to record and note things, overlook your and oversee your feelings, track your records and emotions and review your progress. And it feels like it's very stepped out as to because I think a lot of people like to keep it tight and tidy like these three steps. But that's not how we are as human beings. We have all these different facets, you know, and so having this kind of this litany of what it's going to produce if you're in you know, if you're doing this interactive journal, I think is is really empowering. And it's what someone needs because it is this all encompassing lifestyle, you know, and you're gonna have a lot of different areas that are clocking different successes and happiness barometers in the beginning than others. What would you say is, was the main impetus? You know, you have this. I will say as a side note from speaking with over the past two months, I've spoken to about 50 different vegans from all different walks of life, from scientists to mothers raising children, you know, and back again. And I will say the one thing is that when people talk about becoming Vegan, it's very much so in the exact same moment of you describing your title.  [00:25:14] It's never like, well, and then after, you know, 15 years of gentle study, I slowly decided that I'd be Vegan.  [00:25:20] It's this moment where they're like, I'm Vegan. This is it. You know, and so the fuck. Yeah, I'm going vegan is really appropriate to that end. But I'm wondering what inspired you to actually capture that and then help write an interactive journal? Was it your own study or was it to help someone else out?  [00:25:38] It was based on my own experience because so something that's recently over the last few years, more so, I discovered a practice called Kysen. And what Kysen is is is kind of means continuous improvement in Japanese. And it's based on the ancient philosophy and ancient philosophy and. I think you can make that ready decision, like, yeah, I'm going Vegan. But a lot of times what comes next can be can seem very intimidating. OK, what do I do now? How do I step it out? How do I really do this? Maybe it isn't practical for me to just get rid of everything in one fell swoop. You know, on a practical level, it can be different. So I took the concept of Kysen, which is continuous improvement, and stepped it out over three months to guide people week by week, month, month one, month to month three and each week within that month. And how what tiny step Kaizen is all about taking small steps to reach large goals. So it might work for somebody to say overnight, I'm going Vegan into just do that. But for many people, smaller steps make more sense. So it's based on that philosophy of the accumulation of smaller, non-threatening steps to eventually reach a very large goal. And in the interim of that, you get to explore how you feel about it. So I came up with guided prompts that I felt would resonate based on my experience, with my own journey with others, other vegans. So it's really kind of I call it like having your best friend by your side to hold your hand while while you're doing this. But your best friend also happens to be like a Vegan expert.  [00:27:46] Yeah, absolutely. I like the guided prompts. I think they're necessary, you know, to get anyone going. And I think that that Japanese philosophy is winning the award for this year for me. I've got a lot of people bring up different key aspects, that they have an icky guy and different things that they've kind of dropped into and thought this is life changing. And I was like, all right, we all need to take a trip to Tokyo and start reading again.  [00:28:14] But I am. I love that.  [00:28:16] I haven't ever heard of them, Kysen. And I'm going to look it up and look more into it. And it's true. We can't hear certain truths enough. You know, of course, every mountain has begun with a step, every skyscrapers, the first stone. But we just don't put that in place enough. And it's also very, very difficult without prompts that you're offering to know how and where to begin. Even as an adult, as it is a grown woman running, you know, a very full load. I, I still find it difficult nature and figuring out the first step of a new endeavor. I'm wondering looking forward to the future. You've got you know, you've got a lot of balls in the air and there's a lot of pivot's and things like that that you could do. And before I ask you about your goals for each of your endeavor, I'm kind of wondering everyone I've spoken to Vegan a not over the past six months for podcasting and documentary film work, has a conversation that they've had well, since the pandemic. Let's go back to January. This changed their relationship with their business and with their the way that they are viewing their diet and food and environment and sustainability. And you don't have to be Vegan. You just have to be alive and well right now in the world to have had these conversations with yourself. And I'm wondering, because you you regularly have these conversations. It's your line of work and your vegan lifestyle. Can you speak to how the COPD 19 pandemic has altered or changed or reinstated some of your core truths or axiomatic beliefs?  [00:29:53] Yeah, I would say it's reinforced and reinstated them, as you're saying, and it's quite interesting because there is a wonderful research organization out there called Analytics and they are dedicated to helping those of us who are Vegan with proper research in which to which to use to influence others. And they came out with a wonderful study. And I actually wrote an article that really just took all the aspects of their study on Koban 19 and what people understood about this and where it originated from. And I believe it was something like 16 percent, maybe a little bit more of people even understood how Koven 19 originated. And then it came from animals and then it came from having lively animals and dead animals in close proximity and from these wet markets. So whereas vegans are immersed in this knowledge on a day to day basis. You know, we've seen these types of things before. We've seen mad cow disease. We've seen these things, the jet. We have to understand that the general population isn't necessarily immersed in this. So I'm hoping that there is a silver lining to this and that that silver lining will be a greater awareness that when we when we intrude upon nature, we are not just harming nature. We truly are harming ourselves. We can't we can't do it and not have it come back and bite us in the ass. It's just wrong. So even if there are those among us who haven't yet reached a point of empathy for animals and for other species, if they have empathy for their for the human race or for their own families or their own selves. This should be proof that we have to respect all living beings.  [00:32:01] Yeah. And I think you said it best when you said, you know, for things not to turn around and come bite us in the ass.  [00:32:07] And, you know, in early childhood, one of the first markers is when you're raising children or even in child psychology is called object permanence.  [00:32:16] And it's the understanding that when something disappears, it's not truly just dropped off the face of the earth. And once a child realizes that their entire cognitive psyche kind of shifts in their personality changes and it's the same thing, the idea that there's this free lunch, that you could be hurting an animal, an environment in the world and not have it somehow come back to affect you and your own kin, one day is virtually impossible. And we've all known it since we were about two and discovered object permanence. You know, simply something not seen doesn't mean it won't come back to affect you again or doesn't exist. And so I think that is really, really great observation. I'm wondering, when you look at you just came out with your book and it's like you being in labor and my asking you when you're having your next child, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Do you see more books in your future as far as did you receive enough gratification out of it, or will you just really focus on this one for the next couple of years and then look at it?  [00:33:14] So I appreciate your calling this a book. I think of it more as a book written by the person who has it more than myself. In the past, I wrote two books that took years to write each one. Mostly, though, I guess the most popular one was called Canine Neutra Genomics. And Nutro Genomics is the science of how nutrition affects our genome. Back then, I was not Vegan and I would write a very different view of that now, but nevertheless, it was. It didn't take quite a long time and was definitely about a three year birthing process. I think the beauty of this journal is that in it it really while it's my brain child and I'm very close to it, I'm giving it over more readily to other people to really make it their own. So I actually do have a kind of accompaniment to it in the works right now that I you know, it's kind of like, oh, I can now do this with this and guide people in this way and I can do this with this. So it's kind of gotten a lot of the wheels turning as to where can I go with this, because I think you seem to say the guided journal is help you and they really help me and journaling really helps me. So I'm at a point where I'm thinking, what more can I do with this to help people? I would also eventually like to do some some courses, maybe an online course. And again, that would be to help the. Every day, woman is struggling already with other aspects of her life to find balance and to make veganism a part of her life. It might not be able to be the all encompassing. You know, I think about this, you know, all day, every day. But I am Vegan and it's part of my identity and I'm putting that out there to the world. That's the type of woman that I'm hoping might want to grow more and take a course on on how to do this. So absolutely.  [00:35:24] And I think you're right about that. Will there be so the courses I'm assuming would go through, she goes Vegan. Do you think you'll do any partnership thing or will you ever look into, like, bringing anyone else on?  [00:35:37] I've talked to a lot of Vegan business owners that get very into the power of partnership being and multiplying the voice or sponsorships and things like that. It kind of depends on how you want to cut it and there's short term partnerships and things of that nature. But have you ever considered doing that or you're just you're just still kind of developing her as she is?  [00:35:55] Yeah. Right now, I'm still in the development phase with the when I wrote the books on canine nutrition, I did partner with a very well-respected veterinarian. And that makes sense at that time. On the Vegan journey that I'm on now, right now in the development phase, I'm going to see where it takes me as a solo kronur. But I never say no to amazing opportunities and partnerships. So we'll see. It's really like a sort of we'll see how it develops type thing.  [00:36:30] Yeah, absolutely. Well, I always wrap up beyond while I try to wrap up with everybody who's authored, you know, books and things of that nature.  [00:36:38] I think that there is a lot of advice that you offer and you go through and some things resonate more with the author themselves and other things. And I'm curious to ask you kind of as my final inquiry today, looking at the fuck. Yeah, I'm going Vegan Interactive Journal.  [00:36:53] You have this interactive guide, but you offer a lot of information or these very utility based steps that are very realistic, like you said, for implementation of taking technique from philosophy to everyday practice. And I'm wondering if you picked like a top two or three of those pieces that were you considered to be kind of your your take away points? What would they be?  [00:37:20] Are we talking in the context of going Vegan? Yeah.  [00:37:23] When did the Journal capturing I mean, you have these ideas of goals and motivation and things like that, like what would be the top three things that you would hope to take away from? You know, using the journal would be at first blush.  [00:37:36] Yeah, I would hope the top three things would be. You said it really, really well, sort of. It's a combination of utilitarian and self discovery. So I would hope the top three things would be to take the guesswork out of the process, to actually know that on week one. Here's what I'm going to do. And on week 10. I'm now here and here's here's my next step. So really having it be very utilitarian. And then, you know, at the same time, kind of the second point would be that I get to now go on my own journal of self discovery while I'm doing this, which is just so important, because if we do anything without understanding why we're doing it, that's when it won't stick. So the combination of the utilitarian than the self discovery with the guided journal, and then it also enables us another practicality is to actually sort of have a mindfulness food planner where we're not just I as I as I'm talking, I guess I really enjoyed the combination of the practical and the mindful. So the food prep planner and the meal planner, they enable you to lay these things out. But they also ask you questions like, who was I with when I eat this? How did I feel? How did they make me feel? Because maybe you're with somebody. And they said, oh, really? You're going to, you know, have that veggie burger for lunch. You know, how can you eat that or don't you will meet Allard's and we might not think about it or give it much importance in the moment, but it affects us because part of going vegan is what I've experienced and learned from others is how we're perceived when we go to family gatherings, when we're with friends. So those are really the top three things. You know, how do I do this on a utilitarian basis and then how am I processing this emotionally and mindfully?  [00:39:40] Yeah, absolutely. That's and it's exciting. I think everyone should jump on and check it out. Download even if you're Vegan do it. Buy it. Yes, I am.  [00:39:49] I am so thankful for your time today, Diana. We are out of time. But I just wanted to say I really appreciate you. I know you're busy.  [00:39:56] You've got a lot of projects in the works and things that have just launched. And I feel really honored that you took the time to speak with myself and let our audience hear about all of your knowledge and your personal stories within that. Thank you so much.  [00:40:08] Well, thank you, Patricia. I am so grateful you've had me on and it's been a real pleasure. Thank you.  [00:40:14] Definitely. And for everyone listening, we have been speaking with Diana levered to Doenitz you. She's a founder and author. You can find her more about her. On she goes. Vegan dot com. And thank you for giving us your time today. And still, we speak again next time.  [00:40:31] Remember to eat clean and responsibly, stay in love with the world and always bet on yourself.

Today I am speaking with Isabelle Steichen. Isabelle Steichen grew up in Luxembourg and moved from Europe to the US in 2013. She also transitioned to a plant based diet the same year and her decision was driven by ethical, environmental and heath reasons. As a long time passionate vegan, certified in plant based nutrition from e-Cornell, as well as the founder of the Plantiful Podcast, she is now combining her startup background with her desire to spread plant based eating with her new business Lupii. Lupii is here to help people live plantiful lives through the power of the small-but-mighty lupini bean, which is not only good for humans but also for mama nature. www.getlupii.comThis series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.  TRANSCRIPTION* Please note this is an automated transcription, please excuse any errors or typos [00:00:00] In this episode, I had the opportunity to sit down with founder, certified plant based nutritionists and podcasters Isabella Steichen key points addressed where Isabella's company, Lupi, a company producing products based on the powerful Lapine Bean. Isabella and I also discussed the various terms and subsequent conditions involved in the plant based food industries and how this translates to the current state of the worldwide covered 19 pandemic. Stay tuned for my fascinating chat with Isabella Steichen.  [00:00:39] My name is Patricia Kathleen. And this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen ICOM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Being and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:36] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia.  [00:01:38] And today I'm sitting down with Isabella Steichen. She's the founder, a certified plant based nutritionist and podcast. Or you can find out more about the information we talk about today. And her company on Get Lupi dot com. That is g. T. L. You p. I dot com. Welcome, Isabel.  [00:01:56] Hey, it's nice to be here. I'm excited. Thank you for having me.  [00:01:59] Absolutely. I'm excited to talk to you as well. I like your company. We talked off the record briefly about it. The Web site presence and everything else. I think it's really cool what you're doing with it and for everyone listening. I will read a quick bio on his web before I do that. A roadmap of today's podcast, in case you would like to forecast the trajectory of our rhetoric. We'll first be looking at Isabelle's academic and professional background and personal plant based journey leading up to launching her company. And then we will directly turn into unpacking Lupi and the plant. It's a plant based protein for planet based people. The company itself has products will unpack that. We'll also get into the logistics of the who, what, when, where, how and why for all of you nerdy entrepreneurs and founders out there that care about those back end deals. And then we will also look at the ethos of the company and the impetus for launching it. And within that, we'll look at rhetoric regarding the responsibility, environmentally stable questions, as well as the questions we're getting. The pandemic of covered 19 and how those interplay with a lot of the ethos around companies like this. And then we'll wrap everything up with goals that the company and Isabella herself is looking to towards for the next one to three years. As promised, a quick bio on Isabel before I start prepping, peppering her with questions. Isabel Steichen grew up in Luxembourg and moved from Europe to the US in 2013. She also transition to a plant based diet. The same year. And her decision was driven by ethical, environmental and health reasons. Since moving to New York City, Isabelle worked closely with founding teams for various early stage RBC backed startups in the food and tech space. Her first role was at Kitchen Surfing and on Demand Chef Service Startup, where she launched the business in new markets and scaled the OnDemand chef team. Most recently, Isabelle ran the operations and customer service team at SOYER, a Brooklyn based education software company. As a longtime, passionate Vegan certified in plant based nutrition from Cornell, as well as the founder of the Plentiful podcast, she is now combining her startup background with her desire to spread plant based eating with her new business. Loopy Loopy is here to help people live. Plant four lives through their power of the small but mighty Lapine Bean, which is not only good for humans but also for momma nature. So and again, the website is Get Lupi dot com.  [00:04:31] So Isabelle, before we launch into Get Lupi, I'm hoping that you can kind of draw us an academic background and early professional life as well as like your plant Vaisse journey and how that all kind of led you into launching Get Lupi.  [00:04:52] Yeah, totally. So as you mentioned earlier, I actually grew up in Luxembourg, which is a small little country in Europe, and went to elementary and high school there. And then I moved to France to go and get an undergrad degree. And then also I went to grad school in France. So I studied political science and econ during undergrad. And I actually did a study abroad here in the United States during undergrad. I went to Hamilton College, which is a small liberal arts school upstate New York. So I got kind of a feel for this state then for American education while I was there.  [00:05:32] And then I decided to go back to Paris and pursue a master's degree in urban planning. And so urban planning is like all about city design and thinking about how people behave and live in urban spaces and knowing that, you know, the world is moving towards more urbanization. That was something that I was always really interested. I'm passionate about and thinking about cities from a holistic perspective. And so that's what I went to school for. And then I ended up moving to the states in 2013. So right when I finished grad school, that was motivated by the fact that I had met my husband's undergrad. When I studied abroad of Hamilton, I met him. He's American. He went to school here. We started dating. And we did long distance for a while.  [00:06:20] And then I you know, I had studied urban planning and had actually specialized on North American cities. So it felt like moving to New York was a great way for me to bring or kind of start my professional career, but also be with the person who I love. And so I ended up moving here and I worked in urban planning for about a year or so. I worked for a nonprofit that was managing one of the neighborhoods around Bryant Park, as well as the park itself. And I really loved the team there and I loved the mission. But I felt I felt that I wanted something very different. And I had a few friends that were working for startups. And so I started getting really curious about that. You know, the education space in Europe is different, but also the professional space when it comes to startups innovation. It's just very different. I think it's very much based on how kids are raised in Europe. And I think there's just maybe different incentives around innovation, but it's just not as evolved as it is in the States. And so I was very intrigued by that.  [00:07:27] And I ended up getting my first job at an early stage tech food startup called Kitchen Surfing, as you mentioned in the bio. It was. Did the service change the business more? I mean, to change the business model a few times. But it was in a nutshell, like an On-Demand chef service. So we were basically deploying chefs on a weekly night and sending them to people's homes and having them cook meals there with like 30, 40 minutes and then move on to the next person's home. So it was this really interesting tech enabled food startup that was very specific to the New York City market, actually, because nowhere else, I think, in the world. Is there a need for like this, like rapid service that that exists in New York. So was there for a while and helped to scale the team and expand the business into new markets. And really, I would say that was I called the startup bucket there because I really loved being part of the early stage team. I loved how I saw that anything and everything I was doing had a direct impact on the outcome of the business and the trajectory of the business. And I was employee, I think there were seven or eight there.  [00:08:37] And so I saw the team grow and double and triple in size and move from like a townhouse and go like Brooklyn, which is very far from Manhattan to, you know, a fancy office in Soho. And so really saw the company go through very different stages.  [00:08:55] And that really made me so much more excited even about being part of a startup. And just seeing the direct impact of your work on an everyday basis like that. And so I ended up spending my career on the last year years for various different startups, mostly actually in the tech space. And most recently I was with Sawyer, which is an amazing online platform and software company for education businesses. And I learned a ton about product development and tech and coding and things like that that I never thought I would ever be exposed to.  [00:09:34] And so I think that would be the second piece that I love about startups is that, you know, you get hired for a specific role, but really you do a lot of different things and you grow in two different roles throughout the life span of the company and really evolve and learn new skills. And that's something that. I truly appreciate. I like the fact that you can really acquire very new skill sets when you're exposed to things that, you know, just come up like they do in a startup. Well, you have to be nimble and adapt and have a growth mindset. And so. Yeah. So that's a little bit about my my professional background in a nutshell. And then you asked about my plan based journey. And I think it's very much linked to my whole trajectory, especially since I moved to the States. I decide to go Vegan when I moved here. And it wasn't coincidental in the sense that I had been playing or playing with the thought of totally cutting out animal products for a while.  [00:10:37] But I grew up in a I wouldn't say very traditional European family. And I had a French grandmother and cheese was an essential part of our culture. And so where a lot of meat dishes. But I personally always struggled with the concept of eating animals and why we were making a distinction between the animals that we loved, like our dogs and cats and the animals that we did end up on our plate. And so I always wanted to be vegetarian or be getting. But growing up with my family, that just was not an option. And then when I moved out from home to France for undergrad and grad school, I pretty much was vegetarian because I was cooking for myself. And then I started just getting more and more into researching, you know, the sustainability aspects and the economic aspects of animal agriculture and realized that especially in the states, it's a it's a you know, it's up a scale that is just very hard. In terms of animal ethics.  [00:11:40] And so I put all of that together and I decided to go vegan when I move to New York because I felt culturally more free to express that part of my identity in a in a city that is so diverse and so open minded, where so many people follow different diets. There was no judgment associated to me eating plant based or being Vegan. And so took that leap. And then I really went on a journey, I want to say, because I started learning more and more about it and I started this podcast is like a side project to my full time job. And my husband, who, you know, is grew up in a very traditional American diet, ended up going vegan a few years ago, totally kind of motivated by by by himself coming coming to it more from the health angle. And so I ended up doing a plant based nutrition certification to learn more about plant based eating and health and put all of that together. I realized that, you know, one of the things that I want to do is how people empower them to make more mindful choices when it comes to our food, mindful choices for themselves, for their health, but also for the environment and the sustainability of our planet. And so it all kind of came together and culminated with me launching Lupi because I was able to bring my startup background, an early, early stage company background, and combine that with this deep passion that I have for her to plan a space.  [00:13:12] Yeah, well, so here in lies. I always wait for my guests to drop it first. I try to see how long I can go. But you did enter into mix the two terms and you said that, you know, you became Vegan.  [00:13:26] And I always use the term plant based, particularly with people who have companies such as yourself, because that seems to be the chosen term. But before we get into any more dialog about how the two of us see or don't see the term, similarly, how do you define Vegan and how do you define plant based?  [00:13:44] Yeah, that's a great question. So I would call Lupi a plant based company, because we are making foods out of plants and we are not here to prescribe any ethical convictions on people. I do think that veganism has an ethical connotation. And I would refer to myself as being an ethical vegan in the sense that I'm trying to avoid plen animal based products in all areas of my life. So I don't wear leather or wool and I don't eat any animal products. And that's very important to me. On a personal level. But that I feel is very much a personal choice. And what we do with Lupi is help people who are trying to eat more clients, include more plants in a sustainable way into their diets. And so I think that's where I see the distinction. I see that there is an ethical connotation of veganism and a more healthy connotation of plant based eating. I am both right. I'm a fan base leader. I care about it for health perspectives. But I also from a health perspective. But I'm also vegan. I want to add here that these terms and terminology can be problematic at times because it seems very binary. It seems like, you know, my co-founder, Ali, always talks about how she like I actually don't want a label because I find that limiting the sentence. And I think she's very right about that, because I think you need to think about this as a spectrum and not as a binary choice. And so I think what turns a lot of people off is when you hear Vegan, you think you have to be like militant or do everything in a prescribed way. And I just don't think that that is what veganism should be about or plumpness eating should be about.  [00:15:35] Yeah. And likewise, on the other end of that pendulum is people who feel comforted by the umbrella. You know, plant bases become one of the top 10 key marketing terms for every industry, like fortified with vitamin D was in the 80s, you know, and so people are saying things are plant based on their label if it has any kind of a vegetable in it.  [00:15:56] And it could be a product that is strictly not Vegan. And worse, it could have preservatives. It's starting to become this very wishy washy, untrustworthy term. And so I think it's it's it's cool for me because I love the opportunity to make people redefine themselves and to look into how people are defining their terms. And it's causing a lot of questions to come out. And so and I didn't you know, having one term to describe 16 things is really complicated. So having Vegan plant based in 50 more doesn't bug me. But not having people question or define themselves, I think is where a lot of the inconsistencies are coming from. So I'm glad that you did. And since you used Lupi as an example, let's kind of climb into what it is you and I talked about my first observations when I hit your website. I was, you know, immediately presented with iconography and we call it art back in the day. But pictures and photographs that for me had this kind of throwback feel to the 70s, you have a great deal of representation of different ethnic groups and generations and things like that. And it's all based around this product that you have. So can you start off by telling us what the products are that you create and then we'll get into the logistics of the company?  [00:17:15] Yeah, totally. Yeah. So. So Lupi is here to help people live plant for life. So whatever that means for you, no matter if you're trying to be 100, some plant base or if you're just dabbling. We want to be here for you and we want to be inclusive in that way. And so I think when you point out how the website speaks to you from this inclusiveness perspective, I think that's something that feels really that we feel very strongly about, is that we don't want to alienate people and we want to meet people where they are. We launched Lupi in January. So we are we are celebrating company and we launched our first suite of products, which are two would be bite's.  [00:17:53] And so to be by it's this little scrap or Secombe in three different flavors currently taking your lemon cranberry peanut butter counted and with better cinnamon raisin or the three different flavors.  [00:18:05] And that's the first product of hopefully many. So how we see Lupi is we see it as a platform for this incredible ingredient called Luchini B, which is kind of underrated and undiscovered here in the United States. So it's an ingredient that is originally from Europe, from the Mediterranean region in Italy. And Greece has been consuming lapine beans for, I want to say centuries. But it's something that I had been researching and thinking a lot about. How how does nobody interstate's know about this being that happens to be to being with the highest concentration of pompous protein. When I know that a lot of kids are struggling with nutrition and specifically with protein when it comes to eating Clockface. And so we are here to hero this ingredient and build a platform for it through. Through Luby and through what we are doing.  [00:18:59] Very cool. So when you went into product development, seems tricky.  [00:19:04] It seems like a completely different beast when it comes to, you know, Vegan worlds and things like that. How long did it take you guys to source everything that you needed to from the manufacturer and distributing and things of that nature? Are you in? I mean, brick and mortar, everyone, you know, it hasn't really been a hot topic for it over the past couple of months due to reasons of the pandemic. Are you in brick and mortar stores or did you start with a completely virtual presence?  [00:19:31] Yes, these are great questions. So starting with your last question, first, our initial launch strategy was only focused on physical distribution. So we were in about 40 accounts in the New York City area, mostly independent health stores and independent grocery stores. And then we were selling directly to office spaces as well as yoga studios engines. And so a lot of that has been obviously put on hold due to what's going on in the world. And to react quickly, shift gears and focus on our online distribution.  [00:20:03] And we always have the website. We always had an online storage was in our focus as it is a very distinct channel. And so we just took our playbook for it out the window and created a new one and focused on that. And so we are now available mostly through the Web site. And then we saw on some other platforms like Amazon and Bubble and some some other online retailers. In terms of your question of how long has this all, how long does this all take? So I want to maybe put it together and like the different steps and pieces. So I had been really fascinated by this ingredient.  [00:20:40] And I really mean that, like reading everything and talking to everyone who knew anything about it. Well, both people in the States as well as abroad for a few years now. And I have been playing around with it in my kitchen and making different variations of recipes and loopy, loopy bites originally was actually two rounds and it were this little around balls that I'd made them all types of different flavors.  [00:21:06] And I did sell them for a split second at a store. I'd like a Vegan. She started at Vegan specialty store in Brooklyn and down the street for me, just to kind of test like, was there a market? Was there interest? And it all kind of came together in fall of 2018 where I decided to leave my last full time job. And through various kind of opportunities, I was connected with a startup studio in Manhattan called Human Ventures and Day. They like to invest in two entrepreneurs and businesses that have a positive impact on humans on the planet and the environment. And so I we connected with a founder, Heather, and clearly I saw that there was an opportunity for us to work together.  [00:21:51] So I basically started working with them and and kind of took this idea. That was Luby before it was Lupi.  [00:22:04] And it's a bunch of market research and made everything a little bit tighter and then realized that if I wanted to launch a food business, I needed to get some expertize from the food world and food space. And so luckily, I was introduced to Ali, who's today my co-founder. I'm through a kind of connection. We both I remember when we grab coffee for the first time on a Saturday morning, we were both, like, not really thinking much of it. And when we met, it was kind of like love at first sight. We we share a passion for eating the both plant based leaders. And she was ready to leave her job and jumped into this with me. And her background is in traditional CPG. She's worked for Pepsi and for a few other bigger companies and the more corporate space and has been mostly focused on branding and marketing. So my ops experience in startups and her experience and branding and marketing was a great combination. So we got together and that's when we really started functioning the recipe and scaling it from my home kitchen to a commercial kitchen to then a Coke hopper. And that's when we started building up the brand and the supply chain.  [00:23:19] So we did find over the last year, you know, we officially start working together in May of last year. And so for six months, we were just heads down focused on all of these moving pieces. And then we ended up launching come January 1st of this year.  [00:23:34] Fantastic. Congratulations. Did you guys take funding or was it bootstrapped?  [00:23:38] Yeah, we did. To take some Creecy funding from Human Ventures to UPS to do that. And they were super excited about the idea. So they invested. But, you know, we are a scrappy early stage startup. It's just Ali and myself. And then we have a really amazing person on a team, Meghan, who is doing all of our social and so much more. And we were getting some help with fulfillment. But that's basically it. We're still a really small team and trying to be really, really scrappy.  [00:24:09] Absolutely.  [00:24:10] I'm wondering with especially with startups, you know, it feels like because of the scrappiness, you're talking about this kind of Alleycat mentality. A lot of people have.  [00:24:22] I find that younger the company, the more apt and prone they are to addressing, you know, a conversation or a dialog between their company or their product and customers regarding Kofod and and in particular, you know, plant based Vegan companies have this very delicate but important narrative with that, because, you know, the analysis, regardless of where you stand on the history of the epithet or the pandemic or any of that which this podcast is not endeavor to look into, what it has done for the majority of civilization has caused people to reanalyzed food sources and and health and really look at what health is in this latter day and what it means to someone and your company being this company based on this very healthful product. You know, the Lupino being and I'm wondering if you have had a chance to you and your co-founder, Ali, if you guys have spoken about messaging that for your customer moving forward.  [00:25:25] Yeah, I mean, I think health is is an essential part of what we are trying to do with Lupi. You know, what makes us different is not only that we're using Lapine beans, which are these incredibly powerful, which fish Latricia's and little beans, but also the fact that we're using the whole being an albar. There is no other protein bar that it's using the whole bean. And why is that important? Because you get all the fiber so you don't get something super process of a stripped of nutrition. You get the real whole ingredients. And there has been a trend over the last few years and I see a trend. But really, it's a movement towards eating more real food. And that's really what we're spending for. So all of our bars in five or six ingredients, you can identify all of them. They are simple. They are, you know, straightforward. There's nothing hidden in it. And so I think that that's really essential. And we we have found that our consumers really, truly resonate with the fact that it's a wholesome product, that it's made out of whole real ingredients. In a way, it's something you could make in your kitchen at home. And I think that's one of the value crops when it comes to the pandemic.  [00:26:33] I think what's interesting this time around is that, you know, people are suffering obviously economically and financially, not only from a health perspective, but it's very different than what happened, for example, in 2008, I think, where, you know, there was a lot.  [00:26:50] It was a big economic impact on people's lives. Then people will stop spending money on certain things in those times. What we've seen here is there's actually been a focus of consumers, of spending money on healthy, real, wholesome products. And it's almost like people are rewarding themselves and they are investing into their health. And I think it's one because we are in 2020 and people. There has been a shift. Like I said, in terms of people's mindset around eating better, we'll hold some food and realizing it can be delicious and convenient and still really good for you. But also, this pandemic, you know, it is health related. It is all about how, you know, how can you protect yourself as much as possible from the impact. And I think investing into your health, eating good food, taking care of your sleep and your stress levels is something that you can do and you have control over. And I think consumers are really resonating with that understanding.  [00:27:49] Yeah, absolutely. And to that end, I'm wondering, have you guys looked down the road in your goal of making? Have you thought about future products or future flavors on the product?  [00:27:58] Has it was any of that ever written into, like the beginning plans of what you're doing? And if so, can you enumerate on what they are?  [00:28:04] Yeah, totally. So, yes, we have a lot of ideas, a lot of thoughts and a lot of things in the making. Obviously, you know, we are Starbucks, so we we're always changing things and adapting to the environment. We're definitely thinking about a few new flavors in the future. So that's definitely in the pipeline. We have been talking and thinking about other products, and I think that will be very much driven by what our consumers want because we want to co create this company and Lupi and the products with our consumers. But the cool thing is Luchini beans are very versatile and they can be adapted and used in different applications. So there's definitely a lot of opportunity there.  [00:28:49] Yeah, it's an exciting time for you guys. And as things, you know, as hopefully as as a cure comes forward from the pandemic or an immunization, at the very least we can return and, you know, we can start looking forward to new products from you guys. That's going to be exciting. Isabel, we are out of time. But I want to say thank you so much for speaking with us about your company and all of your Vegan knowledge. I really do appreciate it and appreciate your time today.  [00:29:19] Thank you so much for having me. It was really awesome talking to you.  [00:29:22] Absolutely. For everyone listening, we've been speaking with Isabel Steichen. She's founder, a certified plant based nutritionist and podcast. Or you can find out more about her and her company on Get Lupi dot com. Thank you for giving us your time today until we speak again next time.  [00:29:39] Remember to eat clean and responsibly, stay in love with the world and always bet on yourself. Such as? 

Today I am chatting with Julieanna Hever. Julieanna Hever, MS, RD, CPT, The Plant-Based Dietitian, has a BA in Theatre and an MS in Nutrition, bridging her biggest passions for food, presenting, and helping people. She has authored five books, including The Healthspan Solution, Plant-Based Nutrition (Idiot’s Guides), and The Vegiterranean Diet, and two peer-reviewed journal articles on plant-based nutrition for healthcare professionals.HealthspanSolution.com and PlantBasedDietitian.comThis series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.  TRANSCRIPTION*Please note this is an automated transcription, please excuse any errors or typos[00:00:00] In this episode, I had the opportunity to speak with plant based dietitian, author and Ted speaker Julianna Hever key points addressed were three of her five books titled The Health Span Solution, Plant based Nutrition and the Vegetarian Diet. We also get into the current trends and terminology in the ever changing science and community of fasting, while discussing how she helps her audience incorporate fasting into their lives. Stay tuned for my awesome chat with Julianna Hever.  [00:00:36] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas in an effort to explore the world of fasting from a variety of angles. This dialog is meant to develop a more complete story about the information, research, personal stories and culture in and around the science and lifestyle of fasting. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Vegan life and roundtable topics. They can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen.COM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Podbean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. Hi, everyone, and welcome back.  [00:01:30] I'm Patricia, your host, and today I'm speaking with Julianna Hever, she is a plant based dietitian, author and Ted speaker. You can find out more on both of her Web sites. Health span solution, dot com and plant based dietitian, dot com. Welcome, Julianna.  [00:01:46] Thank you so much for having me.  [00:01:48] Absolutely. I look forward to unpacking everything that you've done. And for everyone listening or watching Vodcast, we will first.  [00:01:54] Well, we'll read a bio on Julianna. But before I do that, to give you a roadmap of what we'll be looking at today and kind of unearthing, I'm going to look at three of her books. Julianne has written several books, and namely, I'm going to look at three, the vegetarian diet. Number one, the second one, we plant based Nutrition Idiot's Guide. And third one will be the Health Spend Solution published in 2019. And outside of that, we'll unpack kind of the ethos and the philosophy behind that. We will also begin with an academic, personal and professional platform. I'll ask you in on it to define kind of how she came to writing these books and other works that she's working on within her Web sites. We'll also get into some of the specifics in the ethos behind terms and terminology in the current climate. Discussing the Kofod 19 pandemic briefly and some of the terms that are ever changing in the world of veganism and vegetarianism. We'll wrap everything up with it. Goals and advice. Giuliani may have for her current work endeavors or even personal endeavors. So a quick bio as promised on Juliana. Juliana Giuliani is an M.S. R.D. CBT, the plant based dietician, has a B.A. in theater and an M.S. in nutrition, bridging her biggest passions for food, presenting and helping people. She has authored five books, including Health Spend Solution, Plant based Nutrition, Idiot's Guide and the Vegetarian Diet, and two peer reviewed journal articles on plant based nutrition for health care professionals. She was the host of What Would Juliano Do? Gave a TED talk and instructed for the E Cornell plant based nutrition certification program. She's appeared on the Dr. Oz Show, Harry and The Steve Harvey Show. Julianna is the co-founder and nutrition director for Afro's, co-host of the podcast Science and Sorcery. And she speaks, she speaks and consults with clients around the globe. You can find her again at Plett, these dietician, icon and health spend solution Duckhorn. So, Juliano, I'm excited to kind of climb through. You are no stranger to being peppered with questions, but prior to getting into your current works, the three books we mentioned, I'm hoping you can kind of draw an academic and professional background and intermixed with your own personal narrative or story regarding vegetarian and vegan lifestyle.  [00:04:17] Oh, there's. Where do we begin? Well, I was always interested in nutrition and fitness. Always like since I was a child, I have audiotapes of me teaching aerobics to my cousins and friends at five years old. And it was always kind of interested in learning more about what we eat and how it impacts your body and health and all that. And so I just started reading and reading, reading probably around teenage years when I stumbled upon a book called Diet for a New America and learned about the implications of what ends up on our plate. It changed me. It kind of had a really profound influence on how I saw our food and our plate. And I decided I wanted to omit animal products from my diet. But at that time, there was no Internet and there was no you know, I didn't have anyone to really go to or ask questions about. So I cut out animal products, tried to navigate the situation kind of by myself. And of course, my parents were worried about me as most parents would be because I wasn't cooking. I was I would just kind of, you know, doing my own thing. And so I they had they actually listed their friend, who is a nurse, to instill fear in me of being deficient in protein. And I heard and, you know, all that and it was effective. And I got scared back into, you know, eating the standard traditional diet. But I was still I still had a lot of question marks and I was sure that there was a way more to this story. And I just kept investigating and learning and learning. And then I became a personal trainer while I was an undergraduate because I was an actress in Los Angeles. And, you know, this is always the whole you know, I have to lose weight. You know, four camera ready, Bubba, blah. And that led me to two personal training. Fell in love with personal training because it brought my passion for fitness into being. And I started training. Rawly was acting on the side. But everyone started asking me questions about nutrition. And I was not willing to just, you know, regurgitate the information I had learned and aggregated in a chapter of a personal training handbook and from my own personal education. So right away, I. I signed up. I applied for graduate school and a dietetics program. And I was doing that and I fell in love. It was the first time in my life that I loved school and was getting straight A's and just loved I was just lapping it all up. The biochemistry, the clinical nutrition, just all of it.  [00:06:41] And so did my internship and lots of science and learning how to dig deep into the science, something I hadn't really, you know, delved into prior to that as much.  [00:06:55] And so when I finished graduate school, that's when I started going back and finding out. Oh, wait a second. Yes, you can get protein from plants and yes, you can get iron better sourced from plants. And once I found all of that and started digging and digging and digging, that was it. I changed my diet. I went all out. I was an adult. So it was it was my time I could do. I wasn't living under my parents' roof anymore. And my health changed profoundly. Just personally, I. I ameliorated lifelong sinus infections and G.I. problems. I had so many G.I. problems.  [00:07:32] I was in the hospital so many times, in fact, so many times and so many different types of health care practitioners that I saw. Not once was I asked, what do you eat? Which was kind of mind blowing. So it changed my health.  [00:07:45] And then I started implementing these changes with my clients and was blown away by the efficacy and the results that I was seeing with my clients that I had not seen prior when utilizing the tools that I had been given in graduate school and an internship. So once I started teaching plant based to my clients and seeing them, you know, I always say results are typical. They would get off their medications. They would reverse diseases that were supposed to be lifelong, like advanced cardiovascular disease or Type two diabetes or hypertension or, you know, hyperlipidemia, things that were not supposed to get better that doctors don't expect to see you get better. They were getting better. And I it's been now 15 years and this every day. I keep saying results are typical because we see extraordinary things happen. And I'm so glad there's no looking back after that.  [00:08:33] Absolutely. So I'm wondering what it sounds like you were already on this correct career trajectory as you kind of the benefits of the lifestyle start to kick in for you personally.  [00:08:43] What prompted you to write your first book or endeavor in your first Web site? Which what was the first movement after you became certified?  [00:08:53] That's a good question. I I was like I was transitioning because I was personal training. Got pregnant at the end of my education.  [00:09:02] And then we had my first child and I was like, okay, well, my ex-husband is a physician. So he was like, okay, well, you can, you know, raise the kids. So it's like I dropped my personal training business. And that's when I just finished grad school was like, okay. So I just kept reading and learning, started changing, you know, seeing clients in a different way, not personal training anymore. And persay like not going to I was going to people's homes, you know, three times a week. And working them out like that was what I was doing prior to having babies. But then I had my two children and I was at home and I was going on weekends to see a client or work try. I was trying to integrate telehealth, which is quite interesting because now it's like this is the best time ever. But this was a long time ago before it was really a thing. So while I was at home researching, I guess, and starting to see clients kind of sporadically, I was I was asked to give talks. I was I started a Web site. I started yet I was getting on social media. And then fortuitously, because I've always wanted to write a book, I just don't know what or when or how or what. But literally, I got an email, so I it was it must have been from my blog was out there or something. And this agent who's now still my agent, reached out and said, we're looking for someone to write. It was at the time Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Nutrition. And so I basically had to do a proposal and I'd never done this before. So it was kind of this last minute does I feel like it was just this gift and I got the job. I changed the title to The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant Based Nutrition, and it published in 2011. And it's just, you know, and that was it. And then like, for instance, after that published, I got a phone call from a producer from Dr. Oz Show, like everything just kind of sort of happened. I think plant based was becoming a huge thing. You know, especially that's part of why was transitioning away from the word Vegan because I like to focus on you. I'm an I'm a dietitian.  [00:10:48] I focus on the health aspects of it. I'm not an ethicist or, you know, don't like to talk about all the other stuff that are involved in it to that now that you just dropped that.  [00:10:57] That's one of my biggest questions for all guests that I try to have on in this series. And that is the number one divisive and kind of heated factor right now.  [00:11:08] How do you yourself personally define Vegan and plant based. Those two terms?  [00:11:14] Yes. So I did that in my first book and I've been doing ever since and every book and it has kind of evolved in and devolved and it's really interesting. So basically, the most basic way to describe it is a vegan diet is basically an exclusive definition. It means I do not eat or use animals, and that's really the extent of it. It is a diet that is does not include animals. Doesn't mean what it is. And that's why I gravitated towards the term whole food plant based diet that I was initiated by Dr T Colin Campbell. And a Whole Foods plant based diet means I eat a diet based on whole plant foods. And then we've since evolved. This are our last book. Our most recent book is The Health Band Solution, and we talk about a health band diet and we're actually even gravitating more, I guess. Away from the terms just because it's gotten so cloudy, you know, and there's as onset like ever since this happened, you know, in the last decade, even there's been a huge, huge explosion of plant based foods which aren't necessarily in alignment with a health band promoting or healthful promoting diet. Right.  [00:12:24] And herein lies the rub. Regardless of the Vegan term, which a lot of people felt was politicized.  [00:12:30] You're saying it's based on exclusions rather than inclusions. There's another issue with the plant based in that it's being attached like fortified with vitamin D was in the 80s. Every one who wants to push it is something healthy or good for you is saying plant based. And the item, first of all, is, you know, containing animal products. So vegans are having a hard time attaching themselves to that term anymore. And it's frequently attached to things that have preservatives and that are notoriously unhealthy. And so do you. Do you foresee something coming off the ocean that's, you know, even a newer term than plant based? Or do you think it still will be like a guiding light for people trying to do? Or will it be Whole Foods plant based, which is a new argument about this? You know, it has to be like a complete food. How do you.  [00:13:16] Well, it's actually a Whole Foods plant based diet has is not new. It's an old term. And the way it's being changed, like things like, you know, saying I'm not only what's the word, it's a I can't think of the word right now that people are using a lot of. I'm blanking on the word, there's a word for it. Like, that's basically another word, another like euphemism for an omnivore diet. It'll come to me. But I am. We did change the terminology. We are seeing health span now because. Well, my focus now is on health, man and and wellness. And it's we have kind of defined that now the diet as a diet based on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices in tasty combinations of soup, salad sites and sweets. So we're kind of taking it to the next level because there is so much obfuscation when it comes to nutrition and diet and like just everywhere. And a lot of that stems from what we call macro confusion, the use of carbs, protein and fat to define food groups and to define how we eat and what we avoid. And it's absolutely meaningless. Absolutely confusing. And has we want to get that terminology out of our conversations. We want to focus on foods. So, yes, it's going to change. And it's you know, people are going to call what we know. Now, I hear plant based diets include meat, but don't exclude him. It just gets so wishy washy. And there really it doesn't really matter much because it's really semantics.  [00:14:49] Well, and I think that that's the key term of having everyone who you're looking at when you're looking at worlds of veganism or any other dietary restrictions fruitarian sorry, like it's an area in which are people that are, you know, using meat flexibly or the integration of vegetables flexibly, depending on how you look at it.  [00:15:08] However, I think it's very key to understand that you need to make people define their terms, which is why I asked you to define the difference for you between Vegan and plant based, because anytime you're looking at a company or an author, you need to make sure because these terms are so flexible right now, as is everything in our society in the United States, things are being redefining, redefined across the board. I think it's key to make sure that you realize how people are defining themselves into that. And I'm hoping that we can look at the vegetarian diet.  [00:15:39] And let me read you a quick synopsis and then get your take on what that particular book is back. And then we'll double back to the plant based Nutrition Idiot's Guide, because I know that that was revamped in 2018. But you mentioned that in 2012, the vegetarian diet, and it takes that Medd to a whole new level by focusing on whole plant foods that promote long term wellness and ideal weight management. You can reap the benefits from the most research to belove diet, made even healthier the vegetarian diet and then did the things that it offers is comprehensive nutritional info, shopping lists, 40 recipes, flexible meal plans and strategy for overall health. So when you launched this in 2012, it was again a little bit before its time when Mediterranean diets were just kind of being analyzed for obviously their cardiovascular health and things of that nature. What what was your main impetus for writing this book?  [00:16:35] Well, yes, actually, I was looking at the literature on the Mediterranean diet that's quite old. You know, since maybe 50, 60, 70 started in the 1950s, 1960s at that point. It's like that's when it all kind of evolved. And what happens every year is that we get these reports. You know, the best diet, the healthiest diet, because people always kind of looking for that. And the Mediterranean diet kind of wins almost every year. You know, the healthiest diet for cardiovascular disease for for everything. And I was looking at the literature on wholefood plant based diet where quite literally, it's the only diet that has ever reversed advance stage cardiovascular disease and type two diabetes. It has so much amazing evidence supporting the reduction of medication, all the things I noted before that I witnessed now with clients. And there's just a plethora of research showing that. So I kept wondering, well, why is the Mediterranean diet getting all the props when look at what a plant based diet really can do. And so that made me kind of want to dig deep and go all the way back to the beginning of the so-called Mediterranean diet, which really originated with and so Ki's work. And that's where it was really brought back to the United States. And what I determined and what I looked at was, well, wait a minute, the actual the actual diet was mostly a whole food plant based diet, predominantly based on eating whole plants. It wasn't the fish and the olive oil and the red wine that we've kind of interpreted it now. You know, convenience is like, oh, I'm just going to pour some olive oil all over my steak and have a glass of red wine and I'm going to get all the benefit. And that just simply isn't true. So I kind of identified a few reasons why it was effective. And mostly mostly because it's a whole food plant based diet.  [00:18:21] Yeah, absolutely. And I think it impacts it fairly well from the skimming I did of it. Turning back to plant based Nutrition Idiot's Guide, and you offer a new food triangle, which I know is kind of the the beginners look into, you know, reassessing what we all were taught as children about food I think still are.  [00:18:40] The food triangle, as far as I know, is still ridiculously disproportionate and funded by the industries that it represents. But I think that you offering the new perspective of the macro in nutrients that you were kind of discussing and the latest science on the. Different priorities. Common recipes and different things like that health span, as you mentioned, in menus, when you talk about, you know, a complete guide. Do you feel like someone who doesn't know anything about veganism can go out picture or purchase this book, garner a really good sense of the diet of plant based? You know, hopefully a plant based diet as well as kind of implementation steps, or does it feature more one aspect than the other?  [00:19:25] No, it's it's an idiot's guide. And I mean, some people say, how could this be an idiot's guide? It's really scientifically intensive, but it is used for the lay person. And it is a reference. It is. We put so much into this book. It's like all the whys, all the research behind it. We weren't allowed to reference in that book. So we're excited about our new book where we were able to include the references. And we both, between me and my partner, recognized we have about five papers on plant based diet that are really well referenced specifically for physicians and health care professionals. But that's what the whole what we love about the Idiot's Guide plant based intuition is that it's it's for everyone, like anyone could read it, understand it. And then it's not only the whys in the background, but it's like a chapter for children and infants and pregnancy and seniors and athletes. We work with a lot of athletes, a chapter on weight loss, like all the different populations and time of life where things may change nutritionally. And it's like everything, all what you need, what to focus on and then how to do it. So we have I think there's at least 50 recipes in the book. And, you know, what about nutrition and supplements? And there's basically like everything you need to know about eating plants is in that book. Cool.  [00:20:40] I mean, that sounds great. So then it begs the question, the health span solution, which let me read you a quick synopsis with Scrubs from online. Not my words. And share the simple and effective diet that has allow their clients to lose weight.  [00:20:54] Reverse disease, reduce or eliminate medication use and archive optimal health. Achieve optimal health. This accessible and easy to follow guide examines the health risks posed by a typical Western eating habits and explains a how a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices can lead to lower blood pressure, healthy weight management and longer life. So if Idiot's Guide is to this comprehensive understanding, then would you argue that the health spend solution gets into disease and disease prevention?  [00:21:29] Well, OK. So the first book, The Idiot's Guide, has everything you need to know about eating plants. What I've always wanted and dreamed about and fantasized about was having a colorful cookbook with pictures and images and all of that.  [00:21:43] And that's what we did with the house band solution. I came together with Ray cronies almost four years ago and our work was so synergistic he brought all of this house span of metabolism, both two very different subjects. But that was his specialty. And so it's what we kind of combined are our work. We both mean what running around the world saying things like carbs are not a food group. We both had means that we had made and everyone else was looking at us like we had two heads, which was kind of funny because our paths had never crossed. So basically, this book is kind of a beautiful collaboration of everything we've wanted to do. He went to culinary school and while I've been you know, I didn't and I as a dietician, I'm always asked to do recipes. I had my own TV show, Rove's doing recipes and developing recipes. And that just kind of evolved. And I had to teach myself, well, he's got all those actual skills that he learned. So it's been really extraordinary to put our heads together and our work together. And I think that health solution is a combination of that. It is a cookbook. It's got over 100 recipes. So the emphasis is on food. But what we did really kind of crazy different is that the first four chapters, instead of doing like pantry lists and ingredients and basics, what you would find in most cookbooks, we did all we we concisely compacted a ton of science into four chapters. We we're so grateful that our publishers DKA enabled does it allowed us to kind of really just deep dove into the science because we wanted to share have all these great tools like a food triangle, which is not the food pyramid or you know, we've changed it because we want to change the language of food. We want to get away from macro confusion and we define all of that in the first four chapters. So it's kind of really dense and you get everything into four chapters. And then we had a great time making delicious soup, salad sides and sweets. We got rid of breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and desserts. And we because it's we don't care about time of day eating. We just wanted to eat that list, though. That list of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lykins mushrooms, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices. So we're really excited about this book. And it's just it's just it's different.  [00:23:45] It's got very similar information, distilled, but it's mostly focused on on how to do it, what to eat and how delicious eating this way really is.  [00:23:55] Yeah, it's so. And I think the. Biography, probably captured on a lot of your pages, is a representation of the vibrancy of the way of eating as well.  [00:24:04] Speaking to a former guest on the series just a couple of days ago who is a chef, and she just said we're drawn towards vibrant colors and he knows a plant based diet is is never there's nothing more fulfilled than that. That's why they have to put those chemicals into other things to make them more vibrant. You know, the salmon that you're eating and things of that nature and you buy raw. I'm curious, you mentioned the first few chapters being chock full of, you know, all of your scientific research and things like that. What are the top three takeaways for you? The most poignant parts about those chapters in the research that you're bringing, like your boiled down tinctures, you're axiomatic three or four points from those chapters.  [00:24:44] It's a good question. I would say because we're trying to change the language. Again, macro confusion is a topic that is quite unique. And one of our biggest call to action to people, because we want people to think about food differently. And that's what we do in our lifestyle transformation company, is that we our goal is to change people's relationship with food. That is that is what we love doing. And I think that we kind of define that in the book. I would say the second thing maybe is the six daily threes. We talk about how to prioritize foods because we think about that big list of foods and all the I mean, I always say infinite combinations that we could put those ingredients together in tasty combinations. I would say that, you know, you want to prioritize from a nutritional standpoint because I still you know, I'm a dietitian. I still want people to get all their nutrition. And so we use a six daily 3s as a way to look at exactly what to kind of prioritize overall. And then, gosh, I have to pick a third one talking about health span. You know what we're talking about? There's a lot of data on health span and we're warehouse man and plant based nutrition collide. And where there's as beautiful, you know, cross CrossLink, is that perhaps a one of the reasons, you know, we always talk about the antiinflammatory benefits and what you're not getting by avoiding me and animal products, all those different things are really important and why we have all these extraordinary health advantages of eating plants, but where the housemen evidence shows and where it kind of comes together, is that the only way we've ever extended health span and longevity in all model organisms tested in a nutritional perspective from yeast to rodents to our primate cousins, is with dietary restriction without malnutrition. So while I was going around for the, I don't know, 10, 12 years before I met Raymon saying, you know, defending the adequacy of a plant based diet, you can get your like I said, where I came from, you can get your protein, you can get your iron, you can perhaps the reason it's so healthful is because of what it naturally limits. So maybe not having and, you know, not being obsessed with protein like so many people are. That is perhaps what is contributing to these health span and just wellness benefits of eating based diet.  [00:27:13] Yeah, that's fascinating. It's a good flip on its head. I like that idea.  [00:27:17] And investigating things from different angles. I'm wondering, are you clearly are in conversation with a great deal of colleagues and your partner that you've done a lot of these books with endeavoring? I'm wondering about any realizations you've had with the Cauvin 19 pandemic as of late in conversation with these plant based diet and the benefits that come from obviously your history with, you know, health increase performance, all of that returning to optimal health. Have you come away with any. Everyone has kind of reignited a refounded their relationship with healthy living. The world at large is starting to question unhealthy living and histories of where the food's coming from and things of that nature. But I'm asked. I'm wondering if you personally have had any new realizations in this time of quarantine and the pandemic about your own personal knowledge or trajectory with plant based living?  [00:28:15] It's a good question. I don't think anything has changed for me personally. I just think it strengthens my resolve for what I've seen prior to this and what I've read and learned. And, you know, a hopeful plant based diet is extraordinary because of all of its foundational advantages. Like, you know, Anslem from an antiinflammatory. Properties are crucial, you know, not taking in things that are disease promoting, you know, the thing, the compounds that we find in animal products. The whole reason that we ended up here, perhaps, you know, the although the zoonotic impacts of of eating animals and producing animals, you know what's happening. You know, when you look at factory farming and antibiotic usage, that's where 70 to 80 percent of antibiotics are used, which is obviously propagating the whole superbugs in. And all these things that are potentially huge and could potentially cause more problems in the future. So I think that all of that. There's so many advantages to sticking to plants. I think it's also it's been interesting. As a dietitian and as a coach for my clients, because a lot of people work, they always come to me. And this is kind of the first time where they're like, oh, I have to get back in the kitchen or, you know, maybe I can't get me at the store. And so it's kind of forced people to rethink food. Like you said beautifully, it's a great opportunity. I think this is a great time. We've been trying to inspire our clients to, you know, be comfortable with just sticking to these staple foods. But it hasn't changed our approach. I would say there's going to be a lot of interesting stuff that comes out of this from a research perspective. I'm already starting to read on the initial stuff about vitamin D. We just had a wonderful interview with Paul Stamets, who's the expert in mushrooms and and that the efficacy of just of mushrooms as medicine. So there's so many amazing properties that you can get from a plant based diet. There's so many reasons to avoid animal products. And I think that this just adds to that. You know, just a very enormous reason to consider, you know, moving in this direction. I never like to tell people what they should. They have to eat or wide and then try to convince anyone, like I stop trying to convince people several years ago. But I'm happy to share as much information as I can and help people go through that process. But, you know, it's it's a very personal decision, what you put in your body. But, you know, we've seen a lot of it. It would be interesting to see later people's diets. And, you know, we've I think one of the very interesting things I've noticed, too, is that what we're hearing about that the people that have the more severe implications after they've contracted the disease are the people that know the morbidity and mortality rates with Koven, 19 happened to be coinciding with these comorbidities. And what are those comorbidities? Are things that we know can be you know, your risk can be reduced by a plant based diet. Type two diabetes. You know, obesity. All these things that we know. A plant based diet can help ameliorate would help decrease your risk. Possibly. We'll see. This can reduce your risk for certain things like what we're seeing with coronavirus.  [00:31:18] Absolutely. All very good points. I'm wondering I'm looking forward to the future lot. Again, with the pandemic is a lot a lot of people as time to reflect about future prospects and goals and revamp what's important to them.  [00:31:30] What do you see on your horizon? Is there another book in play? What is happening for you? I know you've got your podcast going and other current endeavors, but what goals you have moving forward?  [00:31:41] Yes, well, we've been, you know, so busy with clients. Fortunately, you know, a lot of people need to get healthy and they're coming to us. And we really just want to be able to help as many people as we can. And we have to turn people away because there's only two of us right now. So we are trying to scale our company so that we get. As many people as possible, and we're building a an automated course, so a it'll be a 42 days, a six week health span transformation program that'll be all online. And so we're working on on developing content for that so that we can expand our horizons and just help as many people as possible. And there's other projects as our next book we are working right now are our publishers are asking for the proposal. So we're working on that. And there's just so many exciting things that we're doing.  [00:32:27] That's wonderful. I look forward to all of it. I can't wait to investigate more about it when it comes out. We are out of time. But Julianne, I wanted to say thank you so much for speaking with us today and giving us all of your information.  [00:32:39] Thank you so much for Tisha. I appreciate it.  [00:32:41] Absolutely. For those of you who have been listening, we've been speaking with Julianna Haver. She's a plant based dietitian, author and Ted Speaker. You can locate more information about her on both Web sites. Health span solution, dot com and plant based dietitian, dot com. Thank you. For those of you who have been listening. We really appreciate your time today until we speak again next time.  [00:33:01] Remember to eat clean, eat well, stay safe, stay in love and always bet on yourself. Sunshine.  

