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Part I: Leigh-Chantelle
Leigh-Chantelle is a published author, international speaker & consultant, singer/songwriter and blogger who lives mostly in Brisbane, Australia. She has run the online vegan community Viva la Vegan! since 2005, bringing positive education, information and vegan outreach to a worldwide audience. Leigh-Chantelle gives lectures, workshops, consultations, and coaching for Understanding Social Media, Staging Effective Events, and Vegan Health & Lifestyle.
Part II: TOTAL HEALTH CONFERENCE
Del Sroufe
Del’s cooking career began when he was just eight years old; creating dishes from whatever he could find in his father’s kitchen. By age of thirteen he was flaunting his culinary talents by preparing family dinners, much to his mother’s delight. After high school Del shelved his love for the kitchen and sold men’s clothing while he attended The Ohio State University School of Business. Selling suits and ties did not polish Del’s wing tipped shoes so he set out to pursue his passion, cooking. He landed a position at one of Columbus, Ohio’s premier vegetarian restaurants, The King Avenue Coffeehouse, and began to establish himself as a leader in the industry. In 1997 Del opened his own bakery, Del’s Bread, where he created, prepared and served delicious vegan pastries, breads, potpies, calzones, smoothies and other sorted delicacies to the palate of his Columbus based clientele. In 2001, Del transitioned from his bakery business to start a vegan Personal Chef Service, preparing eclectic plant-based cuisine to his already captivated audience. During this time, he developed what became a very popular cooking class series, sharing many of the delicious recipes he had created over the years with his students. In 2006, Del joined Wellness Forum Foods as Executive Chef, where today he continues the tradition of delivering great tasting plant-based meals to clients locally and throughout the continental United States. Del continues to teach cooking and health classes and is a keynote speaker at local venues and events around the country. Del is the author of Forks over Knives: the Cookbook, on the New York Bestseller list for more than 30 weeks; Better than Vegan, the story of his struggle with weight loss and gain, and how he managed to lose over 200 pounds on a low fat, plant based diet and; The China Study Quick and Easy Cookbook due to be published in May of 2015.
For more than forty years, Dr. T. Colin Campbell has been at the forefront of nutrition research. His legacy, the China Project, is the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. Dr. Campbell is a professor Emeritus at Cornell University and is most well-known for co-authoring the bestselling book The China Study with his son, Thomas Campbell, MD. In addition to his long and outstanding career as an author, scientific researcher, and Cornell professor, Dr. Campbell has been featured in several documentary films. He is the founder of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and the online internationally-recognized Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate offered by the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies in partnership with eCornell. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Board.
Dr. Campbell’s expertise and scientific interests encompass relationships between diet and diseases, particularly the causation of cancer. He has focused on nutritional status and long term health. Surprisingly, Campbell started his life on a dairy farm, but is now widely-known for researching links between animal-based protein diets and disease.
Campbell has conducted original research both in laboratory experiments and in large-scale human studies; received over 70 grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding (mostly with NIH), has served on several grant review panels of multiple funding agencies, and has authored over 300 research papers. Campbell has served on many national and international expert committees with mandates to develop food and health policy positions and is the recipient of several awards, both in research and in citizenship.
He was trained at Cornell University (M.S., Ph.D.) and MIT (Research Associate) in nutrition, biochemistry and toxicology. T. Colin Campbell spent 10 years on the faculty of Virginia Tech’s Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition before returning to Cornell in 1975 where he presently holds his Endowed Chair as the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry in the Division of Nutritional Sciences.
Since the publication of The China Study in 2005, Dr. Campbell has given more than 600 lectures in the U.S. and abroad. More recently, Campbell published Whole (May 2013), as well as The Low-Carb Fraud (Feb 2014), and the 2nd Edition of The China Study is scheduled to be released in 2015. He was featured in the very successful 2011 documentary, “Forks Over Knives” and 2015 documentary “PlantPure Nation”. Through his ground-breaking scientific research and his on-going efforts to educate the public concerning the benefits of the whole food plant-based lifestyle, Dr. Campbell has positively impacted the lives of thousands of people including health professionals (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dietitians, etc.), community advocates, caregivers, parents, health coaches, lifestyle counselors, massage therapists, policy makers, athletes, coaches, chefs, vegetarians, vegans, and others who value long-term health.
TRANSCRIPTION PART I:
Caryn Hartglass: Hello everybody, hello everybody. How are you today? I’m good, thanks. Thanks for asking.
So we just got through this crazy few hours of a storm. Weather is so much fun, isn’t it? We’ve had really cold weather here in New York City. One degree, two degrees; that’s Fahrenheit. Today was up in the fifties but like blowing. I felt like I was in the Wizard of Oz in that twister. [whirling sounds] But now it’s all calm. It’s quiet outside; it’s quiet inside. I’m ready to talk food with you.
Now, first thing that I wanted to bring up, I just found out about this, really excited about it. There is a documentary –actually, it’s the fifth episode of a new docu-series. Maybe you’ve seen some of it already; I have to admit that I have not. But it’s part of Truth and Power. The fifth episode is a new docu-series narrated by –wait a minute, I’m going to get this right. It’s the fifth episode that I want to talk about; all of the series has been narrated by Maggie Gyllenhaal. I love her; she’s a really great actor.
This particular episode is on a group of animal rights activists who became the targets of government and local law enforcement intimidation for their efforts to expose and protest corporations’ controversial treatment of animals. It’s called Activists or Terrorists? And investigative journalist Will Potter and punk-rock academic Ryan Shapiro show how they are using freedom of information laws to uncover how the United States government uses harsh policies and the label of terrorists to silence animal rights activists.
Now we’ve heard from Will Potter; we’ve heard quite a bit from him and other people on these –not the freedom of information laws; thank goodness we have them– these laws that are labeling animal activists terrorists.
