Chew On This: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health and Well-Being with Dr. Brooke Bussard

Welcome to another episode of Perfectly Pl@nted, where we're shedding light on the transformative power of plant-based eating.

Today, we sat down with the remarkable Dr. Brooke Bussard, physician, health coach, fitness specialist, and author of the enlightening book, 'Chew On This: Bite-Sized Stories about Nutrition.' We heard about how Dr. Bussard was enlightened by the work of renowned doctors like Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Barnard, and Dr. Ornish. Now, she's a vocal advocate for the benefits of optimizing nutrition, empowering clients to prevent and even reverse chronic diseases.

We ventured into the world of Dr. Bussard's Quick Cooks app, a convenient resource that's changing the way people approach their meals by making wholesome cooking simpler and more accessible.

Finally, we extracted some golden nuggets from Dr. Bussard about forming healthy habits and implementing positive changes to reach optimal health. We rounded off our enlightening conversation with some resources and tips to help you embark on a journey towards better health.

So, whether you're exploring the idea of a plant-based lifestyle, or you're eager to improve your health, this episode is a treasure trove of advice, tips, and inspiring stories. Don't miss our captivating exchange with Dr. Brooke Bussard; it's bound to leave you feeling informed and inspired.

Chew On This: Bite-Sized Stories about Nutrition, is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Chew-This-Bite-Sized-Stories-Nutrition/dp/B0C54W8765

Contact Dr. Bussard at https://plantsoveranimals.com/

Follow Perfectly Pl@nted on Instagram
Follow Perfectly Pl@nted on YouTube
Follow Perfectly Pl@nted on Pinterest

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Good morning and welcome to Perfectly Planted Hello Vesemay, welcome back, I have missed you.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Good morning Daphne. I have missed you so much and our chats and our Sunday podcast. It's been some time right. We've had a busy summer, both you and I.

Speaker 1: 0:23

So I've been sharing on my Watsuit wingman that you have been on sabbatical. I didn't want to want to explicitly share where you were, what you were doing, but how was your sabbatical? It was great.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Daphne, thank you. We were in, we toured, we did a European tour. Essentially, we went to Italy, switzerland and France, and so much to share. Maybe we could separate it out for another podcast, because I am so excited for today and our episode. I am too.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Yeah, so, vesemay, would you like to share with our audience the wonderful opportunity we have for Dr Brooke Basard to join us today?

Speaker 2: 1:08

Absolutely Daphne. I know I won't do justice to all of what Dr Basard's amazing accomplishments have been, but let me briefly introduce her to those of you watching today or listening. She swapped out her white coat for an apron and her stethoscope for a spatula. Dr Brooke Basard now prescribes healthy, appealing recipes. In her role as a health coach and fitness specialist, she guides her clients towards their best personal outcomes, with a focus on optimizing nutrition, which is so important, as you know, with the goal of preventing and reversing heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other chronic conditions. Brooke thrives on watching people progress from confused consumers to empowered eaters, and she's not gardening with her husband or hiking with her sons. Brooke enjoys speaking to all age groups about powerful, the powerful link between food and good health, which is so important.

Speaker 2: 2:03

She graduated from University of Virginia School of Medicine and College of Arts and Sciences, and Brooke blends her medical knowledge with her expertise in nutrition. As if that wasn't enough, she also teaches food for life classes for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. She also wrote a book which I am so enjoying. It's called Chew on this Bite Size Stories About Nutrition, which is available on Amazon Kindle version right now. Hopefully, paperback will be distributed by Amazon soon. Dr Brooke Basard, aka Superwoman, I hope you don't mind me naming you that. Welcome to the show. We are so excited to have you join us.

Speaker 3: 2:46

Oh, thanks, Vesame. Thank you, Daphne, for having me today. I appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you guys.

Speaker 1: 2:55

Dr Basard, we appreciate your time. It's funny because, after I've heard of you for a long time through Food for Life and then was able to briefly touch base with you at the Fairfax VegFest, but after having an opportunity to converse with you by email and then thank you for hosting and inviting me to the let's Beat Breast Cancer Fundraiser, I feel like our paths are so similar. I would love if you could share a little bit about your vegan journey, about your journey as a physician and health coach, and how you have arrived at this point in your life, being able to impact so many people.