Today I am talking with Lisa Gawthorne. Co-Founder of Bravura Foods, Vegan entrepreneur, Author and Athlete Lisa Gawthorne is a passionate speaker on the topics of veganism, climate change and animal welfare. Recent appearances include TV include spots on Sky News and BBC News. Lisa has been named one of the top most 50 ambitious business leaders in UK by the Telegraph and has also been awarded the James Henry Cook award from the Health Food Institute for her inspiring support of vegan principles in business and sport.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION*Please note this is an automated transcription, please excuse any errors or typos [00:00:00] In this episode, I had the opportunity to speak with co-founder, author and Vegan athlete Lisa Gawthorne on key points addressed were Lisa's. A company that offers full sales, marketing and distribution services for Vegan products. Her book. Gone in 60 Minutes. And her incredible exercise and sports career as a proud Vegan athlete. Stay tuned for my awesome chat with Lisa Gawthorne.  [00:00:35] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found on our Web site. Patricia. Kathleen. Dot com, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Being and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:32] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia.  [00:01:35] And today I'm sitting down with Lisa Gawthorne and she she's the co-founder and author and a Vegan athlete. You can find out more about her in the conversation that we have today on her Web site. W w w dot bravura foods dot com that's B R A V U R A foods dot com. Welcome Lisa.  [00:01:55] Thank you. Thanks for having me.  [00:01:56] Absolutely. For everyone listening, I will give you a quick bio on Lisa. But before I do that, a roadmap of today's podcast for those of you that want to a little bit of a transaction were first to look at. We says academic, personal and professional history as well as her Vegan journey kind of gives you a foundation as to how she came to where she is right now. Then we'll turn our efforts into unpacking both River Foods and her book entitled. Gone in 60 Minutes. I'll get into some of the logistics about the who, what, when, where, why, how funding co-founders, all of that. And then we'll turn our efforts to looking at the ethos and the philosophical endeavors behind River Foods. And then we'll look at the book. As I mentioned, you get into some of the ethos. Is that what it offers its readers and what that wisdom it's meant to impart? We'll also look at areas talking about Kovik 19 pandemic and some of the conversation that we soon may be having with her fellow colleagues or even within herself about the changing reality that is upon us. We'll also look at goals that she may have looking into the future regarding her business and her personal endeavors. And we were up everything up with advice that we see may have for those of you who are looking to emulate some of her success or perhaps get involved with one of her current businesses. A quick bio, as promised. Co-founder of River Foods Vegan entrepreneur, author and GCB athlete Lisa Gawthorne is a passionate speaker on the topics of veganism, climate change and animal welfare.  [00:03:25] Recent appearances include TV include spots on Sky News and BBC. Lisa has been named one of the top most 50 ambitious business leaders in the UK by the Telegraph and has also been awarded the James Henry Cooke Award from the Health Food Institute for her inspiring support of Vegan principles in business and sport. The Grocer magazine has also named Lisa as one of the 10 most influential people shaping the plant based market in the UK. Lisa is also the author of the Health and Fitness Book. Book. Gone in 60 Minutes, a bite sized health and fitness savior sold on Amazon, which is sold out.  [00:04:09] We're gonna get that fixed. So as I just mentioned, I am an avid reader, but I don't care because I'm going to pepper you with questions anyway.  [00:04:17] All about the book. Book. Before we get to all of that, I'm hoping that you can provide a platform of your academic life or your personal professional history, your Vegan story, anything that kind of brought you to launching preverb foods and writing the book.  [00:04:34] Yes, absolutely. And the beauty about that is that it's all very much interlinks as well. So a quick short summary of what I did when I was younger at school and college. I was very good at business and the academic side of things. So I did a business degree shortly after doing that. Business suits and a new wanted to be in the world of marketing. And I set myself up with some really good jobs in the north west of England where I lived, where some great brands like to. It's them. So Cadbury's all these great film kind of kids, confection and kids, soft drinks brands did that for a number of years. And before I actually made the decision round about two thousand five, two thousand six, I really wanted to make that moral kind of change and decision to work for a company that had the Vegan a vegetarian specific products and now having been vegetarian since age six. And a quick story on my you actually 10 vegetarian age six, because I saw a little flip came to the post and it basically just explains and battery hen farms and also the conditions that cows are kept in. And then it was then that I made that complete connection that said to my parents, is it true, you know, is meat actually a cow? And the parents were very open and honest with me and said, yes, you know, this is what it is. And being a strong, well, six year olds, I said to them, don't ever put me on a plate ever again. And they supported me. They were worrying for the first few days as a father. And but then they supported me and we went out and we we reconfigured my diet, so to speak. So I'd been a vegetarian pretty much as far back as I could remember. Always with the aim to go vegan. I do a lot sports, which I'll I'll come on to later on, but I won't. It's always going to be you know, we're just waiting for this set of products on the markets to be able. For me to be able to make that change without a missed note on key nutrients, etc.. So fucking so the story of a career in about 2004, 2005, I decided it's really important. I've got quite a strong moral compass. I want to work for an aviation company. So I approached the then distributor of LB Electric Vehicles to health and basically just very, very briefly introduce myself. So the M.D. who didn't have a job for me? Well, after interviewing me and seeing how passionate I was about doing things with the brands in the portfolio, he can be made a position for me. And then after two or three years of work, my way up to being head of marketing in that division. And we then merged with another company called BBR Healthcare. I forged quite strong partnership with the head of sales call Morris together. We were growing a lot of the brands together and we decided, you know what, it's time for us to go out on our road, which is back in 2011. We created reviewal suits with the aim of giving consumers on the UK market a real cool choice of unique and ethical phone and a great taste in Vegan products right across Ambiens and Chill's and every other category in the market that you can think of that we really want to get in soon and bring more exciting products to the market.  [00:07:48] Yeah, I want to climb into that. So I think I understand, but it feels like you offer kind of a multitude but also neach different services.  [00:07:56] So on the Web site, it says that you offer a full sales, marketing, distribution service for Vegan and vegetarian products. And I wonder if you can kind of map out for the audience listening what a potential 10 year like that looks like. Do you take people who have just launched with a product? You take people who are seasoned. Do you take both? And how do you carry them all the way through? Do you put them in retail environments to help them with their online sales? Can you do both? How does all of that work?  [00:08:23] Yes, sure. Great questions.  [00:08:25] And when we first asked the business back in 2011, we were solely a distribution business at that point in time because the actual brand we started off distributing was pounds like rich. And you may you may know that is quite big in the US as well as being big in the UK. And then from there, that was a platform for us to bring in all that distributes products like Freedom Mallow's, which is the U.K. leading, and Jellison that marshmallow. And then having that kind of portfolio of growing products. We then made that decision to start developing some of our own products as well. So the two divisions actually work side by side. We've got a number of distributor brands that agree that in existence in all the countries or in the UK that we then take kind of title and ownership of as a brands and do all the sales and marketing, the PR, the digital campaigns and the logistics and warehousing and on the muscle, whether it's a broom that we distribute or whether it's a brand we make, a virus policy manufacturer, all of those products are subject to the same retail strategy. We're very, very successful in the UK marketplace with the likes of all the supermarkets, high street retailers, everyone from homes and Barak to Tesco to to assets, to boots, to deviate Schmitt's except trust a wall of these products. And they made the way down the retail chute into the high street and grocery outlets. And since COVA, that's changed slightly in that we are certainly looking more focused into increasing our digital footprint in the marketplace because a lot of consumers obviously are increasing spend online as well, particularly in the Vegan the vegetarian market. So when we're looking to to manifest that in. So our future plans as well.  [00:10:09] OK, and who was let's get into some of the just the logistics for all of this founders' listening and biting at the chop to know your story. Who's your co-founder? What year did you found it? Did you take funding or did you bootstrap?  [00:10:24] Cofound is called Morris, also a fellow Vegan. And so we've known each other now for about 12 years, worked together for two years before going out on our road. We started the business back in 2011.  [00:10:37] And we did take funds and from the bank at the beginning, put on usually unlike many old astar soaps, because we were taking the distribute to them the distribution contracts, trucks from a previous company. We had guaranteed revenue in place across multiple retail structures. So that basically meant that we didn't have to have a massive reliance on external solms and that it was almost a change of ownership, should we say, from one distributor business to another. So that really helped us out with regards to the early days, because unlike most of the stores we were sourcing with well over two million pounds worth of business from day one.  [00:11:19] Absolutely. Did you ever consider Worth Accelerator's even around back then? Was there any type of a system that you guys ever wanted to run it through?  [00:11:27] You had this already proven wealth of income, and I know the angels and things like that are more of a scarcity, you know, in Europe than they are in my hometown of Silicon Valley. However, I'm wondering if there was any of that going on in 2011. I don't know in the UK what the environment was like with startups.  [00:11:47] And it was definitely not as noisy as it is today. I mean, I think it's fantastic.  [00:11:52] Now, every retailer on the mall has an incubator scheme and there's lots of collaborations going on with smaller challenge brands in the UK. Young Simms's is one of them in the UK, which I think is phenomenal. And if anyone wants to look that young Trudi's is a collection of amazing challenge brands that really are making an impact on the mall in the marketplace. They all start in pretty embryonic small kinds of growth brands. The tensions among the brands within two to three years. So a really, really good one to follow.  [00:12:26] So I'd say we didn't really have that many opportunities in the early stages. We did, as we always have, and opportunities of external investment from from Beebe's equity house, things like that. But we were very, very specific, particularly in the early days, about really trying to hold on to what we'd been built in because we'd been building it in our own minds for many years price. We saw it. And we both have a very positive outlook on life with folks Vegan we're both about saving the planet were both, you know, eco warriors. I mean, I'll spare time. So it was very important to kind of keep that fluidity in the business. Back then, it was also quite difficult to find people, specifically investments to an investment that carried those same ideals, although that has changed somewhat that, you know, you've got beyond invest. Investment is a great example of that. But there was definitely a scarcity back then of opportunities.  [00:13:21] Yeah, I find that to be true.  [00:13:23] I was in Ireland about six years ago and I remember thinking it was too few and far between from my blood.  [00:13:29] And I just felt like there wasn't a lot of there's too much to go in the chamber.  [00:13:33] You know, I'm more comfortable when they're sucked in. I'm wondering, do you do you vet any companies or potential clients that come to you for services? Are there people that you wouldn't find to be a good fit or have you ever had that issue?  [00:13:50] Yes, absolutely.  [00:13:51] And I'll be honest, as we've grow wiser and older with our business efforts, we we can't take everyone's problem, Don, because, you know, at the end of the day, we've got to maintain efficient, same productivity and we've got to be able to deliver the service that we're well known for in the industry. So we don't. We no longer take all the brands that haven't really got a guaranteed revenue stream. So we like to work with brands now that probably being out in the marketplace, but somewhere between six and 12 months of started to prove themselves. And then we can offer them a lot more by giving to scale a mass, by saying we can take you out. So big retailers structures, we can have all national account management team. What would you want? Joint business plum's and sex atrocities. We can work with you across digital platforms and looking at Marks and Plum's right into operations, demand management and everything else that comes out of that. We have been approached by some great brands that I personally have wanted to take on and also call and met in many circumstances book. And a lot of them were kind of put back out and say, come back when you take these boxes, etc., and you've done that.  [00:14:55] Otherwise, it can become quite a messy end to say that it will detract away from dealing with the business that you need to do for your main suppliers. And you made key principles over the years as well. So we tend to just say prove yourself, prove that you've got momentum, and then we'll take over and be a new whale on the on the vehicle.  [00:15:15] Yeah, I like that. I think that the people who are selective make better pairing. You know, it saves not just yourself, but your client a lot of hardship.  [00:15:23] And I feel like, you know, v.C is not the only people that should be vetting each other. Everyone should be vetting one another, you know, hopefully due diligence on all ends.  [00:15:31] And I want to turn towards looking at your book, Gone in 60 Minutes. And I'm going to read a quick summary that we script from online. Most likely Amazon. So it says, banish your old tired health and fitness regimens regimes and explore the only four factors you need to shred, shred, fat, lose weight, stay healthy, be happy and get that dream body. This bite sized book is split into four quadrants that can be read in just one hour, complete with a perpetual 16 week training calendar. Diet management tips the low down on supplements and a look at how to stay motivated. Gone in 60 Minutes offers the most simple and effective advice to achieve a better body. It's the one health and fitness book you simply can't afford to miss out on. So I'm wondering, first of all, can you tell us when it was published and what your goal for writing it was?  [00:16:28] Yeah, sure. I think it was back in 2011 or 2000s, actually, 2012.  [00:16:35] And now the specific aim for me with with with writing this particular book is that over the many years of me being a member of various gyms, sports clubs spit in the Census and Leisure and Health that institutes, I was always approached by people asking the same questions over and over again. And it's one of those things. One, something that happens once is never going to happen again. So it's not strikes Streit's bounce off of bad time. And when it was getting into account of tens twenties, there's these people asking the same questions I actually thought was a mark here to develop something very simple. And that saves people going out and having to read 20 different books and subscribing to 18 different magazines and just puts it in very, very simple settings and specifically aims at everyone who is time pool because we're all so, so living in this stressful scenario, no one's got the time to read anything. So hence the book was Tam's Gone in 60 Minutes because the whole thing can be bad in just 60 Minutes is a small bite size. Health and fitness savior is split into four quadrants. And those four quadrants were the things that I got asked about the most I can give a lot of responses to with regards to personal case study. So the first section is very much about fitness. So it looks at getting rid of some of these myths about Colegio being the best thing and really kind of trying to get people into the whole level of stones and lifting weights is from the best things you can do for your body metabolism, you biobank and everything else that goes with it. I'm really trying to break down those myths. And Bobby, is that people may have an odyssey from the old days of seeing body bells and thinking, oh, if I lift a weight, I'm going to end up being a chunky monkey, so to speak. So there's a section on that. And with that was a 16 week factual Collins on a full exercise library and on the supplements and website. And people can go on and they can do all the work out. So about that last one. Then the next part tackles diet, which very much is focused on pump based fitness and also looks at and particularly pinpoint in pump based success in the athletic well. So looking at things like people like Serena Williams call. Just pick pinpoint to them out and let people know that you can achieve a law on that on them. A Vegan or a plant based diets. The fat section is about supplements. And because people always ask what supplements the best two types of things, like everything from energy to better sleep. So it's a fat loss except so mechanical that some of those things that it's not a one size fits all, but it gives some really good advice. So the things that are being used in personal case studies accept trucks. And then the last question is about motivation, which is a really important part of the book. I'm not really hammers home how to say on truck what to do to keep your fitness kind of fresh. What to do to keep yourself motivated, says on how to achieve your goals. And it's just simple stuff that I literally took. Everything I've learned that I know has worked for either myself or a lot of people around makes results, proven techniques, and just put it into an easy to understand format rather than trying to puzzle people with science. Thousands of pages, which I don't think is most meters now, and plenty of other people have done that.  [00:19:57] I'm wondering, you're we talked a little bit off the record before we started recording, and you're a distance runner.  [00:20:03] You explaining to me this specific kind of race that you get into. And I was explaining back to you that I would be very, very bad at said race. And I'm hoping you can kind of elaborate or enumerate on this run bike run race the format that you're into and kind of talk to some of the.  [00:20:24] The widely held misperceptions and beliefs about, you know, being a distance athlete in a Vegan.  [00:20:31] Yeah. Yeah, for sure.  [00:20:33] So I've always run on all my kinds of athletic heritage is being involved in my particular favorite disciplines, all five K and 10K on. And so at the moment, just to give people an idea, my five kepi, these eighteen thirty nine and I'm a 10 kopb is thirty eight. Forty eight. So pretty fast. Well what a day. Not the fastest. We're setting up the slowest. What about that. Proving to people that you know you can get on the podiums in these local races and you come back to yourself and you can get a faster and strong gusts.  [00:21:04] And saying that I just have an injury brought about probably about six years ago, a slight injury Monday and part of my rehab so not was to do more cross training, which enabled me to to land the wonderful world of the bike. And so after investment of what bike and a road bike, I did a lot more cycling and slept in a week. Rather than that being a hundred percent learning, I must be open to 60 percent wanting 60 percent cycling. I wanted to look for a sport that combined the two and Özlem was that very Scholes. So instead of Rome Bike, Rome and triathlon, it's one bike. So you from bike, swim and triathlon. It's run bike run in June alone. So it's five K run that are doing to stop then 20 K on the bike and then at two and ask all five cavewoman worms.  [00:21:51] Depends on which distance to do. So I've been represented in my age group and team G.B. now on both European and the World Championships and its employees. I've been everywhere from Canada to Denmark to Spain to Romania. This year I'm set to go to Holland. Things cross if it's all in September to the world championships. And I think that that's really given me a credible platform to let people say that festival Vegan is definitely not weak. We are absolutely full of energy and people call me all the time and we say things like Gimel, psychostimulant, you must be on low to creatine or you must be young Torino caffeine. And I don't take any of them completely stimulants. Right. Have been since two thousand seven. And that is a and a conscious decision of mine. I literally feel on walls, so I think it's all I need. Occasionally I'll use isotonic seven minute long breaks, but I get everything I need from just pure hydration and don't need to have any of that kind of extra stimulation. People can't get over that because they say, wow, that is unbelievable, that you are surviving on natural energy and survive on much energy, but winning races, winning and vehicle times as well. So I think it's showing people that you can have really high energy levels on a plant based diet is really important. Letting them see that you're not weak. Let them see the strong. I mean, I go to the gym and I can rep as much as some of the men are in there. And it may only be small in stature and an incredible strong pound for pound. I'm extremely strong with regards to that. And so I think that's also important as well to let people see that strong and full of energy. You're not weak and you're not. And, you know, there's a lot of myths out there that people think, oh, you must be deficient in calcium or you must be deficient in V12. Well, I have had vitamin and mineral and nutrient testing every year yet because we do it for my own benefit and to make sure that I'm getting all the right targets with it, with all of my school nutrition expert on fitness side of things, not once have I ever been deficient in one vitamin. Now I do take a couple of vitamins showing the diet pill. I've got to be honest, even if it didn't take them, I still don't feel as if I'd be deficient because there's so many fortified foods on the market now. You've got bread, cereals and milks that roll falsified and vitamin D, B1, V12, etc. You really, really shouldn't feel that you're deficient when there's so many great fortified foods out there. So I think that's a massive fallacy and something that I'm always keen to let people know. And I think one of the best things that I feel and I can do is use this platform as a Vegan athlete, as a successful Vegan we'll know one of the things you Offaly on a Vegan cycliste and let people know that, you know, if anything, it's it's not about holding you back. It propels you forward. And it can be a massive secret power. And, you know, it's Testament's to when I go to races where I am in the world, I'm going to interview one of the vets. You know, I do get Chemnitz from people saying go Vegan and stuff like that. But you also get people comments afterwards and that's you shake your hands and say, brilliants, well, don't put it out there and letting people say it because you're part of a change and you part of that network that's driving the positive movement. And to me, that is just it's phenomenal, say that kind of favor.  [00:25:14] Absolutely. And I think it's important to have positive icons in representation that's across all genres. As a woman, as you know, as a Vegan, like as everything that you are, as a business owner, as a co-founder. I'm curious on a personal level.  [00:25:30] Like, oh, what do you find not the majority of your diet is ruled by. Are you equal? Are you doing grains?  [00:25:38] Are you doing breads? You mentioned cereals. I love to talk about how fortified everything became because we stripped everything out of it, more so here than in Europe. We stripped our breads of any sort of fiber the second the 60s hit. And so we had to put things back into it, which only made it more fattening. And it's a diatribe. But I'm wondering for you personally, do you find a certain percentage being vegetables, fruits? What does your diet look like when you're training?  [00:26:07] It's a question in fads.  [00:26:09] Paul, until recently with it, with plum base on base fitness. Now they're on their own in style. You can check out they actually did a life story a day in the life. She clocked everything that I have in my diet because, again, it's not a question that a lot of people ask when you get your energy from. Is it more kinds of carbs? Is it is it more red grains or is it more kind of proteins? I try and eat as much protein as account on a vegan diet. At the moment, my microbe splits any woman's interest. It is 50 percent cops and those cops tend to be coming from the bases of oats, barley, rice, grains, Cain wall, sweet potato, and then it's twenty five cents fats. For that I will use things like a call doughs, not flax and olive oil, things like that. And then the remains and the remains. Twenty five percent is proteins. And for that I am, I am tofu queen. I love doing so. I have to do with everything it really does. It's such a versatile ingredient so you can scramble it and you can have it instead of fries. I have it on solids. So in suits we make Korey's with it and it really is a great product. So I'm kind of split between sisu and a little bit of the town as well and which have been that making from home over the last few months as well. Not that's great. Obviously we can't have gluten intolerant because it's made from wheat gluten. But again, very, very high in protein. It's over 75 percent protein content to sit down so fantastic together in the diets and just make sure that the big things, I mean with nutrition is to try and lock on the things that make you feel good. And if I have any foods that make me feel either uncomfortable digestive wise or if they affect my mood in any way, shape or form, we'll just call them out on that very quickly. I'm quite good at reading what works for me, what promotes good energy, what promotes positivity and things like that. Anything that's really important to people to get to grips with that, as well as rotating foods and keeping a varied mix of sources, all those foods.  [00:28:22] Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that when you start Fine-tuning, that you start to play with the tincture of your livelihood in a way that's so invigorating and powerful.  [00:28:32] TOMSULA That personal dialog, everyone's made slightly different, you know. And I love the idea of developing that deeper relationship and speaking to that and wondering if you've had a personal or professional dialog among colleagues, fellow athletes or even just yourself. Regarding the covered 19 pandemic that's hit, there's a lot of different for friends here that vegans have engaged on. You know, there is there isn't a conclusive hypothesis in this podcast, is it about developing one? There is. It's definitely brought to light wet markets and things that, you know, most vegans have a huge issue with. However, that's not necessarily the only conversation to have. There's a humanitarian thread that I keep promoting that gets brought up where we need to analyze our food source, know we need to look at sustainable measures. We need to requestion it. And you can have as many documentaries in what the and you know, and knives ever for again. And all of these with the health, all these things come out. But I think the pandemic is the final. We need to discuss this, you know, as a moment at least person to person, person among one's own self, have a conversation about whether or not you are signing off on what your food is, what's in it and where it's from. And so I'm wondering you personally, so there's mine. I'm wondering you personally, if you've had any revelations, if you've had a redistribution or reanalysis of your relationship with veganism or anything like that due to the covered nineteen pandemic?  [00:30:01] Yeah, I mean, it's interesting your points about how interesting I am, I connect to them a lot because a lot of them are married by things that I've been going through myself. So it's quite interesting, the set and things that seems to happen in time that make my phone go crazy. I'm one of those was the game changes when the game changes fast. Came out, Mike, so went mental. For weeks people were getting in touch that I never thought would commit veganism. I'm talking about bodybuilders. I'm talking about big belly men that said, no, no, it's always safe to make people eat. You would never think would want to adopt a vegan diet. Got such a mean said that's it. Watch game change is I know what it can do for my health. It's all about my health. And they really wanted to take that on board now for me personally. There is an element of shock there because I'm an animal activist and everything that I've ever done in terms of my choices for veganism has all been about protecting the animals and all about a better life for the animals. So I always get frustrated a little bit Kofman my that personally as to why people don't necessarily have that same affinity and instead they will be driven by environmental reasons or health reasons. Books, as I've matured over the last few years particularly, and seen the pump based movement being driven by flexitarian zone from bases as well as Meagan's, anyone must reducing them content. I've been a little bit more open to one's guns and it doesn't have somebody mahsa what the people out there feel is their souls to wanting to go Vegan whether it's because that will be over health or worries over the animal welfare as long as I'm making positive steps. That's a big thing. I'm going back to that whole kind of my phone rang again. Again, very similar to what you were saying when this first hit. I did have a lot of people getting in touch with me, particularly on social media, and saying, wow, I didn't even know what what markets existed. It's actually made me think more about animals per say in terms of cows, in terms of pigs. I want to learn more. Can you tell me what your favorite cheese is? The best. Milk is the best. Let me say is in a lot of that kind of came out in other bucy about the world we live in now is it's so easy for me to recommend foods, because if you are a meat eater that really wants the taste of me, I can recommend Broms that tastes like meats, if you will. Someone that doesn't want that you almost like a roadie. You get to reveal just what any remnants of meat. I can also recommend things down because there's so many pockets of people motivated by different things. It's actually roll around. I would say I'm a more positive and then constructive and holistic movement. So what I've seen is people, as you've said, question and more. I'm just thinking about food, food, sustainability, ingredients, integrity, provenance, food, wanting to know the back story, where has it come from? And I think a lot of people are starting to really now understand and I'd be shocked as well by just how much food travels around the world to get two here in the UK, as it does probably in the US and everywhere else. What? There's no reason why we can't make that on our home grounds. So I think we're going to see a resurgence of that over the coming years in terms of resurgence, Buchan's domestic manufacturing and doing things closer to home that we can control.  [00:33:15] Yeah, and seasonal, you know, eating and things even as good as someone who's been in the game for a long time, you know, and under that, I've been under this Vegan umbrella for ten years and I've been prolific in my studying and researching, hence this podcast. And it's a changing dynamic for me daily. You know, it's it's a constant conversation. I spoke with someone just recently, a guest on the show, who mentioned, you know, eating seasonally, a chef who said in the UK, she said it's not the same as the greenhouse ground. Just because we could produce the food year round didn't meant we were meant to or that it would taste the same or even do the same thing for our bodies. And I love that. Going back to the reconsideration and the ease that kind of came about in the 70s, in the 80s, with this globalization of food and how it destroyed economies and whatever you believe about macro economics aside, it did change the structure of how we even perceived food. We just stopped questioning it, where it came from. It lived like before, who was farming it, what they put on it as they farmed it. All of this things just went away and now are reemerging. And so, yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I'm wondering as you're kind of moving through this this this time in this process with, you know, the pandemic is is here. And and as we hopefully are on the horizon of a vaccine and things of that nature, do you see any changes that you will implement for your business, for your athletic life or anything like that moving forward? Because as or as a result of this.  [00:34:45] Yes, absolutely.  [00:34:47] And from a business point of view, it's definitely revealed to us that we need to do more digitally. And so we've always been very strong bricks and mortar level with all the retailers on the High Street. And in our Tom Fox except Jebal, we've really kind of always thought we'll get to digital in the future or, you know what we'll do? We'll kind of do an hour on Friday, which now seem to realize it needs to have a dedicated team, a dedicated strategy. And we actually do social media very well. So linking social media into a digital platform, you know, it works well for us. We've already started the ball rolling on. That would be the biggest step change that we'll be seeing them go into the future in terms of having more digital presence as a business that I'm working with on the ground zero zero broms on that.  [00:35:35] I think personally kov, it's this this whole kind of lockdown scenario for me personally. It's done something for me that actually has been beautiful on a personal empowerment level, but also really useful for the schools as well. And that has its ground. It makes. It's made me realize how little I need to survive. It's made me realize just what is important in life. And it's made me prioritize better, give myself more time for myself. And I'm really kind of just get to grips with things and make time for things that haven't necessarily had time go in the past. So just little things like I'm a keen photographer, McCain, be like yourself, a bit of a book web and bought, you know, over the last two years, particularly when business has been so stressful and so fast pace. I've probably read two books the year. I used to be two books in a week. It's crazy. So since lockdown, I've gone back to read the law. I've gone back to self education, self empowerments. And only on the weekends I was on a self empowerment circle with five of the right individuals. That was great. We all learn a lot from each other and it's just made me believe about life is very short. We should be doing things that really are about positive movements and spreading positive energy and joy. And I'm that kind of fits into the kind of character that I am anyway, because I've always done crystal healing and I've always been a big believer in positive meant lots to. And then Alpay and CVT and all those kind of great things that we can use. So I think it speaks for the one thing I would say if I had to smoke one word. For me personally, I would say I'm grateful.  [00:37:18] Yeah, that's wonderful. I mean, that's an amazing thing to come out of this kind of tragedy.  [00:37:24] I try to be very I'm a little bit more shy with things that I find of beauty or things in that in this time of, you know, sadness and global despair. And so I'm I'm very tender with it, but I'm not sure that that's the right course. You know, I think that we need hope and we need to also revel in things like you're talking about and the humanity behind those things. Yeah. That unites all of us and is directly, I believe, in in core value with them, the Vegan world, you know, and and for some analysis that it's around.  [00:38:00] Well, we are out of time. But I just want to say thank you, Lisa, so much today. I really appreciate you coming on and giving us your candor for anyone who wants to follow your instead. Do you have an Instagram or Twitter handle that you prefer?  [00:38:11] Yeah.  [00:38:12] Yeah, I've got an Instagram is Leece that on the school Gulf oil and Twitter is gone in 60 minutes.  [00:38:21] Yay!  [00:38:21] So, everyone, thank you so much, sir, for coming on. I appreciate your time and your story and your candor.  [00:38:28] My pleasure. Thanks for having me.  [00:38:29] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been speaking with Lisa Gawthorne. She is co-founder, author and Vegan athlete. You can find more about her company at Bravura Foods dot com. And thank you for giving us your time today. I appreciate it. Until we speak again.  [00:38:46] Remember to eat clean, eat well, stay safe, stay in love and always bet on yourself. Sanjay. 

