Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Eat Happy - With Dr. Mindy & Anna Vocino

Episode Date: June 2, 2020

What's grain-free and gluten-free that actually tastes good and is easy to make? Anna Vocino is an actor, comedian, voice-over talent, and podcaster. She has performed in numerous television shows, films, commercials, and video games, which is a good day job to support her real passion for being a home cook and food blogger. Diagnosed with celiac disease in 2002, Anna has made it her mission to create easy to make, delicious gluten-free, sugar-free, and grain-free versions of her favorite comfort foods, gathered in "Eat Happy." In this podcast, we cover: [11:40] About Anna's recipes [16:00] Why you should cycle in and out of diets and fasting [20:30] How our brains can have a temper tantrum  [31:00] Why you don't need to count carbs [36:25] Why eating real food is the only thing that works [37:35] What you can find in "Eat Happy" [45:10] How to make bone broth [46:50] About Anna's favorite recipes   Our sponsor of this episode is: Dry Farm Wines! RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:  Anna's Website Eat Happy Too Anna on Instagram Fitness Confidential We'd love you to review our show on Apple Podcasts.  

I am a woman on a mission that is dedicated to teaching you just how powerful your body was built to be. I like to do that by bringing you the latest science, the greatest thought leaders, and applicable steps that help you tap into your own internal healing power. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the power back and help you believe in yourself again. My name is Dr. Mindy Pels and I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. On this episode of Resetter podcast, I got to interview Anna Vachino. Now, if you're not familiar with Anna Vichino, you are going to love this woman. Not only does she have amazing energy, but she was hysterical.

And she is the author of a book called Eat Happy and Eat Happy Too. So there's two cookbooks that she's put out. Her story is that she became celiac and needed to find. some ways to eat grain-free, gluten-free that actually tasted good. So she came up with all these recipes that someone with celiacs or somebody who was going grain-free could enjoy and or easy to make. So on this episode, we talked about like strategies in the kitchen around eating grain-free and gluten-free. We talked about how do you make it recipes quick. We talked about certain spices and different ingredients that are key within a recipe.

So I had, and we did it with, it was such a fun conversation because she's trained as a comedian and an actor. She has a fitness blog that's called the Fitness Confident or a fitness podcast called the Fitness Confidential podcast. And she has an incredible website with a lot of recipes and great blog posts. So if you are looking for more ideas around how to cook in a grain-free, gluten-free way that tastes amazing and is quick, then you're going to want to listen to Anna Vucino and our interview. So enjoy.

It was really a ton of fun. I spent half the interview laughing. So enjoy. This is a really exciting interview to share with you all. Okay, resetters. Dr. Mindy here. And I have a really fun topic that I want. to discuss with my guest today that I think you all have literally been dying for because we keep

hearing get comment after comment after comment about what do I eat? Where's the recipe? How do I make keto tasty? And so I have brought you Anna Vochino who has two cookbooks and a podcast out and a whole blog on yeah, there you go. Keeping it casual. Soutually promoting. Oh, no, that's awesome because, as I told you in leading up to this, we don't typically make recipes. We need experts like you to bring the recipes to our resetters so that they can benefit from it. Happy to do it. Yeah. So this is beautiful. So why don't we start off with you this? Tell us your story because you not only have a food journey story, but you are a jack of all trades. You've done a lot of really fun stuff. Sure. As long as it's using my voice, I can do a lot of things. I love it. But if it's a, my daughter's a painter and she's in art school in New York City.

And she loves to have me draw things because it's hilarious because I'm terrible at it. And so it's a fun way to mock your mother. You know what I mean? Without really hurting her feelings because I know how terrible I am. I am, well, by trade, I am a comic and a voiceover actor. And in fact, I don't know, you can see the main mic is back there. That's where all the NBC promos are done. But this is a podcast mic when I'm feeling lazy and I just want to sit down because like

how much does a podcast standing up? Oh, no. Nobody actually does that, right? Some people do that I interview. I've seen them standing up. You know who did it? Do you know Naomi Whittle? They're probably like really fit people.

Like they're like, I'm doing the walking, which I should do. Yeah, maybe. But we are in quarantine. and there's a whole other level of, yeah, we're allowed to get away with a few things. Yeah. So I started, in 2002, I was diagnosed with celiac disease back before it was cool. And it was funny because my mother was diagnosed because she was very ill and she was 58 at the time. I was 28. And she was at her wits end. She had to get blood transfusions once a month. She wasn't making enough blood. She always suffered from terrible depression. She had skin issues. She would like fall down and break a bone so easily. And, you know, just all the, all the failure to thrive type of symptoms she had and stomach upset, everything. She would, she would get to throw up. Like if she had, you know what I mean? It was like a thing. And I ran into a girlfriend of mine at the time she was, she had type 1 diabetes and she said, I'm not eating gluten. And I was like, what is, what do you? What do you?

you mean? And she goes, well, I've heard that sometimes type 1 diabetics can develop something, another autoimmune called celiac. And I was like, what's that? And she told me and I was like, that sounds like what my mom might have. And I call my mom and I said, and she had to call her doctor and be like, test me for the, tell the doctor, because it just wasn't awareness for it. Right. And I'm sure if she went to a gastroenterologist, which she did eventually, there was awareness for it, but not like your general practitioner, family practitioner person back then. And so sure enough, she did it and she had the endoscopy and her villi in her small intestine were completely flattened from years of autoimmune reactions. And then she called me and said, yep, that's what it is.

