0:00
[Music]

0:06
yeah but he he knew he's going to reap the benefits eventually right yeah you reap the benefits the whole time because

0:12
you have to practice a lot of recipes you want to know how uh important cooking is to Mary Ellen she knew that

0:21
coming to our house to stay it's like I don't want to be picky Chris I don't want to you know have these so if you

0:27
don't mind I'll just cook all of our me while you're we there how's that it's good it's good yeah I mean we've shared

0:34
in the cooking but yeah yeah I mean no Chris has done her part of course I mean by how's that gone I I more mean how's

0:41
it [Music]

0:48
taste welcome to how I see it with me Mark Pratt and J Sternberg this is a

0:55
podcast that works to countercultural polarization through thoughtful

1:01
[Music]

1:07
conversations all right we're back from our break yes indeed So speaking along

1:12
the lines of what your husband went through um is it fair to say that the

1:19
whole food plant-based lifestyle has become a passion for you based on what you've experience yes a mission to share

1:27
yeah yeah how do you share

1:32
yeah so a lot of it is just um you know at first I was sharing my journey and I

1:37
got questions yeah so I mean within a few months of our transition I had

1:42
several other friends that also went that direction and started to transform their health as well MH um as things

1:52
went along I decided to try a um and because I would get a lot of questions on cooking so I loved cook and this

2:00
spring I actually completed culinary school plant-based culinary school which was a lifelong dream for me it was a lot

2:07
of fun that's awes and my husband suffered through all of it yeah but he he knew he was going to

2:14
reap the benefits eventually right you reap the benefits the whole time because you have to practice a lot of recipes

2:20
you want to know how uh important cooking is to Mary Ellen she knew that

2:27
coming to our house to stay it's like I don't want be picky Chris I don't want to you know have these so if you don't

2:33
mind I'll just cook all of our meals while you're we're there that it's good it's good yeah I mean we've shared in

2:40
the cooking but yeah yeah I mean no Chris has done her part of course and I mean by how gone I'm moreing how's it

2:47
taste I would like to try yeah I mean we what were the I I call them the Buffalo

2:53
bean burgers but they're the black bean burgers they were a black bean burger because they kind of orange so I kind of

2:59
you know buffalo style you know like but um yeah they were very good oatmeal corn

3:06
black bean it was it was good yeah and so yeah it's like I think it's is it

3:12
fair to say that there hasn't been any you haven't felt any resistance not from my husband at all no well even from in

3:19
our household is what I'm I have and I appreciate that um yeah we can get into a little bit of the obstacles here cuz

3:25
that's definitely something I think it's worth talking about but I'm trying to remember what your original question was

3:30
I don't know either it had to do with people you know as you're oh how did I share so you um yeah so the next step

3:38
for me was a little over a year ago because I was getting a lot of questions um and I'm not a great I don't I'm not a

3:46
huge fan of using a lot of social media I'm a very in person and so people started to get a little more comfortable

3:51
with being together you know a year ago so I I just thought I'm going to try and

3:56
see if I can just put together a little cooking class so I just put it out on Facebook and I said would anybody be

4:01
interested and there was quite a few so every 3 or 4 weeks I was um for the last

4:07
year I've done a cooking class in my home and it's been very informal but um

4:13
people have really come to love it so I you know I put together usually it's a theme based so we might do like

4:19
breakfast and I have recipes all printed out for everybody and some of it is

4:25
actual cooking the food in front of them and some of it I already have some other the things made and so there's a lot of

4:31
sampling and in that questions and answers whatever people so it's just

4:36
it's a handson approach to teaching and um I've also done some of those in the

4:42
community as well I was asked by another nonprofit locally if I would come in and do them in their Community um and that

4:49
was the first time teaching to strangers people I didn't know and that was a lot of fun as well and um and now I'm taking

4:57
that the next step I just started last night actually um working with a an

5:03
organization called Physicians committee for responsible medicine and I'm being educated um for to be a food for Life

