Introduction and plant-based basics

Welcome back for another great conversation we were about to have with Jane and Ann Esselstyn. How are you today? Great. How are you? I'm good, thank you.

And honestly, the reason I wanted to have you on the segment, because if there's anybody that embodies everything you should be doing to one, help reverse chronic disease but in hypertension obviously falls into that is yoga is like the whole lesson family but you too I love watching on your YouTube channel your books you've inspired so many women and women really make a lot of the decisions in the home regarding their food choices and everything.

So I think the first question would be, how would you even approach this? Let's say someone is ready to go. They want to start the plant based diet. What do they need in their kitchen?

Are there certain recipes or tools like where do you even begin? You just begin. I mean, it really is like how do you begin to write a thank you note to someone?

You just say, Dear so-and-so, you just start, you just do it. And you can make this into a monster. It's not you. I think people often like we've written all these books and whatnot, but I think people, there's no real tricks to it.

People probably eat better than they think to some degree. If you like oatmeal, maybe even have it every day. Maybe people have their eggs and bacon stuff, but if you like oatmeal, go with that. Just stick with it.

Keep having your oatmeal and don't put butter on it. Just put blueberries on it or go with her witch's brew. If you really want to be brave and have her breakfast.

All my life, just do it. Why? Wait a minute Jane, She didn't ask for breakfast. But I will. I'm talking about breakfast. Do you want to here? Yes, ma'am.

Even though she didn't ask about breakfast? No, lady. He'll knock over in the kitchen if you're scared of being plant based. But take it away with the witch's brew. Just saying, start.

I think when you start, you start and. And you just have to decide you're going to do it and you aren't going to drift off. But the best place to start is at breakfast.

And as Jane said, oatmeal is such a key thing because it has so many benefits by and and over the years, I have eaten nothing. I've eaten leftovers from last night.

I love leftovers. And I mean but but there's no the health benefits that I get from my breakfast is so huge that I just recommend everybody start a breakfast that has oatmeal, chia seeds, flaxseed, turmeric in it, and maybe even some ginger.

Get those things in. Kale then mushrooms. Anyway. So tell me about the riches witch's brew. Like what is it? I am intrigued and warrior oats are so good in here.

And it's just what she said. It's steel cut, oats, nutritional yeast, turmeric, a little bit of scratch, a hot sauce, which just not making it hot, but making it not bland.

And then shiitake mushrooms, kale, about two cups cut up, kind of small so you don't have long dribbles. And then my latest that I am crazy about is frozen artichoke hearts just about that.

Are even. Frozen. And they kind of end up being like, is she talking mushroom? They're they're sort of. Just that's. Why. They're kind of that consistency.

So I love I love artichokes. But your question was wonderful. What would you say to people just to start? I mean, really just start. And if you if it helps you, people have different degrees of comfort with change.

So some people just clear out the shelves in the refrigerator. Start with, you know what, using your kitchens, what you're going to eat.

Getting started in the kitchen

Because if it's in your house, as AJ says, it's in your mouth. So I think if people are wanting if they have a tricky household, like they've got kids or other partners or spouses who are not on board, you've got to figure out how you can do it and dial it in for yourself.

And your other family members also have stuff they need in the House. So there's no one answer to that wonderful question, but just begin. Well, one of the things that I have found, too, is that if you if if people are educated, if they understand that I mean, especially if somebody has some health issues, if you really understand I'm not going to eat anything with oil, I'm not going to eat anything with meat or dairy.

And then I am going to read ingredients of everything I buy. Then suddenly you look at this delicious something or other and the second ingredient is oil.

So I'm not going to eat that. I mean, if you kind of make yourself think I'm going to read ingredients and throw out things that don't hit my my new standards.

Yeah. Perfect. No, I honestly just getting started really is like, just go. Really, just go. So what if someone is kind of new to the kitchen skills? Because I think many times we have actually.

But just go. Jane and I don't have. Not been trained. We weren't trained by anyone. We don't have any of the instant pots that we use or all of that stuff, partially because when we're talking to people, we want to be able to talk to anybody.

