#112: Dreena Burton - Cooking with Kindness
Rip has a warm and delightful conversation with chef and plant-based cookbook author extraordinaire, Dreena Burton.
Dreena, who hails from Canada, has just released her sixth book, Dreena's Kind Kitchen, and she and Rip dive deep into some of the thought, love, simplicity, and kindness that went into developing these new recipes.
Dreena’s Kind Kitchen delivers over 100 whole foods/oil-free plant-based recipes that you can turn to time and again. These recipes were developed for real-life dining: meals with family, meals on your own, snacks, and baked goods to fuel your busy days. All the recipes have been photographed and cover all courses from breakfast to dinner to dessert.
They also discuss the evolution of her career, cooking-style, and the importance of using the word, "kindness" in the title. By cooking this way, you are being kind to yourself and your loved ones. It is an expression of love to show people that this food is healthy and tastes delicious.
Dreena Burton truly epitomizes what it means to be generous, humble, talented, and kind. And, we think the world could use a little more kindness.
Episode Resources
PLANTSTRONG Website and Resources
PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - If you’d like to try our meal planner free for 14-days, use the code BACKTOSCHOOL to enjoy two weeks of free access. After the trial ends, membership is just $1.90 a week!
About Dreena Burton:
Dreena Burton is the OG vegan cookbook author, publishing her first title in 2001. She began her plant-kind life over 25 years ago, and has raised three daughters from birth on a plant-based diet.
When you open one of Dreena’s books, you will find recipes that you can trust. Recipes that are well-tested, very wholesome, and delicious.
Dreena also shares her passion and care in her recipes. Every one of Dreena’s recipes includes notes to help guide the home cook, to become more familiar with plant-based foods and techniques, and to make substitutions.
Dreena’s recipes have been featured with groups including PCRM, Forks Over Knives, Blue Zones, The Food Network, and The Food Revolution Network.
Full Transcript
Dreena Burton:
In my way of activism through the years, I don't put myself out there for the animal rights side of things, but I think if you show people what this food is, then you're doing a lot because if people can see that it tastes delicious and they're enjoying it, and they're not feeling unsatisfied, then you're showing them that there's a whole new way to live, and it's a long-term, right? Long-term perspective.
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:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast. I am your host Rip Esselstyn. Today, I have a really warm, delicious, and really comfortable conversation with one of the OGs in the plant-based space. She's a chef. She's written six different books. Her first book came out in 2001. She grew up in Newfoundland of all the crazy places, and she currently hails outside of Vancouver, British Columbia. I've heard about her for absolutely forever and I just can't believe I've never engaged with her before. So it was a thrill for me to finally get to meet her and have a conversation with her.
Rip Esselstyn:
Her name is Dreena Burton. You've probably heard of her. Her newest books that just came out about two weeks ago is called Dreena's Kind Kitchen. She truly, as you're going to see, she epitomizes what it means to be kind and generous and humble, and there's just so many great takeaways in today's episode. I can't wait for you to jump in and take a lesson.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right. Before I talk to Dreena, I'd like to highlight one of the key reasons why members of the PLANTSTRONG meal planner community enjoy our platform so much. They love that 100% of our delicious recipes adhere to the nutritional guidelines that can actually help them lose weight, feel great, and prevent or reverse chronic diseases.
Rip Esselstyn:
The internet is loaded with recipes for vegan lasagnas or plant-based scalloped potatoes, but she would have to weigh through literally hundreds and hundreds of these links to find those recipes that don't have the fake cheeses, all the oils, copious amounts of salt, fat and, of course sugars. Members of the meal planner trust that our curated recipes all align with their health goals and that they can shop, prep, and cook with confidence knowing their meals are going to taste great and keep them on track.
Rip Esselstyn:
If you'd like to try our meal planner for free for 14 days, just use the code BACKTOSCHOOL, all one word, to enjoy two weeks of free access. After the trial ends, membership is just $1.90 a week. Visit mealplanner.plantstrong.com today. Now, let's get back to Dreena.
Rip Esselstyn:
Dreena, it's so good to have you. I can't believe that you and I have never met before. We've never spoken before. We've never had a phone call before. I mean, don't you think that's weird?
Dreena Burton:
Very, very weird because we've both been in the plant-based community for a long time and have been eating plant-based for a long time. So lovely to finally meet you and talk with you.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, likewise. You really are, we put the label like OG, some of the original gangsters, and you truly are one of the original gangsters going back to your first cookbook that came out in 2001, long before Colin Campbell or Dr. Esselstyn were even in the picture. We're in season three right now of the podcast. I love to ask each one of my guests what their Galileo moment was when they realized or they saw the truth and it informed the direction that they would go in. True seekers like yourself who basically dare to look at life through a different lens, especially before that way of looking at life is widely accepted. So I'd love to just out of the gates, I'd love to find out from you about your journey. Is it something you jumped into all at once? Was it a slow evolution?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. Certainly. I wish I had that story that was like I had this breakthrough moment and then I was vegan overnight and just took it all in. It wasn't quite like that. I grew up in a family. I have five sisters. Loved food as a child, just loved everything about food. Didn't have the best dietary habits. I was a little overweight as a child. My mom put me on diet. So I became very conscious of food, just very aware of it because of my love for food, but also my mother trying to help me with my weight at the time and the methods not being, obviously, the best.
Dreena Burton:
My love for food, I guess, and that history brought me to where I am now. So I'm very grateful for it, but very meat-centric just like most of us, meat and potatoes and I loved junk food. I just loved it, everything that was out there. Then in my teens, my sister found this article about red meat, and it was very obscure. She just read out this quote, and I don't know how accurate it was, but something to the matter that red meat remains undigested in your intestines for ... which sounds really gross and I'm like, "What?"
Rip Esselstyn:
We've all heard the tale of, I don't know about you, but when John Wayne died, he had five pounds of undigested red meat coursing throughout his intestines, which is like, "Oh, God! No."
Dreena Burton:
It's quite repulsive as a notion. So it just triggered something in me to look at food. I just said, "I'm not going to eat red meat," and it was one of those teenage things, "I'm not going to eat red meat," but, of course, to me, all the other meat was okay, right? That was the era, too, that you probably remember we thought white meat was the good meat, right? Chicken is okay and anything that's red meat isn't. White meat is the good meat. Then a few years later, I came across Diet for New America, and that was probably my defining moment. I read that book.
Rip Esselstyn:
So for people that don't know that, the author was John Robbins.
