Desiree

Vesanto, it is so lovely to get a chance to have you on the All Sorts Podcast.

Vesanto

You too, Desiree. Yeah, we've been dietitians for a long time now.

Desiree

We have. And I think, you know, particularly for me, I have looked up to your work for literally as long as I have been a dietitian. And so I'm really excited to share you with my audience because you have been a plant-based dietitian since before that was a thing.

Vesanto

That's right. Well, first I went to India in the 70s. And people in India really know how to do vegetarian very well. It's been, you know, a long tradition for many, many centuries, millennia. And then I came back and was started sharing this. I'd been teaching at UBC and I started sharing it with the public and with dietitians and in the process became vegan myself. And so that was like 1993 with our first book. And I realized that we could manage without dairy products, which at that time were an essential food group on the Canada Food Guide. And I wasn't saying it was a bad thing. I was just saying you can manage without it. In fact, 70% of the world's population does manage without dairy or has some kind of reaction if they eat it. lactose intolerance. So anyway, it was just a long evolution of understanding different options. And I've had the advantage of eating in so many different ways that I can help people, you know, wherever they are in the spectrum, who do so in really good health.

Desiree

And your books, Becoming Vegetarian, Becoming Vegan, you know, those books are really sort of essential reading for anyone who wants to deeply understand what it means to be nourished on a plant-based diet. And, you know, I have to remind folks that in 1993, exactly what you said to say, hey, maybe we don't need dairy. Like, fine if you're going to consume it, but like, maybe we don't need it was like, absolutely a controversial statement as a dietitian.

Vesanto

It was. And the Dairy Farmers of Canada wrote a 45-page booklet against our book and give it out across Canada. I was kind of shocked, but it actually made our book a bestseller or helped to do that or becoming vegetarian that was done back then became very popular, you know, with kind of controversy surrounding it. And all we were saying was, hey, you can get the calcium, the protein, the riboflavin, all the different nutrients from other places, too. And here's what they are. So anyway, it's been quite an interesting journey.

Desiree

Well, and you continue to innovate and drive that conversation forward because I think just like so many of us equated getting calcium for your bones from dairy foods, for many people now, even today, protein equals meat in so many people's minds. And so you have a brand-new book all about the science and research behind eating and being nourished using plant-based protein. Yes, plant-powered protein. I love it. And we will make sure to link to this book. I devoured it, pun intended. We will link to your book so that people can grab a copy for themselves. But I think, I feel like we really need to go back and start with the very basics so people can really understand where the controversies that shouldn't be controversies, but where the controversies come from and like what it means to eat plant-based protein. So like, what is protein?

Vesanto

Okay, protein is these long, long, long strings of amino acids. And the amino acids in our bodies actually all come from plants, every single one of them. And so we can derive our protein from many different types of foods, but plants are certainly a primary source. And we use protein for so many different reasons. It's a source for the antibodies that protect us against chronic disease. It's involved with enzymes. that perform a lot of chemical reactions. It's involved in messenger proteins. It sends little messages, you know, from your brain, move your finger, transport proteins that carry things. And then, of course, the ones we really think of, like our muscles and bones. Our bones have a lot of protein. It's kind of fun with little kids. Their bones are a lot of protein, not so much of the minerals in proportion. And so when they fall down, they kind of bounce. Whereas when we're older, our bones are more minerals, and we really take care not to fall, but we still got protein in there. So anyway, proteins have all these uses. And we need about 20 different amino acids that build them. And you can get all these from plant foods, every single one.

Desiree

I think that's a reality, there are so many things you just said that that are important. But the first is that the plants contain all of the amino acids. So amino acids are building blocks that get folded into proteins. And plants actually contain all of the amino acids we need, which then begs the question, how much protein do we need? And like, how would we know whether or not we're getting enough? If we're not someone to count things, how would we know we're meeting our needs?

Vesanto

That's right. It's a really important one. And for one thing, mostly we are meeting our needs. For most people in North America, we easily get enough protein and probably more than enough, and this includes vegans. Now, what we find is that we need officially, according to the recommendations, point eight grams of protein per kilogram of healthy body weight. So for persons above what might be considered their healthy body weight, they wouldn't need quite so much protein. And if they're under their healthy body weight, they could need a bit more than 0.8 grams per kilogram of their actual body weight. But that's our official recommendation. Now, when we think about plant-based eating, some of the foods go through a bit more because we've got so much fiber. And so we actually add about 10% to those protein recommendations, making it like 0.9 grams per kilogram. And then there are special categories. For example, athletes that are building muscle, really increasing muscle, they need more protein and their official recommendations, even up to two grams of protein per kilogram body weight. And that's why we're adding muscle. Now, once you're an elite athlete or you've built your muscle up, you don't need those high levels, but while you're adding it. And another group that's interesting is seniors because the official recommendations are not higher in Canada, but they're higher in Europe in many places for seniors. So we're thinking about that because we don't absorb quite as well. So there are official recommendations. And then in our Plant-Powered Protein book, we've given examples of how to do it at all these different stages of life.