Today I am chatting with Bettina Campolucci Bordi. Bettina is an author, vegan chef, and founder of Bettina's Kitchen. She believes we can start now to positively influence the next generation in the importance of true self-care and choices so that, unlike us, they don’t have to relearn them later in life. This includes sourcing local ingredients in any shape or form, preserving traditions, eating seasonally and cooking from scratch.https://www.bettinaskitchen.comThis series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.  TRANSCRIPTION*Please note this is an automated transcription, please excuse any errors or typos[00:00:01] In this episode, I had the opportunity to sit down with plant based author, food consultant and retreat host Bettina Campolucci Bordi. Key points addressed were Bettina's information and cookbooks in her books titled Seven Day Vegan Challenge and Happy Food Fast, Fresh, Simple Vegan. Bettina and I also examine the importance of eating seasonally and responsibly in regards to local farms and distance between food to table. Stay tuned for my fantastic chat with Bettina Campolucci Bordi.  [00:00:40] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found on our Web site. Patricia. Kathleen. Dot com, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Being and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. Hi, everyone, and welcome back.  [00:01:39] I am your host, Patricia. And I am sitting down today with Chef Bettina Campolucci Bordi. She is a plant based author, recipe developer, Vegan food consultant, content creator and retreat host. You can find out more about her on her Web site. W w w dot Bettina's kitchen dot com. Welcome, Bettina.  [00:01:59] Thank you so much for having me.  [00:02:01] Thank you for having me as well. I can't wait to kind of climb through. You've got a really prolific reach as m as a chef and an author and cookbook developer. I'm excited to get into everything. But before we do that, a quick roadmap for everyone. Listening for today's podcast will first look at Bettina's academic and professional history. And then we will turn our attention towards unpacking her story, her businesses and books. We will also look at her Web site and the different information that that offers, as well as her services. And then we will get into specific questions that I have regarding the rhetoric around Vegan eating and living during the week of the covered 19 pandemic and pieces of advice that Bettina might have. And then we will look at the differences between some key categories, particularly when it comes to the world of culinary and the intersection of that and Vegan life. And we'll wrap everything up with goals that Petina may have for herself and her business endeavors in the next one to three years, as well as advice for those of you that are looking to get involved in what she is doing and how she's working everything. Before I start getting too much into the minutia of everything between, I'm hoping you can walk us through kind of a brief description of your academic background and early professional life that helps develop the platform of how you came in to launching your Web site and your books.  [00:03:23] Absolutely. So my background is has always been a food and beverage.  [00:03:29] And it's what I, I, I used to work in restaurants from the age of 15. The difference was that I was always front of house, so I wasn't actually in the kitchen when I first started out. I was always really passionate about cooking and about food and grew up in a family where we would go on holiday. And it wasn't the museums that we remembered. It would be the meal that we had or the market that we went to and grew up with two grandmothers that loved cooking.  [00:04:01] So my passion was always cooking. However, it was something that I was advised not to follow in terms of being a chef to begin with. And the closest I could come to or be near food would be to go down the food and beverage route. So my degree is actually in hotel management and business. So, yeah, I worked in a while.  [00:04:29] You turned away. Who was advising you not to get near the food industry?  [00:04:34] I think my parents were like, no, there's no feature of being a chef. It's hard work. It doesn't pay well. You know, if your academic does go down that route. And so I was like, okay, what can I study or what can I have a degree? And that sort of an envelope that includes food and being in the industry. So, yeah, sense of house for many, many is. And then when I was I think I was twenty six or twenty seven, this opportunity came up. I was the food and beverage manager of this sort of result that was running retreats. And I met a business partner and we thought we can do this so much better. And by starting this new business, which was within the wellness industry, I decided that rather than finding a chef that would cook on these retreats, I would want to do the cooking. So this was, yeah, 70 years ago now. And that is how I sort of got into plant based cooking at the time. It was very popular to do just detoxes. So we decided that we wanted to let our clients eat food. Is the best way of doing that was going Vegan or what I like to call from Facebook. We'll get we'll get to that bit later on. And also decided to do gluten free cooking. So it was Vegan and gluten free and basically. Round the first retreat and got really passionate about that source of cooking, and that is what initially sparked this whole journey that I entered into. So remember that 78 years ago, veganism was definitely not as widespread as it is today. Yeah. And everyone was wondering, what are you doing? Why are you doing vegan food? Why are you doing gluten free? And this business was started in southern Spain, which is even sort of it's more traditional in terms of how they cook. And my color palette was going to food markets because they're eating seasonally and going to a food market was the best and cheapest way to source food and using basics like grains and rice and sort of good, good produce. So that's sort of that became the basis of my cooking.  [00:07:29] It was originally to fulfill this kind of retreat mentality. Did you have these breaks in between where you would go off and develop new recipes for the next load of retreat's customers, or how did that work?  [00:07:42] So when I started out, this was sort of pre social media and. Blogging and stuff like that, so I had a few cookbooks written by Swedish cookbook authors. That was sort of touching base on sort of raw vegan cuisine. And I had those as a basis. And then I stumbled across Matthew Kenny, who was doing online courses and also had a cooking school in L.A.. So on one of our holidays, I convinced my husband to fly over to L.A. and I did one of his courses and I was hooked. So I ended up doing a few of his courses. I started going to more food expos. And, you know, with passion comes a curiosity. So your work becomes your passion and vice versa. So with with all of that, I started recipe developing because, you know, if for recipes good. Then you obviously want to make it again.  [00:08:52] And.  [00:08:55] Instagram came along as well. And Instagram was a tool for me to remember what I'd cooked on all of these retreats. Oh, no. A little internal. Exactly. So if you've been on my Instagram, it's overhead shots with me holding a plate, basically. And I. I wear funky socks. But people started to notice that became a thing. So, yeah, Instagram was a way of journaling food because it was a way of remembering the dishes that I'd cooked on different retreats. And that took off along with begin cooking. Rounds came along. And that's how sort of recipe development came along as well in terms of. Well, fast forward a few years and Vegan on gluten free cooking became ginormous.  [00:09:51] All of the sudden, yeah, you were in a really interesting time period. I feel like just my personal journey as a Vegan person where it's been during a time period that I don't think will recreate itself again in that, you know, when I was doing it, it was myself, Buddhist monks and some hippies strung out. You know, it was just this exact change moment. People would gasp. Some people were like, I don't understand that. That's just being a vegetarian. There was all these different things. But it's amazing how mainstream it's become and not amazing.  [00:10:20] It's it's actually a music to my ears because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have ended up with a friend in sight. How much I talked about the benefits of veganism. And it's good to have other people kind of touting it now, too.  [00:10:31] And for you as a chef, it's interesting to have even I was speaking to a Vegan baker and she was saying, you know, it's almost free to be a regular baker in the United States. The subsidies that are attached to milk and eggs and things like that make it practically free to use those items. And she was like, you know, you talk about arrowroot. And I'm still paying top dollar for that. There's no competition bringing that price down. And yet, as chefs and, you know, still maintaining integrity with ingredients and what you do, I think as the Vegan world opens up more, they'll become more accessible and you'll be able to produce more of it and those types of things. I'm wondering, you have two books that I've looked over. We talked about this before recording, and one of them is the seven day Vegan challenge. And another one is the happy food, fast, fresh, simple Vegan. And I'm wondering, after a while, we're unpacking your journey and your story. I kind of want to gloss over these. I want to say is seven day Vegan challenge came first. Is that correct?  [00:11:34] No way. Rapid fire, OK.  [00:11:36] And then first, let's start with happy food, fash. Fresh, simple Vegan. It's, um. It's so I have a summary here is in Happy Food. You share a collection of easy and delicious plant. These recipes that anyone can incorporate in their busy life, whether you're looking to eat more veggies or you've decided to turn vegan but don't want to compromise on taste as the book for you. Your philosophy is your simple food is meant to make you happy. So can you kind of draw out for the audience listening in this food? We get our first introduction to you some of your recipes and your style of cooking. What is the overall ethos that you really meant to convey for your reader and practitioners from this cookbook?  [00:12:18] I think for me, it's always been really important to let the field do the talking and not sort of not not be trapped by labels. So if it tastes good, if it looks good, then it doesn't matter whether it's I think. Hang on a second.  [00:12:42] How do I say this with the wellness industry and with a lot of people coming on retreats? There was a lot of presumptions on what Vegan food was going to be like.  [00:12:52] So one prime example is a lot of partners or husbands coming with their wives and sort of been been talked into coming into going on a yoga retreat and, you know, having to Vegan food for a week. So my philosophy was always like, if I can get those type of people on board. And to make them completely forget about the label of, say, Vegan food and just enjoy the food itself for what it is, it looks beautiful. It tastes beautiful. It's comforting. And it makes you feel good. Then I've sort of nailed it and it doesn't matter under what label the food stands under. So that's the type of philosophy that I've tried to fall in. Also using good basic ingredients, not having to go to a supermarket and spending hundreds of dollars on specialty ingredients that are flown halfway across the world to be able to achieve good results. So with you know, you can achieve tasty food with very little and you can you can let natural colors do the talking. This there's not much that you have to alter or change to get good, tasty food. And yeah, I think there's this there's always a misconception that Vegan food. Well, was any ways that Vegan if it was boring, that was. But it was not filling enough or not comforting. So those are the people that I target. The people that have those preconceptions and also inspiring people to include and eat more vegetables without being afraid to give it a go. So. And also bringing back the forgotten vegetables, I call them, you know, potatoes and carrots and onions and cabbage and all of these amazing vegetables that we have. You know, you would normally receive on a weekly basis if you subscribe to vegetable box and then you just don't know what to do with them. But there's so many different ways that we can incorporate.  [00:15:04] Yeah. And I think you're a you're. You've integrated a lot of talk about cabbage in particular.  [00:15:09] And I'm a massive fan of all varieties of cabbage and how it's overlooked. You can bake it. You can steam it. There's so many things that you can do to cabbage that, you know, most people viewed as like a lettuce. And so you and I had a great deal in common in that way. I'm curious, in this book, is the baptismal moment that you're kind of describing where you're bringing people into this kind of uncomplicated, not fussy, beautifully looking, wonderfully tasting, Vegan like dietary moment.  [00:15:40] Then how does your second book, 17 Vegan challenge for you? A really quick summary on that. It's curious about veganism, but already recoiling at visions of expensive Whole Foods stores, your grumbling stomach and an insatiable craving for cheese. Then this is the book for you in seven day Vegan Challenge. Bettina shows that with a little bit of planning.  [00:16:02] Anyone can go vegan for a week. So it seems like you've almost taken on you've done the introductory with your first book, and in the seven one, you're almost challenging people to give it a shot. How would you define the two or how would you say the second one came along and kind of changed your scope or refined it of like plant based eating?  [00:16:24] I think it's Somas. I think you're right in assuming that the seven day Vegan challenge came first because it's almost like happy food. Was this collection of recipes that I've cooked all all over the world on numerous wellness retreats. And it's sort of my last seven life as so the seven day Vegan challenge. So happy food is almost like. Not a Bible, but it's almost like the basis and the recipes are a little slightly more involved and complicated. And what I wanted to achieve with the seven day Vegan challenge was a simplified version of recipes that you can cook on an everyday basis. And then, yes, I would say it's the other way round. Even though happy food came first. If you have the opportunity to sort of now that both of them are out there, I would get seven day Vegan challenge first and then I would move on to happy food, even though they came out the other way around. So as an introduction to plant based food, I would definitely go with the seven day Vegan challenge and then sort of graduates a happy food where the recipes are more involved. There are slightly more complicated. This still really simple. However, the recipes in the seven day Vegan challenge are very simplified. And also I allowed myself to be okay with the fact that if you don't want to make hummus from scratch, you can buy a shot-put. Hamas, if you don't want to make Vegan cheese from scratch, then it's okay to buy shot-put Vegan cheese. It's almost like. It's a book for the people that either love cooking, but also for the people that don't, because there are options for both of you. Yeah, basically. So it's as involved or as not involved as you like it. So definitely say that that's a starting point.  [00:18:35] And loving cooking, you know, and having time for it are two different things as well. You know, in the during the plague shelter in place, I've talked to so many friends who I would never assume loved cooking and they just adoring the time they're having with their ovens and all of these. This breadmaking craze that has swept across my country. This is our dough revolution.  [00:18:57] But I think that it's also, you know, in every day lives in a lot of contemporary societies. The first thing that gets slashed out of our adult time curriculum is the time to cook. And so having these kinds of in between moments where you talk about with 70 Vegan challenge, like brekky on the go and then one pot cooking, like kind of all these all moments meet. And I think that that's interesting. I'm wondering how you feel. Well, I have to say, as a quick side note, you brought in cheese. And I'm as someone who goes, I go to Ireland frequently, I'm afraid, in Dublin. And when I first discovered the Vegan cheese in Ireland, as opposed to what they were producing in the States about six years ago, I could not figure out what the problem was. It's as though they had cornered the market. And it's because they have these Greeks come up into Dublin and create these big in restaurants and they made oh, they're big in cheese out of olive oil. And it was like this revolution. And in the States, they were still throwing every chemical under the sun to try and create that cheese. That wouldn't melt. It wouldn't do it. This is back in the day, right? 2007, whatever. And it was horrendous. It was it would make to make you kind of crawl away and cry. So there are certain things, I think, that begins, particularly all over the world, have misconceptions about different countries that brought certain attributes are still kind of clinging to other areas. And so it's interesting to note that there are products in other countries that I find most people would discover to be superior to other countries. And it's good to encourage people to kind of reach out because we haven't completely globalized yet. No one's come on this idea and perception. And I know a lot of vegans that don't understand how easy it is to make things like Vegan cheese so easy, you know, ridiculously easy and so much cheaper to do.  [00:20:46] So, yeah, exactly.  [00:20:48] And you can fine tune it if you like a little garlic, you can. You know, it's it's all about exactly from scratch that way. I won't get into. Well first of all, do you have a favorite Sophie's Choice. Do you have a darling recipe that you could cite for breakfast, lunch and dinner out of all of your recipes or maybe a favorite of this month? I was make my children choose a favorite color every single day because it can change. But they need decisiveness.  [00:21:13] Yes. And as a favorite of three favorites from both of them. Both the books.  [00:21:19] Yeah. Right now I'd I'd definitely say.  [00:21:24] My non my non meatball's. A classic, and they are super versatile. I always them are those. I would definitely say my Kashi truffle cheese. It's indulgent. It's. I would say that it's one of those dishes that can turn people because it's good and it tastes like cheese and it's got offensive of truffle is brilliant. The last. Last, but not least, my pumpkin seed pesto. I make that on a weekly basis. I always have a tub of it in my fridge. It goes on everything, really, and on toast. Right. As a dressing drizzled on say, I mean, it's good and it's not free as well. So that's one of the other sort of angles that my recipes are clearly marked, whether they contain nuts or not. So I've had a lot of clients. Yeah, that's wonderful. I know that, Connie. Not so that's a good one.  [00:22:35] Well, I'm glad you were able to pick three. I usually get feedback from people like that. Couldn't possibly do that. So I like that. You find. I don't like this, Ray. Yeah, for sure.  [00:22:44] You brought up earlier and I want to climb into it. I usually always wait for somebody to drop the terms. I use the term Vegan a lot because that is how the podcast series was developed. It was investigating Vegan life and that umbrella in and of itself is riddled and troubled with a lot of terms that get argued over. And now that they're being incorporated into advertising and marketing arguments are industries, it's becoming even more convoluted with, you know, questions as to what sustains one term and another. I'm wondering where you personally define plant based versus Vegan.  [00:23:18] So also assessing this recently with someone and it's been an interesting journey for me because what I forgot to mention is when when I started cooking at these retreats, I, I went Vegan and gluten free because I had a health scare. I think I was I think I must have been 26 or 27. I basically was told that I would never have children. I stopped taking contraception pills and then had a really, really difficult time. And I got to basically have something that's cold in the metro system, places to go recently. So that sort of. Opened up a box and at the same time, I was starting this new business. So I decided to go vegan and gluten free at the time and change my life. But not only were three foods, I mean, I changed a lot of other things as well. Slowly but surely. So it's it's one of those things that I don't like talking about too much because everybody's journey is individual. However, seven months down the line with this new business, I got pregnant again. Against all odds. So, yeah, I'm definitely not say, you know, change y'all. It was the food that, you know, made that happen because lots of different things happened during that period. However, it had a massive impact on my life. So, yes, let's go back to your question.  [00:25:05] The Vegan version of. No, I think this ties in beautifully because it you know, how we come to veganism, I think is very, very important for people to understand as well. I've unearthed, you know, stories just in the first 20 episodes and then spending 10 years of my life prior to that. People come at it from spiritual points of view, from I've spoken to academics that became vegan because it increases their intellectual performance. Mathematicians, there are people that come to it to look more beautiful. There are people that come to it to perform better at sports. There's so many different reasons. And, you know, in disease or ailments being one of them, I love it because it creates a lot of unlikely vegans. You know, there are white fat stockbrokers in the United States that are becoming Vegan because they don't want to die. So it's like it's there's just so many other areas that can kind of come to it. It's it's a unifying thing. And so I think that yours coming at it from a health standpoint really does help our audience and people listening to your story and your cookbook. Understand, I and I think it ties into your relationship with the beauty and the vitality of the food that you were talking about earlier, that relationship that you have with it, having changed your health and made you feel better and and return you to an homeostasis is so important. And I'm wondering within that so there is this kind of argument between being Vegan and being plant based. And I want to know how you feel about it and how you particularly feel people in England where you're based and how they feel about it.  [00:26:33] So, yeah, this was what I was going to come to the point that I was going to come to. So very recently, I I sort of discovered that with what's been happening recently in terms of, well, how huge veganism has become become and how big the label has become. I sort of feel like to pull yourself begin in some aspects it's all the animals. And then whatever is as long as whatever's on your plate hasn't suffered, then it's OK. It sort of goes under the Vegan label, whereas I feel that if you'll plump based, you'll you'll more environmentally focused and more sustainably focused rather than the suffering of animals. So you care more about where your food is sourced from and where it's come from than it just being Vegan. And that's kind of that's kind of how I define the difference between the two. And with with Tom faced, I would say some people that call themselves plant based. It means that they predominantly eat plant based. But if they do eat animal products, then they are ethically sourced. Can or cannot be included. So that's that's my that's my feeling of where it's going, it's more. I think the plant based time is more flexible than the Vegan. Yes.  [00:28:11] And it's an interesting take on it, you know, coming back to the suffering and things like that of animals. There's a lot of companies putting out products right now, and I'm not sure if it will change, but they're attaching a plant based label to something that is not Vegan. And I think there are a lot of vegans, consumers out there. Originally, when plant based happened, it was a nicer way of saying Vegan people felt like it was separating it from some of the politics, that it seemed like guerrilla warfare in the past or something that was fringe and bringing it to mainstream. But since then, at least in the United States, there have been a lot of companies that will say plant based on the label. Vegans will buy that thinking. It's Vegan and it's not Vegan. It may mean merely that there's some plant based articles or ingredients within it.  [00:28:54] Wow, that's very misleading. Yes, very misleading. Yeah, it is.  [00:28:59] It's fun.  [00:28:59] I was speaking to an Australian Vegan pub owner a couple of months ago before I got taken home for the quarantine. And she the same thing that they were having issues with that in Australia. So I think that that'll become interesting to see how people approach that. This was prior to the pandemic. And so with the pandemic, people may be backing away from some of those things. I don't know what your society and economy is doing exactly in Great Britain, but over here, you know, beyond me and beyond Burger and things like that are hitting an all time high as far as their stocks. The IPO is are really supposed to boom with these kinds of meat alternatives as of the fallout.  [00:29:41] I'm wondering, do you do you feel like the Cauvin 19 pandemic has changed your relationship or the way that you will speak with your customers moving forward about plant based or vegan diets? Or do you think it's kind of just deepened what you already knew?  [00:30:02] For me personally, it definitely is deep and what I already know, and I think a lot more people.  [00:30:13] Going down the route of supporting farmers support, supporting farm to table, supporting basic ingredients. Going back to baking. Going back to fermenting. I think it's just opened up that door where you are forced to make things from scratch, whereas before you have the options to really not do that. And people were too busy. So I think it's had a really positive impact in the sense that people care a lot more where their food comes from. They've gained new skills in terms of cooking for themselves. I always say. Rather than labeling anything, I think the greatest self care act that you can do for yourself is to cook from scratch because you know exactly what's going into that pot. Set aside all labels. That is the one biggest thing that you can do for yourself. That is in terms of self care. Take the time to source good ingredients. Then they don't have to be expensive. And I cook from scratch.  [00:31:20] Absolutely, I agree. And I personally feel like the energy created in the relationship with the food consumed changes the experience and the health thereafter as well.  [00:31:31] I'm wondering, do you, as you do a lot of consulting, if you go to your Web site, you find a lot of information based on you. It's it's great media presence. All of those things as a food consultant. What do you foresee? First of all, what work have you done in the past and who are you looking to work with in the future regarding consultancy?  [00:31:56] So I've done a lot of recipe development for different brands and for hotels or for the restaurant industry.  [00:32:07] The way that sort of.  [00:32:11] The way that I work and the way that where I'm headed, I think, is to find natural solutions and to support sustainable and environmentally friendly farming as much as possible. To me, it's more important to sort of envelop those side of things rather than promoting or supporting a product that is Vegan. And I think that is sort of the main with so many companies coming out with Reagen products. People sort of bypass how it's made, what it contains, where it comes from, what it supports, what it's packaged in. All of these things to me. Matter a lot. So I'm sort of coming at it from that angle of I want to know where my products come from or the ingredients come from. And simple companies that do good.  [00:33:15] Yes, and I think that you are in good company. I think there are a lot of people here, if they're not there right now, they're headed in that direction.  [00:33:23] And, yes, companies that help you source those things, you know, I think a lot of people care but just don't know how to allocate or figure out where those resources are.  [00:33:33] Absolutely. And I do think that a lot of big companies are cashing in on the fact that veganism has become big and, you know, not to mention any big names, but there are a lot of companies that are, you know, dishing out vegan options. But then the way that the salt is sourcing their ingredients, all of the other products is, you know, horrific. And they're still supporting factory farming, J labor, et cetera, et cetera. So but this sort of winning in terms of of having a Vegan offering and people are buying into it. And, you know, it infuriates me because, yeah, I would I would never go and eat a vegan burger or a beacon fake chicken from those companies, because the other part of what they support is, isn't it great?  [00:34:31] Well, and that's an interesting aspect, too. You know, getting back to returning very briefly to the conversation of Vegan versus plant based. There used to be an understanding when it was more of a my nute group of people that, you know, there was a lot of ethos that went behind something being Vegan. There was a sustainability normally attached to it. You had a responsibility. And there were all these deeper questions which made it difficult for people who were doing it, didn't care. They wanted the payoff of that difficult nature. And one of those things is, you know, going and getting a substitute chicken sandwich at Kentucky Fried Chicken here still supports all of the most horrific practices. Exactly. So that's what you're saying. And so I think that now that there's that choice, there is that murkiness. That's kind of creeping into what is clearly a global, you know, Vegan conversation. So and those things should be considered and brought in the forefront. You know, I had so many people reach on, say, are you going to go try it?  [00:35:30] When they released it and I said, yeah, let's do that, it just exactly how little they thought through that, like, oh, why would she do that?  [00:35:41] That would be furthering, you know, some irony.  [00:35:44] Hundred percent. It makes no sense. It's like, no. Why would you want to go and try that? Why would you want to eat a bug that's been fried on the same grill as the meat bug is? Right. You know, it's just. No, no, no, no.  [00:35:59] And I think once we have that conversation enough and funneling it through, I think that there will be people kind of putting those things together and the next facility. I'm an optimist and I believe in human nature kind of coming through.  [00:36:11] And if we're gonna break through these original things great together as meat eaters off of it. But the conversation must always end with, like, ultimate accountability and transparency, which I think the food world and the United States has lacked since the 80s. You know, getting back to a place where we know exactly how many chemicals and preservatives we're eating or slathering on our skin and everything else is is coming. And I think it's going to be a game changer. At least that's my drive.  [00:36:41] I'm wondering moving forward with you. What are your future goals, given that you have this kind of. We've we've spoken about, you know, your future efforts really, as you see yourself changing, getting into sustainable farming and practices and really continuing on that path. Have you looked forward to, like, your next one to three years of work and, you know, we'll be writing another book? If so, can you give us a like a preview or a snippet from that we'll be pushing efforts into? What are your next, like one to three years for all of your endeavors?  [00:37:12] Yeah, so I'm writing a third book, so I'm doing that over the summer. It will come out probably next year, next autumn. So it takes it takes a long time to write a book. People don't realize this. So, yeah, I'm writing, but probably over the next sort of three months I run a chef's academy where I teach other people how to become retreat chefs. So I've got a seven year old and I've sort of eased eased in on my traveling and instead teaching what I know. So I do four courses a year, which is an intensive seven day. It's super intimate. There's only ten people on them. And basically, I teach you everything I know. I've learned over the sort of past seven, eight years.  [00:38:09] So I'll be doing more of those. And growing my business in terms of having a.  [00:38:15] Reach inspiring more people to include vegetables into their diets. Definitely zoning in and learning more about agriculture myself by going to visit farms and supporting them.  [00:38:33] Also. Enveloping and sort of.  [00:38:39] Going into waste free cooking, waste free is something that I've done. As an as a given. Because when you're in retreats, you are in a very sort of low budget, but you want to feed people as well as possible. So supporting vegetables that would normally get thrown out because they're not the right size, because they're not the right shape. So finding solutions on how to minimize that type of waste. And something that I've been toying with for a long time is opening up an outlet and not like a restaurant. But everything is going online now. But doing meal options so that you can sit on a subscription basis. But instead of offering meals that are just big and also using up wastage. So. And supporting organic and sustainable farming and also eating seasonally, because that is something that we sort of don't do as much as we should do because we've got access to so many different ingredients. We we sort of don't follow the seasons as much as we used to.  [00:39:56] And that's something that I've read on that, because you have mentioned that. You mentioned that in your book.  [00:40:00] And then I kind of I love the idea of it because I do think that there's a perception which I myself held for the majority of my life, that that eating seasonally was no longer even necessary for good health because we have these greenhouses all over the world that can produce food. Can you kind of in a nutshell, explain to the audience why eating seasonally is important for you?  [00:40:23] Well, let's take the strawberry, for example. I mean, if you eat a strawberry in winter, it's not going to taste the same. And it's definitely not going to have the same nutritional value if it's grown in a greenhouse compared to if it's burned out on a field in the height of summer when it's supposed to grow. And weaving that weaving in organic farming as well. I think that makes a huge difference. And eating things that are local. So an apple that is grown close to home rather than Apple that has been picked two to three, four weeks earlier and stored and then brought to you is a huge nutritional difference and also a difference in taste and quality. So the closer things are grown to your house, the shorter the time for picking and the more nutritional value they hold. And I'm sure that you know that since we've industrialized farming from the 50s, there's a lot less nutritional value in our fruits and vegetables that have been flown over and grown. GMO is another worm hole that we can dove into. Kobe would be sitting here all evening. So all of those things matter. And rather than a lot of people think that eating healthily means adding lots of layers into your food and your cooking and going to supermarket and buying all these superfood tinctures. I'm of the opposite opinion. Simplify. Buy less. Buy better quality sources of things locally, as seasonal as possible. And you know, you'll get them for a better price as well, because things that are grown in abundance are usually better priced right, though.  [00:42:24] Yeah, that's true. Anything in season is always far less expensive. Exactly.  [00:42:29] And, you know, it's there's a joy of eating strawberries until you sort of feel like a strawberry during June and July and then you wait all year to have them and there's an E.. It might be a simple sort of naive thought, but there's a there's a beauty in that all waiting for asparagus season to come and eating lots of wonderful asparagus or blood oranges is another favorite season of mine. And then, you know, enjoy, enjoy the fruits. And vegetables at the height, they will taste better as well, you know, you'll be you'll be surprised how amazing certain things can taste when they eat up the right side.  [00:43:18] I agree. I love that. Well, we're running out of time, Bettina, but I wanted to ask you one final question, and that would be a lot of people, particularly over the past 11 weeks, have taken stock in their own personal businesses.  [00:43:33] They've kind of re conversed with themselves over their values and their personal life. And I'm wondering if you've had such a dialog with yourself. If you can offer up maybe two or three pieces of advice or axioms that you've kind of unearthed during this time of reflection that everyone has had regarding either yourself or your journey or anything like that that we kind of end on. I usually say three pieces of advice, but if there's one or two, we'll take that as well. Is there anything that you proffer up to yourself in order to encourage or make things more enthusiastic or even just pieces of sage wisdom that you've come to?  [00:44:13] Through throughout this period or just in general, both, but usually throughout this period, throughout the past, yes, there's been a pause for everyone.  [00:44:22] Yeah, definitely. Let's start with. Well, I definitely it's been good for me to pose, I think in the last sort of two to three years I've been I've had an incredible workload. And I look back and I think, wow, how did I do that? It's definitely made me stop and think and enjoy the little things and have time to do things that I didn't have time to do before. So the pause button has been good for me. Bushell And I think it's it's been good for a lot of people. Taking time to cook, taking time to bake, taking time to be with your family. I think we're all far, far too busy that we sort of it's good and things happen when we polls ideas. A born creativity is born. So that's been really good. Was of advice. I always say. Perseverance and not giving up. And. Finding something that you're really passionate about and sticking with it, because in today's society, that's got also to do with who I was talking about before, is not having patience so that we're too busy. Things take time. And I have patience to allow them to take shape and to persevere and have persistence to follow your dreams.  [00:46:00] Absolutely. I like that. These are solid pieces. I'm wondering, you kind of dropped. Are you still on the same Instagram handle? And can you mentioned it for everyone in the audience who would like to follow you?  [00:46:10] Yes, absolutely. So it's Bettina's on the school kitchen. Or if you just put Bettina's kitchen, you'll find me. And yeah, it's just like daily inspiration's. A lot of stuff that I cook or we eat at home. I'll cook for clients.  [00:46:27] That's wonderful. Well, we're out of time, but I want to say thank you so much for speaking with us today. Bettina, giving us all of your culinary and philosophical advice. I do appreciate your time.  [00:46:38] Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. And for everyone. Really appreciate it. Absolutely.  [00:46:44] And for everyone listening, we have been speaking with Bettina Campolucci Bordi. You can find out more about her work on w w w dot Bettina's kitchen dot com. And until we speak again next time. Thank you for listening and giving us your time.  [00:47:00] Remember to eat clean, eat well, stay safe and always bet on yourself function. 

Today I am talking with Gina Bonanno-Lemos. Gina is the founder of 360 Health Connection, the award-winning author of What The Fork?: The Secret Cause Of Disease, the author of 13 Steps To A Cancer-Free Kitchen, and a brand new e-book titled, Fit After 40.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. https://www.instagram.com/ginabonannolemos/ | https://www.facebook.com/360healthconnection/ | 360healthconnection.com TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is investigating Vegan life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end. We will cover topics that have revealed themselves as Kofman and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. You can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to Investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation. Hi, everyone, and welcome back.  [00:01:15] I'm your host, Patricia. And today I am sitting down with Gina Bonano Lemos. She's the founder and author of 360 Health Connection. You can find out more on her Web site at 360, Health Connection dot com. Welcome, Gina. Hi. How are you? I'm well. I'm so excited to unpack. You've got just a prolific history of two books. You have a Web site. You offer all sorts of services, coaching and advising. I'm I'm really excited to climb through everything that you're doing. Thank you for having me. Yes. And for those of you listening, I will read a quick bio on Gina before I do that, a roadmap of today's podcast so that you know where we're headed for my inquiries. I'll first look at Gina's academic background and professional history as it relates to her Vegan story and personal journey therein.  [00:02:06] Then I will start unpacking 360 health, connections, ethos and philosophy behind the impetus of that launch.  [00:02:14] And within that, I would like to get into her books. John has written two books and it has a third one coming out soon with the fork. The Secret Cause of Disease, three steps to a cancer free kitchen and the brand new e-book titled Fit After 40. I'll climb through those briefly and get the synopsis and maybe some interesting threads throughout those. And then we'll turn our attention to the Vegan training programs that she's offering through 360 health, as well as other avenues. And we'll turn our attention next towards goals and advice. We'll wrap everything up with advice that she has. For those of you who are either looking to get involved with her, follow some of her study or even practice Emina, emulate some of her career success. A quick, quick bio on Gina before we get started. Gina is the founder of 360 Health Connection, the award winning author of What The Fork The Secret Cause of Disease. The author of 13 Steps to a Cancer Free Kitchen and a brand new e-book titled Fit After 40. Gina is the creator of the Vegan Training Program. Your plant based guide. And she's currently in the process of creating a new training program specifically designed for women. The ultimate whole body reset. Gina is a dual certified in into integrative nutrition and Vegan nutrition and has worked and shared the stage with world renowned medical professionals and plant based leaders, including Dr. Michael Klaper, Dr. Joel Kohn, Dr. Garth Davis, Ocean Robbins, Gene Bauer, Jane Veles Mitchell and many others. And so some of those names may not mean a lot to people in the audience. And some of you may recognize them as the axiomatic pillars of kings and queens that they are. Gina, before we dove into all of your work and your research that you've done, unpacking all of that, I'm hoping you can draw us a brief academic and professional history that kind of sets the stage for who you are and what your brand currently is.  [00:04:12] Sure, sure. I first studied integrative nutrition at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and that really is it kind of embodies what 360 Health Connection was founded on. So it kind of marries all lifestyle aspects of health and wellness. So your sleep, your stress levels, how your relationships are with with everyone in your life. You know, it's not just diet and exercise, although it does it does include that as well. But it really focuses on the entire person, you know, because we are really in our health is really the sum total of everything that's going on in our life. And every practice that we follow, we're doomed. So that was a great foundation across the board and gave me, you know, a lot of information and various subjects in regard to health. But I decided that I really wanted to focus on veganism and help people to achieve their goals, more specifically in the way that I found my health. So that's when I went back to the Vegetarian Health Institute and I took their vegan mastery course. So got certified in that took the portion of the course that that allows you to get certified. And that was primarily taught not solely, but primarily by Dr. Michael Klapper. He he was. The main physician, you know, that provided a lot of the education.  [00:06:02] So absolutely. And I'm wondering, so your career, we've kind of glossed over it very, very quickly in the bio and an explanation of the roadmap for today. I'm hoping you can kind of put things in a chronological sense before we start diving into some of the issues. Did you write your book? Did you develop the 360 Health Connection first? It's a Web site. It also has a lot of different elements to it. A lot of services and information. So which one came first? In which order? And then can you kind of tell us what the Web site has on it so that we can get a sense for and then climb into it?  [00:06:37] Sure. Sure. Yeah. I had started this site. I always really been into health and fitness and nutrition. But I most of what I believed was what's out there in the itoh. So, you know, what's popular and that you see in fitness magazines and so forth. And so that's what I thought health was. So that's how I thought you were supposed to be. Healthy weight, you know, lean meats and you exercised, you know, five or six times a week and so forth. And so it wasn't until my health really started going downhill.  [00:07:19] I mean, it really hit its peak. I've never been a really healthy person. I was always physically fit, but not healthy. That's when I stumbled upon veganism and turned my health around. And that's when I decided to go back to school, essentially, and get my certifications. So the website started first, but it really took a turn towards veganism and, you know, really a focus on plant based diet. After I became certified and after my own health transformation.  [00:07:57] Right.  [00:07:58] I'm guessing because I have read what the fork and the secret cause of disease. And that chronicles a little bit in the beginning at, you know, and it's kind of sandwiched by these bookends of your journey. It's kind of placed within the format, if you will. And then all of your it sounds like your education, both formally and personal, has been like sandwiched in the body. In between that sense, it chronicles that. I suspect that it came after 360. What year was 360 Health Connection launched, do you remember?  [00:08:33] I can't I'm not 100 percent sure.  [00:08:38] But that's OK. Now, it's clear that it's the book came after that.  [00:08:42] I think it's quite fascinating that you started this, you know, this health advice and connection and then kind of let it evolve with, you know, with your Vegan journey and enterprise, because a lot of people do that backwards. You know, they become Vegan and then develop. So seeing that transition play out is interesting. Really quickly, looking at like unpacking 360 Health Connection. If I pretend I haven't been there, it's right now and I hit your Web site. What are the first things I'm going to be presented with? Like, what are the different expertize information, all the different services that I will find?  [00:09:22] Well, there's a I put a large emphasis on new studies that come out know because I'm not a physician, I have to be careful in giving medical advice. So I try to keep everything very factual and science based. And so I always note where I'm getting the information. But I really I find it fascinating to read news studies that come out so, you know, kind of a nerd in that way. But I'm constantly getting, you know, alerts from Google and getting new information, whether it be about, you know, how garlic affects cancer or things like that. So you're going to find a lot of that type of information on either specific compounds in foods that prevent and reverse disease or, you know, various studies, or then there are some recipes that you'll find and some opinion pieces. But for the most part, it's going to be most of that scientific information and new stuff that's been coming out.  [00:10:33] Absolutely. And then there's information about different training programs and things like that, right? Your own personal services. Are there other links like how does it relate back to your brand?  [00:10:45] Yeah, I actually have to update that. I haven't been working with clients one on one for quite a while. I had yeah, I had launched my online training program, which was your plant based guide. And then in two thousand eighteen, I actually turned it into a live event because people were saying, you know, this is great information, but I would really like that in-person connection. So I held a big two day health conference in Costa Mesa, California.  [00:11:18] And it was this in-person or Facebook ever, OK?  [00:11:22] I held it. I had it. The Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa, California. And we had two full days. I had, I think, about six doctors that spoke and then six or seven other of us that that also spoke over those two days. So a total of 13 present presentations, but it was a huge success. Everybody really loved it. You know, they got a lot of time, which each with each of the presenters, we got to their books and mingle. We had a dance party and stuff like that. Excellent. So it was just it was a big undertaking and very expensive. And so, yeah, I'm kind of reimagining how I can do it so I don't lose everything. I do it again. And so, yeah, right now I'm in the process of redoing the online training program for people who still want to take that leap.  [00:12:22] But then also focusing on my new project, which, as you mentioned, is specifically more for women. Yeah. And I've been around a plant based diet.  [00:12:33] Yes. And I'm I'm obsessed. And I'm very enthralled with I have to say that your technique and how you approach all of your books and it sounds like even your educational format on your Web site as well as your techniques as. As an old school academic. I really love being, you know, thwarted with both personal opinion and backed up, you know, scientific advice to merit that opinion and to kind of cement it. And I want to climb through right now what the for the secret cause of disease. I've talked a little bit with you off the record and then mentioned briefly here. I really appreciate the fact that it's this and a great deal of scientific gathered information that it from the most powerfully profound studies and correlations and causations and things of that nature sandwich book ended, if you will, in your own personal journey and narrative. And so I'm hoping, if you will, really quickly, before we start getting into some of the questions or having you give us a synopsis of what the fork start us off with, what that book actually begins with, which is your own personal journey, starting from childhood all the way up until this diagnostics of early perimenopause. You know, at one point and your friends meeting that brought veganism into your life. Can you give us a brief story, if you will, of your personal Vegan story?  [00:13:54] Sure. Sure. Yeah. I let as I mentioned, I had always been somewhat ill, you know, even as a child, I had a lot of ear infections and started as I got older getting sinus infections on a regular basis. And it definitely got worse after I had my son. I had him kind of young and it just seemed to put a lot of stress on my body. At least that's what doctors think. And so everything just got worse and worse. You know, most people grow out of allergies and asthma. Mine kept getting progressively worse. And so I got to the point where I literally was having a sinus infection every single month. And I would joke with people that it was like having a period because, you know, they'd say already want to go out Saturday. And I'm like, oh, let me check the calendar. Oh, no, I'm going to be sick that weekend. And they'd laugh at me, but it was true. I mean, I literally could, you know, count out the the weeks and. No. Oh, no. It's going to kick back in. And so is honest, you know, perpetual, a vicious cycle of antibiotics, which, of course, made me worse and destroyed my microbiome. And, you know, but I didn't know, of course, at the time. But it was just I was spiraling.  [00:15:17] And so it was I was forty one actually, when I was just miserable and I had just had two back to back lung infections that were really severe. I was constantly using an inhaler. Or using a nebulizer. And I really was. I felt like I was rock bottom. I didn't know what to do. And as I said, you know, I always kind of studied health independently. And so I was doing all the right things right. Chicken and fish in turkey. You know, the lean meats and. And I always had fruits and vegetables. So I thought I was doing everything right. All whole grains. But I went and had coffee with a friend. And she's about 20 something years older than I am. And I hadn't seen her in a while. And so when she ordered her coffee and didn't want cream, I said, oh, are you intolerant? I was just thinking, you know, dairy intolerance. And she announces that, no, she had gone vegan. And by doing so, she had actually reversed her heart disease. She had gotten rid of her lifelong eczema. So this really you know, I had a mix of, like, thinking she was off her rocker. And then also very curious about this. And then when she told me that her boyfriend had reversed his diabetes by doing the same thing, that really, you know, kind of let me up. So started researching and the science was just undeniable. You know, it's just that I couldn't refute it if it was just so clear cut. So I kept researching and, you know, is kind of in and out and tell people use kind of the hokey pokey with me. One foot in. One foot out. Yeah. But when I finally made that emotional connection, you know, when it went from. Yeah, I know I should do it. I know it's probably right. But, you know, I always I always say, and I'm sure other people have said, when you want to do something, you'll find every way to do it and make it happen. And you don't want to do something, you're going to find every excuse not to. Yes. So that's where I was at when I was in the excuse phase. You know, my husband will never go for it. My kids will never eat it. It's you know, it can be too hard. And when I finally made the emotional connection due to the animal cruelty side of it, and that became part of my consciousness, that that was it. There was no turning back. I didn't care what I had to do. So I found my way and my health did a complete 180. So I went from one of the sickest people I know to three, literally three solid years without a single cold flu infection. Nothing. It was unbelievable. Somebody gave me a new body.  [00:18:27] Well, it is setting in a remarkable turnaround because, you know, you have this instance you describe in the book where a doctor is just kind of paused with this, like, overwhelming moment of reading your chart and you're sitting there contemplating what he's going to be saying next. Like, you have a rare disease and he looks at you and says you're very allergic. And I was just this kind of understanding that you are allergic to everything under the sun. And that was going to be something that played out throughout your adulthood. Have your allergies have. Have they taken a lesser role or are they still prevalent?  [00:19:00] Oh, no. It's unbelievable. I was somebody I had always been an animal lover my whole life. And because of my allergies, I couldn't have animals. I couldn't even go to someone else's house with an animal because I knew I would be sick and it would culminate in a sinus infection. You know, that was just the natural progress for me. So I now well, at one point we had three dogs. We we just lost one a year ago. But so now we have two dogs and now a cat, which is unheard of because their dander is actually airborne. And so I couldn't even hug someone who had a cat before because they're dangerous, not only airborne, but it's sticky. So it sticks to your clothes and your hair and the walls and everything. And so if I even hugged someone who had a camel, I would be so sick. I mean, using my inhaler down for weeks with a sinus infection. But, yeah, this one I mean, he sleeps curled up next to me every night. It's unreal. Remarkable. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.  [00:20:08] So looking at what the fork, you know, I've had a lot of opinion and summary over it. And just speaking with you now and I'm wondering how you as the author.  [00:20:18] When you when you reflect back on writing, it's and and how would you describe how it's developed and the information it is conveying to your audience in a synopsis.  [00:20:33] You know my well, my goal in writing it, because I think you always have to set, you know, your goals and the expectations for any project. I wanted it to be fun, but factual. And I you know, I believe I accomplish that from feedback that I get from people. You know, they do.  [00:20:55] A lot of people will tell me that many books like this are so dry and, you know, hard to get through. So I definitely wanted to marry the, you know, both sides of my personality, really, because I have, like, a really goofy side of me that's like crazy and imaginative and, you know, kind of out there. And then I've got the grounded part that's factual. And, you know, let's look at the facts here, man. So, yeah, I would say it's got both of those. You know, I. I definitely wanted to. Let people see the science behind it and not just be my story. My opinion. I wanted them to know that this is you know, this is fact. This is science.  [00:21:47] Yeah. And it's interesting because you don't just cover I find that a lot of books written and for great reason are written just covering one industry, you know, the slaughterhouse industry, the agricultural industry, the scientific study, research industry, the relationship to cancer and famous diseases and things of that nature.  [00:22:05] And you really include all of it. And it's done by chapter. It's not just the kitchen sink, but you really do go through your personal vision with every single aspect that is in your life, from the cruelty to the environmental impact to the great studies from the China study all the way through, you know, Ornish and people that have done incredible studies and much more obscure, smaller ones in between. And it's interesting because I feel like that endeavor would be to encyclopedic to handle. But you've done it in a way that I felt very concluded with and I felt very much so.  [00:22:42] Yeah. And I understand your voice as well as it as a Vegan. I think a lot of people think that it's those who love animals or those who want to help the environment. It's not this collaboration, you know. And I think that it's important. I want to climb now into three steps to a cancer free kitchen, which I'm not so familiar with. And so I'm hoping you'll start off there with launching into what it is and what you were trying to convey with that endeavor.  [00:23:09] Sure. Sure. Yeah. That is that's an e-book. And so that's on my Web site for anybody who goes there right now. They can download it for free. That will be replaced with a fit after 40. E-book. That's coming up. So the 13 steps to a cancer free kitchen will be available for only a little bit longer. But really, I wanted to touch on not just a plant based diet and let people know, yes, of course, you can try to avoid or prevent and reverse cancer with a plant based diet, but also the other factors, because part of my journey and I referenced it in what the fork was that I was made aware of the Food Revolution Network and their incredible work that they do in their summits every year. And so there were so many things that came to light for me that I had never heard about in all of the fitness magazines and, you know, all of my travels all over the Internet about toxins and other things that really we don't even think about. And they are poisoning us every single day. And so I thought, you know, let me just do it. And I might write other books. Other book e-books as I go along. But, you know, I thought let me just focus on the kitchen floor right now and what different things in our kitchen are lurking that we don't even know about. We're just not even aware. But we're using them, if not on a daily basis. On a weekly basis. And they're affecting us. They're harming our children, our spouses, you know, all of our loved ones. And with just simple tweaks, just simple changes you can make. And it makes all the difference.  [00:25:06] Yeah. Those hidden factors.  [00:25:07] I think that that that'll catch even the most sage of nutritionists or health advocate or anyone, you know, those hiding, lurking moments I just spoke with at a Vegan and 100 percent organic cosmetic line distributor out of Paris. And he was saying the average woman by the end of her lifespan will have eaten two kilograms of lipstick. And if you research what is in most lipsticks, you would pass out. Oh, and he became aware of this when his daughter was coming of age. But it's really true that, you know, like looking towards the kitchen, I think even the most sage of us would have things that snuck in somehow. And we're not even aware of what they're doing and what they could be promoting. You know, let alone not helping to fight. And you talk in your book.  [00:25:55] I would just quickly revisit what the fork, because you do talk about these genetic switches and this propensity, these triggers of, you know, you don't have to be a product of your genetics, but you can definitely help not trigger things that may be in latent and things that have arrived from in utero that we're now studying and understanding. But that linking back to this those things being in the kitchen without us knowing, you know, and and all of those factors. So now I want to turn towards what you just teased about. And I don't know how much you're comfortable relinquishing. I'm a come from a family of writers and asking them about their new publication is like getting the. Top secret codes out of, you know, the president tonight, but we'll go there and try for you anyway. The new e-book is called Fit After 40. And you do have an emphasis towards women in this one. Can you kind of let us know you're saying it's replacing three steps to cancer free kitchen? What to what end will it replace it? And what are you addressing with that?  [00:26:57] So I've seen a need for women in particular, because so much of what I've come across on the Internet is just general nutrition information and general fitness information. You know, and I see a lot of men especially giving this information. And it just doesn't resonate for women and it doesn't help women. More importantly, because we have very specific needs, you know, our hormones are so different, so vastly different than men. And so, you know, you and your husband can eat the same exact things. And, you know, you'll gain weight and he won't because of our hormones. And, you know, here I am approaching 50 and it's that time, you know, unfortunately. And so, yeah, I started to notice changes in my own body. And, you know, I had a huge change, of course, from when I wasn't Vegan to when I went Vegan. But now I'm noticing more changes. And so I really wanted to help women with that. I wanted to address their specific needs. And I also recognize the need to really reach women because I believe that they are the heart of the home. I believe that they are really the ones who at least I know in my home I do this and most of my friends are this way. We're the ones that bring the new information to our families. You know, the ones who are more connected. And I don't know if that's because just as women, we naturally share more with our friends where, you know, men keep things more on the surface and women talk more about their health issues and their life and their stress. And, you know, those deeper issues, as they say, we we tend in befriend, you know, or the men or like the fight or flight.  [00:29:09] And so I don't specifically address these hormone issues. Will you segregate it by age?  [00:29:18] It's actually it's for women over 40. And so, as the title implies of the e-book. So it all kind of ties together the ultimate full body reset. But it really it encompasses my early learning, really, with integrative nutrition. So it talks about things such as stress and sleep and really but it all really centers around the one core issue that all of our health stems from. And there's like a feedback loop with all of these things with our microbiome. So really, that is the core of our health. You know, as poverty's once said, that, you know, our gut is is where a disease begins. There's a direct relationship between all of these issues that I started out learning about and our microbiome, our gut health. And so it is really the make or break of our health overall and.  [00:30:23] Yeah, I think that those are avenues to two conversations. And people feel like vegans or they used to is this island, you know, you belong done it or you didn't. And I what I'm loving to see now is this blending of the conversation where we get brought in. And, you know, I think that the heavy Yoshie and stew with the macrobiotic diet that was largely vegan with the exception of some poultry. My own father did that when he was fighting cancer 15 years ago.  [00:30:50] And I think he's heard her stage four cancer with it.  [00:30:56] Macko Yeah. And it's I mean, the Ashie Institute is the one that I'm familiar with, but it's powerful. It's got a lot of research behind it and it's very akin to the Vegan way of life. But I'm interested in these annexations, you know, these these moments in dialogs between issues or disease and then the Vegan, you know, diets and way of life and way of looking at things, because I think it's becoming less of an island and more of a peninsula. I'd like to get it back to the mainland. And that's all of our goal. You know, one day. But I think just getting to that place where you open these dialogs about hormones, gut health that you mentioned when I first started hearing about that. Back in 2017, when it was kind of getting into the rage, you know, people were kind of promoting it. Doctors were really looking at the microbiome of the gut, like really getting into Oliver's kimchi. You know, how do we increase it? What do we do? Of how pro antibiotic strip you of it, all of these things. I remember there wasn't a whole lot of conversation about diet outside of like what promoted it. And a lot of it was around dairy, like, you know, gotta have that yogurt, that probiotic yoga and different things like that. So I think people linked it to the dairy industry, which is ironic because a lot of the studies that come out sense have been and very disparate relationship with the dairy industry and the microbiome. And so to enter that conversation and get a seat at that table is crucial because the gut health is in control of so much more than other than, you know, Socrates and people like that hypothesized.  [00:32:27] I think that food as a medicine has been looked at by religious institutes for hundreds of years and kind of thought of in different ways, stay with this, eat more that like all the way down to diets in the 80s that were insane.  [00:32:42] And now we're still having that same conversation. You know, food is a medicine. Food is the leader. But we're doing it in a very different way. You know, I'm looking at the gut and things like that. And I'm curious with with all of your knowledge, you taken a great deal of in in what? The fork returning. You kind of have this. You have narratives as to how politics play into it. Like I like I said, there is no stone. You did not unturn, at least for me. And you talk about, you know, the World Health Organization, you talk about our current and this is in the United States. But you do talk about these world organizations on the whole and subsidies and people that are all in all those power places, power. And I'm wondering how you feel, given the current climate of the Cauvin 19 pandemic, what would you hypothetically looking at, given that you have this breadth of history with them understanding how these different political climates have played in? What change do you see like on the forefront?  [00:33:47] You know, well, there's what I what I'd like to see and what I do see. You know, I know that just about a week or two ago, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren actually introduced a bill and they are calling for the end of the majority of factory farming. I believe it's 2040. I personally think that's too far away. Based on what we're witnessing with climate change, you know, factory farming, it accounts for about 25 percent of our methane emissions. So that's huge. You know, it's it's more than all of our transportation sectors combined. So we really need to make that connection. And that's you know, it's one of the reasons why I covered all of the topics in my book, because I found that in talking with people, you know, what's important to me may not be important to you. I mean, that's the way it is and anything in life. But, you know, like for for my husband, he is much more focused on the climate change aspect of why he should reduce or remove meat, you know, from his diet. Whereas for me, like I said, the health issue was the first thing that got me interested. But what tipped me over the edge was the animal cruelty aspect. But I also am a very big environmentalist. So, you know, for me, it hits on all three points of data, the positive reasons for going plant based. Yeah, I really I was on a radio show recently and as I told them, I think we're missing an opportunity here. I think that we can take this time, especially right now with Cauvin, to show people that you not only don't need animal protein in your diet, but it's actually better for us. It's better for your health. You know, we've seen now with people not moving about, you know, transportation going down, with factory farming slowing, you know, the emission levels have reduced. So there's clearly a human impact. It's clearly being driven by our actions. We have to start putting our health and the health of the planet ahead of our greed, ahead of our our tastebuds, to be frank. You know, there's there's an absolute maybe there's a need for it. And I believe it will happen whether we want it or not with us or whether it's, you know, something that we purposely do or whether it just happens because we have no other choice.  [00:36:43] And the legacy of that, I do want to say, I think that it will happen either way. One can be pretty and one can be really, really nasty. And the legacy is only going to impact our children and our grandchildren. It's really about the empathy and compassion you have for your own kin. You know what we hand down to them. Even this this required taste of meat is unsustainable to have in their diet three times a day for seven days a week. That won't be possible. And so giving them a, you know, a desire for that is giving them an addiction to something they will not be able to have that the lack of love in that exchange. I don't think any parent or loved one would want to inflict on the next gen. Jason, and I do think that it is in in the mix, as do you know, the statisticians and people running these numbers. I'm curious with so here's my take. I was interviewing vegans globally and I was in Australia prior to the pandemic breaking out in early February. It had broken out, but nobody was taking it seriously, certainly not in the United States, not to the sense of come home shelter in place. Right. And I was interviewing a Vegan restaurant owner and she was saying, what I love is the change in just as she was the sage Viji and she'd been vegan for 40 years. And she said the Vegan prototype is no longer a prototype. She said there's unlikely vegans coming out of all the woodwork. What she meant that by that was that there were so many people with health concerns. You know, from allergies to heart disease that we're finding the vegan diet. And then within that, discovering that the diet was benefiting the planet and all of these other things and then became these very unlikely evangelists about veganism. And she was like, it's these weird, like stockbroker's that are coming in. Like, are you aware of how well it benefits? Like, you should promote that in your restaurant? She said they're just like these people that would never probably have considered it in the past. And I kept talking to her about like these wonderful avenues that are out of tragedy. Unfortunately, we're bringing veganism to the forefront. And since the pandemic, I have wondered if there would be this, you know, kind of like reshift to like we should look into that, you know, and if there would be a relabeling of it because people didn't want to join that label, you know, of veganism, if if people would go to another area that brought up the distinction between people calling things plant based and things that are vegan. And I want to climb into that with you because it's it's a heated topic right now and for a very good reason. There's an economical factor to it. There's an emotional factor. But for you yourself, how would you define the differences between plant based and Vegan those terms?  [00:39:29] You know, I think me personally, I define a Vegan as someone who really embraces the entire lifestyle. So, for example, I don't wear any animal products. You know, I don't buy leather, you know. I have things that I purchased in the past before I became Vegan. So I'm not going to throw them out. You know, because I think that's disrespectful to the animal that gave its life. So, you know, I'll use those things and tell they no longer are usable, but I don't purchase anything new. You know, if I buy a handbag or piece of furniture or whatever the case may be, I don't choose. They it has to be a faux leather, if you know or or another type of fabric. So for me, it's a whole Vegan means the whole lifestyle. Right. It means that you don't exploit animals in any way. You don't go to a circus or you don't go to the zoo. You don't play into that at an economic level anyway. Plant based. To me is more just a diet, you know, a dietary choice. And it can vary between people. I know people who are 100 percent plant based, and that's great. And then I know people who are mostly plant based, you know, but they still purchase me in a leather shoes or whatever the case may be. They don't. For them, it's not. And I found that most of the people who are just plant based and not Vegan for them, it's more so about the environment or, you know, wanting to stay healthier, you know, wanting to level up on their health and things like that. But it's not necessarily about the animal cruelty or anything like that. So that that's what it means to me. But, you know, I've heard other people with different takes on it. I try to use just the word the term plant based because I know that it doesn't rub people the wrong way the way Vegan necessarily does. So, you know, to me, it's like it all means the same thing, basically. I mean, you just you're making better choices, you know, not for you, but for the environment, for the animals, for you.  [00:42:02] Yeah.  [00:42:03] I wonder about products that are starting to use the terms plant based for things that aren't Vegan. I concern myself in this factor only because I love the written language and language in general and how we define and clarify our terms. But and I wonder about confusing and conflating things. And marketing is always a step ahead any of our philosophy endeavors or anything else. And there's been this acquisition of the word plant based to include on packaging just like fortified, you know, with vitamins that again in the 80s. Let's fortify everything. And it's been acquired at an alarming pace and it's been put on products that are both unhealthy, disease causing and not Vegan. And I concern myself with because most of my Vegan colleagues and, you know, and Warriors' and people fighting the good fight and putting the word out there are very akin to calling something plant based. And I was as well until I started recognizing that there were so many different products assigning that on their label. And it concerns me because then we're gonna have to do the same thing we did with vitamins, which was reeducate that nothing needs to be fortified. That's naturally healthy right now when we strip it of everything beautiful. That's when you need to go and inject things back into it. Yeah. So you're right.  [00:43:29] I've even seen them use the term plant based on eggs. You know, they say plant based chickens like. Well, they've always been I mean, you know, actually, that's not true. You know, there are some instances on the factory farms where they feed them back. You know, they're dead chicken friends, you know, disease trends. So. But for the most part, if if you were to let hens and chickens out in the wild, they are plant based. That's all they eat is, you know, it's the grass and so forth.  [00:44:08] Yeah. Organic, naturally raised, bottled at the source. Where else are you gonna bottle it? Just like I can go on and on. Yeah, I see it with commercials and just think, what are you doing? But it's a whole nother topic. So I'm wondering, looking forward and this has changed for.  [00:44:28] Lot of people, given the current climate, and for some people, it's magnified their scope and for others it's had a complete pivoting effect. But what are your future goals for the next one to three years? You're coming out with a fit after 40, which I'm excited to hear about the launch of. And what else of will you be working on for the next one to three years?  [00:44:51] That's a that's a good question. So I. I really have felt like I'm being kind of torn in two directions. And it's funny that you mention in what the four how I bring up the issues around politics, because, you know, I do see so much in our country going in the wrong direction as whether it be with diet or, you know, our health in our in our health industry, in our country is just ridiculous. You know, I see so much needless suffering and so many changes that need to be made. And I just don't see fighters. And so, yeah, I'm kind of I'm kind of teetering on the edge. Or do I run for office? You know, I have a friend who also was Plant Basch, also an author. She ran for Congress in 2018, didn't didn't win her seat. But she's now working for the man who did. And she's been pushing me because she knows that I am someone who is like a dog with a bone. You know, I don't let up on things and I fight. I just I care about people. I care about the animals and the environment. And I you know.  [00:46:17] And you listen to the science. Yes. Yes, you do. I endorse it right now.  [00:46:24] Yes. I you know, it's it's tough because I, I like I want to help people with a plant based diet. But then I think with my you know, my time and my effort be better spent doing it by implementing laws and changing really the way things are going down. Because I you know, I see all these people who are panicking, you know, they're losing their health insurance. And yes, that is terrible and it's scary and it's horrible because there are so many sick people. And I just think, gosh, if they only knew what I know, you know, if they only knew that they don't need that necessarily that medication, I'm not telling anybody, go off of your medication. You have to do what your doctor tells you. But there's so many other things that can be done. You know, one thing that you mentioned about the current climate that I was gonna say, you know, there's there have been studies done when we've been in times of war. And they've actually noticed that in times of war in the past when meat consumption went down, just because there we weren't able to manufacture enough or people didn't have the money to purchase it and eat it on on a daily basis, as people do now, the disease rates mimicked. They actually if you charted the disease rates went down. You know, they coincided with the the reduction in meat consumption. So I think my cat here. Yeah. So, yeah, it you know, there's like I said, such an opportunity right now for people to see that there's a better way. There are other things that can be done and prevention is just so crucial.  [00:48:17] You know, I always tell people it's so much easier to prevent disease and illnesses than it is to reverse it, though. And and to you know, like you were saying, people care so much about their families and their children and you want to get toxins out of their life. And if people only understood that epigenetic component because everybody thinks, well, my sister had it and my mother had it, my aunts, my grandmother, my father who ate whomever in my family. So I had those genetics. Yes, you have those genetics. But on an epigenetic level, it is literally like flipping a light switch. You can turn those on or off. And it's not a hundred percent sure that you're not going to get it, but it reduces your risk. So, so much. And so if people just understand that one component and how it's related to a plant based diet, I think everybody would go plant based to, you know, if they understood it. It's not about your genetics. You are in control and controlling. Your destiny. Up to 90, 95 percent of the time. Yeah, I think so many more people would make that switch.  [00:49:36] The alleviation of suffering would create converts on the greatest scale as well. You know, we have so much sickness in this country that it should at very least give it a shot. If you're going to try a new controversial drug that has more side effects than the day is long. Why not try the Vegan diet for a month? Like. What have you got to lose? And I think that there's fear in one and there's ease and another. And that begins with education and and accessibility and all of those things to that education. You know, these grassroots movements where my father suffered polio as a child and he was around when people were still knocking on the door saying, have you vaccinated your children? You know, and eradicating our country of polio was like this grassroots effort where you had to reach people in general, communities, people who weren't dialed in and stuff like that.  [00:50:28] And so I think that educational platforms need to come from both grassroots, all the way to high tech. And I think we need Vegan lobbyists. You know, we've got to get people like walking Phenix and people that are recently angry about the tragedy and everything that's going on, pool our money together and get people in Washington that are willing to make it tasty and chic and exciting and get people to sign onto our doctrine as much as they are with the people that are, you know, controlling all these subsidies for dairy, eggs and flour.  [00:50:58] And this has one incredible group that is doing that and has done the most, I think, for all of us is Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. And actually, Dr. Barnard is the one who wrote the the back in doing the endorsement on the back of my book. He's the founder of CRM. So I encourage everybody to support their work because they are getting rid of animal testing in labs. But even more than that, they've exposed so much corruption. You know, as far as like the egg industry basically coming in and, you know, writing their own laws essentially and telling the public that it's healthy to eat eggs all the time. But yet they were the ones the egg industry is the one who's conducting the scientific research that proves this supposedly. You know, and this is going on constantly, whether it be with our prescription drugs, whether it be with our foods, you know, additives that are allowed every pretty much everything, you know, that affects us on a healthful level. There is there is just such a revolving door of the lobbyists that, you know, push for these things, push for the corporate interests, and then they go and you get a job in the you know, in the government. And then they actually are working to implement the laws. And, you know, it's sickening.  [00:52:34] It really is. Right. Yeah, it is. And flipping. And I get sick, you know. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And I think realizing that paradigm, I'm an optimist.  [00:52:46] Despite how much I read, I keep that flag above my head and I believe the day is upon us. You know, I think that we're here and it is the day of health reckoning is here. And it's about a thousand years later than perhaps one would have thought when hearing the old philosophers talk about food being thy medicine and things of that nature. But we're here, and I do believe there is going to be a shift, an awakening, and it's going to cross the aisle. You know, I don't like Kramer at all. I think his stock advice is even a little questionable. However, if, you know, Jim Cramer is touting, you know, this like meat alternative, this impossible burger, like all of those things. Yeah. Doubling down. If someone as unlikely, let's put it as him, is touting it. We're getting there like we are. This is crossing borders. We're crossing oceans. I can feel the annexation happening. It's good.  [00:53:44] I'm wondering. But moving forward, we're running out of time.  [00:53:48] But I wanted to ask you, given that you you do cover all of these areas and to my golly, you're looking into political conference and things like that and possibly considering a station there in yourself. I'm wondering if you can impart a few pieces of advice that you have offered or proffered your close community over the past few weeks regarding the future or things to look towards or change. That's possible.  [00:54:17] Do you have an inner monologue or monitor or anything like that that you kind of keep going with cash?  [00:54:25] That's a good question. You know. Yeah, I do what I what I really go back to is what I was saying is that I think all women are the key. I think women bring so many new ideas to the family, and that's really key in getting more women in power. You know, more women awake to these ideas to understand that the choices you're making are not just affecting you, they are affecting your unborn children, even, you know, going, oh, that's my dog. One of them, you know, going back to the toxin issue. You know, they've done studies to and they found that even a brand new, you know, newborn babies already have. I forget how many hundreds of different toxins in their blood. And it comes from their mother's umbilical cord. So we're pantsing so much on to our children, more so than, you know, our choices and our DNA. So it's. Yeah, I mean, if if you won't do it for you, do it for those around you, because, you know, having lost my mother in 2018 to cancer and knowing that just with changing some of her lifestyle choices, she would probably still be here. I could probably say ninety nine percent. I'm sure that she would still be here. And I thought about her a lot in creating this new training program, because so many of the pieces and components and the different modules that I teach them. If she had embraced these things, she would still be here.  [00:56:24] So I would just say, if not for you, for. For everybody around you. And, you know, as they say, we're not living longer. We're dying longer. So we may be here on Earth for more years. But what are how are we living? You know, what are we enjoying those years? You're spending them in a wheelchair in a hospital bed.  [00:56:51] So that's interesting. I love that. And I love the emphasis that women are the key, you know, and that kind of started this this idea for you. And it's auspicious that we just passed Mother's Day. And and I'm hoping that the legacy and the knowledge that you have and the loss of your own mother can go out and spare other peoples, you know, and it is the most painful part for me about discovering and speaking with expertize such as yourself is we talked off the record, but some of the most difficult, you know, conversations I have on the Daily are with these personal interactions with family and friends that simply don't want to have that conversation and wanting to help without ruin relationships. It's a it's a tricky dialog. We're out of time today, you know. But I want to say thank you so much. I know you're incredibly busy and I really do appreciate your time.  [00:57:45] Thank you so much for having me.  [00:57:46] And sorry about the the howling in the background, why there's there's no other podcast they're more welcome on. This is a Vegan situation. They should be in camera.  [00:57:56] They're probably upset with you for that. And shame on us for everyone listening.  [00:58:03] I want to say thank you so much for your time. We've been speaking with Gina Bonnano Lemos and she's the founder of 360 Health Connection. You can find out more online 360 Health Connection. She is also the author of What The Fork The Secret Cause of Disease. She has an e-book. There's three steps to Cancer Free Kitchen, which will be replaced shortly with fit after 40. I encourage all of you to jump on and look at her work. As I said, one of the best reads I've done in a long while, and I am I'm a bit of a nerd. Thank you. And for everyone listening, thank you for giving us your time today until we speak again next time.  [00:58:44] Please be advised by myself and my love and compassion. Stay safe. Stay well. And remember to always bet on yourself.

