Rheb Esselstyn
00:00:00I'm Rheb Esselstyn and you're listening to the Plan Strong podcast.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:00:05If I hear one thing more than any other when it comes to taking on a whole food Plan Strong diet, it's that I think I can do this, but I just can't give up my cheese.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:00:24Well, today we're gonna tell you how you can break up with dairy.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:00:30And I'm talking about milk, butter, cream and yes, our beloved cheese, our dairy crack with Chef Bailey Ruskus right after this message from Plantstrong.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:01:30If you're a regular listener of the Plan Strong podcast, then the name Chef Bailey Ruskus is not new to you.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:01:39In fact, she's been a guest at two previous plant stocks and she's been a podcast guest when she released her first book, Cook, Heal, Go Vegan.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:01:50This classically trained chef is back with a brand new book that hit shelves on February 11 and it is sure to be a bestseller.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:02:00Breaking Up With Dairy tackles one of the hardest things for people with it comes to a whole food plant based diet.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:02:09How in the world do you get rid of cheese, milk and butter, you ask?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:02:15These ingredients are practically ubiquitous.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:02:19Well, in this book, Chef BAE not only shares her own difficult and eye opening journey of how she broke up with dairy, but she also includes more than 100 of unbelievable plant based dairy recipes for all of your favorites such as milks, coffee, creamers and sauces to gourmet quality cheeses and even milkshakes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:02:46This book is living proof that breaking up may be hard to do, but it is oh, oh so worth it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:02:56And we want to do our best to help Chef BAE hit the New York Times bestseller list.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:03:01And I would encourage you to pre order it today.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:03:04I'll be sure to have a link on how to do that in today's show notes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:03:08But for now, let's get rid of that nasty partner and learn how to break up with dairy.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:03:16Chef BAE Bailey Ruskus, it is so great to have you back on the Plantstrong podcast.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:03:22The last time that you joined me was after your book Cook, Heal, Go Vegan came out and you were number.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:03:31For people that are interested, you can go back and listen to that episode.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:03:34It was such a charming, great conversation that we had.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:03:39It was episode 135 and then people probably that are part of the Plantstrong family know you because you've been so great at joining us at two of our plant stocks over the last last two years.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:03:55But why I am bringing you back on the podcast is because you have just whipped up a really phenomenal book.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:05I've read it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:06It's incredible.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:07Here she blows right here.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:09Breaking up with dairy.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:10100 indulgent plant based recipes for cheese and butter cream and milk lovers everywhere.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:20Um, and this really is for everyone everywhere.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:27So I can't wait to dive into this, this book with you.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:29The you've.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:30The forward is by none other than Carly Bodrug.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:33She did a great job.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:34Congratulations on getting Carly to do your forward.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:39But let's just jump right in here.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:42You say that dairy is the toxic, abusive and narcissistic boyfriend that you can't get away from.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:04:53Yes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:54Oh, why do you say that?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:04:56And then how many years did it take you before you were actually able to break up with that narcissistic boyfriend?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:04I mean, I feel like so many people can relate to that metaphor of dairy being, you know, that thing that you just can't get away from.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:12And honestly, this book was really inspired by some of my toxic relationships with men in the past.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:18Because it's rough out there dating sometimes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:20I'm married now, but yeah, it's rough out there.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:23And honestly, when I was writing the book, one of my good girlfriends was going through a breakup with a very toxic man.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:30And I got a lot of my inspiration from coaching her through this breakup.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:36But yeah, dairy and cheese in general is just so addicting.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:39And it's also in everything.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:41Like, it's in so many processed foods, it's in so many foods and restaurants that it just doesn't need to be in.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:46There's but butter on everything, I feel like.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:49And so even when we make the best effort sometimes to get rid of dairy in our diet, it always just finds a way to kind of like sneak back into our lives whether we like it or not.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:05:59So that's kind of where I got this idea from and also from my own personal experience where I had such a hard time breaking up with dairy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:07You know, I had endometriosis, I had tummy problems, I had acne.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:13I had all of these symptoms that are very common when you shouldn't be eating dairy, but you eat too much of it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:19And I also really love cheese.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:21And so my husband and I, who was my boyfriend at the time, had this running joke where I would still order the cheese boards out.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:28And he'd be like, oh, you're gonna get the worst stomachache later.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:31I'm like, it's okay.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:32Like, I'll just deal with that when it comes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:34So, you know, it's really hard to give up.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:36And I'm really, I have a lot of compassion for people who are trying to break up with dairy, but they just can't.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:43And what I noticed from, you know, this whole thing started from a TikTok series.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:47And I got millions of comments from people being like, this is my Roman Empire, like, why can I not get rid of cheese from my life?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:56I'm so addicted to it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:06:58And so that's kind of where this whole inspiration came from, because it's one of those things that we just can't get out of our lives no matter how badly we want to.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:06And it really is.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:07It's a relationship.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:08A lot of us are in a.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:07:09Deep relationship with cheese, specifically, a deep, abusive relationship.