Episode 6 Transcript:
Elizabeth: Okay, so today I have my friend Faith here with me. We met at BYU and let me tell you a little bit about her. She has a blog at faithfulplateful.com and I'll for sure put the link in the show notes. Everyone can find you. She loves to create recipes to be as nutritious and delicious as possible. She's an Arizona native but currently lives in Idaho with her husband and three young children. She has a degree in public health from Brigham Young University and five years experience employed as a health coach. Hoping to avoid the standard American diseases that come along with the standard American diet, she's transitioned to a whole food plant-based lifestyle over the past 14 years. She has found great joy and health in the switch. Faith knows the struggle firsthand of feeding young children a nutritious diet in our culture and she's here to help you nourish your kids in a fun way.
So Faith, so so excited to have you on the podcast today. I was thinking before we got on of this one memory I have at BYU and we lived in the same area like same apartments at one point and we were both volunteering at our church's temple, the LDS temple. And I can't remember if like I was giving you a ride or you were giving me a ride. Somehow we were both like in the car on our way to the temple and you were telling me about you dating your now husband. And you were telling me like I think I think he's the one. I think he's the one. And I was just like, oh my gosh, that's so exciting. So that's like one of the memories I have of faith in my head.
Well, so happy to have you here. Faith is amazing. I have tried lots of recipes on her blog and they have all been amazing. And she also has this amazing cookbook out and we can talk more about that. But first of all, I wanted to ask you just like how did you get started?
Faith: Since I was really young, I've loved cooking and like I've just been very health conscious since I was young. I was just kind of born that way. My family called me Martha Stewart because I just always love to be cooking and stuff. That's like a very standard American diet. Like Like were healthier but still pretty normal. And then I just kind of started to share my recipes and like dinner ideas on Instagram. My husband encouraged me to start an Instagram account. It was called Food with Faith initially. And I just shared what I was making for dinner with my friends and they just all loved it. And they were like so inspired and so thankful to have ideas of what to make for dinner. This was way back in like 2016. And it was just a fun creative outlet for me and a hard time of my life.
And then a friend gifted me a year subscription to Food Blogger Pro, which teaches you how to sign a food blog. And And figured I should put it to good use so I created a food blog and the rest of history.
Elizabeth: That's so awesome. Well, I'm so grateful for your friends and your sweet husband for encouraging you. Because what you have out in the world is pretty special. So So say hands up. What has been some of like the hardest things along the way with maybe making the food but also creating your blog and things?
Faith: Just to juggle that all moms face. I think of like motherhood with trying to do your own thing, trying to do your posh in your side hobby. That's been hard. It's always with the the and all of my videos and stuff. But But know, it's sweet, but it can be hard.
Elizabeth: Yes, I get that for sure.
Fatih: Figuring out how to eat is very hard. My whole journey has had a lot of frustration with all the voices in the nutrition world telling you like this and this and this and it can just be so confusing. And figuring out how to feed your kids in every like counter cultural way has been hard. So that's why I like to share what I've learned so that hopefully other people don't have to learn the hard way.
Elizabeth: Well, I'm so grateful for you because like you said, like there are so so many voices and also like the whole like our culture around just food in general but also like food with kids. Like it's it's not only easier to like buy packaged food to like grab on the go for your kids. But also it's like easier to feed them it because they like love it. So it's just like hard all around to like to be able to have feed your kids good whole food.
Faith: I can see I'm not trying to say it's not hard. It does get easier the more you are consistent with it. But yeah, for sure very frustrating for me included. Yeah. Like what would you say to like a mom that like really wants to try you know, feeding her kids better food. But But just like you said so many voices and like it's just so hard to kind of start like what would you tell her to begin with or to I don't know help her mindset or you know something.
I think education really comes into play here because the more you learn about like the stuff that food has on you the more you have a why. So I think the first step for any mom who's like wanting to eat healthier is to really pinpoint why you want to do that. Like what are you trying to achieve? What motivates you to even attempt to change your lifestyle? And once you have that why you can become just unstoppable like nothing will prevent you from keeping on trying because you really want to feel your child from you know something that's very miserable or you really want to prevent being sick all winter like you were last year or something like there's just something that's worse than the difficulty of changing your diet you know.