Speaker 3: 3:40

Yeah, I guess it starts with the path to becoming a physician, because at that point I knew nothing about the world of plant-based eating, about what a vegan was. I don't even think I could probably pronounce vegan at the time. This was back in the 90s, when it was extremely fringe to be eating that way. I went to med school, like most aspiring doctors do, in order to help people. Help people feel well and feel good. I've always loved the human body. I really enjoyed anatomy lab and physiology.

Speaker 3: 4:25

Those first two years of med school as you know Daphne are spent in lectures and labs, which are awesome. You learn so much. Then you transition in that third and fourth year to seeing patients. It was great to see the patients listen to their history, think about their symptoms and thinking about what you could do to help those symptoms. Typically, that was done with a prescription pad. We were not getting to the root cause of the problem. Each time the patients would come back to clinic it was like how are you doing? Are you taking your meds? Has the disease progressed any further or have we halted it? We never even thought about reversing disease. We were just trying to manage the symptoms and help people deal with this diagnosis that they had.

Speaker 3: 5:20

I guess during that time I started to have my own GI issues. I would pretty much have belly pain every day, along with bloating and constipation, and years past I kept thinking how do people live like this? This is crazy. I don't understand why my belly hurts so bad. I went to see GI specialists people that I knew and nobody had an answer. It was like well, take metamucil or oh, do you want to be in this clinical trial for this new drug and you can call in every day and report your symptoms? I thought, no, I really don't want to do that.

Speaker 3: 6:05

I was talking to my sister-in-law one day, frustrated as one could be, and she said Brooke, do you think it might be something that you're eating? That seems so ridiculous now that I didn't consider that at the time At least I didn't consider it in the way that I do now and the bottom line is that dairy products and various food additives, along with a lack of nutrient dense foods, essentially was the problem. I had a dysbiosis, I had an imbalance of gut bacteria, my GI tract was not healthy, it couldn't function the way that it was supposed to, and that was life-changing, absolutely life-changing, something that people really don't think you know is that impactful. But having belly pain every day or having bloating and constipation every day, I mean it really affects the quality of your life. And so while I was learning about the impact of food on health, of course I started to stumble upon you know Esselstyn's work, dr Barnard's work, you know Dr Ornish's work, and learning about the impact of food on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, in a way that we hadn't really thought about it before. You know, it was so eye-opening. These were things that you do not learn in medical school and I thought, oh my gosh, I have to totally shift gears and try to get this information out to the world.

Speaker 3: 7:49

And so I left medicine, became a health coach, did a lot of, and still do.

Speaker 3: 7:56

I love to talk to groups, give presentations, teach classes.

Speaker 3: 8:00

So I teach classes in various colleges throughout the Baltimore area and, yeah, and then I just you know I get a lot of clients from my classes, from speaking engagements and then word of mouth, and people come to me because you know they've heard from their doctor that you know, all of a sudden they've developed prediabetes or diabetes or they've got heart disease to the point where you know people want to do surgery but they don't want surgery and they come to me and you know eating the right foods changes everything.

Speaker 3: 8:40

It really it really does. And so that's really been my path and you know as circuitous as it was. I think you know it's ended well, like I learned a lot, where I needed to learn a lot, but then I moved on from there and I can use all of my knowledge of, you know, physiology and pathophysiology to apply, you know the principles of plant-based nutrition to health and at the same time, talk to my clients, doctors, when they need to, you know, start to lower their medications and, you know, be cognizant of, you know watching their blood pressure, because all of those things will start to change as they get healthier by eating more plants.

Speaker 1: 9:31

You are where you were meant to be.

Speaker 2: 9:33

Yes, that's right. So, yeah, that's an amazing journey. I think that that resonates so much with also me too, and so many of our viewers. I also know that you have a fantastic website, which I was pulling a lot of recipes off of last night, primarily the black bean brownie one. It's called Plants Over Animals. I just want to know what was your intention of starting your website and what do you hope? What messaging do you hope your viewers and followers get out of the website? And I think you could subscribe to a newsletter too. We could talk about that too.

