#240: Linda Tyler - Your Guide for Reducing Chronic Inflammation
Linda Tyler is the Gracious Vegan
Inflammation is certainly a buzz word these days, isn’t it? Every time you turn around, you’re reading about something that’s causing inflammation in your body. It’s a minefield of misinformation and here to help clear up some of that confusion is educator and author, Linda Tyler, who recently released the book, The Plant-Based Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook.
Because inflammation is an emerging area of research, that makes it ripe for misleading advice and a lot of poor information. In fact, most can't even define exactly what it is.
Inflammation isn't all bad. In fact, it's actually your body's way of protecting itself against disease or injury. But what's happening, primarily because of the standard American diet, is that your body is constantly in a “fight or flight response” creating chronic inflammation. It’s this damaging state that can play a dangerous role in diseases, many types of cancer, aging, and even weight gain.
The good news is that you can reduce inflammation through your diet, and eating a healthy plant-based diet is especially helpful for calming the immune system.
The Plant-Based Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook delivers tasty plant-based recipes centered around foods known to play especially helpful roles in the fight against inflammation, including ginger, turmeric, garlic, berries, citrus, and high-fiber foods such as legumes and whole grains.
She also shares tips and recipes from her cookbook that incorporate all of these superstar foods. This conversation inspires mindful eating habits and highlights the joy of nourishing anti-inflammatory meals.
Episode Highlights
0:02:24 The Buzzword: Inflammation
0:03:48 Interview with Linda Tyler 0:10:00 What Exactly is Inflammation?
0:14:02 The Correlation Between Inflammation with Autoimmune and Allergies
0:16:23 Why is There So Much Misinformation?
0:24:42 What Foods Cause Inflammation?
0:31:58 What are Those Anti-Inflammatory Superstars
0:34:24 The Benefits of Anthocyanins in Dark Foods
0:37:12 How to Get these Superstars in Your Diet
0:41:22 Salad Dressing Goodness
0:56:51 Essential Kitchen Tools for a Plant-Based Kitchen
1:08:07 Tempting Dessert Delights
About Linda Tyler
A lifelong cook, educator, writer, coach, food photographer, and fitness enthusiast, Linda Tyler brings a passion for innovative whole-plant dishes to everything she does. Linda teaches plant-based cooking at Portland and Mt. Hood Community Colleges. She also offers plant-based lifestyle coaching in one-on-one settings. She has published recipes and articles for numerous magazines and websites and is a long-time content volunteer for Dr. Michael Greger's Nutritionfacts website. Linda shares recipes and answers to questions about plant-based diets on her website GraciousVegan.com. Originally from Southern California, Linda spent over three decades in New Jersey and currently resides in Portland, Oregon.
Linda’s Website - Gracious Vegan
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Episode Transcript via AI Transcription Service
[0:00] I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast.
Every time you turn around, you're reading about something that is causing this to our bodies.
It is a huge buzzword these days.
I'm talking about inflammation.
It's a minefield of misinformation.
And here to help clear up some of that confusion is educator and author Linda Tyler, who recently released the book, The Plant-Based Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook.
We're going to dig into this fiery hot topic right after this message from PLANTSTRONG.
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[2:25] Inflammation, it's an emerging area of research, which makes it ripe for misleading advice and a lot of poor information.
I'd even venture to say that most of us can't even define what exactly it is.
Let me first say that inflammation isn't all bad. In fact, it's actually our body's way of protecting us against disease or injury.
But what's happening these days, primarily because of the standard American diet, is that our body is constantly in this fight or flight response.
This chronic inflammation can play a dangerous role in diseases, many types of cancer, aging, and even weight gain.
The good news is that we can reduce inflammation through our diet, and eating a healthy plant-based diet is especially helpful for calming the immune system.
This is what Linda Tyler and I talk about today with her new book, The Plant-Based Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook.
Linda shares the anti-inflammation superstars that we all want to embrace and lets us know what foods to avoid.
Of course, she also shares details and recipes from her cookbook that incorporate all of these superstar foods.
Enjoy this conversation with Linda Tyler.
[3:49] All right, welcome to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast, Linda Tyler.
Thank you. It's so great to be here, Rip. Thank you so much for the invitation.
Yeah, well, you're more than welcome. We've got a lot to talk about today.
You know, we're going to be diving into inflammation, which I think is it's.
It's such a buzzword these days. And as you talk about in your new book that just came out February 6th, here she blows right here, the plant-based anti-inflammatory cookbook.
You talk about how inflammation, it is truly like the causation of so many chronic diseases, diseases, cancers, aging, weight gain.
And so I can't wait to dive into this topic with you because I think that we all, including myself, could lose a wonderful refresher on what exactly is inflammation, what food should we be embracing, and what should we be like pushing away.
You feel like you got a good grasp on all that?
[4:57] Absolutely. I had to rewrite the chapter on inflammation two full times because it's a topic that's not very well explained on a lot of sites on the internet.
So I had to sort of come at it several different ways. So just for myself, it was super clear.
And so I hope I achieved that. But I agree with you totally.
It affects everybody, whether they're suffering now or whether they're trying to prevent future diseases.
So it's really critical that we all actually understand what it is and what we can do about it. Yeah. And I'm talking to you today.
You're in Portland, Oregon. Is that correct? That's right. Portland, Oregon. Yeah. And you said it's rainy and it's kind of powerful.
It is. Yeah. This is the rainy Portland that everybody thinks of.
You know, we have amazingly dry, warm summers, but this is the classic Portland weather today.
Right. And...
[5:57] How do you handle the rain? Do you embrace it? Or do you get a little depressed, little seasonal disorder?
How do you? Yeah, I do not. I'm very fortunate. I don't suffer from seasonal affective disorder.
So that's lucky. I actually like it.
If you go to a get together or any gathering in Portland, there are sort of those of us who, I kind of like it. you know, it's kind of cozy and some people just do not like it.
And of course, some people have that actual condition and luckily they have those lights and things that can help people now.
But, you know, I bought a rain protective gear so I can get in my steps every day, even if it's raining.
Oh, good. And how many steps do you try and get in?
I try to get in 10,000 if I'm not doing my kettlebell-ing and I get in 8,000 if I'm doing my kettlebells. Wow.
[6:54] Kettlebelling. I have, I've never done kettlebells, but they look so extraordinarily, um, just beneficial and so ergonomic and, you know, I love the little handle that they have. Yeah. Right.
They look like cannonballs with handles, handles on them. Yeah.
Yeah. So yeah, the, the movements that you learn really use a lot of muscles at once.
So there's There's a lot of connectiveness in the movements, and I think that helps decrease the muscle soreness the next day or the day after.
That's one thing I really like about them. Yeah, yeah. I like it.
