141: Be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior: Food, Family, and Living Vibrantly at Every Age with Jane and Ann Esselstyn

Prepare to be energized by Ann Esselstyn (age 90!) and her daughter Jane Esselstyn, RN—two legendary voices in the plant-based movement whose passion, humor, and wisdom light up every conversation.

In this episode, Ann and Jane share the story behind their inspiring book Be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior: Live Fierce, Stay Bold, Eat Delicious, and the decades of family history that shaped their commitment to whole-food, plant-based eating. From Ann’s bold breakfast bowls and daily exercise routine to Jane’s reflections on food freedom and women’s health, this is a heartwarming, practical, and laugh-filled dialogue about what it means to thrive on plants. Whether you’re new to plants or a seasoned Dirty, you’ll walk away inspired by Ann and Jane’s fierce, joyful approach to food and life.

Helpful links

• Register for Plantstock 2025 (Virtual, Sept 6) – Tickets via Universe
• Gluten-Free Porridge: Take Your Mornings to the Next Level
• Episode 134: Thriving on a Plant-Based Diet with Rip Esselstyn
• YouTube channel: Plant-Based with Jane Esselstyn and Ann Esselstyn
• Book: Be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior: Live Fierce, Stay Bold, Eat Delicious
• Esselstyn Foundation
• Follow Jane on Instagram: @jane_esselstyn_rn

About Ann
Ann Crile Esselstyn is a relentlessly energetic and creative advocate for the plant-based, whole-food way of life. She has devoted herself to inventing recipes to prevent and reverse heart disease in support of the research of her husband, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. Ann never stops looking for ways to bring that important agenda to delicious life, devising ever more practical and powerful ways to shop, cook, and engage even the most reluctant eaters in the plant-perfect diet.

Spit-fire Ann is not only the author of the recipe section of Dr. Esselstyn’s bestselling book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, but she is the co-author of The Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook and the New York Times bestseller Be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior: Live Fierce, Stay Bold, Eat Delicious with her daughter, Jane Esselstyn. Jane and Ann host a YouTube channel with over 350 whole-food plant-based recipes that highlight delicious food and their mother-daughter dynamic!

Ann is a graduate of Smith College and holds a Master’s in Education from Wheelock College. Ann taught English and History for 27 years at Laurel School in Cleveland, Ohio, where she received the Hostatler Award for Outstanding Teaching. At the same time, she juggled raising four children. When not in the kitchen, Ann counsels patients, lectures around the world on how to prepare and eat plant-based foods, and spends time with her ten plant-based grandchildren and one great-grandchild!

About Jane
Jane Esselstyn, RN, is a fresh, charismatic voice who brings her perspective and passion as a nurse, researcher, mother, and teacher to the forefront of the plant-based movement. She presents her work, research, and high-energy demos around the world- and on her new YouTube channel with her firecracker mom, Ann Esselstyn. Women, families, and community drive Jane’s work forward. She is the host of the annual conference, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease for Women, which is focused on the power of plants! Jane claims, “Prevention is the new cure, and the most powerful, relevant, and protective medicine available.” With full enthusiasm, Jane co-founded Well, Now! Camp—an activity-filled, creative escape for Plant-Based Women Warriors—because vitality rocks!Jane is an avid and inventive designer of plant-strong recipes and the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Be a Plant-Based Woman Warrior: Live Fierce, Stay Bold, Eat Delicious, and The Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook. She created the recipe sections of the New York Times bestseller, Plant-Strong: Discover the World’s Healthiest Diet and The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue by Rip Esselstyn. And she is a co-author of The Engine 2 Cookbook. Jane brings her infectious energy and straightforward message to her presentations, cooking demonstrations, and cookbooks with clarity, hilarity, and a can-do attitude.

Transcript (auto-generated, may have errors)
Hey there.
This is Molly and I’m super excited to share today’s episode with you.
In this episode, I am talking with Anne and Jane Esselstyn, who wrote the wonderful It’s a cookbook, but it also has a lot of other really great information in it called Be a Plant Based Woman Warrior.
0:25
And we get into their book in the talk.
We talk a lot about that.
So these two ladies, it’s a it’s a mother daughter team and Anne Esselstyn is now 90 and her daughter is Jane.
Jane’s brother is RIP Esselstyn and he is the author of the plant, sorry, the Engine 2 diet books.
0:49
And he also has a great podcast called Plant Strong.
I’ve had him on our podcast.
We can link that in the show notes.
I’ve been on his podcast.
This whole family just does amazing work.
For.
The whole food plant based world and getting that information out there.
1:07
So RIP and Jane’s dad is Doctor Caldwell Esselstyn and he back in the 80s wrote a book called How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.
And so this was some really ground breaking stuff at the time and it’s all about how to prevent and reverse heart disease through a whole food plant based diet.
1:33
And so he’s sort of a a trailblazer in his field.
So we talked about him and about the whole family and the whole story in my episode with RIP that I did a while back.
And so today I wanted to talk with Anne, his wife, and Jane, his daughter and talk about their book and just all the things whole food plant based and women and all the things.
1:57
So it was a fantastic talk and it was funny because in this episode Anne has, she’s 90 and she’s very, I mean, she and super strong.
She does, you know, she’s just very active and very healthy and she’s amazing.
2:16
Like I want to be like her when I’m 90.
And we talked about breakfast because she has a very unique and nutrient dense breakfast that she eats every morning.
And we talked about that and she’s kind of known for that.
And I have this breakfast.
2:32
It’s the, it’s the hippie porridge.
It’s also called the gluten free porridge or the breakfast porridge.
And I’ve had different kind of iterations of this on the blog and on this podcast and in our membership.
And basically it’s a combination of grains and lentils and kale.
2:52
And I eat that for breakfast often.
And so I worked on this recipe a few years ago and she was interested in that recipe.
So we talked about that.
And when we were emailing back and forth after the episode, she’s like, OK, I checked out the recipe and it looks really good.
3:10
But I really think that you could add more kale to this recipe.
So I was like, you know what?
I think that’s a good idea.
So I did.
I upped the amount of kale in the recipe like by four times and I tried it and it was great.
It still tasted amazing and just UPS the the kale, which is always a good thing.
3:28
And so I had heard that this event plant stock, plant stock, which happens every year and it’s hosted by by RIP and he has a lot of really awesome guests who facilitate this plant stock and it’s usually an in person event.
3:46
And I saw this year that it was going to be online.
And so they had already they were already doing marketing for it and they had their line up already.
But I was like, you know, I really want to be part of this.
And I really want to do a demo on this porridge recipe and do the version with the added kale because it’s Anne approved.
4:05
And we had kind of talked about it.
And so I pitched it to them and they were like, yeah, that sounds great.
And so I’m going to do it.
And so I’ll be appearing for the one day event.
I will be doing a demo of this porridge, of this kale packed porridge that I eat for breakfast with, you know, lentils and Millet and steel cut oats and all these crazy ingredients.
4:29
And so I’m super thrilled to be part of plant stock.
And I love that it was online this year because I get to be part of it and I don’t have to, you know, I’m in Hawaii.
It would be very a long way for me to go to travel to do this thing in person.
And I don’t even know if that would have worked out, but that’s happening.
4:46
And so I just wanted to invite you to plant stock.
It’s a one day event and there’s lots of really awesome speakers, really experts in the plant based field and also a lot of food demos.
So Doctor Michael Greger will be speaking.
5:05
He’s always a headliner on Doctor Christy Funk will be speaking.
She’s amazing.
If you haven’t heard of her Doctor Will Bolsowitz, who is an expert on microbiome and gut health, he’ll be speaking Doctor Lori Marbus on all about menopause and perimenopause.
5:25
And then of course, they’ll be lots of cooking demos as well.
And, and we’ll be there.
Jane will be there, RIP will be there.
And so it’s going to be a great event.
And it’s just it’s a one day thing and you do have to sign up and then you get access to the replay and you can watch later if you can’t, you know, watch it all that day.
5:44
So I’m going to put the link to sign up in the show notes of this episode.
