#135: Chef Bai - Cook. Vibe. Heal.
Chef Bai - author of Cook. Heal. Go Vegan!
Today, we go on a powerful healing journey.
Bailey Ruskus was diagnosed with endometriosis at age 11, leaving her in tremendous amounts of chronic pain, while constantly being dosed up on multiple medications. Throughout her young adulthood, she exhausted all standard treatments and turned back to the only thing she really knew – FOOD.
You see, Bailey, who goes by Chef Bai - is also a classically trained chef from San Francisco’s Le Cordon Bleu. She spent years in the grind working 65-70 hours a week until her body just simply collapsed. Nothing about her lifestyle was sustainable, that is, until she went back to her food choices and began to study the true healing power of plants. She literally had to “unlearn” what she had learned in culinary school.
Today, at the young age of 30, she is PLANTSTRONG, off all meds, feeling vibrant, and is the author of the best selling book, Cook. Heal. Go Vegan!
We go behind the scenes on this chef’s life – including her favorite spices, flavors, and meals from her cookbook, as well as tips on how you, too, can start to heal your body.
Cook. Heal. Go Vegan! is your guide to plant-based cooking for better health and a better world.
Episode Resources
PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner - Perhaps our most powerful tool - the PLANTSTRONG Meal Planner is packed with hundreds of our favorite whole foods plant-based recipes and your membership allows you to curate a personal collection of menus so your family favorites are always at your fingertips. The integrated grocery list makes shopping a snap and our meal planning experts are on hand seven days a week to answer questions to chat about food. Save $10 off the annual membership with the code PLANTSTRONG
Buy Cook. Heal. Go Vegan by Chef Bai
Visit PLANTSTRONG.com for all PLANTSTRONG Resources, including books, recipes, foods and the PLANTSTRONG Coaching Programs
Join the Free PLANTSTRONG Community with over 26,000 members
Full YouTube Transcript
Chef Bai:
I think a lot of times people look at cooking as a chore or as something that they have to do or that like they're trying to squeeze it in and of course we've all been there but cooking can just be like a moving meditation. Cooking can be a gratitude practice. Cooking can be a chance to be grateful for just being alive.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and welcome to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast. The mission at PLANTSTRONG is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living, and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as the solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with. We welcome you wherever you are on your PLANTSTRONG journey, and I hope that you enjoy the show.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hello, my PLANTSTRONG pomegranate seeds, I love pomegranate seeds. I want to welcome you to another episode of the PLANTSTRONG podcast. I'm Rip Esselstyn, thank you so much for joining me. Can you believe that we are already rounding the corner to spring, spring break is upon us. I literally cannot believe how fast 2022 is ticking by. It is phenomenal. Speaking of phenomenal, today I'm going to take you on a very powerful healing journey. My guest is Bailey Ruskus. At the tender age of 11, she was diagnosed with endometriosis that left her in tremendous amounts of chronic pain, constantly dosed up on multiple medications, and she got to the point where she had exhausted all standard treatments and turned back to the only thing that she really knew and understood and that was food. And that's because Bailey, who goes by Chef Bai, is also a classically trained chef from San Francisco's Le Cordon Bleu. She spent years deep in the grind working 65 to 70 hours a week until her body just simply collapsed. Nothing about her lifestyle was sustainable until she went back to her food choices and began to study the true healing power of plants. And she literally had to unlearn what she had learned in culinary school.
Rip Esselstyn:
Today at the young age of 30, she is PLANTSTRONG, off all meds, feeling vibrant, and is the author of the best-selling book Cook. Heal. Go Vegan! Today, we're going to go behind the scenes on this chef's life, including her favorite spices, flavors, and meals from her cookbook, as well as tips on how you too can start to heal your body. Cook. Heal. Go Vegan! is your guide to plant-based cooking, for better health, and a better world. Welcome, Chef Bailey Ruskus.
Rip Esselstyn:
Today, I have a chef. Another chef, she actually came out ... Was it your first book?
Chef Bai:
It was. Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. She came out with her first book called Cook. Heal. Go Vegan! in August and she actually, she sent me a copy of the book which you can see right here. Look at it, it's absolutely gorgeous. You would not believe every recipe has a full-page photo, it is absolutely I want to eat it right up, and then you also sent me this really wonderful, nice, handwritten note with a little gift bag, so absolutely kind of you and you say, "Rip, you have been such an inspiration to my team and me over the years. Your TED Talk blew my mind long before I was vegan myself, and helped me change from being a classically French trained chef to a plant-based chef." That is where I want to start out. I mean that is fascinating to me, that you ... So you went to what, Le Cordon Bleu? Is that right?
Chef Bai:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, in San Francisco.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yep. And why did you decide that you wanted to get into food and be a chef and all that?
Chef Bai:
Yeah. I mean like it was all I ever did. So when I was 11, I went to work in a pastry kitchen instead of go to summer camp because I wanted to make money and I really wanted to learn how to make cannolis and I will say that most of my time was spent folding cake boxes and stuff, but I got like a paycheck at the end of the week. I mean it was nothing substantial but for an 11-year-old, that was like, "This is awesome. I get to work with my hands," and so from then I was just working in kitchens. When I was in high school, I worked full-time as a manager of a bagel shop and so I was making bagels at 3:00 in the morning before high school and then I just -
Rip Esselstyn:
I need to stop you right there. I love bagels. I love hot, warm bagels.
Chef Bai:
I know.
Rip Esselstyn:
I love hot, warm Sesame bagels.
Chef Bai:
I'm like an onion everything kind of bagel girl.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well I also like jalapeno bagels. And I didn't until I got down to Austin, Texas and then I learned to love the jalapeno bagels. At first, I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, and I'm like eating ... Or I see the coach of the swim team brought this big thing of bagels and they're jalapeno and I'm like, "Is that a joke? Is it a joke? Why would anybody eat a bagel with a jalapeno?" And now I love them.
Chef Bai:
It's so good, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
But okay, so you worked at a bagel shop.