So let's dive right in. So you wrote this book, right? The Plant-Based Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook. Why...
[7:39] Anti-inflammatory, why around inflammation? Is that, is it somehow personal to you or is this just a topic that you wanted to dive into?
Well, it's, I don't have any autoimmune conditions.
I don't have any allergies to speak of.
So it's not something I currently suffer from, but, you know, know, I have a research bent.
I loved school, I loved college, I loved graduate school.
So I do a lot of reading around nutrition.
I volunteer for Dr.
Greger's nutritionfacts.org site. So I'm totally into all that.
And as I kept reading more and more about plant-based diets and disease and the connection between disease and diet, I kept seeing inflammation and inflammation Inflammation connected to this disease, to that disease, and then to obesity, and now to aging.
And there's actually a term called inflammaging because inflammation is such a part of the aging process that we can help slow down.
So, of course, that's when it got personal.
[8:52] But I just thought, you know, people are so concerned about inflammation.
I have kind of this research bent. I love to cook. I love to teach cooking.
I love to take photographs of food.
So I could bring those together and offer some value to people who are suffering from inflammation now or who want to live a long, healthy life and learn how to decrease inflammation as much as possible.
Yeah. Tell me, you say that you loved education.
What did you get your PhD in? So my PhD is in music history, and my dissertation was on Mozart.
And so I've come a ways from there, but I like to think that a lot of the skills are transferable, like writing and researching and presenting and teaching.
Coaching so I've done all those things in all the parts of my career and um you know it's been wonderful to be able to enter the healthy plant-based eating community and and offer some value because of those skills but it is a little jarring to hear that I started out my career in music history oh wow you know there seems to be a lot of.
[10:11] Misinformation swirling around what exactly is inflammation.
In fact, Linda, it's perfect that we're talking today because two days ago I was playing pickleball with three guys and somebody said, oh, Rip, haven't you been vegan for 35 years?
And I said, yeah. And then this guy said, yeah, I was vegan for about 18 months.
And then I stopped because I heard that these plants produce these protective substances that are actually inflammatory for us as humans.
Obviously, stuff that he was hearing from Dr. Gundry, right?
And the plant paradox and all that shit.
But so let's backtrack.
Let's start from the beginning. So in your wonderful research that you've done for your new book, what exactly is inflammation?
[11:00] Yes. So that's the $100,000 question.
And the way I explain it and the way it finally made sense to me was it starts with our immune system.
And it's important to remember that our immune system is not just a set of organs like most systems or the way we learned it in school. our immune system, the main actors in our immune system are the billions of immune cells.
And they are positioned all over our body. In fact, like 75% are positioned along our gastrointestinal tract.
So these billions of immune cells are on the alert all the time to catch invaders and and pathogens and toxins and irregularities and, you know, cellular junk.
And they're sort of eager to get rid of those things.
So what happens is that when they respond to anything like a virus, a bacterium, anything like a, some, a scratch, you know, when they respond to, The result is inflammation. And in some cases, that's great.
Because what inflammation is, is when these immune cells respond, they release chemicals that cause nearby blood vessels to swell and become more permeable.
So more fluids can get into the tissue. So that causes swelling.
[12:25] And then they cause, they send out signals for more immune cells to join them.
They sometimes times send out signals that touch on nerves that cause pain.
So we start to recognize the signs of inflammation.
So when we get a cold, and all these immune cells are reacting to viruses.
[12:46] We get a swollen, sore throat, we get aches, though, that's inflammation.
So obviously, Obviously, the immune response can be great and life-saving for us, and that's good. But that's how immune cells work.
So the problem, especially now with many things about our modern society, is that they respond to certain things we eat more than others, and they respond to the plaque on coronary arteries.
They don't like that plaque being there. They're not used to that in our millions of years of evolution, that there's plaque on arteries. So they try to get rid of plaque and they swell up everything because that's what they do.
That's how they work. And then body fat releases pro-inflammatory triggers.
So the immune cells are trying to get rid of those triggers that obese cells are releasing.
So that causes inflammation and that kind of chronic low-level inflammation that maybe we can't feel but is actually weakening us and making us more vulnerable to diseases and frailty. So...
[14:02] Of course, with autoimmune, they're reacting to our joint tissue or another organ or another kind of body part that causes pain because it's constantly swollen, constantly heated, constantly in pain.
And with allergies, I think a lot of people associate inflammation with allergies.
Of course, the immune cells, for whatever reason, I don't think research has 100% figured figured out why, but it reacts to otherwise harmless things like wheat or like soy or like cat dander or dust.
And again, has that same mechanism, that same response, and then we get inflammation with allergies.
So essentially, it's the immune system thinking it's doing its job, but because of things in our modern society and in our modern diet, it's overdoing it and causing causing harm to the body.
Isn't that interesting? So it's doing almost exactly what it should be doing.
But what you're saying is because along the path, I would say particularly over the last hundred plus years, we have deviated almost in such a kind of a slow methodical way.
[15:25] That it has kind of boomeranged.
And like you said, instead of being this acute type of injury, like a scratch or a broken bone or something like that, it's this low-level, constant, consistent inflammation, that is a result of what we're eating and maybe the environment we live in.
That's exactly right. So, you know, in some cases, toxins and pollutants and smoking, but in many cases, it's because of what ultra processed foods and, you know, an abundance of animal products in our diets, what they have done to our bodies and what they continue to do to our bodies as we continue to ingest them.
Yeah, so it's unfortunately something that afflicts us, you're right, over the last century or so. It's gotten worse and worse and worse.
[16:23] I want to dive into kind of exactly the foods that you're talking about that are the culprits.
But before we do, can we talk about, like, for example, this guy that I was playing pickleball with that thought that plants were actually just the opposite of what you basically propose in your book is that they're anti-inflammatory. He thought they were inflammatory.
So how do we get so much misinformation swirling around? around?
You know, I think it's because inflammation is, you know, it's an emerging research topic.
It's interesting how much has come out about inflammation in the last 20 years.
[17:09] And, you know, even the term inflammation is barely 20 years old.
The connection between aging and inflammation is relatively new.
So I think in a case where A lot of research results have been trickling out.
There's been opportunity for people to pick and choose some results they like and run with those.
And, of course, the worst offenders of those are people who are trying to sell a new diet or a new way of eating.
And so they can grab a couple of facts and turn it into a system.
Give me an example. Give me some examples.
[17:54] Well, I mean, obviously, the whole, you know, high protein diets and meat only diets, they are definitely cherry picking some of their examples, because there's just such a load of research that shows that that's not true.
And that eating that much animal, eating that many animal products is just completely unhealthy for you in the long term, even if you lose some weight in the short term.