I mean, people who have the instant pot love it. I mean, they live by it. It's a cult. Do you have one? I don't use one, but my son gave my husband one.

And apparently I was going to see military is creating all sorts of things, curries and that. And I'm like, okay. It's wonderful. But so again, your question is this you're not comfortable just start.

I mean, what frightens me is not trying things in my life, but if you're too frightened to even start, then you're not even going to know. You're not going to get to that thing that you perfected.

You're not going to get to that thing that you didn't work out right. But at least you tried. Like it frightens me that we wouldn't even try. You couldn't even.

Actually give it a go. Oh, really cheap beginning is to get a rice cooker because you can use the rice cooker a little bit. Also the way you use an instant pot because you can put mushrooms and vegetables and onions and you know, I just.

Put the grains in. There. Well, yeah, it takes so long, but you can use that also. Yeah, the nation. So what are your what are your favorite go to recipes like where you're on a really busy day because some people the next thing you always hear is I don't have time.

So what are the what are the ways for you to deal with being busy and the schedule if you especially if you have a family that you're trying to take care of and work.

You know, that. Is a horrible. It's a it's a it's a it's a great question because it's a horrible it's dilemma to wrestle with. So one thing, you can take frozen peas and put them under hot water.

That's done. That's one part. I was thinking. Breakfast. Oh you could have frozen peas. Breakfast. You're talking about dinner. I well it's a busy day.

Any, any day. Busy day. Like how do you do you do bad cooking. Oil or oatmeal doesn't take that long. And if I don't. Eat out, they don't cook it. Just eat raw.

We eat it like Captain Crunch, like auditable and. Safe breakfast forever. Oatmeal, oatmeal and oats. And you just in the car. Eat it. Great. You're full until like, lunch.

I mean, it takes so long to break that stuff down. Oh, my gosh. It's like hammer and chisel break on the oats in your belly. So the two foods that are the most filling are oats and potatoes.

Yeah, so. But. But what people can do to oats. Okay, this is frightening because they can machete up the oats, sort of like pre chewed covered salt and sugar and then strawberry flavoring.

I mean, that is just a frightening way to have out. So we don't mean that. We mean like oats, like out of the like a Quaker oat column where that's called not Quaker Oats.

So I would just say that you don't need to cook your oats, but given the go and and if you'd want cooked oats, what's great and the one thing we did discuss that we both do love is we have a rice cooker and I will when we have guests or something, I don't want to wake up and have them need to get out the door and know where they're going and they have a 5:00 plane or they want to be on the road by eight or whatever.

I want to be an easy time together, so I'll put steel, cut oats in the rice cooker and in ours, ours has a different setting that says porridge on it.

I love it. Sort of a Scottish name for it.

Busy-day meals and easy lunches

And so I'll put on the porridge and they wake up and their steel cut oats are warm and ready. So we also cut oats and they have the blueberries and they are they go, so you can cook oatmeal the night before or you can have it raw.

And as far as lunches, if somebody has a lunch where they're working, great, let's hope it's a good one. Sometimes schools don't bring lunches. You have to you know, it's served or you got to buy or whatever you have to buy.

But if kids take lunches, I often have I would have our kids help make their own lunch. Because if you have one kid or four kids, it's the same amount of time.

If they're doing it themselves, if you have to make all four, that's four times as much or whatever. So engaging them in it helps and there's and I was talking yesterday with somebody about it's astounding how similar recipes can be either incredibly healthier unhealthy like you can take let's talk about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich you can have Wonder Bread with.

There's so many different types of peanut butter out there that are basically peanut butter frosting. They have hydrogenated oil and sugar and sweeteners and blah, blah, blah, and then, oh, some peanut butter, dusty flavoring.

It's it's like but Duncan Hines on that because that's not any it's peanut butter, but it's not peanuts that have been smashed into a peanut butter paste and then you can put on some jelly that's mostly sugar, you know, so you can this white bread with peanut butter frosting and sugary sweet stuff that can be one.

Or you can have like a whole grain bread, like a physical or like even a Dave's killer bread is pretty darn good with being whole grain filled and civil and put on, you know, you can get the peanut butter that's made, you know, it's one machine.

