It’s All About Food

It's All About Food - Tommy McDonald and Richa Hingle - 12.12.17

Part I: Tommy McDonald, Field Roast: 101 Artisan Vegan Meat Recipes to Cook, Share, and SavorTommy McDonald is head chef at Field Roast in Seattle, Washington. In their first official cookbook, Field Roast: 101 Artisan Vegan Meat Recipes to Cook, Share, and Savor, Field Roast executive chef Tommy McDonald teaches readers how to make their own grain meat, and shares dozens of plant-based recipes for every occasion, whether it’s a fuss-free weekday meal or a hearty holiday feast. From stocking the pantry with the right ingredients to tying a perfect butcher’s slipknot, from choosing the best sausage casing to successfully stuffing your roast, McDonald is there every step of the way to help first-timers and skilled chefs alike impress family and friends with vegan meals that are wholesome, satisfying, and delicious.  Part II: Richa Hingle, Vegan Richa’s Everyday KitchenRicha Hingle is the prolific and award winning recipe developer, blogger, and photographer behind VeganRicha.com and Best Selling Author of Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen. Her instructions are easy to follow and her step-by-step photographs welcome the uninitiated into their kitchen as vouched by many of her readers. She loves to show people how easy it is to cook vegan Indian or other cuisines, which are allergy friendly and have gluten free and soy free options. Richa has been featured on Oprah.com, Huffington Post, Glamour, Babble, VegNews.com, Cosmopolitan India, Femina India, TheKitchn, Cosmopolitan, MSN, BuzzFeed, and many more. 

It's All About Food - Harold Hartglass, No Cucumbers! - 11.28.17

Harold Hartglass, No Cucumbers!Caryn reflects on her dad’s passing this week, his connection with food and how it has influenced her as a food educator and activist.

It's All About Food - Lori Steinberg and Gabriel Heymann - 11.15.17

Part I: Lori Steinberg, CheezehoundLori Sternberg is the founder of the vegan cheese company, Cheezehound.        Part II: Gabriel Heymann, Smart BeerSmart Beer founder, Gabriel Heymann splits his time between the Hudson Valley and Brooklyn, NY. He realized he needed a beer that he could enjoy without feeling like he compromised his health-conscious and active lifestyle. He thirsted for a beer that was made from sustainable ingredients and a brand that supported his social and environmental values. This thirst gave way to the concept of Smart Beer.
“I wanted to enjoy both my social life and my healthy, active lifestyle,” Heymann said. “You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your lifestyle or values in order to celebrate, and that’s what this beer is about. We can have it all.”
“I set out to create a great tasting and refreshing organic beer that would go perfectly with my life and my friend’s lives. A beer I could feel good about holding and drinking at a bar. I’m happy to share Smart Beer with you. Cheers!”
In addition to founding Smart Beer, Gabriel has an extensive professional background in the music business and fitness/well-being. He’s also a certified yoga teacher who seeks to help people feel good and enjoy life.