Desiree

And also remembering that that is not a lot, you know, 0.9 grams. That's right. It's not a lot. Like if you're lucky enough to put three meals a day on your table, if you have enough to eat, generally in North America, we are all far surpassing that.

Vesanto

That's right. That's right. Most people are. Now, there's just a very few people that don't. And for a while, I taught at this raw chef school in California. It was 100% raw foods. And it was interesting to me because we didn't know that much about raw foods, and my publisher wanted me to publish a book on that. So I went down and worked with the staff at this school, and I found that people would eat these huge salads. I mean, really, really big, what you might think would be on your family table for a really big crowd would be one person. And they could get enough protein, barely, you know, and they'd have to include nuts and seeds. But we find that a few people, like if they're on high fruit diets, fruitarian type of diets, they can be low. Or if they don't eat very much food, like if they're anorexic or they're senior with kind of dental problems and not really eating that much. So there's a few cases, but mostly we're easily getting enough. And there's great big studies, the Adventist Health Studies, for example, with over 90,000 people that have been conducted over decades that show that the vegans are fine, the lacto-ovo vegetarians who include eggs and dairy are fine, and the non-vegetarians in these healthy populations are getting easily more than enough, and in the general public they're getting almost twice what they need in terms of protein.

Desiree

We really do have; I feel that protein is sort of the nutrient obsession du jour. Like it's all, we're very, very worried about protein and, you know, food companies are using protein intake and requirements to like sort of market to us. And it's so funny because even today, every plant-based eater is very used to fielding questions about where we get our protein. Why do you think it is that most of us assume that protein equals meat, as opposed to just that protein is a nutrient found in food? One of the things that I've talked to my community a little bit about, and I would love to hear your perspective on this, is the idea of whether or not the body can tell that it's getting protein for animal or plant sources.

Vesanto

Oh, the body would not have any idea. There are a few things that are in the animal products. Like we used to think of high saturated fat levels that are problematic. And there are things which we weren't thinking about, like a production of TMAO that's linked to heart disease and new 5G that's linked to cancers. Now these are in animal products. So those can be problematic. But the actual amino acids and protein are just identical. In fact, the animals get their amino acids from plant foods down the food chain. We also know that there's great big animals, rhino, hippopotamus, gorilla, giraffe, cow, moose, horse, buffalo, that are plant-based and they have big muscles, big bones, and we similarly can do that. We can get our amino acids from plant foods directly.

Desiree

You think that our sort of meat equals protein story is much like our calcium equals dairy story, that it's more of agriculturally based marketing that has sort of cemented this idea in our head?

Vesanto

Well, we've nutrition is kind of fun as a science, I've been fascinated for many, many decades, and evolved with it, my thinking evolved. And, this was before my time, but in World War I and II, you know, people were kind of short of protein in World War II, for example. And after there was a thinking, and in the depression, in that era, a chicken in every pot, like that was really something to look forward to. It was a big celebration. I've been in Nepal. where people, the sherpas that were carrying all our stuff would have a chicken once a year. Like it was a really big deal and they think about it as something special. Now we've come a long way from that so that we're absolutely overstuffed with these animal products, but we still have that kind of thinking that it was a good thing. The other sort of big point about this which is different from the animal products and our thinking from the Depression era and World War II era but we did research in the 1950s that was based on little animals that were rats and we there were a lot of rat studies done because of course we didn't want to test with humans like starving them and giving them different things. So these little rats were given single foods. And they were done this when they were at the weanling stage, that's four weeks old. And we found that at this stage, if they were given high protein foods like cheese or meat, they would do very well. They'd double their weight in four weeks. Now, That's not what people actually want to do, double their weight. Most of them want to go in the other direction. So that still, it made those foods look like really good foods, which they are good, suitable for rats. rats also have particular needs for growing fur because they grow fur all over their bodies. And humans don't want to do that either. So it put us on this track thinking, okay, rats do well, we should get those kind of foods too. But it put us on a thinking track. And these animals only got one food. They didn't get, you know, kind of a smorgasbord of different foods when they were doing these research studies. So a lot of our thinking has been based on rat studies, weanling rat studies that are doubling their weight in four weeks.

Desiree

Well, and I think people would be surprised to know how many sort of foundational tenants of nutrition are based on really non-ideal research, that's just what we've carried through with us. You know, similarly, the notion of protein quality, right? Starting with this idea of a complete protein, which I was taught in school. I graduated in 2006, and I was taught that if you are vegetarian, you need to make a complete protein. You need to put the rice and the beans on the plate at the same time in order to have that protein. What do we know now? Why has that changed?

Vesanto

That was an interesting one. And we found there was a book called Diet for a Small Planet in the early seventies that said you should do this food combining, and it was beans and grains. One was a little bit long in lysine and one was short in lysine, and you'd get this combination. And we found after 10 years, Francis Moore LePay, who wrote that book, came out and said, “Whoops, I made a mistake. We don't have to do that.” If you get the recommended intakes of protein and have a variety of foods, you're going to be fine. You don't need to carefully put, you know, a cup of beans and two cups of rice, and we had all this really complicated thinking before that. But somehow the early message stuck, and the new message of whoops did not stick. And I think- We find- Yeah.