Speaker 3: 10:17

Totally so. On that homepage you can subscribe to the newsletter and you know I just send out updates, usually about once a month. But as you see from this screen capture, the resource section is really why I put the website together to give people more information, because usually just after one conversation their interest might be peaked. But you know they certainly haven't learned what they need to learn. It takes a long time, you know, to really start digging into the information. You've got to get over the hurdles of the things that you learned in the past, the myths that might be stuck in your head, and so a lot of times when I talk to somebody, I'm talking to them from a health perspective, but I might be talking to them from an environmental perspective, about the impact of eating plants, and for some people they love to learn about the animal aspect. So Plants Over Animals covers all three big reasons why you might want to choose plants over animals when you are making your meals, and so that's why I put the website together.

Speaker 2: 11:30

We have a beautiful earth and these countries that I visited over the summer. It's just breathtaking views and I think that you know I have a new outlook on you know why? Why not? There's a different reason, not just for our own health, which I think a lot of us in our culture is well. What's in it? For me, it's our health, obviously, but also there's such a longer term impact across the entire world, and when you go and visit some of these countries and the beauty of our land, it's just even within our country. You know it's so important for us to not forget that as well.

Speaker 1: 12:08

But I think the problem is we don't always I mean, it took me 40 years to really understand where the food on my plate was coming from. It was never taught.

Speaker 1: 12:19

It really. In fact, I would say it was a cognitive dissonance between what we're doing to animals, what we're doing to the planet and what I'm putting in my body every day. So you know, berkeley website is so comprehensive. It's one place where people can go to whatever may be initially driving them into plant-based nutrition, and for me it was health related after seeing game changers. But then it opened up this whole Pandora's box to Vesemme's point that, oh my gosh, I really did not understand all of the other implications of eating the chicken and the beef. And, yeah, it was eye-opening.

Speaker 3: 13:05

I think and it helps you sort of, you know, not that you need to justify, but it helps support your decision when you know that it's also helping in these other ways.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Mm-hmm, and you know talking about helping in other ways, what? So? I know I have many other friends who've written books, Some who say they'll never do it again, Others who say it was wonderful. What was the impetus for you to write two on this, and can you tell us a little bit about the book and what was the passion that made you realize that you needed to be able to tell this narrative in a way that was digestible for anyone?

Speaker 3: 13:48

So I would say there were probably about you know, four or five years where people started to ask me when are you gonna write a book? And I think it's just because I have a way of presenting information I'm a little bit, you know, quirky and silly, I think and I think that probably comes across in the book A way of presenting information that you know people find interesting. And so I thought, you know, I think I'm ready. This was what was it. It's been a little over a year, maybe a year and a half, since I started writing. Yeah, it was in April of last year that I started writing, chew on this and, yeah, all of a sudden it just hit me. I thought I think I really I'm ready to write a book.

Speaker 3: 14:33

And when I started, I mean it just poured out of me. It was so much fun, I had so much fun writing this book and creating these characters and creating stories in order to convey the information. I felt like there's so many good nutrition books out there and I love to just sit down with, you know, a book by Dr Gregor or Dr Barnard, or you know all the people who have written such good books, but so many of my friends, family, clients, students. They said, brooke, it's just too dense, I can't do it, I can't sit down and read it. It's not, you know, it's not something that's easy for me to do. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna write something that's totally different, you know, and see if I can help those people have a book that they can read to get the information in just a totally different way. And so that's how Chew on this came about.

Speaker 2: 15:37

I loved it. I found it very colorful and playful and the messages really resonated. I you kept my attention reading this book, which is hard, like you said. He called it dense, it's just dry. It's a lot of I mean. You know, I would need a book like that to be converted into a TV show. So I was like, keep my attention really. But your book Chew on this was very playful.

Speaker 2: 16:02

I thought with the characters, with the dialogue between the characters, with really debunking those myths that you were talking about, because I think it's so hard, and one of them I will mention was the inflammation chapter that you wrote because I was like, wait a second, you know how we could talk about it just for one second. Because you know I, as a lot of our listeners may know, I have three boys, are very active, they play soccer primarily and they get. If they get injured, it's an immediate. Let's get some ice on it and in your book say don't, you, don't. That's your body's response to trying to heal the inflammation that you have, and inflammation is coming from your blood vessels just trying to heal itself and so you're just delaying the process if you put ice on it and I just thought, wow, I would have.

