Episode 14: Dietitian Didem Varol on Cross-cultural Plant-Based Practice

Ever wonder about plant-based practices in different countries? In this episode of the Plant-Based Canada Podcast we speak with Didem Varol. Didem has experience with Plant-Based Practice in both Canada and Turkey. She completed her dietetic training at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and is a Registered Dietitian and, as such, is registered with the College of Dietitians of Ontario. After spending almost 10 years working at Toronto Public Health, as a Public Health Dietitian in the field of chronic disease prevention, she moved to Istanbul, Turkey and currently runs her own private practice (@plantgevity). She has completed a Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies & eCornell. She is also a “Food For Life” Instructor, which is an evidence-based nutrition and cooking program developed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. 

In this episode we discuss:

*dietetic practice in Canada & Turkey

*plant-based counseling

*food culture

*culture shocks

*vegan communities in Canada & Turkey

*plant-based misconceptions

*take home message

Please note, in the beginning of this episode there is some background noise that unfortunately could not be removed. This background noise does not persist throughout the episode. We hope that you enjoy the discussion with Didem.

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SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to another episode of the Plant-Based Canada podcast. Join us as we talk to the experts to explore the field of nutritional sciences and how our food choices impact our health and the environment. My name is Stephanie Nietzsche, and today I am joined by Didan Burl to talk about dietetics across cultures and public health and private practice. Didan Burrell is a registered dietitian and, as such, is registered with the College of Dieticians of Ontario. She is a graduate from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and she currently lives in Istanbul, Turkey, and runs her own private practice. Prior to that, she spent almost 10 years working at Trano Public Health as a public health dietitian in the field of chronic disease prevention. She has completed a plant-based nutrition certificate from the T. Collin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies in ECORNEL. She is also a Food for Life instructor, which is an evidence-based nutrition and cooking program developed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Well, hi Dedam, it's so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for joining us at the Plant Based Canada podcast. We really appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Well, thank you for having me. It's such an honor and thank you for all that you guys do at Plant Based Canada.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

We're all a team in this, it seems. To begin, could you tell us a bit more about yourself in terms of how you got to where you are today? In particular, what drew you to becoming a registered dietitian and what was the process to becoming one?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yes, sure. It was a very long and windy road. And you probably won't believe it when I say that in 2001 I graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Alberta. That was my first career. And basically it was chosen because my father's an engineer, my sister was an engineering. So it was kind of a natural progression for me to go into that as well. And I liked and excelled at the sciences, so I thought, sure, why not? Plus, I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. And as you know, the resource sector is big there. So engineering guaranteed kind of a stable, steady uh employment after graduation. So I thought that's the safe route to go. Mind you, I was always an environmentalist at heart, and it kind of conflicted me to go into engineering, but I thought to myself, I'll just make sure that I can try to find opportunities for improvement in, you know, in terms of um improving the environment through the corporate realm. Um, so I started as an engineer, uh, but I hated it. Um, you know, graduated and started working, but I did not enjoy it at all. And for some time I thought, well, maybe it's not the profession, it's just the current job I'm in. And so I changed jobs two or three times within my about four years of working, um, thinking that I got to get out of the corporate environment. Maybe if I just work for government, I'll feel better about myself and what I'm doing. And so my last role as a kind of in my last engineering role was with Health Canada as a sustainable development coordinator. And one day in the elevator, I just happened to meet this nice lady and we started talking, you know, what floor do you work on? What department do you work for? And she said she was a public health dietitian. And I thought to myself, whoa, well, what's that? I mean, I didn't know anything about it. And all I knew about dietitians at the time was that they worked in hospitals. And I knew from the very beginning of when I started university that I never wanted to work in a hospital, no matter, no matter what. I wasn't gonna pick any of those jobs. I don't have very positive memories about hospitals. My mother passed away when I was young. So um I never even occurred to me to study dietetics. Sorry. Thank you. Thanks. Um, so when I'm like, well, you work in this office building like me, but you're a dietitian. And what do you do as a public health dietitian? And then she started telling me about how she does nutrition promotion for First Nations communities, uh, prenatal programs, cooking programs. And I and I thought to myself, that's just so fun. It sounds, it sounds really fun. I mean, how could a job be fun? Because up until that point, I just thought it was so boring what what I was doing. So I went home and thought about it and I thought, you know, if I don't do this now, I'm likely never going to do it. So I researched uh universities across Canada and I decided to go to McGill in in Montreal because they had an integrated internship program, which meant that once I was um admitted into the program, I was guaranteed an internship. I didn't have to apply for an internship after the undergraduate degree. So I changed everything. I quit my job, I moved cities, I started an undergraduate all over again in my mid-20s. Um, but I don't regret it at all. And I really love what I do now.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Wow, that's quite a journey, and it takes such bravery to be able to do that, but also such motivation as well. So that's very inspiring. Could you tell us more about your experiences working with Toronto Public Health in Canada and as a public health dietitian? Among your other experiences, your passion for public health and nutrition, it's just very evident. Um, what inspired this passion? I know you spoke a little bit to this already, but was there other things that you were exposed to along the way or that came up in your life? And can you tell us more about your experiences in the realm of public health?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yes, for sure. I had always been interested in health or what I thought was healthy food at the time, but that changed over the years. Um, I was interested in cooking, I was interested in fitness. And so when I had this meeting with a dietitian and I had this idea that I could actually do this as a career, I thought, well, why not? I always had public health in mind from the very beginning. Like that meeting was so pivotal in my life because, as I said, the hospital environment never appealed to me. In internship, I of course had to do some rotations in the hospital, and that just confirmed why I didn't like hospitals. Because the prospect of just having to assign, you know, a diet to, you know, from the hospital kitchen to the patient, you know, just picking a diet for them. And that was it. That was going to be my intervention. I was so passionate about preventing disease. Like I thought that was so cool. Like that you could just prevent disease through healthy eating habits and healthy living habits. At the time, I didn't realize that this could also be useful for treatment and reversal of disease. Because then I went later on in my studies, and we'll we'll get to that, it was kind of conferred upon us that, you know, once they've got a chronic disease, that's it. It's they got to manage it to the end, and there's nothing you can do to reverse it. That was kind of the train of thought. But I thought if we can intervene in the beginning and prevent suffering, then why, then why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't we want to spread this information and education uh to people and in a fun way, you know, like cooking programs that appealed to me so much because I loved cooking and it was active. It wasn't sitting at a desk in a cubicle, you know, writing reports and things like that. But that was my, I guess, my main, the root motivation is to minimize, minimize suffering and minimize waste. Like my environmental passion of minimizing waste also extends to human potential because when we're suffering, we we uh reduce our potential to do more, to be more, to love more. And you know, if we can just live the best life that we can, then we're maximizing uh the time that we have here.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

