#132: Carleigh Bodrug - The "PlantYou" Sensation Gets Scrappy with Rip
Carleigh Bodrug, author of PlantYou
If you have extra banana peels at home, don’t throw them away! If you have extra pickle juice in the jar, don’t dump it down the sink! The same is true for broccoli stalks, chickpea juice, and potato peels. Hold on to them…Why?
In this fun episode, Rip gets scrappy with food blogger, Instagram and TikTok star, and now – new author of the book, PlantYou – Carleigh Bodrug! In her creative video content she shows her millions of followers how to turn those scraps into simple, delicious, and nutritious foods that people will absolutely adore.
Carleigh is a plantstrong ball of light raised in Ontario, Canada on a small family farm. Like so many others, she was raised on the standard western meat and potatoes diet. All of that changed, however, when her Dad was diagnosed with colon cancer.
“I remember in 2015, the World Health Organization announced that red and processed meat were now classed as Group 2 and Group 1 carcinogens, and what I remember most about when that news broke was my dad was actually angry because it was like he had had this super invasive surgery and chemotherapy and then gone back to eating the very thing that at least was not helping the situation, right?”
This feisty young woman (who really couldn’t cook, by the way) took it upon herself to start experimenting with plants! Her goal? Make this lifestyle approachable, easy to follow, and so, so fun.
“You can't force it down people's throat, you kind of have to just lead by example so I try to talk as positively as possible about how many benefits that I've personally experienced from going plant-based rather than kind of shaming or dampering on people's food, because food is emotional and nostalgic, as you know.”
Her new book, PlantYou includes, not just photos of the gorgeous finished products, but also photos of every ingredient you need, making it so easy to follow. You know what else I love? It features over 140 recipes that are not only plantstrong, but also OIL-FREE!
“Instead of a glug of oil in the pan, why don't you try vegetable broth or water and I can guarantee the finished product of that dish is going to take almost identical if not identical, and you have now reduced the fat and caloric content dramatically.”
Rip and Carleigh Also Dish On:
The support she receives from her family and fiance
“I was super lucky in that I was supported on that journey because I think a lot of people are going it alone, and the social aspect, I always say to people, the social aspect is the hardest I think, and in a way, because I wasn't doing it completely by myself, that was a little easier to swallow. Like you didn't have to explain as much if your parents were going the same route.”
Why she maximizes every ounce of food she can when preparing meals and snacks
“So this scrappy cooking concept was all born by this desire to kind of like reduce food waste within our own homes and also reduce the amount of money wasted and I think something like 40 to 50% of edible food in North America goes to waste, so it's a huge issue. And I think a lot of people are going aimlessly to the grocery store each week with really good intentions and buying a lot of fresh produce that ends up in the garbage.”
Tips with aquafaba, ginger, date seeds, potato skins, pickle juice and more!
Tools for your plant-based kitchen
Leading by example with positive energy
“I try to talk as positively as possible about how many benefits that I've personally experienced from going plant-based rather than kind of shaming or dampering on people's food, because food is emotional and nostalgic, as you know.”
Trust me, you’ll be hearing a lot more from Carleigh in the coming months because the future is bright for this young broc-star.
About Carleigh Bodrug
In 2015, news broke from the World Health Organization that red and processed meat were now considered Group 1 and Group 2 Carcinogens. Like so many others, Carleigh had grown up on a standard meat and potatoes diet, with steak and pork-chops on weekly rotation in her family kitchen. The news was particularly shocking as her father was a stage 2 colon cancer survivor.
Armed with a bachelor’s degree in media theory and journalism, Carleigh began to do her own research, reading landmark and life-changing books including The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, finally enrolling in a one-year holistic health coach course to become more versed in nutrition. The science was clear. The healthiest, cancer-protecting and longevity-promoting approach to eating was a whole-foods, plant-based, oil-free lifestyle.
With little-to-no cooking skills and a tiny bachelor apartment kitchen, Carleigh started experimenting with plants.
She noticed that most recipes online were complex and required a lot of specialty grocery items.
Determined to stay the course, Carleigh began cooking vegan meals by simply replacing the meat in her favorite childhood recipes with plants. The first recipe she ever veganized was pasta with bolognese sauce.
And that’s how Plant You was born. Today, she has amassed millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok and has just released her first book, Plant You.
Carleigh Bodrug Resources:
PLANTSTRONG Resources:
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Join the free PLANTSTRONG Community
Promo Music - Creative Commons License - Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)
YouTube Transcript
Carleigh Bodrug:
The biggest comment I get when I mimic meat in any recipe is like, "Why as a vegan would you ever be doing that if you don't like the taste of meat?" And I always say, the majority of people who go plant-based or vegan are not going that way because they don't like the taste of meat. We're going that way for our health, for the planet, and the animals. So if we can mimic these things with plants, why the heck not? Why wouldn't you go plant-based then?
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and welcome to the PLANTSTRONG podcast. The mission at PLANTSTRONG is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living, and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with. We welcome you, wherever you are, on your PLANTSTRONG journey, and I hope that you enjoy the show.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hello, my PLANTSTRONG pineapples. I'm Rip Esselstyn, and welcome to another episode of the PLANTSTRONG podcast. And thank you so much for making the PLANTSTRONG podcast a part of your weekly a part of your weekly routine. I got to say that you guys have no idea what kind of a razzle-dazzle treat you're in store for today. Hear me out. If you have extra banana peels at home, stop. Don't throw them away. If you have extra pickle juice in the jar, stop. Don't dump it down the sink. If you don't have a clue what to do with all those broccoli stalks, stop. Don't throw them in the compost bin. The same is true for chickpea juice, potato peels, and so much more. Hold onto them all.
Rip Esselstyn:
Why? Because today, we're going to get scrappy with food blogger, Instagram and TikTok mega star and now the new author of the book PlantYou, Ms. Carleigh Bodrug. She helps turn those scraps into simple, delicious and nutritious foods that people will gobble up. Carleigh is a PLANTSTRONG bottle of light raised in Ontario, Canada on a small family farm that was filled with horses, chickens, and other assorted pets. Like so many of us, she was raised on the standard Western diet, loaded with meat, dairy and lots of processed and refined foods. All of that changed however when her father, a fire captain, was diagnosed with colon cancer. This feisty young woman who couldn't cook a lick took it upon herself to start experimenting with plants. Her goal? Make this lifestyle approachable, easy to follow, and super fun. Her new book, PlantYou, includes not just photos of the gorgeous finished recipes, but also photos of every ingredient you'll need for those recipes, making it so visually easy to follow and appealing.