And then you could put actually I put blueberries all over your peanut butter. So it sticks in there like like, I don't know, acorns in the mine and have like a peanut butter and blueberry sandwich or just get some jelly or jam.

That's a 100%. Banana slice. Or banana slices and jam that is made with 100% fruit like and you know, there's a million different brands. But that sandwich versus the Wonder Bread sandwich is a completely different beast.

So you can do a really good move with that or, you know, have your kids put hummus on their own toast and chop up a bunch of cucumbers for everybody or whatever they want to make for lunch.

That's within your guidelines or within your parameters that you're trying to eat as possible. And there's so many individually packaging, wrap, snack and things ready to go.

For an adult wanting to eat, not peanut butter, place or jelly, I would say I'm. Thinking kids who were on. The go, I'm thinking, well, I'm thinking, yeah, me, you know, hummus and as many vegetables as you can put on, which would be, you know, celery of so lettuce, celery, kale.

Tomato slices of. Beans and then sick, sick thing of broccoli sprouts. I always have broccoli sprouts going. That's a great sandwich. That's great. And leftovers from dinner, which I didn't want to jump ahead and say, but that's the best lunch, as we all know.

But we haven't had the dinner yet. So I'm just going with lunches for kids in my mind and what can travel to and from school without being sloshed or wet, if you will.

Norrie We roll. NORI We roll our Norwich vegetable sushi out of California rolls without the crab stuff. That's great. The kids roll their own and they can slice it.

They can bring a little, you know, toppings to put on it in their lunchbox. But there's there's lots of ways to sort of create a new create new and make a little burrito.

That's what burrito means. It means a little burro full of the food from like before. It's just here's the wrap with the rice in the beans and all that stuff.

All right, here you go. Take it to the field. So if you're trying to lose weight instead of using bread, you can use Collard and that's your wrap and you can fill it with rice and beans, whatever.

I mean, whatever you choose. Lettuce, tomatoes, hummus. Yeah. I don't know. I keep thinking my kids, for some reason, I know this, but this is high blood pressure.

I have to tell you another favor, quick new favorite thing for us, and that is a portabella mushroom baked with some barbecue sauce. And that is our burger.

And then it sits in a regular tomato and thick broccoli sprouts with some hummus. On the. Bun, one of Dave's killer buns. Or just wear ones you can find that are all great.

Anyway, that's quick. And so with your mushroom, like, do you make your own barbecue sauce? Do you buy it? And then what's the temperature setting and cooking time.

Just until it's done. People like spongy, people like it's squished. It's just really cook. It feels done too. Yeah. So then you're mentioning the broccoli.

Brussels sprouts are such a healthy thing. So you're growing your own broccoli sprouts. Yeah, but you can also buy them. Yeah. I'm always more concerned about buying sprouts.

But how wild about sprouts was. Was wild about sprouts is an astounding company. They have invented something. They they've had zero callbacks. Well, I think they'll be a lot.

Look at this. Go to what about sprouts and look it up because they they are. I'm a huge fan of that huge fan. How do you where do you if you let's say if someone wanted to do sprouts because there's so many benefits, especially to the broccoli sprouts, where do you get your seeds?

And is there a particular technique that you like? I get them from sprout people. Okay. Yeah. And then and then you put them in a jar. Put them in. I put two tablespoons and just serve them two tablespoons of sprouts, put them in water, and then you have to have some kind of serving layer on top and then take the water out and then put them in a.

Because you have to just drain the sieve, put it back up. And so it's till we put them. In a little bowl, that's a plant. And so they suck their tills and so they drain.

Okay, so you just it's at an angle and. Then once a day, if it's hot, then you need to really pay attention. More often they go because they go quickly.

And I mean, it's so much cheaper to get, you know, to do them yourself. Absolutely. I mean, then you eat them for sure. Yeah. I think it might be a great experiment, too, for kids.

You know, ERA did that experiment with the lima beans and you put it in the jar and kids just watched it sprout. I mean, they just think that's the coolest thing ever.