Desiree

Go ahead.

Vesanto

Oh, we find that what is really important to tell people is to get a variety of plant foods. And that not only provides the mix of amino acids that we need, like all the individual plant foods actually have all the amino acids, but they're in slightly different proportions from food to food. But if you get a mix of plant foods, and we show this on our food guides that are on our websites like Plant Powered Protein and also becomingvegan.ca. We've got food guides there and you can see a mix and it's about half the plate is vegetables and fruits. Now it happens that the Canada Food Guide is very, very similar to this. In fact, they used our Becoming Vegan comprehensive edition was in their office while they were developing the food guide. And the Canada Food Guide includes animal products as well, but it's a very similar pattern. And so we've got half fruits and vegetables. It's fine if that's a little bit more than half. And then a quarter is whole grains and other grain products. And a little sliver is nuts and seeds, and almost a quarter is protein foods. The protein foods that we're talking about are the legumes, the beans, peas, lentils, the soy foods. And on the Canada Food Guide, they include eggs and meat and cheese and dairy products in that little quarter, less than a quarter.

Desiree

And I think that's so important for people to see that regardless if you are plant-based or if you consider yourself an omnivore, the basics of healthy eating are exactly the same. And it is merely the foods you choose to fill those slots, which really, I mean, the fruits and vegetables, that's for all of us. The whole grains, that's for all of us. It really just comes down to what do you choose for your proteins.

Vesanto

And these food guides have been very carefully thought through because we're not only thinking about getting enough protein, but we want to get all the different vitamins, the minerals, you know, about 30 different nutrients, the omega-3 fatty acids. We want to get a mix. And these food guides have been very carefully worked out to provide that. So we've got good guidance here.

Desiree

And I think that, you know, it really People will often look at this very seemingly simple guidance and perhaps gloss over it and look for something with a sexier hook, for example. But the amount of work, the amount of research and the amount of clinical expertise that goes into saying, hey guys, actually put a quarter, fill a quarter of your plate with some plant-based protein is the most profound thing that you can do for your health, just following that plate method and getting those variety of foods like that is nine tenths of the efforts towards being a healthier person.

Vesanto

That's right. Yeah. And if we get on that wavelength, I have clients that come and they're just trying to figure out, okay, how would I do that at breakfast? How would I do that at lunch? How can I make it really simple? Or some of them are more gourmet and how can I make that really elegant when my family comes over? You know, but it's really possible. And I find that people don't need to change really a lot. We often have about 10 recipes that we use. But if you're doing a transition, you just need to learn a few new recipes, things that you can get easily at the store, you like making, and your family likes the taste of them. And then, yeah, it's great.

Desiree

And I find that, you know, definitely when you're making the transition to a more plant-based protein life, getting those recipes, those flavors, those recipes that you love is so critical. The other thing that I see is that sometimes folks will underestimate how much they need to eat in order to get certain nutrients. So like a great example is It's very entrenched that quinoa contains protein. So people will throw a little sprinkle of quinoa on their salad and be like, whoop, there's all my protein for the day. How much of certain foods, whether it is legumes or nuts or tofu, is a reasonable serving when we're relying on it for our protein?

Vesanto

Okay, well, we think of a serving as being, say for legumes, somewhere between a cup and half a cup, kind of depending on how big your body is and whether you're having other sources. But I always try for at least half a cup of beans, peas, lentils, or tofu at lunch and at supper. And I put hemp seeds in my smoothie in the morning. And that seems to work very well. I've got a picture here. This is gado-gado, and it's got some tempeh in the middle, and then lots of veggies. And so, you could have a beautiful mix. And with the soy foods, they're such little protein powerhouses that you can manage with like half a cup. And one of the things I've really liked to do is marinate some tofu cubes, put them in the air fryer, and have those around also as snack foods. So, if people don't eat quite so much at lunch, they can have a little mid-afternoon snack of these marinated tofu cubes that are just delicious.

Desiree

I love that you have an air fryer. I feel like I am the last person on earth to not have an air fryer.

Vesanto

Oh, they're great. We got ours by accident at one of those Christmas, you know, when people have gift exchanges and you. presents from each other. So, you know, and so we ended up with this air fryer, which we didn't even know what it was going to do, but it's great. It's really good. And so, with the marinated tofu, it allows you to get past the frying. Now, we're trying to back off on so much oil and so much fried foods, you know, when we go to for more whole food plant based. And so with the air fryer, you've just got this wonderful taste, and it cooks up in about 14 minutes. You just stick all your little tofu cubes in the basket of the air fryer and there you are. And it stops when it's ready. I always like these appliances that will stop when you finish the timer, the instant pot too, because I could go off and do something else and forget about it and it's done on time. So air fryers are quite fun. We appreciated ours.

Desiree

I need to pick one up. Okay, so when it comes to things like tofu, tempeh or legumes, at least a half a cup, maybe a cup, depending on your body size, your energy levels. What about foods like nuts and nut butters and seeds?