[18:23] But I think people who have come down on wheat, you know, that's another thing that, yes, in celiacs, that's a wheat allergy. That is bad.
And do some people have a wheat intolerance or a gluten intolerance?
It seems like they do. But that doesn't mean wheat is bad and wheat is inflammatory for everybody.
Well, and the reality is, what percent of America is truly celiac or has Crohn's?
I mean, isn't it like one and a half percent? Very small.
Yes, it's very small. So they've taken a smidgen of the population that actually it does result in an inflammatory response and they basically extrapolate it out now over every grain or bean that has lignans for, oh my gosh, stay away from those lignans or weed or whatever.
Yeah. So I find it.
[19:26] I find it's doing such a disservice for people like yourself, for example, that are, yeah, this is a new book, right?
But you are relying on what I think is a very, very solid foundation of science and research that supports it.
[19:46] Yeah. I mean, the core source in this case is a meta-analysis of 40 studies that studied diets.
[19:56] And inflammation markers that can be detected in the blood.
And in those 40 studies, a plant-based diet was the most anti-inflammatory, and the standard American diet was the most inflammatory.
Of course, it's not either or. The better you eat, the healthier you eat towards the end of a healthy plant-based diet, the better your markers will be.
But yeah, there's a lot A lot of research that shows plant-based eating is the best you can do for inflammation.
And then what I've done also in the book is found studies where certain foods within the plant kingdom are even actively anti-inflammatory.
So ginger and garlic and green and black tea and all the dark red and purple and black fruits and vegetables and grains and beans because those anthocyanins.
So there's a whole host of what I call anti-inflammatory superstars.
And I include those in my recipes that can actually do a little more.
But overall, a plant based diet, I mean, I would say the only plant food that is, you know, not great for inflammation would be coconut milk.
[21:16] And coconut oil because it's higher in saturated fats. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, okay. So you just touched upon a lot of things and I want to dive deeper into some of those, but why don't we start, why don't we start with, so obviously we know that diet plays a major role in inflammation or the flip side, anti-inflammation.
Why don't we first talk about what foods have you discovered, according to the research, should we basically eschew or stay away from as much as possible because they are inflammatory in nature?
[21:58] Yeah. So I would say foods that are high in saturated fats are not good for your inflammation.
So saturated fats, because they lead to imbalance in your gut and they help bad bacteria in your gut grow, the immune cells don't like bad bacteria in the gut. So they react to that.
Saturated fat can also cause leaky gut, which again lets things into the bloodstream that the immune cells don't like.
And it can cause oxidative stress. it can cause the proliferation of free radicals in your system, which, again, the immune cells don't like.
So saturated fat, for a number of reasons, is not good for your inflammation.
Let me stop you there on saturated fat.
I find it so perplexing that this seems like the preponderance of the scientific evidence shows that saturated fat is not good for a multitude of reasons when it comes to chronic diseases, cancer, heart disease, insulin resistance, you name it, right? It's nuts.
And then how is it that these paleo carnivore lion type diet advocates have a leg to stand on?
How can they basically say, ah, that doesn't exist and saturated fat is good because of this?
[23:25] Yeah. You know, I don't know why that is. I mean, whether it's the, you know, compartmentalization of social media.
So people are being sort of figuratively fed, you know, the information that they want to see, whether people are not, you know, really trying to check in on is, can this be true?
Whether people, you know, want to lose weight so much that they're willing to try anything.
It's really hard to know. But but people are just not getting good information about that.
And, you know, when I think about...
[24:06] How little education, I mean, how little education and nutrition doctors get in medical school, but the rest of us get almost no education about nutrition ever in our lives.
And so in school or elsewhere.
So, you know, most people are, you know, there's a vacuum there and the first person to fill it, people don't really have a lot of knowledge.
So it's incumbent on those of us who have knowledge to try to reach people who don't have a decent grounding in nutrition and get the word out.
[24:43] It so inflames me. It so inflames me, right?
The food that I eat doesn't inflame me. That's right.
[24:52] This truly does. So another thing you talk about besides saturated fat that is a real culprit in being a pro-inflammatory agent is endotoxins.
What exactly are endotoxins and why should we be leery of them?
Yeah. So endotoxins are toxic molecules that immune cells really hate.
I mean, immune cells just go crazy when they encounter an an endotoxin.
And endotoxins sort of arrive in the body in bacteria that are in, especially in meat, and some other animal products, but especially in meat, and especially in meat that's been sitting around or ground up.
So ground beef, ground lamb, but other meats as well.
And even if you cook the meat, and as they go through the stomach acid, you'd think anything would die, Even when that bacterium dies, the endotoxin survives.
And so then the endotoxin starts going through your system and.
[25:56] And if your gut is a little bit leaky, it gets straight into the bloodstream and the immune cells go crazy.
So that's another reason why meat, not just the saturated fat, but meats bring those endotoxins especially into the body.
And that causes this low-grade chronic stress that makes us vulnerable.
Are endotoxins found in dairy products or does it have to be a meat type of a product? I believe it's mostly in meat, but I'm not 100% sure.
What I've read is it's mostly a question of meat.
Gotcha. And then the saturated fats, I mean, the beautiful thing about saturated fat is for the most part, it only exists in animal products and animal byproducts, right? Yeah.
Most levels in plants are very tiny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Super tiny. Except for, you know, obviously some some nuts and seeds and nuts and seeds and then coconut. Yeah.
Right. Right. And we've already talked about coconut and why why we're not really a huge fan of coconut. Do you have any coconut in any of your recipes in your book?
[27:04] Just a little unshredded coconut in a couple of the desserts.
But I don't I don't cook with definitely with full fat coconut milk at all or coconut cream. or solid coconut.
So just a little bit of unshredded, unsweetened coconut and a couple of the pie crusts and things.
Got it. Got it. So besides saturated fat, endotoxins, you say another big culprit of inflammation is rapidly digested carbohydrates.
[27:37] So what are we talking about? Yeah, that would be white sugar, brown sugar, you know, the various nectars, any of those refined sugars.
And then also white flour.
Yeah, any kind of refined flours, refined grains, white rice, all those things that, you know, don't have the brand, don't have the protein in them, they've all been milled off. So, of course, those go into the system.
And in the case of the inflammation factor, you know, they cause a lot of problems.
But all that sugar that's in the blood causes oxidation, causes the creation of those free radicals. And those free radicals are very destructive in the body.
They cause damage to cells.
And again, they excite the immune system. The immune system wants to help out and get rid of those free radicals. They don't like that oxidative state that our body gets into if we eat processed foods.
[28:39] Um, so that's, and that, that, that is why that is my third category of really dangerous, um, components of food.