You know, it's like that. I mean, that's great. What I mean, I think the key thing with with kids is, as Jane said, is to have them cook and get them involved.

And my favorite story is when our now almost 30 years old granddaughter was three, we she was with us. And it was just November. And I got a thing of brussel sprouts.

They grow on a stem, you know, and the. Stock. Store. And so plane took them off the stock. I gave her a knife, she cut the ends, I cut them, drain them, put them in a bowl.

And I sat on the floor with the bulb between us and looked at me and she said, But I don't eat those. And so I said, Well, Flynn, just have a few little leaves.

Well, I think Flynn must have eaten 30 brussel sprouts, so it turns. Out thought he was going to blow up. That. Yeah, I did. I have a ham. It turns out that Flynn's birthday is is December 27.

Dinner templates and build-your-own meals

And when she when you at that point, when you were in preschool, you took a tree and Flynn took Brussels sprouts as her trade. Way to make friends. No, her parents were not sure about it, so I think they had some backup or something. But.

But that is how you get a child. You have to change how they eat. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And especially if they don't know anything else, they just grow up eating this.

That's fantastic. We had the rule. About like what to eat in a busy day. And I would like to finish that because yes, I've been listening. And so there's oats in the morning that's been cooking before or raw.

Just go, go, go and, you know, takes no time to throw berries on your dish. And I and I said things are individually packaging wrapped. And then my mom was talking about her zero.

But we're people like I want something to grab and go. Like Mother Nature knew that. She totally knew that we wanted to grab and go. That's why we have bananas that are literally individually packaged and wrapped to go apples, oranges, apricots, pears, all these things.

They're filled with water, they're filled with fiber. They've got some sugar, it's suspended in that lattice of fiber. And it's not like an injection of, you know, a monster drink.

So it really is amazing. Or cluster of grapes. You can have a few. They're packaged in their own little cluster. I mean, Mother Nature knew it and it's beautiful what we've been provided.

So then moving from breakfast and lunch and some snacks to dinner, we have really found over the years of writing all these different books that what we what is most productive for the most number of people most of the time is kind of the model, if you will, of like a Chipotle or a subway, like we're having this choose what you want to put on it.

So like last night we had a version of that that someone like the Indonesian culture called God and got to have you heard gaga it means next and they basically take everything from their fridge which is kind of like what Chipotle has done.

Everything in the fridge. They've got, you know, the vegetable, the greens or rice, and then they have the beans or the meat and have it delivered to the down the line.

So that's what Gargaro is and that's what we do with any meal we're doing. So last night, for example, they got to go next because my neighbor next door is an anthropology professor and she came for dinner.

So I wanted to have her dish as we had brown rice as our grain. And I cooked it in the morning before I left. I was gone all day yesterday working so the grain was cooked.

And I have always had in the fridge like kale is just chopped up because I buy kale and then I just stripped off and just touch it. So I had like Ziploc bag and stuff like this in the corner with kale.

And so kale was one of the fixings. And then I had put on red pepper and some scallions, which, you know, even if you're having not plant based food, you're probably going to have a red peppers and scallions as part of your meal.

So they put that on the plate and they were they became a little late because they went and picked up some raspberry sorbet for us. So I kept chopping stuff and I ended up making a salad to go with this.

And while I was doing all that, the temp was cooking on the stove. They had a little bit of tamari on it. Temp. They just cooked the pan for a few minutes.

So this it was minutes of cooking but isn't like your life is you're in a hurry to get to go. Sit and get answers. Sorry I also so so we had the brown rice and all the veggies and you know, I ended up making a salad because I was burning time the ten days cooking.

But then the whole plan got I got a thank you is what every Indonesian household is known for is the way that the it's usually the the woman in the household, as you mentioned earlier, is her peanut sauce.

I mean, my friend makes it with like whole peanuts and ketchup nannies, which is a Indonesian thing and all this other stuff. I make it with peanut butter and then rice vinegar and some tomorrow.

But anyway and I make it and it's using peanut PB too pure, which has the oil taken out and no sugar and salt taken out. But I butter because we had the sixth grade kid coming over too so plenty of myelination of her genes is going on.