Vesanto

Well, I found those are, instead of eating fats, like, you know, we thought olive oil was healthy, you know, which oils are healthy? Is coconut oil healthy? Well, you're much better to go to seeds and nuts. And seeds are even higher in protein than nuts are. So something like hemp seeds, they're over 20% of the calories from protein. And they're a good little thing to add, like to smoothies or to breakfast cereals. If you have oatmeal, you know, put a few tablespoons and then you get your protein and you also get omega-3 fatty acids. So I like to think about what nuts and seeds also deliver. They're good protein sources, especially the seeds. And the cashews, for example, have zinc. And that's good for the immune system. It's also involved with sperm. And, you know, there's lots of little reasons we need zinc. And pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds have zinc, too. And then some of the seeds have calcium. Tahini from sesame seeds has calcium, so do almonds. And so there are additional bonuses to having the nuts and seeds, and they can be a handy little snack, too. So nuts and seeds are pretty valuable. So you get the fat, which is actually an important part of your diet, but you also have these other nutrients delivered as well.

Desiree

I love that. I feel that seeds are the underrated or overlooked cousin of nuts. We all think about cashews or almonds or peanuts, but hemp hearts, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds. Those are all very nutrient dense foods.

Vesanto

They are, and pistachios too. They're another little protein food. So these are really fun to have and they're good snacks. Like if you're choosing a snack, I used to choose potato chips. I love them. But now I go for seeds and nuts or maybe some nut butter, almond butter or that I'm moving more towards the seeds that are grown in Canada, like the hemp seeds, the pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, because we're finding when we start thinking environmentally and concerned with climate change and so on, we're finding that almonds take a lot of water. So I've been kind of moving from the you know, the seeds that are grown that take or nuts that take a lot of water to some of the seeds that are better. I love climate change.

Desiree

I love him. They're so good. And, you know, three tablespoons has 10 grams of protein. So I find that I recommend them often to people who want to boost protein in a smoothie, for example, but would like to not do a protein powder. People don't realize my sort of magic combination right now is a cup of soy milk, again, a very underrated food with like seven to eight grams of protein, plus three tablespoons of hemp hearts. That's almost 18 grams of protein. roughly equivalent to a lot of protein powders out there and all whole foods so that you get like all of the other nutrition that goes with it.

Vesanto

That's right. And that's as much protein as a burger. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, that's what I have the hemp hearts in my smoothie every morning too. And they're a good Canadian product.

Desiree

Yeah, it's true. Choosing local foods whenever we can is so important. Okay. I do love that you talked about the why in terms of shifting to plant-based protein in the book. So animal agriculture, obviously, you know, so many of us are vegan for the animals, but there's another side of that in terms of actually talking about climate change and the impact of animal agriculture on climate change, because just as you said too, you know, almonds have become very famous for the amount of water they're grown in the beautiful and very, very dry and very hot Central Valley. Water is an issue in that part of the world. Sometimes soy is labeled as unsustainable, but in your book, you talk about the actual impact of different proteins on climate change. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Vesanto

That's right. This was a really new area for a lot of us to think about diet because we thought about transportation as being important. But I find a lot of the environmentalists are going, what? Diet too, like, and it's as important as transportation in some calculations even more. So we have a chapter about the environmental costs of your different dietary choices. And we have, for example, this is a chart, which you won't be able to see the details, but it's it shows that the costs in terms of CO2 emissions for beef, when you look at the whole production line, are 20 times that of tofu. Now, people wonder about, you know, soy foods and tofu that has to be grown with water and so on. But when you look at how much of that fodder is shipped and sent to where cows are raised or chickens or pigs or, you know, all sorts of different animals. And you look at the various stages of production and water use at each stage and transportation costs. And there's a man named Joseph Poor, based in Oxford, who took five years to write a paper and his website's josephpoor.com, it's very interesting, he just did another talk recently you can see his talks linked on that website. But he looked at all stages of production from beginning to end and made calculations. He worked with another Swiss scientist and then he took a year off Oxford to write his paper, and they looked at thousands of different agricultural situations. So these figures like 20 to one for beef, comparing beef to tofu in its CO2 emissions, that was based not on one farm but on thousands of farms and is an average. So a few farmers are doing better. They're being really careful. They still, of course, can't get it down to the same level as the plant foods because you've got fodder involved even at the fattening up stage. But there's on average this 20 to 1 difference. We also find that he looked at land use, land acidification, you know, by the hog farms in Manitoba. There's very acid areas and that happens whenever there's a lot of manure, water use and water pollution. So we looked at these five different areas and found always that the plant foods were far lower in terms of their environmental damage and impact compared to the animal products.

Desiree

And I think that's such an it's such an eye opening piece of information for people because I think we're used to many times where there's all of these things that we're being told about climate change, and yet it feels like there's very little that we can do personally to make an impact because industries are causing a lot of these things. Whereas when it comes to our diet, making these choices on our plate has a very real impact on the sustainability of our food system and on climate change for decades to come.