And a lot of her stuff cleared up. And she said, you have to go get tested. And at the time, I'm working on cameras and actress. I was super thin my entire life. Food, I always said, I can eat whatever I want. Food goes right through me. Not realizing I'm literally saying the symptoms of celiac disease. I don't digest a thing. Yep. I am, you know what I mean? Like I... And how well do you take information from your mom telling you something like that? That's the... I was also like, you, yeah, you don't know what you're talking about. Right. I don't ever read. I'm an actress. Like, it's not that. I don't have that.

Yeah. And they're like, she said, no, it's hereditary. And, and, and what's funny is that I, I look exactly like my father. So I thought genetically, I must just take after him. There's no mom involved. you come up with these weird beliefs that like, well, that's most true. The truth is. And then, but then, you know, I got back the 23 and me and it was like medically, for whatever reason I have his looks and I have like none of his other DNA. Like it's all my mom.

So it's really funny to get that stuff back. So anyway, so long straight short, I'm diagnosed with it. I do two endoscopies over a couple of years because it was a little bit inconclusive. The second one was very conclusive and that I had it. And when I gave up. eating gluten, things started to clear up. Intestinal stuff cleared up. Allergies and asthma cleared up. That's really all that I had, but then I kind of slowly started to put on weight. And whether or not it was the first time I digested nutrients, if that was the reason why,

or if it's a confluence of, okay, now you're in your 30s, stuff starts to slow down, stuff starts to changed. By the way, I did this narration for a drug company. And it was about vulva and vulva, vulva and vaginal atrophy. I had to say that phrase like four thousand. Oh, no. It was for a menopausal something, it was like a cream or something topical that you put down there. And I, and I had to read three hours straight on paramedopause. Oh, no. And I was like, oh God. what happens to the epithelial cells. And I was like, whoa, it was like a reality check. Yeah.

It's like when you're pregnant. When they don't, they don't tell you until you go through it. And then you're like, whoa. Or would you read what to expect when you're expecting when you're pregnant? You're like, it's more like what horrible things to expect. Right. You're expecting.

Yeah. You're like, what is happening? So anyway, so I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I can't figure out like if it was me eating food for the first time. or what I think it is too is a confluence of the three things. Eating food,

eating a lot of carbs, processed carbohydrates in a more dense fashion because I took it as my life's mission to figure out how to make gluten-free foods that tasted good. Awesome. Gluten-free foods that you could buy

at whole foods at the time were disgusting. Yeah. How long ago was this? 2002. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I had, not to interrupt you, but I had a similar, I had a similar thing happened to me.

I'm 50 now, so it was 30 years ago when I turned 20. My mom was on a gluten-free. She was actually on a keto diet. We just didn't call it that back then. I know. But she was with a holistic MD who had told her to go on a keto diet. He called it the Candida diet. And so I got chronic fatigue.

And so she did the same thing. She's like, you should probably go wheat-free, grain-free. And so we did. But back then, oh my gosh, this was like, you know, 1990. And your gluten-free options were ridiculous. Very limited. I believe the things that I thought were decent that are still in the market now were like the Pamela's brand. They had like a pancake mix because they're also dairy-free, which then after my daughter, so I was 26 when my daughter was born. I was 28 when I was diagnosed. And by the way, I probably would have more children because I didn't know my pregnancy was very difficult. Like I threw up every day until I was six and a half months. I had terrible,

I just was miserable. And now I come to find out that like, oh, I could smell. I could smell something from like miles away. And I was just like, and now I know that like that's part of having an autoimmune. You kind of have strong reactions during your pregnancy. And if I had known that and had been gluten-free for long enough and had associated those things happening. I probably would have had more kids, but I was like, I'm never doing that again. How do people do that? Right, right. You know, we call that tipping the bucket. It's like you're carrying this toxic load around with you. The body's like handling the autoimmune condition or the toxicity or the co-infection. And then you put pregnancy on top of it and everything spills over. And it's like, the body's like, hey, I'm out.

Like, I tried doing this for you and I'm out. And then all those symptoms. appear. So that makes perfect sense. It was, it was shocking to me how difficult it was. I bled a lot. Like I, it was a mere, like if stuff was going wrong, I had the gestational diabetes.

I was spilling all kinds of sugar. And again, I didn't know about diet stuff. Yeah. So interesting. Yeah. And so, so when you became, when you became gluten-free, were you a chef? Were you a chef before that? Like, did you like to cook? No, no. And I'm not, I want to be clear, too, to the chefs out there

who've trained and got a culinary school. I'm a home cook. Right. That's where my perspective comes. I say, I say like chef in like plantation. I agree. I agree. I always say that to not incite the furor of the trained chefs out there. No, I always love to cook and I grew up watching Julia Child and I grew up with a single mom who did not have time to cook and I taught. I was self-taught. And then in my younger years, I worked for a catering company. And when, And you do that, you chop 4,000 onions and red peppers and, you know, scallop the things and make the salmon things. You know what I mean? You make the bread rounds and you're used to, you get a lot of experience in that way. And then I've always, I guess, just had this desire to go in and experiment.

