Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Beyond Labels: The Power of Plants in Your Diet with Chef Leslie Durso

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

Chef Leslie Durso advocates for nutrient-dense, plant-based diets, debunk myths, and emphasize experimenting with cooking methods. This episode focuses on gut health, the importance of quality ingredients in salads, and balanced nutrition. Mindy and Leslie share simple, plant-based recipes geared towards empowering individuals to make informed dietary choices. To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep251 Leslie Durso is not just a chef; she is a culinary artist who has dedicated her life to the art of creating exquisite plant-based dishes that not only delight the palate but also promote a sustainable and healthy lifestyle. Wish a culinary career spanning over 10 years, Leslie Durso has achieved recognition and acclaim for her innovative approach to vegan cuisine. Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

On this episode of the Resetter podcast, I bring you Chef Leslie Derso. So Chef Leslie is one of the chefs that I hired to do the recipes for Eat Like a Girl. And I'll give you a little backstory on that because when I set out to write a companion book for Fast Like a Girl, a book that really brought recipes to the forefront and explained how to break a fast, explained how to rock your eating window. These are all big goals that I had in mind when I put this book together. I also really wanted to bring some experience chefs to you. And I wanted to bring all types of food, I call them ethos, your food ethos, like your

belief around your food system. I wanted to bring those all into the conversation around hormones. And so chef Leslie, as you're going to hear, is a master chef at the four seasons resorts. those of you that watched Bill Nye the science guy, she was also on his show. She was Leslie the Lab Girl. So you may watch this episode on YouTube and see some of the videos we did on YouTube as she has some videoing claim to fame there. And you might recognize her.

But where this conversation goes and what I really am proud to offer you is we start off talking about plant-based living. So now this is not to make anybody convince anybody to be vegan. That is a personal choice, both Leslie and I strongly believe. But it is to bring a conversation to bring plants back into using food as medicine. I look at all food through the lens of it is either building health or building disease. And one of the things we cannot ignore is the fact that plants have, help our hormonal health. So whether you are all in with plant-based living or you are

plant-curious and you just want to bring more plants into your life, this conversation is one you're going to want to hear. So we talk about just the definition around plant-based, vegan, vegetarian, but then where we ended up going is over some really important concepts that we need to know when we cook food and we want food to not only be yummy, but we want food. We want it to be medicine. And how should we look at that? So we go into, you know, salt, we go into vinegars, we go into oils, we go into pans that you use in your kitchen. We went through topic after topic after topic like this. It is probably the deepest conversation I have ever brought you on food as medicine and on how to cook in a way that amplifies.

that medicinal piece of food. It is, it is brilliant, and I'm so excited to bring it to you. So, Chef Leslie Dursso, she did the plant-based recipes and Eat Like a Girl. Eat Like a Girl is now out for order. So please pre-order it if you're listening to this before October. After October, you can grab yourself a copy. And as always, I really hope this deepens your understanding of how to use food as a powerful medicine and a path towards happiness. Welcome to the Resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

So I am so excited to have this conversation and just want to say welcome to the Resetter podcast. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. There's so many reasons that I think this conversation and all the work we've done over the last couple of days are just going to be so helpful for people. Where I really want to start this with is really understanding the definition. And I know you have your definition of plant-based, vegan, vegetarian, I have my own definition that I'm now using for myself called Plant Forward. Why do we have all these labels for plant-based eating? People love labels.

But is it like tribalism? I feel like it's a little bit like I need to pick a nutritional camp. Kind of, yes. And I think that I think if you take those labels away and you just kind of figure out how you want to eat, then the world probably would be a better place. But the easiest one to define is vegetarian. So a vegetarian is someone that doesn't eat meat, but they do still include dairy and eggs or one of the other in their diet. Okay.

Great. Chapter. They're easy to figure out. Yeah. Plant forward, or I like to call a veggie curious. Veggie curious. Is also an easier term because it's just somebody who kind of eats everything, but is looking at incorporating more plants into their diet. Because as we'll talk about, I'm sure, more in depth than we've been talking about for days, how important it is to have plants in your diet, no matter what you choose. used to have is your protein. And then plant-based and vegan is where it gets slightly more complicated.

So vegan has no animal products at all. So no milk, no cheese, no eggs, no nothing, no animal proteins. And then I like to call plant-based a little bit even more because vegans still have a lot of junk food. They eat sugar. Yeah, yeah. I mean, now it's actually like the best time in the history of the world to be vegan because there are so many great. products for everything. When I grew up and I stopped eating me at seven, I mean, the only non-dairy milk was a powdered rice milk that you had to stir in water. And it was like, it was not even consumable. And so now you walk in and the whole dairy department is practically plant-based milks, which is really cool. So it's very easy now. But so then plant-based, in its title,

is having a diet based in plants and not using the... processed foods and really trying to stay as whole real ingredient as possible. Okay. So that leads me to, and you brought it up. I don't know if I've even told you this, that we've been together now for the last two days, but when I was 19 years old, I was a competitive tennis player. I played on a college scholarship, and I got injured. And I have some pretty gnarly scars of like a surgery.

I had a fasciotomy on my legs. And out of that, I got chronic fatigue syndrome. And from that, I got very interested in the healing power of diet. And I tried lots of different diets afterwards and could experiment with what made my body felt well with and what it didn't feel well with. And at that time, I stumbled across a book. And the book, this is like 1990. And the book was Diet for New America. I know.

Can you believe we've been together for two days? didn't tell you this. That's bearing the lead. I mean, okay, so that was one of the very first books on diet I ever read. And I believe I was like eight or, no, I think it was like 10 or 11 when I read it. It would have been because I was like 1920 and I think we're like 10 years apart. But for people who don't know that book, he was the heir to the Baskin and Robbins ice cream. And he gave that up because he didn't like how the cows were being treated and he saw the cardiovascular. damage of dairy. And I literally read that book and went, I wasn't vegan. I was vegetarian. And I went vegetarian for 10 years. Wow. But I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah. And so over that 10 years,

I was like, what do we call, like a junk food terian is what that you probably could have called me. Yeah. Like I just ate a ton of carbs. So out of that experience, I realized that actually going plant-based, there is an art to it? Well, there's an art to just eating in general, whether you're choosing to eat animal proteins or not. At the end of the day, plants are where all of the essential vitamins and nutrients to make your body function properly and regularly are. And so unless you're getting those every single day in your diet, there's room for improvement. Right. So that's interesting because now we fast forward. So, that would have been like, let's just say it was like, you know, the 1990s, 2000, here we are

in 2024. And we, I feel, now, it's, I sort of always try to like look at nutrition from the widest lens I possibly can to just understand the culture and hear what everybody's doing. But in the last year, protein came out of the gates. And everybody was like, especially in the menopausal world, everybody's like one gram of protein for every pound of body weight. And so then I decided to jump on that bandwagon over this year. And in January, I was like protein. I was eating meat sticks and tons of protein. And I was just obsessed with protein. And it caused me to lose my focus on plants. And I gained like, you know, 10, 15 pounds. And I was like, what is going on? So it, it, there is something I feel like that we need to bring into the, the conversation that's more balanced.

Yes. And listening to your body. And I'm so glad that you have listened to your body and you say like, this is not working. This is not feeling good. And I have to change it and adjust it because I think so many people just live with these not just sitting in their bodies and not feeling well and not knowing that they can change it and feel better.

And so knowing that and making that decision is step one. And that's amazing. And it is also really listening to. the signs of your body telling you what it needs. Yeah. Because it is telling you what it needs every single day. If you just listen to it and get quiet. And I talk a lot about that on how to listen to your body. What are the signs and really kind of dive into that so that you know what you need to get? Okay. This is really interesting. I don't think I've ever had this conversation on this podcast, which is how do you know from a feeling level, not blood work, not the scale, not how you're

clothes fit, how do you know from a feeling level that you've put a meal together that's right, that your food system that you believe in is working for you? Well, the easiest one is how do you feel after you've had that? Yeah. Great. If you have a meal and you're exhausted and you are bloated and you're full, that's your body saying, I don't like what you just put in me. Right. And so clock that, listen to that, and then maybe don't do it again. Yes. But then there's tons of other too. It comes out in your hair, in your nails, in your skin, in your eyes, and your tongue, where you're gaining weight, acne. There's so many symptoms and signs that your body is shouting at you and saying, I don't want this. And here I'm trying to tell you I don't want this, but people just

don't get it because they don't connect that the cells that they're ingesting in that food are the cells that are becoming your body. And it's live food when you're doing like live plants that haven't been cooked, there's an energy in there. I think there's energy and cooked food, all of the food, even animal-based food, I think there's energy in all of it. And I think that there are good energies and not as good energies. And you really have to be aware of that. And again, how do you feel when you eat something? Really be honest with yourself. Not did it taste good. Right. The taste has absolutely nothing to do with this. This is only about how you feel and how your body reacts to things.

