Episode 21: Dr. Pamela Fergusson on How to Go Vegan for Beginners

In this episode of the Plant-Based Canada Podcast  we talk with Dr. Pamela Fergusson -- Registered Dietitian with a PhD in nutrition, and more than 15 years of experience with changing lives through better nutrition. She earned her PhD at the University of Liverpool and her Master’s in International Health at Sweden’s Uppsala University. 

Dr. Fergusson currently has a private practice in British Columbia where she works with clients who want to transition to a more plant-based lifestyle. She is the busy mom of four children, and also a marathon and half-marathon runner and speed-walker.  She believes in the power of plants to promote mental and physical health.

Recently she published her new book, Going Vegan for Beginners: The Essential Nutrition Guide to Transitioning to a Vegan Diet, which explores what it means to be vegan, the movement's roots in social justice, and what makes the diet a healthy choice for the long-term. 

In this episode we discuss:

• Dr. Fergusson's work in Europe, Africa, and Asia for organizations such as UNICEF and the World Food program.
• A day in the life as a Registered Dietitian.
• Dr. Fergusson's new book Going Vegan for Beginners.
• The nuanced conversation around the term 'vegan', and why Dr. Fergusson embraces it.
•  The top nutrients of concern for people hoping to shift to a more plant-based diet.
• The nutritional value for meat analogs. 
• The history behind unethical nutritional experiments that took place in Residential Schools across Canada and the direct links between those experiments and the Canadian Food Guide.
• Food insecurity and other issues facing marginalized communities in Canada.
• The tips and tricks Dr. Fergusson wish she knew before going vegan.   

Socials:
Website
Facebook
Instagram

Studies/Articles:
Going Vegan for Beginners: The Essential Nutrition Guide to Transitioning to a Vegan Diet

Canada's shameful history of nutrition research on residential school children: the need for strong medical ethics in Aboriginal health research

Canada used hungry indigenous children to study malnutrition

Nutrition researchers saw malnourished children at Indian Residential Schools as perfect test subjects

PROOF REPORT: food insecurity policy research 

This Podcast was hosted and edited by Clinton Stamatovich.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Plant-Based Canada Podcast. Join us as we talk with experts to explore the field of nutritional sciences and how our food choices impact our health and the environment. We sit down with Canadian doctors, dietitians, athletes, climate experts, and more to break down the evidence behind a whole foods plant-based diet and discuss the practical steps you can take in your effort to shift toward a healthier lifestyle. Today I sit down with Dr. Pamela Ferguson. She's a registered dietitian with a PhD in nutrition and more than 15 years of experience with changing lives through better nutrition. She earned her PhD at the University of Liverpool and her master's in international health at Sweden's Uppsala University. Dr. Ferguson has worked in the nutrition field in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa for organizations such as UNICEP and the World Food Program. While working in Africa, much of her work focused on the potential for nutritional interventions on behalf of HIV-infected or susceptible children in resource-limited settings. She previously served as dietitian educator and coordinator of the Vancouver-based Aboriginal Diabetes Awareness Prevention and Teaching Project, also known as ADAPT. Dr. Ferguson also worked as a lecturer in nutrition at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK and Ryerson University in Toronto. She served as a food security analyst for the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine and remains a fellow of the Higher Education Academy UK. Dr. Ferguson currently has a private practice in British Columbia where she works with clients who want to transition to a more plant-based lifestyle. She's a busy mom of four children and also a marathon and half-marathon runner and speedwalker. She believes in the power of plants to promote mental and physical health. Dr. Ferguson, thank you so much for joining the Plant-Based Canada podcast. This is your first time on. Hopefully you you uh you come on in the future too. But thanks, I want to welcome you to the to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Thank you so much. I'm just delighted to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

