#189: Rachael Brown - For Fork’s Sake, Go from SAD to H.A.P.P.Y. (Healthy and Plant-Powered, Yay!)
Author, Rachael Brown
I have a confession to make, my plantstrong brothers and sisters…Ever since I interviewed my guest today, Rachael Brown, I can’t stop exclaiming the title of her book, For Fork’s Sake! I mean, it’s just so fun to say…memorable, catchy, and definitely attention-grabbing… “For Fork’s Sake!”
There’s something about it that just makes me happy – and that is precisely what we discuss today. Rachael’s simple guidebook takes readers on a 10-day journey from the SAD diet to the HAPPY Diet – that is, “Healthy and Plant-Powered, YAY!!”
Are you ready to get happy? Well, it’s inevitable as we talk through her family’s journey and all of her trusted tips for making this transition, including:
What does this way of eating even entail?
How do you bring your family along, especially if they’re reluctant?
How do you handle naysayers and questioners?
What are some of the common misconceptions and pitfalls you will encounter?
And, oh my goodness, how do you handle the picky eaters in your family?
This book is easily digestible (pun intended, of course), but packed full of so many tips. As she says on her website, “ Changing your family’s food, health, and life for the better doesn’t have to be drastic. Transition to healthier, happier Whole Food, Plant-Based, No Oil eating with help from a mom who’s done it.”
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Full YouTube Transcript Coming Soon
Commercial: Hey gang - thanks for joining us today. I just came off spring break with the family and want to share a quick tip for a filling meal you can pack when you're taking an early morning flight and don't want to be stuck with no healthy breakfast options. Take a pouch of unsweetened applesauce and toss in the freezer. The morning of your flight, toss the frozen applesauce in your bag, along with a bag of our PLANTSTRONG granola - my favorite is the Classic Oatmeal Raisin. ALSO pack a small bowl filled with frozen berries, and a tight fitting lid...
A couple hours later - on your flight or during your layover, add the cold applesauce to your now defrosted berries, top with granola and dig in. I'm telling you - this is the best. It's a great way to fill up and stay fueled when you're on the road. You could even add some ground flax and a dash of cinnamon to your berries when you pack.
You can stock up on all four of our dessert-inspired, whole fruit sweetened PLANTSTRONG granola at plantstrongfoods.com
Now let's dig into today's show!
Rachael Brown:
Well, for us, I was trying to narrow down what took us 10 years to really understand and give it to people so that in 10 days they had all the knowledge that they needed to give this thing a go. I read a ton of books and did a lot of research and got certified in plant-based nutrition, but I wanted to give people something that was short and sweet, just enough information. In that day zero, it's some kind of initial questions people might have, and then getting into the why. Why should I do this? Why is this good for the planet? Why is this good for me? Just giving people some background and letting them know it's not going to take them 10 years. They can read this and grab ahold some of other resources, and they will be well on their way to eating HAPPY.
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.
I have a confession to make, my PLANTSTRONG brothers and sisters, and that is ever since I interviewed my guest today, Rachael Brown, I can't stop exclaiming the title of her book, For Fork's Sake! I mean, it's just so fun to say. Go ahead and say it right now. For Fork's Sake!I mean, it's memorable, it's catchy, and it's definitely attention-grabbing. For Fork's Sake! I can't stop saying it, but there's something about it that just makes me happy, and that is precisely what we discussed today. Rachel's simple guidebook takes readers on a 10-day journey from the sad standard American diet to the happy diet, and that is Healthy And Plant-Powered, Yay.
Now, are you ready to get HAPPY? Well, it's inevitable as we talk through her family's journey and all of her trusted tips for making this transition, what does this way of eating even entail? How do you bring your family along, especially if they're reluctant for the ride? How do you handle the naysayers and the questioners? What are some of the common misconceptions and pitfalls? How do you handle the picky eaters in your family? This book is easily digestible, but packed full of so many tips, and as she says on her website, changing your family's food, health, and life for the better doesn't have to be drastic. Transition to healthier, happier, whole food, plant-based, no oil eating with help from a mom who's done it. Here to talk us through how to do it is Rachael Brown.
Rachael Brown, welcome to The PLANTSTRONG Podcast.
Rachael Brown:
Thank you. Rip. It's great to be here.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, well, it's nice to have you. Tell me, where are you talking to me from?
Rachael Brown:
I'm just outside of Santa Cruz, California, in a little town called Scotts Valley-
Rip Esselstyn:
Santa Cruz-
Rachael Brown:
... Northern Central.
Rip Esselstyn:
... yeah, yeah.
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, so is Santa Cruz kind of hippy-dippy place? Or what's it like there?
Rachael Brown:
It does have that vibe a little bit. I think a little like Austin, Portland, Santa Cruz, those are all kind of in the same category, I think.
Rip Esselstyn:
Uh-huh. Well, I have a brother that used to live in Santa Cruz for a number of years, and I went to visit him and I love the feel and just the vibe of Santa Cruz. I can't wait to get back. Rachael, let's-
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, it's great.
Rip Esselstyn:
... dive in and talk about a book that you've recently written that came out a couple of months ago. Here it is right here. It's called For Fork's Sake!, and I love saying that, and I love saying it really loud and with a lot of like meaning. For Fork's Sake! How do you say it?
Rachael Brown:
I... The same really, and I say it multiple times a day sometimes, so yeah, For Fork's Sake!, man. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. For Fork's Sake! Come on, man. Tell me, how did you come up with this particular title? I am a huge fan.