Agreed. Okay. So then let's say I'm like decide to go plant-based. Are there some tried and true like rules to follow because we just did a ton of videos and I did a ton of research on seeds and nuts and legumes? And I got to say I rocked my own world. Like I was like like we had this earlier today. I'm like hemp seeds?

Hemp seeds have all nine essential amino acids in it? Why are we not talking about this? So what is it, is there like, if I wanted to go plant-based, are there some rules I should probably follow? Not rules as much as suggestion. And my suggestions would be, first of all, eat a wide variety of food. I would say all of the colors of the rainbow, because every color represents a different vitamin that you're getting. And you have to eat. a very nutrient-dense diet. Again, whether you're having animals or not animals in your diet, you have to have all of those nutrients in your system at all times. And then past that, it is really about educating yourself. And so where are the best sources of protein in the world? Where are the best sources of iron? Where are the best sources of manganese and all of the things that your body needs? Where is the purest form of them? And a lot of people say animals for protein, but look at what we're eating. And the animal protein, the animals are a vessel for that protein. That animal, we only eat in this society, we only eat vegetarian animals. And so those animals are

getting it from plants. And so take out the middleman and you've got more pure protein coming in and easier to digest protein for most people. A lot of people that eat animal-based proteins don't realize how difficult it is to digest. The energy it takes for the body. The energy that it takes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird. You and I also talked about the oxalate lectin thing. And I kind of shared with you my opinion on it. And I think my audience has heard it before where I, again, I've studied so many different belief systems on nutrition. And when the plant paradox came out, I literally was the first time I just put my hands up in the air and I'm like, if we're going to villainize something that comes out of the earth, I'm out. Like, I don't know, like we've gone so extreme with nutrition now that we are making

plants an enemy and calling it a toxin. Yeah. Well, I think there's too many people trying to sell too many theories in my opinion. Well said. Yeah. I think everybody feels like they have to have their own diet, their own soapbox, their own way to sell you a course, to sell you a diet, to sell you supplements, to sell you pills. They have to come up with a new thing in order to sell you on it. Yeah. And instead, just let people eat real food. Right. And yeah, I agree with you. I don't think that there's anything that's come from the plant kingdom that doesn't have a benefit to you. Now, of course, there's poisonous plants that I don't want anyone coming after me in the comments. Yeah. There are poisonous plants. I got it.

But like you're saying, any of the foods that come from the plant kingdom, how can you go wrong? How can you know? And when you actually dive into the research on those, it will blow your mind. You know, like, you know, I've been on this quest to bring soy back because I think it's so important for women. Which is I'm the cheerleader right behind you. And you know where it came from? I'll just share my own personal experience is as I've gone through menopause, I was like, okay, so I'm losing estrogen. so I need to see what I can do to support as much estrogen as possible. And then that opens up the question of creams and patches. And then I brought a beautiful integrative OB on who I just adore this woman. And she doesn't get enough attention. Her name's Dr. Felice Gersh. She's in Orange County and amazing, amazing woman. And I asked her the question. I'm like, okay, how do menopausal women get more, more estrogen? And she's like, well, nature provided some. And they're called phytoestrogens.

And so she was the first one to help me understand. Like, we can actually talk about soy without thinking it's going to cause cancer. Yes. So what that then opened my mind to go, well, okay, then are there plants that help support progesterone? And then I found the sweet potato and I found chocolate because it has magnesium in it. And then you start to, I told you about, I had Dr. Lee on this podcast. I'm like, what can we do to support the bacteria in the gut that break down everything? estrogen and he's like tempe and fermented miso. And all of a sudden you start looking at the plant

kingdom and you're like, whoa, it's like a medicine cabinet. It is a medicine cabinet. But let me ask you this question. Now you've incorporated soy back into your life. How do you feel? Yeah. I mean, I'm doing a lot of things for my health so I can't say one or the other is like totally rocking my world. But I'll tell you that I have a diet and a lifestyle that when I live, this diet and lifestyle, I need, I rely less on my bioidenticals. Like, I just don't need the creams as much. I can almost get completely off of them. Amazing. And it definitely is a better pace, like a slower pace, but it was bringing plants back in. Yeah. That was the major thing. I know. So if you conspiracy theory, whenever somebody says, well, this study this, and I say,

stop, who funded that study? Right. Who did that study? Was the study on Ben or was the on women. Right. Break it all down. Unbox all of it. Get curious with all this information. Stop just saying, oh, well, so-and-so said this, so I'm going to believe it. Right.

Do the research. And so if you start digging down the soy rabbit hole, it's very interesting to see who funded a lot of those studies and why they kind of wanted it out of the American diet. Yeah, I say this all the time. Did you know that the tagline breakfast is the most important meal of the day? I do know. It was Kellogg's. Calogs. Calogs.

And like here we are like years and 50 years later. And we're like, or it's probably maybe like 40 years later and we still follow that ethos and we never question it. No. Which is crazy. Yeah. So, okay. So let's go and look at like, I want to break it down according to hormones because that's sort of this vein. And then as people will hear in the introduction, like you were a major contributor to eat like a girl.

And you and I have had so many conversations about plants and hormones. Yeah. Protein. Super important for the female body. What plants do we have that are packed with protein? Well, packed with protein. Almost all plants contain some trace amount of protein, which is a very interesting thing to think about. And then it's about building it up. So with plants, you need a variety of it. It's not like, okay, great, I can have a tablespoon of hemp seeds today and I'm good to go. It's about combining them. And so if you're doing a salad on top of that salad, bake tofu, put hemp seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, papitas, sunflower seeds, like really do a combination of all of them to build up to your number of protein, if that makes sense.

So it isn't just one thing. It isn't here, just have a steak, and you've got your protein. Yeah. You have to be a little more, you have to be more intentional. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But nuts, legumes, beans, seeds, all are packed. Even we were talking about like potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, all have protein and fairly significant. It's just the combination and putting all of the things together. Right. I don't know if you saw in the book, but one of the things that was really important to me and eat like a girl was to create two charts.

I put a chart in about like, here are some amazing resources for, protein and then I did it for plants as well. And again, when I was researching the book, I'm like, oh my God, there's so much protein here in plants. But what humans do is, and this is why it wasn't a great vegetarian, is we eat the same damn foods over and over and over again. And when I have sat with people who have been really sick, when I ask them, give me a list of the foods you eat, there's like less than 20. Yes. And that is, it is. It is. variety. You have to get into variety. And I really like to say, too, when people get in a rut and they're not sure what to eat and people say like, oh, you're vegan. Like, what do you eat? Just salad?

I'm like, no, no, no, no. There's only 11-ish widely sourced animal proteins out there. There's over 23,000 edible plants. That's crazy. Can you just take a moment to think about that? 23,000 edible plants on our, over 23,000 edible plants on earth that Mother Nature has provided for us. And they all serve a purpose. Yeah. And so the possibilities of eating plant paste are endless. Yeah. And it's your responsibility to have all of that.

All 23,000. I mean, I'm on a mission to try all of them. Yeah, I was going to say, I know you are. And I love that about you. When I first, you first told me that, I was like, yes. I want to go on that hunt with you. Yeah. It's the first thing I do.

When I go, I travel a lot, a lot, a lot, if you don't know that about me. And the first thing I do will go to markets and I buy everything that I've never seen. before. And I just want to rip it all open and eat it and research it and figure out what it is and what it does for me. And it's just, it's so interesting to me because the world is just so big and it's so full of so many cool things. So many. And plants, if you look at plants, they're actually different plants grow in different climates. Yeah. So like if you're, like, I don't know if I tell you the story, but our daughter moved to Victor Idaho. And the big thing in Idaho is Huckleberry Shakes. Oh. And I was like, I don't know.

I never had a huckleberry. I never, I was, I don't. Oh, huckleberries are delicious, but I never had a shake in it. Yeah, the shake was really good. Now, there wasn't a lot healthy in the shake other than the huckleberry, just so we're clear. But they kept saying, yeah, it's a big berry in this region. And I was like, we don't have huckleberries in California. Well, that's an interesting conversation about eating local and the importance of eating local

and what that means on a global scale. Because we live in Southern California. You go to the grocery store, and there's basically everything you could ever want from. from all over the world in one store. Yeah. And so how important is it? There's not that much research out there on how important it is it to eat hyperlocal. So do people in Idaho need huckleberries more than people in Florida?

