Investigating Vegan Life With Patricia Kathleen

Talking With Plant-Based Nutritionist and Vegan Chef; Monica Victoria

Today I am speaking with Monica Victoria. Monica is a plant-based nutritionist, vegan chef, personal trainer,  wellness educator, devout yogi, and fitness enthusiast.  Her focus is guiding people into a state of alkalinity, via living foods, along with a complete mind/body lifestyle overhaul.

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. 

www.monicavictoria.com

 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is investigating Vegan life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end. We will cover topics that have revealed themselves as Kofman and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. You can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to Investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation. 

 

[00:01:13] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. This is your host, Patricia, and I am sitting down today with Monica Victoria. Monica is a plant based nutritionist, Vegan chef and a wellness coach. Welcome, Monica. 

 

[00:01:24] Thank you so much. So excited to be here. 

 

[00:01:26] Absolutely. I'm excited to have you as well. 

 

[00:01:29] So, really quickly, before I read a quick bio on Monica, before I do that for everyone listening and watching the Vodcast or the podcast today, a quick roadmap of what we're gonna discuss today is we're gonna get into a brief history of Monica as it pertains to her plant based and Vegan journey. And then we'll look at unpacking Monica Victoria's brand, her website, her Instagram. I know there's a lot of information spread across your Instagram site. And then we'll get into the ethos of the of her plant based endeavor. So she does a lot of coaching, a lot of recipes and kind of plenty some of that, as well as motivations and lifestyles, that she has an interaction she has with clients during that, and then also get into how her business and professional history, what they're looking towards in the future, especially given the current cultural and economic climate that we're all faced in with the pandemic of the Cauvin virus. And then we'll look towards a wrap everything up with future endeavors that Monica thinks she's looking towards, as well as any goals or plans that she has. Before we get into all of that quick file on Monica, Monica Victoria is a plant based nutritionist, Vegan chef, personal trainer, wellness educator, devout yogi and fitness enthusiast. Her focus is guiding people into a state of alkalinity via living foods, along with a complete mind body lifestyle overhaul by introducing a plant based diet. She enhances internal organ health, outward physical appearance, daily thoughts, self-confidence and cognitive reasoning. With an emphasis on disease prevention via plant foods and cardiovascular health, Monaca guides her clients to live an empowered life, learning that nutrient dense food. Plant food is mind body fuel. That fitness is a reward and the ultimate form of self-love. Her approach to life is one of no excuses doing, not trying and never being prisoner to past traumas, but becoming stronger because of them. 

 

[00:03:22] So, Monica, I'm so excited to climb into everything that you are doing right now. 

 

[00:03:27] But before we do that, I'm hoping you can paint us a brief history regarding your educational or academic background and then your early professional life as it pertains to like your Vegan and plant based empire. 

 

[00:03:39] Oh, well, thank you for the introduction. Yeah. When when you hear about yourself like that, you kind of go, oh, those those are all the things I do. So thank you. Well, education wise, I got certified through the call into Campbell's program as a certified plant based nutritionist. So I did that online course. But I would say that most of my education is all research that I've done that I continue to do daily know over the past two decades, basically. And it actually all kicked off for me by reading the book Skinny Bitch, which I'm sure familiar with. And I respond very well to black and white information. I don't like things to be sort of, you know, sugar coated. And it was just so raw and real and straight to the point that it clicked with me. And I became Vegan overnight. I've always like literally always been vegetarian naturally, because since I was a child, I have always been very connected to animals, to the to the physical world. I just been very in tune with the universe and I never even enjoyed animal products. OK. And I grew up in Spain. I'm Spanish. Italian. My mom. My mother's the Italian. My father's a Spaniard. Yeah. So, you know, obviously, Mediterranean cuisine is primarily plant based, but they do have a large focus on especially like on pork products. Yeah. But I never liked them ice cream. I never liked dairy. Never settled well with me. And luckily for me, like my mom cooked everything. So I was raised on very good nutrient dense food and there wasn't that many. We didn't have like animal products at our dinner table everyday. Like, I think a lot of people feel, oh, if I don't have a piece of chicken or a piece of meat or whatever on on my dinner plate, then I don't have a complete meal. Correct. What has been the, you know, of course, perpetuated by the meat dairy industry that to have a complete meal, you have to have animal protein border to get your protein, et cetera. But we'll talk about that further into the podcast. Yeah, my point is for for all this information is that I was already an environmentalist. I was already very involved with animal welfare. And so if you are an environmentalist and you are an animal rights advocate or you want to protect animals, whether it's dogs, cats, horses, rhinos, and you're not Vegan, you are contradicting your beliefs because you cannot be an environmentalist or an animal rights like. Kate, if you're still eating them, though, you know, there is. For me, no other way to be if you are, you know, conscious of animal welfare and environmental welfare and human rights. So. Right. Well, that came together for me once I read that book because there's just no way. And also, I'm not a speciesist and I don't believe in dominion. So, like, I don't believe that my life as a human being is worth more than that of a female cow, for example. So I as a female especially, do not condone or could be a part of the dairy industry that keeps basically female cows institutionalized and slave labor basically forced pregnancy over and over and over. And in order for them to, you know, lactate and then to steal their milk, then they take the baby cow. We all know what happens. So all of this just resonated very deeply with me. And because of that, I've been Vegan for 50 years. And that's what has taken me to where I am today. 

 

[00:07:19] It's amazing history. You know, we were talking off the record before we started recording and. And I always feel like I've got a pretty good handle on it, you know? 

 

[00:07:27] And I speak with someone like you who's had this fifteen year plus, you know, relationship and history and lifestyle as a Vegan. And I'm like, there's so much more to go, you know, because I was explaining that my life changes, really, you know, that my and my relationship with it. I always think that it's it's well thought and calm, but it becomes even more calm. And the consistency in which it makes sense with everything peaceful and wonderful in the world is always, you know, being reaffirmed. I'm wondering if we can kind of unpack a little bit about what you're doing. And I know that your Web site. So for everyone listening, it's Monica. Victoria dot com. And I know like a lot of us right now, we're doing a lot of work on our our web back ends and things like that. But you're online. And for people who got to it's there. And then you also have your Instagram is at at Monaca, Victoria. 

 

[00:08:17] Yeah. One word first middle name. 

 

[00:08:19] Mural's on Snapchat for anyone who's interested with the Vegan siren. But your main your main platform is at Monaca Victoria, on Instagram. So I kind of want to touch on too. 

 

[00:08:28] I know that your Web site is is a work of progress right now. However, I want to get into some aspects on it. You offer a lot of different ideas about what you're branded and who you are is as a coach, as as a speaker. And you talk about recipes and resources and things like that. Can you kind of describe what you're working on or who in the past you've worked with, who've been your clients and what you're looking at doing kind of with this entire Vegan enterprise of yours? 

 

[00:08:58] So I basically use myself as a model, if you will, for how, you know, living plant based is an investment long term in yourself. And it's the ultimate form of disease prevention, longevity and anti aging, because especially for women, I think the number one concern is their physical appearance right where I live, especially in Newport Beach. I mean, the whole emphasis is on the way people look, right? They're spending thousands and thousands of dollars on external treatments, but they're not focusing on their internal organ health, which is what dictates the external appearance. Right. The way your skin looks, the quality, the texture of the skin, hair, the maintenance that you have to do on yourself. And the solutions are very simple. Once you get into a rhythm with your what you put into your body physically, it's really not what you're putting on top. You know, like the topical stuff, it's more the internal organ focus. So that's what I do with the people that I work with. I try to get them to realize that no amount of money that they spend on external is ever going to replace what they put into their body. I mean, there are women who are obsessed with their external appearance, so they'll spend thousands of dollars on hair, nails, makeup, skincare products, you know, treatments like, oh, this, that whatever what they're eating. Del Toro three times a day. I'm being dead serious right now. Like, I know people who actually do this. It's wild to believe, but they're obsessed with the way they look. So, you know, I understand that veganism as a lifestyle is really. Almost impossible for a lot of people to believe that it's something that they could achieve. So what I try to do is I go to it from a person's like a sweet spot, right. So whatever it is that they're really focused on enhancing, we start there and we go. We start from the inside out, literally. And that's what I do with my clients. And it was really fascinating because I know you talked about how your journey as a Vegan like how you can how you're always changing. Right now it's shifting. And I think when you first go Vegan and you're inundated with, you know, the documentaries and the information, you see how much cruelty is out there and how unbalanced the world is and how so many people are suffering, not just animals, but human beings, the humans that are doing the actual slaughter, jobs, et cetera. Right. Yeah. Which I think a lot of people don't talk about enough in the Vegan movement because unfortunately, a lot of people do not connect to animal welfare. What they do connects to human beings being used basically as slave labor. Because let's be serious. The people that are doing the jobs, these horrible jobs, they're not people like you and I who have the ability and the access to do better things with our life. It's people that are typically on the poverty line or that are illegal immigrants, et cetera, that have no other option and that are basically forced into these jobs because they literally cannot do anything else. They're put into these positions, forced basically, and have to commit basically murder every day. And then they take that horrible negative energy and it gets redistributed among their community. Right. 

 

[00:12:25] You I want to kind of differentiate here really quickly, because you are touching on a point that when I speak with so vegans or plant based people, this has become a really divisive and interesting. I'm really glad you brought this out in the community, because I noticed that you use both terms about being a plant based nutritionist and also a vegan lifestyle coach and things of that nature. But I'm curious for you yourself personally, how do you differentiate what you find to be the differences between the terms and how you think that that there's like a dialog happening on the social platform and how you think that's playing out? 

 

[00:13:00] Well, so someone like myself can call herself vegan. And because I've been living like this for almost two decades. Right. I'm heavily involved with activism. And my whole approach to life in general comes from the Vegan perspective of equality, non dominion, peace and to cause non harming. Right. So that's my whole goal in life for people who are in the I mean, plant based movement, if you want to call it that. It's awesome because you're focused on the nutrition aspect. Right. So not consuming, acidic, dead foods, which are all animal products and all processed manmade products. Why do I call myself a plant based nutritionist? Because, I mean, plant foods are what provide the best nutrition. Right. I don't want to call myself a Vegan nutritionist because veganism is a way of life. Plant based is what we put into our body. Like it's the nutrition aspect. Correct. So I am a vegan and I do encourage a vegan lifestyle. But veganism as a way of living encompasses literally all aspects of your life, all your vices, the brands you support. You know, where you shop, the things you buy. It's looking at things from a much bigger perspective, going deeper into the back end of everyday products and being conscious of what you do on this earth, the effect that it has on other living beings, the environment. And knowing that just because, like I live in Newport Beach doesn't mean I'm not connected to what's happening in, you know, in Africa, for example, everything's connected. And look at the way we look at us now. Right. Like the state of the world. If it's ever proven more true that we are all connected, it's now everything, every single action, we do have consequences. 

 

[00:14:45] And I wonder I mean, I know I know a good majority, a great deal anyway, of vegans that ascribe to what you're saying, which is, you know, the title Vegan is M implies a lifestyle and and a way of living, not just necessarily needs. However, there's been some pushback because and I'm not sure where the argument will ever end up, but on people products in particular. So mass produced products are are attaching to plant based the way that people attach to, you know, fortified with vitamins and minerals. Like they just started to say everything was plant based and it wasn't Vegan. And so a lot of vegans are going into and finding, you know, all of these products that have this label of plant based on them is there is some kind of plant based nutrient to them. Yeah. But that it's not necessarily Vegan, you know, they don't have a gilger, something like that. And so there's been some some pushback in that, like everyone started to attach health and wellness to plant based like they did with sugar free in the 80s. And it was this hype like, oh, it's going to be healthy for, says, plant based. 

 

[00:15:45] And so I know there's been some pushback with people saying, like the Vegan certified seal and things like I think that plant base is a slippery slope because, you know, there's a lot of people who consider themselves plant based. The majority of the time, what, they'll still slip in some fish or some eggs every now and then, but they're majority plant based. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So, yeah, plant based is is just that plant based. Their base is plants not excluding potentially other other products that don't fall under the Vegan category. Right. Yeah. Here's a perfect example. If someone says, oh, I eat I, I used to be Vegan and I'm not anymore. There is no way you were ever Vegan because one, if your Vegan your Vegan for life, you were in this because you realize that your impact on this earth is less like you don't cause as big of a detriment as a Vegan. Right. Your footprint in every way is lessened when you are committed to a vegan lifestyle. There is no way that my belief system is going to go out the window because one day I wake up, which I never would. And I'm craving a hamburger. Right. That's never gonna happen. If you're if you're a true vegan. If someone says, oh, my God, I like when Vegan for two weeks. No, you didn't. You were eating plant based for two weeks. 

 

[00:17:07] Yeah, I'm saying. Sure, sure. Sure. Yeah. 

 

[00:17:09] Those are those things that you like. I get that v the v the word Vegan is trendy right now. Right. People are embracing it which I think is amazing. 

 

[00:17:19] I mean, anything that we can do in order to further right the awareness of the information and everything that goes along with veganism plant based is wonderful. But for the pushback that you're talking about, it's exactly that. The crossover and the the loose. I think a lot of people, the purists, for example, like myself, when we see brands profiting off of labels like Vegan or Plan Base and they're not. That is infuriating. 

 

[00:17:50] Absolutely. And it's also it's misleading. So maybe it's a misleading clarification. I like defining terms and I like opportunities to go back in and redefine. And I'm hoping that this is actually one of them for the food industries. 

 

[00:18:02] I want to turn toward something you alluded towards when I asked you how you pitched, you know, plant based and vegan lifestyles to your clients. And you said that you kind of got into what they were into. You found their weak spot and put you up. And that was fascinating to me because I first of all, I think it's it's the best angle to come at any one on a sales pitch for health or for wellness of anything, finding out what matters to them and really coming home with that, being looking beautiful or fighting off cancer. But I wanted to turn that towards I think it's a. Yeah, exactly. I want to. I usually do do both. I want to turn that into this. This perception of it unifying. You know, you have this idea that whatever is is ailing someone, whoever unifies all of us. And given the pandemic right now of Cobley 19 and what we're all dealing with, you know, it came from. Well, right now at least it's believed. I want to put that out there hypothetically right now. It is believed that kov the virus jumped species in a wet market in China and a wet market is based on the sale and consumption of mammals, reptiles, fish and all of that. And I'm wondering, I don't think that there was a lot of unification across countries, you know, and I've globe-trotting quite a bit. And I've spoken with vegans all over the world and different communities have different objections or ways that they're coming at the lifestyle. But it feels like the pandemic reality of this and where it was born from. You know, these kinds of like animal eating systems and markets has unified us, at least in this rhetoric of like we need to start considering like this, these types of things becoming issues for people who are like, I would never eat plant based. I would never be Vegan like, well, you might if it would keep your great grandchildren from dying, you know, like these ideas of pandemics and things that no longer are born out of your cholesterol or blood pressure or things that people know me. 

 

[00:20:00] Yeah, I have several thoughts on this. There are so many people that are horrified by wet markets, which of course we are. It's the gnarliest level of inhumane, subhuman evil ever on this earth. Right. They're eating pangolins. They're eating bats. They're eating literally cubs of koalas like the animals that are there. 

 

[00:20:25] I don't even have words. Right. But what drives me absolutely insane is that everyone, like all the Western cultures that are freaking out over this, will sit down for dinner and eat chicken or beef. Right. What is the difference? Animals are getting slaughtered literally hundreds of billions of them every year. 

 

[00:20:48] Right. So that's my question. I'm wondering if now with with this kind of very real like I don't think that those kinds of things penetrate. 

 

[00:20:56] I think the emotional attachment to food is that of, oh, my God, a drug. It's it's the most powerful drug, the most powerful medicine. I 1000 percent. Yeah. And so I think that people can say they're opposed to cruelty or they're opposed to eating certain animals and then consume another because of the crazy drug like effect that food has on people. However. 

 

[00:21:15] And one and also because it's not realized that there is not stigma. Well there is more now, but there's not as much stigma attached to eating chicken. Like there is no attachment. There is no correlation with the actual life of a chicken versus that of a koala, for example. Right. That they place more value on a koala's life than they do want a chicken because. Oh, my God, there's like billions of chickens. Who cares? 

 

[00:21:38] But do you think that no value will change now that they have. There's an impression now. 

 

[00:21:43] There's some I'm hoping I'm hoping we're all quarantined in our houses globally because of, you know, of the consumption of animals. And so when you have enough things like this start to hit home, I'm wondering if you think that there will be some kind of light bulb that goes on, at least with. 

 

[00:22:00] You work, I think that like for someone like me, who is a very vocal about this and constantly trying to get people to make the connection to not be hypocrites and not, again, speciesism. It's it's it's rampant. Right. We shouldn't. I always say and it's like one of my taglines. You cannot love animals and eat them, too. You can't you can't love one, but not the other. It just doesn't work that way. You know, there has to be equality across the board. If you're going to say that you love animals, it just it it it just doesn't translate properly. So what? Of course, one of the one I guess one of the good things, if you want to call it that, that's come out of this entire pandemic, is that, you know, the sales of plant based products, these products have gone up like 600 percent. Rand people wanting to adopt a plant based lifestyle has exploded. I mean, just in my business alone, you know, because I do meal prep deliveries and I you know, I cook and people will not cooking people's homes now, but I am delivering more food than I ever have because, you know, people are worried. They're concerned. They're fearful of, you know, putting the wrong things into their body and potentially having detrimental side effects. And immunity is the biggest factor in all of this. Right. Eighty percent of our immunity lies in our gut. And that's something that you work on every day, pandemic or not. It doesn't matter. Like, what I keep telling people is, look. For example, the Web and living for fifteen years when some crazy shit like this happens. 

 

[00:23:32] I'm ready, baby. Like my dad, my immunity defense system is like the US military living inside of my gut. It's ready. It's armed. It's like boom, boom, boom, or whatever you want at me. 

 

[00:23:43] Obviously, I would never put myself into a situation where I could actually, you know, be exposed to it. But the reality is, for someone like myself, the risk of me contracting it is so low because my immunity defense is so high. Why wouldn't everybody want to be in this living in this kind of environment? Why wouldn't everybody wants to be always prepared? That's why I always say it's never too late to start. But the sooner you do, the better because you're prepared for anything that comes out. 

 

[00:24:11] You more for your health, given your family's history, too. And I will say I just got done a couple of weeks ago Globe-Trotting And so I love finding out different people's impressions. 

 

[00:24:22] But because you come from a non USA based family, when you talk to them about veganism, do you get different kinds of pushback that you get from people who aren't Vegan in the United States? And do you have family members that aren't Vegan that you're able to kind of exchange information with? 

 

[00:24:38] Well, my entire extended family lives in Europe, Lip, like everybody of my my father's side. They all live in Spain, my mother's side. They all live in Italy. And we have family and in the United Kingdom, in London, which is where I was born. So I'm British by birth, Spanish, Italian by blood and American by residency. OK. Her so do I. It's interesting when when I first won Vegan 15 years ago. Of course it was. Yeah. I mean I had extended family members that would send me the stupidest shit you've ever seen on Facebook and, you know, just ignorance, you know what I mean. And also, it's what's scary about veganism to people as you're making them question their entire existence. You're making them question everything you've ever even in their entire life. It makes people be like, wait, you're telling me my culture is wrong? You're telling me what my dad fed me. My mom and dad gave me, like, what raised me on his wrong. Like, you're telling me that, you know, there's cruelty. Like, it just raises all of these very deep rooted and implanted structural ideas that you inherited basically from birth. You know, the psychology of food, as you mentioned earlier, is the biggest barrier and that sickest layer to navigate through when you're just trying to bring people information. 

 

[00:25:52] And what I always say is when you do things that make you better, that make your health better, it has nothing to do with your family. It has nothing to do with anybody but yourself. You putting yourself first and having non attachment to the past, because realistically, any culture, any way of whatever their interpretation is of like, you know, their their history or their family or whatever. 

 

[00:26:18] All those recipes can be tweaked and be made plant based to be made healthy. You can still have everything you've ever wanted. You're just removing a couple of things that don't serve you well. So have I had pushback? I mean, yeah, of course I want to. I'll never forget, like especially in the beginning before veganism was so widely accepted. And I was like to say, like, I've been vegan before. It was trendy right before it was cool. Like, this is just who I am. 

 

[00:26:42] I've always been enlightened, but I I have specific memories of people who did not want me going to dinners with them because my presence as a vegan made them uncomfortable. And I always say it has nothing to do with me. I am merely a representation of like who I am and why I am my authentic self. Right. I have no fear. I'm not I'm not out here to, like, make you uncomfortable. I'm just living my truth. 

 

[00:27:07] If I make you uncomfortable, that's because you are literally at war with your subconscious and trying to, like, make what you are doing, your decisions. OK. In your own head, for people who literally do not give an F and that I'm there, they'll eat a fuckin steak in front of me. They don't care. 

 

[00:27:26] But those people are few and far between. I will tell you what. They do exist. 

 

[00:27:30] They do exist. And if that's where they're at. And that that's what makes them feel triumphant. I say good for you. You know what I mean? It doesn't affect me. Maybe fifteen years ago it was because when you first go into the movement, you see things and you're like, what do you realize? Like what you're what you're eating, what you're doing and where it came from. 

 

[00:27:49] Now I'm like so logical and so rational. Now I realize that the best way for me to lead is by example and by educating, not by force. That's why I don't push veganism on people. I just encourage them to consume more plant based foods that make them feel better, make them look better, because eventually they teeter off naturally. The animal based products. Yeah. 

 

[00:28:11] But to do it, I think the greatest. Everyone always talks about the greatest convertors to veganism. I'm like. Education is also leading by example. 

 

[00:28:19] It's like who you are. Like your energy, like what you bring. People always say to me, like the number one Kofman is you have so much energy. Crazy, and I'm like, yeah, because my body is like so hydrated and so mineralized because I only fiber rich foods, which, by the way. Everybody's always like crazy, virgin, virgin. It's actually not about protein, it's about fiber. Fiber is what keeps our body hydrated. It heals the organs. It should be recuperates like, you know, illness, disease. It prevents disease. So and also there's protein and like literally every every every vegetable, every living, every week. 

 

[00:28:57] You eat like I always say, you know, if you think you're getting protein from eating beef, what do you think the cow aids in order to become protein? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. 

 

[00:29:07] So and adding that you find protein as a vegetable, usually as a significant amount of fiber. So they're handed iron. 

 

[00:29:13] And yes, that's why I say like eat as much fiber as you want because you're getting a ton of protein. You know, on as you know, it comes with it. You know what I mean? And I would like to say the side effects of living a plant based lifestyle are amazing. 

 

[00:29:27] I am 41 years old. I have never colored my hair in my life. This is my real color. 

 

[00:29:34] This is like how long and healthy my hair is. I do nothing. I don't get any kind of fillers, any kind of injectables. I don't do any of that shit. I just eat for beauty. That's what I always say. Eat, eat, eat as much as you want. It's not about calories and about carbs. It's not about any of this nonsense. It's just eating, living foods and being creative with them and being happy and getting out there and being in nature, getting sunlight. And the crazy thing about this whole college experience is people are actually reconnecting to Mother Earth. Yeah, I live as a beach. You live at the beach. You know how it is. We have neighbors that literally never go out on their front deck or walk down to the ocean. 

 

[00:30:11] Seeing people reconnecting to nature has been, for me, the most beautiful part of this entire experience, seeing that like people don't need to spend so much time in front of a screen or on their phone or just like busy doing what? 

 

[00:30:27] What the fuck are you so busy doing all the time that you can't get out in nature and just, like, embrace the natural world? 

 

[00:30:33] Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't know. And I don't you can see everything that you need to be eating because it's out there. Yes, it's in the ground. 

 

[00:30:40] I tell people, I tell you a lot of time you're better off eating that dirt than you are. You know, that prepackaged, disgusting slab of ground beef that has all these chemicals added to it. And that's a whole other layer as it's like when you're eating animal products, it's rotting flesh, literally, and wrapped in a plastic bag. 

 

[00:31:02] What do you think they're putting into that rotting flesh in order to preserve it or to make it pretty like pretty pink nice colors, you know, like chemicals and all kinds of the whole free range organic. 

 

[00:31:15] It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's dead, rotting flesh that goes into your body. It's acidic and it's the roots of all disease. 

 

[00:31:23] Yeah. Well, and to wrap everything up because you and I have something in common that I just discovered in our pre podcast talk. But I want you to kind of speak towards you have a little a little guest behind you as my guest. 

 

[00:31:37] How? And he has a history. 

 

[00:31:40] So maybe McGoo. Mr. Magoo. 

 

[00:31:45] And he is how old again? He's well, he's twelve years old. 

 

[00:31:51] He's so spry for an English bulldog at twelve. I just can't believe it. I don't. I am a huge, huge dog lover and I didn't. But they don't usually live that long. Can you speak to. 

 

[00:32:02] Is he. So he was raised primarily vegetarian. His entire life and in is now in his old age. And like I would say, the past six months, he basically, like, stopped eating. He wouldn't eat. It was driving me insane. So I. I actually went to just food for dogs and not nothing, I'm plugging them or whatever, but I do think they're good. And I got him the fish and vegetable recipe. And so I add that in with his Vegan kibble and he and he's eating again. So, I mean, I would never be able to feed him turkey or beef or anything like that. Not that I'm OK with fish necessarily, but that is what he's on right now to be to be completely transparent. Yeah, I was raised primarily Vegan, but when I'm telling you that I could not get him to eat a bowl of food for months. I had to do something that I felt was the most closest to. And that's what worked for me in this past, you know, past few months. So that's where he is. 

 

[00:33:05] It seems like he's like. 

 

[00:33:07] I know he's amazing. I mean, he's gonna be 13 in June and July, and he works out with me every single day we play basketball. I mean, if we did another zoo meeting outdoors, I could show you the way he plays basketball every single day. He balances on the ball. He's crazy. He can keep up with me. I mean, he I have a 13 home medicine ball that I used to work out when I do my outdoor workouts. He moves the 50 pound medicine ball around. 

 

[00:33:29] It's fantastic. 

 

[00:33:31] But I also attribute that to, like, again, going back to let's not just talk about nutrition, quality of life, being exposed to the natural elements, being in the sun, being at the beach, being in the grass, being in the earth. That has contributed so much to his quality of life because we spend because we are so blessed to live at the beach. He's been swimming in the ocean his entire life. You've been exposed to the natural elements. He has been with me like he you know, you transfer your energy onto your pet, right? Your pet becomes like your mirror image. I always say this. And also something to think about is your energy, your light and your personal satisfaction with self that attracts people. Right. That energy people just I'm sure it happens to you. People are drawn to you. They just want to talk to you. They want to hear what you have to say it. It's for me, it's it happens every single day. I mean, I have run ins and conversations with people. Obviously recoded when, you know, you can sit outside of a cafe and just have conversation with the person sitting at a table next to you and conversations come up. And I always say, like, for some reason, the universe always places me where I need to be. I can't tell you the amount of times that I've overheard a conversation where people were discussing food and food issues or issues that they're having. And I just I couldn't resist. And I'll chime in and I'll give them just five minutes of information and it will change their life. 

