#147: Shane Martin - A Mississippi Dude Turned Plant-Based Blogger
Shane Martin, creator of shaneandsimple.com
I’m excited to introduce you to a PLANTSTRONG brother, Shane Martin.
A southern boy through and through, Shane was a football-loving kid, who was born and raised in Mississippi with stints along the way in Nashville, Georgia, Alabama, and other areas as a musician.
Life’s demands and raising five children superseded his health and, over a span of several years, he found himself overweight, desperately out of shape, and miserable. He knew he needed to make changes but just wasn’t ready. Doctors even gave him plenty of warnings, but most went ignored.
All of that changed when he watched “Forks over Knives” and read The Engine 2 Diet book. He went “cold kale,” picked up the plants, and transformed his life and career. Today, he is the founder and creator of recipes at his site shaneandsimple.com.
As he says, “I’m just your average, ordinary guy who makes plant-based cooking casual, easy, and delicious. I don’t use fancy equipment and I don’t use fancy ‘chef speak.’ I’m a normal dude who loves to cook and eat good food that happens to be completely plant-based.”
Well, this “ordinary dude” has done some extraordinary things for the whole-foods, plant-based revolution and we can’t wait to see what’s next.
Episode Resources
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Promo Music: Your Love by Atch License: Creative Commons License - Attribution 3.0
Full YouTube Transcript
Rip Esselstyn:
One of the favorite parts of my day is reading emails from folks like you who have taken the leap into the PLANTSTRONG lifestyle and are now crushing their goals. Today's note is from someone who answered a recent survey that we sent out about our Rip's Big Bowl cereals and it reads quote, "Nothing gets me more fired up than waking up to a bowl of your cereal. I love adding in different fruits and have even tried your idea of adding great fruit segments and I was shocked how delicious it was. Thank you for creating products that make living a whole food, plant-based, oil free, and no added sugar lifestyle that much easier. I can't wait to see what you guys create next."
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, I want you to know that I shared this note with the entire PLANTSTRONG team because, if I'm honest, food is excruciatingly difficult. And most manufacturers literally laugh at us when we present a product that we want to make because we refuse to cut corners or add in garbage ingredients or jack up the salt, the sugar, or pour in the oil because that's just the way it's been done. But it's comments like these that get us out of bed every day, charging up that impossible hill to bring good food to people. We have so many new things in the pipeline and I cannot wait to share them with all of you. So thanks so much to all of you for all your support. Now, let's jump in to today's show.
Shane Martin:
I think in the first three months I dropped 55 pounds and I was eating a ton. I was just eating the right things. No oil, more greens than I had ever eaten before in my life. I dropped 55 pounds the first three months. My blood pressure went from 156 over 110 down to 126 over 79. And my cholesterol dropped from over 400 to 199. And according to doctors now in those little areas, I was the picture of health then, but it just ... everything kept improving, and that was after three months.
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 this show. Hello, my PLANTSTRONG pancakes. I'm Rip Esselstyn. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the PLANTSTRONG podcast. I actually chose the word pancakes on purpose because my guest today, Shane Martin, has no less than a dozen pancake recipes to choose from on his website, shaneandsimple.com. Shane is definitely a PLANTSTRONG brother because of his passion for all things plants that is as enormous and skyrocketing as Mount Everest.
Rip Esselstyn:
Now, a Southern boy through and through. Shane was a football loving kid. Born and raised in Mississippi with stints along the way in Nashville, Georgia, and a few other areas as a musician and a music director. Now, like so many of us, life's demands ended up superseding his health. And over a span of several years, he found himself overweight, desperately out of shape, prediabetic, and absolutely miserable.
Rip Esselstyn:
Now, I know so many of you will be able to relate to his story because he knew he needed to make changes, but he just wasn't ready. He had all these fears of giving up the foods that he thought that he loved, that clearly were killing him. And doctors gave him plenty of warnings, but most went ignored and unheated. However, after seeing Forks Over Knives and reading the Engine 2 Diet book, everything changed literally in an instant. His transformational story is remarkable. And today, he is the founder of the food blogging site, shaneandsimple.com. As he says, "Hey, I'm just your average ordinary guy who makes plant-based cooking casual, easy, and delicious. I don't use fancy equipment and I don't use fancy chef speak. I'm a normal dude who loves to cook and eat good food that happens, that just happens to be completely plant-based." Well, this ordinary dude has done some extraordinary things in the last few years. So let's serve into an episode with Shane Martin. So you claim to be a very kind of ordinary guy, very average ordinary guy.
Shane Martin:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
But just to me, the fact that you are now whole food PLANTSTRONG stud man means that you're not ordinary. And somewhere along the line, you were able to open up your mind and see a new kind of paradigm for how to eat. And I want to talk some recipes with you, but before we do, tell me about ... What was your epiphany?
Shane Martin:
Yeah. So I didn't grow up overweight and was never considered unhealthy. I grew up in a very rural part of Mississippi. So we were always outside playing in the dirt. And I guess that's where we got a lot of our immunity. We were athletes, most of the people in my family. I actually went to college to play football on scholarship. And I was a musician and I did what most people did. I wasn't very focused. So my mind wondered a lot. And just over the years when I got lazy, I got out of football and just started hitting the couch a lot more. And I was always a foodie. I loved to eat. So I'd hit Chinese buffets and love to grill and that kind of thing. And just over a period of time, it catches up with you.
Shane Martin:
I never will forget. I'd moved to Nashville. I was like 20 and I weighed 187 pounds. I went back six months later and I weighed 201. I thought, "Oh, I still look pretty good." And by the time I got married, I was 26, I was up to 240 pounds.
