PlantStrong At-Home Chef Experience | Interview with Rip Esselstyn from PlantStrong

and woman you are man and your god yeah i mean you it well we'll talk about it absolutely hey everybody and welcome to chef aj live i'm your host chef aj and this is where i introduce you to amazing people like you who are doing great things in the world that i think you should know about today we have a legend on the show he comes from plant-based royalty and they've all been on the show so far at least his mom his dad his sister we're trying to get his other two brothers to come on he really needs no introduction he is rip esselstyn we're going to rip today aren't we rip i hope so you and i know no other way of doing it well i'm so excited you're here and you were scheduled a long time ago but you had to cancel because of surgery do you want to talk about that and are you okay now yes yes no i uh i did i had to have uh surgery on my ankle i for many of you that know or don't know i'm an avid uh athlete i did triathlons for a long long time and i love getting out i mean austin has become so ridiculously crowded the roads that um i've taken to mountain biking and i love getting out in nature going on these trails where you have to be completely dialed in mentally and i've been biking these trails behind my house for over 30 years now aj and i just hit this one ledge and i hit a rock on the way down and there had been some rain the night before so it was very slippery and so my tire went out from under me my right foot i unclipped it from the pedal but it got snapped just the wrong way between the rock and the bike and i torqued the dickens out of it and snapped my lower fibula near the ankle and had to be carried out uh and uh went in and had to have surgery ultimately um i had a plate eight pins and it was it's it was awful it was absolutely awful and i was i was i was either on crutches or on a little you know a little cart that you put your leg in uh on i think i've seen you in one of those aj yeah but but i was on that thing off my leg for almost four months so how did you know i'm just curious because did that i mean some people like that would completely derail their health like they'd go not being able to exercise they eat a bunch of crap and gain weight how did you deal with especially you're so active how did you deal with four months of four weeks of inactivity well i was going bananas and so uh after so i had to have you know had an incision because of the surgery and the doctor told me don't i don't want you swimming until that incision is completely healed up otherwise it can get infected and we don't want that so i went on amazon and i bought this rubber leg like a sleeve that you can put on your leg and then you basically it's like a vacuum you can suck all the air out of it and it sucks down onto your leg it was the damnedest looking contraption but i bought that and so four days after the surgery i was swimming without the doctor knowing about it and and every day i would do between 50 and 100 pull-ups um i was not gonna let my body atrophy and go to hell and of course you know i continue to eat great um so yeah but so i was down for four days and then after that i was swimming every day doing pull-ups um push-ups whatever i could whatever i could do so many people would just use that as a reason i know i would probably but you it's like it's like almost like being active is in your dna i mean you're the son of an olympic athlete and who also by the way had a bike accident that required surgery well he did he did he had a different kind of bike accident uh yeah where he hit a branch on a road bike and went down hard and oh man broken collarbone ribs uh concussion yeah not pretty you can't keep the esselstyns down though well hopefully not hopefully not we'll we'll keep getting back up hopefully well you're looking good so i'm so glad that you're feeling better and you've been up to a lot of great things since i've last seen you podcasts products and because people keep saying where do we get the engine 2 products so tell them because they're available now i know i know well it's interesting so you know i had this licensing agreement with whole foods for a decade uh and that decade uh ended um just like a couple months ago right january of going into 2021 and so the engine 2 products are really no longer right they've been discontinued from whole foods so they've turned the product line back over to me and so i'm pivoting and i am now turning everything engine 2 to plant strong and we're upgrading everything we're we're keeping the same nutritional kind of rigors but we're also upgrading the the flavor profile and everything uh we'll be going into retail stores starting with whole foods in august of 2021 uh in it with a very strict um surgical focused um strategy at soups broths chili's and and and brought bra soups chilis and stews and then we have an online store where we still have some of the heritage engine 2 products the the big bowl cereals the granolas the pizza crusts that that people just would you know we're crawling through glass to get and so you can order those now those are still available and we'll be upgrading all those in the next two or three months their granolas are going to be insane the big bowl cereal we're going to organic oats we're going to be adding dates which you love love dates love it i love what's your what's always been your best seller uh believe it or not our best seller has been the no salt added veggie stock how crazy is that that one single skew i'll i'll show it to you this right here this one sku right here was the best seller yeah because i've seen people use it i've even seen chef darshan i use it on on her cooking demos so yeah i know it's it's it's a really great uh veggie broth but we're gonna be we're gonna be uh adding a whole bunch of other bras to the line here and then the big bowl cereals are just always a home run they're the bread and butter of the of the line and then the pizza crusts that you know are so clean however they have four or five ingredients no added oils we do have a little itsy-bitsy bit of maple syrup in those but uh that's about it that's incredible but i need to tell you chef aj that this has been one of the hardest years of my life um you know we all kind of are put to the test and obviously we've had covid that we've all been dealing with i had the broken ankle but i also um you know i left the nest of whole foods after 10 years which was an amazing 10 years as an ambassador promoting the the whole food plant-based lifestyle uh doing the food line with whole foods and then you know after 10 years that was up it was time for me to move on and i'm like wow and that's when i decided to tackle this this food business and it is hard food is hard if you're trying to like put out products and get them into read you know grocery retailers and do e-commerce i can't even tell you how hard it's been and how much money it's taken but i tell you i think i'm there but it's taken quite a team uh all the resources the ingenuity the entrepreneurship the thinking outside the you know the proverbial box it has