It can be seen on Pivot. Not a big television person but I Googled Pivot and Truth and Power, and I discovered that I can actually watch it. This Friday, February 19th at 10 PM, Eastern Time. So you’ll have to Google Pivot and see if you can see it in your area. But I would really recommend it; I think it’s going to be awesome and I’m so glad that it’s screening on television. So that’s the Animal or –okay, I got to slow down here. It’s called Activists or Terrorists? It’s part of the Truth and Power ten-part documentary series on Pivot this Friday.
Phew! Okay, let’s move on and let’s get to the meat of the program. I want to bring on my guest, Leigh-Chantelle. It’s early in the morning for her so I’m glad that she woke up to talk to us all the way from Australia. She’s a published author, international speaker, consultant, singer-songwriter and blogger who lives mostly in Brisbane. She has run the online vegan community Viva La Vegan since 2005, bringing positive action information and vegan outreach to the worldwide audience. She gives lectures, workshops, consultations and coaching for understanding social media, staging effective events and vegan health and lifestyle. Welcome to It’s All About Food.
Leigh-Chantelle: Thank you, Caryn. How are you?
Caryn Hartglass: I’m good. I always get chills when I talk to people so far away.
Leigh-Chantelle: Hello.
Caryn Hartglass: It just makes the world so small.
Leigh-Chantelle: It’s wonderful really, isn’t it?
Caryn Hartglass: It is wonderful, and I also love feeling that there’s a small and ever-growing community out there with other people who are passionate about doing what I’m passionate about. And that’s this: vegan activism, online vegan activism. And doing it for quite awhile. So you’re celebrating the tenth anniversary of Viva La Vegan.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yes, yes. Pretty full on really when you think about it.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah.
Leigh-Chantelle: We just had a party actually on Saturday night. It’s Wednesday morning here now. And we had a party for the anniversary and my new vegan athletes’ book. So it was really fun. Made a lot of food and had some good music, some good people –just a really good vibe. It was really nice actually.
Caryn Hartglass: It is, and this is the future. I want to believe this is the wave of the future. We’re building the community of the future.
Leigh-Chantelle: I hope so.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, and I think we should just continue to celebrate. There’s a lot out things there to be sad and frustrated about, but I just like moving forward, celebrating the things that we have to celebrate. So congratulations to you.
Leigh-Chantelle: Thank you. Yeah, I think it was really important just to be in the moment and take the time to celebrate and to go, “Hey, I did this. This is a really cool goal. I’m going to celebrate this.” Because we’re so busy in our lives and –I don’t know if you’re like me– but I’m always onto the next thing before actually appreciating what I’ve done and what I’ve achieved. So it was really important for me just to take stock and take the time to acknowledge this success. I’m really glad I did that actually.
Caryn Hartglass: And I’m glad you just brought that up because I can’t tell you how many times my partner Gary and I have sat down for a moment and said, “Hey, wait a minute. We just did something amazing! We’re now working on the next thing and we never took a moment to celebrate or pat ourselves on the back. Or breathe or anything.” It’s just this continual –I don’t know what it is– to do more. It’s never enough.
Leigh-Chantelle: I know. Exactly. I know I’m guilty of that. Most of us are. And in particular with the area we’re in –veganism and animal rights in particular– it’s so hard to get some really good achievements sometimes or to actually appreciate them. I’ve been vegan; I’ll be vegan twenty years next year.
Caryn Hartglass: Whoo-hoo!
Leigh-Chantelle: And when you see how many things have changed and that people know the word at least –or some version of the word. That’s massive in comparison to twenty years ago when you’d say vegan and [chuckling] people would be blank. They’d have no idea what you’re talking about.
Caryn Hartglass: Exactly. I don’t know about down in Australia, but we’re at a point now where in commercials on television, they make fun of vegans. I think this is really positive because they know we’re out there and they’re getting scared of us actually.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah. I hope so.
Caryn Hartglass: [laughs] Great. Tell me what we can find at Viva La Vegan and how you’ve grown over the last ten years with this online community.
Leigh-Chantelle: Well, it started originally I finished a natural cooking and nutrition in Western herbalism medicine course at college here. I wanted to release a recipe calendar, a recipe book. I’d always wanted to do that. And I thought I would just do a recipe calendar first. Any twelve recipes; it should be easy. A friend from school came out with the title Viva La Vegan. I released that at the end of 2005.
I had a website, my Leigh-Chantelle.com website for my music and I just thought, “Oh, I’ll have another website.” And then people would ask me, “Oh, you should put more recipes up or some articles. You should do some videos or talk to this person.” It honestly grew so organically over that time, and when I think back to some of those things, it’s really bizarre how it’s grown.
And we just relaunched –maybe a month ago, I think it was? And it’s a lot more condensed. Because a few months back, there was so much on the website and it was a bit overwhelming. So now I’ve just broken it down to information, articles and blogs. It’s in a more easy-to-use format so you can look in under sort of search terms and keywords. LIke weddings, animals or environment. We’ve got a load of recipes and demonstrations. Doing a little video on YouTube. There are some books that I sell on my store, and just some information about my speaking training consulting. Yeah, just so much information.
Caryn Hartglass: It’s amazing how much information can arrive on a website. And then you have to figure out, “Well, what do I do with all this stuff?”
Leigh-Chantelle: Well, that was one December actually. It was going through ten years of stuff from my website. And going, “Okay, where do I put these? What section does it go into? Do I need it still? Do I need to update it?” So that was a lot more work than I sort of thought it would be. ]
Caryn Hartglass: Oh yeah. It’s almost like moving.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah.
Caryn Hartglass: And going through drawers and deciding what to take with you and what not to. I mean, I imagine it wasn’t fun, but at the same time you probably got to see, “Wow. I did all of this!” Wow!