Chef Bai:
I worked at a bagel shop and I was honestly like such a partier in high school. I had a 1.7 GPA. I just like didn't really care about the traditional school system. I wasn't into the politics and the social aspect of school. I was just kind of a weirdo, I just did my own thing. I liked to work, I liked to party with my friends who were older in college, and then by the time it came for me to go to college, my parents were like, "Well it's not like you can get into school anywhere. Like you've been a terrible student this whole time," and I was like, "Yeah, but culinary school accepts everybody." So that was kind of my in, it was basically like if you can pay, because culinary school, especially Le Cordon Bleu, is not expensive. It's like 100 grand, and they're like, "All right. Well if you want to take out the loans and do it, then do it," and so I did it. I didn't know anyone in San Francisco, I had never even been there, I was just like, "Let's go." So right after high school, I moved to San Francisco and went to Le Cordon Bleu and -
Rip Esselstyn:
And so what was that experience like? Was it more than you thought? Was it less than you thought? Was it a good -
Chef Bai:
I didn't know what to think. I grew up in Colorado so I grew up in kind of the country, like 20 minutes outside of Boulder, and so moving to a big city, I was just ready to adventure. I was just like such a wild child that I just needed something different. I always used to say, I was like a city girl raised in the country and so I finally ... I don't know, it was great for me but it was also different for the aspect that I didn't really feel like I belonged there. Like there was just part of this French intense chef ego driven kind of way of making food that it was really hard for me to get through the whole thing because I just didn't really resonate with the entire lifestyle of what being an executive chef of a restaurant is, and so I bounced around restaurants, looking for kind of my place, and then I ended up just kind of starting my own business as a private chef, trying to be doing something else other than what everyone else was doing because it just didn't seem healthy.
Rip Esselstyn:
So how long is your education at Le Cordon Bleu?
Chef Bai:
Yeah, so it's really intense. It's like two and a half years, but you basically ... The way that it's structured is it's like six week classes where it's a full-time job basically. So it's five days a week, six to seven hours a day, and then you finish the class, you have to pass that class, and then you move on to the next class. So it's basically I tell people like an episode of Chopped like every single day and you're just proving yourself over and over and over and over again and refining your skills.
Rip Esselstyn:
So in reading the intro to your book, Cook. Heal. Go Vegan!, I noticed that you ... After I think Le Cordon Bleu, you were in San Francisco for like six years and then you said that you kind of hopped into the hamster wheel and you did a fair amount of suffering.
Chef Bai:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right? And I'd love to hear you talk about the suffering that you went through that then I think led you to the healing process because your dedication of your book you say is for anyone who has ever been told they can't heal, and for those who tried anyway. I think that's really cool.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, I love that. I love that dedication, it just came to me like literally two seconds before my manuscript was due. I was like, "What am I going to say?" And then it just hit me. Yeah, so I have endometriosis and I've basically had it since I was 11. I started my period like very, very, very young which I know now is because of all the food that I was eating and yeah, I just was in a constant pain cycle from the time I was very young, like the first time I got my period, I thought I was dying, my parents were like, "Does she need to go to the hospital?" And then kind of that typical rhetoric that most women hear is like, "Oh, painful periods are normal." Like, "You need to toughen up."
Chef Bai:
Like I was put on birth control when I was 11 and going to Le Cordon Bleu I think, that lifestyle just kind of like made my body downward spiral. I was hanging on by a thread, just kind of living with chronic pain, not really realizing I was living with chronic pain. Just as I was told this was just normal and so working as a private chef and then working in restaurants, I was working 80 hours a week and also living in San Francisco, a young woman in her twenties, I was partying, I was just trying to stay on this hamster wheel is what I call it. Because I was just trying to function and then eventually my body just collapsed and I had to move home with my parents which was very sobering in your mid-twenties moving home with your parents but I just couldn't work anymore, I couldn't pay my bills, I was so sick and a moment of awakening that I had was I was having all these back problems. Like my left leg would shake, I was just in constant, constant chronic pain that just felt like more than endo because I just wasn't that educated about endo and most of the doctors that I was seeing weren't educated about endo either.
Chef Bai:
So it was just kind of this frustrating cycle of me. Like I felt like a little guinea pig being put on all of these different medications and just being kind of passed around to different specialists and then I had a doctor tell me that he thought that if we fused my spine, like three of my vertebrae together, that all my pain would go away, I probably would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, but I would not be in pain.
Rip Esselstyn:
What?
Chef Bai:
Yes. And I looked at this man and I was like, "No. I am not taking this as an answer," and for me, I was like, "Okay. I need to get educated and I need to figure out what's going on," and that's when I really started diving into learning about food and the chemicals that are put on food and it's an intense learning because it was a lot of me unlearning what I had learned in school. It was crazy to me that I had paid $100,000.00 for a culinary arts education but I didn't know anything about our food. So that's kind of like where it all started for me and that was like a long process of learning and unlearning to get to where I am now.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And so what year was it when you made the transition from rich, animal-based dairy foods to a more kind of PLANTSTRONG way of -
Chef Bai:
Yeah. I love the tag.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Chef Bai:
I think it was a slow transition honestly. Like I'd love to say it just happened overnight, and I think me deciding to go like hard full vegan did happen kind of overnight but the transition was slow. It went from me being like, "Okay, I'm going to cut out processed foods. And then I'm going to cut out refined sugar." And it was just kind of like a slow learning process because no one around me was doing anything similar. So I felt like I was kind of like jumping off the ledge by myself and also like my mom was dealing with arthritis, my dad was dealing with really high blood pressure and there was just like all these little things around me where I was just like, "Okay, I need to figure this out for all of us. I feel like there's got to be an answer here."
Chef Bai:
So my big deciding factor was around four years ago, I had my last endometriosis surgery. It didn't go well, there was all these complications they couldn't describe to me and I just kind of felt a little bit lied to. And the only thing that I hadn't tried was going like full vegan, plant-based, whole food plant-based, no cheats, like no cheeseboard here and there or like have sushi once in a while or whatever. I was like, "You know what? I'm just going to go all in," and for me, it was really hard for me because I'm a French trained chef so I was like, "You know, I loved brie cheese and Gruyere," and I validated my chefness with that, if that makes sense. And so my husband actually was the one that was like, "This is ridiculous. I can't watch you suffer like this anymore. We're going vegan." And my husband's from Chicago, Midwest, he's like an athlete, and so him going vegan just like shocked his entire family. Like everybody was like, "What is happening?"
Chef Bai:
We went vegan one month, I felt so much better. I was able to recover from my surgery and then within six months I was off all my hormone replacements, all my prescription pills, no more painkillers. Like I was a completely different person. Just everything changed.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. And how long? How long had you been living with the prescriptions, the painkillers, the hormone replacement, all that stuff?
Chef Bai:
Since I was 11.
Rip Esselstyn:
Since you were 11? And so 11 until what? How old?
Chef Bai:
Until 25.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. That's a good 14 years there.