Vesanto

That's right. It's a huge difference. And the other thing is that people sometimes want the government to do something about it. but actually we need to do something about it ourselves. You know, we need to be choosing electric vehicles if we can manage that or riding your bike or taking public transport, but we also need to be choosing going more plant-based and finding out ways to make it taste good and be fun for your kids and, you know, just making it work.

Desiree

What do you think for people who are transitioning so, people who hear this, and they've been making steps, and they're like, Wow, I really this. I really need to go further in this direction. What are some tips for people who are, you know, trying to make the change like? What do they need to be successful?

Vesanto

Okay? Well, One thing is our books are mostly in the library, so you can go and have a look at Becoming Vegan Express Edition or Comprehensive Edition, or look for this new Plant Powered Protein book that can help to give confidence or dietitians such as yourself or me do consultations with people. And sometimes that's covered by extended medical as well. And we can really help give you confidence. And I find that a lot of times people are going through pregnancy beginning, you know, the mom and the dad will come and like, I don't know if we should do it this way because I'm not that sure. And then you give them a confidence. And sometimes often people are doing it really well already and they'll go, oh, good, that's all right then, you know. So that's one thing. You can just make sure that you learn more about getting it right. And look at these food guides on our becomingvegan.ca site or the Plant Power Protein site. And then the next thing is to try and build your whole way of eating towards plant foods. Even if you don't have to go 100% plant foods, like research will give you good feedback that you're doing well if you're just eating little bits of animal products, but a lot of plant foods. So you can be confident, you know, that you or your family are okay at that stage. And then you start finding ways to make it taste good. And when you go to the store, you can look down some different aisles, look at the things that there are. Once I did a workshop for people and we were trying out veggie burgers. I think we had 10 kinds of veggie burgers. And there are all kinds of different ones. Like there's some that are based on whole foods like black beans and quinoa and grains, and some that are quite processed and have a very meat-like taste. And sometimes, like if your father-in-law is coming over and he wouldn't be that comfortable eating something that didn't taste like meat pretty close, you can try Impossible Burgers and Beyond Burgers are a little bit more than the Whole Foods Natural. So anyway, there's lots of choices and they're coming out thick and fast. Another one that you mentioned is when you look at the non-dairy milks that you're using, have a look at the label and see how much protein there is. For example, rice milk, you know, almond milk, those have just one gram of protein per cup, which is pretty low. And the companies that produce these, for example, soy milk, they're in the six to eight grams of protein per cup just up there with cow's milk. And other companies are realizing that we are looking at those labels. We want protein delivered in our non-dairy milk. And so some are adding hemp seeds to it. Some are there's oat milks that have other things added. or a mix of different plant foods. So anyway, it's kind of fun to see these products, but they're coming out fast because companies are realizing that we, the consumers, are paying attention.

Desiree

Yeah, absolutely. And I further to what you just said, when you are exploring all of these new things, you know, there are so many veggie burgers out there. The first one you eat, if you don't like it, That's just one. There are so many more to try. Don't think that the first milk that you try or the first burger that you try is how all of them will taste. Like really be adventurous and put your experiment hat on and we're going to see which one is the best for us.

Vesanto

That's right. Yeah. So what are your favorite things that you might have for lunch or supper? What are some fun meals?

Desiree

So I do, you know, for burgers, I do make some of my own, but I have to admit, my kiddos love a Beyond Meat burger the best. They do like the beef-like burger the best. I like making them with black beans. I just like the texture of black beans in burgers and chickpeas in burgers. But we eat a lot of smoked tofu around here.

Vesanto

Uh-huh. Oh, and there's some new companies coming out with those.

Desiree

Yeah, I just love that it's ready to eat. So you can slice it like a cheese and put it on like my littlest likes snack plates. So you can do some whole grain crackers and some smoked tofu and some fruits and some vegetables. She just wants everything separate. So, you know, they will eat.

Vesanto

Yeah.

Desiree

They will eat that and be so happy. So we eat a lot of smoked tofu. I will do a lot of roasted tofu or even tofu crumbles. Like I just developed a recipe for tacos, where it's like a bunch of seasonings to make a sort of traditional taco spice. But then you bake the tofu crumbles, and it just gets such a nice texture.

Vesanto

Wow, that sounds good. I think when my kids were growing up, my kids are in their 50s now. And when they were growing up, we had tacos a lot because people could choose what they wanted and they could pile it in. And at that point, we were a partly vegetarian, partly not, family. And so you could accommodate a lot of different kinds of eaters. Now we find that there's so many really pretty plant foods, you can have a fun table for taco assembly that has avocados and tomatoes and crumbles and black beans and just all kinds of fun things. So that was a delightful meal to have with the family.

Desiree

Yeah, it is. And I think in terms of, because same thing, I have a mixed family. I only cook plants, but my family also eats other things. And so making sure that I keep them satisfied on a plant-based diet, I'm always, you know, racking my brain for new ideas. And I think that's a big part of being successful is Truly loving what you eat. This is not about depriving yourself. You know, in 2023, anything you can dream up can be made with plants.