Rachael Brown:
Well, thank you. You know, it was many iterations. I felt like I had a lot of titles, subtitles that I was trying to work together, but I wanted something fun and catchy, something that wasn't too serious, but was attention grabbing. It seems to have done the trick. Amazon won't allow me to run ads because of the title, so that has been a bit of a bummer, but otherwise it does get some good reviews.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, is that because they think you're confusing fork with the F word? Or what's up that with that?
Rachael Brown:
Yes. Well, first they tried to say because I was purporting medical advice, and then I pointed out it was all research-backed, fact-checked medical advice, and so they withdrew that, but then they said, yes, that the fork part could be misconstrued to be something else, and so they didn't want to run that. I mean, I'm kind of amazed with Pinky Cole's book and there are a whole bunch of books out there that are amazing, but yeah, but it's their deal.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, we just had Pinky on the podcast a couple weeks ago, and what was her name of the book again? Was it Slutty Vegan? Oh, that's the name of her restaurant chain, right?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, no, it's [inaudible 00:06:22]-
Rachael Brown:
No, wait, it's like-
Rip Esselstyn:
It's like Eat This, Bitch, right?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
No. That's right.
Rachael Brown:
I thought you were just trying to get me to say it.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, I wish I was that quick. It's interesting, you have a really, I think, powerful quote on page 22 of your book, and it's, "The most violent weapon on Earth is the table fork." I didn't know if that's one of the reasons why you used that, a fork, in the name of your title. That is actually an unknown, who exactly said that, but it is so, so true.
Rachael Brown:
Right. Right. It was originally attributed to Gandhi, actually, but when we did the fact-checking we couldn't nail that down for certain, but yeah, yeah, it really is proving to be true these days just how violent our forks can be.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yes, across a myriad of different things. Your dedication to this, you say, "To my husband and kids who tried the chard smoothie and lived to tell about it. Thanks for learning with me and may you always remember you're getting enough protein." Tell me, how many kids do you have?
Rachael Brown:
I've got two kids. They are turning 21 next week and turning 19 in March. Our youngest is away at college this year, both of them in college now. This is our first year's empty nesters, but they were six and eight when we made our transition almost 13 years ago, so yeah, there was a big learning curve and that dedication, you know, especially when they were young, we did a lot of smoothies. It was an easy way to get a lot of greens in that they weren't too excited about just chomping on at the time.
Yeah, I did a lot of smoothies and one time I tossed in a whole bunch of chard and not cooked anything. The thing was fluorescent green, like bright lime green. It was beautiful, but almost like a bad science experiment, and I said, "Yeah, you got to drink it." They took a drink and their eyes got really wide, and I took a taste and I was like, "Okay, nevermind this, you don't have to drink this smoothie." It was high on the chard content.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow, and so you didn't slice it with some peanut butter and banana and lemon juice?
Rachael Brown:
Not enough.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, apparently.
Rachael Brown:
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I learned my lesson and from that day forward, a lot more lemon juice and, yes, a little but butter in there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Uh-huh, and so has your husband been along for this ride and been a willing partner?
Rachael Brown:
Yes. You know, so much like you, he is into triathlons. He did Half Ironmans and he mountain bikes a lot. We have great mountain biking around here, and he was pretty willing to jump onboard. He and my daughter are both lactose intolerant, so that was a easy switch there, but he still had this idea that he wasn't going to have enough energy. He used to mountain bike with a group of guys every Wednesday for hours. He'd always get a steak burrito on that day so that he'd be powered up to go do his long ride.
We were eating this way at home, but he'd still get that once a week steak burrito, and then a couple weeks in a row he didn't have time to run over get it. There's a great Tacoria across the street from his office. He just ate some soup that we had from home and he felt incredibly better without that steak burrito. That was his aha moment was when he realized, "Oh, this thing that I thought was really helping me is actually... it's actually hurting me." That was his main transition, but yes, I mean, it's been... it's probably 12 years ago as well, so...
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and do you feel like your... Did you say two boys? Or a boy and a girl? Is it two boys?
Rachael Brown:
Older daughter, younger son.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, okay.
Rachael Brown:
Two kids, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Do you feel like your daughter and your son and your husband feel confident that they're getting all the protein they need now?
Rachael Brown:
Yes. You know, sometimes my son will text me. He'll still have friends that ask him, so like, "Well, everybody knows soy is bad for you." I'm like, "Which friend is this? Can I just text him? Are you kidding me?" Yes, they are. My daughter, when she moved out of the dorm, she moved into a house with four other vegans. My son is eating completely plant-based at school, and so when I talk to parents now, I'm like, "You might find it hard to believe that the kids that you're having a hard time eat vegetables as elementary school-aged kids or something could be in college living out of your home choosing to eat plants all on their own, but it really works." Yeah, they're doing a great job and they are confident, and I think mainly because they know how they feel. They've experienced the benefits themselves.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, nicely done with your family. What I want to do is I want to go through, and I don't want you to give me everything, but I want to go through your 10 days because you basically say the book is, for the most part, it's a quick guide and you run through it 10 days to what you're using the acronym HAPPY, which stands for what?
Rachael Brown:
Healthy And Plant-Powered, Yay. It's whole food, plant-based, no oil is hard to like [inaudible 00:11:53] I mean, this is just a hard one to go, so I thought SAD to HAPPY.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. No, to me it's absolutely brilliant, SAD meaning the standard American diet to HAPPY, it's... yeah, I think it's brilliant. What I want to do is let me just toss out to you a little something from each one of the days, and then if you could riff on that, I think that would be really beneficial for the listener.
Rachael Brown:
Sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
First, day zero, you have a day zero, and basically that you say from 10 years to 10 days, so it's a little bit ambiguous for somebody at home that hasn't read the book. What does that mean?