You have to kind of justify the the pain of staying as you are and like the risk of you know eating the way that you always have versus the pain of changing if that makes sense. But it also really helps to have a community. Once you have a why to find other people who also get where you're coming from who also like want to change and want to eat healthier and once you have a community of people whether it's online or in person or even just books that you read or you need to have like your influences I think you'll have the support that you need to stay motivated even when it's hard.
Elizabeth: I love that yeah just finding your why and something that I love about you Faith and like everything you put out is I have like never heard anything from you about like it being about looks or appearance and like that to me is huge. I think there's way too much of that out there but I love how you focus on like nourishing your body like when I read your stuff I feel empowered in that like I can take care of myself I can take care of my kids and I really love that about about you and the way like you go about stuff.
Faith: Yeah for me it really is about nutrition and it's never been about being skinny or losing weight. I just really have a longevity approach like I want to live this is my way like I want to live a really long healthy life and enjoy my kids and my grandkids I want to be hiking and traveling because traveling is really important to me when I'm 90, 95 you know I want to have like a full life and I'm not really looking for short-term results I'm not thinking about calories in or calories out or I don't want to look fat so I can't eat that it's not ever about that it's just been about feeling good and avoiding being put in a nursing home when I'm old because that just sounds like the worst and I know that it's not all in my control there are random diseases I could get and just like sad accidents and stuff but I also believe that there are laws of good health and I want to be in on that and like have that on my side and I know that a long life of feeling good has a high price tag but it's one that I'm willing to pay so that's my why.
Elizabeth: I love that I love that so much. And I know like you mentioned before like when you were a teenager your mom kind of started researching and learning more about plant-based and whole food and that kind of that really influenced you is that right?
Faith: Yeah like I said I had always been kind of interested in this since I was young but we kind of saw my grandparents all declining getting cancer and diabetes and Alzheimer's and unable to move around well and I think it just kind of made it all think like oh what's going to happen to me you know? So my mom's really researching just nutrition in general and I mean at this point she was like late middle life like I know 50 and that's like a long time to be set in your ways and change your cooking habits but she read a book by Joel Furman called Super Immunity which is all about like the science behind how food affects your immune system and she just really felt moved by it very inspired by it and she really felt it was true principles and so she totally changed the way she was grocery shopping and cooking and and I also was really interested in it and we both quit eating meat at that time so I became like a vegetarian when I was 16.
I was kind of more of a social meat eater when I was a missionary in Paraguay and at college and that's why I didn't have a lot of confidence in how I ate but it's hard with our culture. Yeah for sure but then once when I was settled back like to being like when I was married and in control of my life more I've um I've eaten more how I want to eat so.
Elizabeth: Yeah yeah because yeah it's a lot more it's a lot easier when you have your own like your own kitchen and and your own grocery shopping you know and and and as a college student you also don't have a lot of funds either so yeah that's a huge part too um that's awesome and then yeah so I guess it sounds like you've always been interested but um but like did you have I don't know I guess like a moment or like how did you decide to eat the whole food plant based diet or or I guess like but yeah what inspired you or or maybe something you learned?
Faith: I was kind of health conscious but then um when we've been married for a few years I just like suddenly was struggling with my fertility and my cycle I'd always had really painful periods which just made me kind of feel like it was a cursed to be female which is really sad to me yeah um and so I was kind of digging and searching how to improve that all of my friends at the time we were in Alabama from my husband's grad school they all had babies and were pregnant and like everyone was except me and I wanted that so bad.
I was like really at that point in life and I was so ready for that and for nine months I was just not having a cycle at all um when I did it was like super random and spontaneous and very painful and it was just impossible to um get pregnant and I think I had PCOS which is very common fertility issue. um so anyway I was like researching it and Google just came up with a whole host of ideas of how you should eat for your fertility and a lot of it didn't resonate with me like a lot of it was very like high fat high protein like high meat no fruit no grains all this stuff that I just didn't really feel right about um and I just really had to make it a matter of prayer inspiration and that's advice advice I have for anyone is to turn to inspiration and not the internet or instagram for your health advice turn to god not google because really god's the only one who knows what's inside of your body.