So, for people who might not be familiar with you, let's get a little bit of your background first so that uh listeners can see how you were brought up and what got you interested in nutrition in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Absolutely. Well, I am from Ontario, Canada. I grew up um in around the Toronto area and then moved to the Belleville area. And uh I actually grew up in a farming family and really pretty far away from anything plant-based or vegan, but I always had a lot of compassion for animals. I can remember my cousin shooting at some crows who were trying to eat some grain in the field. He wasn't actually shooting right at them, actually, he was just trying to scare them. But still, that was enough to get me very upset as a child. And I, as soon as I kind of moved out of my parents' house and um had more independence, I went vegetarian in college. Um, but at that time, that was a long time ago. And uh veganism definitely existed. I can remember um meeting one person who was vegan at university, but it wasn't a movement the way that it is today. And I think I wasn't really like aware of it or just didn't even seem possible to me at the time. So I was vegetarian for quite a long time, and I decided to study nutrition because I went to hear a talk about public health nutrition. And in that talk, they were discussing how 80% of chronic disease has nutrition as an important contributing factor. And I thought, why wait to treat disease if we could be working to prevent it? And uh after a while of studying nutrition, I started lining up the dots that actually um plants are the key to optimal nutrition. And um I didn't actually become vegan until about eight or nine years ago, but I did uh become aware of the power of plants um earlier on and was vegetarian for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

It's interesting you bring up the point of prevention is a big thing I noticed when I talk to a lot of dietitians, nutritionists, and people focused on plant-based. They always bring up the idea of preventative medicine. And it's not something that's really focused on in Canada. And I'm I'm from the States, and that's another thing that's just not really looked at. In fact, it's really funny you mentioned that I was listening to a podcast today, and the person was talking about how her mother used to take her to a preventative doctor, and she used to think that was silly because her mother, her, she'd be like, Well, I'm not sick, why go now? And the mom would always say, Well, one day when you're sick, you'll, you know, you'll regret it. So it's funny because she thought that was crazy to think about things from a preventative perspective. So, so you're a dietitian and you work with your clients. I want to know how how that works out. Like, what's a day look like for you? The most common reason that I guess people seek you out. I know if you're working with clients specifically, somebody might be interested in losing weight, somebody might be interested in just getting healthier. What are kind of some of the some of the bigger reasons why people seek you out? And then how do you navigate people from different backgrounds and try to focus them into getting more plants on their plate?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yeah, so uh a typical day for me. I'm very fortunate in my practice because I'm a solo practitioner. I'm fully in charge of what I do in my practice, and that's a really exciting place to be. So I'm able to be really creative with my time. So some I spend some time creating social media posts. Um I in the last year wrote a book, and right now I'm actually developing curriculum for the University of Guelph for their plant-based nutrition program that's going to be coming out in 2022. So I do other things other than seeing clients one-on-one, but I have to say seeing clients one-on-one is my favorite part of my job. I really love it. Um, and I see people from different provinces in Canada and some people from the US or even sometimes other countries. People usually seek me out because of my plant-based um expertise. Once in a while, I'll just get someone who's just looking for a dietitian, but most of the time they are coming to see me specifically because they know that my practice specialty area is plant-based nutrition and that I myself am vegan. So I see people who are sometimes they'll have an athletic goal and they want to have the nutrition in place to be able to best support their training and their athletic events. I see increasingly a lot of pregnant vegans and uh parents of young vegans, people who are raising their children vegan and just wanting to make sure that they're getting their kids everything that they need. I see a lot of people who are transitioning to either being more plant-based or even completely going vegan. I see people who have been vegan for a number of years and just again want to just check in and make sure that they're covering all their bases. I definitely do see some people who have developed some kind of health condition and want to use plants in order to help with managing uh that condition. Um, so those are some of the different uh reasons that people come to me.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

So you mentioned working with clients internationally too. So I know you've worked in Europe and Africa and Asia for and for organizations like UNICEF and the World Food Program. How did you get involved with those groups and what was the work that you contributed?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