And it really was driven out of necessity because I remember I got these cookies from Whole Foods. And I wish I could remember the brand, because I would call them out right now if I could remember the brand. It was a $17 bag of cookie. Oh yeah. No, that was the other thing. Gluten free went from 17 dollars and the bag was like this big. Yep. It went from disgusting to expensive. Yeah.

And I was so mad and like I don't know. I should have demanded to go back and get my money back but does anybody actually take anything back to the grocery store? Nobody really does that, right? You don't take me back to the grocery mostly not this day. The whole food, you're supposed to be able to take it all back. If you could open it up and take it back

I should have. Especially then when I was in my, you know, 20s and didn't have any money and was like, spent seven. I was like, I need these cookies. I spent $17 on them. And then I ate them and was like, yeah, the cookies are terrible. Likes and L'i, blah, blah. And which I know we're going to talk about the temper tantrum. That was my first temper tantrum. And, and then I saw a functional medicine doctor very early on when my daughter was still breastfeeding and I couldn't produce enough milk. And it was. so difficult. Again, something I didn't realize was tied in with having celiac disease or just at least having a body that's not functioning at optimal levels, you know? So I was making homemade formula and trying to breastfeed and get more milk going. And I bought some store bought. And he was the first guy who was like, no, you don't want that. You want this. And he also said to me, he's like, not only do you need to cut out gluten, you need to cut out dairy as well, because often there's

cross-reactant issues. How'd you feel about that? Oh, I cried and then I ignored it. And then it wasn't until five years ago where my functional medicine doctor here in L.A. was like, your blood tests are very clear. You cannot tolerate dairy. And I wanted to throttle her. Like that was, again, another temper tantrum, but now I am dairy-free. My books are not entirely dairy-free. I gave a lot of options for people. But I then slowly started to put on weight and figured out I want to not put on weight I want to be healthy. And I think the gestational diabetes was a very clear indication of where my insulin resistance was at a young age.

I was very thin and quite insulin resistant. And it would only have been a matter of time before an A1C starts creeping up. And so then I meet Vinnie Tortorich in 2012. And he tells me about NSNG, no sugars, no grains, which is a version of keto. You don't have to be keto. But I do it that way. I stay in dietary ketosis, 90% of the time. And then more stuff really started clearing up.

Then I had to tweak the dairy thing, and then even more inflammation markers went down. It's beautiful. But it's always a work in progress. And I tell people keep searching, keep testing, keep doing elimination if you have to. If you can't afford to get in and do a blood test, just do it, keep searching, do not give up. and because nobody wants to get to that point where they're like, I can only eat almond butter and kale because I've eliminated everything. You can find answers and you should never be limited that much in your diet.

I understand that we all have our different things, but just keep searching and find the answer. I teach a lot of diet variation where you want to cycle in and out of diets. I love it. You want to cycle in and out of fast. And when people first hear it, they get a little bit like, wait a second, I don't know, aren't I going to gain weight, aren't I going to get it? But once they get the art of it, then what ends up happening is

there's freedom in that. So because it's, you know, think about it. The idea is not for us all to like live in deprivation for the rest of our life so that we can be healthy. We need to create some variation. And, and I mean, this is why a book like yours is amazing is we need some good resources to enjoy life and keep ourselves healthy. I appreciate that. very much. There's still, if there's, I know we're going to talk about the temper tantrum, but just diet mentality in general. I think the thing, the obstacle, the resistance that I met with the most is the fact that we have all been trained by this diet industry, which is a multi-billion dollar industry to be subservient to their schedule slash plan slash

and not to make decisions for ourselves because that's how they keep us hooked. And when I realized that the reason why there's a variety of recipes, they're mostly keto, but there's some with almond flour that might kick you out of ketosis. There's some in there. My desserts chapter actually has desserts made with real kinds of sugar because I personally don't care. You can substitute artificial if you want. I don't care. I really don't care. Love it.

You do you, boo. You know what I mean? Like I don't care. But I put those in there. and it blows people's minds and they get very upset. And so the most of the negative feedback I get is either for the eight out of 12 of the desserts have some sort of sugar. And then they're like, oh my God. I'm like, are you telling me you're buying a low-carb cookbook and the first thing you're making as a dessert?

Well, maybe that's what they're. There's another issue happening. You know what I mean? And the recipes don't jump off the pages and make you make them. Like you're an adult and you're picking. But we're so used to having it be binary because the diet industry says, follow this six-week plan and you'll drop three dress sizes and drink the shake at noon and do the sensible dinner and do this. And it's all BS because we give up and then we blame ourselves.

What's wrong with me? I can't stick with it. I didn't volumize my vegetables enough. And therefore, I'm a terrible crappy person and a failure. And I'm going to eat my feelings because that makes me feel better than you gain it all back. Oh, I'm a terrible person. I better go get another 12-week, you know, fireburn diet or whatever they call them. You know what I mean?

I feel like we need a mic drop on that last one. That was profound. And I couldn't agree with you anymore. Like, we need to relax and have some flexibility and stop being so rigid with what camp we fall in as far as our eating style. Agreed. And I, when somebody tells me they're plant base, I'm like, great. I don't care. When somebody tells me that keto is BS, I'm like, great, I don't care.

I don't care. You get to choose. That's the beauty about being adults in the societies that you get to choose what works for you. And we get to change our minds. If you want, I'll be here. If you change your mind and you want some recipes, I'm right here. And I get to change my mind too. If I want to change my mind and rip all these recipes out and burn them, I can do it.