So yeah I felt like I was just led to this way of eating and I stopped eating dairy and eggs and I tried to not eat so much sugar and processed foods and a lot more leafy greens and vegetables and it has totally changed my fertility. I don't have pain at all um when I have a menstrual cycle like they're regular all and it's just like oh my gosh you can notice it's even possible yeah you just because it's lowered the inflammation a lot that was in my body but um I've conceived three babies in four and a half years like with no problem and I'm just so so thankful.
Elizabeth: That's amazing that really is truly amazing I love um yeah you like your perspective and outlook on that um so we talked a little bit about this before but um I know for me personally I struggle so much getting my kids to eat healthy food as one in particular just really struggles so like how well and you have a couple suggestions in your awesome cookbook but um like how would you say like how would you help kids eat healthy?
Faith: yeah I just want to validate the frustration when it comes to feeding children um everywhere you turn people are giving your kids like candy and sugar and it is so hard even though I've tried to raise my kids like nutritionally since birth it is so hard it I think it's easier than if I had to make some huge switch but so um I think it's a long game you can't get your kids eating healthy like within a week or two or a month even it's like a year's long process of exposing them to foods and getting their taste buds to enjoy like healthy foods and they've kind of been often conditioned towards like super sweet or super salty or super like fried food and stuff like that.
I think the number one thing that I recommend for feeding your kids healthy but also just yourself is a lot of self-control when you're grocery shopping and like choosing your groceries because whatever you have in your house is what will be in your mouth and if I had a lot of less healthy food in my house I for sure would eat it like eventually my willpower would run out and I would eat it but I just don't have it so it's just not an option and that's like my secret to success is I just have no other option like I have to eat fruit because that's all there is to eat really yeah I have to make anything I want to eat is because I only have ingredients I don't have like convenience which you you grab so anyway um that's awesome if you don't have those things you just have to find something else like if you don't buy cold cereal you have to eat like oatmeal for breakfast or smoothie or something made um so you just figure it out.
Another really important thing for kids I think is to explain to them why you're trying to eat the way you are don't just be like you can't have that like explain to them why we see explain to him explain to them the the damage that could do to their body like you know all that sugar is it's fun once in a while but too much of it can damage your immune system and there's a lot of sickness going around right now and I don't want you to get sick then they're totally on board they're like oh this is in my interest you're not trying to like punish me you know even more than the negatives I try to really accentuate the positive so so I'll say like these almonds have vitamin E in them which is really good for your skin and your hair like you want to have some or these carrots make your eyes healthier like maybe like if you've x-ray vision or something and you just make it like you know or there's a lot of spinach in this green smoothie and this will really help you not get sick like you can't even even it and instead of like being all sneaky about it just be totally up front like this is what we're trying to achieve and it's all for you and your best interests and they're usually pretty fascinated by um those like health facts so I think explaining to them is a really good idea.
Elizabeth: yeah I love that and and it's also educating them and and like you said like not just eat it because I said so but like no no this will actually help you and in this way and and I love you I want you to you know to be healthy and so that's why you know I want you to be interested in this I love that a lot.
Faith: Yeah, there's so many other tips out there. I'm like, it is a complex thing to keep feed kids healthy. One resource I really like is plant-based juniors, not just because they're plant-based. It applies to all healthy eating if you're not into plant-based. But they just have really good tips on feeding kids and not being sneaky about it and not freaking out when they do eat foods that you don't want them to, but just like everything in moderation kind of thing, not being aggressive, but so like helping your kids eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and I really like that resource.
Elizabeth: Is that a book or is that like a blog?
Faith: Yeah, I got I account that I follow, but they also have a cookbook out.
Elizabeth: Okay, cool.
Faith: It's not really a cookbook. It has some recipes, but just kind of an approach on feeding children. It's called the Plant-Based Baby and Toddler. But yeah, most of the reels on Instagram are really helpful.