Rip Esselstyn:
So that's 60 heavier than you were at 187.
Shane Martin:
So fast forward a lot, I ended up leaving Nashville because I was a full time musician. I was actually in ministry for a while. I was a music director. I just continued to gain weight, gain weight, and gain weight. And about 2007, we were living in Charlotte, North Carolina. The pastor I worked for was a huge biker. He biked all the time, he kept really fit. He was in his mid 50s and trim. He kept getting on me. He said, "You're going to have a physical." He called the doctor and told him I was coming and he said. So I went. And my cholesterol was 399. I was prediabetic, heart rate through the roof. Blood pressure was, I think at the time it was 153 over 106 or something like that. And he sent me a letter saying, "I need to talk to you." This was before I knew anything. To me, at the time, the idea of going vegan was ... everybody I knew ate granola, and tofu, and bark and they were weird people because I grew up on mayonnaise, meat, and cheese literally. Blondie that kind of thing.
Shane Martin:
So I didn't go back to the doctor because I'm like, "Oh, if I pretend it's not there, it doesn't exist." That kind of thing. And we had moved from Charlotte to outside of Auburn, Alabama. I had taken a job there. And I started getting staph infections really bad and they wouldn't heal. There was a doctor in our congregation and she came up to me and looked at me and I had dark circles under my eye. She goes, "Are you urinating a lot? Do you have these?" I was like, "Yeah." She goes, "You need to go get checked. You've got full blown diabetes." She says, "I'm looking at you. I'm telling you right now." Of course, I didn't go with the doctor.
Shane Martin:
I remember waking up, I got to my heaviest at about ... And at this time we'd had five kids. We'd had our fifth. And my wife had always been fairly healthy, very healthy like watch what she ate and that kind of thing. And she was literally worried and you could tell. The kids were ... I remember when they started saying, "Daddy looks really big right now. He snores really bad." You could tell. They weren't secure. And I remember waking up one Sunday morning, got on the scale and it was 280 something pounds. I looked in the mirror and I was just red and I was puffy and I was like, "Something has got to change."
Shane Martin:
So a buddy of mine, Thad Beatty, who ended up going plant-based, we were musicians together in Nashville. He was featured on the Iron Man Facebook page. He had dropped 80 pounds. I called a mutual friend and he said, "Man, Thad went vegan." I went, "What?" I was like, "No. I don't want to go vegan." He goes, "Just go watch Forks Over Knives."
Shane Martin:
So this was two weeks before my 40th birthday back in 2013. Two weeks before my 40th birthday. I still remember it. My wife and I sat down, watched it. And for the first time I thought, "Wait a minute. I can do that." And then I saw your story because you were an athlete because you hear all the things. You can't eat, white potatoes, you can't eat pasta, you can't get enough protein. So all of that was going through my mind and I had family doing keto and Atkins and all that. So I watched it and the very next morning I went, "That's it." I went cold Turkey. It was terrible the first two weeks because we get in our minds that it's a whole different way of cooking or thinking about food, but you're just really taking the crap out of the good stuff. You don't eat a baked potato, but don't put butter and sour cream on it. So I went cold Turkey the next day. I ate salads and tofu for about the first week and then got on the Engine 2 site, Forks Over Knives site just started making food. And we were like, "Wow, this is actually really good."
Shane Martin:
My goal in the beginning was to do this 80, 20. And then I felt so good that I was like, "I'm never going back." And I'm a very black or white type person. I don't do moderation. So I know my weaknesses. Anyway, that's kind of the story in a nutshell. And I think in the first three months, I dropped 55 pounds and I was eating a ton. I was just eating the right things, no oil, more greens than I had ever eaten before in my life. I dropped 55 pounds the first three months. My blood pressure went from 156 over 110 down to 126, over 79. And my cholesterol dropped from over 400 to 199. And according to doctors now in those little areas, I was the picture of health then, but it just ... everything kept improving and that was after three months. And so that's kind of my story in a nutshell. Yeah. It was a matter of life or death at the end of the day.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, you came a long way in a short period of time. That's impressive. I think in large part that's because, like you said, you see things kind of very black and white and you're just like, "Okay. Let's do this. Let's make this happen." And it's amazing how many times I've heard that story. Somebody has watched Forks Over Knives and then all of a sudden this light bulb goes on and they're like, "All right. Let's do this." And so tell me ... Go ahead.
Shane Martin:
I was just going to say, I think the thing that I loved about Forks Over Knives and even what you were saying was the thing that hit me is I'm a very opinionated person. I love debate, I love being enlightened, but I'm also a very opinionated person. So my idea of going vegan was just, I got to be weird now. I'm going to be sickly and all that. But the thing that I loved about Forks Over Knives is it was it got into some of the things about the environment. But it was all about healing yourself because until we heal ourselves, we can't go out and heal that's outside of us. And so I love the science behind it. It was about the food and getting healthy. So that's what triggered it for me. And then later on you feel like ... I felt like after I took care of myself, it just enlightened you in so many other areas and makes you aware of what's going on in the food industry and things like that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So you've been on this glide path now since about 2013.
Shane Martin:
Mm-hmm.
Rip Esselstyn:
And what are the ages of your children?
Shane Martin:
So now Mattie will be 21 this June, Jonathan is 19, Macy is 15, McKenzie's 14, and Millie Jane is 10.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right. Wow. That's a pretty good spread year you got there and are they all along as well? Are they all eating similarly?