Speaker 2: 16:53

Honestly, I could have read a medical book 10 times, read the similar words or content, and it didn't. It wouldn't have resonated with me, but your book absolutely did, and I know that lots, a lot of our health is. You know, like you had the gut, your gut health was, your microbiome was off kilter and so inflammation was probably key. And there's other components of these chronic conditions that we deal with where you know, inflammation is a primary component. What, what are three? That was so. That was one of the messages that came across for me, but what are some of the three key messages you hope your readers take away from your book?

Speaker 3: 17:34

Three key messages of well, we could, we could. I'm sure there's more than three, I'm sure there's more than three, but let's, let's think of three. I like three is a great number. Yeah, well, I would say. I mean, the first one is just to eat more plants. Yeah, and you know, I think the easiest way for me to help people do that is just to have them take their normal foods, their normal meals, and start to crowd things out that aren't made from plants and put more plants in.

Speaker 3: 18:04

And I think fajitas are a great example. So if somebody's got, you know, a chicken or a beef fajita, why not have smaller and smaller portions of the meat? Start to add more and more of the veggies, whether it's, you know, peppers or onions or corn. Start to add some beans in, because we know how helpful you know all the legumes are, and start to crowd out those animal-based products until eventually you're like I don't really need that anymore, mm-hmm, and that way it doesn't feel like you're starting all over. You take things that you know and you start to make them more and more plant heavy until they just become, you know, a totally plant-based meal. So I think eating more plants is probably the number one message.

Speaker 3: 18:58

The next message would be that I think that the chapter I can't remember which chapter it is right now but DNA is not destiny. Yes, I think a lot of people get tied to blaming their DNA for their situation. So they might say obesity runs in my family, diabetes runs in my family, heart disease runs in my family, and I think it's important to remember that all of those families, they share the same pantry, they share the same refrigerator, they share meals, and so you know, try a different meal and see if you can change your health outcome, because we well know now that that's a very effective approach to dealing with things, because we can turn our genes on and off with our food choices, mm-hmm. So I think eating plants, your DNA, is not your destiny. And probably another good one is just that that you should play the long game. Like, don't expect that you can reverse your diseases in a short period of time. You know a week or two, because it didn't take a week or two for them to develop Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:24

There's an Amazon Prime meme sorry to interrupt you that says you know your body is not Amazon Prime, like it'll take more than two days for you to change your body. I mean, it didn't take you two days to get to where you are right. So give yourself some grace and some time.

Speaker 3: 20:42

Yeah, and you know there's just there's so much noise out there that you need to cut through. There's a learning curve you need to be on and you know you're not always gonna have the best choices available, correct. So I like to tell people consider it as a spectrum and you've got good, better, best. You know you wanna avoid things that are, you know, health hindering, that you know, we know are damaging to the body. But then you know, as long as you're somewhere on a spectrum, so you know if you have to, you know choose white pasta or white rice over.

Speaker 3: 21:17

You know the whole grain version, you know that's okay, you know, that might be the situation that you're in or what you prefer right now in your journey to becoming a more whole food eater. So I think I think Beth's my were you the one who said grace. I think that's a nice yes. Yeah, give yourself some grace as you make the transition.

Speaker 2: 21:40

Yeah, and I'd also loved your carbohydrate section of the book. Anyway, I think for all of our viewers and listeners, definitely grab a copy of the book because it had great messaging, like I said. I mean it's debunking the myths in a very playful way, right? So the carbohydrates I think that was my biggest thing as I was going, and Daphne is like carbohydrates aren't bad, vesemay, and I'm like really, are you sure? Because I was told, cut them out at night, cut them out at night so you could get cut that more. You know more lean. And it's true, you know it's. And then one other thing I'm so sorry I'm not going to give all the secrets of your book, I promise, but it was the saturated fats in meat and how you can see the marbling in red meat, but you don't see that saturated fat marbling in chicken, and so everybody thinks how chicken is so lean for you? And it's like no, because you're not really seeing all of what's in it, right? So I found that very interesting.