Rachael Brown:
Well, for us, I was trying to narrow down what took us 10 years to really understand and give it to people so that in 10 days they had all the knowledge that they needed to give this thing a go. I read a ton of books and did a lot of research and got certified in plant-based nutrition, but I wanted to give people something that was short and sweet, just enough information. In that day zero, it's some kind of initial questions people might have and then getting into the why. Why should I do this? Why is this good for the planet? Why is this good for me? Just giving people some background and letting them know that it's not going to take them 10 years. They can read this and grab ahold of some other resources and they will be well on their way to eating HAPPY.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and there's so much wonderful information out there that makes it so much easier than some of these pioneers that did it 40, 50, 60 years ago. Tell me personally, before we jump into the days, what was it that inspired you to even go down this path? I'm sure there was some sort of a trigger.
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, so I grew up healthy, I played sports, I was really active, and in my early 20s, I twas told I had high cholesterol. This was mainly concerning to me because my Dad had high cholesterol and he had always been on cholesterol medication ever since I could remember. He would take cholesterol medication and then he'd have some side effect like lose his taste or something and he's switch medications. I just knew I didn't want to do that if I didn't have to. Then, in my mid-20s, my nephew was diagnosed with cancer. He was five years old and his mom was in nursing school at the time and she had a professor who asked her if she'd looked at the role of nutrition in cancer. That professor suggested some books.
My sister-in-law at the time, they had like a small hobby farm. I mean, when she'd come to my house, she taught me how to pull mozzarella cheese, so we were making cheese and we have chickens and they had chickens. They grew their meat. She had a huge veggie garden as well, but it was kind of the whole homesteading thing. She starting reading these books and they started overnight. They were doing like Gerson therapy and just fully went into plant-based eating. Once she passed these books on, I started with the China study. I watched Forks Over Knives, and honestly, I was mad. I was mad that nobody had told me this information. Every time I went to the doctor and was told I had high cholesterol, they'd say, "Well, exercise a little bit more," which I was already doing, and, "maybe cut out some cheese and eggs." That was all they gave me.
Finding out this information made me mad, but then really glad that this was actually possible that I wouldn't have to take medication for the rest of my life. My Dad's Dad had Alzheimer's and he passed away from pancreatic cancer. My uncle, my Dad's brother, also died of pancreatic cancer, so there were some family reasons that in looking at disease and disease that ran in our family, there were big reasons to be as healthy as possible. Finding out that what I put in my mouth was... Lifestyle, all of that was 90% of whether I got a disease, not fearing this, "Oh gosh, I'm going to get Alzheimer's, I'm going to get pancreatic cancer. What can I do?", kind of thing. Was just really enlightening and I want to share it with everybody I know.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and it's remarkable to me how it seems like your first introduction to this was a friend that told you, "Hey, you should check out the China study." It's amazing what the China study has done. Same thing with the documentary Forks Over Knives. It's really remarkable. So grateful that those are out there. All right, so let's move on to day number one. Okay, so day number one and, again, we're doing just kind of... I want you to do an abbreviated version because we don't want you to tell people exactly what the book's about in its entirety. Day one is what eating plant-based... what it entails.
Rachael Brown:
Well, for the most part, I think breaking down for most people maybe, or maybe not, they've heard the term whole food, plant-based, no oil, so just breaking down like, what are we even talking about? Trying to put it in really simple terms. Don't eat anything with a face or a mother and you've got it pretty much covered. Some easy things to remember. I like your crap calorie rich in process, that trying to avoid things that aren't real foods, so figuring out what it means to not eat oil, and is that even possible? How do you even start to think about that? Yeah, breaking down what it is to eat whole food, plant-based, no oil or HAPPY.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah, and you're pretty keen on the no oil too, aren't you?
Rachael Brown:
We are, and I have to thank your Dad for that because watching these studies or watching him in action with people, I mean, it just sticks in my memory from Forks Over Knives when he had somebody who was eating healthy, keeping the food journal, all that. Then, I want to say it was the spouse or something had added in two tablespoons of olive oil throughout the week and their numbers shot up. We have had that experience.
We did genetic testing, found out we're APOE, my son and I and my Dad, and so down that line APOE 43, so it's important for us to not add any extra cholesterol, to not add any extra saturated fats, yeah, just for the health of our arteries and our body overcreates cholesterol anyway. We're really careful about the added oil. That one catches... I mean, a lot of people can jump onboard with not eating animals, but they're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I can't have olive oil? How am I supposed to cook?" Yeah, trying to debunk some of those myths.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, the oil is a hard one for a lot of people to get their heads around. You mentioned APE 4... APE I think it was something 43, so was that... Is that something that makes it harder for you to clear out cholesterol?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, so the APOE gene, everybody has one of six of those genes, so this... My favorite way to describe it is when people say, "Red wine and chocolate are good for you." Well, maybe for people on one end of those six genes. Their bodies deal with it easier, process it differently. On the other end, it's going to be horrible. Those people's bodies won't deal with it, and then the people in the middle could probably go either way, but yes, the APOE 44 is that genetic predisposition. Those are people who get Alzheimer's in their 40s and 50s. We're not at that extreme, but we're one step in from that. Our doctor recommended just because of our high cholesterol, even when we initially had cut out some things.