And this is happening September 6th, 2025.
S it happened in a little bit of a short notice just because of how it all unfolded.
But I wanted to give you a little bit of a back story about how and why I was included to be in this great event and just a little slide story about how that happened.
6:09
Anyways, enjoy this episode.
I really, this is a great this is just such a fun episode.
I love talking to these two women and I really appreciate that.
It felt like it was just this this conversation happening.
And at one point I forgot that I was even recording a podcast.
6:25
They forgot that I was recording a podcast and it was just like we were sitting down talking about one of our favorite topics, which is plant based eating.
So enjoy the episode and I hope to see you at plant stock 2025 link in the bio Sign up there.
6:41
Enjoy.
All right, hello, everyone, and thank you for listening and watching to this episode of the clean food Dirty Girl podcast.
I am so excited to have my guests on today.
This is the legendary and Esselstyn and her daughter Jane thank.
7:01
You.
Stan, my first bully moment happening.
Yeah, Esselstyn.
OK, so I’m super happy to have you both here today.
And I have so many questions.
7:16
There’s so much I want to talk about.
And I know we and you have some questions for me you want to discuss, so I first.
My whole point was after I heard Ribs interview with you, I was we.
Had so many questions from you I.
7:32
I so many.
Yes, I did have an unusual life, I guess.
And yes, I’m happy to get into that.
I wanted to say just first and foremost, so you all released this book recently be a plant based woman warrior live fear, stable, stable, eating delicious.
7:57
And I have to say this is a fantastic, fantastic book.
I wore my warrior shirt today to bring the warrior energy and I love that you all have put together this book and I think it’s incredible.
And I and I want to talk about that.
I have questions from our community.
8:13
I have so many things I want to get into.
I want to start with this So and you were saying you’re on, I don’t remember what podcast it was.
I think it was with your son on ribs podcast saying that you started eating this way and cooking this way in the 80s.
8:30
And when you were at that time, you mentioned that it was easier to do it this way because there was no vegan junk food.
So I was like, wow, that’s a really that’s right, right.
There wasn’t all this vegan junk food back then.
8:47
So you are whole food plant based, so whole plant foods, a little bit of minimally processed food.
So our audience, this is what I advocate for as well.
So our audience is very aligned with this.
So I was thinking about it and I thought, well, if you ever want to explain the difference between vegan and whole food plant based, you could just say, hey, you know, a vegan diet is like you were eating in the 80s.
9:09
Eating a vegan diet in the 80s is like what whole food plant based is now.
Because there wasn’t the convenience foods, there wasn’t the processed foods back then.
So you didn’t really have the like the.
Potato chips.
There were potato chips and corn chips and Fritos and that stuff and Donuts and Donuts.
Some stuff but like not the Franken foodie things though.
9:29
You can get there’s a whole section in the grocery store that if you looked at the ingredients in it, you couldn’t recognize half of them.
And it’s, you know, oil, oil, oil, oil, sugar, sugar, sugar, salt, salt, salt.
That’s right.
9:44
So as.
As my husband says, he sees plenty of patients who are, so to speak, vegan who still have got.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, let’s talk about that for a second because I’m sure, I mean, I just assume that everybody knows who you are.
10:00
If there’s somebody who doesn’t know you yet, can you just tell us a little bit about you and and your husband as well and get us up to date just on on who these legends are?
That is the worst question you could ever ask my mom.
She does not talk about herself, so you’re welcome to introduce her how you wish, but she just won’t.
10:16
Talk about herself.
I would rather interview you.
Yeah, like.
Like you, I know you’re going to ask her questions.
He’s going to take it away.
This is rare in the in the 80s decide he was a general surgeon.
At the Cleveland.
Clinic at the Cleveland Clinic.
10:31
He was, you know, terribly successful, but he kept seeing no change, for instance, in breast cancer.
He didn’t know what he was going to do for the next unsuspecting victim.
He was just like a Carpenter.
It’s like I’m just taking this out, taking this out and taking this out and he wanted to prevent it.
10:48
So he did some research, saw that certain countries didn’t have the same problems and then, but and yet when they came here.
To the states to.
The United States, they matched us in disease rates. 1 to 1 So what was going on?
11:05
So he started to change how we ate because he couldn’t ask patients to do that.
And so then in the 80s, early 80s, we began to change.
You know, there was no, I mean, if I wanted ice cream, there was no ice cream.
11:21
What?
Were the guidelines you had in the 80s you guys?
Talked about no meat, no oil well, no meat, no oil and no dairy no.
Sugar.
No fat, no oil, no salt, no dairy, no meat.
We were like, what do we eat?
Rice and beans.
11:37
The staples, yeah.
And so in the 80s, so this was like early 80s when this was all happening with your family.
Yeah.
And the work that that your dad and your husband was doing.
And so I was born in 1980 and I was raised without any meat and I could never drink milk because it gave me a lot of like mucus situation.
11:58
So I was raised almost.
You were lucky.
Yeah, I was lucky.
And then I and then my mom actually went totally whole food plant based in the 90s.
And so I was exposed to this way of eating from pretty early on.
12:14
And you’re right, how I grew up eating was rice, beans, veggies, fruits, right, like all of the whole plant foods.
So it was a very similar thing.
And back then it was weird.
You know, it was a weird thing.
People thought it was really strange.
12:30
So, and I, I came from a very small town in New Mexico and I know that you all were in Cleveland.
And I think, I don’t know, I come from a very kind of hippie small artist town.
So maybe it was less weird then.
Or there.
Did you know anybody who was doing this back then?
12:46
No.
In Cleveland, No.
No.
And I was teaching then and what was interesting. 6th grade.
English and two of the words that I used for vocabulary were vegan and vegetarian.
Nobody knew what they meant.
13:03
But on the West Coast there was the McDougal and but the West Coast back then was something far away.
I mean farther away.
And so we go Internet and there was no Internet, no.
And you know, so no books that we particularly had.
13:18
So we just had to figure it out.
Yeah, and you did.
And you created the recipes for your husband’s book and and you fed your your family and you introduced this way of eating to yourself.
And so you really figured it out.
We figured it out, and what is amazing is that our children about the age were all teenagers.
13:38
They were all teenagers when we did all this change, but I am astounded that all four of our children and all ten of our grandchildren are plant based.
And then our spouses.
And all and all their yes, I mean the whole family with some kind of passion with most of them really, it’s it’s amazing.
14:01
That is pretty incredible.
And I mean, they had a really good model.
You really embrace this.
And here’s the thing, your food is so good, and I think that makes a huge difference to be able to have very tasty food.
And in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody up until this point who’s as passionate as salads as I am.
14:22
You’re you’re right about so we love well, we it’s funny.
Salads are not our like winter, but like we our one bowl meals are mostly like greens and things and then beans and grains and toppings and salsa is basically like some sort of a wet salad.
I don’t I don’t even know, but you and your your breakfast boldness completely matches my mom’s like freaking warrior oats that she has the morning and she we had we have it in in planet strong.
14:49
Whatever.
This is a book I did with RIP way early on.
Put it in her.
The did you put in the book with Essie?
No, OK, my mom’s book with my dad.
The like the OG.
We put a version of it in our preventing versus heart disease cookbook we did together and it changed.
RIP and I put it in the seven day rescue and it changed.
15:06
We put it in the women Warrior cookbook because it had changed and it has still changed today because she is incredibly bold with her breakfast.
Oh, do you know my mom puts in her bowl because you’ll be like.
Oh, tell me, tell me.
OK, half a cup of steel cut oats, some nutritional yeast because it really makes a difference in the consistency this is.
15:27
Savory oats, by the way.
So I use powdered or any kind of ginger, turmeric, pepper, a little bit of Sriracha, which is my only, only thing in there that’s not so perfect, but it’s perfect because it makes the IT gives it a little.
15:45
And then I put in greens and at least two cups chopped up any kind of greens.
I’ve used dandelions, I’ve used weeds from the garden, I’ve used the tops of carrots if I’m out, I mean, whatever is green.
16:01
And then I put in some shiitake mushrooms.
