Alan Roettinger & Ellen Jaffe Jones Paleo Vegan

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Alan Roettinger & Ellen Jaffe Jones Paleo Vegan
Alan Roettinger is a writer, food designer, blogger, and public speaker. He has served clients as a private chef in the United States, Europe, and Australia. Raised in Mexico City, he acquired a taste for exotic food early on and soon developed a passion for flavor and beauty that drives his diverse, creative culinary style.

Alan is passionate about empowering people to make smart choices in what they eat, and to enjoy eating well at home. His cookbooks, Omega-3 Cuisine, Speed Vegan, Extraordinary Vegan and Paleo Vegan showcase his ability to bring health and pleasure together in a wide range of dishes that are simultaneously sophisticated and accessible for the home cook.

Ellen Jaffe Jones is the author of the bestseller, Eat Vegan on $4 a Day, and Kitchen Divided-Vegan Dishes for Semi-Vegan Households. Ellen is an accomplished endurance and sprint runner…7th in the US in her age group for the 1500 meters, 10th in the 400 meters. She has placed in 58 5K races since 2006, and was the 5th oldest female to finish the Palm Beaches Marathon, her first, in 2010. She is a certified personal trainer and running coach, and a cooking class instructor in the Sarasota/Bradenton, Florida area.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Caryn Hartglass: Hello everybody, I’m Caryn Hartglass and it’s April 29, 2014. Let’s get right to the second part of our program. Okay, I want to bring in some wonderful people. We have an extraordinary speed vegan and we have another vegan who lives on four dollars a day and has a divided kitchen. Not exactly, but Alan Roettinger is a writer of numerous books including Speed Vegan and Extraordinary Vegan. Ellen Jaffe Jones has a number of books. We talked about them on this show. Eat Vegan on Four Dollars a Day and Kitchen Divided and now they teamed up with a book called Paleo Vegan. Alan how are you?

Alan Roettinger: Hi! Fantastic! How are you Caryn?

Caryn Hartglass: Good! I miss you so much. Now, if anybody remembers…

Alan Roettinger: It’s good to hear your voice.

Caryn Hartglass: Ha-ha-ha-Haaa! Alan use to join me numerous times on my Ask a Vegan Show, which I haven’t done in over a year. I keep dreaming of bringing it back, but all the old programs are on ResponsibleEatingAndLiving.com should you want to check any of those out. There’s a lot of wonderful information on how to be vegan there. And then we have Ellen. How are you? What’s going on with your car and your cable and–?

Ellen Jaffe Jones: Well, I’m talking to you from a nail shop. That’s been solved, it’s working and it’s all that really matters.

Caryn Hartglass: Okay great. Now, did you choose Paleo Vegan because those two words are the super trending words of the day?

Ellen Jaffe Jones: Reason why I chose the book title, or the subject matter in any way is because I am a frequent runner. I race, I’m a personal trainer, I’m a running coach, and I can hear every body talking “Oh, I am doing Paleo.” The more I researched it, read about it, it sounded so much like high protein diet. I tried earlier in my life. You know, work in the short run but in the expense of your heart and your kidneys and everything else. I actually run into vegans, well use to be vegans and now they are paleo and lost so much weight. I’m like wow, somebody really needs to give the vegan option and reclaim and redefine what Paleo is. The truth is, our aunt sister weren’t really able to catch wild boars three times a day and eat it.

Caryn Hartglass: Yeah. Really. I mean there’s no way we can live or want to live like in that era back then with dinosaurs running around.

Alan Roettinger: We’re suppose to go forward not backward.

Caryn Hartglass: Yeah! Hello.

 

Alan Roettinger: No sense in going back.

Caryn Hartglass: Well, I think we continue to learn that most people don’t know very much about food. And I got into this, I said thins before, I think I’m going to be saying this a lot lately because I need to. I don’t believe in killing anything and that’s why I don’t consume animals. For me, that fundamental. But there are so many other things that go around that. We want to be healthy. We want to have a beautiful environment. Eating all of those processed foods isn’t a good thing. That’s, as you mention in your book, where we align in the paleos.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: Right and you know whole unprocessed foods are number one on the list. Eating healthy fat in the forms of nuts and seeds and you know, there really is some common ground. But to be clear, our book is 100 percent vegan. I just wanted to give a vegan option for those who say, “Oh, I have to give this new fat diet a try.” But it really is a very healthy way to eating a vegan diet which is important.

Caryn Hartglass: Of course if you give Alan any ingredients, he would make something wonderful out of them.

Alan Roettinger: Oh thank you.

Caryn Hartglass: Absolutely.

Alan Roettinger: It’s what I do.