My cholesterol, I mean, really what did it for me was when we did this for 10 days, my cholesterol dropped 50 points and my doctor said, "What are you doing? Whatever you're doing, keep doing it." I couldn't do that with medication and I knew I didn't want to be on medication. Yeah, when our cholesterol was kind of hovering and not dropping any more, he said, "You know, we could use genetic testing, but I wouldn't unless there were some other family history." Then, finding out about my grandfather and uncle who had pancreatic cancer and my grandfather had Alzheimer's, my Dad's now in early stages of Alzheimer's, so it was worth it to us to do the testing. That being said, learning that that's not really only 10%, 90% is lifestyle what we're doing, so it's helpful to know, but not necessary.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, and I've had the Sherzais on the podcast as well and read their books and they, you know, even if you have the... I think you said it was the APOE 44-
Rachael Brown:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
... that gives you a greater predisposition for Alzheimer's. Again, it's like this lifestyle can totally help build a fortress from you acquiring this disease.
Rachael Brown:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Let's move on. Let's move on to day number two, which you talk about how to make this way of eating successful and lasting. That's a trick, so what are your thoughts?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, I talk about knowing yourself. I think it's really helpful to pause and go, "How do I normally do things? Am I a black and white person? Am I somebody who dives all in and I'm ready to clean out my fridge and my cupboards and give this stuff away rather than hide it in the garage for a while? Or am I somebody... Am I more of a slow adopter? Am I going to be somebody who wants to add in something helpful once a day or pick a few things every week?" Starting with that will be more helpful because you're going to tend to do things like you've always done things. If you're a slow starter, but you jump all-in, that might be difficult, so just knowing yourself and then attacking this with gusto from however works best for you.
I think that's a great starting point and necessary to kind of get you on the right track, though, when you're looking at doing this. You can go either way. The end goal is the same. I think it's helpful for people to, if they can, do it in 10 days. Get the blood work before and after because you really notice such a difference when you give up everything. When you get rid of all the oil and the animal products, you're just... you will notice in your body such a benefit so rapidly, and not that it won't happen longer over time if you're adding in things and slowly getting rid of things, but it'll be so profound I think if you do it in 10 days, so setting people up for success there.
Rip Esselstyn:
How did you come up with the number 10? Why 10 days? Why not nine or eight or seven? One of my books was The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet. Why 10?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, yeah. I've got that book. It's a great one. You know, 10 really was more around two weeks. About every two weeks our taste buds change, so it was a number that you could grab ahold of and give yourself enough time in that sometimes around day two or three, you might not be feeling awesome if you've given up sugary junk that you're used to or high-fat stuff. Your body might be crying out for those things that it's missing, but by that seven to 10-day mark, you're really noticing the benefits.
You're probably already feeling so much better energy-wise, sleep-wise, digestion-wise. Your skin might be clearing up. All these amazing things that can happen in just 10 days, but to your point, I had to put a disclaimer in the beginning of the book because if you're on high blood pressure medication or you're taking insulin, it might only be two days. If you go all-in, you might need to lower your medication. Things can happen so rapidly, but 10 days felt like a safe amount of time to really give it to get into kind of some new habits and really experience the benefits.
Rip Esselstyn:
I agree. I think ten's a great number for that. You have a quote in your book, and you have a lot of great quotes. You start off each chapter with I think a really compelling and contemplative quote, but this one, "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad." That's so true because I don't think I've ever put a sliced tomato in a fruit salad. It just doesn't go well, but on day three, you're all about making kind of some nice, easy replacements as you're kind of getting into this lifestyle. Give me some examples.
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, so I encourage everybody to sit down with their family or their partner or if it's just them to make a list of your favorite foods. What are your favorite meals? Our kids, when we started this, they were six and eight, like I said, and on that list was enchiladas and lasagna and cheeseburgers and those kind of foods. We made a list of their favorite foods, and then I just started to look up recipes that were whole food, plant-based, no oil versions of those same foods. I highly recommend that people don't try and go just to salads. You're not going to last if you just start giving up everything you used to eat and you move to just eating salads.
I mean, there are some amazing salads out there. I think I could do that now for sure, but if your kids or you love macaroni and cheese bake, there are some amazing macaroni and cheese bakes that you can make that are plant-based. We make a lasagna that we feed to friends and family who aren't plant-based and they don't really know it's even plant-based because it's got a lot of chewy mushrooms in it. There are a lot of foods that you can kind of use as a transition or a gateway into getting into... You know, as your tastes are changing, as your taste buds are reawakening and changing literally, you can eat some of your favorite foods, just make them plant-based.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, so you mentioned gateway, which leads me to day four where you also talk about some transition foods and what are... In your mind, what are some transition foods that fit into this 10-day kind of jumpstart?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, so honestly in transition foods, I really mean more foods that you're used to eating, but that are whole food, plant-based, no oil. I'm not talking about highly processed vegan hot dogs. I'm talking about a carrot dog that you marinate and you make at home. This is a hard thing because these days, 13 years ago was harder to find recipes for plant-based foods, whether on the internet or in a cookbook. Nowadays, there's tons, but also when you go to the store, it can be confusing for people who are new on this journey to see all of these vegan cheeses and the sausages and lunch meats and bars and all this stuff. When you look at the ingredients, you can't pronounce the ingredients. There's 400 ingredients.
I tend not to point people in the direction of eating junk vegan food. Some people can use it as a transition to get off their pastrami sandwich or something. Maybe they use a Reuben meat or something to make their normal thing, but as much as possible, I would suggest making some whole food plant-based versions of your favorite foods.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, I know that's what we did at the fire station and how I was able to help get a bunch of burly Texas male firefighters to do this by doing plant-based burgers, plant-based shepherd's pies, plant-based lasagnas, plant-based pizzas, all that good stuff. You mentioned carrot dogs. Do you-
Rachael Brown:
[inaudible 00:28:25].
Rip Esselstyn:
... have a favorite way of cooking up a carrot dog? If you do carrot dogs right, they rock.