Chef Bai:
I know, and when I learned about birth control too, it was like my body had never actually been on a normal menstrual cycle because the birth control is just ... They call it like a pill bleed. It's not even like your own body, your own hormones going through a regular cycle. It's just kind of like a fake cycle if that makes sense and so my body was actually starting to mature and develop and do all these things that it should have been doing when I was younger. So yeah, I was in intense detox. Like detoxing off all the hormones.
Rip Esselstyn:
So for people that don't know, can you describe what is endometriosis?
Chef Bai:
Yeah. So endometriosis is ... I mean they're kind of bouncing around like what they would qualify it as, whether it's like an inflammatory disease or an autoimmune disease. It's very under-researched but it's being more researched now but it's where the lining, the endometrial lining that's supposed to only be on the inside of your uterus is also on the outside of your uterus and it's not ... It's like very similar to the same kind of endometrial lining. So when you have your cycle, it basically sheds and creates adhesions and cysts and the cysts can grow and they can burst and it's really painful and they're now finding that the endometriosis can spread to your lungs. They found it on the spinal cord of some women. Like it's growing out of control and I actually just talked to Dr. Klaper on my podcast and he was talking a lot about the high estrogen that's in dairy now and how it's causing things like endometriosis and PCOS to just kind of get out of control, so yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And tell me, if you have endometriosis, does that mean that you then ... You have the ability to get pregnant?
Chef Bai:
So it's interesting that you, because I've been talking about this a lot lately. So they've said no, my whole life. They're like, "It's going to be really hard for you. You should have a different plan." When I was 11 years old, they're telling me that I'm never going to be able to have kids, so don't even think about it." Which I think is why I've become super career-motivated but now that I just like know so much other information and I know that healing is possible and I know that you can really take control of your life and take back the narrative that has been given to you or been given to me by so many other people, I think that I could. I don't know, I'm 30 now and I'm married and so my husband and I are like, "Well do we want kids? Like we've always said that we're never going to have them because of me, but should we see what's going to happen?"
Chef Bai:
And I know women who have gotten pregnant on endo and I also know people who have endo who can't get pregnant. So I think it's just like a flip of the coin and it's also ... I don't know, I think like believing in it and faith and positive affirmations, as cheesy as that sounds. I think that that's super helpful too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). We'll get right back to Chef Bai. But I wanted to share a fun and lighthearted comment from YouTube after my recent interview on The Rich Roll Podcast. This listener first heard my interview ... Gosh, probably four or five years ago, when I was on Rich's podcast and he was encouraging me to go after the world record in the men's 200 meter backstroke and then heard that I had set it in my follow-up conversation that I had with Rich in January. So he goes on to say, "Congratulations on your world record, Rip. I'm 59 years young now too. When I was 15 to 17 years old, I swam for the team in my small town. I was never great at it, but it sure got me in great shape. To give you just an idea, my team swam in the town pond because we never had a pool. We had tadpoles in there with us and the water was so murky they had to paint plywood either white or bright yellow at the ends of each lane. Fun times. I'm just a couple months into serious PLANTSTRONGing. You, Rich, your dad, and the whole Esselstyn family are a big part of keeping me motivated."
Rip Esselstyn:
So yes, I applaud you for your success. Bless you and your family. I can't even tell you how much I and the whole PLANTSTRONG team love reading comments like these on all of our channels. Thank you to all of you who take the time to share what the PLANTSTRONG show means to you or how learning about the lifestyle has impacted you personally. We read each and every one of your comments, so please, take a moment, wherever you listen, to like, subscribe, or follow our show so you never miss an episode. Our team works passionately to create resources that will help keep you on the PLANTSTRONG path. As an example, our PLANTSTRONG meal planner. Perhaps one of our most powerful tools, the meal planner is packed with hundreds of our favorite whole food, plant-based recipes that follow all of our guidelines and your membership allows you to curate a personal collection of menus so your family favorites are always at your fingertips.
Rip Esselstyn:
We also have this integrated grocery list that makes shopping an absolute snap, and our meal planning experts are on hand seven days a week to answer questions to chat about food. You can save $10.00 off the annual membership with the code PLANTSTRONG, one word. Simply visit mealplanner.plantstrong.com today. Okay, let's get back to Chef Bai.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'd love to dive into some food.
Chef Bai:
Yeah. My favorite thing.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So I'm just going to start by asking you this. So you've been into food since you were 11ish. Do you ever get sick of cooking?
Chef Bai:
Yeah. Tell me about it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay.
Chef Bai:
You know the catalyst for me was the cookbook. Like the cookbook really, I was just like so many nights, I was like, "We got to get takeout." Yeah, I mean I think with anything, if we do it too much, it kind of becomes more of a job than ... But I love it. I feel like the most connected to source when I'm cooking. I love, I'm like one of those people that loves grocery shopping. I love new seasons and I love meeting the farmers at the farmers' market and I just love the whole process of food. And yeah, I am obsessed with it. But I have to kind of like take it back and learn how to go on vacation and stuff because I work from home, I'm eating all the time, so it's like how do I not pick up my phone and take a picture of everything that I cook or make a recipe of everything that I cook? So I'm definitely learning boundaries, but I definitely, definitely get tired of it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, I'm sure that your husband, what's your husband's name?
Chef Bai:
Steve.
Rip Esselstyn:
Steve?
Chef Bai:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm sure that Steve has tried every one of the recipes in your new book.
Chef Bai:
Oh my gosh. Well he actually basically co-wrote the book with me. He's amazing. So he got furloughed from his job at the beginning of 2020, like most people did, and that's kind of when I started to need help and then I got the book deal and so I was just like, "Hey, don't go back to what you were doing and just come help me with the business." And he did, and he helped, like we shot all the photos of the cookbook, the two of us, and he's been like right, he set me up for this podcast today, like he's my right hand man for everything. So yeah, and honestly, if something happened to me, he could cook at this point just as well as I can. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. Well, with all that you guys have been through and the fact that you did the book together and he helped you with the recipes and everything, that's either going to tear you apart or it's going to make you stronger than ever.
Chef Bai:
Oh totally. Yeah, we're stronger than ever. I mean it was ... Writing the book was wild. Like mid-lockdown, writing the book, we had a lot of family stuff going on. They were actually tearing apart our deck while they were doing it so our house was shaking, it was in the middle of the summer, we had no AC, we were like sweating like it was like a scene writing a book, but we got through it and we've grassrootsed like the whole book launch, we funded everything, all of our book signings and all of the boxes that I sent you and that I sent everyone that I admire and look up to and yeah, it was a wild ride but because our connection is so strong, we have such an intense respect for each other, we were able to get through it and we still sleep in the same room, so it's good.