It's All About Food - Saray Stancic, MD FACN and Ben Hartman - 11.07.17

Part I: Saray Stancic, MD FACN, Lifestyle MedicineSaray Stancic, MD, a graduate of UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School and a board certified Infectious Disease specialist since 1999, is the founder of Stancic Health and Wellness in Ramsey NJ. The mission of this innovative medical practice is to educate and empower patients for achieving optimal health via lifestyle modification, while shedding light on the large and mounting body of scientific data supporting the importance of optimal nutrition in disease prevention. She seeks a highly personalized doctor-patient relationship, pursuing individual health related goals which may include weight loss, and improved control of blood sugars, lipid profiles and/or blood pressure with an eye towards reducing dependency on medication.
In 1995, Dr. Stancic, a third-year medical resident working long hospital hours, was abruptly stricken with a severe and disabling case of multiple sclerosis. After 8 years of impaired and disrupted work and daily life, complicated by side effects of intensive pharmaceutical therapies, she stumbled upon a medical journal study reporting some beneficial reduction in MS symptom severity associated with one particular food: blueberries. This triggered an exhaustive exploration of the medical literature, revealing plentiful evidence in respectable peer-reviewed journals that dietary choices do play a key role in the development of chronic illness…. a topic that had eluded the medical school curriculum she knew so well.
Dr. Stancic concluded that the power of prevention/healing offered by a whole-food, plant-based diet for many chronic conditions is enormous and unquestionable. Inspired, she saw it as imperative to adopt this lifestyle personally, and she discontinued all medications and focused upon optimizing diet. Remarkably, after years of difficulty walking unassisted, she found her neurological deficits gradually improving, and felt renewed and infused with a great sense of hope. She decided to take up jogging, which evolved to running, and in the spring of 2010 ran a marathon. She followed through on a pledge to walk 2,015 miles in 2015, 20 years after being struck down by multiple sclerosis. These experiences laid the foundation for a personal crusade to prevent chronic illness by helping patients modify their lifestyles.
Opportunities for physicians within their usual practices and specialties to advocate for improved patient nutrition have long seemed very limited. Earlier in her career as a chief and director of infectious disease and virology clinics, Dr. Stancic did serve as Co-Director of the Dept. Of Veterans Affairs’ successful national “MOVE Program” (Optimizing Nutrition and Disease Prevention Program)…. leading a multidisciplinary team of nutritionists, psychologists, physical therapists and physicians in educating veterans about incorporating physical activity and greater attention toward nutrition into daily life. As the years went by, she shared with other physicians her insights from the research literature and personal experience about potential chronic disease prevention/remediation using plant-based whole-foods diets…. But she found regrettably that not many colleagues shared her enthusiasm or accepted that this approach could be valid.
As a physician observing unnecessary suffering and loss, Dr. Stancic had felt compelled to spread the word of this seemingly untapped therapeutic resource. The physician of today is relegated to symptom management via treatment plans highly dependent on prescription medications and invasive procedures…. with little time devoted to uncovering and addressing the underlying causes of disease, and little time available for counseling, support and education, interventions that have been proven to circumvent the need for drugs and surgery. Therefore Dr. Stancic concluded that she would establish her own small medical practice as a model for lifestyle based personal wellness promotion, where the primary intervention is educating patients on the importance of food choices and how these simple decisions affect our complicated health outcomes.
Part II: Ben Hartman, Lean Farm GuideBen Hartman grew up on a corn and soybean farm in Indiana and graduated college with degrees in English and philosophy. Ben and his wife, Rachel Hershberger, own and operate Clay Bottom Farm in Goshen, Indiana, where they make their living growing and selling specialty crops on less than one acre. Their food is sold locally to restaurants and cafeterias, at a farmers market, and through a community-supported-agriculture (CSA) program. The farm has twice won Edible Michiana’s Reader’s Choice award. The Lean Farm, Ben’s first book, won the Shingo Institute’s prestigious Research and Professional Publication Award. In 2017, Ben was named one of fifty emerging green leaders in the United States by Grist. Follow the Clay Bottom Farm on Facebook.

It's All About Food - Josh Tickell, Kiss the Ground - 10.31.17

Josh Tickell, Kiss the GroundJosh Tickell is a Sundance award winning film director, bestselling author and thought leader. His films and books focus on critical, “big picture” social issues including alternative energy, conscious capitalism and reversing climate change.Josh’s first movie, Fuel, won the Sundance Audience Award for Best Documentary and to theaters globally. He recently co-directed the 2017 Lionsgate release, Good Fortune, the rags to riches biopic of Paul Mitchell and Patron cofounder, John Paul DeJoria. He regularly films and interviews luminaries such as Elon Musk, Dan Aykroyd, Woody Harrelson, Sheryl Crow, and Shailene Woodley.Tickell’s movies have won more than 40 major awards and have been selected as a NY TimesCritics’ Pick, shortlisted for an Oscar and shown in the White House. He has spoken at more than 100 colleges and Fortune 500 businesses globally. He is a guest on shows such as The Tonight Show, Good Morning America, Morning Joe and on the Today Show.Tickell’s new book, Kiss the Ground – How The Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body and Save the World with a forward by Whole Foods Founder, John Mackey, will be released in November of 2017 and is being turned into a movie from executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio also entitled Kiss the Ground.

It's All About Food - Happy Halloween with Gary De Mattei & Caryn Hartglass - 10.24.17

Gary De Mattei, Happy HalloweenGary De Mattei is the co-founder and Creative Director of Responsible Eating and Living. Gary is an actor, director, producer, filmmaker, writer, teacher and trained chef. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the nonprofit theatre company, The Artist’s Theatre Repertory Ensemble (TheATRE). Before moving to New York in 2008 Gary worked extensively in Bay Area theatre as an actor, director, writer, producer, teacher, and arts administrator. He was the co-founder and producing artistic director of Theatre On San Pedro Square (TOSPS) in San Jose from January of 2000 to April of 2008. During that time Gary produced plays and musicals that showcased local, national and international theatre artists. Gary was the Theatre Department Chair at Presentation High School in San Jose. During his tenure at Presentation Gary directed plays and musicals and taught acting. His theatre department was awarded the prestigious Best High School Musical Award from the American Musical Theatre. Gary is a Bay Area Theatre Critics Award nominee for his portrayal of Fiorello H. LaGuardia in Foothill Music Theatre’s production of Fiorello. A proud member of Actor’s Equity Association, Gary trains at HB Studio in New York under the guidance of his acting teacher Austin Pendleton. For more about Gary go to his website, GaryDeMattei.com.