Leigh-Chantelle: Yes. I had a load of writers over the years too. It was really good to say, “Oh, so-and-so write this five years ago. I really liked this one. I really remember how popular this was.” Yeah, it was just really nice to go through.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah. So you started –it says here on your little website logo here– “since 2005.”
Leigh-Chantelle: Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: And there wasn’t a lot going on the Internet back then. We didn’t really have Facebook. I know Facebook started in 2004, but it really wasn’t available for all of us, the public, I don’t think until 2006 or so.
Leigh-Chantelle: Hmm.
Caryn Hartglass: That was an amazing way for people to connect and get information out for no cost really. And things started to grow from there. So you were right there from the beginning of that big explosion.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah, definitely. We had MySpace back then actually. I was all about MySpace.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh, it was MySpace. That’s right. That’s right.
Leigh-Chantelle: I loved MySpace. I had one for my music and one for vegan stuff. So I was on there quite a bit.
Caryn Hartglass: Okay, yeah. I never could remember that. I could never quite figure that out. MySpace.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah, I don’t like it when you didn’t. That’s when I learned basic coding as well. I thought it was very spammy to be honest. Took forever to load pages because people would just spam your wall all the time. But I really liked it. It was a really good beginning of how the web would sort of go forward in regards to small sort of communities connecting online. But yeah.
It was ten years ago, in Australia in particular; we had a load of the animal rights and those sorts of groups. Animal liberation in particular in Australia. And a lot of the vegan, vegetarian societies. But we didn’t really have anyone who did similar to what I do now, and I find that really interesting to tell people because everyone’s like, “There’s so many vegan bloggers or lifestyle blogs and stuff.”
But ten years ago, there wasn’t. And mine was the first website that was not aligned with any group that had not only recipes but lifestyle based stuff. So it was telling people, “You know, you could get makeup. You could get toiletries. You could travel here.” And it was how –I guess– things are now. But it was quite new at the time.
Caryn Hartglass: I’m looking at your recipe and demos. And there are some icons here that say gluten-free, nut-free, soy-free, sugar-free, Paleo. Does these apply to all you recipes or certain recipes?
Leigh-Chantelle: Most of them have those icons on them.
Caryn Hartglass: Okay.
Leigh-Chantelle: So if you click on a different icon –like say, the Paleo one, they’ll come up with all of the Paleo options. But Paleo vegan obviously. ]
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, obviously. The way they really ate back in the Paleolithic era was like Paleo vegan.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah. Sorry to butt in. I read this article recently about –I can’t remember who did it actually– but they found tools for grinding grains back in that Paleolithic era. And you know how the Paleo people don’t eat grains supposedly. I just had quite a laugh about that.
Caryn Hartglass: Oops. Yeah. Oops, oops, oops.
Leigh-Chantelle: That was a scientific finding.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah. It’s crazy. I live in 2012 and I’m moving forward. And taking the best from what I know now.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah. The Paleolithic era was another time. Yeah.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah, yeah. It’s a hard one because it’s just like any fad to be honest, I think. And people get caught up in it. I don’t think it helps that it’s linked to that Crossfit thing either and people that are really into working out. There’s massive movement over here. Like we’ve got a lot of 24-hour gyms, and a lot more people seem to care about the way they look or exercising more and things like that.
But I don’t think many people understand the right foods to be eating or even just what clean eating is. So many people use the term clean eating and you’re like, “Mm.” I don’t think I’d call that clean.”
Caryn Hartglass: I know what you mean. Yeah. Okay, so I want to know. You’ve been doing this for ten years. What are the most popular recipes on your site? What are people looking for?
Leigh-Chantelle: I think the most popular things is –like say, my cheese-
Caryn Hartglass: Exactly.
Leigh-Chantelle: I’ve got a cheese sauce that you can make out of just four ingredients. Nutritional yeast, some sort of oil, some sort of rice or some sort of flour, and some sort of milk. So I make a gluten-free healthier version but that’s just how I prefer.
That’s probably one of the most popular actually because so many people really –I know it’s a lot easier the last five years particularly to get cheeses. But a lot of them are quite expensive in particular over here, if we ship your sort of food to Australia. So you can easily pay ten to twenty dollars for a packaged cheese over here. In Australian dollars.
I’ve been to the states quite a few times and I know how much the food costs over there, in your sort of supermarkets or vegan stores. And it just I cannot buy those sort of foods here because I know that normally costs five dollars in America. I’m not going to spend twenty dollars on that here.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh, absolutely. Some of the ones that have been around for a while aren’t even very good.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah, exactly. I’m honestly not a cheese person. I’ve never have a craving. I don’t need it. It’s not essential in my sort of diet. I know a lot of people crave it, and it’s good that there are those options nowadays. But I also think that we need to be relying on things that we can make ourselves instead of this sort of processed vegan foods.
As much as vegan food is better than the standard diet on a basic level, there’s so many products that are vegan nowadays that just aren’t healthy and are very processed. I just hope that we can move away a bit from those things.
Caryn Hartglass: I really agree and I’m glad that you’re saying all these things. I’m just laughing to myself here because on my non-profit website Responsible Eating and Living.com, our number one recipe forever and leaps and bounds ahead of any other recipe is our almond-mozzarella cheese. It has some nutritional yeast, it has some oil, it’s almond based, and it’s very good. I don’t make it very often.
Leigh-Chantelle: It’s not.
Caryn Hartglass: And then right under that are cookies and cakes.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah. It’s always about the sweets.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, that’s what people are looking for. So I keep trying to put out this whole-food, plant-based nutritious love for really healthy foods. And people are still looking for cheese and sweets.
