PLANTSTRONG Podcast

Today, we dive deep into the world of fast food ingredients and their impact on health. Our guest for today is Mel Weinstein, a former food chemist who has spent decades studying industrial foods and additives.

Mel and Rip discuss a variety of eye-opening topics related to fast food ingredients, how they end up in our food system, and the impacts they have on our health. 

You'll learn about:

• Mel’s personal journey to food chemistry, vegetarianism, and eventually veganism

• All cornfields are not the same! How field corn, or dent corn, differs from the sweet corn we buy at grocery stores.

• How this dent corn is grown and processed to create various products and components like starch, oil, protein, and fiber.

• The government's role in regulating the food industry and how this later influenced the creation of dietary guidelines.

• What the food manufacturing companies did to resist these recommendations and drastically alter the food industry (and our health). 

• The rise of fat-free products loaded with sugar and the unintended consequences of Olestra, an indigestible fat-like substance, as a response to the government's push to reduce fat in foods.

• Why it’s difficult for consumers to know what they are eating when dining out in restaurants.

• The ridiculous amount of ingredients found in common meals at places like Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Pizza Hut. 

• Mel’s Processed Food Index (PFI) and what makes something lightly processed vs. extremely processed, or industrialized.

• What are some of these “Ingredients” commonly found in food products, such as azodicarbonamide, natural flavors, hydrogenated soybean oil, methylcellulose, pea protein isolates, and soy protein isolates, and do they get the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” from Mel?

• What about carrageenan, alternatives like xanthan gum and enzymes, wheat gluten, and the industrialization of citric acid?

• Should we "fear our food?!"

We know fast food is, for the most part, crap, but what we didn’t realize is just how bad some of it really is. Not surprisingly, the food industry doesn’t want us to know what’s really in that fried chicken or juicy burger, but thanks to Mel we’re inspired and educated to drive right on past that drive-thru.

Episode Resources

Episode Webpage

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube

Order Fast Food Ingredients Revealed

Food Labels Revealed Podcast

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our all-new pancake and waffle mixes, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - use code: STARTFRESH to receive free two weeks

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, and delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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About Mel Weinstein

Mel Weinstein is a retired chemist living in Central Illinois. In his professional career, he taught chemistry for 10 years at the community college level, worked as an analytical chemist for over 20 years in a research center for a multinational food ingredients company, and studied food science at the graduate level. Since his early 20's, he has had a fascination with the constituents of industrial foods, exploring the purpose of additives and their impact on health. In 2016, he started an online podcast called "Food Labels Revealed" to share with consumers his knowledge of food ingredients, their history, and potential problems associated with diets high in hyper-processed foods.

In studying the myriad additives found in commercial foods, he eventually posed the question, "Do fast foods contain the same additives as found in packaged foods on grocery store shelves?" To answer this question, he researched menu items in various fast-food restaurants. The results of the research led to the writing of this book, Fast Food Ingredients Revealed. Mr. Weinstein sincerely hopes that in reading this book consumers will gain a better understanding of what they are eating when they are lured into fast food restaurants promising fantastic smells, tastes, and textures invented by very creative food scientists and engineers.

Jackie Akerberg is the creator of Jackfruitful Kitchen, a popular food blog devoted to simple, healthy, and delicious plant-based meals using minimally processed ingredients.

She's also the author of, The Clean Vegan Cookbook, which features over 60 whole-food, plant-based recipes that will satisfy every craving. (And when you see the gigantic burger on the cover of her book, you’ll see what we mean.)

Jackie grew up in a healthy household and learned to appreciate fresh food and cooking at a young age because her parents owned a successful catering company.

Never one for meat, she cut out eggs and dairy and turned fully to plants as a solution to her own health and digestion problems. Today, she creates content to show that clean vegan food can be nutritious, delicious, and full of flavor. 

Today, she and Rip dig into several of her recipes and discuss:

• Growing up in Iowa with homemade meals from her parents

• Why she decided to cut out all animal products

• The void she saw in the cookbook space and how “The Clean Vegan Cookbook” came to be

• How she enhances her gluten-free recipes with cauliflower rice, zucchini, and other vegetables

• The wonders of jackfruit as a “meat replacement”

• Using tofu in pancakes?!