Caryn Hartglass: That’s what you do. Why not? So, here’s what I’m thinking. This paleo thing is popular, because people want to eat meat. Any they’re just looking for another excuse, another reason to eat meat. Anybody who is going to eliminate processed food is going to be healthier. So it may feel better. And sure, we all need to get back to more whole minimally processed kind of food, that’s good. But we don’t live in a natural world anymore. We’re not living in a cave. We’re not running out and just grabbing whatever we can. There was something in your book about how paleo still wants to eat the foods from agriculture, like grains and beans. But animals are raised in agriculture today.

Alan Roettinger: Hey, what does Ellen think of that?

Caryn Hartglass: Yes, Ellen.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: When you think about how dogs evolve and adapt. You know, certain humans have been able to do that with certain repeat to eating beans and grains. They always say, if it isn’t broke don’t fix it. If you don’t have a problem and you prive on beans and grains, there’s no reason to take them out of your diet because they’re very rich in nutrients that we need. Like the B-com vitamins for example. So, if it’s working for you. Certainly athletes need a fair number of carbs to keep going. Especially, endurance athletes. For myself, I can’t imagine not doing a little carb loading the week before a race, you know?

Caryn Hartglass: Now, there’s a chapter in your book, Paleo Vegan, where you have all the cheating recipes. The things you include a certain amount of time. I love that because most people cheat on any diet. I remember when I was focusing on an all raw vegan diet, people would come up with ‘100% raw, 80% raw, I’m 75% raw’ and I’m thinking, how do you know what percentage of what you’re eating. Nobody is calculating the volume and the qualities to know what percentage of something they are. People have a hard time sticking to things and they cheat. But your cheating isn’t bad cheating it’s good cheating.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: As I read a lot of the meat based paleo books, until this book, they were all meat based. There were no vegan paleo books in print. And they talked about cheating, most of them. Like about a 15-20% cheat rate. For vegans, that’s about 4 to 5 meals a week. if you want to include your beans and grains and call that a cheat. In my informal survey and speaking to people who do eat paleo in meat based and asking them what they do for a cheat, it was ice cream, sweats, and alcohol. So I think beans and grains are quiet okay.

Caryn Hartglass: Haha absolutely, but the thing is, this whole cheating concept is nuts in my opinion. I don’t cheat. I eat everything that’s on my list. I’ll have a treat from time to time. I don’t consider it cheating. I just call it a treat, and it’s acceptable on my nutrients and dense vegan diet.

Alan Roettinger: Which I would say is a clear indication of what you’re eating is working. Because if it’s working, why do you need to cheat. If there’s something missing whether it’s health or pleasure, you will cheat because what you’re looking for is that completion. If you say, okay this is really good for me, this is what I should be eating, this is the diet that they’re doing and it’s working for them and I want it to work for me, so I want to do it. But there are a few things that I really want to eat. So you’re always thinking about that other thing, the one that you’re missing. It’s not in your diet, so you have to cheat on your diet to get that thing that you want. And that thing could be unhealthy like ice cream, alcohol, etc. but it could also be something that is nothing wrong with like beans. There’s definitely nothing wrong with it. And incidentally, we would not be here if it weren’t for agriculture. So there is an advantage to evolution.

Caryn Hartglass: Some may say that’s not an advantage.

Alan Roettinger: Being here? For me that’s a distinct advantage.

Caryn Hartglass: I’m glad you’re here, but because of agriculture, we have been able to populate this planet with numbers we haven’t seen before or at least not in our knowledge. We can support a lot more people and in result we have more pollution and more delegation unless we figure out how to do things better. But we’re stuck with agriculture.

Alan Roettinger: I like agriculture. We’ve got it going on in all four sides of our house. We’re growing things. I can go outside pick something to eat.

Caryn Hartglass: More people should be doing it like you’re doing it Alan.

Alan Roettinger: Well I agree.

Caryn Hartglass: Yeah. Small farms, home garden, getting away from giant agricultural business, growing mostly plants to feed animals, to feed people, all that is not a very good thing.

Alan Roettinger: You just nailed it. It’s not agriculture that is killing us, it’s agribusiness.

Caryn Hartglass: Yeah agribusiness. I’m using that word more and more like animal agribusiness.

Alan Roettinger: Did you hear Prince Charles on the future of food? It was a couple of years ago. Brilliant. He made the distinction of agriculture. Which is the age-old natural pattern organic, with the seasons, all that kind of stuff. The wisdom of real farmers and agribusiness which is just deplete the soil, jam it with petrochemical fertilizers, rape the land, get most of what you can out of it and then move on like locus. That’s what’s causing all the problems. It’s not agriculture, it’s agribusiness.