5:11
educator and it's a lure program and so you teach um disease reversal and also

5:18
just lifestyle medicine in the community and so I'm super excited to be a part of

5:23
that program so that'll that'll expand um the the people that I can work

5:29
with and also have the credentials to go with it so nice so cool y yeah I know and Mary Beth was on here I was trying

5:35
to get it is there a podcast or a Blog Soh yeah there's a lot of them out there for PL the plant-based Community I mean

5:41
that was honestly uh my lifeline yeah yeah so as you've embarked in this

5:47
journey can you speak to some of the obstacles that you faced in in such a way that might help others right and I

5:54
would say my obstacles maybe some On's but I think other people have different ones as well cuz we all have our own

6:00
Journey for me the actual transition and the cooking part was not an obstacle for

6:06
me but it is for a lot of people I just had to equip myself um and if anybody wants to go down that direction there is

6:14
quite a few um YouTubers and bloggers that put out wonderful recipes and

6:19
inspiring videos and things that really help you you know I never thought I'd be

6:24
watching somebody's what I eat in a day videos but they have been very helpful because a lot of it is just just getting

6:30
your head around what does it look like on your plate mhm so you know in the beginning I was like you know you remove

6:36
the chicken what are you putting there and so I was always trying to add a protein come back to that onto my plate

6:42
where now I'm just learning there are a lot of things that we eat that are plant-based all the time we don't think about you know beans and rice or a chili

6:50
or a curry you know there's a lot of things why don't we eat is just the it's the flavor of what we're doing so if

6:57
someone is moving that direction wants to just explore it there are and there's

7:03
there's bloggers and YouTubers that are in books that are geared towards certain

7:08
ethnic groups as well as far as the types of cooking um and I've done a

7:14
little bit of all of it and it's been it's delicious there's nothing you're missing along the

7:19
way so um I would say for for me for us my husband and I the biggest obstacle

7:27
has been the social piece of it um people do not understand our society

7:34
isn't supportive of it as far as even restaurants and things so there are some areas of the country that you would find

7:40
more places to go um California or yeah and some like around DC the cities you

7:46
kind to have more and even now like here we were looking at you know even so you

7:51
can find maybe vegan food but it's not necessarily healthy um and I'm not so

7:58
strict that I won't occasion um eat out and eat something that is so

8:04
the other component of a whole food plant-based diet I should specify is no oil which is a completely different

8:10
thing for most people it's no oil and there's some people that use so there's no it's no processed things so oil is a

8:16
processed food um there are um some people that do include um some olive oil

8:22
in their diet but in general most people are oilf free and a lot of people also

8:28
go saltree as well um I we just lost Justin not hungry anymore so it's again

8:37
it depends on what you're doing it for too right I mean salt is sodium in our diet is a huge part of people's Health

8:44
decline as well and but usually it's in the processed food because there's so much sodium in it so it's additional

8:50
sodium or all sodium would you say we we need some sodium okay but sodium is in food celery all sorts of foods have

8:57
sodium in them but it's the it's all the additives of and you know even if you're

9:03
not eating out and not eating processed food and you're adding salt from a salt shaker you're going to not get it's not

9:08
going to be too much it's when we buy you know you think you know one takeout

9:13
meal has more sodium than you should eat in a day and a lot of people are eating takeout two and three times a day um so

9:22
I I think we need to stop and look at what we're eating you know but to that the the society does not is not real

9:30
support of the infrastructure for a plant-based diet as far as eating out and eating other people social things

9:36
that has been the hardest some of it has been with family to be honest um the

9:42
first Thanksgiving was the pandemic and we didn't get together with everybody so that wasn't an issue but wow the second

9:49
one boy it was difficult not for me I

9:54
was fine with eating my other things that I made um you can still eat mashed potato es and there's a lot of great

10:01
things you just make them differently sure um and the food is still delicious but it's different and we have tradition