 

[00:34:53] Yeah, I do that. I want to get into that before we leave. I want to have you kind of speak to who should be reaching out to who. 

 

[00:35:02] Who are you interested in working with and helping? Your ideal client sounds like it could be just about anybody who wants to make a change either or health or bubi by illness. 

 

[00:35:13] Yeah. I mean, I just want to my purpose on this earth is to infuse people with the confidence and belief system that they deserve to eat and live a better life. And this crosses over all socio economic platforms. 

 

[00:35:34] It doesn't matter if you're extremely wealthy or if you're barely making it. I see the same food issues because I work with very high net worth clientele. And then just my doors are open to everyone. Right now, my. Of course, we need. Of course, I have to make a living. But like, my main purpose in life is not money driven. I really want to reach as many people as I can because I truly believe that when you are living your truth and you are committed to what it is, that your legacy is to be everything that supposed to happen to you. The rewards, financially, etc. will come at their pace. 

 

[00:36:09] So who do I want to work with? Anybody that wants to stop living in a poverty mentality, in the mentality of, you know. 

 

[00:36:21] This deep subconscious level where people will continue to put bad foods into their body because on a deep subconscious level, they don't believe they're worthy of better. And I see this, like I told you, with people that live in 20 million dollar homes in Newport Coast, like it doesn't matter what you're worth, your net worth. It's about what you feel you're worth inside. 

 

[00:36:41] So removing that barrier and getting people to believe that doesn't matter what they were exposed to growing up, their traumas, anything that they've been that they've experienced in their life. When they simplify their food and their environment, it radically changes who you are from a deep core level because it traces into your mind the mind gut connection. Is everything right? Everything that we put into our body is committee, you know, entering into our brain. I am always positive. How could I not be? I don't have any negativity living in my body. I don't have dead animals living inside of me. I don't have the corpses floating around in there rotting inside of my fucking gut, you know what I mean? 

 

[00:37:20] Yeah. And I think sharing that with people, it becomes self evident pretty quickly. 

 

[00:37:24] Yeah, it does. And you know, everybody I, I it's crazy because I talk to people, I talk to kids because I work with families too. And children are hungry for knowledge. They are they when you simply pick up something and you're like, hey, you see this. You see these. See these ingredients on the back pretending this is like a processed bombs or whatever. And I'm like, can you can you read any of these things? And they'll like, look at like dioxane little and all these like horrible like chemically, you know, unpronounceable words. And they're like, I don't even like. Do you know that is. No, I don't know what it is. Do you think you should be eating it. And they're like, no. And it clicks for them. Yeah. And I show them I teach them how to make smoothies with bananas and mangoes and spinach and berries and an almond butter and. And they're they're excited now. So I always tell people, like, it brings families together to spend time with your kids, cook with them. Sure. You know, encourage them to eat with them. It's not a punishment. It's actually a gift, you know. And for females, because at the end of the day, like moms mostly are the ones, the heart of the home. Right. They have to lead. So we have to encourage people, male and female, to be leaders to be that example in their family dynamic. Because I cannot even tell you the amount of moms and dads tell me. Well, you know, he's a picky eater. He'll only eat this and he'll need that. 

 

[00:38:47] And what I say is he's only eating that because you're letting him right or allow and permitting it to someone goes hungry enough, they'll eat anything. 

 

[00:38:57] I promise you that at the end of the day, like the seven year old does not dictate, you know, the what, the contents of the kitchen. Absolutely not. The one bringing in the income, you know. So it really is, especially in this time like that we live in. I mean, I don't know how you were raised, but like we my mom, which I'm so thankful for now, like our bed was made every day. Everything was clean, organized, immaculate. There was no excuses. We couldn't just like. No, it had to be done. That's my approach to life in general. Get it done. Stop saying you're going to try trying. Doesn't accomplish shit. Get it done. 

 

[00:39:32] Do it. Yeah. Like, follow through. There we have it. Yo. And don't tell yourself. Well I'm gonna give it two weeks and see how I feel. That's that's not how anything works. 

 

[00:39:43] You can't go into a new career and say, I'm going to give it two weeks. Say I feel you've got to put the work in. Yeah. Got to go. You need to get better. You can't go to the gym for two weeks and expect to get a six pack. You have to put the work and you have to continues continuously rise and you know. 

 

[00:39:58] So for those of you who are looking to put the work in, you should reach out to her. 

 

[00:40:02] She's at on Instagram. It's at Monaca, Victoria. 

 

[00:40:06] So thank you so much for talking with us today, Monica. We're out of time, but I just want to say I really appreciate your candor and all of your information. 

 

[00:40:14] Encourage any of you who want to get more involved in what she's had to say here or chat her up, hit her up on Instagram. Monica. Victoria or her website, I'm sure, will be up and coming. It's there anyway, even if it's a little bit. Yeah, it's just getting reworked. Victoria dot com. But thank you so much for giving us your time today. 

 

[00:40:34] I am honored to have been a guest. Thank you so much. 

 

[00:40:37] Absolutely. And for everyone listening until we talk again next time. Remember to each well and always bet on yourself. 

Talking with Nancy Montuori: Founder, Chef, Author, and Podcast Host

Today I sat down with Nancy Montuori, a health and wellness advocate, author, chef, consultant and certified plant-based specialist who champions compassionate living through her plant-based cooking blog, Ordinary Vegan. The unifying idea for Ordinary Vegan is to encourage people to be part of a healthy and compassionate community. Ordinary Vegan, LLC (based out of LA)

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia, and this is Investigating Vegan Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vegan life. Now let's start the conversation. 

 

[00:01:13] Hi, everyone, welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I am sitting down with Nancy Mantuori. 

 

[00:01:19] Nancy is the founder, chef, cookbook author and podcast host. She is the owner of Ordinary Vegan. You can locate her online at ordinary Vegan dot net. 

 

[00:01:30] Welcome, Nancy. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited. 

 

[00:01:34] I'm excited to have you, too. I can't wait to climb through ordinary Vegan. 

 

[00:01:38] And you have kind of a prolific empire under that umbrella with your podcast and cookbook and you're a chef. So I really want to climb to you everything that you're doing for everyone listening and watching. Perhaps we first I'm going to give you a roadmap of today's podcast and then I'll give you a brief bio of Nancy prior to peppering her with questions. So a roadmap of today's podcast. We'll first look at Nancy's academic background. Early professional life and kind of get a sense of the platform from which she's coming. And then we'll unpack ordinary Vegan, the Web site, the services, all of the different attributes that it offers in both its clients and viewership. And then we might look at unpacking some of the ordinary Vegan podcast that has kind of a prolific history. And then we'll turn our efforts towards looking at goals that Nancy might have for the next one to three years, both personally and as well as a business level. I know that that rhetoric has changed for a great deal of our society as of late. And we'll wrap everything up with advice that Nancy may have for those of you who are looking to get involved in some of her efforts or perhaps emulate some of the success that she has had over the past trajectory of her professional life. A quick bio on Nancy. Nancy Mantri was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts, for twenty three years. She worked for Warner Brothers Records, helping develop the careers of multiple music artists, icons including Joni Mitchell and Prince. In 2011, a serendipitous event changed her life. She went to see a movie called Forks Over Knives and left that movie convinced of the connection between animal protein and chronic disease. From that moment on, Nancy devoted her life to trying to help others live a long and healthy life with a plant based diet. Through her podcast, Ordinary Vegan, her website and her social media, ordinary Vegan became a beacon for those seeking health and wellness. Nancy just released her new cookbook entitled Defy the Easy Five Ingredient Vegan Cookbook. So I'm excited to kind of climb through all of that with you. Nancy and I love the genesis of your Vegan journey. Forks Over Knives is a favorite in my household as well. Prior to getting into what you're doing currently, can you set us like this stage for your academic background or your early professional life? Everything that kind of brought you to now or perhaps the moment that you saw forks over knives? 

 

[00:04:00] Well, you know, my professional life was always to just be next to music. I mean, and to this day, that's really my number one love besides health and wellness. But I just you know, I kept I I decided that in my lifetime that's what I was going to do with my life. And I just got next to it. I started working at a record store. And then we had Lee Warner Brothers heard about me that I was bugging radio stations to play like the police. And. Yeah. And Rickie Lee Jones. And one day they just came in and made an offer to me to come work for them. And I mean, it was like five times the amount I was being paid. I was gonna have an expense account and I had to be at the Doobie Brothers concert on Saturday night so that to introduce them to radio people. And I'm like, I'll take it. Yes. And I didn't go to college. I I just, you know, so I don't have that background. But then so then I got the job with Warner Brothers. I stayed with them for years and years and years. And suddenly I always wanted to make movies. And so I quit my job and I went to film school and I made some movies. One of them is called Stealing Innocence, which has won a lot of awards. And but then in two thousand eleven, everything changed. I went to see that movie and I thought my whole life I've been trying to be healthy because I had polio as a child and I spent a long time in hospitals and I thought I was eating healthy. You know, just like you, I'm sure, you know, lean chicken and, you know, got kind of stuff. And then when I found out that that stuff was bad for me, I just wanted to scream it from the rooftops. You don't have to be sick anymore. You just have to change what you eat. 

 

[00:06:00] Absolutely. And, you know, I think that I've taught I've spoken to a lot of people. What I love about the vegan lifestyle as we're kind of uncovering it and investigating it through this podcast series, is that the way in which people get to it is is never one. 

 

[00:06:14] And even even when you say, you know, people come at it from the health aspect, there's just this myriad of ways. But the disease early in life or even latters onset disease is bringing what I call unlikely candidates, you know, to the Vegan lifestyle. It's some people you wouldn't think of normally. You know, there's always a type cast with with Vegan and things of that nature. But disease and health is bringing just an insurmountable amount of people. I think every day to the vegan lifestyle. And so I do appreciate that, especially having something early in life. My father had polio as a child and post-polio as an adult, which is a different disease. And he came to a lot of Vegan decisions later on as well and was equally as upset, you know, with this kind of realization that everything that he was told all along when nutritionally was exactly opposite in calcium, you know, from milk does not exist. Those types of things. So when you saw the movie, you I mean, you have this empire and I'm kind of curious with the steppingstones with how it was built. You know, did it come up in one day or did you kind of start off soft? 

 

[00:07:22] I mean, it was kind of crazy because I am a private person, actually. And but I decided that I was going to devote some of my time to helping people, you know, get well, like sharing information and showing them how easy it was. And so I started blogging. And that's how it started. And to be honest with you, I never thought of it as a business in the early years. I just wanted to help people, you know, get back their health. That was it, you know. And then, you know, it's you know, social media started growing and things started, you know, getting bigger. And. And then I realized that was I was devoting 24/7 to, you know, trying to keep people well. So. So then I. I just decided. Well, as far as my podcast went, I just thought that would be give me. It would be bigger thing for me to reach people, but I decide do get certified in plant based nutrition. That was the first thing. One of the first things I did so that I was able to give out good information. I did that with Dr. Campbell's school. And then, you know, so my podcasts grew and my podcast became popular and. I don't know. You know, I just. And then eventually I was in, you know, since I love health and wellness in 2016, I discovered CBD from hemp and I thought this seems like a natural extension in what I'm doing. So I decided to develop my own line of CBD from hemp and went to Kentucky and visited hemp farmers. And eventually I did that. So now I have a CBD business, I have a podcast, I have a website, I have a I have a lot of things. I mean, I don't do this to get rich and be honest with you. I work a lot. But, you know, the greatest gratification is when somebody tells me that, you know, I changed their life. 

 

[00:09:35] You know what? It sounds like it all kind of grew organically out of itself. I'm wondering really quickly, returning back to the sort of your certification and plant based nutrition. 

 

[00:09:48] As someone who has not done it, I'm curious at who would you advise do that? I know a lot of people who become involved in this arena feel it's necessary to become certified in one area or another. What did the certification do for you? How long did it take and would you advise it? Everybody who wants to be serious about being plant based in one area or another becomes certified. Can you kind of clarify that? 

 

[00:10:12] First up, I want to say that I highly recommend Dr Campbell's course. It's not, you know, a three day course. It's going to take a few weeks. I don't know how you know, this was a long time ago that I did it, but they still offer it. And, you know, it educated me. I didn't want to go out and share information with people without being, you know, completely educated. And now looking back on, it was one of the best things I ever did. And I recommend that course to anybody who can afford it. Honestly, you just it's just so enlightening. And, you know, you couldn't have a better teacher than Dr. Campbell. I mean, he's the God of the plant based world, so. Yeah. So it might have changed, you know, like I said, I did a long time ago. But, yeah, I would highly recommend doing that, especially if you're going to get into this world, even if you're just sharing recipes, a plant based recipes, you shouldn't. Right. 

 

[00:11:13] Yeah. And that's kind of what I'm thinking of. You know, there's a lot of quarantine cooking happening and a lot of recipes being shared. 

 

[00:11:20] And I think that, you know, this is an opportunity, especially for online courses, for people who do have a curiosity and things like that certification in addition to research and things like that, just seems like two birds, one stone type of scenario. So do you have an official date that you feel like you launched ordinary Vegan? What was there a year that you launched the website or because it kind of grew naturally? Did it just appear on your lap one day? 

 

[00:11:46] May 2011 OK. Like my second, I saw the movie May 1st, 2011. I started the website the very next day. You know, I was a little technical savvy, too. I mean, it wasn't like a difficult thing for me to, you know, just go out and do you know? 

 

[00:12:05] Did anyone co-found it with you or was it just you? 

 

[00:12:08] It's always been just me. I have a cousin who has been helping me out the last couple of years because I was writing a cookbook. Now I'm writing my next cookbook. What more of a self-help cookbook? And you know, but I do it all and it's it's a lot of work. 

 

[00:12:29] Yeah, well, let's unpack some of that, because it is a lot of work. And we were talking off the record before we started this podcast. And I was mentioning to you that as I was poking around and investigating the Web site and some of your research, there's a there's a great deal there. You have different areas. So if if someone wasn't looking at your Web site right now to briefly describe it. You have your CBD, which I want to get into in just a minute, because that's a whole nother beast unto itself. But you have your podcast link there and then you also have links to information on things. Can you describe like the composition of the website, the landing page and how you came to that? 

 

[00:13:07] Sure, I have it. Weirdly, I was inspired by Martha Stewart's setup. And so I Billys I will I was releasing a recipe a week, a podcast every two weeks. And, you know, on the top of the. Of my website, you'll see what I do. The latest thing I've done, whether it's a recipe or a podcast. And then I also have, you know, Vegan essentials. I have protein lists, big protein proteins that can be downloaded. I offer all this stuff free. I go, you know, this is just graphics that I have made in the past. So that can help people. And then I have so then I have my podcasts and then I have some videos I've made. Video seems to be the biggest connector, to be honest. That works the most for me. I get the most engagement from my videos. I should do more in right now. Well, we'll get to that. What my goals are. But yeah, so OK. 

 

[00:14:18] And so, yeah, I was mentioning you had a video on there. You know, you have original content you've created and you also bring in other people's content. 

 

[00:14:26] And you had a Ted X video with a young woman speaking that I sent to all of my nieces and nephews. So it's really not just what I would like about the engagement of your site, is it? I feel like as much as everybody says their site crosses all, you know, populations and and demographics and age groups, yours actually does. There was something on there even for a little 7 year old to watch, you know? And I like the idea of that. Did you do that consciously or did that just come again about organically as you're creating your content? 

 

[00:14:54] You know, I'm trying to educate everyone. And, you know, it's just very natural for me to want to, you know, show people things that inspire people, young people, through me or, you know. 

 

[00:15:07] Absolutely. So let's crawl into the CBD aspect. You said that you became aware what was your your introduction to CBD and how did you decide to bring it on and courageously kind of develop your own brand with it? 

 

[00:15:24] Well, I go to the Natural Food Expo every year because, you know, I need to look at new products, new plant based products, and they invite me every year. And one day, I think 2016 there was this booth and I was talking to this guy and he was talking about this natural remedy and how it was from hemp and which is a cousin to marijuana. It doesn't have THC, very low amounts. And and then I started investigating it and I started hearing from my community, my health, the wellness community, that people with chronic pain, anxiety, insomnia were all using it and it was helping them. And, you know, but I mean, I didn't jump in. I like I said, I went to I went to Kentucky. I visited hemp farmers. I only wanted organic hemp. I wanted you know, I wanted to know every step of the way. There was not I wasn't going to have this a lot of hemp CBD, oil from China, places like that. So you got to be really careful when you buy it. And I just figured, you know, this is a natural extension of what I'm doing and I'm going to devote my own mind and start selling it and. He's been doing great and it's been helping people and, you know, it doesn't help everyone. It doesn't work for everyone, but it works for most. So together. 

 

[00:16:55] Absolutely. And there are more and more studies being done on home for everyone listening. You know, I know it can be a daunting universe. 

 

[00:17:02] And being a California resident myself, I know that I have a little bit more knowledge base to it than people who haven't legalized marijuana. But as you said, it's a very different it's it's a medicinal aspect. And I think that kind of divorcing the knowledge and understanding that is there's a lot of really great people online that do that as well. An information YouTube anyway. You want to get your information. There's people that can speak to the efficacy and the power behind it. And as you mentioned, you know, just a few they're still finding remarkable ways, not just with pain alleviation, but that that CBD is really helping, you know, people in their struggles and things of that nature. So I think it's an awesome thing to look into and it goes very well with health. You know, and what you've done with your own trajectory in your life. Speaking of that, like looking at this this incredible growth and that you've had from from launching ordinary Vegan website to the podcast and now the cookbook and everything that you've done. Do you base your goals on your goals for the next one to three years on your past, or do you base it on solely where you want to go forward? Do you look back? In other words, and think this was working, I need to further that or do just base it on whatever is coming to you right now? 

 

[00:18:17] I positively look back. You know, I've made a lot of mistakes and, you know, wasted money or something like that. But now I'm definitely much more focused. You know, I leave a lot of money on the table because I don't. I won't let you know if you look at my Web site. It's a very clean site. 

 

[00:18:39] You're not like seeing all these ads pop up and stuff like that. 

 

[00:18:44] And, you know, the anyone who sponsors my podcast has to, you know, be eco friendly, 100 percent Vegan, you know. So it's not like really easy to get, you know, find a lot of those sponsors. But. You know, might that in the future. What I found out I do these Facebook live videos and there are a lot of work. You know, they definitely are a lot of work. And but I find that people respond the most to those, too, like seeing and engaging in that kind of thing. So my goal now is in quarantine is to have my, you know, have a cooking show that is consistent, you know, certain days of the week. And right now, I'm not even you know, I'm I'm probably going to focus a lot on the easy five ingredient cookbook, because, you know, that makes it easy for people to to go go on to a plant based diet. But but I'm also, you know, I'm pulling out all my favorite old cookbooks like Padma's and just get them that aren't Vegan. But I'm borrowing a lot of the flavor profiles and I've been making some outstanding food, to say the least. And it hasn't been difficult. So I'm going to share that now. All that, you know, in there, no plant based cooking shows on Food Network or, you know, they're hard to find. 

 

[00:20:21] Yeah, they are. Absolutely. I think that they're still rare, which is odd because I feel like a lot of things aren't order. These are rare these days. 

 

[00:20:29] You know, in network, I mean, it's like they promote such unhealthy food. And it makes me you know, I don't I don't get it. 

 

[00:20:40] I don't know. Even with that Paula Deen tragedy and every, you know, everyone feeling so betrayed. I thought for sure that would launch some kind of a plant based, you know, sub culture in there. 

 

[00:20:50] And it really didn't. And while you're cooking show be live or have you have you planned it out that far? 

 

[00:20:56] I'm I'm I'm writing some scripts for it right now. And I'll probably make that decision probably in the next week or two. I don't know. 

 

[00:21:07] You know, like a whole different beast. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I do know. 

 

[00:21:15] Do you? Looking back over what you've done since the launch of the Web site in 2011 and everything that you've gone along the way. Are there certain lessons that you've learned, like the top three pieces of advice you wish you could have given yourself, knowing what you know now? You know, something that either could have saved you pain or gotten you ahead? 

 

[00:21:37] Definitely the number one thing if anyone's out there wants to start a Web site. Educate yourself in MCO search engine optimization. That is the number one thing when you're blogging. In order for people to find you, you have to understand how SEO works. So that was probably the biggest mistake I made because like I said, I never thought of it as a business early on. So I didn't worry about stuff like that. But now, you know, it's you know why I always do a keyword search before I even, you know, post a blog. And you know what? Going to make most sense. I think that. Follow your bliss, whatever you absolutely love. That is what you should be doing. And no matter what it is, and that's what I practice my whole life. I did it with music. And then I found out, you know, I loved helping people and teaching them nutrition, teaching them recipes, you know, and I followed that. And, you know, that's. I think it's as simple as that. You don't have to overthink it. I mean, so many people are like, I want to start a business, but I don't know what it should be or blah, blah. And it's like, well, what do you love? Yeah, I agree. Here's your answer. And you know, it might not be really sexy. You might need to start, you know, if you love music like I did, I just went to work in a record store because, you know, I love music and. 

 

[00:23:15] You know, that's that would that's my advice. 

 

[00:23:18] That's great. Yeah. I mean, educate yourself and follow your bliss. I love those two things. I really do. They think that they will serve throughout business and was as personal life. You know, I think those two pieces of advice can be carried all over. 

 

[00:23:32] I'm curious. I don't know if you have a conversation with yourself that you're comfortable in relinquishing. But I know of a lot of people, not just in the Vegan world, but all over the world who have had conversations with themselves in the business format. And they've taken time to kind of reassess and reengage and requestion themselves. Given the pandemic that's upon us right now and they've had conversations with themselves and with their employees and their company regarding change or dialog that they intend to put out there. And so it's an inclusive conversation. You know, it's not just we all held our breath, went into quarantine, left, and it's business as usual, but rather this evolution that happened, you know, during this time period. And I'm wondering if you can speak to any of that and that you may have had personally or with your company regarding the ordinary or ordinary Vegan Web site or your future plans. Can you kind of speak to how covered 19 has affected it? 

 

[00:24:32] No, absolutely. I think what I think about a lot now is tone is, you know you know, it's so important to be giving out the right information, too. I mean, I can do a podcast right now without talking about it. I mean, that's the elephant in the room. So what then? What information I share? I you know, I have to research it, you know, weeks to make sure I'm saying the right thing and things change changing so quickly. It's so hard to keep up with the information that you're reading about or even don't even know if it's true or not. And that's why I am focused. I decided to focus on like foods for respiratory health recipes from your pantry rather than me focusing on, you know, I'm trying to keep people well during this. You know, and, you know, building up their immune system. So so I found that that's you know, I'm focused on all the Cauvin 19 ailments come along with it and, you know, try to help people there with food because, you know, food is medicine. 

 

[00:25:42] Yes. Yes. I think it's the most powerful medicine. 

 

[00:25:45] Exactly. So it as a matter of fact, the the food for respiratory. Health podcast is one of my most popular now. 

 

[00:25:57] Absolutely. And everyone tune into it. You're on i-Tunes, I believe. 

 

[00:26:01] And people can also get to your podcast through your Web site, through my Web site on i-Tunes. I'm everywhere where whatever you list, Spotify, you know, anything, I'm slightly podcast is everywhere. 

 

[00:26:16] I love it. Well, we are out of time today, Nancy. But I wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us and give us all of your wisdom and your history with such candor. 

 

[00:26:28] And I really appreciate it. I'm hoping that we can circle back around in in phase two of this podcast and find out more about post pandemic. You know, how things are going and how that Facebook live cooking classes going for you. 

 

[00:26:44] I pray. I'd love to share that. Thank you so much for having me on. And I wish everyone out there to stay safe and stay well. Stay strong and stable. 

 

[00:26:56] Absolutely. Thank you. And for everyone listening. We appreciate your time. Thank you for lending us your ear. We've been speaking with Nancy Mantri. And you can find her at ordinary Vegan dot net. Until we speak again. 

 

[00:27:10] Next time, eat well. Eat clean. Stay safe. And remember to always bet on yourself. 

Speaking with Celine Ikeler about her bakery and company: Karma Baker

Today I spoke with Celine Ikeler founder and owner of Karma Baker. Karma Baker is a wonderful little bakeshop that makes only amazing vegan and gluten-free desserts and breads.  After years of creating and developing recipes, she opened Karma Baker, based in a suburb just north of Los Angeles, and after a steadfast local following Karma Baker has now gone national with delivery across the USA. https://Karmabaker.com

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is Investigating Vegan Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vigen life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vigen Life. Now let's start the conversation. 

 

[00:01:13] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today we are speaking with Celine Eichler. She is the creator and owner of Karma Baker. Welcome, Celine. 

 

[00:01:23] Hi. Thank you so much for having me. 

 

[00:01:25] Absolutely. I'm excited to kind of climb through your shop and everything that you guys offer there for everyone looking to get a hold of Celine or discover more. You can contact her or find out more about her shop on Karma Baker dot com. I'm going to go through a quick bio of Slainte before I start peppering her with questions. But before that, a roadmap for today's podcast and vodcast. For those of you listening and tuning in today, we'll first look at Slainte academic background and professional history to kind of develop a platform for her personal background. And then we'll look at unpacking Karma Baker's history and the origin of the story. And then we'll get into the nuts and bolts of the who, what, when, where, why, how of the business, and then turn to the ethos and the philosophy behind it. And then we will look at goals that simply may have for Karma Baker over the next one to three years. Those are changing dramatically for everyone given the current social and business climate of today. And we'll wrap everything up with advice that Celine may have for those of you looking to get involve patron of her services and store. And also possibly emulate some of her success. A quick bio on Slainte and Karma Baker. She is the original Karma Baker starting about 15 years ago with a desire that everyone should be able to enjoy the bliss that only delicious baked goods can generate. After years of creating and developing recipes, she opened Kofman Baker, based in a suburb just north of Los Angeles. A wonderful little bake shop that only me that makes only amazing vegan and gluten free desserts and breads, no eggs, no dairy and no wheat anywhere in sight. Seline has fast become one of the most successful and influential bakers in Southern California. Now she is offering a wonderful solution for people that are not so lucky to live near Karmah, Baker or one of their many partners. They deliver many of their products to your doorstep without being damaged while maintaining freshness. So if you live in the United States, you can now enjoy the revolution that is Karma Baker and we'll climb through all of those ins and outs and through the services that you offer Silene. But I want to I'm hoping you can start us off with talking about your academic background and early professional life that brought you to the opening Karma Baker. 