Speaker 3: 22:42

Yeah, they're the same color. You know, when things are the same color they hide pretty well.

Speaker 1: 22:46

Exactly.

Speaker 3: 22:47

It's one of the five, right yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:51

Inbrik, we want to talk a little bit about your Quick Cooks apps and I want to share your how to Go Vegan website. But before we go there, I just want to go back to the fact that your DNA is not your destiny, because we all, you know, one of the things that Vesame and I have spent a lot of time talking about is community health equity the fact that there are. There has to be a multi-generational change. So families pass on food, pass on behaviors, lifestyles and looking at all of the pillars of lifestyle medicine the nutrition, the exercise Can you just touch on? We focus a lot on perfectly planted on nutrition, but our four pillars are actually aligned with the pillars of lifestyle medicine. Can you touch on how those also impact your ability to prevent, reverse or manage disease?

Speaker 3: 23:51

Sure, sure, yeah, I think you know, starting with a mindset of being prepared. I think being prepared and having a plan and knowing you know what your meals are gonna be, what your movement's gonna be, what your sleep habits look like, you know when you're gonna, you know interact with family friends, you know be social like sort of having an all-encompassing sort of routine set into your days really helps to make that more automatic, because we wanna decrease the amount of decisions that we make every day. I'm sure most of probably your viewers, have heard of decision fatigue. So we want to make sure that you know we create habits and routines and that they become automatic and that's really how we, you know, live our healthiest lives. So for my clients, as far as planning, I like for them to put together a menu. You know what their meals are gonna look like for the week and usually it's just dinner and then you can use that same meal plan every week or have two or three that you rotate through, you know, each month, and I think that's really helpful because it reduces anxiety when you already know what you're gonna have for dinner and then just making sure that your pantry, your fridge, your freezer are stocked with good, healthy foods that are your sort of go-tos. That also is gonna, you know, reduce anxiety, decrease your stress, and you're gonna be making healthy choices. So it's all gonna start to, you know, build on itself and you know it becomes, you know just, it's so empowering once you get the hang of it and you're like I've got this and you know these are my choices. They make me feel great. You know I'm reversing my disease processes.

Speaker 3: 26:03

I'm, you know, getting healthy it's and then building movement into your day.

Speaker 3: 26:10

So, knowing that you're either gonna get up and do, you know, 20 minutes of yoga before you start your day, or your day is jam-packed and you know your Vesemay and you're gonna walk around the soccer field while your kids are at practice, you know Like you've got a plan for how you're gonna move at some point in your day and then you're gonna get to sleep on time.

Speaker 3: 26:35

You're going to have a bedtime and a wake time that are very routine, because when you shift those it typically throws people off and it's not as restorative as you would hope. So you know, having a set bedtime, a set wake time and if you know that things are gonna change, adjust the other end accordingly. So if you know you've gotta get up early to go to a soccer tournament, you know over the weekend you're gonna go to bed a little bit earlier than night before and try to really carve that into your schedule. So I think planning is one of my key mindsets for people that is very helpful for you know, really allowing all of the pillars of lifestyle medicine to come together.

Speaker 2: 27:28

So I am very interested what does a day in the life of Dr Brooke Basard look like for you and primarily what you know? I'm sure you get each one of those, the pillars in. So your activity, your movement, your you know meal preps or whatever it may be in, but really interested to see when it comes to, like nutrition, that physical activity, your sleep, how do you reduce your stress specifically, Well, I would say, once everything else has died in, the stress really comes down, like I feel like, since I've been plant based.

Speaker 3: 28:12

I have been so much less stressed than before, and maybe that's partly because I love what I'm doing now and I feel like it's so effective and the people that I see every day are so happy because they're getting healthier. So you know it all sort of. You know feeds on it, so you know feeds on itself. But I would say you know my body pretty much wakes up at the same time every day without even setting an alarm, and so usually you know I'm up, usually you know between 5.30 and 6., and I love oats. So usually for breakfast it's either overnight oats or I'm making oats or I'm making granola out of oats, something like that. And then movement. I do like to get movement in earlier in the day when possible. I feel like my body feels better when.