Leigh-Chantelle: Exactly. And a lot of fake meat stuff. Like a load of people like the fake meat things. And I’m not saying never have that to people, and I think it’s amazing transition food. A lot of those foods. But I just think it’s one of those eat every now and then foods. Like maybe once a week, if that.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Now you have a book out.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: And I want to talk about that. You interviewed over a hundred athletes. Vegan athletes.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: And put all of this information into a book. What I first wanted to say is there seems to be a lot of continuity with the responses in terms of what they’re eating and why they came to this place. Being vegan as an athlete.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yeah. I think I like the idea because I think there’s more different people, different reasons they’re coming to it. Like some people are like, “I don’t care about my health. I just care about the animals” or “Don’t look at my diet. It’s pretty bad.” Or those sorts of things. And there are other people who are just raw all the time: never have oil; never have sugar and things like that. I think it’s quite different. Then with the food: it’s lots of grains, lots of beans. Whole foods really.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah.
Leigh-Chantelle: That’s what the majority of the people in the book are saying to eat. Stuff that’s lighter, I guess. Lots of [20:21] oats get mentioned and grains. Some people say about the brains versus not eating brains. You’ve got both sides on that. I think it’s really interesting how many different types of people there are in it actually. And I love the fact –because I come from an animal rights position, and that’s why I went vegan in the first place twenty years ago.
But a lot of the people in the book are more health based and lifestyle or fitness based and exercise. I find that sort of interesting to learn from those sorts of people because I think the past five years in particular with the use of the term vegan, I think that should mean plant-based. In a lot of cases with what a lot of people are using online, especially with the media. So it’s really interesting to find out what people do and what people eat.
Yeah, the book’s got 111 people. And I made a pact when I first started four or so years ago. If I got one hundred people to interview, I’d put it into a book form. So I had 135 all up. Yeah, such a big task. But I love it when –we just did the launch and just looking through it, it’s so easy to use and to read. You can just flick to a page and read about one person. You can just read all the quotes or the tips. I think it’s really good.
I know for myself when I was editing it, it was inspiring to me. A load of people said it’s really inspiring to them too. So that’s really good, and I hope it gets to more non-vegans.
Caryn Hartglass: Absolutely. I just wanted to –I grabbed a few things that I wanted to mention from different people in the book. Just to give people a taste and things that made me smile. So you interviewed Atsuyuki Katsuyama, the vegan barefoot ultra-marathoner.
Leigh-Chantelle: Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: And there was the question about what is the most common question that people ask when they found out that you’re a vegan and how you respond. So it says here:
People: How do you take protein?
I: Many kinds of plant-based foods. How do you take your protein?
People: Meat.
I: Do you know how much protein you need in one day?
People: No.
I: If you do not know it, how can you say that you’re taking enough protein?
People: ?
I: I know how much protein I need to take in one day, and all the vegetables and fruits cover that amount. And I run a hundred miles too.”
I love that.
Leigh-Chantelle: He’s great. I actually met –we call him K for short– and I met him in Bangkok. Him and his partner run a vegan café called Bonita in Bangkok. Yeah, he’s a great guy. Really enthusiastic. And some of that stuff people don’t speak English as their first language. Had to edit a few bits so it would be a bit more readable in some cases. But I love that.
And load of people have that issue. Like where do you get your protein? And they have no idea how much protein you need or why it’s a big deal. They just know-
Caryn Hartglass: Or what it is! They don’t even know what it is!
Leigh-Chantelle: Totally. And that was ridiculous in my book. I think there was like 70% of the people I interviewed still get asked where they get their protein. Which I think is absolutely ridiculous. Like you can say to these people, “Some of these people in this book are bodybuilders and people that work out all the time.” Guys and girls who have massive bulging muscles. And I can just imagine the conversation. “Where do you get your protein?” They’re like, “Hmm, think I’m doing’ all right.”
Caryn Hartglass: Exactly. I just don’t want to go into my opinion of humans as a species, but…
Leigh-Chantelle: You’re okay.
Caryn Hartglass: Another one: Betsy Bailey, vegan volley baller. She wrote her first year playing in France. Her coach when he found out she was vegan told her she must eat pasta everyday for energy. She told him that if he ever notices that she’s lacking in energy, then he can tell her what to eat. And since then she’s had a few teammates actually go vegan on and on. I mean, exactly. They don’t have a clue!
Leigh-Chantelle: No. Most people don’t. And that’s the issue in particular with the fitness industry that I’ve noticed. Or even doctors, supposed health industries. A lot of people don’t have any nutritional background or anything like that. And I know when I was studying –which is over ten years ago now– it’s something like doctors only have to learn five hours of nutrition and like an elective. You don’t necessarily have to go to those hours. I just remember thinking, “That’s ridiculous.”
So many people –especially say, my parents’ generation– would go to doctors and whatever the doctor says, that’s what’s it’s going to be. And they have no nutritional qualifications. There’s so many people that just sort of say, “Oh yeah. I was vegan, but my doctor told me not to because I need this, this, this.” I think that’s really sad and it’s really bad.
Caryn Hartglass: So sad.
Leigh-Chantelle: It’s really bad when people don’t have– I think also now the issue is people don’t do their own research anymore. That does annoy me on a sort of blanket level wit society. You just see something online, and you just believe it. There are a lot of people who believe whatever they see online. And if someone looks hot and if someone’s lost a heap of weight, then, “Oh, I’m going to believe them with what’s going to work for me as well.” That’s a hard one that we somehow need to solve. I don’t know how.
Caryn Hartglass: I know. People don’t know how to research. They just go online, they find something that they like and then they become an expert. It doesn’t work that way, everybody.
Leigh-Chantelle: No. Definitely not.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah. Well, Leigh-Chantelle, congratulations on ten years of your vegan activism and all that stuff that you’ve put up on your website and your new book. I want to thank you for talking with me. Wish you the very best.
Leigh-Chantelle: Thank you very much, Caryn.