Elizabeth: Okay, that's good to know. I'll have to look those up. That's awesome.
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Elizabeth: And you, I mentioned a little bit in your bio, but so it sounds like you've coached people as well and like, and what are some of the benefits that people have seen?
Faith: Yeah, so I worked for Weight Watchers for like five years coaching, which wasn't plant-based, but just general like losing weight and changing your diet. But I've also helped coach a couple of people, just me personally. I've coached a lot of friends for free and Marco Polo. And then I also worked for a startup plant-based coaching company called PlantWise, W-H-Y, behind eating plant-based. And anyway, we have an awesome program for beginners who want to eat more plant-based.
And I coach people there and it is so cool to see their results. Just simply focusing on whole foods, whether it's plant-based or not, has a lot of benefits. But when people are eating more plants, they're flooding their body with more micronutrients and antioxidants that lowers your overall inflammation. And it adds a lot of variety of fiber, different types of fiber, which is the number one way to improve your gut health. And we know that gut health is connected to everything else. And the fiber also helps keep your blood sugar stable, like your levels more stable. And that has a lot to do with like all overall health. It's like a steady, stable blood sugar.
And then all that fiber and water and all those fruits and vegetables and beans and lentils and rice and all those things, they're pretty low calorie but high volume. So you feel full on fewer calories. And so people often achieve their optimal weight and maintain it pretty easily because you just naturally are eating fewer calories. And you're getting so much more nutrition with each calorie because they're really nutrient dense foods. They're cravings often diminish because it tastes better changing to just really appreciate natural flavors in food and not like super sweet added sugars and stuff.
But best of all, I think the number one benefit in my opinion is that when you're not eating the standard American diet, your chances of the standard American diseases really goes down. So like heart disease, cancer and diabetes are like the number one killers of America. And when you're not eating a lot of saturated fat that comes from too much red meat and dairy and stuff, then your chances of those diseases really go down. And all the nutrition from fruits and vegetables really combat that as well. So you're just going to live a longer, healthier life.
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah, it sounds good. Sign me up! That's awesome. And sorry to put you on the spot with this one, but I know in your cookbook and on your blog and stuff, you've mentioned a couple of books to kind of also educate ourselves better. Can you think of a couple that you would recommend like starting with?
Faith: This was a really long one, but something to kind of leave through is one called How Not To Die by Michael. Yeah, it's all very fact based. Like it's been double checked by fact checkers and stuff, and it's actually accurate. There's a lot of health books. Their fact checkers are like realizing it's not very accurate.
There's a book called Red Pin that evaluates how accurate the studies are that people are referencing in books. And anyway, it's a good thing to really recognize that they're not citing true sources. And anyway, that's what I like. I really like it. I feel like it's backed up all about like how to avoid ways that we die basically. Like what specifically helps prevent Alzheimer's and what specifically help prevent different kinds of cancer and stuff like that. And just like how to add more nutrition to your meals simply like add flax seed to your oatmeal and add spinach to this. And anyway, I feel like it's pretty fun to just kind of leave through. I wouldn't read it cover to cover because it's like super long, but how not to die is good.
Fiber fueled is what all about gut health and how like fiber plays such an important role in our overall health. And that has really good recipes in the back, which is always my favorite part of any book. For like a fun book, there's one called Walking with PeeDee, P-E-E-T-Y. And it's someone's true story about getting a dog named PeeDee and then just like changing their life. And it is a plant based like health book, but it's also just a really charming story that will kind of make you cry. That's what I recommend if you just love fiction. I mean, it's not fiction, but it's like a story, not a nutrition book.
Elizabeth: Yeah, awesome. Okay, well, I'm going to have to put those on my library list and give them a look. So on your blog and also in your cookbook, you have a handful of recipes with tofu. And I have like, I don't know much about tofu, I've never tried it, but you talk about it in such a fun way and your recipes look so good that you've like made me want to try it, which I've never wanted to do before. So like, what are some like basic tips for like someone who's never tried it before or like has like no idea what they're doing?