Speaker 3: 29:10

I moved earlier, and sometimes it's just, you know, a 20 minute sort of yoga, stretch, kind of movement. Sometimes it's a walk with my dog, you know. Sometimes it's a strength training session. Try to do that, you know, at least two, if not three, times a week, because we all know how important it is to maintain our muscle mass as we age.

Speaker 1: 29:31

Exactly.

Speaker 3: 29:32

Good for so many things, including our bone health and, you know, our endocrine health from a diabetes standpoint. But let's see some movement. And then lunchtime is often leftovers from the fridge, from a prior night's dinner, if not a lot of times. I'll just make a veggie sandwich or avocado toast, something like that. And then let's see, the afternoons are pretty busy between seeing clients and getting my kids where they need to go. My youngest son he's got his learner's permit but he's not driving yet, so I still have driving duties in the afternoons. But then the evenings we always eat family dinner together, which has been shown to be great for everyone not just the kids, but for the adults too.

Speaker 3: 30:34

It's a great way to connect and socialize with your family. So for dinners, we do a lot of, I would say, Tex-Mex. We do flatbread, we do lentils.

Speaker 2: 30:52

Is everybody plant-based in your family, like your boys? Yes, okay.

Speaker 3: 30:57

Yeah, so that has been great, because I do know that when I work with clients and they are solo on this journey, it is so much harder.

Speaker 1: 31:07

It is, it's so much harder.

Speaker 3: 31:09

But I think when I went through the process of learning about plant-based meals and just the effect of eating plants on our health, I really just said to the family I can't feed you anything other than plants at this point. Like it doesn't resonate with me to do that and I'm just gonna have to ask you to bear with me. You'll make it to the other side, and they did very quickly. I mean, there was really no pushback and we transitioned over. It was probably over the course of a year or so, because I was in the learning process.

Speaker 3: 31:49

So I was learning about meat and then I was learning about fish, and then I was learning about eggs, and then I was learning about cheese and dairy. And I would just tell them and they were young at the time, they were seven and 10, when I transitioned them to a plant-based diet Wow, okay, yeah, but they were very understanding and I just said, okay, so, boys, here's what I learned about milk today, and this is why I can't bring dairy products into the house anymore and they were like oh okay, mom, I would say there are very few members, even of my extended family, who aren't totally plant-based at this point.

Speaker 1: 32:32

Wow.

Speaker 2: 32:33

Yeah, that's fantastic, yeah, so that's all you know, hats off to you, because that's to be able to. I get a lot of pushback, and not specific to my family, but it's like you know, it's so ingrained in our culture and our lifestyle. It's where the first question out of everyone's mouth is well, how do you get your protein? And I know you talk about that in your book as well. It's the first question everybody asks. You know it's like, oh my goodness.

Speaker 3: 33:06

Fesame, that's why it's chapter one. Yeah, plant-based protein too.

Speaker 2: 33:10

you know Like hello, let's talk about that yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:15

But, Fesame, I know we were talking last night about the fact that you're already pulling together some of Dr Bessard's recipes and Dr Bessard just wanted to you to share a little bit about your Quick Cooks app. And then I think Fesame has a food question. She wants to ask you if you have a few more minutes.

Speaker 3: 33:35

Sure, sure. So Quick Cooks is an app that I created maybe three or four years ago now in response to. I was teaching a few classes for like senior learning with a community college out in Carroll County and I had a fair number of people in the class who were widows and they were just not excited about making meals for themselves. And then at the same time I had another group that were college students and they were like well, we don't have access to much in a kitchen or tools or places to store a lot of ingredients or spices. So I thought I'm gonna put together an app where people can literally go in, pick what kind of meal they want whether it's breakfast or dinner, or just make smoothies or soup or whatever and then they just pick one appliance whether it's the microwave, the stove, the slow cooker, the pressure cooker you choose one appliance might be the blender and you can make your own food and you can make your meal with just a few ingredients with that one appliance and you're done.