been absolutely brutal but um i think it's going to be well worth it nothing hard i mean nothing easy nothing well worth it comes easy and this has not been easy wow that's a great well we have the links on the show notes for all the places you can buy it but you have something coming up for valentine's day which i think is around your birthday isn't it how did you know my birthday i don't know i want to say it's like i just think it's around valentine's i just i seem to remember that you're around valentine's day i don't know why it is it's february 16th okay yeah yeah so have you ever heard of the chef's garden i haven't tell us about it so the chef's garden it is um they grow some of the most amazing produce on the planet it's they do it through regenerative agriculture um it was founded in 1956 and these two amazing brothers have taken over the business from their father who passed away about a year and a half ago but they grow all kinds of microgreens green leafies potatoes carrots parsnips you name it i mean literally this it is the most probably premium uh produce on the planet they service walt disney all the five-star michelin restaurants around the globe and um they reached out to us because about 80 percent of their business basically dried up because of coved and the fact that people aren't eating out at restaurants and so i flew down there um we had i did a podcast with bob and lee they're the two brothers that run the the the place and i was just so blown away with them and they also have a place on the grounds called the vegetable culinary institute and they have an amazing chef there named chef jamie um samson and we just decided to put together this plant strong extravaganza mystery valentine's dinner for two and i'm going to share with you and your audience right now what it is because you might be able to chime in since you're such the chef so for for our it's a four course the first course is a caramelized parsnip soup i have have you ever had a parsnip soup i haven't but the fact that you said caramelized you had me right there anything caramelized it's going to be more delicious yeah had to be caramelized i know and it and i mean there's not one drop of oil right in in any of these these dishes you blacken the you know black and caramelized the parsnips you throw it in the uh throw it in some you chop it up throw it in some water and then you throw it in the vitamix blender with some almond milk anyway it's it's insane and then so that's the the soup then then the salad is just it's they have the most amazing mixed greens so you mix these greens and then we put on three different types of poached beets so we have your typical you know we got your your red ace beets you got candy striped beets and golden beets and then a 3-2-1 dressing the main course is a a roasted carrot potato leek roast right with braised kale and then dessert is a sweet potato masamura i don't know what a masamura is but the whole mango is like it's like is this does this come delivered already as is can you live anywhere or do you make it yourself and they give you components no it comes with all the components because part of it is we want people to make it at home and then it comes with a video right you have access to a video that shows you step by step how to make this with me and and chef jamie in the kitchen doing it but you get recipe cards with everything you get every ingredient you need um and you get to do it for your loved one that sounds like a fun thing it'd be even fun to cook with your significant significant other yeah would it would i mean i think i think you're right it's the best way to do it is if you can get your your valentine to jump in and do it with you get in the kitchen so many people are saying how great it is to see you and there's a question will there be will your products be available anywhere other than whole foods yeah because some people don't live near a whole foods or have one in their community yep starting in january of 2022 they will be um available just about at as many natural grocers as we can get into uh in a way that is responsible and is monitoring the cash flow of the company right so so that yes but we'll be going into you know the wegmans and hopefully the publix's and uh the sprouts of the world as well um but again i want your audience to know that almost if they want the widest assortment and variety just go to plant strong foods and it's drip it's shipped direct to your door that's great because a lot of people are saying that they missed the product so they're happy that you're doing them again and that you're doing well yeah yeah yeah yeah i don't know if this is i should have asked you before because if i'm asking a question that you're not comfortable talking about but you know i love your parents and your whole family but your dad is so dear and when people criticize him for whatever reason it gets me really upset and i i i just can't do anything about it like when or you know or any of the doctors that have paved the way yeah i don't want to get real specific but you know some of the younger doctors like they know better they haven't done the research like your dad and it just gets me so angry when anybody criticizes your dad and i'm not related i know i know it uh it it definitely steams my clams too for sure right um but i have found that um it doesn't it doesn't do me much good to get all you know bent out of shape and then you know go on a a rant in a rage uh i i tend to stay low as opposed to firing back um and that's you know my father as you know is uh is very he's such a gentleman right he has so much class that he always goes high well everybody else is going low he feels high yeah he always goes high and you know he's like let him throw all the barbs they want you know have they done the 34 years of research do they know what happens when you start introducing olive oil into the diets of people that have had these shots across the bow with heart disease right and it's amazing how with these people that have had you know 30 different stents have had several heart attacks have had angioplasty they cannot get close to the fire without getting burned um and he has had them okay go ahead start introducing some olive oil back into your diet right and literally within two weeks the angina returns um as a firefighter i can tell you it's like hot spots after you put out a fire you got all these hot spots that are all over the place and it's amazing how if you don't put out every single one of those hot spots that fire will reignite and these people have hot spots uh that just you know because they've so abused their their um their arteries and their vessels for decades and decades they don't have the luxury of um that some some of us do with you know not being perfect well also you know the screen behind me is because i'm in the middle of hosting a truth about weight loss summit and even if it didn't harm the vasculature we have an obesity epidemic and so i don't understand how telling patients to eat olive oil in any way shape or form is going to help with that well i know well there's there's certain people