• How she impresses the biggest meat lovers with her recipes including chilis, burgers, pastas, tacos, and more.

   

I feel like sometimes people think clean or healthy vegan eating has to be restrictive or flavorless or doesn't have that satisfying, umami, texture or taste or flavor. And I wanted to show people that it can."

About Jackie Akerberg

Jackfruitful Kitchen provides delicious, easy-to-follow, vegan and gluten-free recipes to help make healthy cooking and meal planning a breeze. These balanced plant-based recipes will nourish your body and help you look and feel your very best. Jackfruitful Kitchen recipes are crafted with pure whole foods and organic ingredients that are good for you and good for the planet.

The name “jackfruitful kitchen” was inspired by four different parts: 1. My first name (Jackie) 2. One of my favorite ingredients for vegan cooking (Jackfruit) 3. The ability to be full and satisfied by eating clean, whole, plant-based food 4. The goal to live a more fruitful life.

Episode Resources

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube

Order The Clean Vegan Cookbook

Jackfuitful.com

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our all-new pancake and waffle mixes, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - use code: STARTFRESH to receive free two weeks

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, and delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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This week, we're busting down the barriers to habit change, especially your food and lifestyle habits.

 Cyd Notter has been a vegetarian since 1991, but it wasn’t until 1999 when she turned fully to a whole food, plant-based diet, that her life and career took off. She's been skyrocketing on plants ever since.

 Today, she’s 67 years old and thriving as a busy health and nutrition coach, writer, and speaker. She holds just about every plant-based certification on the planet and works each day to educate and inspire others - what a true calling!

Because Cyd works a lot with people who are just learning the “how-tos” of a whole food, plant-based, oil-free lifestyle, she and Rip center their discussion around some of the biggest barriers to making this change.

They address:

• Blind or willful ignorance

•  Fear of change - fear of failure, out of your comfort zone, changes in your routine

• Avoidance of short-term pain and inconvenience

• Ingrained habits that are hard to break

• False perceptions about being plant-based

• Denial of health issues or insistence that a change isn’t necessary

• Pride (or rebellion)

• Family and social pressure

• Emotional eating

• Spiritual attack on our values

Every one of these is important to get out on the table and discuss because, no matter what change you’re trying to make, you will run up against these and other obstacles.

The biggest question is how you’ll respond and Cyd coaches you (and her clients) through every difficult scenario to ensure that you are equipped to make the healthiest possible choice.

About Cyd Notter

Cyd Notter is a Center for Nutrition Studies PBNC Certified Professional, a past newspaper columnist, and an instructor for several dietary therapy courses, including The Starch Solution, Food Over Medicine, and Women’s Health. She’s also the author of the award-winning book, The “Plan A” Diet: Combining Whole Food, Plant Based Nutrition with the Timeless Wisdom of Scripture.

Cyd offers a variety of health and cooking classes, hosts a monthly “Inflammation Support Group” for PBNSG.org, provides nutritional coaching on both individual and corporate levels, speaks to local groups, and has worked with school district employees and a hospital’s fitness center. Cyd also served as a Certified Health Educator for many years for Wellness Forum Health.

Episode Resources

Episode Webpage

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube

Learn more about The Plan A Diet

Cyd Notter’s Website - https://cydnotter.com/

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our all-new pancake and waffle mixes, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - use code: STARTFRESH to receive free two weeks

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, and delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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Drs. Matthew Lederman and Alona Pulde pioneered the medical program that was used in the film, Forks Over Knives, and after the popularity of that groundbreaking film, they went on to co-author multiple books including The Forks Over Knives Plan, The Forks Over Knives Cookbook, Forks Over Knives Family and the Whole Foods Diet with former Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey. 

Today, we discuss their latest book Wellness to Wonderful: 9 PILLARS FOR LIVING HEALTHIER, LONGER, AND WITH GREATER JOY. Through a comprehensive and beautiful combination of Eastern, Western, and lifestyle medicine practices, Matt and Alona work with their patients to help them wake up every day thinking, “My life is wonderful.”

