#236: Brittany Jaroudi is Breaking the Cycle of Family Illness...And You Can Too
Brittany Jaroudi Before and After her plant-based transition
Brittany Jaroudi battled weight and health issues for most of her childhood and, even as a young newlywed, suffered chest pains and panic attacks.
Lab tests confirmed she was on a dangerous trajectory similar to her parents. Her Dad had had a triple bypass and her Mom battled cancer multiple times when Brittany was young.
In 2016, after watching Forks over Knives, she and her husband adopted a whole foods, plant-based lifestyle and the changes in all of her health markers have been remarkable.
Today, this former school teacher has gone all in on her own health curriculum with on-line classes and cooking demos open to all, leaving a impactful legacy for her late Mother.
Brittany's story serves as an inspiration for anyone looking to improve their health, sow lasting seeds of change, and break the cycle of family illness.
Episode Highlights
0:05:04 Brittany’s Pittsburgh Upbringing
0:07:51 Her Parent's Health Issues and Conversations About Weight
0:14:57 A Life-Changing Blood Test Result and Forks over Knives viewing
0:26:37 Brittany’s Journey to Health and Recipe eBooks Begin
0:29:20 Emotional and Mental Benefits of Plant-Based Eating
0:32:07 Her New Active Lifestyle and Improved Quality of Life
0:36:27 A Sneak Peek of Her Favorite Recipes: Homemade Mustard, The Best Fruit Salad
0:43:25 Low Fat Guacamole with a Secret Ingredient
0:45:08 The Best Roasted Brussels Sprouts Recipe
0:51:42 A Pasta Lover’s Delight
0:53:11 A Day in the Life of Recipe Testing and Cooking
0:58:08 Lessons from her Late Mother's Gratitude and Perspective
About Brittany Jaroudi
Brittany is a Plant-Based Enthusiast, Art Teacher, Recipe Developer, and self-described “Nutrition Nerd.” She runs a plant-based cooking YouTube channel named The Jaroudi Family where she has developed hundreds of delicious, easy, and family-friendly recipes focused on a whole food plant-based lifestyle. She is also the co-founder of The Healing Kitchen with Dr. Laurie Marbas, a weekly whole food, plant-based cooking class and live medical Q&A. Brittany has an M.Ed. in education and a certificate in plant-based nutrition from T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies.
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Episode Transcription via AI Transcription
My guest today is planting the seeds of change for her family and yours.
In 2016, Brittany Jaroudi adopted a whole food plant-based diet to break the cycle of devastating lifestyle disease that was running rampant in her family.
You're going to meet this inspiring young mother-to-be right after this message from PLANTSTRONG.
[0:34]I've got a couple of big announcements for you today.
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[0:56]The dates are April 14th to the 19th, where you can indulge in bountiful buffets of plant-based fare that are expertly crafted to nourish your body and help you fall in love with the lifestyle.
We have an insane culinary team that has cracked the code on preparing delicious and satisfying They're going to fill you up without weighing you down.
I want you to enjoy best-in-class educational lectures and empower yourself with all of this incredible knowledge.
[1:29]Dive deep into the science behindPLANTSTRONG Living through these lectures led by renowned experts like cardiologist Dr. Brian Asbill, Dr.
Michael Klaper, and Doug Lyle.
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Visit plantstrong.com today to learn more.
[2:33]Brittany Jaroudi battled with her weight and health issues for most of her childhood and not just her own health, but also her parents.
Her dad had a triple bypass and her mom battled cancer multiple times while Brittany was growing up.
Even as a young newlywed, Brittany herself was suffering with health issues and chest pains.
Lab tests confirmed that she was on the same health trajectory as her parents.
But, lo and behold, the movie Forks Over Knives once again came to the rescue, and she and her husband adopted a whole foods, plant-based lifestyle overnight.
And the changes? Suffice it to say, they have been life-changing.
Today, this former school teacher has gone all in on her own health curriculum with online classes, recipes, cooking demos, and a lot more.
Let's meet this remarkable young woman. Please welcome Brittany Jaroudi.
[3:41]Brittany, welcome to the PLANTSTRONG podcast. What's shaking in your neck of the woods? Well, thank you.
Just the weather's starting to get colder here in Pittsburgh, but yeah, excited to be here today.
You are in Pittsburgh? I am.
Wow. You know, I grew up in Cleveland. We're kind of like rivals in many ways.
Yeah, not too far. Only like two hours. I know. I know. Do you love Pittsburgh?
I love Pittsburgh, but I love going to Cleveland.
No one from Pittsburgh hold that against me. me. Yeah.
Well, don't you have like three rivers that flow through Pittsburgh?
Can you name all three of them? Oh my gosh, you're going to put me on the spot. The Monongahela.
Monongahela. Who in the world can pronounce that? Okay. The Allegheny. And is it the Ohio?
And the Ohio. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those three.
But we have a beautiful point, downtown Pittsburgh, which is a great place to go visit. Is that?
Yeah. Well, when I was last there, maybe two years ago, I took a little ride up to this one peak that overlooks the city and where the three rivers, I think, all come together. It is gorgeous.
Did you take the incline? Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. Very cool.
[5:04]And Pittsburgh, I don't know if it still is, but when I was growing up in Cleveland in the 70s and 80s, Pittsburgh was very, very blue collar.
Yes. Yes. And I don't know if it still is, but it, it, uh, it certainly had that kind of, um, blue collar iron or kind of feel to it a little bit like Cleveland.
Yeah. I feel like it's still like that. My husband actually works for a steel mill here in Pittsburgh. Wow.
Now what does he do? He's not making the steel, is he?
He's an engineer for the company but right yeah all behind the computer-based parts of it the automation.
[5:47]Well good well um i'm i'm going home for the holidays here to cleveland so we'll just be two hours away so that's nice well britney um let's talk a little bit about you and your journey to all things kind of whole food plant-based for starters i think it might be nice to let everybody buddy know.