Vesanto

That's right, yeah. Another thing that I think is good with kids, and of course now I've got grandchildren, but the children that come home from school hungry, if you just put out a big platter of veggies and hummus and some whole grain crackers and leave it on the counter. Don't talk about eating plant foods. It'll be so gobbled up by dinnertime that you won't mind what they're eating enough protein or vegetables because it'll have disappeared from that tray. But those are things that people really like. And I've got a grandson, one of those kids that likes everything to be beige or white, or maybe orange if it's cheese, but you know, really limited. And I found that hummus really worked for him. So that's a good protein thing.

Desiree

I love that. I want to get your perspective on, you know, particularly on social media right now, there's a little bit of a trend emerging of people who used to be vegan. and are claiming that after they've returned to meat consumption, their health has improved. And now, as dietitians, we need to respect that we have no idea what is actually going on for this person. We don't know their backgrounds. We don't know how they were eating. We all have to do what is right for us. However, I want to ask you, because this is such a trend, what are some of the reasons why people may feel better if they reintroduce meat? Like, is it undereating in general? Is it focusing too much on fruits and vegetables? Like, what are some of the dietary patterns or habits that could lead you to feel perhaps less unwell on plants? Obviously, everything is fixable, but I would just love to get to your perspective on that.

Vesanto

Well, I think putting together an optimal diet you got to learn some stuff on any eating pattern. And so sometimes people, for example, are not getting enough omega-3 fatty acids when they're eating only plant foods. And we can get those from plants. Actually, even fish get their omega-3s from algae. They don't make them. And so we can have, either use things like flaxseed, hemp seed, chia, walnuts to get our omega-3s, or use a supplement that's from algae that provides DHA and EPA. So that's one thing that I find, sometimes people don't get it right and then they want to go back to eating fish, you know, which is an option. But we're finding that problematic because the long term is that those fish are getting so polluted now. So there's a lot of trade-offs here. I don't find that many people who really have a problem eating a plant-based diet, but sometimes they just haven't learned, for example, how to make tofu taste good or, and people can have problems like legumes being sensitive to certain legumes. There's about 20 kinds of legumes. So people might have an allergy, or they might have tried undercooked kidney beans and then, you know, had gastric problems with that. Well, actually, there's 20 kinds of legumes, red lentils, some other of the legumes are very easily digested. So there's differences here. And when people are concerned, you know, am I doing it right? Am I getting enough? Sometimes I have to go over these things, you know, when I'm working with clients and helping them to get it right. Now, people will also have a lot of health problems if they eat too much meat. You know, there's huge health problems. So that's what I'm seeing more of. I was recently talking in Chilliwack at the Women's Expo. And I was kind of wondering what it would be like out there, because it's all dairy farmers, chicken farmers, you know, pig farmers. And I didn't know what they'd think of a booth with plant-based books. But so many of the people came by and said, oh, this is interesting because I've been developing type two diabetes or my husband has heart disease, you know, or my grandson's gone vegan. So even in all sorts of different areas, we're finding that people are shifting towards plant foods and it could be something to learn to get it right. I guess you're helping people, Desiree, right, when they come to you and wonder.

Desiree

Well, and I, you know, it's very much, and I wanted to get your perspective on it, but it's very much my purview that when you're not feeling well, something is wrong with the nutrition. It's the nutrition. It's not where you get the nutrition from. It's the nutrition itself. Like as an example, when a meat eater gets anemia, no one says, oh, well, it's because you're an omnivore. But you know, if someone is feeling fatigued, people will immediately say it's because you're vegan, not, oh, you're neglecting protein or oh, maybe your iron is low. Like immediately the diet becomes the blame as opposed to this micro piece that we're all human. We don't always eat perfectly nutritionally balanced, but we always sort of like label the vegan, whereas we don't label the omnivore for the same issue.

Vesanto

Good points. One of the things about iron that's interesting is that a lot of us who are on plant-based diets have somewhat lower serum ferritin, and This can actually be a good thing. What we found out more recently, and sometimes doctors don't even know this, or labs might not have thought it through very carefully. But we need hemoglobin to be, that's our working iron, that's carrying the oxygen around the carbon dioxide, that's working really hard. But on the shelf is ferritin sitting waiting to be used sometime. And that iron is a pro-oxidant. It can cause oxidation, kind of like rusting. And so we found that you really don't need very high serum ferritin. In fact, it's been linked to certain chronic diseases, diabetes, heart disease, and so on. And so I'm finding that when people's ferritin looks a bit low, but they're feeling fine and their hemoglobin's fine, they needn't worry about it. that it's actually not a bad thing. We also find that there are not more anemic vegans and vegetarians than there are omnivores. Like, this is just something that happens, particularly to women of childbearing age who are losing iron monthly in their menstrual periods. You've got to be eating iron-rich foods. And those are the beans, the tofu, the, you know, 20 kinds of legumes. Those are really good iron sources.

Desiree

I have never heard it described like that. And that makes it so clear, the idea that hemoglobin is your working iron and ferritin is on the shelf waiting to be used. That's brilliant.