They do this through private sessions, support groups, and courses on nutrition, nonviolent verbal communication (or NVC), spirituality, weight loss, and more. This isn’t your average 10-minute doctor's appointment. Wellness to Wonderful is a complete life paradigm shift for you and your family.

Their book’s nine fundamental pillars of health include: self, nutrition, activity, play, sleep, family & friends, work, spirituality, and the natural world, but we focus much of our conversation around non-violent communication and family connection because we at PLANTSTRONG truly believe that communication and connection is KEY to a wonderful life. 

Episode Resources

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube

Order Wellness to Wonderful

WeHeal.Health - Connect with Drs. Pulde and Lederman on all of their classes and programs

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our all-new chilis, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - use code: STARTFRESH to receive free two weeks

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, and delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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My guest today is Kiki Nelson, but you may know her best as Plantiful Kiki. Her book, Plantifully Lean is turning heads, but what turned my attention to Kiki was her transparent health and weight loss journey.

As a young adult, Kiki struggled with her weight and suffered all of the ill consequences as a result - high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, hormonal imbalances, lack of energy - and none of this was optimal for a young Mom of two active children.

Two things really moved the needle for Kiki - and they are the cornerstone of the work she does today. She found simple whole food, plant-based nutrition and did (and still does) a lot of work around self-compassion, forgiveness, and self-love. 

The results? In a little over a year, she lost 70 pounds and reversed those lifestyle diseases that were only going to progress. It’s a remarkable story of someone willing to believe that they are worth the work and she shares that work with all of us. 

Rip and Kiki discuss:

• The ups and downs of yo-yo dieting

• What turned Kiki onto plant-based nutrition

• The lecture from Jeff Novick that changed everything for her

• Why she loves carbs and doesn’t avoid them

• How she divides her plate for optimum nutrition and satiety

• The way she cooks as a Mom of two

• How she leaned into self-love and compassion in her journey

• Why she wrote Plantifiully Lean and is so transparent on social media about her weight loss journey

• A few of the “Firefighter-approved” recipes she created from her book.

Today, you can find her on her social media channels dishing up plenty of recipes and inspiration, and you can find her book Plantifully Lean on bookshelves now.

Episode Resources

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube

Order Plantifully Lean

Plantiful Kiki’s website - https://plantifulkiki.com/

Follow Kiki on Instagram - @plantifulkiki

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our all new chilis, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - use code: STARTFRESH to receive free two weeks

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, and delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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We joke today that there are three things that plant-based eaters must face – death, taxes, and the dreaded question, “Where Do You Get Your Protein?!”

Well, today, we tackle the ever-popular topic of protein with two of the authors of a recent book, Plant Powered Protein.

Vesanto Melina and Cory Davis dispel the myths and misconceptions about plant-based protein - and - (and this is the part we love) make the science understandable and digestible.

Let’s put to rest that you can’t get enough protein at various stages of life including pregnancy, infancy, childhood, adulthood, your senior years, and even for the athlete population.

You can get plenty of protein and this book shows you how with easy-to-follow protein recommendations and recipes so that you never feel deprived or deficient.

Let’s also put to rest those myths that plant protein is somehow weaker or not complete. Whole food plant-based sources of protein are not only superior to our animal sources, but also have a  lighter carbon footprint and the ability to reduce the risk of chronic diseases. It’s time to eat strong food.

Episode Resources

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube

Order Plant Powered Protein

Plant Powered Protein Website with more resources

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our all new chilis, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - use code: STARTFRESH to receive free two weeks

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, and delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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Sgt. Vegan, Bill Muir, has always had a “think outside the box” attitude – from being a straight-edge punk rocker to going vegan in 1992, and then joining the military just after 9/11 where he served as a US Army Paratrooper.

And all of this - YES - as a hardcore vegan. Needless to say, it wasn’t easy, but he was (and is) so convicted and grounded in his values that he made it work.

Today, Sgt. Vegan chats with Rip about:

• How he became a hardcore straight-edge vegan

• Why he joined the military to give back

• How he made it through basic training as a vegan

• What it took to procure his own food and remain grounded in his values

• Why he’ll never eat chili again and what he eats these days

Today, he is a Registered Nurse at a VA Hospital in LA, where he continues to stand up for those who need assistance. Whether it’s helping humankind, animals, or our planet, Sgt. Vegan is ready to serve.