No, exactly. It sounds like there's so many lessons that we can learn from different things that happen around us and different things that we experience. And you kind of alluded to this before, but how did you become acquainted with plant-based nutrition and what was your experience like transitioning to plant-based practice? Because it sounds like that wasn't necessarily the case in your original training. It'd be great to hear more about your plant-based journey.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, no, and and I think I didn't mention kind of my experience specifically at public health. So I'll tie it into this question. I mean, as soon as I met that dietitian and I knew I wanted to be a public health dietitian, I made sure that I had good rotations with uh, you know, in public health. And at the end of my program, I was able to get a job at one of the places where I interned, which was Toronto Public Health. And there we did lots of nutrition promotion programs, and similar to what my, I guess, my mentor had talked about when I first met her. Uh, we did, you know, I worked in the chronic disease prevention department and we did student nutrition programs, we did cooking programs, diabetes prevention, all sorts of things. But never within, I guess, my early career did the concept of plant-based nutrition ever occur to me. Like that wasn't part of our training. And so how my journey began was when I was in uh junior high school, that's what we called it now, but I guess it's middle school in in Ontario, uh, at around the age of 13, 14, I learned about the environmental impact of animal agriculture. And so, having always kind of been an environmentalist, I thought, I don't really like meat anyway. I'm just gonna stop eating it. It's not good for the planet. Uh, so I became a vegetarian. And of course, my family was so against it. I I come from a traditional Turkish family where, you know, if you don't eat meat, you'll die is the is the prevalent thinking I can still to this day amongst many people. Um, so it was, yeah, it was very difficult because my family, they thought I'd get sick. I mean, you're already on the thin side, you're just gonna get thinner and then you're gonna get weak and get sick. And also, there wasn't a lot of home cooking after that age, kind of in mid-teenage years. My dad was working a lot. It was just me and my my sister at home. So I wasn't a healthy vegetarian because I know I just relied on pasta and cheese. There were no beans. I don't remember any consuming any beans at that time. And the thing that made it the most difficult was the social, not necessarily exclusion, but um kind of the the focus that was put on you when you enter a room and you say you're vegetarian. Oh, I didn't prepare anything for you, or oh, what am I gonna feed you? And I as a kid, I was very shy and I I didn't want to put people to it to give them more trouble, you know. So I'd always just say, okay, sure, I'll just have what you're what you've made. I would give in a lot just because I didn't want to be the difficult one, you know? So that continued on to my kind of early adulthood, on and off vegetarian. But once I was kind of on my own, I was pretty much a pescatarian, let's say, but I loved dairy. So that was always part of my diet. And before I started my dietetics degree, I heard some rumblings about dairy not being that healthy, but they were from these natural kind of practitioners who didn't have, you know, university credentials. And I thought, really? Like, are they just quacks? Like, is there some substance to this? And I thought, well, I'm gonna find out when I go to school at university, they're gonna set the record straight for me. And they sure did um confirm my bias that dairy was so wonderful for you. You know, we had guest lecturers from the dairy farmers of Canada. Um, we had, I know of a really high-profile professor of mine who had millions of dollars in research money from the dairy farmers of Canada. And never once did I make the connection that, you know, she might be promoting this because she gets money from the industry. I was so naive. I just thought universities were these altruistic places where you learn like the truth and nothing but the truth. And of course, to a certain extent, that's still true. But um, now I know that you always have to, you know, analyze things yourself. You always have to decide who is giving this information, where is it coming from? And that kind of critical thinking, I didn't have at that point, even like starting a second undergraduate, just because I still believed in this institution of university. And plus I had gone to so much trouble to seek out McGill, and I thought, no, no, I'm at the best university in Canada. This has to be true. So uh, you know, my love affair with dairy continued all the way up until I started practicing and again kind of going on and off meat because you you get married and the person you're with eats meat and you want to kind of conform again. It's all about I, you know, social conformity. Um, but so what really did it for me was on my second Matt Leave, I picked up a book at chapters called Whole by Dr. T. Colin Campbell. And then I was shocked. And then I thought, oh my goodness, what have I been missing? Um, there's this whole area of plant-based nutrition that I knew nothing about. And I was kind of shocked and angry at the same time, thinking that this should have been emphasized more in my training. I know that a lot of the a lot of the plant-based research, like or some of it is recent, but some of it goes back decades. For example, Dean Ornish's trials, um, even the China study came out in 2005, the year I started my dietetics program. And I don't remember it being mentioned or or emphasized to the extent that it should have been, in my opinion. So then I thought, well, okay, now that I know this information, I have to apply it to myself first. And that I have to say, it was a little difficult. You know, the first three weeks I was a little grumpy. No, no milk in my coffee, uh, no cheese, uh, eggs. I was I was eating eggs as well. I thought, well, what do I eat then? Like what's left? I thought it was so restrictive. And so I totally understand people who are new to this way of eating. I don't minimize their fears by saying, oh, it's easy, don't worry, it'll be fine. Because I didn't feel that way myself as a dietitian, you know, and I had so much knowledge about this. Um, but sure enough, like everyone says, uh, you get used to anything you put your mind to. And if your conviction is strong enough, then if your your why is strong enough, you can endure anyhow, you know. So I got used to not having the milk and cheese. And then there came a day when I enjoyed it this way more than the previous way. Like one time I accidentally took a sip of my husband's coffee that had cream in it, and I wanted to spit it out immediately, left this yucky film in my mouth, you know. Um, and and now I love black coffee, and and I don't ever seek out cheese or any of those other um animal products. And this really kind of goes to show that most people transition to veganism kind of slowly. It takes them some time. There was a recent study done by an organization called uh phonolytics. They read on their website that um most vegans they don't go overnight. I mean, some people can, they watch these really dramatic um or really kind of emotional documentaries and they say, no, in one night I became vegan and that's great if they can do it, but most people it takes some time. And I would encourage people to take some time with it because um, you know, it's a big change, and also you want to make it sustainable. It doesn't really matter so much how as how fast you do it, but just making sure that it's it's long lasting. And in terms of health effects, you know, some people have these dramatic health stories, like their before and after story of going plant-based. Um, I don't have a story like that because I mean, knock on wood, I was real, I was healthy before I went plant-based and uh still I'm kind of in the in the same health, but I did notice some changes. Um, you know, this is obviously anecdotal, but there's a lot of you know research that supports what I'm saying as well. And the main change I noticed is that I don't suffer um monthly anymore from my from my period. Uh menstrual cramps were awful. I mean, in my younger years, I remember when I was on the typical sad diet and lots of processed foods, lots of dairy, university. I remember having to go to the emergency room because of menstrual cramps. Like, and now nothing. Like there's they're just completely gone. Like that, that was the biggest shock to me. Um, and along with that, I probably associated with it is not having um a lot of uh pimples. I mean, I never had acne. Thankfully, I never suffered from that, but I noticed that pimples went down as well. And I actually lost weight and I didn't want to lose weight, um, you know, just because the food is just so nutrient dense and not calorie dense. Um so then I, of course, realized and learned that I have to eat more uh, you know, to sustain my weight, which suited me just fine and still love eating, you know, huge bowls of salad, you know, endless kind of endless bowls of salad and fruit and beans and so on. Oh, and of course, one last thing, sorry, that I have to mention is that I hear a lot from people. Thank you, um, is the GI problems with dairy, you know, as as you know, most of the world is lactose intolerant. And when I was little, I would have, when I was very little, I would have lots of stomach problems. Um, and my parents could never help me. And I would just, I just had to suffer through. And eventually I think I gained a resistance to it because eventually they went away. But now when I think back, I mean, I remember drinking milk, eating a lot of ice cream, and again, the cheese and yogurt. Um, so I have a feeling that that's what that was. And again, it's just so sad that all of us have so many of us have have so many health issues, and we don't know that food is at the cause of most of them.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