 

[00:03:38] Yes, sure. So I started out as an artist. I think a lot of bakers actually are all also artists at heart. I went to art school in San Diego actually, and neighbors. If you and I went right into a career in animation. I worked in animation in Chicago for a little while and then in Los Angeles for about 15 years. I think working on animated movies that the whole digital aspect kind of at the forefront of, you know, when we started using computers at all and especially for digital imaging. So that was really fun. I loved it. It was very creative. And, you know, anything that's innovative and cutting edge, a new and difficult is kind of my thing. So in that day, we were, you know, learning as we went figuring it out as we went creating things to make it work. Right. And now that I look at it, I think it's exactly what I've had to do with the bakery. After my career in animation, I had two kids and ended up finishing my my last movies and my daughter was two and moved out to the suburbs and it just was a mom for. Twelve years I was a home mother baking at home for my kids. No vegan, no allergies in sight really other than my daughter's next door neighbor had a very, very severe allergy to so many things. Wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, certain kinds of fruits and vegetables, all nuts, you know, really, really extreme anaphylactic shock kind of reaction. Yeah. So, you know, scary. Too bake for her. Scary to have her in my kitchen even, you know, that kind of thing. And that opened my mind. My, well, originally opened my heart because I couldn't handle that. She couldn't eat anything. Fine. You know, there was just no food for her. So I started figuring out how to make stuff without eggs and dairy and wheat. Not easy. There's been many before me who have, you know, stumbled into the field over the years. 

 

[00:05:51] But it's definitely a labor of love teaching yourself trial and error, you know, creating out of true necessity, you know, and creating something that wasn't there before to make something else, you know. So that's kind of how I got started. 

 

[00:06:09] It started you off on the trajectory. So once you started baking these things, what was the impetus for kind of switching into? 

 

[00:06:18] You can make things without allergens. It sounds like, you know, an insight of these this little girl. However, there is also like a switch over and like you did you have this gluten free aspect. It wasn't a natural trajectory. Did you just start saying, I can do so much more with so much less? Did you start extracting ingredients because you felt like it? Or was it a goal driven? 

 

[00:06:42] Well, she was allergic to wheat, dairy and eggs, and they were the hardest with baking. So right off the bat, I had, you know, my work cut out for me and Gluten-Free Flours at the time, especially, you know, there were a few mixes, but they didn't have they had the area or they had egg powder or they had nuts or they had been flour. You know, they had something that she couldn't eat. And so that's where that will I'll just make my own blend. Yeah. I don't know why I thought that was a viable option, but it really just, you know, I really had no limits around that. I thought, well, I'll just figure out, you know, there's all these blends. One of them has got to be the right combination that doesn't have some of that other stuff. 

 

[00:07:21] So do you have like of a source that you considered like this, this key source to go to? Because when you start an endeavor like that, it's daunting. Right. Anyone, even people who are really familiar with baking or goods or anything like that, when you start taking away things like flour or getting into flour alternatives from, you know, chickpea to rice to you. 

 

[00:07:41] Then the differences in how they bake and they behave differently and all that you're talking about blends when you start off. Was there a source of like a cookbook or a person or a guide or anything like that? They kind of helped you navigate those early stages. 

 

[00:07:55] I definitely did a lot of searching, you know, Internet searching, looking for blogs. There were people that did a lot of dairy and egg free and then there were people that did gluten free. Nobody was really doing the whole thing, though. You know, that was that was kind of the trick was marrying the two. Because if you're doing gluten free and you have eggs, you're you only have half the battle. You know, the eggs do all of the binding and the lifting and the magic texture. But if you don't have eggs already, that's a little bit tricky and you don't have any lift from gluten, you know. Now you're doing it on your own. So there was one. Erin Mckenna has a check. She has a bakery out in L.A. and I think in New York City. I think with her original, she had a cookbook at the time. And I and I think it was one of the first ones I picked up and was like, what is arrowroot? What is this? 

 

[00:08:49] And so, you know, that her book was probably very helpful in the very beginning of deciphering the different flowers and trying to find, you know, what replaces the bean flour. You know, she and most of her recipes have been flour base, which Sophia or I could not do. So that was a crucial step. 

 

[00:09:11] What brought you to finally? It sounds like you started experimenting and just baking for yourself in a vegan manner. But what brought you to make the leap between is very different to eat vegan and then want to have a vegan business. 

 

[00:09:25] And you were right. It's a different beast. 

 

[00:09:29] What was the final push and when did you launch? Baker OK. 

 

[00:09:34] So I was baking for Sophia out of pleasure. And then I realized that I myself had a runny nose every time I eat. And Sophia's mother's and that's definitely a food allergy. And so we started trying to figure out what it was. You know, maybe it's egg, maybe it's dairy, maybe it's wheat. You know, I had a blood test and that pointed me to five things. Eggs, dairy, all bovine actually is all cow and wheat and not gluten, but wheat. The grain itself and then beans and garlic. So very broad, strange things. And she said, you know, if you get rid of them cold turkey, you might get it back. Your body can learn how to get it back. So I did. I just got rid of all of those. And that's when kind of the baking shift really happened for me, because while I may have been making stuff for Sofia, that was pretty good. I now was the new audience and it needed to be excellent. I don't want to eat a bad cookie. You know, who wants to eat a mediocre cookie? You just want to eat one amazing cookie and be done, you know? So that's when I really kind of upped the production for myself, just really hardcore experimenting and really getting it down. And I created some things that were unbelievable. I couldn't believe I was having such amazing luck. The flour I created lended itself to the vegan aspect of what I was doing. Magically, it was almost like a divine intervention. I just said, you know, I don't know how to do this. So tell me, you know, and I just if I got an idea, I ran with it. You know, kind of constantly putting new things. Play and see. And, you know, the first like four or five things I made were truly like mind-blowing and my friends and family, everyone around me was so like me. This is remarkable. You you you can't not share it. You know, you have to do something. And so at the time I was I was divorcing and, you know, started starting on a new path in life. And I needed to create a business for myself, because that's the first thought I had was I should start a business and then get a job as an entrepreneur that, you know, a very natural thought process, I guess. But I thought, you know, I'll do that. I'm going to start a bakery. I'm going to get this in people's mouths. I'm going to change how they think about, you know, what something without dairy and eggs can taste like. And at first, I wasn't actually interested in a bakery like in the community with a store fronts, that kind of thing. I really just wanted to be quite a bit bigger and reach everybody. The restaurants, cafes, I wanted to be the dessert when they bring out the big cart at the end of your big Italian meal and they say, oh, which one is beginning gluten free? And they would point to mine and say, this is from Kermit Baker. And people say, OK, good, that's what I want, because I've heard that's the best. Right. That was kind of my original. Yeah. You know, the mountain out there for me and sort of with that in mind, I kind of went right to some restaurants and started I started out of my house in January of 2013. And within six months outgrew my own kitchen quickly and rented space at a commercial kitchen that also six months ratatat and and knew immediately. OK. I'm ready to take the plunge and and start my own kitchen. You know, I could tell that that was the direction it was going. The business was almost, you know, the energy behind. It was so forceful. It had a life of its own. I almost couldn't stop it in a way. So then we got the big kitchen that also had a little storefront and and then and grocery stores started coming in and the community started knocking on the window saying, when are you going to open? And. Then I said, oh, my gosh, I want to open that, I just did. You stuck a sign in the door and we became a bakery, kind of with the idea of like an outlet that we'd be baking for restaurants and we would just sell whatever's happening that day. We'd fill in front, you know. And it's different. 

 

[00:14:00] You have. So I mean, I like the angle that you came at. 

 

[00:14:03] I know a lot of small bakeries and things actually always use more times than not start out of reverse. They'll start with their store front and then they'll start approaching restaurants or things of that nature. And so it's cool that you started from that kind of reverse back end moment. And they're two totally different. Be satisfying those different client tells. Well, three, if you're you know, if you're also getting into shipment but going dealing directly with restaurants as opposed to, you know, stores and then also having your own shop front. They have different schedules. They have different needs. Right. Different times of delivery and all those types of things. So managing all three of those. It sounds like it takes three very different hats to do. I kind of want to climb into it because when you get a store front, I think you do more about the philosophical endeavor. You know, when you're going through someone else's restaurant, you're giving them maybe a doctor that you're hoping they convey in addition to it being gluten free and, you know, vegan, you're hoping that they say something about ingredients or they're the love or the attention and the efficacy of that food. But when you have the opportunity to do it yourself, you have your own, you know, bakery. Can you kind of speak to what you tried to infuse the philosophy of the ethos into your staff or the way that it's set up so that you kind of convey your message to the customer? 

 

[00:15:29] Yes. Early early on, when we started hiring employees and I had heard from other people what it's like to work in a kitchen. It didn't sound very nice, but it sounded intense, hardcore, competitive, controlling. It sounded honestly. You know, we've seen lots of shows like Hell's Kitchen and, you know, chopped and, you know, there's so there's so much. Intensity and forcefulness in that environment. And I naively, as I've done everything with this whole business, naively jumped in, but I naively said, we're not going to do that. We're not going to have negative energy. And here we are. We are changing people's minds and hearts and souls around something so delicate and close to their heart. We have to be in our most authentic heart space. We have to have the most best intentions when we are making this food, meaning we have to make sure every every single thing we make is perfect. You know, it tastes perfect, it comes out perfect. And that when we're making it, we're making it with the intention that someone is going to eat it and it they're going to get that with them. There, that's going to come to them. 

 

[00:16:54] So enlightened baking kind of became this philosophy that I started telling my my co chefs and the people who worked in the front. You know, we're doing something differently. Here we are. We are affecting karma. You know, we. And that's the name of the bakery. You know, Karma Baker comes from not so much a karma bakery. You know, we aren't you know, it's not a catchy, fresh catchphrase that, you know, guided us to that name. Karma Baker means that we are taking into account the karmic footprint of the food itself. So where does that butter come from? 

 

[00:17:35] Whereas that egg coming from, what's it been through already before it comes to our door, you know, that that animal that has has a karmic imprint on it, you know? And when we eat that food, it is now in us, you know. And so I notice a lot of people when they go vegan, they calm down. You know, they have a lighter sense about them. You know, I definitely believe it changes you on the inside. 

 

[00:18:04] It changes your DNA, it affects your compassion. And I think. You know, I really think it changes you. You know, it changed me because I didn't go vegan for any reasons other than dietary issues. And and it almost blossomed within me where, you know, I just gave up. You know, beef, eggs and dairy. And within months, I couldn't eat any meat. You know, I couldn't be in the meat aisle at the grocery store. It just changed me into what has happened, you know? Yeah. But that's the kind of thing that, you know, I I tell them our employees. You know, I remind them that there is something much bigger, much deeper, that that's going on in our bakery and in our process. 

 

[00:18:49] And most of them get it. In fact, they're almost a little bit shocked by it because they've never been told. We want you to be happy when you're making food. You know, we want you to feel good when you're working, you know? So that's that's what we all we rest on that idea, that principle. When things are going wrong in the kitchen, we come back to that, you know? Yeah. 

 

[00:19:15] Absolutely. Well, and the majority of vegans that I meet, we're not born into a vegan family. And so I think what's interesting about that is it is an opportunity. 

 

[00:19:24] Anytime there's a conversion into a way of life and veganism as it's that, it's directly addressing the source of fuel that your body lives off of. It spills out into all aspects of one's life. You know, even if it wasn't consciously known to in the beginning. But there's an opportunity with that kind of a conversion for almost a mandate for education. And so what I think is interesting is that people who have become vegan educate themselves, even if they were prolifically, well versed in food and nutrition, they begin to educate themselves even more so wherever they started from. It's this opportunity. And I like to talk to vegans about this because we're especially in the food industries. There's an opportunity to educate anybody. You know, people understanding that it's vegan and probably therefore better for you on some level. How do you address that? You have moments of education, particularly in your in your store. You're talking about, you know, and this education that you give to your employees by just saying, you know, it's the way that we create the food. And it needs to be happiness. It needs to be light and calm and that. Do you take the opportunity to do that with your customers on a conscious level as well? Is there like spots of education or is it just by experience that they're being educated? 

 

[00:20:40] You know, it's a very delicate place to tread. Spreading the vegan philosophy, love and knowledge. Right. It's it's a lot of people are not yet open to being to their food being controlled. Right. So when you when, you know, they say why it why is it big? And some people come in because they're just gluten free and they'll say, you know, why no dig dairy and eggs, you know, and and we'll kind of explain, you know, the philosophy behind it. The one thing that I think speaks to everybody, though, is the environmental impact. And that is the thing that everybody's open to, you know. So. So now we've kind of instead of, you know, pointing to an animal cruelty kind of situation, you know, in explaining the karma bigger name, we we point to, you know, this cupcake is going to save five hundred and fifty gallons of water. They go and they're like. What's that? That's crazy. That's possible how you know and you know, it's Californians especially. We're highly, highly sensitive to our water supply. And and I did not know actually before conspiracy came out that that was even an issue. And I was horrified to find out that people did know about it. People in power and, you know, controlling our food, knew about it and weren't doing anything. So when when I tried to, you know, just reach somebody with that message, they're usually incredibly open and shocked themselves and then open to making tiny changes themselves. You know, because like you said, you know, the bakery is always the one where people say, well, I can not eat me. You know, I can I can eat healthy. But when I want dessert, I wanted to be good, you know? Yeah, I want a banana cream pie and I want ice cream, you know? 

 

[00:22:34] And and that's changing for them because now they've got the opportunity to, you know, maybe I don't need it because of because of this bakery or, you know, that ice cream shop. You know, I think we're all making immense changes. 

 

[00:22:47] Yeah. And I think adults are as equally attached. I think it's masked with children. 

 

[00:22:52] You know, I know I know grown adults. The majority of them adults I know weep for a really great sweet. But they won't say that. They'll say, well, you know, it's the kids like I what am I going to get for the birthday party or the this? They kind of mask it under that as well. And that's fine, too. You know, I think getting children really attached to a great vegan gluten free cupcake is is where you're going to. That's the future. 

 

[00:23:17] You know, it's it's where we're gonna get our market. And I agree with that. I'm wondering. 

 

[00:23:23] I want to talk a little bit about some of the particulars of like the differences between a vegan bakery as you could compare them to your counterparts that are not vegan. So even getting into some of this. My head goes to like the things that you purchase. You know, you got into the arrowroot or talking about things of that nature. Eggs you don't purchase butter you don't you do you think your fridge size is smaller because you're not requiring some of those things that need to live inside a refrigerator and therefore, even like lessening your carbon footprint with how much electricity you're taking up, like how does some of those things change? Do you think for you as compared to a non vegan bakery? 

 

[00:24:05] Well, the first thing when it comes to ingredients is a non vegan gluten free bakery is subsidized by the government. So dairy eggs we eat, they are practically free. They are practically free ingredients. So our ingredients right off the bat. The three major things are fat, our flour and then the multitude of things we use to replace eggs with are not even just double what a traditional bakery is. It is four times as much. So finding our ingredients is the first issue because they are much more natural, much more less processed. They aren't kind of pre pre-made and then sold, you know, a lot of bakeries. For instance, we make our graham cracker crust from scratch. 

 

[00:24:57] So meaning we make the graham crackers and then we find that, you know, a regular bakery goes to a supplier and buys a 50 pound bag of graham cracker crumbs, you know, that has butter, eggs and honey and wheat. Right. For probably about 20 dollars, maybe, maybe less. You know, we are doing it differently. We make our own caramel. We make our own all our own flour blends. We make we make our own sprinkles like we you know, we've had to make and get very creative with finding our ingredients and then getting the price down. So that's probably been our our biggest hurdle really is finding coconut oil in the early days. 

 

[00:25:43] That's our primary fat, you know, finding it in a gallon, finding it in a five gallon, you know, been very difficult. And if you can't find it one or they run out. Yeah, we're a pretty screwed many times, you know. Now we buy it at a fifty five gallon drums. We have them back stores and we have a bunch of own. But you know, and it's we only have one place to buy it from. So hopefully it stays in business. 

 

[00:26:12] The upside is that as vegan and gluten free stuff becomes more mainstream and people are looking for it. The prices come down and the relative competition to make the products comes up. So you have more people who are making vegan caramel say, you know. So those kinds of things, they're not mainstream yet, but they're getting there. So, yeah, as far as fridge space, I would say it's all the same and fortunately it's all there. 

 

[00:26:43] I. I just don't know. 

 

[00:26:44] You know, I know I love that idea. That thinking I've never compared it before. 

 

[00:26:48] We've talked off the record about I worked in as a child well as a 20 year old, which is a child. I worked in bakeries, you know, and in college and things like that. And it is interesting to think of a different universe. I really feel baking is it's it's unto itself. And so it was interesting to think about like, how would that work? I mean, you think of a bakery. It's eggs, sugar, flour. You've removed, too, you know. And so my mind kind of bends even as a vegan as to what that business looks like and the differences between it and and teaching people how to bake that way. You know, bakers there, it's a lifelong profession a lot of the time. And people do that profession forever and send someone to come in and say, I'm a baker and then walk into your place is not going to really know what they're doing for a minute. You know, training everyone up like that, like it's a very unique thing when you're all alone. 

 

[00:27:40] Right. 

 

[00:27:41] I wonder. So can you speak to some of the you do this nationwide endeavor now. 

 

[00:27:47] And I want you to kind of unpack some of that so that everyone listening who does not lived just outside of L.A. can kind of tap into what you're doing and get on and seeing you have a Web site. Is everything accessible there? And what products are you kind of shipping nationwide right now? 

 

[00:28:03] Yeah. Cool. We get we started our Web site five years ago sort of as a potential for shipping online and then also so that people could see our menu and view the ingredients and be familiar with what they're eating and pick up at our store. So we actually had two methods on the Web site for ordering and either picking up or shipping. And the online ordering shipping has always been you know, it's been plugging along. It's been a great experience because we've learned how to ship food the best possible way. We've learned what items do ship and don't ship. We've spent the last year and a half now shipping cakes, so whole birthday cakes all over California and the whole nation. We have a very good success rate with cakes getting there in lovely shape and still delicious and moist and everything, because that is the heartbreak. You know, you can order a birthday cake and everything is on that cake, right? It's the centerpiece. So. So fortunately, we've had a lot of experience working out a lot of the kinks in in shipping and now that this covered crisis has happened. 

 

[00:29:18] Our our online shipping has let me get the number. I feel like it has at least quadrupled. I think it's actually more like 10 times. It's an exponentially growing every week. So we're at about 10 times our normal production for shipping stuff. So we ship cakes now we have five what we call a karma box. So it's a box of specific items. One is our sampler, which is the most popular. It has 10 items that are kind of the bakery's highlights. So our donuts are incredibly popular. Our brownies are very popular. You know, we sell to a lot of the grocery stores around us and in Southern California. So we have a large following just from, you know, the brownies. You know, people still come in and say, I didn't know you were a bakery. I thought, you know. You know. So we sell it. You know, the highlights, the the rockstars from the bakery and in our boxes, brownie box, donut box, cake pops, fun, things like that. 

 

[00:30:20] And then with the virus kind of came a little bit of inspiration, like, you know, everybody wants our cupcakes. And so we decided to pack them in jars, you know, the eight ounce mason jar. And you get the layered cupcake in there, the lid, you know, it Easter was all we kind of launched it. And the you take the lid off and the inside the carrot cake jar is a little bunny diving in. And that was a giant hit. Super cute. Everybody is ordering that as the jars are taking off. And, you know, my favorite thing is the creativity. So I've just designed 12 new flavors of jars to start adding to the mix. They're just they travel so well. They keep so long. And it really is like a true treat. You know, it feels really special. 

 

[00:31:08] It's a feels that feels like add your Everest. I feel bakery and then shipping it. I immediately go to lack of quality control. 

 

[00:31:17] My brain like the issues that I would see the hurdles immediately. Quality control for one. And then add preservatives, infusion to, you know, to get that lifespan and that longevity. Have you been able to navigate that successfully or was it trial and error to get to? Because I know that, you know, on your site, you talk about consistency and the importance of maintaining, you know, that the experience that you really want everyone to have. So how did you kind of address those tips? And was it a learning curve or did you, you know it out the gate? 

 

[00:31:50] Yeah, definitely learning curve. You know, we've always kept in mind that we have one chance to change someone's mind because they're going to take one bite and go, oh, I knew it. This is terrible. Or they're gonna go, oh, wow, this is crazy, you know? So. So, yes, the the integrity in that first bite is everything. So we decided right off the bat to not ship items that we knew we couldn't 100 percent control it, how it would arrive, you know, taste and texture wise. And then the third problem is like it needs to arrive pretty, you know, some of our cupcakes. You know, we tried sending some trial errors, sending out cupcakes that were a bit of a cupcake soup. You know, we had we had a few days like that. But, you know, obviously, you're not going to have a lot of success during that. So, you know, we design things to make them travel. Well, you know, the chocolate our donuts are coat are dipped all the way in chocolate so that when they when they come out of the wrapper, you know, they're sealed completely when they come out of the wrapper. They are not messed up. You know, they look really nice. They keep the keeps the donut fresh inside. You know, the little things like that. We've done sort of curious, how is this product going to get where it needs to go and be the best, you know? So that's been, like I said, five years of, you know, plugging along and calendar and not even taking chances on things that we just knew. That's not going to work and you don't want to go there. 

 

[00:33:22] And I think the word you just used is so perfectly description for it's a curation. You have curated this process. You know, truly is this very thoughtful. And it is an artistic endeavor. 

 

[00:33:32] You know, when you get to this level, particularly, I think all cooking and baking is but on the level that you're functioning on and doing it. It truly is. It's special. It's ah, it's curated. It's thoughtful. 

 

[00:33:44] You know, it's amazing. I want to look at. I know that this has changed a lot and you've brought it up. 

 

[00:33:49] And so you clearly are feeling copacetic with the nature of it, as I think all small businesses have them. We're still all, you know, or everyone is still kind of going through emotions. But you've had a dialog. It sounds like with yourself and even with your company and where it's. Can sintering the pandemic that we're in and the future of it. But I'm hoping you can speak to the goals that you have for the kind of all of the various aspects even underneath it. I don't know if they vary, but for karma baker like for the next one to three years, has the pandemic played into that significantly? Were you already headed there? Can you kind of speak to and do you do that as a company? Do you have three year goals or do you have smaller ones like six month goals? 

 

[00:34:34] Yeah, we have gotten out of the practice of having, you know, two and three, you know, 90 day or one year or three or five year goals. You know, the thing that has happened with our business is that we have you know, we've always had the wholesale going to the grocery stores. We've always had the front and then we've always had the online. And whenever something has happened within the neighborhood, you know, we had giant fires here last year and it practically closed everything down. You know, almost all of Malibu burned down. And we have a ton of customers from Malibu. So our community was missing. But, you know, things like that, we have been able to sort of just move into the direction of what works and and push the business into that place. You know, we always have had this very long flash, short term goal of, you know, giant success. You know, ultimately on the first day when I said, this is what I want to do, I you know, I wanted to be in Starbucks. I want when you go to Starbucks and there's nothing to eat, half of that counter is karma bakers, vegan, gluten free stuff. You know, that's where my head was big. I don't want to be a bakery in L.A.. You know, I want to be a bakery in the world, you know? So I have always had kind of that as my goal out there. And what it takes to get to that goal along the way is a squiggly road, you know, as long as I'm in the same direction on that road. I feel like we are succeeding. And honestly, when Kobe hit and everybody was talking about closing down, all I could think was there is no way we've gone through all this trouble and effort to close down and lose our business from this. It just felt inconceivable that it's not happening. And then and then people started finding us online. So search engines, I don't even know how they'd been finding us, really. But it's it's, you know, dozens of orders every day. You know, it's fantastic. Incredible. Yeah. 

 

[00:36:42] Yeah. Well, I mean, it's that laser view you've got of the Starbucks out there. I think people are that scoped and you can over calls it the secret. Years ago, like you can do whatever you want. 

 

[00:36:53] But I think that that kind of as human beings, you know, that kind of a clear focus and drive is the number one thing. Ninety nine percent of all seeing us, you know, having none of that. That's cool. I like that. That's it's it's it's first time I've spoken to someone that has been that amazingly brave to be like, yeah, it was Starbucks. 

 

[00:37:12] You know, most people get like a little shy. 

 

[00:37:15] They maybe not to themselves, but when they're talking to someone with a podcast, I love that you just audaciousness of putting it out. That's fantastic. So I'm in that same vein. 

 

[00:37:25] I'm wondering if you could speak to the, you know, 2013 you are launching this endeavor. Look, knowing what you know now, what are the top three pieces of advice that you would give? Be good or bad. Stay away from this. Do more of this. What would be the top three pieces that you would give back to yourself? 

 

[00:37:45] So many things. It's almost hard to choose three. And, you know, it's really hard to also because the journey has been the the process. 

 

[00:37:56] And if I took a piece out, I'm not sure we would be where we were, you know, or I don't feel regretful about any of the choices and decisions we've made along the way. I would say, you know, originally, if I could speak to myself, then I would say this is going to be really, really hard. And don't expect it to not be hard. And I would say when you get the most afraid, the most fearful, lean into it and do that more. Whatever that thing is that feels so scary. Pushed through it because that's where change happens. 

 

[00:38:34] You know, that's where when your comfort level gets a little a little shaken, you know, that's when you know, you're doing something bigger than you would have done, you know? Yeah. So we've you know, we've like I said, we've moved into the things. We've kept three avenues of revenue open in order to, you know, move with the water, with the tide. But, you know, maybe I would tell myself to run ahead in one direction and see what happens. Absolutely. You know, sometimes that's kind of where we are right now, you know, with with online shipping. It's it really is the best way for us to reach the most people. And, you know, originally my goal is get this in everyone's mouth, you know, change people's minds. Be there for that person that doesn't have a bakery in your dorm or whose mom can't make a cake or, you know, that's that's who we want to be getting into the mouth. So however we get in their mouth is where I want to go. Right. And the delivery, the online, the, you know, eating at home, the bakery to you. Like I I've always loved that. And I just thought maybe people weren't ready for it, like I was ready for it. So maybe that's changed. And yeah, maybe that's the silver lining. 

 

[00:39:55] It follow suit. You are through and through. You know, leaning into discomfort and all of those things and having this magnificent goal. And I love it. I love all of it. And I'm sure it tastes in your food. 

 

[00:40:07] Everyone's got to jump on. I'm a baker icon. And if for nothing else than to have, you know, this kind of profound person speaking for it and things like that, like you've got taste that nobody nobody can turn that down. You know, you've got to give that a shot. And we are out of time, Celine. But I want to say thank you so much. 

 

[00:40:27] It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate all of your information and your candor today. 

 

[00:40:32] Thank you so much, Patricia. It was wonderful to talk to you. Natalie, thank you for everyone listening. 

 

[00:40:37] We've been speaking with Celine Eichler. And you can find her and all of her delicious food on Karma Baker AdCom until we speak again next time. 

 

[00:40:47] Thank you for tuning in. Stay well, stay safe, eat well and remember to always bet on yourself. 

Speaking with Stephanie Redcross West about Vegan Mainstream and helping vegan business owners

Today we sat down with Stephanie Redcross West, founder of Vegan Mainstream. Vegan Mainstream provides hands-on training, advice and education for new and established vegan business owners. https://veganmainstream.com/

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is Investigating Vegan Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vegan Life. Now let's start the conversation. 