10:09
so um my mom had a really hard time you know why are not only was I not eating

10:16
the food I um I wasn't making it anymore um so part of that Journey for me has

10:22
been not doing that um I food is a communication of love for a lot of

10:28
people including myself so um I've fed people given people food

10:34
made baked for people for most of my life as gifts and a you know a form of

10:40
nurturing and I had to really shift what that looked like because for me it's not

10:45
loving to give somebody something that's not healthy for them so you know if

10:51
someone has diabetes you don't GI them fudge you know I mean it's just not loving in my mind um even if it's their

10:59
favorite thing it's not it's not beneficial to their health well so

11:06
that's my personal I mean it's not that different from other addictions

11:11
absolutely absolutely and I think if someone really likes weed you probably shouldn't just give it to them as a gift

11:17
would be my gift or whatever your addiction Cho is alcohol like they're an alcoholic they're in recovery you know

11:23
what I brought you a six-pack as a gift because I know how much you love it but I will tell you that is not how it's

11:29
looked at so it is an addiction um but it's not supported in our society so I

11:35
want us to think about that for a minute if we are say someone is was is a recovering alcoholic would you be like

11:42
oh come on man just have a beer like well you'd be surpris I do know what happens but is that loving like a true

11:49
friend would not do that but you know someone that has ripped off that

11:54
Band-Aid they've transitioned they've turned their health around with a plant-based diet and they're in a social C and people guilt them but I made you

12:02
this cake and how can you not eat it and it's it's it's very real and the pressure is real and I know so many

12:08
people that do not stay true to what they're doing because of the social pressures it was helpful that my husband

12:14
is plant-based that is huge um I am a very disciplined person when it comes to

12:22
just because I've had to be in order to get better and that would not have changed what I was doing in my home but

12:29
it would have made it more difficult sure and it would have made it more difficult when we were going out it's nice that we're on the same page yeah so

12:36
I have to think ahead plan ahead and that was part of my conversation um with

12:42
Chris and Mark um I I talked to Chris ahead of time because I don't want to offend people yeah I don't want to

12:47
offend people I've realized that it's it runs very deep for people and they can be offended and so I just wanted to say

12:53
like I don't want to offend you um but is it okay if I do my own cooking or you

12:58
know because I understand it's it's people also don't want to bend over backwards to try to figure it out it it

13:05
seems complicated it doesn't have to be but um it it's different it's different and I I appreciate what you share in

13:12
that uh you can communicate Love by cooking for people and I think so often we

13:18
misunderstand as of our love of food right there's a big difference between

13:24
loving food and communicating Love by cooking for others and I think you know

13:29
I appreciate that Dynamic and that aspect of the communication you shared because you wanted to convey a love and

13:36
say hey we respect that we're different and yet there's a desire to love and

13:41
care for and you know and to avoid that defensiveness if you will that can go

13:47
along with yeah well what are we doing we love this food you know what makes

13:54
that wrong for you and I think that's that's what you know you you battle or

13:59
you know part of that obstacle is that misunderstanding if you will and it's been a real eye opener to be honest with

14:06
you because we where are [Music]

14:12
our priorities as a culture M and also how we treat others in this and you know

14:21
even as a as a Christian woman um you know I how often if we you

14:27
know we've heard we've been told and we know we need to care for our temples we need to take care of our bodies right

14:34
and I think most people want to do that we want to be feeling well and and able

14:40
to live our life to the fullest and but if we're given the tools and the

14:46
wisdom when we choose to not do that um you know I just love my bacon I couldn't

14:51
do that so I'm just going to die of heart disease it's what are we saying in

14:56
that and I think you know that's it's going to stuck on some people's toes but yeah in this

15:03
room but I I just you know we really have to if we love we love that food

15:12
over our quality of life so people will say it's so hard I'm like so is being

15:18
sick being sick is hard diabetes is hard heart disease is hard Lyme disease is