Shane Martin:
Yes. So when we're in the house, there's no debate. Like I said, I'm a very hardcore. I got to go one way or all in or nothing, but they are predominantly plant-based I would say. Now, our youngest, Millie Jane, she's never been through a drive through. She came out of the womb eating plant-based. They're not 100%, I'd say, the two oldest, but I will say when they have enough of the crap, they always call me and go, "Daddy, I'm sick again. I got to eat." So they come back to the plants. And my son is all jacked up and a bodybuilder now. So he eats pizzas us out of house and home when he comes home, but in the house, there's no debate. And they're adults now. So it's like they know where I stand. Like I said, they're not crazy. They're not stuffing themselves full of cheeseburgers and pizzas and stuff like that. It's interesting because their friends will make fun of them like, "Y'all eat really well." Even when they go out, they make smarter choices. I want to be gracious where I can. I'll win more flies with honey than vinegar.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yep. So that's the five kids. What about your wife?
Shane Martin:
My wife's all in. She was kind of Dr. B's wife. She was the one that "Bulsiewicz" was-
Rip Esselstyn:
Yep.
Shane Martin:
I feel like our stories are very similar. She was never full blown plant-based, but she always was fascinated before we met about food and how it interacted. She hates Monsanto. She was always eating healthy. Lots of greens, lots of vegetables on her plate. And when she did have chicken or something that after we got married, I always noticed her portions. That was more like a side than it was the main. Her mains were the vegetables and the things like that. And so I felt a little convicted eating around her a lot of the time, especially when I was chucking down a cheeseburger and she's over there and she looks like she does. Literally people were asking me, "How did you marry her?" When I got to my biggest, I was like, "Well, I wasn't always like this."
Rip Esselstyn:
Who's the cook in the house? Is it you or your wife?
Shane Martin:
No. It's me. I cook about 85% of the meals, I would say.
Rip Esselstyn:
Did you always love to cook?
Shane Martin:
Yeah. Early on, when we were little growing up in the south, it was kind of out of necessity because both parents worked. They didn't make a lot of money. I stayed with grandparents in the summer. And if you wanted to eat, they weren't going to get in there and make it for you. Whether it was peanut butter, sandwiches, or something like that, you just kind of learn basic techniques. Yeah. I've always been a foodie and love to cook and try recipes and cook things and do things like that. I think a lot of that just comes from being an artist, a musician and a creative. It's the idea of putting things together and see what happens.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well. In looking through your Instagram channel and your website, it's very obvious that you've got some serious chops in the kitchen. And I love your whole philosophy, which is really around your practical, not pretentious. And recipes that absolutely anybody can make. Simple, simple recipes using minimal ingredients. It's a beautiful, beautiful concept, but tell me even more than that, I know that you're plant-based and you're also oil free.
Shane Martin:
Oh, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
But what are some of your other tenets in everything that you create?
Shane Martin:
I try to make things as whole as possible. The no oil, that's no debate. We don't even go there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hey, stop for a sec. Just give me a little fist bump there.
Shane Martin:
Right there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Bam.
Shane Martin:
Bam. The only thing that I would say, I do use a lot of tofu I will use TVP occasionally.
Rip Esselstyn:
You like those soy curls in the Boluga.
Shane Martin:
Oh, man. Soy curls. Woo. Oh, man. Soy curls were a game changer.
Rip Esselstyn:
No. The bulgogi.
Shane Martin:
Oh, yeah. The bulgogi. The Korean barbecue beef.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yes. The bulgogi. Yes. I haven't had soy curls in, I don't know, probably 12 years. And they're actually just a whole food ingredient if I'm not mistaken.
Shane Martin:
Yes. Yeah. They're just the soybean.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Shane Martin:
It's boiled and shredded and then dried.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right.
Shane Martin:
The kids love those. We'll make sandwiches out of those. When we have people coming over, they think they're eating chicken and then I tell them, "You're actually kind of eating tofu." But whole grains, but also I think the only place where people might say, "Oh, he drifts off the whole food bandwagon." Is I would occasionally I will use organic unbleached flour like Bob's Red Mill. That's about as far out as I will get because-
Rip Esselstyn:
What's your philosophy with fat? Are you low fat, medium fat. How about also coconut, no coconut?
Shane Martin:
No. If you look at my recipes like some of the crust and some of the stuff I might have unsweetened shredded coconut, I think it's ... I try to be very moderate with those. I love avocados. And so I love avocado sandwiches. If I'm just needing some energy or-
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Shane Martin:
I love avocados. So I don't say we are a strictly no fat at all because we do have nuts and seeds in the house. And if my kids are going to snack, I'd rather them eat raisins and a little bit of dark chocolate and some raw nuts as opposed to a Snickers bar. So, no. We don't eliminate fat entirely, but we definitely look at it like it's a special occasion food. If we're desserts, we'll make plant-based birthday cakes and it might have some ... Sometimes we'll throw avocado in there to make the icing or something like that. But it's like we don't make every day birthday. And so because we realize you can overeat on a plant-based, technically a plant-based diet. And so we don't eliminate all fat, but we like coconut and things like that. But again, we try to use them fairly sparingly and filling our plates with greens and vegetables and low caloric density food.
Rip Esselstyn:
I want to go through a bunch of recipes here. I'm going to test you to see how much you can remember a lot of these recipes.
Shane Martin:
That's great.
Rip Esselstyn:
For example, you have a chickpea curry dish.
Shane Martin:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
I love Indian fair. The thing is, a lot of these call for coconut milk. Sure. I noticed that in your chickpea curry dish, you don't have coconut milk. You got almond milk.