Dreena Burton:
Yes. Thank you for filling that in. Yes. The whole concept, that book just opened my eyes in many dimensions not just my diet for health, but also what was going on with animal agriculture and what we're doing to the environment, of course. For me, it started as health because, initially, I wanted to lose weight, which once dairy and meat robbed my diet, that happened fairly naturally, but also I was in university and my joints were bothering me as a 20-year-old. I was having joint discomfort. I had gout.
Dreena Burton:
I thought, "What's going on with my body that this is happening at this young age?"
Dreena Burton:
So when I got dairy out of my diet, especially, I just felt like wow. Everything was moving differently. My body felt better. So for me, the health component was very obvious.
Dreena Burton:
Then later, I read Dr. Colin Campbell's China Study, and that really helped me especially with having children because it's one thing to do the diet for yourself and then another thing when you're responsible for these little beings in the world, and it feels like a very overwhelming and also awesome responsibility, but to know that you're doing the right thing. Something just inside me felt like, "Yes, this is solidified," but, of course, I had to research.
Dreena Burton:
So I was pulling up resources that I could at the time. It was still early. My first daughter was born in 2001. So there wasn't much online, right? There was no Facebook. PCRM was just starting to come on to the scene a few years later. So I was pulling resources wherever I could, Becoming Vegan by Brenda Davis. Vesanto Melina was my book I'd read after well baby visits and cry in to, and that kind of thing. So but I think that was really my defining moment was Diet for New America. I transitioned over a period of a few years. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Diet for New America and then what? China Study I think came out in 2005 if I'm not mistaken. You referred to him I think in your cookbook, your new cookbook, and we'll talk about here in a sec as your nutritional godfather.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. I have a real soft spot in my heart for him. I just feel like whenever I listen to him speak, there's such wisdom but also compassion and authenticity. I felt like when I was reading that book, there was no going back. There's just no turning back after reading that. It was a very scientific book. It was not an easy read, but the information, the science was there, and I thought, "No. There's just more to this than people see."
Dreena Burton:
It was considered so radical. I feel like, having children in that time as well, I felt at times like I was doing something, I was being viewed as doing something not just odd, but a little dangerous.
Rip Esselstyn:
Maybe a little irresponsible. Yeah.
Dreena Burton:
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
So I'd love to actually talk about that here just in a sec, but, no, those are two really mammoth books that influenced so many people between John's Diet for New America that has sold somewhere over two million copies, and then Colin's, The China Study, yet again also has sold over two million copies. We're so lucky to have both those books that have helped part the seas and leave a way for many of us to follow in.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So I want to backtrack for a sec. So your family, you've got five sisters. Where do you fall in line in that process?
Dreena Burton:
I'm the fifth. We're all Ds, Rip. We're all D named.
Rip Esselstyn:
Really?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. I don't know what my parents were thinking.
Rip Esselstyn:
Name them. Name them for me.
Dreena Burton:
Okay. It's Debbie, Donna, Diane, Denise, Dreena, Dayle. I like my name the best. Yeah. I think mine is-
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. Now, Dale, that's a boy.
Dreena Burton:
No. Well, it's often a boy's name, but hers is spelled Dayle.
Rip Esselstyn:
Very creative.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. I think my parents, if they had had another four children, it would still be all girls, and I have three girls. So I guess it's not so much in the family, but I feel like that's all I ever knew, and as a mom, I know. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
What are your daughters' names? Do they all begin with D?
Dreena Burton:
No. I did not take that. I think we have one daughter with the same name, actually. My youngest is Hope.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. Your youngest is Hope, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
My youngest is Hope, too, yeah.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah, and then my oldest is Charlotte, and the middle girl is Bridget.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, that's nice. Where did you grow up?
Dreena Burton:
St. John's, Newfoundland, which is if you Google Newfoundland, it's this island out in the Atlantic Ocean on the very East Coast of Canada. So we moved to Vancouver. I'm not in Vancouver, but the Vancouver area in British Columbia. We moved in our 20s, my husband and I. The climate in Newfoundland is pretty harsh. The people are lovely, but the climate is harsh because it's right out in the ocean so it gets everything.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, my gosh! You were there from what? From when to when?
Dreena Burton:
From my birth to we actually moved out here, moved back to Newfoundland, moved back out here. So until about I was 29 when we moved permanently back here. 28, actually, 28. Yeah. The climate is pretty rough, but the people are beautiful there, but growing up there not just very meat-centric, but not a great availability of produce. Almost everything was canned growing up.
Dreena Burton:
Like if we had peaches, they were canned. There were canned corn. The type of vegetables that grow there, really hearty root vegetables, turnip, and carrot, and potatoes. So we ate a lot of meat and processed foods. You've probably never heard of cod tongues, but that was something we ate a lot growing up.
Rip Esselstyn:
Is that a tongue from a fish?
Dreena Burton:
Actual tongue in the cod's tongue. Cod, in Newfoundland, that was how people lived for many years was the fishing industry, and so cod was the abundant fish and we would use all parts. So cod tongues are the tongue and it's battered and fried. It's repulsive for me, but that's what we ate.
Rip Esselstyn:
I didn't know that fish had tongues.
Dreena Burton:
Right? It's one of those disconnect moments that I had all growing up. I was like, "I'm eating cod tongues," and then one day I went, "What? Are these actually tongues?"
Rip Esselstyn:
What's the size of your average cod tongue that it's battered and fried? Is it like the size of your thumb?
Dreena Burton:
A little bigger. Some are smaller, but I'd say about the size of maybe your big toe, let's say that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. They're nasty, and we ate liver, which was one of the worst foods to eat as a child. We used to slather it in catsup, but my mom would make use of everything that we could in terms of using animal foods. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you moved when you're 29 then out to Vancouver area. Is that right?
Dreena Burton:
Right, where all the hippies are.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, my God! I mean, I've been to Vancouver probably half a dozen times, and it truly is one of the most beautiful places on the planet between the mountains and the ocean, and the greenery. It's spectacular.
Dreena Burton:
It is beautiful out here, and it's always green. That's what I love. All through the year it's green. We get plenty of rain, but at least it's pretty temperate climate. When we moved out here, it really opened up my world for eating plant-based because coming from St. John's, a small town, there wasn't much available, and just awareness, and openness, people being willing to hear about. It was very narrow at the time.