Rip Esselstyn:
That is so good. So you said that you love shopping and that whole experience and going to farmers' markets and stuff like that. So what do you think about the prepping of food and the serving of the food and then the cleanup of the food? Do you even like the cleanup?
Chef Bai:
So Steve, I don't even know the last time I did a dish. So Steve cleans up.
Rip Esselstyn:
No wonder you love him so much.
Chef Bai:
Well we don't have a dishwasher here. So we have clients that I still private chef for and some of my clients live in the most amazing houses and they have two dishwashers, three dishwashers. So that's like ... But here in our apartment, by the beach, we don't have a dishwasher at all, so yeah. That's what Steve's for. No, I'm just kidding, he'll kill me if he hears that. But yeah, I love it all. Honestly, I love the whole process. I love when you cut into fresh herbs, they release that aromatic smell. I think a lot of times people look at cooking as a chore, or as something that they have to do, or that they're trying to squeeze it in and of course we've all been there but cooking can just be like a moving meditation.
Chef Bai:
Cooking can be a gratitude practice. Cooking can be a chance to be grateful for just being alive, being able to feed your body, being able to learn about food and I think, especially if people don't know how to cook or they're intimidated to cook, the best way to get over that is to just do it and to just try anyway. Even if you mess it up or whatever, just keep trying and trying again. Because of course people are like, "Oh, easy for her to say. She's a chef." But I teach so many people all the time in our classes and yeah. It's a gratitude practice. I think that anyone could love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I find it can be super just therapeutic and relaxing. And I know that for example my wife on the weekends, she doesn't feel grounded unless she bakes some sort of a dish.
Chef Bai:
Yeah. Totally.
Rip Esselstyn:
So for our listeners out there that are trying to build flavor and it's all about building flavor without dropping the ball as you say in your book, what are some of the best ways to build flavor when you're using plants?
Chef Bai:
Yeah. Well if you actually think about it, plants are how we built flavor even if you are making a dish that had meat on it. So I think a lot of people are used to thinking about flavor from a salt and fat perspective where like if you're eating a meat heavy diet, you're getting a lot of salt and a lot of fat and those are the only two flavors that you're really consuming. Both those flavors can also be a little bit addicting too, so when you start to kind of move away from that, your taste buds automatically have to kind of like readjust for you not to crave like the super salty and the super fatty foods. But I will say that no one would ever put a chicken breast in a pot of boiling water and expect it to taste like anything. What makes it taste good is plants, right?
Chef Bai:
And so when we take that same concept and use it towards plant-based cuisine and I will say being a plant-based chef makes me a better chef. I am so much better at what I do now because there's so much more to cook with, but you have to think of like all the different levels. You have to think of like sour and umami which is ... Umami, a great example is like seaweed, it has a very umami flavor. Or like when you eat sushi, when you have the ginger and the seaweed and the soy sauce and you can't really describe what it is, that's umami. So you have sour, sweet, which can come from citrus and that can also be sour or sweetness can come from dates or it can come from so many different things. You have spicy, I think people are so afraid to cook with chilies but cooking with chilies, even if they're not spicy, can add such an epic level of flavor.
Rip Esselstyn:
Like poblanos? Are you talking about like poblanos or those are not chilies, those are peppers.
Chef Bai:
They're peppers. Chilies, peppers, I'm kind of talking about it ... But also like hot sauce too. Like I love throwing hot sauce into a marinara or something like that. Just a little bit to where it kind of like heightens the flavor to where you're not necessarily tasting the spice. And then from there, like spices, like oh my gosh, I think so many people are afraid to bulk up their spice cabinet because they're afraid they're never going to use the spices. But I think it's so important to have a stocked pantry full of spices so that when you're cooking, you can play around with them and get really comfortable using them.
Rip Esselstyn:
Let's just dive into that for a sec. So spices, what are ... If you could only have 10 spices in your spice rack.
Chef Bai:
Ooh, I love this.
Rip Esselstyn:
What would they be?
Chef Bai:
Okay. I would have to go with cinnamon as the first one.
Rip Esselstyn:
Really, the first one is cinnamon?
Chef Bai:
I think cinnamon.
Rip Esselstyn:
I never would have guessed that. Okay, why?
Chef Bai:
Well because it's great in matcha and I'm such a matchaholic.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. Good.
Chef Bai:
It's my husband's favorite spice and it's good in sweet and savory dishes. So like you can make a dal with cinnamon or a curry with cinnamon or you could put it into a dessert.
Chef Bai:
So I like cinnamon. My second one would be granulated garlic, so -
Rip Esselstyn:
Granulated, huh? Okay, yep.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, so granulated garlic is actually better than garlic powder because it's not like ground to such a fine powder. So it caramelizes better, so it's just a much better cooking thing than garlic powder.
Rip Esselstyn:
No wonder, I just intuitively like the granulated. I didn't know why. Okay.
Chef Bai:
That's why. There's a reason behind it, and it actually has more garlic aroma. So it's just garlicky and I love garlic. So that would actually probably be my first one, let's be real. And then I would do cumin and coriander.
Rip Esselstyn:
So is that three and four or are you combining those two?
Chef Bai:
Three and four, four and three, whatever. The two of them together are a match made in heaven though. So whenever you're cooking like Mexican food, you got to have cumin and coriander together. And you can do cumin seeds and coriander seeds and you can grind them up if you want or you can just do powder. Whatever works, so yeah. So we've got ... And then I would probably say -
Rip Esselstyn:
What do you do? Do you do the seeds or the powder?
Chef Bai:
Depends how lazy I am.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay. Okay. Okay. But if you had the seeds and you want to crush them up, it's a little bit more of a -
Chef Bai:
It's better. It's fresher.
Rip Esselstyn:
better...ok
Chef Bai:
You get just more of the flavor. Like you get more of the aromatics, more of the flavor. And then I would say turmeric is definitely another one.
Rip Esselstyn:
Ooh. And is that because of the health benefits or is that because you actually like what it does to your food?
Chef Bai:
Yeah, multiple things. So I think turmeric is great for making things yellow, stuff like if we're doing a -
Rip Esselstyn:
Migas especiales?
Chef Bai:
Yeah, like whatever, if you want to make something yellow, it's great for that. I also just love making curries. So a curry without turmeric just tastes off. Like there's something just off about it and also the health benefits of turmeric too. I buy huge bags of turmeric and put it in whatever I can, so ...