Shane Martin:
Almond milk.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yep. And so can you tell me about that?
Shane Martin:
Yeah. The Shane & Simple site was an answer to ... My family asked me, "I'd love to do what you do, but I just don't know where to start." But I also, as a foodie, love creating dishes. That's kind of my goal. I want to create dishes that I loved in my previous life. Something similar with the flavors and things like that, but how do I make it healthy? So that's the challenge for me. And when it came to curries, I'm the same way. I love Indian food. My family loves Indian food, everything. And we love curry. We love Thai food. So we love curries, period. And I do love a good massaman curry with a thick coconut milk.
Rip Esselstyn:
China masala.
Shane Martin:
China masala. Oh, my gosh. Or bharta the eggplant. So when I was putting, trying to figure out the curry, I thought, well, the main thing is the coconut milk that would make it super high in fat. And where that would technically still be a whole food's plant-based dish, how do I kind of cut back, but keep the flavor? So with almond milk, it definitely ... I thought, "Oh, wait a minute. You can add corn starch and thicken it a little bit. Then you kind of get the thickness of a coconut milk."
Shane Martin:
So a lot of times we love the flavor without it thickening so we just eat it as a soup or poured over rice, but when we started making it a little thicker, we would do a corn starch slurry. So I'd do a little water and corn starch and put it in there and cook it and just basically watch it till it kind of got to what I thought the thickness needed to be. So that's how I would thicken it. And I just realized by eliminating the coconut milk, I'm not missing any of the flavor. Oh, well, I need the sweetness. So I add just a little bit of maple syrup because I love a lot of the sweet with the heat sometimes. And it just really balanced out and it turned out to be a super easy dish loaded with protein and just very low in fat. It's one of the more popular recipes on the site because people make this in 15 minutes -that's the whole the point.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I know that when we do Indian Thai and we want that coconut, we use some coconut extract usually with some oat milk and that kind of does it as well.
Shane Martin:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Oh, look at that. There it is. Yeah, baby. So let's talk about breakfast for a second because I know that you kind of got burned out on oatmeal and kind of the sweet side of breakfast. And because of that, I know you've got, for example, your eggy tofu patties that you say are purely close to fried eggs. You got tofu bacon, you got your cheesy grits.
Shane Martin:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Let's start by talking about that eggy tofu patties.
Shane Martin:
Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
I looked at those and those look really good.
Shane Martin:
Yeah. That's actually the newest recipe. So I was up to about 3:00 this morning editing the photos. Yeah. So I love savory breakfast, always have. I love a savory breakfast. But again, I didn't want to buy fake meats, I didn't want to buy processed foods and things like that. Basically the first savory thing I created was the plant-based sausage patties that are just oats, and chia seed, and flax seed and so that's what firms them up. And I realized that the medium meat is just a medium. It's the spices and things like that. So with the eggy tofu, it was kind of one of those last minute because I was thinking we were out working in the yard. We're in the middle of a home renovation. That's why my kitchen is crappy, but we were out in the yard working a couple weeks ago-
Rip Esselstyn:
Is that where you broke your hand?
Shane Martin:
Yeah. Let's not go into that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. No need.
Shane Martin:
Yeah. Dumb man act. But yes, this is where I broke my hand. So we were out in the yard working. I came in one day and I didn't have much breakfast. It was real hot and I was running down. I was just kind of craving something and I wanted a sandwich. I had just made some cashew mayo. Man, I hadn't had an egg sandwich in forever. I was just thinking about that. And we had some leftover tofu scramble and I thought, "That's the same thing." I basically just thought, "What if I just slice the tofu and season it like I do the scramble and then put it in the oven or the air fryer?" And so I did. And I sprinkled it with a little black salt just enough to kind of give it that smell and everything and put it on with just a couple slices of Ezekiel bread and some of the cashew mayo.
Shane Martin:
I hate to say this, but for the sake of transparency, I ate three sandwiches and then was useless the rest of the afternoon because I was like, "Oh, my gosh. This is so good." That's kind of how that came about. Tofu really does kind of have that eggy consistency, especially like Silken has a boiled egg white and then ... But I ended up not doing it so thin because I like the thickness and the hardiness of it.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you said that the key to kind of getting that eggy flavor is that black salt and to add it afterwards, not while you're cooking it.
Shane Martin:
Yes. I'll research things to death. So that's why I have so many pancake recipes because it took me forever to make good plant-based pancakes. I realized when I was started making scrambles and I would see they'd have black salt in them, the premix always had a lot of sodium in it. But I noticed it didn't taste like the black salt. So I started doing research and it just said usually if you cook it, it cooks all the flavor out anytime we make a scramble. And you only need about an eighth of a teaspoon because it's so pungent. Yeah. I just say bake it, sprinkle it, and then go for it.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you just mentioned it took you a while to figure out the perfect plant-based pancake and I noticed. You've got chocolate pancakes, you've got peanut butter pancakes, you've got carrot cake pancakes.
Shane Martin:
matcha pancakes.
Rip Esselstyn:
You've got Bubba shrimp pancakes. It's crazy.
Shane Martin:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
So what is your key to a solid plant-based pancake?
Shane Martin:
Okay. Let me back up. Let me say my first plant-based pancake were ... I think I found them on the original Engine 2 site. They were blueberry pancakes with the spell-
Rip Esselstyn:
That's right. Spelt blueberry. Yeah.