Faith: That was me about five years ago. I thought it was super weird and I never planned on eating it. You don't have to eat it to be healthy. It's totally optional. But my daughter was like learning to eat solid foods and just didn't like a lot of foods and she needed something soft because she didn't have a lot of teeth yet. And I wanted something that would have like a decent amount of calories and fat and protein and stuff because she just likes zero calorie foods like cucumbers and grapes and stuff. I was like, I gotta get this calmer calorie. So it kind of was an act of desperation to try tofu and I had no idea how to prepare it. Like you can just eat it straight out of the package and my babies do like that because they like very bland soft food. It's like totally cooked. It's just cooked slow beans. But I wasn't going to eat it straight out of the package. I had to figure out how to make it.
And one thing I recommend is only buying like super firm tofu because it's not mushy. It's like, you know, has a more bite to it. And at Walmart, they usually have a brand called Nestlea and they have a super firm and Trader Joe's also has super firm. Anyway, it's kind of harder to find, but it's the best. I think the kind of like a more texture thing. Yeah, not being soft. Yeah, you don't even have to press the super firm. You can get like a tofu press or you can wrap your tofu like in a kitchen towel and like put heavy stuff on it to press the water out. So it's less soft. But if you buy super firm, you don't even have to do that because it's already pretty firm.
And then there's a way of preparing it called like a tofu scramble or tofu eggs, which is where you just kind of scramble it and skill it with like seasonings. And I always put turmeric on it so it looks yellow and it looks and tastes so much like scrambled eggs. And my kids devour it. They eat it all the time. It's very convenient and I just love how it's like high in protein and really fast and really good. I love putting it like in a burrito or on toast and it's really good.
Elizabeth: Interesting. Okay. And okay, so where even like in the store is tofu? Like it's in the refrigerator section or like on itself? Yeah. I have no idea.
Faith: At Walmart, for example, it's in the produce section like where like the bagged salads and stuff usually are like the refrigerated section of the produce. And there's usually like bagged produce and salad dressings and like vegan meats and stuff usually. Okay. Or just where where they have. Yeah, it's usually always in the produce section, I feel like in the refrigerated part and wherever they have, they don't have sprouts there or like kombucha or all the random like vegan products. It's usually there.
Elizabeth: Okay. That's good to know because I don't even know where to start. Like where like where to even look. So that's really helpful.
Faith: Yes. And it's very common because most cultures or many cultures do eat tofu. So it's practically at every grocery store, believe it or not. It's just, we don't realize it.
Elizabeth: Yeah. I'm like, I'm sure I've seen it, but I don't remember. That's awesome. All right. I'll have to put that on my next list to try. Okay. Okay. So I have tried a couple of your recipes. One's that I've loved. I did, I made like your little, I think they're like taquitos or something with like black beans and corn and they're super easy to freeze. Love those. So good. And then one of my favorite ones too is like, it's just like your basic oatmeal. Like you put coconut milk and like some maple syrup and like frozen blueberries or something. It's so simple, but it's so good. Like I love it. It's delicious. What are some of your like favorite recipes that you would suggest?
Faith: One of my favorites on my blog and all the ones I mentioned are totally free on my website. You don't have to buy my books or anything. It's called secret ingredient chocolate chip cookies and the secret ingredient is chickpeas and you just like, I'm a good professor with like oats and anyway, it's so good. And my kids think it's totally normal to put chickpeas and cookies because like our main cookie recipe. But I mean, it's awesome. All that bean nutrition into you and they're so good.
And I also love my lasagna recipe. You don't even need all the cheese for like a really good lasagna and I use tofu for the ricotta cheese and it's so incredibly like real cheese ricotta. Really popular recipe on my blog. And then I have a recipe called Madras lentils. Like at Costco, they have those yellow pouches of lentils.
Elizabeth: Love those.
Faith: Yeah, they're really yummy. But I wanted to make them cheaper and so I created a recipe and it's really fast. Like you can make it in your instant pot in just a few minutes. It's awesome. It's a really highly rated recipe on my blog as well. But I also really enjoy with rice for dinner. Those are few of my favorites.