Speaker 2: 34:57

I love that. That's perfect. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 3: 35:02

So that's how Quick Cooks came about, and I use Quick Cooks still all the time, like I'll have a night where I thought, oh gosh, I did not plan anything or I thought I was gonna have leftovers last night, but everybody ate all of it, yeah, so I'll just pull up Quick Cooks and make the three bean chili or Tex-Mex bowl or the loaded sweet potatoes or whatever it is, and they're super simple and I've got granola recipes on there, so it's great at breakfast and at dinner and I think it's just a real easy resource for people and it's free, so that's always good.

Speaker 2: 35:43

I will be downloading that today and on my kids' phones as well, so they can be more self-sufficient, especially during the summer months. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:52

I think that's a great idea, because teaching kids how to cook is definitely a deficit in our society, and it's not the unhealthy like put a breakfast sandwich in the microwave.

Speaker 2: 36:03

It's a let's get you the healthy thing to eat. That's quick, Right, Better choices, Okay. So my question to you is what? You have a ton of amazing recipes on your website and we will post all of this in our show notes and also on our blog, but what are the top three? We'll stick with three again. What's the top three recipes that you either is your favorite or that you tend to make frequently?

Speaker 3: 36:31

Okay, well, just before we got on this call today on the podcast, I had just made breakfast cookies and I would say breakfast cookies have been the most popular recipe on my website forever.

Speaker 2: 36:47

Okay, no good.

Speaker 3: 36:48

When people make them, they hear about it. Yeah, they're so good. I often quadruple the batch. Oh yeah, I make 48 at a time and I just stock them in the fridge and the family just eats them, either for breakfast or snack, for dessert, whatever it is. They're delicious, they're healthy, they're easy. You can freeze them. So if you make a big batch but you're like, oh, we're not gonna eat all these in time, I just freeze them. I don't leave them on the counter for too long because they're so delicious that bacteria like them as well. Okay, so keep them in the fridge. In the fridge, got it? Yeah, if you have stuff that's highly processed, it can stay on the counter longer.

Speaker 2: 37:34

Yeah, for months, For months. I remember we came back from our trip a month and I was like, wow, this doesn't have any bacteria on it and I'm like it should go in the trash.

Speaker 3: 37:48

Exactly Gary, yes, okay. So then, as far as dinner recipes, I would say the kidney bean quinoa burgers are one of my favorite.

Speaker 1: 38:01

Okay.

Speaker 3: 38:03

Again, you can make a large batch, you can put them in the fridge and you can either eat them for dinner and put them on a bun and put your condiments on slices of fresh tomatoes and romaine lettuce. But sometimes you will just see me walk through the kitchen, reach into the fridge, grab a kidney bean quinoa burger and just eat. Yeah, yeah, they're delicious when they're cold. I love them and they're pretty easy to make. Okay, and then a third. I would say the lentil mushroom taco meat. So we'll go back on your dinner one more time, although, okay, we're gonna have to do four, because I do realize that we definitely need to point out but lentil mushroom taco meat.

Speaker 3: 38:53

When I have guests over who aren't plant-based and I make a taco bar that could be either tacos or burritos or whatever, I make this lentil mushroom taco meat and it's it, you know, is the substitute for ground beef and it is delicious. It's so delicious. Sometimes I throw in walnuts also just to give it a little extra crumble. Yeah, on the website I had the lentil mushroom taco meat, because when I'm really helping people try to reverse obesity and diabetes, I try to get a lot of fat out of their diet just while we're getting fat out of their cells. But you know, once you reach your optimal, you know healthy weight for your body, then I think you know you have more leeway for you know adding things like walnuts back in.

Speaker 2: 39:47

Yeah, I love this. It has no oil in it. No, it's delicious too, it's very easy.

Speaker 3: 39:53

So easy. Okay, so we got to go to the dessert section. Right, can't forget dessert, can't?

Speaker 2: 39:59

forget dessert. Everybody likes a good dessert, I mean the breakfast cookies were really breakfast, not cookies, so we got to go to dessert.

Speaker 3: 40:08

But honestly, you could eat these desserts for breakfast too, because you know, like the black bean brownie. That's what I'm making, and you know who doesn't want to get their legumes in in the morning. Right, that's right. So you could eat those for breakfast. But I would say we don't want to overlook the flourless chocolate chip chickpea blondies.