I get them cut up and freeze them and put in little bits.
And then my latest that I am love are artichoke hearts.
And artichoke hearts and black and black human and omelette powder.
16:20
I mean which is.
Brew.
You.
You’re speaking my love language.
I mean, really.
It’s completely what you’re.
It’s so true.
So, so I do a lot of different iterations on breakfast and like you, I’m always kind of changing it and tweaking it a little bit.
But I landed on this one.
16:37
So I was doing steel cutouts.
I know, I knew.
I knew you’d be so.
Interested in breakfast?
Yes, OK, so I started with just regular steel cutouts and like those were good, but I was like, I really love Millet, right?
Like Millet is one of my favorite grains and I really love quinoa as well and I really love black rice, right?
16:58
I love all these grains.
So I thought, well, why don’t I instead of just doing seal cut oats, I added a bunch of these different grains in.
OK, so that was pretty good.
And then I thought, oh, but I could add lentils to this mix and like pick it up a notch.
So I added the lentils.
I tried that, put everything in my instant pot.
17:14
It was great.
Then I was like, well, why not add kale or like any kind of greens like that that would work.
And so I added in the kale and then like I could add in a little bit of turmeric and some black pepper because why not?
And so the base of my mix is steel cut oats, Millet, black rice, quinoa, lentils, turmeric, pepper and take all of that, put it in a bowl and kale, put it in a bowl.
17:40
And then I do it sweet.
So I do just like bananas and berries and any kind of fruit that I have and then sprinkle some like hemp seeds and chia seeds on top of that.
And I’m a happy girl.
Give me the amounts of steel cut and all those other things because that’s an awful lot.
17:58
Yes, I make a big part of it.
So I will do equal parts.
So I’ll do like depending on how how big of a batch, I’ll do like 1/4 cup of each one or maybe I’ll do a half a cup of each one if I want a bigger batch.
And then I’ll just eat it all throughout the week.
So that’s one of them.
18:14
And I’ve done other like crazy combinations with like steel cut oats, rolled oats and amaranth, right?
And, and mixing in those.
So I’m I’m a big fan of like mixing in lots of different things.
Try artichoke hearts.
Just try some artichoke hearts.
18:29
Frozen artichoke hearts.
You can get them at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods.
At anywhere.
Yeah, well, not I can’t find them everywhere.
No.
And people who are listening watch out because sometimes artichoke hearts will be packaged in oil.
So you want to find the lines that are not oil frozen frozen.
18:47
Frozen plain.
Yeah, OK.
Well, that’s I will pick some up, but I’m going to try it.
I want to hear what you think.
OK, I will definitely let you know.
So this book here, Plant based woman warrior, can we talk a minute about the emphasis on women?
19:04
BBA.
Plant based woman.
Warrior, we fought far for the BA because it was like, that’s my warrior, right?
That sounds so braggadocio because we’re like, this is.
What?
We want everyone to feel like I want everyone to feel this.
But she’s living be a plant based woman warrior.
19:20
Go look at that.
Yes, OK, so the emphasis on women because you have this model, your mother has lived this amazing life and you are 90 now and is that that right and just 90 and you’re feeling good and you’re really strong.
19:37
I’ve seen videos of you pulling a tire in the road.
I it’s a pretty incredible so and I think that it’s awesome to have this women focused.
I really do, because can you talk, Jane a little bit about food head?
Yes, well, that’s that’s part of like there’s three reasons why I wanted to make this book with my mom and the by the way.
19:58
It’s really all Jane, Yeah.
She did Mommy stop, let me she will always try to say that there’d be nothing to worry about if it wasn’t for you.
So pipe down lassie.
There’s three reasons I wanted to write it because as we kind of flashed for those who aren’t looking at this conversation, my dad and my mom wrote, my mom wrote a book with him about heart disease.
20:23
And then my mom and I wrote a book that’s kind of a companion in a way just preventing versus heart disease cookbook.
And this is all like heart disease focus.
Heart disease focus.
And I much more involved in that one which is.
Tighter all the other recipes like no meat, no dairy, no added oil, minimal salt, minimal sweet, no avocado, no nuts, nothing.
20:42
It’s heart disease.
Then I wrote with RIP the Plant Strong book and I was kind of act.
I did the rescue section and I was acting like a firefighter and you know, then we did the seven day rescue, which was even more like firefighter language.
We did the Engine 2 cookbook, which is like the dead gun nachos.
We’re going to annihilate your hunger with.
20:59
I mean, just, you know, we’re using all that language and I was like, can we just do our own book about what we really eat?
Not that we doing that different, but I wanted to do it because yes, heart disease needs to be addressed and here are the guidelines.
Yes, be a firefighter kind of adjacent strong person, hero, whatever.
21:18
But I was like, we are just women in our life and living this way.
And so the three reasons I wanted to do this with her was because my mom like this is a tip of the hat to her.
Like she’s my daily dose, as I say, like my daily dose of hell yeah to wake up with just filled with so much energy and vim and vigor and, you know, bringing over with like, let’s go at 90.
21:41
And, you know, my mom, if he wasn’t running around and, and having a ton of energy and going to book group and then zipping in time for the podcast, we’d all be like, oh, are you OK?
Like if she doesn’t have any and it limited energy.
So tip of the hat to you and all that you’ve done because she picked up that my, my dad came home from basically, you know, working at the Cleveland Clinic after decades and just said, you know, we need to sort of prevent and arrest and reverse all this disease.
22:11
Like I’m doing nothing to help the next unsuspecting victim.
And so he’s like, can we eat, you know, no meat and no dairy and no oil and no fat and no sugar and no salt.
He just like eliminated all these mega categories of food.
And she was like, OK, I have a full time job teaching.
22:29
We have 4 kids who are athletes who need to be fed and and watered all the time.
And we have a dog.
And so she somehow carried on and we all ate enough and we’re fortified enough to keep swimming and and we all swim for our universities and at a national level and we’re, you know, powered on plants.
22:49
She did that.
So tip of the hat to her.
And she didn’t do this for my dad the way that like Mary McDougal did this with John.
Like there would not, it would not have the legs it has today with us.
And we’ve, you know, RIP has all the things he’s doing with his plants to and company and his books and his and that I’ve been involved with and his events and products are known like Walmart and Target.
23:10
That would not have happened.
I wouldn’t have done all the books we’ve done.
And we have our YouTube channel that we do together.
We have like close to coming in on 400 videos for free about this stuff.
And I do events for women.
Again, they put the hat to her.
And the second reason is that I feel like women do the majority of the day-to-day food thinking about for the community, family, home themselves.
23:36
I know, I know plenty of men are, are responsible for that too.
They are the ones who get the groceries or make the food or pack lunches or cook for their church or their whatever with our community or even the restaurant.
Men do it.
But the majority seem to be women around the globe and in the USA, especially in the name of providing for their families or, you know, cooking for themselves or the community or the bake sale or whatever they’re preparing food for.
24:00
They have in a loving way kept this disease days going of high blood pressure and heart disease foundation thereof and the, you know, early growth of cancer.
So our autoimmune disease twiggerings, but just without meaning to at all.
24:16
So all I’m saying is like, could you just instead of going on this mainstream of all this stuff, just little lean towards plants, add more plants, eat more plants.
We love our friends in Ireland called the happy pear.
They’re like eat more veg, just eat more veg, just eat more veg.
I love that expression doesn’t only float around in the UK and the US, the UK does.
24:35
But anyway, so just eating more veg, the some of the stuff will just just the rate of it and the instant the sort of intensity of it will drop off.
And of course, we’re eating all that, if you will.
And the third thing is that I have three brothers.
So I’m surrounded by them.
I’m in the middle.
I mean, all athletes, as we mentioned earlier.
24:52
And when I went to University of Michigan, swimming there on a scholarship, making NCAA’s, you know, at the end of the season and my.
Masking the Olympic Trials as a 14 year old.
That that was before college though.
But yeah, so like we’re swimming on the national level, you know, Olympic trials early on.