It seems like a lot of people want a quick fix the thing, whereas it's our day-to-day activities that can be influencing the effects that we feel. Um, you mention you mentioned a few really interesting points. One of them that not everybody may feel physical effects when making the transition, but people may notice different things depending on the individual. And also, I really like that aspect that you talk about was making the transition and how this is a process. And you can go on and off, but it's a gradual thing that can occur for some people, other people. It may be easier to make the switch all at once. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about this transition process, especially because I believe now you have your own private practice. So you yourself have been in transitions from being in the public health sector to private practice. And if you could speak to that and how you counsel your clients or patients on these transitions as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I have a 50-50 split in my clients. Like 50% are already vegan and they come to me because they want to improve their diet or they want to lose weight or have health conditions, and the other 50% are not vegan, but obviously they're plant curious because they've reached out to me. So, I mean, I would never get someone who's completely an omnipotent, not um, carnivore or you know, proteinoholic. I wouldn't get, they just wouldn't come to me just because of my name. I guess plantevity is the name of my nutrition practice. And I promote myself as a as a dietitian who specializes in whole foods plant-based nutrition. Um, but that being said, I would never turn anyone away. And I have never turned anyone away based on how they currently eat. Um, because again, I mean, ethically, I'm ethically a vegan now as well, because I learned a lot about that aspect. So I don't eat any animal products, but scientifically, I can't say that everyone has to eat a hundred 100% plant-based diet for optimal health. Um, we we just can't say that. What we can say is the more plants, the better. And we have a lot of evidence to show that, you know, uh 80, 90, 95%, it's in that range that we want to be in terms of plant-based and really minimize the animal products. Um, but so to my clients who are not currently vegan and who want to try being vegan, so I always say, okay, if you want to try, then let's do this seriously. Let's go three weeks and do a vegan test drive. Um, as Dr. Bernard from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, uh, he puts it that way. Uh, and it's a good analogy because you'd never buy a car without giving it a test drive. So why would you adopt a diet without, you know, testing it out first? So um to those clients, I say, okay, three weeks, no animal products, because this is the test drive. It doesn't mean that you might not have them later, but let's just not have it now, so that we can have a really good assessment of how you felt before and after. And most of those clients afterwards are shocked at the weight loss. They're shocked at how good they feel. I mean, clear and lightheaded is one of the latest comments that uh a client told me. Um, she just felt so different, she just felt so alive. Um, and then some of them say, you know, I liked it, it was really good, but I I still want my cheese once in a while, I still want my fish once in a while. And I say, that's fine. That's obviously your choice. You know, you've done it, at least you know how good you feel on a hundred percent vegan diet. And and if you ever you want to go back to that feeling, or if you can maintain that feeling with even a little bit of animal products, um, then then of course that's that's their choice.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Yeah, no, that's great that you're willing to work with people and that everybody has a different process to this. You talked about your private practice. Could you tell me, are you currently working in private practice in Turkey or Canada? Because I know you've practiced in both and you've lived in both countries.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Yeah. In Canada, I was working at Toronto Public Health kind of my whole career. And then we moved, so my husband and two children and I, we moved to Turkey about three years ago. Um, uh we're originally from Turkey, so both my husband and I, our parents are Turkish, but we're born and raised in Canada. So we're like those immigrant children who had this nostalgic kind of Connection to their home country. And we thought, you know, why don't we live there for a while? Our children can learn the language and be close to family and experience the culture. And so when I moved here, I had to, of course, quit my position at Toronto Public Health, but I did not want to quit my profession that I worked so hard to get. So that's why I set up the private practice, is just because I really wanted to continue the momentum. And I did not want to entertain the idea of looking for kind of a formal job here in Turkey. One, because dietetic practice is so different here, and we'll get into that, I'm sure, a little later. And the other reason is one of our motivations for moving to Turkey was also to live a more relaxed life. Like I didn't want to be juggling children and daycare and work again. So now I have a private practice, but I don't see that many clients. I don't accept that many clients at once, um, just so that I can, you know, keep a good balance between work and life. And also I want to give the clients that I do have, I really give them like the laser focus that they need to achieve their health goals. I spend a lot of time with them. So I can't do that if I have, you know, hundreds of clients at once. It just wouldn't be possible. It would reduce the quality, quality of my of my work. So that's so I'm in Turkey, I'm practicing in Turkey, but my clients can be from anywhere. Like I most of them are Turkish, but they sometimes they're expats who live in Europe. Most of them are from Turkey and are Turkish. Uh, sometimes we meet in person, but lately, of course, because of COVID, it's been online. And I've had a few Canadian and American clients, but because I'm in Turkey and I speak Turkish and um, you know, I come from Canada, it's I I appeal, I think, more to the Turkish uh population here.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