And do people in Florida need more citrus or tropical fruits than somebody that lives in Alaska? Yeah. And it's really interesting to think about where plants are grown. own and if those people adopt to needing that thing more than anybody else. So that nature would provide a plant that would help supply a nutrient that would help with the climate. With that climate. Like look, it's Italians eat a ton of tomatoes.

And what are tomatoes high in? Lycopene. Lycopens. I was about saying lactans. It's not that. It's not lactin. And what do they do? When you eat a lot of them and help Italians are in the sun.

a lot and it helps your skin and it helps them tan and not burn. Wow. And that makes sense. So cool, right? God, nature's so freaking cool. Nature's amazing. That is insane. Okay. So that leads me to, I want to come back to this lectin thing for a moment because I have had to field so many questions about oxalates lectin. As I have as I'm sure you have. So I have a theory on it that might be helpful when you have to field the question. I think we have gotten, there's so much toxicity in our food system now that our bodies, our guts are becoming hyperactive to reacting to these toxic ingredients. So if you fast, if you go back in time, I was born in 1969, in the 70s, plant toxin, like you would have, people would have laughed at you. Peanut, peanut allergies. We didn't have

separate peanut allergy tables. Gluten free, nobody talked about that. Like it was really clear in the 70s just like eat real food and chemical-laden food like Twinkies and Ho-Hos. They were just starting to come out into the world. Now, fast forward to where we are today. There are so many toxins in food that everybody's guts are such a hot mess that now they're reacting to plant toxins. Well, yes, and think about how the diet has switched. It used to be you ate a ton of real vegetables and plants, and there were not a whole lot of allergies. Right. And then it's, and you just had a twinkier ho-ho every now and then. Right. And now we have completely flip-flop that the bulk of most people in the United States are only eating processed foods. Right. And they have all of these allergies. Yes. And so we need to look at that. Right. Is it the plants that are giving us these allergies? Or is it all these? these other chemicals that we're eating in all of these processed foods. Agreed. I don't have the answer for that, but it's something really worth exploring and looking at in my mind.

So my chronic statement is that one lens I feel like we could look at is that we're in an evolutionary mismatch. Like the human body in this modern environment is not thriving. And plants is not the problem because plants have been around forever and people have been eating plants forever. Yeah. But the physical, emotional chemical stressors are so big that the immune system's mixed up, the nervous systems dysregulated, and the human body is in such a crisis that it can't find its center.

It can't find its way back home. And so in that scenario, I mean, I actually think that's why fasting works so well for so many people. Because all I did is say, hey, why don't you take all this toxic living that you're doing and compress it into the small eating window, leaving a longer period of time? for your body to heal and rest from the toxicity. Yeah, yeah. And I will say I want to go back for just one second. I do agree with you there, but I'll also say because people will come at us and say,

well, vegetables are now toxic too. Right. And they can be because we have made them that way. Yes. We are covering them in pesticides and herbicides. We are destroying the soil that they're growing in so the nutrients are depleting. We are genetically modifying the seeds so that they're containing chemicals. We're doing all sorts of bad things to the plant kingdom right now.

And so it is your responsibility, the listener's responsibility, to know where their food is coming from. Yeah. And to know what they're putting in their bodies. Yeah. And it is a big challenge and it is hard. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. It's hard to do it.

No, it's gotten really hard. It has. Yeah. But it's also your responsibility to do it. Yeah. Because no, you are responsible for the form of your body. Yeah. This is your vessel.

no one else is, and only you can take care of it the way it really needs to be taken care of. This is why I always, I just keep saying that your health in this moment may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility. Yep. And then I love what Dr. Lee said on this podcast, which was, when you go to the doctor, that's sick care. When you go home and you open up your refrigerator and your pantry, that's health care. Yes. And so we have to start separating out and going into these nuanced conversations.

Yes. And it's not your doctor's responsibility to fix you. No. It is your responsibility to fix you. Absolutely. And your doctor can give you advice. Yeah. But you really need to know. We talked about this earlier. I have this thing where I say that all the answers that you need are already inside you. And you just have to listen and quiet your mind. And it is true. If you get sick, there might be a little light bulb that goes off in your head and you might say maybe there was some intuition and that that was a bad decision. Yeah. And that's a whole. And that's a whole. hard pill to swallow for most people to take that kind of responsibility. Well, we haven't been trained to do that. We've been trained to do the exact opposite. We've been trained. You're totally healthy until you have a symptom. And then you go to the doctor and the almighty doctor will give you the answer. Exactly. And it usually comes in the form of a pill. That's right. And it destroys lots of everything in its path. That's right. And then you have to put yourself back together. So if I'm going to look at

plants as medicine, I like this, look at, eat the rainbow. I'm going to put in their second, like eat the plants, have a lot of protein. Yes. Because I still believe we need more protein. I agree. But I don't believe you have to get it all from meat. I think if you choose, I told you about Stacey Sims because she is considered right now one of the top exercise physiologists and nutritional scientists for menopausal women.

Amazing. Beautiful heart. I brought her on this podcast and she is plant-based. And I was, it rocked my, she is an extreme athlete, like rocked. Menopausal woman rocked my world. Amazing. So I then, out of that conversation, started to look at all the amino acid profile of plants. And so I would put the second component to that is make sure if you're going with a plant-forward

diet or a plant-based diet that you're getting the protein-rich plants. Okay, then the third category that I would look at are the plants that feed the microbiome. Yeah. Now, all plants feed the microbiome. Yeah. But talk a little bit about are there some plants? that you like to use that feed the microbiome more than others and then... Yes, and the treatments of those foods.

We talk a lot about probiotics and about pickling and about fermenting and how those techniques can just make your body so happy and really support that digestion system. And it's so much easier than people think and it goes way beyond. I mean, people, when you think about that, think about yogurt, pickles and sourcrow. and there's just a whole world out there that is not those three things. Yeah. So, yeah, I do talk about that a lot.

Yeah. So you're focused on when you ferment these foods. And you're doing some cool stuff on your Instagram, like fermenting strawberries and grapes. Yep. I'm like, oh, my God, I didn't ever think you could ferment fruit. I hadn't thought about it. It's so cool. It's delicious.

But so that's been my mindset as a chef. And as a chef that didn't go to culinary school is that I've studied the, techniques and how people cook food all over the world. And then I've taken those techniques and applied them to plants and vegetables. So when I think about, okay, well, what do I want to pickle and what do I like to pickle? And then it's like, but what else? Yeah. What else could I do? And then I just started throwing all these random ingredients and pickling solutions and liquids and seeing what happened. And a lot of them are really good and really cool. So I'll tell you my full transparency, my number one concern with fermenting things at home is that I will cook. I will, I will

create some horrible bacteria and make myself sick. Is that possible? Look, anything is possible. But I always say to use your nose. Your nose is a very underused sense. And if you open something it smells really bad, that's your brain and your body telling you, don't eat that. And so if you are fermenting foods and it's all working, like take a little tiny taste or take a smell and just see where it's at. But it is pretty easy and there are so many resources now for doing it. Like you said, I'm sharing a lot about that right now. So there's places that you can go and resources and people that you can ask. Okay. And then that leads me to like my, and this is the way my brain likes to chunk things down because I'm always like absorbing so much information. And then I'm like, what do I do with all

this information? So this whole idea around plant-based living, I'm like, there's so much here to unpack, how do we make this systematic for people who are like, well, I want to live a more plant-rich life. How do I do that? So if we're looking at the colors of the rainbow, we're looking at protein, we're looking at fermentation, those being some really good steps, what is it, does it matter if I cook it, have it raw? What happens if I microwave it? Like, can you talk a little bit about that process because I've watched a lot of people. I remember this in my practice all the time. People would be like, I'm finally eating more vegetables. You'd be so proud of me. Every night, I put broccoli in the microwave. And when I ask what they're doing, they're putting plastic saran

wrap over the top. I'm like, no, wait, wait, wait, we need to back up a step here. Talk about that. Well, first of all, that broccoli will not taste good. No. Don't do that to broccoli. Don't do it wrong like that. No, but here's the thing about taste buds. If the first, the first, you know, the first Further down the rabbit hole of horrible eating you go, the less in touch you are with your taste buds. You know, it's really interesting to me is that that's the first thing that people say to me when they start eating more plant-based is that, oh my gosh, my taste buds are changing. Everything tastes better and more vibrant and I have to use less salt and this and that. And I'm like, yeah.

It's like you're giving your taste buds a break. Yeah. Now all of a sudden they get to enjoy all of this stuff. Yeah, that's amazing. It's very cool. Okay. And so then, yes, when you're cooking, plants, It does make a difference.