So um when I first graduated as a dietitian, I did my internship in Saskatchewan and then I moved to Vancouver. Um, and I really wanted to work in the downtown east side, and I wanted to work with people living with HIV. I actually had a number of jobs at the same time. I was like young and keen and working a lot, and I was very, very fortunate. Um, I worked with a diabetes prevention program, working with Aboriginal people at Vancouver Native Health. I also worked at the Portland Hotel Society, where they were working with people who are living in single resident occupancy um rooms, um, people who are street involved, a lot of addiction, a lot of HIV, a high HIV prevalence. I worked, I worked with lots of different organizations, but generally speaking, people were vulnerable in multiple ways. And uh HIV was a common thread throughout that work. And after working for a few years in the downtown east side, I decided I wanted to further my work and my study in HIV. And at that time, and still to this day, the highest prevalence of HIV was in Sub-Saharan Africa. Um, so I decided that I wanted to try to uh do a master's degree so that I could go and work in Sub-Saharan Africa and gain more understanding and experience and perhaps share some of the knowledge that we had gained in the downtown east side. In some ways, some things about the populations were similar. There's a high HIV and TB prevalence. There was a high prevalence of malnutrition as well in the downtown east side. Now, the reasons for the malnutrition were probably different. The drivers of the food insecurity were different. However, um, some of the um circumstances in the body, in terms of dealing with multiple infections like potentially TB and HIV together, along with malnutrition, those were transferable. And in Africa at the time when I was going there, that was just the beginning of the availability of antiretroviral drugs, which we had had already for a while in Canada. So I felt that I had maybe something to offer and I was excited to go. So I went into my master's and then ended up also doing my PhD. And I did my PhD work in Malawi, working with the Ministry of Health and Action Against Hunger, an NGO that was working in Malawi. And we looked at severe malnutrition and HIV in children. And uh I was very fortunate to be able to do that work as part of my PhD project. And we were successful in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the NGO I was working with, to see changes in the national policy for nutrition and for HIV, where children coming into uh treatment for severe malnutrition were then their families, the children and their families were offered testing for HIV, because actually there was a very high prevalence, particularly among children who had a lot of complications, there was a very high prevalence of HIV in those children. And of course, if the HIV was not treated, then um the chance of developing uh you know secondary infections was high and the mortality was high in those children. So offering um testing and then treatment to them. And if the children were infected, then their mothers were also infected. So um offering as well to their families was definitely a way to be able to improve care and to reach a whole family who was in need of care.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

That's that's very interesting. That's really, really good work that you were doing. And you've also got to see so much of the world as well. I want to ask, I want to pivot here a bit and I want to ask you about some big news. You just recently published your first book. It's called Going Vegan for Beginners. And before we get into the the what and the why, I want to ask if you can just walk us through what it was like working on the book and then and then publishing it.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah, so um it was great working on the book. Um, I had a wonderful experience writing this book. This is a a book that's really designed to be like a fundamental, uh covering all the fundamentals for someone who is new to veganism. But I would say actually that even a lot of people who have been vegan for a while, there's still information in there that might be um new, or at least it's good to have a reminder of the importance of all of those foundations of nutrition and the experience of working on it. Well, it was a lot of work. I'm also a mom, I'm a mom of four. Um I'm running my practice, I was writing a book, um, you know, COVID lockdowns, all of those things kind of happening at the same time. Uh, so it was a lot of work. It probably brought me back to thinking about my um PhD days, but it was also a lot of fun. And this kind of writing, although definitely it is evidence-based, the writing, it is um intended to be very accessible and slightly more informal. So it was fun to write. And uh, I would say that it's exhausting to write a book, but also I love the fact that this book exists. Um, so that it's something that I can share with people who are going vegan, perhaps with like new clients or with family members or friends, people who have questions. I feel like it's a handy resource.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

So it's kind of like um it helps with your clients and everything. So I guess you can use that almost like supplementary, uh like an extension of what you do with your clients and everything. I want to ask, so if somebody's interested in the book, how do you have it structured and laid out? What are the big chapters that you that you focus on?

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Yeah, so um the book actually starts out with laying out what veganism is. And this book is actually written for someone who is going vegan, not just for someone who wants to be like plant-based or mostly plant-based, or like eat more plants or something like that's wonderful too. If anyone's listening to this and that's where they're at and that's where they're where they're at right now, that's great. Um, I appreciate that not everyone is in a place right now where they're going to go vegan, but this is a book for people who want to go vegan or who are exploring going vegan. So I start out by defining what veganism is and um explaining the difference between veganism and a plant-based diet, uh, confirming that veganism goes far beyond diet and is a way of seeing the world and is a commitment to not participating in the oppression of animals in any way. Um, so I start out with doing that. And then I talk about uh the nutrition and health benefits of going vegan. So, although the book is written for vegans, um, the only chapter that really talks about the ethical perspective is the first chapter. After that, we're really concentrating more on the dietary aspects of veganism. As I am a dietitian, that is really where my expertise lies. So, and this book is written with a perspective of people who want to be healthy as a vegan, but it's not necessarily like an extreme health uh perspective in the book. It's something that I think most people would find quite accessible, a sort of like mentality of being healthy 80% of the time with some additional, you know, treats thrown in there once in a while. And I talk about how to stock your vegan kitchen. I talk about plant-based proteins, how much protein you need, what proteins are available on a plant-based diet, and how to choose good proteins. I talk about then the next chapter is about um healthy fats and the role of fat on a vegan diet. I think sometimes people get a little bit confused about fat and start vilifying fat, but actually there is uh an important role for fat and uh vegans also need fat. And um, then getting into talking about vitamins and minerals, particularly the key uh vitamins and minerals like iron, calcium, vitamin B12, that um can be a little bit trickier to get on a plant-based diet. I just talk about how to do that easily using whole foods where possible. I talk about the role of fortified foods and of supplements as well. And then I give some practical tips too for um vegans at different life stages. So it's not intended to be an in-depth manual, for example, on how to raise um vegan kids, but I do cover that a bit. And then um pregnancy, adulthood, and also older adults, and then finally um traveling as a vegan, you know, how to look for vegan restaurants, what to do at a party, social situations, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