Dreena Burton:
Then moving out west, people were already into that lifestyle to some degree, not greatly, but to some degree. So to me, it was the place to start. That's where I began writing my first cookbook. It was actually after my father-in-law had a heart attack. His doctor in Newfoundland at the time recommended Dr. Dean Ornish's program for reversing heart disease, which I think his book was probably out before your dad's.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, yeah, it was, for sure.
Dreena Burton:
It was, yes. So it was quite a rarity to hear this from a doctor, cardiologist in this small town back in the '90s. His parents came to us because we were already eating vegan, and they said, "What can we do? We don't know how to eat plant-based." They asked for recipes. So that's when I started to create recipes because I was already dabbling in food and people would say, "Hey, when you talk about making vegan food, you really seem to light up." I was working in the marketing field but just not enjoying it. So I was happy to dive into it, but then I started to sketch out recipes for them to move into the diet.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So you said you're Canadian, obviously. I love Canadians. Some of my best friends are Canadians. They're such I find just humble and just authentic, wonderful people, truly. So your family, meaning your parents, your five sisters, what did they think of this lifestyle that you've embraced now for, God, 25 to 30 years, and are they supportive of it?
Dreena Burton:
I love this question. No one has asked me this over the years. My mother never gave me a hard time. My mother is a very kind open person. My sisters never, they never give me a hard time, but they weren't particularly interested in it. They just continued on their way. My dad passed when I was 11. I think he would have loved it because he was one that was going to a chiropractor before it was a commonplace to go to a chiropractic. He was interested in alternative medicine and therapy. He's quite an adventurer, and he used to do a lot of different sports, scuba dive, and that kind of thing, but he passed when I was 11. So I feel like if he was alive, he would be the one to be very into this.
Dreena Burton:
No one in my family has jumped on it, though. It reminds me of Dr. Barnard speaking about his family and how no one, after all his books, still has adopted the diet. Interestingly, my mother would come visit us in Vancouver and shed stay with us for like a month and eat our diet.
Dreena Burton:
My mom was always carrying extra weight, which is also why she did diets with me because it was a mom and daughter thing to do, which is, "Hey, that was fun. Thanks, mom." She would come stay with us, and at the end of a month, she'd return home having lost, I'm not kidding, over 10 pounds and feeling better, but just not able to stick with it herself. It just speaks to either having a community with you or just a really stiff backbone in a way to have the fortitude to do it yourself.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and she's still over in Newfoundland?
Dreena Burton:
She is, yeah. She's 83. So she's been on her own for a long time. She's hanging in there. She still has a lot of weight on, unfortunately, but she's very kind and loving, and has a lot of people that love her. So I'm happy that she's with a lot of people around her.
Rip Esselstyn:
So do you find your sisters, are they curious? Do they ask you questions? Are they like, "Wow! Dreena, you just written your sixth book. I mean, you are crushing it, girl. Way to go, sister," or do you not get that kind of support and interest?
Dreena Burton:
No, I don't, unfortunately. I mean, I have one sister in Newfoundland who says, "Oh, my gosh! I'm so proud of you. Look what you did," but my sister relationships are very strained, I'll say. When my dad passed, it was a helicopter crash, and it really tore apart our family in ways. We had a lot of stuff going with the family business and a lot of unsettled things happening with six girls, and my mom was on her own at that time. I also had three cousins that were with my dad.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, gosh!
Dreena Burton:
So my aunt lost three of her four children that day. So it broke our family apart in many ways. Then we were just struggling. A lot of teenage things happening. It sounds really weird when I say this, but in the day, we had someone who would be looking our windows, the term would be voyeur, but we called it a peeping tongue, and so there's a lot of trauma at the time.
Dreena Burton:
So our family just did our best to do things, but amongst it just a lot of fighting and hurt emotions. I think in ways we never got past a lot of that. So I have somewhat good relations with one or two, and then just keeping it pleasant with the remaining ones, if you know what I mean. Yeah, it happens.
Rip Esselstyn:
Totally get it. Totally get it. Then this is my last question.
Dreena Burton:
No, I love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
You and your sisters, I'm just fascinated with families and the whole dynamics there, what's the age gap between the oldest and the youngest?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. So my oldest sister is now 63. I'm 50, and then my youngest is 44. She's six years younger than me, 44.
Rip Esselstyn:
63 to 44, so that's a 19-year gap.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. My mom, I guess she had, I don't know how she did it. She was either pregnant or, actually, she wasn't breastfeeding because in those days they didn't breastfeed. We all had canned Carnation milk with water. That's what we drank because, again, that was the era when breastfeeding was discouraged. I don't know. So yeah, I don't know how she did it, really. I have three and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh!"
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So you've got three children. I've got three children. Yours are older than mine. Mine are seven, 12, and 14. Your oldest is 20? Is that right?
Dreena Burton:
20, 16, and 12.
Rip Esselstyn:
20, 16, and 12. So you still have two at home. That's nice.
Dreena Burton:
Three at home.
Rip Esselstyn:
Three at home.
Dreena Burton:
Three at home. Yeah. The 20-year-old is at home, too. I know. That's why they're always, as we joked about earlier, someone's always in the kitchen because she's working full-time back and forth at different hours working different shifts. Then the middle girl, well, she's in school full-time and the youngest as well, but last year with everything happening with the pandemic, she was out for ... She'd go to school for like an hour and a half and then be back home and there was always people in and out.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you raised, is it fair to say you've raised all three children 100% plant-based?
Dreena Burton:
For the most part. In the early days when they were young and the first daughter and my second girl breastfed almost two years. My first did not. She weaned herself. So I knew that having DHA was important and I added some fish oil to our diet and for a period of time some goat milk just because I didn't know what else to do, but after that, everything was plant-based. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Are they into it? Are they proud to be plant-based?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. Totally.
Rip Esselstyn:
I think you really like the term vegan, right? I like the term plantstrong. Colin Campbell likes plant-based. Everybody's got their own way of calling it, but I think for you, well, look at your brand, right? I mean, you've written six books and let's see, the first four all have the word vegan in them.
Dreena Burton:
Yes. Yeah. Then I started to shift because I felt like ... It's interesting because when you're in this sphere as you know, those labels mean a big deal, right? It's interesting because I remember when I came out with Plant-Powered Families, which is my last book, I had someone say, "Why aren't you calling it vegan?"
Dreena Burton:
I thought I've had my first four titles had vegan in them, but people are really attached to the label, but I wanted to open up my work to people who didn't feel like they maybe gave that label to themselves because I know a lot of people feel like it's a big responsibility to take on because it's far more than just diet. It's your whole lifestyle, right?