Today I am speaking with Alexis Robillard. Alexis has been working in the cosmetic industry for over 15 years in Paris, working for several international fragrance or skincare brands including Dior, Burberry, Jimmy Choo fragrances. He is now the founder of ALL TIGERS:  100% natural, vegan and ferociously stylish lipsticks and nail lacquers.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. https://en.all-tigers.com/@alltigers_organics TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is investigating Vegan life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end. We will cover topics that have revealed themselves as Kofman and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. You can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to Investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:13] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I am sitting down with Alexis Robillard.  [00:01:20] He is the founder of All Tigers, which is a hundred percent natural Vegan and ferociously stylish lipstick and nail liqueurs line. You can find them online at e n dot all hyphen tigers' dot com. That is e n dot all hyphen t ig e r s dot com. Welcome, Alexis.  [00:01:42] Thank you for having me. Absolutely. I'm very excited to climb through.  [00:01:46] You the first French Vegan company that we've spoken to. I've spoken to Irish and Australian. So I can't wait to climb through everything. And for everyone listening. I'm going to read a bio on Alexis to give everyone a good platform for where he's coming from. But before I do that, a roadmap of today's podcast will first look at Alexis's history and brief background on academia and his prolific professional life in the cosmetic and beauty industry. And then we'll start unpacking all tigers. The impetus for why it was founded, as well as some of the logistics of the who, what, when, where hot while and why, such as funding, co-founders, those types of things. And then we'll get further into the philosophy and the ethos behind the line, why Alexis chose to make it Vegan the story behind it and all of those questions within that. We'll wrap everything up with advice that Alexis may have, an information he can share with those of you who are looking to get involved with what he's doing, purchases, items and perhaps emulate some of his career success. A quick bio on Alexis before I pepper him with questions. Alexis is a French citizen who has been working in the cosmetic industry for over 15 years in Paris, working for several international fragrances or skincare brands including Dior, Burberry, Jimmy Choo fragrances. The idea came to him when his pre-teen daughter started to get into makeup.  [00:03:07] He noticed that it was either really trendy but not very green or green and not really trendy. And there was also a kind of Vegan challenge. The Vegan claim often used as camouflage for highly synthetic formulas. Why not have both? Alexis asked himself. Plant based formulas and Vegan  formulas.  [00:03:27] He then realized that all women around him were confronted with the same exact issues. That was the starting point for all Tiger's natural Vegan and ferociously stylish makeup. So, Alexis, I love that the impetus and I really look forward to kind of unpacking all tigers and get further into the story about what you've discovered with your daughter, with the information you have on your website. But before we do that, could you draw us a history, a brief professional history and academic background? I mean, you were hanging out in Paris at dawn, Burberry and Jimmy Choo, some of the iconic moments of makeup, cosmetics and fashion. Can you kind of dress the history of your professional life bringing you to all tigers?  [00:04:10] Yes. Well, I have worked for 15 years in the cosmetics industry, so much in marketing positions for beautiful brands, as you said. So I started that perfunctory job as a young product that people are parents in care and fragrances. And then I moved to a license to of Burberry and Jimmy Choo fragrances, which is in Paris as well. And finally, I worked for a few years for French brands like Issues Can Care and Hope to get into the French wellness brand that are sold in pharmacies in Europe. So it might not sounds like it, but when we have my back, when that actually I've worked on many projects that were linked to natural beauty formulas. But as you may know, the this kind of project where I was never launched into WhiteWave is a way to focus to the rockets were not ready maybe or consumers were not ready. So over these years, I had some frustration that I was quite convinced that we could do much better on this on natural plant based formula. That's why I actually I I came at a point where I wanted to watch a more personal story. And this is where the idea of all Tiger's natural makeup came up.  [00:05:19] OK, so let's get into the logistics. Get those out of the way. When was it founded?  [00:05:24] Did you have any other founders and did you take any kind of financial funding, be it loans or venture capitalists or tigers?  [00:05:34] No, we are a small team of sweet people to David. It was actually your own near to your story. I started at the end of 2017. Well, actually, I found a supplier of the ideal supplier, Faltu, to work on natural makeup. And it was purely self-funded at the beginning, know in 2017. And I waste a little of money on the way. But still, it is Stela. I worked on a valve that actually financed most of our spendings now. So. So, yes. So we'll launch the actual launch came after a crowdfunding campaign. So it was planned at the beginning, at the end of 2017, beginning of 2018. I started the project and actually I did two quotes on this campaign. At the end of 2019. And then I was always there to look for money under way. But most of our spendings today are friends by our turnover and organically.  [00:06:35] OK. And I'm wondering, finding I know Vegan companies in the United States go through a plethora of venues and there are different indexes. They find their manufacturers and distributors and things like that.  [00:06:48] What was the journey like for you researching people to help you manufacture Vegan products? How is that interviewing process where there are a lot to choose from? Well, very few, actually.  [00:07:00] I wanted to make makeup that could be at the same time so natural. And again, as we said, as you said before, actually you can do Vegan when it's one of the Coxsone synthetic ingredients. But I wanted to be natural makeup and natural formulas. So it was quite complicated here because it's not an expense, as you find everywhere. It's only a few suppliers in Europe doing plant based makeup. And again, makeup is on the other side. So actually, that was very few they that to play football. So I did some interview. As you said, it was quite some research, but at the end of the day, you don't have so much choice. So, yeah, what is great is that actually it was love love at first sight with a supplier. So at least on a personal level, we were super in line. And they're quite easy to actually grant the some vision.  [00:07:47] Absolutely. And you're drawing up an interesting point, and I'm glad for that clarification. I kind of want you to enumerate on that, expand further for our audience. It's it's something that your website addresses very elegantly.  [00:07:59] But there is an absolute distinction between something being Vegan and still very synthetic and processed. You have this emphasis towards 100 percent natural. Can you kind of speak to those differences or how they go? Hand-in-hand, but not necessarily always.  [00:08:14] Yes, of course. Actually, when I when I started in the cosmetic industry, we were not questioning that much. The formulation itself, actually, cosmetics have a long history of synthetic ingredients that are easy to supply of debate over time. So the majority of cosmetics is city based and natural ingredients are quite an exception, actually. And there is also the question of animal derived ingredients like, you know, collision yellow and see so much more. I got interested Step-By-Step in Green Beauty, but I was super convinced that we should do both, actually. So at the same time, it's more natural ingredients and also not using animal derived ingredients. So I think that, yes, the main challenge is actually to do both. You say if I just use the example of lipstick, for instance, this is that a woman would eat up to two kilos of lipstick of our lifetime. So you would expect most brands to select very wisely their ingredients, particularly super healthy. But when you look into the ingredient list on the lipstick packaging, there is nothing you would like to put on. I don't know your daughter's leap's or your models or your wives or your sisters. It is quite nonsense. It's two kilos of crude oil in its petrochemical based silicones. It's very a lot of questionable chemicals, ingredients and animal derived stuff as well, which is quite. Here, when you read on the level of the packaging. So, as you say, it's when went in the lipstick, for instance, on animal derived ingredients, you will find beeswax or these products often come from far away where the conditions are quite controversial. These are raised in the box and said with cause and no flowers, no query, no nice beekeeper in love with me. So it is unethical. For once in a lipstick, you can also find a wet pigment called the chow mein, which does not Vegan it comes from female Chinese. So there the sun dried and crushed. So another ethical issue, you don't really want to see the animal or insect to actually create a lipstick. And we want to put actually that on your lips, so. The alternative would be to just replace banks into thinking we just have a 100 percent synthetic lipstick. But it is the same actually you don't want to eat two killers of synthetic ingredients. So you see what was important for me. You ready to get to natural end again and make only Vegan, which also could mean actually. It really is.  [00:10:49] And this is where the Vegan as natural 100 percent kind of meets up with it.  [00:10:55] There is a parallel in the food based world where people are talking about being whole plant food based vegans as opposed to just being vegan. There's that junk food vegan person out there and there's this parallel after I was researching the work that you've done in your company at all, Tigers, and I was looking into and kind of rethinking. I had been taught from a very young age that to have a you, it was impossible to have a vegan cosmetics line because there was nothing that created the preservatives that the items would tarnish or become rotten before one could use them all. And there weren't medium's platforms to deliver the same consistency on. And there was this kind of understanding, even as you know, as someone who is very well versed in the Vegan community, that there was just an inability to have cosmetics be 100 percent natural and Vegan you could have them Vegan, but they were going to have these chemicals in them and things like that. And it does sound as you're describing everything out there that isn't 100 percent natural and or Vegan it sounds like there aren't any mediums left, the people you're working with, the people that are, you know, manufacturing it. Are they flagships? Are they people who are like the first in their industry? Or are there a lot of companies out there that have these alternative ingredients that we just don't know about?  [00:12:14] I think it's you have a lot of alternatives and you have a lot of brands working on that. But as you say, it's much more like local small brands. It's never like to big luxury brands, probably because actually it's not as easy to. Created an industrial process for very large frontages on a natural formula, because actually it requires some specific attention. And you can have very fast process, for instance. So I think that's why actually most of the companies don't want to put there, because it would actually raise the costs because, of course, natural ingredients are more expensive than most of the synthetic into alternatives. And also, it's as impact on cheating, on industrial pressure as and so on. So it makes it much more complicated. And if it's complicated, it's more costly. So I think that's a reason why it is still small brands or local brands. It's more complicated to industrialize a product for sure. It would be more costly. So natural ingredients are much more costly as well. So I think that the secret of it and why actually it still is a small companies that actually go for it because it gives even the consumers that they want to invest in the consumers.  [00:13:34] Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious. And you're and I want to restate what you said, because I read it on your website and gasped.  [00:13:41] And the average woman will consume, ingest, swallow two kilos of lipstick in her lifetime, which, you know, and I had never even really clarified. Even the most natural of lipsticks, whether or not I want to take two kilos of that going through my digestive track over my lifetime. And your story is interesting. It starts with your daughter coming of age and getting into cosmetics and all of that. You kind of speak more to that. How did that whole thing transition into you kind of thinking about what products you did want her using?  [00:14:15] Yeah, actually, the idea of all tigers came, as you said, it was my daughter. She is 14 today. And so she was a teenager at the time and she was planning summercamp. And, you know, at the end of a summer camp, there was a party. And when you were eleven or twelve, you planned this event as if it was the Emmy Awards night. So. So she was looking for a lipstick. I'm joking. How serious?  [00:14:39] And when we looked together, I was quite surprised because we noticed it was either a really trendy but not that we know who we not fully 20s, as you said before. And I realized that all the women around me were confronted with the same exact issues where they wanted more natural lipstick that they didn't want which brand choosing which ones I should choose or which retail they should go to to find this kind of product and use using use of product is they were not to choose this kind of the look and feel of the products were not that attractive. So there were a lot of issues that I thought at the time we could actually solve. And through my process was very simple. I just thought about the women and I asked women what they wanted. So I did a lot like a lot of one to one interviews to actually understand what works for them, do the best they could. And actually, I opened very early an Instagram page, asking women to actually help me to to create the perfect lipstick in that room. So perfect lipstick. That would mean, of course, to get close to perpetrate a great old, long lasting Caros, but also natural ingredients. And again, actually, so the Vegan aspect was quite important for only a part of them. But I thought that was important because actually even this minority of women would be we could address them with this kind of product. Actually, I made a promise to actually do the best activity. So I said I should be faithful to this premise. So I went to Vegan. I was not so clear about what was it on at the time. And actually, on a personal level, I have transitioned a lot from that. So it's an interesting travel.  [00:16:24] Yeah. It's a dialog. It's a philosophy that kind of starts to permeate all areas of life, even for me.  [00:16:31] Ten years. And I'm wondering when you designed it.  [00:16:34] I love this idea of collecting intel and doing this market research with the French Parisian woman. When you designed your your lipstick and nail lock your or was your target audience solely the French woman or feme identified anyone who wants to wear lipstick and nail Lacau? Or did you think eventually you might try and expand it to other European countries or even globally?  [00:17:00] Yeah, it's it's a really good question. But for sure, I thought about it internationally because I think that's what we stand for actually can equal many women around the world. I would be there. I would try to be in the UK, in the US and Canada and Asia. Actually, I would I would be there with production because I, I feel what we stand for could help many women transition to a greener. It's called, again, lifestyle. And it's not a question of the. Ranch. Hate to here's a view like that.  [00:17:34] I've Francis, always used as the icon. So I don't think it hurts to be, you know, to launch from there. From the beauty industry and cosmetics line, I do like the push, the impetus for your story, this inspiration of your daughter.  [00:17:47] It points towards I want all women to be healthy, but most importantly, I want to bring up my daughter's generation shore in a different light than your mind or my mother's or my grandmothers. And so I think getting this new generation very aware of the ingredients and what they're putting on themselves is key. And companies like yours that do that are paramount for the next generation and their generation after that.  [00:18:13] I'm wondering, do you how is we talked off the record.  [00:18:18] I told you I was going to ask you about this, but the relationship that I can kind of if I can speak for my country, which I'm sure most would prefer I not, but the relationship between the Americas, American woman and cosmetic buyer and consumer and that two products that are considered Vegan. And I said Vegan originally, but 100 percent organic and eco sustainable and things of that nature is this idea of luks. You know, there are a lot of environmentally conscious people, but a lot of people see that and they think that not only is it environmentally friendly, they immediately assume it's going to be better for their body. Therefore, they're prepared to pay more. And also, it feels more expensive. They expect more out of the product of the packaging, even if you will, those types of things that the packaging, the eco sustainable. There's all of these attachments, these relationships that go along with something that's Vegan and 100 percent organic. And I'm wondering what the Parisian conversation is, if you would be so bold as to do the same for your country. Is the reception of Vegan and 100 percent organic products cosmetics in France received on the same level? Or can you kind of speak to how the French citizen might view that and what the relationship is?  [00:19:34] So I think it's organic. I think it's already widespread in France. You have historical brands that were already there for a long time.  [00:19:43] I think on the organic part, I think it's already been widespread because you have a lot of historical brands or with younger market and it's nothing personal, actually.  [00:19:52] You do have a lot of organic stores already. Glenzer so organic, I think was not that exceptional.  [00:20:00] Vegan is a different story because again, no state has a recent history in France.  [00:20:04] Four years ago it was only one percent of the population itself begins with very small. And last year, two or three persons that you see that. And there was one person that saw that again and took us 10 percent saying that there would be interesting Vegan products. So you see, it's recent, but it's doing very fast. And once you in that direction, I think there is no way back.  [00:20:25] I see myself I have done some big steps on that. And for sure, I want to go back. So.  [00:20:33] I think that you can get into the subject for various reasons. It can be.  [00:20:38] I don't know, medical because you're lactose intolerant or because you're into more respectful animal or because of the environmental impacts. Many, many reasons that for sure, it is more about being an educated and aware consumers about the impacts. Is showing part of that. It's.  [00:20:57] If we talk about beauty products, you have Vegan products at every place, so it can be a luxury, but it's also a question of, I think education values ethics on the social ladder on the planet.  [00:21:09] I agree. And as the need goes up, you know, the price will come down. It's the same thing with shopping and food industry once these ingredients become available.  [00:21:18] And as free flowing as eggs and milk, then the prices come down. I'm wondering with the different items that you have. So when you launched how many you have lipsticks and nail Lacau a lacquer and how many of each did you launch with? Did you immediately grow? How many of each do you now have? Can you kind of speak to the product line?  [00:21:43] Yes. So we started with a range of twelve shades of metallic lipsticks, so metallic six. And the formula is one other person to begin. Of course, it's up to one person. Not sure because when y one of two went under. I think it's because sometimes on some pigments we don't have alternatives either. Natural.  [00:22:06] See you started off with 12 lipsticks and did you have no lacquer at the same time or did that come later?  [00:22:13] Sorry. Yes. So we started using twelve sheets of metal. Then we launched the. Then they let go 20 second step because actually, you know, we ask the community, especially on Instagram, for every big step section and we ask the community what should be the next step. So then we speak and they say for sure it's like yours because it's full of controversial ingredients and so on.  [00:22:36] And we you can do much better. So actually, we took a big step into a new plan based ingredients that are super interesting, actually. You know, like those we have great colors to pound on, super shine and the super political to to use and apply. So people actually listen with no difference. You want no licorice and steel. It is up to 83 percent of natural ingredients.  [00:23:08] Yeah. And that seems like a tricky one. The nail polish industry in the United States is by far exceeded all of their cosmetics products over the past five years.  [00:23:18] It went from a ridiculously mediocre climate to the next booming, you know, hundreds of trillions of dollars a year. And I know that with that, there are very few people actually considering the ingredients. And it's one of the few things that I think people think that the nail is not necessarily placing it on the body. There's been a lot of talk, too, that the problems with that and people viewing that and I've spoken to a Vegan nail polish industry maker here in the United States, in Nevada, and she said the difficulty for her in developing it, she was actually developing formulas, which was getting these long lasting long stays, the styles and the the traditional industry had been mixing in. So I know that it's it's you know, it's a booming industry. But to get a really good Vegan, 100 percent natural one would be a UNICOR. How do you feel about your product with the nail liquor?  [00:24:16] Do you feel like it says it's as good as its counterparts that are not Vegan and 100 percent organic?  [00:24:23] I think I think it's the same for lipstick and the same for nailer girls. What surprised our consumers that are used to maybe luxury brands or conventional brands, for instance? Is that actually they find the same service. It's the same thing. Intense clothes and along the whole colors and and shining into your exemplars. And they lacquers. It is not what they expected from natural makeup, to be honest, is the sort that they would have to compromise on quality. And what is great is that actually a love? It's. And that's why you actually know we have many products on ice and complexion and so on who can make a lot of good stuff with natural ingredients and from base ingredients in a Vegan way. And actually bringing exactly the same service that they are used to with their curan range.  [00:25:13] So what's next? What do you think you've gone into? You reached out to your people. They asked for a nail lacquer. What's next? Will you do anything else? Will you stay within just those two product zones or do you think you'll keep expanding?  [00:25:27] For sure. We will keep extending. I'm sure. I'm sure of that. So actually, we are making Brand. So we want to go to our two eyes and skin for sure, because we want to offer a community a very easy, attractive solution to transition to a new lifestyle in the U.S. So I feel this is our mission, and especially in this period of time before what we are going through is a. Nineteen, I feel and I hope people will feel even more connected to the planet to live in general, and that daily products that help make the world a better place with five. And and I feel that actually we were kind of put it all, take us, put it have something to do with that. Some contribute to that for our consumers.  [00:26:13] Absolutely. Well, what do you know about your packaging? Is there anything particularly special that you addressed with the packaging or the vessels that the products are delivered in?  [00:26:25] Yes, of course, actually. We wanted to make something bluebirds, actually the point since a cat unbox of the products. There are. Low carbon Accattone coming from sustainable forests. So the idea is really to have no particular varnishes metallic elements that would actually reduce the risk that we cyclicity. So the idea is to have a cut on drugs that you can really easily recycle. For instance, of plastic reuse is recyclable as well. We use aluminum caps, which is purely recyclable as well, glass. But also the idea is really to be insides. What you watch in Europe, you have a natural LaBella's that actually it did some kind of a playbook on packaging. So we tried to really follow all the rules to make sure I think, should you make the best choices. Also on the on every element of the packaging.  [00:27:27] Yeah, that's fantastic. And I'm wondering about the name. Oh, yes. How did all come up? I love it. I think it's fantastic. But where did it come from?  [00:27:39] Oh, it's it's it's a long story, actually, because as I said, actually, I was meeting women a lot when I was starting to to understand their needs and to design the perfect lipstick. And one of them actually told me, I feel that women on that note, who you listen to by custardy brands. That's why formulas are nonsense as well. So because actually, if you ask a woman what she wants to, you know, a product, she would probably tell you a natural natural ingredient for sure. So actually, tell me what you're doing with this product and a strong feminist dimension that actually I totally agree with that. And we are talking about feminism and cosmetics and this foundation. Tony, what is a paradox is that being a feminist is feeding at the same time very strong. They will prove a fool. And at the same time, Zuby threatens. And I said, oh, okay, okay. So just like Tiger actually, you just you Bucho a fool. And then your species. And she told me exactly. We are all tigers. And that's how the name was Monceau became. We are all tigers. I'll tell you also today, actually, we are proud, proud member of international organization, one positive for the planet. And we give back one percent of total sales for wild tiger preservation in Asia. But it's a very complete program. Protects tigers, but also the eco system, which is very certain this over years. Do you see that? We wanted to show also our respect to the living in every way. So not only the tiger as a as an icon, as a symbol, but also in a very concrete way. And when we see it all, Tiger, which is nice, that's for women, it's not about seduction. Like in many make a brand, actual Tiger Woods is a celebration of strong women. We celebrate their sweat trends. COAG fashion each make a career as a nickname, which is like you hit it big. Call me Queen Himuro. So it's a men's for something you say to feel good and strong for the day. So really want to inspire women in the different ways unconventional make it. And not just about superficiality, but something that comes very deep inside.  [00:29:44] Yeah, I really appreciate the and the dialog and the rhetoric that you're having with your your friends and colleagues and clients about feminism and kind of divorcing this concept between cosmetics and the the male gaze or show this idea of seduction and and things like that, and it reaching more into the community in which it lays upon, you know, which is women are female identified or men that are looking to engage in this, returning the use back to the user and the power and the dynamic between the relationship of the product and the user back to them is paramount. I think when you're looking at makeup that is moving forward into our daughter's generation, you know, shortening that the association and the utility of it back to them is really, really powerful. And I appreciate that. I'm curious. Well, first of all, before I forget, because I do tend to forget the logistics when someone is shopping for your product. Do you have a brick and mortar store? Do you have an online presence? Do you have third party retailers that sell your products? Where can people look for it?  [00:30:49] So actually, we have. When you shop, which is the end, that old iPhone tigers' dot com, which is in French and English and which is our first or today, and we deliver what today. And we are also sold by partners in 10 countries in Europe in about 300 doors.  [00:31:08] It's a mix of online offline concept stores. The Fumo use department store pharmacies, beauty spa.  [00:31:15] What is important to me is that we share the same interests for natural beauty that a natural beauty customer actually can go there and shop. So the white product not only ours, but interesting brands as well. So yes, we are we are quite available, but today, mostly in Europe. Do you see internationally. Sure. From. We shop, we we shop, we ship everywhere. Monophone.  [00:31:39] So everyone jump on. Everyone listening. I want to wrap everything up with him. The most recent climate. I don't like to avoid it. And I'm in if you haven't had a significant dialog with yourself or the company.  [00:31:51] That's all right, too. However, I'm wondering what the conversation that you have between your customers or if you've tried to kind of address the covered 19 pandemic and and how you have such a very specific product that has a relationship with the environment and things of that nature that have an inherent dialog with things like pandemic and things that come about from disturbing natural ecosystems and things of that nature. Have you had any kind of marketing or overt conversation or any personal dialog with yourself about how it might move all tigers forward or change your dialog and how you market with your customers?  [00:32:32] Yes, because actually it's a lock down. I actually came quite suddenly and being in touch on a constant basis with our community was, for me, actually a way to keep a positive mood and feeling and seeing seeing a useful to people. So, for instance, all tigers distributed. We are we are today distributed in some pharmacies with a strong natural offer in France. And those pharmacies, we are at the forefront of Kivett 19. So we produce 10 cents. I'd good just to be supplied for free to house workers. And there we are. So for me, pharmacies are part of our community. People love us in another way. Actually, people love Zulay hands of our packaging because it's a lovely drawing with our white Tiger Woods and the colored jungle. So we edited the clothing version that actually you can control yourself for grownups or kids and you could do a need for download for free and print on their website. I also organized a livestock's on Integrate Instagram with French entrepreneurs in beauty and fashion, and we explored the Tiger's view. It's a mix of passion, energy, resilience. You need to build projects. And that was really inspiring acting for me, of course, but also for all the people. Election year following their life left.  [00:33:51] And we made a lot of contests with other ethical brands on Instagram to have them discovered by the community and show them that it's not only about makeup, but it's only about fashion and skincare and other ways that those brands are amazing and nobody knows them and they should actually be no everywhere. So in two different ways. Some are more serious. So some were more entertaining.  [00:34:15] But we were very active to our community and we wanted to support everywhere. Our shop was closed a little bit because at the beginning of logistician had to deal with more, I would say necessary products and makeup, but then we could be open. And since we opened, actually we saw very strong dynamic. So I assume it's the same for a lot of retailers. But I feel people actually will actually need in this kind of period this feel that the brands they believe in and the trust actually helps them go through this kind of period.  [00:34:50] Absolutely. And I appreciate that dialog. It sounds like you've had so much movement on so many different fronts.  [00:34:55] A lot of people feel and paralyzed, you know, with how to address it, with how to look at their industries, their communities, how to to incorporate that dialog into what they're doing. And it sounds like you've done it so gracefully. I'm curious, from a personal standpoint, do you identify yourself as Vegan?  [00:35:15] Oh, yes, actually, yes, you're right. I didn't mention that before. But that's an important question, actually. When I started untangles, I did the new, as I said, so much about the Vegan. So it was quite a discovery for me. And it was led to like the base that I was at the time that they were big meat eaters. So to be honest, I was not Vegan at all. And I did know so much about it. So I got interested. I said quite positive about Vegan. I get a lot about it. But even if you know that it is more ethically and I'm the one that is friendly, I think it is not and actually began is not about a question of motivation. It cannot be only a rational process. It's something that you have to feel deep inside. So you have to feel deep inside that it's it's fair that it is right, though, to be honest. It came step by step. So I stopped eating lambs and then Couzens and also just step by step process. And probably I will discover new elements. But each step was a small evolution on the decimal level. And to be honest, I see that the only and pleasing thing about it is that everybody around you have something to say about it. And in fact, they use less because they all want to give you advice and then say. Stupid to go there. But so best the New Orleans intimates, it's actually a rational discussion. Can really make you change your mind. So anyway, at some point, no, I can really. Yes. I don't if I do the big community.  [00:36:48] Yeah. And it's an interesting time.  [00:36:50] You know, I think the one thing that unifies us from Vegan all across the world is that exact social dynamic of the ostracization. I've never angered anyone more that I didn't know. And then by telling them that I was Vegan, you know, a waiter, too. It's the most amazing statement in the world. And to bear that all the time is can be exhausting. However, what I will say and I tell my children all of the time, which is in your lifetime. What is happening not just with the tragic pandemic and things like that, it will come to fruition as being at least a very logical and sustainable lifestyle. And that questioning and discrimination ought to subside like before your very eyes. And how I lived will not necessarily hopefully be how you lived. So that will be interesting, to say the very least. I'm curious.  [00:37:43] That's what I didn't say that. It's important to say to your listeners know that even if you're not getting food, you should actually go for it. Again, beauty, because it's a question of transparency. You just want to know what is in their product. And you never think that it would be animal based. So for sure, for just that reason. It's interesting. I tried to get them to begin looking for show.  [00:38:04] I concur.  [00:38:05] And I think the majority of of women and men that I know that wear makeup and and do use Vegan and try to use plant based products are not Vegan. They just they really do care about and I like what you said, the transparency, you know, understanding the ingredients, or at very least when you Google them, not being horrified at what they are. Should be something we demand of our products, right?  [00:38:30] Yes, sure. In France, you have many mobile apps that help you to decode, decipher resistant ingredients needs for cosmetics. And the foreshores is the trend of seeing green products. But most of the time, people are very, very amazed about what they find and surprise. But what defines a population even full, put it is for you. So I think it's important that actually people just getting read get away with it. And transparency's for sure the key. It's a key value.  [00:38:59] I do, too. I completely concur. I like to sign off all of my podcasts with kind of reaching into you as a person, as a business owner, as a founder, as a father. We've been in interesting times and and it's been, you know, a lot of people. It sounds like yourself highly included in that have done a lot of self reflection, have looked at their own industries, even if they were beneficial in the past, even if they prospered during the pandemic and had created a new dialog with themselves about what it means now. You know, to be kind of surfing out this pandemic and even looking forward to hopefully the cessation. Do you have, like a top piece of advice or two pieces of advice that you give yourself or your community or your daughter regularly that you've kind of honed in to the tincture or the next year the nectar of of what is good and what to drive your life by?  [00:39:55] What to sail your ship by?  [00:39:58] Well, I I don't know if it will be your words of wisdom, but actually I, I always say be aware and do good. I mean, by that that's I think you should know what you are doing. Know what you're eating. Know what you're actually puts on your lips, on your skin. Know the consequences of what you know, Che's health. What is he done? May be behind what you purchase and do goods. I mean by that, doing the right choices and trying to do something fair. Something that is why it's something that you feel is why. It's something that is completely aligned with your values and convictions. And I think that is the main point. So that's why I said to my children, I have one daughter and two sons. So to my children. And for Scheu is something that actually gave me also now saying that if you if you get into an entrepreneurial product, it's for creating something new. And this new stuff has to be aware and do goods, do some good in a way. So that's actually something that gets me in every actions.  [00:41:04] I love that. I think that's absolutely perfect. I'm going to quote you on that when I quote his podcast and do good. The more simple them are more profound, as are Buddhist philosophers and lay out zoo have proven. Alexis, we are out of time, but I wanted to say thank you so much for speaking with us today and giving us all the information about your life and your company.  [00:41:27] Thank you very much.  [00:41:28] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we have been speaking with Alexis Robillard. He is the founder of All Tigers'. You can find them online. It's E n dot, all hyphen, tigers', dot com. I encourage everyone to get on and check it out. This story you can look into further is fascinating. And for those of you listening, thank you so much for giving us your time today until we speak again next time.  [00:41:53] Remember to stay safe, be well and always bet on yourself. 