Okay. Yeah, what's going to hold the most nutrients of all the cooking? Roasting. Roasting. More than raw? Well, sorry. Cooking. Holding nutrients.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a professional chef. I forget the new, yeah, you have your lens as much. When you say cooking, I think about eating. Because when we talk about raw food, it's preparing and not cooking. Right. And yes, whole raw foods do contain a lot, the ultimate amount.

of nutrients for most of them. Okay. Some of them, like we just mentioned, tomatoes, the amount of lycopene in a tomato actually is more when you cook it than when you eat it raw, which is so interesting. And then a lot of people have difficulty digesting seeds from raw foods. So tomato seeds, cucumber seeds, stuff like that. And so it really just listening to your own body. Yeah.

If you can digest some things raw, eat those things raw. But if you eat something raw and you're like, not really for me, then... cook it or don't eat it at all. That's kind of the beauty of having over 23,000 plants to eat. You don't have to eat and like all of them. You can just find what you like and that's what works. Yeah, and go to the next thing. Go to the next thing, you know. So raw would be the most nutrient dense. For the majority of plants, yes. Okay, with a few exceptions like tomatoes, that was really interesting. My brain also thinks in books. Yeah. And I was like, oh, now there's a book where you're like, take all the foods and you're like, these foods, you get the most.

nutrient power. If you eat them raw, these foods, you get the most. If you roast them, these if you... Well, maybe we should write that one. I know, but the research on that book would be insane. It would be insane. But it would be so fun. It would be really fun. You'd get to eat a lot. You'd get to eat a lot. I would cook a lot. You would eat a lot. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. Well, as long as it was plants, I think I would be okay. So, okay, now talk to me, though. Let's go back to the roasted. So of all the cooking, you're saying roasted is the best. I think so because I think it really seals in the nutrients. Sathing is probably there too.

I was wondering about that. But then when you do something like Steen, like if you like a softer vegetable, some people do. I like my vegetable still very crunchy. But if you like a softer vegetable and I know there's a lot of older people when I was cooking for my grandparents,

they needed everything softer. But all of those nutrients, because water is a flavor conductor, get leached into the water. Don't throw that water away. Use that water for something else. Use it for cooking, drink it like a tea. You can put it in your smoothies.

There's so many things, anything that you would do with water, do with that cooking liquid. That I really got a hold of in the last couple of days hanging out with you. I am definitely been throwing the water away. I'm not going to lie. But I was been like, what am I going to do with that? I can see the tinge of color change in the water when I, like, steam vegetables or boil vegetables in there. But I'm like, what am I going to do with that? And I never thought to actually put it in a jar and then put it into a smoothie once I make a smoothie.

Yeah. Or the base of a broth or soup of some kind. You could just throw it in an ice cube tray, freeze it, and then pop it out, use it however you want. That's such a brilliant idea. So then if I put, roast it in the oven, do I need to put some oil over the top? Yeah. It would be helpful. It would be helpful. And it gives it that nice, like, browning color. Right. So it gives it like a little bit, a little bit of a crunch to it. That can be nice. Then we also talked, and this one I think is really interesting, we talked about when you are at the grocery store and or hopefully the farmer's market. Hopefully your backyard.

I was just going to say, even if it's your backyard, we have the most amazing artichoke plant. I know. I'm dying to see this garden of yours. This thing has a life. I will take pictures and send it to you. It has a life of its own. And this artichoke plant, you know, my husband was so into regenerative farming. and environmental issues.

And so when we put this garden together, he was like, once everything dies, we're not going to pull it out. We're going to let it go back into the earth because it'll make the soil richer. Oh, the way that it's supposed to be? Yes. So this artichoke plant is like gold.

And every, like, twice a year it comes back and it's huge. It could like take over our front yard. And these beautiful artichokes appear. And I always look at that. And if you let an artichoke go too far, And it creates this flower. It's flowers. It's so gorgeous.

And you know you can use that flower for a tea. Oh, no, you can. Yeah. You would just take the flour off and put it in tea? Yeah. Oh, my God, I hadn't realized that. They can dry it. But they are so beautiful.

I use plants and flower arrangements all the time. Oh, I could totally see it in a flower arrangement. Yeah. But when do I know to pick it? Like, I don't want to pick it too early because then it might not have as much nutrients. Just like when I'm at the grocery store, I don't want to take like an under ripe fruit because does it not have as much nutrients? Like, do we have any sense where the, the sweet spot for nutrient is, density is? Well, the best thing to do is to have it ripen

on the plant is the problem. But that is very difficult when you're at a grocery store. Yeah. And so they try to do things like sell tomatoes on the vine or sell oranges that still have leaves attached to them, but it is very challenging when you're shipping food, from further away. There's been studies now that the law is true. The second a plant leaves its stem or leaves its plant, so second a barrier or something leaves, it starts losing nutrients. And so if it's traveling for days week to get to you and then it sits in the grocery store and then you take it home, it hangs out in your refrigerator for a couple days, what's left in it? Yeah. We don't know exactly and it changes for every plant that's in the grocery store. And so,

don't know exactly. But yeah, the fresher you can get your food, the better. And the thing with farmers markets and why they're so great is because it's typically food that was either picked that morning or the day before. Yeah. And so you're getting something pretty dang fresh. Yeah. Yeah. But you asked a lot of questions in there. So it's not really possible to have a once over, like, because every plant is different with its ripeness and how fast it ripens and does it continue to ripen off the finer, does it not? Like strawberries stop ripening the day they're picked. They start rotting after that. So that's why you never see, like if you pick a strawberry that has a white patch on it, that white patch never goes away and turns red. It stays white forever.

Okay. And so like a strawberry, you just want it to be bright red and no bad spots on it and hopefully red in the center as well as on the outside. Okay. But that's going to be totally different from something like an apple, which you want it to be nice and firm, and, you know, you don't want any soft spots on it. And it's a different way that apples can also be preserved and stored for long periods of time. And so there's so many factors that go into it. Obviously, leafy greens are going to wilt the second that they start going bad. And so there's a lot. And then, you know, you have new companies like appeal that are going to be spraying things on produce. that's going to make it last way longer.

And what the heck is in that? And do we really want to eat something that's been ripe for four weeks, five weeks a month? I don't know. No, and that's how I feel about like conventional apples and bananas right now. Like I've been at hotels, like traveling,

and you're like, okay, I'm not going to get food. Oh, they gave me a little fruit bowl in the lobby of the hotel. And I go to eat it. And I'm like, oh, what is this? This is not an apple. There's like a chalky taste in it. Yeah, or the banana. What is that? Is that appeal? I don't know. We don't really know all the places that it's being used right now. So there is, this is kind of the Wild West on that. This is what makes me so sad. If you don't know what we're talking about, please Google. Yeah. So it's like a chemical that slows down the ripening of a fruit. So my understanding when we're picking plants and specifically fruits, but anything that comes right off of a vine is that they want to pick it green. So,

So it hasn't had as much time on the vine to get the nutrients from the soil and get all those vitamins in it. Yes, but then it lasts longer in the store. But it lasts. So it's an advantage to the store making profit. Yes, but a disadvantage to the customer. Yeah. And to your nutrition because now it's ripened in the store.

And so it's not ripening on like a nutrient, like a hose of nutrients. It's ripening in the store. That's a great way of putting it to, by the way. that the stem is like a hosy nutrients. And it is. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. And yes. So the best answer for that is to grow your own food. And I know that not everyone is capable of growing their own food. Yeah. But I always say like try and go something. Even if you have a tiny studio apartment with one sliver of light that comes in from a crack of a window somewhere, try and put a little herb plant there. Try and put one little thing there and grow something on your

own because even just the nutrients that come from a basal plant are so vibrant when you, when you pull it and grow it yourself and then eat it immediately, you can taste the difference. Once you've grown your own herbs, it's very difficult to go back to store bar herbs because there's so much more flavor and intensity to them than when they're at the store. And that's a really good factor. Another one is arugula. I love arugula. Have you ever grown arugula? I have. I have. And it flowers. Yeah. And we've taken those flowers and I actually take them off, like just pull them off like a nasturtium and put them in my salads. Yeah, yum. So good. But then you've noticed when you pick arugula, the second you pick it, it's very spicy. Yes. And then it gets more mild as the minutes, hours, days go by. And so if you're buying arugula in the store and it just kind of tastes like lettucey, then it's probably been picked a long time ago. But if it's still got spice to it, it's fresher. I don't taste any spice in the arugula in the store. Yeah, very rarely.

But you're absolutely right. When I pick it from my garden, it's super spicy, which is why I love it. Me too. So it's, and then I take those flowers and I put the flowers in the salad and now it looks really pretty and it's a beautiful. It's one of my favorite lettuces to grow. Yeah, me too. It's also very nutrient dens. Well, yeah, it's great for the liver.