that are really clinging to the olive oil and that it's got beneficial substances in it and i'm sure that it does have trace amounts of right vitamin e uh and some other things but as you and i [Music] know so well aj since we've been in the uh in the fray here for god you've been in it for uh 30 40 years i've been in it for almost 30 years that olive oil it's it epitomizes uh just you know empty calories and it doesn't have a shred of really anything that's beneficial you know absolutely absolutely well that's what i love about you because you're just you're not just plant i mean you're plant's strong but you know you kind of are plant perfect you really are well i'm not i'm not as plant perfect as some of my dad's patients so you know i do tofu i do tempeh i'll do seitan with my kids right i um i do avocado i do i do walnuts obviously i you know occasionally i'll do some ground cashews on some of my casseroles or to make a creamy dressing i'll do the cashews um so but but you're not eating them because you feel you'll have some deficiency if you won't eat them because you're like oh no no yeah totally totally that's what i love about the esselstyns they're the they're the best i need you to know something because i haven't seen you in probably has it been like three years i think it's been because i moved i moved out of la two years ago so it has to be at least three years yeah you moved into that fantastic house of yours no i'm so happy cause i live in an apartment my whole life i mean i'm like 60 i need to live in a house before i die you deserve it man everything you've done all the books and everything man bring it on but i'm i'm feeling i'm feeling passion and and do you know what my father said pat says passion is do you know no what does he say passion aj it's a feeling you feel when you feel you're about to feel a feeling you've never felt before and it's happening right now nice [Laughter] do you remember the first time you came over for dinner with your mom and she ate so much that she had to lie down on the floor of course but that's because you know you know you know exactly how to um appeal to the essel sentence oh my god that was so you had like seven different dishes you know we were trying this we were trying that we were trying this and then you had some just the most insane desserts because that's when you were really into desserts that's when i was really fat too so not so much anymore but yeah it was just such a lovely evening it was so your mom just cracks me up and remember another walk down memory lane you and your dad were speaking it was father's day in the early 2000s and you were oh my god excuse me for interrupting but this is the largest super chat donation i have ever had you have brought me so much luck thank you vernon jefferson oh my god i'm so appreciative see brit you brought me the best luck this is the biggest donation i i do this show for free i don't ask for donations but apparently there's this button on youtube that people are right so thank you riff so we were speaking at like an outdoor event you and your dad and your mom had slipped on a piece of fruit and broke her hip and but we didn't know it was broken at the time it was a kiwi yeah see that's why kiwis that's funny it was the vegan world festival out in l.a yeah yeah no it was so it was so awful but but what was interesting about it not the fact that she broke her hip but when she was on the on the gurney because you were you and your dad were still trying to continue your lecture because she wanted you and she was just just like just like a mother just like bragging about you you know my son's a you know she was just talking about you but the the coolest part because i was there with her like they were saying how old are you and i think at the time maybe she was 75 or 77. 77 do you have any medical conditions no are you on any medications no i mean how many 70 year olds can say that right yeah yeah i mean no neither ann or essie are on any medications and they're you know 85 and 87 respectively but they i always tell people they epitomize what your 80s can look like if you embrace this lifestyle right if you're eating this way if you're consistently uh really on a daily basis engaging in some sort of exercise weight-bearing um movements uh we can all have it it's not it's not it's not just to the you know select few you know i had nelson campbell on the show the other day and i had this idea because i'm starting to do theme shows and i thought wouldn't it be great to have the esselstyns and the campbells on the same show kind of do like a family feud game between them and see who would win like plant-based trivia well you are the trivia master yeah so that i think that would be really fun so yeah so you know you started a podcast tell us about that do you enjoy doing it i do i mean you know it's it's it's a lot of work as you know right um but it's called the planet strong podcast i'm in my third season now i have desperately wanted you on and we've come this close to making it happen um especially before covid when i only would do it in person um but now that you know i'm doing them and the the guest doesn't have to be in person i know i'll be able to get you so that'll be fun absolutely that'll be fun yeah and and season and so i've had and every season has had a different theme season one was around a new york city firefighter named joe inga who was overweight pre-diabetic was in jeopardy of losing his job and reached out just in a in an email to me saying hey you know can you help me out i've i really need to need to make this lifestyle stick and so every guest that i had on was basically to help joe inga so whether it was my father whether it was the cher's eyes you name it and it was a lot of fun season two was more of the kind of the trailblazers in the movement this season season three is kind of i'm having people and we're talking about their galileo moment when when they actually looked through that telescope and saw the truth about plant-based nutrition um and i just i've just got this season three uh kind of going right now a couple weeks ago i had um dr christie funk who wrote uh you know breasts the owner's manual have you had her on your show she had her on and she's coming on again in april to promote uh some kind of summit she's doing she's amazing yeah yeah so yeah i mean wow i mean you know angelina jolie and and cheryl crows you know uh surgeon um yeah and she's she's she's something else um let's see tomorrow i i've got an episode it's it's with um the barretts and these they used to be poultry farmers and now they're turning all their poultry farm into a mushroom farm which is really really cool um yeah yeah somebody but but the it's it's funny i mean as you know aj it's a whole another um art form and is listening and asking questions and i've probably done a hundred now of these and um you just kind of i it's so interesting and we could talk about this but you know i when when it was when i was just starting out i would have like every question written down right and then i realized that i just i wasn't present i wasn't in the moment and it