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. You know that Dr. Michael Greger snorts turmeric every morning?
Chef Bai:
No he doesn't.
Rip Esselstyn:
No I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Chef Bai:
I just had him on the podcast too and yeah, he's on like a treadmill, a treadmill as we were talking.
Rip Esselstyn:
Of course he was.
Chef Bai:
So I wouldn't be surprised if he would do something like that.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, but he's such a fan of turmeric, I wouldn't be surprised if he's snorting it in the morning.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, right? I know. I feel like that would hurt. Oh my gosh, yeah, turmeric's a good one. So how many is that?
Rip Esselstyn:
That's five. You got five more to go.
Chef Bai:
That's five, okay. Are we including like herbs or are we just doing spices?
Rip Esselstyn:
No, you can do herbs in there. Absolutely. So you don't even have black pepper in there yet and you even talk about that in your book.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, well black pepper ... I feel like salt and pepper are just a given.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, okay. Well -
Chef Bai:
You just have to. It's like you don't even have a working stove if you don't have salt and black pepper.
Rip Esselstyn:
Are they nine and ten then?
Chef Bai:
Okay, so salt, I really like to use pink Himalayan salt. I think it makes the food taste very specific in a way that I really like and I think a lot of people who taste my food say it tastes different than anything they've ever had and I think it's because I use pink Himalayan salt.
Rip Esselstyn:
What's the difference between pink Himalayan and a -
Chef Bai:
Like a sea salt?
Rip Esselstyn:
A magenta Korean salt. I'm just making stuff up right now.
Chef Bai:
Oh I was like I don't know. Well pink Himalayan salt comes from like big salt blocks, like pink Himalayan, they're mined. I actually don't know how sustainable it is but I get like huge things of pink Himalayan salt. I will say though, the other two salts that I love are black salts. I love black salt because it has that sulfur, eggy flavor. So I put black salts in like fried rice or what else? Like on top of avocado toast.
Rip Esselstyn:
Does it have a little smokiness to it?
Chef Bai:
Yeah, it's like sulfury and smoky, it depends where you get it from. So I love the black salt from Hawaii because it comes from the lava. So it's really nice, it has like ... So it depends, it's sourced from all over the world, so wherever you get the black salt, it will have a different flavor, which is really nice. And then I also really love flaky sea salts for desserts.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, okay.
Chef Bai:
I love a good flaky sea salt moment.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, so we're at six now, because I'm including the salt. The pressure's on.
Chef Bai:
We're including the salt. The pressure's on. Okay, I'm trying to just like go and ... I've said the ones that I pretty much use all the time. I really love -
Rip Esselstyn:
Want me to throw out something to help you out?
Chef Bai:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
What about chili powder?
Chef Bai:
Chili, thank you. Yes. So I love like a mixed chili powder. I actually love to get the fresh kind from the Mexican market in bulk. So I'll get it and it always tastes a little bit different. And then I would say smoked paprika is a really big one too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Ah. Yeah.
Chef Bai:
I love the smoked one over any other one. And then I really -
Rip Esselstyn:
You know where that comes from? You know where that smoked paprika comes from?
Chef Bai:
No.
Rip Esselstyn:
It comes from Hungary.
Chef Bai:
Oh really?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah. Little country of Hungary, 10 million people, yep.
Chef Bai:
Oh my gosh. Well I didn't know that. I'm learning things. And then I would say I love garam masala which is like an Indian spice.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chef Bai:
And I mean like herbs. Like oregano is one of my favorites.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's ten. That's ten. I'm going to have to stop you there.
Chef Bai:
Okay, okay, okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
Because I want to get into so many other food right now.
Chef Bai:
Yeah. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, so let's move on from spices and herbs to seeds. Between like flax, hemp, chia, do you have a favorite?
Chef Bai:
I love hemp seeds. Hemp are my absolute favorite. I have a hemp cashew milk that I love, it's in my cookbook. There's something between the cashew and the hemp put together that's just so delicious, and I feel the best after I eat hemp seeds. They're so high in protein, they're pretty nutty in flavor. I also put them in my walnut Parmesan too. I really love that.
Rip Esselstyn:
I was just going to ask you about that.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, it's so good.
Rip Esselstyn:
Because I'm literally staring at it right now and your ingredients are walnuts, hemp seeds, nutritional yeast, that didn't make the top ten list on your spices.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, I could take it or leave it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, listen... Golly, look at that. And then you've got garlic powder and you got salt. But that walnut Parmesan sounds like ... That is an essential item in a PLANTSTRONG kitchen.
Chef Bai:
Oh my gosh. I put it on everything. It's so good, and it lasts forever just in the dry storage, which I really like too.
Rip Esselstyn:
Really? Even with the walnuts that oxidize so quickly, you can put that ... It doesn't have to be in the fridge?
Chef Bai:
I guess, I guess ... Yeah, I mean for us, it lasts maybe like a week I would say, but I mean ...
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, okay.
Chef Bai:
We eat it so quickly. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, a week, I hear you there. I thought you meant like you could have it in there for a month or two.
Chef Bai:
No. I mean it's too good to not eat it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well you don't know our house. I'd make a quart of the stuff and have it in a little -
Chef Bai:
Okay okay, then yeah, you should put it in the fridge for sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, okay.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, but I love the walnut parma. It basically tastes like a Kraft shakeable parm cheese but way better than that. I love it. Yeah, so hemp seeds. Hemp are my favorite.
Rip Esselstyn:
Let's talk nuts. Do you have a favorite nut?
Chef Bai:
Yeah. I would say my favorite nut's the cashew. They talk about how cashews can be antidepressants, they're like a natural anti-anxiety, nature's Prozac, and I just feel really good eating cashews, but I've been doing a lot of research on the farming practices of cashews in most places and it's not the most ethical by any means and so I've been looking really hard to find ethically sourced cashews and I know that Thrive Market online has ethically sourced cashews. So that's something I'm kind of like uncovering, thanks to TikTok and all the people who like to comment -
Rip Esselstyn:
Give me an idea, because I'm very much in the dark when it comes to ethically sourced cashews. Where are most cashews grown and what's the abuse that's going on there?
Chef Bai:
So from what I understand, so cashews are grown in warmer climates and a lot of cashews come from India and it's like this poisonous kind of outside of the cashew that can burn your skin and so a lot of the workers in India are actually ... It's kind of like a slave labor from what I understand, and it's actually really harmful because their skin gets burned, it can burn their eyes, they can cause people to go blind if it's not done in the proper way. So that's something I'm learning about is how 80% of the world's cashews come from India from these practices, and since I use cashews in so many of my recipes, I'm kind of like wishing I knew this information sooner.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. No, that's really good to know. What about nut butters? Do you have a favorite nut butter?