Today I sit down with Kathleen Kastner. Kathleen has a Master's Degree in Exercise Physiology and has been vegan since 2002. She works for The Humane Society of the United States with their Forward Food program as a Food & Nutrition Coordinator. She leads plant-based culinary trainings at schools, colleges and hospitals to help institutions get more vegan food on their menus.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. www.kathleenkastner.com; www.forwardfood.org TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is investigating Vegan life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end. We will cover topics that have revealed themselves as Kofman and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. You can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to Investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:13] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. This is your host, Patricia. And today I am excited to be sitting down with Kathleen Kassner.  [00:01:20] She is an entrepreneur, business owner, author and Vegan cooking show host. Welcome, Kathleen.  [00:01:27] Thank you so much for having me, Patricia.  [00:01:29] Absolutely. I am so excited.  [00:01:31] You have such an amazing history and dynamic professional life. And I want to get into all of that. I'm going to read for everyone listening. I'm going to read a brief bio on Kathleen. But before I do that, a quick roadmap. She can follow today's podcast on its trajectory. We're gonna get into Kathleen's background. Mainly her. Her Vegan story and how she'd kind of enumerate where she came to be at this point, her life. And then we'll turn to unpacking her professional past and the dialog that that has between what she was doing with that and the Vegan world. And then we'll turn to the ethos of her current work with the Humane Society and the food forward program. And then we'll turn our attention towards the end of the podcast towards future goals, both professionally and personally, as well as any advice Kathleen might have for those looking to get involved in any of the projects that she's had or maybe emulate some of her career success. A quick bio on Kathleen before I start peppering her with questions. Kathleen Kessner has a master's degree in exercise physiology and has been a vegan since 2002. She works for the Humane Society of the United States with their food forward program. Sorry, the forward food program as a food nutrition coordinator. She leads plant based culinary trainings at schools, colleges and hospitals to help institutions get more Vegan food on their menus. Her mission is to educate people on the health benefits of whole food plant based diet. While saving animals and helping the planet. Kathleen was a yoga studio owner in Kansas City for 16 years and teaches Ashtanga yoga retreats internationally. She's the author of Yoga's Path to Weight Loss and hosts a vegan cooking show on YouTube so you can find out a little bit more. She's got a couple of Web sites. W w w dot. Kathleen Kassner, dot com. That's K a t h. L. e E n. K. A. S. T n e. R dot com. And w w. W dot food forward dot. org, as we discussed, that you might want to hit that Web site. So, Kathleen, before I get into everything that you are currently doing with food forward in Humane Society, I'm hoping you can dress like a roadmap of what you feel like, your personal story or background and history, education, all that stuff has been with your Vegan life. Great.  [00:03:49] Thank you so much. I was born and raised in Kansas, which I like to joke that it's not exactly the Vegan capital of America. I was really fortunate that I from Kansas, when I got out of college, I moved to San Diego and got a job with Sharpes Hospital. And one of my first clients there was Dr. Deepak Chopra. So when I was young, naive girl, this would have been in 1993. And I get to meet Dr. Chopra at my job. And I didn't know who he was at the time, but I became became his personal trainer and got introduced to his work and consciousness and got introduced to my first yoga class, which literally changed every single aspect of my life for the better. So I'm really grateful that for that divine synchronicity, I had to be at that job at five a.m. in the morning right after college, and that I would get to meet Depok. So I definitely looking back, you know, twenty five years later realized it was definitely meant to be. So I got introduced to yoga and through the years I changed everything. My diet was the first thing to change. I was already vegetarian. I think, unfortunately, I might have been eating like a fish couple times a year and I had to put my cat to sleep. I had a two year old child with Cat and I chose to hold her while they did it. And it really like woke me up. I was like who I am. I don't ever need to eat any living being a you know, I really got it. And I felt like that was a gift she gave to me. And so I became vegetarian, started practicing yoga daily, got to open my first yoga studio in nineteen ninety nine in Kansas City. And every year I did yoga. Something dropped that that wasn't serving my highest good. You know, I eventually dropped, I dropped alcohol, I dropped caffeine, which I thought I would never live to say and my whole life. But but I was still having some health problems. I was having a lot of allergies, asthma and acne. And it was from the dairy. But I had no idea. I went to a conference. Marianne Williamson, host of this conference and I went to from Kansas City to Michigan. She was the minister of a church and hosted this big peace conference. And one of her speakers was Congress. And Dennis Kucinich from Ohio. And he stood up on that stage saying how he had had these undiagnosed health problems and no one could figure out what was wrong with them. And he read Diet for a New America by John Robbins. And John Robbins was the heir to Baskin Robbins and chose to not take over the family business because he saw his uncle died early in his early 50s of a heart attack. His father got diabetes and he realized that dairy was killing his family members. So he did not take over the business, which was a huge falling out and became this amazing plant based educator. So he wrote this book, Diet for a New America. And Dennis Kucinich had read it and told the whole audience how he changed a plant based diet. And those diagnosed health problems magically went away. So I was sitting in the audience going, well, my gosh, I never even consider, you know, I wasn't even eating a lot of dairy and eggs. I was actually more of an attack and dressing than a ranch dressing kind of person. My whole life, I had been like that. But the little dairy that I would have was really wreaking havoc on my health. So I remember sitting in the audience thinking, well, I'm already vegetarian, you know, and I don't even know if he said the word Vegan. But I went back to Kansas City where I didn't know any vegans and I just took him out of my diet. And it was like a miracle. My skin cleared up practically in the first week. I got off the inhaler and got off the Flonase and my whole my health changed. So that's my Vegan story. And then when I did learn the ethics of what was going on in the dairy industry and the egg industry and that we were impregnating cows and taking away their babies and grinding up male chicks and grinders. And I was like, there is no way I'm going to have anything to do with these systems that are being cruel to animals. So I was very easy for me. I it's been 18 years and I just I never looked back. It was just like a switch went on and it was very easy. I and my husband I met twelve years ago, it was miraculously Vegan.  [00:08:41] We had a Vegan wedding to our Kansas and Wisconsin family members in Los Angeles. And so it's just been a huge part of my life. I'm really blessed.  [00:08:50] I have a partner be supportive and he's a great cook. And our yoga studio, Kansas City, we promoted veganism as much as possible.  [00:09:00] Yeah. I wonder with your said, given this prolific history that you have with a yoga studio, you and I spoke just briefly off the record before we started the podcast about how yoga studios are kind of tricky.  [00:09:12] And when I run into them, I interview a lot of small business owners and even all the way up to large business titans. And sometimes the industry can confuse one to thinking that it's not a business type industry. We talked about how yoga studios are one of those areas where I find that people assume, like, you know, Yogi's own them and they do a lot of yoga. But it is indeed a business unto itself. And I was wondering, and the connection between as a business owner and a yogi yourself, there is an inherent connection. I find a lot of yoga yogis or people who do yoga are not a shock to find someone being Vegan. But there's also an assumption that every yogi is Vegan or that they understand that lifestyle. And I'm wondering throughout, because you had such a prolific career owning different yoga studios. I'm wondering if you ever had an opportunity to engage in collaboration's or education regarding veganism or did you keep those things very separate? You were a vegan. You were also a yoga studio owner. Did they ever collaborate?  [00:10:10] Yes, I pretty much shouted it from the mountaintop. Once I once I knew, knew better for myself that how I could help, you know, not only my health, but the animals and the environment. Yes. I became very outspoken and I did get some grief and I probably still do, but I'm going to keep speaking out. I got these Vegan startup kits from PETA. They will give them to you for free. They will ship them to your yoga studio for free. They have a benefactor who pays for them. And I set them right up there at the front desk with all the other literature schedules. Our hope when we host a teacher trainings, I would ask our students to go Vegan. Of course, they had free will whether they did or didn't. But we have had people come back later through the years who have stayed Vegan and we would host Vegan potlucks and movie screenings and just tried to really get them involved. Of course, most of them were not Vegan but. If you share delicious Vegan food and then people can realize like, hey, you don't have to be deprived. This is amazing. So we did the letter home and we did them at the studio. And I always think that sharing delicious food is a great people, great way to help educate people on the benefits of veganism.  [00:11:32] Yeah, it's it's clever, too. I hadn't I hadn't put this together. I mean, there are religions out there that put service and food in a way to help convert and share a peaceful message.  [00:11:43] And so it stands to reason that a dietary and lifestyle movement could easily do the same. I think that's a really good point. And always your education, right? Just be sharing that education.  [00:11:57] So I'm wondering, I want to turn now the efforts towards I'm looking at the ethos of the Humane Society and the food forward program.  [00:12:04] Can you start by painting a picture of what the kid when I think of the Humane Society. I tend to think of animals and things of that nature. And so I want to look at can you explain what aspect of the Humane Society, what chapter, that type of thing that you're in. And then also draw us out like an outline of what the food forward program is?  [00:12:27] Sure, sure. So I work for the Humane Society of the United States and I just want to clarify its forward food stuff. That's OK. It's forward food, dawg. And it was started four years ago and by Chef Wanda. And it is under meat reduction. So this is farm animal protection and meat reduction. These campaigns, it's under. So we're trying to save farm animals. In a nutshell, by teaching people how to make delicious plant based foods without using them. And we're not asking people to go vegan, but we're just asking to get more plant based options on institution menus for those who care to have them, especially when somebody is in the hospital. If they went in for heart disease, you know, the last thing we want to do is give them bacon and eggs in the morning after they wake up from their heart surgery. And I worked in choreography when I was younger. So it's very important to educate them right away, you know? And of course, people have free will. But if we can at least start introducing healthier foods. So at the Humane Society, we do these plant based culinary trainings to K through twelve food service workers, dieticians, chefs, colleges and hospitals. So it's a lot of fun. So we go in and we work with the staff. Sometimes it's around 20 people. And I give a PowerPoint on why we're there for health, animals, the environment, and then we get to go into the kitchen. And it depends on the institution. But sometimes I get to bring one of our Vegan chefs from Seattle and work with their culinary staff to make anywhere from 15 to 20 plant based recipes. So we break them up into teams of two and they get recipes and they make them within a couple hours. And then when it's done, we set up a big buffet table and the whole staff gets to taste all the different dishes. They present their dishes. They they are allowed to make tweaks if they want to make the recipe their own. It just can have animal products, but extra spice here and there. So we really try to get the staff excited about plant based foods so that they'll be more interested in helping to make them. So then the food service director and the chefs get to decide which recipes they'd like to put on their menus. And then I follow up with them within the next few months to see what changes they've made in meat reduction.  [00:15:03] That's exciting. I think it's such a great way to come at it.  [00:15:06] You know, it's it's this kind of, again, this educational model of showing and educating as as you kind of set up some of the dangers of of having meat so prolifically represented in the American diet, even on the social level. I'm wondering, with schools, have you been able when you get into colleges, have you. Has the program looked into getting into elementary schools? And if you have done that. Is that that's a system that I think even a lot of people. I have children that go to school and I'm not sure if it's state mandated or federally mandated. You know how that school lunch system works because my children don't partake in it. But I'm wondering how much flexibility there is to have organizations such as Forward Food go in and pitch them and speak to them. Is it state run? Are you guys able to penetrate some of the areas near what you're doing or is it mainly on the college level?  [00:16:00] No, we definitely do K through 12th. It's a lot of fun. I've gotten to do I really have the position for eight months. But I've gotten to do some case patrols and they do make changes. They like are are Vegan sloppy Joes that are made with lentils and veggie crumbles and barbecue sauce. Yes, we definitely we have all the nutritional requirements that are necessary to meet their requirements. And then so our meat alternative is usually beans or lentils in that respect. So as long as it meets the requirements nutritional wise for the meat requirement and the protein requirement, then it it's good to go and they can adopt them.  [00:16:41] That's fantastic. I think it's so exciting to have those. Because as you introduce the younger generation to it, I think that's where you truly get, you know, early education and experience with that education coming up.  [00:16:53] And I think programs like that need to start taking hold. I mean, the food paradigm that they developed the nutritional guidelines from is suspect, you know, anyway, it hasn't really been overturned and people who have just kind of flipped it on its head. But I do think that looking into systems like this, one of the biggest problems people think is that developing a solution would be very, very difficult. Do you have specific products that are kind of your go to you mentioned the lentils were sloppy Joes for schools and things like that. Do you does your program have these kind of staples, if you will, of supplements that you bring in quite frequently to kind of pitch people on?  [00:17:33] We actually give them a grocery list with all the ingredients for all the different recipes. So there's 20 recipes. The chef helps. And I helped design this list. So they go shopping. And sometimes I do need a little help, you know, like where do I get nutritional yeast or if they need a certain brand of veggie crumbles or chicken nuggets like we refer them out to Hungry Planet or Morningstar or we connect them with vendors. We don't have our own vendors, you know, that we that we use. Exactly. And we give them options so they can source it from any plant based company they like. Or sometimes I just try to give them a little guidance on where to go if they don't know how to get Vegan mandates.  [00:18:13] Right. Yeah. It's great because it removes you guys from affiliation and getting caught up with it being more corporate based, which I think there has been kind of a movement towards. There's been. And now I'd like to kind of crawl into that. So there's plant based and there's Vegan.  [00:18:30] And I've been interviewing a lot of people involved in the Vegan world.  [00:18:35] So not just the food world that you're functioning in, but also the community, artistic endeavors, fashion designers, cosmetic creators. And this idea has kind of arisen and a lot of people feel like it's starting. As it always is starting to get become an advertising debate. But you have plant based and then you have Vegan. And I'm wondering, everyone defines these a little bit differently. So I'm hoping that just to get an idea from you and your perspective, how would you define something that is plant based and how would you define something? Is Vegan? Is there a difference? What is the difference for you in your work?  [00:19:12] For me, because Vegan was around when I became Vegan, Vegan was the term, so I associate with the word Vegan. I also for me. It means that I also care about the animals and the ethics and the spirituality and and Mother Earth first day. And I feel like when this whole food plant based movement came out, which is great, because that means usually very little or no oil or sugar or salt. Usually for people who are having serious health problems, you know, diabetes, heart disease, weight loss or high blood pressure, high cholesterol. So this whole food plant based diet came out, which is the healthiest way to eat because there is a lot of junk food, potato chips, Oreos and soda. So it is important to eat a Whole Foods plant based diet and then you have a little fun on the weekends if you get some sweet potato fries out or something like that. But for me, I identify with the word Vegan because I am such an animal advocate and sometimes plant based people are not as interested in the animals in the environment. They're very, very into health, which is wonderful. And we need all angles to support the movement. But for me, that is the big difference, that when you're Vegan, you're really you're in it for all all reasons. And when you're just plant base, you're really mainly into it for your health. Yeah. Which is great. And sometimes I've seen that the whole food plant based people become animal advocates and environmental activists, you know, becomes more to them. And I'm the same way. I mean, when I'm in Vegan. I had no idea what was one. I was the cow. Dairy cows in the egg industry. So I started for my health, too.  [00:21:01] Yeah, I think you're right. I've seen a lot of gateway moments like that, you know, a gateway drug. And there's a lot of different reasons, you know. I've interviewed people that came at being coming. They're unlike I call them the unlikely vegans because they don't have a history or an environment that would treat veganism. But they suffered a heart attack at thirty five, in fact. Forget it. And there's just there's a lot of different ways some people have watched game changers and decided, I can't I can't be a part of this. There's been a lot of avenues now with the pandemic. I've spoken to a bunch of people recently that are investigating the lifestyle heavily because it's you know, health has become at the forefront of everyone's mind. And the plant based versus Vegan, I think there's been a lot of pushback that I've heard about, particularly in the food industries, because plant based is being attached by marketing agendas that also have animal products in them. And so when vegans identify with being plant based, they're consuming or buying things and discovering that they're not Vegan. It's kind of like being fortified with vitamin D or other folic acid. You know, when they when health people got a hold of that in the 80s and 90s, everything was suddenly fortified and terrifying.  [00:22:16] Well, yes, you're right. True. There are plant based, also plant based products. And they'll have a little egg or casing. Yeah. If you read the ingredients. So you do. If you're if you're serious about destroying the ingredients.  [00:22:28] Absolutely. And so I want to kind of turn towards. I'm not sure how much rhetoric you have had on a professional level or personal level.  [00:22:38] I did touch briefly on, you know, the interest and the return to thinking about health as as a as a civilization is kind of peaking for people. And I'm wondering if you've thought if there's been enough time for you to kind of marinate in it and think about how the Humane Society or forward food would sculpt. Do you think that some of your rhetoric will start changing to be more inclusive of talking about the pandemic as as restrictions rise? Of course. And you return back to I know you have this kind of in-person person format to a lot of what you do. And as that returns, do you think that some of the dialog will change to kind of include what we have been experiencing as a society?  [00:23:22] Definitely. I I was talking with my manager. We're hoping to be all that. We do this our point and at least, you know, add in a slide or two about what's happened. We really try to focus on health, the health and the environment. And so but so in both of those things are relative to the pandemic. And the thing is that all slaughterhouses are, ah, you know, breeding grounds for disease. I mean, there's what we've already had, avian flu, bird flu, swine flu. There's a lot of there's mad cow disease that is very covered up in the United States. Salmonella, E. coli, Ebola Scar's. I mean, the list goes on and on about it isn't just happening in other countries is happening in United States. So that raising animals for food is. Breeding ground for disease. So we are going to hopefully we definitely won't be dwelling on it, but we work it. We'll plug it in there a little bit.  [00:24:19] Absolutely. Lisa Slainte current. Right. I'm wondering and I want to really quickly circle back. I neglected to ask you. I'm interested in people who come up with these recipes that you have. You mentioned. A chef in Seattle. If we if we get to. We like to fly someone down. Where do you find your chefs? How do you collect the recipes? Do you ever have competitions that people can kind of submit to or how does that work?  [00:24:41] You know, it's all done internally within Ford Food and Høst US. So we have a staff. Amazing chefs. And they are recipe creators. And they also will collaborate with Sodexho large food management companies and create plant based recipes that are just proprietary just to that institution. So if it's if it's a Sodexho card, then we have these Sodexho recipes. But then anybody can go to forward food or under food service. And there are about 100 plant based recipes for anyone. Just be sure you look at the top of the serving size because we are doing larger institutions. Ten is ten to twelve servings. And you could just cut it in half or less. So we are very creative and they're always updating them to make them even better because that's just really for me. Even before I had this job, which is why I started my YouTube channel, my number one way to help animals is by teaching people how to cook without using them. Because everybody loves good food. Not everybody is passionate about their health or the animals and the environment. I wish they were, but everybody likes good food. So that's what we try to do with flawed food. We just try to make great food. In fact, we encourage like K through 12. They're going to add one of our recipes, research shows to not call it vegetarian or vegan. Do not say this is a vegan sloppy Joe today. You know, to use creative adjectives like, you know, spicy, spicy being chili or, you know, something really more descriptive. Doesn't it just say this is a veggie burger, you know, black beans, sweet potato burger or just something?  [00:26:34] So the kids are like, well, and likewise, I like to tell people they've been substituting your meat with soy for years now, so don't worry about it. This kind of like Terada going down.  [00:26:47] While I don't feel kind of bad for those children who are very conscious and gonda like from birth, who actually are looking for the V word, but because they've probably grown up with it or have educated themselves, that they they understand what it is without being called that. Yeah. You know, it just it just helps if you just use a fun descriptive word like this. Food service director told me they were doing a three bean chili on Fritos, which I know are the most amazing healthy food. But they called it a Frito boat. And the kids love the Frito boats. No, I didn't say anything about it being meatless. Exactly. Oh.  [00:27:34] So likewise, you see, you bring your chefs in internally. They're brought in by the Humane Society. What if someone had a school system or something that they wanted you to pitch to? Could they reach out to you or your department? And have you got me?  [00:27:48] I cover the Southwest region, but we have coordinators throughout the country. So it's not an I. I do California, Arizona, Utah, Mexico, Colorado, Arizona. So and then we have others of coordinators around the country. So, yes, please reach out to me and I'll connect you with the right people.  [00:28:08] That's exciting. Well, I want to climb in to the before we let you go. I want to climb in to your YouTube cooking channel and all of that.  [00:28:18] How how long have you been doing it? How long are the episodes? Where can people find your channel on YouTube?  [00:28:25] It's actually under my name, Capling Kassner. They call it Vegan vitality, but you can find it under Kathleen Kassner. So when I I left Kansas City five years ago, I saw my yoga studio, which was a big deal because I've had it for 16 years and I really want to dove into wellness and Vegan education. So the ironic thing is how I was not a very good cook.  [00:28:50] My husband is the better cook.  [00:28:53] I'm not sure we started like on Facebook Live and I just kept telling him, like, I just like we have the greatest chefs to help people if we show them what we eat. You know, we're I'm from Kansas again and he's from Wisconsin. I'm like, we think everyone knows what we eat as vegans, but they probably really don't know. So let's show some of this awesome what we make. So he started filming me and he's in a few of them, too. Because, again, he's actually the better cook. But we started going into a kitchen and it's just been a lot of fun and we have since moved. We have a better kitchen now and we have upgraded our equipment. So I feel like we're just kind of finally starting over. But it's been great to share delicious recipes. And I love hearing the feedback. When people start telling me they're making pineapple fried rice weekly for their families and the kids like, you know. So that makes me excited. We we have a long way to go. So I would really appreciate it if anybody subscribed because I really want to reach more and more people in 2020 and share delivered delicious Vegan brands that I do use. That just simple truth organic, which is a Kroger brand and very affordable and easily accessible. So it's just been a lot of fun.  [00:30:06] Yeah, absolutely. Especially with, you know, the friend reached out to me, a colleague, and she called it Kovik cooking.  [00:30:13] But, you know, people swapping recipes and channels and getting into things even for those who aren't and, you know, Vegan or Vegan identify to look at some of your recipes and try them out like that's it's an exciting change. And, you know, people have some time right now to maybe get to it and everyone's cooking at home. So it's a great time.  [00:30:31] We call it warrantee cooking and we have about 90 recipes on there. We literally made every single favorite dish we have. I'm still researching weekly, trying to come up with more.  [00:30:44] No more. Great. Yeah. Absolutely. As we wrap up today, I'm wondering and I know that things have changed because of the current climate with everyone's and the precariousness of where everyone's headed professionally. Things like that.  [00:30:59] And so if you haven't had a recent dialog with yourself perhaps before the Cauvin 19 hit, but can you elaborate a little bit about your future goals, both dealing with the Humane Society and Forward Food, as well as like the cooking channel? Where do you see yourself kind of wanting to head or some of your goals for the next one to three years?  [00:31:21] Okay, that's a great question. With the Humane Society, we really are working towards helping institutions to go 50 percent plant based in the next four years. Nice. Which is already happening, amazingly so, that's my goal with the Humane Society. And to be honest with you, my goal with my cooking channel is I would love I have a love, honest throat out there. I'll make it a big goal. I would love to have a million subscribers and I would love to have simple truth, organic. Be our sponsor.  [00:32:03] Great. Well, there you go. You know, it's it's it's the secret, right? This is a visual verbal vision board. Absolutely. That's a great goal. I love it. A million subscribers and simple truth organic. That's fantastic. Well, we are all out of time today, but I wanted to tell you that I really appreciate everything that you kind of Kathleen. Everything that you've enumerated on. I love the work that you're doing. And I really appreciate all of the information you gave us. So thank you so much for your time.  [00:32:35] Thank you so much for the opportunity to share veganism with your audience.  [00:32:39] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been talking with Kathleen Kesner. You can find her at Kathleen Kassner dot com.  [00:32:46] And you can also find out more about what she's doing at the Humane Society at Forward Food dot org.  [00:32:52] And until we speak again next time. Thank you for giving us your time. And remember to eat clean, eat well and always bet on yourself. Stay safe.

Today we chat with Carolyn Scott-Hamilton. Carolyn, is the creator and host of The Healthy Voyager web series, site, and overall brand. An award winning healthy, special diet and green living and travel expert, holistic nutritionist, plant based vegan chef, best-selling cookbook author, media spokesperson, sought after speaker, consultant and television personality, Carolyn Scott-Hamilton is a respected figure in the world of healthy lifestyle and travel as well as special diet cooking and nutrition.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is investigating Vegan life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end. We will cover topics that have revealed themselves as Kofman and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. You can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to Investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation. Hi, everyone, and welcome back.  [00:01:15] I am your host, Patricia. And today I am sitting down with Carolyn Scott Hamilton.  [00:01:20] She is the founder of the Healthy Voyager. You can find it at Healthy Voyager dot com. Welcome, Carolyn.  [00:01:27] Hello. Thank you so much for having me this morning.  [00:01:30] Absolutely. I'm excited to get into everything that you're doing and for everyone listening. I'll read your bio on Carolyn. But before I do that, I always offer our audience a quick roadmap of where I intend to have some of my inquiry's go throughout the podcast. And today, we'll be looking at a brief history on Carolyn's academic and professional life as it pertains to her Vegan endeavors and plant based endeavors that will include some of her accomplishments, such as her cookbook and some of her other business endeavors, and also her personal history and her rhetoric as it plays out with her Vegan living or plant based lifestyles. Things of that nature. And then we'll also look at other businesses that Carolyn has. She has an entire brand associated with the healthy Voyager. We'll wrap everything up with kind of the ethos of what the embodiment of her brand and her lifestyle is, as well as ways that anyone can contact her and get involved with what she's doing. A quick bio on Carolyn before we get into all of those things. The Healthy Voyager, a.k.a. Carolyn Scott Hamilton is the creator and host of the Healthy Voyager Web series site and overall brand, an award winning healthy special diet and green living and travel expert, holistic nutritionist, plant based vegan chef, bestselling cookbook author, media spokesperson, sought after speaker consultant and television personality Carolyn Scott. Hamilton is a respected figure in the world of healthy lifestyle and travel, as well as special diet, cooking and nutrition. The Healthy Voyager aims to help people live. Well, one veggie at a time.  [00:03:09] So, Carolyn, you've got such a prolific pass in history and right now so many different endeavors that you're working on.  [00:03:16] But I'm hoping before we get started with all of that, you can dress kind of a story or a narrative of your academic past and professional history prior to where you came to right now look like.  [00:03:29] Well, it's it's I always say that when I moved to Los Angeles. Ever since I got here to now, I've lived nine lives. I, I came out here for kind of what most people come out here for, for the industry. And it's it's been a part of my life the entire time. But I've said Wade and gone off path and off tangents so many times. But somehow it all kind of still ties in. So I went to college at the University of Miami for undergrad. I actually was on the medical school track and I wanted to be a pediatric surgeon. And I remember one Christmas break I was talking to a doctor. I was I was actually working at a dentist office and my dentist and I were chatting and he was like, you know, the medical field isn't what it used to be and, you know, all kinds of things. And I never had any doubts about what I wanted to do. But that conversation did kind of bring something up for me that I thought, well, wow, you know what? If this is something that I really, really want to do, it's going to be years before I'm actually done. So I would have had medical school, then residency and then specialty and fellowship. It would have I would have been in school for like 15 years. I thought, well, what if after all of that schooling, I don't like it? Or I thought, well, what if I want to have a family and I'm never gonna have the time to enjoy them because I'll be on call it all started to kind of come up for me. And I thought, well, if I'm having these doubts now, then maybe I should walk away from it. And I was on full scholarship, so I had a couple of years left. And to my mother's chagrin, I said, OK, I'm not going to medical school. And I said, I'm going to I'm going to go to film school. And she was not happy with me, but my father was because he was the creative. And I had actually been since I was five years old, actually, since I was three. I had been dancing and since I was five, I'd been acting. So I'd and I'd been writing my whole life and singing. So I, I kind of went back to my creative roots and I was like, I'm going to do this. And it kind of was no skin off my teeth because I didn't I didn't have to pay. If I had to pay for school to do that, I probably wouldn't have made such a bold choice. But I did because I. I really thought, you know what, I. I've always been creative. I've always wanted to do things in a different way. And when I remember speaking to that dentist that day at work and he did say he's like, you don't really get to do things the way you want to do them anymore. And I thought, wow, if I can't practice medicine the way I want to, then maybe this isn't for me. And it all worked out because once I got to L.A., I came out here. I didn't know anybody. Right after undergrad, I got out here, packed up my Dodge Neon and pulled a tight little U-Haul cross country through through a hurricane. And I got here and my life has been pretty, pretty insane in a in a cool way. I'd say I was working in the industry for a while. I was I was acting and I was singing. And I realized a few years in that it wasn't how I imagined it. I did pretty well growing up in Florida. But the scene out here is quite different. And excuse me, I am I didn't love it anymore because I didn't get to be creative. I didn't like the business side of it. And I didn't like the. How do I say just the kind of the myopic view about things in the business as far as. It wasn't so much based on talent. It really was based on looks and not not so not so much good looks. It just very much type berry type. I'm Latina, but I don't necessarily look Latina to casting directors. So I started to see a pattern and I was like, this is just an uphill battle and I don't even love doing this anymore. And I said, I'm out. And I ended up falling into PR. I was working with a woman and we launched now pretty successful yoga clothing line. And I learned invaluable information and skills from from launching that brand. I learned about ya and and launching a line and and the clothing world and all of that. And I ended up leaving there and going to PR firm. And then I ended up starting my own PR firm. And from that. Yeah. So I thought I was going to do it myself and do it for clients that can't necessarily pay a twenty five hundred to five thousand dollar retainer fee. I want to help the little guy. So I did. So I was doing PR and events. So I did everything from lifestyle PR for clients to weddings, to wrap parties, to fashion shows. And I. That was my life for for quite a while. But before that. Probably within the first few months that I moved to L.A. because of the whole looks and being in the industry, I had read a book called Fit for Life. And it was about food combining because, of course, I got here and I thought, oh, my gosh, I'm going to be really skinny. You know, 22 year old me was thinking kind of a little bit on the shallow side, but it was a book that changed my life. And because it was a fad about food, combining about combining your carbs and your proteins again. Twenty two year old me thought, oh, well, I'd rather eat carbs than protein. And I ended up going vegan plant based pretty much overnight without really knowing much about it. Just that I wanted to. To lose weight or, you know, some ridiculous reason. But it resonated with me so much that I started to really research it. And because I wanted to do it for health reasons and do it correctly. I learned to love it. I ended up getting my masters in holistic nutrition and I started my PGA natural pathic medicine. And I thought, wow, I'm so glad I left medical school because this this makes so much more sense to me. And has at the time, back in 98, there was there was nothing I didn't know any begins. There were there wasn't even a Whole Foods yet. There were, you know, small little markets and everything was very hippie dippy in that space. So I was one of the only people that I knew that was eating that way and living that lifestyle. And I kind of got tired of eating bowls of guacamole and and cucumber sandwiches and salad. I thought there's got to be more to life than the signs of going to culinary school, because I really I always loved cooking, but I wanted to see what else was out there as far as swaps and figuring out how to eat, you know, in this new lifestyle. But I did all of that for my own knowledge, not necessarily to become a chef at a restaurant or open a restaurant or anything like that. I did do some private nutrition counseling for clients, but I. I knew that that wasn't my passion either. So really, I just loved having that knowledge base behind me. So cut to I had my PR firm and I'm doing quite a bit of travel. And because of my dietary restrictions, I was always figuring out ways to manipulate menus. I would I like to say McGyver cook in my hotel room. I always have snacks and I thought, hey, I can't be the only person that's going through this. Not necessarily that there are other beacons out there, but anyone with a dietary restriction, be they diabetic or want to look fat or whatever the case may be. There are a lot of dietary issues out there that keep people from traveling. And I've been traveling since I was a kid. I was born in Colombia. I'm Colombian and I've been all over the world. And I thought, hey, this this could be a resource for people. So I started pitching the idea for a show around two networks back in 2005 for my show, The Healthy Voyager. And it was a little too early in the space they did, but they were way too afraid to take a risk on anything health related. I had a major network say we love the idea, but we don't do healthy. And that's the whole point. We need to have options because at the time the most popular travel shows were either eating bugs in the Amazon we see or eating like a 50 pound burger. And I was like, well, that might be entertaining to watch, but for the consumer and the viewer, this doesn't help them. No one's actively going to travel just to look for these things, you know? So. So I said, you know what? I'm going to launch it on my own because I was a publicist and because I had the film background, I created the show on my own and I launched it on YouTube. And because I couldn't necessarily travel all the time, I I started a little companion blog to do some write ups about places and even local places. And then I started to post my recipes.  [00:12:54] And so what was that original show about? Was it a catchall? Was it just you discussing you interviewing people? You talking about new places to eat? What was the healthy Voyager that first original YouTube series about?  [00:13:09] It was. It was a travel show. So I would travel to places and I would go to Vegan restaurants or find Vegan food at specific restaurants. So that was very, very niche. Now it's I still have the travel show, but it's more adventure based, sustainability based. I do talk about food and some restaurants, but I found that that content is an evergreen because restaurants, clothes, restaurants change. So, you know, some of those old episodes that are still up, it's funny, like none of the restaurants exist. So I thought. And because I started traveling more and getting sponsored more and working with with big brands, I was able to to put together a much more well-rounded show. So I do some really cool things now. It really is more adventure based, culture based. There's still that culinary aspect, but not in the sense of promoting specific Rothera restaurants, because, again, you know, they come and go. So. So, yeah. So I love the show. And then within all this time I had a cooking show, I, I, I watched all kinds of little businesses under the umbrella of the healthy voyageur. But yeah. That the little idea that came from pitching to networks is now my full time job this week. It's 15 years old, at least from the idea with the germ of the idea. When I had it was 2005 and now it's my full time gig and I. I love it.  [00:14:40] Absolutely. So what was kind of your first turning break when you started making you said you started garnering sponsorships and you were developing all these projects. You have a cookbook out. What is the name of your cookbook? It is.  [00:14:54] Is it the Healthy Boyages Global Kitchen?  [00:14:58] There it is. And so when did that come out?  [00:15:02] That came out December of 2011. So next year, I can't believe it'll be 10 years. I'm going to release 10 year anniversary edition and add some more recipes and kind of update it. Yeah.  [00:15:17] Did you have sponsorships prior to that or did they kind of come and go? And do you find, given that you have the PR backing? Are people approaching you? When was that career turn?  [00:15:30] You know, there are a lot of people that have been in industries and they're like at some point people started approaching me.  [00:15:35] Yet that started to happen a little earlier than I had expected. But because I started the brand way before social media even existed, there was no Facebook. There was no Twitter. There was no Instagram. There was nothing. I was kind of screaming into a vacuum. I didn't know who my audience was, but I was building an email list because that was the only way that I could basically chat with my with my audience and fans or anyone that had any questions. So I started a newsletter, and that was my way to keep in contact with people. And then as social media started to grow, I was always an early adopter. So I was able to kind of jump on the bandwagon. Each time a new platform popped up on the ground floor. So but I think I was able. To get ahead of the game, because I was around before that started so early on, because, yes, I was a publicist. I was pitching myself to brands and I was kind of teaching them the new way to market their their product or service before influencers were even a thing because they were using all of their marketing budgets for traditional media. So print media, TV media spots, things like that. And I was saying, hey, for a fraction of that cost, I can create this content for you. I have X amount of eyeballs and viewers and that sort of thing. So I was able to work with brands and kind of teach them a new way of thinking. And then as social media started to pop up, more people started to come to me. And then now their social media agencies that wrangle all the brands and then companies. So it started off early on with me pitching and then people started to find me. And then social media blew up. And and now it's it's me kind of being able to say, oh, I'm not going to work with that brand or this brand. But yeah, it's been a pretty neat evolution, seeing it from its infancy where there was no way to talk to people outside of the traditional pitching. And now it's it's just crazy.  [00:17:48] Well, hindsight's beautiful, too, because you can see that like Winding Road, which at the time is usually just kind of seeming chaotic.  [00:17:55] I think I'm curious with because you've dropped into a little bit about the fact that, you know, you move to L.A. was a very external physical environment that made you health conscious or at least looked towards this fit for Lifebook. But I'm wondering after that and how you would define your Vegan life now, what attributes do you tie into it? And also, what is the differentiation that you make between the terms Vegan and plant based?  [00:18:28] Yeah, well, starting off with that, I say Vegan just because it's easier, I, I like I prefer a plant based because I went plant based. For health purposes, I solely talk about it from a health perspective and a dietary perspective. What I'm consuming, whereas Vegan is the catch all for people who live the lifestyle that have no animal products whatsoever. So how they eat, how they dress, the products they use. And that tends to be people who are more on the animal rights side of veganism. I still identify with that because I. I do love animals. I don't wear animal products. I don't use any cosmetics or beauty products or anything household products that contain any animal products. But that's only because after I realized that it wasn't I wasn't just doing myself a favor eating plant based, that I was helping the environment and helping the animals. That's when I started to realize, oh, I can live this holistic lifestyle that that helps everything, not just me, but I still my number one reason for having done it is for health reasons. So that's why I tend to use plant based, because unfortunately, Vegan tends to have a knee jerk reaction. For most people that is negative. And I, I understand why there. I mean, I find that any extreme lifestyle has there there are loud mouths that kind of ruin it for everybody else, you know. So, you know, be a beat as and be at Crossfade, be whatever it is. Anyone that's evangelical about something tends to kind of leave a bad taste in other people's mouths that are like, oh, that's crazy and cultish, you know? So I get it. I understand the passion behind the hardcore vegans, but I have always led by example. I've never been negative, I've never been preachy. And in fact, I, I have been able to persuade people to become Vegan probably more than most vegans that I can think of, because I've just said, hey, look, I live my life, I travel the world, I. I hang out with people that are not Vegan most of none of my friends. Very few of my friends are actually being. And so I've always been very inclusive. I feel that that's that's why I like the word plant base, because it just sounds so much nicer and approachable, because unfortunately, the word Vegan is a bit of a turnoff, even though now, again, with the hindsight, I would have never imagined how insanely popular it has become.  [00:21:22] Right. Well, and even more so over the past, I thought it was kind of gaining traction.  [00:21:26] And then things like game changers and the certain things have come out that have sent people into the plant pace interest that probably would never have been there throughout X three generations. And what people? Why people come over and how it's defined? I think that for a long time, companies were turning to the term plant base to, like you say, kind of avoid the stigma. However, I've spoken to a couple of Vegan restaurant owners and things like that, particularly overseas, over the past couple of months. And a lot of them are a little disgruntled because people are using the term plant based to include things and items and products, even in stores that are not Vegan. And so they're kind of attaching, you know, plant base has become this new like fortified by the deep fortified. Yeah. And it's it's this concept of saying something healthy without it being healthy, which if you know, a lot of the documentaries and information systems coming out will show you is that that's actually the form of manipulation to the downfall of a product. You know, when you start fortifying something with vitamins, you start actually depleting it of what was originally good for it. And so people saying plant based and kind of taking over that term, there's a lot of fear that it will become molested to the point where it no longer even identifies with being plant based or Vegan. And so I'm wondering, as a cookbook author, do you? You must care a great deal about ingredients and what is going in and and really identifying. But do you think that the term plant based has become manipulated or do you think it's still like a strong avenue for people to trust that it's meaning something? I mean, I think people are identifying something that is more healthy. Fewer ingredients.  [00:23:10] Yeah, I got it. I agree because I remember when everyone started jumping on the natural bandwagon. Everything anything can be labeled natural because there's no regulation. So as long as there's water in the product, they can label it as natural. So it really is misleading for the consumer. And unfortunately. So I actually heard that organic will now be unregulated so people can use that and mislead customers. So I think it is unfortunate that the word plant base, because I do think that it it sounds nicer. I think it is kind of all encompassing. But just because it's plant based doesn't mean it's Vegan. But if it's Vegan, it is always plant based. Right. So I think people just need to be discerning when they're reading labels and what they're getting. But it is unfortunate that people will take something that's good and use it to manipulate the consumer, unfortunately. But absolutely. Yeah. I want to get back.  [00:24:16] Yeah, I do. I do too.  [00:24:17] I like the term and I hope it stays pure. I hope we get some regulatory measures in mind as well, because having something plant based that you turn around and has like yellow number three and it feels deceptive for some reason.  [00:24:29] And I want to get back to something you mentioned about the cookbook you talked about or early on and just kind of starting off the ethos of your career. You talked about really caring about dietary restrictions and, you know, turning to this Vegan way of living and things like that. It really opens you up to people who weren't just Vegan, but people who had all kinds of dietary restrictions, which now is kind of a really big deal for, you know, people who are lactose intolerant or people who have a gluten tolerance and things of that nature. And I'm wondering if as you go about constructing the cookbook, I know it's it's now almost a decade over now, but do you pay special attention because your original focus was dietary restrictions when you go to combine or as a chef when you go to make things like that, do you specifically ask yourself, looking at a dish like what can I exclude or include to make sure that those people with restrictions are included in a certain number of meals? Or is that a consideration that you have?  [00:25:33] Yeah, actually, when I wrote the book, I had that exact thing in mind where I wanted it to be inclusive for as many people as possible. So each recipe has an option for gluten free, low sodium, low sugar. So actually should send you a copy of the book. But there is a little key with little icons, and that's at the top of each page. And then there Asterix at the bottom for the squawks. If you want to make this dish for two specific for nice special diet. So I thought of that early on because I didn't want it again, because I always wanted to be inclusive, not just Vegan. And I actually remember fighting with my publisher because they wanted me. It says right under the heading, right under the title. It says one hundred fifty plant based recipes from around the world. And I fought them on the word plant based versus Vegan because again, my scope was always casting a wider net and being more mainstream versus niche. And I think that's why I've been able to I was always more mainstream. I never started in the Vegan world and, you know, jumped the river. I was always on the other side of the river and figured, well, the vegans will find me anyway. For me, it was much more important to be inclusive of everyone else and and showcase this alternative as an actual alternative. Not not anything that needs to be black and white. Not that you have to completely go vegan or anything like that. I wanted it to be an option for people and to be. Approachable to not turn anyone away. So I'm glad that I I won that battle. Yeah. But what I did. Very inclusive and all the recipes that I make on my site as well. I try to offer. There are some that are kind of difficult to do a certain way. But I would say a good eighty five percent of my recipes can be made to suit any special diet.  [00:27:43] Yeah. And substitutions I think are key. I mean, I really feel and I've I've been Vegan, you know, for over seven years now.  [00:27:52] And so I definitely am a little bit more sage in that. But I think that the first thing that people think is you must live off breads. And then the second I tell them that I'm gluten free, they think you don't need anything. But actually, I think every cuisine and I want to get into this on your site, you kind of get into like a hint towards this, but every cuisine all over the world can be altered. You know, and and made to be whether it's Vegan or gluten free. And there's actually a lot of freedom once you start to just understand the ingredients of that land, like what they you know, I just got back from Fiji and all of my friends said, did you starve? And I said, no, they have cassava, which is like this healthy friend of the potato, which I think potatoes are healthy anyway. But many people here don't like it. And I give them a start to things like that. But cassava is this even healthier big sister of a potato and that all these do they have long beans, which are green beans anyway, once you kind of. And it actually changes your relationship with traveling, you know, as a Vegan, you know, actually cooking and things like that and going places and having these conversations which become education. Introducing the concept of veganism to a Fijian is fascinating. You know, it's a fun time because they'll say, OK. So you don't eat any of that. But do you eat fish, you know? I mean, you climb through almost every single category. And so I want to turn to that with you just because I think your Web site, especially as it as a Voyager is as this site is called the Healthy Voyager. I, I want to get into your experience with traveling and what what determines what bits and pieces you include in the site and therefore your overall brand and how you kind of curate all of it. Can you climb us through, first of all, what the site is intended to do and kind of explain to your viewer?  [00:29:44] Sure. Yeah, it's it's definitely a resource for people and not just people wanting to go on culinary trips. It's geared towards travel destinations around the world. And I showcase the hotels, sustainable activities and services. Obviously, restaurants, tips. And and then I have the recipes. And then I also host lifestyle healthy articles, things like that. I used to do product reviews, but I kind of got away from that just because so many people do that. And I kind of feel like I wanted to to narrow it back down to to boil it down to to the core of what I'm interested in, which is, of course, travel and food. But as far as curating, I travel all the time for work. So it really depends. I cover every place that I go. And some of the times I'm traveling because I'm working with a tourism board or I'm working with a cruise line or I'm working with a local CBB. So it really just depends which I also love because it's never the same thing. Every trip is completely different. Sometimes it's solo travel. Sometimes it's a solo press trip. Sometimes I'm with a group of media. Sometimes I get to bring somebody with me. So it's all very different. And every destination has been quite different in the way that the itineraries have been set. Whether it's by me or in tandem with the tourism board or them setting it up for me entirely. So the scope is always different, but I try to find the most interesting things. I do like to cover some of the, I would say maybe generic things for those travelers who are looking for that. But then I will showcase something that is off the beaten path or a hidden gem. I like a mix and match of that because not everyone I was actually speaking with someone. Yes. Or about yesterday about this. Not everyone is super adventurous. I tend to take quite a few risks and I like I like some crazy adventures. And the the more exotic and kooky and less touristy places, the more I like it. But that's not true for everyone.  [00:32:07] So I like to be able to be of service to everyone and showcase something for every person because everyone has different tastes and needs when it comes to travel. But one of one of the things I've really loved to do, and this has happened more and more, more over the past few years, is do things with locals. Recently I was, well, not too recent, but I was in Finland and I was in the Arctic Circle and this little town called Rovaniemi, and it was late summer and it was absolutely gorgeous. And I met this woman who shows how traditional lap Landis lifestyle was and how she's keeping it alive. And she hosted these really cool classes. She does these really cool art projects and brings people into her home. So she and I went foraging in the forest behind her house and picked lingonberries that went back to her house and made a Vegan lingonberry pie. So for me, that was just an incredible experience. And for her, again, like you were saying, to explain being Vegan to someone who lives off the land in Finland like that is like, what are you talking about?  [00:33:17] But she when we finished the pie, she's like, wow, this is really delicious. And it doesn't taste any different than the one that we would've normally made. So it's so fun to be able to share my knowledge and lifestyle with somebody who wouldn't normally and then vice versa. So I've found that to be the the most special thing that's coming out of what I'm doing now as the show and my brand has evolved.  [00:33:43] Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's true.  [00:33:46] I think that those kinds of interactions and growth opportunities, when I first became Vegan, you know, even the opportunity to call ahead, when you were when I was making reservations towards restaurants that required it and things like that, and then having opening up a dialog with chefs and things was just not pursued with me, you know, to have them reevaluate their craft. Most restaurants with chefs that, you know, where you take reservations and things of that nature, like they're they care. You know, they're artists and they're scientists. They're craft makers. And they really want to explore some of those things.  [00:34:21] And so I've had really good experiences. You know, everyone's had bad. Anytime you come across across an exclusionary lifestyle.  [00:34:29] But I've had some really beautiful opportunities as well. And I think that anytime there's an opportunity to open up a dialog between an industry and an individual or two individuals, it's it's gonna be a good thing. So I always I try to push those stories more. You know, when people get a little bit nervous and the day has come and gone for being nervous about a plant based or Vegan lifestyle, because if anyone has turned on any kind of social, you know, that's where all of us and most definitely our great grandchildren are headed. We cannot sustain the ME Dadri industry. So is not meoh mathematics. This is not my belief anymore. Like they pushed the numbers.  [00:35:05] So coming to light every day.  [00:35:09] Absolutely. So if someone wanted to work with you or get your advice or get your consulting expertize the best way to contact you is it through healthy Voyager, your dot com.  [00:35:20] Yeah, yeah, absolutely, if I can share my emails. Carolyn at the healthy Voyager dot com and I help people in all sorts of ways, from nutrition counseling to personal branding. In fact, right now with them, with our current situation. I've I've been setting up a new website just for my consulting because I just have it kind of as a page on Healthy Boyd Recombinant tends to be buried by all the other content. But I'm launching a Web site that's just going to be for. Consulting and coaching and all the different things that I can help people with from personal PR or business PR menu, recipe development, health and wellness. So I. Because of my nine lives. I have quite a bit of information that I can help people in their transitions in life or setting up new businesses, entrepreneurs, anything like that.  [00:36:21] So I've decided to make that a separate thing from healthy Voyager. And hopefully I'll have that coming soon.  [00:36:29] Absolutely. For everyone listening. You can reach out to her as an as as these things come about. I'm sure that they're updated on her Web site. I want to say thank you so much, Carolyn, for speaking with me today.  [00:36:41] I know it's a crazy time period, and I know you're really busy and I appreciate you taking the time to lend us your wisdom.  [00:36:47] Yes. Thank you so much for having me.  [00:36:49] Absolutely. And for everyone else listening, you can contact her one more time. You've been speaking with Carolyn Scott Hamilton. Her Web site is Healthy Voyager dot com.  [00:36:59] And until we speak again next time. Stay safe and eat clean. 