wasn't as natural and so i really feel like i've grown as an interviewer and i just have like two or three like top line questions and then i try to just dive in and keep it as natural and free-flowing as possible and i find that's usually when the magic happens yeah well listening is an art form yeah it is and it is i don't know if you remember you know chevy chase tried doing his own talk show and it bombed he just he didn't know how to listen he didn't know how to like you know move aside and uh and not be the star of the show right i mean our job our job really is to just kind of ask really great questions and let the person our guest shine and radiate out that's how i feel i think when you can't see the guests it's harder so even though you're not doing it in person are you visually looking at the guests when you're interviewing them oh 100 yeah yeah because that's really hard because otherwise you can excuse me like i just interrupted you if you don't see them sometimes you don't know when the break is and when to talk yeah no i i'm trying to think i've done a couple where it's audio only and i haven't been able to see them but not very many when i've been on their show but when when it's when they're on the planet strong podcast we're always looking each other yeah yeah there's too many cues that you pick up right when you're looking at somebody and just their body language and what's going on with their eyes yeah dai says would you consider making your food products organic she'd be willing to pay more fantastic question and all of the new stuff that's going into retail stores and that will be available online is going to be organic everything now i will tell you that there's going to be a couple things like the cereals and the granolas that we just can't we right now we just can't get it organic but my my goal is to evolve everything uh to be organic but for starting out pricing and all these other things that you have to take into the equation um it just didn't make sense in some of these products but it's a goal absolutely great i i obviously with kovid you can't be doing your in-person events so you've taken a lot of them online haven't you and maybe you expect to do them by next year again in person yeah yeah it's funny i mean um we all of our medical immersions aj our annual plan stock event all these things uh basically just got scrapped because of covet and so we had to pivot and pivot hard and so we did three virtual events in 2020 we did a spring plant strong primer event that was very well attended we'd had our annual plan stock event um that uh that we ran from the family farm uh in upstate new york that was an absolute blast and then we had a kitchen rescue event that we that we did in cleveland it was basically just the esselstyn family um and then this year we're planning on doing many more of these kind of um special meals that we're doing in partnership with the chef's garden starting out with the valentines we'll still do our annual plan stock event and then we're planning if you know if it happens on doing our seven-day in-person medical immersion program in sedona arizona in october and then we're also planning on doing some events with some of whole foods um sickest team members in september uh in asheville north carolina um so yes we'll be doing some events that's great i know the answer to this man they asked if you're still a firefighter i know you're not but are you still in touch with the guys from engine 2 oh man so yes i am not a firefighter i've been retired since 2000 september 25th 2009 um so gosh aj i think it's been almost 11 years crazy but i actually was just on a phone call with uh with one of my the guys from station 2 derek zornaman um matt moore i haven't spoken with jr uh probably in about three years but i know he's a captain uh at uh at one of the hazmat stations here in austin another guy scotty walters who was there has since retired he finished out his career in prevention um another guy josh miller retired and he's now going to school for archaeology somewhere but yeah i stay i stay in touch with them as much as i possibly can that's great maybe you'll have a reunion maybe we bring them all on and see see what they're up to seriously i'd love to see that see them all and see how you've changed and influenced their life i love the way your mind works yeah i just don't well i just want to put on good shows for people and that i do you know i say introducing you to people doing great things in the world that's i mean they don't all necessarily have to be plant-based but we prefer if they are yeah you know maybe you could do like it would be so cool if you went into some fire stations and you went in with your diet for one of them and then somebody else went in with something like really stupid like keto and then actually like put them against each other in like fitness competitions and and blood pressure and things like that we know who would win that would be great i mean you're right do a whole lipid panel blood pressures uh see who sucks down the oxygen out of the uh the air tank the soonest that would be so fun firefighters are competitive yeah and so are esselstyns [Laughter] like misty are do you consider yourself competitive yes but not as much as you but yes yeah a little bit because i've been on a lot of game shows i do like playing games and words with friends and so i am but yeah yeah i would say so yeah i think it's i think it's partly genetic dr lyle would say how competitive we are maybe misty says miss rip i miss your big bowl cereal cereal with the banana chips and nuts will you be bringing that flavor back you know that that was my favorite as well unfortunately it was the um it sold it sold the least of all three skus so you know we've got the original that's got the raisins we had the triple berry it's got the blackberries the raspberries and strawberries and we had the banana walnut and the banana walnut was selling like a third of what the other two were so whole foods discontinued it it doesn't mean that i can't bring it back um under the plant strong name and i'm glad you said that because i i will look into it but for starters in in april we'll be coming out with the uh the date raisin and the uh and the triple berry nice well stephanie wants to know of the products that you currently have which are your favorites and what do you eat in general i'm guessing you eat a big bowl every morning yeah so uh well this morning i had the big bowl with so what i do is i take this frozen bag of of berries it's it's got blackberries raspberries and blueberries and i pour like maybe a cup into the bottom of a bowl throw it in the microwave for 45 seconds take it out and then i pour a probably a cup and a half of rips big bowl cereal on top of the frozen berries then i'll slice a banana then i'll put on a small handful of walnuts and then i'll put in usually some ground flaxseed meal some chia seeds and then i do my plant-based milk i usually do almond milk and then i mix it up really really well i let it sit for about two minutes and then i dive in so that's what i had today for lunch today i'm having