Rip Esselstyn:
You know what else I love? It features over 140 recipes that are not only PLANTSTRONG, but also oil-free, my PLANTSTRONG friends. Talk to me Carleigh. My family and I are having a ball digging through some of these recipes. I know you will too, so please welcome to the PLANTSTRONG podcast, Carleigh Bodrug.
Rip Esselstyn:
Boy Carleigh, you are doing really amazing things in the plant-based space, and it is an absolute thrill and honor to have you on the podcast, so thanks for joining us today.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Well, it is the biggest honor to be here. I mean you were of the trailblazers that really inspired my plant-based journey, so this is a full circle moment for me today.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So tell me, you've got a lot of exciting things going on this week. One of them is you're launching your new book, this baby, it's right behind you, and I actually have it right here, it's called PlantYou, right?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Exactly. PlantYou.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. What can you tell me about PlantYou?
Carleigh Bodrug:
So PlantYou is the cookbook that I wish I had when I went plant-based six years ago. It's a cookbook full of 140 whole food plant-based oil-free recipes that are as easy as can be. I am having a lot of imposter syndrome this week thinking that I'm putting out a cookbook when before I went plant-based there was no culinary experience, but I think that could add to the magic of the recipes because they are truly the simplest, hopefully most accessible plant-based recipes that you're going to find and really use with simple, whole food plant-based ingredients.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well I want to talk about some of the recipes you have in here. I also want to talk about ... You have become quite the phenomenon on both TikTok and Instagram. You've got over 1.6 million followers on TikTok. Really you're nudging up right to a million on Instagram. How long have you had both these social media platforms?
Carleigh Bodrug:
So it's interesting. I started Instagram probably around that 2016-2017 time after going plant-based and was really felt called to from my soul to talk about this and TikTok wasn't until last year. So isn't that crazy? The TikTok platform is now larger than the Instagram platform, but I guess that happens when you're kind of like an early adopter on there and really they've both just grown really organically. The Instagram page interestingly, you've seen the book and all of these kind of infographic recipes and what I mean by that is that the recipes all have a photo but then have images of all the individual ingredients that go into them on top of the dish. So basically my Instagram following and account started with this concept, and people just really loved the ease and visual accessibility of the recipes and it grew over time on that concept and it was the basis of my book proposal. So it's weird because I'm putting out this book now but it's really the kind of foundational elements that my Instagram account first grew on.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So having it be this visual, which is just like ... I mean, I'm just amazed. Has anybody else ever done this with the ingredients that you know of?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Not that I know of, and I remember when I first wrote the book proposal that I was trying to like make it like a regular cookbook, like in just full-scale images of the food and it just struck me one day, like why am I trying so hard to meld myself into this kind of typical cookbook when this infographic concepts, people seem to like it, and they find it appealing and I think what it is about it is like you look at the dish and a dish can seem like it's going to be really complex and hard to make but when you see the actual individual ingredients that are going to go into it, it breaks it down, it makes it seem like anybody can do it, which is the whole goal.
Rip Esselstyn:
I couldn't agree with you more. When I'm looking at these recipes, I immediately look at the different ingredients and then that kind of helps inform me of course along with the photo of the dish, what do I want to create from this recipe book. I just can't believe nobody else has thought to do this with a recipe book, where food is like so visual, right? It makes so much sense.
Carleigh Bodrug:
There's got to be someone out there who has done it, but not in my knowledge and you know what? I was a crazy person. I went out and bought a camera the day I signed the book proposal and I photographed every recipe in the book but those individual ingredients to photograph were not fun. But I'm so glad to hear because like this is what everybody is talking about is the visual element of it, so it makes it so, so worth it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I mean just when you think that nothing new can come to the cookbook world, especially the plant-based cookbook world, all of a sudden here comes the sassy, the creative and scrappy Carleigh, right, to the rescue. It's really remarkable. So yeah, the TikTok. 1.6 million followers, and Instagram a million. So obviously, and I've extensively over the weekend and this morning looked at lots of your posts and you've done a phenomenal job, because not only do you capture whatever it is you're trying to create or what you're trying to tell people, "Don't throw away your banana peels," right? But you also have great narration, it's very short and sweet, and then you also have this typically very appropriate music in the background as well, right?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
You've got the whole package.
Carleigh Bodrug:
That's super kind of you. I will say I went to school for broadcast journalism so I'm sure that has aided in my ability to at least narrate the videos. But it's just crazy to think about. Like I never thought when I was creating content years ago that I would be creating videos on a weekly if not almost daily basis, but here we are and I mean I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's such a privilege really to have the community that I do and people kind of invested in wanting to learn about plant-based cooking and showing up day after day for more recipes, it's like the best thing ever.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, and it's obvious that you are having a lot of fun. You're a great educator, you're creative, as I said, you're super scrappy and people obviously ... They love you for it, right? I mean and plus you're Canadian, and I want you to know, I love Canadians. Some of my best friends are Canadians. They just have a certain ... To me a certain modesty and way about them that is beautiful.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Oh thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you're from Ontario, right?
Carleigh Bodrug:
From Ontario, born and raised. And still here. It's cold out right now. Not very nice. But I won't complain.
Rip Esselstyn:
No. I bet. So I'd love ... Before we dive into some of your stuff, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background because when we first were emailing back and forth, you told me that your father was a fire captain.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. I think he was actually a sergeant when he ... I don't know, I asked, I shot him a message after, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I'm emailing with Rip Esselstyn. I told him you were a fire captain." That's not what he was. He was like he was higher than that in the ranks.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, okay.
Carleigh Bodrug:
But anyways ... Yeah, he was like, "Ooh." So my dad was a firefighter, and I grew up actually on a hobby farm in Ontario, Canada. So grew up, we had chickens, horses, all sorts of animals, always coming in and out of the house. My parents are the biggest animal lovers you could know and when I was 11, my dad was diagnosed with stage II colon cancer, and like many people, my dad was like my hero, and it was very traumatic. So he had the full surgery, chemotherapy, but the sad part about it is after that, we just continued eating the meat and dairy products full on. At the time the Canada Food Guide had meat and dairy both as their own individual sections, so my parents were really doing the best they could in terms of thinking that they're feeding both themselves and us as kids a healthy diet, and then I remember in 2015, the World Health Organization announced that red and processed meat were now classed as Group 2 and Group 1 carcinogens, and what I remember most about when that news broke was my dad was actually angry because it was like he had had this super invasive surgery and chemotherapy and then gone back to eating the very thing that at least was not helping the situation, right?