I won't. I love it. But it's a very empowering way to be. And I always threaten to write a book. I want to write it. It's called Hate Yourself Finn. If I wrote that book, Hate yourself Thin.

That's going to be the title of my TED Talk. Hate yourself thin. I would be a billionaire. People would be like, oh, all I have to do is hate myself and I'm thin. You know what I mean? Like, people would buy that. And I'm literally, but that's what they want you to do.

They want you to starve yourself. They want you to feel bad because then you'll keep buying the powders and the potions and the things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I always say that when we have an academy group where people come in and they start to learn the principles of variation, And I always say, look, I'm not your person to learn from if your number one goal is to fit in your skinny

jeans. It's just not, I don't think it's motivating enough. You have to have a bigger reason. Like, there has to be a different feeling that you want to invoke. Because we've been trying to fit in skinny jeans and make the scale look a certain number for how many years. And it's not working for most people. But let's dive into the temper tantrum.

I love this idea that when you go to me, make food choices or changes that your brain can have a little temper tantrum. And I think people don't talk about this enough because it even happens to me that I... It happens to every single one of us who ever puts food in our mouths. Yep. Well, here's the thing. I mean, I know that there are a few rare people in the world. I think Vinnie might be one of them who's really like, but even he's like, when he goes to Louisiana, he has his fried catfish. I'm like, see, you associate some sort of food. there is a food out there for you that you associate with comfort, that if you went back to Louisiana and you didn't have that,

you'd have the little mini temper tantrum. So what happens is that I have noticed that we all, oh, I'm so sorry, the trash is here, you guys, and worse, I live on a cul-de-sac, so he's going to come back around. Okay, good. Well, when you decide to give up processed foods, mostly sugars and grains, when you decide to give up these foods,

it becomes rats. okay, now I can't have ice cream. What else do I love? I love pie. I love chocolate moose. I love. And so you're figuring out ways to like, you think about these foods because those foods were your comfort. And then you get really mad and you have what I call the temper tantrum. And you'll either make a bunch of substitute keto approved foods, which is by the way, totally fine. This is part of the process. Yeah. Yeah. That works sometimes. Not needing the fake food anymore. You'll make the pizza crust. And I can tell what stage people are in because they're like,

I got your book, I made the pizza crust or the bagel rounds. I'm like, great. Because eventually you'll get tired of doing it because it's labor and intensive. I just fried up a steak and did some vegetables and now I feel great. You know what I mean? But the temper tantrum is a very real thing. And it's a very like, let me put it this way. You could often look back at your day on something that happened that made you

irritated, ornery, frustrated, sad, fearful, especially in this day of age. There's a lot of fear. We're all feeling a lot of fear. And you can go stand in front of your refrigerator and start to like pick for stuff. And generally that is coming from the thing that happened an hour ago, maybe it's five minutes ago. And you're having a temper tantrum right then and there. And you're not associating that that's what's happening. and you're not processing the thing that upset you. And instead, you're going to eat. Now, the good thing about keto is that it stabilizes the hormones,

so you're able to recognize that this is happening. And it's not such a, like, knee-jerk response. Cause-and-effect, cause and effect, you know? So now you have the ability of going, first of all, you won't necessarily want to go get in front of the fridge because you're not feeling that hunger pain. Right. So if you go and do it, like, oh, I just want to, oh, want to eat some,

almonds and crunch them in my mouth. You can go, oh, wait, what am I pissed about? Yep. What am I really pissed off about? Oh, that phone meeting I had and so-and-so talked over or whatever it is. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter. We're all humans.

We all get pissed off every day about stuff. Or we get sad or we get fearful. And if you can figure that out and go, oh, and figure out the situation, however your method is, if you're forgiving somebody, if you're forgiving yourself, if you're meditating, if you need to go punch a punching bag, whatever it is, instead of using the food to medicate the temper tantrum, boom, all of a sudden, you have this new, I call it a new fold in your brain, you feel, you know what I mean? When you're like, oh, I don't need food to help me with that anymore. It's being aware of it is what I hear. Yeah. It's like knowing that it's a temper tantrum

and being conscious, because there is a lot of eating that we do where we're not conscious. We just start eating. I mean, when we went into quarantine, I was like, like, okay, well, I think it's time to eat again. Like, and there was nothing other than I just was bored and wanted to eat. So I call that one thing that was really helped me and people don't believe me when I say this, but I carried a lot of extra weight around for many years. And one of the things I realized that helped me like settle in and just love my body and like love food is I realize that sometimes we turn to food for a state change. you're just trying to change your emotional state, which is the temper tantrum. That's all you're doing.

There's a lot of ways you can change your state. You can go outside into nature. You could call a friend. You can put on some good music. So when you label it, either the temper tantrum or I need an emotional state change right now, then all of a sudden you see that your options could be bigger than just going to your favorite foods that destroy your health. That's great. Yeah. And also too, just as a protective matter, mechanism, I don't bring those foods in the house. I can't. I'll go right to them. If I make brownies, I, well, here's the other thing is that back in 2002, I then started food blogging gluten-free Anna. And I was like, I'm going to make the best gluten-free brownies so that if somebody comes over, they wouldn't even know that they're gluten-free. Great. Well, so you eat it all. And you're like, I kind of keep making these recipes.