 

[00:01:15] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today we are speaking with Stephanie Redcross West. She is the managing director of Vegan Mainstream began mainstream dot com. You can find them online at Vegan mainstream dot com. Welcome, Stephanie. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. Absolutely. And for everyone listening really quickly, if you want to find out more about Stephanie and begin mainstream, you can jump on their Web site and you can also jump on the LinkedIn company has a huge presence on LinkedIn. So you go to LinkedIn and you type in Vegan mainstream, pull up their company Web site, as well as Stephanie. Redcross West has her own page there as well. I'm going to read a quick bio on Stephanie. But before I do that, I'm an offer everyone a roadmap. Today, I'm going to be looking at Stephanie's brief history as it pertains to plant based and or the vegan journey. Her academic background, early professional life, occupation, how she got to where she is now. And then we'll turn our attention towards unpacking the vegan mainstream as a company and its services, what it how it's actually conducted, as well as the components involved in it. And we'll also look at how it's changed since its inception and launch. And then we'll also during that time period, hopefully unearth the ethos of the company and more of the philosophical backing of it all. And then we'll turn towards any advice that she can offer for those of you looking to either get involved or kind of mirror some of what she's done with it. And then we'll turn our efforts towards asking what future endeavors that Stephanie has and perhaps separately as an entity being mainstream has as a company. Really quickly, before I start peppering her with questions, Stephanie, Red Cross West started vegan mainstream based on a simple idea to build a pro vegan world. We need a solid infrastructure of success, businesses and brands to ensure that an ethical lifestyle is accessible to everyone everywhere. Imagine ethical retail stores, restaurants and clothing options, skin care, cleaning supplies and educational materials in every mall or community. Every step toward making this a reality is a step that moves the vegan movement forward. In 2009, Stephanie started developing tools, training and support for the brave individuals who identify themselves as vegan professionals. Those starting and running vegan businesses all over North America and the world. She was well equipped to do this with more than 15 years of marketing experience with small businesses and Fortune 500 companies. Since then, Stephanie has been a frequent speaker at VegFest conferences and even her own bootcamp series. Through these types of engagements and her day to day work with vegan mainstream, Stephanie inspires others to turn their vegan passions into successful businesses. She is a leader who promotes the concept that there is room for all types of vegan business owners, not only those developing and selling food related products. We need vegan carpenters, fashion designers, accountants and more. Vegan mainstream provides hands on training, advice and education for new and established vegan business owners. We offer they offer a wide variety of services, including free webinars, resource articles, business coaching, marketing, count- consulting and self-paced online courses. They help authors, chefs, personal trainers, coaches and all kinds of vegan entrepreneurs launch and maintain successful vegan businesses. Stephanie, we spoke before the podcast briefly. I love this idea. I don't think a lot of people get into this business. I think that people, once they learn how to advise or coach, they actually don't come back to consolidate it in a way that kind of speaks across industries as as you begin mainstream are endeavoring to do. And I cannot wait to kind of unpack that with you. 

 

[00:05:03] But before we get there, can you offer us like a brief history about your academic and professional life and kind of develop the stage for where you came to the point where you are now? 

 

[00:05:13] Absolutely. I would say my background is really grounded in an entrepreneurial family. 

 

[00:05:18] So one thing that I started with and really kind of got the skills and when I was very young is, you know, my family had businesses, you know, so therefore, I was used to what it was like to run the front desk. I understood what it was like to even run credit cards even. I'm gonna probably date myself back in the day when you had to take a credit card, walk to a phone booth, call the 1 800 number and actually process the credit card to get authorization. You know, I went through some of those processes of what it takes to build a business that people are passionate about and proud of. That's where I kind of started from or kind of was was raised in. And then what I started to do is complement that. Whether it's through my education, whether it's through my business expertise, what I wanted to do is start to create almost building blocks in my life. Now, I'm always big on doing things that were. About so when I went to school, I decided I got some business background, you know, as a kid, but I wanted to do something that I loved. I wanted to do something that was dear to my heart, something that I was just very passionate about. A lot of people, when they look at my background, they're very surprised because I got a degree in Japanese and political science. And the idea is I just love the Japanese culture, the Japanese cinematography and literature. And it's just such a very just unique culture for me. And I have the chance to live in Japan like one of the summers while I was in school. And then later on, when I fast forward into my corporate life, I got a chance to work in Japan. So what I was able to do is start to realize that I could chart my own course when I was a kid. You know, it's very young when one of those high bargee grills, which probably started at all. I was like my interest in this culture. 

 

[00:07:06] And I started studying. I started, you know, finding more about it and so forth. And that led me to making sure I was not only getting an education in it, but I was traveling abroad. I would go to Japan. Those are all things that I had dreamed of. And what I found in my life. And if people are kind of listening right now and ever struggling in your life, I would always say look back on the dreams that you had as a kid and see if you fulfilled some of those dreams. Because when you start to see the power in dreaming big and it coming true, you start to realize how much power you have in creating your own course. And that was you know, that was when I was a really, really small kid. But it created an opportunity for me to not only understand what I was passionate about, get a degree in it. And I look poly sci and politics mostly because of the negotiation and so forth. But it taught me that I could travel far. I can travel and do great things and I can try things. And with that same kind of excitement and gumption, I guess you would say I did the same thing in my corporate life. 

 

[00:08:16] So once I graduated from school, I said, you know what? I want to get building blocks. I want to make sure I'm understanding not only how small businesses work, but how the big businesses work out of businesses, their growing work, how do they scale, how do they have an international landscape. And by doing that, that's when I started working with couple of different smaller companies. And then I worked my way into working for G.E. and I had a great opportunity there where I work through different jobs, different kind of career paths, different sections within G.E., you know, where I was working in financial services one minute and then I could work in a completely different division. I worked in environments where I was only responsible for my business, my area of that business, or I was responsible for multiple businesses across global platforms. I did financial auditing. So I got my financial kind of acumen down. So that is as a business leader one day and potentially a business owner, I would have that background. 

 

[00:09:16] And a lot of what was important to me is to keep making sure not only was I getting those skills, but I always had that dream, like I mentioned before, that I could work in Japan and through G E, I was able to fulfill that. And I was able to not only work in Japan for four months, we had apartments, you know, we really lived like locals, which was really awesome. But I also had the chance to fly my family to Japan and we celebrated Christmas together in Japan so I could bring my family into my passion, into my love. 

 

[00:09:49] And this is how not only what I was passion about metal, as you know, driven by my career, I was able to do things that were important to me from a family life would important to me from a career and also just personally important to me from my always interest and appreciation for the Japanese culture. 

 

[00:10:06] Beautiful. So how did that translate into? 

 

[00:10:10] Did your vegan journey begin in Japan or is there a conversation or relationship between this kind of global citizenship that you embarked on and your interest in the vegan in the vegan life? Like, how did that inception come on? 

 

[00:10:24] Yeah, the vegan thing I would say has always been percolating. It wasn't necessarily because of my travels or so much in Japan, but more of the exposure I was having to so many different people. I wasn't just Japan. I did have the opportunity when I was working with G E to travel a lot. I was a lot of different countries, so I was actually exposed to different cuisines, different lifestyles. And then also we've always had this kind of health thread in our family. My mother had actually gone big and while I was, you know, grown out of the house. So when we came home for Thanksgiving, you know, Thanksgiving was vegan. And that started to give me a sense of what it's like to not just eat out and say, oh, yeah, eat at this fancy restaurant and go vegan, but what it's like when you kind of bring it home and bring it into tradition. So with my mother kind of introducing it to me, I had the opportunity from there to start to build a community. I'm really big about community building. Whether it's your professional life, whether it's things you're interested in. I started to hang out with more begins. I started to go to begin events. I joined a vegan kind of club. And at this time, this is around 2005 when I officially went vegan. I had joined a group that I was living in Connecticut at the time that met about twice a month. And what we would do is we would go to restaurants, we'd discuss things, and that's when we started to get more background on what this lifestyle means and how it impacts our environment, impacts pets, animals and the world. So we really started to educate me and that's what started me in that path. I was still working at G.E. at the time in 2005, so I kind of was bringing that into my corporate life. And, you know, we would do vegan cakes and big snacks. It is shooting at G.E. and so forth. And I started to just bring it in that way. And then eventually when I transitioned to my own business, I decided I wanted to to bring that together. 

 

[00:12:20] That's interesting because I feel like the 90 percent of the time when I speak with people and people who practice a vegan lifestyle, the bridge to it has it was diet, health and exercise. 

 

[00:12:31] And it sounds like your bridge to it was like you said, you know, this is community building you when kind of became involved with the community and came through that way. Was your mother involved with it due to health or was it just a curiosity or was it for a different reason that she became a vegan? 

 

[00:12:47] My mother really became vegan. More for spiritual person. Yeah. Okay. There's a second journey yet. So that was really her journey. And then I also had a health I wouldn't say challenge, but I had a health wakeup call, I would say when I was in college. And so before I went vegan, it would start a meal like that vegetarian path. And Ultimate leaves a lot of people to veganism is I get pretty sick in college and I added it up getting a cold. And as I started to research it and where it comes from and how it works. And unfortunately that weekend I'd been in three different states before I had returned to my senior year in college before I returned. So we couldn't pinpoint. But it's a very sobering experience when I see you calls you and they're like, where have you eaten? What have you done, where have you been? And you start to realize, you know, how serious these things are. And also, it just made me think about potentially going without. 

 

[00:13:44] And that started making it make more sense for my vegan journey. Absolutely. 

 

[00:13:49] So when let's get into unpacking like first, let's start off with kind of the brick and mortar nuts and bolts of vegan mainstream. 

 

[00:13:57] What was the inspiration for launching it? And let's see, I'm not sure if I rattled off the year of whether or not you launched it, but we thought that in 2009. And did you have co-founders? Did you bootstrap did you have funding and what was the inspiration for the launch or for developing it? 

 

[00:14:15] I funded it myself because I had just I was working at G.E. at that time. I was doing a lot of savings. So I did have some money that I used for my savings to start the business. 

 

[00:14:26] I would probably say it was really the idea that could I do a passion based business? Could I do a business that was something that I loved because most of my training and most of my time at G.E. was really in marketing. I had worked my way through the ranks and gotten to a point where I was a V.P. of marketing. So I had a lot of great experience, a lot of great exposure to marketing. And the concept was, could I bring my marketing together with veganism? Like, does that work? And I wasn't sure if that was impossible. I wasn't even sure if I was just, you know, had a cool concept, but not necessarily a business because there is a difference. Right. And that was kind of my starting point. Plus, I think it was also from a little bit of frustration. I don't know if this ever happens to you, but like I was visiting a lot of vegan restaurants and they were going out of business. 

 

[00:15:19] You know, it's tragic. It's really tragic. 

 

[00:15:22] And it's not even just on the business side, but small businesses, they struggle with how to run a business. They have a great idea, great food, sometimes amazing concept. But what it takes to run a successful business. The structure, the systems and the marketing is sometimes just too much. And my thought was, if I could bring that to them, if I could bring what I learned from corporate America, if I could bring what I learned from growing up, an entrepreneur or family to these individuals, could I help them accelerate or can I help them maybe not bend by the pressure of running a business? 

 

[00:16:02] Yeah. And I think you're I mean, it's right. You know, it's true. Some of the everyone loves small businesses, or at least that's, you know, even economically, you know, people in political campaigns. 

 

[00:16:12] We'll talk about those small businesses. They're going to help them out. You know, everyone across everything. And I think the beauty of it is because, you know, they are usually started by passion, by someone saying, you know, my my mother made Italian food, I'm going to up and sell Italian rare goods or whatever. You know, they're Vorlons by people with passion. But I can't really think of anybody who came out of school with their MBA and thought, I'm gonna start the world's greatest small business. It seems like to start a small business. You actually lack the business, end of it. You know, you have that passion and that drive to bring into your community, but you don't have the business aspect, which is why I think that, you know, what you're doing is with being mainstream is so incredible. I wonder. So when you started off well, let's let's start about unpacking it. So you go on to begin mainstream dot.com and your first as you know, as as a viewer, as a as a connoisseur, you're met with like this information based system. Can you kind of walk our audience through what your first experience should be and what the first like as as a potential customer would be hitting your Web site? 

 

[00:17:14] Sure. And then I can also give you some background on you mentioned before, like what my business was like when I started versus what it is. Yes. Yes. That's a very sobering experience when you start a business, how much your business changes. 

 

[00:17:27] Well, let's start there, because I don't want to get into the actual experience of what we have now until we have that history. So what was it? 

 

[00:17:32] As it began? And have there been major aspects of it that have changed or been embellished upon? 

 

[00:17:39] Yeah, absolutely. 

 

[00:17:41] When I first started, I still had maybe too much of that corporate in me. That was probably maybe one of my learning thing I had to learn along the way, because when I started, I was like, Oh, yeah, we're gonna be an agency. We're going to have a creative department, we're gonna be a PR department. We're going to have you know, I was almost taking kind of the marketing roles that I had you'd been used to in corporate America and started to create that. I had a large staff. I had this concept that we were just gonna be helping these businesses and they wouldn't be calling up and meeting ideas. We're gonna be churning out campaigns. And what I didn't realize or what I hadn't really thought about is understanding where my customers were today or at that point where were they in 2009 with them? 

 

[00:18:28] Didn't have marketing budgets. May have. We're barely doing marketing, especially if they were doing brick and mortar. They were just doing foot traffic. So me coming and saying, hey, we can do advertising for you. Was it a large stretch from where they were? Right. So the idea of I was selling something that sometimes they didn't even know they needed, they didn't even see as something that they wanted. And I think that's a big I think that's the thing that's a universal challenge for us as we all build businesses is to make sure that we understand where our customers are today and what service do they need. And how do we develop that? So I had to pivot. I had to really restructure the business differently to start to understand where are my customers and what kind of support do they need? Do they need their team trained so they can take the ideas in-house and manage them as opposed to us managing them externally? And that was something we learned that we really had to beat. We had to be able to help people build their infrastructure as opposed to us being an outside agency source. That was probably one of my biggest learnings. The other thing that we had to realize and learn is that we needed to bring capabilities to our community. So how did we bring to best practices and how did we learn what was working and kind of. Working as business models or marketing models in other industries or in other ways that hadn't been, in a sense, veganized. Just like today, you know, we talk about like organizing your favorite pizza or organizing your favorite dish. The same, I think exists on the marketing side that you have to kind of small business ize it. And in many cases, for our customers, we had to organize it because for some people they weren't always thinking about the bottom line. They weren't thinking about the metrics. They really wanted to have an impact. One of the biggest things that we had to change when we taught people how to do planning was not just financial planning, but what we call impact planning. Meaning how many people do you want to serve? How do you want to service your community? How do you want to do give backs? Do you want to donate to your local charity? So adding those components to how we teach and how we help our community made a big difference for our customers. And those are things I had to learn along the way to make sure that we were servicing our customers the right way. 

 

[00:21:02] Absolutely. And it sounds like a lot of those core tenants that you know, that people can bring on. I think that different industries do things differently. And I'm not just. 

 

[00:21:12] Thinking about, you know, Vegan footwear as opposed to vegan food delicacies or something. But the communities itself. You know, there's a lot of market research, especially with micro influencers and things like that across social media where you have these intersections of people and, you know, the vegan community or people who. There's another community to sub vegan community that I'm kind of obsessed with. And that's these people getting ready to convert to veganism, you know, on account of a myriad of different reasons. And they're they're kind of spoken to on a marketing campaign and a very different way than people that have been vegan for 20 years and whose great grandmother was and things of that nature. So I think there's a lot. And it's interesting because I haven't heard a ton of the impact planning and things like that does sound to me like something that is not as brought to the the forefront of a young business. You know, small business attention and for good reason. I think small businesses where a lot of hats, you know. And so there's there's a lot of balls in the air. And you'd never find anyone more doing their own accounting as well as like their carpentry in the front as a small business owner. Right. They're all just doing everything. So that's interesting. And it is like what? Likewise. And conversely, as interesting that you had to kind of dig corporate yourself, but kind of record. Right. You know, the small businesses, that kind of exchange is interesting. So where is it now that you that you guys are at the and begin mainstream? Like where would you say the large amount of your services are? Do you have industries that you specialize with? Or is it just across the entire. I know in your bio I read that you're like, it's everyone. It's everywhere. It's the entire vegan community. But who are your clients right now and what is the growth been since 2009? 

 

[00:22:57] Absolutely. 

 

[00:22:58] I would say our client base is across the board and I was pretty surprised by that as well. Even when we started, I was really curious how much I would be in the food sector sector because that's a natural place. But really, what our experience has been is across the board we've worked with authors and helping authors go from a book over two courses, over two speaking engagements, over two large scale events. 

 

[00:23:24] So helping people kind of grow in kind of step by step fashion as they built out their community. 

 

[00:23:31] We work with vegan doctors, which that was a really big surprise for me. Many of them are looking at bringing wellness products in. Many of them are looking at kind of doing cross over where if they're servicing or have a patient, can they help them with the food? Can they help them with lifestyle management? Can they bring in other services and so forth? So we work with people in that kind of health care space. We also work with I've worked with book publishing companies. We work with people who do just events. So say they do conferences. They do want a year to a year, three a year. We work with people who do vegan matchmaking services. We work with clients. I'm just using my memory right now that do health. So they teach people how to do like acupuncture, massage, but use it in a way to actually treat some common health issues and challenges. So it's really across the board. And sometimes I've worried that, you know, do we dilute by going too far across? 

 

[00:24:42] But what I found is it's been great because many industries are trying to be more vertical. Many industries are trying to find those adjacent markets. And therefore, by us being able to crossover, what I'm finding is doing a product launch online, doing an online course launch is going to work for an author or for a doctor and going to work for a misuse. It s that it might be slightly different depending on their product and their service. But the idea is there is leverage across the board. 

 

[00:25:18] Yeah. 

 

[00:25:18] And interdisciplinary, I think that a lot of people get you know, there there was this hyper activity about returning to the Netsch, which I appreciate. You know, I probably evangelized it for a hot minute and two thousand early aughts. You know, this whole like a Vineet and you'll be more successful. But we lost this kind of Jill of all trades, you know, moment where someone was inter-disciplinary, early, tactile, you know, and prepared to kind of apply other metrics and that kind of creativity that I think is coming back in that it's used to everyone's benefit. You know, I always think of social media platforms. In the first time I saw a job posting on Instagram, I was like, did they not know this is a photo site like this isn't supposed to be here? And then it was like everywhere. And that's how, like, all of you know, everyone was getting a job was job postings on Instagram. But it took someone creatively going. I'm going to put that on Instagram. That's got. Views. And so just looking at things from a slightly different angle and utilizing platforms across different areas like you're doing or suggesting that you do is I think is is more useful. It's more communicative and less exclusionary. And things like the vegan lifestyle risk becoming exclusionary. And if they're not careful. And so I think that even with the marketing campaigns being inclusive sounds clever. So you're the site is designed to bring people in. I know you have a bunch of different services that you offer. I covered some of them in the bio. But can you kind of unpack some of those because you don't just serve as like this expensive campaign for someone who has, like, you know, this twenty thousand dollar kitty that they can hire you with. You've actually got a lot of different facets for that. Could meet a lot of different needs as well as budgets and things like that. So can you walk us through your services? 

 

[00:27:04] Absolutely. 

 

[00:27:05] I would probably say our services are on two ends, kind of the high touch and or a little bit more of that, you know, personalization vs. things that we offer like our online courses so that people can get the content and take it at their own pace. I love our online courses because it's a great way for me to take what I teach even sometimes in my more customized, personalized programs. And I can create a video where I can show people, mention it, walk people through the process, and I can walk them through complicated things in online courses, but I can offer it at a reasonable rate. You know, we can offer it at a rate that someone can pay one price or pay monthly over six months as an example and get some of that learning. And what we do is do some support on top of our online courses. One thing that I'm really big on is what I want you to have the content and I want you to do at your own pace. I do want to nudge you along. So we do have like support where you buy a course from us. And what we tend to do is, you know, twice a month we get on a call with all students across all courses and allow them to see each other. They can even have a little bit of a quick chit chat. And then we talk about what are some of the trends, what are what's happening in the world, so that even if they're not doing their lessons, they still get that personal touch. But because we can do it with all students in a Xoom call as an example, it's something that's scalable, something that can be economical, where we can give a little bit about personalization because people can talk to me. And, you know, if we have 20 people on or 50 people on, great. If we have two people on great, especially when we first started doing some of these that were small. So some people were really able to get some good dialog going. So that's kind of one end of the spectrum with a level of support. We like to give and then the other side is where we do more high touch and we're doing more coaching. 

 

[00:29:00] So like we talked about before, most of our help that we find works best when we're teaching people how to build the skills within their business, how to make their team stronger. Even in some cases when I'm doing coaching, I'm teaching people how to hire, how to find the right people in their business, whether they're hiring someone full time or part time or even helping them with hiring freelancers. Because it's not easy finding help when you're a small business. It's not easy when you're saying, I want to expand and do something new like a podcast, but I don't know where to start. I don't know who to hire. I don't know how to evaluate and what I think is help people in that process. While we may not run the podcast for them, we're almost running beside them through our coaching program. And what we do is what I find for coaching works best is when it's frequent. So what we tend to do is we're meeting every single week. We're meeting every other week. And if we're meeting every other week, then we give people support through slack. So in between our meetings, if you have a question, something comes up, something doesn't look right. You jump on slack and you send me a quick message and I can support you. I can answer your questions. I can get you unstuck, because our goal or what I find for a lot of small businesses is they'll get stuck on the tech, they'll get stuck on an idea. They'll get stuck because they've got a bad review. They get stuck because they thought the project was going to go this direction and it shifted on them. So being able to be in touch with me through things like slack and other kind of tools like what's up by one client loves it. And it's actually get me a little more excited about it as well. It's a way that we can keep dialog going and they're still getting that personalized support as they're moving forward with our weekly plans or biweekly plans on, hey, this week we're working on launching your YouTube channel or this week we're helping you relaunch your YouTube channel. So we're gonna teach you how to update your thumbnails, how to make sure you're doing keyword searches. 

 

[00:31:04] We're gonna make sure that you're putting your tags in there. We've done an audit and this is what we think you should be working on. And then we give them the guidelines and then I can write the side them kind of almost a little bit of a mini partner as there implement throughout the week. 

 

[00:31:18] Absolutely. Do you do you feel confident in assisting brick and mortar as equally as your online small businesses? 

 

[00:31:26] Absolutely. We work with a lot of brick and mortar as well. The only industry I don't do as much in is the restaurant industry. I probably say that's my smallest segment of our customer base. But absolutely, we do a lot with brick and mortar. And also because a lot of people like the lines are starting to blur these days, I find in businesses where it used to be offline business, online business. A lot of places are trying to incorporate components or what they're trying to do is expand. They're trying to reach a new audience. So while their marketing works, what they're trying to do is talk to someone who can help them do more or kind of look at things differently. And then also the. 

 

[00:32:12] Being able to work with someone who understands the vegan lifestyle, like me being vegan and a vegan, being able to speak to another vegan, it's similar to working with your feet female business owner and working with another female. 

 

[00:32:24] There's some camaraderie in that. There's some ability to understand the walk and understand the challenges and understand why some businesses will not undercut the products that they're using as far as supplies because they want to give a better health outcome in their beauty products. 

 

[00:32:44] Why? A company like I have one person that wants to has a nonprofit and what they want to do is they need to fund their nonprofit. So what they're gonna do is sell products online. So now they have an e-commerce store and because they have an e-commerce store, they need to do all the marketing that they really want to sell good products, even though it's for fundraising for their nonprofit, a nonprofit. They don't want to sell just widgets and gadgets and things that break. They want stuff that's quality. So hoping and making sure that when they talk with me, I understand that. I understand that it's not just about the bottom line, it's about the customer experience. It's about is this sustainable? It's about does it make. How does it make an impact on our environment? Is it is it impacting animals? All of these questions I'm thinking, too. And I think our customers really appreciate that because we're almost Romi's like together or questioning ourselves. Yeah. Is this the right approach? Is this the best way to do it? And I think it feels kind of collaborative. 

 

[00:33:44] Yeah. And likewise, you're more likely, I suspect, anyway, to communicate that to the end customer. You know, and one of the biggest things I I'm a prolific believer in education and the opportunity for education across all platforms. You know, I feel like you you're more likely to gain a customer in any industry, in any country, in the world if you bring it along with education. And there's always this opportunity, you know, with veganism to educate, to educate about the environment, educate about sustainability, to educate about the future generations of about everything, you know, about some welfare and humanity and empathy. And you can go on and on. So I love the idea that you're kind of collaboratively doing that and then reaching into the possibility of communicating and educating that to potential customers. It sounds like a lot a much bigger bang for your buck. I'm curious since you've been in the game for a while, doing what you're doing since 2009. What do you think you must have collected like a top five, right. The top five playlist of like this. It's the things that all of the businesses that come to you have done wrong or are getting ready to do wrong from the get go. Can you kind of cover some of those? 

 

[00:34:55] I probably say number one thing is most businesses struggle with making money. It may sound strange sometimes when from people who already have that business had on that come out with an MBA and they can go starting a business like why wouldn't the business want to make money? But in a lot of the legal community, a lot of individuals were starting these businesses. They would help people. Their metric is their impact. And what happens is sometimes that impact or what they can do for their community becomes so big that they're not looking at the finances. They're not do it. They're not realizing that they could make more money if they cut some of the expenses. And I don't mean cut quality. I mean cut some of the things that may not be needed anymore in their business or shifting or making changes and also not feeling guilty for making money. 

 

[00:35:50] You know, there's a barrier when you're trying to help someone, especially since a lot of people are health coaches. It's a very common business that a lot of people do where they're starting their own business and they're saying I'm a lifestyle coach or a health coach. 

 

[00:36:03] Then like, how can I charge someone to help them with diabetes? How can I charge them with this and helping people understand that they deserve a living wage? Just like we all do. And I think those are things that a lot of people struggle with when they're starting starting their business. The other thing is how to market smart, how to use the time that you have and be efficient with it, as opposed to being everywhere and every platform and trying to do everything that anyone's ever mentioned to you. So starting to say what really is my secret sauce? Where should I be? What makes me unique and different and therefore from unique and different? How do I show up in these channels like YouTube in a different way? How do I show up in LinkedIn in a different way? And if I show up in a different way, maybe I'm going to look a little different than my competition. Maybe I'm not going to have as many likes as my competition. Maybe I'm not gonna have the numbers that, you know, many of us sometimes fall in love with on these like vanity numbers, words like I got this many people this person has. People in helping people understand that we have. You have to be effective in your marketing because you can have a large following. But if we're not driving sales, if you're not helping people, then you just have a big following. I don't think we've really gotten to the success of your business. And then the last thing I always tell people is to build on success. So what a lot of people try to do is just expand on good ideas or expand on the potential of something. So if I did this idea, meaning if I did online course, it could be huge. I could have. Five thousand students. Yes, you could. But before we start with the five thousand students approach, let's start with 20 students that love what you do and not because 20 is where you want to be. Not because 20 is the benchmark of success. But what 20 means is when you have 20 customers that have gone through your course. Love your course, rave about your course, give you feedback, help you make your course better and stronger. Then we can get much faster to that 5000 number. So helping people understand that success can breed success, especially if you focus on finding improving kind of that proof of concept on your business and then expanding from there as opposed to trying to do it all. 