Dreena Burton:
So with my subsequent books, I wanted to open it up, use vegan in the subtitle to remind people that, yes, it's vegan, but open it up to be on that scene so everyone knows that you can shift into this diet no matter where you are.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Just so the audience knows, I mean, your first book was called The Everyday Vegan, and that was in 2001. Then you had Vive Le Vegan! Do you pronounce it Vive? Vive Le Vegan?
Dreena Burton:
Vive Le Vegan, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Vive Le Vegan, yeah. That's right. Then Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan, then Let Them Eat Vegan, and then The Plant-Powered Families, and then the new book that I really want to talk about with you today, Dreena's Kind Kitchen, and you used the word kind. I want you to talk about why you used the word kind and why that's the title, but before, I just want to say that your first four books all had the word vegan, and you even use this language in your book, when you look at the standard American diet, what does it do? It promotes health liabilities, it promotes animal cruelty, and it promotes environmental tolls. I mean, so that to me is a big check mark for, hey, whatever you want to call it, vegan, plant-powered, plantstrong, plant-based, let's get onboard and create a better kinder world.
Rip Esselstyn:
So this new book, what was behind this one because I can't imagine how, and I love to hear from you, how was your mentality and your cooking evolved since 2001 when you wrote your first book?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. It really has evolved. I look back at that book and even the cover was so of the era. First off, I began to use, well, I've always used whole foods because when I became vegan or plant-based, there were not veggie meats, right? There was no vegan yogurt or anything. It was hard to find a plant-based milk. We had one little grocery store, not even a grocery store, health food store that you'll walk in to and there were vats of almond butter. You'd scoop it out and put it in a tub. That was the day.
Dreena Burton:
So I've always cooked with whole foods, but when I look back at that first book, I think my cooking has evolved in two ways. Well, first, I took oil out of the recipes even though I wasn't using much then because I was designing recipes at the time to help my parents-in-law as well. So I knew they needed a low-fat diet. They had to have a low-fat diet. They couldn't use oil in their salad dressing. They couldn't add oil. So in general, I use as little as I could.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's based upon the information you got from reading Dean Ornish's book.
Dreena Burton:
Right. Exactly. Yeah. So after Let Them Eat Vegan, I was learning more about removing oil from the diet just because of being in this arena and hearing about extracted oils and how we don't need them because for a very long time, we heard we needed them not just, okay, they're fun to use in cooking, but that we really needed them. I'd be drizzling olive oil over my kids' food and all their clothes were ruined. You know when you get oil on your clothes, it's ruined, but my cooking is also like I started to take out some of the substitutes that were in some recipes I'd rely on like vegan cream cheese [inaudible 00:30:05] vegan.
Dreena Burton:
So I started to take those things out and just get right back to the basics, no oil, back to the basics, but I also simplified my techniques because first off when I was developing recipes way back, I didn't have kids. So I had all this time on my hands to saute this and then move to this step and then let's add this. Now, I want to put everything in the food processor or into a casserole dish. I know that that's where people are coming from for the most part, whether you have a family or you're just busy working and you want to get meals on the table quick. I found ways to streamline my cooking processes so that it's faster and more efficient for people.
Dreena Burton:
So I think that's probably the biggest component, and I really use items to help bring texture and flavor and color into recipes, not to hide veggies, but to bring them in for that purpose. If I'm using sweet potato in a recipe, it adds flavor, it adds color, it adds moistness, but I'm not hiding it, but I needed it to bring the best of what it has into a recipe.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, so that's a great segue to ... So I've looked at many of the recipes that are in this new cookbook and you have a chocolate sweet potato cake or maybe a vanilla one.
Dreena Burton:
Vanilla one.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right. Do you use sweet potato in that one?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah, because in Plant-Powered Families, I had a chocolate sweet potato cake where I used orange sweet potato in the frosting and in the cake, and that recipe just has become so loved by people. It's their go-to cake, but I had a lot of readers say, "Hey, I can't cocoa," because some people cannot eat it, whatever, allergies.
Dreena Burton:
I said, "I'm going to try to develop a vanilla version." So I used white sweet potatoes or yellow sweet potatoes, which I think in the US are called hannah and Japanese perhaps. We call them yellow sweet potatoes in Canada, and I use that in the cake and the frosting.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right, right. Then just so people can see it, I mean, here it is. There you are, Dreena, doing your thing in the kitchen, Dreena's Kind Kitchen, 100 plus whole food vegan recipes to enjoy every day. I think another recipe you have in there that uses sweet potatoes is your padded love loaf. Is that right?
Dreena Burton:
The sweet potato lentil loaf?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, I think so.
Dreena Burton:
Okay. Yeah. I think I know which one you're talking about. The love loaf was from an earlier book, Let Them Eat Vegan, yeah, but that was one of those recipes that I felt like it took a little time. It took me a little too much time to make that loaf, and I wanted to find a way to make it easier and just simplify it. So that's what I did with this book. Plus, I added sweet potato to it, which is really good. Sweet potatoes are really good.
Rip Esselstyn:
I love the way you're looking to ... You're not trying to hide or disguise the vegetables or the fruits you're using, but you want to enhance the texture and the flavor and the color. So, for example, you have Beyond Beet Burgers. I love the way you're pointing out Beyond Meat Burgers, Beyond Beet. Can you tell me about that recipe?
Dreena Burton:
Well, first off, I don't like beets, and that's probably why I created the recipe. I'm one of those people that feels like beets taste like dirt.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. They're very earthy.
Dreena Burton:
Very earthy. Some people feel like cilantro tastes like soap, and I think you have that taste bud thing, right? For me, I don't love beets and I thought I want to create something that I will eat beets. This was when Beyond Meat did come out and it was getting all kinds of buzz. I bought one and tried it and I was like, "This is too eerie for me." When I cooked it, I felt like I was thrown back into my childhood years and smelling, it really, really brought back that moment for me of where my mom would be cooking meat. I almost felt like that was what it was. It was very freaky for me.