25:10
But my point is I was like 18 and my body starts started to change and fill out and get it curvy even though I’m training up to 4 hours a day and lifting and, and you know, walking all the campus and still just like you’re filling out, you’re becoming more of a woman than my just tight bathing suits.
I’m like, Oh my.
25:25
Gosh.
And I hated the fact that like, I knew that my brothers who are also swimming on the same level, weren’t thinking for one iota of a second about anything that they were eating or how it was affecting their body or their performance or their feeling of who they were as a man.
25:41
And I was like, I don’t like how I’m feeling as a woman in that.
And my, it’s like food head.
Like, what are we going to eat today?
So I can train and lift and show up there, but also get into my acid washed jeans for gosh sake.
And anyway, so it was, it’s pretty awful.
25:57
But right at that time is when my parents called and said, hey, we’re not eating any dairy or meat or this or that or this or that.
And it took me a while to get a hang of it, you know, but it made so much sense and it was amazing to not have this sense of food head of like, how am I going to live from today?
26:16
And you know, my body, my size, my clothes, my web, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that.
Just just luckily to I feel so lucky to not be carrying that heaviness.
That’s long answer.
Sorry.
I go to yoga with Jane and I usually I’m behind her and I look at her and think, Oh my God, Jane, you’re amazing.
26:37
My mother, she.
Hasn’t really changed how you know he hasn’t changed since you were little?
You mean I can do side crew with my legs in the air?
Yeah.
Well, I’m very impressed with you both, and you know, but I think that that’s a really important thing.
One thing that I love about the two of you and what you’ve both brought to the table is you don’t make this complicated.
26:59
It’s really uncomplicated thing.
And I think that that also speaks to not just the food itself, because it’s really not complicated when you, when you break it down, we’re eating veggies and whole grains and beans and legumes and fruit and some nuts and seeds here and there, right?
27:15
This is not complicated.
And it also like to your point of the food brain, the food head, you just eat and you can forget about the rest.
You just eat, you eat all the plants and you eat a wide variety and you eat those big bowls and that crazy breakfast and you don’t have to think about it, right?
27:33
I mean, you will because it’s so delicious, but it removes that whole layer.
So I can really appreciate that.
And I think those are all, you know, fantastic reasons.
And it would make sense with you and having so many brothers and being involved in so many books that were really like kind of macho to like have one for the the women.
27:50
I think that that’s incredible.
You know, I love watching your dynamic because my mom, she’ll be 82 this year and she lives down the road from me and she raised me vegetarian, went totally whole food plant based in the 90s and we cooked together a lot.
28:06
We see each other a lot and we have a similar dynamic to the two of you.
So how is doing this project together?
Did it bring you, Did it make your relationship closer?
Has it always been close?
Like can you talk, just speak a little bit to the dynamic of your relationship?
We, and I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it like I live next door to that.
28:24
I like, I’ve lived next door to these guys when I have.
Yeah, for 20 once she started having our kiddos, we moved in next door, which was so fortunate and it’s also intertwined and like I know my my husband started the Esselstyn Foundation so we have a nonprofit where we can give away all of our programming for free and our we do videos and whatnot but.
28:46
And by the way, Brian, my husband has been amazing at he, he knows more about plant based world than than any, I mean any of us.
And he has a weekly ish a newsletter but or every other a newsletter that is stunningly good that is free with my points like needing the Esselstyn Foundation.
29:07
Yeah, So our relationship hasn’t ever stopped.
And not that people’s relationships stop, but something is like, Oh yes, I’m like someone was told me that after your kid leaves the home around the age that they’re in college, if they choose to go to college or not, whatever.
29:24
But they say that the total amount of time that you spend with them is a month, the rest of your life.
And I was like.
Wow.
I don’t want to see.
I know, like, I mean, I’m thinking like hours and they come up for Thanksgiving and then you see them for, you know, this like day and a half and day and a half and then and then you’re whatever, maybe people don’t do things.
29:45
Whatever it was, it was shocking for me to hear that.
And I thought I have had decades next to these guys.
So we, yeah, our dynamic, our dynamic Hill lucky.
For us to have so lucky for theirs and our grandchildren grow up like just walking back and forth.
30:02
Yeah, I mean our kids had 4 loving adults who cared for them emotionally and a support wise and academically and financially and nutritionally.
But just to have them.
And Jane’s daughter Cryl has been a champion swimmer.
30:22
All three of them have been.
Probably followed in the footsteps.
Yeah, all three, but I wanted to say Cryl also has done wonderful YouTube video food things with Jane.
And Anne?
30:38
Anne Oh, wow, yes.
Yes, it’s our channel.
But those 3 grandchildren are have been such fun to follow their swimming careers and their their lives.
Yeah, I mean they’re they’re worried all this one weeks in the stands, not all of them, but like, you know, majority and just so fun to have around like our dog, our dog, for example, like we have I don’t an acre plus and the parents of an acre plus too or whatever it is the electric fence for our dog goes around both properties like we share our dog.
31:10
Basically, it’s very sweet and it’s very rare that you find that.
And not only are you close in proximity and able to see each other and you know, in person often, but everybody’s plant based, everybody’s on the whole food plant based train, which makes it, you know, even more.
Rare, yeah.
31:26
It’s the most fun thing because Jane has done a lot of desserts than I have in the last few years.
And so when we’re especially during COVID, we would be watching TV at night and that we would hear the door rattle and we would know it was Jane was something else for us to try.
31:46
Wow, so exciting.
It took me 11 attempts to get our our out of sight brownie.
And we have a granddaughter who is getting married and we got a call the other day from Rose and her fiance and he, I couldn’t believe it.
32:04
He asked us no.
And I and it’s really Jane.
He asked us.
To us to please make a vegan wedding cake, but he doesn’t want them at for everybody.
He just wants it a little one for them.
32:21
Like the the the personal one that they cut from they give each other.
Like they do this and.
Then they do, they freeze it for the next year.
And that we were like, because this person’s in the Kennedy family.
So I’m like, Oh, no pressure and no pressure.
And then not much like our our family, we’d be like, hey, here you go, purple cake with kale frost and.
32:41
Yet some beet green, yeah.
Yeah.
So we’re like, oh, we were very rare.
We were kind of speechless, like.
No, I was.
All I could think of was we’ll be sitting and Jane will come over with all winter long with little bites of cake for us to try.
33:01
Because our wedding is until next summer, but all the went through my mind was like the blooper reel of of my attempts in in my mind like, OK, we’ll try that.
So.
That’s right.
And you’re going to benefit from all the taste testing and.
We hope that’s.
33:16
Well, I don’t live as close to my mom as you all live together.
It’s an 11 minute drive down the road, but we definitely share food and we we’re big batch cookers.
So we do some batch cooking on the weekend and we’ll always be like, OK, what are you making?
33:33
What am I making?
And then we’ll like share some things.
So it’s that’s great.
Yeah, I’m very close with my mom and and my dad too.
I mean, they’re just, I feel very lucky to have such awesome parents who did, who were really good roll lottos for me as well.
So that.
Makes me ask you, however, did your parents handle your crazy years?
33:56
They must have been desperate.
You know, I was raised in a way where my parents knew that I was going to do what I was going to do.
I was very stubborn.
I was very ornery.
34:12
And if they said no, that didn’t matter to me.
I was just going to do my own thing.
And so the way that they handled it in hindsight, looking back actually was probably the best thing that they could have done.
34:28
And that was always telling me how much they love me and knowing that they were there for me and knowing that they love me unconditionally and not pushing me away with like trying to tell me who to be and how to be.
34:46
It was love.
I mean, they were so loving towards me and so accepting of me.
And, you know, there were behaviors that I did that they didn’t even know the full extent of it always because I wasn’t going to go tell them everything, but they had an idea.
So they always were like, hey, we’re here.
35:03
We love you.
And that’s what I needed, you know?
And so I always knew there were times when I was a teenager where I could have done a lot more crazy things than I was doing, like really hard scary drugs.
And I actually was like, no, because if anything were to happen to me, like I don’t want my parents to go through that because I really love them and I really respect them.
35:30
And although I was kind of going crazy in my own way, it was like I always had myself in check because I didn’t want to hurt them.