Carleigh Bodrug:
And then I always say, when you first go plant-based, it's like opening up Pandora's box. You watch the documentaries, Forks Over Knives, What the Health, read the books To Live, How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger and really I remember just being like, especially in Ontario, Canada, where there wasn't a prevalent plant-based community or vegan community, I remember thinking why isn't anybody talking about this because from a baseline perspective, it was obvious to me that eating a whole food plant-based diet was just incredible for our health but also the environmental aspect and the animal aspect. I always say to people it's like a win-win-win on every level. So -
Rip Esselstyn:
Truly.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah, I felt so called to talk about it, but I didn't know how to cook. So it was like I remember searching the word vegan on Pinterest, and all of these bowls coming up that were like spiralized zucchini and carved avocados and stuff. And thinking, "Well that looks good but I don't know if I can eat that way, coming from this kind of small town Ontario farm." So I started by just kind of veganizing the food that I had grown up eating. So like a good example would be actually in my cookbook is my mom's vegan Bolognese, which my mom had beef Bolognese pasta sauce every week, I can smell it still, like when I came home from school.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So I started by veganizing these recipes and I guess being from a journalism background, I started just kind of recording it, like on the blog and on Instagram and people resonated with it, and what do you know, I mean six years later or seven years later, I'm sitting across from you, which is really the most wild thing. So it's just crazy, it's been a wild ride and like I said I just feel really, really grateful to have the platform I do and to be able to talk about this every day because I think it is just so important.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And so since you started this in 2015, your mom and dad along for the ride as well?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. So they both went plant-based with me. I say plant-based as in like they will occasionally have seafood if they go out for dinner but they're primarily plant-based, so incredible. My dad has been cancer-free, knocking wood right now, and my mom in great health as well, so I was super lucky in that I was supported on that journey because I think a lot of people are going it alone, and the social aspect, I always say to people, the social aspect is the hardest I think, and in a way, because I wasn't doing it completely by myself, that was a little easier to swallow. Like you didn't have to explain as much if your parents were going the same route.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, it's great. It's great to have family on board, especially when you're diving into this, and you've also got your ... Is it your fiance?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yes. So my fiance, I've been with him for 10 years actually, like this month, and he was the same as me. Big meat eaters, big 6'5" guy, hugely into sports. And I remember he was the most taken aback when I told him I was going vegan. Because I think for people, it takes a lot to wrap their head around how you're going to operate in terms of like ... People connect over food, right? Like our favorite food before this was like steak and a baked potato, so like where do we go from here? I was super lucky that after cooking him, I'm the primary cook in the house obviously, after cooking a lot of plant-based food for him, he slowly transitioned to again like a 99.9% plant-based lifestyle and actually ran his first half Ironman this summer and talks about how much better he has felt after transitioning to a plant-based lifestyle in terms of inflammation and speed and being able ... In Ironman it's like you've got to be able to do long-lasting running and biking.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So I mean I've converted a lot of people along the way, and I always say it's Nimai Delgado who I think probably was one of the first to use the words attractivism, but I always say like you can't force it down people's throat, you kind of have to just lead by example so I try to talk as positively as possible about how many benefits that I've personally experienced from going plant-based rather than kind of shaming or dampering on people's food, because food is emotional and nostalgic, as you know.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. No, it's always better to take the high road like that, it's much more attractive. I like that term attractivism. That's good, for sure. So I'd love to just throw out a couple things that you have done either on Instagram or TikTok or with your book and have you share with our audience like how to get scrappy with it or how to ... Just whatever comes to your mind. So let me throw out, I'll start with ... You have ginger and you say if you got ginger, don't throw it away. So how do you get scrappy with ginger?
Carleigh Bodrug:
So this scrappy cooking concept was all born by this desire to kind of like reduce food waste within our own homes and also reduce the amount of money wasted and I think something like 40 to 50% of edible food in North America goes to waste, so it's a huge issue. And I think a lot of people are going aimlessly to the grocery store each week with really good intentions and buying a lot of fresh produce that ends up in the garbage. So I've actually done 38 episodes of this and ginger was one of my most recent ones, because you buy like a big thing of ginger and maybe you have like one recipe, like a stir fry with ginger in it, and then you don't know how to use the rest up. I really love to blend ginger with water and lemon juice, about three cups of water and a thumb of ginger with lemon juice and then pour it into an ice cube tray and it makes the most glorious like ginger lemon ice cubes that are incredible in just your water in the morning, if people like lemon water, it adds a whole other level, and then also in tea. Like it's so good. Or you could have like a cold tea or a warm tea with these as well, so ... There are all these, I think I've done like 39 episodes now and it's definitely my most popular series.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh yeah, it's fun. It's definitely fun. We're definitely going to talk about some of these. Do you have a method for taking the outside off of the ginger or do you just use the whole thing?
Carleigh Bodrug:
So I used a potato peeler and only because I found when I blended the ginger with the skin on, it just didn't have the same kind of consistency that it did if you peeled it. You don't have to peel it though. But people are all telling me in the comments that you should use the back of the spoon to peel ginger because you waste a lot less. Like apparently the skin on ginger is super thin, so you can just use like the back of the spoon although I haven't tried it myself. I was in with the potato peeler and they were all telling me that I did it wrong.