The people need the recipes. I think maybe I'm like seven. readers, they need them. I was making whoope pies and lasagnas and key lime pie and red velvet cake and all the things. And then, you know, just, just sugar bombs, grain bombs, sugar bombs, grain bombs. And also, I was a big believer in the, oh, we have to have heart healthy whole grains. Oh, we shouldn't have fat. I mean, I'm, you and I are very close in age. And we brought up, like, do you eat snack wells if you're on a diet? Or a bean burrito because it's less fat than a steak fajita. Right. Yep. Yeah, I've watched the gluten-free movement really shift because as everybody jumped on,

in fact, I can't even believe how fad gluten-free still is. How many places you can go and get gluten-free is quite, it baffles me. But now we've kind of morphed into what I call gluten-free junk food, where like, you know, there's a lot, just because it's gluten-free doesn't mean that it's healthy. And so you got to really sort of be, which is, again, why I love something like your cookbook, because, okay, well, let's make it at home. Now we're at least one step ahead of the game because we're not eating the processed foods out.

Right. So, okay, so let's talk about your cookbook. What's in? I was going to say, too, the subtitle is gluten-free, grain-free, low-carb recipes. Obviously, those are keywords, hello, to get people on the door. And I am a celiac, so I get a lot of newly diagnosed celiacs, which is great that people are getting diagnosed because usually most of us went for years without knowing anything.

but the gluten-free aspect in this is it's almost trickery in the sense that yes, it's all gluten-free, of course, but it's also grain-free and low-carb. So you're feeding your family these things that don't have sugars and grains in them, and they're like, oh, wow, we didn't have biscuits or potatoes or rice or corn or pasta or, you know what I mean? And they're like, oh, I actually got used to eating zucchini pasta. And then I went back to having regular pasta and it tasted like the box it came in. It's like, yes, exactly. Yeah, your taste buds will change. Your taste buds will change. Anyway.

So, yeah, so your book. So, you know, I think recipes, well, there's a couple of things. I have to admit, I don't have your book. I am going to order it. Oh, no. After this is done, send me your address and I'll send you a book. Okay, great. Thank you.

Of course. Absolutely. A couple of things that we find in recipes, like when we do a 15-day metabolic reset with people, and so people always ask for recipes. And there's a couple of things that I find. One is that people want to start counting carbs and that, you know, they're counting the macros. And then they're confused about calories. So do you have those things in the book?

No, I don't. They are a freaking nightmare. I just want to point out to people. They are a nightmare to calculate. You're my sister hero right now. You are preaching to the choir. Listen, again, we're all coming from diet mentality and I was the, I was anorexic when I was a teenager. I was a dancer for 14 years, ballet dancer.

And so I can count and starve myself like it's my job. I can do that. And in order to break down, and the reason why I'm so open about my entire journey is because everybody else is on a journey too, and it may not be the exact same circumstances, but you're going to relate to this. If you're a woman who's born in the 70s or 80s or even early 90s and you were taught to count things in order to control yourself. Again, it's about hating yourself because if you eat and you count and you do the thing, which by the way, we have some brilliant minds in this country who are busy counting calories instead of going out there and contributing to what we need in the world and sharing their gifts. And that to me is

where it's heartbreaking. So we're all trained and I have a loving and accepting understanding of this because I was that person. And it took me transitioning into eating NSNG or keto and not counting to realize that I could trust myself. I was going to say, I bet you got in tune with yourself a little bit more. It is a gift. And I promise you, and I say this very clearly at the beginning of both of my books, and nobody reads the beginning of cookbooks, because I've come to find out because I get nasty mess. Why don't you give us a calorie count? Why don't you give us?

And I'm like, because you're eating real food. And by the way, coming from an expert dieter, you know the calorie count. You know the carb count of fat gram. You know it. Yeah. So don't say, don't go. It's your job.

It's your job to give to me. No, that's your agenda. If you need to count, you figure it out. Right. My agenda is to get you to stop counting. I love it. Who's going to win? I'm going to try. I'm going to try to get you. But no, so people do get upset. That's probably what most of the negative reviews are. Where's the nutritional information? And I go of food. But here's the thing. I get, there are some type 1 diabetics who really do need to count. They're figuring it out. And I get that and I respect that. So here's a beautiful tool that literally anyone on the planet.

can use is Google. You can paste an ingredient list, one teaspoon, one teaspoon, one cup of the into Google, and it will come back with like three different nutritional databases, uh, counting of stuff. Oh, that's amazing. That being said, have you, just Google, uh, carbs in lime juice. Right. And you'll get back, like you have to then calculate the thing and you'll get back a discrepancy. So it's like, I always wonder, I'm like, do people even know. Do they even know? Yeah. No, we're, we're of the same thread because I, we, in this metabolic reset we do, I, I have put like, we've, we've done, we've run it around nine times now. And inevitably, there'll be a counter that finds a discrepancy.