So you grew up on the standard American diet, just like most of us did.
And when did you first start noticing like weight issues or some sort of health issues?
Yeah, it started when I was pretty young. I would say really like in maybe second and third grade.
And I attribute that a lot too, that I had a parent who was going through cancer cancer, and just a stressful time.
So, you know, there wasn't quite, you know, even the foods that they were making from scratch was still standard American diet.
But there was a lot of other things like fast food introduced just for quick meals, because there was a lot of like hospital and doctor visits.
So it started, I would say around third grade, you can kind of tell from family photos, like each year, I get a little heavier.
And it continued on that way off and on, you know, through high school and into college.
And so, but so...
[7:06]When you started gaining weight, were you getting self-conscious?
Was anybody talking to you about it?
Were you trying different diets at all or no?
Yeah, for sure. Definitely self-conscious. I'm very short.
So now fully grown adult, I'm only 4'11". So I'm definitely a short person.
So weight was really obvious on me. And I did kind of the standard things like I think Weight Watchers and trying to diet it.
And in high school, I joined the soccer team, which helped to take off, you know, a little bit of excess weight as well, but I was still always high on my BMI scale.
So it definitely was something I struggled with and always was self-conscious about for sure.
[7:51]And is it something that, did you have any conversations with your mother and father about it?
Or you said that you you had a parent that was going through cancer when you were young, which, which parent, what, what was going on?
Yeah. So actually both my parents were pretty sick when I was in elementary school.
My mom had cancer when I was, you know, between the ages of like fourth grade to sixth grade is really when she was going through a lot of it.
It was stage four breast cancer.
And that happened one Easter. I remember her getting diagnosed.
And then at Christmas time, my dad had a triple bypass and had a heart attack.
So really, yeah, both, both parents on both ends had major health issues going on and, you know, it progressed all throughout pretty much my life, um, off and on.
[8:43]Right. So, um, you know, in kind of doing my homework, you write about how your mother basically had cancer three times.
So is that three different cancers or just a reoccurrence of breast cancer three times.
So as a child, she actually had bone cancer and lost her, was an amputee, lost her one leg from bone cancer around middle school.
And then, you know, she went into remission from that and then became a nurse and did all of that from being in the hospital so much as a child.
But then she got diagnosed with stage four breast cancer when I was in about fourth grade.
However, that went into remission permission as well without them being really able to explain how she was able to beat stage four but then it came back um stage four again uh when I was a newlywed so around 2015-2016.
[9:42]So she was able to see you get married yes yes yeah she yep she was here for a lot of it but but she did pass in 2019.
Yeah. Well, I'm so sorry about that. Um, it sounds like your, your mother, you give her, you know, a lot of credit for you kind of being the person that you are today.
Definitely. She definitely taught me about a lot of resilience and, um, strong work that can sticking to something that you believe in.
And she got to see me be whole food plant-based and reverse my health, um, before she passes while, which was really amazing for me to kind of share my passion for this lifestyle.
Yeah. So when you say she had the bone cancer and she had an amputation, was it a lower part of her leg, the upper part of her leg?
What part? Yeah. So she lost right above the knee.
[10:35]So how did she get around after that? Well, she had a wooden leg and she was, but she never let that really stop her from doing anything.
I have photos of her skiing as an an amputee.
She volunteered as an amputee counselor for kids every summer and took me as a young child.
And really, I feel like embrace that she was different, but also taught people about it too.
She was always very open about explaining things.
When we'd go to swimming pools as a child, she would talk to little kids that she's like a Barbie doll and had a great way to kind of explain you know, something that might be a little scary or unusual to a young child.
Well, that's wonderful. It sounds like she certainly at all didn't play the victim.
And yeah, she rode bikes and did everything else, you know, as much as she could. Yeah.
[11:31]So you mentioned your father and your father had triple bypass way, way back in the day after a heart attack.
And then it sounds like he also continued to, you know, kind of have the different chronic Western disease diseases pile up like what diabetes, was that a type two diabetes?
Yeah. Yeah. So after he had his triple bypass, you know, the nice thing about him going through that scary event was that he quit smoking, but, you know, he didn't change his eating habits.
So unfortunately, you know, as much as quitting smoking helps, you know, it progressed into other things.
So he got diagnosed with type two diabetes.
He's had a defibrillator stint since then, a stroke and, you know, other complications of heart disease.
But he is still alive today. He's still alive. Yeah. Gotcha.
[12:26]And I'd be fascinated to know, so are you close with your father? Heather?
We're close, but not so much on the lifestyle. We don't really see eye to eye on the lifestyle front, which is a shame.
I really, you know, sharing this lifestyle with so many people, it's really hard when you can't help the people that you care about the most.
[12:47]Isn't that just the truth? And well, we'll come back to that.
But first, so let's talk about about yourself. So you.
[13:01]You mentioned that, you know, starting at age eight, you started gaining weight, becoming unhealthier in your 20s.
What did what did your health canvas look like? Paint that picture.
[13:16]Yeah. So I graduated from grad school and got married and was starting my own life.
You know, we had bought our first home. And although I was starting to feel not the best, I actually started to have some chest which was alarming at 24 years old.
And I also was going to my, just my regular checkup and they were flagging my blood pressure being high.
So my blood pressure was very high. It was, you know, around 140 over 110 at one point.
And my doctor put me on two different kinds of blood pressure medicines to bring it down.
Like one wasn't quite enough. So I actually was on two and some other blood work showed that like my total cholesterol was very high it was 242 and i also had a blood test taken from my husband's like work they gave us a discount if you got you know your blood test taken and as a newlywed with no money um we both got those taken but they checked an hsc reactive protein which i had never heard of before and mine came back 16 very red angry letters and i remember going to the internet to figure out like, what does this mean?
And very, very scary with so much cancer and heart disease running in my family.
Well, tell me this. So a CRP of 16, do you know off the top of your head, what is considered like a normal, a normal level that's not elevated? Under three.