 

[00:38:36] Yeah, I think that's a good point. And it's it's one is as simple as it sounds that even the most sage of entrepreneurs lose sight of pretty quickly. You know, that end game that that payout, that pie in the sky is really what you hear more of the talk of those types of conversations in the very beginning when it's like just talk about, you know, getting a handful of people. Let's just start with that. And I agree with you. I think that that it can sound a little deflating, but it is where all success comes from. Right. These building blocks and things like that. 

 

[00:39:05] And if you read a lot of people's stories, that's how a lot of it starts. It's just that right now we read the article of two thousand and twenty. Yeah. We go back in that founder's story and look at what did they do 10 years ago when they were starting. So when they were in your shoes, six months into your bet, their business one year into their business, where were they? 

 

[00:39:26] And I think sometimes we get confused by where someone is today as opposed to where they started. Yeah. 

 

[00:39:32] The industry since you since you've been around has really taken off. 

 

[00:39:36] Right now, my journey into veganism, I think began very similar with your timeline. And I always find myself fairly lucky because I feel like it's changed like the exercise and environment. You know, it's it's it started out being ridiculously different. It's gone through all of these changes and fads and things like that. And then ended up kind of, I think, getting to a place of normalcy. But the vegan industry, I feel like not even just a decade ago was still very outlandish. You know, a lot of people thought it was cult like and it was extremist and a lot of things that I don't affiliate or associate with it. But because you've been around throughout all of that, have you seen techniques change? And like where we stand right now, I mean, the advent of social media has been since 2009, you know, I mean, the entire platform in which you're probably running a lot of your client stuff on. But have you seen a social media side? Have you seen that the community that has changed things like game changers that came out a couple of years ago and stuff like that, it's turned a lot of, you know, unsuspected clientele into vegans. And so I'm wondering if with that, has any of your strategy or how you advise your clients changed with the change of, I suppose, just the times or the tides? 

 

[00:40:54] Absolutely. I think a lot that has changed is even back to a comment you made earlier about educating. 

 

[00:41:00] Often the thought was, this is why you need this, is this what you need to do? But we don't explain why. Why is it beneficial to the individual? Why does it matter? Why does it even matter to either. Values that they already own? So someone who already cares about the environment. How is veganism going to help them with something that they're already passionate about? How do you start to bring these things together? 

 

[00:41:27] Because I think before it was almost like what we were passion about, what we cared about. They had to compete. It was one or the other. You were either vegan or this or that or this. And I think what we're starting to understand is that we are a little bit of a whole people. We have multiple things in multiple faceted and dynamic interest and interest also changes over time. So starting to help people understand why going vegan, why going plant base can make a difference if you have a young family helping people understand how it makes a difference from the health standpoint, what does it mean for an environmental standpoint and educating people through that process as opposed to shaming them? Now, sometimes you people need a wake up call. I want to make it sound like everything is a hold my hand and I'll walk you there eventually. So sometimes you need a little bit of a shock. But at some point, we also need to make sure that people have to understand what and why we want to replace some of the things that we've done before, especially some of the traditions. That was probably one of my hardest things about going vegan initially is that there are traditions. Even like I mentioned, my mother switched up Thanksgiving and it's like, wait a minute. We grew up with this. You know, and you're starting to try to adjust or other things that are a part of your cultural dynamic types of foods that you eat and you feel like you're leaving behind your culture. 

 

[00:42:54] Sometimes you may feel like you're leaving behind things. And I think what's changed in a lot of the marketing is people are starting to help people understand how you can still bring those things with you. You can bring, you know, the snacks, the dishes that you've cared about or you eat as a kid. We can visualize them for you. The fact that people now have a vegan cousin, a vegan needs a vegan neighbor that has helped normalize veganism because people are starting to see those individuals in their lives. They're seeing that their CEOs are individuals everywhere who are a part of this lifestyle. And those individuals just talking about their lifestyle. Not everyone who's a vegan has to be a, you know, in the position where they're converting vegans. 

 

[00:43:39] Like that's not necessarily every vegans full time position. Yeah, I think helping people understand that that they don't have to do that all the time and also understand that they can just be a living, breathing example of the fact that we can care about the animals, we can care about the environment, we can be passionate about these things. NBC go and look sharp because that was my struggle when I first one rogue and I was in corporate America. I was like, I can't take a burlap sack to work. I'm just I'm not getting done with that. Yeah. So that is I still needed the things that were important to me. 

 

[00:44:15] You know, like my heroin, my hair to go natural. But at the same time, I need natural hair products. I need products that are going to work with. So I think the other thing that shifted in the movement and it's one thing that I'm continuing to hope we can we can continue to shift is the fact that we need solutions. 

 

[00:44:36] Threw out all product lines. 

 

[00:44:39] We need solutions in everything that we choose because there's so many things in our houses that we buy that we purchase that should be organized, that can be organized. And I think people in the beginning weren't thinking about those belts, were thinking about their couches. Yeah, yeah, we're thinking about those choices. So therefore, it's created industries for us as we start to kind of drive veganism more into the mainstream. 

 

[00:45:08] Absolutely. Yeah. My final frontier, the interior of the house was a few years in. But the final frontier is any kind of new car purchase. 

 

[00:45:18] The old car purchase. There's always leather. What happened to the fabric interior? Even the velvet, they're easier to clean. I mean, as far as they're they're more comfortable. They're less sweaty. I don't even understand why you can't find them anymore. But yeah, I start to find these areas where I'm like, we need to get someone producing something, you know, some Stella McCartney of the car interior world where you can rest, assure whatever you buy. There is good fashion designers. It's an incredible passion of mine being a former fashion photographer. You know, having these labels that you can rest assured, like. Yes, high end labels, low end labels that, you know, that they're that there is a vegan aspect to them, as is nice. I think across everything. But you're right. We need to find these communities and start factoring them out and making sure that we get other opportunities. So I'm wondering, given what you're doing now, it sounds like you had a healthy growth, a healthy trajectory. I know that with the COVA 19 pandemic, the next question I have always sends people into a little bit of a spin. However, you can take it prior to or even in stride with. But what do you think the next like one to three years looks like for Vigen mainstream and your role there or separately or together? How does any of that work? And do you have three like a three year goal plan or is that kind of old school and you you do a different like six month plan? 

 

[00:46:42] I have this. 

 

[00:46:44] The way I work is I have what I kind of call my big goals. So if I'm looking a year out, two years out, three years out, it's the big goal. So I only have one big thing that I'm looking to do. And often when I have those big goals, they're like fundamental changes. They're not just my financial outlook looking. So for my financial outlook, I just do that on a on an annual basis. But my big goals are normally things like if I'm if I want to do a shift in my business, especially when we started doing the online courses, that was one of my earlier shifts, is starting to say that time and our people interested in these online courses. And now what we're doing kind of when I look at our kind of long term plan or that trajectory, it's about how do we offer more variety across more industries? How much of our courses, how much of our training is a either coming for me? How much of that is it driven from a collaborative approach? So therefore, we have the model on how to create a course, how to set it up, how to get students, how to support students. So do we collaborate with other industry experts? Do we collaborate with some of our associations out there, which has been a big change in the movement? You know, having associations like the plant based food association, you know, there's a new association coming online that's actually looking at materials, like you said, looking at sourcing materials. So there are alternatives to leather. 

 

[00:48:05] So working with some of these organizations to create content, to create information and to create kind of that baseline training that everyone can get from a business, from starting a business. 

 

[00:48:19] I don't feel like we have that in place right now. We're doing that more in the health side or teaching people or in the cooking class side like this is how you get started with being vegan. What I'd love to be able to do is say this is how you get started with a vegan business and these are the core concepts, training and approach that you can do and also kind of expanding that outside of just me as the instructor, but having like having the ability for me to train other people. I love the models where you have some of the big players in online marketing where you I mean, they have a team of consultants. They have a team or group of people that are able to coach at the level or in the way that I like to coach, because I'm not a you know, they talk about carrot in the stick, which for me, I've been good example. But I really want to motivate people. I want people to feel good every day. I want people to feel inspired. I'm always looking at the silver lining. So being able to train and bring in a team of people that can help people and motivate people that way as opposed to motivating people through the not so not so nice way. So helping kind of expand my vision to a larger team, because right now my team is more based on the function of our business, managing our social media, email, marketing our editor, our coder and so forth. But being able to have a team of people that can coach around the world would be such an amazing thing because veganism is also growing. It's a little bit different in Australia. It's a little bit different in the UK. More products and businesses are coming online. More of the corporate entities like in the UK, you're seeing a lot more of the kind of traditional food players jump into the market where they're not doing it as much in the US. 

 

[00:50:12] So it was really interesting to be able to kind of have pockets of support that are regional based as well. 

 

[00:50:18] Yeah, I agree. And I'm I'm glad that you brought that up. I just returned from Australia. I tried to hit Europe and different places yearly, but Australia. They have. And Ireland as well when I was there last. But they have a stronghold on random products, vegan cheese. Like why is it so much better there? You know, they got into the olive oils. The Greeks, all of those cats started making vegan cheese decades before we did over here. And so I think that's another preconception. People feel like this vegan is this very United States made born idea and thing. And it's it's not just spiritually backed and goes back, you know, thousands of years as as most dietary things do. But it has. Pockets and communities that have gone into their own realm with it, you know, and they have their own flair and Australia. I was tickled their restaurant scene, not just their food scene, their day. They have artists that identify under these vegan labels, you know, ceramic artists and people that really want to express and talk about the core core tenants of their being in life and things of that nature. 

 

[00:51:21] And so I think it's it is true. It varies across the pockets. And being able to unify that globaly would be quite beautiful. I think that's an awesome future plan. And I look forward to following you and keeping keeping track of it. We are out of time today, Stephanie, but I just wanted to say thank you so much. I love what your company does. I think that big and mainstream is awesome. And it's the way that I think a lot of industry should be headed in towards this, like cleaning up house, really figuring out how to launch a successful business and making sure you come from that healthy foundation is is so awesome, especially with, you know, the fact that it's got this vegan focus and you're kind of bringing everything together into that. So thank you so much for meeting with us today. I really appreciate it. 

 

[00:52:04] Oh, thank you so much for having me at a great time chatting. 

 

[00:52:08] And I really hope for your audience. We were able to kind of inspire some people, help some people if they're thinking about starting a business, if they're planning or if they're getting stuck, that the idea that there's many of us out here that are pushing through creating businesses and I appreciate your podcasts as well, giving a voice to people like myself to talk about our careers, our aspirations and how we would like to at least be able to support our communities. So thank you, apps of us. 

 

[00:52:39] My pleasure. Without a doubt. For everyone listening, we've been talking with Stephanie Redcross West. And you can get on vegan mainstream dot com and you can also find them on LinkedIn as well as Stephanie there for everyone and our audience. Thank you for giving us your time today. And until we speak again next time. Remember to eat well, eat clean. 

Talking with Helen Buley: Health & Energy Coach

Today we spoke with Helen Buley. Helen is one of the most sought after Health & Energy Coaches in the UK. In our chat, we explore Helen's expertise and personal journey with how a Vegan diet and lifestyle has alleviated pain and suffering in her life. https://www.youroptimumhealth.co.uk/

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is Investigating Vigen Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vigen life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vigen Life. Now let's start the conversation.

 

[00:01:14] Hi, everyone. Welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I'm sitting down with Helen Bewley. Helen is a health and energy coach. You can contact her on her Web site w w w dot your optimum health doc code UK. Welcome, Helen.

 

[00:01:31] Hi. Hi. To be here.

 

[00:01:34] It's good to have you. I'm excited to be speaking with you.

 

[00:01:37] I'm going to read a quick bio on Helen before I start peppering her with questions. But prior to that, I'll offer everyone listening a roadmap of today's podcast. You can kind of follow the trajectory as we crawl through it. I will first look at Helen's academic and professional background and then I'll turn my attention towards her Vigen story and some of her journey therein as I know that a lot of her business endeavors are based out of their own personal testimony. Then we'll look at current endeavors that Helen has going on projects and programs, namely the 21 Days to better health and energy that she's currently working on. And then we'll look forward to the future and talk about some of the specifics about what she's doing, as well as the scene of what her perception is as the Vigen life and the Vigen seen not just in the UK, but any other areas in this world that she's kind of tried to do to a quick Bille on Helen. Helen is one of the most sought after health and energy coaches in the UK. She helps spiritual men and women to move away from feeling stuck and lacking in energy to feeling fully empowered in-flow and full of energy, using a wide array of tools and techniques, including powerful coaching, healing and breath work and nutritional therapy. She is the perfect blend of love and challenge and regularly goes on deep coaching and transformational adventures with her clients in nature. Her own journey of health to wellness over the past 10 years will inspire you as she struggled with digestive issues, anxiety and many other challenges, but is now living the life of energy and vitality she never imagined possible. Helen is now on a mission to help one million people to transform their level of health and vitality by the year 2030. Through her coaching programs and up and coming festival and her signature 21 days to Better Health and Energy program. So, Helen, I'm really excited to climb into all of your different programs. It sounds like you're kind of prolific on your organizational front and how you really come out helping people. But before we get into that, can you draw us a platform of what your educational life and professional background was prior to coming to where you're at?

 

[00:03:43] Absolutely. So if you really want to go all the way back to when I went to university, actually study something completely different to what I'm doing right now. And that is I was studying sociology and criminology. So I was really interested in looking at the kind of behavioral patterns of society. And and even though that still interests me, particularly with my business and the vegan aspects, I actually actually decided to do it more exploring. And can you hear me? Yes, absolutely. I decided to do loads of exploring and go traveling. And my biggest journey or biggest life lessons were literally seeking out adventure around the world. And that's kind of where it all began for me, because I opened up a whole new world and a whole new understanding of different cultures and different lifestyles and different opportunities of the ability to actually go and live your life. And when I came back to the UK, I was so frustrated. I'm like lost because everyone was stuck in this kind of like go, go, go mindset like a to five, if not longer. And constantly in this rat race and always actually like not able to deal with that. So it could be honest. That was that's where it all started. And I start I realized, having been traveling, that there were many issues that I hadn't addressed. And I noticed how they were just they were continuous and prominent. When my digestion and all sorts of things with my anxiety and having been traveling, I think it woke me to actually the kind of holistic view of life. And it made me think that's actually something that I can do about my health. And I didn't I didn't that didn't click initially because I was kind of caught up in this world here in the UK. And I went exploring. I was like, well, why didn't I explore my own health or my own issues and my digestion and my anxiety and my acid reflux, which were, you know, not completely taking my life, but they were really like niggling at me, you know, like getting a hammer to, like, slow down every time. I was just like, there, just not go.

 

[00:06:09] I didn't know it really did. Those grow. Read on your bio, too, on your Web site. I really like your ear. Candid kind of history of your health. Did this grow throughout your young adulthood or were these with you from childhood?

 

[00:06:23] Can you kind of indulge a little bit further on to how polite you were? Did they keep you up at night? Like, what kind of level of intensity were you feeling? Because you did say that you had acid reflux and gut issues, digestive problems. Can you kind of speak a little bit more to that?

 

[00:06:40] Sure.

 

[00:06:42] You know, it's really hard to actually pinpoint when exactly it started because it kind of applies into one. But what I can tell you is that when I was at university, I had really bad skin and I had the perfect scheme and I was 18. It was everyone was like, how is your skin so amazing? And I was like, oh. And I just obviously got away with the no spots thing. Puberty served me well. And then as soon as I got to university, all of a sudden my broke out in sports and I was anxious all the time. And I was stressed and kind of. It was kind of from then naturally that all of these issues started to happen.

 

[00:07:19] And so my digestion was was like frustrating because I tried to what I tried to really I couldn't really understand why I was suffering from bloating. And it's really embarrassing.

 

[00:07:34] Gasol a time and like constant pain and constant just like discomfort. And the thing that was the worst me was my reflux.

 

[00:07:44] And I think actually now I'm just thinking back. Sorry. This is like thinking out loud. My acid reflux started when I was 16. I remember I had my first alcoholic beverage of Baileys and I had a whole pint. This is really embarrassing and really like, really hot. Like, you know, many people might do that now, but I thought the thought of me doing that now, I'm just so cool myself. Well, I had a whole pint of babies. You know, when you're 60 and you just kind of do it your friends day. And the next day I woke up and my throat was just burning and I was thinking, well, is this I'm going to die? Yeah.

 

[00:08:28] The toilet just like, oh, I don't know what to do. All my friends were still asleep in The Hangover and I was just that only to be sick, but I couldn't be sick and just put up with it. And that's where it began. Thank you for remembering how it began. And it was just prominent from my 20 D. It kind of like fluctuated. So it came back in and it went and it came back in and it went. I went see a doctor and he gave me antacid tablets, which are one of the most prescribed medications in the world, by the way, I think he most describes. And that's just saying something. And so I was like, I'm taking these habits. Cool that she's helping. Out got drinking. And I was get like acid reflux and then I'd take my tablets and then I'd like go through a phase and take my tablets. And then I didn't get it when I was drinking and having my good lungs at present when I met. So I didn't get the acid reflux.

 

[00:09:24] And then I just thought to go because my whole life. Why am I always complex? This is just crazy.

 

[00:09:32] And so call me what your question is, but this is it. I mean, I kind of was wondering the intersection of how it affected, you know, as as youth, we kind of endure more than, you know, one would in adulthood.

 

[00:09:45] And so things can be inhibiting one's life for a long period of time in your 20s before you actually acknowledge it. You know, if it's not killing you or preventing you from going out and having a pint, you know, you're going to just continue doing things. And so it sounds like you are tolerating it until it kind of hit you. Exactly. You know, you'd be on medication for the rest of your life if you wanted to socially engage as well. So I wasn't at that time that you started to realize that you had. It sounds like perhaps even an allergy. I don't know. To lactose or milk or something like that. Is that what started your vegan journey? Did you start reading into what was affecting you personally and then come upon like a vegan lifestyle?

 

[00:10:23] Good question. So it all started with I don't remember when it was, but I had a light bulb moment one day and I just thought. I don't be a medication. I know what it was.

 

[00:10:35] I went to see the doctor again because I was having all these issues and it was like, oh, we will prescribe you with antacids. MOTSYK Like I was prescribed with them like six years ago. I want to be on them again. And then this light bulb just went off in my head. But I can find the root cause here. There's something causing my reflux. It's got to be something causing it because sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't.

 

[00:10:58] And that opened up a whole load of questions for me. And I had tried the little intervals of like cutting out dairy and cutting out Lee and like in a space of two weeks. But knowing what I know now, that's just not enough time to really give your body the time to heal and move away from what it was struggling with in the past. So I decided to just ask questions. And actually I had a friend, too, and he was doing a 30 days plan, which was a vague plan. And I was like today, well, I'm gonna do this and I'm going to see if it makes a difference because I think it might be dairy. So it's going to eliminate dairy anyway. And there was no wheat in the plan, too. So I was like, well, you know, I'll just do that and I'll see if it's the two together to see how I go. And then after 30 days, the first two weeks, I was like, oh, not feeling great.

 

[00:11:56] But then after after then I just started to feel like like something had lifted. And then 30 days pass. And I thought. I don't want to stop this. I don't want to keep continuing this. I feel so good. And that's kind of how it started for me because I kind of accidentally fell into it. And then.

 

[00:12:19] And then the word feel good, like I didn't I don't really know what that meant. I didn't I didn't really understand it. But then all of a sudden I realized I was technically vegan because I wasn't having any animal products. And two and a half months later, I remember I went to my auntie's house and she was setting up like my family had had been eating bacon and they got funny about it. Sure, you have that story, too. And then I had she stepped up some food. Not like this. A tree, nothing I can eat. Although there was some peas and potatoes. That's fine. But like, I was just like, OK, well, this chicken picks up, which. And I just thought, what a smell it. And I just took a bite. And I swear to God, it was the most. Just life changing experience. And I just got this like someone smacked me in the face with a brick or something, and I was like, I can physically taste an animal and I can smell it. Just it literally I thought was gonna be sick. I got goose bumps now just thinking about this and it just clicked.

 

[00:13:28] And I was like, why to be believe animals? Why? And then a dog walked past nose like.

 

[00:13:35] Is it just all these things that go off in my head and that was the beginning of my big journey and I started to really dig deeper and explore and really understand what veganism is and what the impact is on the animals. And I didn't know the impact that was happening that was happening in the world in terms of the environment. And I was so upset. I literally spent the next year in an emotional state. In fact, that year I started studying, but I was so depressed and so just frustrated that no one was understanding me. I was the first person of all my friends or my family that decided to have no animal products. I had one friend who was a vegetarian, but even she was saying like, I need you need calcium, you know, you need calcium from milk. And I felt so alone and so upset and frustrated. And it was a really hard time for me. I don't say that I feel sympathy all. But I just it helped me put into perspective what people go through when they have a belief about something, when they have a passion or an insight into what's good to do in the world. When so many other people don't have the same view. And it was like so I felt so alone. And then I was like, what can I do about it? So I went to study I to reach out to people. And actually on that year's the first year's journey, I found an addiction to sugar, which I think a lot of Eagen beginners, what it's like. First person begins have. Right. So, you know, when you're sugar, you kind of. And it's like a cycle because you you feel sad and upset and emotional and you go to the sugar. And then that's that makes you feel worse. I've actually done some tests into my own blood sugar levels and how high they went when I was having sugar for various reasons. And I couldn't believe the results that came out. And I could then see that that was impacting my anxiety. For anyone watching, listening, sugar and anxiety. So carbonated, I didn't understand. I didn't realize how much of an impact sugar had to my anxiety levels. And it wasn't until I started really reduce my sugar. The unfelt the difference. I thought, oh my God, I feel so much better in my health, my well-being, my confidence. I would get random spouts of anxiety for no reason because I was indulging in all this sugar. But it's not an easy situation to get out of because it's you know, it gives you a don't mean it in your brain. It's very addictive and it takes a lot of discipline to reduce that. So hopefully that makes sense. And then I went on to study and it kind of my study began then and then I realized I need to help it with this. I want to share my story and I want to take my passion and put that into a business. And that's that's where I am now.

 

[00:16:47] Absolutely. I'm curious when you. I don't know you. We were talking off the record before we started podcasting. I don't know what the UK scene is.

 

[00:16:56] I do know a lot about other European countries that I frequent a lot, but I don't know. And I'm not sure what year it was that you, you know, kind of put down the chicken at your auntie's house and said, this is awful. But was it? Did you have a group of people you could, you know, kind of embark on or was it a long journey? I know it it's always a long journey. Even now, you know that we have these incredible films and people kind of coming over to the Viking lifestyle for a plethora of reasons. But it is and I do want to touch on what you said, which was, you know, this kind of maverick moment where it just seems like it's all you're just all alone. Questioning food and food is is medicine and it's an addiction. And anytime you come into telling any. But I've never made people more quickly anger than by telling them that I'm a vegan. You know, people I don't know people who who could possibly love me if they gave me a chance, you know. But these concepts of like you're challenging their family, their identity, their livelihood, their addiction, their medicine, all of these different things. And so it's such a heated and I don't think that people realize that out the gate to be vegan is it requires such a strength and it's usually such an isolating journey, at least in the beginning. It's interesting that year began like that. But as far as the UK is concerned, when you first started kind of venturing into veganism, can you can you give us a year ish timeframe? And also, what was the community like at that time that hasn't grown since then?

 

[00:18:25] I was. It was a twenty five twenty six.

 

[00:18:30] So is that 2015? Yeah, and veganism is hard to tell because I actually didn't help myself because I was actually hiding for a lot of the maybe the first six months I was hiding. So I was like actually in like a stuck mentality. And I think that's why I'm really passionate about helping people get out of that kind of stuck mentality. But now but I was in a stuck mentality. I don't really know what to do. And I had to turn to. And I just hated my food. I did hate life. I've always been quite positive. But I just there was just this phase where I just thought, what is going on in the world, you know? And I feel powerless and I don't know what to do about it. And, you know, you could go through that stage so well at the time. The only thing I knew about was there was a festival called Veggie Fest and it was being held. There's actually like the leaps and bounds the UK has come on now in terms of veganism and like products available and festivals and groups and all sorts. It's amazing. But then it was I mean, it was probably more than I could see at the time. I was having a very narrow mind with it because of my location. But I did travel to Bristol, which is not far, maybe two and a half hours for me to go to a festival there. The very first vegan festival. And I'm so relieved, so relieved. And I met people for the first time. I went to talks. I tried food. I just I felt positive for the first time in my journey because I realized I was on my own. And so if any one of you is making a transition and fills in the oh, just go and meet people and chat and join a community, because you'd actually known. No, so many people out there going through the same experience without you maybe even realizing. And the Internet is obviously great for that now because you can see on Facebook, live communities and groups. And then I joined the Vegan Reading Group, which is where I live. And so it kind of evolved from that. And then I made friends and then they invited me to staff. And and it was kind of evolving. And then when I joined my course, I made friends there and I took another step along the line. And it was yeah, it kind of started there.

 

[00:20:54] Built up. Yeah. And I think it has been I think you're right particularly I always equate it and I'm not sure if it's just in the United States where I began my vegan story or anything else.

 

[00:21:04] But I feel like it was with the advent of social media largely around me, you know, vegan, and there was still a very kind of old school vegan. And I captured a lot in food. But vegan for me is is an entire universe. Since that this podcast series, you know, there's vegan fashion. There is I mean, Stella McCartney. But there's you know, there's a lot of different powerful vegan players globaly that make up the universe. However, in food, that's how I kind of identify the old versus the new. And you had like Buddhist monks and hippies and then, you know, and then people who were just kind of getting into it because they didn't want to live that lifestyle. And it didn't really change for me until right around when you came into it in 2014, 2015. The advent of social media, again, groups vege fast all over the world, different veg fest, people getting together. But it really has been kind of the renaissance, I think, of the movement, which is why I think it's exciting to talk about it now because we're all still in a time moment when we can think back. And, you know, we we felt alone like there just weren't a lot of people talking about it. If they were, it was hard to identify. I remember trying to talk to parents who, you know, weren't thinking that being vegan was abusive. It was just it was a crazy time period. And now there's like mommy groups for it, you know, and all sorts of things that I'm climbing into. Now, what you're doing with your story, because it sounds like you your impetus for your career and what you're doing right now is based on this, you know, this personal history you have with health and how that's attached to eating a vegan diet and lifestyle. Can you kind of clemants through. So, you know, we're going to hit your Web site and your optimum health code UK and you have some services, you have background information, and then you also have this new program, 21 days. I don't know if it's new. I think it's starting soon, but 21 days to better health and energy. Can you kind of walk us through some of that?

 

[00:22:57] Yeah, sure. Okay, so where do I begin? I when I was studying and when I was going through my own health journey, I actually use myself as an experiment, to be honest.