That's that's good. That's interesting because that's always like a big thing for people is the the social and cultural things. Somebody goes to someone else's house for dinner or they're traveling, it's always like a social obstacle that you have to overcome. So that's that's a good that's a good chapter to add in there.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

And I think for people who have been vegan for a while, we kind of forget a little bit maybe what it's like to be a new vegan and starting to navigate those waters. So, yes, I I think it's um handy to have a little bit of advice and support.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

That's a very good point. Being vegan for a while now, I don't even think about that anymore. It's just you know second nature for me. So if somebody's beginning for the first time, there's well, you know, you wrote a book, there's so much information that you learned. Right. Most people don't even really know that much about nutrition in general before they choose a specific diet. So that's a good point. So let's talk about um, I want to ask more about the nutrients of concern, uh, I guess is a way to put it. So despite there being an abundance of data showing that uh you can plan a healthy whole food plant-based diet, no diet is perfect. Um, there's always going to be something somewhere. And so for somebody who's maybe not vegan who's who's who's curious and is listening to this podcast or they saw your book, what are the you did mention a couple in in your last answer, but what are the the nutrients that vegan specifically or somebody shifting to a more plant-based diet should be more aware of?

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Well, I will start with protein. I mean, I think it's it's the one of the jokes, like where do you get your protein and then all the vegans laugh? Um, and you know what, it is funny, but it's also I don't just completely laugh at that joke because I think we do have to pay some attention, particularly if you are a person who's very athletic, or if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you're an older adult, any of those categories, um, or you're a teenager, any of those categories put you in a place where you will have slightly higher protein requirements. And you do have to be a little bit more mindful about your protein needs. So I would say that is the first one is protein. Make sure that you are including plant-based sources of protein in your diet, uh, specifically um beans, lentils, soy foods. Anyone who vilifies soy on a plant-based diet, please don't do that. Soy is such a high-quality protein that you're really missing out. Unless you have like an allergy or an intolerance and you can't include it, that's fine. There are alternatives. But if you are able to enjoy soy, which the vast majority of us are, um, then please do include it in your diet. Nuts and seeds are also decent sources of protein. And then grains and pseudograins like quinoa, buckwheat are also pretty good sources as well. And then the meat alternatives, and this comes back to that kind of 80-20 rule I was talking about before. You don't have to include meat alternatives in order to meet your protein needs on a plant-based diet. It's perfectly fine to get them all from Whole Foods. But uh for those who would like to include meat alternatives a couple times a week, uh, they are another easy source of protein and they have a lot of protein. They tend to have, you know, this is really ballpark, but most of the vegan sausages and burgers tend to have around 20 grams of protein uh per serving. And um that's a lot of protein. So uh they are a source of protein and I think can contribute to an overall healthy plant-based diet if you choose to include them.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