Elizabeth: Yum. Those sound amazing. Okay. I'm so excited to try all of these. And like you said, you have so many recipes on your blog that are completely free. So again, that's faithfulplateful.com and I'll put a link in the show notes. And you also have an amazing cookbook. Tell us more about that. Like what's in it and also maybe like what inspired you to do it.
Faith: So yeah, it's just very hard to figure out what to feed your kids. You have to figure it out. And that's why I wanted to create a cookbook was like to help myself and just to help everybody and I want to feed their kids. And I wanted it to be really colorful and full of photos because I was checking out tons of kids cookbooks and all of them were just with lots of like packaged processed ingredients. And I just thought they were healthy. They were all very focused on like fun food and not like your everyday nutritious meals. And they also didn't have photos and I'm like, who wants to make a recipe if you don't even know what it's going to look like.
Elizabeth: Yeah. I love how colorful and fun your book is. It's awesome.
Faith: I really wanted a photo for every recipe and that's what we did. I was just really lucky to find a publisher who would make it really fun and follow my vision. So anyway, it's called plant based cooking for kids and it's on Amazon or anywhere books are sold on so you can find it. And yeah, I feel like it's a really good resource. I use it every day myself.
Elizabeth: It's awesome. I just got it a couple days ago and me and my husband like separately were like looking through it and it's awesome. I'm really excited to make some recipes from there.
Faith: Well, thank you so much Elizabeth. That's really sweet.
Elizabeth: Oh yeah. Well, we're I think especially like this time of year with we've enjoyed a lot of the fun like Christmas food. And now we're like, okay, we kind of need to reset a little bit feeling feeling the need for some gut health.
Faith: I know. I don't know. You don't feel as good. It's kind of hard to pinpoint it with words, but you just don't feel as good when you're eating all that indulgent food. As good as it is. I don't feel the best. You have to be 100%. So like I eat mostly whole plant foods, but like for Christmas the eight candy and you know, lots of things we don't normally eat. And I think that's fine. I don't think you need to be 100% to see benefits. So I think from experience because I have been eating a lot of like non healthy foods and I don't feel that good. So it's not like I don't understand how that is because I.
Elizabeth: And that's part of the fun of the holidays and also after you're like, okay, we kind of, you know, yeah, to get back to some healthier habits. Well, great. Is there anything like any other thoughts or any other things you wanted to share?
Faith: I have a protein focused ebook coming out like as soon as I get around launching it out there. It's all made, but I have noticed that the health world is very focused on macro nutrients. Like you have to get equal amounts of fat, carbs and protein, every meal and really protein centric and stuff. And that's the number one reason why people don't want to eat plant basis because they're so worried about protein. But I just feel like if you're focused on macro nutrients, you're missing out on so many micro nutrients that we need that are going to make you feel so good.
If you're eating tons of phytochemicals and, you know, antioxidants and all these tiny nutrients that are in our food. And the macro nutrients will take care of themselves. And protein is really just not an issue. Like you're going to get plenty of it when you're eating whole grains and legumes and even peas and oats and quinoa. They all have plenty of protein.
So anyway, I'm launching that ebook soon just to show that if you want to eat more protein, you don't have to eat meat if you don't want to.
Elizabeth: Awesome. Well, that's great because I've definitely felt that we're like, yeah, I'm stressed. Like, okay, I need like all this protein. Like, where am I going to get it? You know, just focused on that. So that's really helpful. I'm excited for that to come out.
Faith: Thanks. That's awesome.
Elizabeth: And okay, so where else can people find you? We mentioned your website, Instagram. Where can people find you?
Faith: That's about it. I highly recommend joining my email list because I send out a lot of resources on my email. I have an awesome freebie of a new sign up of more awesome recipes. But yeah, mostly just Instagram stories as where I hang out and my email list.
Elizabeth: Okay, awesome. And I can all link those as well in the show notes so we can better find you. Okay, well, thank you so much, Faye. You're just amazing. And thank you so much for all the amazing information and things that you put out into the world because I've only tasted a little bit of what you've done and it's already like, plus my life and I can't wait to do more. So thank you for everything you do. Thank you so much.
Faith: Thank you.
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