And, you know, if you think about so much takeout food and so much fast food and restaurant food, even if you go to a, you know, supposedly healthy restaurant, there's just, you know, if there's not cheese, if there's not meat, there's butter, there's vegan butter, there's There's oil, there's, you know, white tortillas, white flour tortillas, or white bread, or a basket of bread, a basket of chips.
You know, even people who are trying to do their best, it's just a minefield out there for these pro-inflammatory ingredients.
[29:22] It is. It truly is a minefield. You said another buzzword there that really kind of steams my clams and gets me inflamed.
And that was, you said oils. oils so uh i take it that in your cookbook you don't use oils is that correct that's right no oils no no processed oils no no no oils at all and yeah because you know you're of course your father shows so well how oils can damage our blood vessels and arteries and they're just you know a A lot of people don't understand this is, you know, squeezed from olives or seeds and bleached and processed and deodorized, and it's 100% fat, you know, lots of fat grams, lots of calories.
Your body doesn't really even know how to register oil, so you can eat things with oil and your body just hasn't evolved to say, They say, whoa, that's a lot of calories.
Let's stop eating. So there's just...
[30:28] No good reason to use oil. And some oils, especially oils that are solid at room temperature, have a lot of saturated fats, like vegan butter, a lot of vegan cheeses, in addition to regular butter and shortening and such.
So that is pro-inflammatory.
But there's a lot of reasons not to eat oil.
Absolutely. And like, for example, that earth balance spread that so many vegans love putting on their toast and other dishes, it's 100 calories per tablespoon.
And I believe the first two ingredients are canola oil and palm oil.
So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[31:11] And you said two words that that I keep forgetting are associated with oil.
They kind of absolutely kind of scared me.
You said bleached and deodorized. Two things that I don't really want done to my food. No.
There's actually, I found a video on YouTube. I don't know who created it because it's just absolutely terrifying that shows canola oil being made.
[31:38] And it's just like, oh, my goodness.
And, you know, it comes out all like dull and practically opaque.
And they say, and then we bleach it and we take out all the, you know, we take out all that dullness. And then we deodorize it.
It's like, what are you using to do that? Yeah.
[31:58] Wow. So how about if we, let's change courses now and let's talk about these wonderful anti-inflammatory foods that are littered in a wonderful way throughout your book in the 80 recipes.
And you mentioned it briefly a second ago, but I'll let you go through the list of foods that you love and adore.
Okay. And yes, these are the ones I call, I'm going to find them in my copy here.
These are the ones I call the anti-inflammatory superstars.
Because in every case, there's research to show that they do lower levels of inflammation in the blood, markers of inflammation in the blood.
So some of them are better known than others in terms of their their anti-inflammatory properties.
So ginger and turmeric, you know, they're always, they're like kale.
They're always at the top of the list, super healthy.
So, you know, cooking with ginger and turmeric, whether powdered or fresh is always good.
And students often ask me, is powdered, is fresh better than powdered?
And I say, no, they're both, you know, plenty healthy.
Just use whatever you have and whatever you like.
[33:14] You refer to those, you refer to ginger and turmeric as the knobby roots, which I love.
[33:23] Yes, they are knobby, aren't they? Yeah, yeah.
Yes, then garlic, again, fresh or garlic powder.
It has, you know, all of these have a, you know, I lay it out in the book, which compounds in these things actually lower inflammation.
So if you want more information, you can go to the cookbook and see why they actually lower inflammation.
[33:49] Green and black tea are also, they contain an antioxidant that's particularly good at calming inflammation.
And I need to do a little bit of a shout out because you mentioned green and black tea and I want everybody to know that we, plantstrong.com and our food products, we do have some of the best teas available.
And we do have a black and we do have a green.
And so think about that when you're getting your teas.
Yes. I'm sure you've sourced wonderful flavors. Yeah.
[34:24] So good. Thank you. Yep. Okay, Linda, what else?
Yeah. And then foods high in anthocyanins, as I mentioned earlier, an antioxidant that suppresses inflammation.
So think red, think purple, think black, blackberries, cherries, apples, red apples, eggplants.
Don't peel them because of course, all these things are in the peel for some of these.
And then the ones that were most interesting to me, number one, purple tea, I had never heard of, grown in Kenya. I got a packet of that.
And then black lentils, black beans, kidney beans, small red beans.
So all the the dark red or black beans, and then all the black and dark and red grains like red quinoa or black rice.
So anything that's dark in the plant kingdom probably has anthocyanins in them.
And I find them just fun to cook with because I hadn't really cooked with some of these ingredients before. So it was a lot of fun.
That's really surprising to me. I always think that I'm looking for something that's bright and magnificent, like, you know, an orange or a grapefruit or a sweet potato, those oranges, those, the yellow, the blues, like in blueberries.
[35:44] But I just don't think about, oh, black rice, right?
Or red kidney beans or whatever. Right, exactly.
So blueberries are included here, but yeah, and oranges are actually in in another category.
But yeah, it's, it's true. These are this is the, Even beans and grains have these pigments in them that are the same antioxidant.
Yeah, yeah. And then foods high in flavones. This is kind of a motley group, I thought, because it includes, again, apples.
Apples gets double credit because it's also anthocyanin.
Celery, chamomile tea. So there's an herbal tea.
All kinds of citrus. You know, so I have this orange cake that I love because citrus is anti-inflammatory.
And then mint, parsley, rosemary, some of our favorite herbs and spices, and red bell peppers.
Oh, that's quite the list right there. Yeah.
And again, what I love about these is you can get them in the grocery store.
This is not a trip to the supplement store or the health food store.
You can get these in almost any grocery store.
[36:58] So I want to dive into your book in a second, but before we do, meaning the recipes in your book, and just a few so people can get a nice little pun intended taste of some of the 80.
[37:13] But let me ask you this. How has your research in writing this book affected the way you, Linda, eat on a day-to-day basis?
Yeah, it's definitely affected the way I eat.
One of the groups of books that has made an impact on me is two books about daily habits.
They're very well known, Atomic Habits and Tiny Habits. and they both talk about how to establish daily habits.
And one of the things I've found is that I, and I think most people are.
[37:58] A lot of your eating every day is habitual. You don't want to think about it.
So you have the same thing for dinner or same thing for breakfast every day.
You drink the same beverages every day. You kind of have a little rotation at lunch that you eat.
And so they talk in these books a little bit about healthy eating, but not very much. They're talking about a lot of different habits.
And I've tried to, on my website, I've tried to translate it into good plant-based eating habits.
Habits so I have tried to instill some daily habits and I'm happy to say in most cases they have stuck so for example I want to get a half cup of berries every morning so you can't always get fresh berries and have them in your refrigerator all the times of the year so I'm I have this blueberry smoothie that I make I actually included it in the book and I make I use two cups of frozen and blueberries.