Rachael Brown:
It's one of those things that I initially poo-pooed like, "Seriously, come on, a carrot dog?" Then, we've probably tried four different recipes and I've liked them all honestly, but man, a little bit of liquid smoke in there really makes the difference. I mean, it just gives it that amazing kind of barbecue flavor, even if you're not going to barbecue it, even if you're going to cook it in your oven or whatever. Yeah, I don't think you can go wrong with a carrot dog, and kids love those things, you know? It's so fun.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. To me, it just has to get soft enough. It can't be hard. It's got to be like soft all the way through. A little bit of liquid smoke-
Rachael Brown:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
... put it on that bun with all the fixings, whether it's onions, relish, everything that you like and you're in carrot dog business.
Rachael Brown:
Yes, I think it is key. You've got to marinade them for quite a long time, maybe even overnight. That's how the ones we like to get that texture right, but yes. I mean, it's like burgers to me. I never really liked... It wasn't hard for me to give up burgers because I like all the fixings on top. It's not so much the meat for me, so a carrot dog with everything on it, so delicious. A black bean burger with everything on it, it doesn't get any better.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-mm. Mm-mm. All right, let's move on to day number five, now that I have a carrot dog flavor in my mouth. What have you found, Rachael, are some of the common pitfalls that people jump into or fall into and how can we avoid them?
Rachael Brown:
Well, I mean, just from the get-go, I would say oftentimes people won't even give it a go because they think, "This is going to be really expensive," or, "I don't have the time to do this." Those are two of the biggest ones up front that people say, or, "I don't live next to a Whole Foods, so I can't do this." I like to dispel those. Those are major pitfalls just right out of the gate. You're going to save money. You're not going to spend any more time eating this way than you do already. You have to cook food to eat, so when you take out the shopping for that meat, fish, dairy, eggs, all of that, the prepping of the meat, chicken, fish, all of that, you're not doing any of that anymore. You have plenty of time to chop some vegetables or pull vegetables out of the freezer.
If you're feeling time constrained or money constrained, there are ways to do this that make things even easier. Yeah, even college students, even 10-year-olds, I added Jeff Novick's soup recipe that he came up with when his daughter was 10 years old. He needed something for his daughter to be able to make when she got home from school before he got home from work. He says famously, "You only need a can opener and a pair of scissors to make this soup," and it's really true. I mean, it's frozen vegetables, it's canned beans, canned tomatoes. You make a batch of that and you've got food for the whole week. Yeah, there's some really easy ways to stay out of pitfalls that are common.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and you have a quote in here as well that I adore and I think it's so apropos, especially considering what I've seen over the last 13 years since I've been coaching people and helping people. Here's the quote, "It's not that some people have willpower and some people don't. It's that some people are ready to change and others are not." That's by James Gordon, MD. I find that when you want something bad enough, you just make it work. You figure it out. All those pitfalls just become little like... Yeah, they're little hurdles along the way, but you get over them and you're just... You don't get hung up on them and they're not going to be the excuse that drives you away from this lifestyle.
Rachael Brown:
True. It's just like the famous... Right now, everything, the Choose Your Hard. Yeah, so some things take a little more time or take some getting used to. I would argue it doesn't actually take more time, but maybe it's a new way of doing things and that's always a little challenging. Like you said, in a little bit of time, it's going to be new normal for you. I would argue that choosing this new way of learning to eat in a new lifestyle more than pays off in the long run when you're not choosing to live with disease or ill health or pay more in medical bills and medications and all that down the road. Yeah, it's a great trade-off.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and for people that think, "Oh my gosh," you're just starting and you think, "What am I going to eat? There's like nothing to eat." As you said earlier on, I'm just going to eat salads. For people, I think, that want to level set and realize how absolutely good we have it take the Hungry for Change Challenge, which you I think in your family or your husband took. Will you tell everybody a little bit about that challenge and what that entails?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah. Nathan George, a great man. He is back in England now, but this was a challenge that you could do. You would send away for this box and you got a box and it was enough food. It was your food for the week, so in it was a bag of rice and a bag of beans and bag of oats. Basically, the challenge was to eat 90% of the world eats for a week, and then the money that you didn't spend... You were also allowed a cup of black coffee or black tea, more of the country or more of the world drinks black tea. You could add in some onion and stuff to your beans if you wanted, but basically you got a cup of oatmeal in the morning and about a cup and a half I think it worked out to be of rice and black beans for lunch and dinner.
It was just meant to show you that a lot of people, this is what they have all the time, and so at the end of the week, you would give all the extra money that you saved from all the other stuff that you weren't eating and you donate that to some organization wherever you felt like you wanted to. It was just such a wonderful practice. My daughter was in elementary school and we told them they could in some of their foods. They have fruit, but really they have the same thing as we did. She found this game that was like you did math problems online and you would earn some rice and it would go to children who were hungry.
It was like just this catalyst for change. We're thinking differently about the food that we have and the food that we choose to eat. Anytime we would get kind of like, "Oh, okay, I'm maybe missing a little something or I'm feeling kind of bored with what we're eating," we would go back to doing kind of our own version of the Hungry for Change and just eat rice and beans for a few days. East some plain oatmeal. It makes you really thankful in a short amount of time for all these amazing things you can add back in, plant-based things, toppings for your rice and beans and corn tortillas and salsa and all this other stuff that we enjoy all of the time, but it really was... well, it really was a game changer for us to think about what we have differently.
Rip Esselstyn:
You know, it's interesting because that box of oatmeal, black beans and rice, that's like practically what I subsist on. There's some potatoes and some fruits and some veggies in there, but I would adore that, and to me you're getting almost everything you need right there in those three food groups. I used to, Rachael, back before I had children, every year I would cross the Rio Grande River and I'd go into Mexico, usually mountain bike, and we would leave our mountain bikes with a goat herder named Felipe. Then, we'd go up into Sierra de Madre Mountains there.