[14:44]Under three and you were 16. And I think if I remember correctly, because we're both both obviously fans of the documentary Forks over Knives and we'll get talked about that in a sec, but I think the.
[14:57]The narrator, uh, Lee Fulkerson, his was elevated.
And I think his was like, I want to say six or seven. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
And then, and then at the end, after he embraced this way of eating for several months, he went back into C reactive protein was something like under two, which was a huge seller for me to do this lifestyle because it just happened to be, you know, after we got that blood test taken.
It wasn't too long after it was over Easter break and I was off work and we watched the documentary.
And I literally felt like it was them talking to me because like you said, numbers were so much better than mine. And I was like half his age.
And I just thought like, well, if he can do it, so can I. So that was a huge thing was, you know, I literally say that what a gift it was.
And I always attribute this to the guy upstairs that I had that test taken.
And that really was my eye opener besides the blood pressure and cholesterol. Who's the guy upstairs?
Oh, just my belief in. Okay.
[16:03]You had somebody living upstairs? No, no. I literally think it was divine intervention for me.
And it was, it's been the biggest blessing of my life to kind of go through that and to see that and then to make the change.
Now, I'm trying to piece together these puzzles in my mind here.
So what year was it that you saw Forks Over Knives and kind of that light bulb went off in your head? 2016.
2016. And so you, how much did you weigh going into seeing Forks Over Knives?
So I stopped getting on the scale at 180 was kind of my where I broke up with the scale, but I didn't start doing anything for a little bit of time.
So I'm thinking I was probably closer to 200 when I started.
But last time I got on the scale was 180 before watching the documentary.
And Carrie, can we pull up a photo before and after of Brittany?
I think it's pretty, pretty powerful. There you go.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's is that you on the left going for maybe a run or opening the gate?
Yeah, we were just on vacation and I think there was like a garden we were walking through.
But yeah, it was a very a picture that I never would have put online.
Well, that that is definitely pretty remarkable considering.
[17:29]You know, let's say 185 to 200. And if you're 411, um, that's, um, yeah, that your, your frame definitely probably didn't like that too much. No.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, all right. So you, uh, you, you saw Forks over Knives.
You're, you're, you're married at this time, right? Yes. I'm married.
And, uh, what is your, what does your husband think after you saw the documentary and you're You're like, oh, my gosh, this makes sense.
And this is divine intervention.
Let's do something about this. Was he on board? Well, he told me I think he was worried I was going to try it for a minute and quit because he told me we'll do it.
But don't tell anyone because I was going to tell everyone I'm whole food plant-based and this is my new identity.
And so he just encouraged me, but was like, maybe, you know, but the next day was Easter. So I showed up to my family's gathering and it was pretty obvious that I wasn't like eating ham and other things that we're used to on our table.
[18:36]And did people comment on that fact?
For sure. And I just kind of told them I was why I was doing it.
And, you know, I told them about the documentary, but, you know, people didn't press me too hard on it.
But I just, you know, ate all the sides and vegetables and things like that that I knew were complying with the lifestyle. style.
Wonderful. And did you find it to be difficult or easy or what was your experience kind of jumping into this?
Yeah, I think I was so motivated. Like the documentary spoke to me so deeply because you had, you know, your dad talk about heart disease.
You had T. Colin Campbell talk about cancer. And those were two huge components that I was seeing.
I was seeing, you know, my mom starting to struggle again.
I was, I had an uncle who passed in his early 50s around that time.
I had another aunt who also was suffering at that time in the hospital.
So really, I kind of saw my future if I didn't make a change.
And I was so motivated and all in. And so I think I was excited.
I didn't really focus that much on, you know, the holidays feeling like left out of, you know, not having certain things.
I just focused on what I could have and And really anticipating, you know, what this was going to do for me. Yeah.
[19:55]And what did you do for support? Did you do this like you're a self-starter or did you get a bunch of books?
Did you go online and join any Facebook communities? What did you do?
Yeah, so I'm a self-starter, but also wanted to dive into understanding it even more.
So I went and bought your dad's book. I bought the China study.
I had the PLANTSTRONGg books and Engine 2 books.
[20:20]I kind of submitted myself into all the research. I really became a fan of Dr.
Greger's information out there.
And, you know, the Internet was so wonderful to really have all of that at my fingertips.
And I just learned as much as possible and just started doing it every day.
I want, you know, once I'd made that decision the night before Easter, after we finished the documentary, I never dabbled back into eating the other way.
And so that really has helped, you know, stick with this and not feel tempted to go back either way. Right.
So for those people that are out there that are kind of where you were back then, what advice would you give them as they're just starting this journey?
Yeah, I would say definitely find there's so many people in the plant-based world now find who you enjoy and, you know, take it one meal at a time. time.
Some people can go all the way in, like I did kind of overnight and change, you know, your habits.
And I always say I'm sometimes I'm like a little unicorn that it kind of all lined up that things were bad enough that I was severely motivated to do this.
[21:33]But I also think it made it easier. So, you know, I always tell people find who you enjoy watching on YouTube or online, find the plant-based doctor that you enjoy.
There's so many different options out there. and stick with it, don't give up.
Yeah, I think that's really wonderful advice. There are so many kind of different tribes and families within the whole food plant-based umbrella.
[22:01]And yeah, find the one that kind of resonates with you and your personality and then go for it. Yeah, for sure. Sure.
Now, so you fell into this in 2016 after watching the documentary.
It sounds like your father had no interest whatsoever. And you guys, as you said, you didn't see eye to eye with this lifestyle.
What about your mother? Was she more receptive?
She was definitely more receptive. She was starting, you know, she watched the documentaries with me and she had books.
She knew who people were in this movement.
And actually when, you know, originally when she was diagnosed, it was stage two and then it progressed to stage four after a while.
You know, there was a point where I was doing all of their cooking for her and them, just trying to help as much as possible.