There's only one. Well, oh, but each time. I mean, nine times. It's like, how many times have we done this? We have an ebook that goes with it. And people are like, this is off by like one or two grams and I know and I agree there needs I you know my vision this world they're in the Atkins two week whatever that starter Atkins we can have 20 and if it's 21 I have failed you haven't you haven't and that's I think that's the important thing is you if it is 21 you haven't failed and what we try to do is get people to get stop looking at the scale if you want to see it some measurement of how your food's doing get a little glucose reader and And then look at that and look at it. Are you getting into ketosis? What's your, what's your

glucose in the morning and when you fast? Super simple. But then people go over there and they become obsessed like they did of the scale. And like then they start getting so frustrated that those numbers aren't going down. So I think there's something really valuable for people to hear in this, which is sometimes you just have to eat real food. Yeah. And then get in touch with how you're feeling and then go from there. You know, Vinnie, I've heard him give so much advice on the podcast and one of the best things that he said that now I've stolen is I'd rather see people overdo it with real food. Just eat too much.

I don't care. You know what I mean? Eat to overdo it the first week to 10 days to two weeks. No sugars, no grains, but overdo it with the vegetables, the fats and the meats. I'd rather see you overdo it and overeat. And then you're going to get your body used to it to get over that hump. Because here's the thing what a lot of people do that I've noticed over the years. And they'll write me a crazy email or tweet when they're feeling their worst.

I'm doing everything right. I've cut out the sugars and grains. And I'm also only eating 1,200 calories a day. Oh, no. And I go, oh, no, you're going to fail. Yeah. Because the counting is what causes the fish. and the repeated need to go, well, I counted, I guess I better count better. If I just count

better, I'll be better at it. And I won't fail. It's like, no, there's no counting better because counting doesn't work. Eating real food works. Oh, my gosh. I feel like, yeah, snapshot. That needs to be your TED Talk. We're having a revival right now, honey. I love that. We're going to steal that quote and course give you credit for it. But that was awesome. Thank you. Do you see how I gave Vinny credit for overeating, but then I admitted to stealing it. It's okay. Vinnie's not here. He's okay. He's okay.

So, okay, so what categories of food, of real food can we find in this? Because, again, we have a resetter movement of people that are like, give me some recipes. I need recipes. Yeah, absolutely. Well, here's the thing, too, is I'm a home cook and I try to gear my stuff towards other home cooks. A couple of tips I like to give are if you need to make something quick, here's. Here's a thing. I don't want you to get to 6 p.m. 6. 630. Everyone's kind of rolling in and then you're like,

oh, God, I'm so tired. I don't feel like to make anything. Let's just call for takeout or get pizza or whatever. That sounds like our house. Well, yeah, that's everybody who has a family who's ever raised children or has multiple people or trying to, you know, or, you know, anyway, I would like, and this is not to say don't support the restaurants right now, do that, but we could have a separate conversation about how to do keto and support the restaurants. But for right now, for cooking at home, I want you to focus on anything that can be made on the stove top is your fastest bet. So for example, last night I made my lemony chicken thighs

and I didn't even have time. I forgot to marinate them. So I real quick made the marinade and put the chicken thighs and the marinade and the salt and pepper. And then I had a bunch of farm stand brocolini that needed up, cooked, eaten up. And I made no-nees brookolini, which is another recipe of mine.

And then I literally stabbed a sweet potato because about once a week we'll have a sweet potato and I stabbed a sweet potato and I threw it in the microwave and I put the broccoli on and I put the chicken in the oven and everything was done in 20 minutes. Oh, by the way, they were boneless chicken thighs. That's why they were done so quickly. Amazing.

Bone in takes more time. So, or, you know, make burgers or meatballs real quick or a meatloaf real quick. Anything, well, meatloaf has to be done in the oven. But anything stove top is going to be your fastest bet. I love it. The chicken on the thing, frying the vegetables. I try not to microwave too much.

I will pre-microwave cauliflower rice to get it cooked and then roll it up in the thing and press the water out of it. But stove tops your fastest. And then if you have an all-day thing, you can do slow cooker or even instant pot or big casserole, a complicated casserole. There's a veggie lasagna in this one. Oh, awesome. Lazzania is not easy to make. No, it requires a lot of components. and by the way, I'm coming out with Eat Happy Marinera,

and I just used it in my chili. And it's very convenient. So I am... Well, at least a few years ago, there was not a lot of marinera in the stores without sugar added. Now there are more, and mine will be one of them. But, yeah. They're just not good, though.

They're not very... No, no. This one is literally my exact recipe, which is in the first book and Eat Happy. But then things like, like this red and green, chili, chili, that's like a Sunday. Like, because that's got a bunch of components.

It's going to take more time. But, and I have to confess that I decided to break my fast early today, knowing that we were going to go on this. We were going to break mine right after this. I'm like, I know we're going to talk about food, and I'm feeling like it's time to break the fast. And you know what I want? I want to make hot dogs.

I love hot dogs. People are always like, what do you eat? I'm like, I like hot dogs. And they're always like, what's wrong with you? I had hot dogs and sausage. You would make it from scratch? No. I just buy the nitrate-free hot dogs and then I'll make a bunch of vegetables.

Yeah. So like, make them a little fancy here. Yeah, for like, that would be like a lunch. I would never make that for dinner. But I do love hot dogs and my husband mocks me constantly. Here's one that would, here's like a tomato basil cod. That just goes in the oven. Super easy.