And it actually then makes four small smoothies. And I can use those for four days in a row.
I drink one and then I freeze the others.
So I do a smoothie. I do a mid-morning red apple.
In the afternoon, I have vegetable sticks, including celery.
[39:16] And so I've tried to to instill, you know, I buy black beans instead, you know, chickpeas might've been my go-to beans, but I buy black beans more.
I experiment more with, uh, small red beans and kidney beans.
I, I use black rice now that I, and I hadn't before.
So I think as part of my daily snack and breakfast habits, I've, I've, um, moved to anti-inflammatory eating.
And then I try to emphasize the others in what you know i cook a lot of different dinners because i love to cook but i'm always conscious of the anti-inflammatory ingredients and i want and i asked the press the publisher to highlight the anti-inflammatory ingredients in green i know it's kind of subtle i've gotten a couple emails like i can't tell what's green but um.
[40:08] So that people, if they're substituting, they may choose not to substitute for that ingredient.
Right. Well, I know that one of the food groups you also talked about under your list of anti-inflammatory food groups was the cruciferous greens. Yes.
And I would imagine that's something you've probably incorporated.
Did I see that you're doing more salads and stuff like that?
Yes. So I definitely have every night a salad. I get the, what is it called, like dark leafy green mix at the store.
And that's my salad with one of my salad dressings.
So I try to incorporate that. I have now started also experimenting with a kale apple smoothie.
So I'm playing with that and seeing if that'll be a daily thing.
But yeah, always trying to get the cruciferous. And I include raw broccoli in my afternoon vegetables as well.
So that's been- Oh, raw broccoli, huh? Yeah, I know, hardcore.
Trying to get this sulforaphane up there, huh? Yeah, exactly.
So yeah, the cruciferous vegetables help so much in the body, but, and they are anti-inflammatory, so. Yeah.
[41:23] You mentioned a dressing that you put on your salad, and I know that you don't do oil. So can you just tell the audience here, what's your favorite go-to salad dressing?
[41:38] Well, I have a couple, of course, but I think one of my favorites is a roasted red bell pepper dressing.
Yeah, so that's good. I use a little silken tofu, a little bit of tahini, and then lots of roasted red bell peppers with some different spices in it.
And I find that it's very low calorie and very, very delicious.
It really has a nice, strong flavor. Yeah, I want that right now.
Do you roast your own red bell peppers or do you get them pre-bought?
I often buy them in the jar.
I have to admit, I have roasted my own. I still roast my own sometimes, but I rinse them well to try to get as much of the storage you know water off of them we uh we always have a cupboard full of at least you know five or six.
[42:34] Glass jars of roasted red bell peppers because they they work so well for the mac our mac and cash it's a macaroni and not cheese that we make for the kids, Right. With, with a little bit of cashews, nutritional yeast, lime juice. I love that. Yeah.
Yeah. And it just takes a long time to roast your own. Oh yeah.
Okay. And peel them, let them sit, peel them, you know, it's just a long process and they don't really add much to the canning process. So.
Right. Right. Yeah. Before we, before I dive into your book, are there any like tools or equipment that you you would recommend to our listeners right now that are wondering like, oh, I wish I had a better non-stick skillet or should I get that Vitamix blender or anything like that? Right.
Yeah. Great question. Because I work with a lot of students on their kitchen, people who don't have a lot of equipment, were never taught how to cook.
The first thing I I usually help them with is to get a sharp knife.
[43:44] If your knife is not good and not sharp, that's bad.
And even a cutting board, you know, some of them have those thin plastic cutting boards that can slip.
And so, you know, a very sturdy cutting board, that's not going to slip a sharp knife.
And, you know, the knowledge about a knife doesn't stay sharp forever.
So you have to get your knife sharpened or sharpen them yourself by one of those sharpeners. That's the first one.
A lot of people don't know whether to buy a food processor or if they have a blender.
[44:16] I really try to be very clear about what food processors do and what blenders do. Blenders have to have liquid in them.
So if you're looking to make veggie burgers or hummus or, well, hummus could go either way, but pesto.
So if you want to grind nuts at scale or make your own nut butter, you know, you do have to have a food processor.
You know, some students say, I think I have one.
And then by the next week they come back. Yeah, I found one in the back of my cupboard because a lot of people don't use them now.
And then I and my recipe testers and my students find a lot of use out of, you know, a 16 or 24 ounce personal blender, like a Nutribullet.
[45:03] If you have a large, large enough personal blender, that does a lot like a lot of my salad dressings I make in that.
And I do need the, you know, the larger blender for certain things.
But if you blend long enough in something like a NutriBullet or a Ninja, even, you know, raw cashews will get smooth.
I mean, the key is for them to get absolutely smooth. So it may take longer.
And certainly the Blendtec and the Vitamix blenders, you know, are a snap with things like that.
But, you know, if that if they couldn't find that I used to have a wearing blender the first few years I was trying to cook this way.
And it just took longer. to get everything smooth.
So I try to, you know, go step by step with my students in terms of their equipment.
I do recommend, you know, at least one good nonstick skillet, preferably 12 inches or 10 inches.
But with water satay, you know, it's pretty, water satay is pretty forgiving.
So even if you don't have that, you can, you can still do a lot with the skillets you have.
[46:14] Uh, Linda, I don't know if you've heard of it or if you have one, but for Christmas, my mother gave, gave me a Caraway non stick, um, skillet.
It is absolutely spectacular. It's made out of ceramic and, uh, you know, it's not cheap.
It's like 147 bucks or something like that. But it's not a $20 one that is going to work for the first five times, and then it falls apart.
[46:44] Yeah. Yeah. I have a couple green pan skillets that I believe are ceramic as well, and I really do like those.
They're really nice and just a joy to cook with as well.
I got to say, I got one of the greens, and it worked like a charm for about a month. And then it absolutely took a nosedive. I can't make it anymore.
So I wonder if it's ceramic. I mean, this caraway, literally, I mean, I can just tell by looking at it. It is high quality. Oh, okay.
So just for the listeners, do your research on that.
And I got to admit, like I bought this green pan probably two and a half, three years ago.
So maybe their technology has improved.
Yeah, I know. Same here. I have noticed in one of them that suddenly it's not doing what it's supposed to do. That's interesting. We had the same experience.
Yeah. And I'm sure the other one is probably shortly behind it. I don't know.
But yeah, I'd like, I'll check out the Caraway. That might be a great recommendation. Yeah.
You have a method that you talk about in your book called zero minute steaming method. What is that exactly?
[48:03] Yeah, so that's using the instant pot to steam kale and broccoli and cauliflower and green beans.
It doesn't work with every vegetable and you need more minutes for certain vegetables like, you know, like winter squash and stuff.