That's very cool to be able to have that experience. Could you tell us more about your experience practicing in Canada and Turkey and the similarities and differences? And if you've experienced any quote unquote type of culture shock um despite your parents originating from Turkey.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Oh yes, I feel like a foreigner here every day. And people, in fact, think I'm a foreigner because I do speak the language, but I have a heavy accent. So sometimes I just go along with it and I say my name is Diane, and they think it's so honestly, they think it's just so commendable that a Canadian learned Turkish, you know. Yeah, aren't I sweet? Um, but that's when I really don't want to get into my story with someone. So, first of all, dietetic practice in Turkey, oh my, so different. And the main difference is uh they give out dietitians give out what's called these diet lists. So when people see a dietitian, and I learned this after the fact, kind of the hard way when a client was like, So where's my diet list? I'm like, what? What is a diet list? And it is, yeah, a list of foods, uh specific foods in specific quantities that they want the client to eat. It's like a specific regimen. I guess it's it's like if they're if they're going for weight loss, then it would be like a reduced calorie, it would kind of be like um a menu for the day, you know, depending on what their calorie needs are. And that's what Turkish people are used to, and and many of them seek because um there's a different kind of trust in the medical profession here. I find it's kind of blind. It's like I'm gonna go to the doctor or dietitian and find my salvation. They're gonna tell me exactly what to do and how I need to do it to solve this one specific problem. There isn't a holistic view about, you know, why my health is this way and what can I do to improve it over the long term. I find it's a very short, uh, a bit short-sighted. It's about like a quick fix and it's about quickly losing weight and what foods do I have to exactly eat? We know from research that diets don't work. So these lists to me are kind of a type of diet. Like this says, okay, client A, go home and eat what I've written for you on this paper and nothing else and nothing more, and see me in a week or in a month, and and we'll take it from there. What if the person doesn't like those foods? What if it's not enough? What if it's too much? How are they going to know to kind of listen to their own hunger and satiety cues? And when I'm done with them, what's gonna happen after that? What list are they gonna follow? What have they learned? And so early on, I was like, no, no, no, I don't do diet lists. And in fact, that is when I have refused clients, not because they're not vegan. They come to me and they're like, I need a diet list to lose weight. I'm like, sorry, I don't do diet lists. But here is what I do do, and we know it works. So I educate you on how to make healthy choices and you keep a record of what you eat, and you you tell me, and then I'll tell you, wow, great choice. Or next time, can we swap this for that to add something else to your meal? You know, I give them, that's what I was talking about, the laser focus. I give them specific comments related to the choices they're making in their own kitchens with the food that they're buying, you know, so it's very related to their life and hopefully gives them, you know, it gives them lessons that they can take on for future success.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