Oh, my gosh. I want stuff to be simple and easy. I, uh, I, oh, on my website at anavichino.com, I actually made a quarantine shopping list, but it's really a shopping list for, if you're buying a week's worth of groceries, I actually went through and said, here are the different cuts of meat, here are the different vegetables to stick to,

here's some pantry items that you start with these, and then when you have more money, add in these spices and stuff. Because right now you've got to make do with what you have in there, and I'm trying to use my time wisely and create new recipes based on, like the, I had dill leftover, fresh dill and pistachios and Brussels sprouts and coconut cream,

And so I made a creamy dill pistachio, Brussels sprouts. I made, I had a pork belly that was in the freezer for a while. So I invented a tangy pork belly recipe. So all this stuff is either on my site or in the books or will be. I'm assembling a new PDF to sell on the site as well. So if you have a grill, we're coming up on grilling season. If you have a grill and you have somebody who's willing to man the grill, that's even better because you can split the duties and then somebody stays inside and does the

sides and the grilled person goes outside and does that. If you have to do everything, you're a good person. The other thing is you have your kids at home right now. Teach them how to prep stuff with you. Yep. Teach them, have them wash the vegetables for you. Teach them how to do this stuff because these are skills they're going to need when they go off to school. And it's funny because my daughter was the pickiest eater. And I made three different dinners for years. And now she's in college and she calls me all the time like, hey, I made this from your book. I made that. And I'm like, oh, it rubbed off. Don't tell anybody else. She won't listen to this podcast. But that's the skills she'll have for the

rest of her life. She always makes something, you know? So my daughter, we started getting her one of those food services. She's 20. And so she gets, she at the same age. Yeah. So she gets like, it's green chef as the one we chose. There's a lot of good ones. But what I see now, she's home right now is that she learned to cook. Like, you know, she got the recipe. She got the food. And so now she can think beyond that. I'm going to get her your book as well. She can really think beyond that. But I do think recipes are important when you're trying to learn that skill set. Oh, well, I was going to say, if you're new in the kitchen, follow the recipe, make it a few times. If you like it, obviously, keep making it. If you don't, then don't keep making it.

And then what I encourage people to do is, okay, well, I don't have least. but onions or garlic or green onions would work in instead. Or, you know, I don't have chicken thighs, but what if I made it with salmon? What would happen? Yeah. I don't know. Try it. And then tweet me a picture. I love it. Do it. You know what I don't have any meat? I ran out of meat. Well, what if I threw in a bunch of mushrooms? Great. Do it. That's awesome. Like I want people to feel empowered. And to me, my favorite messages to get are people who are like, I literally didn't cook before your book. And now I feel like I'm an expert in the kitchen. And that is

where my diabolical plan has come together. Where do people find you on social media? So if they make something and they want to Oh yeah. At my Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. I have an eat happy Facebook group. It's got like 7,000 people and there are a lot of very active people who are great in the kitchen.

So if you have questions, they're chiming in. They're helping. Oh, amazing. But yeah, I'm on Instagram. Eat Happy Cookbooks on Instagram. I love it. please tag me. It makes me so happy. I'm thinking now my diabolical plan, I'm sitting here thinking we've got like 30,000 resetters where we do once a month, we do different fast together. But there's always a water fast and then there's a fast

food choice. And so when I get your book, I'm going to decipher it and see if we can do like an eat happy fast, we call it fast training week. And maybe I'll do like an eat happy fast training week where everybody has to cook something from your. I know, it'd be really neat. And then you would get to see all these people. It would make me so happy. Oh, I was going to say the other tip that I really like is, you know, you have your steak bone or your pork chop bone or your chicken bones. I mean, provided there's not saliva all over them.

I only say that because my husband will pick up the pork chop and eat it like, I don't know, he's like a doberbin eating it. Like it's a caveman is crossed through to caveman and a Rottweiler. He's like, but those I don't say. But anything, save the bones, save the scraps. When you cut the end off the onion, put it all in a freezer bag, and then every week make a new round of broth. And if you don't have an instant pot, you can do it in a slow cooker,

and you can even reuse those bones, but make a broth. And broth is super easy. The recipe's in my first book, but all it is is bones, water, scraps of vegetables, preferably onion, celery, carrot, and then whatever else you want to throw in there, if you have any fresh herbs that are about to go bad, throw them in. You'll be surprised how it changes the flavor. I just have sage.

Great, throw it in. I just have cilantro. Fine, throw it in. Put a bunch of dried herbs, salt, and then put a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and close that thing up, make your broth and just keep it on it. And if you make too much, freeze in smaller portions,

because you can always either just, if you're fasting, having a little salted chicken broth, bone broth is fantastic, or you can turn that into an entire meal. Yeah. I love it. I love it.

So, okay, a couple of askable questions for you. What's your favorite recipes that like when people get the book, what should they go to? Oh, God. I like that question because it's like the Sophie's choice. Am I not the first ask? No, you're the first one. That's what I'm supposed to tell you. You're the first one.

No, I just want the Cliff Notes version of where I should go. I get it. I'm not good at narrowing down my babies. So that's why I, in the first book, probably the thing that people write me the most about is the cassidia casserole, which again just came out of, I made cassidias, you know, once a week, and now we're cutting out the grains. So it's really just a Mexican-inspired casserole.