leftovers and my wife made a lentil oat loaf last night that everybody in our family loves the kids love it i love it and so i'm having that with some mike uh with some broccoli sprouts have you had doug evans on your show he's he's booked i haven't met him yet but he definitely booked so so he just wrote a book called the sprout book and so because of doug i got inspired to grow some um some some broccoli sprouts you know have you heard aj about just the magic that's happening in broccoli sprouts with the sulforaphane well i will dr will be i believe talked about it right well i've had dr will be on my podcast but i can't remember him talking about it but basically in in broccoli but a hundred fifty to a hundred fold in broccoli sprouts you have these substances they're called glucopharynine and my rosinase and when you chew those two basically come together and ignite to form sulforaphane and you know sulforaphane's supposed to be this magic anti-cancer antimicrobial an antiviral you know substance that we all need and uh so i just got inspired after you know and doug is you're gonna see aj is as passionate as you can get about about a topic as they come um but anyway so i got this uh lentil oat loaf from last night's dinner with some broccoli sprouts um and then i also have some pita bread that i'm gonna put all that into um and that'll be my lunch wait did you did i hear any greens for that day yeah the broccoli sprouts oh just the broccoli sprouts okay no kale no kale because you know a lot of i still have my kale shirt from engine too which i love no and then and then last night we i made a big big kale salad and i got leftover kale salad as well i you know i try and eat three to six servings of green leafies a day um and then dinner tonight my wife is gonna make bubbles and mash it's in one of our in one of our books it's basically potato pancakes so we'll have that we'll have some of the leftover salad oh you know what i've been doing lately aj that i am a huge fan of is i take frozen broccoli like in the bags i get two pounds of frozen broccoli florets i'll pour it into a hot skillet not like high high hot but medium high hot and then i just blacken it and i put the cover on top then i'll put on some different spices and i let it brown and black and caramelize so to speak and then the kids just can't get enough of it and it's so simple it's it's simple it's cheap everybody loves it so we're probably doing that i'm not exaggerating four nights a week do you have an air fryer because i do something similar but i just throw the frozen broccoli in an air fryer 20 minutes at 400 and oh my god it's amazing you know what i need so it's funny you say that so uh i was on the um uh the cameron you know james cameron and you know yeah and um and susie cameron well i was on their christmas card list and they you know were sending these care packages like you would not believe and i think it was three years ago they sent me an air one of those air fryers i've yet to use it so should i is it worth it yeah well do you know which one you have is it a big one like a breville or is it a smaller one because you have a big family a round circle it's like it's round okay i i i don't use that one as much i do that for small jobs like roasting garlic but i'm telling you it it probably it's not that you maybe would save time doing it that way but you wouldn't have to babysit it like you would in the skillet and it's it's do the same thing it's really fun air fryer you'll get the same effect and oh my god crispy fries try it really don't don't let it sit on the shelf it's you might really enjoy it but let me circle back around because i got i got distracted with the sulfurophane and stuff let me circle back around to the the question which was what are some of my favorite products um i adore all them i might you know the ones i use the most are the pizza crusts uh these are the cleanest most tasty pizza crusts i think on the market and they're available at planetstrongfoods.com it also comes with us with an engine to approve sauce back kit so it's really you got your sauce and your crust and then you just customize it with what you have on hand for the veggies um the uh the rips big bowl cereal obviously i have six six mornings a week i used to love the raviolis and the burritos but those have been discontinued so i'm not having those anymore we don't have the pasta sauce that's gone um we have the microwavable popcorn that we're gonna be reintroducing that doesn't have any added oil or any added salt so that's that's really nice and clean um a lot of people are asking about the hummus would you be bringing that back you know the hummus no the hummus is not going to be we're not going to be bringing that back it has to be refrigerated and you can't ship that way and we don't differentiate enough from a lot of the other hummuses that are on the shelf right now and when we first went in at whole foods we were the only oil free no tahini for tahini oil free tahini free hummus on the market that i knew of and so we really differentiated but now there's two or three others whole foods is now bringing in local brands that are doing the same thing um so we just there's not enough of a white space there for us i see that makes sense yeah enormous is not that hard to make people it really is and you open up a can of garbanzo beans you put in some lemon some garlic boom you say hummus or hummus i say hummus huh is it is it hummus i thought i i have a friend that says hummus but she is from there so kathy says can you order your products on amazon amazon not yet first first we're only doing it through our own shopify e-commerce site right and we'll be but we'll be um going into amazon later this year but right now right now um it just doesn't make sense we'd be cannibalizing our own um our own kind of shopify site nice laurie says are you fully recovered from your injury and someone else is saying so now what do you do for exercise every day because you are still exercising like a maniac while you were here healing from surgery yeah uh no i am i'd say i'm 90 recovered i still there's still some echoes in the right ankle um but i'm i'm doing everything right now except running right so i'm mountain biking i am uh i'm playing frisbee golf i'm swimming i'm playing tennis because my kid we i live in this community where we got tennis courts and so uh and here in austin the nights are just pristine like 60 degrees so we go we turn the lights on on this community tennis court and we're playing tennis the five of us it is it is a blast have you ever tried pickleball that's my favorite activity yeah so once and i know it's a smaller court it's like a wiffle ball uh different rackets and i love it because i mean i love what i see when i see people playing it because people are in their 60s 70s 80s you don't have to move as much and yet you get all the fun of um of the game of tennis it looks great it's really it's very popular here where i live in the desert here so freya says i've been vegan for five years was 240 pounds and now 185. i get tripped up on the argument of high fat keto i've tried vegan