Episode Resources

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube

Sgt. Vegan Website

Sgt. Vegan Instagram @sgt_vegan

PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - use code: STARTFRESH to receive free two weeks

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our all new chilis, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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In a world that is littered with false information and blatant lies, especially when it comes to health and nutrition, it is so important to seek the truth. 

Matthew Rees is a treasure trove of facts and commentary about food and health at his website, foodandhealthfacts.com.

As a longtime journalist, speechwriter, and author, Rees has written for such esteemed publications as The Economist, The New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Reader’s Digest, and more. 

He’s also co-authored several books, but his personal passion lies in nutrition. He pulls information and research from recent scientific studies, interviews, books and more, and makes them all easily digestible nuggets of truth on our toxic food culture and how it’s contributing to massive rates of disease and death throughout the country.

It is his mission to help us better understand how consuming unhealthy foods leads to the mess of chronic health issues we’re facing today as a society, but also provide understanding and solutions. 

Episode Resources

Episode Website

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube

Visit and bookmark foodandhealthfacts.com

PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - use code: STARTFRESH to receive free two weeks

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our cereals, granolas, pizza kits, broths and soups, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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In honor of Mother's Day weekend, we're thrilled to feature everyone’s favorite PLANTSTRONG Woman Warrior - Ann Crile Esselstyn.

In late Spring, Rip and Ann did a Facebook live where she took questions from the audience and that's what we share today.

They run the gamut of subjects today including:

• The foods and ingredients that are exciting her most these days

• Her current favorite meals

• Advice for those at the beginning of their plantstrong journey

• How to navigate unsupportive loved ones

• Exercise and how she's building a 40-day habit with her Peloton bike

• How she gets her leafy greens

• Her go-to quick and easy salad dressing

• And... her favorite thing about being 87 years young!

As always, Ann holds nothing back and we wouldn’t want her any other way!

Episode Resources

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube that Aired on March 31, 2023

Order Be A Plant-Based Woman Warrior: Live Fierce, Stay Bold, Eat Delicious

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our cereals, granolas, pizza kits, broths and soups, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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Kathy Stevens founded the Catskill Animal Sanctuary in 2001 with 80 acres of land that she turned from a virtual trash heap into an idyllic sanctuary where rescued, abused, and forgotten animals can live their final years filled with the love, care, and respect they so richly deserve. 

In her work and in her exquisitely written books, Kathy describes the essence and personalities of these animals – and today, she shares some of the most poignant stories from those souls she has had the privilege of caring for through the years. 

Every animal has a rich emotional life and they want to live. Like humans, they have pain and fear, but can also learn to trust with the right interactions. 

Thank goodness for humans like Kathy Stevens and places like Catskill Animal Sanctuary who bring love and care to animals, while also making the world a better place for all of us. 

Episode Highlights

11:05 When and how did she get the property to start Catskill Animal Sanctuary?

17:02 How does she acquire her sanctuary animals?

22:25 Animals of the stories, starting with Rambo the sheep

37:30 Polly, the cockfighting rooster

41:35 Buddy, the Blind Horse

48:25 What Kathy knows for sure about all of her animals

51:20 Dino, the only survivor of a fire that killed 22 other horses

54:10 The special pig/human relationship

58:30 Mealtime is the magical time at Catskill Animal Sanctuary

1:01:10 How has our current climate affected sanctuaries?

1:05:10 What makes her most proud about her work?

1:06:50 How does she say, “hello” or welcome a new animal to the sanctuary?

1:09:45 How do they say, “goodbye” to these precious animals?

"I believe that in all of us is a good and pure knowing that beneath the surface of things, beneath gender and skin color, religion and nationality, social class and sexual preference, and yes, beneath species, we are all the same. This book is dedicated with love and hope to that good and pure knowing in you."

Episode Resources

Watch the Episode on YouTube

Catskill Animal Sanctuary Website and Resources - including public tours and donation information

Order Where the Blind Horse Sings

Join our PLANTSTRONG Sedona Retreat - October 9-14, 2023

To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our cereals, granolas, pizza kits, broths and soups, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.

Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!

We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪

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