Shane Martin:
Yes. And we used to make those. That was every Saturday. Every Saturday we were making blueberry pancakes. And so, again, it was me going, "Oh, you could make pancakes without butter." But how do you do this? Personally, I love dense pancakes. I love their filling, but there are days I like the fluffy pancakes, and then some days I like them more thin. But essentially what I found out the trick was is you really ... It was really simple. I was like, "Well, if I take a cup of flour and I'd take ... I would take some almond milk, mix vinegar to kind of make the buttermilk. And then basically tablespoon, a baking powder. And when that vinegar acts with it, it was like ... And then I realized if I let it sit, it could be patient. It kind of poofs up a little bit. Again, trying to keep things super simple. So I don't try to put a lot of ingredients in the pancakes. When I want to make a real protein pancake, I'll go get my spelt flour and I'll grind my own oat flour and I'll do the mix and all this. But I just realized that people that are ... I kind of look at the Shane & Simple website as an entry into whole food plant-based eating. It's where I was.
Shane Martin:
So that's why you will see some of the higher fatty foods like the ... Yeah. It's all whole food plant-based, but don't go eat that every day. But if I can get people in the door just to kind of recalibrate their thinking, but I have people message me all the time, "I didn't think I'd have pancakes anymore. I can't believe how easiest is, and I don't need butter milk, and I don't need butter." And I'm like, "No. You don't." But yeah. I just realized that basically flour and water with milk, with vinegar and some baking powder, you can make some killer pancakes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. You're off to the races. I actually made pancakes this morning for my daughters and we gobble them up and it made me think of your pancakes, especially your stacks of pancakes. Because you said how you had three of those eggy tofu patties and then you were worthless for the rest of the day. But those pancakes, you have stacks of six or seven. You don't mess around. Maybe that's just for the photography.
Shane Martin:
It's for photography. And there's some tricks in there making them look all nice and pretty because we eat with our eyes, but Saturday mornings I will say it's ... we usually eat breakfast a little later and more like a brunch. And the kids either love blueberry pancakes and want me to make blueberry compote to go over them or just straight pancakes. And they like to put a little peanut butter on them, but Saturday is usually pancake day. My goal is I'm going to have three pancakes. I give everybody time to eat. And if there's none left, I have no more. But if I come and there's one, I go, "I can't leave it. I'm not just like..."
Rip Esselstyn:
So let's move on to potatoes. I know that you talk about how you've got a thing for potatoes and I want you to know that I have a thing for potatoes and you've got a lot of cool potato. Recipes on your site and on your Instagram channel between mashed potatoes, between those little ... when you slice them really thin and they look like a-
Shane Martin:
Oh, hasselback potatoes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hasselback potatoes. Yeah. Or even just simple, which a lot of people have a hard time getting right, oven roasted potatoes.
Shane Martin:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
So walk me through one of your love affair recipes here.
Shane Martin:
Well, there's two on there. I love potatoes. Period. Mashed potatoes. But one of my heroes is Chad Sarno. I was listening to him on your podcast, as a matter of fact, when he was talking about the best way to cook potatoes. So two of my favorite recipes on there that we make a ton are the Cajun baked French fries and just those simple oil roasted potatoes. And I'll do it one of two ways because I know the ... I used to cook them where I'd just slice them and bake them and I'm like, "Man, these suck." They're hard on the inside or they burn on the outside, that kind of thing. And then I remember listening to Chad and I'd heard some other people talk about it, but boiling the potatoes first.
Shane Martin:
So what we'll do is a lot of times we'll buy a 10 pound bag of potatoes and I'll just boil the whole bag and keep them whole and then stick them in the fridge. And then when we're ready to cook, we'll either slice them into French fries or dice them into the potatoes. And then sometimes if I don't have any already sitting in the fridge, I'll go ahead and dice them in the oven roasted potatoes and stick them in there and boil them for five to 10 minutes just until they get ... and then drain them, hit them with cold water, and then throw them in the air fryer or toss them in seasonings. When you had a special on Netflix where you were kind of redoing people's kitchens.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Shane Martin:
And you did the hamburger and French fries for the couple. You can't recreate the will. And so it was just like, "We'll hit it with a little veggie stock and toss whatever spices, garlic powder, onion powder, smoke paprika, and just throw them in and bake them." And you got crispy French fries. We love doing that. And then sometimes we'll just bake a ton of them, throw them on the table on some parchment paper and I'll make some of my cashew queso and we'll do cheese fry night where we just take them off the table.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. That sounds awesome. So you mentioned cashew queso. What do you got in there? There are the potatoes. Just roasted potatoes. Yeah.
Shane Martin:
Oh, yes. That was one of my earliest recipes because I loved cheese dip. Yeah. And like I said, I'm a huge football guy. I'm a nerd football nerd. But again, just looking at other recipes and trying to ... A lot of bloggers call themselves recipe developers. I'm like, "We don't invent anything. We're adapters." We take things we've already seen and kind of put our spin on it. It's just basically a cup of cashews, some lemon juice, new nutritional yeast, which is the greatest thing in the world, and just the little bit of salt if you need it. And then we blend it up and then heat it. And then Rotel makes no salt added Rotel tomatoes now. So I'll put the juice in there and blend it up and then cook it with the tomatoes after. And that's the queso. So
Rip Esselstyn:
I did not know Rotel now made a salt free version.
Shane Martin:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's great to know. Where do you get your nutritional yeast?