You make it, you I was gonna say you make a really good point about in the beginning. Like, you know, if you've been plant-based vegan for a while, you brought up the protein first. And yeah, people always laugh because there's there's protein on all foods, but it's still not something, especially as we learn more about nutrition science, it's not something to minimize if if there's still a legitimate concern that it's something that we should pay attention to. Um, especially, you know, uh science, I believe, shows that the older you get, the more you might want to focus on it. It's something to you shouldn't just minimize it, and there shouldn't be absolutes about things. Um, and you also earlier in the conversation, you brought up uh fat intake. And there are some, you know, diets out there that uh are, you know, avoid it at all cost type thing. And and then there's other science that shows that actually like plant oils and things like that are not that bad. There's a bunch of antioxidants, and so it's like back and forth. There's no absolutes. It's good to not make jokes out of things, but but realize where there's actual importance. So I think that's a a really good thing for for somebody who's the first time or or maybe plant curious about it to pay actual attention to. You mentioned um meat analogs just now. I was just really quickly, we know. So you just brought up a really good point. That's a lot of protein. One serving of like a Beyond sausage or whatever it is that they're choosing. But uh in general, if you're maybe coaching someone, you know, and they're and meat analogs are exactly what they're good for analogs from meat if you're shifting over. But can you maybe go into that about uh your your opinion on that in terms of if they're healthy, not healthy, or if they're just more of like a stepping stone to something that's better?

SPEAKER_00 22:23

I think for some people they are a stepping stone. They are um a transition food as they give up meat because they do replicate somewhat anyway the texture and flavor of meat. However, for a lot of vegans, and I'll say myself included, and definitely my teenagers, um, there's something that is ongoing as a part of a healthy plant-based diet years into being vegan. So I would say it depends on, first of all, individual preference. You may not like them. Some people say, oh no, I really, I mean, I don't miss meat. I don't want to have anything that's even a little bit like meat. I don't want them. Well, that's fine. You don't have to have them. And then also health is a factor. They are typically higher in fat, saturated fat and sodium than other plant-based alternatives like tofu or chickpeas. And so if your doctor has cautioned you around your saturated fat or your sodium intake, then you'll want to be checking the labels and having those things perhaps very infrequently, or maybe it's just not worth it for you to have them at all because you're trying to keep your cholesterol, not cholesterol, sorry, your saturated fat and your sodium very, very low. So I think that there will be a spectrum of um how much they're included. I think if you're a vegan who is interested in health, maybe your primary reason is the animals, and that's wonderful. Um, but if your health still matters to you and you do want to be healthy on a plant-based diet, then I would suggest something in the neighborhood of not more than say two to three times a week for plant-based alternatives. That's a very loose number. For some people, it may be more or less, depends on your age, activity level, other things in your diet, and your general health status now. But that's likely a reasonable guide in terms of keeping your diet optimally healthy and how often to include meat alternatives.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I want to uh switch gears here a little bit. Here in Canada, there's been hundreds of unmarked graves that were discovered at the sites of former residential schools in several provinces, the first one being in Kamloops. This whole situation further highlights Canada's sorted past with indigenous people over the decades. Now, I heard an interview that you recently did with Toronto Health Saves Jacinta McDonald McDonnell that highlighted these residential schools and the cruel nutrition experiments that actually took place on them. This is not something that was really publicized. It didn't really come out. Um, but you you made a point to bring this up in this interview. I was really hoping that you could go over this information with us and explain a little bit about this little known history.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Well, thank you for raising this. And I always welcome the chance to talk about this because it is such an important issue. And you're absolutely right. It's something that we don't talk about nearly enough and needs to be discussed frequently, needs to be front and center in the news, actually. At the same time that I say that, I want to just very humbly uh express my positionality here to say that I am not a First Nations person. This is something that I, as a dietitian and academic, have spent some time looking into, but this is not my story to tell necessarily. I'm speaking as a professional, a health professional, and a nutrition professional whose education um has benefited, benefited actually from these nutrition atrocities. I just need to disclose that to begin with. I do have three Cree children, and our family has been directly impacted uh by the atrocities in residential schools and the intergenerational trauma that I see uh around me every day. So um I those are the points I wanted to raise just about my own perspective before I began talking about this. Then moving to um what actually happened. So children were um forcibly removed from their homes and brought to residential schools under the Indian Act at the schools which were run um jointly by the federal government, the Anglican Church, and the Catholic Church. Children were mistreated in many ways. We have many, many reports of abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, cruelty. Children were not allowed to speak their own language. I mean, the the atrocities are many, but one additional atrocity was the very, very poor quality of nutrition. Children were fed rotting food. We've had many reports of children saying that they were fed rotting food, they were not fed enough, just that the quality and quantity of food was extremely low. And um in the visitations to the schools, um, some uh doctors noticed the poor quality of the children's nutritional um status and saw this as an opportunity to perform nutrition experiments on malnourished people rather than declaring it a state of an emergency and fixing the situation so these children would no longer be malnourished. They performed experiments without consent of the children, without consent of their families, without knowledge of their families. And they deprived children of nutrients, they fed children bread uh that was, you know, just like very low-quality white bread. And they would give some children just the bread and then give some children bread that was enriched or fortified with a few specific nutrients to see if that would improve their nutritional status. Um, and uh it did not. Actually, um, these isolated nutrients were not enough. The children were denied dental care um because they wanted to just see what the impact of the nutrition experiments would be. So they weren't treated um for their uh cavities and um very poor dental status. So these horrors were used to inform um some of our bases of uh knowledge in nutrition in order to help us understand what we require in order to survive and thrive, what nutrients we require. And that type of nutrition information goes into helping us know what we need to put in the food guide, for example, because the food guide is all about um ensuring basic healthy needs for uh Canadians and preventing any malnutrition or deficiency. So this informs the RDA, the required uh daily allowance of uh calories and nutrients that we require. And it also um informed probably, for example, one of the pediatricians who was actually a former um head of the Canadian Pediatric Society. He was one of the inventors of Pablum and infant um cereal, Dr. Frederick Tisdell. And, you know, these experiments probably also helped inform what nutrients should go into Pablum. I mean, um, and you know, he's one of the founders of Sick Children's Hospital. There's a street in Toronto named after him. And I think it's shocking to me that that street still bears that name. Uh, I don't see any notices when I search online. I don't see any notices about Sick Children's Hospital issuing a public apology or putting up a statue or a plaque or a notice on their website or something like this to speak of how they have benefited from these atrocities. And I would like to see all of that. I'd like to see a lot more ownership taken from the nutrition and medical community in Canada.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