Well, that’s wonderful.
Yeah, it’s an interesting count.
Yeah.
And so, and eventually I did find my way and they were there, you know, the whole time.
35:48
And I always knew that they just, they love me and they always knew that I was going to be OK and that I was going to find my way.
And if I needed help, they would be there.
And so it was a really sweet, they were very good parents.
I was really lucky.
Are you a parent?
No.
You would probably be a wonderful parent if you were, just because you’ve had that background.
36:09
Yeah.
And I’m very like, I think that I would make a wonderful parent.
I’m very nurturing.
I’m very loving like.
Literally look at your community.
Your dirties.
Yes, my dirties.
And, and because I do have that nurturing side, I’ve been able to direct that towards my business, towards the community, towards my cat, towards my parents, towards my partner.
36:30
And you know, so I haven’t, I haven’t had kids to kind of wrap that nurturing around, but I’ve had plenty of other things.
And I think that I would make a good parent.
I’m glad that I’m not because I really love to travel.
I love to take nap.
I love to go to bed at 7:00 and read sometimes.
36:51
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37:11
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37:27
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So whether you’re new to plant based eating or you’ve been doing this for years, our meal plans will help you save time, save money, eat better and feel amazing without having to figure it all out by yourself.
37:45
So if you’re ready to upgrade your meals, head over to cleanfooddirtygirl.com.
Click on the top of the page where it says join and choose meal Plan Club.
You can read all about it and sign up there.
OK, I hope to see you in the club, your taste buds and your future self.
38:00
Well, thank you.
Oh, and one more thing, perfection is not required.
That’s so funny, I was just thinking like a friend of mine at 45 gave worth the twins recently and I was like I do I dare mention.
This to her like like.
No, now that’s.
38:15
Intense at 45.
Twins.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I just turned 45 and I know.
I was like.
I had, I mean, I feel like I would have the energy for it.
Maybe not twins, maybe not twins, but at least, you know, I do feel like I have the energy because I have a ton of energy.
38:35
You know, I never feel like I feel better now than I did in my 20s.
For sure I feel more energetic now than I did in my 20s, but it’s because I have a really healthy lifestyle now and I didn’t back then.
It’s your breakfast.
Hey, it’s your.
Jet fuel for breakfast.
38:52
It’s true.
Yeah, it is.
It is all the plants.
And I don’t know, I get so much joy from what I do.
And I get so much joy from making big, beautiful salads and making rice and beans.
I mean, that really does like just fuel my my whole heart.
It’s you know, I feel it like to my core and being able to share that with people just as like the icing on top, the plant based icing on top.
39:15
I do have one rule, and it’s because of Jane.
I don’t even know this rule.
Well, you do, I do, because Jane has a conference.
Every has had a conference.
How eight years, Oh, ten years, 10 years.
And they’re on the International Day of the Woman, March 8th, but it’s around the whatever weekend lands around there.
39:34
And about how many years ago?
Maybe five years ago.
I don’t know what your.
Four years ago, the last speaker was our wonderful daughter-in-law.
Yes, yes, yes.
And she is stunning.
And one of the things she said was that if you want to absolutely master something, you have to do it for 40 days.
40:00
Now it so happened.
That our son Ted had insisted that we had to get a Peloton bike from my husband and he had he would love it and I thought, Nah, that’s ridiculous.
And then there was a great sale.
40:16
So I got the Peloton bike essay was not interested and here was this bike.
So I thought I tried it.
I didn’t like it, but then after I heard Polly’s they thing about 40 days, I thought, all right, all right, I’m going to do the Peloton for 40 days.
40:37
But I called Polly and said, Polly, I’m doing it for 40 days for 20 minutes before breakfast.
And so Polly said wonderful, but emailed text me every time you do it.
40:57
So after 20 days, I texted Polly and said why 40 days?
What did she answer?
You know.
She said 40 days because it is.
A magical number that the universe.
41:14
Power of a universe is behind you.
It has all sorts of roots and like mysticism was that?
Coming Christ went out for 40.
Days, but 40 days seems to be this.
It’s like you get beyond that, 18 days of habit, habit forming and whatever, and then it becomes sorry to be so.
41:30
The four days came, the uterus was behind you.
Oh.
I can stop.
So I did get on the Peloton right away and then I thought, Oh my gosh.
And I got on and I have not unnecessarily Peloton, but I exercise before breakfast every day and sometimes breakfast is a three.
41:53
I mean, if the day is crazy, but that’s my my rule and it’s because of Jane.
OK, so so before breakfast, that’s an important piece of it.
Yeah, before.
Yep.
42:08
You know what?
It’s funny because that’s what I do as well.
I do my, my walking, my stretching, my planks, my, you know, push ups, all before breakfast.
And that’s always been my rule.
At first I was like, well, if I do it after breakfast, I might not do it.
42:25
And so if I can get it out of the way, then I’m going to do it.
Then I’ll have my breakfast to look forward to.
And you know, that suck and that’s just what I do.
So you were on to something and it clearly sparked something in you.
And I think so.
How many years ago was that?
42:41
12334 years ago.
Yeah, 434 years, four years ago, before I would find myself in my exercise clothes, you know, at 5:00 at night, you know, I just hadn’t gotten around to doing something.
And I, I mean, I’ve always, I do something.
42:57
But it was lovely that it’s done, I mean.
Yes.
This morning I ran a mile outside and then I did an hour of just stuff.
Can we remind everyone that you’re 90 years old?
It’s just let’s put that out there, reminding everybody nine years old, running a mile and what time do you get up?
43:16
Wait, wait, wait.
My my Ron is like, like a creep.
No, mom.
Yeah, I, you know, creep or no creep, everybody is impressed.
It’s a bad word to.
Use my I’m.
Creeping.
No creeping.
Very 90s, no.
43:36
Well.
No, Speaking of creeping is a good word because we have a first great grandchild and we were watching him and the word creep is perfect.
He’s about.
He’s crawling.
He’s but he’s on his stomach, creeping forward.
43:53
I can see it.
Yes, I can see it.
Well, I, I’m super impressed and I, you know, can we talk just for a second about menopause since we’re ladies having this talk, you know, you’re at an age and that menopause is, is.
44:10
Their view window.
You know, rear view window.
Jane, I’m not sure where you’re at.
In the process.
I also had four or three other siblings.
My mom had four kids, but there were three daughters and one son.
Actually, my oldest sister died two years ago.
44:28
So I have my other oldest sister who lives in Amsterdam.
She’s 56 now.
So we talked about it a little bit, but I think it’s a good topic.
I think that more and more people are talking about it.
So I’m 45.
I haven’t noticed anything yet and I’m I’m just kind of curious when that process started, like for you, Anne and Jane, what your experience has been around that so far?
44:55
Well, it’s it’s so.
Interesting because I’m, I’m 59 and I always say that like I think I’ve gone through menopause, but it is interesting because as I had so few symptoms that you want to call that I could like when you go through like I teach middle school sex, add a little.
45:14
Bit Oh my gosh, she is amazing.
But but like, kids going through puberty, they’ve got all kinds of symptoms and things.
And like, we don’t think it’s a medical issue.
We don’t give them drugs.
We don’t do all this intervention.
Like, yeah, yeah, you’re supposed to have moods.
Yeah, yeah.
You’re supposed to have bad sleep.
Yeah.
45:29
Those you’re supposed to have this zits everywhere.
Your parent hits your breast, your your, I mean things spewing fluid like.
If it happened to us.
And this side of life, we’d be like, Oh my gosh, we can sleep our moods, our skin is a mess our you know, where things are dripping and drooling and spewing and like we would be having a fit.
45:50
But the fact that we changed on this side like no, no, no, no, I’m supposed to say, say sleep like like a Prince, Princess and and smooth buttery skin.
And, you know, not have like, no, Yeah.
46:05
So, but I have to say that being said, I have been exposed to so many women at so many of our retreats and our gatherings and that we’ve had hundreds of women’s houses when we’ve talked about this.
And I’m see that my experience is on the spectrum and I am on the side that I I I’m choosing the word fortunate because I don’t have some of the things that people have that are really extreme.