So she definitely saw the passion. And I think, you know, being a nurse, showing her the science also helped as well.
[23:02]But I wish I would have figured it out a lot sooner. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, almost everyone does.
No doubt about that. Did you have any brothers and sisters growing up or were you an only child?
Yeah, I have one brother who is currently in the Air Force serving.
And he also, I was very motivated to have him go on this because we share the same genetics.
And so I've also tried to, anytime I'm with him, I cook whole food plant-based and he enjoys the food.
And I have sent him your Engine 2 cookbook all the time.
And so he shares with me what he makes out of that pretty often.
But, you know, it's I wish that we live closer so that I could be a little bit more in his ear, a little more about it.
But I'm hoping he'll get to it.
How old is he? He's younger than me. So he's 28. Okay.
28. And he's, you said he's in the, did you say the armed forces?
Yes. He's in the air force. Air force. Got it. All right.
Well, tell you what, I wish him well, for sure. Good. Good.
[24:09]So you, you've kind of made this into a, I mean, is this, is this a career for you now?
Or do you have another, another job that you're doing? Or is this what you're doing?
So for the last 10 years, I have been a middle school teacher.
And just this school year, I decided to leave that job and to do this full time.
So it's very apparently became obvious to me that this was a passion and one that I wanted to spend all my time doing.
I kind of have been doing both the last several years.
And so I'm very happy that now I can focus all my time onto this and really help as many people as possible.
And so tell us what are some of the things that you have going on right now to help people on their whole food plant-based adventures?
[25:05]Yeah, so I do weekly videos on YouTube that are free and we have a Facebook group and just kind of sharing different recipes.
I always try to make recipes that are very comforting, kind of similar to ideas that we had before being on whole food plant-based, but making them healthy with all those swaps of teaching people that you can keep family traditions and recipes alive, but swapping them for things that are health promoting.
And I also work with Dr. Marvis and we work on the Healing Kitchen, which is a weekly cooking class that we do every Wednesday evening.
So that's been really fun as well this year.
[25:40]That's wonderful. You're working with Dr. Lori Marvis. She's been on the podcast several times.
We absolutely adore her. She's wonderful.
[25:51]So smart, so kind. She's just got a really nice spirit to her, doesn't she? Yeah, she's the best.
I always love her energy and getting to work beside her. So it's been a real dream. How did you two cross paths?
We have talked the last couple of years off and on, but she interviewed me for when she was doing more medical and I was on one of their testimonials.
They had the film crew come to our house and film kind of my plant-based story.
And we've just stayed in touch over the last couple of years.
So it's kind of all lined up that, you know, She was starting to see patients herself with her own practice.
And then I also had some more time leaving teaching to work together. Hmm.
[26:38]Tell me this.
So you've been doing this now, I mean, did you say almost, well, you were, you were doing the, the teaching for 10 years.
You've been doing this since about 2016.
When did you kind of really start to put together your, your recipe eBooks and the community and all that jazz? as?
I really wanted to wait until after I like had results.
And so I didn't start right away. I just kind of focused on my own, but I, you know, I made kind of the decision that, you know, if I was able to regain my health back, I would help others.
So about, you know, a year to two years after, um, once I, you know, lost my weight, I had all my numbers healthy.
I really started to share and, um, you know, it didn't come easy.
I had my camera that I was going to start making making YouTube videos for an entire year before I started, I made it a new year's resolution and it sat there for an entire year before I ever turned it on.
Um, because as much as I, I'm kind of an introvert in my real life.
And so it was just, you know, I just really wanted to help people.
And so, you know, getting on camera and learning to do that and to share, um, was really my gift to give back to what it's done for me.
[28:01]How many years did it take you to kind of lose 70 pounds?
Is that what you're down roughly? Yeah, it took me about a year.
And I wasn't so much focused on the weight aspect.
I really wanted that C-reactive protein, that blood pressure, that cholesterol to come down, not to have the chest pain.
You know, I was avoiding hills in our neighborhood. Pittsburgh's very hilly.
I was avoiding certain hills. And I just wanted to like feel like I should be at 26, you know, not feeling bad.
And so that was really a focus point of mine. But, you know, with all of that, you know, obviously your weight comes down to, to a healthy range.
So it was a nice added benefit of getting healthy overall.
What is, uh, what's your husband's name? Mark. What does Mark think of this Brittany?
[28:50]Well, I, he loves it. I think he definitely feels like we have such a future together.
He's also whole food plant-based. Um, so he's done this journey with me, which has has been such a luxury to have our household be like that.
And, you know, I think seeing we've been together since I was 15, we were high school sweethearts.
So yeah, this year will be 18 years together.
And I think you just see such a different change in me, physically, emotionally, all of that.
[29:20]And we're actually expecting our first child.
And so that's really exciting, too, to be able to give them this gift of being whole food plant-based and, and starting their life out as healthy as possible.
Oh, congratulations on that. That's wonderful.
So you say, um, you said that, um.
[29:41]There's a little, maybe a bit of a difference in you emotionally as well.
Can you, can you put your finger on that? Like how so?
Yeah. So I actually struggled with pure OCD around the time my health was kind of doing the worst and panic attacks.
And, you know, I didn't really realize until much later that that probably was the inflammation causing it. It kind of came out out of nowhere, stuck around for a couple years.
It really was awful to deal with.
And that is just another benefit that I discovered.
And probably the biggest change in me, you know, my personality and everything is that, you know, I was able to get rid of that by just getting my inflammation down.
So that's something that I talk here and there about, but it's a huge motivation to also be plant-based besides just, you know, having great blood work. work.
Well, I just, I'd like to share, if you don't mind, I'd like to share all your current numbers.
[30:40]You have them up on your about page and you know, you say that your, your blood pressure used to be about one 50 over 90 and that's, and then you're also on two meds. Are you off the meds now?
Yeah, I was, that was the thing I was able to get off pretty quickly.
