Vegan Family Kitchen

Life after breast cancer: An interview with Nic Bathurst, dietitian and nutritionist specializing in mid-life women’s health

Nic Bathurst, a dietitian and nutritionist, and mom of four kids, thought of herself as a healthy and fit person with good habits. Then, at age 48 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a mastectomy and started digging into the literature about breast cancer. What she found out was not what she had learned in school. 

That was 10 years ago, and she has turned her life around since, in addition to changing the way she works with her clients. I had the pleasure of sitting with her for a conversation about:

• How menopause doesn't have to make us victims of our hormones 
• Whether or not we should worry about protein 
• The place of alcohol in a healthy lifestyle
• How industry finds the right "bliss point" to hook us to foods we'd probably be better off without
• Small experiments we can try to see if our life improves
• And more!

Nic is a dietitian and nutritionist of over 30 years. She has been a passionate plant advocate since she got breast cancer in 2013 and discovered the health and weight loss benefits of a diet powered by plants. She now specializes in helping women navigate their mid-life hormones, release unwanted weight, and optimize their health by eating more plants.

I encourage you to connect with Nic Bathurst on her website Naturally Nic and to watch her videos on YouTube. 

Yoga, Food, and Healing: A conversation with Leah Cooper of The Centre of Ki

The food we eat isn't neutral: every bite has the potential to nourish and heal us, or harm us. So says Leah Cooper, my friend Down Under who teaches yoga and whole food cooking in the macrobiotic tradition. 

In our conversation, we talk about:

• Why the connection between yoga and food isn't always made in conventional yoga classes
• What therapeutic yoga can be a better choice for those of us whose bodies aren't in perfect shape
• How we can eat according to the seasons
• And how to make veggie-rich miso soup for breakfast! 

My guest Leah Cooper is a yoga teacher, whole food cook, and health and wellbeing enthusiast. She started her business, The Centre of Ki (pronounced 'key') in 2013 and has been teaching weekly yoga classes, hosting yoga retreats, and leading seasonal cooking workshops in the Barossa Valley of South Australia for 10 years. She also has a YouTube channel that enables her to share her passions for health and wellbeing to a wider audience, and in 2021 she began her podcast - The Wellbeing Room.

 

The spiritual energy of food: Conversation with Kimberly Winters, vegan coach and energy guide

"When we uncover who we are, and we are willing to show up as that person, a lot of barriers just fall away." 

Those are the wise and inspiring words of my guest, Kimberly Winters. Kimberly is the host of the Did You Bring the Hummus? podcast, where she gently guides those who wish to adopt a vegan lifestyle through their transition. In addition to coaching, she supports others - vegan or not - as an energy guide and reiki practitioner. 

I wanted to bring Kimberly on the show to talk about the spiritual energy of food. What difference does it make, in our bodies, hearts, and souls, to eat plants as opposed to animals? 

In this episode, I also bring Kimberly to share her journey with us, including early signs that she should probably go vegan (though she ignored them) and a long stint as a vegetarian who didn't like vegetables or know how to cook. 

You can connect with Kimberly Winters for guidance, or to join her healing circles, on her podcast's page: Did You Bring the Hummus? (Did you?!) http://didyoubringthehummus.com/ 

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Do you need a bit of help deciding what's for dinner now that you want to eat more plants (and fewer animals)? Let me help you with a 5-night healthy vegan dinner plan. Learn more at http://veganfamilykitchen.com/

Overwhelmed, frustrated, or resentful in the kitchen? It's time for a mindset shift. Check out Brigitte's book Flow in the Kitchen: Practices for Healthy Stress-Free Vegan Cooking.

Plant-based in public health: An interview with Charlyn Black, Professor, UBC School of Population and Public Health

Charlyn Black trained as a family doctor more than forty years ago, but most of her career has been as a scholar dedicated to understanding the social determinants of health for over three decades. She is now a Professor at the UBC School of Population and Public Health, and an enthusiastic advocate for the power of predominantly plant-based diets for prevention and vitality. I am grateful that she is also a Vegan Meal Plan subscribers, using them in her own way as she'll explain in the interview.

In this conversation, we talk about:

• Charlyn's journey from teaching yoga at age 16 to family medicine and finally a public health professorship,
• Her transition to vegetarian in the 80s and what it finally took to make her go toward a whole food plant-based diet,
• The intersections between her personal and professional journeys,
• Initiatives that give her hope when it comes to the use of plant-based diet to improve individual and public health,
• How she practices batch cooking,
• And the advice she gives to people who might be thinking about plant-based diets but fearing that it's not for them.

Thank you Charlyn for this inspiring conversation, I admire your vitality and enthusiasm! I look forward to cooking with you again soon.

The episode is also available on YouTube.

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Would you like to give batch cooking a try? Download my Planned & Plant-based 5-day dinner plan to give Brigitte's "building blocks" approach a try: https://veganfamilykitchen.com/planned-plant-based/ 

 

Getting started with raw vegan food: An interview with Crystal Bonnet, raw chef and author of The Art of Raw Desserts

Today on the Vegan Family Kitchen Podcast I meet with Crystal Bonnet, raw vegan chef and author of the just-published beautiful book The Art of Raw Desserts. 

Crystal is a graduate of the Matthew Kenney Culinary Academy and of the Pure Joy Academy. She develops unique and delicious all-vegan raw recipes and now teaches everything she knows to home cooks and professionals chefs alike. You can find her courses on her website https://crystaldawnculinary.com and connect with her on Instagram.