I kid you not, what he had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner was homemade corn tortillas over a basically a barrel that he turned into a stove and an oven. Then, also he had refried pinto beans, and that's what we had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He also had some limes, but it's like we have it so good, so easy, and there is such a cornucopia of offerings for us that it's like open your eyes and realize this is not difficult.
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, and all that we have is... We think it's such an amazing thing and so wonderful, but it can get us into trouble having all these options. Suddenly, we're not happy and we have so much, and it sometimes takes paring back. We go down to Tecate, Mexico, and build homes. It's so easy to eat plant-based down there. Just like you said, there's corn, there's always corn tortillas. There's always beans. There's always lime. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. Super simple, but super satisfying.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm going to jump day six and go right to day seven, and you mentioned earlier that your kids started this when they were, I think, six and eight roughly.
Rachael Brown:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
How did you please your kids? What do you do to get a picky eater onboard?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, I included some ideas for that just because I think my son was a lot more picky than my daughter was. He was a couple years younger and just things like the color green he didn't want to eat, so hence the smoothies with a ton of blueberries to make it purple-blueish rather than green, but just employing some different kind of tricks and tips. We would make dinner a game time, so for a while he didn't like eating soup. I don't know why, but we made the soup game, which was close your eyes and I'll give you a bite. Can you tell me what vegetable it is? He would get it wrong like nine times out of 10, but he loved playing the game, so he'd always say, "Ooh, it's white broccoli." I'd be like, "Right, that's cauliflower." He loved that game.
Coming up with some other games, I read about this thing in some mom journal and it was like a jar of questions, so pulling out a jar, having on your table. Everybody gets to pull out a question and then you answer it as you're sitting there. I think honestly in consulting with people now and talking with young families, part of what's so hard is that a lot of people aren't pausing to sit down and eat meals together. Or, if they're sitting down, they're looking at tablet or a phone or... It's just not... it's not kind of that sacred space that it used to be or maybe older folks like me grew up with.
Yeah, encouraging families, especially with young kids, to make it an enjoyable time together, asking questions and listening. When you're engaged in conversation and having fun or asking your older sibling or younger sibling that you got to pick out of a jar, it can be really fun. If you're hungry, if you haven't had a string cheese and some Goldfish an hour ago, but you were outside playing or having a dance party while helping cook dinner, then you're going to be hungry and you're actually going to eat what's in front of you, so yeah, some tips like that.
Rip Esselstyn:
You know what? I like all those, and we have made it a habit now. I'd say five out of the seven days we set the table, we have a Lazy Susan table, it's in the dining room now that used to be just like where people would leave stuff. We leave all the screens behind and then every dinner we go around and we do the Rose, Thorn Game. What's a good thing that happened to you today? What's something that was kind of a pain in your side? It's awesome because everybody gets a chance to talk. We're eating this wonderful whole plant-based food, and as you said, this has become sacred time for us and everybody enjoys it now, so yeah.
Rachael Brown:
Yeah. We did the High/Low/What the Heck? That was our version of the Rose, Thorn. A high from the day, a low, and a, what the heck? You learned something-
Rip Esselstyn:
Go low.
Rachael Brown:
... from every person. It's really fun.
Rip Esselstyn:
I like, what the heck? Well, I'm going to add that tonight, so high, low. What the heck is kind of like something crazy and wild that happened to you?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, yeah, something weird. You didn't know what to do with it or it was just like, "Yeah, this odd thing today happened," you know?
Rip Esselstyn:
I like that. All right, good, good, good. All right, let's talk about day eight, which you talk about eating out. This is something that everybody wants a break from cooking now and then. It's nice to have strategies to make it work with Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Italian, Mexican. How do you recommend we eat out?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, I would say this is something that has changed a lot in 13 years I'm sure you would agree. There are options, a lot of places that there didn't used to be options, but even if you're eating somewhere where there aren't options, even if you're in a traditional steakhouse, you now know what plants are, what whole foods are. You can order a baked potato. You can order three sides of veggies. If they've got a green that they'll cook or they've got broccoli or something, you can load that on your potato. A side of beans, maybe baked beans or something. You can make it work at a steakhouse.
A lot of times, yeah, more ethnic restaurants have vegetarian options already, and so it's not that hard to make a change from vegetarian option to a vegan option. The one thing with eating out is that we've just mainly accepted you're probably going to have some oil. I mean, we will try. There's some tactics you can try to not have oil or lessen your oil consumption, but yeah, it's really not as hard as you think it might be.
If you're out running errands and you're starving and you forgot to bring something, you can go to a Subway or a sandwich shop and get a loaded veggie sandwich. Just tell them to put all the veggies on there with some mustard and maybe a little vinegar and you've got an amazing lunch. Once you know a few tricks and once you've got down what is whole food and plant-based and no oil, you'll be able to find what you need.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. You can even go to Taco Bell and actually-
Rachael Brown:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
... I'm really close to making it work there. I had a guest on the podcast that she totally recommended Taco Bell.
Rachael Brown:
Well, my son and his friends would do Taco Bell, yep.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah. Let's talk. Let's move on to day number nine, and this is something that is very real and it's something that people that are just jumping into this lifestyle are going to encounter, and that's people asking you a lot of questions like, "What in the world are you doing?" I'm going to tee you up right now. What do you say? What's your response, Rachael, when somebody says, "Rachael, you got to be kidding me, this is the most extreme thing that you and your family have ever done and we have no interest in this?"