Shane Martin:
I have to order it now because I don't live near a Whole Foods here in little Boonville, Mississippi. So I order it online. I go through Amazon. I found this company, I think it's out of California called Anthony's. Everything is in a big brown bag. I get all my flowers and nutritional yeast there. Even the little Walmart here has nutritional yeast in the canisters that you shake. And Walmart has got their own brand now too. And it's like three dollars for a little canister, which is six or seven dollars other brand. So sometimes if I'm a hard up, I'll go clean the shelf off.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, everybody is getting into the vegan crack now, man. Nutritional yeast.
Shane Martin:
I heard John Stewart say he puts it on his Rips Big Bowl or something like that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I was like, "John, really?" Oh, that doesn't-.
Shane Martin:
I can't go there yet.
Rip Esselstyn:
No. I can't go there either. Not for a second. What about carrot dogs? Because carrot dogs are something that has to be done. And if it's done right, it's like, "Yes." And if it's not done right. It's like, "That really sucked."
Shane Martin:
It's like I just put a carrot on a bud.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So what do you do to make the Shane Martin approved carrot dog?
Shane Martin:
I love cooking them in the instant pot. A couple minutes with all and it just gets everything in there quick.
Rip Esselstyn:
I don't have an instant pot. What do I do?
Shane Martin:
Oh, okay. I like to-
Rip Esselstyn:
And don't tell Chef AJ I said that out loud or maybe we should and she'll mail me one.
Shane Martin:
Yeah. There you go. I want to critique this product. We actually just bought our second one because we use them so much. So if you don't have an instant pot, just peel the carrots, cut them to bun link. I love shaping them like hot dogs. So I'll get in there and my wife go, "Just cook them already." And I'm trying to be the artist. So boil them until they're fork-tender, but not mushy and then you drain them. Hit them with some cold water kind of like the potatoes to keep them from ... to stop them from cooking. And then you put them in a big Ziploc bag, pour the marinate in there, let them marinate for an hour or so. But I tell everybody overnight is best. Just let it all soak up. They're already cooked, but I'll usually heat up a grill pan, non-stick grill pan and throw them on there with a little bit of more of the marinade and we'll take them out and put them on the grill. It's crazy because my most ardent non-vegan, I will never not eat meat, I know two couples right now that every time we get together, they ... before we left Charlotte, they would ask me to bring carrot dogs. They absolutely loved them. Yeah. There you go.
Rip Esselstyn:
Those look really-
Shane Martin:
Oh, man. We love them. We absolutely love them.
Rip Esselstyn:
We're moving into summertime.
Shane Martin:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
And summertime to me also means fair amount of potlucks now that moving through COVID the best we can, which means potato salads.
Shane Martin:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
In reading this one recipe, you're like, "Man, I can't even conceive of a potato salad without a mayonnaise dressing." But you've done it.
Shane Martin:
I've done it.
Rip Esselstyn:
So talk to me about what we're doing here?
Shane Martin:
Yeah. Again, it's just me going, "Oh, wait a minute. All I got to do is replace this." So I already had a cashew mayo recipe and I'm like, "I'll just replace it. Get the oil out, get the eggs out." And I just went back. And like mom used to make, except healthy and no cholesterol. So I use my cashew mayo as a base, but I also tell people, "If you have a nut allergy, I have a tofu sour cream that works really well too." And so you can use that as the dressing. And so I essentially just, again, boil the potatoes and it's all the great things that are in potato salad like celery. And potato salad is really great because you can pretty much put what you want in there. But then I'd use the cashew mayo to make the dressing and just pour it over and let it chill. And now that I will say sometimes I will sprinkle with a little black salt to give it that eggy.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Shane Martin:
But again, it's one of those things that when we take it to people, they're like they have a hard time believing that it's healthy.
Rip Esselstyn:
The pro move that I was putting on that black salt.
Shane Martin:
Oh, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
But I've got the different ingredients. I don't have the amounts, but the ingredients for your cashew mayo are cashew spices, whatever those are, maple syrup, lemon juice, mustard, vinegar, and then salt, flash black salt.
Shane Martin:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Who does your photography? Is that you or what?
Shane Martin:
That's me. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow.
Shane Martin:
If you go back to the beginning of the blog, I don't take those pictures down so people can go ... I'm not a photographer. I don't tell people I'm a guy who loves food who learned to take pictures. I was a creative. The first few pictures were taken with my iPad or a phone and had no backdrops or anything. And it just really became a creative outlet for me. Something I'd never done. And for me, I'm a pretty nostalgic person and love the mountains. We're mountain people. So when we were in Charlotte, we moved back to be closer to family, but we miss North Carolina. I've spent a ton of time in Asheville, and Black Mountain, and Boone. And so I take pictures, I tell people, that reminds me of those places. So I like to take pictures that kind of makes people feel like they're somewhere. I probably spend more time on them than I should, but I love the staging and everything like that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice. So is this a passion project for you? Do you have a day job so to speak or?
Shane Martin:
Blog is my day job. I'm so glad you asked that question yet because I remember ... I think when I got really passionate was when I saw how life changing a plant-based lifestyle was. That I wasn't missing anything nutritionally, but when I saw the results of just getting healthy and my body healing itself and reversing a lot of these terrible conditions, you become passionate about ... You commend things that you cherish and you become passionate. You just want to tell people about it. When I first started the blog, I always told my wife, I said, "I'm going to go work for Engine 2 one day. That's my dream job. I want to go work for Rip Esselstyn." And then I was like, "Oh, I don't know how the hell to go work for Rip Esselstyn."