Rip Esselstyn:
I used the potato peeler myself. So what about ... Let's get scrappy again. What about ... So one of the things that I know I hate is when I pull out like spinach or some other leafy green, and it's like wilted, it's a little bit slimy, should we throw it away or should we stop and do something with it?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah, this is one of those things that like I swear everybody has a well-intentioned box of spinach that is like dying at the back of their fridge, it happens to the best of us, right? So if you open up that box of spinach and you're like, "Ooh, it's not fresh enough that I want to put this in a beautiful, fresh whole food salad right now," the best way to take care of it is to throw it in your blender with a little plant-based milk, you can even add like something like a half an avocado to make it even creamier. Blend it up, again pour it in an ice cube tray and I call these smoothie cubes because they're this incredible way to add nutrition to your smoothies in like one simple bomb.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So then you take them out of the fridge whenever you're making a quick smoothie, maybe you have like banana and plant-based milk and some chia seeds in a blender, throw in those smoothie bombs and you're good to go and I promise you will not taste like the wiltyness of the spinach after it's been frozen. You can't really taste spinach in smoothies in my experience anyways, so it's a really neutral green to do this with. You can also do it with kale and stuff, but you have to be a green smoothie fan then. Which I am part of that club, but I don't know how many people are.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah yeah. Nice. So one of the things that ... I don't like them, but my wife and my youngest daughter do, and that's pickles. And so we always go through the pickles and then we're left with all this pickle juice. So you say, "Stop. Don't throw out the pickle juice." What do we do with it?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Pickle juice is incredible. I think I've done two episodes utilizing pickle juice for different things. One of them was marinating tofu and making like a pickle sandwich, almost like a fried ... It's not fried, but it was like marinated in pickle juice, then breaded, and air fried, and it made like the best sandwich and I heard a lot of people who tried it after and I haven't tried this, but said it was a lot like the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, because I guess they have pickles on it. So definitely this pickle brine ... Oh, I most recently made dill pickle chip soup. I called it dill pickle chip soup because it literally to me tasted like dill pickle chips in a bowl from what I remember of them, and it was just using like half a cup of that pickle brine left over in like a potato soup, and I actually used, the foundational recipe was a potato leek soup that I have in my cookbook, because it's super simple, like you literally just need ... I think Yukon Gold potatoes. A little bit of plant milk, vegetable broth, some spices and you're good to go with a beautiful potato soup, but then add that pickle juice and it brings it over the edge and then some fresh dill on top.
Rip Esselstyn:
How did you get so creative with everything? Are you just by nature that way or have you read a lot or like what have you done to become so adept at creating these recipes and doing your scrappy stuff?
Carleigh Bodrug:
I think as a human being, I am naturally curious and then creative as a default, but with that comes like a very scattered brain and disorganization, so I will not say it's like all great over here. But when I say like I love making these videos and making up recipes and experimenting in the kitchen, like I'm obsessed with it. I don't even see it as work, I just find it so much fun and I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be cooking for a living, like I still am very shocked. But it kind of itches all of the little things in my brain.
Rip Esselstyn:
Listen, that's so exciting and I'm so happy for you that you figured out a way to itch all those cravings that are inside you. Coming back to the pickle juice for a second, does Jesse ever drink the pickle juice? Because supposedly it's good for athletes to help from cramping?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. He has, but you know what? I had a health doctor, heart doctor duet my video in TikTok, and he's like, "Be careful drinking pickle juice because of the sodium." Which I know you talk about a lot, that there's a lot of sodium in pickle juice. So like if you're making something like a dill pickle chip soup, like a quarter of a cup throughout the whole soup, you're not going to need to add salt to the soup, that's for sure, but drinking it maybe if you're an athlete. As an average human, the amount of people who are like, "I drink the juice," I'm like, "Wow, you're getting a big shot of sodium in there for sure."
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah yeah yeah. Well a lot of these athletes though, they don't mind that and in fact if you're doing half Ironmans or even Ironmans a lot of them are taking salt tablets because they lose so much, so...
Carleigh Bodrug:
Right, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
So I think it's okay for Jesse. What about ... You have a whole chapter in your book about eating cookies for breakfast. Are you serious? Are we allowed to do that?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Okay, so I'm sure you have experienced this yourself, like every doctor I have ever talked to or interviewed in the plant-based space starts their morning with oatmeal, so I call these like my portable oatmeal. Just like a little more fun than like your average bowl of oatmeal, because they have all of the same ingredients as like a bowl of oatmeal, just in cookie form, depending on which one you make.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So I have four different breakfast cookies in the book. One of them is pumpkin, one of them is like zucchini bread, one of them is called banana bread and then -
Rip Esselstyn:
You have a chocolate chip banana bread that I specifically am going to make.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Oh they're so good, and they're so easy. Like it's literally five ingredients in a bowl, mix it up, form them into cookies, you can't go wrong. And then you can add whatever you want, right? Like if you don't like dark chocolate chips, I don't know who that person is, but maybe you can't eat them from your diet, you could add dried cranberries or Goji berries or something. So they're really versatile in that way and they're portable. Great to just grab and go if you're heading to work.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and then also in the breakfast section, you also have a whole section on overnight oats and you have midnight chocolate cherry that totally spoke to me.
Carleigh Bodrug:
You're a chocolate lover, eh?
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, big time. Big time. Oh yeah, oh yeah, death by chocolate.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I love chocolate too, but yeah, I think I have like eight different overnight oat recipes. I mean they're so versatile and again, like I think one of the biggest keys to having success with a healthy plant-based lifestyle is preparation and I always say if somebody's going to start meal prepping, overnight oats is one of those great meals to start with because you can literally lay out four jars on your counter and have four servings of overnight oats done in under five minutes, all different kind of combinations if you want them and in your fridge. You've got breakfast for the week in way less time than it would take you to drive through the drive-through in the morning.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. And they look so delicious and healthy and satiating and what a great way to start the morning. You know what? Speaking of chocolate, another thing that caught my eye. This might have been in your Instagram feed is you took bananas that had a fair amount of spots on them, you cut them open, you put dark chocolate chips inside of them, you wrap them up in aluminum or tin foil, and put them on the fire. Is this like the healthiest s'mores ever or what?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Oh, so good. We call them banana boats. They're like so good ... So you basically, if you're at a campfire, it's like such an incredible ... Exactly, like a s'mores, is you literally just slice the banana open and stuff it with whatever you want. Chocolate chips are incredible, a little peanut butter maybe, and then wrap those up and it creates like a tent and like really high heat and it ... You know when a banana heats up it caramelizes, right? So it was just incredible. So, so good.
Rip Esselstyn:
I can't wait to do that. Really can't wait to do that. This weekend, this weekend with my kids, we're going to do banana boats. What about ... So speaking of like getting scrappy, you do something where you turn banana peels into like banana jerky or something?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Bacon, yep. Banana boat bacon.
Rip Esselstyn:
Are you serious? You could actually eat banana peels? I mean -
Carleigh Bodrug:
100%.