Dreena Burton:
I thought, "No. I want to create something that is using beet," and I just had that idea to play with the title Beyond Beet. So I use raw beet and raw carrots in that recipe, and it's pureed up with black beans and some brown rice and all kinds of good seasonings, and some umami ingredients, which umami is that extra flavor element that sometimes people feel is missing in plant-based cooking, but it's the tamari and the miso and sun dried tomatoes and all those really deeply tasty foods and include that in there. When you see the patty, it does look a little bit like a raw meat patty. So it to me was a bit like beyond meat, but it cooks up much differently.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, I want to try those this week. All these recipes in this book, is it fair to say they're oil-free?
Dreena Burton:
They are. They do include some coconut products, not all of them, but some do. When I'm working with desserts and I want to create a luscious texture, I'll use coconut milk or some coconut butter, which I know a lot of people don't want to use. So those recipes aren't going to be ones that they can really enjoy, but they're for treats like a cheesecake, but in terms of the basic day-to-day recipes, your soups, your casseroles, your salad dressings, I have a lot of oil-free dressings, everything else, yes, it's all oil-free. It's just that some include coconut products, which I know some people don't like to use.
Rip Esselstyn:
Now, do you have nuts in the book?
Dreena Burton:
Yes, but I try to give a lot of nut-free options, and that's partly why I'm using coconut as well because I've created many cheesecakes, for instance, over the years and using cashews, but I have a lot of readers who are moms and nut allergies are ever present and I think everyone is operating with some low-key form of leaky gut syndrome in our society with all of the food sensitivities we have.
Dreena Burton:
I have one good friend who's been a reader of mine for many years and her little guy has all kinds of food sensitivities. So I was like, "I'm going to create you a cheesecake. I want to get this cheesecake just for you and I'll put it in my book, but really it's for you." That's the one that's in this book and it uses coconut products and sweet potato in there again. You'll love sweet potato, and I do a nut-free queso because queso and cheesy dips are usually made with cashews. So I make mine with pumpkin seeds and you wouldn't know. It's really-
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. Wow. So you make a queso. What else do you have in there besides pumpkin seeds in your queso?
Dreena Burton:
Potato, potato, yeah, and it's mostly pumpkin seeds, potato, plant-based milk, and then I work with the seasonings like some lemon juice, a little bit nutritional yeast, but not a lot because sometimes I find people overdo it and all you're tasting is nutritional yeast. So I just use a little bit for background flavor.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice, nice. So one of your recipes that you have is Wow 'Em Waffles. One of our favorite Sunday morning recipes are waffles. We make one called Zeb's waffles. It's something that my brother came up with, and it's just so simple and so awesome, but I'm wondering, what makes your waffles? What makes them wow? Then how do you do waffles without or maybe you don't, but without oil?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. I just like playing with recipe names, and I have really goofy ones over the years. So I just wanted to go Wow 'Em Waffles only because when you make a waffle in those waffle irons, they look so spectacular, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, they do.
Dreena Burton:
They really do. They're far more impressive than pancakes. I do have a fluffy pancake recipe in the book, and they are very fluffy, but there's something about pointing out one of those waffles and they're quite big, and they just look wonderful. So I wanted to say Wow 'Em Waffles, but these do not have oils. So I use some almond meal in that recipe or is it almond meal? I have to double check. I have a pumpkin. Sometimes I forget, Rip, after. I have hundred or so recipes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah.
Dreena Burton:
I feel like those are nut-free for some reason. I do have a pumpkin waffle as well that I did for the book, but it's in the eBook. Yes. No. They do have almond meal, but I do give a nut-free option in the recipe. So the almond meal helps add that whole foods fat. That brings that texture, almost like that eggy texture to the waffle. They're also sweetened with some banana in there. So I don't add sugar or sweetener to my pancakes either because I feel like you always put maple syrup on them so why add sugar?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So do you have a special waffle maker that is stickless or-
Dreena Burton:
Yes, yes, yes. If people are making waffles out there, always keep that surface not with ... Don't put oil on it because I've heard from a lot of my readers who have even just a wipe of oil, it somehow ruins that nonstick surface for waffles and then you're doomed. You just won't get them right.
Rip Esselstyn:
Do you have a particular waffle maker that you suggest?
Dreena Burton:
I've been using the Breville or, actually, I think it's pronounced Breville, Breville.
Rip Esselstyn:
We'll look that up and we'll put it in the show notes for people. That sounds like a good one. I'm constantly looking for a good waffle maker, so I'll check that out. The one that we have is on its last legs. It really is. We used to have, yeah.
Dreena Burton:
Oh, you use it every week or something?
Rip Esselstyn:
Almost every Sunday, yeah.
Dreena Burton:
Oh, cool. Yes. See, Sundays were always pancake day in our house, too. When the kids were young, I'd always make pancakes on Sunday. It's like that treat day of the week. So I know where you're coming from.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup. So last night, we did a ... Our kids love just a tofu scramble that we make, and it's got nutritional yeast and herbs and spices in there. It's substantial and hearty. I see that you've got a potato cauliflower scramble. That looks really good. I'm always looking for an alternative to tofu and tempeh. So what can you tell me about that recipe?
Dreena Burton:
I think you'll like that one. Definitely give that one a try. So for me, scrambles, whenever I'd had them in restaurants, they'd be good, but they always had cumin in them. For me, I wanted a scramble that was more like breakfasty rather than had that southwest flavor. So I wanted to make that recipe really appealing for people who love that morning savory breakfast. You do use a little bit of black salt in there, which gives that eggy flavor, right? Definitely.
Dreena Burton:
Then the potato and cauliflower, I wanted to spread out because you can eat a lot of tofu in a scramble and it doesn't go very far when you have kids. You need to make these meals go further. So adding some potato and cauliflower not only makes it spreads it out, but also adds that extra veggies and nutrition in there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Are you a fan of mushrooms? Have you incorporated mushrooms into your cooking at all?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. I like them. Growing up, my kids didn't like them. They're now liking them, except for the youngest. She still doesn't and I don't know if you noticed that with kids.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, yeah.
Dreena Burton:
Of course, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
They're not fans. No.
Dreena Burton:
Greens as well. I found once they hit about 14, 15, then something changes with their palate and they start to open up to all of these foods that we've been presenting over the years. I think that's the key is always presenting them. The foundation is there for them.
Rip Esselstyn:
I think I'm really glad you brought that up because what I've discovered is the same thing. I've seen it with my brothers and my sister that have children that are now in their 20s is that they weren't a fan of some of the more green leafies and the mushrooms and squashes. Now, it's like their palates have caught up and they appreciate and they adore it.