What else does arugula? I mean, liver was what I was just about to say. And maybe I'm just thinking about this now in our talk about the, the, the, saving humanity from hatred, the organ that has, that stores hatred and anger is the liver. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. And the body is like, you know, filter. I feel like. So in a time when we got a lot of anxiety going on, a lot of pointing fingers, maybe people need just more arugula. They might. But truly, it does. I mean, it really affects your, your mood. And that's why, I mean, I'm not pro or con drinking alcohol. But a lot of that gets.

stored in the liver and it really affects the way that you feel the rest of the time. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I know. I never understood why meat eaters ate liver. Well, the theory is like, heels like. So that's an old homeopathic theory, a lot of Chinese medicine where like if you have the organ, if you have an alien organ, you eat the organ and then you get like heels like. So that part is really interesting. And, you know, the whole organ meat thing is fascinating because when you look to go eat meat, there's a, there's, same thing. You need to not just eat a burger or a chicken breast. And when we look at those foods, it's like if they're pumped with antibiotics,

growth hormone. Right. Like that. I actually had an ethos for a long time at restaurants that if I didn't know if the meat was organic because I eat meat, then I would only order a plant-based meal because I was, in my brain, I was like the chemicals in that meat or more dam. than, you know, anything I could find in the plant. So it's a really interesting when you, it's like, which lesser of two evils are you going to go? But when you look at the amount of hormone disruptors put in meat, that is of concern. Absolutely. Yeah. It's of a lot of concern. Yeah. So, okay, one thing we didn't get to talk about that I, and unpack is salt and spices. So something interesting about that. We did, like, years ago, I brought Dr. Terry Walls on this podcast. Do you know who she is? I don't know who is. Okay, so you would, you know, she's a beautiful woman who had MS. And she was, she's a

medical doctor. She got diagnosed with MS. And then they put her on all the trial medications. And in one year's time, she got sicker and sicker and sicker. And so she went and researched that MS was really a dysfunction of the mitochondria. And that if she could get the right nutrients to her mitochondria, she could actually start to get her body to heal itself. And so the first thing she did is she said, I'm going to have eight cups of vegetables every single day. And they're going to be of a variety of colors. And so she did that. Like for already. Yeah. No, I'm telling you, you would love her. Beautiful heart woman, too, like so heart-centered. And so she did that. And every day, she made sure that she had eight cups of eating the rainbow like you talk about. And within a

year she had gone from like being in a wheelchair to being able to bike and walk and her whole life was restored just from these eight cups of vegetables. It's truly amazing what can happen. I wrote a little bit in Eric, Mayor Eric Adams book, the mayor of New York City. He talks very openly about how he had tight to diabetes and he actually went blind. And his mother also had it so badly. And they're talking about toes and fingers. And he said no. And he decided to go full plant-based and eat a huge amount of nutrient-dense foods. And he regained his eyesight. That's crazy. That's in his book. That is wild to me. Yeah, that is crazy. The body is so amazing. Yeah, when you give it the right nutrients. Give it the right nutrients.

So Dr. Walls had something called a plant diversity score. Her original statement to me was 200 plants in one year. Could you get 200 plants in a year? And my brain was like, well, that's not a lot. We should probably get more plants than that. So I went to my community. This was like six years ago. I went to my community and I said, hey,

how about we all just count up how many plants we can get in one week? And so we made, we gamified it. Fun. And there was a couple of things that we learned in that process. Like, one, I think I actually got to a salad that I had put together. like 17 different plants in one salad.

Whoa. I love salads. And I was like, what else can I put in there? And so that was really fun. And then the second thing we realized is that really good spices are a form of plants. Well, spices are a plan. Right. I know.

So, but the spice that's sitting on the shelf that has been in my jar over and over and over again probably doesn't have as many medicinal qualities as fresh. Yeah. I think it depends on the. process. If it was freeze-dried and then, yes, that maintains a lot more of the nutrients than if it was air-dried or heat-dried. And so you really need to look and do your research on it. But it doesn't mean that those don't have any nutrients in it. Just the most come from freeze-drying quickly. Okay. Yeah. Are there certain spices you like to cook with more than ever? All of them.

What do I love to cook with? Well, I use them fresh and dry. I mean, I love turmeric, I love garlic, I love ginger. I'm Italian, I love basil, I love oregano, I love Heim, rosemary. I love smoked paprika. That's kind of my secret ingredient, a lot of my recipes. Oh, do you smoke it yourself? Yeah, I can. Wow. Yeah. Do you have like a, do you put it like on a grill or a smoke? No, you can smoke in your oven. Oh. You can put like a little smoking piece of wood in your oven. And just maybe don't try this at home if you've never done it before. Watch some videos on Halaldo it so you don't burn your house down, please. I know.

Don't bring your house down because you heard me say that on Dr. Mindy's podcast. But yeah, you can do it at home yourself. Safer if you have a barbecue, put a little smoking piece of wood. But you have to also be careful what kind of wood you're smoking. If it's been treated with anything, like don't just do this with anything. Right, right. Yeah, do your research and do it. So spices, from a culinary standpoint, are spices.

Spice is supposed to enhance the flavor of the overall dish, or are they supposed to add a new? They add. They add. So there's three things that, like we talked about the flavor conductors that will pull flavor out of vegetables and plants, and then everything else adds to it. So when you properly balance your dish with spices, then you're getting like this just beautiful dance of flavors in your mouth. And everything is working together and it's all perfectly balanced.

Okay. Yeah. Oh, God, spices. And then which spices. do you find combination of spices work well? Because the way my brain goes is that I'm like, okay, I can put cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, like the holiday spices. I like know how those go together. But then when I get out in the other spice world, it gets really confusing. It gets confusing and tricky. And so this is my, I'm glad you brought this up. We didn't even

prepare this ahead of time. But I do have a thing for it. And it is, again, using your nose. And so if you're curious and want to see if, would it be good if I added? this into it. I'm going to use your glasses. Yeah, yeah. For example. So if you've got isle in your hand and you've got garma masala and your other hand, which is an Indian spous. Yeah, yeah. And so if you're not sure if they'll go together, put them together and smell them together. Does it smell good, or does it smell kind of funky and weird? And if it smells kind of funky and weird, no. Yeah, because taste starts in your nose. Tase in your nose. It starts in your nose. Well, you actually, what did you say? It starts in your eyes. You said, you, well, I think you eat.

first with your eyes. You eat first with your eyes, you said. I really love that idea. Yeah, because if it's beautiful, you're going to want to eat it. And all of a sudden, you automatically have a more positive outlook about what's about to go in your body if it's pretty. Yeah. And then if it smells good, you're dying to eat. If it looks good and smells good, it's like you're automatically going to love it even more. So I can take two of my spices and jars, I can put them together and I can smell them and go, does these two smells come together? Yeah. Oh, my God.

So we also have a joke. Yeah, we have a joke in our family because the men of our family are the spice hounds. And I always feel like whenever I go to spice anything, I defer to them because especially my husband has taken on this real love for a combination of spices. And I feel like such a novice. And now you taught me. Well, I taught you that. But then also regions.

So spices that go together grow together. And so when you're thinking about Mediterranean spices and you're thinking about like basil and parsley and oregano, they all go together. And so when you're thinking about Indian cooking, like I said, like the mixture of the garma masala, it's the warmer things and it's the turmeric and it's the ginger and it's the garlic. And if you're in Mexico, it's the cilantro and it's the onions and the oregano. And so what grows together goes together. Oh, I love that. I love that. Okay, talk about salt. because we've also share a real love for salt. And why do people fear salt?

And there's so many different types of salts now? So many. Okay, talk about that. I have traveled the world. I have harvested salt salt all over the world. I've made my own sea salt from salt water and harvested it myself. I've gone underground into mines. I have harvested salt in Maras, the oldest salt flats in the world.

Like, I'm truly obsessed with salt. It's so I am obsessed for my taste buds, but I've never taken it to the level you have. And for so many years, I've been like, I don't think salt's the problem, salt's not the problem. And there's a difference between the salt shaker you're going to get at a restaurant and the salt that you're about to talk about. And yeah. Can you just, can you lay that out? For sure. And there's also a really big difference between sea salt and mountain salt.