Chef Bai:
Yeah. I just love like a really good homemade creamy almond butter. Like there's nothing better than that. Cashew butters, of course I like cashews, but yeah, I'm literally staring at a fruit bowl right now that has almond butter on it. But I just love it. Especially homemade almond butter. There is nothing better than that, because all of the natural oils of the almonds get slowly roasted out and then you blend it, yeah. Super good.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I'm just like a peanut butter guy.
Chef Bai:
You are?
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh yeah. Give me just peanuts, ground peanuts, and I'm off to the races.
Chef Bai:
I love that.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right, I'm just going to kind of go through some others here. So one of the things that we ask our audience to do is to try and eat a serving of green leafies, like a fist-sized serving of green leafies with every meal, every meal, even breakfast. And I'm wondering if you have a favorite green leafy that you like to prepare and what that might be.
Chef Bai:
A favorite green leafy that I like to prepare. Oh my gosh, I don't have a favorite. I mean I used to be like a die hard spinach person, but eating too much spinach is actually not that ... It's not good for you. You have to like switch up your greens all the time and so I like to pack my smoothies with kale and spinach and then I try to have just like a side salad of like a mixed greens every day honestly. This sounds so boring. The way that I eat it actually like not that exciting. But I love kale chips, I love to sprinkle crispy kale chips on top of like a walnut bolognese or something. But yeah, I don't know. I have this new obsession with broccolini. I'm like obsessed with roasting broccolini in a cast iron pan with white balsamic vinegar. I'm obsessed with it. It's like crunchy and so, so good.
Rip Esselstyn:
So for our audience, because we try and stay away from cooking with oil, right?
Chef Bai:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
So many listeners are ... They've had a shot across the bow with heart disease or cancer or diabetes and so any recommendations for when you're cooking without oil?
Chef Bai:
Yeah, plenty.
Rip Esselstyn:
The best way to do that?
Chef Bai:
Yeah, so I think like ... So you just have to think about how you're going to add flavor to it. So I think like using vinegars is really great, citrus, and also just like a splash of vegetable broth is such a great way to kind of get that lubrication on the pan. So for instance, when I cook broccolini, I'll heat up my cast iron and then I'll splash it with like just a little bit of vegetable broth and a little bit of white balsamic vinegar and then I'll just sear the broccolini and it's so good. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
It sounds really good. I actually just did an Instagram post on Brussels sprouts, because I love Brussels sprouts and I love searing them in my cast iron pan on the barbecue, right?
Chef Bai:
Okay, yeah yeah yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
I mean really getting it hot and going to town and I actually use garlic and pepper, a little bit of salt, onions in there, and oh, so it's good.
Chef Bai:
I love that. Yeah, and I think like cooking with oil can be really overwhelming at first and I know in my cookbook I have small amounts of oil in every recipe but I also talk about how you can just replace that with something else and even if you see like a coconut oil or butter in like a baked good and you really want to make it, you can just swap that out for a nut butter and use almond butter or something instead and it will turn out just as good.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice, nice. I know that under your essentials chapter in your book, you actually have along with the walnut Parmesan, you have about seven or eight different items, but one of them is your immune boosting veggie broth.
Chef Bai:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
And we love veggie broths. We actually have a whole line of veggie broths.
Chef Bai:
I know you do, it's awesome.
Rip Esselstyn:
But tell me about yours because I noticed that you actually put in the garlic with the skins, the onion in with the skins. You put in everything in the kitchen sink in there, don't you?
Chef Bai:
Basically yeah. So I think my concept of veggie broth is to inspire people to have less food waste and I think we waste so much food, so much skin, so many carrot tops, like so much of that just goes into the garbage, into the compost if they're lucky but like I live in an apartment in San Diego, there is no composting situation here and so for me, it was just a way to inspire people to use their food waste in a way that's going to be boosting their immune system, something that they'll love, something that's not repulsive, because I've seen a lot of really bizarre food waste recipes that I just can't get into. But a vegetable broth is really easy, you just save all your scraps and I would avoid using like broccoli or cauliflower, any of the cruciferous ... Oh my gosh, I can never say it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Cruciferous, yeah.
Chef Bai:
Cruciferous, thank you. The cruciferous vegetables because they make a stinky broth. But other than that, I would just add everything in the kitchen sink in there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Do you ever put beets into your broth?
Chef Bai:
Not really because it will change the color so much. So depending, then I'm stuck with this pink broth so ... Like no.
Rip Esselstyn:
A golden beet, a golden beet.
Chef Bai:
A golden beet, yeah I do put golden beets, like the skins, I'll wash the skins and I'll put them in and I actually have gotten really into using butternut squash skins in my broth. It's so good, it makes it just like a little bit sweet. It's super good. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I like that. Do you have a favorite squash that you like to make? Because there's a lot out there right now and -
Chef Bai:
There's a lot of squashes. Let me think.
Rip Esselstyn:
You know that kabocha squash that's so -
Chef Bai:
Kabocha squashes are really good. I've been really into honeynut squashes this season. They're like a little mini butternut squash. I love them. And they're kind of hard to find, I just kind of started experimenting with them this year. I actually have a recipe on my blog that's basically a roasted honey and caramelized honeynut squash that has a salad that's like a vegan feta, pomegranate seeds and mints on the top of it. Super good, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
I've never heard of a honeynut squash. I've heard of Honey Nut Cheerios, but [laughter] -
Chef Bai:
Yes. It's new, they're like little, they look like little mini butternut squashes but they're more brown. So they're more of like a goldeny brown color instead of more yellowy orange like the typical butternut, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
You mentioned pomegranate seeds. My youngest daughter Hope who's seven, every time we go to the store, I have to buy two or three pomegranates and she loves tearing into those and it's always such an ordeal and it gets everywhere, those little seeds in the juice but it is fun.
Chef Bai:
Oh my gosh. It does. You got to check out my TikTok video where I teach you how to deseed a pomegranate, and there's no water needed, like it's really easy. People over-complicate pomegranate seeds, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. It's funny because I watched one of those videos and so we kind of like ... We take off the top and then we filet it and then we take a spoon...
Chef Bai:
No. That's not the way.
Rip Esselstyn:
We hit the seeds and they're going all over the kitchen.