Rip Esselstyn:
So just for parents out there that are worried, I would say, you know what? Just keep feeding them the way you're feeding them, and I think that their palates will come along exactly as you said. Once they reached that 14, 15 mark, my 14-year-old, it's amazing how all of a sudden he's blossomed. Yeah. He's trying everything.
Dreena Burton:
It's so cool. It's like all of this groundwork that you've put in over the years is paying off. It's wonderful. Yeah. People ask all the time, "Do they ever want to eat meat?" That's never come up. They love their food. They really love their food. Now, my middle girl who's 16, when she's home on the weekends at lunch hour, she gets into the kitchen and she's putting spinach into the saute pan and tomatoes and tofu, and I'm like she's just ... There was a time she would take greens and try to wipe all the dressing off them with a paper towel and then hide it under her plate and it was painful, but it really does open up in time.
Rip Esselstyn:
Your daughters, do they enjoy cooking? Do they enjoy it like you do?
Dreena Burton:
Probably not as much as I do, but like I said, our middle daughter Bridget, she'll often make her own food and she make her own lunches and just brings ... I find having everything available in the fridge in terms of batch cooking. It's very useful, though, for them, right? So I'll have quinoa pre-made or rice pre-made, some tofu already marinated in the fridge, baked in in the fridge in batches, some chickpeas roasted and in the fridge, and sweet potatoes are already pre-baked. So doing some of those batch cooking elements so that then they can get in and pull it out and make what they want to make, right?
Dreena Burton:
My oldest daughter actually works at a plant-based café and she loves it there. So she doesn't cook as much because when she gets home, she's just pretty wiped serving people and everything, but they enjoy it. Then my youngest will get in with me sometimes.
Rip Esselstyn:
What's the name of the plant-based restaurant that she works at?
Dreena Burton:
Oh, it's called Grounds and Greens. It's a cute little café, really nice bowls, and nice comfy cozy drinks.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice. So you just talked about some preparation with batch cooking that you can do to make it a little bit more accessible. What are a couple other little tips and suggestions you would have for people that are starting out and trying to make this as, the word that you used earlier that I really like is streamlined as possible?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. Well, a couple of things that I do when I do a big produce shop. So I'll bring everything home and I take what I know I'm going to be using within the round of a few days and get it all washed because I wash all my produce even before the pandemic. I always wash produce.
Rip Esselstyn:
How do you do that? Do you have a method?
Dreena Burton:
Pretty simple. Fill up the sink, put in just a couple of drops of natural dish soap, and get it all in there and give it a bath, and just put it in. You don't need to scrub it, but just a gentle wash, and then rinse, and then it all goes in my dish drainer. So my dish drainer is almost always has some produce in it, which is I think back to when my mom used to use her dishwasher to ripen fruit. With six kids, she always found the dishwasher was too time-consuming. I don't know why. So she used to put our fruit in there to ripe it. So you'd open our dishwasher and you'd always see fruit in there. It made sense, though.
Dreena Burton:
So my dish drainer is always full of fruit that I've washed, and then it's ready for chopping or snacking, getting into recipes. So that's one thing that I offer to people is to take that. It takes literally five minutes and you'd get it in there. It's just a little bit of food safety because it passes a lot of hands, right? It really does.
Dreena Burton:
Then the other thing is to think about when you're cooking greens, don't cook just what you need that night. Cook enough for a couple other meals so that you have it in the fridge. So rice, quinoa, same if you're cooking beans, lentils, anything that you can batch cook and freeze. So whenever I make humus, I do the maximum amount that my food processor can take because humus freezes beautifully and-
Rip Esselstyn:
I never knew that. You can freeze humus?
Dreena Burton:
Everyone says that to me. Yes. Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Dreena Burton:
So I've got a 16-cut food processor, which is on the bigger side.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, I see it. I see it behind you.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah, the big black. That one I can usually do a quadruple batch of humus in there, and then I portion it out in say two cup portions and then that goes into the fridge. You can take it out and thaw it the night before in the fridge or put it in a hot water bath and thaw it within an hour or half hour.
Dreena Burton:
So nut cheeses, same thing. You can freeze nut cheeses. So if you're making say some cashew cheese, which is a lot cheaper to make at home than to purchase, you can make smaller portions and freeze that and same with soaking nuts. So you can soak a batch of say cashews and then portion that out and put it in the freezer, so things like that. Sweet potatoes and potatoes, I always have those in my fridge because I love to use them in my recipes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Maybe you said this, but what about beans? Do you like making your own beans?
Dreena Burton:
I would love to cook all beans from scratch, but there's only so much food prep I can do as one person, right? So I don't. I use canned beans for the most part, except for lentils. I don't find canned lentils taste great. In fact, any canned bean, when you make them yourself, they do taste better, especially chickpeas. They taste fresher. They're much nicer for humus. It just have a much fresher, natural taste on them, but we buy organic BPA-free canned beans just for convenience like most people.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah. So one of the things that I've been doing lately is I actually take a tub of tofu and I'll throw it in the freezer, and it completely changes the texture of it. Have you ever done that with tofu?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. It's like Jekyll and Hyde. They're two different things.
Rip Esselstyn:
It's a different animal. Yeah. Go ahead.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah, because all the liquids comes out of it, and it's almost like it become spongy, and it's weird to say that, but it then will absorb all the marinade. So if you want to put a really marinade in it, you thaw it out and then get it, marinate it, bake it, grill it, whatever, and it literally soaks up everything. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
I think that's a perfect description. It becomes like a big tofu sponge. Yeah.
Dreena Burton:
You don't need to press it or anything because a lot of people want to press tofu to get the liquid out, but that takes time and it's an extra step, really, that's time-consuming. Whereas if you freeze it, it's, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup. Do you have a favorite grain that you like making, whether it's brown rice, amaranth, millet, pearl, barley, farro? I know in our house it's brown rice, but my mom right now is so excited about farro.
Dreena Burton:
Me, too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah. It's like brown rice on steroids or something.
Dreena Burton:
I've had the same discovery with farro in the past few months. I really love it. I don't know if my family loves it as much, but I prefer or they will prefer brown rice or just any kind of rice they like, but I really love myself eating quinoa and farro. I love farro, too, but something about hot quinoa. When you first cook quinoa, it's not quite as special once it's been refrigerated, but when it's hot and you take it out and you can just put a little bit of tamari and then drizzle tahini on there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. It's nice and fluffy.