So the peanut butter sauce and you just drizzled on whatever you whatever you have but had that meal not been you know Gargano if it was own potato bars, same things baked potatoes with all the corn peppers, agitated, agitated and some salsa, maybe some guacamole at the end or if it had been a build your own pasta bar or build your own burrito bar or taco bar or enchilada or Tostada, those are all very, very similar.

But just having things in your fridge, just pull them out as single ingredients. You don't need to risk cooking everything together with some sauce and then baking it as your one dish and people just go, Oh, and don't like it.

Have them love one dishes. I mean, you know, also like. Okay, all of our books say otherwise, but that's why. I have one dish things in here. We do we do have a one dish wonder here in there.

You're right now we we we love our lasagnas. We love our some of our things. But I think I said for most the time, the most success for the most people to get what they want is to have individual angry decisions made by them.

But you have the primary wholegrain and like I had tempeh or brown, black rice or not black rice, black beans, chickpeas or whatever it is that is those are kind of separate the construction of it.

And the sauces vary. We a lot of rice and beans live and you can and again that's sort of what Jane's saying. You start and then you build it. You can put greens and you can put chopped or anything.

Tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper, her mango. Awesome. I mean, I think mango is the solution to so many things. When you want something to taste better. Need to take a page out of like ancient cultures book and most Asian cultures.

I mean, look at India and look at so many like Latin America, South America, there's there's there's grains we rices most often they're quinoa or, you know, porridge, oats and wheat test.

There's so there's grains. And then there's also the legumes, the pulses, the beans. And I love how these Asian cultures they this tofu went and they have it so beautifully.

I just learned that we need to say that tempeh is from Indonesia. I didn't know that till recently, but that's so cool. It's you can even see like the back of the, of the soybean in the tempeh.

Anyway, I think that those take a page out of that book and then they have, they just spice it up with the vegetables and the spices from their cultures, which is so powerful.

No, I think that's fabulous. I love your description in everything you're doing, but you're right. You're giving others choices, but they can still enjoy the meal with the same ingredients. But it's different for everyone.

But that gets me to when we do go to other social things, like we're having Thanksgiving come up or we're going to a party, how do you help someone navigate that? Like how should they deal with those type of social obstacles, so to speak?

Well, we can I tell you, when they pass the orders, eat the parsley. The parsley, I'm not sure that'll satisfy everyone. But yes, that'll be a good start to ornamentation.

But the we are clearly my husband calls my mom and he started to call me sometimes now a bully for good completely for good and I'm adopting her energy so we Thanksgiving for us we're having 43 people cannot wait because everything human of that 43 people coming to the the meal everyone has to bring a dish.

So we're making we do some of the basics. So we'll get our mommy's mushroom gravy and our cranberry salsa and mashed potatoes that will make, you know, a big part of it, which is a dish.

And you're going to you know, you're making a big pot of food anyway. So I'm not thinking about the Brazilian desserts the teenagers are going to bring in from the Internet.

Birds over leaf chocolate or whatever. What a blast. Everyone gets to be featured. And the Thanksgiving is all about the harvest. So there's a great chance that allow these dishes you can eat unless it's been like deep fried in lard or, you know, melted with cheese all over it.

You know, you could probably give it a go a lot of easy.

Thanksgiving and social situations

Them things might be spiced a little differently or maybe a little greasy, and you can digest some of it, but Thanksgiving is the best the best holiday for for plant based folks, because it's about the harvest.

And I'm so tired people going, oh, you poor thing, what you do with Thanksgiving. Like we faced. All the rest about Brian. Oh, my husband is such a good cook and he makes stuffing, but the coolest thing and this can be a centerpiece and that is you can put the stuffing in a pumpkin or in even in our any kind of a word like thing how sometimes to get pumpkins this late and and then bake it like that and it's just fabulous.

Wow. Okay. So don't be afraid to go try some things and bring some new things. Bring great. Bring something that you know you're going to like and you're going to be able to be filled up on like if you're really scared, I'd say bring something like mashed potatoes or a great squash dish, some that's really filling.