Chef Bai:
That's so funny. Yeah, there's a million ways.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right, I'm going to check it out. I'm going to go ... Where do I go if I want to check that out? What's your handle?
Chef Bai:
Yes. My handle is @chef_bai, so that's TikTok and Instagram. I've been like loving TikTok lately, I've been posting way more on TikTok. I don't know what's come over me. But yeah, I mean TikTok actually helped the book become a best-seller overnight when I had a video go viral and people just freaked out over it and all of a sudden I just got all these notifications that my book was a best-seller in all four categories on Amazon and it held there for like a couple weeks, so ...
Rip Esselstyn:
That's really great.
Chef Bai:
Yeah. So I love TikTok now.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, what's going on with TikTok? I don't even know how to do much on that TikTok thing.
Chef Bai:
TikTok is the easiest way for creators to grow. I think that Instagram's algorithm is just not ... I don't know, I think for Instagram you really have to pay to play and TikTok is just, they just want really good content. They want people who are passionate, who have good content, and it doesn't have to be as like ... I would say Instagram's very all about the aesthetic of the page and you kind of have to have a whole thing where TikTok it's like they want the most authentic version of you and it's just it's so much easier to grow, it's so much easier to go viral. So if anyone's listening and they're frustrated with Instagram, I would say go over to TikTok because there's so much more going on over there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. All right. I want to wrap up. I'm going to give you four different scenarios, and I want you to tell me what you'd make for each one of these scenarios.
Chef Bai:
Ooh, fun, okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay?
Chef Bai:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Kind of like the top ten spices.
Chef Bai:
Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
So you are throwing a party and it's just going to be you, your husband Steve, and you're going to invite ... Do you have a favorite musician?
Chef Bai:
I mean right now not really. I used to be weirdly obsessed with ... I can't believe I'm going to say this, like Rihanna. Like I just used to love Rihanna.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh she's great, yeah.
Chef Bai:
She's the best, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, so let's say it's going to be you, Steve, and she's coming over for dinner. What are you going to make her? And you don't get to call her ahead of time and ask her ... Yeah.
Chef Bai:
Okay, yeah, I'd probably honestly make the deep dish pizza out of my cookbook.
Rip Esselstyn:
The deep dish.
Chef Bai:
The deep dish.
Rip Esselstyn:
I saw that, and it looked absolutely delicious.
Chef Bai:
I would make the deep dish.
Rip Esselstyn:
So it's a Chicago style deep dish, huh?
Chef Bai:
Yeah, with the svelte crust and there's like a house-made mozzarella. Like peppers and onions, and there's also the Italian chopped salad which is in my cookbook too and I would probably make that and then I'd maybe serve my mocha chocolate cake or something. Or the dulce de leche popsicles are really good too.
Rip Esselstyn:
It all sounds really good. Okay, you are alone. Steve's out of the house, he's gone to visit some friends. It's just you. What are you going to make for dinner?
Chef Bai:
For dinner? I've been really vibing with this ceviche recipe that ... It's so good, it's like half coconut milk and half lime juice as the kind of marinade. And then there's like cucumber and jicama and lots of avocado and pinto beans and hearts of palm. It's so delicious. So I'd probably make that and just snack on it throughout the night.
Rip Esselstyn:
And do you snack on it, would you snack with like tortillas or chips or anything like that?
Chef Bai:
Yeah. I like to get the tortilla chips from the Mexican market here. There's literally nothing better. But I also really do like the Siete grain free tortilla chips if I'm trying to be a little more healthy because the corn tortilla chips in the Mexican market are not the healthiest thing ever. But also, you could put them on like a tortilla, like a cassava tortilla or something and just eat it like a taco too. Or like on a salad, like make a ceviche salad.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Whenever I go out to Mexican restaurants, I always ask them to bring me ... Instead of doing the big bag of chips, right?
Chef Bai:
Yeah. Just tortillas.
Rip Esselstyn:
Just bring me steamed corn tortillas and I'd just use those, and oh, I love them.
Chef Bai:
It's so good. Especially if you get homemade tortillas. There's literally nothing better than a homemade tortilla. So good.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. What about your ... It's just you and Steve and you guys just want an easy, comfortable meal. It's like comfort food.
Chef Bai:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So there's two that we usually go for. So the first one is the chana saag. We love it. And the gluten-free naan bread, it's so easy. So the chana saag is great because we're talking about getting greens in. There's like four servings of greens in the chana saag, because there's just like tons and tons of spinach in the sauce but you would never know. So I love that and I also love my walnut bolognese. I'm like such a pasta person, I love brown rice pasta. So if I'm feeling lazy, I've had a really long cook day, I'll just make like my lazy version of the walnut bolognese with tons of mushrooms and walnuts and yeah tomatoes, and I love it.
Rip Esselstyn:
Tell me what is your go-to favorite breakfast?
Chef Bai:
Honestly, I love like a low sugar green juice, or ... That's what I have every day. Or chilaquiles if I'm feeling -
Rip Esselstyn:
Chilaquiles? What's that?
Chef Bai:
Chilaquiles. So it's a recipe in my cookbook, but it's basically like chips or tortillas smothered with ... And this is the vegan way to do it, I'll do like a salsa verde and then I have a mushroom carnitas that I'll put on there with like a tofu scramble and then like my cashew cream and it's the best breakfast of all time.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right. So no oatmeal for you.
Chef Bai:
No. I hate oatmeal. I can't do chia pudding or oatmeal or anything mushy or like bananas. I can't ... I hate mushy texture. Yeah. I need like crunch.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. So your least favorite fruit is a banana?
Chef Bai:
I literally haven't eaten a banana in 10 years. I can't do it.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's wild.
Chef Bai:
I can't even watch people chew bananas actually. Because they smack.
Rip Esselstyn:
You mean you don't like the way their mouth smacks?
Chef Bai:
It just ... Like everyone eats a banana the same and I just can't watch it.
Rip Esselstyn:
So does that mean you also don't like -
Chef Bai:
I like plantains.
Rip Esselstyn:
But what about guacamole?
Chef Bai:
I love guacamole.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, because that I mean -
Chef Bai:
It's also savory. So I think it's like the sweet mushiness I just I'm not into. I love guacamole, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. Wow, Bailey, I am blown away that you don't like bananas. That's like ... When somebody tells me they don't like a mango, I'm like, "Really? What is it? How do you not like a mango?"