Vesanto

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I got kind of interested because I kept having clients who said my ferritins, it's not below normal, but it's kind of at the low end of the normal range. And my hemoglobin is fine and I'm feeling fine. You know, I'm, so I really looked into it a lot and the research about that is fairly recent. So a lot of MDs even aren't aware of that difference. And so people have had that pointed out to them and said, you know, are you doing okay? Your doctor wonders about, you know, maybe you should eat a bit of meat and get back up there again. And that's not a wise idea because you'll be increasing your risk of chronic disease.

Desiree

So let's talk about that then, you know, sort of in the moment, acute issues aside, long term, like what is our data to support long term health on a plant-based diet and chronic disease outcomes?

Vesanto

Okay, we're finding that you can reduce your risk of the big chronic diseases by say for hypertension, by about 75% by going plant based. That's huge.

Desiree

That's.

Vesanto

Huge. Actually, yeah, my husband, when I met him, he had hypertension, was taking pills and stuff. And within a year, he was off all the pills and he was fine. He was very well. If you look at cardiovascular disease and type two diabetes, you see about a 66% drop in risk when you go plant based. And these are based on very big studies and with population groups that had otherwise healthy lifestyles, like they did some exercise, didn't eat a lot of meat, but still when they went entirely plant-based, they dropped their risk of chronic disease. The Adventist Health Studies, which involved over 90,000 people, over decades have been very helpful for that. And then there's the Oxford, Epic Oxford studies, where again, they had large population groups, about 30,000 and lots of vegans, and they'd watch their risk of chronic disease. They followed these people for years and years and years. And you know, whether it's happening health wise to you. And so we've been very fortunate to have these studies where we could really see, yeah, what you choose to eat matters. We're finding also with cancers that you can reduce your risk of chronic disease. It's different for different types of cancer and of course cancer is very complex. There's so many causes but we can drop a risk of say bowel intestinal type cancers by 50% and of some of the other kinds like in the range of like 15, 19% by going plant based.

Desiree

Which is amazing. You know, so rarely in nutrition do we have such large-scale data, long-term, high population to show us that, you know, if you eat a certain way, this is what can happen. And so I really hope that, you know, hearing this, people realize that plant-based eating isn't some fad. It's so strongly grounded in the research.

Vesanto

And people are starting to realize that first. I know when I went first plant-based in the late 70s, that was in India, and I could see that the people were doing fine on plant-based diets. But when we, in the early 90s, when I went vegan, you know, we were really wondering, you know, is this going to work? But it does work, it works. I know for myself, I'm 81, and this last year, I did a little mini triathlon, the one, the Stanley Park one, I want to do my swimming separately in a pool. Yeah, but I think I want to see a lot of really healthy old plant-based eaters, you know, just as good examples of how we can do it. And we're getting more and more along these lines. You can feel good, your brain's still working well, you're fit, you know, you have to do a combination of fitness and, you know, do some exercise, the various types of exercise each day. And you need to eat more plant-based, make sure you're getting the nutrients you need, have nice social connections, and then it really works. Get enough sleep. Those are the little combinations.

Desiree

I cannot think of a more glowing example than you at 81 doing a mini triathlon for the plant-based diet. If you need any other you know, proof of concept, you are it. I want to ask you one more question before we shift to the rapid fire questions that is very much in line with age, because of course we are all getting older and there's a lot of conversation around perimenopausal and menopausal shift in women, but also then how to stay strong and healthy as we move into our elder years. How does protein fit into that? You mentioned that our protein needs change somewhat as we get older. Can you tell us more about that?

Vesanto

Yeah, we sure don't have a lot of research. What we have, and I was actually just connecting with a researcher who's working on this in Brazil, and there's some in Europe, some different studies, but we find that you do need somewhat more protein when you're a senior. And What happens to a lot of people is that they develop sarcopenia or lose muscle mass when they get older. And there's a couple of reasons. Not doing exercise is one, and not getting enough protein. You know, there was that tea and toast syndrome that we used to think of for seniors. And there can be challenges like dental, like it's hard to eat something tough, hard to eat meat, that kind of thing. And so people just back off and have more things and tea and toast. Well, it turns out tofu is actually a pretty good thing dentally. It is soft and you can get different forms of it, put it in smoothies, have these tofu fingers, that kind of thing. But we need possibly instead of 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight, as much as 1.2, 1.1 or 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram body weight. And so when I've tried to think of how to do that for a senior who, you know, say in a home who wasn't feeling that good and didn't want to eat very much, that sometimes the protein powders can be helpful. The branched chain amino acids or ones that have leucine in them that athletes use for muscle building. They can be good for seniors too, like to put in a smoothie. So that's one option. Now, I like the whole foods approach. So I make sure like I just had black bean soup for lunch and I'll have some tempeh that was marinated for supper. I've just been learning how to make tempeh taste good. And so anyway, these are really important things to include as we get older. Let's see, what else.

Desiree

I think that's, you know, a great place to start, you know, particularly, and if someone is taking care of an elder parent or a grandparent, you know, thinking about swallowing issues can come up too, in addition to their ability to chew, but swallowing issues as well. Because instantly I think of it as a smoothie, like put a protein powder in a smoothie, but sometimes it doesn't work with swallowing.