keto and high carb low fat my body is stubborn often i eat very low fat and low carb to see the scale move any advice um so that was kind of a long question can you like paraphrase for me what exactly is it i guess she's saying that she's my body is stubborn i often eat very low fat and low carb i don't know how you could do both um to see the scale move any advice she gets tripped up on the argument of high fat keto she's tried vegan keto and high carb low fat well i i would just tell her that you know keto i don't i just don't know a a world where keto really makes sense especially long term i mean it's a starvation diet as dr clapper likes to say it is a physiologic parlor trick where you're basically tricking your body into burning these ketones going into the fat burning and and it was meant you know back in the day when we couldn't find food and um it literally is is not it was it's not meant for long term it's not healthy uh you know i don't know how shoving down you know chicken beef full fat lard butter you know yogurts dairy is going to be good for anybody's system long term so i would go uh with the low fat high carbohydrate but make sure it's unprocessed carbohydrate uh fruits vegetables whole grains beans not processed and you'll hit a home run and and and be patient with it and you know aj has got i think a whole book on it but you know the count the principles of calorie density and once you master those you should be able to ma master your your weight destiny and i've got a chapter it's chapter four in my seven day rescue program all about uh calorie density from barbara rolls and jeff novick and really the masters that have taught both you you and i yeah i love barbara rolls i just interviewed her for the summit she's amazing and you're right i do have a book about it and it was endorsed by chef aj's food as fun filling and fantastic as she is the first time i ate in her house i had seven of her desserts it's a good thing i live in austin and not l.a you think that's funny listen joel fuhrman wrote he wrote chef aj makes unique and deliciously nutritarian recipes i have eaten her food and lived you guys have a sense of humor are you do you buy your broccoli sprouts or do you grow them yourself because i'm i'm wondering if i've ever seen them in the store no i you know i i bought i bought the mason jars i bought the little seeds it took like four days and it doesn't require really much of anything you just put it in some water flip it over water it once or twice a day and next thing you know you got the broccoli sprouts i gotta watch and maybe when doug's on he'll do a demo and maybe really make it so simple that we'll have to do that oh he will he will but make sure that when you interview him he's in his lab okay i'm gonna write a note for that because i i i you know we learned sprouting in culinary school that's like 20 years ago and when you don't do something you kind of forget so i want to start eating more sprouts so that sounds amazing yeah charlene says will you bring back your veggie burgers i'm guessing no because it sounds like you're not doing any refrigerated products right now well so that was it darlene you said uh charlene darling charlie charlene you know what so that those were some of my favorite products especially the pinto habanero burger it's got the heat in it um those we actually have gone to a new supplier partner a new manufacturer we've got everything teed up and ready to go the problem is and i would love to hear from from you and maybe we'll take a poll is that in order to ship it these are frozen products so they have to be shipped with dry ice in these styrofoam containers or another container with a certain liner and the shipping costs are almost 25 so you could be buying you know a dozen of these for 24 bucks but the price would be close to 50 because of the shipping cost and so it's like are people willing to pay that i don't know and so you know in order for us to make that happen we have to place a minimum order of like 20 000 pounds and so you know it's a song and a dance that we have to do to determine is there enough demand for those burgers and are people willing to pay those shipping costs yeah i know what you mean deborah says can you please tell rip how much i adore his mother i love her cooking show and just find her adorable i agree with that for sure yeah well thank you i um i feel like every day that i get to speak to ann and and um and feel her light and her energy uh and her love uh it's just another day that i realize how lucky i am to have her as my mother she is she's special she's unique there's there's no one like ann she and she's hilarious too i mean she is so fun she really is she she's never lost that that that spirit of play no she she has a youthfulness about her that has never uh waned yeah so connie says so it seems that you eat nuts and your dad says no nuts if you have heart disease but won't it help to prevent heart disease i don't know if not eating nuts prevents heart disease well i i think that uh it all depends upon like i think what we all have in common is that whether it's dr greger whether it's dr fuhrman uh is that the maximum amount of nuts you should have in a day is one small handful right so it's about an ounce or two and i think we all can agree if you are snacking on nuts all day long you got pistachios you got cashews you got all roasted almonds you got peanuts that's that's not gonna do you any any favors now my father he's a stickler because most people don't know moderation and so i think that if people could just do one small handful of walnuts a day he'd be fine with that but he finds that it's easier if he draws a really you know a bright line in the sand to let people know we're not going there we're not going there whatsoever now he does allow some you know ground flaxseed meal and and and different seeds like that but with the nuts i think it's just too easy to overdo it and you know as you know chef aj they're about 2 800 calories a pound so they're calorie dense and uh if we're trying to lose weight reverse disease for some people it's just easier out of sight out of mind yeah absolutely a lot of people are saying they'd pay for the burger shipping and they want you to bring back the chili and crackers that they miss them jacob says so so the chili's the chili is coming back so it's coming back under the plant strong name it'll be called the engine 2 firehouse chili um i i wish i had a rendition i could show you what it's going to look like it's gorgeous but we're also going to have a thai carrot chickpea stew and we're going to have a lentil an indian lentil stew and we're going to have a white bean creamy chili sounds great and so when is the when is the kickoff date for all these products august august and they'll be exclusive in whole foods for three months and then we're allowed to go outside so you should come back when you actually have them and just show them all or you know or or maybe cook something with it like because i think you know showing is even better than just telling so that would be great and i'm assuming we'll still probably have