And it's really important to unpack. that as well. Because sea salt is fresh from the waters of today. Okay. And so what do the waters of today have in them? Plastics and chemicals. So now microplastics are found in sea salt. And yeah, it's not so good. So but mountain salt actually doesn't come from mountain. It comes from ancient sea beds. So it's ancient seas that used to be there that are no longer there. And so then you can harvest and mine the salt from those ancient seas and what do ancient seas not have plastic. And so that's the way that I'm leaning more towards today. And then where you're getting your salt matters too. The way that it's mined, is it mined with C4, is it mined by hand? And there are different practices all the world. You've got to do

your research. And some places are not regulated at all. Like, I know a lot of people like Himalayan pink salt, but there's very few regulations in that part of the world. on mining salt. And so you really don't know what you're getting or is it being cut with anything. That's always a big fear of mine too. Cut with anything meaning like chlorinated like something. Yeah. Or adding in a different powder, different powdered mineral to make a go further. And I mean, I don't know if we can talk about brands and get specific. But I feel like we should because I feel like we should too. Yeah. Go ahead and talk about your favorite. There's a brand called Redmond that makes the salt called Real Salt. And I actually went to their mines in Utah and they're 800 feet below

ground, which is an experience in itself going down that deep into the earth. Was it scary? No, it's so cool. Oh, God. You feel alive. Like, there's so much just beautiful energy coming off of these. It's just solid salt everywhere. It was very cool.

But they have very, very clean practices. All the salt is mine by hand. And I just love it. And it's a very mineral-rich salt as well. So you're getting a lot of the other minerals that are necessary for your body. Okay. And that is well. And so I really like their salt.

And it has a great flavor to it from a chef's perspective. It's really tasty. So talk about salt as far as what it stimulates in the tongue. So you and I chatted about this briefly. But to fill everybody in my son, who's 22, is training to be a chef now. He's in a very nice restaurant working his way up. It's so cool. So he comes home.

And I'm usually asleep when he comes home because he comes home at like 11 o'clock. at night. But the next day, I'm like, teach me what you're learning. Teach me what you're learning. And he talked about how all the chefs in the kitchen go on these salt-free diet so that they could really help their taste buds be able to experience the full flavor of food. But then we mix that with salt, especially in high-end restaurants, a lot of chefs put a lot of salt in. And I think it's because it's that umami taste, right? Well, because something that is pretty salty is going to taste good to most people. And so it's a lot harder to make food with no salt or very low salt. Okay. I actually prefer to make my food with less salt in it because I want all of the flavors

and the ingredients to really sing out of my dishes and I don't want them to be covered up by any singular flavor. And I feel like salt does that when it's improperly used is it kind of just creates a blanket of salt flavor on everything. And so I like, like, when I'm making a soup, I don't like putting salt in the soup. I like garnishing with the salt on top so that you're getting the bites of salt, but you're also able to separate the flavors of the salt from the flavors of the soup. Okay. Yeah, yeah, it makes total. So it should be enough that it just kind of pops the flavors. Yeah. But I do know, because I love salt, I do know that if the dish isn't really satisfied in my brain, I keep adding more salt. Yeah. Well, you're doing that for a variety of

reason. Your brain might not really like what you're eating. Yeah. So I'm trying to mask it. Let's like, let's make this palatable and eat it so I can get it down. But yeah, and you could just really like it. And the more you have of something I feel, your body continues to crave it. And I think that that when you're talking about diet and we're talking about getting things out of your body and out of your system, when you stop eating salt, you stop craving salt. When you stop eating sugar, you stop craving sugar. When you stop eating meat, you stop craving meat. And the body emotion stays in motion. And so whatever you're doing in large quantities is usually what it wants to continue to do. Right. And so again, another reason to mix up your diet and have a

wide variety of foods in it so that you're always exciting different parts of your system and you're not getting locked into the same thing over and over again. Okay. That totally makes sense. Okay. So then what about, let's move on to oils. Another one am I? Yeah, I know. We've had. So we've had a lot of conversations. the last couple days. And if you're listening, you know, as you're listening to this podcast, you go to my YouTube channel because all these videos I did with you are there. But oil has also been, it's, I mean, each one of these things has its own road to navigate. So we do, if people aren't aware, like, hands down the Mediterranean diet has been considered. Yeah, it's been proven over and over

and over again to have such a benefit to the human body. And a large part of that is because of olive oil. But then on the flip side of that, I've heard, don't cook with olive oil, because if you heat it up, it turns into an inflammatory oil. Yes. Well, from the research that I've done in the olive oil experts that I've spoken to in Italy is that it's the quality of the olive oil. And so the extra virgin olive oil is the first press of olive oil. And that has a much higher smoke point than a regular olive oil. And we talked about this a little bit already, but you have to do your research on your oils because not all are created equal. There are so many tips and tricks where how to buy good olive oil versus it might not even be olive oil. Right. The easiest way to

figure that out is take your olive oil and put it in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, if it's solid, it's real olive oil, then let it come back to room temperature and use it as normal. But if it's still liquid in that bottle, that's not olive oil. Wow. Yeah. So if I'm staring, Like if I look at the market, there are so many olive oils. It's overwhelming. So I want to go extra virgin. You want to go extra virgin. Organic.

Organic. And you want to go, if you can get a single origin, olive oil is the best. A single farm is the best best. Okay. So if you get a Mediterranean olive oil, that could be olive oil from anywhere in the Mediterranean coming from any of these different farmers. and it just gets either all put into one vat and bottled together or it gets bottled separately from God knows where and they're just pulling it from everywhere and shipping it out.

So there's not really a whole lot of regulation except for that it came from the Mediterranean. And then you unbox that and it's like, okay, you get a Greek olive oil or a Spanish olive oil or Italian olive oil. That could come from anywhere in the country and it could again, it could be blended together. This is why it's hard to regulate and so other oils might be cut into it. you don't really know all the time. Interesting. And so, but if you find a singular farm, that all of the olive oil from this bottle of oil is coming from this farm. And it's this one harvest of this olive oil. And that's the best to get. So how would I know, like we looked at a really good quality of olive oil that I was sent, was gifted. And it said grease. Yes. So it didn't say it on the

bottle. Yeah. But I'm a big fan of going to the website next. Yes. We're writing to them. Yeah. writing to the company. They have people at all companies that are just anxious and excited to answer your questions. Yeah. So ask them where these things come from. That's a, I love that idea. And then once you find like a brand you love, like you probably stick with it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm also very lucky that I know olive oil makers and farmers in Italy. So you're like, you have friends. I come home from Italy with a lot of olive oil. My suitcase or I just ship it now. Well, where I want to go with you is to the olive oil somelier, your friend that's the olive oil. and like hang out there because there was a restaurant that I went to once in Utah that had all these different olive oils. And I mean, I want to say like 50 plus. And they would give you all these different tastes. And I'm like, I love that. I never realized how diverse olive oils could be. I think olive oil tasting is more fun than wine tasting. I can see that. It's so interesting. Yeah. Really cool. Okay. So outside of olive oil, any other olive or any other oils you love to cook with? I really like cooking with coconut oil as well. Okay. And,

How come? Well, for all of the reasons, it's got, it's a really good, clean fat and it's better for you. It's we can, I feel like this conversation is leaning into seed oils too and kind of like where we can talk about that. We can talk about a little, but there's also a lot of nuance in that as well. There's so much nuance between hold press. There's a difference between regular press. There's, there's so many differences in seed oils. There's a lot to unpack there. But I do really try and stick with coconut and olive. Those are my jam. And then every now and then I do some avocado too. I know you're a huge fan of avocado. Yeah, well, I switched to avocado when I started looking at the fact that if you heat up olive oil, it turned to an inflammatory oil. So then we just got

avocado oil, but you actually have me rethinking this now, like many things over the hanging out with you. And same. Yeah. I'm like, I'm really like, oh, good quality would make sense. Just like everything else. When humans have destroyed these amazing foods that we have, yeah, it gets a little complicated. So you have me really thinking differently because I love, love, love the taste of olive oil. Now, coconut oil, I did a lot of research on that because MCT oil is a small piece of coconut oil. That's how we bonded. Yes, that's right. That's how we bonded. So just to fill everybody in, I was at a retreat with you, and I had my continuous glucose monitor on, and I was eating all these amazing foods that you were making and I had a dessert that was a flowerless. It wasn't flourless,

but it was my chocolate cake. It was eating gluten-free. It was gluten-free because I wouldn't have eaten it if it wasn't gluten-free. And it was the thing out of everything you had cooked that made my blood sugar drop. And I think I even came and said, did you put MCT oil in? Well, you also were like, well, I guess I'll have this and that'll just spike my blood sugar. And I was like, hmm, mm-hmm. We started off a little... I know, you came back in your room and you're like, what did you put in that? I was like, MCT oil. Yeah.

So the story we probably should have told in the beginning, I'll tell it in the intro. But it was literally when I heard we were having a vegan chef for three days, I was like, are you serious? Oh my God, I'm going to go without meat for three days, but I was so happy because I had my blood sugar reader on. So I was just testing everything. You so badly wanted to prove me wrong. I did. I really did. And you so knew it.