I'm so curious about these diet lists. This is the first time I'm hearing about this as well, and I'm so interested to dig deeper on my own time as to whether like it's based on certain dietary patterns, how it's individualized per person, or if it's a broad spectrum type of thing. That's so very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

I mean, I didn't study here, of course, but to my understanding, it's um it's very cookie-cutter. It's like, okay, let me pull out what kind of person are you? Okay, so you're, I don't know, maybe you have a gluten allergy or you're following gluten-free diet. They might not even question why, but okay, and you're on so many calories. So um, you know, they put them together and then here's here's your diet list. Now, to be fair, um, there have definitely been clients who've come to me and said, Oh, I'm so happy you don't do diet lists. I hate those things. I I went to a dietitian once and I never followed it, and I like this approach better. So I think um it may be changing, um, but unless the education changes, you know, it's gonna take it's gonna take a while. Um, the other thing about education, I find that the younger dietitians that I've met, they know about plant-based nutrition, many of them. You know, they're up to date with the research. They also have better um English skills. So unless you know English, it's really hard to access, you know, research outside of Turkey. And let's be honest, like that's where the bulk of the good research is happening. It's not, it's not in Turkey. So you really need to be able to, you know, read English uh scientific papers. So the young ones know. Um, but then there's these dinosaurs, some of them, like there's this one story I just have to tell you because it's so funny. I have a vegan um gastro gastroenterologist friend, and uh we were talking one day, and she said, Yeah, when I see my clients, you know, GI issues, we know that one of the biggest things that can help them is plant-based nutrition. So she often writes as a prescription, like a plant-based diet, but she has so many patients and so little time to spend with them. She can't, she can't go through exactly what that means. So she writes it down and she says, Okay, now you go see the dietitian and they're gonna explain what it is. So they go to the dietitian, the dietitian's like, I don't know what a plant-based diet is. And and there's a little of um sadly, a bit of bias and dissent. And the dietitian even asked her, saying, like, what is this? The kind of Buddhist diet.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yeah, yeah. Like, and so then, so there's people who really know when they're with it, and then there's still people practicing like that. And I think, oh my god, we have a lot of work to do when I hear stories like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Yeah, it sounds like the word transition is like a theme for this episode. It's that that evolution of education, of dietary practices, and incorporation into everyday life. You kind of brought this up before um about the culture in Turkey and how the research may not necessarily be as plant-based. Could you talk about the food culture and any vegetarian or vegan similarities or differences to Canada? Or um how is that? Are there differences or similarities? What is the culture like?