Transcribed by Heather T, 2/21/2016
TRANSCRIPTION PART II:
Caryn Hartglass: On this program, I always like to say, “Tune in love.” It’s all about tuning in love here as we’re tuning in live, right. And the next part of the show is really, I think a great example of tuning in love, and you’ll understand in a minute. I was going to have Leanne Campbell on the program to talk about “Global Roots”, her total health conference, and at the last minute she couldn’t make it, and she got two wonderful people to take her place. And the first one is Del Stroufe. Are you here Del?
Chef Del Stroufe: Hello Caryn. How are you?
Caryn Hartglass: Hi! How are you? I’m great.
Chef Del Stroufe: I’m great.
Caryn Hartglass: So I wanted to continue with this theme, “Tuning in love”. Here you are, you’re doing… you’re helping out Leanne at the very last minute, and that’s great teamwork, and, and lovely.
Chef Del Stroufe: Well, I’m a big fan of Leanne Campbell, and Campbell family in general, so I’m glad to do my part, especially as I help them to spread their message of tuning in love, and creating a healthier world through a compassionate cause.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, well I have this goal to have the entire Campbell family on my show. I like to have dynasties on my program, and we have a few vegan dynasties.
Chef Del Stroufe: Yeah, this is a good one, isn’t it?
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah! I can’t believe that… well, we’re going to be talking with Dr. Campbell in a little bit, but, he has wonderful children, and they’re all doing great things for this plant based world.
Chef Del Stroufe: Yeah. I would love to say, you know I love my family, but if they were helping me in that kind of supportful, supporting way I would definitely feel some heavy love.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah! Heavy love! I like that! Okay, I’ve told you this before, but when I think of you, I think of all the great things you do with cauliflower that people don’t really think cauliflower is for.
Chef Del Stroufe: Yeah. I know right! I think cauliflower is the magic food. As much as kale! I know I get in trouble everytime I say that; kale and sweet potatoes are up there, but man I can do some fun things with cauliflower.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes. So I get an online, not an online delivery, I get a weekly delivery from a company called Go Organic NYC. We just got our delivery today. And I got a little cauliflower in it. What should I do with it?
Chef Del Stroufe: Mmmmm. Well, I’m always going to tell you to puree it. Although, have you seen lately, they’re doing cauliflower pizza crusts. So they’re kind of grating it and using it as a pizza crust. But I haven’t tried it yet, so I can’t speak to it. But I’ll tell you what, I make a cauliflower cream sauce, and just like any traditional cream sauce, you can do with it what you will. So in my Forks Over Knives cookbook, there’s a spinach and sweet potato lasagna, and so I made a spinach cream sauce using pureed cauliflower, a little bit of pine nuts, spinach, thyme, some shallots, and garlic, and the flavor is amazing, and it has that rich, creamy mouthfeel but without the dairy. And in a world where I have to say people are kind of lery of tofu, I’m a fan of tofu, and I think that in moderation it is a perfectly fine food, but in a world where people are lery of tofu, here’s an alternative that also puts another vegetable on the plate. Right?
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, I like that. You know we just jumped in here, and I didn’t really give any background to who you are, although I want to think that everybody out there knows Chef Del Stroufe, but we’ve had him on the program before. He is the author of Forks Over Knives: The Cookbook, and also Better Than Vegan, and you’ve also lost a lot of pounds, and I’m wondering, how’s that going these days?
Chef Del Stroufe: It’s going… It’s up and down. It’s going well right now. Winter’s always hard for me, and I’ve been working on… I worked for years on just getting the diet right, and I’ve done well at that, but part of being healthy overall and being a healthy individual is dealing with the total package. And so for me, as someone who grew up on binge and yo-yo diets, and was an emotional eater, and I’m going to talk about that at the Global Roots Conference, being an emotional eater had other consequences; it sort of came to the surface, and I’ve been working really hard, and I’m really happy that I’ve at least come to the level of consciousness to at least do so, but working hard on my emotional eating, and it’s paying off. So I’m on track, which means I’m losing weight again, and at a slow and steady pace, and I’m happy to be where I’m at.
Caryn Hartglass: Good, that sounds good. All right, let’s just talk a little bit about this Total Health Conference, because that’s one of the reasons why Leanne was going to be on the program, and one of the reasons why she’s not today, because I understand she had to run down to the Dominican Republic?
Chef Del Stroufe: Yeah, getting ready for that, it’s a big event. And you know, my first time there was in October; I did four cooking classes over the 8 days, and helped oversee the food and everything. And it’s at a beautiful, beautiful resort, but there’s a lot that goes into it because putting on a program like this in a country like the Dominican Republic takes a little bit of give and take. In other words, it’s not… they don’t have all of the same kinds of tools there that we have here, so I’m sure planning that takes a little bit of effort every time on her part.
Caryn Hartglass: I was curious about that, because I was remembering just before this program started, and I was thinking about what we were doing to be talking about, I did some food demos in Brazil for the International Vegetarian Congress, maybe more than 10 years ago, I’m not sure when it was, and you now, I put some recipes together that I liked, didn’t really think much about it, and sent off my grocery list, and I show up in Brazil. And they didn’t have some of the ingredients that I thought were just normal! And I don’t even remember what those are anymore, but quick thinking on my feet. What am I doing in this food demo when I don’t have all the ingredients?
Chef Del Stroufe: I had the same encounter in the Dominican Republic at, and let me say this, at a beautiful resort that is absolutely seems like it has just everything you would ever want. But a couple things that I ran into, is they didn’t have, you know the kitchen was used during a large production deal. So the basics of pots and pans, they do everything by weight, they didn’t even have measuring spoons, so I’m doing a baking demo, and I couldn’t even measure my baking powder, my spices out for that, I had to guess. Luckily it all turned out well after 26 years of being in the kitchen. They didn’t have… you won’t find silken tofu in the Dominican Republic. You might if you go to Santiago if you’re in one of the major cities, but we’re in a resort on the north coast. So we had to do a little bit of give and take, and make it work, and it did. It did.