It's just amazing that we've had it up here. Here you go. Yeah, but it was the chocolate, you know, cake thing with the MCT oil that blew my mind. Yeah. It was like, oh, you can take something that's technically sweet and you can put something like MCT oil with it and it drops your blood sugar. Mm-hmm. And that was amazing. Because food needs to be balanced.

And food combinations are important when you're digesting anything or eating anything. and how it gets absorbed in your body. Amazing. So the only thing I would say that I've found with cooking with coconut oils, it has a very strong taste. Okay, so there's two kinds of coconut oils. There's refined and unrefined. Okay.

And so refined is not going to taste like coconut at all. It has very neutral, zero flavor to it at all. And the unrefined is still going to taste like coconut. Okay. So if I am baking something like a chocolate cake or something that I really don't want the coconut flavor in, I'll use the refined. Yeah. But if it's something that I don't mind, if I'm making an Asian stir fry or if I'm doing

something and I like the idea or curry and I like the idea of having that coconut in there, then I'll use the unrefined. Okay. And then in that recipe, you use just the MCT oil, which is just a small piece of the coconut. Why did you choose to do that? Because it balances the sugar even more. is I also didn't have a financial budget for that retreat. And it is definitely more expensive way to go. So anybody that's listening at home don't feel like you need to bake with MCT oil. You can bake with coconut oil and get the same effect.

Yeah. But I was kind of on this mega super food kick that weekend. And so I was just like. With no no financial budget. So I was throwing in everything under the sun to make everything more nutrient done. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, we can. I think I also. put lines main extract and chocolate cake too. I mean, it literally had so many things in it. It was so good. It should be a giveaway for the book. Do you have the recipe somewhere? I mean, but are people going to make a cake where the ingredients costs $80? Yeah, that's a good point. Probably not. Probably not. Okay. Well, you know, I guess if you're, as you're listening to this, you know, shoot us a DM if this is what you want that recipe. But yeah, that's a really good point. It was so good.

Okay. My last group of foods that I would love to unpack are vinegars. So again, where I get stuck in the kitchen is with how do I know what vinegar to use? And one of my superpowers that I mentioned as we were videoing is I love making salads. And I love putting all kinds of things in salads. I always felt like when my kids were growing up, I could get all the right nutrients in salads. But then when you go to buy salad dressing, it's horrible. Don't buy salad dressing. It's literally the easiest thing on earth to make.

And the difference between homemade and storebought is a world's difference. It's so fast. It's so inexpensive. There's no reason to buy salad dressing. Yes. And it's so expensive and toxic. And yeah. So when I would get to the, what I noticed is I would combine three things for a salad dressing. Yes. I would put a good quality oil. And then I would need to find something vinegary. So I had like my options were basalmic, apple cider, or we have a Meyer lemon tree. Yes. So that. could be one. And then I would take a little dash of raw honey or even like some like apricot jam and I would put it in there and everybody would go crazy over my solid dressings. Nice. But the vinegar, I was. Did you do any fresh herbs in it too? Because that's my fourth necessary ingredient. So same is like a good quality oil, a acid, which, so a vinegar or a

lemon or some sort of citric fruit, a touch of sweetener and herbs. Right. Okay. So I feel like those four combination. The herbs in. And now I know how to maybe, maybe I could smell what's in the dish and the spice together. Yeah, you could do that. Well, yeah, absolutely. Or you're chopping up like fresh mint, like you're actually chopping the herbs up. Yeah. Like you're not going into the dehydrated herbs. Well, you can. When making the dressing, most of the time I will use a dried herb because it's what I have on a hand. But if I have fresh herbs, then I like to just tear them and put them right in them in their salad. And what do you have one? Yeah, do you have ones, your go-to ones? For salad that I love.

Well, I love a salon. I love cilantro. Oh, yeah. And it works well for me. But cilantro, parsley, basil, mint, those are probably my four favorite herbs to have fresh in a salad. Mint is my secret ingredient in salads. Yeah. Because you can't see it.

And then you eat it and you're like, there's like a burst of freshness. Yeah, I wondered about. Dill too. Okay. Yeah. So you would add, if we're making a salad dressing, you now have me thinking about the herbs. But go back to the vinegars. Oh, okay.

So back to the vinegars. There's a lot of theories on vinegars, too. And again, pure versus not pure, the price difference in vinegars if you just go to the grocery store is very great. And so what are you looking for? Like when you buy an apple cider vinegar, what are you looking for? I'm a Braggs fan just because they've been around forever. And that's it. Yeah, they've been around forever, but are there any key things that you look for besides just brand recognition?

I don't actually. Enlighten me. Okay. So for apple cider vinegar, you should be looking for a couple things. Okay. You should be looking for organic because we do organic here. And then you should also be looking for the mother still in it. So if you ever see that cloudy bit that's at the bottom of the vinegar in apple cider, that's a good thing.

Okay. That's not a bad thing. That's the mother, so to speak. like if you've ever had, if you get into kombucha and stuff like that. But that, you want that in there. If it's just crystal clear, it's been filtered and used a lot of the nutrients and it tastes sweeter for some reason. But that's what I look for when I'm buying apple cider vinegar, which is, again, one, probably my favorite vinegar for the base of a salad dressing because it's already got a natural sweetness to it. The health benefits are off the tour compared to other vinegars. It's insane.

It's insane. So that's what I like. I also really like red wine vinegar. Oh, okay. Why? It's just good. It just tastes good. It's not a particular health benefit. But it's your, but does it mix better into like a salad dressing? It does work well with salad dressings because you can really balance it. Okay. One of my, you know, you've had Greek salad dressing. That's usually a red wine vinegar face that's in that. Balsamic I like, but balsamic, it's a very specific salad for me with balsamic. Because, you know, you've had Greek salad. Because, is balsamic is such a strong flavor. Okay. That I only use it in certain salads and I use it for things that are more simple. So like if I'm just having raw tomatoes and herbs, I'll put some balsamic on it. Could it overpower it. Right. If I'm making a big, beautiful salad with lots of different things in it, I don't like balsamic on it because then all I taste is balsamic.

Okay. Interesting. And then would you put lemon in there? Like in that kind of? I would use, well, lemon is a strong flavor. but it also is not overpowering. Right. And so lemon marries really well with so many things.

So lemon is probably my go-to acid for salad dressing and then red wine, or then apple cider vinegar and then red wine vinegar. That's probably the order that I would put them in and the balsamic at the end. Okay. Yeah. Oh, my God. I love this. This was like a curiosity.

Every time I go to put a salad dressing together, I look and I make a conscious decision in my head. I'm like, am I going to go pick a lemon? or am I going to look at all these vinegars? And we have so many. And I didn't know the difference between them all from a taste profile. Yeah. And if you're going to do something herbaceous and you're going to have something like mint, you're not going to do, I would not do, definitely don't do balsabic. And maybe not even red wine vinegar. I would stick with like a lemon juice or maybe apple cider. But then if you're going to do like strong, really bold, or like if you want a lot of

raw onion in a salad, then you could go with like a balsamic. Ah, to kind of, it's opposing taste that will kind of like blend them together. Yeah. Ah, and I just need to hang out with you more. But I told you like everybody in my family is a foodie. And so you have to fight to be the one that cooks a meal in my family. That's so cool. Yeah. Except for here's the deal. The one that cooks doesn't clean. So then I'm sort of left like, I guess I'm going to clean. But I'm always deferring to them because they get, And salads are the one that I own. They're like, oh, mom, you can do the salad because I've knocked that out of the park. But I feel like after hanging with you for a couple of days, I'm like, okay, I'm going to get it back into the kitchen.

I'm going to show them I know what I'm doing. Yeah, absolutely. You do know what you're doing. And what we were talking about before, like the actual salad, there's components to it too. And so that makes a salad really great or not great too. Obviously, greens. And then something a little sweet, something a little bitter, something crunchy, things that are high. in fat, like avocado. And so like you really want to make a combination of all of the textures.

Ah, the textures and how you cut them up matters. So I look at a salad and a smoothie almost as through the same lens as if you can put as many healthy things into them as possible. And they will taste great, but you can kind of hide all these. Like I would, I would take sauerkraut and I would dump it into my salads. And my kids wouldn't even notice. And I was like, sit there with a smile on my face. I'm like, oh, we're getting some fermented foods. So. It was so amazing. So that also makes great salad dressing using the liquid from fermented foods. Oh.

So the liquid from the sourcrow or kimchi or even pickles make really good salad dressing. Oh. Actually, I just did a video on that. With my pickled strawberries, I take the pickling liquid and make a like a strawberry vinegarette with it. Oh my God. Amazing. It's delicious.

Where can people find that video in case they're looking? On my Instagram and YouTube account. And YouTube. Okay. We'll put all the links in there. Yeah. Well, it's easy because everything. is Leslie Durso because I'm not very original.