Oh, you know what's fun? It's like a little delicata squash just bake it with a little maple sirup and then it gets caramelized. And I mean, that's fabulous.

In fact, one Thanksgiving, we didn't have 43. I don't know how many we had, but I did just that. I got a little delicata. They're about this big. I'm oh, man.

Well. I'm getting hungry, so. I assume my stomach is kind of. I agree. It's great. Oh, my goodness. So Jane, and and just a few final questions here. I love your energy.

You guys are just going back and forth as far as your book. Can you please tell us your most recent book and why you titled it What You Did? You mean the.

Plant based woman. Warrior. Live, fierce, stable, a. Delicious yes book. It was. Thank you for asking me about it, Laurie, because my mom did all the recipes in my father's book a thousand years ago.

I was getting one with this going out. Trying to join 2007. Did so it was I. Couldn't say it. To. Well I was about to say 2009. Nine which was either.

Laughter is good medicine as well. My mom did that with my dad 2007 and you know, with the lens of heart disease and mind. And then my brother Rick's book came out and the Engine two book came out and then he got asked to do another book called Plant Strong, and he asked me to do the recipes for that.

So I had this firefighter lens on and then he did another one and we did another one. We did three books together. And then my mom and I did the Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook, which is the.

Partner is terrific for anybody with heart. Disease. Yeah, it's really it's an adjunct to the recipes she did here to augment that. So we again had heart disease and I said not enough of this like supports squat like let's do what we really eat as women.

But the ones who were kind of we've really taken over our own kitchen bullies for good. So I was like, Let's do our own thing. And we were so lucky that we got to do the women Warrior Book.

And there are three reasons behind this book that really push. We want to do it not just because we've done other you know, we love supporting the heart disease patients. We love supporting the firefighter.

That's where I come from. And, and. And this and this as well. Yeah. I read all the recipes, you know, are. Indicated before you keep going in this book and each recipe indicated yes, it's indicated whether it's heart disease friendly or it will say to make this heart disease friendly, don't use cashews is use casually use cannellini beans and you know it's that.

So they act so our our our brand of being heart disease friendly is still supported here. But I wanted to write it for three reasons and I say I did because a mom is quick to say.

Jane is the lead. Jane did all the work. This book is you. But this book is a tip of the hat to you. To her. Because my dad's research came out, you know, he started talking about this stuff in 82, 81, 83.

He was so busy with all his patients and all his general surgery at the clinic, at a given clinic in that time. But anyway, this is not a cook. You can't make toast. Yes. So the next is on breakfast.

All the roads and and so she is the reason this whole movement has legs. Had she not picked up the helm there and said, okay, I see we're not going to eat the meat, dairy, oil, sugar, fat, salt.

Women, health, and the new cookbook

And she had four kids full time job teaching and a dog and she picked up and she went for with it because she has this like just do attitude, which clearly has fallen off on some of her before, but so is a tip of the hat to her for doing that because she's the reason this movement is going forward.

I truly believe, especially for our family, if not for the Brazilian people, you've impacted with daddy's research. And secondly, because as you said in the beginning, Lori, most of the mental labor around food had falls on the women.

Women, not everybody, but the majority. I mean, I'm going to leave room here for these strong, beautiful men who contribute willingly or not. You know, even if say, well.

Your husband is in the insta pie. Exactly like that, but the majority of the mental labor is women. Like, what do we plant? What do we harvest? What do we shop for?

What do we put in the cart where we pay for what we put away? What do we prepare? What do we serve? How do we serve it? That is so much mental labor for women.

And here in the States, as you know darn well, we've all we've kind of taken a turn for the worst. And as far as lifestyle related diseases that are so easily reversible.

So all we're saying here is add more plants, evergreens and greens and berries and fresh stuff and just whole grains and get away from the saturated fats and meat and dairy and have things take a turn for the better.

So it's just it's like be be brave, you know, live fierce, like, and stay bold, take things and change the turn and, you know, feed your family yourselves, your community, more plants and eat delicious, which is more a personal message of my own.