Caryn Hartglass: I visit Costa Rica from time to time, and there’s… it’s hard finding dark leafy green vegetables there. And it’s a little more popular in certain locations, where the “gringos” unfortunately are taking over, and they demanded, and they grow some on the organic farms. But I was wondering, what’s the green scene in the Dominican Republic?
Chef Del Stroufe: You know, we didn’t see… here we start making salads out of every kind of green imaginable, from baby kale, to the mixed greens that you find in Oak Leaf and all of those. You don’t see so much of that there. You see a couple of basic things that they have on hand. But I didn’t see like chard, and they have they’re own greens, and they actually have some produce I’ve never seen before. I actually got to go to an organic produce stand up in the mountains, and I… the person who was our guide that was with us, kept buying and feeding us these unusual fruits and such, and I was in heaven trying all these new things, but if it came down to if I wanted to get a kale salad, you weren’t going to see that as readily. You had to really arrange that ahead of time to make that happen, so. But what they did have was, the traditional diet down there is a very starchy diet, so they ate bananas everyday for breakfast. I had some sort of a… I forget, a mashed banana, a mashed green banana, and then lots of squash, and sweet potatoes and things like that are very abundant there.
Caryn Hartglass: There are some fruits that taste like sweet potato that are, you don’t have to cook them, it’s like they’re already cooked! And they’re just like a fruit!
Chef Del Stroufe: Oh wow! Well I was amazed at how much like a potato, and under-ripe banana tastes like when it’s boiled then mashed. It was a lot like a potato. You could probably feed to some people who may not know the difference.
Caryn Hartglass: And there are lots of different kinds of bananas. We just see one kind here and there are more bananas that probably taste more like potato because they’re starchier.
Chef Del Stroufe: Right. Yeah I’m sure that’s the case, and you’ve seen a few in some of the organic stores like the small red bananas that you see and such, but I’ve heard the same thing, that there are tons of different varieties out there that we never see. And that’s typical of the American diet, when we travel abroad I think that the exciting thing is to open up your taste buds, and to embrace what you, what is new to you, because we get the same old thing here, and I kind of like a little adventure in my eating, and welcoming new experiences and new taste buds.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah I agree. You know nature’s going, may actually make us have more varieties, at least in terms of the banana. I’ve been hearing this for decades that the Cavendish banana is not going to be able to survive much longer, because there are these viruses going around that are not going to maul out, so we’re probably going to see more different kinds of bananas. Which would be nice.
Chef Del Stroufe: I heard that too. I do a banana in my smoothie everyday, but the truth be told that if you were eating more like a bio-regional kind of way, I could get my potassium from plenty of sources that are more sustainable like potatoes and such.
Caryn Hartglass: And have more potassium in them!
Chef Del Stroufe: Yeah, right! So I mean…
Caryn Hartglass: Bananas had some great marketing group behind them with the potassium because they do not have the most potassium.
Chef Del Stroufe: Oh yeah. Right? Nope. It’s really true.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Chef Del Stroufe: So I would miss my smoothie, I’m sure I would find something… I don’t know if I would put a potato in my smoothie but I would miss my banana, but I think life would go on.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah. So now just tell me quickly before we move on to Dr. Campbell a little bit about this conference, what it’s all about, and where people can find out about it.
Chef Del Stroufe: So basically 8 days. 8 days of really sort of immersing yourself in health. From standpoint of cooking, and good food, the food is amazing, very very healthy. So all your meals are provided for you, and they’re all really clean, healthy, lots of fruits and vegetables. And then the education. So bringing in great minds like Dr. Campbell to reiterate for us, what the science is telling us, and what the most recent science is telling us about the whole foods, plant based diet. Some fun excursions. They have a beautiful botanical garden. There’s a wonderful school that the Campbells support that we go to visit. And, so you get see some of that. And a beautiful resort! So you get all the rest and relaxation you can imagine right on the ocean on top of it. It’s a really… And I met some wonderful people! Let me say this, people that I met, I’ve made new friends on the first trip that I was there, and look forward to making more new friends again of like-minded people is a really amazing thing to do. To be a part of.
Caryn Hartglass: I was looking at the schedule really quickly and one thing that I saw was that it’s not packed from morning until night with speakers, which can get really really tedious. It’s stretched out…
Chef Del Stroufe: Well there’s plenty of time to exercise. There’s plenty of time to stretch out on the beach. Afternoons are yours. You can go on some of the excursions or not. And so it is wide open. And so most of the education happens in the morning. There’s a q and a right before dinner, and then there’s dinner, and then you’re free in the evening. There’s plenty of music down by the pool in the evenings if you want to go down and dance and do all that kind of stuff. But yeah, it’s not like you’re having this packed in so you’re exhausted at the end of 8 days. It’s all about taking care of the entire being and getting some rest too.
Caryn Hartglass: Okay Del, well thanks for coming on the show, just in a matter of minutes. A last minute thing I really appreciate it, and I’m definitely going to open one of your books to make my cauliflower tonight, cause you’re the cauliflower king.
Chef Del Stroufe: Awesome. Great talking to you. Yes. Make it happen. Nice talking to you Caryn.
Caryn Hartglass: Okay. Take care!
Chef Del Stroufe: You too. Bye-bye
Caryn Hartglass: Okay. Bye-bye. Okay that was Chef Del Stroufe.
Transcribed by Zia Kara, 2/19/2016
TRANSCRIPTION PART III:
Caryn: And now I’m happy to bring on Dr. T. Colin Campbell. He is the author of The China Study and some other wonderful books including Whole. And Colin are you there?
Colin: Yes, I am.
Caryn: How are you today?
Colin: Good. Good to hear your voice again Caryn.