Shane Martin:
So my wife said, "Why don't you just start a blog?" And this was back in 2013. 2014, a year after. And I was like, "I don't even know anything about that." And so the blog went through several different name changes. And I'm a perfectionist and I wanted it to look right, but it really started because people were asking me like family. I do what you do. I just don't know where to start. So the blog was sort of birthed out of just a passion to show people what I eat and talk about it, but also to give family and friends recipes.
Shane Martin:
So I guess officially it launched in 2017. And then in about a year and a half towards the end of 2019 is when it became full time. It got monetized and started to pick up some steam. My wife and I wasn't quite where my full-time income was, but she was working and she said, "You're either going to keep this a hobby or it's going to be your passion and you're going to commit to it." And so we just jumped off. It's been great. It's steadily growing and we're able to live. And it's like every day we wake up going, "Oh, we made it another month." I absolutely love this. I take pictures of food and I cook. I get to change lives with it. I know that sounds kind of trite, but that is what pushes me because I've seen the results myself. So yes, I would say it's a passion project, but I'm fortunate to get to do it for a living.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. That's fantastic. Good for you. Sometimes you trust and you make that leap and it's amazing how a net kind of ... a net forms for you.
Shane Martin:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Let's talk about some desserts.
Shane Martin:
Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
People love their desserts. You've got a chocolate chia seed pudding that looks really good. What are the ingredients in that?
Shane Martin:
Man. Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
If you can remember.
Shane Martin:
Chia seeds. I think it's unsweetened almond milk, a little maple syrup, and some cocoa powder.
Rip Esselstyn:
Cacao?
Shane Martin:
Yeah. Cacao, cocoa powder, and maybe a little vanilla. Yeah. Chia seeds are ... They're kind of nutritional use for me. They're amazing little things.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I use them actually on my cereal, but I don't use them to make a full blown dessert or something like that. But you've inspired me with that one there. What about chocolate truffles? Because I know that you just use three or four ingredients for those.
Shane Martin:
Yeah. A lot of times my recipes are created out of necessity. So we had a family gathering last year. And one of my aunts said, "Hey, we don't have anything you can eat." Because they're still all on this ... I call it the Southern American diet-
Rip Esselstyn:
Good. That's good.
Shane Martin:
... where we use pork as a seasoning down here, that kind of thing. And they love it when I cook, but they were like, "Could you create some kind of chocolate thing?" I got an aunt that loves dark chocolate. So I thought, "Well, truffles." So I just kind of started scouring and trying different things. It's one of the more decade. It does use full fact coconut milk, but it's basically just some dark chocolate chips, vegan chocolate chips, and coconut milk, and maybe a little vanilla. You cook it proportionally. Or not really cook it. Just heat the milk up and stir it and let it melt. And then chill it and scoop it into bawls and chill it and spring it with cacao.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice. And I know you've got a carrot cake that looks insane, you've got a apple banana oat muffin that you tout as being one of the moistest in the Southern hemisphere. Do you have a favorite dessert that you love to make?
Shane Martin:
Oh, man. It would probably be the chocolate peanut butter pie.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, say no more.
Shane Martin:
Yeah. It's like eating a big Reese peanut butter cup.
Rip Esselstyn:
And what do you use for the crust there?
Shane Martin:
I want to say it was inspired by the date-nut fruit crust that I saw.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right.
Shane Martin:
But I just realized when I saw that it was like, "Oh, man." I think it has a little bit of coconut shredded unsweetened coconut, with some dates, and cashews, and walnuts, and almonds, and maybe little vanilla. And I do put flax in crust sometimes just to kind of hold them together, but that's really it. And then the filling is silk and tofu and chocolate banana. I think I put bananas. I'm not sure. Peanut butter, but it's not baked. It's like a cold peanut butter pie. I don't make that one very often because that's one that I could-
Rip Esselstyn:
Do some danger.
Shane Martin:
... do some danger. It'd be dangerous to have in the house.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Shane Martin:
The carrot cake is great too. I'm a lazy person. So I want things quick.
Rip Esselstyn:
What's your opinion these days of salads? Are you doing salads?
Shane Martin:
Yeah. It's funny. If my wife and I have a date night and we can find a plant-friendly place to go, it's usually Thai or Indian. And that's our, we call, indulgent. But we do eat a lot of salads around the house. So typically if I know I'm going to be a heavy workout day, I don't like to eat heavy through the day. I like to eat just enough to kind of keep my energy up. My breakfast, I'm not just saying this, is always a form of Rips Big Bowl in the morning, the cereal. And I just finished off three bags that I just got two weeks ago.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, we'll have to send you some for coming on the show.
Shane Martin:
Oh, man. I love them. But anyway I always keep oats and I love to eat oats raw. So that's usually for breakfast, but salads generally I'll just do a simple spinach salad through the day. I don't get super carried away. It's just enough to kind of keep me satiated somewhat to feel like I'm putting something in my mouth.
Rip Esselstyn:
Do you have a favorite dressing that you like like to put on salads?
Shane Martin:
Yeah. Just to have something on there. It's the three to one. Everybody has a version of that, but I think the first place I saw it was again was Engine 2 and it was like, "I'll do that." And sometimes sprinkle or squeeze a little bit of an orange into it to get that sweetness or that-
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, yeah.
Shane Martin:
Something like that. Sometimes it's just lemon or I'll even squeeze an orange over the salad just to kind of get that sweetness.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Sometimes that's all you need. You just need a little citrus. That orange or that lemon and then maybe do a little bit of a reamer on there as well and you're golden.