I want to really thank you for highlighting that. That's extremely important. And I want to I want to remind listeners that when the when the initial story broke, when we first when the graves were first uncovered in Kamloops, it was widely reported on, but it was it was the number of graves they found, and then that sparked the the ground radar searches in other provinces. We found more graves, but a lot of the graves were unmarked, and a lot of the records, which we don't have still, we're still trying to access those records about how these children died. What was hypothesized was that a lot of it was from illness or disease or TB specifically. Um, I remember hearing from some experts. And then outside of that, there was investigative journalism that wasn't necessarily on television, it was just, you know, published articles and some online publications where journalists actually went and found this stuff. Like you said, it's out there and you can find it and it's there. But that element where you can trace this directly to the Canadian food guide, that was not one of the elements that were highlighted. So I I really thank you for highlighting that and you and going into all the detail and into all the detail that you did. But I also want to recommend that that people look into this themselves because that work is online and you can find that. Now, moving on, fast forward to today, and we're still seeing indigenous communities and other minority groups facing major obstacles when it comes to food security and access to healthy food options. Can you speak to this issue for us and kind of highlight the different reality that these communities face when compared to other groups who might not realize even that they have privilege when it comes to food?

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Absolutely. I mean, um, you know, food insecurity in Canada is actually a big issue. And I think it's important to not speak only about the um highly marginalized groups, um, like, for example, um people living in the far north, particularly First Nations communities who might be isolated, who are facing um incredibly high prices for foods which are of poor quality in many cases, very bad access to food, the quality of food is poor. There's definitely food insecurity happening in many of those communities, but food insecurity is actually happening in every community across Canada. And um, many Canadians who are food insecure are also working. However, because I think we often have certain ideas in our mind about a person who is food insecure. What does that person look like? We may see someone who is homeless living on the street. We may see someone who's living on a remote uh northern reserve. Those things absolutely may be true. And in fact, food insecurity is prevalent among those communities, but food insecurity is happening right in your own community wherever you're listening to this from uh across Canada or the US, it's happening where you are. Um, children who go to school with your child are some of them are experiencing food insecurity. It happened in it's happening in every community um across Canada. So I think it's important to not make assumptions um too much about what the face of food insecurity in Canada looks like. There's a very good report um called the Proof Report, and uh it's produced by the University of Toronto and it's um highlights the state of food insecurity in Canada. And I would say that um that is something for people who are interested in learning more about food insecurity, uh, that they can check that out. But I would say that yes, food insecurity uh definitely is an issue. Um, and the situation with COVID has no doubt um made that even worse. Um, isolated people, um, people have lost work, maybe people have lost their secure housing and has put pressure on community-based organizations like food banks, for example, um, to keep up with the stress of um added food insecurity. So definitely um it's an issue in Canada, um, it's an ongoing issue, and it looks um very different. It it's across all sector sectors of society, actually.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