Dreena Burton:
I hear you. I rice is the go-to.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah. In these days, frankly, they make them frozen. You just throw them in the stove top or in the microwave for two minutes and you got your brown rice. So it's ridiculous like that.
Rip Esselstyn:
The other thing that I'm a big fan of is barley. I also like barley. It's got more of a nutty, earthy flavor to it.
Dreena Burton:
It's chewy, right? There's a substantial kind of quality to it. That was the grain that we ate a lot growing up, actually. I don't remember eating a lot of grains, but my mom would put that one in soups. It's a very good soup grain.
Rip Esselstyn:
So one of the tricks I want you to talk about or I should say techniques, and I saw this in a video you did in 2014 when you were wearing one of the Engine 2 herbivore rhino. It was the rhino T-shirts that we were making. You did something with a collard green, then you're making collar wraps. I've never seen it before. Will you tell the audience? I thought it was brilliant.
Dreena Burton:
I love that you saw that. That's so funny. Okay. So in my attempts to skip steps and not dirty dishes and pots and pans, I did not want to steam greens in a steamer pot or anything else, so instead I took the leaf, opened up the top of my kettle, put it own while the kettle was boiling and let the steam steam the collard leaf as the water was boiling in the kettle. Boom, done.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and you showed people how to destem it and then you rolled everything up in there. It looked incredible. I want to run home and have those for lunch.
Dreena Burton:
There have been a few times, though, that some of the green fill in the kettle, then later I'd make a tea and I'm like, "Oh, that's not nice." The green is still in there and it's now gray, but it's a great little tip.
Rip Esselstyn:
So speaking tea, do you have a beverage choice that you like drinking during the day?
Dreena Burton:
I love teas. I drink a lot of herbal teas in the afternoon. I can't drink coffee. I'm one of those people that it really upsets my stomach, and I never really enjoyed it. I love a good chai tea in the morning. I love to make my own matcha lattes. I just use matcha green tea powder and use plant milk and steam it up and make my own lattes. I love those and later in the morning, too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Lovely. Lovely. So Dreena Burton, if you had to pick one breakfast, one lunch, and one dinner that you had to have for the next year, what would it be?
Dreena Burton:
Oh, my gosh! That is really hard. I'm not a big breakfast person. So I love my green smoothies. I have them every day in the morning. So I would probably say still my green smoothie. I love it. Lunch, I like a good hot quinoa bowl with steamed kale, lots of tahini, lemon juice. This sounds really dull, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
No, but remember, if you're going to have it for a year, you got to keep it simple and flavorful.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. Okay. So sweet potatoes have to be in there. There's something magical about kale and sweet potatoes and a hot grain together. They seem to be made for each other. So some sweet potatoes, maybe roasted sweet potatoes because they're especially good, nice and caramelized, and then some tahini dressing on there or I have this new Buddha dressing in my cookbook, which I'm loving. I'm loving that one.
Rip Esselstyn:
Can you tell me what that is? You know what the ingredients are?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah, yeah, totally. It's for people who love nooch. It's got nutritional yeast in it, apple cider vinegar, tamari, maple syrup, a little bit of garlic, a little bit of mustard, and it just has that, again, that umami quality, where you just say, "Mm." I just want more of that dressing on the kale, on the quinoa.
Dreena Burton:
Then for dinner, oh, maybe that's really hard. I'm always into different things for dinner. Oh, gosh! I'm going to say either a curry carrot lentil soup, which I love and it's in the book. It's one of my favorite soups. It's just really comforting and it just hits that comforting spot or maybe a pizza with lots of roasted vegetables because I love roasted veggies, too, and ice cream. Ice cream is my favorite treat in the world. So if I ever have to pick a dessert, it's ice cream.
Rip Esselstyn:
What kind of ice cream? Is this homemade? Is this homemade or is this Ben & Jerry's?
Dreena Burton:
No. I don't always make homemade. I used to, but it takes time, right? There's a few brands here that make some really nice cashew and coconut blend ice creams. So I like a nice plain vanilla, but also I like chocolate with goodies in there, little cookies and stuff like that, but I can eat a little. Over the years, I've learned that if I eat just a little I enjoy it and I don't feel like that sickliness or gorge myself, right? Some people have a harder time doing that. They eat it and then eat to excess, but I can just eat a little bit and go, "Mm." Quite happy with that, but ice cream has been my thing. I used to call myself the dairy queen growing up. I loved it. I always go to Dairy Queen a lot. Yeah, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
You mentioned sweet potatoes is something for lunch. You have a recipe for croutons and you also have potato croutons. I've never heard of potato croutons before. How do you make potato croutons?
Dreena Burton:
Great question. So you start with pre-made, pre-cooked potatoes. So, again, it's one of those batch cooking things, have them ready in the fridge. I always have potatoes and sweet potatoes in the fridge because I use them in these ways, in recipes or just for toppers like this. So you cut the potato into small cubes, and then I toss it in a very simple, it's like a marinade, but not quite, but I use some aquafaba. So that helps to allow the seasonings to adhere to the potato and also helps them get a little bit crispy. So you bake them up until they get just crispy but still fork tender.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup. Then what? You throw those in salads?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah, but they don't usually make it to the salad. When I have those in the oven, all fingers, all fingers are on the pan reaching. I'm like, "Wait. Stop. Get out," but they're all at the croutons. Yeah. Seriously, they will just, I mean, potatoes, right? They're just the best.
Rip Esselstyn:
I know. I know. For the audience that doesn't know what aquafaba is, can you let them know what that is?
Dreena Burton:
Oh, yeah. So that is the brine from a can of chickpeas or white beans. It could be any kind of beans, but, really, you want to go with white beans or chickpeas because then the liquid is not dark like it is with say kidney beans or black beans, and some magician scientist somewhere discovered that that liquid has the same qualities as egg whites. So it can be whipped up into a meringue, but also used in other cooking and baking purposes. So that's why I use it for that coating to help spices adhere.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. This book, it just came out, what? A couple of weeks ago, right? Two, three weeks ago?
Dreena Burton:
August 24th, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
August 24th, number six, and you have a ... I always love looking at the dedications, and this is, "To my mother whose strength of spirit is surpassed only by her kindness," which is really beautiful.
Dreena Burton:
Thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:
So how was your mother kind?
Dreena Burton:
My mom has been through a lot, right? She grew up in a household of nine kids and was the oldest girl, so was expected to take care of a lot of the siblings as families did in that time. She started working when she was 13, had to pay her mom board at that time. Just did not have an easy life. My father and her scraped everything together to start a business at the time, and then she lost him with young kids and had a second marriage and that didn't work out and had a hard time with that, and has had health problems and people have always come because she's kind. People have always come to her for things, but not always with pure intentions.