Shane Martin:
Yeah. Honestly there are times I just try to pack a salad bowl with as many peppers and things as I can get in them. For me, sometimes the dressing gets in the way. You know what I'm saying? I'll just go dry on the salad.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you're always creating and coming up with new stuff. Anything in particular you're focusing on right now that you're going to be creating?
Shane Martin:
Yeah. I'll keep a running list of things. That's the thing about being a blogger, a food blogger especially. Now, with the way the algorithms run, you kind of have to let your creativity go with what's in season and what's with things like that. Sometimes I just don't give a crap. I'm like, "This is what I want to do." I always have a problem with authority. The one way to get me to do something is to tell me I can't do it. I only have one veggie burger recipe on the whole site because kind of the way I operate is I have to test things over, and over, and over. And if it's not in my wheelhouse, it's like, "I can't just put it out to go, "Hey, throw some beans in a bowl, mash it, and throw some flax." That kind of thing. I want to experiment with flavors. And is it as healthy as I can make it? And then without sacrificing the flavor and things like that.
Shane Martin:
So I have several different veggie burger recipes that I'm working on that I'm hoping to have out soon just with all the cookouts coming up. I'm working on a tofu feta. I shouldn't be telling you this, but I'm going to tell you this. Sweet potato biscuits [Rip: Wooooh!]. Yes. I have made-
Rip Esselstyn:
Southern goodness.
Shane Martin:
Oh, gosh. And they are so good. I've made them a couple times. There's still a little couple things I want to tweak, but those are in the works.
Rip Esselstyn:
We'll keep that between me and you. We'll edit that out. Wink, wink.
Shane Martin:
Yes. I'm sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
Shane, that's that's awesome. Our time is right about up. Is there anything you want to say to the thousands of people that are listening to you right now? Any place they can go to check out more of your goodness?
Shane Martin:
The best place to go is shaneandsimple.com. I try to answer every email that comes my way because I really do believe in this. And I really believe that one of the things that was crucial, and I tell everybody this, that I've tried to foster, whether it's the Facebook page, whether it's the website and things have gotten so busy where I might be three weeks behind on responding to an email, but I do try and sometimes things fall through. But the thing that was crucial for us was finding community when we first started this journey of a plant-based diet because we're communal creatures. And so I try to foster that idea. That's why I tell people, go to the website, message me. There's a Shane & Simple Facebook page, but there's also just a Shane & Simple group where people can join and dialogue.
Shane Martin:
So that would be my biggest encouragement. Is find community. Don't punish yourself when you fall off the bandwagon and be gracious to yourself. Get up and do better the next day. The website initially is the best place to go. But then as far as communicating with me and dialoguing and interacting, the Facebook is kind of where we do a lot of that. I think the handle, the Facebook page is Shane & Simple Cooking there as well.
Rip Esselstyn:
You've come a long way from a Mississippi meat eating boy, as you like to so finally say to who has gone plant-based.
Shane Martin:
Yeah. I'm the weirdo in the family. I am. It was one of the reasons we moved back. We are big on investing in our community. And as you know, Mississippi is a very unhealthy state. And so my wife and I are actually working right now to try to do something like PlantPure did where we're trying to get people in and open up our home, which is why we're ready for the doing potlucks and hosting potlucks and just really ... because that's how change starts. We're ready to hit the ball rolling. That's why we want to get this crap done. But I'm going to say this before I get off this podcast because ... And I kind of said a little bit at the beginning. We've never met. I did a couple of blog posts for the old Engine 2 site. They shared my story and then I actually did an article on creating a plant-based family because we had so many kids, we still have so many kids.
Shane Martin:
I feel like I need to be interviewing you, but I tell people and then people that know me I'd send them to PLANTSTRONG now, but you are one of my biggest heroes. And to be here is just an honor because it ... Literally seeing you on Forks Over Knives and following the website, watching your Ted Talks, it saved my life, and I don't say that lightly. And it's why I do what I do now. It is why I have the blog because you're out there doing it and you're vocal about it. It just gave me the courage and the tools to do it. When I reached out saying, "Hey, I'd love to be considered for guests on podcast." I'm just like, "I just ask things." If the answer is no, I'm where I was before I started. And when Carrie responded back, I ran to my wife and I said, "You got to be kidding me. Are they hard up for guests or something?"
Rip Esselstyn:
It's well deserved. A big kale yeah. Yeah.
Shane Martin:
Kale yeah, baby.
Rip Esselstyn:
Kale yeah, Shane Martin. Well, listen, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for giving the audience so many valuable tips and sharing all your great recipes. Everybody that's out there, go check it out and make some pancakes tomorrow morning for breakfast.
Shane Martin:
Make some pancakes. Thanks, Rip.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. You bet. All right. Hey, Shane, peace.
Shane Martin:
Peace, brother.
Rip Esselstyn:
Repeat after me. Peace. Turn it around. Engine 2.
Shane Martin:
Engine 2.
Rip Esselstyn:
Keep it PLANTSTRONG.
Shane Martin:
PLANTSTRONG, baby.
Rip Esselstyn:
Shaneandsimple.com is his food site with simple recipes that the whole family will adore. In fact, my family and I have made several of them recently and they are definitely Esselstyn approved. We're going to be sure to link to the site on the episode page at plantstrongpodcast.com. Next week, stay tuned. We've got a special Father's Day edition of a PLANTSTRONG Podcast with Essy. That's right. My father, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., makes a long awaited return visit. Until then, just like Shane likes to say, keep it simple. And as I like to say, definitely keep it PLANTSTRONG.
Rip Esselstyn:
The PLANTSTRONG Podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous true seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth. Most notably, my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. and Anne Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