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Yes, of course. The biggest difference is the fact that there are rarely pork products in Turkey. So there's no pig being eaten here because it's a predominantly Muslim country. But um, other than that, um, you know, Dr. Melanie Joy, she she puts it really well. It doesn't matter what culture you're in, there's like these three ends that are common to all cultures that meat is or animal products are normal, natural, and necessary for human health. That they're there, so it doesn't matter if you're from Canada and you're eating uh bacon with maple syrup or your roast beef dinner, or if you're in Turkey and you're eating your donair, your kebab, or your kefta, like in in these two very different cultures, um, many people still think that you need meat, you need um you know milk products. Um, so that that's a similarity. The differences in the kinds of meat that they that they eat. Um, here I find too that there's a little bit less reliance on processed food, mind you, that's changing a lot. Unfortunately, the sad diet has infiltrated everywhere. But I can, from my own opinion and from my own judgment of what I've seen, I feel like there's still more home-cooked meals in Turkey. And there's still more like sitting down and enjoying your meal and spending hours at the table and not eating your car or drinking your coffee as you go. So the the food cultures are are a bit um different. But I think in both countries, you know, the rates of vegetarianism and and veganism are very low. Well, at least uh in Turkey they must they're lower than in Canada, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

So it sounds like the acceptance of it, it's still on its way to becoming more prevalent, even though I believe you're a part of the vegan community in Turkey and you volunteer with the Vegan Association of Turkey, which to my understanding is similar to the Vegan Society of Canada, but please correct me if I'm mistaken. And I was wondering if you could tell us more about that association and the work that you do and the overall acceptance of veganism and vegetarianism.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah, it's it's the I laugh again because I have to say I remember at the park one day I was telling someone I was vegan and they said the same thing. Oh, is that a religion? They asked me. You know, like, no, it's not a religion. Um, so the people who know about it the most are I find those who are more educated and who have traveled outside of Turkey, who have been exposed to different cuisines, but kind of the traditional kind of people who never left Turkey and never left their village, they they just don't get it. They're like, why would you do that? They just find it so restrictive. So the vegan association of Turkey is kind of the most formal vegan association. Um there are many other smaller vegan associations in Turkey, but this is the one that's formally recognized by Europe and they carry the V-label um stamp, so they certify um Turkish products with the European V-label stamp. They do a lot of work in advocacy and trying to spread awareness about veganism. And I volunteered with them doing several things, um, started in about 2019 in the fall before COVID hit. Uh, we were doing kind of um rounds at universities. So these were talks um that were arranged by student clubs, various student clubs, like animal rights groups or um student law groups or health groups. Um, they would invite us to speak. And when I say us, so uh there were usually two speakers, and then the other speaker would talk about the other aspects of veganism, sometimes environmental um, you know, impacts of our animal agriculture, sometimes on the ethic side of it. So we would go around giving these presentations, and again, it was to spread, you know, spread awareness, but it wasn't like accredited or anything. It was uh completely optional in a seminar that students could attend. Um, but it was inspiring because it was so nice to see young people there, uh, you know, interested in this topic. Um, I've also done various things like you know, other presentations at Veg Fests I've done for them, you know, nutrition presentations. People who are curious about veganism question and rightly slow, they question, well, is this actually nutritious? Am I going to be able to get all my nutrients? So I do presentations addressing that. And then the funniest thing that I helped them with, I have to say, is there's this one doctor in Turkey who made outlandish claims about veganism, saying that it was an improper diet and that um, you know, you can't get all your nutrients on that diet, and we were meant to eat meat, like all of these kinds of this stupidly false claims. And sadly, she's very popular in Turkey. She's a popular figure, she appears on TV a lot. And so people who aren't educated, they'll they say they think, well, see, there you go. Doctor, I won't use her name, so-and-so said that meat is okay and veganism veganism is bad. Uh, so there you go, case closed, you know, again, people that confirmation bias, people seeking out information that confirms what they already what they already think. Um, so she made these claims, and then we wrote a report kind of complaining about her to the Doctors Association of Istanbul. Um, but we have yet to get a response. COVID happens shortly after that, and we still haven't heard anything, but hopefully we will, because it's those kinds of things that need to change, those need to be addressed. People can't go around making claims that are false. Unfortunately, they do all the time with social media. We have so much misinformation out there, but the more the more we can like put out, I feel like they're little fires, the more we can put out, the more we can prevent a wildfire of misinformation from happening. Um, so yeah, it's very kind of I I volunteer with them on an ad hoc basis whenever they need me.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Nice. Sounds like a lot of work that you're doing. And it's great to hear that people are actually having questions and showing interest and trying to get the evidence out there about plant-based nutrition. Um, because, like you said, social media that seems to be a source, even though it's not necessarily credible depending on who it's coming from. And you mentioned that one person you met in the park even thought that veganism was a religion. Um there other perceptions or misconceptions that you feel still exist among dietitians and other health professionals, aside from that doctor that you spoke of, that you'd like to really dispel? Like, is there one that you really want to make sure that the evidence is out there for the listeners?