Chef Bai:
It's so funny because I like everything else. Like I'm not a picky eater. I will eat anything in the plant-based world, but I just cannot stomach a banana. And it's so funny because I had heartburn, we were traveling to Mexico, I got super bad heartburn, and all the locals were like, "Eat the banana." And I'm like heaved over with this crazy heartburn and I was like, "I can't do it." Like it was like eat the banana and not have heartburn or have heartburn and not eat the banana and I had heartburn. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Wow. How are your mom and dad doing?
Chef Bai:
My mom and dad are doing great. My mom is like venturing to go, so they've both been pescatarian for the last three years which is so huge. And my mom is looking to give up dairy this next year, so that's like a really big thing for her. So they're doing good.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well it sounds like you've had a big influence on them obviously. They must be thrilled with all of your success.
Chef Bai:
Yeah. Totally. They're also very annoyed by how much I push them to go vegan but I'm like, "Come on, here's a podcast, listen to this. Like here's a book you can read." But yeah, no, they're super proud of me and I think they always saw it in me even when I was a crazy party girl back in the day. It's been a long time since then but yeah, they've always stood by me and they showed up for our big book launch party and surprised me so they've been ... I'm really lucky with my parents because they've ... It's been a rocky road, but they have stuck by me through all my surgeries and just everything that I went through and I don't think I would have been able to do it without them and I just want them to live a long life and so I'm really like ... I'm like, "If I'm just being aggressive about the vegan, it's only because I love you the most out of anyone." So yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. It can be tough with people that you really care about and love and you want them to embrace this and understand it but unfortunately everybody kind of comes to it typically when they're ready for it and you can't force feed it to anyone.
Chef Bai:
You really can't.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I've had some people that are very close to me that never embraced it and have unfortunately died of chronic Western disease, right? That as we know is very much in many cases preventable and reversible.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, I mean me too. All my grandparents, I've had uncles and aunts die prematurely. I've had friends die of overdose and it's just ... I feel with my parents, I'm just like, "You guys can be super healthy. You can live a really long life," but it's also like a mass unlearning. Like you really have to unlearn and convince yourself and you, like you're so right, you have to be ready to make the change because that's who you go to sleep with every night.
Rip Esselstyn:
You're right. There's a certain deprogramming that is necessary.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, and there's all these excuses. "Oh, well I deserve this," or, "Oh, well, this is fine." Like I mean if you think about it, Got Milk? was an advertisement in every single school like as the allowed advertisement. Like we're literally programmed and trained to think that this stuff was good for us, so it's so much unlearning and I'm obsessed with the food and I'm so involved, but it's just part of their life, it's not their whole life, so ... Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I'm just going to, as we're shutting down here, I'm going to read something that you wrote in your book that I really like. You say, "The reality is, we don't need a few people doing it perfectly. We need millions and millions of people trying their best and doing it imperfectly," in regards to people basically going vegan, plant-based, however you want to refer to it. You want to comment on that at all?
Chef Bai:
Yeah. I think of course everyone thinks of the vegans as like that one angry vegan that they met that one time or whatever. But I think when we're talking about environmental impact and creating compassion around the world that we live in, the people that we live next to, and the animals that walk this Earth, I think it just starts slowly and you just have to go slow but I think if everyone starts to make little changes, the impact can actually happen and it'll be much bigger than just the impact that you make on your own life. It will be an impact that you make on the people around you that get inspired by you. It will be an impact on the amount of the water that you'll save from having that plant-based meal or the animal's life that you save and I think once we have compassion for ourselves that it's okay to do it imperfectly then that's when the compassion can kind of like spread outside of ourselves into everything else.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). Beautifully said.
Chef Bai:
Thanks.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, final thing, and then I'm going to let you go. How did you get your name Bailey?
Chef Bai:
It's my mother's maiden name.
Rip Esselstyn:
It is.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, yeah. So she said if she ever had a daughter, she would give me her maiden name and then take my dad's. So yeah, and then I became Chef Bai like cooking on this retreat. It was like a New York Times best-selling authors retreat actually and I was cooking and they were all like coming up with titles for their next best-selling book and they were like, "You need to be something other than Bailey." So they named me Chef Bai, and that was like five years ago and it just stuck.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice, nice. Never heard the first name Bailey before.
Chef Bai:
Really?
Rip Esselstyn:
I never have. No.
Chef Bai:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
I had a fire instructor who was Chief Bailey.
Chef Bai:
Okay, okay.
Rip Esselstyn:
Though he scared me.
Chef Bai:
Everyone always says like, "Oh my dog's name is Bailey," or whatever.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well Chef Bai, Bailey Ruskus, thank you for being on the PLANTSTRONG Podcast. Everybody, here is her book. Cook. Heal. Go Vegan! It's gorgeous -
Chef Bai:
Thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:
And check it out.
Chef Bai:
Thank you so much.
Rip Esselstyn:
And I look forward to being on your podcast when it makes sense - The Plant Remedy Podcast.
Chef Bai:
It's so good. I would love to have you on. Yeah, we're wrapping up recording for season two, so if you want to pop on for this season, just let me know and let's make it happen.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, okay. Before we go, anything that you want to share, how people can find you, anything that you're excited about? Yeah.
Chef Bai:
Yeah, definitely. So I have an online membership where I basically teach people how to find pleasure and healing through cooking, and so that's called Cook Live Heal, it's on my website, www.chefbai.kitchen, and just my podcast, my podcast The Plant Remedy, it's so fun. I started the podcast recording voice memos on my phone and now I'm all set up, so we've come a long way. But yeah, the podcast has been great. Like I've mentioned, we have interviewed some of my all-time idols this season and it's been the best thing. So if you love this podcast, you're looking for another one, mine's called The Plant Remedy. And yeah, other than that, just Instagram and stuff and I just want to say that like if you're looking to find pleasure in food, you can do that and still be able to heal your body. You don't have to give up pleasurable food to heal, like you can have them both, and so that's what I really wanted to hone in on.
Rip Esselstyn:
Amen to that.
Chef Bai:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right. Thank you my PLANTSTRONG sister.
Chef Bai:
Thanks.
Rip Esselstyn:
Hey, ready, peace. Turn it around, engine two, keep it PLANTSTRONG. Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
If you're looking to find pleasure in food and still heal your body, you can do that. You don't have to give up pleasurable food in order to heal. What a reassuring lens and perspective from Chef Bailey Ruskus. Thank you so much for listening and be sure to let us know how we can help you heal. You can find all of the links and resources from this episode and much more on the episode page at plantstrongpodcast.com. I look forward to seeing you next week, but in the meantime, keep it PLANTSTRONG.
Rip Esselstyn:
The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth-seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth. Most notably, my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., and Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