Dreena Burton:
She gives of everything she can she will give. So she's just that person that everyone loves her. Anyone that comes in to her life loves her because she's just got this kind but also funny little bit sarcastic spirit, and she just would open up her home to anyone who needed it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. Well, I can't imagine the strength of spirit that she has accumulated over her lifetime, and if that surpassed by her kindness. Incredible. Well, you're very lucky to have a mother like that.
Dreena Burton:
I am. I am, indeed. That's so nice of you to say. Yeah, I am.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, yeah. Well, so the kind kitchen. I'm super excited for you, Dreena.
Dreena Burton:
Thank you. Thank you so much. It's been so fun just chatting with you about everything.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's been great. So do you have any intentions of doing another book or what's ... Maybe you just finished this and you can't even think about it, but what's the next thing for Dreena?
Dreena Burton:
Do you know the opposite is true? I'm already thinking. It's terrible. I don't know what. I need an intervention, I think. I've had a couple of ideas either doing an oil-free sauces and dressings book because people really want oil-free dressings. It's not easy to find dressings that you'll love and in stores, but making them is a whole different ballgame, but then I also had an idea of doing a book that maybe had half recipes of very everyday fair and then another half of fancier or more elegant when you want to entertain and so that people have a little taste of both in the book, so they have the more everyday in that. So I'm bouncing ideas around, which I really should not be doing right now, but I've already been testing out recipes. So I think I need some intervention.
Rip Esselstyn:
Good for you. You've got it in the blood. You know what? I think it's important. If you're on a roll, keep that momentum going, right? Don't stop it. Go with it. Yeah.
Dreena Burton:
Thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:
Especially, I mean, get more great tasty, plant-based recipes out there to the world. That's not a bad thing.
Dreena Burton:
No, and that's the thing is it's in my way of activism through the years. I don't put myself out there for the animal rights side of things, but I think if you show people what this food is, and then you're doing a lot because if people can see that it tastes delicious and they're enjoying it and they're not feeling unsatisfied, then you're showing them that there's a whole new way to live and it's a long-term, right? Long-term perspective.
Rip Esselstyn:
Absolutely. I noticed that you got a really nice foreword by John Robbins, who really inspired you to this lifestyle. How easy or hard was it to get John to write that foreword for you?
Dreena Burton:
I think he's such a beautiful person, what a beautiful spirit. He was so welcoming to do it. He was extremely busy, so I was very lucky that he had time to write it, but it's one of those things that your life brings you in different directions. There was a period of time I was working with the Food Revolution Network for their whole life club doing some of the recipes, and they had approached me, Ocean, and one of the coordinators approached me some years back to do that. I had a really great experience working with them. Lovely team of people. I think it just helped open the door for me to ask John to write the foreword, which was it's such a gift, and I just think it was one of those things that the universe carved that little path for me. It was really a beautiful thing.
Rip Esselstyn:
John wrote a really nice foreword.
Dreena Burton:
He sure did.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I thought it was really interesting, too, because he wrote a couple of things that I was not aware of, for example, that this report from Global Data. It's a research firm, showed that in 2014, only 1% of US consumers were vegan, but by 2017, just three years later that it jumped up to 6%, a 600% increase. So I'd be really fascinated to know where we are in 2021 because I bet you are now approaching that 10% mark, which is the tipping point, right?
Dreena Burton:
I think so, too. We're right there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, which is super exciting.
Dreena Burton:
You can feel it, can't you? You can feel the change.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Oh, it's palpable.
Dreena Burton:
Yeah, I love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and then I love the fact, so you've got your foreword by John Robbins, and then you've got your nice endorsement there by T. Colin Campbell. So, yeah, your two boys, right? John Robbins and T. Colin, I mean, right on.
Dreena Burton:
I consider myself very fortunate in that regard, indeed. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Dreena Burton:
I just want to meet them, too, right? I need to get to some like just how we're only now meeting, I have yet to meet either of them, and I hope one day I can get out into one of these conferences again and likely did at one time, and meet some of the leaders.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. It will happen. It will happen. Yeah. So where can people go? Do you have an Instagram account or a website? Where can they go for more on Dreena?
Dreena Burton:
Yeah. Thanks. They can go to my site. So it's my name, Dreena, double E, burton.com. I have a full page there on the book where they can learn about the specifics in the book, the recipes, and then some of the additional chapters. I have lots of FAQs and batch prepping information. Then, yeah, I'm on all the social madness like most of us. I'm on Facebook, and Instagram, and all of that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. These are beautiful photos. Really, really gorgeous.
Dreena Burton:
Thank you. I can't take credit. I'm not a photographer. I'm not a food photographer. So I have someone doing that work for me, thank heavens, because that would drive me crazy. It's too specific and perfect. People don't quite realize that. The temperature has to be a certain way and elements have to be done at different times to make that photo come to life. So I'm glad I didn't have that on my hands.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Dreena, it's been a joy meeting you and chatting with you. Thanks for being on the PLANTSTRONG Podcast. I'm glad we're finally connected.
Dreena Burton:
Me, too. Thank you, Rip. I mean, everything that you're doing in the world and with your family and leading the path for so many people, it's really a privilege to be here with you today. Thank you and very nice to chat with you.
Rip Esselstyn:
So, so welcome. All right. Hey, sign out with me. Ready? Repeat after me. Ready? Peace.
Dreena Burton:
Peace.
Rip Esselstyn:
Give me the peace sign.
Dreena Burton:
Peace.
Rip Esselstyn:
Just turn it around, Engine 2.
Dreena Burton:
Engine 2.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's my origins right there, Engine 2, and then PLANTSTRONG. Give me the fist bump.
Dreena Burton:
PLANTSTRONG, baby. Boom.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. All right.
Dreena Burton:
Love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
That was a fun and inspiring breath of sweet fresh air from Dreena. I don't know about you, but I am officially hungry and I am going to dive in and make those Beyond Beet Burgers that we talked about, and I hope you'll dive in to something delicious as well. For all the links and resources for this episode, visit plantstrongpodcast.com.
Rip Esselstyn:
Now, next week, we're going to go from kitchen inspiration to brain motivation with pro athlete and mindset coach Sonya Looney.
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 true 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.
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