Caryn: [LAUGHING] I want to – you know I – it’s just an honor to speak with you. You’ve just done incredible things for so many decades, but right now I want to thank you for being a great dad. [LAUGHING]
Colin: Oh thank you very much. Yeah.
Caryn: Leanne sounded like things were really hectic and she had to take off and couldn’t do the program and she asked you and Dell to give some of her time, take her place and I really appreciate you doing that.
Colin: Well, thanks.
Caryn: Okay, so what’s new with you? What are you working on these days?
Colin: Well, a number of different things. Too many things. But one which is Tom, our youngest son, who now is a physician as you probably know. He’s directed a program in nutrition and medicine at the University of Russia’s medical center. Tom and I are doing a second edition of The China Study that’ll be out after the first of the year. It was supposed to be out a little before that, but that’s what we’re doing. And I’m still lecturing a lot, going places.
Caryn: I’m curious…
Colin: I’ve got an oldest son who’s has a film Plant Pure Nation which is out now.
Caryn: Yeah, you’re not only a great author, but you’re a movie star.
Colin: Oh I don’t know about that. I never planned that earlier in life, so whatever comes along.
Caryn: Yes, you have an amazing amount of energy. You’re like one of these Energizer batteries, whatever. They just keep going. And I imagine you’re fueled on plants.
Colin: Yes, I’m eating the right food like you are.
Caryn: Eating the right food. What a difference it can make.
Colin: Yeah, for sure.
Caryn: This new China Study that’s coming out, what can we expect to see in it? Are you going to talk about what the people in China are like today health wise compared to when you first did the study?
Colin: A little bit. Not too much. But basically we didn’t change anything. The material we had in the first edition is still going to be there. What we did, we kind of went through it and added some commentary here and then and then some new material. There’s a whole new chapter. Now the largest chapter in the book. Having to do with advancing this message into a larger context. You know? A larger population. So it’s much the same, but there will be some really new stuff I think. I don’t know. It’s a little bit about the Chinese situation. I mean, all societies tend to gravitate, you know as time passes, from their native diet to the typical diet we use here in the west. And we get in trouble. Sort of what happens, so –
Caryn: Well you’ve been fighting this fight, researching this topic for so many decades. And you’ve come upon so much resistance and yet you’ve continued with grace and aplomb and finally, are getting the recognition you deserve and people are starting to hear your message. But as you know, there’s still many people who aren’t getting it. I don’t know if you saw this article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago that was titled, How Can Vegetarians Get Enough Protein?
Colin: Oh my gosh. That’s as old as—right?
Caryn: And I don’t know if you know Dr. David Seres, the director of medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center.
Colin: No I don’t.
Caryn: Well in this article, he was quoted saying a number of things. And I just can’t believe it’s 2016 and this is printed by a reputable doctor at a prestigious university. But he said a number of things that I thought you might comment on. He said, “It is my opinion that veganism is not consistent with human life because all vitamin B12 originated in an animal.”
Colin: Well my answer to that is: Total nonsense. First of all, B12 does not originate in animals. He’s wrong. B12 is produced by microorganisms. It just so happens that women have a lot of microorganisms in a woman essentially. And you know we also produce some too though it’s not available. But that’s total nonsense. In terms of veganism, to be honest Caryn, I know everyone uses that word, “vegan”.
Caryn: I don’t.
Colin: I have some difficulty with that word and have from the very beginning. Namely, people became vegan or vegetarian if you will, as you know—as we all know, primarily did so over the years for ideological reasons, animal rights reasons in particular, which is—you know, it’s fine to make that decision. But I didn’t come to that for that reason. I just simply was doing some research and came up with the whole idea of eating plant-based foods is based on science, and it really is. And vegans today, unfortunately, the data really show that their average fat content is still around 30 percent. That’s not that good. And their consumption on average of refined carbohydrates is not so good. I mean they’re certainly taking a step in the right direction which is not bad, but they’re not quite able to do what the whole food plant-based diet can do.
Caryn: Yes, I know. With vegan Oreos out there, it just makes it hard for a lot of people.
Colin: That’s right. And so what happens under circumstances like that is as they consume, especially high fat, without all of the antioxidants and things like that. What happens is part of the significant portion of their calorie intake is taken out by this non-nutrient energy-dense substance. And so their consumption of the antioxidant in the form of whole foods actually goes down. And then you add to that the refined carbohydrates on top of it. You know they’re somewhat better than let’s say, the omnivores, but not that much better.
Caryn: No.
Colin: And the same with vegetarians. Vegetarians still 90 percent are using dairy and oftentimes, eggs and fish. So their nutritional composition too is not as good as it can be. So I would like to make that distinction.
Caryn: And I’m glad you did. It’s important.
Colin: Yeah, it really is in terms of the science. When I’m looking at the science you know, let’s say what impact food has on health and prominently focusing on the nutritional composition of those foods. And by that I mean that the average food, on average having around 10 percent protein. Plants hold, plant-based foods have the ideal level of protein. Columbia doesn’t seem to know that, but they have the ideal level of protein, which was established many years ago. We call it the recommended dietary allowance. The minimum intake required is more in the neighborhood of 5, 6, 7 percent. So they added a couple standard deviations to that to make sure that everybody got enough. And that was established way back in 1943.
Caryn: [LAUGHING]
Colin: And even at the early 1900s, it was shown that people with protein intake in the neighborhood of 4, 5, 6 percent just – did just fine. So we had this – you know – this fascination, I guess you could say. You know with protein. And most people tend to think that protein means animal food or animal protein. And it’s not as we know. We have all the protein we need – ideal levels of protein simply consuming whole plant-based foods.
Caryn: Okay, when we’re talking about protein, I don’t remember where it was, but I remember reading something recently that said as we age, seniors need more protein.
Colin: Yes, that was a study that came out. People over – I can’t remember what the cut-off point was.