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Yeah, um, I hear a lot that okay, this is fine and dandy for adults, and you know, especially if you have a chronic disease, but it's just too restrictive for children. You just can't feed children this way and you can't be pregnant this way. And we know um that that's not true. Uh, the position statements of the dietetic associations of Canada, the US, Great Britain, uh, I think Australia as well, like these are major dietetic associations who've come out and said, no. As long as you have a well-planned uh vegan diet, then you can meet all of your nutrient needs. Um, but well planned, that part gets lost. And so what we see in the headlines, sadly, is like, oh, vegan baby dies or something like that. You know, we've heard headlines like that before, very, very sad and unfortunate events that aren't linked to veganism or the vegan diet. It's linked to malnutrition. The baby or the child was just not fed properly, you know, but then it just gets branded as, well, this is an inadequate diet for children. But so child nutrition is a very sensitive topic. But I encourage anyone who's interested in it and if they want to raise their kids this way, um, there's lots of resources. I mean, the the latest one, I I bought the book by um Brenda Davis and Rishma Shaw. They wrote a book called The Definitive Plant-Based Nutrition Guide for Families. Uh, so I highly recommend that uh if you're interested in raising your family this way, that that you pick up that book. And I love um the foreword was done by Dr. David Katz. And I like what he said about the book saying, I don't know if it's a book or a hug. It's just so well written. These two ladies, they're just so, they just feel so warm and it's full of references. Um, and a very uh very similar approach to mine in that there's no, there's no uh urgent like kind of call to you have to go vegan 100% right away, no matter what. It's all whatever works for your family. It's just moving along that plant-based continuum, you know, whatever you feel comfortable with. So yeah, it's uh that that's the main one is to not worry when it comes to kids.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

No, that's great to know. And it sounds like as with anything that's important or worthwhile, you uh putting in the effort is what's needed. And it's just making sure to actually put in that effort, do the research, and be aware of what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

You know, to um just to pick up on that, that's kind of the problem that I find with some families uh these days is they don't have the time. And so it's just easier to feed them what they ate and what the neighbors are eating and what the rest of the family is eating. So I get it. Life is hectic. So it is hard, but it's like what what do you want to put your efforts into? Where do you where do you want to spend your time? And I think this is something that's really important, um, not only for our own human health and our the health of our family, but for our planets, uh, you know, and the the health of all other beings.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

There's so many reasons to make changes or just to become more aware about what impact our actions have. Along those lines, is there any other points or evidence that we haven't discussed that you would have liked to touch upon or that you think would be important for our listeners to hear?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