 

[00:23:11] And the reason why I'm so passionate about where I am now is because I got myself through lots of different obstacles. And not only was I in my health, it was also in my confidence. And I could see all sorts of patterns like I opened up more spiritually. I can't believe how much of an impact it's had on my well-being in that sense, but also my confidence levels have just been so profound.

 

[00:23:38] Just because I have found that empowerment in choice over what I mean thing and empowerment in the fact that it's my body and I'm now in control of what I'm putting in my body. But along the way I realized and I think that many people can relate to this. You are in the same industry and coaching and being with clients that. It's all well and good having the perfect diet, which I have learnt is just the most amazing thing for MUNITY, optimal health. Everything. Alertness, everything. But it's also the fact that people if they are experiencing. If people are experts, including myself, that went for this any kind of emotional trauma from their childhood or emotional any kind of emotional journey. Food is a really good representation of their relationship to themselves and how they are dealing with their emotions.

 

[00:24:38] So for me, it started off with the nutritional therapy and I looked I'd still do this for my clients. I'll look at the root cause. Very often we'll give we'll be we be told, take a pill for your headache or have an empty pasta tablet for your acid reflux. But what I like to do is actually not to work with people and look at what what's going on with them at the moment and what's actually causing them to feel that way or to have the health condition that they have. So because my history and my education around the root cause of the root cause, I I always, always go into that with my clients.

 

[00:25:16] But the emotional side is another level.

 

[00:25:21] And I saw that and I experienced it myself. And what I really love is the is that it stops with food, but then it becomes confidence, empowerment and really powerful coaching and healing, which is just it just brings me so much joy. And again, along the way, I've opened up spiritually and I've I mean, many people will laugh at me. So I'll go and hungry or I'll go in like bare feet on the ground, on the grass. I'm skeptical. And so I'm an F sign and that just feels great to me. So I would go and grab my feet and I'll go hug tree. And I feel that energy more than ever before. And I I'm just a white skin so that there's a life out here to live. I don't have to be like stuck in a trap of bad health, bad job, feeling shit about myself. I don't want to be stuck in that trap and I don't want other people to be there. So that's where the kind of coaching, the the powerful healing, very powerful coaching and healing comes in, because I don't want people to be stuck like I was in this mentality of, oh, this is all. I'm just not over this forever. You know, I mean, and I think I'm one of those people I like to just, like, throw myself into all sorts of things so my coaching can sometimes be a bit spontaneous. But I laugh at my kids. It's very personal to the person I'm working with. And we kind of just I just work with what's right for them. And that's the that that leads me up to the 21 days to Better Health and Energy program. I'm gonna be running on May the 17th. And the reason why I wanted to bring this in. Currently is because I've spoken and seen many people in lockdown who are turning into couch potatoes. They feel shit about themselves. They are eating emotionally. They are snacking on food that they didn't even realize they had in a house. And also this foods unavailable. So those people are just kind of smacking them wherever they go. But the deep rooted thing is the deep rooted issue on the record is usually around how we're dealing with our emotions. So what I want to do is bring together a community of people who really want to feel that energy on their health and get themselves out of this kind of rut of slouching around, being stuck, not feeling like they can get anywhere. And I know people who are working from home who who are in the same situation, and they're actually not mentally able to get on with the work because that they are emotionally buckling. So that's why I wanted to bring this in now more than ever, because people are already stuck and they're not really sure what to do. So what want to create a community and a group scenario where I can coach people and bring in new habits and get them from where they announce it, feeling like the best version of themselves, the most empowered and energized version of themselves. They didn't even know it was possible.

 

[00:28:27] So is the is the format going to be based on challenges? Is it is it does it incorporate diet, exercise?

 

[00:28:34] Is it based on how did you come together with all of the components and what kind of components have you addressed in it?

 

[00:28:40] Yeah. So I I split into three sections. First is around vulnerability and space programs to be a case of really trusting.

 

[00:28:54] If you think this is the right thing, you got just trust in and be open to being honest with yourself and being honest. You perhaps haven't met before, but knowing that you're in a safe space and a loving space, because that's the space I want to create. So the first section is being venerable and actually understanding what is going on with you. Because it's easy to just forget or just not recognize that and just ignore it and push it to the side. It's really important to recognize that from ability and open up and share as a group and share as a community and relate to people and see that you're not on your own. And then the second thing I wanted to work on was limiting self-belief. So understanding what's actually going your mind, what's going on in your world and how you can move forward and then actually implementing those things. Implementing those. But implementing new found habits. So healthy a habit. So I'll be talking about setting recipes. And just certain foods you can bring in for better immunity to lower the inflammation. And that comes down to plant-based Foods always because they are the lowest inflammation foods in the body. And generally the S.O.B doing morning and evening lives. And in the morning I want to do is I want to bring people to the 21 day thing is because of the habit. So 20 that the theory is that 21 days will build new habit. I'm convinced it's more than that, but I'm going to stick with 21 days. So I think that's as much. And then I go, but I want to help people start the day in the right way with meditation, with gratitude, with actually moving a body a little bit and just doing some breathing, you know, and and I want it to be quite flexible where people can come and go as they please. But also remember that there is an element of responsibility. And if you want to take control of your life, then and you want to commit to it. I would say 37 and in the evenings get into a habit of just coming out with one thing. One a win that you've had for the day. And so habits like that just get you thinking differently, acting differently, choosing different foods, recognizing what's going on with you. Sorts.

 

[00:31:04] And so that's kind of I don't know if that makes sense, but it does, especially right now during the quarantine. I think you're right. I think that you've hit the nail on the head.

 

[00:31:12] I don't know of anyone from, you know, people who are running countries all the way down to people just trying to run themselves that don't have this kind of new relationship and miscommunication with their lifestyle, regardless of how regimented or anything else. You know, this this constant like renegotiation when you're self-governed at home, you know, is it's daunting for a lot of people. And so I think to do engage in something like this where you really you unite with a new form of community and a new goal and a new way of looking at things, at very least, we'll shake things up. Right. Which is a lot of times what we need.

 

[00:31:49] One hundred percent. And you're right. This is something that we've none of us have ever experienced ever before in our lives. And it's bringing up fear and it's bringing up this these vulnerable feelings. It's bringing up like a new skill of resilience and adapting, which is unfamiliar for most of us. And so recognize working through those things, recognizing them and coming out the other side with with better habits and actually understanding you're not on your right is such an amazing leap to go through. And what I wanted to bring in at the end as well is physical stuff. So getting outdoors on I don't know whether to do this yet, but I have a really good friends who will literally jump ponzu and she'll do cold showers at people in their bikinis and she jumps in. And I'm like, I'm gonna start doing this because this is just amazing. So I'm thinking about doing some of that, too, but I'm not sure yet.

 

[00:32:48] Yeah. You and Gwyneth Paltrow write the new Goop series has her with the The Ice Guide a study. It's my newest. It's awesome, too.

 

[00:32:58] Oh, yes.

 

[00:33:00] Yeah, I'm I'm obsessed. I don't know how I haven't heard about it sooner. I'm down. I don't care if half of it's not going to work or half of it's not true. I think it sounds exciting and and scary and. Yeah. Cold showers are where it starts. You know, for those of us near bodies of water and when the quarantine's lifted, jumping in the ocean as well, you can get a little finicky around cold water, you know? And our perception of just like I'm getting in there grows with age. You know, as a child, I would jump into a half frozen lake. But now I if it's below 70 degrees, I'm like, no, no, it's it's freezing. But I believe in it. I think that that kind of. And again, it's that shocking of the system. I think it's an awesome thing for you to implement in this 21 day kind of shock of the system that you're encouraging people to do. Anyway, we're almost out of time. But I wanted to ask you, I always like to end, particularly with this particular podcast series looking ahead at Vigen life, because you have this history with it in the UK and everywhere that you've. Travel, too. I'm wondering, what do you see where the future and this has changed significantly since that pandemic hit. But where do you see the future of the Vigen scene heading towards the U.K.? You can you surmise or speculate where you think it's going to be headed in the next three years? And how will you engage with that?

 

[00:34:21] Mm hmm. You know what? I thought about this so much.

 

[00:34:25] And I think it's a really difficult question to answer, because my perspective, what's going on is based on the stories are being fed by the media, which I don't always agree with the the conversations I have with people, the the access to information I have on social media, which, you know, it is to an extent controlled and limited and based on algorithms. And also in my kind of vegan world, all of my hashtags and all of my so for example, on my Instagram account, all of my friends and not all of them, but a lot of them are vegan. And I see and I and I share and follow vegan communities. So in my eyes, it it looks like, yes, the whole world is understanding and they go vegan because that's my perspective. So in all honesty, I don't really know the answer to that, but I do from a spiritual point of view. I believe there's a big shift going on at the moment. I really do. And I think that I think that more normal people are starting to. But just little things like people who I wouldn't even wouldn't have even expected to go vegan or to open up to, particularly with documentaries like not what the health that was a good one, but that was not game changes. Everyone who has time big and recently. Have you seen it?

 

[00:35:54] Yes. Yeah, I get the converter. That's it? Yes. Some of the most unlikely vegans I've ever met.

 

[00:36:01] You know, I usually I'm I watch the film and I'm like, well, I know why now. And it's mostly men, so. So, yeah, that's the answer to your question.

 

[00:36:10] I feel positive around this movement. And I feel like, you know, I feel like there's there's definitely good that's gonna come through this. This transition of what we're going through right now. I do have a lot of hope for that. I do know that it does fuel me to really get out pemble, because I know that in the work that I'm doing, I'm I'm coming at it from a different perspective and I'm allowing people to feel empowered to make the right choices. But educating them that, you know, these foods are going to bring you more vitality and bring you all of perhaps what you've been looking for. And I think that's what fuels made her more, because it makes me want to get out there more and just share my passion and hope that that impacts so many more people than I expected from the beginning. And that has just a little effect on the movement of the planet. But I do think that more and more people are starting to you know, people are getting on the gardens more who have gardens and getting their hands on the soil and just connecting to nature nightly. But just naturally in itself, that's that's surely that's going to set of questions in their minds. I didn't know. Yes.

 

[00:37:24] I think it well, and I think you're right.

 

[00:37:26] I don't think it's cavalier or callous to say that, you know, even the pandemic is having people question health, the future of the planet. You know, all of those things are largely what led me to some of the greatest things that I guide my life by, you know, veganism just being one of them. And so and it's a very unifying factor. We're all, you know, susceptible to Koven, 19. No one's in me like that kind of a thing. It's like a unifying humanitarian issue, which I think that being vegan is as well. And I think it leads to people to different conversations and dialog and discussions. Always good. You know, you should keep the conversation going. I completely agree with you 100 percent. Thank you so much for speaking. Meet with me today. Helen, I really appreciate all of your information and your time. And and for everyone listening as you can get on her Web site, w w w dot your optimum health that Kodak UK. I'm assuming it's not just the Brits that can jump on your 21 day adventure with you, everyone else as well.

 

[00:38:30] Everyone else is. Yep. Probably best to also follow me on my Instagram because I've got a link on my profile which gives you the links to all of my information, all of my stuff. So what is your handle? So it's Bewley spelt B you l e y underscore H-B.

 

[00:38:48] Perfect.

 

[00:38:50] Everyone follow. Jump on Instagram. Jump on her Web site.

 

[00:38:54] And I'm at very least like follow what she's doing because I can't I can't wait to find out more about, you know, what how this transitions and how goes over the next year. You know, these kinds of programs tend to lead onto way, Helen. And I'm excited, too, to find out. But thank you once again. I really appreciate your time.

 

[00:39:11] Oh, thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

 

[00:39:14] Absolutely. For everyone listening one more time, we've been speaking with Helen Bewley. She's a health and energy coach. You can contact her at w w w dot your optimum health dot co dot UK.

 

[00:39:27] Thank you for giving us your time today. And until we speak again next time, remember to eat. Well, be safe and remember to always back yourself. Sainte.

 

Speaking with Vegan Author and Expert Victoria Moran

 Today we sat down with Victoria Moran. Vegan since 1983, Victoria Moran was listed among VegNews magazine’s “Top 10 Living Vegetarian Authors,” voted Peta’s “Sexiest Vegan Over 50” in 2016, and featured twice on Oprah. She has written thirteen books, including the iconic Main Street Vegan and the international bestseller, Creating a Charmed Life. She hosts the award-winning Main Street Vegan podcast; produced the 2019 documentary, A Prayer for Compassion.www.mainstreetvegan.net

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

 

TRANSCRIPT 

 

Patricia [00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is Investigating Vigen Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vigen life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vigen Life. Now let's start the conversation. Hi, everyone, and welcome back.

 

Patricia [00:01:15] This is your host, Patricia. And today, I'm sitting down with Victoria Moran. Victoria is the best selling author, a podcast host, a documentary film producer and a vegan expert who has been around for the past 30 years shedding her wisdom on all of us. You can locate her directly on her Web site w w w dot main street vegan dot net. Welcome, Victoria.

 

Victoria [00:01:39] Patricia. Thanks for having me.

 

Patricia [00:01:41] Absolutely. I'm so excited to crawl through. I don't know. One podcast guest that I've had speaking with us over the past three months that has not mentioned you. And so now I'm getting it straight from the source.

 

Victoria [00:01:54] There's something to be said for being an early adapter. Yeah, absolutely.

 

Patricia [00:01:59] Your flagship to be certain.

 

Patricia [00:02:01] So for everyone listening or watching on the podcast, I have a bio I will read on Victoria, but I want to offer everyone a quick roadmap. For those of you that listen to my podcast, you know that I offer everyone a quick roadmap before we get started. So we'll first look at some of Victoria's early academic background and professional life that may have kind of launched her into where she's at. And then we'll turn our attention straight to unpacking Main Street Vigen dot net. There is there is an academy, there's podcasts, there's books, there's online courses. And I kind of want to crawl through some of that so that we get a better understanding of Victoria's platform. And then we'll turn our efforts towards looking at some of the ethos and philosophy behind her books and other more heavy research endeavors as to her vegan life and philosophy. We'll look at the documentary that she had a handle with with. It's called A Prayer for Compassion. And I know she did it in conjunction with filmmaker Thomas Wade Jackson. So we'll talk a little bit about that. And then I want to turn our efforts towards contemporary conversations, obviously, in the middle of what we're doing right now and how we're living as a society. Then we'll look at goals that Victoria may have. Those have been changing for everybody across the platform, not just with her business, but with her with her vegan endeavors. We'll wrap everything up with advice for those of you who are looking to get involved with her or reach out and maybe emulate some of what Victoria's been doing. Quick bio on Victoria before I start peppering her with questions. Vigen Since 1983, Victoria Miron was listed among vege newsmagazines as the top ten living vegetarian authors voted PITAs Sexiest Vegan over 50 in 2016 and featured twice on Oprah.

 

[00:03:43] She has written 13 books, including the iconic Mainstream Vegan and the international bestseller Creating a Charmed Life. She hosted the award winning Mainstreet Vegan podcast, produced the 2019 document documentary A Prayer for Compassion and Directs. And Durex of Main Street, Vigen Academy. She's the director of the ministry, Vigen Academy. The exciting and in person certification program training vegan lifestyle coaches and educators. And a magical week in New York City.

 

[00:04:17] That's exciting because I can't wait to hear how some of that may be shifting a little bit. Victoria and I want to climb through all of those endeavors, especially some of your past things. It is exciting to look up and see, you know, old version of Oprah with you on and then some of your later things. But before we get to all of that, I was hoping you could kind of draw for everyone listening. Like a platform of what you're early academic life and professional life was prior to you kind of embarking on the vegan journey. That was over 30 years ago.

 

[00:04:48] What a wonderful question. Well, I knew from the time that I was a little kid that I had one gift and it was words spoken and written. And I really was not at all good at anything.

 

[00:05:02] So I did learn early on that writing and speaking would be how I spent my life. I also had a great interest in the big picture in the religions of the world and spirituality in what it all means. And so with those things together, I tried the first time to be vegetarian at 13. That didn't last permanently, but it certainly planted a seed. I developed an interest in yoga at age 17. And all the books that were out then about yoga, I think there were three of them said over and over again, if you're gonna be serious about yoga, you have to be vegetarian. So that bed in.

 

[00:05:46] And I was also writing at that time for magazines, mostly teen magazines. I had a press card that any little girl could get for a dollar. But I took my very seriously and I met all of the rock groups of the era from the Beatles on down. I had a lot of fabulous stories there.

 

[00:06:09] And when I did go to college, I was in my late 20s. I'd been writing and working in journalism during my 20s. And everybody said, oh, so you'll finally get your degree in journalism. And I said, Are you kidding? I've been doing that all my life. I quoted Einstein. I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are commentary. So I got a degree in comparative religions. And in my junior year there I was awarded a fellowship to do foreign study. So I could study anything as long as I left North America to do it.

 

[00:06:45] And I opted to go to the U.K. to study vegans, because at that time there were so few in the U.S. that an institution of higher learning actually funded me to cross an ocean. Excellent study vegans in the country where it had started. So that led to my very first book, Compassion The Ultimate Ethic, which came out in nineteen eighty five and the rest. You've already told people.

 

[00:07:14] Yeah. That's exciting. And I have a pilgrimage.

 

[00:07:17] It's so it's daunting to think about it as being so specialized and miniscule that you know that you're getting this grant to go and cover them like this rare tribe of individuals. And it's it's exciting. And that kind of states it as as where you're coming from. And I love that, because having that breadth of knowledge of where trends, even within the community and understanding and public awareness, you know, that change has been so significant. I think when it comes to the vegan world, I'm wondering really quickly so that we can kind of give everyone who's still listening. You're this maverick individual, you know, who's had this history. But right now. So if we jump on to, you know, your the main street begin Web site and we look at it, you have a host of offerings. It's first of all, it's a wealth of knowledge. You know, it's kind of this beautiful index. But you have you immediately have books. You have a cat at the academy, you have a podcast, you have online courses. How did these all develop? Blake, what did they all come about all at once when you had the website or did it start with specific things and kind of grow and branch off from that?

 

[00:08:27] That's a that's a fascinating question. At least it is to me. So I started my writing career with vigor. I mean, I guess I started my writing career with rock groups when I started writing books. I wrote vegan books. I wrote three specifically vegan books. And then I thought, what else can I say about animals and vegetables, especially when very few people were interested.

 

[00:08:52] So I used my degree and I went out and wrote a lot of books about spirituality and contemporary living and well-being. And it was in. T12 that I had cycled back to writing a book about veganism called Main Street Vegan. Now, you've told me that you come from a documentary family, so you will appreciate the story. The book was sold to Tata Penguin and the day after that. The editor called and said, We're so happy to have you, but you really have to change the title. They didn't like Main Street, so I was trying to write the book and give it another title and walking up Broadway here in Magical Manhattan. We saw somebody who is so famous that you can recognize him from the back. And that was Michael Moore. Now, he had read an earlier book of mine, a weight loss book, and he'd gotten some help from that and written about it in Oprah's magazine. So I had some vague idea that he might know who I was. So I gave my card to the woman who was with him. And a few seconds later, we hear Victoria Michael Moore is following us up Broadway after exchanging pleasantries. He said, we need to talk. We need to talk about food. And so we started doing that. And at one point in one of these phone conversations, I mentioned that I was trying to get a new title for my book because the publisher so disliked Main Street and he said, they're wrong. Let me talk to them.

 

[00:10:21] So in a three way call with my editor who happened to be a Michael Moore fan, a lot of people are not. Have an Academy Award winner and myself. I got my title mainstream again. And when my editor called three days later to tell me that that was my title, it was as if the world opened up. And I knew that there needed to be a main street vegan radio show. I don't think I even knew the term podcast in 2012 that there needed to be a mainstream vegan production company, and certainly that there needed to be mainstream vegan academy which would train and certify vegan lifestyle coaches and educators. So I put that out into the world just before the book was published. And I remember I hadn't had a vegan book since nineteen ninety four new vegan book. And so I didn't know if I had any following in that world or not, but they're amazing. People showed up for that first academy and everything has grown from there. And I believe that the reason for that is that veganism is now a force to be reckoned with. People want it. People are looking for it. Even people who aren't sure they want it like, oh, I'd have to give up cheese are finding it because it's the wave of the future. And certainly right now, even the wave of the present.

 

[00:11:52] Absolutely. And the radio show, it sounds like a lot of these efforts are coming in. Most of the drive behind what you've been doing is this educational platform. And so when you when you launched your radio show, the first big and radio show, did you what did that look like in the beginning? Were you just trying to implement an understanding of some of the core tenets of veganism? Were you interviewing experts? How did you shape shape what you spoke about or who did you interview people? Was the platform not interview based tenet of that look?

 

[00:12:22] Right. It's always been interview based. I actually didn't know how to do something like that. I had had a show in two thousand five and six on the Martha Stewart channel at Serious, which was to become Sirius XM. And then when the Martha Stewart channel took a different direction, I was no longer doing that. But then I had interviewed people. I had interviewed people in the personal growth arena, and many of them were vegan. I had had Jim Bauer from my farm sanctuary. So I'd even put a little bit of vegan in. Back then when I was on tour with the Main Street Vegan book, I got a call from the woman who was then the head of Unity Online Radio, and she said, Would you like to have a radio show?

 

[00:13:13] You can call it Main Street again. It's about time we get back to our roots. Well, come to find out. Unity is a very liberal Protestant denomination that was founded by two extremely dedicated vegetarians. I'm sure they would have been vegans had veganism been a thing in the 1890s when they started out. But they were very staunch vegetarians. They didn't wear leather. And so as they passed away and other people took over the reins of unity, a lot of that fell away. But the foundation was still there. So I have been doing the Main Street Vegan live radio show every other Wednesday identity online radio since June of twenty. Well, and then it's a podcast. So the next morning it goes up on all the podcast platforms. So it is an interview show. And because it is called Main Street Meegan. What that means to me is opening the gate really widely. So we're not specializing to a certain aspect of veganism.

 

[00:14:21] We're not just animals or just health or just the environment. We're not geared to a particular age group. We're not geared to athletes. We're geared to Main Street. And so that means that I get to have on all these incredible guests that represent all of those worlds and other worlds besides people who have followings, people that begins have heard of and people that nobody has heard of. Who are sometimes the most fascinating guests because the stories might not get out in the world. Media are still so relatable and so precious.

 

[00:14:59] Yeah, no, I agree. And I think that it's still necessary to have kind of an overarching view, this unifying factor. And I think there have been a lot of things as of late that have done that as well.

 

[00:15:10] There are works that have happened. You know what? The health and and a bunch of different, you know, forks over knives over the past decade, if you will. And then the game changers. A lot of more recent works that have turned and kind of unified people under an understanding of health, you know, and what veganism is. It unifies humanity largely. And I like the idea that you came and did it that way first, because the niche communities, I always feel can branch off. But they become very sporadic. It's very confusing as someone who's trying to educate in the very beginning.

 

[00:15:43] And I'm curious. So with it, you've had now you've had three books out of the 13 as of late that have been cited as and then kind of touted as these major industry changers. And not to delineate the others, of course. But the love power diet is your personal story of weight loss, as I as I kind of read it. And then there's also the good karma diet. And it's choosing a diet based out of compassion and the global responsibility. The rhetoric within that is kind of how, you know, it's it's thinking about your diet as something that's actually based on questions other than what sounds yummy.

 

[00:16:16] You know, how is this affecting humanity? And I wonder if you can speak to. I don't know if it was in that order. I don't know if it went mainstream. The Love Power Diet and then the good karma diet. But I wonder if you can kind of talk about the road that led you through all of those who were.

 

[00:16:32] Well, actually, the Love Power Diet started a very long time ago. It was first published in nineteen ninety two. And it was my story because I am a compulsive overeater in recovery and that was tough for me. My dad was a diet doctor.

 

[00:16:51] My mother was in the fitness industry for a time and I was a fat kid. Bad for business. So I struggled with that through my childhood and adolescence and young adulthood.

 

[00:17:03] And when I finally got a handle on that through a 12-Step recovery program, I also knew, oh, wow, I really can be vegan because before that I wanted to be vegan. I was vegetarian. I went vegetarian at 19, but I was always running into a problem with either the binge eating disorder would crop up or I would try to pull myself up after a binge and try to lose some weight and get my life back on track. And then all the information out there talked about plain yogurt and egg white. And it was so confusing and so difficult. But once I really got it together on the inner level through that recovery program, and once I knew that a day at a time, if I stayed in fit spiritual condition, I would no longer need to eat for a fix. It became very clear that I could be vegan. And stay that way forever. And I was a little bit afraid of all those carbs. I struggle with weight for so long and I thought, oh my gosh, if I'm vegan and not eating all this protein, what will happen to me? Well, what happened was that I lost over 60 pounds and stayed off for 35 years and counting. And now at 70, I don't have the diseases that were prevalent in my family. There's no high blood pressure, high cholesterol or, you know, any of that kind of stuff that I just assumed would be inevitable through heredity. So that took us a little bit away from the books. I'm sorry for the little.

 

[00:18:48] Oh, no. That's good. I like the back story as well. I think it's so pertinent. You know, when someone speaking of those things.

 

[00:18:55] So did the Love Power diet. If I can just finish on that one, it kind of proves reincarnation because it went out of print after a few years, because in nineteen ninety two, again, not many people were looking for books that had to do with veganism. But then it was republished with a different name, love yourself. Then in 2007 and that one did well enough that it actually went into a mass market paperback. You know those little ones that are in kiosks at at airports and then that eventually went out of print. And there's a wonderful man. Maybe you've had him on your podcast. His name is John peire. He's a personal trainer. He was Ellen Degeneracy, his trainer. And he went to L.A. and kind of endured that to develop enough reputation so that he could leave L.A. and do the good work that he really wants to do. But he said to me, you know, there is nothing out there like the Love Power diet. So I photocopy it for all my clients. And I thought, oh, my goodness, just for John peire. Let me see if somebody will publish this again. So the good people at Lantern Books, which is a big and publishing house here in New York City, did a 2009 edition.

 

[00:20:06] So to anybody who's got an idea that you want to put out there, just do it. You never know when it's going to find its time and when it's going to find its time again.

 

[00:20:17] Absolutely. I think that that's core. You know, I think people underestimate the value of evergreen content. Well, there's updating that can happen. You know, there's reasons why old books are still around. When clean knowledge is clean, you can never get enough of it and it can never be dated. I'm wondering. So with the good karma diet, when and when did you write this and what was the impetus for it?