Caryn Hartglass: Exactly. I read a post by Lee Hall recently on Facebook. I had Lee Hall on the program recently. She’s studying environmental law at the moment, but really into semantics and using words in a certain way. She had mentioned not using animal agriculture, but using animal agribusiness. And from now on, I’m saying animal agribusiness. Call me on it if I don’t.

Alan Roettinger: Okay! No, I think that’s great. Because I mean, theoretically I have no problem with someone, if a cow has a little milk left over and they really think that dairy is a great thing and they really think that they need it for their diet, and they want to use some of that milk, fine. But to hook up a cow to a machine and to keep her serially pregnant…

Caryn Hartglass: And kill her children.

Alan Roettinger: Yeah and when she can’t give any more, off with her head and let’s make burgers. It’s just totally, I mean, I don’t know who’s would that would be acceptable in if they really thought about it. It’s just sick.

Caryn Hartglass: Okay.

Alan Roettinger: But we know that.

Caryn Hartglass: You’re book has a lot of fun recipes in it. I’m personally challenged as a vegan to take some foods out of the equation, and then think about what I can do with what’s left. It’s always fun and there’s so many great foods out there on the planet that you can never of wrong. But how are the paleos responding to your book?

Ellen Jaffe Jones: It’s been dry high on the Amazon paleo list. Actually, amazon chose it as one of the hot new releases in all cookbooks, but just in vegan, vegetarian, or paleo books. I think that people are really glad to have the vegan option. I know I do a little bit of cross fit which is a gym that pretty much have the outdoors paleo of eating so much so. At our local gym when you walk in you see cans of whey protein on the front counter.

Caryn Hartglass: No way.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: Yes whey.

Caryn Hartglass: Sorry I couldn’t resist.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: So yeah, just to have that vegan option because I think people do kind of understand that maybe it’s not quiet so healthy. The whole point of having the cheat in the books that are out there, these are more front he books that are written subsequent to the initial paleo books that have came out, they realize that this is not a sustainable diet in today’s time especially. Especially if you’re an athlete, you need to have these exceptions. You need to have some of the grains to propel you into 26 miles of a marathon. Just that in a high protein diet is not going to happen very successfully.

Caryn Hartglass: Okay, but some raw vegans can tell you, you can do it on raw bananas.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: Well, umm. Okay whatever.

Caryn Hartglass: Whatever.

Alan Roettinger: There are raw vegans in Australia that have been running everyday, I don’t know how long, a couple of years.

Caryn Hartglass: I don’t know.

Alan Roettinger: They’re raw vegan and they run a marathon every single day.

Caryn Hartglass: Well, I’m telling you, I’ve only done two marathons and I just can’t imagine doing it at their level.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: I’m also a personal trainer and I understand that different things work for different people so I do get this and it truly is whatever works.

Caryn Hartglass: now, I’m a lover of legumes and there’s a lot of science coming out about how nutritious they are for us and for our guts. Somebody who does not want to eat beans, I know that there are a number of people who have allergies to most legumes. And that’s unfortunate. But to choose not to eat beans. I

Alan Roettinger: but they’re choosing to not eat chocolate.

Caryn Hartglass: Exactly

Alan Roettinger: Some think they’re just good.

Caryn Hartglass: They’re just good. You know, this is silly, but I was just thinking about this just the other day. In fact. True story. Some days I’m working so hard that I’m just really hungry because I haven’t taken the time to eat. I prepare, the other or I, we prepare our own meals. So I have been soaking some chickpeas, I cook them and then they were done. I just grab the bowl of plain chickpea; they were the most delicious things. Plain! I was just having a party with myself.

Alan Roettinger: Without even putting salt in them.

Caryn Hartglass: Nothing. Nothing! This happened recently with pinto beans. I did the same thing, they were just incredible. For me, it’s the little thrills that matter. I mean if I can be happy over eating plain chickpeas. Ash that’s good.

Alan Roettinger: Well you know, I’ll come up with a new sound bite. If you really enjoy what you’re eating, does it really matter what you’re not eating?

Caryn Hartglass: Hmm! You bring up a good point and no matter, I like to say this, I think you said it. But no matter what you’re eaten gin the moment, enjoy it. Don’t tell yourself you shouldn’t be eating it.

Alan Roettinger: Yeah, if you shouldn’t be eating it, don’t eat it!

 

Caryn Hartglass: Well, people have a lot of issues.

Alan Roettinger: They’re listening to what other people think they should be eating instead of listening to what their body is telling them what they should be eating. You eat something and it’s not messed with food science or all those kind of things. If it’s a real whole food source thing, and it taste really good to you, it’s got to be good for you. Even if it’s sugar cane. Even if you shouldn’t be eating a lot of it, and at a certain point your body will say that it’s enough.