I think I just want to elaborate on the last, on the last point I made. Like those are the three fundamental reasons to consider going more plant-based, um, your human health, the health of the planet, and uh and animals, quite frankly. The number one killer worldwide, it's heart disease. And heart disease is completely preventable and in some cases reversible. So why wouldn't we all be eating a diet that can eliminate the number one killer worldwide? You know, it just seems like a no-brainer. And then we know, you know, if Greta Thunberg has done a fabulous job trying to raise awareness about climate change. Like this teenager is crying in front of, you know, the United Nations, telling the world that our house is on fire because quite literally it is. Um, I, you know, recently I watched the movie Titanic. Now it's probably more than 20 years old, but I I watched it uh with my daughter because uh she she read a book on it. So I thought, you know what? There's actually a movie about it, which like to watch the movie. And I hadn't seen it since the first time it came out, and I've I got chills watching it because it's uh it's so analogous to what's happening with climate change, at least I think, you know, because the um the workers, you know, gave the captain warnings about, you know, there could be icebergs, we have to watch out, don't go so fast. But he didn't heed the warnings, and then they hit the iceberg, and the compartments started filling up, and you know, um there was massive panic, you know, starting to happen. And the uh architect of the ship, I remember the scene where he he opened up the map and he said, So which compartments are filled? And I think there were five or six, and he said, Okay, well, it's gonna sink in two hours, it'll take about two hours, 20 minutes. And there was this look of just absolute shock. Like now it was too late. Now there was too late. And it was just so eerie to watch how people kind of tried to make preparations to die and then try to try to save them. Some of them tried to save themselves. I'm getting a little too pessimistic here because we're not at that at that point, obviously, but we are at the greatest crisis, um, or in in the greatest crisis that humanity humanity has ever faced. And I don't think most people think about this on a daily basis. Like sometimes this keeps me up at night. Like, what is the world going to be like when my children are are even 20, you know, not even 40, 50, you know, in the next 10 years we could have catastrophic climate events. But in so I can say I'm not pessimistic, but I'm just a realist, and and I really think that uh we have to do something now, just like they were warning the people on the Titanic, like this is our warning, and we have to heed that. And a lot of people think that one person can't make a difference, right? We all always sometimes hear that, but that's so not true. Like when the masses, when we all kind of converge and take better choices, then it's gonna have a massive impact. So um, you know, I wanted to highlight that. And and lastly, about about animals, I am ashamed, frankly, I'm very ashamed that I never once thought that a cow's milk was for the baby cow, like not until my mid-30s. I just assumed because I was taught in elementary school and in all the way up to university that cows, dairy cows, produce milk for us. That is the regular order of things. And I never questioned it. And when I when I finally had that aha moment, again, I was so shocked and sad because I I have two children of my own. And I thought to myself, what if someone took my children away? You know, and and some people might um criticize that analogy. Oh, humans are different, or we're we have minds and we can. And stuff like that. But at the end of the day, we're all sentient beings. And, you know, we know that the cows, you know, look for their young or try to look for them or make call out for them and make sounds and are sad when they leave, they're running after them. You know, I've seen some things like that. And we just don't think about the animals a lot. And especially the conditions in factory farms. Like it's it's hell on earth. Literally hell on earth. And um, most people just order their burger and and don't think about it again. Lastly, when Regan Russell, the vegan activist who died last year, she was at the vigil for pigs that were going into the slaughterhouse. You know, these activists are trying to comfort these animals in their last hours of life by giving them water through the trucks. And she was sadly crushed by one of those trucks. I was just so, again, so saddened that I understood her. I understood. I'm like, wow. Yeah, like she, like I feel now the same way she does. And then she died for what she believed in, you know, and and it was kind of went went under the radar. It was like a blip of it was like a two-minute news, news talk, and and that's it. I, you know, to to sum up this um long, long rambling end of this question, I read on a bumper sticker, if you're not enraged, you're not paying attention. And and I and I remember I read this many years ago, and I still and I it's still in my mind because that's so true. If you're if you're not really mad about what's going on in the world, then you're not you're you're not paying attention. And and and again, I turn that anger, that frustration into actual doing. And so that's why I do a lot of volunteer work, and that's why I do what I do. And I'm even like at the park, that's what always comes up. When I'm not working, I'm still working, I'm telling people about it, you know, they're asking me questions, you know. That's why I just um try to do what I can because I I am angry and and I want the world to change.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

It sounds like being aware, asking questions, and then from the actionable side, trying to work towards prevention worse versus treatment in terms of both our own human health, but also also the planetary health and making transitions in order for that to happen. Um that's what it sounds like is coming across to me. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

First, before we get to our last question, I'd like you to share your private practice, plantgevity, and if you have any other places that you want to share with people, whether that's your social media or others.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Yeah, um, people can finally find me. I'm most active on Instagram um at plantgevity. So that's plant and then jevity, all one word, um, J-E-V-I-T. And the name of my practice is kind of a play on the word longevity, um, because as we know, a more plant-based diet can increase your longevity. So longevity through the power of plants, plantgevity. Um, so I'm at plantgevity on Instagram, also on Facebook, and my website is plantgevity.com.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

Thank you so much, Daidum, for joining us. Is there one final take-home message that you would like to leave our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Yes, and I promise this will be short. Um, this is a beautiful quote that I learned from Dr. Shereen Kasam, who is the founder of Plant-Based Health Professionals UK, and a sister of Dr. Zara Kassam, who's, as you know, the co-founder of Plant-Based Canada. Um, and she shared this with us recently at Istanbul Veg Fest. Um, she's uh she this is from a German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer. All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second, it is violently opposed, third, it is accepted as being self-vident. And some days I feel like I'm I'm in the first stage, or some days second, some days third. I don't know what stage uh what stage we're in when it comes to the truth of plant-based nutrition or the the you know the science of plant-based nutrition, but it definitely goes from being ridiculed to opposed to to accepted, depending on who you're talking to or where you are.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Well, that's a great quote, and thank you so much for your time again. We really appreciate you speaking with us today, as well as for all the work that you do.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

It was my pleasure. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

This episode was hosted by myself, Stephanie Nishi, and Clint Samatovich was our audio engineer. This podcast featured world pea-free music from BenSan.com. A very special thanks to our guest, Fedem Girl, for speaking with us and sharing her insights. And of course, thank you for listening. The Plant Based Canada podcast is an initiative of the group Plant Based Canada, which aims to educate the public and health professionals on the evidence-based benefits of plant-based whole food nutrition for individual and planetary health. To learn more about the show, visit our website at www.plantbasedcanada.org and stay up to date by following us on Instagram and Facebook at plantbase canada.org. Until next time,