 

[00:20:41] Well, that that was the first book after Main Street began The Good Karma, which I did in 2015. Actually, I'd had the title prior to that. I had done a lot with raw foods around two thousand eight. And I felt really, really great. And I thought, oh, wouldn't that be a wonderful title, the good karma diet? And I wasn't really in that headspace. You know, winter came. It got cold. I stopped being a rough rider. But my agent, an editor, really liked the concept. And so that was really at the heart of the good karma diet. And it's a little bit more where Main Street Vegan is about every aspect of veganism, sort of like we were talking about the podcast. And I think the reason that it's so wonderful that we have all these aspects to the vegan lifestyle is you open the door that says vegan or you open the door that says plant-based or however you get here, but you find behind that door so much else that in addition to the healthy animals, the environment, you know, there's a whole spirituality world, there's a fashion world, a travel world, a dating and marriage and raising children world. I mean, it's just it's huge. And so that's what Main Street Vegan is all about. But then the good karma diet zeroes in really on the body mind health aspects of this whole thing. And it celebrates a high, green, high raw. And even though I'm not raw, I am high raw diet that I think really likes people up. You know, some people just just want to do this for animals or they really like burgers and fries and cherry pies. And they want to do that in a vegan way that is totally legitimate and totally great. But for those who really want to have that glow, for those who who really want to feel what high level health and vitality is like, that's what I wrote about in the good karma diet. Because if you take this thing up a notch and if you really focus on those fresh, colorful foods, you can look and feel very, very different.

 

[00:22:59] Absolutely. And I think it's bringing about the largest from what I have seen my. Humble experience.

 

[00:23:05] The largest unlikely vegan population. You know, the latest converts and things like that I think are coming about. Even prior to Cauvin 19 were, you know, these these people that just didn't fit the prototype of someone who was searching for that vegan answer and they were coming into the lifestyle. And. And I've had a lot of conversations with even restaurant owners or different people who are saying, you know, my clientele has changed. It's no longer the 20 year old hipster. It's the 50 year old whose doctor said it's now or never. You know, you're going to burn looking at heart disease. It's that kind of a thing that has been creating, I think, more dialog than I've seen over the past 10 years. And I'm wondering, you dropped the word and I usually always wait for my guest to do it because I try to gage how long it takes, which you just said plant based in one of your last questions. And I love this conversation because it's just beginning. And I don't think anyone has a definitive answer. And so it's all very personal.

 

[00:24:00] But I'm hoping that you can define what do the terms plant based as opposed to or in juxtaposition to vegan. Well, what are the differences between those two words for you?

 

[00:24:11] Unfortunately, a plant based has many, many definitions. And that's why I'm not crazy about the term because I am a writer. I love the language and I think that we need to be able to have words that say exactly what they mean. So when some people say plant based, they mean eating more plants than animals. But if you look at it from a per calorie of observation, the standard American diet is plant based because more calories come from non animal foods than from animal foods. Other people will use it to mean something like flexitarian or reduce the Terrian.

 

[00:24:54] I'm getting more and more plant based in my diet. I still eat everything but, you know, lots of salads and lots of Reggie's burgers and stuff like that. And that means plant based.

 

[00:25:04] Now, the term whole food plant based, which was coined by Dr. T Colin Campbell, means that you're not only leaving out animal foods as any vegan would, but you're also leaving out refined products such as oils, sugar, salt, most packaged foods. And this is done for health reasons. And so a lot of people who say that their plant based mean that. And in the states, most people in this world would know what that meant. But if they were to say that to somebody in Europe or Australia, then it would probably be interpreted that they were flexitarian. So it's a little bit confusing. I like the idea of being a plant exclusive. I actually love the word vegan because people finally know what it means. And I think that if you really want people to know specifically what you eat, you could say I'm a whole food vegan or I'm a raw food vegan or I'm a macrobiotic vegan or a diabetic vegan. I think that's very, very clear. But we don't quite have all the terminology down yet. And yet the cool thing about all these terms is that everybody who calls themselves any of these things is on the path. You're sort of on one of those moving walkways at the airport to get to a destination which doesn't just lead to physical health for the individual or the best chance for physical health for the individual. I mean, this is planet Earth. I certainly don't want to be one of those people that says it this way and you'll never get sick. I mean, when you hedge your bets. But listen to that. It's also leading to the sustainability for the planet. So incredibly important and also to a kinder, gentler world to what spiritual teacher I used to have would call the upward progression of the universe. And if you really think about it, who wouldn't want to be part of that?

 

[00:27:14] Yeah, absolutely. And the upward progression of one's life, you know, and then contributing to that universe. I agree.

 

[00:27:21] So the good karma, it sounds like all of these things kind of build this beautiful and perfectly written and scripted platform for your collaboration involved with A Prayer for Compassion, which is the documentary that you did in conjunction with Thomas Wade Jackson and all of his team, the executive producers over there.

 

[00:27:40] Can you speak to how that came to fruition and kind of the time period and for everyone listening? You can see a prayer for compassion on leave. Amazon Prime has it. Is that correct?

 

[00:27:50] Is Amazon Prime and Vimeo. There you go. Very excited. We did a theatrical release because we really wanted a lot of people to be able to see it on the big screen. So we had a. Here in New York City in March of twenty nineteen and another in London in May, and it screened around the country, around the world, there was a two week tour of India with Thomas Jackson and Dr. Stylish Rao, one of our executive producers, and Tyrone Flynn from Game of Thrones, who came in as a supporter and executive producer of the film. So it was out there. And and now we are on Vimeo and Amazon Prime so people can watch that way. So the cool thing about a prayer for compassion, while there's quite a lot, but it's really to me both of the passions that I mentioned to you. It's about veganism. It's about the intersection of vegan values with the teachings of spiritual and religious traditions from around the world. So Thomas meets all kinds of people traversing the US a couple of times. He goes to the UN climate conference in Morocco and tours India, meeting lots of amazing Jains and Hindus and Buddhists. And and we really come to the conclusion at the end of this that regardless of of the name of one's religious or spiritual tradition, every single one is about compassion, mercy, care of the body, care of the planet. And these are vegan values. We just need to make that jump.

 

[00:29:40] Absolutely. And I did I as we talked about earlier. I haven't watched it yet. I'm excited to do that this weekend. And the trailer did look like exactly what you said, the synopsis of this intersection. And within the brief trailer, in fact, you know, there was.

 

[00:29:54] They have a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist. All these people kind of giving what you were talking about this march to the rhetoric of the dogma that they have, which is honoring the body and the earth and the environment around it.

 

[00:30:07] So it sounds like it was perfectly suited. Did they find you when you were going to be collaborate on this? Did or was it something that you your people scouted out?

 

[00:30:17] No, actually, we had a book give away the radio show. And it's interesting, in the years of doing the mainstream Reagen show early on and more people listened live on Wednesday afternoons, and now almost everybody gets a podcast because that's what we're used to. But back in 2015, Thomas Jackson was listening live. One day we had a book giveaway. He won the book. And when he was giving his address to the engineer, he asked if I would be in touch with him. And when I called him, he said, Would you like to be the producer of my movie? And my first thought is, I don't know how to produce the movie, but then that it's about veganism and spirituality. And I thought, shoot, I have to learn how to produce a movie. I don't want this one to be made without me.

 

[00:31:06] Mm-Hmm. Yeah. I think that that's that that's the right answer. And it's you know, it's never too, it's never too late to learn a new skill even if it is film production.

 

[00:31:16] That's fantastic. I'm wondering, looking at the local climate, I know everyone's personal conversation and in your case personal and professional kind of intertwined, but I'm wondering if you've had dialog. I know you on your website, you've had these these April shares with your your your customers and your audiences and things where you're sharing your environment and your thoughts and things like that. But for the purposes of this podcast, do you have any look recent dialog regarding Cauvin 19 pandemic and kind of where you see things headed or takeaways that have been really significant for you over the past couple of weeks.

 

[00:31:57] But it's interesting that you would ask that now, because as I told you just before we started, I got my blog post for May just under the Wired today on the Main Street, you can dot net Web site and it's really about that.

 

[00:32:13] It's called Notes from the epicenter of being a vegan in New York City during Koven, 19.

 

[00:32:21] So what I see is first, I guess it's what I feel, which is a great love for my adopted city. I've been here for 20 years. I've been here one year when 9/11 happened and 19 years when covered 19 happened. And I see so much resiliency and so much bounce back. And I think about people in other parts of the country and other parts of the world. And I wonder sometimes if they're thinking we have to go through all this because you're really having the biggest problem in New York. You know, after 9/11, airports became an entirely different. From how they had ever been in the past and everybody had to do that even though the primary attack was was here, and yet I think that sometimes when you hear a very bright light, you're very easy to see. And New York City is a bright light and has historically been that because we are this incredible experiment in people living together. And for the most part, getting along. I remember going to a presentation several years ago in Queens at the park where the 1960 World Fair. Half the World's Fair. Nineteen sixty two, maybe sixty four. That was it. I wasn't there anyway. And Mayor Bloomberg at that time said within ten miles of where we sit. One hundred thirty five languages are being spoken. So in this amazing place, we're very close together. So we are environmental stalwarts in that we have been taking public transportation for years. And yet public transportation is a great way for an infection to spread. People close together holding the same pole. So New York City has been hit very hard by the virus. And what I see just in my life is that it started with like, OK, well, it's all right. Well, we'll mostly stay in, but I'm five blocks from Central Park. I'll take the dog to Central Park every day. That will be lovely. But then that became not wise, certainly for someone at my age who would be considered in the high risk category. So on the one hand, life started getting smaller and smaller. But this miracle happened. I think a lot of people all over the country and all over the world have experienced the same one. And that is how much we all done online. So through Xoom, through Facebook, Leive, through YouTube, we have both received and been able to give much information. And then the other great surprise in this horrible, tragic, awful time, one of those lights that just seems to find its way through in the worst of times is that the world, meaning newspapers, media, are noticing what prior to this, we're just big issues, things that you would read about based news or vege news or live kindly. All of a sudden, the plight of the slaughterhouse workers, the wet markets and the problems there, the similar problems that can come from factory farms in general. It doesn't have to be a wet market in China. It's it's crowding. And and these are all problems. And then we see articles about certain Wendys don't have any meat. And so they're open, but not offering burgers. I mean, whoever bought it. And so the idea is that that is positive in all of this negativity. Is that more and more and more people are thinking about, well, maybe I could eat something else today and that could change the world.

 

[00:36:30] Absolutely. I agree. And I also think anything that brings our conscious thought into questioning connections between ourselves and what we're doing to our bodies is healthy, you know, and looking at these things and starting to question diet even for the most sage of experts. I just don't believe that learning ever stops. You know, even about one's self as opposed to one's community and everything else, and creating a dialog or a space for a dialog or a call for dialog, even if it's on a very individual level, I think is one of the most beautiful things to come from this that end that the room, the reminder that we are all here together. We are you know, we're an entire like creature system. It's not just continents and things of that nature. I was traveling when covered. The pandemic broke out. The State Department advised everyone come home. And I remember thinking it's not it's really unifying. You know, when when something like this happens starts to take place all over the world because everybody starts thinking it doesn't matter what language you're speaking. And I think you get reminded of this a lot in New York City, but in other pockets in places like Australia. I think that it's like a lot like other cities in America where people tend to forget about the global citizenship we all have on a health level.

 

[00:37:45] You know, there's just things that unite us. And they can be good as well as bad. So I think that this is reaching into that. And I hope so, too. I'm wondering when you look forward. I don't know if you and your team or how you personally drive your own business or. Personal life. But most people tend to make goals on some trajectory a year to three years. And this has changed. Obviously the covert conversation changes everyone's dialog, which again is not always a bad thing. But I'm wondering, when you look at the future, particularly with someone such as yourself, this matriarch of the vegan voice. Do you you ever hypothesize you've been given such a history? You know, three decades of this relationship in this industry and all of it that goes and in between. Do you ever hypothesize about where it's headed next? We're talking about contemporary times and everything else. But if you do, can you tell us anything about what you've been thinking about, what the next one to three years and the vegan world or your vegan world looks like?

 

[00:38:48] Yeah, well, I think for the vegan world in general, the future is very bright. And unfortunately, that's prompted by things not looking very bright in terms of climate change and pandemics. But you know what? It has been very not bright for a long time for the animals in the food system. And so it's time it's time that we start looking at this. So I am very excited about this, this move toward a more. And I'm going to say the phrase plant based diet over the next twenty three years. I mean, the sales of pho mates are up 200 percent in April. I mean, this is this is stunning. So I think that veganism is a force to be reckoned with. It's no longer something fringy that odd people do. It's something that just about everybody who is intelligent, educated and up on things does some of the time. And more and more people are doing more of the time. And even all of the time. So that I am very, very positive in terms of my personal vegan world. Like I talk to other people who are in big business. And I think like anybody in any business, we have to be in ratably flexible. So I'm glad I've done yoga for 50 years because mainstream vegan academy that we mentioned has always been in person and I have been very connected to the fact that it's in person because there is something magical about an in-person event. There's a British futurist who said the value of content is rapidly being replaced by the value of breathing the same air. And that was true until 2020. Now and for sometime in the future, we really want to breathe the same air. So we have all discovered Xoom and other online platforms. And so I'm actually going to be offering a Xoom option for Main Street Vegan Academy in 2020. And probably going forward it will be a part and part of probably do a couple of Xoom courses and one I guess we'll call it the elite course in Manhattan. And I think that like so many things that change, even if we go into it kicking and screaming, it's really going to be wonderful because people couldn't come to New York City even in the best of times. We'll never be able to get the certification and go out into the world as vegan lifestyle coaches and educators at a time when more and more people are doing this and more and more people want information.

 

[00:41:36] Absolutely. I've spoken to a couple of personal trainers that have gone out and sought out vegan certifications simply because of their clientele, asking them if they were going to become a little bit more well versed upon it.

 

[00:41:49] So I think it's it's kind of infiltrating a lot of different supply will meet demand, you know, even on the service ramp. So it's exciting. And it's it's it is this summer. And this is a with was previously an in-person weeklong seminar that you offered out of New York City, because that's where you're based.

 

[00:42:06] Right. Yes. And hopefully it will continue to be that in some form, but it's going to have an online component as well.

 

[00:42:15] Absolutely.

 

[00:42:16] So if anyone's listening and they want to kind of drop into we talked about where you can where you can see the documentary and a bunch of other things. But if anyone's listening wants to grab any of your books, is everything on Amazon. You have sites or places that you send people. Should anyone be following you on a specific social media platform? What do you have for us?

 

[00:42:36] Oh, that's so kind. I'm Main Street vegan everywhere. So Facebook and Twitter, you can find me at Main Street Vegan or certainly the website Main Street Meat Vegan dot net. And the books are on Amazon. B end up indie bound wherever you like to buy books.

 

[00:42:54] I love it. Well, Victoria, we're out of time, which is very disappointing to me because I feel like we have just scratched the surface here. I could talk with you. Forever.

 

[00:43:02] But we are going to wrap it up.

 

[00:43:05] I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time. Your. You're such a prolific individual and you I know that even in this time of everyone being at home, everyone's busy. And I really appreciate you taking the moment to give myself and our audience your splendid expertise.

 

[00:43:23] Thank you so very much. It's been my pleasure.

 

[00:43:25] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been talking to Victoria Maron. You can find out more on W WW Dot Mainstreet Vigen dot net until we speak again next time.

 

[00:43:36] Remember to eat well, eat clean and always bet on yourself. Sainte.

Talking with Dr. Debra Shapiro: Vegan diet and OBGYN medicine

Today I spoke with renowned OBGYN Debra Shapiro. Dr. Shapiro. is a Board Certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist who has practiced medicine in the Bay Area for 27 years.  She is vegan and began formally studying plant-based nutrition in 2013.  She has a Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and Cornell. www.anewviewoffood.com 

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

TRANSCRIPT 

[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is Investigating Vigen Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vigen life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vigen Life. Now let's start the conversation.

 

[00:01:14] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia.

 

[00:01:16] And today we are sitting down with Dr. Deborah SHAPIRO. Dr. SHAPIRO is a board certified opg Y n plant based physician and vegan lifestyle coach and educator. You can find out more about her on her website. A new view of food, dot com. Welcome, Deborah.

 

[00:01:34] Hello, Patricia. Hi. Thanks for having me. This is quite an honor.

 

[00:01:37] Absolutely. I'm so excited. And I really we've talked a little bit off the record. I find you're at your career and your history and your voice to be so prolific and profound. I'm really excited to have it added to that. The language that is becoming the platform of our podcaster for everyone listening. I'll offer a bio on Deborah. But before I do that, I'm going to get into a quick roadmap of today's podcast. Some of you who are looking for a trajectory can follow along. We'll first look at Deborah's academic background and early in professional life leading up to where she is now. And then we'll start unpacking some of her interest and work. She is obviously a huge career with her Ojibway and practice and then a huge passion of hers now as epigenetics and how it traverses some of the multi-generational platforms of the new studies being done and some of her observations, and that will unpack some of those things as well as give everyone nuts and bolts for everything that I just mentioned, for those of you that don't know what epigenetics is. And then we'll wrap everything up with looking at career advice and goals that she has, even for science and the future of the vegan lifestyle, as well as the work that she's doing in the services that she offers through her own personal website and brand right now through vegan lifestyle coaching and education. A quick bio on Deborah SHAPIRO. Deborah SHAPIRO, M.D., is a board certified obstetrician gynecologist who has practiced medicine in the Bay Area for 27 years. She is a she's vegan and became and began formally studying plant based nutrition in 2013. She has a certificate in plant based nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell, Center for Nutrition Studies and E. Cornell. Currently, in addition to practicing general gynecology at the Genentech Health Center, she is a vegan lifestyle coach and educator, Main Street Vegan Academy and a certified health coach through Health Coach Institute. Privately coaching clients so they can thrive on a whole plant food diet, reversing chronic disease and getting off medications is her passion. She is currently developing a group coaching program called The Pregnancy Advantage, aimed at assisting women physically and emotionally prepared for pregnancy. And I'm excited to kind of climb through all of those areas. I think that, Deborah, you have so many different aspects of your career that are currently happening, but they all have this very similar tone and tie in. But before we get to that, I'm hoping that you can kind of unpack just a brief overview of your academic and early professional life to this point.

 

[00:04:08] Sure. Thank you very, very much. Well, it took me a long time, actually, to decide that I was ready to be a doctor. I actually went a little bit late back to college. So I dropped out of high school. I had some early issues. My mom died young, actually, of medical complications and diabetes and cancer. And so that threw me into a bit of a tailspin. But when I finally got back into academics, I really did thrive. And I was inspired by a doctor in college. Since passed away, but she taught a class of female physiology and gynecology and she became my mentor. That was quite an inspiration. So you go to medical school and we learned almost nothing about nutrition in medical school. And so when I started my practice after residency too mean there was just nothing to be learned about approach. You know, the usual. So it's the number of calories and proteins and carbohydrates and thoughts and it's about it. Video I learned about, you know, things that we didn't we were never going to see, like protein deficiencies, the quasi work we're writing. So write all the things that we normally see, which are all diseases of obesity and over overfeeding. Did my residency in obstetrics and gynecology, which I loved and came back and sort of my practice and it was really from a patient that I started to learn about. Issues with diet and with wealth. So first, give a patient who had mercury poisoning and then it turned out that I had mercury poisoning as I've been eating too much fish because I was sort of transitioning, I was I was paying attention to what was going on in the world. And I was transitioning away from being of a foodie and eating whatever I wanted to. Eating more seafood and less and less meat. But that sort of backfired. And I ended up with mercury poisoning. And after that, a patient told me about Farm Sanctuary, and that's where I really started to learn about the plight of farm animals. And then that same patient told me, I really owe. I owe her everything. I've talked about her before. But then she told me about Michael Gregor's work and nutrition facts start work. And once I learned more about the science of plant based nutrition for reversing chronic disease and preventing chronic disease and preventing all the suffering that my family had endured, really, really think about it for generations. I I I just wanted more and more. So I started attending conferences, the international plant based nutrition health care conference every year. And DR. That's by the plantation project. And then I also became involved in the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. That's Neil Barnard's organization in D.C. And this conference I would attend. And I just tried to learn as much as possible that he Colin Campbell KORRIS Park, for example, is good for anybody. You don't have to be a physician or a nurse or anybody in medicine to take it. It's fine for anybody. And I would recommend that anyone is interested in being more it being the healthiest organ you can be. We could talk about why just being vegan isn't necessarily equating health. But if you want to be the healthiest plant based eater that you can be, then I would take that course.

 

[00:07:11] Yeah, I got on their Web site not too long ago after I spoke with another guest that had done it as well. Years ago. Decades ago. And she said that and she just found it to be one of the most moving experiences for her.

 

[00:07:23] And then I got on the Web site and I did appreciate I think a lot of people consider certification to be something that even further, you know, your actual professional career with rather than augmenting both professional and personal. And they talk about on the Web site saying, you know, who is it for? And it talks about everyone from parents to just personal growth. You know, people interested not just in veganism or specific agendas, but that human health, you know, just one's own personal health, I think, is for everyone as exactly as you're saying. So that makes sense.

 

[00:07:55] I'm wondering your personal vegan story, because it's so enriched and intertwined, if you will, with education and your scientific pursuits.

 

[00:08:06] Did you find yourself acclimating to the lifestyle slowly as you were unearthing these things, or were they just solidifying what you had already done? Like when was the moment that you actually became vegan or was there a moment?

 

[00:08:19] You know, I've been criticized for talking about this because it's a little woo-woo, but I don't know how you feel about that. But I did have sort of a moment. I really just did wake up one morning and just announced to my spouse that I wasn't going to eat animals anymore. And I can't entirely. I can't entirely. Explain it. It was just a moment of clarity about the future and about what was necessary for me to feel good about myself and the world if everything that I learned from Farm Sanctuary and from from PCR.

 

[00:08:58] From the physicians to be responsible, responsible medicine, everything I learned from Michael Gregor's work and and Dean Ornish and Michael Klapper and I just there was just no reason after after hearing. It was just a level of understanding about both human health and the environmental health and the animal welfare that I just didn't want any part of it anymore.

 

[00:09:22] Yeah. And I think it's interesting, the relationship. It sounds trivial. It sounds rote. You know, when you say the relationship with a lifestyle when studying it as compared to actually engaging in it, it it changes your relationship with the understan knowledge that you've studied as well as the knowledge that you create, you know, the work you create after that.

 

[00:09:40] I'm wondering, did you have any health benefits when you kind of became completely vegan that affected you to that kind of testimonial standpoint?

 

[00:09:48] Absolutely. It was amazing. And mostly actually not just going vegan, but because when I first went back and I was roasting my vegetables and coconut oil and my cholesterol shot up and I didn't lose weight and, you know, I didn't have all the benefits, the symbol. When I learned how to cook, I took a cooking course. The Ruby Auro you XP Ruby Cooking School through forth the Forks Over Knives course, which was a three month course. They also have a one month and a six month. I learned how to roast on parchment without oil. I looked at it, learned how to cook without oil, and then I lost 20 pounds without trying, without any additional exercise. My cholesterol came way down, my total cholesterol became less than 150 and my mail deals were 60 or 70. My blood pressure, which had been really creeping up when I was on labor delivery, I used to I would check it sometimes and it was one fifty over ninety five really high and now it was 110 over 60. I even fainted one day in my job because it was so low and I stopped having to take a an antihistamine which I had taken for decades. Every single day, every day. I took Desertec for decades. I also used to have to go to the contractor every week for years, decades, also probably 20 years to get something tweaked. You know, I heard something and it would be you would just stay off until I had it put back. I used to go to a chiropractor every single week. I stopped. I haven't gone to the chiropractor in years. So I would see I would say, oh, my hemoglobin A1C came down.

 

[00:11:13] It sounds like you had a lot of really beneficial health attributes when you switched over just on a personal level. Did that inspire you? I was wonder with with M.D. in particular. Eastern medicine seems to navigate this a little bit differently. But Western medicine, if you can even diversify the two that way anymore, I think that they're kind of blending more and more these days. But it feels like doctors are a little reluctant to advise anything for their patients. You know, their clients, even anything that they might particularly believe in and practice. It's just this kind of held regard of Western medicine, this old staunch of like, you know, science is science. And we only advise based on like, you know, what we've agreed upon as a government or as a scientific community and all of those things. And I'm wondering if you personally experienced this change, if you currently had your practice when you were doing that, you know, you had over a 20 year long practice, private practice and women caring for women and dealing with LBG. Why N? And I'm wondering if you had the opportunity before wrapping up that chapter of your life to advise some of your clients looking into this kind of whole food plant based moment?

 

[00:12:24] Oh, absolutely. Once I felt comfortable with the science. I actually put on a conference call at our hospital plant based attrition conference and brought in amazing speakers. Not only did I have, you know, Brenda Davis and Michael Klapper and John Robbins at our and our conference, but I also then brought in other speakers. Michael Greger came to speak. Juliana Haver, Neal, Neal Barnard. But it was amazing. The response from the response from my clinician colleagues was not all so positive and very, very discouraging. I remember quite a few. I can tell you it's it's discouraging. So once I had your board speaking and I was I was standing outside the room, he was going to do grand rounds. And I I was trying to encourage you to some of the doctors who were walking by to come in and hear him for grand rounds. And when cardiologists came up to me and I said, here he's coming in and you're in your border, and he said, Oh, Debbie Dominionist, diminutive Debbie, you're too naive. It's too extreme. No one will do this. And, you know, we always think, you know, cutting open someone's chest and pulling out things from your legs and, you know, that sort of extreme. The surgery when does for cardiovascular disease are number one killer, but which we know now from disorders can be reversed with a plant based diet and healthy lifestyle. So that was one there. There are others. I could tell you when I did what I did my conference, when I put on my conference afterwards, people came up to me and said, oh, this was so great. My friend didn't get to come when you gonna do it again? And marketing was right there, the marketing person. And she she said she kind of looked at it and said, you'll never do this again.

 

[00:14:10] That sounds like a challenge. I had a hundred and fifty people and I did 50 people and everybody loved it. And I'm believable.

 

[00:14:17] And also, just given the lack of I mean, you know, I would hope that in any community, let alone a scientific based one.

 

[00:14:24] The lack of education is a sure sign that, you know, that more research needs to be done and to have very little nutritional knowledge taught to M.D. on the whole, you know, as they go into medicine should just be a sign that more research should be done, reaching conclusions and things like that. Find make your own decisions. But to not research something and then make a decision that it is inapplicable or naive just seems in and of itself naive.

 

[00:14:52] So there is certainly a mountain of evidence. I know people can challenge it. There are people who are the what are they, the caveman diet and the high fat, high protein diets that the paleo and the pito to manage illness. We are reimbursed to manage disease. We're not really getting any remuneration for reversing disease. That would be amazing. You know, if you could get people if you got paid to get people off their medication. Not not to get them on more medications so their blood sugars are stable. But to actually get them or when I was when I was working at Kaiser, I saw people on six or seven. Most those Filipino patients were on six or seven medications if they were over 50 or Heiko, because the diets are really just this high saturated fat diet, high any diet. So, you know, a couple for their blood pressure goes, some for their diabetes and their high cholesterol and cut their cholesterol and and usually reflux.

 

[00:15:56] So there's a lot of different kind of climbed into a large area that even people who, you know, don't hold medical degrees have kind of started to come into the fasting and and even other other friendly communities with the vegan community, you know, talk a lot about these auto immune fighters.