15:24
hard being sick is really difficult it does it affects every every single

15:29
aspect of your life so yes eating plant-based affects every aspect of our

15:35
lives so when we go places we pack food everywhere we rarely eat out at

15:40
restaurants because there's not much availability where we live um when we go

15:46
to people's houses it can be a little awkward um people don't necessarily want to host us for dinner always because

15:52
they don't know what to make and so I've had to learn to be proactive and have conversations and be gracious and

15:58
understanding of that cuz food is such a big it is social component uh of Our

16:05
Lives I mean it is in fact maybe the biggest in terms of social yeah

16:13
interactions possibly religion yeah Gathering underneath that yeah I would

16:18
say and yeah and you don't have to give any of that up it's just different it's just different you know I mean you don't

16:26
have the turkey on the Thanksgiving table but it's still Thanksgiving like

16:31
can we give thanks Thanksgiving this is a a broader

16:36
conversation that ties into uh tradition which I think is worth having as well but just how we we replac the original

16:44
thing with the tradition and say this is the original thing or you know we kind of Thanksgiving is this turkey it's like

16:50
wait a second remember what the word is it's about thanks it's about giving thanks or Thanksgiving is about Black Friday and shopping you know yes we've

16:57
absolutely and so this has been a deep Journey it it hasn't it's it's only

17:04
started with the food yeah and then it's caused a lot of uh deeper thinking on my

17:10
part and and also in that is the direction of you know the other pieces

17:16
that come into that because once you're in the plant-based world there's the discussion of the environment and animal

17:21
welfare and all of those things and it just opens up all of these this awareness and once you have awareness of

17:26
things you can't put that awareness away you know it yeah and um I just see the world differently now than I did three

17:33
years ago and I'm thankful for that but it also makes it hard there's a tension in that because it's hard for me to

17:40
watch somebody that is O suffering they're overweight they don't feel well

17:46
and yeah there they are filling their plate with all these unhealthy things that are just it's just fuel to that

17:53
illness and not insert myself in that

17:58
I'm I'm thinking I'm not this isn't a defensive statement or anything but I'm thinking about you know as we mentioned

18:03
you know antibiotics and animals I'm I'm going to that other end of the spectrum is saying you know pesticides and foods

18:09
and you know typically foods are you know uh the the three chemicals in in

18:15
fertilizer what is it poast and you know sodium and phosphate you know that kind

18:20
of you know that we can give we can give plants just those three things and they

18:25
don't necessarily have the nutrient broadness that we're look how do you

18:30
personally kind of overcome that to where you're not just you know consuming

18:36
food that's deplete of the rest of the nutrients that our bodies actually need

18:42
help me understand that from your perspective so I'll just let me just

18:47
spell a few myths sure go for it okay so one of the things that comes out there is that their um plants are not complete

18:55
amino acid profile okay so when people say Well they're not complete proteins that is a myth okay plants all have

19:04
every plant has every amino acid in it is an absolute myth um plants also contain protein

19:11
gotcha and it it doesn't even have to be intentional you don't have to be like I need to eat three cups of beans a day um

19:17
it is all plants have protein in them gotcha um oatmeal has as much protein as

19:22
eggs broccoli has protein in it sure um and they also have most of the things

19:28
that animals get from plants so animals get their sources from Plants sure so

19:34
one of the things people say is we're you know like Omega-3s and so they get with a fish oil

19:39
right well fish get it from the algae so go to the source so part of the whole

19:45
food plant-based diet is go to the source go to the source of things and so

19:50
a plant-based diet there is any any diet can have its deficiency right so one of

19:57
the things I will say up front is B12 B12 is deficient in a vegan diet a lot

20:03
of omnivores also are missing B12 but B12 comes from the soil bacteria in the

20:10
soil which then gets eaten by the animals which then you get from them but our soil is too clean now so we don't

