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Caryn shares her thoughts on the Solar Eclipse, Restaurant Chains: Ruby Tuesdays and Brother Jimmy’s BBQ, the Hampton Creek Just Mayo saga and she discusses Dr. Fuhman’s DHA+EPA and Immune Biotect supplements.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Hello everybody. Hi there, I’m Caryn Hartglass and it’s time for It’s All About Food. Thank you for joining me today. I want to first start today’s program talking a little bit about the recent solar eclipse. So, a lot of places, a lot of media, a lot of people were talking about it. I’m not sure if you got to see it, see it through your special eclipse glasses or through a pin-hole cereal box, or whatever funky thing you might have created to view it. Or maybe you’re in a place where there’s only a partial eclipse. Or maybe you were in a place where the eclipse wasn’t happening at all. It seemed to bring out a lot of excitement and a lot of awe, a lot of awe. It is a fascinating thing, where we realize number one that we’re living on a spinning mass, the planet Earth, and that planet is spinning around a giant fireball. Then to add to that, we’ve got this spinning satellite that runs around our spinning mass once a day. The eclipse makes us kind of think about what’s going on. Things that we take for granted everyday. So, in some ways I appreciated that people were making a big deal about it. That people were in awe of what was happening. People were celebrating it and going out of their way. Some people traveled a long way to be able to see a total eclipse if it wasn’t happening as a total event where they live. What I want to bring up is that I think we should really be in awe every moment. Think about it. Like I just described, we’re living on this spinning mass that’s going around this spinning ball of fire and the whole concept is crazy, it’s incomprehensible. It’s so much more profound than any human mind can take in. Then think about who we are. Who you are. Who I am. We’re just little momentary specks in this grand universe and we don’t know why we’re here. We don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing. But we are here. So what? I encourage being mindful all the time. Staying in that state of awe as often as you can. Keeping the perspective. The eclipse is just like a wake up call. I think when I’ve been in a place that has an earthquake that’s like another wake up call. Like, oh yeah, I’m not standing on solid ground. Anything can happen at any moment. So my question for you right now is, how are you feeling right now in this moment? In just this moment. Not what just happened a few moments ago or what you may think will happen in a few moments. To come just right now. Right now, I’m feeling pretty good. I have a nice glass of cold pressed jasmine tea I’m going to sip. I went for a long walk. We’ve been doing a lot of regular walks. I especially like doing these walks when it’s really warm out because it gets a lot of the sweat going and I feel like it’s a way to detox all of the things that I’ve taken in that perhaps I didn’t want to take in. You know, you can eat as healthy as you want, but in this environment that we’re in, this precious, awesome environment, there are still things that can enter into your body through breathing, through drinking, through eating of course, and just through your pores. Some of that stuff is good and some of that stuff may not be so good. Having your body able to cleanse all of that is good and I feel cleansed and full of awe. I hope you’re feeling well, I do!
So in this moment, one of the things I wanted to talk about, I didn’t get to finish talking about last week was a restaurant I got to take advantage of last week and it made me think, I’ll talk about a few restaurants that are not vegan or vegetarian but offer either intentionally or not, foods that we can eat. We who want to eat plants. So last week, I took my 12-year-old niece and my 10-year-old nephew and a friend of mine in from San Francisco and her 7-year-old son and me and Gary. We went to a place called Friedman’s in Manhattan. I think there are 4 of them. They are a chain. They cater to those who must eat gluten free. It’s not a completely gluten free restaurant but when I checked the menu I wanted to make sure that everybody would have something to eat, and we did. What I loved about it was every server knew what was in the food, and they knew how careful they had to be not to expose people to gluten who absolutely can’t have it, like my niece who has Celiac disease. I really appreciate that. I think you only see that in places, businesses that are started with a passion or mission. What I read from their website is there was someone with Celiac disease who encouraged the creation of this restaurant. That’s what you need. You need someone with a passion or a mission, not just to make money. I prefer to take advantage of those places. Those places that have a goal that is helpful to the community.
Then we were invited to an engagement party that we went to Saturday night at Brother Jimmy’s BBQ in White Plains and I have to confess that when I first got the invitation I was a little hesitant. Brother Jimmy’s BBQ…But I emailed them and I got a very positive response. First of all, I’m excited when anybody answers my emails from a business. They answered right away and they said, no problem they can take care of me. Then when we got to the party, it was fantastic. Some very old friends, their daughter is engaged, it’s full of love and they had already planned to have a number of food selections for everyone and they knew there’d be some vegans there. There was a wonderful salad, there was this Brussels sprout dish that was fantastic. Then they told me there was a little butter in the string beans and they would make me some steamed string beans. What I love about this, okay they’re not a vegan restaurant, but number one, they are aware that there are vegans on the planet and they know how to accommodate us. This is a brand new world. This is really encouraging. I love when I see that. There are plenty of restaurants that are not like that. But, I’m excited to go to places like that and give them my money and give them my support when they’re moving in a progressive fashion, in a positive way. So that was Brother Jimmy’s BBQ in White Plains.