46:30
And like, I haven’t had hot flashes and I don’t feel surges or I mean, I don’t sleep sometimes because I’m thinking about my kids who are overseas climbing in the Himalayas.
Like, of course I’m going to stay awake worrying and thinking or whatever.
46:47
But that doesn’t, this isn’t a regular thing.
It’s just like, oh, I couldn’t fall asleep.
And plus, if I have chocolate late at night, it’ll keep me up because I don’t drink.
I don’t, we don’t drink coffee.
My God, if we drink coffee or tea or anything, we’d be like, we don’t like alcohol here.
They didn’t ask Mommy.
No, I’m happy to know.
47:04
You know what it’s I don’t drink coffee and I don’t drink alcohol.
I and if I eat chocolate at night, I won’t be able to sleep.
So I you know, so so.
Thank you for just just, I love hearing that because you know yourself and.
There’s something wrong if you drink a little alcohol I guess, but I’ve we just never but around.
47:22
Around the whole women and Women’s Health, you know, it suggested to not because we’re anyway, but the back to menopause.
So I feel very fortunate because I think a plant based diet, I’m dealing with my own hormones, not the hormones from any other being in my body And and they’re being processed in a way that’s kind of grooving with my path.
47:42
And I have I don’t have my cycles anymore, but that and that’s one symptom, I suppose, but there’s been no other other symptoms like that.
But then I have friends who are incredible whole food plant based eaters.
Who?
Wake up and they feel like they’re stuck in cement and they can’t move when they’re just when whatever’s happened to them.
48:01
I have no idea how to exist as a human being on a planet earth.
And I don’t know they they can’t move, they can’t think, they can’t do anything.
And they have a little bit of I’m not going to even say what it was because I don’t know if it was a or or a bioidente or that I don’t know.
I don’t know if it’s a patch or a bioidentical or estrogen or what they what lotion, a potion of this, a pill or whatever, but they have done something that’s made them come to feel like, OK, I can, I can ride through this with a little bit of help.
48:29
So I think that the revisiting of those studies from days of yore that were not, I think, appropriately set up or studied or reviewed or the methods things were not good in women.
The reason I have my conference is that women and minorities were not included in medical research until 1993.
48:49
Congress said like, OK, we have to include women and minorities and research as if we didn’t exist or matter.
Like what?
So anyway, I think for some whole food plant based women, it’s an easier ride through menopause, but not necessarily.
49:06
It’s not one-size-fits-all.
How did you go through puberty?
How did you go through puberty?
I mean it was so different than her.
She was like fully grown at age 8 having her period.
Wow.
Yeah, not my experience.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I had not.
49:21
We had not totally when I was, I was in my 50s when everything I began to have, you know, I would be having a conference at school with a parent and suddenly I would be sweating.
It’d be awful, but it wasn’t dreadful.
49:40
It was just like maybe a little wet at times.
I don’t be.
Complaining about anything.
No.
I mean, I kind of get the sense that you’re not a big complainer and.
No.
Same as my mom, Same as my mom.
49:56
I’m a big complainer because I got shingles, you know, September, and that was awful.
So everyone get your Shingrix shots.
This is actually a Shingrix ad.
Get your shots.
I was both.
Of them, it was so bad at 2:00 in the morning, I called 911.
50:18
I didn’t tell my husband, the Doctor Who was asleep and the ambulance and police, I mean, five people arrived at the door and then as he came down and he said, oh, I’ll take you into the clinic.
I said Nope, I’m going in the ambulance.
50:35
And I went off in the ambulance and I got a shot of morphine and I could live again.
And then I got a few with little.
And mind you, in their medicine cabinet, they have like a bottle with a cork in it for aspirin from like 1952.
They don’t take pain meds.
50:52
They and the fact that she was on morphine, we all were like morphine, like we couldn’t believe what was going on with.
Her that must have been shingles.
You must have been in a lot of pain.
Oh, it’s awful.
Shingles is awful.
It’s a good reminder for people to get to get those shots then.
51:09
Wow, yeah.
It makes me they realize how miserable pain can he be and how you know.
Well, it’s interesting that that you say that now because so many people who aren’t eating this way and who don’t necessarily have a healthy lifestyle, it’s like they really live with pain and so many people live in pain.
51:30
And so to hear you say at 90, you know, it was a reminder of how awful pain is, tells me that you don’t experience a lot of pain.
And that’s, you know, pretty for the majority of, of this country especially, that’s pretty unheard of.
You know, when my mom goes to the doctor, even when I go to the doctor and they’re like, OK, what medications are you on?
51:50
And she’s in her early 80s.
She’s like nothing.
They’re like, wait, what?
You know, they’re like, we don’t this is what there has to be something wrong.
She’s just like, no, no, you know.
So I think it’s, it’s such, it’s, it’s really telling.
Yes.
Yeah, I have some leftover morphine in my rat medicine cabinet.
52:10
What’s that for?
That I took it.
I took occasionally at night after my visit to the ER.
Well, because you were selling pain now, because you’re just like, I’m taking some morphine tonight.
Never too late to start.
And it’s gone.
52:27
It’s gone now, so no one’s going to run.
Yeah, well, I have a few questions from our community, from the dirties, and you all have a lot of fans.
And when I posted in our private Facebook group that I was going to be having this conversation, so many women were like, I am stronger because of these two.
52:46
I am healthier because of these two like that.
You know, there was just so much love pouring out.
So there were four questions that I thought were worth answering.
So I’m just going to, if that’s OK, I’ll just ask these questions.
I’m just going to ask them exactly how they worded them.
So the first one is from Michelle or Michelle.
53:05
And she says, I want to know Anne’s workout plan and what she eats to fuel her workouts because I definitely can’t drag a tire.
So we talked a little bit about your workout and your breakfast, but is there anything else you can speak to about that?
No and and the tire is whole thing A.
53:25
Mushelle, try dragging a tire, it’s not so hard.
But it it, it is hard if you’re going a little bit uphill.
Jane’s husband is an athlete and he does all this long distance forever running, ultra running.
53:42
It’s crazy.
And so one of the things he was doing was he was dragging this tire up and down our street and I said, Brian, I got to try that.
So I tried it.
And then that’s how it started.
I got here.
You said I got to.
53:57
Try that and she does a lot of yoga and strength stuff too.
And so do you, do you lift some weights?
Is that part of little?
Yes, I do a little bit of resistance.
OK, the next question is from Tabitha.
54:12
She says I used to eat and savory oats every day for breakfast, but now I can’t eat oats.
What grain would she replace the oats with in her recipe?
Usually barley because it has some of the same qualities as oats, because oats help lower your cholesterol, reduce inflammation, they’re kind of dose responsive to keep and especially when you’re still cut, keep your blood level steady and all the other blood sugar level.
54:42
Don’t do that as well as oats and barley.
OK, but.
Some of the combos that you do like I wrote, I took notes.
I was I want to put my glasses on taking notes.
I was taking notes about your black rice and millets and.
55:02
Lentils and steel cut oats.
Yes, and quinoa all together like that sounds like a really.
Cool.
Her phone is odd.
Her phone is odd.
She gets a pass.
She gets a pass.
I’ll send you the recipe if you want, Jane.
55:17
We have it on our blog, I think, and you can look at the proportions when I make recipes.
It was actually really hard when I started developing recipes because I was somebody who just like likes to throw stuff together and not measure anything.
And it’s.
Hard to know.
Yeah, And it’s hard to know.
I’m like, oh, I have to measure everything now.
55:34
And that took some time to get used to because I’m like, I don’t know, you just put in enough until it tastes good.
Like.
OK, so the question is from Sherry, how do you navigate this society, this world that is not plant strong, traveling, eating out, getting hungry when you’re on the go, eating at other people’s homes, being amongst people can all be so overwhelming.
55:54
How do you deal with it?
We don’t go to other people’s houses and travel and go to dinner, all this stuff.
We just don’t we actually, because for years we did a lot of travelling.
My husband was talking all over.