Rip Esselstyn:
Is it good?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah, like as bacon for sure. Banana peels, like if you put them in a little soy sauce, you can use liquid smoke or not, a little maple syrup, I think it's cumin and you marinate them and then put them in the air fryer, unbelievable. Like they come out like crispy bacon. But I always say to people, banana peels seems to be the limit for a lot of people which I get. I feel like naturally our mind is like, "I don't want to eat a banana peel." They're great to compost as well. Like banana peels make excellent fertilizer. So keep them around, you can even soak banana peels in water and then use that to feed your plants inside. So so many versatile uses for them.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Speaking of versatility, you also tell people that stop, don't throw out the potato skins.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
What do we do with these potato skins?
Carleigh Bodrug:
As you and I know, potato skins are the roughage, right? Like they have so much fiber, so as a baseline, I typically don't peel my potatoes unless I'm making like mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving where I know the potato peels are not going to be appreciated, and if you're doing that and you're peeling your potatoes for whatever reason, definitely do not throw them out. This is one of my favorite scrappy recipes. All you have to do is toss them in a few of your favorite spices, I really like nutritional yeast, a little bit of dried parsley. Put them again in the oven or air fryer, you need like literally eight minutes. And they're going to come out like crispy potato skins. It's like the best snack, high in fiber and delicious.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yum. What about ... When was the last time you went foraging for puff mushrooms?
Carleigh Bodrug:
You went really down on the feed. It's making me self-conscious. I'm like, "What else did you find on there?"
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, don't worry. If we go too deep, we can always cut it.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So yes. Like I saw that people were finding puffball mushrooms in Ontario on TikTok, I think.
Rip Esselstyn:
And just to stop for a sec, I want you to know that like growing up, my mother. We would find a puffball mushroom that's the size of a basketball.
Carleigh Bodrug:
They're huge.
Rip Esselstyn:
And my mom would say, "Ooh, we have to take this home and eat it." I'm like, "No, Gah...Really." And it wasn't until I saw your puffball mushroom recipe that I was like, "That actually looks really good."
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. This to this day is the most viral recipe on my page. I think it got like six million or eight million views, but basically I saw people were finding these puffball mushrooms. I had never seen one in my life, and this is kind of a really funny story because I called up my dad, who's like all into this stuff right there with me, and I'm like, "We need to find a puffball mushroom because I'm dying to recipe create with it."
Carleigh Bodrug:
And for anybody, like I don't even know how to describe the visual of a puffball mushroom, but it literally looks like a rock sitting in a field. Like it's like a huge white mountainous thing. So my dad and I go foraging for like three hours, we're looking for puffball mushrooms and we do not find a thing. Our knees are covered in mud the whole, like just tired, can't believe I didn't find one, I see all these people on TikTok finding them. We're literally heading to the car, I look to my right, and there is a sunbeam in this forest on two huge puffball mushrooms. It was one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced. Went up, they were literally ... I said in the video puffball perfection. So then we took the puffballs home and got to work, like we tested a whole bunch of different recipes, and the best was actually breading in a little bit of panko and then baking and then tossing in a bit of hot sauce. Oh my goodness, so good. Great meat substitute, and then my dad was testing them, he has a bunch of it frozen but he was testing it as an egg scramble replacement. I don't know how, I never tried it, but he was saying it was unbelievable. Sending me pictures. So I just love that stuff. I love it. I don't know why, but it's so much fun.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, well, it's fun, it's exciting, you're hunting for your food, you're trying to find a particular species of mushroom that you know it's pretty unique. Not everybody's had the luck of finding a puffball mushroom, and I don't know how rare they are, but wow, they are ... They're wild. They are wild.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah, it's weird to see them and it's like I know a lot of people were saying that growing up they used to kick them, and what will happen if you kick them is they'll like literally puff up. I think that's maybe where the name comes from but they'll like evaporate into the air with smoke. We never did that obviously because we wanted to eat it, but it's just crazy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, we'll have to check out and see if Derek Sarno has had any experience with a puffball mushroom. Speaking of kind of like a pseudo like vegan meat, you do a vegan roast. What can you tell me about your vegan roast? Because it looks amazing. Do you use like soy protein isolates or anything like that or what do you use as your -
Carleigh Bodrug:
That one specifically is vital wheat gluten in chickpeas. And I believe I also have beet juice in it, which is what creates the beautiful red roast color when you're cutting it up and oh my goodness, I'll tell you like it is just incredible what we can do with plants in terms of mimicking meat if you want them, which I think for a lot of people is a big barrier to access when you're going plant-based, but this specific roast.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So you blend up chickpeas, vital wheat gluten, a little bit of vegetable broth, mix it up, and then you scheme it. So vital wheat gluten typically or seitan needs to be schemed, so then you scheme it and then I wrapped it in tin foil and put it in the fridge overnight and then I took it out and I actually added some coffee grounds to the outside, made it look very much like a meaty roast, reheated it again, and it just was beautiful and tasted beautiful too. Like just so meaty in texture and flavor and the comments were a bit brutal on that one because the biggest comment I get when I mimic meat in any recipe is like, "Why as a vegan would you ever be doing that if you don't like the taste of meat?" And I always say the majority of people who go plant-based or vegan are not going that way because they don't like the taste of meat. We're going that way for our health, for the planet, and the animals. So if we can mimic these things with plants, why the heck not? Why wouldn't you go plant-based then? So that's my whole kind of thing I want to do in the plant-based space is just make it as easy as possible for people to make the foods that they grew up in and loved eating in plant-based form.
Rip Esselstyn:
We'll get right back to Carleigh, but first I wanted to take a minute and share with you an email that I received just last week. We get emails and texts and messages from people that are reaping the benefits of eating PLANTSTRONG and I just think it's important that I share with you some of the PLANTSTRONG proof that we receive all the time.