Rachael Brown:
Yeah, so I've learned a lot in this area over the years, Rip, and it really depends on who's asking me now. When we started out, we were like preachers. We wanted to tell everybody about this and how they needed to do this and how it was going to just change their life and be so amazing, and we quickly realized if we wanted to have some friends, we needed to tone it down a little bit, so-
Rip Esselstyn:
Love it.
Rachael Brown:
... so we backed off, and-
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, who needs friends
Rachael Brown:
... so [inaudible 00:44:24]-
Rip Esselstyn:
... Rachael? Come on-
Rachael Brown:
I know, I know-
Rip Esselstyn:
... it's overrated.
Rachael Brown:
... right. Yeah, we just were like, "Oh no, I think people are avoiding us line for the potluck," so I just take a varied stance now. If somebody is like combative in their question, I might employ one of Doug Weil's tactics, which I just love, and say, "Yeah, you're right. I might not be getting what I'm needing. I might die next week of protein deficiency." Just leave it at that because then they're kind of caught off-guard and like, "What? Are you serious?" Or I might just say, "Yeah, you know what? My doctor said I should eat this way and it seems to be working for me." You know, so take like a non-aggressive stance.
Other times, I channel my Dr. McDougall and I just let them have it and I give them some statistic or, yeah, I'll argue, but yeah, I try not to let it get the better of me because I would just be so frustrated in trying to share this information. Kind of back to the very beginning, people aren't ready for it, then they're going to have every excuse in the world. We realize that talking about food is like talking about sex or religion. I mean, people are really up at arms sometimes about what they eat and why, so even if they don't know why they eat what they eat, even if they don't know the science behind it, they still will defend it. Yeah, choose your battles, I guess, is what I would say.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you... In the book, you talk about how if somebody was to say, "Rachael, this is rather extreme," you use my father's quote from Forks Over Knives. Do you remember what that is? Can you remember it?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah. I mean, some people think it's extreme, but some people think it's extreme to get your chest cut open or have a vein from your leg put in your heart, otherwise known as bypass surgery, right? Yeah-
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Rachael Brown:
... I love that quote. Right. It's so true.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, I agree. I like it, too. That to me is the extreme thing. Think about it, getting your chest sawed in half, all these ribs, because you can't figure out the oatmeal, the black beans, the salads, the green leafies-
Rachael Brown:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
... but hey, we all know people that they're just not interested. One of the hardest things that I have found working with people is people staying on track. It's amazing how people fall off the engine, fall off the wagon, so what... In day 10, you're all about ways to stay encouraged and to stay on track. What advice would you give to us?
Rachael Brown:
Yeah. Well, first of all, I think if you've done those, if you've given it your all for those 10 days and you did get a blood draw before to find out your numbers and you got a blood draw at the end to see some of those things that you maybe weren't feeling, you know, you might have felt up and down over that 10 days, but you don't really feel your cholesterol dropping. When you get your blood work back and go, "Oh my gosh, my cholesterol dropped 20 to 75 points or whatever," that's usually really good news for people. Yeah, I think having other success stories around, having reminders as to why you're doing this are really helpful. Yeah, I'd put a list of some documentaries if people haven't watched Forks Over Knives, Game Changers. I mean, those are the top two. What the Health. I mean, there's so many now to choose from.
I'm like, "Watch one a week." Hop on YouTube, search out some people. Check out Dr. Greger, Dr. McDougall. I mean, there's amazing things you can watch and learn from these days, PLANTSTRONG, Chef AJ, I mean, there's so many different resources now to be encouraged and to hear other success stories, where they've been, how they've made it through. I think that's one of the best ways to stay on track is to, if you're wavering, to check out a success story, to be reminded again as to, yeah, it might be a little difficult in the beginning, but here's why you're doing it. Here's how other people have done it.
You might feel lonely in this, but once you start learning, there is a large worldwide community of people who eat this way. It might feel like swimming upstream in your community or in your circle, but there are a lot of people who are making this work and who are thriving eating this way, so learning who those people are, where they are, and getting involved.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, very much so, and join a community, whether it's local or online. We have a great on at Go PLANTSTRONG with over 25,000 people, but know that you're not alone out there for sure.
Rachael Brown:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Rachael, do you have a favorite meal of the day?
Rachael Brown:
Ooh, you know, probably breakfast. I am not somebody who can skip breakfast, so I always look forward to breakfast, and I can go sweet or savory. I think I tend more towards savory than sweet, really, but we do like overnight oats loaded with all kinds of good stuff, dates, cranberries, all that, so that would be, I guess, technically sweet. Yeah, I like the king as breakfast, eat like a king at breakfast. I could... If I only had to eat one meal, I would eat breakfast.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, I'm right there with you. I can't go without breakfast. If it gets to be 9:30 and I haven't eaten breakfast, everything in me is grumbling.
Rachael Brown:
Yes, yes, even my mouth sometimes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah. You have another quote that I'm going to read that I really like, and it's, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and it'll empty the seas by 2050 and we'll all die. You should teach a man to cook lentils." I can't remember who said that quote, if that's you or what, but-
Rachael Brown:
No, it's somebody else.
Rip Esselstyn:
... okay, okay.
Rachael Brown:
I love it, and the only thing I would add to that is maybe teach a man to grow lentils.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, and you do a great job in the book talking about what's going on as far as how the planet is in such peril right now because of how we're, for the most part, how we're eating. That to me is why this quote is so important. It's like we got to pivot people and we got to pivot fast to lentils, to oats, to black beans, to rice, and get off the fish and the chicken and the dairy and the beef and the turkeys as fast as humanly possible.