Today I sat down with Bhavani Baumann; Co-founder of The Green Lion, Australia’s first 100% Vegan Pub Bistro in the Inner West of Sydney NSW. She currently lives in Sydney’s Inner West with her Husband and two daughter’s. Having previously run other small businesses and working as a professional singer,Bhavani spent the few years leading up to The Green Lion studying Marketing, Cooking cakes for cafes and being a stay at home Mum. Nothing prepared her for how fast The Green Lion became well known for doing traditional Aussie food, it was a destination and people travelled from all over the world to eat there. After a successful 4 years the bistro closed due to COVID -19 and the pub being sold. Whilst still running the pub Bhavani and her business partner started selling Green Lion ready meals to Harris Farm and IGA, today they have 15 lines that also includes desserts, pastizzis and sauces selling in NSW, QLD, ACT and VIC. The Green Lion will reopen as a take-away and home delivery in Sydney in the next few weeks. Being bought up by hippy parents and spending her youth travelling around Australia in Kombi vans and living in communes, Bhavani was a vegetarian from birth, in 2014 she became a vegan after reading about the dairy industry and realising it’s no different to an abattoir. Whilst veganism is her passion, she does not believe in preaching but rather prefers to put good plant based in front of people. This has become the ethos of The Green Lion.  Bhavani believes that the more accessible and main- stream vegan food can be will encourage more people to eat plant based. She is excited to be at the forefront of the movement that in a few short years has gained such momentum and has become more acceptable by the general population in the world. This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

Today I talked with Diana Edelman. Diana is the founder of Vegans, Baby, a business she created to make vegan life easier and attainable and vegan dining more approachable. Not only does her site serve as the definitive guide to vegan-friendly dining in Las Vegas, she also has emerged as a plant-based leader and influential figure in the culinary scene.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. facebook.com/vegansbabytwitter.com/vegansbabyinstagram.com/vegansbabyhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIFBlS5uxZQQ7TjAV-1TKlA TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is investigating Vegan life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as Kofman and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. You can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to Investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:13] Hi, everyone, welcome back. This is your host, Patricia. And today I am sitting down with Diana Edelman.  [00:01:19] She's the founder of Vegans Baby. You can find her online at w w w dot vegans baby dot com.  [00:01:26] Welcome, Diana. Thank you so much for having me. I am so happy to be on. I'm excited to talk to you as well. I have to say, I told you before we started. I love the name of your company. And Web site begins, baby. How do you. So how would you say that in your own personal voice?  [00:01:43] Vegans, baby.  [00:01:44] Yeah, I love it. It just said exactly how it came off in my voice, in my head when I read it, but.  [00:01:51] So we are everyone listening and watching. I'll give you a quick roadmap of today's podcasts and then I'll read a bio on Diana before we start peppering her with questions. We're first going to look at Diana's academic background as well as her early professional life. Kind of give you a platform of where she was before, who we are here. And then we'll look at unpacking begins, baby, namely the website, the services, all the different things attached to it, the videos, YouTube, everything like that. We'll get into the nuts and bolts of it when it was launched. Founders, any funding and all of those particulars. And then we'll get into the ethos and in some of the philosophy behind it before turning our attention towards goals that Diana has for herself as well as her company for the next three years. And we'll wrap everything up with advice that she has. For those of you who may be looking to get involved with what she's doing now or even emulate some of her success that she's had along the way. A quick bio on Diana. Diana Edelman is the founder of Vegan's Baby, a business she created to make Vegan life easier and attainable and Vegan dining more approachable. Not only does her site serve as the definitive guide to Vegan friendly dining in Las Vegas, she also has emerged as a plant based leader and influential figure in the culinary scene since founding Vegans Baby four years ago. She's created a successful Vegan dining month, which recently expanded to other cities in the US. Launched at a Las Vegas Vegan food tour that received recognition as one of the top nine Vegan tours in the world by Travel and Leisure and recently started another arm to her business, International Vegan Tours. The first of which was a sold out tour to Thailand in October.  [00:03:32] She's a partner with the James Beard Foundation and was the first to curate a chef driven Vegan dinner at the famous James Beard house, highlighting a city and its chefs and now curates dinners. They're regularly. Diana is also a partner with Life Is Beautiful. The major Music, Food and Art Festival in Las Vegas and curates their Vegan area.  [00:03:56] She also recently launched the Good Falke, a podcast that highlights leaders in the plant based movement from culinary lifestyle, travel and entrepreneurial worlds.  [00:04:06] So I'm so excited.  [00:04:08] And Diana, you've had such a prolific history and it's cool because a lot of people kind of get into their niche in the Vegan scene. And I love that, too. And they stay there. But it feels like you've really married a lot of areas to each other and we need this annexation. I think out in the Vegan world, you know, and people like you who are, you know, reaching out into other communities and even your scope on traveling all over the world and tying your Vegan voice into that.  [00:04:35] But before we get into some of those particular questions, which I have a million of you, I'm hoping you can set the stage for us, giving us a little bit of your academic background or early professional life that kind of brought you to where you are now.  [00:04:46] Sure. So I have a bachelors and I graduated many years ago with a degree in mass communications, public relations. So I took that and started a career in PR. And then when I turned 30, I decided I didn't want to do PR anymore. I wanted to travel and I wanted to write. So I started a travel blog and it became one of the top 100 travel blogs in the world for a minute. This was before. They are what they are now. This was a decade ago. And so I did the travel blog and then I. Since then. Or for a bit. I balance between freelance writing, NPR and now I run my own business that marries all of the things I love, which is writing, traveling a little bit of PR, but not really.  [00:05:33] And social media and making change and and you know, standing up for the animals in a in a in a non aggressive in your face way.  [00:05:43] Yeah. OK. And how did you. Can you tell us a little bit about your Vegan story? Were you born Vegan? Did you come home on your own?  [00:05:50] I did. So I, I never really liked meat, but I ate it actually when I did PR in Vegas. I was the director of PR for a Steak House. So I come a long way from there. I actually I stopped eating meat. I moved to Thailand in 2012 and took a job working with an elephant rescue organization and sanctuary. And I did their PR and I did their social media. And I was coming over the sanctuary like my first week of living in Thailand. And I saw a truck full of pigs with their little heads sticking out, being taken to slaughter. And I stopped eating meat then. And then three years later, after I lived in Thailand, I was planning to move back to Vegas.  [00:06:31] And a dear friend of mine and I were talking and she was just like, I don't get it, Diana. You know, you you done all this work and you don't eat meat. Why aren't you Vegan? And I was like, you know what? Why? Why am I not vegan? You're absolutely right. You know, like I always thought I could never give up eggs. I can never give up cheese and pizza. It was a food group. So when I moved back to Vegas is actually when I started vegans, baby it was really to go Vegan and show people that if I can do it, you can, too. And that vegan isnt just baked potatoes and salads.  [00:07:02] Right. And pasta. Oh yeah. Everyone talks about that. Yeah. Would you describe like, looking back now. Would you describe it as beginning with this compassion for animals that was like your nexus into becoming vegan and then.  [00:07:17] Yes, like it's turned towards food.  [00:07:20] Yeah. I mean the reason I do everything I do is for the animals. You know, I'm I'm an ethical began. So everything I do like it's my form of animal activism because I did the other form of it when I was doing rescue. And I saw it just it was it was very hard. It was very draining. It wasn't it wasn't a lifestyle I could keep up.  [00:07:39] And so this is my form of activism now and making change by through food.  [00:07:44] Absolutely. Yeah. And it's it's a powerful one. So how when was let's get into some of the nuts and bolts. When was Vegan baby launched with you?  [00:07:53] Were you a singular founder? Do you have co-founders and did you take any funding.  [00:07:57] OK. I launched vegans, baby if the website went live April 2016 and I had my official launch the middle of May 2016. It's just me. I have not received funding. I do have someone that helps me with that helps me with my website.  [00:08:20] But that's that's it.  [00:08:23] Yeah. So we'll I have people that want to fund, but I'm just I get nervous and I'm not.  [00:08:32] I'm not ready to do it yet.  [00:08:34] Sure, there's a lot of areas to consider when you're getting into bed, so to speak, with someone. Then what? What was the impetus for the launch? Did you have all of the information?  [00:08:44] Do you have an idea for what the website was going to offer initially, or was it just a place to kind of collect all of your efforts?  [00:08:52] So initially, when I first started vegan's, maybe it was basically. Before I went Vegan, when I was talking about going begin, I lived in Spain and this is where Bergonzi was kind of born and I was going through that, I couldn't go Vegan and then, OK, I will. And I pulled up my phone and Googled like Vegan options in Las Vegas. And I lived there before and there were like four restaurants and then a bunch of of like Indian and Thai places. And I knew because I go back there, I would visit every year it's my old home that there were so many more options than that. But there was no place to see those options. There was nothing that would tell me, oh, this is what you can get. This is the restaurant. And so I started Vegan maybe really for myself to go in and and just write down and share what Vegan options restaurants had and to show people that, you know, this restaurant and in this part of town doesn't market to Vegan menu. But these are these are the items that are already Vegan that you can get.  [00:09:54] Yes, that's how it started.  [00:09:55] I have and likewise, you know, I think I'm on record several times my research manager tells me saying, you know, why aren't there more indexes?  [00:10:04] Why aren't their sites telling vegan's where to go? You have, you know, a happy cow. There's a couple of places, but they're ill managed or they're still kind of, you know, getting their their bearings. No insult intended upon them. But, yeah, just felt as though are so many unlikely vegans coming to the world now. Yeah. Coming at it for all different. A myriad of reasons, particularly with the pandemic upon us, people reexamining health. And I just felt like the opportunity to have index is just there hadn't been these globetrotting warriors like yourself that were, you know, kind of telling everybody where to go. And likewise, I have started collecting over the past decade my own indexes, you know, creating my own things. And so I had wondered why someone hadn't put it together. And I was elated to have you come on and do it. So when you began with the launch of it, was it just an accumulation of restaurants and where to go in each city? And how did you decide which areas to highlight? Was it just the areas you'd been to first with your own research?  [00:11:01] So when I first launch begins, maybe it was Las Vegas specific and I built up I built up quite a few restaurants and dined there and wrote about them before we launched it because I didn't want to launch with nothing and I wanted to establish the brand. So I started building the brand back. So I launched the website, went live in April, and I started all of my social media and promotions and everything like four months earlier. So that way there was excitement. There was something building up to it. And then here you go. Here's this launch and here this guide. So that's how I started it. And then in terms of other cities, it kind of grew because because of my background, obviously, is travel and travel, blogging and writing. I still Vegas is my home base, but I love traveling. And so when I would go places I like, it's so funny the way my life is changed now that I'm Vegan, I literally travel for food like my whole trip is Vegan. And so I would go to places and just find their Vegan food and do guides based on that. And then it evolved to people in other cities saying, hey, can I contribute a guide to my city? So it became a group effort for all the different dining guides. But the Vegas section of my Web site is the most comprehensive because it's the places it's hundreds of restaurants, whereas other dining guides in other cities are smaller and just have like the top 10 or like, you know, five dishes to order or something like that.  [00:12:21] Absolutely. Have you. That's interesting. Have you ever endeavored on looking to do it per city and getting more cities as comprehensively done as Vegas?  [00:12:31] Oh, all the time.  [00:12:32] That's part of what the funding would have would be for, is to be able to expand some talk. So, yes, and I and I have I have a writer in Tucson now that is doing what I'm doing. And she contributes to my two sons section and. Yeah. But because I me and and it's all self-funded and especially right now, the generation of income is just kind of been put on pause.  [00:13:00] I can't hire people and I really want to be able if someone's gonna do the work I've done, I want to be able to compensate them for their time.  [00:13:07] Absolutely. Well, for anyone listening who's, you know, wanting to collaborate maybe for free at the moment, chomp on vegans, baby, and reach out. Right. And see where you get going.  [00:13:17] I love the fantastic I wondering with the so you've mentioned, you know, the website being launched and then the reason why it started for but for those listening who haven't hit the site yet. If you if you hit your site, can you explain what you're presented with some of the areas that specialty's that you have and some of the services you provide.  [00:13:38] So if you go to vegans baby dot com, you'll see the first part is. Well, right now it's all focused on the pandemic and its focused on Las Vegas, because that is my home city and that is where the majority of my audience is.  [00:13:51] I try to keep it as global as possible, though. So, like, the first the first thing you see is, is it safe to order food from restaurants? And that's research from the CDC and the FDA and things like that. And then there's a couple other stories you can slide through. And then below that, it's a couple of destinations that have guides. If you want Las Vegas, you click on Vegas and then you're presented with a whole other world of different like deals and dining and lifestyle and things like that. And then further down, you have news stories. So typically, because it is the bulk of the content is Vegas. It's Vegas, Vegan dining news and then its recipes from chefs for especially right now for the quarantine. So it's using pantry staples. And then it's going to be my podcast episodes. And then it's news popular articles that people are reading. So I try to keep the content as global as I can with with the focus. Obviously, there's always going to be a lot more Las Vegas than than anything else. But I really try to focus on Vegan. Food and Vegan dining news as it relates to a larger audience than just Las Vegas. And then the site also you have tours. You have my services I offer. You have deals. So some of the deals are nationals. Some of them are specific to Vegas.  [00:15:16] And then, yeah, I think that's it.  [00:15:20] That is a lot. And I wonder, do you ever run into contacts or resources that cross reference. Vegan nutrition with things that are incredibly pertinent right now with like immunization, health and things of that nature?  [00:15:33] Like, do you ever get into those aspects of those articles or do you leave that kind of aside, especially because immunization is such a very hot button topic? I stay away from it. Like, I, you know, I, I don't want to I don't want to get involved in that conversation, basically, like, I have my my I have my beliefs and I don't and I.  [00:15:56] People want to learn about that vegans, baby it wouldn't be the place where begins babies about food and travel.  [00:16:01] Right. And I have to say, I meant the immune system rather than immunizations, which are kind of their own two separate.  [00:16:07] I mean, I'm sorry. It was my misspeaking. The immune system and just the health and nutrition of the culture. I, I sometimes I do.  [00:16:18] Right now I'm focusing I've had two people contribute articles on wellness because I think that's important to maintain your health and wellness during, especially this time. I am not an expert, so I don't write on it, but I'm always open to people. If they want to contribute articles like that. I am happy to share like food to boost your immune system and things like that.  [00:16:36] One hundred percent is exciting. Do you have a ways for people to contact you on your Web site? There's a contact page. That's exciting. So the Vegan tours, can you kind of tie us into what? What does that mean on your Web site? How did you come at that topic?  [00:16:51] So Vegan tours just kind of randomly started one day through the years. I built relationships with restaurants all over the city. And my friend was like, well, you should start few tours. You know, that's not a bad idea. So I did. And it was a monthly tour that I offered downtown Las Vegas. It was five restaurants, 13 dishes.  [00:17:12] And it became a lot for me to handle with all of the other things I do. So now it's private. Two tours of downtown Las Vegas. I offer two different ones. There's one like that Fremont Street area, which is more typical of like downtown. And then there's an arts district, which is a very up and coming cool part of town with breweries and things like that. So I offer both of those. And the downtown tour that I offer was named one of the top nine tours speaking tours in the world by Travel and Leisure. And then from there, a friend of mine and I, we would go to Thailand at the same time. And she was like, we should start a tour. And so her and I partnered for this first tour we did in October, and it was a sold out Vegan tour of Thailand. And since then, I have well, I had four tours planned for this year, all of which have been postponed till 2021.  [00:18:01] But they're all underrated Vegan tours of cities and their Vegan features.  [00:18:06] So it's I'm assuming it's not based on having people come from here, but if you're going to be in Thailand during that time or.  [00:18:12] No, it's a good tour. It's a it's a Vegan tour. It's a tour anywhere from five to 10 days and get hotel food and the travel within. It's all part of it. So basically, it's a it's a culinary tour that also highlights, like, the normal things you would do in a city and some other cool things that I find really interesting as a as a traveler that I would want to go do that.  [00:18:37] So it's a massive undertaking. It's exciting. But it sounds me I mean, the only other undertaking I've heard other than major tour operations doing that are like yoga retreats. And even then, you know, half the day you're cut to do whatever.  [00:18:49] It takes a lot of work. It's a lot of work.  [00:18:52] But it's finally I was just in Madrid and Paris in January, February to go basically eat my way through the cities and figure out where I wanted to go, eat on this tour and meet with restaurant owners and then do a couple things just to kind of see what I wanted to put on the tour. So for me, like researching them, it is so incredibly fun. And then being able to show people, like all the amazing places and food and how how accessible Vegan food is around the world. If you just look, it's it's it's a it's a wonderful thing.  [00:19:24] Absolutely. And within that, I think there's a lot of education. You're Slainte kind of points out as well. And you and I know speaking just earlier, a few minutes ago, this concept of.  [00:19:37] Looking at the cuisine of the country, you know, and realizing what Vegan elements you can deduce things of that nature, I always find that when I travel internationally, I find because I cook so much at home because I don't have the confidence of Vegan food. I'll rent an air BMB and then I'll ask that, you know, my research techniques. What is the most common form of vegetable that they have and then create these meals that I would have created at home with like. So in Fiji, for instance, rather than potatoes, I'm using cassava, which is the potato sister and things of that nature. But you you kind of rediscover what they're doing. And then how can you implement that back in some of the recipes you have? And I imagine the same is true for restaurants when you have these conversations with chefs and restaurant owners. Do they become more aware of their own menu as you're having these talks with? Can we talk about the Vegan items that you have or what you have on your menu that you could be making? Vegan. Is it kind of a light bulb moment for them as well?  [00:20:35] I think I think so. Especially like in Las Vegas.  [00:20:37] I'll meet with with chefs and restaurants and say these are all the dishes you have that if you modify, you can make them Vegan. These are the ingredients you can swap out. So I think, yes, it probably is a light bulb moment. I mean, I assume that the majority of chefs that I that I know all understand plant based dining. But then it's taking it and saying, hey, look, you know, it's OK to be on begins.  [00:21:00] Maybe you have to have three Vegan options and they can't be dishes that are modified. They have to be specific options on the menu that are already there. So, like, I'll work with them to say, hey, look, you know, look, if you pull this salad, if you pull this dish, if you do this in this, you can have a Vegan section on your menu or you can put you know, you can have these options and I can write about you. And so the typically the motivation for that is you get to reach my audience that listens. And so if they create these Vegan dishes, people will come in and eat them and then they become a Vegan from the restaurant and they're supported. So I think I think, yeah, that that they do have that moment where they realize what they can be doing.  [00:21:37] Absolutely. I want to talk a little bit about the chef driven Vegan dinners at the James Beard house. So can you kind of enumerate one of what's going on or what was going on with that endeavor?  [00:21:50] So the James Beard Foundation reached out to me. They saw that I was doing a Vegan dining month and the director of house events reached out to me and said, we really like what you're doing. Would you be interested in putting together a dinner at the James Beard house and bringing in chefs from Las Vegas to cook clay based meal? And I said, oh, my God. I mean, with a James Beard house, you. And they say, come to the house like you go. I've been in the restaurant industry long enough to know, like, if you like, working with the James Beard house, like winning an Oscar or being nominated for an Oscar. Like, it's a huge thing. So I partner with them for the first one. And then I always at that point, I was talking to the director and I said, you know, there's just so many chefs I'd love to work with and I'd love to be able to do this. And you said, well, why don't we do another one? And then it grew into a let's do them twice a year. So the next one was supposed to be May 18th. Obviously, that's that's not happening. And but so it's an ongoing relationship I have with them where I get to pick chefs.  [00:22:46] And actually, none of the chefs I brought with me are Vegan chefs. They're all chefs that are just really, really incredibly talented that I want to see make plant based food and have plant based food at the restaurant. But I want to see them get really creative and really show off their skills and so that that is where they get to do that.  [00:23:04] Does it go both ways? Is there a reverse effect there? So you bring the chef and do you think that that impacts them being brought into this Jane Behar's environment to go back and create more plant based things for themselves?  [00:23:14] I hope so. I hope I. That's my goal. Yeah.  [00:23:20] That's exciting. I want to get into it, since you just dropped the word. I kind of wait for people to drop that bomb before a jump into it.  [00:23:27] But we had we were talking Vegan and then we switched over to this this plant based title. And this is one of the most heated debates in the community right now in nutrition, as well as just across Vegan and plant based empires. How do you. Let's start with asking you, how do you define plant based and how do you define Vegan and what is the difference between those two terms?  [00:23:50] Sure. Vegan I define as a lifestyle. OK, plant based I define as the food you consume.  [00:23:59] OK. And so any intersection between those two would be between the lifestyle and the consumable. OK. So would anything be able to be plant based and not be Vegan? Not in my world. No. OK. So there's been a lot of argument in the community that the advertising community, because plant based has been associated with health and nutrition and things like that, that they've started adapting that label and putting plant based things and then sliding some egg yolk in there.  [00:24:27] And so people are like, it says, plant based. And then you turn it over and it's not Vegan. So.  [00:24:31] Do you think that there will come a time when we need to be saying both plant based and Vegan or should plant based always denote that it is? There is no animal byproducts in it.  [00:24:40] I think plant based is plants and it should denote there's no animal byproducts in it. I don't think an egg comes to a plant. So I you know, I think it's very misleading if or if there's a box and I'm going to purchase something and it's as plant based. And then you look at the back and there's egg or there is whey or there's something in it that isn't plant based.  [00:24:59] Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. That's it's kind of being attached. Boy, I suppose it will be left up to the regulators to see whether or not that's done. But I do think that it's an interesting concept and people interchange it a lot.  [00:25:12] You know, there's been a lot of argument that plant based is much more friendly on the years than Vegan Vegan hyped up to be a politicized movement, whereas plant basis based on nutrition. Yeah. And then there's also been people that feel like a Vegan actually is more safe. It's a safer label because it really is saying there's absolutely no animal byproducts. So I can see both points of view. But it'll be interesting to see how that plays out, particularly given that it's getting a lot more attention these days. Yeah. I want to turn our attention towards the goals that you have. And I know that this is as hard of a topic as veganism, if you will, but I know that with the pandemic and the uncertainty in the environment across our entire globe. However, I'm curious, a lot of vegans have had deeper conversations with themselves about their companies, given that the pandemic, you know, has a lot of return to everyone returning to the conversations about health and nutrition. And I'm wondering if that has affected your goals. I know that the current climate for things shutting down has changed people's goals. But can you speak to vegans baby's goals over the next one to three years? And if there has been any dialog that incorporated the covered nineteen pandemic?  [00:26:25] I sense a really good question. I've had to pivot a lot with the pandemic because obviously if I'm going out to eat, I'm writing about the restaurant that's not happening anymore. So I pivoted march toward like the the recipe side of things. And so the behind the scenes work of consulting and working on other projects. But in terms of the future, my my goals haven't changed. You know, I hope we get through this quickly.  [00:26:53] But aside from the restaurant consulting I'm still doing and I'm doing private coaching and other things like that.  [00:26:59] I mean, I've I've I've launched the podcast.  [00:27:03] I've been focusing more on video. But other than that, you know, I want to do my tours. I want to be able to expand cities. I want to consult more with restaurants. Now, none of those things have changed at all. The only thing I can think of that might have changed is just the way I do consulting, because obviously, if a restaurant isn't open for service, in its typical sense, we have to kind of pivot and look at other options like delivery and take out and how they can best market that to the Beacon community as well as just the normal community. Because as I mentioned, I worked in the restaurant industry for a long time. I started as a server. I was guest services. I done PR. So I understand the ins and outs of the restaurant industry and restaurants. So I'm really trying to do what I can there to help keep restaurants afloat.  [00:27:45] But other than that, you know, it's hopefully just business full steam ahead once we're able to kind of get get through this.  [00:27:52] Absolutely. Well, let's look at your podcast really briefly. Can you tell us when you launched it? How many episodes you have and who you've been kind of speaking with? Or are they just monologues from you?  [00:28:04] No, I don't think I'm that interesting to have every episode I have.  [00:28:09] So it actually there are a few up right now, but it will officially launch the next few days. But I'm building up obviously the backlog and I want people to go when they click on it to see that there's more than just one.  [00:28:21] And it's it's basically it's conversations with people in the chef travel lifestyle, entrepreneurial community with a print based twist. So my first interview is with Chef Jessica Perlstein, who was one of the chefs that came to New York with me for the James Beard dinner I did in November. And she was one of the first chefs on the Las Vegas Strip at a steakhouse to launch a Vegan menu. So we talk about that and we talk about her career cooking at the James Beard house. My second interview was with Chef Leslie D'Urso, who is a very well-known clamp, a chef, and she started as an actress and was Bill NYes, the lab girl, and now she consults with Four Seasons hotels to create plant based dishes for them. She does culinary retreats in other countries. I spoke with Rachel Geiger, who is the founder of Snow Monkey and one of Forbes 30 under 30. I've got a dear friend of mine, Lindsay McCormick, who's the founder of Buy Toothpaste Bits. It was just a shark tank, Lee Asher from the Asher House. So I'm kind of tapping into all the amazing people I know and being like, hi, we please be on my podcast. Yeah. Fortunately, they've all said yes. So I've got about eight or nine that I've recorded. And then I have, I think two more I'm doing next week on the list of about 20 other people I want to reach out to.  [00:29:40] Excellent. You're off to the races, though. Seasoned in no time. Is the name of the podcast. It's called The Good Fork. The Good Fork.  [00:29:48] I like that. Yeah. He'll play on like forks over knives and things like that. I like the visualization. People start making cutlery. It's. Very married to the world of food. I want to wrap everything up with that. Looking at advice that you always ask for advice on. People said I don't have any, you know, nine times out of ten than the ones who who have a ton. It's not really fun to listen to. So I'd rather say advice that you have before the younger you know, if you had looked at what you were doing prior. Right prior to launching Beans Baby and what peas three piece top three pieces of advice. They can be words of warning or words of encouragement or what to look at and focus on more than you would have given the younger you as you were starting.  [00:30:36] Oh, gosh, you know, it's tough because I kind of just wing things like I wake up one day and I'm like, I'm going to start a food tour. I'm going to write guidebook.  [00:30:44] I would say maybe have a better plan of action than what I've done because, I mean, I have no plan. I just think of something and decide I'm going to do it and then I do it, which I think depending on the way you work. It's great. Like, I just kind of always trust that I'm gonna land on my feet and it's gonna work out. However it's supposed to.  [00:31:03] I would say. Really think about the name your business, because I love Vegan, maybe, but I feel like it's very limiting.  [00:31:13] And so for vegans, baby, obviously it's coming from a Las Vegas baby reference. And now that I'm expanding and I think that maybe that wasn't the best path for a name, but I didn't think about it. I didn't think where I would be in three years. All I thought I thought small. And it was I'm going to write an online guide to Vegan dining in Las Vegas and never took the time to think, where could this go? So maybe take some time and write down your big dreams. See what it is that like, if you were if you had your perfect business, what would it be that you want and kind of work backwards from that to get them figure out how you're going to get there?  [00:31:52] Whereas I kind of was just. I never did. I never did. That's probably the biggest piece. And then I know that it's not easy.  [00:32:03] I started Vegans baby. And, you know, it's it's taken me four years to come to a place where I can bring in income from it.  [00:32:14] And now that income is.  [00:32:17] Stopped. So especially in today's world, if you are building a business. I would definitely consider things like what we're going through right now where we've never had to think of that before. But is your business able to function with a shutdown? And if it isn't, what can you do to make it function? What are what are your what are your backup plans if it doesn't work?  [00:32:42] I think those are the biggest things.  [00:32:43] Nice. So I have got a plan of action. Pay close attention to naming the business. And remember, Leslie, that it's not easy. Make sure that you have multiple areas that it communicates to and restrictions under can't the pandemic that we're having now.  [00:32:59] Those are all perfect pieces of advice. I'm wondering as we kind of wrap up for today as as Vegan and kind of living that lifestyle, do you have kind of a main area that it is affected most for you?  [00:33:14] Would you say that it's affected your career or your health or what part of being Vegan has been most poignant for you?  [00:33:25] All of it.  [00:33:26] I think, like I, I never expected to be where I am today. I never expected or thought that I would work with the James Beard Foundation. So being begin, obviously, I mean, I have turned it into a part of my business because I was always taught to find your niche. My mom always said, find your niche, find your passion. And I found both of them. And so now it's like I literally wake up every day and I'm making change and I'm doing good and I'm helping other people. And I'm also getting it to do this full time. So it really is it's impacted every aspect of my life. There's not a day that goes by where the word Vegan doesn't come out of my mouth or it's not in my thought like it is very much it is my entire life. So knowing Vegan literally changed my my entire course or path I was on.  [00:34:15] Absolutely. That's awesome. And I find that to be true with them for a lot of people that I'm interviewing for this. You know, it's it's different than even one's occupation.  [00:34:25] It kind of being Vegan tends to be an identity that's attached to people's core identities, which I guess is fantastic.  [00:34:33] Well, we're out of time today, Diana. But I want to say thank you so much for giving us your time. I know everybody is scrambling right now, and because of that, they are both at once available and busy.  [00:34:43] And so thank you for sticking a weird.  [00:34:46] You know, I'm working more than I've ever worked in my life and I'm not making any money from it. But cool, because I at least I'm, like, loving what I'm doing. But, you know, it's a weird it's a weird spot. But see, there's Phyto. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.  [00:35:01] Yeah, absolutely. And I love that phyto came in right now at the very least. He was already in conversation, them ending a conversation, taking them out. He's going to go, Mom. Absolutely.  [00:35:15] Well, for everyone listening, thank you for giving us your time. We've been talking with Diana Edelman. She's the founder of Vegans, baby you can find her online at vaegans baby dot com until we speak again next time.  [00:35:26] Remember to eat well, eat clean, stay safe. Always bet on yourself.

Today I chat with Elysabeth Alfano. Elysabeth wears many hats…all of them vegan!  She is the host of the only plant-based radio show in the nation, The Elysabeth Alfano Show, syndicated on the Smart Talk Radio Network and WCGO-Chicago. In addition, she hosts the Plantbased Business Hour as part of her overall Awesome Vegans Interview Series This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.http://ElysabethAlfano.com@ElysabethAlfano TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is investigating Vegan life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end. We will cover topics that have revealed themselves as Kofman and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. You can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to Investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:13] Hi, everyone, welcome back. I am your host, Patricia.  [00:01:16] And today we are sitting down with Elysabeth Alfano. Elysabeth is a radio and podcast host, an award winning media personality content producer and a plant based expert. You can find out more about her company and the work she's doing on her Web site.  [00:01:33] Elysabeth Alfano, dot com. That is e l y s a b e t h a l f a n o dot com.  [00:01:40] Welcome, Elysabeth.  [00:01:42] Hi. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Absolutely. I'm excited to kind of climb through.  [00:01:46] You have such a prolific history and your Vegan journey and story and all of the work you're doing hasn't just been prolific. I know it's changing on the daily, as is everyone's, you know, enterprise. Sure it is. So if everyone listening, I'm going to read a bio on Elysabeth. But before I do that, I'll offer you a quick roadmap of today's podcast. We're going to first look at Elysabeth's academic and professional history briefly to just get a platform of understanding of her history. And then we'll start unpacking the services and the podcast. This shows the work that she's done and is continuing to do on her Web site. Elysabeth Alfano, dot com. And then we'll turn our efforts toward some of like the ethos and the philosophical endeavors and the creativity behind the work that she's doing and going to work in the future at. And then we'll look at goals as to what she thinks she might be doing with her company. Again, this is an area that's changing on the daily for people. So that's exciting. And we'll wrap everything up with advice that Elysabth may have for those of you looking to get involved with her endeavors and maybe emulate some of her success. A quick bio on Elysabeth before I pepper her with questions. Elysabeth Alfano wears many hats. All of them Vegan. She's the host of the only plant based radio show in the nation. The Elysabeth Alfonzo show, syndicated on the Smart Talk Radio Network and WCG O Chicago. In addition, she hosts the plant based Business Hour as part of her overall Awesome Vegans interview series live on Jane Unchanged News Network. Before both shows became become available on all podcasts platforms, Elysabeth is also a plant based expert for mainstream media, breaking down the plant based news for the general public on radio and TV. She is a featured chef and one of the executive producers of the new groundbreaking Being Cooking series on Amazon Prime. New Day. New Chef Elysabth does a recipe development and consultation for restaurants and food companies looking to Veganize their offerings. For more information on all of this, as I said, you can visit Elysabeth Alfano, dot com. So, Elysabeth, before we climb into you, I'm really excited because you've had such a prolific career and it's kind of spanned a lot of different industries, but carried a common theme with your Vegan expertize. But before we get into any of that, I'm hoping you can draw us just a brief academic background and early professional life to kind of garner a sense of your platform as you came into this journey.  [00:04:12] Sure. Oh, gosh. I'll be brief here. Basically, I went to business school and then I worked for Fortune 500 companies. And then I left that and I opened my own business. And then this would have been around the early 2000s or so, around 2007, maybe actually the economy crashed. And I got out of that business and took a little time off and in kind of re pivoting my life, if you will, I thought about the things that are really important to me that I really want to spend time on. And I thought, OK, I'm going to really shift my efforts to the plant based world. And at that point, I didn't know how deeply I was going to dove into veganism if it was going to be through journalism, only if it was going to be through business consulting. It was going to be through cooking. I'm Sicilian. You just can't keep me away from the kitchen. It's really a hobby. And I love more than anything. And that's a joy to see that come to something as major as Amazon Prime, which I didn't really see coming because I've been so focused on business my whole life and business reporting as well. So I just didn't know where it was gonna take me. But I knew when the economy kind of fell apart that it was a great time for me to look at my life and really focus on the things that I'm passionate about, and that's veganism. So that's really how I shifted over to what I do now.  [00:05:35] That's awesome. Did you have it like a baptismal experience or what I mean by that is just some kind of an aha moment. And frequently you did or don't. OK.  [00:05:43] So as a kid, I mean really young, five, seven years old, I couldn't eat meat, I couldn't chew it. I couldn't have explained to you the ethical dilemma for me. But I knew something was wrong beyond the fact that I didn't like the muscle and I didn't like the taste. I knew internally this was going against what I loved.  [00:06:03] I loved animals more than dolls or tours or anything. It was always animals. I just wanted to be around animals and so I wouldn't eat it at the dinner table. And my parents who loved me and I love them back and everything's good. It's all wonderful. They were panicked that it wasn't going to get enough, quote unquote, protein. It's a Converse's I'm sure we'll have here. So they punished me to stay at the table and that I had to finish the meat on my plate and I couldn't do it. So I'd be alone for three, four hours at a time. And then I started hiding the meat everywhere, putting it under the table or putting it at the bottom of the garbage container or in my pockets, my pants pockets. And then my folks would find the rotting meat everywhere and then they punish me for lying. So fast forward as an adult way into my adult years. I think that's what we do. We have to eat meat. There's no way around it. We all know we've seen factory farm footage. I won't go into it. I don't have to because everyone knows it's there. We've all seen it. But we have this disconnect in our lives. We do it anyway. Even though we all love animals, no one wants to harm animals. That's crazy. So I just thought as an adult that we are supposed to live with this disconnect. And it never sat well with me and it was always a point of uncomfort ability. And I'd go out to restaurants with people. And I just see, like, you know, I was the closet vegetarian over here, just sort of ordering my non meat stuff in silence. I didn't want anyone to know where to focus on me or to even bring up the conversation. Then my nephew went to the University of Oregon. He's an athlete. He came home from the first semester of school Thanksgiving, and he said, oh, yeah, coach told me if I want to play for the team, no meat, no dairy. And I was like, you got a professional to give you permission. I'd been waiting for an adult, you know, like a real professional in the area to give me permission my whole life since I was a kid. So I was Vegan in that sentance. I really like that moment. It's so crystal clear in my head. I was vegan in that sentence. I was like, oh, me too. I'm going Vegan. I knew there was something to this Vegan thing. I'm going Vegan. So I was vegan that day.  [00:08:02] I love that being given permission. Isn't it so ironic that your entire life is isn't even as a child, you know, you you knew that that lifestyle felt right for you, and yet it took this kind of obscure reference of being given permission. It's I think it's true through a lot of areas. So what did your original journey look like? You became Vegan. Did you immediately do an investigative search? And what year was that? What did the industry or the community look like back then?  [00:08:28] Right. It was late. It was really late in the game. Now, mind you, I had been issuing meat my whole life, but not dairy. I didn't know how to do that. I didn't even know the ill will of the dairy industry, which I do now. And if if anyone listening doesn't know about that, I'll just say that the dairy industry is built on breaking the bond between mother and baby.  [00:08:49] I'll let you do your own research from there. But that's also not something that aligns with my values. So, you know, when I learned about that, I was like, oh, hey, oh, no, I'm not doing that either. So that when I made this final decision, it was the end of 2015. So already veganism had advanced in some ways. You know, I wasn't a pioneer like many people three decades ago. Even though I was trying to find my way all those decades, I didn't make anything official until the end of 2015.  [00:09:17] I would say even the change over those past five years has been really significant in the grand scheme of things.  [00:09:23] You know, it's arguable that in 30 years ago, the change of five years wasn't how it's been now due to the advent of obvious media, things like game changers, forks and knives, the documentaries, all of the work being done. But it's it's a wild ride to have been on. So you kind of came together. You had this this birth, if you will, of this change into the Vegan lifestyle. You're doing this work. How did you start to marry what you came from in your professional life into what is now Elysabeth Alfano dot com? How did those things come together? And did you launch with a specific service or was it just this idea of doing a Web site?  [00:10:01] Oh, gosh. So trial and error. You know, I'd love to say that life is perfectly thought out. And I did have a plan and a strategy.  [00:10:07] But, you know, you kind of go from there and you see where life takes you. I had been doing celebrity interviews, so my business, as I say, with a real estate market, had tanked in 2007. All businesses were pretty slow. I thought I've always loved this hobby of journalism and I love interviewing people getting up close, just like what you're doing, getting up close, really trying to find the information that those key nuggets of information. So I was doing some food journalism and some celebrity journalism. And at that time, I just thought, I can't do this anymore. Now that I have switched over to veganism and I know all the wealth of information that needs to get out to people that isn't out there. And I'll say perhaps even specifically, intentionally not getting out there. I just felt that, you know, as someone who believes in sharing information because information is power for people so that they can make the decisions that are important to them in their lives, the individual decisions that people need to make. I wanted to be a part of that. Giving of information.  [00:11:14] So I started out with just a Web site and switching over to because I was already doing celebrity interviews, so I switched over to Celebrity Vegan's, Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins, Moby, Kathy Freston, New York Times best selling author, these kind of folks. And then the more and more I got into it, I was able to just do a deeper dove and really bring together my business, you know, decades of working in business, either from Fortune 500 companies or reform myself and the plant based world, which has been so exciting.  [00:11:45] Talk about, you know, just in the last year what we've seen from the business perspective. It's so exciting. And then, you know, I do have this comfortability around corporations and having worked in them, et cetera. So I know that corporations benefit from healthy employees and they also benefit from fun, engaging activities for their employees to kind of bring them together. So I do work with corporations and just, you know, work on Vegan classes if they want it.  [00:12:11] Cooking classes, informational classes, nutritional classes, this kind of thing.  [00:12:15] So this road from, you know, speaking to celebrities and doing interviews and just kind of pulling out some of those nuggets. It sounds like it's gone until like a heavy educational platform.  [00:12:24] Do you find that a lot of your podcasts are what you're doing now is is consulting and coaching and educationally based? And if so, what core pieces like what core tenants of plant based or Vegan lifestyle have you kind of incorporated into your pedagogy, if you will?  [00:12:42] Tricky business. I will say that.  [00:12:46] The Vegan world is changing so quickly, and the world as we know it covid 19 is changing so quickly. And that's linked to veganism. I see a direct link there. There is a direct link there. So, I mean, I can explain that if you'd like. So everything is just happening so quickly. It's it's hard to say what is driving what at this point. So there's a thirst for knowledge and information. And usually that starts initially with people's health. It starts with what they know the best and they know themselves the best, you know. So we do what we know. We do what we've been raised to do and we start within our own, you know, square foot of where we live. So people usually want to start out with health.  [00:13:30] But in the last year, we've seen that veganism. Scuse me. Plant based businesses are big business.  [00:13:37] They're the big solution. Again, we can talk about that in relation to covid 19 and Pandemics and our health. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease. So it's the big solution. But if beyond meat showed us anything, it's also big money. So there's this interest I'm finding in the business world. I don't know if I bet accurately addressed your question, but as part of what I talk about, I think all information, all interviews, whether they are celebrity or business focused, they're all about information.  [00:14:04] Otherwise, I don't want to say I wouldn't do them. It sounds so curt, but I really want to be a part of the information process where I'm giving people information. So I would say that they're all based on information and the colonel. The major tenant of all the interviews, regardless of the subject, is that the individual consumer is empowered. You don't have to wait two or four years to vote. You vote three times a day every time you make a decision on your plate. You vote with your dollars. And when you align your values with your purchasing power, you will really see a difference in the world, a difference that you care about for your family and your future. We're, of course, seeing that right now with covid 19. So if you want a safe future, you want to say food supply. And if you want to say food supply, you want plant based food. So it is all interconnected. But it starts with the individual and their empowerment. I agree.  [00:14:57] And I think that you've kind of fleshed out a lot of really top buzzwords. And so what I want to do is crawl out. I like to ask as soon as the guests drop it, I go into it. So what I'd like you to do is defined just for you in your work and in your life. How would you define plant based in juxtaposition to Vegan? What do those two words mean to you?  [00:15:20] So plant based to me means a diet and Vegan means a lifestyle. But I am seeing. I would be very hard pressed to ever say that there's a silver lining to covid 19. I really can't say that that's that's what I'm saying. But I do think people are starting to make the connection about the health of their own lives. And this has been really made strongly in the press when we look at the food supply and not being a healthy food supply and that so many pandemics, army born pandemics, I think the CDC says 75 percent of the pandemics are meat borne pandemics. So I think you're seeing people. Go from being interested in only being plant based to being interested in being Vegan, and again, for me that means diet versus lifestyle.  [00:16:18] OK. And have you had any confusion? Have you spoken with clients that have had confusion? I've seen a lot of people who have. Because you're a coach and you're dealing with people and educating them. The plant based has reached into, you know, the marketing and advertising industry and they've appropriated it because of the power of the marketing dollars behind it. And a lot of people who are living a vegan lifestyle had thought originally that plant based had meant that it would be Vegan. But indeed, they're not. You know, you flip it over, there's egg whites and things of that nature. Do you think that there will be a third term involved or do you think that the word Vegan will eventually take over? The consensus was that Vegan was hyper politicized and plant based, came along to make sure that everyone was assuaged and could still eat Vegan things without being scared of becoming, you know, a hippie. However, I think that now it's been appropriated to the point that people are worried about meeting another term or a return to the word Vegan. Do you see any of those dialogs happening with people that you're coaching?  [00:17:21] I do a little bit. I'll say just the fact that you're using the word Vegan in this podcast series, I think speaks really to the point that people are reformulating their vision of their understanding of what being Vegan is and what that means.  [00:17:38] I know it doesn't mean you haven't showered since 1970 or whatever. You know, you have let go of the tree. You're no longer holding on to the tree and hugging it. I mean, I think people are realizing like, oh, hey, hold up. Vegan just might mean that you're in the game changers and Vegan just might mean that you're an award winning athlete and Vegan just might mean that, you know, you've got your mind wrapped around the environment. So I think that that is changing. But in terms of the word plant, based on it being appropriated by business, we're back to you must educate and advocate for yourselves. That means reading labels. So I have seen some companies do a blended product where it's like half meat and half vegetables and they call themselves plant based because they have some plants in there. And of course, this is all marketing folks, marketing, marketing, because those sausages and like products, nuggets, etc. they always had plants in them because they always had filler because they were anyway. So just you need to educate yourself because you cannot be looking to government or corporations and just hope that they have your back. So it's your health. It's your future. It's your family. I hope that this podcast gives you information. I hope that my podcast gives you information.  [00:18:49] I hope you read labels and enjoy reading them so you can take back your health, because ultimately we want to take back our health and take back the health of the planet.  [00:18:58] Absolutely. So I'm curious, one of the one of the services you have listed on your website. And again, I realize that this has been quickly dated over the past three weeks. However, you coach you coach restaurants. You have this, you know, forum for people to be able to reach out who are looking to expand their Vegan menus and things of that nature. I thought it was clever only because I haven't seen that kind of offering. Surely nutritionists and Vegan dietitians are doing that, but that was the first time I'd seen that service offered on someone's website. And I was wondering, I know that right now there may not be a lot of that happening. However, when you do go in. It was it. So you sound like a chef unto your own right and things like that. Do you take caucus with other people or do you just go in and experience the restaurant and work with the owner to develop around? I'm the type of food and all of those things as to what areas you can kind of help them plug with Vegan ideas. Can you tell us a little bit about how that works?  [00:19:59] Yes. Well, first of all, first of all, sometimes people contact me, which is wonderful, but I often don't eat at Vegan restaurants. I try to eat it non Vegan restaurants. And I look to see what they're doing for the vegan community because this is a group that needs to be addressed like anything else.  [00:20:15] And if they don't have good vegan options on their menu, then I reach out to the owners or the manager and I say, like, you know, there's a huge market you're not capitalizing on. And I can help you bring in this market and revamp at least this part of your menu and work within your theme. You know, restaurants are very themed.  [00:20:34] Usually it's gone are the days of just the General Diner, but there's, you know, a take a trip to Spain or, you know, reinvasion Italy or, you know, there's always a theme. So I work within what they're trying to do. But I, you know, work with them to Vegan size it. So I just first find out really.  [00:20:55] Who they are. Because I want to work with them that. And then I try to bring them up to speed to, you know, 2020, where more and more people are going Vegan every day. And that's just not hyperbole. I should have looked at this. This percentage is changing every day. But I. I want to say I'll just throw out one stat from the Financial Times. Plant based meat is up 200 percent. It might be plant based foods, 200 percent in covid time. Then it just goes to show you how many people are turning to these options as a safer food source and a healthier one as well.  [00:21:27] So have you seen. There is. I mean, it's been a few weeks now, and while the dialog is still young and continuing. Have you had conversations with yourself or with your clients regarding connections that you you feel comfortable saying regarding Cauvin 19 and a vegan diet and lifestyle? Have you had new resurfacing questions within your own vegan journey? How does any of that work for you?  [00:21:52] I, I think there's lots of information to share here. So I do have this conversation with my clients all the time, and I have this conversation on all of my podcasts. I mean, it's all anyone's thinking about in a way. There's so much to talk about here.  [00:22:06] But I think one of the important things that people overlook is we are killing ourselves. That's perhaps not the right word. We are bending over backwards to social distance, to wear masks, to wear gloves, to stay at home. We're not. I mean, our economy is crumbling. We're not going to work, as we all know. We're going to great lengths to do this.  [00:22:24] And yet only 10 percent of the planet is social distancing. So we kill 100 billion animals, 70 billion land animals. So let's talk about land animals, 70 billion land animals a year for the seven billion people on the planet. But we're not social distancing the land animals, in fact, we're forcing them to live on top of each other and factory farms. They are the majority. Those living, breathing entities are the majority of the planet. We're 10 percent of the living, breathing entities there, the other 90 percent. And we are forcing them to not social distance. So I don't. And as we know, these diseases go from animal to animal to human. So if the animals are living on top of each other, then you don't have social distancing there. And that's just a pandemic. I think we've seen that already. So that's one topic. And then. Also, just, you know, this isn't the first pandemic that we've had. SaaRs and Ebola and mad cow disease of swine fever is raging through China now. They can't get it under control. We've had outbreaks of Asian bird flu. Scuse me.  [00:23:33] So, you know, I. If you want to not have meat born pandemic's, then we need to start, stop eating meat and stop, you know, paying to produce it.  [00:23:47] Yeah, and the sustainability is is there again. I always tell people I sound on its simplest level, you know, the idea that covid 19 and the possibility of it being linked and born into these meat related environments. You know, if you can't sustain and meat diet that you have because of land or agriculture or water use or things of that nature, you can kind of work your way back into being confused. What will it what does it really matter? But it is hosting environments that host pandemics that take out large percentages of your population is unsustainable. We cease to exist. It's very simple. It's very cut and dry. The algebra isn't so very long, you know. So I think its truest form, it's just it's a very like open and shut moment, which I think that one of the things that is only the most hopeful thing about our humanity is that in these times we can sit back and kind of reflect and recollect. And that's what a lot of people are doing, even with their businesses, but also their health. And even just opening a conversation, a moment for a dialog to happen regarding health and that being human based experience, I think is is a good thing, you know. And so I question anybody who isn't immediately doing that. The hype, hyper ness behind it and things of that nature, I think can kind of die away. But reexamining re educating, I think is creating unlikely vegans. It's a term I use a lot that I love because it lets this population that's popping up of what you're a World War Two vet and you and your Vegan like it's just these people you would not suspect. Yeah. And and I love that. And I think it's doing more of that creation. I want to climb into some of your podcasts and your radio work. So I mentioned in the bio, but I kind of zoomed right by it. And so for everyone listening, I'm hoping you can kind of flesh out the different avenues that you're on, the names of them and the different topics you discuss.  [00:25:45] Sure thing. So my radio show is the Elysabeth Alfano Show and it's the only plant based radio show in the nation. There are it's on WCO and the Smart Talk Radio Network.  [00:25:55] There are some smaller Vegan radio shows, but they're really geared towards vegans. And this show, as you talk about, unlikely begins this show, The Elysabeth Albano show is really not geared towards vegans. It's been geared towards flexitarian because many people do want to feel better.  [00:26:12] Many people see the news and they see not just the correlation between meat borne pandemics and their own lives, but they look at how these large slaughterhouses, factory farms are treating their workers and and how they're treating the community at large because the community is affected by the health of its workers.  [00:26:34] So and they don't like that either. So a lot of people are looking to use shift, but they don't know how because we do what we know. And if you grew up eating meat, meat, you just don't know where else. How do you do it? So how do you start? So the radio show is really geared towards that market to just give them some easy tidbits, some starting points, some fun interviews. I bring back my celebrity interviews here. It's really easy access. You know, some stuff you'll take with the with you, some stuff. Maybe it's not for you, OK? Not everyone's going Vegan today or tomorrow, although they could. And how fun is that? But, you know, not everyone's going to do it. So this is just like dip your toe in the pool and sort of start swimming. So that's what that's all about.  [00:27:14] How do you define really quickly. How do you define a flexitarian.  [00:27:17] Sure. So there's a flexitarian and a reduced-attarian and reduced-attarian. Perhaps the show's really geared more towards them. Reduce-attarians are people who eat meat and they're just trying to eat less of it. Meatless Mondays. Oh, yes. Yes, Meatless Mondays.  [00:27:32] And then maybe then they turn it into Meatless Mondays is now feel good Fridays as well, because you're not having all that meat.  [00:27:37] The slowing you down. So. So that would be reduced-attarian. And a flexitarian is really somebody who primarily eats vegan vegetarian. But you know what? They're out with friends at sushi restaurants. They'll have fish or, you know, if they're traveling and they can't get something, you know, not a big deal. They're not 100 percent they they pretty much, you know, eight times out of ten. They're trying to get all plants, but sometimes they don't. Yeah, okay.  [00:28:03] And then the Awesome Vegans Interview series.  [00:28:06] Yes. So the also biggest influence influencer series, that's where I started. It was such an easy point to get into sharing Vegan information because everybody wants to hear from celebs.  [00:28:16] So that's when I thought, like, I'm not going to push the Vegan rhetoric on anyone. I just want to share information. And it's fun to listen to, you know, the music trajectory of Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins.  [00:28:29] Oh, yeah. And why did he go Vegan? That's interesting what happened there.  [00:28:32] So, you know, race car driver or football player or, you know, I've got, you know. CEO Ethan Brown. When did he decide to go Vegan? And plus, what's going on with beyond it? So, you know, that's that's it was an easy entry point. And again, I would say that that was geared towards flexitarian reduce the variance.  [00:28:50] But lately. So just five weeks ago, really. March 19th when covid hit. I've started a new podcast called a Plant Based Business Hour. And I'm amazed at the interest in this subject. People now know that it's the solution. And it's big business.  [00:29:09] I'll also throw out some stats, if you don't mind. Sure. You had talked about the environmental aspect of the unsustainability of the meat industry. So just imagine we have all these trees and we need trees because trees pull carbon from the air.  [00:29:25] And we need that as we try to address climate change. But we go ahead and cut down the trees and we make grain that is filled with fiber and protein. Do we give fiber and protein to people? No, we give it to animals and then. Tick tock. Tick tock. We have to wait because, of course, animals grow and they need water and they need land. Tick tock. Tick tock. They need more grains. We got to cut down more trees. We still don't have any meat yet. We're still waiting. We're still waiting. And then finally, we have the meat. I'm not even talking about the ethical issues. We have the meat. Do we eat all the meat? No, we don't use the bones when we use the blood. We don't use the tail. We don't use the ears. It is a wildly inefficient process. So for chickens, the best you're ever going to do is I get this from the World Resources Institute. The best you're ever gonna do is about a dime back on your 90 cents. And no business person wants to invest 90 cents to get back a dime. And for cows, it's much worse. It's something like thirty five to one. Why do I all these things? Because the good news and gosh, I wish it were happening faster. But the point is it is happening is, as I say, no business person wants to sign up for this. And this is why you're seeing Tyson Maple Leaf. These are large meat companies, J.B. S. Cargill. They've changed their names from being a meat company to a protein company, and they've started replacing their meat product lines with plant based product lines. And you're gonna see them get a huge jump in business efficiency and a huge jump in resources. An independent study from the University of Michigan says that beyond meat hamburger, it's generally for all plant based hamburgers. But they did study beyond meat compared to a regular hamburger is ninety nine percent less lands. Ninety three percent less water. No, sorry. Ninety nine percent less water. Ninety three percent less land. 90 percent less greenhouse gas emissions and 40 percent less energy. So, you know, those companies are going to reap all those benefits. And what's exciting for about about the consumer is they're going to have more options and they're going to have big ad budgets telling them this is a healthier way to go. So ultimately, it's better for the consumer and it's better for the planet.  [00:31:30] Absolutely. And this is second time you've brought up.  [00:31:32] I think it's really important to make that connection between everything that we consume in our lives, be it food or anything else, to the advertising and the marketing dollars going into that, because this storyline and the narrative and the rhetoric around it is shaped solely by that money and it influences the future money. Otherwise it wouldn't be a self-sustaining cycle. Right. So it encourages more spending because it's reaching certain targets. And then when you flip that on its head from going evil to good or vice versa, you get the benefits of that again. And like you're saying, I think that the true power as a consumer is choosing, you know, like you said, you have three investment options a day and that's without snacks. You know, you have these moments to really put some effort into the world. And I do believe that small efforts combined is what makes at least our nation. You know, and so I and I like that when you go into coaching. I'm curious with sometimes people as prolific as yourself and what you're doing it. Elysabeth Alfano, dot com. Do you have a niche of a person or a group or an industry that you coach? Are you kind of open to curating a program or anything to any particular entity or person that reaches out to you?  [00:32:46] So I know it's sort of confusing for everybody because I do so much, but I do have this journalism side and this specialty in the plant based business area.  [00:32:56] But then because it's a personal love to cook, I just get my fingers in the kitchen whenever I can, which is how I came to executive produce this Amazon Prime cooking show. And it's how I also decided to get into coaching people because I'm in the kitchen anyway, so I might as well be helping people and again, sharing information. So with that in mind, I decided to go with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Oh gosh, how I love them. And I am a certified instructor with their Food for Life program. So through this Food for Life program, what I do is I kind of develop a curriculum for whomever wants it and whatever their need is. So I do like to work with corporations because I like to affect more. One person at a time. So I do like to do through employee wellness classes or even just, as I say, exciting events.  [00:33:48] You know, it can be like a one off event, an employee event around food and cooking, which is so very fun. So that's usually what I like to do. But I do work with individuals as well. And I've been asked by some colleges to teach. So, I mean, I do have a curriculum already set up. So that's that's why it's kind of there and it's easy. But I had to pick I do like corporations because I can go in and I can work with, you know, 40, 50 to 100 people at a time.  [00:34:14] Yeah, absolutely. So I'm wondering with them, given that you have the new trajectory you have. Well, perhaps you do or down, but given the new state of affairs in our world right now, when you look forward to your future and what you've kind of been molding your business and what you're doing in your efforts towards what you're doing, what do you see happening for the next one to three years? And has it changed at all from what you had planned before?  [00:34:40] I think things are gonna happen much faster, too, than I thought.  [00:34:43] And I think that's going to be necessitated by our pandemic situation and our environmental situation. And I think you're going to see the major corporations shifting over their product lines faster than we thought. And, you know, it's a domino effect. And I have no idea when this will happen, but it will happen when you see all these corporations starting to shift to plant based options. You're going to see the subsidies shift with them. So I don't know if people know this, but your tax dollars right now go to, for example, bailing, bailing out meat and dairy when they're failing or they need extra help and they do need extra help because as it is, the prices don't make any sense for any business model. So they get subsidies every year to keep those businesses afloat. Usually not what we think of when we think of American capitalist free market society. So they're really built up on subsidies. And it'll be interesting to see if these subsidies go to the plant based items and what that will do to speed up the process of going plant based.  [00:35:50] And I think that's a really critical point. I spoke with a Vegan bakery owner out of Los Angeles last week, and she was the first one. I you know, you think you know these things. I don't believe there's a documentary alive based on this subject. I haven't seen an article I don't try to read. But she was saying, you know, meat, dairy and eggs, not meat, dairy and eggs are practically and white flour are practically free. She was like as a country, as a bakery to have. She was like, that's where all the profit comes from. And she was talking about the difficulty and kind of translating that to people who didn't understand the arrowroot was not the cheapest thing in the world to get because there hadn't been like a market for those types of things. And she felt like that conversion was coming along as well in this in this sweep up that you you're talking about. But I do think it's very interesting to kind of note those things that you're saying. You know, these they're actually subsidized and ridiculously priced and so that the need is constantly feeding that hungry ghost of a machine. Yeah. And I think this switchover is going to be absolutely illuminating for the stock market, for the health of our country, of the world. What do you think that it will change with you and your work that you're pushing forward? Or will you continue with your educational effort and being part of the dialog? What will you do personally?  [00:37:04] Well, I think I'll be getting involved in more business consulting. So business consulting or even business investing. I don't know how many IP shows we're going to see on the market. Quite frankly, I don't know how many beyond meets there will be. My concern is that any company that is about to go IPO is just going to be bought up by J.B. S. or Cargill or Tyson or produce that those companies can make this switch faster to a better business model for themselves.  [00:37:36] So I don't know if you're going to see a lot of IPOs or if you're just going to see a lot of small plant based businesses. And then this process of buying them up. So I think I'm going to be specializing more and more in the plant based business sector and what is actually happening. And because a lot of non vegans want to get in on the action, there's a lot of, you know, non vegan investors, non impact investors, I'll call them, who are interested in venture capital or, you know, just seeing what's going to happen with the IPO.  [00:38:06] And, you know, when you change your food system like this, like your baker was saying, it's not just a question of, oh, gosh, so now we need more plant based chicken patties because we've got a lot of hamburger.  [00:38:16] So we'll say plant based chicken patties. Well, it's also you need different machinery to produce them. You're also looking at different farming techniques. You're looking at different distribution models. The whole you know, you're really shifting the Titanic. So I think if there's any limitation to how quickly this can change, it's because the rest of the supply chain needs to change, along with this great innovation that you have for a plant based sausage. Okay, well, now you got to figure out the rest of it up how to do it on a mass scale for the world. So a lot even things right down to like the banking system and how do you get a loan if you're a plant based business and they want to see numbers from past years of proven track record in this space.  [00:39:02] But there's no space yet. So bankings going to shift a little better. You know, the whole system from start to finish is going to have to change with it.  [00:39:09] That's exciting. I love a good entrepreneurial, you know, movement and moment.  [00:39:14] So and I'm hoping it shakes up exactly like you're saying. And quickly. Yes. For the health and welfare of of, you know, our humanity as well as an as as for our animals and our environment. And I think that the business sector could use a little shakeup since the last bubble built and verse 10 software. It's sounds like an exciting time and an opportunity, a time filled with opportunity that those with creative or unique take. Angles will should be able to thrive.  [00:39:42] Yeah. And, you know, you've got something really fun now going on in California called Veggie Tech. And it's not only in California to some great places in Chicago doing the same thing. But so you've got this whole industry coming up called Reg Tech, which I think it's really it's just fun to watch. It's fun to be a part of. I mean, the bottom line is we are living in really exciting times.  [00:40:00] I mean, we are living through something that, you know, we are living through the transition of the horse and buggy to the car. The mail system to the Internet. You know, the typewriter to the computer. I mean, I really do think in our lifetime, first of all, young kids are going to look back and say, like, I can't believe they ate animals and did that.  [00:40:19] I think that's going to be up a point of just disgust for younger generations. And I do think that older generations are going to really make the switch in our lifetime. So this is interesting. It's just fascinating times.  [00:40:32] I do, too. I agree. So I'm curious, given your you've you've had a lot of interaction and conversation, albeit virtually with people during this time period and movement yourself, you never stop the dialog. And I'm wondering you we frequently, as people who interview or speak with people, no one ever turns it back on us and says, well, Woody, you know, what are you what are your points of encouragement? You for you yourself, when you think about things and the change in the movement of what's happening, given even covid 19. Do you have a top three pieces of advice? You give yourself a ledger, you keep yourself accountable to any of those things that kind of serve as a moment of positivity or enlightenment for you right now.  [00:41:16] So personal things that I say to myself or things that I say to my clients.  [00:41:21] Em for yourself, for myself.  [00:41:27] Well, this is hard because I'm constantly seeing the forest and then seeing the tree and then seeing the forest and then seeing the tree.  [00:41:33] So as I work on an individual level two to cover each individual company and then I read the news and. I don't know how political you want to be on your podcast, but I'll just speak for myself. I'll read the news and I'll see the chairman of Tyson taking out a full page ad in The New York Times.  [00:41:53] Basically trying to and I felt as a cover up for the way that they'd been treating their employees, they wanted to take out a threatening ad saying, don't be too mad at us for how we treat employees because we're your food and you better start panicking if you don't have us on your side.  [00:42:10] And I thought, well, that's crazy because that food is certainly not essential. I've been living with that that food for a very long time. I know lots of athletes who are living without their food on it. People around the world who culturally live on rice and beans. That food is not essential for one.  [00:42:22] And I didn't appreciate the fear mongering for two and I didn't appreciate the cry for, hey, give me some money, which ended up coming very shortly thereafter. So, you know, I was disappointed in that. So I have to.  [00:42:34] So when I have this disappointments, like I see that kind of thing happen on a large scale of misinformation, I'll call that, you know, and I hear I'm in the information business either through consulting with individual clients or just as a podcast. So it's it's frustrating to see this the machine often turn out. What what seems to be intentional misinformation, and so I have to keep my spirits up because there's so much to be positive about, there's so much that's changing, it's an exciting time. But I have to wrestle with that like one step up. And then is it one step back? I don't think it can be one step back because one step back is really like loops that step that takes you off the planet because you now are deceased, because you're in it. You know, you've got to fix the pandemic situation. It's probably not news to people. So I, I don't think we can go too, too far back. But it's just balancing. So what do I say to myself, sorry that was long answer, what do I say to myself? Nose to the grindstone. Eyes to the sky.  [00:43:36] Nice. Perfect. Short and sweet. Perfect. It works. You have to pay attention to it, right?  [00:43:42] Focus in on that. Yes, it on. You know, I will say something. But we kind of touched up before.  [00:43:48] I just want to say to everybody as well, you know, everyone talks about the health benefits that you get from going Vegan. And I got them. I lost some weight woo hoo I was very excited about that. I have a lot of energy, naturally. And then I got even more energy when I, you know, wasn't having meat and dairy. And I didn't realize how much that stuff was just sitting in my system and holding me back. I guess I'll say, you know, I'm embarrassed to say now, but I'm probably like everybody. I had no idea that meat has no fiber. I didn't know that. Don't ask me. I didn't know that, but I didn't know that. Actually thought meat had fiber. Actually thought meat had fiber. My gosh. So meat has no fiber. You have a super long intestine. So it's just gonna to sit there and chug along. That's why it takes like two or three days to go through your system. So. So, OK, I got extra energy and lost some weight. Felt better.  [00:44:35] I didn't realize how living against my own personal values.  [00:44:43] So I don't believe in harming animals. I think a lot of people don't. And harming animals is not in line with how I want to live my life. I hadn't realized that that really was a weight on me. And when I wasn't supporting industries that do that, because I always knew it was out there, sure, I wasn't doing the damage to the animals, but I knew it was happening at a new is happening because of my dollars. When I stopped doing that, I really a weight was lifted that I had no idea I was carrying around. And the fact that I didn't have to live with that disconnect, even if I never thought about it, like I never really said to myself, oh, hurray, I'm not part of this factory production today. It wasn't as direct as that. It was just this general like, oh, I, I'm not working against myself every day. And that was a huge lift to have.  [00:45:33] And when you lift those quiet burdens, it's amazing how streamlined every other effort can become. You know, there's so many different philosophers of all Lautz you talked about cutting the river with a knife in the river still runs. The concept is to flow with the river and yet and not completely always try to fight it with these meaningless tools. Anyway, in releasing blockages like that, I think puts us back in that zone of Genius River, whatever you want to call it.  [00:45:57] So I agree. Yeah. And it was bigger than I thought. It was like I hadn't realized how big it wasn't till I actually lifted it from myself. And then I was like, oh, wow, that was heavy. That was that was holding me back. And it was really friction that needed to be there.  [00:46:12] Absolutely. Well, I appreciate everything that you've discussed with us today.  [00:46:17] And I kind of want to leave on that positive note because I love that kind of release of friction. I think we could all use a little bit of light and fluidity with us. And I just want to say thank you so much for speaking with us today. Elizabeth, I really appreciate your time. I know everyone is busy. Everyone's at once got a ton of time, but no time. Everyone's busy, but I. And so I do appreciate you speaking with us and giving us all of your expertize and advice.  [00:46:42] So kind of you I'll just say shout out to all of your listeners. Thank you for caring. Thank you for even being interested in this topic and wanting to discover more. I'll say don't be overwhelmed. Nothing happens in a day. So just take the little baby steps that work for you. Reach out to me if you need any encouragement. And Patricia, I'll say the same to you.  [00:46:59] If I can be a resource for you or help at any time on any subject. You know, just reach out to you.  [00:47:05] I would never look that gift horse in the mouth. We'll be back in touch again. I would not be an offer like that without just taking you read up on it. And I thank you.  [00:47:14] And for everyone listening. We've been speaking with Ekysabeth Alfano. You can contact her on her Web site. Elysabeth Alfano, dot com. And thank you for giving us your time until we speak again next time.  [00:47:27] Remember to eat clean, eat well and always bet on yourself 

Today we sat down with Kelly Childs. Kelly is one half of the unstoppable mother-daughter team that founded Kelly’s Bake Shoppe, a vegan and gluten-free bake shoppe in Burlington, ON, CANADA. Together, with her daughter Erinn Weatherbie, these two passionate forces have created an empire of healthy living that reaches much farther than just the kitchen.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is investigating Vegan life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end. We will cover topics that have revealed themselves as Kofman and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. You can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to Investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:14] Hi, everyone. Welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I'm sitting down with Kelly Childs. Kelly is an entrepreneur, business owner and cookbook author. Welcome, Kelly.  [00:01:24] Thank you. Thank you for having me.  [00:01:27] Absolutely. For everyone listening, really quickly a Web site on Kelly is, w w w dot Kelly s x o dot com.  [00:01:36] I'm going to read a quick bio on Kelly. But before I do that, a roadmap for today's podcast. We're going to look briefly at Kelly's academic background, her early professional life to kind of garner a sense of where she's coming from. And then we'll unpack a lot of the ventures that she's had with Kelly's bakeshop. She's had two former businesses now sold based around the Vegan industry. And she also has a cookbook called Made with Love Cookbook. And we'll kind of unpack all those endeavors and then we'll get some of Kelly's advice as to the current climate and some of the her Vegan lifestyle choices and any communication that she wants to have between those two. And we're up everything up with the advice that she has for those of you who are looking to get involved with her, as well as any goals that Kelly may have set for herself and or her businesses over the next little while, particularly given that goals are now rampantly changing across all industries.  [00:02:31] A really quick bio on Kelly before I start peppering her with questions. Kelly, is an entrepreneur, healthy lifestyle innovator and visionary, visionary or for a kinder planet. Kelly Childs is one half of the unstoppable mother daughter team that founded Kellie's bakeshop, a vegan and gluten free bake shop in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Together with her daughter, Erin Weatherbee, these two passionate forces have created an empire of healthy living that reaches much farther than just the kitchen with an extensive social media presence and celebrity like status. Kelly spreads her love of good health and happiness and hopes to help others do the same. A pioneer in the Vegan world, Kelly has created plant based brands. And recipes that have won many awards, including BuzzFeed, that ranked Kelly's bakeshop number three on the list of the top twenty five sweet shops in the world to visit before you die. I love that. With a successful mix of kindness, compassion and love. Kelly has created a positive and all inclusive environment, not just in her business, but also in her everyday connections with people. Kelly Childs is in more than just the cupcake business. She's in the business of creating a kinder planet and one that all sentient beings can be healthier and happier and be more compassionate about themselves and one another.  [00:03:56] So, Kelly, I love that bio at. I think it's so it's one of the first ones I've read where people really get into the ethos of, you know, their philosophical structure of life and your humanitarianism and your empathy.  [00:04:09] All those things really come out.  [00:04:10] And to be ranked the third in the you know, this this BuzzFeed poll of the top twenty five sweet shops in the world to visit before you die. I think that's tombstone worthy. So I can't wait to get into it but before we go there. Well, you paint like a quick background of like your academic background or your health academic background or anything that kind of ties into your Vegan story and professional life that got you to kind of where you are today.  [00:04:36] Gosh. So, I mean, I'm going to say that I'm kind of boring in that I didn't do post-secondary, so I went from high school, like, right into the workforce. And I found myself in the automotive industry and then worked my way up the ranks of doing finance for actually banks, for the automotive industry. So I have a very strong background in finance and really self-taught, if you want to say that. I kind of got thrown into it. And I think back in the day when I graduated from high school, though, it was like 1982. University wasn't a thing as big as, you know, what it is sort of in this day and age, you know. So I just I didn't see the value in going unless I was gonna be a doctor or lawyer. And I went. So let's just go. Street smarts is where it's at. So. So that's all I've done. But I've always lived a very healthy life. So to talk about my health background, my parents are very healthy people. We never had white flour, white sugar in the House. It was just everything was optimally nutritious. And but I never didn't have gluten items. I never had allergy problems. And but I ended up evolving, I guess, when I met my now husband. He was in the restaurant business and he said, I guess it was 2008 when I sort of decided, you know, that I wanted to get into it with him. And I jumped in the kitchen and jumped in with my recipes and jumped in with everything that I had learned from that day forward and got my first taste with it. Then as a family, so my husband, my daughter and her boyfriend at the time, the four of us went down to Farm Sanctuary down in Watkins Glen. And our lives were forever transformed, seeing how the animals had been rescued. It's a beautiful sanctuary. And Jim Bowers, the owner of that and and our lives were forever touched. And we decided at that moment when we left the farm sanctuary driving back to Toronto, we decided to go Vegan and that was it. It was like there was no gray area there. And then also to the farm sanctuary that they had advocated. It's called the China City, written by Colin Campbell. And then I studied with Cornell University. I actually plant based nutrition, one of their courses there, and got into plant based world like big time. And then I started reading about, you know, finding out about the truth of what dairy really does to us and, you know, what butter really does to what eggs really do to us. And I actually felt like I had been so fooled. So that had fueled me to go down that rabbit hole even more.  [00:07:16] Absolutely. So was it.  [00:07:17] I'm wondering, did you combine your knowledge of being in the restaurant business since 2008 and then the advent into, you know, a Vegan lifestyle that sounds like it was developed out of a humanitarian mission, first and foremost with animals and then grew? How did you make the decision to take the all of your Vegan information and then open Kellie's bakeshop in 2012? Was it a natural product like progression or was it a very concise choice?  [00:07:46] Well, I'm going to say that there's probably a little bit of both. We sold the restaurant, canceled his restaurant. My husband did in 2009. We were then free and able to do wanted. We actually moved from Toronto. Out to the Burlington area. And that's where my daughter went to university. And so I thought, jeez, you know what? I've got all this time on my hands. You know, there's passion going through us right now. We're newly Vegan. We want to shout it out to the world. And this beautiful little location came available and it was just so serendipitous. And I just said, you know what, man? Like, we found it, found our place to go and open up this beautiful restaurant. It was just all the all the ducks were folding in a row very, very precisely from selling his restaurant to becoming Vegan to a new location, opening up and had all the time I had to create new recipes. And I was just being so fortified with such a positive energy of this new lifestyle. I really, truly want to share it with the world. And I want to share the truce with the world. These are the things that I was experiencing from reading the China study to Colin Campbell, Caldwell Esselstyn assistant. All these people that were coming to me now and it was just it was just information that I couldn't deny any longer. It was it was fantastic.  [00:09:01] It's bakeries on their own. I have. So I have a history with them as a as a young college student. But they're a very different industry.  [00:09:08] It's not like a lot of other, you know, cafes or other industries because the baked goods and things like that, they have a different kind of schedule, a different clientele usually, you know, more morning clientele rather than the evenings. I'm not sure how you're running yours, but it's a slightly different tone in the in the food industry. And I'm wondering, was it difficult for you to because you came from a previous food industry, but not necessarily a baking. Did you have any advisers or any help or did you just kind of jump full in and get your feet wet by baptism, by fire?  [00:09:43] So you get some from the restaurant. Our initial restaurant that in 2010 that we opened that when the location came available and I said, that's it. It was the worst kind food came to me. So it was very special. And we opened that and it was a cafe. It was a grocery store. We sold produce. We did bakers. We did a little bit of everything to bar, smoothie bar. And just all the naysayers that were in downtown Burlington. Everyone said, like, good luck with that. This is 2010. So very much into the pioneers of Canada. That veganism and plant based greens, these and stuff were just really emerging in a way. But there was, you know, ninety five ninety percent of the population was still, you know, had not been touched it yet. But what I noticed was. The baked goods that I was creating and I first all started, it was spelt flowers. I actually had not even done gluten free. I did it as an optional sort of thing. And I saw all these people coming in and wanting, you know, I have 12 cupcakes at this. I need a cake for this. I need a couple dozen cookies for this. And before I knew it, I saw that there was this massive demand. I mean, as my show was, it was like a small scale compared to the world. But for us, in our little business, there was a massive demand for the baked goods as well as the cafe part of it. And it daisy, you know, baked goods filling higher, cafe higher. But predominantly there was this there was this incredible joy attached to baked goods. Yeah, and that's what I was told when I was honing in on the smiles and the energy and the emotion that was coming from what I was creating as far as the sweet stuff goes. So that was that was my drawing force. And so it was two years later. And I just actually but a year and a half later, two years later, when we actually found a location. But a year and a half into it, I just said, look at guys like I we can't be doing this any longer because we were using every horizontal spot in the in the restaurant part to make because in the morning, you know, getting in there at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and then then I was donning another apron for doing the garlic and the onions and the savory stuff, you know, at eight or nine in the morning. It was it was I was burning out. And also to I wasn't filling my soul with, you know, the savory part. And these recipes that I'd been creating were actually coming to me while I was sleeping at night. This is a whole other topic, but I was actually trying to perfect the perfect brownie. And I kept on screwing up and kept on screwing up, and I was asking for some divine guidance in it. And I got to download one night of what I was saying. And from that day forward, when I went into the business and I actually made it and I nailed it. Tears came, of course. I was very excited with what had happened and we won. All these awards are trying to Vegan bake off. We, um, we did year over year. We won best dessert in Toronto. And we we like that was like a magical moment to me and to me that was like a gift from God or universe, whatever you believe in. And and but it was a it was a necessary thing because it brought so much joy to people. Yeah. That's what I see now.  [00:12:56] Absolutely. I want to. So this fortuitous brownie moment, was it. So from after that moment, things just started to come naturally.  [00:13:03] It sounds like it helped you reshape what you were working on. And did you when you started off the endeavor? A lot of times when people become Vegan, they educate themselves and there's there's a pilgrimage, if you will, and to kind of their zone of veganism and where they feel most at peace. And there's I find frequently most guests have this lifelong learning, but it's always, you know, coming to different places along that pilgrimage. And I'm wondering with you, you have this spelt flour and things like this. There's not already this natural division from gluten and a lot of areas that, you know, the first pitstop or pitfall, however you look at it with a lot of early Vegan says this like carbohydrate or gluten overload, you know, words like pasta heaven or they just don't know that the first stop is kind of confusing. It sounds like you guys didn't really stop there. And I'm wondering if you can speak to it that you didn't have as it is child growing up. You said that, but spell flowers a little bit trickier. I've myself, you know, cooked with it and things of that nature. But I want to know how you came on to that. And was it a natural thing just to not have gluten in your in the bakery to begin with? I know that you had kind food and then the Let US Love Cafe. So is it by the time you got to Kelly's bakeshop that you were no longer using gluten, flour, or how did that kind of happen?  [00:14:25] Well, I'll give you that timeline. So we opened kind food in May of 2010, and with six months time, I had decided that we couldn't do gluten any longer because I thought of the demand for it. And then I realized, too, that I couldn't do both because I wasn't honoring the people that were coming in that actually has celiac disease and true gluten intolerances that I didn't want to run the risk of of harming them. So that was a clear thing that we just switched off. And and it was actually really good because, you know, we changed the cafe part to the breads we brought in. All the breads were incredible KINMONT based breads that were, you know, gluten free Vegan and stuff. So that was like that was so easy. Then the location came available, which was bright, beautiful, big location. It was around twenty six hundred square feet for the bakeshop. And I remember being terrified thinking, how are you gonna ever fill up the space? And because it was so big compared to what our restaurant was, our restaurant, that we we like the sales that we had out of that place of a thousand square feet where light would just blow anybody's mind. There was a perpetual line up down down the road every single day. And and it was amazing to maximize that square footage. So when we did the bakeshop, then I thought, oh, my God, are we gonna cannibalize each other? You know, is it gonna be like, you know what? It's gonna rob the other business and stuff? And it's both businesses completely exploded again. Both businesses. The lineups stayed. Kelly Spig Shop on opening day. And that was December 2012. Line up down the street. And I should segway a bit, too, with what happened to kind food. We were served about one year into the business. We were served a cease and desist letter by kind bars and kind bars after us. And we had to do a rebrand and we actually put up a resistance to it for about a year, year and a half. And they just completely money to us because, you know, we just I mean, how does someone, you know, trademark the word kind? Right. And I thought it was a universal thing for all of us to be a part of. But anyways, there were honored because they were obviously threatened by us. And, you know, secondly, it was it was turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us. And I could just tell you very quickly how this went down, that we hired a few branding, actually three different random companies to come up with a new name for us because that was a stickler was how do you get rid of the weird kind of food that you love so much and being as a new entrepreneur at your baby, you know, and you have to say goodbye to it. And it has a lot of emotion attached to it. Right. One of the first rules is don't get emotional in business. But anyway, so what I did was I locked myself into the second floor of the bake shop. And this isn't we were in business at the. But six months of 2013, when we finally gave up the name and I decided I had to forgive them. I had to forgive Kinder's. I had to forgive them. So I was sitting there and I was just let us love everybody, let us love, let us love. And I'm just praying to like, loving and giving. And then I went, oh, my God, let us love cafe. The plan where is the head of lettuce is love. And it was just perfect. Anyways, when we did the rebrand, our sales went up. It was this hour what I something like 78 percent, like it was just overnight. It was like we were holding ourselves back to the universe, was trying to give to us. And I so believe in this, the serendipitous this this way that we are being talked to as sometimes we don't want to trust our intuition and we block ourselves off. And I've learned how to use to listen to these words and these messages that are coming through us mail all the time. And it has served me so well, incredibly.  [00:18:17] I love that. I love the story. So now drum dried out for me is let us love cafe now sold.  [00:18:24] Is it part of Kelly's bakeshop? So what what happened with the sale of that? And then you opened Kellie's bakeshop in 2012. Was that before or after you sold. Let us.  [00:18:35] OK. So yeah, it's kind of confusing everybody, I guess. But Kellie's bakeshop opened in December 2012 and kind food was still in existence. Then we did the rebrand for kinda food running into Let US Love Cafe in the fall of 2013 and we sold Most Love in June 2017. So we kept it still for four more years after we did the rebrand. Remarkable. So it's still an amazing it's a still busy place.  [00:19:02] What made you what was the impetus for this sale? Is it an expansion of Kellie's bakeshop? Are you are you doing other things with your future?  [00:19:10] Yes. So so this is exactly it is we realize that our focus was becoming too diluted between two brands. And I solely really wanted to honor where I know where my heart has been and wants to be is with Kellie's bakeshop. So right now, we're actually speaking to two different parties about doing a very big expansion of the big shop and it coming into potentially the US as well. And it would be like multiple locations. So we're we're excited about doing this. So I think, you know, the pandemic has not been an opportune time for many small businesses and even us to we're on hold. I had to lay off or myself or my daughter. We had to lay off thirty two staff. And so, you know, people do believe that we have that kind of staffing as it's quite large and we have approximately 12000 customers a week that come through the door. So we did close the doors on St. Patrick's Day. We're 17th. And so it's been a little over a month and it's been one of the hardest months of my life. And it's funny when you identify so much with your business. Right. And all of a sudden you identify as like your identity. You know, you're you're you're very much ingrained in your business when you have to surrender to a greater power over yourself. And while the doors to close it was very different, I sobbed. I saw it for quite a few days. And just in grief. You know, you're grieving the loss of your child in a way. And I just know, like I've come through on the other side and now there's this full acceptance. And I actually feel like I've needed this month to reorganize where I'm heading now, you know? So we we're very grateful as much as we've lost a whole bunch of money. We're very grateful for where we are right now.  [00:21:09] Well, I think it's interesting, too. There has been a lot of I've not spoken to a small business owner in the past eight weeks that hasn't taken this opportunity to requestion and pivot if necessary.  [00:21:21] And that's, you know, it's awesome. It's awesome to take a rough situation that no one asked for and and to do some really proactive things out of it. I'm wondering, I see now, even with more of the corporate environment doing this by small businesses from the get go used to do this. And I'm wondering if you're implementing it as well, which is this social conversation, because small businesses are such an intimate experience with their customers and clients of all sorts. And I'm wondering if you have thought about implementing in any kind of a marketing aspect or otherwise the conversation, you know, about the pandemic, about the future, about any of those aspects, uncertainty, health. I mean, you're you know, you're your shop is promoting, you know, what is is provably a healthier lifestyle while still enjoying that, you know, wonderful engagement of sweets and different things like that. And I'm wondering if you guys have thought about in your looking at what you're doing with your shop, if you engage with your customers or clients, even right now on social media. Do you address the pandemic covered 19 by name? Have you chosen to look at all those areas?  [00:22:29] Well, yeah, we're we're very we're very transparent business and we're very open. I tend to be maybe sometimes too open and I wear my heart on my sleeve, but I also wear my truth on my sleeve, too. And very openly, like my social media channel, Aaron's got our own two. And then we've also got the bakeshop. So we look after the three of them. We also have a podcast, too. It's called Cupcake's and Consciousness. So there's these four channels that we're looking after all the time and very much an advocate of positivity and. And I have a pretty good fan base that they look to me almost every day, actually, for true guidance of how to navigate through this Koven 19 to come out on the other side of Gross to take this time right now for introspection and evolve. And then what I say more often than not get shared on the Kellie's Bakeshop Channel, which is at Kellie's sake if anybody is looking down. So we, we intertwine our personal life with the business and we just share always positivity on Keli's bakeshop. We haven't. My daughter's the expert now, too, on social media because we put all of our teams on hold right now. So she's been doing this social media for it. And we have every single day we have still a whole series of maybe five to 10 stories, Instagram stories we've been posting every day. Erin and I go live as well. We go live on Facebook and we go live on Instagram once or twice a week. So those are always out there. Like we're always bring our customers and our you know, our customers like, I don't know, like I want to call them our friends that are our family, you know, up with us. So because I'm just a firm believer that we, you know, we individually can't rise up, we have to be looking to our brothers and sisters, our family. Everyone has to come together. And this is this is our transformation right now that's happening on the planet. And then I think that this is where business has to be, because when we come out of this on the other side, what ever it's going to look like? No, if we're going to have an economic collapse, we don't know if we're going to go into a depression. We don't know if we're going to hit the ground running and go, wow, like, you know what? It wasn't that long. And we got, you know, all the, you know, the government injections that were necessary to keep our businesses fortified, to take us out on the other side. A lot of fear. And and for myself, I'm just trying to instill in people that that we either live in fear or we live in love and to live in fear. We're not making great decisions for ourself. And so how do we move through our life right now with such love and gratitude, such reverence for being able to be on the planet right now in this great awakening that we're going through? Because that's what that's what I'm calling it. To me, it is a great awakening of what we're experiencing. And it's like everything's happening at once. The economy, a pandemic, the planet is changed to. The sun is changing. All these frequencies are changing for us. And and and what an honor it is to be a part of this incredible show.  [00:25:39] Yeah. And to reflect that, we've had a we've had a remarkable history as a species and as a continent, as you and I share the same continent of survival through, you know, through tough times. And it's good to remember that that's where that kind of grit comes from. I think that it's interesting as a Vegan business owner, because as you so eloquently kind of covered, there's this small business owner and community member responsibilities and all of these emotions happening. But then further, as a Vegan, you know, I've spoken with a lot of people. I call them unlikely vegans because these are the people that kind of chose a vegan lifestyle that you wouldn't have normally thought it was not a normal trajectory for them. These outliers that are now becoming vegans for a variety of reasons, health, things of that nature, age and disease, and they're seeking out the vegan lifestyle. But a lot of these people have said that they know the pandemic is a very interesting concept for them, aside from tragedy and life loss, because they feel as though it's it's kind of recalibrating how people are looking at health and not just the wet markets. And I don't want to get into the controversy of wherever one thought thinks the crunch of various started and all of that. Like, I'll leave that aside, but just re examining health and and what we take for granted and how we look at it and health care systems and even getting all the way back down to, you know, food, which is is is a medicine. It's our original fuel and it's the most powerful medicine and it's the most powerful cure. And people believe that this is it is kind of naturally filtering that concept through people that might not have thought about it until sickness or something like that came upon them. And I'm wondering if you've kind of had any thought with that about how it might burgeon. You know, the industry out there with you have you look towards a new horizon where more people are educated or likewise or consequently thought about educating people more who could be more curious about veganism.  [00:27:36] Certainly. So I I couldn't agree more. I think that there's this there's this awakening of how we are nurturing the vehicle that gets us around. So the humanness, our humanness is human body that's housing our spirit. Right. And and and how are we going to live? Either we're going to live in pain and suffering or we're going to live in tremendous joy with an optimal life. And maybe, you know what? We're gonna get this gift that we could to live to 110 and we sort of play soccer till that age, you know. So for myself like this this week in particular, actually, I put up a really cool smoothie recipe on Kelly Chiles dot com. So that's my. Another website of mine. And and it's a heavy metal detox smoothie. And it was inspired to me from medium. I don't know if you've heard of Anthony Bloom or not, but he's a great guy. And I've I've been battling myself now with with a chronic virus in my body for about two years. So it's something that's like in my sinuses, I feel fatigued. And and I came down with it about two years ago. And then it was just so weird to me because I would feel good for a week and then I'd feel like crap again, like a week later. And and I would just constantly going these cycles. And, you know, I went to a doctor a couple times and they said, oh, yeah, you've got an allergy, you know, take this puffer steroids or something. And I just don't do pharmaceuticals. I just I just don't I don't I go to a natural path and everyone has sort of been sort of stumped with this thinking maybe it's a steam bar or something like that. Anyways, I discovered Anthony Williams medical medium in October, and he's a plant based. And so I've been doing celery juice and then had a mental detox smoothie with wild blueberries and all this beautiful stuff. And once I posted it, it kind of went viral as though people are. And this is just to add what you're asking about and people, you know, getting more introspective. They've got this time on their hands and they're home now and they realize that they can't live on potato chips and say Kraft dinner and, you know, McCain's deep chest freezer cakes or something like whatever it is. And and they're wanting to take their life and their health to another level. And I believe that our mind, body and soul are connected. And so, like we saying to us that there's multiple reasons why we go Vegan. And it could be for ethical reasons, of course, we don't want the animals to suffer. But a lot of people are blind to that. Some people just want it for their health. And they've been told maybe by their doctors or health reasons that, you know, they they've got coronary heart disease or, you know, there is diabetes in their family or their cancer or something. And someone told him that Vegan is going to be better for them and also for myself. I understand that we ingest the suffering of the animals. So when an animal is killed and it would not be to their choice. And if an animal is raised with suffering as well, too, and very disgusting, horrible, filthy, incomprehensible situations, they are S.A.M. and beings. Pigs have the intelligence of a six year old. I mean, we can go on and on with this kind of debate right now. And it's like there they are, real human stories. I should rephrase that. Rumor has it that there are you know, humans are incarnate sometimes through animals. So I don't want to jump to that. We don't have to talk about that. But animals there are there. They are soulful and and and who are we to to impose the pain on them? Who are we as these dominant species that we humans can be awful people where we're awful. Our species is awful. We're the only species that kills for the the joy of it. We're we're killing to eat the we'd let them live in barbaric situations. And it's just that that energy we ingest. You know, and so there's this there's this cleansing that's happening right now. There's this if we are wanting to ascend and to become all we need to be on planet Earth as as incredibly beautiful human sentient beings like, we can't keep killing the animals for us to eat. We can't keep on doing this. And I'm not that big an activist. I want to clear that up. I am not. And I've actually had an errand. I both have a daughter and I have both had Vegan activism pointed at us because, B, we have not decided to partake in that solidarity within Vegan activism movements because we've just been lovers. We have not been haters. We have not been judges. And we like that's just how we've rolled and how we've we've grown our business, I believe, to such a success. And I don't mean a success. That has to be monetary. I mean a success that we have so many people that come through our doors and they realize after the fact that we're Vegan they they realized after the fact there was no eggs and there is no dairies and it's right in the cupcakes or their their brownies or the, you know, the cookies and stuff in the food that they eat. And. And that was always my thing, was sharing the love first and the all inclusiveness first and let them get wowed with the love. And then oh by the way, you know, it's Vegan and. And that has what has worked for us tenfold. But it's bothered an awful lot of Vegan big and activists. And many times they've reached out to us too, to do in protest. And they've wanted to do protests in front of our business. And there there's a couple of times that I've had to actually ask them to leave our property because it was horrifying, the people that were in our business. And it was just it was just not how we roll. Yeah.  [00:33:16] So, yeah, you're not gazetting if you're not upsetting somebody. I'm not sure you're doing it right. You know, as they say, someone's going to be a little unhappy. And I think everyone deserves their own path, you know, and Vegan should should get that ahead of everybody else. But again, you know, I think you're always going to get someone with a differing opinion. And I'm lucky enough and proud enough to be in a country that, you know, encourages diverse opinions. So I think that life begins judging, judging other vegans. Every religious political group in the world does it, too. So I do think it's a little ironic when you have something that's developed out of compassion and humanitarianism to kind of turn inwards and fight is is a bit rough. But I do I do see that happening a lot of times, especially when I talk to people about their Vegan journey. I want to end with talking about your cookbook. It's called Made with Love. It's 50 recipes of sweet and 50 of savory. It's written in collaboration with your daughter, Aaron. And it came out in 2016. And it's a bestselling cookbook. And I can't wait to get into.  [00:34:23] How did you decide on your baby's the 50 and 50 that you were going to put in there? And given that the smoothie recipe that you've just posted is kind of taken over the world?  [00:34:33] Which ones do you get a lot of feedback from your cookbook, like very favorite recipes that you've put in there.  [00:34:40] So, yeah. So how did you decide it was it was kind of a we want to pick our best sellers that were from our beautiful kind through days that was like kind of just throwing it out there, too, and supporting the love and the the baby that we birthed from the beginning. So we chose basically all the recipes from there. I don't know if we excluded anything from like the bootable to our Caesar salad dressing like people's love, it's made with cashews and stuff. So we we infused the savory and the sweet through it. And the red velvet cupcake, I'm going to say, is one of the more popular ones. And I Teppei Ribbon is in there. And and, you know, because this book is about how do I say this? It's a very easy book. So to me, it's not like a complicated book where, you know, you're going to need multiple levels of ingredients from it. Everything is homemade, though. You know, this everything is from scratch. But it's a book that I think why it turned out to be such a great selling book is that it's relatable. And we talk about our story in there, too. And it's just it's just it's just a total feel good book. I think that people love it, too. Even Mother's Day coming up. It's one of those books that daughters like to give their moms and moms like to give their daughters because it's written by mom, a daughter. So there's a there's a beautiful feel about that, too. And, yeah, I don't know, like. I'm going to say that, yes, you're right, that that smoothy that's gone viral right now, too, like we've got to incorporate that, too, in our next book that we're doing. And that book is going to come out in spring 2021. And we're really excited about it because it's some it's kind of going to be every favorite that you wanted from the Made with Love book from 2016. It's now going to be included in this next book. So, yeah. Because we did go back a couple because we went. Well, then we're going to go out of business. Everyone's just going to go and copy our recipes. But it anyways, it is it's it's been it's been so well received. And because people are on lockdown right now. It is circulating. And I was joking with with so many of the fans and people that have been sharing their recipes online, they're taking pictures of everything they're cooking. So wouldn't that be amazing if it came back again as another bestseller? Right. You know, it did a revival four years later. So you never know.  [00:37:04] Absolutely. From your lips to the universe's ears. Fantastic.  [00:37:10] Well, I wanted to ask you, wrapping everything up for anybody who is listening to your story, any part of it from being a small business owner to being a Vegan, to being, you know, a woman, a female identified in any way anyone like that right now in the during this time period. What is a thought? Like the top three pieces of advice or mantras that you give yourself on a regular basis to kind of keep everything cool. You know, everything encouraged and motivated.  [00:37:43] I mean, I do a daily twice a day, actually practice of meditation. I think it's very important to tune in to the space and. And just just tune into another frequency and get get our our head out of our head. If you want to call it that. We have to get our thoughts out of our head and into the space that can create all this goodness for us. And I think that right now, I think it's OK. You got to give yourself permission to be OK. I think there's many of us that feel guilty right now. Maybe trying to be happy and trying to be positive and almost feeling guilty because we really shouldn't, because the world's in a pandemic and no people are getting sick from this. And that sort of thing. And I think that for myself, that's what we need to rethink that. And because I think that our vibration is what's going to bring our our planet downward if we stay in that fear mode. And I think we just have to just be so kind to ourselves and just say, you know, it's okay for me to feel OK. Give yourself permission to to to feel OK right now. And that would be some words right now of wisdom from myself, from this global situation that we're in.  [00:38:58] Perfect. I love it. Meditation, daily meditation and self permission to be OK. Those are awesome. I completely agree.  [00:39:04] And I try to remind myself daily that, you know, from the moment I saw Yo-Yo Ma starting his movement of online music in collaboration of sharing to the Italian opera singer in the apartment building complex, there's there's a lot of beauty and humanity that we were not given voice to because there were a lot of other things going on and being able to harness back in on those and redefine who we are, as, you know, as it as a as a species throughout some of those beautiful lenses. It's an opportunity and I completely agree with you to giving yourself permission to find that beauty and revel in it and be OK with it is is just as important as having compassion for the pain and suffering. Happening right now, I want to say thank you so much, Kelly. I really appreciate you coming on today. I love your pearls of wisdom, your candor. And I know for everyone listening, I'm going to have Kelly back on our other podcast, which is Patricia. Kathleen speaks with female entrepreneurs and industry experts so that we can get some of her back story on a much more business focused angle. But today, I really appreciate all of your Vegan advice and your story, Kelly and I. I hope that the future is swift and that your shop bug opens back up and I will pop in and grab a cupcake.  [00:40:23] I would love that. I would love that. Thank you so much for having me.  [00:40:26] Thank you.  [00:40:26] And for everyone listening, thank you for giving us your time today. And until we speak again next time, eat well, eat clean and be safe.