It's nothing. But I make my, I've made for years my own homemade taco seasoning. So that's also in the book because I don't like what, I don't like seeing all those anti-caking agents and emulsifiers and chemicals and colors. And I don't want to eat all that. So I make it from home. And I'm actually obsessed with making my own spice mixes. I do it all the time. So you'll see, like, for instance, my Pittsburgh turkey chili, which generally I actually make with beef, but I put it in turkey because, again, a lot of people are coming at this from the low fat angle. So what I'm doing is getting you in there and then introducing the fats in another way. I love it. You know? So the Pittsburgh chili, which is basically a Cincinnati style chili, I have made for 25 years. And I like, I invented my own, because I went and had some. Cincinnati-style chili and ever since I loved it. I tried to recreate stuff that I've had that I love. So that's a really popular one. In the new book, oh, you know what else I have in the new book?

Is I wrote a cocktail chapter. Oh, a keto cocktail. That's awesome. Now, some of them are using fruit, but some of them don't. So if you're doing strict, strict keto and you don't want any fruit, I am using the puree of the fruit so that you have the fiber in there. But like, like, there's the how the pictures are beautiful. I take all the pictures. That's one thing I had to learn was how to take pictures. So thank you for admiring. Amazing. That was a thing.

I have recipes for barbecue sauce, for ketchup. And it's for the sweet. Here's the other thing. People say, can you invent a ketchup recipe, but it can't have any sweetness to it? And I say, well, that's tomato paste. What you're describing is tomato paste. It's actually true.

There are some recipes like barbecue sauce and ketchup that what it is is a certain amount of spices, a certain amount of tang, which is the tomato paste, a certain amount of savory and certain amount of vinegar and sweet put together to make that particular condiment. So I have come up with recipes for,

I have a bajillion. Oh, I've got, I've got cilantro green goddess, I've got Zoug, I've got ranch dressing, dairy-free ranch dressing, Caesar dressing, dairy-free Caesar dressing. Like, I've got a bazillion different dressings because most of the ones in the stores are crap. I'd rather you guys make them

from home. Oh yeah, we stop buying. Yeah, you can't really do it. But the ketchup and the barbecue sauce do use a few dates and a few blueberries. Now, unless you're drinking the stuff, it shouldn't kick you out of ketosis. You're using it as a light little condiment. That being said, again, people are like, but that has date sugar or has dates in it, oh my God. And I go, okay, well, you can't have it both ways. Right. You can't have ketchup without some sort of sweet because then you're describing something else and use something else. Do Franks hot sauce. Franks hot sauce has no sugar added.

Anyway, so I'm just putting that out there. And again, it's where we have that training of like, but I want to have this thing where you can't have the thing without that. Yeah, that's so true. It's such a good point. Such a good point. Okay, and then tell me where you've got a podcast, so you've got these two books and we'll link them in the show notes.

YouTube cooking videos. Oh, nice. Stuff. Okay. I make a chicken popercosh on the YouTube video that's really easy. to make. And all these recipes also too are at my blog, so you can download them and follow along. I have an asparagus Swiss stuffed meatloaf. And I love the recipes with dairy because then when we film the video, I get to cheat and have dairy. Oh, I love it. A cooking video is perfect. That's amazing.

Yeah, it's amazing. It's awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you for putting all the hard work in. As you're like showing me the recipes, I'm like, oh my gosh, thank God somebody did this because that was not going to be in my wheelhouse. I'll explain the science behind of why all this works. This is why I need to talk to you and I want to hear more science behind it. So I love what you're putting out there. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Okay, here's my last question. This is what I ask everybody who I interview. If you had one message for the world and it could have to do with keto or not, I mean, it could be anything. If you could scream one message to the world that is like really like burning on your heart, what would that message be? Oh, I mean, I think we've already.

said it and it's eat real food and then go live your life. I think you have a lot more to contribute to the world than writing me about an extra carb gram. Like, there's a lot more to do. And I don't know if it's your family or if it's your profession or if it's everything, but there's a lot more that we need to hear from you in the world that doesn't involve you counting calories. Go eat real food and then go contribute to the world because we need you right now. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. that actually brings me to tears, thank you. That was awesome. I really, because I feel so strongly the same way. So you are awesome. Oh, you're awesome. Thank you for having me. Yeah. I can't wait to get your cookbook. And I'm sorry we're not going to see each other at KetoCon.

I know. Well, in 2021, fingers crossed that we don't have 10 waves of coronavirus to live through before then. I'm going to hold out that we don't. Have you had anybody on your show yet talking about because I'm very curious about, I want to learn more about the coronavirus and people who are keto. And I would be very, I know that we don't even have science out on people who do have it. Yeah. You know what I mean about like immunity and people. I just dropped an episode today with Dr. Ken Berry. Oh, great.

Love him. Yeah, we talked about hyperglycemia and how that shuts down the immune system. So we had a whole conversation about why going keto right now is more important than ever. I'm going to watch that and promote it to my group because that's perfect. It was amazing and he really brought the science and it was a really fun discussion. So yeah, go, go check that one out. And that's on the YouTube? That's on my YouTube channel. It's also the whole. I'm a subscriber. Awesome. Thank you. The whole episode's on my podcast too. So you can go to iTunes and go to Reset or podcast. It just came out today. So, okay. You're amazing. Thank you, Anna.

And I hope our paths cross someday soon in person. They will. They will. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. You put foods out, you put organ, you shake bad toxins out. That's what it's all about. You put fast cycling in fast types out. You download Carp Manager where your food is all graft out. That's what it's all up.

That's what resetting is all.