What do you mean? There's only one Leslie Dursa. That's true. Do you know that there's only one Leslie Derso in the whole wide world? How do you know this? Because I've Googled a zillion times trying to find another Leslie Derso. But it's a very British name with a very Italian name. So it's a very weird combination.

Yeah. I'm surprised to hear that. Yeah. I'm fascinated. Oh my God. Okay. Well, I can talk to you all day, but I want to end on two thoughts here. So we did over 100 recipes for this book.

Yes, we did. And what I want people to know is that what I love is you and I sat down and we started off with some calls of like, hey, here's hormones, here's food, here's how they pair. And you're like, okay, great. And then when you were actually, we did like a couple calls like that. And then when you were actually in the making, you would text me. You're like, what about this? What about that?

So it's just a, I love how we like melded our two minds together. Me too. So my question is, do you have a favorite recipe in the book? Oh, gosh. I know it's like asking you to pick your favorite child. So I have a favorite recipe in the book. You can pick a couple if you want. Well, there's a pretty killer lasagna recipe in there.

Yes, there is. I would definitely put that on the list of favorites. There's a couple really good bowls in there. Well, there's more than a couple really good bowl. Yeah, we did a video on the kimchi etymami bowl and then the Booda bowl was everybody's favorite. Yeah, the Boodable is delicious. Not to take it away from you, but. The Fetitini Alfredo, everybody loved as well.

That's a great recipe, too. That was so good. That's a fun one, and it's super high in protein. Yeah. And, yeah, it's just really healthy and delicious. It has a good one. I'm trying to think of the dessert ones, too. The date bark is really delicious.

The chia protein bars. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of good ones in the... I know there are. I know there are. Yeah, we did the walnut patte. We just about that. Great appetizer.

I love the Brazil nut salad, too. Me too. Because I love Brazil and that. Yeah. My first, when you turned in your recipes, my first thought when I looked over them, because I remember you turned them in and you're like, tell me what you think. And I was like, I don't, I got to try them. I don't know what I think. But the first thing I thought is simple, simple. You put such a beautiful combination of plants together. And then the way you wrote the recipe up, the way it reads. And then our interior, you know, our packaging team put these beautiful designs to these recipes. But you made it so simple. Thank you. Well, that was really important to me because I think a lot of people hear plant-based food and it's either salad or it's insanely complicated. I have to soak things for three days and dehydrate things and do all these things. I was like, I don't want that.

I want these to be really, really approachable and easy and fast and relatable. Yeah. And because I want someone to be able to do the full plant-based track or to do some of the meat, some of the veggies and feel like they can go back and forth. and still feel really good about their decision. Yeah. And it's very flexible like that, you know. And again, I'll mention this in the intro of this podcast,

but so much of what I wanted to bring together was the really highlight plant-based living, and you were the person obvious to bring that. And then, you know, I have a whole team of people that took all of your recipes and matched them to my 30-day fasting reset. So there's actually a 30-day program where people can just do plant-based mix,

with fasting. We taught, we show like what recipes to break your fast with. Like that I was like so grateful for my team member, Gina, who put that together. And then I wanted an omnivore track because I still see some benefit to omnivore. And I'm an omnivore, although I would say I'm becoming more plant forward because I feel better in my postmenopausal body with all that extra fiber. It feels like it breaks down hormones. So much easier. We could have talked about fiber for a whole hour too. We could have. I mean, that is what I think is lacking the most in the American diet is fiber. And we don't talk about that enough. Yeah.

On this podcast, I brought Mary Claire Haver, who is one of the leading OBs right now. She wrote a book called The New Menopause. I love this woman's heart. And we had such a great conversation. And when I asked her, the number one food menopausal women should be incorporating, she said, fiber. And it was like, I said, how much? And she's like around 20 grams of fiber. I don't know how much that is, like visually if I'm looking.

I don't either. Well, it would vary greatly depending on what the produce. Yeah. But it's a lot. I mean, really, every meal that you make should have something with fiber. And the good news is, is that all plants have fiber. Right, exactly. And so if you're just eating a lot of plants, you're going to get the amount of fiber that you need. That's right. And what's also interesting is because I've been teaching the ketogenic diet for so many years. And then I created a version called ketobiotic because what I realized when people went keto, like 10, 15 years ago is that they left fruits and vegetables out. Right. And where plant-based protein might have a place in your diet, there are so many things that it cannot provide for you. The keto. You cannot just eat animal-based protein and nothing else in your diet. Yeah.

Because, yeah, I mean, all of the essential vitamins and nutrients. That's right. And so it is, if you are going to do animal protein in your diet, it's so. important to have all those other things there. Agreed. Yeah. And with the keto diet that we always talked about net carbs. And so when I first started teaching this to my patients, that a lot of them were like, oh my gosh, I can only have 50 net carbs. But what they heard was 50 grams of carbs. And I said there is a big difference between total carb and net carb. And that is the fiber. And when you start looking at a carb through the

lens of nature's carbs. And that's what I call them now. And it's all over the book. I don't know if you read that in the front matter. Like nature's carbs, nature's carbs. Let's get away from human made carbs and let's go to nature's carbs. All of a sudden, 50, and I think I even upped it in this book to 75 grams net carbs is a ton of carbohydrates because it has all that fiber. Yeah. Which, again, the nuance matters. I've been training my following and community recently to understand that podcasts like this are, and my YouTube videos and my books are long format. Yeah. Long format content is where you can learn these things.

Whereas you can't build your health around a 90-second reel. No. No. And we need to stop that. We need to stop that. Anybody can have a reel. That's right. Anybody can make a real.

And who are they? Have they done the research? And I, you know, I'm still learning all the time. I'm always still curious and I'm very open about that. And I love that about you. And I just, anyone that's online pretending to be the end all, be all of something and demanding things and saying that's really just run. Run.

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. So the last question, this is a question I've been asking people all year long and I find it fascinating. And so I'm curious your answer. What is your definition of health?

Because we're all, we're all trying to achieve optimal health. But we don't know how to define. find it. So we all have individual definitions. And then how do you know when you're healthy? I think you feel healthy. I think everyone has that intuition to know when they feel healthy. And what is that? What are the indicators? And what does that mean? So I'd say for me, my overall health and my definition of it for myself. And again, I think it might be a different definition for everyone. I agree. Is when my head is clear, when my heart is clear, when my stomach is clear. When my stomach is clear when my whole life is working in one motion and everybody's on board with the same mission.

And then I feel healthy. Yeah. And I feel like I have the ability to take on the world and do all the other things I want to do. I love that. Because everything is working at its optimal level. Yeah. Okay. And then so your definition would be alignment of all of those centers.

Yes. And then, and I've had a few people say that it's alignment of different things. that makes them enlivenant of their lifestyle and their values, things like that. But I think it's, you know, one of my big pet peeves is health should have never been a noun. It's not a destination. It's not a tangible thing. It's a living energy that you constantly have to work at. It is a verb.

It is an action item. And I think what I just heard in what you said is congruency. And you said this throughout the last couple days is like you've been plant-based since you were eight-year-old. years old. Like, you like came out of the womb ready to teach the world plant-based. And when you're standing in that power, you are healthy. Yes. And that's, that everybody should have a center and a quest to do that for their lives.

Yeah. And when we're looking at a time when everybody's arguing about nutrition, I'm over here saying, where is your ethos? Where's your personal belief system? Yeah. Where does everything line up for you? Yeah. You know, you got to line up.

the nutrition benefits of things, you've got to line up your morals, you've got to line up your lifestyle. There's so much that you have to line up to create that diet that's perfect for you. And again, I think we both align on that and why we connected so hard is that we're just trying to empower people with knowledge to create their own. We're not trying to sell you a snake oil and say, here's the answer, go do it. It has to come from within you. Yeah, agreed. Oh, my God. I could talk to you forever. I love it. I love you. I love you too. I can't wait to get this book out. Me too. And, you know, depending on when people are listening to this, I hope they tag the recipes, tag us both in the recipes. Yes, please.

I love seeing that. And I will tell you something really fun when you put a book out. Like, you literally put it out, and then you sit back and you watch. And you watch the comments, you watch the beautiful reviews, you watch the pictures. And it's like a really interesting human moment to share something that you feel so deeply about. So, you know, some people, watch the Super Bowl together, we're going to get together and watch the luncheon of eat like a girl the dinner. Yes, I can't wait. I can't wait. So love you. And how do people find you? We've already talked about this. Social media. I love connecting with people on social. Everything is just Leslie Dersow on Instagram, YouTube, all of the social media. Amazing. Okay. Thank you.

Love you. I know, I love you too. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.