Caryn: Yeah, like 60.
Colin: Over 65 or something like that. It was some evidence, but if you look at the study carefully, it was so minor as to how – in my mind, been almost as much of a chance. Significant, but you know, under that circumstance to say that kind of thing, I think it was really quite exaggerated. And I say that – the reason I say that is because all human studies, except for Dr. Esselstyn and Dr. Ornish. All human studies, the ethically marginal studies quite frankly, when they make statements about how much protein we should consume or how much fat or how much this or that, all the people in all those studies, none of those studies. And there could have been tens of thousands of those studies, none of them have people in those studies who are consuming a wholefood plant-based diet. So I say it’s inappropriate for researchers who are using those kinds of studies to speculate what might happen with wholefoods plant-based diets.
Caryn: Oh, but they do. They do.
Colin: It’s a major issue in terms of interpreting the science.
Caryn: So I wanted to remind you, I think the last time I saw you was at the – it was a book signing party or book launching party with BenBella Books when you came out with Whole. In Brooklyn at some bowling alley pub place [LAUGHING].
Colin: [LAUGHING] Oh yeah, I remember that. It was kind of a strange place, but it worked.
Caryn: It was a very interesting place and I got maybe four or five copies of your book and I didn’t read it until last month. But I’m glad I read it and it’s a great book.
Colin: I am actually more excited about Whole than I am the China Study because Whole was an attempt just on my part to try to understand a little better why there’s so much confusion about nutrition in the public. And why there’s so much confusion to most professionals including nutritional scientists, in my community. And I finally came up with an idea that’s partly old, partly new that I just find really, really exciting. And I – actually I’m finding now that, that book Whole is actually being used by quite a number of universities for recommended reading.
Caryn: Well I’m very glad to hear that because we do need a different paradigm when it comes to scientific study. And this whole reductionism thing, you’ve mentioned in the book, it can be useful to some degree, but we really need to look at the whole system. Not just one little thing. But it’s so expensive to do lots of little experiments with a gazillion parameters.
Colin: It is. That in part was the basis for the China Study, just in part. But there we collected as much information as we possibly could and then got involved in sort of combining some – some ideas and some observations. And we’re looking for patterns. And then of course, that can be assessed statistically to some extent. And I do have to add the comment that we did not assume causality from correlations. Some of the folks out there have criticized the China project itself that it did that. We did not. In fact, I’ve lectured on exactly what they were concerned about. So the China Study has lots of information and we’re basically looking for – I wasn’t – the kind of patterns that make sense in terms of the other information that’s available in the literature or we did ourselves before doing the China Study. You know I’m sure the criticism for the China Study was very frustrating. And a lot of it, if you really understand what you’re talking about, you know that they don’t know what they’re talking about, but I like to say don’t read your press, weigh it [LAUGHING].
Colin: [LAUGHING] Yeah, I know. That’s about right. And unfortunately though, some of them are quite – they’re backed up by some pretty big interest groups.
Caryn: So like the Western Price Foundation—
Colin: Yeah.
Caryn: Yeah. I had a friend of mine ask me. He said, “Can you point me to one study that—“Basically, he wanted to know the one study that tells it all, that really shows that a plant-based diet is superior or not. And I know that one study doesn’t exist, and I basically said: Read Whole and you’ll understand why I don’t have an answer to that question. But just like people want one pill to fix disease.
Colin: Right.
Caryn: You know, they want to see it easy and see it in one place.
Colin: That concept of Whole, I’m really finding more and more exciting as time passes. You know I started out, as you know, with trying to get feel for that concept by simply considering the inner workings of a cell of which we have between 10 and 100 trillion cells in our body. And every cell is like a universe. It’s intricately complex. I mean, I spent much of my early career studying chemicals and the workings about the cell, particularly in relation to nutrition. But those cells, who can imagine how much those 10 and 100 trillion cells in our body. And one cell, if you sit on the head of a pen and you can’t see it. It’s that small. But we’ve got trillions of those cells, each one of which is like a universe. And so we see all of these reactions going on inside of the cell. We know that. And we know it’s changing, you know, every nanosecond at a time. And so you get this extraordinary dynamic going on and it’s basically nature at work. It’s what it is.
Caryn: Well this is fascinating and I want to leave people with that thought of imagining all of these trillions of universes within our bodies. And if you want to hear more, know more about Dr. Campbell, you can go to the Total Health Conference. Right?
Colin: Yes [inaudible] I like the format for the conference. I’ve lectured there both times when Leanne did that. but it’s really relaxing. I heard what Del (Sroufe) said and it’s really just to kind of experience and you can relax and really talk and get involved in some serious discussions at the same time. It’s really nice.
Caryn: Well here’s an opportunity to have questions given right to you and get your answers.
Colin: [LAUGHING] Yes. Yup. And just make a comment they can comment on.
Caryn: Yeah. Well, great. Dr. Campbell, thank you for joining me. Thank you for everything you’ve done and continue to do and have a great time at the Total Health Conference.
Colin: Thanks very much Caryn for inviting me on, okay.
Caryn: Okay.
Colin: Bye-bye.
Caryn: Take care. Bye. Well, that was T. Colin Campbell and he and Del Sroufe are some of the speakers who will be at the Global Total Health Conference. And if you want to know more about it, you can go to Responsible Eating and Living, and look at this – the information for this show that we just had today and you can click on the links to get to that information. And we’ve come to the end of the show. Thank you for joining me and I just wanted to say, “Woo!” Not only did Leigh-Chantelle celebrate her 10th anniversary of her website, but we’re celebrating the one-year anniversary of my blog, “What Vegans Eat.” It happened four of five days ago, so thank you for supporting that. And we’re celebrating. Woo hoo! So thank you for tuning it today and have a delicious week.
Transcribed by Toni Ann Hall, 4/6/2016