It's All About Food -Caryn Hartglass on the road, reporting on Food Myths (Fake News), Refrigeration and More - 10.17.17

In today’s show, Caryn will be broadcasting remotely from the Bay Area. She’ll be covering some of the current food myths about complete protein and soy foods. She discusses the pros and cons with laundry machines, dryers and refrigeration and what we foods should be refrigerated and often aren’t. Plus you’ll get more tips on eating while travel and a reminder about the importance of gratitude.

It's All About Food - Glen Merzer, Off the Reservation - 10.11.17

Glen Merzer, Off the Reservation
Glen Merzer is an author, playwright, and screenwriter. Merzer grew up in Bellmore, N.Y., on Long Island, and attended college at New College of Florida in Sarasota. After college, he became a stand-up comic in San Francisco circa 1980, working with such comics as Dana Carvey, A. Whitney Brown, and Will Durst.  He then attended two graduate schools in theatre (Indiana University and the U. of Alabama), receiving a degree at neither one, and one graduate Creative Writing Program (at Boston University, studying under Leslie Epstein), where he received his M.A.
Merzer’s most recent book is a novel (his first), Off the Reservation, published by Vivid Thoughts Press (Dec., 2014).   Off the Reservation is a comic narrative about a quirky vegan congressman from Bloomington, IN, who undertakes an unconventional quest for the presidency; actor Jason Alexander called it “as politically savvy and poetically literate a book as I have read in a long while…. a completely gorgeous and rewarding experience.” Kirkus Reviews chose it as one of the “Best Books of 2015—Indie,” and The Progressive Magazine chose it as one of their “Favorite Books of 2015.”
Merzer began his career in book-writing as co-author, with Howard Lyman, of Mad Cowboy(Scribner, 1998) and No More Bull! (Scribner, 2005).  Merzer is also co-author of Unprocessed (2011), by Chef AJ; Food over Medicine (BenBella Books, 2013), with Pam Popper; Better Than Vegan (BenBella Books, 2013), with Chef Del Sroufe, and The Plant Advantage, with Benji Kurtz (Vivid Thoughts Press, 2015).  He is also, with Eric Brent, one of the editors of The HappyCow Cookbook (BenBella Books, 2014).
Merzer has had dozens of productions of his plays staged throughout the country, including two productions that toured to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.  Three of his plays have been published by Samuel French.  Merzer directed a production of his play, The Sizemore Interviews, an expose of fraud at NBC during America’s invasion of Panama, in Hollywood in 2001; Variety called it “a thoroughly compelling probe of the potential for the manufacture of news by the media.”
One of Merzer’s screenplays was produced, Enemies of Laughter (2000), starring David Paymer, Rosalind Chao, Peter Falk, and Bea Arthur.

It's All About Food - Joel Fuhrman, MD and Mike Boss - 10.03.17

Part I: Dr. Fuhrman, Fast Food GenocideJoel Fuhrman, M.D., is a board-certified family physician and nutritional researcher who specializes in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional and natural methods. Dr. Fuhrman is the research director of the Nutritional Research Foundation. He is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestsellers Eat to Live, Super Immunity, Eat to Live Cookbook, The End of Dieting, and The End of Diabetes.  Part II: Mike Boss, The Edible Nursery ProjectMike Boss is a Plant Ecologist, Permaculturist, and a certified Plant Geek. He is the founder of the Award-Winning: Rock & Rose Landscapes, based in San Francisco.      

It's All About Food - Guest: Pedram Shojai and Craig Cochran - 09.26.17

Part I: Pedram Shojai ProsperityPedram Shojai, OMD is a man with many titles. He is the founder and CEO of Well.Org, the editor of Be More!magazine, the author of the NY Times bestseller The Urban Monk (Rodale, 2016) and Rise and Shine (Process, 2011), the producer and director of the movie Vitality, the executive producer and writer for the film, Origins and the Host of two weekly video podcast series, The Urban Monk and The Health Bridge. He also has recent projects launching in 2017. His new movie Prosperity (2017) and his new book The Art of Stopping Time (Rodale 2017). In his spare time, he’s also a Taoist priest, a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a kung fu world traveler, a fierce global green warrior, an avid backpacker, a Qi Gong Master, and an old school Jedi bio-hacker working to preserve our natural world and wake us up to our full potential.
Part II: Craig Cochran PS KitchenCraig Cochran has has been a tour-de-force in the NYC restaurant scene with over a decade of opening and running pioneering restaurants. In 2010, he co-founded Terri, the first plant-based fast food restaurant in NYC. Terri now has three locations. Craig is the co-founder of P.S. Kitchen, a new, gourmet restaurant which donates 100% of the profits to charity. Craig is also the co-founder of Blackbird Seitan. Craig co-founded and co-owns the newest business Plates By Terri, a full-service catering company.