It didn't take a year to get off them and only took, you know, a month or so.
And really working with a doctor, monitoring that because it can come down pretty quickly eating this way.
So that was a great thing that happened kind of very quickly for me.
Well, and luckily too, you had a doctor that was, it sounds like, um, willing to work with you in a partnership to get you off the meds.
Well, I switched doctors. I switched to a plant-based doctor in our area, but yes, I just went and found the one I wanted to work with. Oh, okay. There you go.
Um, but the blood pressure came down from 150 over 90 to 110 over 70.
Hooray that 242 cholesterol number came down to about 150 right it's actually lower than that now i had to check yeah it's around um 120 right now yeah well bravo uh you mentioned how you know you used to be very anxious and your resting heart rate yeah it's typically in the 90s and now you're you're devoid of that kind of anxiety and your resting heart rate's in the 60s.
[32:08]I mean, that in and of itself must feel fantastic. And then of course, we've been talking about that C-reactive protein that was a staggering 16 and now it's in a normal range, you know, hooray, and obviously no more chest pains.
Yeah. Yeah. And we, now our vacations are going like climbing mountains and going to do like North Cascades and the Rocky Gap.
And it's just such a difference to avoiding even like little hills in our neighborhood that I live right now.
So I I can't even, it seems like a different person in a different lifetime ago of where I started.
And has Mark experienced any benefits or was he like a shiny example of a healthy guy?
He was kind of a shiny example of a healthy guy.
Never had any weight issues, but his cholesterol was 200 at, you know, when we thought he was the shining example and his now is around 120 as well.
And he also, the only thing that he significantly noticed was his seasonal allergies that he's had his whole life have gone away.
So that's another kind of neat bonus. And yeah, his digestion obviously is a lot better too, being whole food plant-based. Right.
[33:20]How can it not be? Right. Now it sounds to me like you love to make recipes.
Have you always loved to cook?
[33:29]I've always been creative. creative my background is being an art teacher so I've always been into using my hands to make things and I've always dabbled a little bit into cooking but really it became I feel like an art form when I went this way so I wouldn't necessarily called myself much of a cook before but really kind of dived into how to do it teach myself the basics and really have fun and make that my new new art now.
Got it. So if you're game, Brittany, what I'd love to do is go through and just have us kind of wrap back and forth about 10 different recipes that I was able to call from either Instagram or from your website.
[34:18]Sounds good. All right, let's do it. So you know that my father is a huge fan of people anointing their green leafy vegetables with some sort of balsamic vinegar.
So is obviously Dr. Michael Greger.
You have a raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing. Can you share that with us?
Just kind of talk about it. I love any kind of different types of balsamics.
I feel like people, sometimes you go to the grocery store and you just think of that that plain balsamic there is great.
But now with different companies like California Balsamic and so many out there, the Olive Tap.
[35:02]There's one in Cleveland, too. I'm forgetting the name. That's it.
They also, I think, have one in Pittsburgh.
So there's so many like even little tiny balsamic stores that have all different flavors.
So I love doing that. I love mixing it.
You can put it in your blender with fruit like raspberries, lemon juice and things like that to kind of spice it up.
And that was a huge thing. I feel like sauces and dressings are really a gateway to loving your food.
So I love balsamic all different types.
I saw something really creative.
I've never seen anything like it before on your Instagram.
And that was, you recommend people, you take a Laura, a Laura bar, which is obviously just nuts and dames. Yeah.
And then I think you slice open the very top of the wrapper and then you turn it into a popsicle. How do you do that?
Yeah. You just fill it with plant milk and then you just set it upright.
And, you know, I usually will use like a mason jar just to kind of set it with a popsicle stick.
You put it in slightly, you know, lard bars are generally pretty soft and then you just freeze it.
And then there's a popsicle to give your kids or, you know, yourself if you want a summer treat.
And that works with, you know, if you like well-being bars or, you know, some of the other bars that are whole food plant-based, you know, you can have.
So really a fun little summer treat or, you know, to have. I can't wait to try that.
[36:27]Um, I...
I really like mustard and you've got three mustard recipes.
You've got one. I mean, I've, I've never really heard of people making their own mustard before. I think that's why it caught my attention.
You've got a Dijon, you've got a stone ground and you've got a yellow.
[36:45]How do you, how do you even go about making your own mustard?
I love mustard. And it's one of those things I think that sounds intimidating, but it's so easy. You just need mustard seeds.
They sell them online or even like some, our food co-op has it here in Pittsburgh where you can go to the bulk section and they're little tiny seeds and you just blend it up with, you can add, you know, water, you can add different flavorings to it and you pulse it till it's nice and smooth.
And I love it because, you know, at first it's a very kind of strong and pungent if you tried it like right out of the blender, but if you let it sit for a couple of days, it kind of mellows out and you can make it however you'd like.
So I'm, I'm a huge mustard fan as well.
And making it from your, your own is so cheap, affordable.
It lasts forever in your fridge and you can really tailor it to how you'd like.
Do you have a favorite? Um, I sometimes like making horseradish mustard, which is really fun.
And so that one has been a favorite recently. Really? Wow.
[37:47]All right. Let's talk about, so, you know, as we talked about at the top of this, I'm from Cleveland. You're from Pittsburgh.
You know, I don't know about you, but growing up in Cleveland in the late 60s, 70s and early 80s, the only condiments that we had were ketchup and mustard.
And I'm really not exaggerating.
Like there was, we didn't really have salsa. We didn't have sriracha.
[38:17]And we didn't, I didn't, I came down to Austin, Texas to come to school and I was introduced to, you know, hot things and hot peppers.
And when I first saw, for the first time, a bagel that had jalapeno pieces in it, I thought it was the most nasty, disgusting thing I'd ever seen in my life.
Now, it's one of my favorite things is a jalapeno bagel. The reason I...
[38:43]Preface, my question to you with all that is because you have jalapeno pepper poppers.