somewhat of a pandemic then so i'll keep doing this show this is a fun question show don't tell that's right randy has a fun question so she says of all your family has a lot of recipes ann and jane and you lots of books what is your all-time favorite of all of them i'm gonna say two i know what one of them is i'm writing it down just so yeah you you write it down all right and then i want you to turn it around so it only you can see it okay all right ready one is the raise the roof sweet potato i got it i knew it all right yeah and then the other the other the other is just going to be the um brown rice and black beans extravaganza right just that simple beans and rice with the veggie relish on top oh my gosh i could eat that every dinner and never get tired of it so how old are your kids now i know you have three two girls and a boy yeah yeah so my youngest her name is hope and she is a wild thing like nobody's business uh and um yeah hope hope is six and then i have sophie who's 11 and sophie is just she is um like almost like too good to be true she's so just uh beautiful um she's very girly and um doesn't cause any trouble and just love her to death and then i have a son cole who's 13. and is a just a sports fanatic uh has these crazy this crazy bouffant of blonde curly hair and everyone that meets them goes oh my god i would die for your hair it is it's it's nutty uh and uh and cole's just a guy's guy is cole spell k-o-l-e k-o-l-e man if you could just change that o to an a you know i know it's so funny lance armstrong texted me about a week ago and said do you still sell those kale shirts and i said yeah why he said because i want to i want to send one to my buddy here's his address i said okay i'll take care of it and then his name was kale i said is that his real name he said yes so there are people out there whose names are kale i had i had a friend and about 25 years ago when she so her son must be about that was his name before kale was was so popular no it's crazy but we do have kale shirts i mean uh and those yeah those we you know we were the first ones to introduce the kale t-shirt into whole foods under the engine 2 brand in 2010 and literally like since then target sells kale t-shirts beyonce came out with her own kale t-shirt um it's hard to trademark that that is neat are you still selling the shirts oh yeah yeah yeah yeah cause i love that i love my blue on the line i love it because it's long sleeves yeah if anybody's interested you just go you go to we're doing it we're doing it with a partner called plant athletic dot com you go to plant athletic and then you can find the kale t-shirts all right plant-based princess says just ordered pizza shells and rips big bowl original can't wait oh nice is it just in the united states though because we have people watching from even the netherlands so i'm imagining it's just in the united states right now for shipping yeah let me you know what let me see if i can get um i mean let me get disk discount codes for people i mean that might be fun uh-huh that'd be really fun yeah code for um e-commerce hurry that's okay they have a question about legumes in your kids yes yes are all your kids plant-based i'm guessing that they don't they they are they love being plant strong kids they wear it uh with a huge badge of honor um they they feel no deprivation whatsoever um and they're not perfect meaning you know they'll do the plant-based you know coconut ice creams they'll do some of the um plant-based crackers uh my son cole loves to be on meat burgers right and i'm not telling him he can't have that um my my daughters like putting the daiya cheese on the pizza when they so we all make our own half of the pizza and they put a little bit of diet shreds on there um so i'm i'm you know my kids don't have to eat the way i do but they are 100 plant-based and and they're they're developing that palette that really loves green leafies and loves legumes they love like my wife the reason she made that lentil oat loaf last night and then she makes all kinds of extra little lentil oat loaf burgers and we freeze those is because our kids gobble them up they're incredible um and uh but yeah their variety their palate is um it's great it's great that's neat yeah yeah maybe they'll come on the show i'd love to meet them i mean that you know what good luck with that one my my my wife is very private with all that stuff and if anybody's noticed on my instagram or anywhere um no kids no kids yeah no okay well maybe one day i'll get to see what they look like just privately because that hair sounds amazing yeah so ma says my son is allergic to legumes peanuts and lentils that we know for sure and so i want to transition the whole family to plant-based diet do you recommend just trying different legumes in small amounts because she says it seemed to be a huge part of eating this way any modifications you would suggest he's 11 years old um so uh yeah i know if there's did you say he had allergies to him legumes yes legumes like legumes yeah um you know i wonder what dr will be would say on that one i'm wondering if it's something where you know you started really small and worked up to it you could build up um kind of build your system up to it would be my guess i would just start really i mean legumes are such a wonderful part of a plant-based diet but if you can't have them uh don't be discouraged i mean there's so many different amazing potatoes that are out there and whole intact grains that you can explore like last night i no the night before last night we had a great faro a great pharaoh dish and we i'm really the kids are loving pearl barley now um and what else you know brown rice quinoa those are basically the four that we're doing now so this might be a tough question i've done you're my 406th show since the pandemic began while i appreciate all of my guests there's a couple of shows that just really i don't want to say favor but you know there's how a couple just kind of stand out as being memorable and i'm wondering if you have found that with your podcast as well absolutely yeah there's there's some where you just i mean the energy's there the flow is there the chemistry is there um the information that is coming out of their mouth is just so profound and awesome um absolutely absolutely i'm trying to are you going to ask me like to name something well no just i was going to say because you know what people are asking where to find the podcast and guys everything is already in the show notes what show notes are is you just look underneath the youtube video if you don't see it refresh your screen you can't see show notes on on facebook so if somebody was starting out like might like if somebody was saying to me i want to listen to dr doug lyle's podcast beat your jeans he's got close to 300 episodes i would say listen to 161 first because that's my favorite so where would somebody start in your podcast uh i would start um well it's broken up into seasons but i would start at season one i think season one is absolutely brilliant and then from there i would just look through season two and season three and see uh i would