Rip Esselstyn:
"Hi Rip, I was at the Fall 2019 Sedona immersion. I'm the father of six kids, I watched Forks Over Knives, and knew my life needed to change. I had gained a ton of weight, and lost the ability to run the ultra marathons that I enjoy. I have a family history of heart disease and diabetes, and I saw myself walking down my father's path. One day, I couldn't run more than a few steps with my son before I had to sit and rest. It was that day that I signed up for the immersion. When I was there, I've never felt as loved and cared for as I was by the staff, chefs, and local community. It was one of the most formative experiences of my life, and I've never felt healthier. I had consistent energy, I could hike anywhere for as long as I wanted. I made a few friends I still keep in touch with. Before the retreat, I had never been able to get myself to eat a whole food, plant-based diet. At the immersion, I felt no lack of anything, ever. It fully convinced me that this is my path.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'd love to say I came back and changed my life, but it came in fits and starts. Culturally it can be difficult to walk this path. I had a wife who had no interest in changing her eating habits. Well, I no longer have that wife. It's been a hard and lonely journey, but we, meaning the kids and I, have stronger relationships than ever. We've even started cooking a lot more. I floundered for a while after the separation. My diet was poor and it was mostly gas station junk food as I worked a construction job to pay the bills. I actually hit 250 pounds and something in me yelled, "Enough."
Rip Esselstyn:
I returned to the lifestyle, and I immediately began to feel improvement. In 2021, I lost 47 pounds steadily and sustainably. I finally freed myself of a sugar addiction I had had all my life. 2022 is the year of the bear, my nickname in pickleball and trail running. I signed up for a 25K in spring and a 50 mile race in fall. Healthy food and consistent movement have been the most helpful portions of my grieving and healing. Mindfulness, therapy, massage, music and connection with friends and family has been a part of the recipe too. I'm not out of the darkness yet, but I move forward now with hope when mere months ago I had none. I just wanted to share this and say how thankful I am for the experience I had at the retreat. The food, yes. Of course the food. As Dr. Klaper said, it's always been the food. But it was also the love. I felt loved at the retreat, in a marriage with unreciprocated love, I had forgotten what love and care felt like. My heart began to rise and stir that week. The work that you do is changing lives, but I wanted to add my story and gratitude to the big bowl of goodness you're creating in this lost and wonderful world. Thank you, bless you, hope to see you all again one day. Brandon."
Rip Esselstyn:
Brandon, I got to thank you, my PLANTSTRONG brother, for remaining open, vulnerable, and willing to receive love even in the midst of all your pain. Our PLANTSTRONG immersions, they are magical. Every one of our staff members will tell you that as well, and I hope that you're healing and your journey to health continues. Please keep us posted on those races. Brandon, we are rooting for you.
Rip Esselstyn:
You know, the team and I are headed off to Black Mountain, North Carolina in just a few days for our spring retreat, but you too can experience magical transformation at our Sedona retreat this fall, it's October 10th through the 15th. We'd love to see you there. To learn more, visit plantstrong.com, or we'll link it up to you in the show notes. So thanks so much. Bye.
Rip Esselstyn:
I have to say, you're my PLANTSTRONG sister, because you are so into oil-free cooking, right?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Bless you for that. What got you on board with the oil-free cooking?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Honestly, it was Forks Over Knives, and then also reading Dr. Michael Greger's How Not to Die and Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live for sure and I remember starting to cook without oil and a lot of people would be like, "How do you cook without oil?" And I personally found that transition so easy. I find every recipe you find online, it's like I live off a lot of soups, curries, stir fries, as a lot of people in the plant-based world do, and any of those recipes typically start with like a glug of oil in a pan. Well, instead of a glug of oil in the pan, why don't you try vegetable broth or water and I can guarantee the finished product of that dish is going to take almost identical if not identical, and you have now reduced the fat and caloric content dramatically, and I always say to people one tablespoon of ... I don't like to talk about calories too much on my channel, but it's worth noting that one tablespoon of oil is 100 calories and I would much rather have like one of my breakfast cookies for dessert that are 100 calories than literally a tablespoon of oil.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So it's really, I find food tastes often better without oil. I will now like ... Over the years, my kind of cooking has developed and like if I really feel a recipe needs oil, I'll add a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. But I think as a baseline, people in North America just use oil way too much. Like it's just in every recipe you find, and in every foundation of cooking and it's so unnecessary.
Rip Esselstyn:
So unnecessary. We like to say that yeah, oil is good for your car. But we as human beings, we don't need extracted, processed oil that's got almost no nutritional integrity whatsoever. Get it from the whole food.
Carleigh Bodrug:
The fiber is a huge thing too, right? Like you're taking the extracted oil from something like a beautiful avocado. Well why not use the avocado? I have an avocado brownie recipe in my cookbook which we're using that fat content and the beautiful nutrients intact in the avocado in the batter rather than using the extracted oil, and it's just so much better for you on every level. Like you don't need to be anti-fat to enjoy oil-free cooking, that's for sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I'm actually finding that recipe right now, Page 266, there it is, look at that. Oh my goodness gracious. There's the ingredients up top, there's the brownie. Oh, that's gorgeous. So you got me again with the chocolate. You did that on purpose, didn't you?
Rip Esselstyn:
Let's go back because ... To getting scrappy again. So you say stop, don't throw out the chickpea juice, right? This is like you say liquid gold.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Aquafaba.
Rip Esselstyn:
Aquafaba. What are we supposed to do with it?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Oh my goodness.
Rip Esselstyn:
And don't say vegan chocolate mousse.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Well, there are so many ... There are actually so many things you can do with aquafaba. Vegan chocolate mousse you can make, so first of all, please know that if you are like a lover of like meringue, meringue pie, whichever else, and you're not plant-based yet, aquafaba is going to be your best friend because it whips up in the same way, especially if you add something like a stabilizer, like cream of tartar and you whip it up, add a little bit of cocoa powder, maybe some maple syrup or sugar, and you've got a beautiful fluffy chocolate mousse that you would never know comes from the water in a can of chickpeas. You can also make meringue cookies with it. You can use it, I often, often use it as like a breading base, like in place of egg whites. You know how most breading, like whether you're breading oyster mushrooms or something, most breading starts with your egg wash. Well you can actually use aquafaba in place of that, it's tremendous, and make like crispy mushrooms with some breading on them. So like I said, aquafaba is liquid gold.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice. Stop, don't throw out the broccoli stalks. What am I supposed to do with them?