But it works with those core cruciferous vegetables and green beans.
[48:26] Basically, you you have to use a steamer basket of some kind.
I actually use a trivet and then I put my clunky old conventional $6 steamer inside of it.
You pile in your prepped steamer.
Greens or green beans, you put some water in the bottom of your Instant Pot, close the top, put the lid to sealing, put the knob onto sealing, and then push the steam button and lower the minutes to zero.
And so, then it starts and it builds up to pressure, but once it gets to high pressure, it's done.
And then as soon as you hear it, like ding, you don't want those minutes at low low temperature to accumulate.
You want to catch it at zero, move the knob to venting. So you get a bunch of steam for a minute or two.
And then immediately, as soon as the valve drops, you want to open it. And the kale is perfect.
And the broccoli is perfect. The cauliflower is perfect. Green beans.
Yeah. Yeah. The Instapot again, that it seems to be the bane of my existence.
Distance, getting, getting it out of the closet.
[49:39] Yeah, I know I have mine on the counter and I keep thinking, well, I could put it away if I needed to, but I use it like almost every day. So it stays out.
I am, I feel, I feel so ashamed because I've had several people on that have raved about the Instapot, including a Chef AJ, who I know that you, um, you're friends with and and a big fan of, and I just haven't gotten around to it.
Oh, you will love it.
Yeah. You will love it. I teach, you know, three-class series on the Instant Pot, or I give my one-on-one students like a 30-minute primer on using the Instant Pot.
There are people that say, oh, my gosh, I never used it, and now I can use it. I understand it.
Well, you know what? That is so cool. Cool. And I know that, you know, I love that you love teaching people and you're a plant-based cooking instructor at two different community colleges in Portland, right? That's right.
Portland Community College and Mount Hood Community College.
Yeah, that's absolutely wonderful.
And how in the world did you have the ability to start teaching cooking classes at a community college? Did you have to to sell them on it.
Ah, that's a great question. So, so I was just, you know, getting I was doing a lot of demos in various venues in Portland.
[51:08] And then I had applied online to Portland Community College, I heard that they were actually looking for someone to teach plant-based cooking, they didn't have anyone.
But, you know, Portland is a pretty plant-based friendly city.
So the, so the community ed program was looking for somebody.
And I didn't hear and I didn't hear and it's like yeah you know you send feelers out and some come through some don't and then COVID hit and they wanted online instructors so they said would you teach online cooking classes online and I said sure I'll try and so I you know I had worked in.
[51:52] An office environment.
So I knew Zoom pretty well. I knew sort of how all that worked.
And after the first or second class, I said, I need an overhead camera too, so I can show what I'm doing. So I got that.
But it's, of course, it's in some ways, it's a lot easier for me because I don't have to make a ton of samples for people.
I don't have to, you know, lug things to a a location.
I just prep things in my kitchen, have everything ready, have to clean up the kitchen, which is not something I used to have to do.
And I designed it, again, after the first term, I designed it as a cook-along format.
So I send out the recipes in advance and tell them what to prep beforehand.
So if people want to cook along and get troubleshooting tips in real time, they can.
[52:42] So that works well. Yeah. All right. Let's jump into your book. Okay.
So you've got breakfast, you've got soups, you've got salads, you've got grains, vegetables, main dishes, desserts.
I want to start, and listen, there's 80, and I'm just going to basically touch upon maybe six to eight here, but these are some that caught my eye.
So can you see this? And we'll open up your book if you have it there, Linda. Yeah, sure. You can reference it. So I'm on page 60.
Let me see. 64 here. This is the gingerbread steel cut oats with pears.
And I immediately read you've got a little bit of molasses, ginger, right?
Anti-inflammatory ginger and cinnamon that creates the classic gingerbread flavor.
And then I saw these pears and the raisins and I love steel cutouts more than anything.
And I was like, I want that. I want it right.
[53:44] I love the taste of gingerbread. Yes.
So I, you know, I have some, no, I try to recreate gingerbread and whatever medium I can.
So I'm glad it caught your eye. I hope you try it. Oh, absolutely.
And then here, here, this caught my eye because I found the photo to be so distinct.
[54:08] This right here, the creamy turmeric tea. It's on page 75.
Yes. Right. Yeah. And I even, I got to give a shout out to you because I think you took your own photography.
I did. I did. In the last sort of The six, seven years I've been learning food photography, and it was great fun to do these photos.
Well, you did a phenomenal job with them. And this photo, one of the reasons is I saw almost the exact same photo on page 270 right next to the acknowledgements.
And I was like, yeah, there's a reason why my eye was drawn to that photo.
Yeah, it is. I mean, turmeric tea is just beautiful on its own.
And it's just has such a it just feels like so comforting. Exactly.
It's just like I want to sit down and have a cup of that.
What makes it creamy, Linda? So the non-dairy milk I usually in our house, we use soy milk, but you could use any kind of non-dairy milk.
[55:17] So that's what makes it creamy. You could also if you have a little steamer whipper, you could make it into almost a latte. you can whip it up some foam-like consistency, but it doesn't have to be.
But it's just warm and comforting.
And the turmeric flavor, you don't think of turmeric as like, will turmeric be good in a beverage? Yes.
Right, right. No, it does seem a little peculiar, but looks incredible.
So next I'm going into salads. I'm going to page 85, which is your grapefruit and avocado salad.
I, this morning, just so you know, I had my cereal with two sliced grapefruits on top, mango, chia seeds, ground flaxseed meal, and then, uh, um, some oat, uh, oat milk.
But this, um, I just, whenever I see grapefruit, especially with something like a salad, and then of course the paired with avocado and those greens, um.
[56:20] I just kind of makes my mouth water. Yeah.
And then I think the nice thing about this one too, is that, um, I put a teaspoon of grapefruit zest in the dressing, which really is wonderful.
It has this like grapefruity, but a little bit sweet, uh, influence on the dressing and then some grapefruit juice in the dressing, uh, along with some Dijon mustard and some vinegar.
It's just, uh, it's a delicate salad, but it's so nice.
[56:51] Well, we like delicate. We can appreciate things that are delicate. Yes. Okay.
Next, I'm moving on, and you have so many incredible salads.
And next, I'm going to move on just so everybody can get a little taste of everything.
Page 121, which is one of your soups.
[57:09] But this is a black bean and rice soup.
And what I loved in looking at this, everybody take a gander at that, was just the simplicity of it.
And how thick and wonderful and hearty it looked.
Exactly. Yeah, I find that with this soup, less was more.
So it's not like super spicy on its own.
It doesn't have a ton of zing, but you could add zing if you want.