20:16
get it from the soil so you have to supplement with B12 and most people need Vitamin D but that has nothing to do

20:22
with a plant-based diet that's just um people get it from their milk sure

20:27
because it's added to the milk correct M so there are some plant-based milk Alternatives that have it added but most

20:33
people just choose to supplement other than that a plant-based diet a well-rounded one has everything that you

20:40
need even if you don't eat a drop of it organic got so a traditional

20:48
grown plant-based diet will have all that you need and it's better and healthier for you than a standard

20:54
American diet by far but it's not good you know there are

21:00
the issues of other things that come into play and obviously if you can purchase organic and be more strategic

21:07
and how you're doing things by local all of those things play a role and they certainly play a role in my situation I

21:14
was you know eating a lot of dark leafy greens and I did make sure they were organic because I wasn't going to trade

21:21
one thing off for another and there are a lot of pesticides on our foods and I

21:27
um I I'm very intentional about certain foods that I buy only organic um such if

21:34
possible such so I use the um environmental workings group dirty dozen

21:40
list and on that list on the top every time is strawberries okay they are right

21:47
up there and that is one thing I do not they have like over 40 different chemicals on standard grown strawberries

21:55
they are it's I know um so there's you know one you know

22:02
there's a lot of myths out there another big thing that I hear is it's too expensive mhm and um that is not true um

22:12
and overall a a plant-based diet is 20% less expensive than a standard diet but

22:18
it depends on what you're eating MH and that's true of a regular diet right I mean are you

22:24
buying blueberries that are out of season in the little tiny carton or are you buying them Frozen you know how are

22:31
you how what are you buying and um it that's you know beans are very

22:37
inexpensive as well as a lot of the grains and potatoes I mean these are things that cultures what oatmeal is cheap oatmeal

22:44
is very inexpensive the cultures the cultures in the world that are most plant-based are also the poorest

22:51
cultures in the world so most most most things in a plant-based diet are I mean there's

22:58
certain vegetables absolutely and and the more fresh produce you're buying out a season the more expensive it's going

23:04
to be but frozen vegetables frozen fruit grains beans all those things are um

23:12
definitely less expensive than cheese and meat overall yeah so you can

23:17
definitely do it on a budget so you see that for the for you and your husband you see this as being longterm this is

23:23
going to be a there's no turning back we we have no intention of ever um um going

23:30
off of a plant-based diet it will be the way we live for the rest of our lives and um I I speaking to just the future

23:39
of of our culture it's going to be moving that way because People's Health

23:45
is we're going to get to a Tipping Point and um a plant-based diet is

23:53
the answer to most health issues um 80%

23:58
% of chronic disease can be completely eliminated on a plant-based diet just

24:03
gone it wouldn't exist which is a good portion of the deaths in the US like so

24:09
you you made the Bold claim and we're going to reach a Tipping Point what what

24:14
in your mind would trigger that and and what would trigger that and what would

24:21
the result look like as a result of that Ty being yeah so I honestly there's

24:27
going to be two things it's either going to be people's personal health um just

24:33
taking a you know right now this generation us we're going to die at a

24:39
younger age than the last well isn't that what we just heard this week that the first and I'm trying to remember

24:46
this will be the first we're going backwards despite all of our modern things because

24:51
we do the damage we can't undo the damage the second what was the the the

24:57
fat the the statistic is this is the first time that the longevity

25:03
is lower than it was previously uh the but what's the EXA life expectancy thank

25:10
you man like what are the words I need the words my brain won't move on until I

25:17
sorry that's absolutely and so the longest living people in the world are

25:23
if not exclusively plant-based they are primarily plant-based there's been studies the Blues zones um are the

25:30
longest living people in the world and they're they may eat very small amounts

25:38
of um seafood or uh a little bit of cheese here and there but it's it's

25:44
little um in America we eat 200 220 pounds of meat A year per person 55 PBS