In this interview, Crystal shares what got her started on her vegan and raw journey, describes her lifestyle today, and shares her best tips for beginners to get started in adding a bit more raw food into their diet. 

 

Practicing mindfulness to tame food addiction: A conversation with Karen Steiner

How can the principles of mindfulness and compassion support a transition away from overeating and food addiction? I had the pleasure of exploring this topic with Karen Steiner in conversation for the Vegan Family Kitchen Podcast.

 

Karen Steiner is a Weight Loss Coach, Food Activist and Meditation Teacher. Professionally, she has Master’s degree in Counseling and Educational Psychology, has trained as a Life Coach through The Co-Active Training Institute and the eCornell Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies.

 

After nearly 40 years of contemplative practice and study with teachers Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish she finally learned how to take her mindfulness practice off the cushion and into the kitchen. Through mindful eating Karen discovered that dairy was playing havoc with her body and that she was seriously addicted to a number of foods, including cheese. Giving up dairy and becoming fully vegan was a major game changer. Food cravings disappeared, weight came off and a life-long depression lifted.

 

In this conversation, Karen tells me about:

• The start of her vegetarian journey in 1984 with Diet for a Small Planet
• The distinction between casual overeating and food addiction
• Why moderation isn't useful for everyone and why she has to keep her home "clean"
• What makes her so angry about the food industry
• How a trip to New Zealand served as an epiphany that led her to make big changes
• How she decided to quit cheese and the successes and struggles that ensued
• Her new way of eating, which includes a lot of vegetables
• The role for patience when it comes to transforming one's habits

To connect with Karen, visit her website and download her free e-book Six Strategies for Permanent Weight Loss. She will run her program Breaking the Food Seduction One Mindful Bite at a Time in December and early in the New Year. Visit Karen's YouTube channel and read more about her journey in Forks Over Knives magazine.

 

New book: Flow in the Kitchen available for pre-order

My first book Flow in the Kitchen: Practices for Healthy Stress-Free Vegan Cooking is available for pre-order in ebook format from Amazon (compatible with all mobile devices)! (Paperback and Kobo coming soon.) It's not a cookbook! Instead of feeding you recipes, I offer you the seeds you can plant to grow your own versions of standard vegan dishes based on your preferences, ingredients you have at hand, and seasonal produce. Listen on to find out what's in the book and head over to Amazon.com to order. (Also available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, and everywhere in Amazonland.) 

Send your comments and invitation to chat about Flow in the Kitchen for your podcast, blog, or magazine, email me at hello@veganfamilykitchen.com.

Cooking with your Strengths: An Interview with Gemma McFall, Strengths Coach and Vegan Meal Plan subscriber

Do you hate cooking? You are not alone. My guest today, Gemma McFall, used to feel just like you, but then she found a way to leverage her strengths to improve her kitchen reality. Listen on to find out what she did.

Gemma McFall is a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach and also a Vegan Meal Plan subscriber. Her work is to help women reduce stress and heal chronic pain so they can get back to enjoying life. After struggling for years with back pain herself and trying everything, she discovered that she had neuroplastic pain, which meant that her pain could be cured. As she healed, she decided to share her discovery with others. You will love learning about her experience feeding her family of four as expatriates in various countries, following her process healing from chronic pain, and finding out more about how you too can leverage your strengths to find more joy in cooking. Let's chat! 

You can connect with Gemma via her web site: https://gemmamcfall.com

To see if the Vegan Meal Plans might be the right tool for you, check out my Planned & Plant-based 5-day healthy vegan meal plan: https://veganfamilykitchen.com/planned or download one of my free templates.

Things I do every week for happier weeknight meals

Cooking really good food for myself and my loved ones isn't a sprint. It's an ultra-endurance event. It has to be attended at least 3 times per day (more like 6 when counting snacks for growing and/or active people). It's not like I can deal it once for the year or a few months and be satisfied. It's one of those cyclical things that repeats every day. And having some weekly routines for it also helps a great deal. Here are my top 5. 

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Do you need a bit of help with meal planning? Download one of my free templates or subscribe to the Vegan Meal Plans. It's like a 1-year cooking course that is directly useful to your daily life! With access to the teacher by text message anytime, too.

If you are inspired to learn more about Flow in the Kitchen, consider pre-ordering my upcoming book.

From Nepal to the Midwest and back: Babita Shresta, author of Plant-based Himalaya

Babita Shresta thought she had landed on another planet when she first visited a grocery store in Minnesota. Coming from rural Nepal, where as a child she learned to cook fresh vegetables and simmer lentils alongside her grandfather, she had never seen packaged processed food. Pre-cooked tortillas and roti sold in plastic bags blew her mind. She could not have imagined that frozen meat would one day become part of her diet, yet it did. As a busy college student, she was too busy to think it all through. After some time, she realized that those convenience foods were neither good for her health nor for the planet, and she committed to sharing her deep love of traditional plant-based Nepalese cooking with the world.

Join me in listening to Babita tell the story of her food upbringing and of how travel transformed her perspective, leading her to become a advocate for the kind of food that's loving our bodies and the planet. 

I encourage you to order her book Plant-based Himalaya: Vegan Recipes from Nepal from your local bookstore. 

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Would you benefit from a bit of guidance and structure to adopt or sustain a healthy plant-based lifestyle? Download my free 5-day Planned & Plant-based meal plan or be in touch with me anytime at hello@veganfamilykitchen.com.