really love to hear you know what christy funk has to say about breast cancer or uh what the sher's eyes have to say about you know neuro and sleep deprivation um and and and the title pretty much gives you a really good indication of what the show is about um but you know you know how it is you've done 400 i've done you know a quarter of what you've done but um it's funny how at some point they kind of all blur together and if somebody was to ask me to you know tell me about this interview i'd be like oh gosh yeah all right just the one i remember the most is just i i interviewed the wife of jacqueline lane elaine lalaine and i just you know that just always sticks out in my mind it's just because she was so you know like your mom just so precious she's 97 she lifts weights ever you know she's not 100 plant-based but i mean 97 lifting weights every day it's pretty cool that is really cool how do you i i'm impressed i mean how are you getting all these guests most of them contact me uh to be honest and that's why it's such a backlog to get on because that's you know when i first started the show i said does anybody want to be on the show and i'm not kidding i got like 300 people writing me and so finally now we're opening up spaces in june but there's people that i've been trying to get like michael moss who i finally got him to answer and it might be a maybe and he's like the one person that i would just love to interview because i just love his work so much is there anybody that you've been trying to get that just has said no to you well i tried i tried getting michael moss and it's funny because he came to plan stock in person right um and um yeah but like right now i'm trying to get bill nye uh you know that i got jon stewart you know you know john's fantastic yeah right and that's because his wife came to one of our seven day immersion programs and we've we started a relationship there and she is so passionate about all things plant-based and john is so great um i'm trying to think i've got you know who i i'm trying to get right now and i'm actually having a surprisingly hard time is um zach bush yeah he's very hard to get like they'll answer and then they won't you're right he's really really hard to get have you had him i have not i've tried because i really wanted him for the gi health summit but his people just don't seem to respond and it took me years to get barbara rolls to say yes because she's just because she's sort of an introvert and definitely do a lot of interviews right right right well good for you i mean yeah i mean for all your listeners it's so i just want to say that you know uh i have seen how far chef aj has come on this journey and you've always been so supportive of me like when i you know kind of wrote engine two and and i was kind of breaking out and all of a sudden i was the you know the hottest thing on the the plant-based scene and it's amazing how you realize you know you got your time in the sun and then there's a new you know a new like it's it's amazing to see like dr will bolshoits now shining and fiber fuel and everything he's talking about yeah but you're still the hottest one and then you got you know doug evans and the sprout book and you got the sure's eyes that came along with right you know the alzheimer's solution but chef aj you have just plugged plugged along plugged along you've got such an amazing following and your information is so sound and your personality is so you know just vibrant and passionate and fun and again everything that you have is because you've worked so hard for it and you deserve it and it's so great for me to see what you've done and you have your own house now and you know you got this great youtube channel it's spectacular oh well thank you that is so kind a lot of people are concurring rip is very hot rip is very hot yes that's very nice of everybody it's funny like i'm i'm going to be 58 in two weeks and you you know it's like where did the time go where did the time go i can't believe i'm almost 60 years old i know it's oh god 60 was a tough one let me tell you and some mornings i'll i'll look in the mirror and i'll go you're doing good for him and then some some mornings i'll look in the mirror and go oh god you look weathered and you know you're showing your age kid yeah when you were a single firefighter where were women after you the way they i mean you're married now so they can't really go after you but was it the same or is it because just in the plant-based world you really stand out you know um we uh i typically i've never been a big dater and so i i usually dated women for two to three years at a time and then you know at the three-year mark it's like okay are we getting married or not and usually it was okay we're not until i found you know jill back in 2002 and then we got married in 2006. so i didn't get you know i didn't get married until i was almost 44 years old i waited a long time and some of some people's like oh you're gonna be a bachelor your whole life and i was like no i'm just waiting for the right woman nice night well karen says it's your personality that's hot and a lot of people are saying you look like your dad which your dad is really good-looking too uh so i just got i just got something from my team saying that we we don't currently have a discount for the uh the food that expired whatever but we do have we do have an online meal planner um and there's a if they want the two-week free trial the codeword is start fresh start fresh and when you get the products up and running just come back and then if you have something like a coupon for just one day you know we do that but otherwise we still want to see everything you know oh yeah we'll knock it out of the park that'd be a lot of fun yeah nice it has been so fun catching up with you let's not make it three years again so well now will you come on my podcast i would be an honor i mean i couldn't get to la but if you can do it remotely we have zoom and yeah and i have a microphone like you and not maybe not as nice headphones but i got the pop filter so i think it'll sound really good oh yeah no you sound amazing so thank you all right so we'll plan it i'll plan on getting you in march okay oh that'll be so fun thanks so much for if it's and get me your brothers because we've had you know it's not fair we have two esselstyns that have not been on the show you got it you got it we'll talk offline okay yeah all right well thanks so much rip and thanks all of you for watching another episode of chef aj live let's see who my guest is tomorrow that you can come back for oh my god it's my sister-in-law she's my husband's sister and she's a vegan baker and her name is elaine shrewsbury and she's going to be making compliant date bars so that'll be fun thanks again riff it was great catching you anytime

Channel: CHEF AJ

Views: 24,104

Keywords: chef aj, chef aj recipe, healthy, plant based, plant based diet, vegan, plantstrong, whole foods, engine 2, vegan meal kit, podcast, author, rip esselstyn, food addiction

Id: qVeN9TA1Pmw

Length: 62min 18sec (3738 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 03 2021