Caryn Hartglass: Oh, but it’s great raw.

Alan Roettinger: Yes, but I mean not sugar out of a spoon full of sugar.

Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, sugar cane is delicious.

Alan Roettinger: Sugar cane. And your body will get tired of it. Its say okay that’s enough, I’ve had enough.

Caryn Hartglass: All right, the two ingredients that popped out in some of your recipes in paleo vegan plant based premarital recipes are buckwheat and burdock. buckwheat and burdock, we don’t see enough of them in cookbooks. Where do you get your burdock Alan? Grocery stores.

Alan Roettinger: You know what, actually Whole Foods started carrying it. Also a local chain of stores, which are going national of item and cottage. National Grocers by Vitamin Cottage often have it. If you get friendly with them they will actually order it.

Caryn Hartglass: why would we want to eat burdock.

Alan Roettinger: It’s fabulous food for one. it’s delicious if you cook it right. it’s grounding, when you eat it you just feel like Mmmm.

Caryn Hartglass: it’s a good root vegetable. now the root vegetables are okay with paleo?

Ellen Jaffe Jones: Yeah!

Alan Roettinger: Yeah dig them up.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: yeah in my research broccoli did not exist in analytical times. it too has evolved like many vegetables have. but I am really excited to try the fiddlehead fern recipe that Alan has.

Alan; Not till next year. You might still find some if you live in the far north like by van cover. they’re still getting spring. they’re getting those fiddleheads.

Caryn Hartglass: Spring doesn’t exist in New York anymore have you heard.

Alan Roettinger: Oh, you outlawed it?

Caryn Hartglass: We just don’t have spring. We’re back in autumn right now, it feels like it!

Alan Roettinger: Oh, we’re still in winter where I am. It’s 39 degrees right now, it’s a warm day.

Caryn Hartglass: You’re in Colorado.

Alan Roettinger: That’s right, yeah. It snowed last night.

Caryn Hartglass: No way!

Alan Roettinger: It didn’t stick, but it was snowing.

Caryn Hartglass: Oh my goodness. What are we doing?

Alan Roettinger: There was a sticking one on Sunday.

Caryn Hartglass: What are we doing on this planet?

Alan Roettinger: Not all the good things. Some of the things are good.

Caryn Hartglass: Okay, so are there any good events, exciting events that we need to know about where we might find you? Alan you go first.

Alan Roettinger: Ellen, are you coming to Colorado Vegefest.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: No, we got New Orleans Veg-fest and Chicago Veg-fest, and Cleveland.

Alan Roettinger: Cleveland verge-fest who knew.

Caryn Hartglass: They’re everywhere.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: They are. All the opportunities are amazing. The opportunities to do events. The week before and the week after of earth day has really been something.

Caryn Hartglass: And Alan, you’re going to be at the Colorado Veg-fest?

Alan Roettinger: I’m going to be doing the Colorado Veg-fest. I’m going to be doing demo both days. Also the Portland Veg-fest in the fall. I might go to the one in Marshall Texas, that one is exciting. I haven’t heard back yet.

Caryn Hartglass: Alright. We really don’t have much time. Where do we find you? We have AlanRoettinger.com

Alan Roettinger: Yeah.

Caryn Hartglass: Can you spell your name?

Alan Roettinger: I use to be able to. It’s A-L-A-N R-O-E-T-T-I-N-G-E-R. AlanRoettinger.com

Ellen Jaffe Jones: AlanRoettinger.com. And Ellen, where are you? Vegcoach.com

Caryn Hartglass: VegCoach.com because you are. Very good. Thank you for joining me in It’s All About Food. I hope you have good luck with your landline Alan. And Alan, one day, your cooking for me.

Alan Roettinger: Absolutely.

Caryn Hartglass: I’ve been waiting for years.

Alan Roettinger: If you don’t come here, I’ll have to come to New York.

Caryn Hartglass: I’m waiting.

Alan Roettinger: Well, I’m glad you’re waiting because it hasn’t happened yet, but it will, it will. Believe me, it will.

Caryn Hartglass: Okay, hugs to you both. Thank you for joining me in It’s All About Food.

Alan Roettinger: Thank you Caryn.

Ellen Jaffe Jones: Thank you for having us.

Caryn Hartglass: Bye! Alright, so I’m Caryn Hartglass, right you know me. ResponsibleEatingandLiving.com. And gosh, we’re out of time. Okay so we’ll talk next week. I’ve got a great line up for the next two months. A lot of very focused animal people coming up. we’ve got Robert Grillo coming up next week and I’m really looking forward to talking him so join me again next week. Meanwhile, have a delicious week.

Transcribed by Jo Villanueva 9/6/2014