And one of the things that I think is so much fun is to go into an airport and to figure out what you can eat.
56:18
And we have had some of the best little put together meals that are really good that I mean you can get just plain beans and you know at any Mexican place and then Add all the little things on the side.
56:33
Find rice at Panda Express and then find some veggies over there.
And that anything about rice is and so many things as they add oil to kind of keep it from clumping.
That has been fun and and one of the recipes and be a plant based woman warrior is based on a meal that we had I think in a it was some kind of California.
56:55
San Fran Bull.
Yeah, the San Fran, San Francisco airport.
So, you know, you can do it.
And, and I think the other thing I really have strong feelings about is that people may feel they’re doing this alone and they’re all by themselves, but people are always watching you.
57:15
And they may not do it, but they remember.
And sometimes when things go down to them, they come back and I think, oh, maybe this is the solution.
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s a great, that’s a great answer.
57:32
Yes, have faith.
And I think it’s true when people are ready and when they’re paying attention, they’ll know who to come to, to ask questions and because people are noticing and watching and and paying attention, so.
I did not mean to say we don’t buy the dinner like we don’t.
57:48
We don’t get a ton of invitations to go to people’s houses because they’re terrified to cook for us is because because no, I mean, how awful.
We we write cookbooks.
We’re not chefs.
Please, just everyone out there know we would love an invitation because we learn so much when we go to dinner.
58:05
I’m going to dinner at our neighbor’s house tonight.
Can’t wait.
You can’t wait.
And I just came from my book group and you got lunch there and lunch in my book.
I mean, this is such a day, but we had such a good lunch.
But they she had this quinoa salad, which she put on a salad dressing, but she had a little bowl of the quinoa salad for me without the oil.
58:31
And then there was Peach balsamic vinegar that was awesome on top of it.
That sounds wonderful.
But I find that even like going to people’s houses and having the meal that they made.
I mean, I wouldn’t eat the dairy or the meat, but like if oils in I’ll think I’ll take that idea home and I’ll plant base it to fit our guidelines like we’re not having heart disease.
58:52
So having a meal with oil by neighbors.
Again, big invitation twice a year, probably different places and.
Well, Jane is this phenomenal cook and has I mean we.
It’s the master, the master, the master, so.
What’s so cute about you both?
59:08
Can I just say you both give each other compliments and then don’t want to receive them?
I see it kind of happening both ways here.
Someone once told me someone who won’t accept a compliment won’t accept feedback.
And I was like, oh, OK, thank you.
59:25
Thank you for your, thank you for your compliment.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
But I find just I’ve gotten so old I am not fancy cooking anymore.
It’s just simple.
I mean it’s simple.
And because I tend to never.
59:40
Fancy cook.
Well, but I I mean making a sauce is fancy.
Right.
I like, I love, I love.
What’s my favorite food?
Sauce.
Sauce.
It’s all about the sauce.
I have sauce totally and but I want to go back to the I don’t like my quick response.
59:56
It seemed kind of rude if she’s listening because going out to dinner at people’s homes, we I, I, I try to navigate as best as possible and I often will ask if you can bring something and then what you bring.
People might be interested, interested in trying it.
Maybe not.
We have a great video on the better board, a better board.
1:00:13
Such a fun thing to bring.
Should I explain it a little bit or do you want to go to our YouTube and look at the holiday better board?
I think that’s the first time we did it was holiday and basically like remember the trend on I don’t know if you we have a publish this my daughter who’s wonderful, but I did see a little bit of this trend on the Internet on Instagram years ago.
1:00:33
It was called the butter board.
They would like take a cutting board, spread butter all over it, and then put on, you know, nuts and veggies and this and that and, you know, like, like a charcuterie.
Tornado butter, right?
Butter and then you take a cracker and you run it through everything and eat like like this butter based bite.
1:00:49
And so we were like, let’s do a better bore and love it.
Hummus, stat.
Hummus.
And then you put like caramelized onions and chunks of sweet potatoes and broccoli sprouts and pistachios or, you know, walnut toasted walnuts, just something just cha cha fun, fun.
1:01:06
And then drizzles balsamic vinegar on top like a peanut, like a the savory one or whatever flavor you want.
And then you go through with your Amy’s crackers or I mean Mary’s, Mary’s ground crackers or something.
And it’s oddly sanitary because everyone takes a bite and they eat you’re.
1:01:22
Not double dipping, no, you’re not but it, but it’s just it’s like.
Finger painting to bring it to a party.
That’s just Wolf.
That and then have a little bit of this and that and then the other thing.
It’s so interesting the other day when RIP was here, he was trying to, he has some of these wonderful little chilies and stews which is going to Walmart and he wanted to do something and so Jane did a better board with his.
1:01:47
Like a foundation of like kind of like a seven layer dip if you will, like guacamole and this, this and this and veggie stuff.
And he never had it.
He was like, what?
No, but we had this huge other meal and it looked like no one’s going to eat all that.
It was gone.
1:02:04
I mean, the board was clean.
Yeah.
It was great.
What kind of dish did you use for that one?
Because it seems like it was.
It was would have been.
Higher, just a kind of more.
Just a kind of more your, your, your foundation.
Like that’s a great question.
I was like, RIP the the guacamole here is going to be the swimming pool.
1:02:19
And then and, and that I, I poured his his Chilean Stew.
And then on top of that was lettuce, chopped tomatoes, scallions, corn, corn, roasted corn, red Peppers, red Peppers.
And then and it was some salsa.
Anyway, you can put hot sauce if you’re a hot sauce fan.
1:02:36
Oh, it was delicious.
Yeah, it sounds incredible.
So it was it’s it’s so fun to like better board.
Just bring something and then you’ll be part of the fun because it’s so fun to be included.
Like communities, the best.
And when you lose that, it’s off.
Yeah, yeah, it is so important.
1:02:53
And I think I think that we have very similar food styles, your food just even looking and making some of the recipes in here because I you know.
Much of what I.
Do is either testing my team’s recipes or creating recipes.
So I’m like, you know, that’s what the majority of our business is.
1:03:10
We have 39 cookbooks worth of recipes.
So we have over 5000 recipes that we’ve created over the past 10 years.
And so it’s a lot.
So I hardly ever.
So I don’t have a lot of cookbooks.
I don’t buy cookbooks, but my mom gave me this one because she’s like, look at these two bad ass here.
1:03:29
I want you to have a copy.
And I was like, Oh yeah.
And so I’ve tried some of these recipes and it’s very much my style.
And I totally like, I’ve approve of everything I’ve tried.
And I think it’s it’s the photography is beautiful.
There’s so much good information.
She was amazing.
1:03:45
Like, yeah, it’s gorgeous.
We were like, whoa, you are.
It was transforming our yeah, hold.
We’re rough edged, woolly, not clean cut.
You know, we don’t have like flowers on there.
It’s like.
She’s like, it’s, it’s.
1:04:00
Spring look like it’s May.
She’s like, look low in your grass.
There’s this.
Little tiny white.
I’m like, oh the.
Things we just mowed over because you didn’t mow that section.
Go pick those little white flowers and like that’s and that’s what’s like adorning this picture.
This is a white flower we didn’t mow.
1:04:17
I mean amazing.
How would she would she help us create SO?
Cool.
Well, it makes the difference.
You know, having beautiful food photography really does make a difference because people eat with their eyes and and I think it also makes this way of eating less weird when it looks really appealing, right.
1:04:34
And it’s not.
And it’s like, it’s too bad that it has to be that it is weird to some people.
But if it can look really good and look like normal food, then I think that’s like half the battle and your food.
I mean, certainly it is beautiful and it tastes really good and I really, I really appreciate the recipes and just all the work that put that went into this because it’s not, I mean, this is like so long in the making.
1:04:57
This is like legacy.
COVID was it was a good time.
Well, rescue testing, but then like you can, you can imagine a photo shoot for a cookbook.
You’ve got to do it in like basically you’re shooting for like 4 days, five days.
1:05:13
So you have to make hundreds of recipes which means you have to semi prep.
You can’t complete recipe or just Wilts.
We have no ACS and then the grocery store, the refrigerator.