Carleigh Bodrug:
This is the big one. Yes. If you're paying for broccoli every week by weight, it is ludicrous to be throwing out the stalks. They're so nutrient-dense, they taste like asparagus, like truly, truly, and they're easy to cook. The one thing about broccoli stalks, so I'll tell you two different ways that I like to prepare them. Number one is to make a pesto. So I actually have like a raw pesto recipe on my Instagram page where I use both carrot tops and broccoli stems and all you have to do is as long as you have a pretty hefty blender, you chop up the broccoli stems, chop up the carrot tops, add them to a blender with a little bit of cashews, some broth or water and spices, and it literally makes ... Oh, and basil, and it literally makes the most delicious pesto. So, so good, it's great in like a broccoli pasta salad or something like that.
Carleigh Bodrug:
The second way that I absolutely love to have them is you have to peel them, so you have to peel broccoli stalks if you're going to make this second recipe.
Rip Esselstyn:
With the back of a spoon.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Not with the back, you need to break out the potato peeler for this one. So once you peel them, then you break them up, like into asparagus-sized stalks, kind of going on that theme, and you can toss them in a little bit of panko or not at all, but toss them in your favorite spices, and put them in the oven, bake them, and they make excellent broccoli stem fries I like to call them. Such a great way to reduce your food waste and save money because the broccoli stalks are heavier than the florets, so if you're paying for them, you might as well eat them.
Rip Esselstyn:
Great advice. So you said broccoli, like fries. So speaking of fries, I love French fries, my kid loved French fries. You have a recipe in the book for crispy dill French fries. One of the things that I have found is that when you don't use oil, it's sometimes hard to make the fries be crispy on the outside and nice and moist on the inside. Do you have a trick for that?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. So there's a couple of tricks that you can use to make crispy French fries, but the biggest one is like your selection of potatoes. I really like russet potatoes and if you bake them long enough and toss them in like select spices, they really will crisp up beautifully.
Carleigh Bodrug:
The other thing you can do is actually ... I love this trick of boiling them in water and a little bit of baking soda I think it is, and it tenderizes the inside of the French fry or the potato and then you can kind of shake them to get them mushy on the inside and then put them in the oven and they'll crisp up beautifully as well. So it's about patience more than anything, but fries get a bad rap, but you can have like a beautiful massive bowl of French fries, and if you don't add oil to those, calorically speaking in nutrient density, they're an incredible dinner snack or a complement to a beautiful dinner.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, about 350 calories a pound as opposed to 2,000. So it's like almost 8x, 8x difference. Nutty. Let me see what else I want ... Okay, here. Stop throwing away the date seeds. What am I supposed to do with date seeds? Are you serious?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Oh I love this. So date seeds are incredible and if you buy like Medjool dates which we do all the time and often they'll be intact, so they'll have the seed in them, you can actually save those seeds and make date seed coffee, which is crazy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Really?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. So it doesn't have caffeine in it, but it tastes a lot kind of like ... I say a cross between a tea and a coffee. Beautiful, beautiful drink, and it originated in the Middle East actually because when I posted it, a lot of people were commenting that they regularly drink date seed coffee, and then I actually had some date seed coffee companies reach out to me, offering to send some date seed coffee. But basically it's super easy, you just roast the seeds like you would coffee beans and then if you have a coffee grinder, you grind them up and then make you your coffee, your date seed coffee, however you would normally make your coffee in the morning and what some people even like to do is mix the date seeds with half of the amount of coffee if they're wanting to reduce their caffeine consumption and you wouldn't notice the difference because that date seed coffee really has that complement to a typical cup of coffee.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice, nice. I never had heard of date seed coffee before. That was like wild. Tell me this. So when Carleigh and Jesse are like, "We just can't cook anymore. We're just done cooking." Where do you like to go out to eat? Anywhere in Ontario that kind of rings your bell?
Carleigh Bodrug:
So I always say to people like I like to eat Thai and Indian food and these are the restaurants that I kind of like ... The cuisines that I discovered after going plant-based. Because you can go to any restaurant, main street restaurant in Ontario and find like a Beyond Burger on the menu. But to get really delicious plant-based food in my opinion, it's these ethnic restaurants that are just incredible. Like there's nothing I love more than Thai red curry. So like that's my go-to. We have this great restaurant in Barrie, Ontario called Chaopaya that's a Thai restaurant, and like oftentimes what you'll find at these restaurants is they'll have beautiful stir fries and stuff, where you have the option of getting either vegetables, tofu, shrimp, chicken, or beef and like that allows you to choose and in my experience even the oil they can reduce if you ask them to. So those are my suggestions. Like I think ethnic food is a way to go if you are wanting to eat out on a plant-based diet.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. All right, I'm going to dive into ... Let's just say I'm getting into plant-based, I am going to buy your book because I want to go through from start to finish and make every recipe, all 140 of these. Are there any instruments or tools that I really need to have in the kitchen that are essential, and what are those?
Carleigh Bodrug:
So you definitely want your typical, like a nice soup pot and pan. I would say one chef's knife is good. That's like kind of your main thing that you need and I would say a blender. A blender, if you can, like a high-power blender, even the bullets, like the small bullets do an incredible job of making sauces and stuff because if you're eating a whole food plant-based lifestyle, oftentimes you'll want to create your own kind of like cream sauces maybe out of cashews or even potatoes and carrots that you want to blend up. An immersion blender could do the trick, but the blender, the pot, the pan, an oven, some sheet pans, if you're wanting to do oil-free cooking, silicone baking sheets are amazing as well as parchment paper, and that should pretty much get you by.
Rip Esselstyn:
I've heard you mention a couple times an air fryer. Is that something that's important? I don't have one.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I really like my air fryer. It's not like a must have by any means. I just got one this year actually, and what I find it does is it just like ... We were talking about French fries earlier, like you put the potatoes in the air fryer with no oil, it's incredible what it can do. For some reason, I don't know the technology behind this, I guess it's kind of similar to a convection oven, but it crisps things up very nicely. So that if you have an air fryer is an incredible tool in your full food plant-based oil-free kitchen, that's for sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
So Carleigh, I have three kids, 7, 12 and 14. They love tofu. Like love it. You have a favorite tofu recipe that you would recommend? Like I saw you like grating tofu, you're like, "I don't know if this is going to work. Let's see what happens." And it looked like it actually worked pretty well, but we play with tofu all the time. We sometimes freeze tofu, it completely changes the texture of it. So I'd love to hear one of your favorite tofu recipes.