Rachael Brown:
Yeah. All the riding our bikes and converting to electric cars and all that we do, it's not that it's not helpful, but it's not going to take care of the problem, and yes, this agriculture livestock issue that we've got going on, it has to be addressed, so yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
What's anything that you're working on right now? Before you answer that question, let me ask you this. Did you self-publish this book, For Fork's Sake!?
Rachael Brown:
I did actually, yeah. Yeah. It was a COVID venture for me. I was working with people, helping them get out of chronic pain using a neurological technique. I'd been doing massage for the last 10 years, and when COVID hit and I couldn't see clients, I decided to write our journey. I'd spent years trying to convince people to eat this way and learned a few things, and so I wanted to... I went back on my plant-based nutrition certificate and I wanted to help as many people as possible.
This was my effort at doing this, and when I talk to people and especially younger people, they told me, "I don't read books really anymore. I might listen to audio books," or, "There's no way I'm going to read the China study." While I still think that is seminal work and everybody should read it, I was hoping to create something that would be really easy to grab ahold of, you know, you can listen to on a four-hour flight if you listen to audio books. You can read it in a short period of time, but give people enough information to see that it's not as daunting as they might think.
Like I said, there's so many amazing resources out there, but I was hoping to write a book that was for people who maybe not... wouldn't pick up a heavier scientific read or people who are eating this way and have parents who are like, "What are you doing to my grandkids?" You can give them a copy of this book, so yeah, this was my aim at that.
Rip Esselstyn:
On a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most difficult and one being easy, where would you place putting together and writing this book?
Rachael Brown:
You know, writing was the really easy part. I did it actually in 30 days. I did this like write a memoir kind of thing in 30 days and then just worked to tweak it into what it is, making it a 10-day kind of challenge. To me, the part I didn't really understand, I thought like, "Great, you write a book, you get it out there and ta-da, you're done." You know, like, "Oh my gosh, the marketing stuff. This is more work than the writing the book, this phase of trying to get out there and spread the word as much as possible." Yeah, I would say it was writing it was really fun. That was like awesome. Put it at a five. The marketing stuff, like an eight and a half, nine amount of work, but yeah.
Hearing from people, getting emails from people, and I'm consulting, so if people read the book or they've read other books and they're like, "Yeah, I'm at a plateau, I'm stuck," or, "My family misses me. What should I do?" I'm consulting with people and that's a lot of fun to get people... Given them just some other ideas for getting over a hump that is not insurmountable. People writing emails saying, "I'm saving $400 a month on groceries and medication now." Just all these different amazing success stories just since the book came out in September, so that's really fun. Yeah, makes staying on the marketing train worth it, I guess.
Rip Esselstyn:
For anybody that's interested in consulting with you, how do they get ahold of you?
Rachael Brown:
On my website, www.forforkssakebook.com, there's a page on there for consulting and I've got a calendar, and you can just sign right up.
Rip Esselstyn:
For Fork's Sake! Let me-
Rachael Brown:
For Fork's Sake!
Rip Esselstyn:
For Fork's Sake! Rachael, let me tell you that the marketing never ends. It never ends and-
Rachael Brown:
Earn it, Rip.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, it can end if you decide, "You know what? I'm done." Otherwise, you got to figure out ways to embrace it and give it the love that it deserves because you're one of many very important voices in getting people to go whole food, plant-based, and man oh man, does this Earth ever need more people like you. I want to-
Rachael Brown:
Yeah-
Rip Esselstyn:
... yeah, go ahead.
Rachael Brown:
... well, I was just going to say, and I should say it's more like social media posting and that stuff that I probably wouldn't choose to do, but it is fun. I really... My writing this book was like a thank you to people like your father and you, your mother, your sister, John McDougall, other... T. Colin Campbell, people who have spent their lives trying to get this message across. Our family, I mean, we reversed heart disease. Your Dad's book was huge in that. Yeah, I wanted to give back, so I donate 50% of the proceeds from the sale of the book to charity, and 1% of gross sales is going to 1% for the Planet. This really is-
Rip Esselstyn:
For Fork's Sake!
Rachael Brown:
... my effort at-
Rip Esselstyn:
Buy this book.
Rachael Brown:
... spreading the word as much as I can-
Rip Esselstyn:
It's available-
Rachael Brown:
... and I think you're right.
Rip Esselstyn:
... online or-
Rachael Brown:
You know, we all do our part-
Rip Esselstyn:
... wherever you buy your books and-
Rachael Brown:
... our own little part.
Rip Esselstyn:
... we'll be sure to put a link in the show notes.
Rachael Brown:
We just keep spreading it as far as we can, so-
Rip Esselstyn:
Until then-
Rachael Brown:
... I'm trying to do my part.
Rip Esselstyn:
... let's stop eating [inaudible 00:56:49] well, you are, and that's very maganimous of you to give back that generously. Thank you for that. Well, Rachael, it has been wonderful seeing you, hearing about For Fork's Sake!, and getting to know you a little bit, and I wish you all the best going forward and hopefully our paths will cross.
Rachael Brown:
Definitely. Thanks so much, Rip. It's been a pleasure, and after following you for years, it's really fun to get to chat with you, so thank you so much.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, so give me a nice PLANTSTRONG bump. Boom. All right. Keep it PLANTSTRONG. For Fork's Sake!, buy this book. It's available online or wherever you buy your books, and we'll be sure to put a link in the show notes for it. Until then, let's stop eating SAD and start eating HAPPY. How? By keeping it PLANTSTRONG, of course. Talk to you next time.
Thank you for listening to The PLANTSTRONG Podcast. You can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants. Thank you in advance for your support. It means everything.
The PLANTSTRONG Podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Amy Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth, most notably, my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., and Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