Today I am speaking with Monica Victoria. Monica is a plant-based nutritionist, vegan chef, personal trainer,  wellness educator, devout yogi, and fitness enthusiast.  Her focus is guiding people into a state of alkalinity, via living foods, along with a complete mind/body lifestyle overhaul.This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. www.monicavictoria.com TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is investigating Vegan life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end. We will cover topics that have revealed themselves as Kofman and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. You can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to Investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:13] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. This is your host, Patricia, and I am sitting down today with Monica Victoria. Monica is a plant based nutritionist, Vegan chef and a wellness coach. Welcome, Monica.  [00:01:24] Thank you so much. So excited to be here.  [00:01:26] Absolutely. I'm excited to have you as well.  [00:01:29] So, really quickly, before I read a quick bio on Monica, before I do that for everyone listening and watching the Vodcast or the podcast today, a quick roadmap of what we're gonna discuss today is we're gonna get into a brief history of Monica as it pertains to her plant based and Vegan journey. And then we'll look at unpacking Monica Victoria's brand, her website, her Instagram. I know there's a lot of information spread across your Instagram site. And then we'll get into the ethos of the of her plant based endeavor. So she does a lot of coaching, a lot of recipes and kind of plenty some of that, as well as motivations and lifestyles, that she has an interaction she has with clients during that, and then also get into how her business and professional history, what they're looking towards in the future, especially given the current cultural and economic climate that we're all faced in with the pandemic of the Cauvin virus. And then we'll look towards a wrap everything up with future endeavors that Monica thinks she's looking towards, as well as any goals or plans that she has. Before we get into all of that quick file on Monica, Monica Victoria is a plant based nutritionist, Vegan chef, personal trainer, wellness educator, devout yogi and fitness enthusiast. Her focus is guiding people into a state of alkalinity via living foods, along with a complete mind body lifestyle overhaul by introducing a plant based diet. She enhances internal organ health, outward physical appearance, daily thoughts, self-confidence and cognitive reasoning. With an emphasis on disease prevention via plant foods and cardiovascular health, Monaca guides her clients to live an empowered life, learning that nutrient dense food. Plant food is mind body fuel. That fitness is a reward and the ultimate form of self-love. Her approach to life is one of no excuses doing, not trying and never being prisoner to past traumas, but becoming stronger because of them.  [00:03:22] So, Monica, I'm so excited to climb into everything that you are doing right now.  [00:03:27] But before we do that, I'm hoping you can paint us a brief history regarding your educational or academic background and then your early professional life as it pertains to like your Vegan and plant based empire.  [00:03:39] Oh, well, thank you for the introduction. Yeah. When when you hear about yourself like that, you kind of go, oh, those those are all the things I do. So thank you. Well, education wise, I got certified through the call into Campbell's program as a certified plant based nutritionist. So I did that online course. But I would say that most of my education is all research that I've done that I continue to do daily know over the past two decades, basically. And it actually all kicked off for me by reading the book Skinny Bitch, which I'm sure familiar with. And I respond very well to black and white information. I don't like things to be sort of, you know, sugar coated. And it was just so raw and real and straight to the point that it clicked with me. And I became Vegan overnight. I've always like literally always been vegetarian naturally, because since I was a child, I have always been very connected to animals, to the to the physical world. I just been very in tune with the universe and I never even enjoyed animal products. OK. And I grew up in Spain. I'm Spanish. Italian. My mom. My mother's the Italian. My father's a Spaniard. Yeah. So, you know, obviously, Mediterranean cuisine is primarily plant based, but they do have a large focus on especially like on pork products. Yeah. But I never liked them ice cream. I never liked dairy. Never settled well with me. And luckily for me, like my mom cooked everything. So I was raised on very good nutrient dense food and there wasn't that many. We didn't have like animal products at our dinner table everyday. Like, I think a lot of people feel, oh, if I don't have a piece of chicken or a piece of meat or whatever on on my dinner plate, then I don't have a complete meal. Correct. What has been the, you know, of course, perpetuated by the meat dairy industry that to have a complete meal, you have to have animal protein border to get your protein, et cetera. But we'll talk about that further into the podcast. Yeah, my point is for for all this information is that I was already an environmentalist. I was already very involved with animal welfare. And so if you are an environmentalist and you are an animal rights advocate or you want to protect animals, whether it's dogs, cats, horses, rhinos, and you're not Vegan, you are contradicting your beliefs because you cannot be an environmentalist or an animal rights like. Kate, if you're still eating them, though, you know, there is. For me, no other way to be if you are, you know, conscious of animal welfare and environmental welfare and human rights. So. Right. Well, that came together for me once I read that book because there's just no way. And also, I'm not a speciesist and I don't believe in dominion. So, like, I don't believe that my life as a human being is worth more than that of a female cow, for example. So I as a female especially, do not condone or could be a part of the dairy industry that keeps basically female cows institutionalized and slave labor basically forced pregnancy over and over and over. And in order for them to, you know, lactate and then to steal their milk, then they take the baby cow. We all know what happens. So all of this just resonated very deeply with me. And because of that, I've been Vegan for 50 years. And that's what has taken me to where I am today.  [00:07:19] It's amazing history. You know, we were talking off the record before we started recording and. And I always feel like I've got a pretty good handle on it, you know?  [00:07:27] And I speak with someone like you who's had this fifteen year plus, you know, relationship and history and lifestyle as a Vegan. And I'm like, there's so much more to go, you know, because I was explaining that my life changes, really, you know, that my and my relationship with it. I always think that it's it's well thought and calm, but it becomes even more calm. And the consistency in which it makes sense with everything peaceful and wonderful in the world is always, you know, being reaffirmed. I'm wondering if we can kind of unpack a little bit about what you're doing. And I know that your Web site. So for everyone listening, it's Monica. Victoria dot com. And I know like a lot of us right now, we're doing a lot of work on our our web back ends and things like that. But you're online. And for people who got to it's there. And then you also have your Instagram is at at Monaca, Victoria.  [00:08:17] Yeah. One word first middle name.  [00:08:19] Mural's on Snapchat for anyone who's interested with the Vegan siren. But your main your main platform is at Monaca Victoria, on Instagram. So I kind of want to touch on too.  [00:08:28] I know that your Web site is is a work of progress right now. However, I want to get into some aspects on it. You offer a lot of different ideas about what you're branded and who you are is as a coach, as as a speaker. And you talk about recipes and resources and things like that. Can you kind of describe what you're working on or who in the past you've worked with, who've been your clients and what you're looking at doing kind of with this entire Vegan enterprise of yours?  [00:08:58] So I basically use myself as a model, if you will, for how, you know, living plant based is an investment long term in yourself. And it's the ultimate form of disease prevention, longevity and anti aging, because especially for women, I think the number one concern is their physical appearance right where I live, especially in Newport Beach. I mean, the whole emphasis is on the way people look, right? They're spending thousands and thousands of dollars on external treatments, but they're not focusing on their internal organ health, which is what dictates the external appearance. Right. The way your skin looks, the quality, the texture of the skin, hair, the maintenance that you have to do on yourself. And the solutions are very simple. Once you get into a rhythm with your what you put into your body physically, it's really not what you're putting on top. You know, like the topical stuff, it's more the internal organ focus. So that's what I do with the people that I work with. I try to get them to realize that no amount of money that they spend on external is ever going to replace what they put into their body. I mean, there are women who are obsessed with their external appearance, so they'll spend thousands of dollars on hair, nails, makeup, skincare products, you know, treatments like, oh, this, that whatever what they're eating. Del Toro three times a day. I'm being dead serious right now. Like, I know people who actually do this. It's wild to believe, but they're obsessed with the way they look. So, you know, I understand that veganism as a lifestyle is really. Almost impossible for a lot of people to believe that it's something that they could achieve. So what I try to do is I go to it from a person's like a sweet spot, right. So whatever it is that they're really focused on enhancing, we start there and we go. We start from the inside out, literally. And that's what I do with my clients. And it was really fascinating because I know you talked about how your journey as a Vegan like how you can how you're always changing. Right now it's shifting. And I think when you first go Vegan and you're inundated with, you know, the documentaries and the information, you see how much cruelty is out there and how unbalanced the world is and how so many people are suffering, not just animals, but human beings, the humans that are doing the actual slaughter, jobs, et cetera. Right. Yeah. Which I think a lot of people don't talk about enough in the Vegan movement because unfortunately, a lot of people do not connect to animal welfare. What they do connects to human beings being used basically as slave labor. Because let's be serious. The people that are doing the jobs, these horrible jobs, they're not people like you and I who have the ability and the access to do better things with our life. It's people that are typically on the poverty line or that are illegal immigrants, et cetera, that have no other option and that are basically forced into these jobs because they literally cannot do anything else. They're put into these positions, forced basically, and have to commit basically murder every day. And then they take that horrible negative energy and it gets redistributed among their community. Right.  [00:12:25] You I want to kind of differentiate here really quickly, because you are touching on a point that when I speak with so vegans or plant based people, this has become a really divisive and interesting. I'm really glad you brought this out in the community, because I noticed that you use both terms about being a plant based nutritionist and also a vegan lifestyle coach and things of that nature. But I'm curious for you yourself personally, how do you differentiate what you find to be the differences between the terms and how you think that that there's like a dialog happening on the social platform and how you think that's playing out?  [00:13:00] Well, so someone like myself can call herself vegan. And because I've been living like this for almost two decades. Right. I'm heavily involved with activism. And my whole approach to life in general comes from the Vegan perspective of equality, non dominion, peace and to cause non harming. Right. So that's my whole goal in life for people who are in the I mean, plant based movement, if you want to call it that. It's awesome because you're focused on the nutrition aspect. Right. So not consuming, acidic, dead foods, which are all animal products and all processed manmade products. Why do I call myself a plant based nutritionist? Because, I mean, plant foods are what provide the best nutrition. Right. I don't want to call myself a Vegan nutritionist because veganism is a way of life. Plant based is what we put into our body. Like it's the nutrition aspect. Correct. So I am a vegan and I do encourage a vegan lifestyle. But veganism as a way of living encompasses literally all aspects of your life, all your vices, the brands you support. You know, where you shop, the things you buy. It's looking at things from a much bigger perspective, going deeper into the back end of everyday products and being conscious of what you do on this earth, the effect that it has on other living beings, the environment. And knowing that just because, like I live in Newport Beach doesn't mean I'm not connected to what's happening in, you know, in Africa, for example, everything's connected. And look at the way we look at us now. Right. Like the state of the world. If it's ever proven more true that we are all connected, it's now everything, every single action, we do have consequences.  [00:14:45] And I wonder I mean, I know I know a good majority, a great deal anyway, of vegans that ascribe to what you're saying, which is, you know, the title Vegan is M implies a lifestyle and and a way of living, not just necessarily needs. However, there's been some pushback because and I'm not sure where the argument will ever end up, but on people products in particular. So mass produced products are are attaching to plant based the way that people attach to, you know, fortified with vitamins and minerals. Like they just started to say everything was plant based and it wasn't Vegan. And so a lot of vegans are going into and finding, you know, all of these products that have this label of plant based on them is there is some kind of plant based nutrient to them. Yeah. But that it's not necessarily Vegan, you know, they don't have a gilger, something like that. And so there's been some some pushback in that, like everyone started to attach health and wellness to plant based like they did with sugar free in the 80s. And it was this hype like, oh, it's going to be healthy for, says, plant based.  [00:15:45] And so I know there's been some pushback with people saying, like the Vegan certified seal and things like I think that plant base is a slippery slope because, you know, there's a lot of people who consider themselves plant based. The majority of the time, what, they'll still slip in some fish or some eggs every now and then, but they're majority plant based. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So, yeah, plant based is is just that plant based. Their base is plants not excluding potentially other other products that don't fall under the Vegan category. Right. Yeah. Here's a perfect example. If someone says, oh, I eat I, I used to be Vegan and I'm not anymore. There is no way you were ever Vegan because one, if your Vegan your Vegan for life, you were in this because you realize that your impact on this earth is less like you don't cause as big of a detriment as a Vegan. Right. Your footprint in every way is lessened when you are committed to a vegan lifestyle. There is no way that my belief system is going to go out the window because one day I wake up, which I never would. And I'm craving a hamburger. Right. That's never gonna happen. If you're if you're a true vegan. If someone says, oh, my God, I like when Vegan for two weeks. No, you didn't. You were eating plant based for two weeks.  [00:17:07] Yeah, I'm saying. Sure, sure. Sure. Yeah.  [00:17:09] Those are those things that you like. I get that v the v the word Vegan is trendy right now. Right. People are embracing it which I think is amazing.  [00:17:19] I mean, anything that we can do in order to further right the awareness of the information and everything that goes along with veganism plant based is wonderful. But for the pushback that you're talking about, it's exactly that. The crossover and the the loose. I think a lot of people, the purists, for example, like myself, when we see brands profiting off of labels like Vegan or Plan Base and they're not. That is infuriating.  [00:17:50] Absolutely. And it's also it's misleading. So maybe it's a misleading clarification. I like defining terms and I like opportunities to go back in and redefine. And I'm hoping that this is actually one of them for the food industries.  [00:18:02] I want to turn toward something you alluded towards when I asked you how you pitched, you know, plant based and vegan lifestyles to your clients. And you said that you kind of got into what they were into. You found their weak spot and put you up. And that was fascinating to me because I first of all, I think it's it's the best angle to come at any one on a sales pitch for health or for wellness of anything, finding out what matters to them and really coming home with that, being looking beautiful or fighting off cancer. But I wanted to turn that towards I think it's a. Yeah, exactly. I want to. I usually do do both. I want to turn that into this. This perception of it unifying. You know, you have this idea that whatever is is ailing someone, whoever unifies all of us. And given the pandemic right now of Cobley 19 and what we're all dealing with, you know, it came from. Well, right now at least it's believed. I want to put that out there hypothetically right now. It is believed that kov the virus jumped species in a wet market in China and a wet market is based on the sale and consumption of mammals, reptiles, fish and all of that. And I'm wondering, I don't think that there was a lot of unification across countries, you know, and I've globe-trotting quite a bit. And I've spoken with vegans all over the world and different communities have different objections or ways that they're coming at the lifestyle. But it feels like the pandemic reality of this and where it was born from. You know, these kinds of like animal eating systems and markets has unified us, at least in this rhetoric of like we need to start considering like this, these types of things becoming issues for people who are like, I would never eat plant based. I would never be Vegan like, well, you might if it would keep your great grandchildren from dying, you know, like these ideas of pandemics and things that no longer are born out of your cholesterol or blood pressure or things that people know me.  [00:20:00] Yeah, I have several thoughts on this. There are so many people that are horrified by wet markets, which of course we are. It's the gnarliest level of inhumane, subhuman evil ever on this earth. Right. They're eating pangolins. They're eating bats. They're eating literally cubs of koalas like the animals that are there.  [00:20:25] I don't even have words. Right. But what drives me absolutely insane is that everyone, like all the Western cultures that are freaking out over this, will sit down for dinner and eat chicken or beef. Right. What is the difference? Animals are getting slaughtered literally hundreds of billions of them every year.  [00:20:48] Right. So that's my question. I'm wondering if now with with this kind of very real like I don't think that those kinds of things penetrate.  [00:20:56] I think the emotional attachment to food is that of, oh, my God, a drug. It's it's the most powerful drug, the most powerful medicine. I 1000 percent. Yeah. And so I think that people can say they're opposed to cruelty or they're opposed to eating certain animals and then consume another because of the crazy drug like effect that food has on people. However.  [00:21:15] And one and also because it's not realized that there is not stigma. Well there is more now, but there's not as much stigma attached to eating chicken. Like there is no attachment. There is no correlation with the actual life of a chicken versus that of a koala, for example. Right. That they place more value on a koala's life than they do want a chicken because. Oh, my God, there's like billions of chickens. Who cares?  [00:21:38] But do you think that no value will change now that they have. There's an impression now.  [00:21:43] There's some I'm hoping I'm hoping we're all quarantined in our houses globally because of, you know, of the consumption of animals. And so when you have enough things like this start to hit home, I'm wondering if you think that there will be some kind of light bulb that goes on, at least with.  [00:22:00] You work, I think that like for someone like me, who is a very vocal about this and constantly trying to get people to make the connection to not be hypocrites and not, again, speciesism. It's it's it's rampant. Right. We shouldn't. I always say and it's like one of my taglines. You cannot love animals and eat them, too. You can't you can't love one, but not the other. It just doesn't work that way. You know, there has to be equality across the board. If you're going to say that you love animals, it just it it it just doesn't translate properly. So what? Of course, one of the one I guess one of the good things, if you want to call it that, that's come out of this entire pandemic, is that, you know, the sales of plant based products, these products have gone up like 600 percent. Rand people wanting to adopt a plant based lifestyle has exploded. I mean, just in my business alone, you know, because I do meal prep deliveries and I you know, I cook and people will not cooking people's homes now, but I am delivering more food than I ever have because, you know, people are worried. They're concerned. They're fearful of, you know, putting the wrong things into their body and potentially having detrimental side effects. And immunity is the biggest factor in all of this. Right. Eighty percent of our immunity lies in our gut. And that's something that you work on every day, pandemic or not. It doesn't matter. Like, what I keep telling people is, look. For example, the Web and living for fifteen years when some crazy shit like this happens.  [00:23:32] I'm ready, baby. Like my dad, my immunity defense system is like the US military living inside of my gut. It's ready. It's armed. It's like boom, boom, boom, or whatever you want at me.  [00:23:43] Obviously, I would never put myself into a situation where I could actually, you know, be exposed to it. But the reality is, for someone like myself, the risk of me contracting it is so low because my immunity defense is so high. Why wouldn't everybody want to be in this living in this kind of environment? Why wouldn't everybody wants to be always prepared? That's why I always say it's never too late to start. But the sooner you do, the better because you're prepared for anything that comes out.  [00:24:11] You more for your health, given your family's history, too. And I will say I just got done a couple of weeks ago Globe-Trotting And so I love finding out different people's impressions.  [00:24:22] But because you come from a non USA based family, when you talk to them about veganism, do you get different kinds of pushback that you get from people who aren't Vegan in the United States? And do you have family members that aren't Vegan that you're able to kind of exchange information with?  [00:24:38] Well, my entire extended family lives in Europe, Lip, like everybody of my my father's side. They all live in Spain, my mother's side. They all live in Italy. And we have family and in the United Kingdom, in London, which is where I was born. So I'm British by birth, Spanish, Italian by blood and American by residency. OK. Her so do I. It's interesting when when I first won Vegan 15 years ago. Of course it was. Yeah. I mean I had extended family members that would send me the stupidest shit you've ever seen on Facebook and, you know, just ignorance, you know what I mean. And also, it's what's scary about veganism to people as you're making them question their entire existence. You're making them question everything you've ever even in their entire life. It makes people be like, wait, you're telling me my culture is wrong? You're telling me what my dad fed me. My mom and dad gave me, like, what raised me on his wrong. Like, you're telling me that, you know, there's cruelty. Like, it just raises all of these very deep rooted and implanted structural ideas that you inherited basically from birth. You know, the psychology of food, as you mentioned earlier, is the biggest barrier and that sickest layer to navigate through when you're just trying to bring people information.  [00:25:52] And what I always say is when you do things that make you better, that make your health better, it has nothing to do with your family. It has nothing to do with anybody but yourself. You putting yourself first and having non attachment to the past, because realistically, any culture, any way of whatever their interpretation is of like, you know, their their history or their family or whatever.  [00:26:18] All those recipes can be tweaked and be made plant based to be made healthy. You can still have everything you've ever wanted. You're just removing a couple of things that don't serve you well. So have I had pushback? I mean, yeah, of course I want to. I'll never forget, like especially in the beginning before veganism was so widely accepted. And I was like to say, like, I've been vegan before. It was trendy right before it was cool. Like, this is just who I am.  [00:26:42] I've always been enlightened, but I I have specific memories of people who did not want me going to dinners with them because my presence as a vegan made them uncomfortable. And I always say it has nothing to do with me. I am merely a representation of like who I am and why I am my authentic self. Right. I have no fear. I'm not I'm not out here to, like, make you uncomfortable. I'm just living my truth.  [00:27:07] If I make you uncomfortable, that's because you are literally at war with your subconscious and trying to, like, make what you are doing, your decisions. OK. In your own head, for people who literally do not give an F and that I'm there, they'll eat a fuckin steak in front of me. They don't care.  [00:27:26] But those people are few and far between. I will tell you what. They do exist.  [00:27:30] They do exist. And if that's where they're at. And that that's what makes them feel triumphant. I say good for you. You know what I mean? It doesn't affect me. Maybe fifteen years ago it was because when you first go into the movement, you see things and you're like, what do you realize? Like what you're what you're eating, what you're doing and where it came from.  [00:27:49] Now I'm like so logical and so rational. Now I realize that the best way for me to lead is by example and by educating, not by force. That's why I don't push veganism on people. I just encourage them to consume more plant based foods that make them feel better, make them look better, because eventually they teeter off naturally. The animal based products. Yeah.  [00:28:11] But to do it, I think the greatest. Everyone always talks about the greatest convertors to veganism. I'm like. Education is also leading by example.  [00:28:19] It's like who you are. Like your energy, like what you bring. People always say to me, like the number one Kofman is you have so much energy. Crazy, and I'm like, yeah, because my body is like so hydrated and so mineralized because I only fiber rich foods, which, by the way. Everybody's always like crazy, virgin, virgin. It's actually not about protein, it's about fiber. Fiber is what keeps our body hydrated. It heals the organs. It should be recuperates like, you know, illness, disease. It prevents disease. So and also there's protein and like literally every every every vegetable, every living, every week.  [00:28:57] You eat like I always say, you know, if you think you're getting protein from eating beef, what do you think the cow aids in order to become protein? You know what I'm saying? Yeah.  [00:29:07] So and adding that you find protein as a vegetable, usually as a significant amount of fiber. So they're handed iron.  [00:29:13] And yes, that's why I say like eat as much fiber as you want because you're getting a ton of protein. You know, on as you know, it comes with it. You know what I mean? And I would like to say the side effects of living a plant based lifestyle are amazing.  [00:29:27] I am 41 years old. I have never colored my hair in my life. This is my real color.  [00:29:34] This is like how long and healthy my hair is. I do nothing. I don't get any kind of fillers, any kind of injectables. I don't do any of that shit. I just eat for beauty. That's what I always say. Eat, eat, eat as much as you want. It's not about calories and about carbs. It's not about any of this nonsense. It's just eating, living foods and being creative with them and being happy and getting out there and being in nature, getting sunlight. And the crazy thing about this whole college experience is people are actually reconnecting to Mother Earth. Yeah, I live as a beach. You live at the beach. You know how it is. We have neighbors that literally never go out on their front deck or walk down to the ocean.  [00:30:11] Seeing people reconnecting to nature has been, for me, the most beautiful part of this entire experience, seeing that like people don't need to spend so much time in front of a screen or on their phone or just like busy doing what?  [00:30:27] What the fuck are you so busy doing all the time that you can't get out in nature and just, like, embrace the natural world?  [00:30:33] Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't know. And I don't you can see everything that you need to be eating because it's out there. Yes, it's in the ground.  [00:30:40] I tell people, I tell you a lot of time you're better off eating that dirt than you are. You know, that prepackaged, disgusting slab of ground beef that has all these chemicals added to it. And that's a whole other layer as it's like when you're eating animal products, it's rotting flesh, literally, and wrapped in a plastic bag.  [00:31:02] What do you think they're putting into that rotting flesh in order to preserve it or to make it pretty like pretty pink nice colors, you know, like chemicals and all kinds of the whole free range organic.  [00:31:15] It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's dead, rotting flesh that goes into your body. It's acidic and it's the roots of all disease.  [00:31:23] Yeah. Well, and to wrap everything up because you and I have something in common that I just discovered in our pre podcast talk. But I want you to kind of speak towards you have a little a little guest behind you as my guest.  [00:31:37] How? And he has a history.  [00:31:40] So maybe McGoo. Mr. Magoo.  [00:31:45] And he is how old again? He's well, he's twelve years old.  [00:31:51] He's so spry for an English bulldog at twelve. I just can't believe it. I don't. I am a huge, huge dog lover and I didn't. But they don't usually live that long. Can you speak to.  [00:32:02] Is he. So he was raised primarily vegetarian. His entire life and in is now in his old age. And like I would say, the past six months, he basically, like, stopped eating. He wouldn't eat. It was driving me insane. So I. I actually went to just food for dogs and not nothing, I'm plugging them or whatever, but I do think they're good. And I got him the fish and vegetable recipe. And so I add that in with his Vegan kibble and he and he's eating again. So, I mean, I would never be able to feed him turkey or beef or anything like that. Not that I'm OK with fish necessarily, but that is what he's on right now to be to be completely transparent. Yeah, I was raised primarily Vegan, but when I'm telling you that I could not get him to eat a bowl of food for months. I had to do something that I felt was the most closest to. And that's what worked for me in this past, you know, past few months. So that's where he is.  [00:33:05] It seems like he's like.  [00:33:07] I know he's amazing. I mean, he's gonna be 13 in June and July, and he works out with me every single day we play basketball. I mean, if we did another zoo meeting outdoors, I could show you the way he plays basketball every single day. He balances on the ball. He's crazy. He can keep up with me. I mean, he I have a 13 home medicine ball that I used to work out when I do my outdoor workouts. He moves the 50 pound medicine ball around.  [00:33:29] It's fantastic.  [00:33:31] But I also attribute that to, like, again, going back to let's not just talk about nutrition, quality of life, being exposed to the natural elements, being in the sun, being at the beach, being in the grass, being in the earth. That has contributed so much to his quality of life because we spend because we are so blessed to live at the beach. He's been swimming in the ocean his entire life. You've been exposed to the natural elements. He has been with me like he you know, you transfer your energy onto your pet, right? Your pet becomes like your mirror image. I always say this. And also something to think about is your energy, your light and your personal satisfaction with self that attracts people. Right. That energy people just I'm sure it happens to you. People are drawn to you. They just want to talk to you. They want to hear what you have to say it. It's for me, it's it happens every single day. I mean, I have run ins and conversations with people. Obviously recoded when, you know, you can sit outside of a cafe and just have conversation with the person sitting at a table next to you and conversations come up. And I always say, like, for some reason, the universe always places me where I need to be. I can't tell you the amount of times that I've overheard a conversation where people were discussing food and food issues or issues that they're having. And I just I couldn't resist. And I'll chime in and I'll give them just five minutes of information and it will change their life.  [00:34:53] Yeah, I do that. I want to get into that before we leave. I want to have you kind of speak to who should be reaching out to who.  [00:35:02] Who are you interested in working with and helping? Your ideal client sounds like it could be just about anybody who wants to make a change either or health or bubi by illness.  [00:35:13] Yeah. I mean, I just want to my purpose on this earth is to infuse people with the confidence and belief system that they deserve to eat and live a better life. And this crosses over all socio economic platforms.  [00:35:34] It doesn't matter if you're extremely wealthy or if you're barely making it. I see the same food issues because I work with very high net worth clientele. And then just my doors are open to everyone. Right now, my. Of course, we need. Of course, I have to make a living. But like, my main purpose in life is not money driven. I really want to reach as many people as I can because I truly believe that when you are living your truth and you are committed to what it is, that your legacy is to be everything that supposed to happen to you. The rewards, financially, etc. will come at their pace.  [00:36:09] So who do I want to work with? Anybody that wants to stop living in a poverty mentality, in the mentality of, you know.  [00:36:21] This deep subconscious level where people will continue to put bad foods into their body because on a deep subconscious level, they don't believe they're worthy of better. And I see this, like I told you, with people that live in 20 million dollar homes in Newport Coast, like it doesn't matter what you're worth, your net worth. It's about what you feel you're worth inside.  [00:36:41] So removing that barrier and getting people to believe that doesn't matter what they were exposed to growing up, their traumas, anything that they've been that they've experienced in their life. When they simplify their food and their environment, it radically changes who you are from a deep core level because it traces into your mind the mind gut connection. Is everything right? Everything that we put into our body is committee, you know, entering into our brain. I am always positive. How could I not be? I don't have any negativity living in my body. I don't have dead animals living inside of me. I don't have the corpses floating around in there rotting inside of my fucking gut, you know what I mean?  [00:37:20] Yeah. And I think sharing that with people, it becomes self evident pretty quickly.  [00:37:24] Yeah, it does. And you know, everybody I, I it's crazy because I talk to people, I talk to kids because I work with families too. And children are hungry for knowledge. They are they when you simply pick up something and you're like, hey, you see this. You see these. See these ingredients on the back pretending this is like a processed bombs or whatever. And I'm like, can you can you read any of these things? And they'll like, look at like dioxane little and all these like horrible like chemically, you know, unpronounceable words. And they're like, I don't even like. Do you know that is. No, I don't know what it is. Do you think you should be eating it. And they're like, no. And it clicks for them. Yeah. And I show them I teach them how to make smoothies with bananas and mangoes and spinach and berries and an almond butter and. And they're they're excited now. So I always tell people, like, it brings families together to spend time with your kids, cook with them. Sure. You know, encourage them to eat with them. It's not a punishment. It's actually a gift, you know. And for females, because at the end of the day, like moms mostly are the ones, the heart of the home. Right. They have to lead. So we have to encourage people, male and female, to be leaders to be that example in their family dynamic. Because I cannot even tell you the amount of moms and dads tell me. Well, you know, he's a picky eater. He'll only eat this and he'll need that.  [00:38:47] And what I say is he's only eating that because you're letting him right or allow and permitting it to someone goes hungry enough, they'll eat anything.  [00:38:57] I promise you that at the end of the day, like the seven year old does not dictate, you know, the what, the contents of the kitchen. Absolutely not. The one bringing in the income, you know. So it really is, especially in this time like that we live in. I mean, I don't know how you were raised, but like we my mom, which I'm so thankful for now, like our bed was made every day. Everything was clean, organized, immaculate. There was no excuses. We couldn't just like. No, it had to be done. That's my approach to life in general. Get it done. Stop saying you're going to try trying. Doesn't accomplish shit. Get it done.  [00:39:32] Do it. Yeah. Like, follow through. There we have it. Yo. And don't tell yourself. Well I'm gonna give it two weeks and see how I feel. That's that's not how anything works.  [00:39:43] You can't go into a new career and say, I'm going to give it two weeks. Say I feel you've got to put the work in. Yeah. Got to go. You need to get better. You can't go to the gym for two weeks and expect to get a six pack. You have to put the work and you have to continues continuously rise and you know.  [00:39:58] So for those of you who are looking to put the work in, you should reach out to her.  [00:40:02] She's at on Instagram. It's at Monaca, Victoria.  [00:40:06] So thank you so much for talking with us today, Monica. We're out of time, but I just want to say I really appreciate your candor and all of your information.  [00:40:14] Encourage any of you who want to get more involved in what she's had to say here or chat her up, hit her up on Instagram. Monica. Victoria or her website, I'm sure, will be up and coming. It's there anyway, even if it's a little bit. Yeah, it's just getting reworked. Victoria dot com. But thank you so much for giving us your time today.  [00:40:34] I am honored to have been a guest. Thank you so much.  [00:40:37] Absolutely. And for everyone listening until we talk again next time. Remember to each well and always bet on yourself. 

Today I sat down with Nancy Montuori, a health and wellness advocate, author, chef, consultant and certified plant-based specialist who champions compassionate living through her plant-based cooking blog, Ordinary Vegan. The unifying idea for Ordinary Vegan is to encourage people to be part of a healthy and compassionate community. Ordinary Vegan, LLC (based out of LA)This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. TRANSCRIPT[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia, and this is Investigating Vegan Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vegan life. Now let's start the conversation.  [00:01:13] Hi, everyone, welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I am sitting down with Nancy Mantuori.  [00:01:19] Nancy is the founder, chef, cookbook author and podcast host. She is the owner of Ordinary Vegan. You can locate her online at ordinary Vegan dot net.  [00:01:30] Welcome, Nancy. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited.  [00:01:34] I'm excited to have you, too. I can't wait to climb through ordinary Vegan.  [00:01:38] And you have kind of a prolific empire under that umbrella with your podcast and cookbook and you're a chef. So I really want to climb to you everything that you're doing for everyone listening and watching. Perhaps we first I'm going to give you a roadmap of today's podcast and then I'll give you a brief bio of Nancy prior to peppering her with questions. So a roadmap of today's podcast. We'll first look at Nancy's academic background. Early professional life and kind of get a sense of the platform from which she's coming. And then we'll unpack ordinary Vegan, the Web site, the services, all of the different attributes that it offers in both its clients and viewership. And then we might look at unpacking some of the ordinary Vegan podcast that has kind of a prolific history. And then we'll turn our efforts towards looking at goals that Nancy might have for the next one to three years, both personally and as well as a business level. I know that that rhetoric has changed for a great deal of our society as of late. And we'll wrap everything up with advice that Nancy may have for those of you who are looking to get involved in some of her efforts or perhaps emulate some of the success that she has had over the past trajectory of her professional life. A quick bio on Nancy. Nancy Mantri was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts, for twenty three years. She worked for Warner Brothers Records, helping develop the careers of multiple music artists, icons including Joni Mitchell and Prince. In 2011, a serendipitous event changed her life. She went to see a movie called Forks Over Knives and left that movie convinced of the connection between animal protein and chronic disease. From that moment on, Nancy devoted her life to trying to help others live a long and healthy life with a plant based diet. Through her podcast, Ordinary Vegan, her website and her social media, ordinary Vegan became a beacon for those seeking health and wellness. Nancy just released her new cookbook entitled Defy the Easy Five Ingredient Vegan Cookbook. So I'm excited to kind of climb through all of that with you. Nancy and I love the genesis of your Vegan journey. Forks Over Knives is a favorite in my household as well. Prior to getting into what you're doing currently, can you set us like this stage for your academic background or your early professional life? Everything that kind of brought you to now or perhaps the moment that you saw forks over knives?  [00:04:00] Well, you know, my professional life was always to just be next to music. I mean, and to this day, that's really my number one love besides health and wellness. But I just you know, I kept I I decided that in my lifetime that's what I was going to do with my life. And I just got next to it. I started working at a record store. And then we had Lee Warner Brothers heard about me that I was bugging radio stations to play like the police. And. Yeah. And Rickie Lee Jones. And one day they just came in and made an offer to me to come work for them. And I mean, it was like five times the amount I was being paid. I was gonna have an expense account and I had to be at the Doobie Brothers concert on Saturday night so that to introduce them to radio people. And I'm like, I'll take it. Yes. And I didn't go to college. I I just, you know, so I don't have that background. But then so then I got the job with Warner Brothers. I stayed with them for years and years and years. And suddenly I always wanted to make movies. And so I quit my job and I went to film school and I made some movies. One of them is called Stealing Innocence, which has won a lot of awards. And but then in two thousand eleven, everything changed. I went to see that movie and I thought my whole life I've been trying to be healthy because I had polio as a child and I spent a long time in hospitals and I thought I was eating healthy. You know, just like you, I'm sure, you know, lean chicken and, you know, got kind of stuff. And then when I found out that that stuff was bad for me, I just wanted to scream it from the rooftops. You don't have to be sick anymore. You just have to change what you eat.  [00:06:00] Absolutely. And, you know, I think that I've taught I've spoken to a lot of people. What I love about the vegan lifestyle as we're kind of uncovering it and investigating it through this podcast series, is that the way in which people get to it is is never one.  [00:06:14] And even even when you say, you know, people come at it from the health aspect, there's just this myriad of ways. But the disease early in life or even latters onset disease is bringing what I call unlikely candidates, you know, to the Vegan lifestyle. It's some people you wouldn't think of normally. You know, there's always a type cast with with Vegan and things of that nature. But disease and health is bringing just an insurmountable amount of people. I think every day to the vegan lifestyle. And so I do appreciate that, especially having something early in life. My father had polio as a child and post-polio as an adult, which is a different disease. And he came to a lot of Vegan decisions later on as well and was equally as upset, you know, with this kind of realization that everything that he was told all along when nutritionally was exactly opposite in calcium, you know, from milk does not exist. Those types of things. So when you saw the movie, you I mean, you have this empire and I'm kind of curious with the steppingstones with how it was built. You know, did it come up in one day or did you kind of start off soft?  [00:07:22] I mean, it was kind of crazy because I am a private person, actually. And but I decided that I was going to devote some of my time to helping people, you know, get well, like sharing information and showing them how easy it was. And so I started blogging. And that's how it started. And to be honest with you, I never thought of it as a business in the early years. I just wanted to help people, you know, get back their health. That was it, you know. And then, you know, it's you know, social media started growing and things started, you know, getting bigger. And. And then I realized that was I was devoting 24/7 to, you know, trying to keep people well. So. So then I. I just decided. Well, as far as my podcast went, I just thought that would be give me. It would be bigger thing for me to reach people, but I decide do get certified in plant based nutrition. That was the first thing. One of the first things I did so that I was able to give out good information. I did that with Dr. Campbell's school. And then, you know, so my podcasts grew and my podcast became popular and. I don't know. You know, I just. And then eventually I was in, you know, since I love health and wellness in 2016, I discovered CBD from hemp and I thought this seems like a natural extension in what I'm doing. So I decided to develop my own line of CBD from hemp and went to Kentucky and visited hemp farmers. And eventually I did that. So now I have a CBD business, I have a podcast, I have a website, I have a I have a lot of things. I mean, I don't do this to get rich and be honest with you. I work a lot. But, you know, the greatest gratification is when somebody tells me that, you know, I changed their life.  [00:09:35] You know what? It sounds like it all kind of grew organically out of itself. I'm wondering really quickly, returning back to the sort of your certification and plant based nutrition.  [00:09:48] As someone who has not done it, I'm curious at who would you advise do that? I know a lot of people who become involved in this arena feel it's necessary to become certified in one area or another. What did the certification do for you? How long did it take and would you advise it? Everybody who wants to be serious about being plant based in one area or another becomes certified. Can you kind of clarify that?  [00:10:12] First up, I want to say that I highly recommend Dr Campbell's course. It's not, you know, a three day course. It's going to take a few weeks. I don't know how you know, this was a long time ago that I did it, but they still offer it. And, you know, it educated me. I didn't want to go out and share information with people without being, you know, completely educated. And now looking back on, it was one of the best things I ever did. And I recommend that course to anybody who can afford it. Honestly, you just it's just so enlightening. And, you know, you couldn't have a better teacher than Dr. Campbell. I mean, he's the God of the plant based world, so. Yeah. So it might have changed, you know, like I said, I did a long time ago. But, yeah, I would highly recommend doing that, especially if you're going to get into this world, even if you're just sharing recipes, a plant based recipes, you shouldn't. Right.  [00:11:13] Yeah. And that's kind of what I'm thinking of. You know, there's a lot of quarantine cooking happening and a lot of recipes being shared.  [00:11:20] And I think that, you know, this is an opportunity, especially for online courses, for people who do have a curiosity and things like that certification in addition to research and things like that, just seems like two birds, one stone type of scenario. So do you have an official date that you feel like you launched ordinary Vegan? What was there a year that you launched the website or because it kind of grew naturally? Did it just appear on your lap one day?  [00:11:46] May 2011 OK. Like my second, I saw the movie May 1st, 2011. I started the website the very next day. You know, I was a little technical savvy, too. I mean, it wasn't like a difficult thing for me to, you know, just go out and do you know?  [00:12:05] Did anyone co-found it with you or was it just you?  [00:12:08] It's always been just me. I have a cousin who has been helping me out the last couple of years because I was writing a cookbook. Now I'm writing my next cookbook. What more of a self-help cookbook? And you know, but I do it all and it's it's a lot of work.  [00:12:29] Yeah, well, let's unpack some of that, because it is a lot of work. And we were talking off the record before we started this podcast. And I was mentioning to you that as I was poking around and investigating the Web site and some of your research, there's a there's a great deal there. You have different areas. So if if someone wasn't looking at your Web site right now to briefly describe it. You have your CBD, which I want to get into in just a minute, because that's a whole nother beast unto itself. But you have your podcast link there and then you also have links to information on things. Can you describe like the composition of the website, the landing page and how you came to that?  [00:13:07] Sure, I have it. Weirdly, I was inspired by Martha Stewart's setup. And so I Billys I will I was releasing a recipe a week, a podcast every two weeks. And, you know, on the top of the. Of my website, you'll see what I do. The latest thing I've done, whether it's a recipe or a podcast. And then I also have, you know, Vegan essentials. I have protein lists, big protein proteins that can be downloaded. I offer all this stuff free. I go, you know, this is just graphics that I have made in the past. So that can help people. And then I have so then I have my podcasts and then I have some videos I've made. Video seems to be the biggest connector, to be honest. That works the most for me. I get the most engagement from my videos. I should do more in right now. Well, we'll get to that. What my goals are. But yeah, so OK.  [00:14:18] And so, yeah, I was mentioning you had a video on there. You know, you have original content you've created and you also bring in other people's content.  [00:14:26] And you had a Ted X video with a young woman speaking that I sent to all of my nieces and nephews. So it's really not just what I would like about the engagement of your site, is it? I feel like as much as everybody says their site crosses all, you know, populations and and demographics and age groups, yours actually does. There was something on there even for a little 7 year old to watch, you know? And I like the idea of that. Did you do that consciously or did that just come again about organically as you're creating your content?  [00:14:54] You know, I'm trying to educate everyone. And, you know, it's just very natural for me to want to, you know, show people things that inspire people, young people, through me or, you know.  [00:15:07] Absolutely. So let's crawl into the CBD aspect. You said that you became aware what was your your introduction to CBD and how did you decide to bring it on and courageously kind of develop your own brand with it?  [00:15:24] Well, I go to the Natural Food Expo every year because, you know, I need to look at new products, new plant based products, and they invite me every year. And one day, I think 2016 there was this booth and I was talking to this guy and he was talking about this natural remedy and how it was from hemp and which is a cousin to marijuana. It doesn't have THC, very low amounts. And and then I started investigating it and I started hearing from my community, my health, the wellness community, that people with chronic pain, anxiety, insomnia were all using it and it was helping them. And, you know, but I mean, I didn't jump in. I like I said, I went to I went to Kentucky. I visited hemp farmers. I only wanted organic hemp. I wanted you know, I wanted to know every step of the way. There was not I wasn't going to have this a lot of hemp CBD, oil from China, places like that. So you got to be really careful when you buy it. And I just figured, you know, this is a natural extension of what I'm doing and I'm going to devote my own mind and start selling it and. He's been doing great and it's been helping people and, you know, it doesn't help everyone. It doesn't work for everyone, but it works for most. So together.  [00:16:55] Absolutely. And there are more and more studies being done on home for everyone listening. You know, I know it can be a daunting universe.  [00:17:02] And being a California resident myself, I know that I have a little bit more knowledge base to it than people who haven't legalized marijuana. But as you said, it's a very different it's it's a medicinal aspect. And I think that kind of divorcing the knowledge and understanding that is there's a lot of really great people online that do that as well. An information YouTube anyway. You want to get your information. There's people that can speak to the efficacy and the power behind it. And as you mentioned, you know, just a few they're still finding remarkable ways, not just with pain alleviation, but that that CBD is really helping, you know, people in their struggles and things of that nature. So I think it's an awesome thing to look into and it goes very well with health. You know, and what you've done with your own trajectory in your life. Speaking of that, like looking at this this incredible growth and that you've had from from launching ordinary Vegan website to the podcast and now the cookbook and everything that you've done. Do you base your goals on your goals for the next one to three years on your past, or do you base it on solely where you want to go forward? Do you look back? In other words, and think this was working, I need to further that or do just base it on whatever is coming to you right now?  [00:18:17] I positively look back. You know, I've made a lot of mistakes and, you know, wasted money or something like that. But now I'm definitely much more focused. You know, I leave a lot of money on the table because I don't. I won't let you know if you look at my Web site. It's a very clean site.  [00:18:39] You're not like seeing all these ads pop up and stuff like that.  [00:18:44] And, you know, the anyone who sponsors my podcast has to, you know, be eco friendly, 100 percent Vegan, you know. So it's not like really easy to get, you know, find a lot of those sponsors. But. You know, might that in the future. What I found out I do these Facebook live videos and there are a lot of work. You know, they definitely are a lot of work. And but I find that people respond the most to those, too, like seeing and engaging in that kind of thing. So my goal now is in quarantine is to have my, you know, have a cooking show that is consistent, you know, certain days of the week. And right now, I'm not even you know, I'm I'm probably going to focus a lot on the easy five ingredient cookbook, because, you know, that makes it easy for people to to go go on to a plant based diet. But but I'm also, you know, I'm pulling out all my favorite old cookbooks like Padma's and just get them that aren't Vegan. But I'm borrowing a lot of the flavor profiles and I've been making some outstanding food, to say the least. And it hasn't been difficult. So I'm going to share that now. All that, you know, in there, no plant based cooking shows on Food Network or, you know, they're hard to find.  [00:20:21] Yeah, they are. Absolutely. I think that they're still rare, which is odd because I feel like a lot of things aren't order. These are rare these days.  [00:20:29] You know, in network, I mean, it's like they promote such unhealthy food. And it makes me you know, I don't I don't get it.  [00:20:40] I don't know. Even with that Paula Deen tragedy and every, you know, everyone feeling so betrayed. I thought for sure that would launch some kind of a plant based, you know, sub culture in there.  [00:20:50] And it really didn't. And while you're cooking show be live or have you have you planned it out that far?  [00:20:56] I'm I'm I'm writing some scripts for it right now. And I'll probably make that decision probably in the next week or two. I don't know.  [00:21:07] You know, like a whole different beast. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I do know.  [00:21:15] Do you? Looking back over what you've done since the launch of the Web site in 2011 and everything that you've gone along the way. Are there certain lessons that you've learned, like the top three pieces of advice you wish you could have given yourself, knowing what you know now? You know, something that either could have saved you pain or gotten you ahead?  [00:21:37] Definitely the number one thing if anyone's out there wants to start a Web site. Educate yourself in MCO search engine optimization. That is the number one thing when you're blogging. In order for people to find you, you have to understand how SEO works. So that was probably the biggest mistake I made because like I said, I never thought of it as a business early on. So I didn't worry about stuff like that. But now, you know, it's you know why I always do a keyword search before I even, you know, post a blog. And you know what? Going to make most sense. I think that. Follow your bliss, whatever you absolutely love. That is what you should be doing. And no matter what it is, and that's what I practice my whole life. I did it with music. And then I found out, you know, I loved helping people and teaching them nutrition, teaching them recipes, you know, and I followed that. And, you know, that's. I think it's as simple as that. You don't have to overthink it. I mean, so many people are like, I want to start a business, but I don't know what it should be or blah, blah. And it's like, well, what do you love? Yeah, I agree. Here's your answer. And you know, it might not be really sexy. You might need to start, you know, if you love music like I did, I just went to work in a record store because, you know, I love music and.  [00:23:15] You know, that's that would that's my advice.  [00:23:18] That's great. Yeah. I mean, educate yourself and follow your bliss. I love those two things. I really do. They think that they will serve throughout business and was as personal life. You know, I think those two pieces of advice can be carried all over.  [00:23:32] I'm curious. I don't know if you have a conversation with yourself that you're comfortable in relinquishing. But I know of a lot of people, not just in the Vegan world, but all over the world who have had conversations with themselves in the business format. And they've taken time to kind of reassess and reengage and requestion themselves. Given the pandemic that's upon us right now and they've had conversations with themselves and with their employees and their company regarding change or dialog that they intend to put out there. And so it's an inclusive conversation. You know, it's not just we all held our breath, went into quarantine, left, and it's business as usual, but rather this evolution that happened, you know, during this time period. And I'm wondering if you can speak to any of that and that you may have had personally or with your company regarding the ordinary or ordinary Vegan Web site or your future plans. Can you kind of speak to how covered 19 has affected it?  [00:24:32] No, absolutely. I think what I think about a lot now is tone is, you know you know, it's so important to be giving out the right information, too. I mean, I can do a podcast right now without talking about it. I mean, that's the elephant in the room. So what then? What information I share? I you know, I have to research it, you know, weeks to make sure I'm saying the right thing and things change changing so quickly. It's so hard to keep up with the information that you're reading about or even don't even know if it's true or not. And that's why I am focused. I decided to focus on like foods for respiratory health recipes from your pantry rather than me focusing on, you know, I'm trying to keep people well during this. You know, and, you know, building up their immune system. So so I found that that's you know, I'm focused on all the Cauvin 19 ailments come along with it and, you know, try to help people there with food because, you know, food is medicine.  [00:25:42] Yes. Yes. I think it's the most powerful medicine.  [00:25:45] Exactly. So it as a matter of fact, the the food for respiratory. Health podcast is one of my most popular now.  [00:25:57] Absolutely. And everyone tune into it. You're on i-Tunes, I believe.  [00:26:01] And people can also get to your podcast through your Web site, through my Web site on i-Tunes. I'm everywhere where whatever you list, Spotify, you know, anything, I'm slightly podcast is everywhere.  [00:26:16] I love it. Well, we are out of time today, Nancy. But I wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us and give us all of your wisdom and your history with such candor.  [00:26:28] And I really appreciate it. I'm hoping that we can circle back around in in phase two of this podcast and find out more about post pandemic. You know, how things are going and how that Facebook live cooking classes going for you.  [00:26:44] I pray. I'd love to share that. Thank you so much for having me on. And I wish everyone out there to stay safe and stay well. Stay strong and stable.  [00:26:56] Absolutely. Thank you. And for everyone listening. We appreciate your time. Thank you for lending us your ear. We've been speaking with Nancy Mantri. And you can find her at ordinary Vegan dot net. Until we speak again.  [00:27:10] Next time, eat well. Eat clean. Stay safe. And remember to always bet on yourself.