That's a that's a great point to make. I will make sure to to link the report that you mentioned, the proof report, and the show notes for listeners so they can check that out. Now, before I let you go, I feel like our conversation really went full spectrum in terms of of emotion. Um, before I let you go, I want to I do want to end on a lighter note. I want to bring it back to your book and I want to ask you what are some of the biggest tips and tricks that you write about in your book that you wish you knew when you're you know navigating uh transitioning to a plant-based diet.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

So I would say that one of the things that makes my life easier now as a vegan is I use my blender a lot for a lot of things that I didn't. I sort of thought of my blender just being for smoothies when I first got it, but I actually use it for tons of things. Um, I love to bake. Um, and I will do like I'll mix all of the wet ingredients directly in the blender and then pour the dry and the wet ingredients together. So there's a really good tip in terms of if you're a vegan baker, don't bother mixing your wet ingredients. Um, like even blending in um, you know, your your uh flax to make your vegan egg and don't ever mash a banana. Please don't ever mash a banana again. Just put this all of that into your blender and whiz it up, and then that does all the blending and mashing and whatever for you, and you just mix it together. The same with all of those um vegan sauces. Most people think of them as being cashew-based, like a vegan alfredo or a vegan mac and cheese. I make those sauces frequently at home. My children love them, but I use sunflower seeds instead of cashews for a few reasons. First of all, they cost about one-fifth of the cost of um cashews. They're more environmentally friendly because we can grow them here in North America rather than having to import them. They don't require irrigation where cashews do. And also, um, unfortunately, uh there's a human rights issue here too, because cashews actually inside the shell of a cashew nut, um, there's a very toxic substance that burns the fingers of people who um shell those nuts. And so that's another reason to avoid cashews or to look for cashew importers who don't use that practice. But uh sunflower seeds for the wind for all of those reasons. And again, I just use my blender. I put the sunflower seeds, like for example, from our mac and cheese recipe, I put the sunflower seeds, uh veggie broth, um, uh potato and carrot all on the pot and just boil it away together. I don't pre-soak the um nuts or the seeds. I just do everything in the pot, pour it all into the blender, blend it up, then add in nutritional yeast, a bit of mustard, um, some apple cider vinegar, some salt to give it that cheesy flavor, maybe a little bit of miso paste, blend it on high, all blended together. Um, so no soaking, uh nothing. Just use the blender. Um, so there's a little tip about the blender and a little tip about uh sunflower seeds too.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Oh, do you have a Vitamix blender?

SPEAKER_00 39:19

I do.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

So that's what I have too. And it works so well. But I will say I like I they're they're pricey. So I saved up for it. But now that I finally got one, I kind of miss the the ninja.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Oh yeah, you'd love your ninja. I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Well, they're smaller and you can, it's just like they're they're faster for shakes and stuff like that. But the Vitamix, I have to say it's like a it's like a jet engine. It really is. It's really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Absolutely. Yes, it does. Yes, I am the stereotype vegan with my uh Vitamix, yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

And I don't know if you uh I think I I think honestly I mentioned this in another podcast, but I'm gonna mention it here now that we're on that topic. Uh air fryers. I recently got one of those, and that it's like you can make French fries out of out of whole potatoes in like 15 minutes. It's it's fantastic. So for beginners, get an air fryer. Yes. It's been it's been it's been real fun talking to you. I I learned a lot in the cashew thing too. So there's I feel like I learned so much in this in this conversation with you. I really appreciate you coming on the show. I hope to have you on the show again. And I just uh want to recommend that uh listeners check you out and that I will also link your social media in the show notes so everybody can go to that and also a a link where somebody can uh check out your book as well, which is called Go and Beaking for Beginners. So thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

This podcast featured royalty-free music from Bensound.com. A very special thanks to our guests for speaking with us and sharing their 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 planetary health. To learn more about the show, visit our website www.plantbased canada.org, and stay up to date by following us on Instagram and Facebook at Plantbased Canada.org and our Plant Based Canada YouTube channel. Also, don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you download your podcasts.