Carleigh Bodrug:
So this is actually a recipe on my blog, so anybody can make it. It's called vegan baked feta pasta, and this was actually ... Feta pasta went super viral on Instagram and TikTok last year and it was basically the concept was a block of feta in the middle of the dish, cherry tomatoes and some basal baked, and then people would add like pasta to it and make this beautiful dish that everybody was salivating over. So I saw it and I'm like, "I think I can do this with tofu." So I basically added tofu to a blender with some nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar for some of that tang, maybe some dried parsley and blended it up, put it in the middle of the dish with some cherry tomatoes, pop that in the oven, said a little prayer. I cooked up some whole wheat penne I think and then mixed it up.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Oh my goodness, to die for, and to this day, I get messages about this dish every day from people who say they have made it for their non-plant-based family members and just like went crazy over it. So it's definitely like a tofu comfort dish, but tofu can be used in so many different ways. I have a salad dressing in my book, ranch salad dressing, that I pour over kale and have crispy chickpeas in this salad and it's made of silk and tofu and when you blend that up, it's pretty incredible how creamy and beautiful of a dressing, like almost reminiscent of a Caesar. And you got to think it's like very high in protein too. Especially in comparison to like your typical ranch or Caesar dressings.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely. You had no thoughts of writing a cookbook, am I correct, until somebody, Wendy Sherman basically in August of 2019 sent you a message saying, "Hey, have you ever thought about a cookbook?" Is that right or no?
Carleigh Bodrug:
Okay, so this is a funny story. Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, Dr. B, who wrote the forward for my cookbook, just before that, so this was in I guess around 2019. I was following him on Instagram and was such a huge fan of his work. Really felt like, especially with my dad being a colon cancer survivor, really felt inclined to like share his page as much as possible because I felt like the information he was sharing and is still sharing is just critical to people's health. And we kind of became fast friends online and he messaged me one day and was actually like, "When's a cookbook coming out?" And I was like, "A cookbook? I had never thought about that in my life."
Carleigh Bodrug:
So he actually was so generous, which seems to be among the people I'm meeting in the plant-based community, like yourself, called me up, and told me about the whole publishing process and I got off that call and said, "You know what? I guess I could write a cookbook." Never in my kind of wildest dreams did I think I could. Three days later, I had Wendy Sherman, who you just called out, message me on Instagram and say, "Have you ever thought about writing a cookbook?" It was the weirdest thing, and she has ... You know how important literary agents are to the process, but she has been literally like my guiding light through this process but it was Dr. B who like really initiated the process and then she kind of got things going for me.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow, it kind of reminds me of your puffball story. The puffball perfection and -
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. These weird things.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and then Will and then Wendy, it's kind of like another light came right down at the perfect time. Wow. Incredible. And just for you listeners, today is Valentine's Day. A very, very special day, and you, on Amazon today, are number 44 of all books, right? In like the universe. You're number 44.
Carleigh Bodrug:
It's crazy.
Rip Esselstyn:
That is phenomenal. Phenomenal, and you actually don't go on sale until tomorrow.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Yeah. The PlantYou community has just ... And I will say, even like just the plant-based community in general has just been ... Wrapped their arms around me, like I could cry talking about it. It's just wild. I don't even know what's happening right now, but basically the book is ... We're in a bit of a weird position with books because so many people pre-ordered that we're at risk of running out of stock in the next couple of weeks and unfortunately because of supply chain issues which are impacting many industries but particularly the hardcover book industry, my publisher isn't going to get new copies in until June. Which means there is a high likelihood that the book is going to be completely out of stock for a couple of months or a few months, which sucks. But I am looking on the bright side of the fact that this is just crazy to me. Like yeah. I really don't have words. I'm just so, so, so grateful and I hope people enjoy the book when they get it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh they will, they will. It's amazing, it's amazing. You are ... You're beautiful, you're adorable, you're scrappy. I mean this is PlantYou, it's your brand, right? It's you, it's beautiful, it's amazing. What a great Valentine's Day present for you. Just ... It's crazy.
Rip Esselstyn:
I want to read everybody the dedication because I just find it to be hilarious. So you say here, "For my dad, who survived five straight days of recipe testing vegan oil-free bran muffins with me, only to have them never make it into this book." That to me, just it shows your sense of humor, your perseverance, obviously your love for your father. It's just a great mixture. Wonderful.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Rip, I got to tell you, these five, six, seven different rounds of these bran muffins, every time, no matter what we were putting in them, they came out of the oven like pucks. Like if you have a recipe back there, let me know, because the bran I think just sucked up the moisture content, no matter what we did, but I just thought, like after it, it was just hilarious. So I had to, I knew I was going to dedicate the book to my dad because he really was the inspiration for the journey, but I had to pop that in there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well listeners, if you guys can help us with that oil-free bran muffin, let us know. That would be great. Carleigh, this has been fabulous, it's great to finally kind of meet you face to face on Zoom, and you're getting out into the universe, you are crushing it, you are helping people get on board the plant-based engine and we all know that in 2022, this I think is the silver bullet that can really help save humanity, save the planet, save our health, be kind and compassionate to the animals. So man, I can't thank you enough for your contribution.
Carleigh Bodrug:
I couldn't agree more and I am just ... Have so much gratitude that you have me on today and it's truly crazy to me. So I appreciate it immensely and to your audience as well for listening and it's just ... It's surreal for me right now and I really think that just as you said, that the plant-based movement is going to hopefully be the mover in saving this planet, and our health really.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yep. Yep. The time has come. All right? Let's have that puffball moment, right? With plants and this planet. Let's turn into big puffballs. All right hey, repeat after me, all right? Ready? Peace.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Peace.
Rip Esselstyn:
Turn it around. Engine to.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Engine to.
Rip Esselstyn:
Keep it PLANTSTRONG.
Carleigh Bodrug:
Keep it PLANTSTRONG. I love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, me too. All right.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, my PLANTSTRONG pals. Wasn't Carleigh just the most authentic ball of adorableness you've ever, ever seen and heard? Trust me, we're all going to be hearing a lot more from Carleigh in the months ahead. In the meantime, you can find all of the links and resources from this episode on the episode page at plantstrongpodcast.com. That includes links to buy the book, which is also available on Kindle, and of course, you can join the millions who already follow Carleigh on Instagram and TikTok. The future is so bright for this one that she better wear shades. Okay, see you next week.
Rip Esselstyn:
The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth. Most notably, my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., and Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