25:53
of cheese that's not even Seafood um the average American eats at

26:00
least 40% if not 60% of processed food in their diet um less than 10% plants

26:06
and the majority of that is potatoes made into French fries process so something's going to

26:13
have to change the other piece of this that most people are completely unaware of is the environmental impact um that

26:20
animal agriculture has had and we are not 100 200 years from not being able to

26:28
live on this planet we are 40 or 50 years from not being able to survive as

26:34
we are on this planet if we do not make changes because animal agriculture is killing our soil and emitting a lot of

26:41
greenhouse gas I am not saying that every single person needs to go vegan we

26:46
do need to shift you know we need to shift away from all 220 pounds of meat A

26:53
year like we just our our lifestyle cannot our planet cannot sustain it and the sad thing is that if we went

27:01
plant-based we could feed the whole world yeah because there would be enough

27:06
food yeah and to to grow uh to grow what's needed to feed the world requires

27:12
a lot less footprint yes requ so the environmental footprint of a hamburger

27:19
versus um a bean burger is is huge and I I really encourage people to look into

27:25
it because you know we we are aware oh take a shorter shower or you know turn

27:32
off your lights um we're all about getting a Tesla and driving this electric car or whatever but we do we

27:38
think about what we're putting on our plate and the biggest thing that we can do to reduce our environmental footprint

27:46
is to take animals off our plates they they the environmental

27:52
footprint of beef and dairy is so huge and um

27:58
I I think we just need to think think about it so that Tipping Point is that

28:03
and I hope and pray that we have an Awakening before there's just some things that

28:10
just take so long I mean just think about my health you know what if I had

28:16
done this 10 years ago so it's take it our planet is the

28:21
same way like restoring what we've done and the Damage we've done um there is a Tipping Point and so I'm very encouraged

28:29
by the the youth and their desire to make changes for the planet I just hope

28:36
the truth comes out and right now a lot of it is being hidden by follow the money Trail there is no big

28:44
broccoli but there is a dairy Council and a poultry Council and a beef

28:50
Council and but there is no big broccoli so there's no agenda in the plant-based movement especially the whole food

28:56
plant-based movement because we're not selling anything health health is what but

29:04
there's no there's no there's there's because anything that's sold has to have

29:10
someone backing behind it you know you can grow your own food MH a lot of people can anyhow oh doubt

29:18
but yeah based on this conversation as with other guests that have just a

29:23
wealth of information I'd love to get a list of resources from you uh a few of the things that stand out as like uh

29:30
like food resources you mention uh food bloggers and or even some videos where they talk about great documentaries out

29:36
there one of them I can list right off the top that you two would probably both enjoy um is on not to give Netflix any

29:43
more business but Netflix has a documentary um called The Game Changers and it's been their number one

29:49
documentary ever watched and it's very entertaining as well nice so but there's

29:56
a lot of free things on um YouTube as well Fork silver knives is on there that one um in my meeting last night probably

30:03
half the people discovered a plant-based diet through Forks silver knives so yeah and I I just want people

30:10
to know that um there is there is hope and change can be hard but it's worth it

30:18
sure yeah so you know I think there's there's a lot of people suffering with

30:23
health issues and um there are answers

30:29
yeah and as with anything like this it it's difficult to get started and it the

30:35
best thing that you can do is find some resources find some um support you know

30:42
what I mean support that's huge and I will say one thing I love about the plant-based Community is there's a lot

30:47
of free resources there's a lot of free support there is you know free Kickstart

30:53
programs um and a lot of free resources out there um so I will definitely be

30:58
glad to provide those to you cool yeah we'll we'll put like some a PDF together

31:04
of resources and be able to share that with listeners yeah well well on behalf

31:11
of us thank you marn appreciate the time appreciate the information and

31:17
appreciate you sharing how you see [Music]

31:23
it hey thank you for listening to our podcast it's if you like how I see it

31:30
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31:54
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32:00
[Music]