And I looked at those and I'm like, I want some of those right now.
How do you make a jalapeno pepper popper?
And I love mild things. And sometimes I like stuff with a little heat.
So we make them with jalapenos that you can scrape out.
And if you take out a lot of the seeds, it reduces the heat a good amount.
But also you can make them with those mini sweet bell peppers.
So if you're not a fan, you can have like a little, I usually do half and half when we have a party and you just make a great like whole food plant-based cream cheese filling for it with some breadcrumbs on top.
And it's such a great replacement. I mean, we serve those all the time at football parties and things, and really no one can tell the difference that it's, you know, dairy free and vegan and all of that.
So what do you use for the filling? So I do a combination. you can do white beans are great or cashews or a combination of both.
You can even do sunflower seeds. So I kind of change it up depending.
Usually like half and half kind of cut down having so much fat from the nuts, but makes it still creamy.
And so those are kind of the two ways that we generally fill them less.
[39:58]So, so growing up in Pittsburgh, you've, you've grown to like spicy things?
Yeah. I mean, my husband likes more spicy things than I do personally, but, but yeah, I would say I'm, I'm a little bit more of the mild side.
All right. Let's move on to the.
[40:19]The 4-3-2-1 fruit salad. You have some ingredients in there that I was like, what? That's considered a fruit salad?
And it made me very intrigued to want to try it. What is your 4-3-2-1?
You also refer to it as the best fruit salad.
Now, really, I started this because I am not a huge fan of beets, but I know it's so good for you. I know about the nitric oxide and how much, you know, it's one of those foods that I feel like I was not getting in.
And so I loved all the rest of the things that are going to be in the fruit salad.
And so I thought if I chop those up, you know, it's a great way of getting them in.
And so I make a watermelon, tomato, cherry, beet salad.
And, you know, you can start off with, and it doesn't, it can be a variety of whichever one you like the most, you can make four cups and then you can kind of go down from there.
But I love like tomatoes too, which you wouldn't think was in a fruit salad. No.
But it's a nice way. It's such a red, beautiful, vibrant antioxidant salad.
And we make it all the time in the summer. And then if you chop your beets up fine, you can even do as fine as possible.
It really helps hide it. And you still get all those benefits of eating it kind of blended in with all the other fruit.
Well, and you said it kind of fast. So I just want to repeat for people.
So the four the four different uh.
[41:46]Uh, ingredients in the fruit salad are it's watermelon, cherries, not cherry tomato.
Well, maybe it is cherry tomatoes, but then it's also cherries, right?
Do you use like fresh cherries? Do you, do you use frozen cherries?
What do you, what do you prefer there?
I tend fresh and I just, you know, take a minute to pit them as you go.
Um, you could use frozen, but they kind of get a little bit more, um, wetter.
So I like to use fresh in the summer and that's really the most tedious part is just taking the pits out of those but yeah i thought it was really creative the way you decided to you know make that especially with those beats for people that maybe have a difficult time with beats yeah and and the beats in the four three two one is two cups of of the the dice beats not four or three it's kind of very um very manageable and then you also recommend you know kind of um uh dressing it up with a little uh fresh mint and some white balsamic yeah yeah i love it just adds a little bit of extra flavor and as it sits in your fridge it just kind of all mills together and it's really a lovely lovely recipe for the summer yeah you know so one of the things that especially this time of the year with you know The NFL in full swing and people watching football. Are you a Steelers fan?
I am. I am. I think you're proud of you being from Pittsburgh.
[43:12]I think I may have to hold that against you.
[43:17]I tell you what, it's going to be a good year this year, Cleveland against Pittsburgh. Always, always. Wow.
[43:25]One of the things we love making is guacamole. You have a low fat guacamole and you slice it with some different ingredients.
Tell everybody about how to do that. Yeah. My secret ingredient is peas for that one.
So you can take some cooked peas and, or, you know, defrost them from frozen and just pulse them in.
And really it's a great way of, it still is green.
It's still very, I mean, super filling and it's a great way to cut back if you don't want as as much avocado in it. And so we, I love that recipe.
It's another great way. If you're not a pea fan, it's a great way to sneak it in.
I love peas, so it's not a problem, but yeah, it's just a different ingredient than you would think.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I've done it before too. And I think it's really smart.
And then you also, you know, obviously you put the lime in there, some red onions, you recommend some miso.
[44:19]Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny. Miso is, that's one one ingredient that I don't, I don't have in my refrigerator.
Do you recommend, what do you, what are some of the use cases for miso besides this?
Yeah. So I find that especially people coming from this lifestyle and, you know, maybe if you're avoiding, if you're not using table salt, miso is really nice. And especially the white mild one to add just a little bit. And I, you know, from Dr.
Greger's, you know, studies that he's found on it. It doesn't affect your blood pressure as much as table salt.
And I've noticed that personally for me, like checking my blood pressure, um, a small amount goes a long way and really could help you kind of jump that hurdle from getting away from, you know, the salt shaker that you have on your table.
[45:08]I, I love roasted Brussels sprouts and there's, I have lots of different ways that I roast them, whether it's in the oven, whether it's on the the grill and you have a recipe and you claim the best roasted Brussels sprouts.
Why are yours better than mine?
Well, I'm sure yours are the best too, but I love them because it's easy.
So you just hack the Brussels sprouts in half and then you're just throwing it in the, you can do a reusable like stasher bag or a Ziploc bag and you're just dumping in your ingredients.
So I love some balsamic um in there you can do i like to do a little bit of hummus even in there make it nice and creamy and you really just like let everything marinate in that and then you put it on your baking sheet and bake them and they just become like caramelized and really you know that's not a food that i would have loved before being whole food plant-based because i've only had it cooked certain ways where they were mushy and kind of overdone and not enjoyable and that was a food that, you know, I was like forced to eat before you could leave the table.
And so, you know, now finding all these new ways of enjoying it, it's just, I mean, I could eat those every day.