Vesanto

That's right. And I've also connected once with a nursing home. I had a senior living in one, and she wanted to be vegetarian. She wanted to be plant-based, but that wasn't on the usual menu for the care facility. And so she got me to help with the chef in the kitchen. What could they do? Those chefs are working really hard. And they've got lots of people to cater to. And so we figured out some meals that she could have that were very, very easy and, you know, could provide the protein that was needed and, you know, be on her plate at lunchtime. And some of the care facilities actually have very good plant-based meals as well. I've worked with some of the Adventist ones and it's good checking, you know, for a senior that when they're considering which place to go, you know, what kind of menus they have. And usually most institutions now are developing good menus that are plant-based.

Desiree

So much better than it used to be. And I, you mentioned the, the loss of appetite too, which can be an issue. I mean, even myself and I'm, I am just 43. I noticed that my appetite is less than it was just a decade ago. And recognizing then that if you're fully plant-based, focusing on that protein, you know, making sure that that becomes a little bit of a hero on the plate. You know, you do a lentil doll with some vegetables and focus on eating maybe more of that than the starches on the side just to get that extra protein in if you find that your appetite is low.

Vesanto

We don't have a lot of room for junk. We really don't. I see people spending their money and their calories on things like pop, soda pop, just sugar. know, that's just a waste. And even potato chips that I just love.

Desiree

You too.

Vesanto

I don't keep them in the house at all. You know, I'd rather have some little tofu crumbles, you know, that kind of thing. And they can, they can taste salty and have a bit of a nip or whatever, or some pistachios, you know, that kind of thing for treats are much, much better. So you don't have a lot to waste. a lot of calories to waste.

Desiree

I love that. Okay, let's shift into some fun rapid-fire questions. The first is, what is one thing you wish everybody knew about going vegan?

Vesanto

Oh, that it can taste really good. It can really taste good. I've had fun when we developed our books. So one in the library is called Cooking Vegetarian or Cooking Vegan. I did it with a chef from the Four Seasons. And I'm a dietitian. We didn't learn about taste. We learned about nutrition. So I've had fun always when we were developed our recipes that we had people who had a good sense of taste. and much more fine-tuned than mine was. And so that's good. And it can be simple.

Desiree

Yeah, I love that. Okay, next up, just a silly one. You have to choose only one, rice or pasta. What do you choose?

Vesanto

I choose one day and one the next day.

Desiree

Cheating.

Vesanto

They're both good, you know, and when it's my grandson coming over, I'll choose pasta.

Desiree

Okay, this one is a mean one, I admit it. What is your favorite plant-based protein? You get to choose just one.

Vesanto

Oh, it is definitely this little tofu fingers, you know, marinated tofu. It's really good. So I have a neighbor gave me this recipe. I'll tell you what's in it. It's in our book, Plant Powered Protein. So it's got toasted sesame oil, a little bit, low sodium tamari, rice vinegar a little bit and ginger and bit of garlic. And so the tofu is chopped up in little pieces, I get firm tofu, chop it up in little cubes that are about a centimeter and put it in that marinade and then let it sit there and it could be there for three days even. So I might have had it just in for two hours and then put it in the air fryer. So it's always kind of ready, sitting there, ready to be air fried. And that That's an easy one. Now, I do like red lentil dahl too. That's second.

Desiree

Perfect. Okay, I'll permit a second. Next up, do you have a hidden talent or a fun hobby? I mean, you've already told us that you do mini triathlons. What else?

Vesanto

I listen to books, audiobooks, this app that I have on my phone called Libby App. And you can get any book you want that's in the library system and even broader than the Vancouver Library. And you can listen to stories or there's a good one that I listened to recently about the body. And they're just fascinating things. And you can listen as an audiobook. And I have some that I listen to when I'm going to fall asleep. They're like little stories that you know what's going to happen by the end. It's kind of relaxing and some that are for gaining information. But Libby app is great because it's free. You get to listen to all this stuff. It can be very relaxing, like having a bedtime story told by your dad and you fall asleep. So it's a good one.

Desiree

I love that. I'm going to put that in the show notes so that everyone can check it out. Okay, final one. It's a bit of a signature question. I love asking people this, but You find yourself with 20 extra minutes. You're not allowed to be productive. You can't work. You can't do anything around the home. What do you do with 20 extra minutes all to yourself?

Vesanto

Let's see. Well, I do walk around Trout Lake every morning. That's 20 minutes.

Desiree

Perfect.

Vesanto

I live in co-housing. So this is like a community. It's a Danish concept. We have 31 households. So I can just walk out the door and see what's going on in our courtyard. We had a lot of music through COVID. It's called Vancouver co-housing. Co-housing is quite fun. It's a really delight.

Desiree

Amazing. I feel like we need to explore that more, maybe in another conversation. Vesanto, thank you so much for taking your time and sharing all of your knowledge with us on the All Sorts podcast. I know that people will take a lot away from this conversation.

Vesanto

Thank you, Desiree. Such a delight to connect.