Speaker 1: 40:32

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 40:34

So I made these. One time I had a client who I was going over to his house every Sunday for two to three hours and we would do meal prep for the week. Like I really didn't even know how to cook, so I was teaching him how to cook and we were doing the meal prep, and you know, it was breakfast, lunch and dinner. We were stocking his fridge, and so one day I brought over these flourless chocolate, chocolate chip, chickpea, brownies or blondies and I just put them on the counter and you know, it was probably around noon time.

Speaker 3: 41:02

I was getting ready to leave and a son came down who was in high school. He's like, oh, what's this? And I was like, oh, just some blondies I made. And so he started eating him. He ate that half of the pan and then he went on his way wherever he was headed and his dad goes. Don't ever tell him those which, because that's why I'm gonna get him to eat, you know, you know chickpeas. Now I was like, okay, I'll do that, that's great. So, yeah, so those are some of my favorites, but I'm making my grocery list.

Speaker 2: 41:37

I'll be in the kitchen today, if you want to find me. I'll be All this delicious food.

Speaker 1: 41:43

The amazing thing is most of these items people have in their pantry.

Speaker 2: 41:46

Yes absolutely.

Speaker 1: 41:47

Can of black beans, a can of lentils, a can of chickpeas, I think.

Speaker 2: 41:53

I just need to pick up some dates. I think that was the one, because I already checked out the website. So we've gone through. You have a lot going on, brooke. We have the Quick Oats app. That's for quick, easy one. It could be a microwave, a blender, whatever where people could use that, so that's a free app. Go to the App Store Quick Oats app. Then there's also your Quick Cooks Sorry about that Quick Cooks app and then there's a website how to go, vegan website, your main website, plants over animals. And then the book. Chew on this. You are a busy lady.

Speaker 1: 42:36

Brooke, as we wrap up today, perfectly planted. One of the our tagline is deeds of positivity and empowerment. Would. Is there anything positive and empowering that you would like to share with our audience watching or listening today?

Speaker 3: 42:54

There are so many things that are positive and empowering. Yes, I would say. I would say the most empowering thing to know about transitioning to a plant-based diet is that it's never too late. Some people think, oh, I'm in my 50s, I'm in my 60s, I'm in my 70s, you know it's too late. Like I should have started this when I was much younger.

Speaker 3: 43:18

The change is remarkable. The body's ability to heal is so remarkable. It does not take very long. Just have a little bit of patience. Give yourself. I mean, if you give yourself 90 days, you will be amazed by the difference. I mean, within a week or two you'll start to feel different. But if you're trying to reverse disease, you know it really doesn't take. You know very long at all compared to. You know the amount of time it took to get there. Exactly. It's possible and you will feel so amazing and you will feel so in control. You won't feel dependent on a prescription pad and somebody to fill out that prescription pad. Like you can make these choices. You don't need anybody's permission. You can just go out there and you know, choose healthy foods and change your life.

Speaker 1: 44:18

Drop the mic, choose healthy foods and change your life. That's as it all. Well, dr Prasar, thank you so much for joining us on Perfectly Planted. It's the problem that we have is actually not we could go through every single chapter. We enjoyed your book that much and I definitely encourage anyone listening or watching today to go out to Amazon. You can get the Kindle version now. The paperback copy will be coming soon and this book is something that you can share it with your teenagers, with family, friends. It is so easy to read and all of the points are so digestible that I would digestible in food. That pun intended and not intended that I would encourage you to go out and pick up a copy and to share the learnings with anyone who may listen. Super, thank you.

Speaker 3: 45:13

Thank you both so much. It was great talking to you today.

Speaker 1: 45:17

And I also want to thank everyone listening and watching today. We appreciate you. If you're new to Perfectly Planted, we hope you'll come back and listen on a future episode. And if you are enjoying Sunday Seedlings, please feel free to like, subscribe, turn on that bell so that you can get notifications when we'll be hosting another live stream or posting another recording. And if you like our channel, please like or subscribe to us on YouTube. We hope to hear from you on our blog. Please know that you are cared for, you are appreciated and we hope that you are able to take a few seedlings away and apply them to reaching your optimal health. Take care and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, bye.