I like that. So you put it into one of those big, what.
[46:25]Frozen, you know, freezer bags. Yep. And then you put in all your ingredients, these spices too.
Yeah. We, sometimes I like to do like a plain hummus, but your favorite balsamic vinegar of your choice and that, you know, I love like pomegranate during this time of year or, you know, some other ones that are kind of seasonal and then some Dijon mustard in there.
And you just kind of let everything mix it all up really well.
You can let it rest if you want, or you can and bake it off right away.
And it just becomes, they're just like so flavorful, popping them in your mouth.
When you say let it rest, you mean kind of all the flavors marinate for a while?
Yeah. Sometimes if I have extra time, I'll put it in the fridge for like a couple hours or you can even do it the day before and then cook them off.
But in a pinch, I've done them right when they're done as well.
Yeah. Have you ever had any success with frozen frozen Brussels sprouts or usually always fresh?
[47:22]Yeah, I like frozen as well. If you, you know, put them in a sauce and marinate.
My favorite way of eating Brussels sprouts is actually raw though.
I love just shredding them and it's, you know, cabbage.
And so I add that to salads all the time. That's actually how I slowly started to love Brussels sprouts was, you know, finding different ways.
And I found that I love them raw, especially.
And so, you know, there's always fun fun ways of foods that you might not have loved before and different ways to do it to really get you to appreciate them.
And so between that and mushrooms, I've really come far away from loving foods I didn't before.
[48:00]How do you slice up your Brussels sprouts when you're putting them into a salad? What do you do?
I just put them in a, like a food processor that has the attachment that you can shred.
And so I just put them through that and they shred it nice, finely, or you could take take a knife and finely chop them into little shreds.
But that's my favorite way of adding them to salads.
So you just mentioned mushrooms.
Mushrooms are, I'm really finicky with my mushrooms.
I mean, they have to be done just right. I don't like them too juicy and too much water.
It just, it reminds me of eggplant.
And I just, something about the whole texture is just very, I've got an aversion to it.
[48:41]I, in my first book, The Engine to Diet, I've got a recipe in there for a mushroom stroganoff.
And I've never been thrilled with how it ultimately turned out.
[48:54]You've got a mushroom stroganoff. What is the secret to your mushroom stroganoff?
And why is it so much better than mine, probably?
[49:03]Oh, that's kind of you. But I love it because really it's kind of blended in with a creamy sauce. and then you add your pasta in there.
And so it's not like the star of the show where mushrooms stick out.
It's really a nice compliment to the dish because any recipe that I have with mushrooms in our channel or on our website is meant for people who don't like mushrooms.
So you can trust me, I promise you. It gets the stamp of approval for not mushroom fans.
I just feel like it goes over really well with people that aren't specifically fans of mushrooms. grams.
Do you, are you able to share with us, or if you can remember, what is that creamy sauce that you, what are the ingredients in it that you make for that stroganoff?
Yeah. So similar to kind of what you're, instead of the cream cheese for this jalapeno poppers, it's kind of similar, like almost a sour cream that we make for it.
So you can do a couple of varieties of, I love silken tofu for that or white beans or cashews.
And those are kind of my three go-tos for making something creamy.
And then I love, um, brightening it up with some lemon juice, adding plant milk to help everything blend together.
And then you can do like onion, garlic powder, or kind of my two always go to, you could do a little bit of miso in there as well.
And in seconds you have a delicious creamy sauce or sour cream or, you know, filler for your poppers.
Um, that doesn't take long at all. All right.
[50:31]You're doing great. I got one more for you. I'm going to throw at you.
And that's corn zucchini fritters.
Those really caught my eye. I was like, oh, I would really like some of those right now with some salsa on top.
How do you make your corn zucchini fritters? So we take corn and it can be fresh corn, you know, in the summer.
It can be frozen corn. I love frozen vegetables, especially this time of year.
And we add them to some zucchini that you squeeze out a lot of the liquid so that it's not very wet.
You fold it all in with some chickpea flour.
I love playing around with different types of flour. They give a little bit of a different flavor for what you're using.
And then we do like flax eggs to bind everything and again with seasonings it's always like onion garlic powder um that get folded in there and then i really love serving it with applesauce or you can even do ketchup or salsa and they're really great you can make them as thin or as thick as you'd like and yeah we love the fritters they travel well so if you ever go on a long trip they They hold up really well in the car. Yeah. Wonderful.
[51:42]When's your birthday? In August. In August. Okay. Tell me this.
Let's say your birthday is tomorrow. Okay. All right. We're pretending, hypothetically.
What would you serve yourself for dinner and then for dessert?
Wow. Wow, that's a hard one.
Dinner, I am a lover of any type of pasta.
So probably would be some pasta dish of like Alfredo that we have on our channel.
We have a pasta with an Alfredo sauce.
Or it might be like mac and cheese or something like that.
We love with lots of vegetables added to it. But anything with pasta, I'm pretty big fan of. And then dessert.
Every year for our our channel, I always make a different cake to celebrate my birthday.
So this past, um, last year it was like a cheesecake we made this year.
It was a lemon blueberry bundt cake.
Um, however, we have like a family staple recipe that I've made whole food plant-based, which is our chocolate cream cheesecake.
It has a chocolate outside and then it has a cream cheese inside.
Um, and so I make that every year on special holidays. So maybe that for my birthday, if it was tomorrow.
Hmm. Yeah. I saw, I saw that, uh, that cheesecake and it just looks incredible.
[53:11]Um, well, so how many, how many hours would you say you spend a day kind of in the kitchen or doing recipe testing and stuff like that? A lot. Yeah.
[53:23]I mean, I, yeah, it's definitely a full-time job doing it too, which I'm so lucky to be able to do this as my job now.
But I would say generally, in the kitchen, maybe like four hours, depending.
And then all the back scenes of cooking, putting things together. And, and I'm a one woman show over here.