 

[00:16:13] Right. And the vegan lifestyle is one of these things that's seen as something that goes into auto immune diseases which are across the board. You know, on this incredible spike in our population, at least in the United States. And and and how these things fight and switch it. I'm wondering if you can kind of speak to just briefly, like what are the number one things when you work with clients? And, you know, even from back during your OBIS, you in practice your current work with Genentech or even the work that you have privately on a new view of food dicom with some of your services where you coach, people don't like the top five things that you see an immediate turnaround with someone that you switch to a vegan based diet, a side, a whole plate.

 

[00:16:55] We try to we try to encourage people to be more of a whole package. Well, let's eat a lot of changes. You were asking before about my practice. So I was able. I'm definitely able to reverse some. And still probably bleeding disorders can be normalized.

 

[00:17:08] And definitely I've had a lot of success getting people to have more regular and lighter menses when they got off of dairy. Just minute, Roger. Just heavy menses. Yes. That would just be better. But also, polycystic ovarian syndrome is much better on a plant based diet and also watching out for something called Agee's. It is location and products. So that would be eating more raw and things that are not cooked at very high temperature, but especially meat. You can look up tables of agent use against location and products in the foods that have the most agent. These are going to be things like broiled sausages and your broiled processed meat as the most agencies. And then the least would be fruit, you know, raw fruits and vegetables. So yeah. But even so, it turns out that people who have polycystic ovarian syndrome have much higher levels of Agee's in their blood level than most. So getting. So if you want if you people are suffering from places school syndrome with with irregular bleeding, maybe only a few periods a year, they can also be heavy and have problems with hair growth. And and they're more at risk for developing diabetes later on and having heart disease later on metabolic syndrome, then getting them onto a plant based diet and reversing that by reducing Jacky's exposure would be great.

 

[00:18:23] Well, given that we have those correlations and in some cases causational, you know, aspects, when do you think it will start to infiltrate mainstream? When will I call up a girlfriend who said, listen, I was just at my Ojibway and she said, if you want to, like alleviate that heavy bleeding try, you know.

 

[00:18:39] Whole food plant based diet and that type of a. When do you think that that will permeate? If we have all these studies and all of the success rate, do you think that it's I mean, a lot of people will say it's you know, it's it's accurate studies, it's accurate testing, it's proof, but it doesn't seem that those are being taken with them as much brevity as some of the other industry back things. So as it as a clinician, when do you think that that time will start to infiltrate, especially with female based medicine?

 

[00:19:07] Well, interesting. Good, good questions. Good questions, because even though there is a lot of data about things like heart disease and diet and diabetes and even autoimmune disease for sure. The research specifically on women's health, this lag, I think, lagging behind. But there's a new college, the College of Lifestyle Medicine to the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. And they they're plant based. Absolutely plant based. But they're also interested in things like sleep and stress reduction and exercise and looking at the whole the whole picture of human health and the all the influences on it. And they are starting a women's health group within that. So it's true that I have reached out to a the American college verbage man and asked them about their recommendations, their dietary recommendations, because they're still recommending for pregnant women just three milk products a day. And when I asked them years ago, a few years ago about that, they said, well, we're waiting for the new dietary guidelines. So you you were right when you said it's the government that sets the tone and then the colleges sort of go along with that. Will that change? I don't know, because we don't you know, our Institutes of Health don't develop our dietary guidelines. It's the Department of Agriculture. Right. The USDA. Mm hmm. So we we give millions of dollars to support meat and dairy. So. Right.

 

[00:20:33] Which are. I mean, it's and that can all be economically really easily broken down.

 

[00:20:38] You know, I was just talking to a vegan bakery owner who said dairy eggs. And we are practically free. They're subsidized by the government. You know, and she said, if you ever want to a question, a food pyramid or anything else, look at like what they need to just funnel through our system that quickly. And that kind of breaks it all down into relationship as well as to how are our diet is being more mandated by even lobbyists and things of that nature for those groups.

 

[00:21:04] You know, it's not really what's best for the human body. And once you know that, it all works best know and you can go rogue. Right. Once you figure that out, you can decide you better be captaining your own ship. And I kind of want to climb into more of this, because I know that one of your passions is epigenetics. And before I let you just kind of reign all of your wisdom down on us, I want to tell you that I went through a bunch of different definitions regarding epigenetics. And before we kind of climb into it for our audience listening, I wanted to say that I found a couple of ones that I feel like simplistically define it, but you need to tell me if you agree with them. So one is at epigenetics is the nutrition sorry, the biology relating to or arising from non-genetic influences on gene expression. And then further on, it says, is the study of changes in gene activity, which are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence. And it is the specific mechanism such as that, that epigenetics works by specific mechanisms such as the DNA methylation. But I wanted to kind of climb into the way I perceive it as as a layperson. Is there any factors that are affecting our genetic makeup that are not like genetically encoded into our DNA?

 

[00:22:23] And so I wondered if you could correct some of that or kind of explain what we're talking about before we get into it?

 

[00:22:28] Sure. I did this because of the Internet. I did miss the beginning of it. OK. And you just say one more time.

 

[00:22:33] Yubari Yeah. No. Absolutely. So it's the biology relating to or arising from non genetic influences on gene expression.

 

[00:22:42] Your end to end, the way I internalize that is essentially talking about our genetics.

 

[00:22:49] We are a little frozen. Let me get back to that. Let me wait for just one second in my time again.

 

[00:22:58] OK, we're back again. Said the way I mean, I was just saying the way that I am, I received that is just influences and then genetic changes that our genes can have.

 

[00:23:08] People described it like an on or off switch, like something that is activating genetic markers and things of that nature, but not necessarily changing the genetic gene makeup.

 

[00:23:18] Razi NCG OK. Yes, absolutely. So Eppie genetics just sort of means on top of the genome. So all of the cells in our body that have a nucleus, all the nucleotide cells have the same DNA. These beautiful coils of genetic material, they're all coiled around these big stones.

 

[00:23:38] They're big molecules called histones are wrapped around that little caps at the end called telomeres that that keep them from unraveling. So this is the we have forty six pairs and two. Right. Yes. Twenty two sets of autism's and two sets of six chromosomes. Most of us. And do the same with the egg all the the cga 80 pairs. That's all they are. They're the same in every cell. But you know that what cell. Every different cell types do different things. Right. So they all the difference, all the different genes that are encoded in the DNA are not expressed in every cell. For example, your mouth make your celery glands, make saliva. Right. So they have Emilie's and your stomach cells like lining cells, make hydrochloric acid. And the cells in your cervix make a mucus, you know, cervical mucus so that, you know, it doesn't get confused. You wouldn't want your cervical cells to be making hydrochloric acid. That would be a disaster. Right. So so our body keeps cell DNA expression or expression very tightly controlled.

 

[00:24:48] And we've now learned that there are we learned so much more about this just in the last few decades, really. We've known since the end of the last century and the beginning of this century that lifestyle factors, including stress and what we eat and whether we exercise and even our thoughts or even how our moods affect affect epigenetics. And so epigenetics, it works by attack. Gene expression is controlled. Now we know by attaching a little. So there's a methyl group, for example, a C-H three, a little methyl group. And it depending on where that metal group is attached, the gene can either be turned on. Up, up, regulated or turned off.

 

[00:25:28] OK. Is this the same concept as they talk about with triggers when you have this underlying genetic propensity towards, let's say, type 1 diabetes and they're you know, they're doing all these studies, these massively large studies, generational studies right now that I know of with that particular disease. And they you have a marker and they talk about triggers and they're trying to figure out, you know, which triggers social, environmental diet, all of those things kind of playing in stressors, things like that. And and I'm wondering if it's the same thing that we're talking about here. It's having like a propensity, but not necessarily like a signed sentence.

 

[00:26:02] Yes. Another good example of that is, I believe what we call the Nigerian paradox, that there is a gene that code that increases your risk of of Alzheimer's. It's called the EAP, a EPO, A for EPO, a for a little. And there's actually. A very high rate of that in in places in Africa like in Nigeria. And yet they don't have high rates of Alzheimer's because of their diet. I mostly plant based diet the whole time through diet. So I think that's exactly right. That your your DNA may code may code for things. And you may have you may be genetically inclined to have something it runs in your family, but you can change that. And that's why we say that our genes are not our destiny. They're absolutely not our destiny.

 

[00:26:53] Yeah. Thank God. And I don't know, because I don't. I'm sure we exist as a species. But I'm wondering, what kind of research are they doing now?

 

[00:27:02] You've you know, you've expressed to me off the record that you have this kind of interest in the generational span of what doing and, you know, looking at epigenetics and eating this vegan diet in utero and like all the way through. Can you talk to some of your research or some of your interest in those areas?

 

[00:27:19] Right. I think the first thing that I heard about was Dean Ornish, his work on reversing early stage prostate cancer. And, you know, Dean Ornish published in 1990 in The Lancet, his landmark study, Reversing Heart Disease, The Lifestyle Heart Trial, where he showed that our number one killer could be actually reversed using a plant, usually a plant based diet. He wasn't present at that time. He was letting people have little bits of animal protein, I think nonfat yogurt, but also exercise 30 minutes, six times a week, an hour of either meditation or yoga every day and a support group. And he showed that heart disease could be reversed, which is really a game changer. And that should really be what everybody and every cardiologist we talked about before with every cardiologist is telling their patients, but they're not. So. But moving on after that, he actually showed that he could reverse early stage prostate cancer. Currently, he's working on see whether you can reverse Alzheimer's, early stage Alzheimer's. But let's just go back to this prostate cancer, because it was amazing. We took 93 men and divided them into with early stage prostate cancer. So they had they didn't need surgery when they came to him. They a lot of people with prostate cancer, it's early. They watch they watch ultrasounds. They watch their PSA. And they just watch you wait. Right. So we have that group of men and divide them into two groups. And one group got a very low fat 10 percent that plant based on it. One hundred simply based on the 30 minutes of exercise, six days a week. The support group and the meditation and stress and stress reduction, meditation or yoga. The other group just had routine care.

 

[00:28:50] And what he found was at the end of a year, there were people in the watching weight group that actually needed surgery. But what he saw when he when he did PET scans, he could see that the tumors had actually reduced in size in people in the in his group that were in the study group. But more importantly, and this was so amazing after just three months, three months. It's only been a long time. You know, three months, over 500 genes changed expression. You had 453 genes that promoted cancer that were turned down and 48 genes that protected against cancer were unregulated. So this is amazing. After just three months. Yes. Yes. And then I was looking at something called the Canadian ice storm. Yes. You can look at project. Project Ice Storm online is quite amazing. So in nineteen ninety eight, I mean we've known about epigenetics. We've known about this even before this. I should say because there were studies looking at the Dutch, the Dutch famine. So we there were a lot of studies also on on mice. And what I found this to be even more interesting. So in nineteen ninety eight, there was a tremendous ice storm in Quebec. They let people many, many people lost power. It was minus 20 degrees for 40 days. That was tremendous social stress and upheaval. And people were stuck in Trenton, you know, women in buses. And it was really it's just very stressful time. And they decided to follow the offspring of women who were pregnant during that time.

 

[00:30:33] And what they found was remarkable. Hundreds of genes. They've been following these children for years. You know, 19, 20 years because it was 1998. So involving these kids for a long time. And what they found was they could actually they could they could tell that there were more changes depending on how much more stress people experience. So there's there are these heat maps where they look at people who had more stress versus less stress on actual stress versus perceived stress like post-traumatic stress syndrome, as opposed to actually losing power for many, many days. So and they just find that there were more children, more children with auto immune diseases, more shoulder with metabolic diseases where we're children with with autism. On the autism spectrum. So over I mean, hundreds of genes change expressions. And these were genes also. They coded coded for glucocorticoid activity. And also immunoglobulins. So with your immune system, the T cells.

 

[00:31:31] So, yes. So what you eat and what happens to you? So what do we know what you eat. But also. What you endured during your pregnancy can show up for generations and not only these children. So this is what's interesting. If you're having especially if you have a girl, if you have a child inside of you as a female child, then what happens to you during your pregnancy affects that child's ovaries and the eggs developing inside the ovaries. And that's what affects the next generation. And that's how really in a way you are what your grandmother eats. You know, your genes and your gene expression has been affected by what happened to your grandmother.

 

[00:32:11] Right. And so my next question and always charging forward and wondering how we use that to our benefit. Is there a way conceivably.

 

[00:32:21] You know, since we know this and we don't know the full of factoring and the brevity quite yet, but is there a way, likewise, to start stacking the deck in our favor? Looking that you have, you know, this history and family with heart disease or diabetes or whatever it is and start eating according to that, like would it be likely stressors and things that we can't you know, I mean, the born a middle, the pandemic. You know, it's it's stressing the entire world out. And so there's things that you can't control on that.

 

[00:32:50] So the ones that you can control, I'm curious, like if you think that likewise, as these these markers are set off in other ways, could you think it's possible to stack the deck in one's favor? Dietrichson Dietetics Lee through either in utero or as your existing like on this earth right now? Absolutely.

 

[00:33:08] I mean, that was what we talked. That's that's what I meant when I said that Dean Ornish was able to show that these genes change expression. And in three months, you know. Absolutely that he did all four things. So this is important because Dr. Eskelsen was able to reverse heart disease in his cohort of patients with just diet. He wasn't asking people to exercise. He wasn't giving them support groups. So that's true. And that's why we have that data. But what's interesting about about this is we know that your emotions make a difference. And so even though I agree with you, this is a very stressful time. And honestly, I'm not sure I would be encouraging people to be pregnant right now. There's a lot of uncertainty about the effects of this virus on pregnancies and getting care and having access to care and and just the stress of it, it seems it seems like a stressful time. But this is definitely the time to get ready for a pregnancy if you have that time. This is the time to get rid of all the toxins. This is the time to to start eating organic. If you can't find it, this is the time to make sure that you're not. You know, there's a point, glyphosate, that that herbicide roundup in the umbilical cords of babies and DDT is still found in breast milk. So there's some incredibly persistent organic compounds that are that are still in the food chain. And so that's why Greger even talks about detoxing from fish for five years because of the dioxins and the and the p_c_b_ easily. Mercury is out of your system. Over a few months, because the Half-Life is 100 days, I was able to get my mercury level down when I saw patients. I was probably the only obese way that was testing mercury levels in women who were pregnant. And I was finding very high mercury levels in women who were having fish. You know, a few times a week, a cockatiel says you could have fish twice a week. I would. I would really worry about that. So some things we can't control. But something's you can. So paragons and phthalates and and P and BPA. And, you know, these are the things to clear out of your system.

 

[00:35:16] Absolutely. And I think that's why a lot of people we do a lot of, you know, crisis control and and crowd management, you know, things like that with disease in our lives.

 

[00:35:27] But I think looking at a preventative level is really where the next gen should be coming from. You know, this idea of like, let's not treat the disease when it comes, but rather prevent it. And looking at one's own history and even like the I think it's exciting when we when we go back to utero and you mentioned you kind of alluded to earlier, but female science hasn't received 1 1 100th the amount of study, you know, which is ironic because we're responsible for like the proliferation of the species. But and I think I'm hoping in the next you know what, in my daughter's generation like this starts to become very unearthed and we learn more about it because it's exciting. And I think it's a it's it's a new way to look towards what we're doing and the next generation coming up. I'm wondering, given that and given my love for prediction and things like that, if I can take you there really quickly and ask you, what do you see for the future of kind of everything we've been talking about in consideration of epigenetics and as well as as vegan diets and things like that, do you have you surmise like a different platform or people becoming more aware? I know even in the reception of this early podcast. People have been very, very open to I call them unlikely vegans. There's been a lot of people who are looking at things because they're coming to it from, you know, having survived heart disease and all these different things. And I'm wondering if you have some kind of a prediction as to what that might mean for the future of like this whole plant based vegan diet and medicine or anything that you're doing?

 

[00:37:00] Well, there are some very positive signs. Michael Klapper is going around to medical school. Do you know when Michael Klapper used to work at True North is a fantastic doctor. He's fantastic man. Ethical begin and plant a specialist. Michael Klapper, K.L. AP Fantastic. He is going around to all these medical schools to teach medical students about plant based nutrition. And I know some medical schools already that are having classes where students with patients where they're actually cooking. So part of medical school is now in a kitchen, which is fantastic. Yes. And and there are, I believe, the. It was the A.M.A. that actually has said that processed meat should not be in hospitals anymore. I mean, it's it's optional, but it's hard to get meatless Mondays in our hospital. But but I think I think we're moving in that direction because we know from an environmental standpoint that we can not continue to eat meat as we've been doing. We just can't. Now, in terms of being 100 percent vegan, you know that that may not be for everybody. But I think the world will definitely be moving in a more plant based way. Otherwise it will not. We will not exist. I was reading a report and I would recommend everyone read this. It's the it was Walter Willets report. It was a Eat Lancet report. E a t all capital and then Dash Lancet. So Haiti is a Swedish nonprofit that's focused on sustainability. And the Lancet, of course, is the most is the most prestigious medical journal. And they they commissioned they commission many papers over the years. And last year in 2019, they decide to focus on health and the planet and sustainability. And so the Lancet commission report is called Home for the Poor.

 

[00:38:51] It's called just for the planet or.

 

[00:38:58] Eat food in the Anthropocene, which is the time, the geologic time where humans have had the most impact was actually from 1950. Pretty amazing. So. So that report is pretty amazing. And they basically say that or we in the West have to eat like 90 percent less animal products. So they allow they allow for very small amounts. But if we're going to feed the 10 billion people that are gonna be on the planet by 2050, we have to really change how we how we produce food, how we get it to people. So I think the only way to do that is play is being played bass. I mean, just think about the amount of land that it takes. There's this amazing graphic and I know I probably am preaching to the choir here because you guys know. But if you look at something called Good Bath One, a one online food bath one to one. It's from the plantation project. And they show how two football fields worth of land is good. You do know this because they when you tell others that this is a really fun thing, just to look at two football fields worth of land can feed one person for a year on an animal based diet. The two football fields worth of land can feed 14 people on a plant based diet. It's pretty amazing. So you could be one or two feet 14. So if we're going to keep populating the earth with more people, which I know we are, then we have to pay attention to having enough food for all. And that's going to be the only way we can feed everybody is a plant based diet.

 

[00:40:29] Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it's also raising expectations. I think that a lot of people who don't have any issues that I may say have with it the meat industry, the concept is, is that you're actually breeding a, you know, a lifestyle into your children before you depart that they cannot maintain.

 

[00:40:45] They will not be able to. The amount of meat consumed globaly all over the world in China and on all places, the amount of meat in the majority of people's diets is not sustainable for the next two generations. So you're simply, you know, imparting your children with this desirous lifestyle that they won't be able to maintain. And so I think that any parent would agree that we want to kind of impart this this way of living that's sustainable, you know, that they can continue doing. And so and that's a good thing.

 

[00:41:12] It's fantastic. It's so profound. It's so important. That's such a great point. Yeah, because it's not sustainable. I don't know why you would now think about raising your children on on hotdogs and burgers and French fries. Just food also that's going to make them just so unhealthy. It's the stuff I grew up on. I grew up on spam and I, you know, TV dinners and I was raised with horrible food.

 

[00:41:36] Yeah, I read on your Web site, am I a little bit about your background? I really appreciated the candor in which you kind of open up again.

 

[00:41:43] I don't know if it's just my friends or my history with MMD, but they tend to be a little bit more tight lipped about their personal testimony. And so it was really wonderful to kind of read yours on your own, get your background on your Web site. And I want to turn to finally looking at that before I let you go today. Your Web site is really interesting. It's got it. It's got a very honest look at things. And then you also provide this this coaching opportunity for people that I want people to know about before I let you go. And one more time, your website is W WW A New View of food dot com and you provide coaching services and education. I'm just hoping you can kind of tell everybody listening what services you provide and who it who would be applicable to kind of come and speak with you.

 

[00:42:29] Right. Right. Well, first of all, I would talk to anybody. Please download my free e-book. Why you plaints. It's a free e-book that you get onto my my mail list. And I send out newsletters every once in a while. Not too often. You won't. You're too much for me. So do you will be bothered. But I think the I have some videos on their Web site that you can see my eye. Ideally, I love to work with ethical vegans who want to shift to a more healthy whole plant food diet because I have certainly worked with vegans who are eating more. I mean, I've heard the word junk food vegan and so people use that. Some people hate that term. And I'm just saying that people who are eating incidentally be good food like Oreos and chips and French fries and Coke. And I mean, these are big foods, but they're not optimal. And that's true even for the mock meats. I mean, people who are eating a lot of processed organized food, this process, it's still not optimal. So to optimize your diet so that you're really you're doing you're clicking off all those boxes from Dr. Gregor's daily dozen. That's what I really want you to to be able to do so that you will be as healthy as possible, especially before you can see. That would be amazing. So that's why we started this new I started this new program with Gene Schumacher, who's another coach, cleverly scope's and also a chemistry teacher. And that's good. That's the pregnancy advantage. So that's really to help women get prepared for pregnancy, to get rid of the toxic. To to get off of the saturated fat. Did you know that saturated fat, even from things like coconut oil, etc., got especially from animal products, but also oil? It affects the fetal brain and and and it causes damage in the fetus as well. So it's so being being obese from whatever cause is going to cause damage to the fetus. So getting you to an optimal weight, getting you eating optimally and feeling so comfortable with cooking this way that you can cook for your family and cook for your child and raise them just the way you are raising your children. Right. Really loving it. Like what's behind the whole the rainbow, loving, eating the rainbow. That's what you want to do.

 

[00:44:37] Is the pregnancy advantage? Is it all aspects? Is it an education? Is it a cooking? What areas are you kind of.

 

[00:44:44] Right. And we're getting ready to launch later this month. But it's a it's going to be an online coaching program. And we're going to be helping women with with everything, with with that cooking, with cooking. Gene Schumacher has a fantastic YouTube channel and and a Web site as well. It's called the Weight Loss Advantage or Web site. The Weight Loss Advantage. And she's been doing wonderful things for years and has interviewed incredible people on her, on her YouTube channels are really, really proud to be working with her because I think she's been fantastic. I think she's lost over 100 pounds herself. So we both know what what can happen when you when you do this.

 

[00:45:25] Yeah, I had it set so perfect. Again, it's always shocking to me. As someone who, you know, who has had children and that it's it hasn't it wasn't done.

 

[00:45:35] You know, it I'm not I'm not terribly young, but I'm not terribly old. I'm forty three. I have no children. And this was not around. And I had my first child in San Francisco, very metropolitan chic city. And there was, you know, and people were getting dullards and things like that. But nobody was advising as to how to, you know, pick up or clean up one's lifestyle as you became pregnant or prior to it. There was I looked into everything. I'm a nerd. You know, I looked into all sorts of research. If someone had been having this kind of a platform or hosting this kind of rhetoric, I would have eaten it up. And it's just amazing to me that we're just twenty twenty and we're just getting to the point where we are trying to advise people who are looking at conceiving or have already conceived, you know, as to the best path to what to fuel themselves with. You know, your website, you have a quote about, I believe, mushroom, but perhaps it's on your website. You're looking at a bunch today, but isn't.

 

[00:46:29] And food is not necessary. What is it? It's medicine is not necessary when you have good food or is that yours? And I probably lifted it from somebody. I'm dizzy. Yeah. And the concept is the old adage, which is what I really guide my particular journey by, which is let food be thy medicine.

 

[00:46:48] It's the it's the ultimate form. And it seems so rote. It's of course, of course, of course. But it's the one thing we're actually putting into our body, you know, and it's the one thing that we're actually trying to create life force on. And so if not, take it a little bit more seriously or think about whether or not your body's registering yellow number for as food or just as some weird additive is crucial.

 

[00:47:10] It's it's just amazing what I eat growing up and never gave a second thought about. And now and my family suffered. It's it's very, very sad. Sister with cancer all they all had cancer of the generation before all of them had cancer. If they did, they live long enough. They had two cancers. My father had two cancers. His brother had two cancers.

 

[00:47:29] It's something that can be changed. And so I think when you look at the humanity of it, you know, it's it's this kind of desperate cry of everyone to just consider things for a second who is so much suffering and people don't realize is so much suffering.

 

[00:47:41] The earth is suffering. The animals are suffering. When I read recently about the pigs and they just said things like hundreds of thousands of pigs are going to be depopulated. And I mean, I just started crying. I mean, I couldn't I couldn't really handle it. It's a big and it's this is a very, very hard time. And I'm sure your listeners would understand. Right, because your listeners are beginning. I mean, I don't live really in a vegan world. I'm really the only I don't really have any even friends, even though I try very hard. But it's it's a very, very tough time for the planet. It's a very tough time for people. And the human toll on the way we're eating, I mean, yes, French fries taste good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's enough already. Enough French fries.

 

[00:48:28] Yeah. And the emotional attachment to food should doesn't really outweigh the emotional attachment we have to loved ones in life. You know, it's just that I think that people come to that realization after they've gotten contracted the disease, you know.

 

[00:48:41] And so I think that looking at these preventative measures, what you're doing with the pregnancy advantage, I can't wait for that to launch and just have a look at it. And just having some of these people in these conversations with people in these populations, particularly next generation. Things that are like really coming out to be game changers. No pun intended on the movie, but, you know. Yeah, great.

 

[00:49:05] But but I think, Zada, things are changing. And when I go to these conferences, you know, when I went to the interview, the first or the second international clip is Nutritional Care Conference. About seven years ago, there were, I don't know, 50 or 60 people. Now there's over a thousand. I don't know what we're gonna be able to do now. It'll probably have to be online. But because I don't I don't think we're really going to be able to get a thousand twelve hundred people in one hotel anymore for an event where we all sit online and eat. But still even done the piece CRM conference on the International Conference on Nutrition and Medicine. He also had over a thousand people last year. And these are these are doctors and health care professionals. So the word is getting out, but it's slow because, again, as we mentioned the beginning, doctors are not rewarded for keeping their patients healthy. They're rewarding. They're rewarded for managing disease. And I think that would it would be amazing if it could shift. I've worked on committees in hospitals before to see, you know, people are rewarded for testing hemoglobin A1C every month or every three months or whatever they have to do. But they're not necessarily rewarded for getting people off of medications.

 

[00:50:10] Yeah. And I think that once that switch is that's when we'll see the true switchover from how we view food and medicine and health care. Right? Yes. Which should be free. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to say thank you so much for your time today. Deborah, we're out of time.

 

[00:50:28] But I really do appreciate all of the wisdom that you've imparted with us today. And also, just to your candid tone, I really appreciate it. I know it's hard to be alone in a universe like being, you know, someone who is a whole plant based food vegan in Western medicine. But I think you're doing it beautifully. And I really appreciate your time today, Patricia.

 

[00:50:50] Thank you so much for having me. This is so wonderful. I'm so glad that you're doing this podcast. I can't wait to hear them. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

 

[00:50:57] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been speaking with Dr. Deborah SHAPIRO. You can locate her online at W W W a new view of food dot com. Thank you for giving us your time today.

 

[00:51:10] And until we speak again next time, remember to eat well, eat clean, stay safe and always bet on yourself.  Sainte.