Just the other day, I went to Ruby Tuesday. Have you been to one of their chains? Ruby Tuesday, they’re a multi-national corporation and they have restaurants all over the country. They’re considered a casual American dining restaurant, where they have American food. I went there because my parents, I was with my parents. They wanted to go and my Dad had read they have a salad bar and my Mother was interested in the salad bar, lovely! We had a pretty good time there. The air conditioning was exceptionally strong and we were freezing. I never quite understand why some places have to be so cold, but that’s another topic. What I wanted to talk about Ruby Tuesday is, under a greater theme called the true cost of food. So Ruby Tuesday, they’re offering a new special and you should take advantage of it if you can. $13.99 you can get a 3-course meal. My parents got the petite sirloin with potato and the unlimited salad bar and a dessert of chocolate layer cake and ice cream. For $13.99! Now, I went for the unlimited salad bar and it was pretty good. They had kale and a number of different greens, corn, black beans, edamame, artichoke. There are supposed to be 50 ingredients on this salad bar. It was $10.99. I just kept thinking to myself, how can a restaurant make money on a 3-course meal at $13.99? I mean, how do they do that? How do they pay for the space? How do they pay for the air conditioning? How do they do it? So, I’m thinking of a lot of things. Number one, the service was fair. I’m not blaming any of the employees. There just weren’t enough of them and they were running around trying to accommodate everyone.
When I did a little searching, I learned a number of things. If you happen to be a salaried server at this restaurant, you’re average salary is around $19,000. I just wonder how people do on a salary that’s low and they have to work hard. Then you compare the CEO of this company who’s pulling in about $2 million with salary and stock dividends and other things. The difference is 100 times different. I asked myself, how is that? What is the CEO doing that is 100 times more valuable than the people that are working and moving and hustling and sweating and doing most of the work? It’s a fascinating thing in our Capitalistic society because most businesses operate that way. Where the few in upper management are making a gazillion dollars and all the worker bees are making barely a livable wage, barely if at all. Then they charge a 3-course meal for $13.99, it just doesn’t add up! Anyway, you have to know, I’m certain that the food that they’re serving has to be the lowest quality, the lowest cost available in order to sell it at such a price. That means, highly subsidized meats and dairy foods. I’m not ordering any of those, but that’s what they’re offering. And you know that we pay for those meats and dairy foods with our tax dollars. So we could actually have a reduction in our taxes if you’re looking for tax reductions by not supporting these industries. There’s just so much to this picture that I thought was wrong and that’s what casual American dining is all about today, in America.
Do you like Ruby Tuesday? Have you been there? Do you like their new garden salad bar? I’m glad they have a salad bar! Everybody should have access to unlimited salad, that’s great. My parents, they both had their nice salad, that was great. It’s just the picture, the entire picture, just doesn’t add up. That’s Ruby Tuesday.
Another strange thing that’s going on, I don’t know if you’re following it. I’ve talked about Hampton Foods a number of times on this program. We’ve also done video on Hampton Foods and their mayo product, Just Mayo. Now, we have recipes at responsibleeatingandliving.com. It’s easy to make your own mayo. I’m not calling it mayonnaise because according to the FDA, mayonnaise has to have egg in it. But, you could make a salad dressing or a food product that tastes like mayonnaise without using eggs. There are a number of companies that do it. There’s Vegenaise, there’s Trader Joe’s has one that’s vegan, there’s a lot of companies now have them. But, Just Mayo is the one that keeps getting all the press and recently Target had taken off the Just Mayo products they had on their shelves because they heard that they may be contaminated. Then we learned that they weren’t. That somebody had sent them a letter or information and it wasn’t from any official source. Hampton Foods was cleared. Now, we’re learning Target has just decided, no no no, we don’t want to stock this product on our shelves. I just ask myself, what is really going here? It’s almost like there’s kind of some conspiracy going on, where some of the big Ag, the big food companies, don’t want these vegan businesses to succeed. When Just Mayo first started getting some traction, Unilever lost it. They lost it so badly that they sued Just Mayo. Now, Unilever makes Best Food mayonnaise and Hellman’s mayonnaise. They didn’t like the competition. In the end, the dropped the suite and they decided to make their own vegan mayo. If you can’t beat ’em join ’em right? This mayo story continues and it’s sensational. Can we talk about Just Mayo a little bit more? I love vegan companies and I think we should have more of them. The thing that I don’t understand, well I do understand actually, is the Just Mayo product I’m reading on their website the ingredients. There’s no magic here to what’s in their product. The stuff that’s in their mayo products are in lots of different salad dressing related products. They use canola oil, water, they use different flavorings, they have xanthan gum, vinegar, tamari sauce, lemon juice, mostly good food products. They do have some preservatives like calcium disodium EDTA. But there’s nothing really high-tech seemingly about this product. I remember when Hampton Foods first came out they attracted a lot of investors with their concept that they were going to replace the animal egg in industrial foods and use a plant egg. They had all of these scientists figuring out how to make a plant product that had the same characteristics as an egg so that you could use them in industrial foods. A lot of investors were interested in it. Ultimately, I’m looking at their Just Mayo product and it doesn’t look really any different or high-tech than any other vegan mayo products. I’m wondering is it just hype? Just marketing? I don’t know. I don’t know. But I do know that in order for a food business to succeed, it really takes a lot. It takes a lot of funding, it takes a lot of marketing, it takes a lot of cleverness and it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best product, or even a good product. People can be convinced to consume just about anything. We see that all the time.