So I, right now I'm, every time people are surprised when I get back to them in an email or they send me a Facebook message, um, I even give my cell phone out online and answer calls and texts from people that have questions.
Um, so yeah, it's just, I, I love doing it. So it doesn't seem like work. Wow.
And you've got a membership, right?
Where people can pay a very, sounds like small monthly fee, and then they get a certain number of recipes every month. Is that right?
Yeah. So people are reaching out on how to help donate to what I do because making recipes and buying groceries and all of the backend stuff is very expensive. So I decided to do.
You get 10 recipes a month. It's just $10.
It also includes our monthly cooking class where we get together once a month and cook for a few hours.
[54:40]We also do a relaxing art project for stress relief.
And so I put some other lifestyle medicine things in there as well.
But yeah, it's been great. We put all the recipes there first.
We have a whole food plant-based SOS-free cookie class coming up for December, which is really fun.
We do that every year. We get together and bake cookies that are healthy for the whole family.
And so it's really fun and I just love it. And so people can go there if they'd like to sign up or, you know, eventually everything comes out for free on our channel.
I always try to model it that way, that there's something always for Yeah.
Yeah. Sounds wonderful. Yeah. You're, you're, you're, you're building up a lot of wonderful, important resources and tools for people. Thank you.
So I, you know, in perusing your website.
[55:35]You know, you talk obviously a lot about your mother and your mother's impact on you and her passing away in 2019.
[55:46]How do you feel if I read that letter that you had online that your mother wrote to you?
I think it was your aunt or somebody gave it to you.
Yeah, they actually gave it to me on my birthday. My mom passed at the end of June and my birthday is in August. So, um, I just turned, um, she was, I was 28 when she passed and I just turned 29 a couple months later, but yeah, you can share it.
Well, uh, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't normally do this, but, uh, you know, you were very open online with it and how much your mother meant to you.
And then I'd love to just, after I read it, just ask you just a little bit about, um, you know, some of your takeaways.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So, Britt, she's called you Britt, huh? Yeah. Britt, yeah.
This is not how I planned it. I wanted to be here for you and Mark.
I wanted to enjoy my grandbabies, to be here to babysit and help you.
I wanted to read books and to play with them just as Aunt Ruby and Del did with me and Uncle Bill.
Everyone has different plans to follow. You can be angry for a while, but not too long. My nursing career has taught me that not everyone gets that much time.
I have been lucky to have 55 years.
[57:06]I am grateful I was able to be here for you and see the person slash woman you have become, strong and independent.
I'm amazed at your independence and get-go attitude.
You just push yourself to achieve where others do not.
I'm amazed at your loving and caring nature that you have.
I am sorry that you have to take care of me. Daughters should not have to take care of their moms.
[57:34]Unfortunately, this has been my life. I will be there to look over you.
If you feel the need, go to the cemetery and talk to me and the others that love you so much.
But know I will always be around you and can hear you. Don't let anyone treat you unkindly or demeaning.
Don't put up with that. I will always love you, be proud of you and watch over you. Love mom.
Yeah. So, so, so just powerful and wonderful and loving.
[58:08]What, what were some of your takeaways after, you know, reading that?
Um, a lot of lessons in that, that, you know, she shared and, um, I read it all the time.
I have it framed in our house and it was a real big gift, you know, that to have that and to have that for the rest of my life to look at, um, you know, everyone gets that.
Uh, and so I think it, you know, there's my mom being my mom telling me not to be, be be mad or sad, you know, too long, which is difficult at her dying at 55.
But, you know, just seeing that she was so grateful for, you know, the life that she had and that she got to see us go to college and get married and do things that we wanted to do in life.
[58:56]Yeah, it's just a gift. My mom was such an amazing person.
And actually, we just got a big gift is that our due date is on her birthday.
So yeah, I was over the moon.
I mean, shocked when the doctors told us, but just another gift that she's still with us and gets to be a part of her first grandchild too.
Well, and as you've, as you've, as you said earlier, you know, she had every right to be absolutely angry and pissed off, you know, at the world and why me?
And instead she takes the attitude of how, you know, how grateful she is that she got to live 55 years and, you know, have you as this incredible daughter and, and all that.
So she, it sounds like she definitely had the, you know, the, the glass is half full and not half empty attitude.
Definitely. I try to be like that, you know, each day too. Yeah.
It's really, it's really wonderful. Well, Brittany, I've really enjoyed our time together.
I am so glad that Dr.
Lori Marbus told me about you. I didn't even know that you were out there in the universe.
And now I know, and now the PLANTSTRONG audience knows.
So you can see there, everybody, if you want to learn more, just go to www.newthe...
Do the, and how do you pronounce your last name again?
Jaroudi. Jaroudi. Yeah.
[1:00:26]NewTheJaroudiFamily.com. And then on Instagram, it is The Jaroudi Family.
So just about everything's The Jaroudi Family.
Make it really easy. Yeah.
All right. Well, you take care there in Pittsburgh. You make sure that PLANTSTRONG keeps, I mean, Pittsburgh keeps it PLANTSTRONG for all of us. All right.
I will. Thank you for having me. All right. Give me a virtual fist bump on the way. Boom.
You can learn more about Brittany at the Jaroudi family, and Jaroudi is spelled J-A-R-O-U-D-I, the Jaroudi family, on Instagram or at her website, which I'll be sure to link up in the show notes.
Not only has a whole food plant-based diet been able to save Brittany's health, but it has also provided purpose, which she is kind enough to share with all of us. So thank you, Brittany, for your passion.
What a beautiful way to honor your late mother.
Thanks to all of you for listening. And always keep it PLANTSTRONG.
[1:01:38]The PLANTSTRONG Podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, and Ami Mackey.
If you like what you hear, do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones. You can always leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
And while you're there, make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode.
As always, this and every episode is dedicated to my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr.
And Anne Crile Esselstyn. Thanks so much for listening.