And all during COVID.
Oh, and the photographer has like millions of different like pink plywood, green plywood, blue plywood, white plywood, Niston barrels of different utensils and stuff and plates and cups and you’re like real and then fabrics.
1:05:42
Surfaces so our house was so did did you give away a bunch of the food?
Like how did you eat all of that food?
That you were like, put the bat signal for our neighbors.
We live in a small little St. like 12 houses.
We’re like, can you guys come and eat dessert?
We shot dessert today and it was, you know, kind of like picked at and whatnot.
1:06:00
And we were dropping salsa from our roof to get like a splatter spot.
Like it was kind of weird, but they they know some people came and enjoyed it.
Yeah.
Awesome.
So I want to wrap up because I know it’s already been an hour and I could talk about, I could talk with you for a lot longer, both of you.
1:06:17
And we talked to you.
It’s fun to talk to you.
It’s like you’re next door.
You know what?
I it’s funny, my partner made these from your cookbook last night.
You know what it is?
Oh, his stone’s gone, Chuck.
I’m a Reddo Chuck Cherry.
1:06:34
Aha, James.
They chose a good one.
They chose a good one.
Yeah, it is.
And it’s so funny because I just happen to have all the rest of ingredients in my kitchen for it.
So I was like, that’s how you know you’re a plant based badass because you can open any of these recipes and have all of the ingredients for them.
1:06:53
These are incredible.
And I, well, I was like, oh, I can just bring them to the talk and we can just like have a scone and chat.
So it’s been it’s been great to sit down with you both and to and just to chat about all of the the plant based things.
1:07:09
So from each of you, I would just like to hear if there’s somebody watching this who is new to whole food plant based eating and they’re kind of like trying to figure it out.
And let’s go with you first.
What would you say to them to encourage them?
Just do it.
Don’t do it a little bit.
1:07:26
Do it.
She’s sponsored by Nike.
But no, no, no, no.
But also, I’m coming from a very specific point of view because I am thinking of my husband’s heart disease patients who sometimes this is life or death.
1:07:43
And so if you don’t do it, then you may have to have the surgery you don’t want to have And, and so that you can’t just go in slowly.
And I think it’s that whole principle of the 40 days.
If you don’t, if you think you can’t do it, OK, only say you’re going to do it for 40 days and then it’s yours.
1:08:05
That’s great and I love that you circle back to that.
So that’s very and that’s a tangible thing when you have a number and it makes it a lot easier than just like trying it for however long.
So I think that’s wonderful advice.
Just do it.
Try it for 40 days.
Go buy this cookbook.
It’ll help you.
And one of the scary things is so many people decide to go plant based because of heart disease.
1:08:27
And then they do it and they do it and they do it for a while and then they get kind of lack and they get back into trouble.
So it’s not something you can, if you have heart disease that you can do and then think you’re cured, you need to keep doing it.
1:08:43
Yeah, OK.
Jane, what about you?
To add on to what she said, like just yes, of course, do it.
Try it and don’t don’t worry that you’re that you might feel a little different because you probably are, you’re doing a lot of good things.
Like you probably are as familiar with oats or oatmeal and there’s a bazillion different versions thereof and that you can create.
1:09:03
And that’s a great start.
And then you probably part of hummus, you are, you’ve tried it or you like it.
And that’s your new, that’s your new mayonnaise, your new butter, your new, just filling a new, your new coating for things like hummus for us is so versatile.
Like we coat potatoes in it and then bake them and they have this like beautiful crust.
1:09:21
And it’s like, what is this like baked hummus?
And I mean, whatever.
And I got hungry just thinking about it.
So you’re going to find the little tricks that like you know that we know that you’re like, you know, once you get it, like when we say get it, we mean oats and grains in the morning foundation.
1:09:39
You won’t be hungry for a long time.
Not the chopped up kind, not the spice rats by seasons and sweetens and salted kind whole.
Like not oat gross necessarily, but steel cut and all the other intense grains and adopting hummus into your life.
1:09:56
If you can eat it.
Some people are like, I don’t like beans and like try hummus.
It’s all blurred up.
It’s not that hard on your body.
Some people they have a hard time with with legumes and that I think is a great vehicle to get you into understanding that there’s options midday you can dip in that.
We eat so much hummus just with with vegetables and like I want to take a little tub out to my garden, like my cherry tomatoes and just go the hummus.
1:10:20
Love it.
And for dinners, I think that making your own bowl is what like clearly it’s our it’s our affliction because what it is, it’s like, and I read this whole big thing about bowls and before we have the section, we’re like, bowl actually means, you know, pelvis means bowl.
1:10:38
And like, if you’re building your own bowl, you’re in control of your own fate.
Like just sit and wait for your plate to be served to you that somebody else decided and they’re giving you deep fried Yorkshire pudding with pickled plums and whatever cream and black.
Like, you know, you have no control over your health but to build your own bowl.
1:10:58
You’re choosing your greens, you’re choosing your grains, you’re choosing your beans, you’re choosing your sauce, sausage, sausage.
And you’re going to put some spark on top with, you know, your hot sauces or salsas or whatever brings it a little cha cha.
John’s peanut sauce is so delicious.
1:11:16
I am getting hungry with this conversation.
And I think that like just because once you get it, then you have it and people always like 1 real variety.
Well, then change up one of your foundations of your sausage.
The lagoon was try tofu, try tempeh, try cooking it differently, try putting it on a flat thing.
1:11:32
Make a lasagna.
There’s so many different ways to do this.
Go back to eating posse, probably pasta for a long time.
Have the red sauce with no meat, no meatballs.
So I think that.
People, I think people.
Have it more than they realize they’re familiar with, and they can get it.
1:11:49
I think a key thing if you really are going to change is read the ingredients on what you are buying, because so many people buy whatever already processed food.
And that is a real turn off.
I mean, I, I don’t ever want to eat coconut milk, coconut oil, anything with coconut or palm oil because they’re just, yeah, so bad.
1:12:13
So if if there’s something with that in it, I don’t even look twice.
I mean, but you can just leave ingredients.
Yeah, I think that all of that is very good advice.
And it’s really, and I love what you say, like, you know, this is your bowl, you are making it, this is your health.
1:12:30
And at the end of the day, like we all have to walk.
Like we all live our lives like nobody else has to live our life for us.
So we need to be making decisions that are going to benefit us because we live with the consequences.
And so that really speaks to, I think both of what you were saying, you know, doing this and having, you know, the reasons to doing it and doing it for yourself.
1:12:51
I think it’s and it’s doable.
You’re right.
I mean, most people have had plant based things and don’t even realize it.
It’s not like this is some kind of funky food that is, you know, rare and like, it’s tomatoes and avocados and, you know, it’s not, it’s beans.
1:13:07
It’s not all that, that exotic after all.
So I think that’s both the yeah, very good advice from you both.
And I just thank you for sitting down and talking with me today.
I’ve had a blast.
Thank you.
Well, we’ve.
Loved it and we’ve loved it.
1:13:23
Perfect Dirty girls and plant based woman warriors.
We all live fierce.
Yes.
Bald and eat delicious.
Love it.
And you know, just one last thing to wrap up.
I really have to thank you and for all of the work that you and your husband have done over the years because it did start the path and it did.
1:13:44
You know, there’s there’s no way that I would be doing what I do today if there wasn’t, you know, the people who came before me doing this.
And and you have been such a champion and you cleared away for the rest of us.
So thank you for all of your work.
Thank you.
1:13:59
Thank you.
That’s.
Wonderful.
Seizing the kind.
Of man and I I want to pass most of that on to my husband, who really was prescient in what he.
But he can’t make toast.
Against the car?
Yes, he makes his own breakfast cereal.
1:14:15
Done.
He can’t do anything else.
So.
So you brought it.
You gave it legs and wheels and cha cha.
Well, I think it was like a dream team, you know, Great.
Bingo.
Yeah, on the nose.
On the nose.
On the nose.
OK, Well, thank you.
Bye.
OK, bye.
1:14:31
Bye.
Great to talk to you, Molly.
Bye.
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