If I can take a minute and say, because I have three brothers, there's four of us. And we were all like college athletes, like we all swam growing up twice a day, lifting weights, swimming, swimming, somebody swimming.

I mean, Olympic trials when I was 14, that was my jam. And I got to college and I'm swimming from Michigan and I had to I'm putting my suit in, doesn't quite fit.

And I'm like, What is going on? And I'm so mad at my body for how it won't fit in the suit, but I'm so glad to be an NCAA. And so I'm it's this whole mix of like, I don't think I did, I can't eat, but I need to eat, to train, to live, to be powerful, to to swim for Michigan.

And but I don't like how I'm feeling as a woman and a female. And so it's this mixed, mixed mix. And I didn't I didn't want to have for a second I knew my brothers hadn't thought for a moment of anything to do with any food that they'd eaten that they consumed.

Not for an iota of a second, did it bother them. And I didn't like how it was becoming, just like my friend calls it. Food had like, who am I? What can I eat?

What can I wear? What can I do? It became it's crushing. But right at that moment in time is when my parents called and said, Hey, we're eating a different way these days.

No me, no dairy, no fad oil, no butter, no day, just all these things. And it took a while, but I it I mean, I say it a couple of months, like, okay, what are we doing?

I came home for the summer and we were in this way and kind of made sense. And for a while I was like, Oh, I can eat a dozen bagels and Nutella. Oh, no, no, that's not the way to go.

Okay, I can eat all of that now. You know, you try to figure out your way to do it. And it's been so I always say I feel so wicked lucky that it it landed in my lap when it did because I don't know how my life, my health, my sense of identity, my sense of my self would be if I didn't have this whole food plant based message from these guys.

And I think that's a beautiful tribute to two people that really were going against the wave many, many years ago. I think you're truly blessed. And I every time I see you guys, I say the same thing.

I think it's fantastic. Forget something. I want this meme and that is I love to have things on hand when you're starved and you don't know what to eat.

And this is a little plug because one of the things that Rick has done with his plant strong company is to create their five different stews and chilies.

And then there are four other sort of things like that. And I have this whole row of them. And so when I just feel like I'm starved and I don't want to cook, those are the best place to go because you can add kind of all kinds of greens in them.

And then you got something you can add. I mean, you can add whatever's in the refrigerator, but you've got a base in there. So they're in my pantry. Yes. And the cornbread.

And the corn, the pancake mix. But find something that is like that that you can go on to at the last minute that that follows all your personal guidelines.

Yeah, absolutely. I think you're exactly right. It's just, you know, thinking ahead of the obstacles. And then when the obstacles come, you're like, oh, I already have a plan.

It's it's much less stressful. So yeah, but I love your message around women and our thoughts in our relationship with our bodies and our health and really is important how we need to take control of that now and teach our children these healthy messages.

Otherwise, where else are they going to learn it? Yeah. Can you please send the cultural message about it all? And I believe Men's Health is taking care of every 15 minutes.

And an NFL game without Viagra. And, you know, just there's so many messages around men and what's accessible to them. And so that's why my women's event every march, we talk about breast health, undercarriage, health, body health, belly health, gut health.

It's all good stuff and we need to talk about it. Is currently she doesn't want me to go. No, no, I'm not. Because I'm a sex ed teacher. So I there's great research out there about women's pleasure recently that's been really exciting.

The clitoris has got changed. So I decided. Well everybody should be excited. Are trying to pass send the word. Makes sense. No, I remember when I first interviewed Brian and Jane together years ago, we had a I was laughing so hard.

You guys were outside at a picnic table or something. I remember I was it was a very entertaining conversation. So definitely there's it's yeah, it's continued from there with more research.

Awesome. Exciting. Well, I will tell you, this has been delightful and a really helpful and thank you both for spending time with us today. Oh, my gosh.

Laurie, are you are you are such fun to talk to. You are so. Easy. Stop it. I bet I'm hungry. You got me really hungry talking some of this stuff. So thank you so much for including us in the summit and I hope all goes well for you going forward.

Jane and Ann Esselstyn, RN

Social Factors: Navigate BP Challenges