But the garlic, the onion, chili powder, cumin, oregano, And one of my favorite ingredients, smoked paprika, you know, gives it that wonderful, rounded, earthy flavor.
And then a little bit of acid. Pick me up with the red vinegar at the end.
[58:03] And then you can do what you want. You know, in the picture, I show some of the toppings I put on.
But you could add chipotle powder, chipotles.
You could add anything you want and then go crazy with the toppings as well.
Linda, I'm moving on to page 140, which is your creamy wild rice and mushroom soup.
Something about that combination to me looks so absolutely earthy and healthy and anti-inflammatory.
And again, I want it and I want it now. Yes.
Yeah. The combination of rice and mushrooms with a creamy broth that comes from the lentils and a few cashews.
And then you have the thyme oregano sage trilogy, which just really makes it comforting.
All right. I'm moving on into grains, your grains section. Page 164 is where I'd love to start.
You have savory quinoa cakes.
[59:09] What can you tell me about these? I'll show the photo here.
They just look so wonderful, especially paired with those mashed potatoes.
And I think it's some sort of a green leafy. Yeah, it looks like spinach.
Yeah, these are my go to Thanksgiving entrees. I really like these at Thanksgiving because they taste so good with gravy.
I have several different gravies I make, especially they go well with mushroom gravy.
But there's, there's some walnuts in here, there's a one potato that helps everything hold together really well.
And then of course, onions and mushrooms for that extra umami and then we have the quinoa that is the the star there and then some fresh herbs especially and that sort of resonate with thanksgiving so the these also freeze well so if you make you know.
[1:00:09] I don't know. I think they make like almost two dozen quinoa cakes.
You can eat some, freeze some for later. They come out of the freezer really well.
Well, you're a big fan of making more than you need and then freezing and rotating and having some in the fridge, which I think is super, super smart, right?
Yeah. I try to help my students who want help with meal planning, like don't cook every night, You know, start to create that train of leftovers and frozen foods so that you only have to cook two or three times, you know, seriously cook two or three times or, you know, do it on a weekend day or something.
But, yeah, to try to get that leftovers and frozen meals working for you, for sure. I like that.
I mean, I like that attitude of trying to work or trying to cook, you know, be in the kitchen maybe seriously two or three times a week.
That doesn't seem at all too overwhelming. It seems very doable.
[1:01:09] Yeah, it just takes a little planning. You do have to think about it.
I tell my students, you only have to think about it once, maybe for 20, 30 minutes.
Do that once a week, but then that takes care of all the thinking and deciding, which I think for most people is very stressful. If it's five o'clock and you haven't thought about what to make for dinner, that is stressful.
So if you can carve out a little bit of time once a week and, you know, again, start that leftover and frozen train working for you, it can it can be doable even if you're working full time.
[1:01:46] Now, in the vegetable section, I'm on page 173, 174.
And although you can't see a vegetable from the outside, I was drawn to this because my youngest daughter, Hope, who's nine.
[1:02:00] She and people that follow me on Instagram know that she could have spring rolls seven nights a week, and she would be happy to make them and cut up everything and dice everything.
Everything but you have and i've we've never done this we always do you know the um the rice paper and it's you know it's see-through and all that but you have baked spring rolls look at this everybody baked spring rolls that look just divine and i i mean i would love to dip those into some sort of like a peanut sauce or something yeah peanut sauce would be good too this is more more of a soy-based and a maple sauce, but with sesame seeds.
But yeah, I use whole wheat flour tortillas. They do have a trace amount of oil in them, but it's minimal.
And at least they use the whole wheat flour.
And so those bake up very nicely. So the other nice thing I like about this is you can make the filling anytime and just store it in the refrigerator.
If you're prep cooking, make that filling. and then you roll it up and each flour tortilla, usually I roll it up and then cut it in half.
You can bake these in the air fryer, which makes it super fast, or you can bake them in the oven.
[1:03:22] Now, I have not, you say six cups of shredded, you know, finely chopped vegetables, such as bell peppers and bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, carrots.
Could you just throw that in a a, um, a pro a food processor and then you're done. Yes, you could. Absolutely.
Um, I might put the harder ones like carrots, uh, in by themselves and get those chopped.
But I think, um, in most cases, yeah, I think you could do that.
That's a great, that's a great idea. Yeah. I like that hack.
[1:03:55] So I'm looking at page 190 and people that are regular listeners of the podcast will know why I've chosen this one.
You have eggplant Parmesan stacks.
And I have an aversion to eggplant. I don't like it. I never have.
Something about the consistency. But these look particularly satiating, and they make my mouth go, I really want to try it, as long as they're not too spongy.
That's exactly right. I remember when I first became...
A vegan and I had to like, and I would go to like on vacation and stuff and, and restaurants had an, you know, grilled eggplant sandwich.
I said, okay, I'll have that. Oh, you know, they were under grilled or they were just spongy.
I agree with you totally in thick slices.
So I, uh, this, you are benefiting here from a lifetime of eggplant hacking. So I cut them thin.
I put a coating on them and roast the heck out of them so they become soft and but thin i mean they almost collapse because they're cut thin and then those roasted things then are stacked and layered with marinara and vegan parmesan my my nut based vegan parmesan in between so um i think this could do it it for you.
[1:05:24] I'd like you to try it. I would love that. I'll talk to the family and see if they're willing to get a little crazy here.
[1:05:33] Let's go into main dishes. You have so many wonderful main dishes.
You have several that have pasta and pasta is such a mainstay in our household.
So one that I'm going to try is your pasta with arugula in a creamy lemon sauce because my My daughters love anything that has lemon in it.
So this is page 219 and 20. Here's the photo for people to see.
It just looks like a simple angel hair with just a wonderful assortment of toppings.
Yeah. So, you know, the secret ingredient there is the arugula that gets cooked in.
So but then because of the cherry tomatoes and then really the the sauce is really lemon forward.
So if you do like lemony sauces, this is the pasta for you.
And there's also broccoli in there as well.
But I like to cut it up fairly small so that it's a nice balance of textures in your mouth at once. But yeah, it's the taste of arugula and lemon go together so well.
And on the very next recipe, you've got this baked penny with bell peppers and ricotta.
This looks so just hearty and like it was just like roll around in my mouth so nicely.
[1:07:01] So again, that looks really good. That is so good. That is really good, I have to say. I love that dish.
[1:07:09] All right, let's go with the desserts.
Because we can't end without some desserts. Right. And I have a feeling that you are pretty incredible with desserts.
I like making desserts.
On 238, you've got a raspberry cheesecake with a raspberry sauce that just looks lights out.
Incredible. Yeah. I wish I would have had that for my birthday a couple of days ago. Oh, happy birthday.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the crust has, you know, some almonds, some dates, some oats in it.