I recently published a couple of articles on the Responsible Eating and Living website. I wanted to tell you about them. I am promoting a couple of Dr. Fuhrman’s supplement products and I wanted to tell you why. I was asked to by the people that help promote Dr. Fuhrman’s products and they have 2 supplements out. One is called Immune Biotect and the other is Dr. Fuhrman’s DHA-EPA. Before I was asked to write about these products I was already trying a different DHA-EPA. I’m doing it because there’s not a lot of science out there, but I feel everything we know and what we’re hearing about with regard to dementia and Alzheimer’s. I want to do whatever I can to keep my brain healthy and fat. We know that our brains consist of a lot of fat. I feel that supplementing with DHA-EPA is a good thing to do. I did try another brand; I’m not going to say which one it is. But, I didn’t care for it because it was flavored with stevia. You say stevia, I say stevia. Now I say stevia, you say stevia. I learned a long time ago it’s supposed to be pronounced stevia but we all say stevia. Whatever, you know what I mean. These DHA-EPA liquids, they’re made of algae. Other people sometimes supplement with fish oil to get their DHA-EPA. So, this DHA-EPA that’s made with algae, it also has somewhat of a fishy flavor. I don’t think a savory fishy flavor goes very well with sugar or any sugar-like substance like an artificial sugar or stevia. Oh, it’s horrible. Dr. Fuhrman’s version has a light lemony flavor, lemongrass actually! Anyway, it’s not cheap. It’s an expensive product. But the more people around me, I know a very close friend who is a year older than me, has serious Alzheimer’s. A lot of older people around me have mild dementia and serious Alzheimer’s. It’s not a fun disease at all. So, in my journey I’m trying to live as healthfully as I can. Quality life and keeping my head together. I’m currently supplementing with DHA-EPA and I wanted you to know about that. I have one article about that.
Then the other one is about the Immune Biotect, which is a nice combination of berries, astragalus and a number of concentrated mushroom powders. When I was going through cancer treatment over 10 years ago, I searched for different products that I knew would help boost my immune system and help in my healing. I was taking astragalus, which has been shown to shrink tumors and mushrooms I call natural chemotherapy. So this is a great place to get it all in one. I continue to eat my mushrooms and enjoy my mushrooms as well. I hope you do too. So there are two products that you may consider.
I think I mentioned this last week; I’m going to mention it again. My non-profit website, responsibleeatingandliving.com. I hope you’ve been there, I hops you visit often. We try to put up a lot of information there that is helpful and free to use. We have apps and our Apple iPhone app had disappeared for a while. I didn’t even know it, but the app is back! So I hope you’ll go there- responsibleeatingandliving.com. You can download the app. Then it’s really easy to access to website anytime you want to. Isn’t that nice? I think it’s nice.
I’m trying to put this into words. So, a lot of people want to lose weight. It’s a thing. We have access to all kinds of food, all kinds of unhealthy food. Cheap food. We talked earlier about all that cheap food that is not really cheap. I didn’t even mention when I was talking about the true cost of food, that that cheap food- we ultimately pay for later. We pay for it in added weight, we pay for it in compromised health because when we’re eating that cheap food, petite sirloins, and ice cream, and whipped cream, and all kinds of sugar and bread products, etc. Then we are at much higher risk of getting diabetes and heart disease and Alzheimer’s and all of those things. That helps the pharmaceutical industry. It doesn’t really help you. So there are many costs to cheap food and costs to our environment as well and to our society. For those that struggle with weight, I understand how difficult it is because we are manipulated as a society. We are manipulated to choose the wrong foods and in some places, in food deserts as we call them, people don’t even have access to healthy foods. At least at Ruby Tuesday’s now they have the garden bar, which is a good thing. It takes effort and I can understand that no one really appreciates fat shaming, that’s a terrible thing. But, if you truly want something, if you truly want to be loved, if you truly want to reach a goal or achieve something, losing weight or anything else, it absolutely has to come from you. It has to come from within. Many people can come up with all kinds of tips and reasons why because of society or genes or the foods you eat. You come up with all kinds of excuses. But change happens from within. At responsibleeatingandliving.com we want to help everybody that we possibly can. I have people that write in all the time and I give them tips. But I can’t do it for you. You have to do it yourself. We like to provide inspiration, but I want you to know that for this brief time that we have on Earth, this brief time where we’re living on this spinning mass around this big ball of fire, we really should make the most of it. Work hard, and do the best that we can to be the best that we can. I want to leave you with that and if you have comments and questions you can send me an email at info@realmeals.org.
Now we’re going to take a little break. Then when we come back, I’m going to being on my guest Stacey Murphy and we’re going to talk about growing your own vegetables. I’m really excited about this. Let’s take a quick break.
Transcribed by Adella Finnan 8/29/2017