And then the filling has some cashews and, of course, lemon juice, lemon zest, and obviously raspberries.
And then, as I say in the head note, I couldn't decide whether to put the raspberries in the cheesecake or on top in a sauce. And then I decided to do both.
You really can't have too many raspberries in this dish.
It's super, super good. And then let's finish with page 244
[1:08:08] You have your walnut and date caramel tart.
[1:08:13] I don't know what to say other than I want it, and I want it now.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. The crust is, has a lot of walnuts in it.
Crusts, you know, without butter are hard to get to do well.
So I humbly propose this crust.
And then, of course, dates have that caramelly taste.
So they are in the middle. And then my chocolate sauce that has almond butter and cocoa powder and other ingredients, the chocolate sauce makes it. Wow.
How much time did you spend on this book, Linda?
[1:08:52] I spent about a year. Yeah.
[1:08:56] With about, I would say, six months, I was probably taking about three photos a week, which, you know, doesn't sound like that much, but I have to set up my studio in my garage and then make the dish and then take it out there and take all the photos, clean up, you know.
It took a, you know, an afternoon each time I had to do that.
But I was very lucky to have really good recipe testers. So as I was, you know, did a few versions myself, got it good enough to send to them and they would turn things around in a week.
Really lucky to have a great group. And so it was, there were a few months there that felt like an assembly line, but we did it.
Yes, you did. And what's the best place for people to go if they want a copy?
[1:09:47] So they can go to Costco. Costco adopted the book, which is a thrill for me.
And I love seeing it with, you know, as an alternative to the other cookbooks there. And then of course, and I've seen it in Barnes and Noble stores and other, you know, Powell's in Portland is a huge bookstore.
And then of course on Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, all the various online outlets as well.
Wow. Congratulations on getting that in Costco. That's not a feat to get that in Costco.
Wow. That was a thrill. That was a thrill.
Wow. Wow. I mean, maybe you have to talk to your agent.
[1:10:28] So, um, so I just want to wrap up just with a little bit more about you, Linda.
Um, so AJ chef AJ, does she, the one that kind of like said, Hey, you should write a book.
You can do it, get after it. Was she the one that kind of pushed you into it?
She did. You know, I love books. So I think I always had like a dream to write a cookbook someday.
But I had watched one of her summits and I had started teaching and I just wrote to her out of the blue, like, could I demonstrate some recipes on your channel?
And that was when she was first getting started.
So not like now where hundreds and hundreds of people, I think, probably write to her. So she said, sure.
And then by the end of the show, she said.
[1:11:21] That was amazing. You should write a cookbook. And I said, really?
And so that was like super validation, you know, early in, in my plant-based career to say, okay, maybe I'm onto something.
And so I, you know, kept it in the back of my mind.
And it came together quickly once I put put together a proposal.
So I was very lucky on that score. Um, but she certainly, she certainly encouraged me and, and was the main reason I had the confidence to do it. Yeah.
Well, I'm so glad that, that AJ gave you that push and, and sometimes that's all we need.
We need somebody just to kind of put it out there for us. Right.
Exactly. Plants the seed. And then we kind of mull on it a little bit and then it's like, Hey, why not?
Why not me? Go for it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Who, Linda, has been the hero in your life or one of the heroes in your life?
[1:12:24] Well, when I think back over my whole life, I would have to say my mom set so much in place for us as a family.
But just as a model cook, you know, she was very non-frills, but super consistent.
You know, she was using the best nutritional advice she could get in her day with a, you know, a balanced plate, but it included meat and a starch and a vegetable and a salad. So she, I think, was good in terms of healthy meals, consistent meals, homemade meals, you know, which makes such a difference if you can cook your own food instead of going out too much.
[1:13:12] You know, I think, and efficient.
She always had ways of being efficient in all, in the kitchen and in all places in her life.
So I think she was probably, she is probably the deepest model for me in terms of what I do.
Right. Well, you know, she'd be so happy to see the fruition of this.
Yes. Your dedication.
You said for Doug, my dear dining companion every day, your unwavering support has made all the difference.
I would imagine that your husband. That's my husband, Doug. Yes.
Yeah. We eat dinner together and do the New York times crossword as as well. Ah, how fun.
That's our entertainment for the evening.
You know what? That sounds really delicious. Yes.
So what are some of the things that you want to do in your 70s, 80s, and 90s?
Well, I love to hike.
I don't hike as much as I want, but my last trip was to Yosemite, and I loved hiking.
[1:14:21] And I hope I can, my real dream is to do a rim to rim Grand Canyon hike.
So I'm still looking for the right time and opportunity to do that.
So I'm hoping that I'll be 70 in six years.
So I'm hoping between, you know, between now and when I'm 80, I can do that.
And I play the piano, I play chamber music with a lot of different musicians here in the the Portland area, so I want to be able to keep, doing that. I haven't seen any fallout seen any fall off yet in my abilities.
So I'm hoping that, you know, this is, these are all my, you know, wise, I want to be, you know, non inflammatory, anti inflammatory, so that my body and mind stay really sharp.
And, you know, I really, I have my garden, everything is wakening up now.
And so I want to continue doing that. So So a lot of what I do, and I think what a lot of people do, depends on being healthy.
And prevention is a key. You know, exercising and especially eating well is such a key.
Well, I like that. Rim to rim, the Grand Canyon, rim to rim, Yosemite and playing the piano.
Well, that sounds amazing.
How is your Russian blue kitten doing? Oh, he is standing right behind my monitor waiting for lunch.
[1:15:50] He might even come around. No, his name is Serge.
He is not a kitten anymore. He just turned three.
And he's, I think we have him down to 11 pounds, but the vet gave me a, yeah, the vet said any cat over 10 pounds is fat.
So I thought that wasn't very nice. As I said, he has big bones.
[1:16:16] We're getting there. All right. All right. Well, Linda, this has been really wonderful.
So great getting to know you a little bit, hearing all about inflammation, your new book, and all your passion around it.
Thank you for being part of the PLANTSTRONG podcast.
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed myself.
Will you, on the way out, will you give me a PLANTSTRONG virtual fist bump?
Oh, yes. Oh. Bump. Right. Thank you.
Linda's book is called The Plant-Based Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook, and it's available now.
Linda also shares recipes and tips on her website, graciousvegan.com, and I'll be sure to link up to that in the show notes.
Until next time, my cruciferous cousins, don't get inflamed by the food that you eat.
And how do you best do that? Why, you keep it PLANTSTRONG, of course.
Always. See you next time.
[1:17:24] The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, and Ami Mackey.
If you like what you hear do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones you can always leave a five-star rating and review on apple podcasts or spotify and while you're there make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode as always this and every episode is dedicated to my parents Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr and Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks so much for listening.