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:07:14No doubt about it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:07:15So what happened on TikTok that you did you do some posts about cheese being toxic and then you just got a lot of.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:07:25A lot of attention from it?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:27Yeah, I mean, it was kind of a whirlwind.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:29So when my first book came out, Coquille Go Vegan, I was like, I'm gonna get on TikTok and talk about it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:34And the first recipe that I posted was the Mac and cheese recipe from the first cookbook.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:40And so I talked a lot about how breaking up with dairy really helped with bloating and a lot of my hormone issues that I was going through.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:46And it went mega, mega viral, like, literally overnight.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:49I woke up the next day.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:50I had never go megaviral before, and I was overwhelmed with just so many comments, so many messages, so many people relating.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:57And I was like, you know, I'm going to turn this into a series.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:07:59Well, the series kind of took off and the Dairy Farmers association of America got a hold of the series and suddenly I was having threats from farmers from the Dairy Farmers Association.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:11Like, it became like, what do you mean?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:08:13Like, threats?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:08:14Like how you mean on your Tick Tock thread or.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:08:17Or in what way?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:18Yeah, on my Tick Tock thread, they were coming into my email, people threatening me.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:21Like, people saying that they're find where I live, that I'm spreading lies, that dairy is like the best thing for people.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:28It was.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:28I was not equipped to deal with that at the time because I think it was a 2021.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:34So I was still just like a baby social media person, you know, Like, I wasn't ready for that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:40And so I kind of took the gas off of the Breaking up with Dairy series for a minute because I was like, I don't want to get sued by the dairy industry or these dairy farmers.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:48Like, this is so crazy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:50So.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:50But then I kind of just Woke up one day and I was like, you know, whatever.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:53I'm not going to let them.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:54Silence.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:54And then I just kept it going.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:08:56And then one day I locked myself in my room and I wrote the book proposal for this thing.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:09:01And within a month, I had the top publishers in the world bidding on it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:09:07And everyone was like, yes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:09:09So I'd like to talk about this just for a second, because, you know, you and I have both written books before, and we've gone through this process.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:09:18Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:09:18So you lock yourself in a room, you wrote a book proposal.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:09:23Was it like 25, 50 pages?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:09:26Did it give kind of a nice outline of what you saw, your vision for the book?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:09:32And then how did you.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:09:32How did you go about soliciting it out to these publishing houses?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:09:36Did you have a literary agent that helped you with that?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:09:38Yes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:09:38So Carly, the author of Planting and Scrappy Cooking, she's one of my good friends, and so she kind of, like, has been a good mentor and also just sounding board for me through just, you know, all of this stuff.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:09:50And so she actually connected me with her literary agent, which was really amazing of her, and I'm so grateful for her for that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:09:56And, yeah, I basically just, you know, a book proposal is essentially a book, a business breakdown.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:04Like, how are you going to sell the book?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:05Why is this book necessary?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:07What are the stats and statistics of why people need this book?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:10And when you really go into it, you can really see how, you know, 68% of all people are lactose intolerant.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:17And more than that, chronic illness is such a thing now.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:21It's like everyone, you know, is dealing with some sort of chronic something, whether it's tummy issues or acne or high blood pressure or endometriosis or period problems.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:31Like, everyone's dealing with something.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:32And a lot of that has to do with our food industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:34And so when I was writing the book proposal, it was just like an obvious, like, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:39You know, all the points of why this book needs to be written.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:43And it was essentially like a business proposal.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:45And so you write the business proposal, you send it to a litter agent.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:49Wendy, my amazing literary agent, she loved it and was like, let sell this like, tomorrow.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:10:54Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:54And so, yeah, we just had.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:56All the publishers were like, this book is needed in the field.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:10:59There hasn't been a book necessarily like this.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:11:01I think, you know, cookbooks can be serious sometimes, and this book is about a very serious topic, but it's fun and funny and sarcastic.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:11:11And I really wrote it for the younger generation to really be able to connect back to like, cooking and connect back to, really to learn about the dairy industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:11:19Because I don't think a lot of people know about, you know, the dairy checkoff program.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:11:22I don't think a lot of people know about the fact that we actually don't need dairy to survive.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:11:26Or, you know, it's this false, this false thing that we've been sold that we need dairy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:11:31You know, we don't.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:11:32We need dairy when we're infants from our moms, and that's it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:11:36So.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:11:37Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:11:41Well, what's interesting to me is that you landed with the publishing house that I used to use for every one of my books, which is Grand Central, which is a division of Hachette, and you've even, you even work with the same PR person that I did back in the day with my first book, and that's a guy named Matthew Ballast, which is a crazy, crazy, crazy small world.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:12:03I know, it's so exciting.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:12:05I love it though, because I feel like, you know, when you're surrounded by good people, the, the community just ends up growing with like minded individuals who want to make things better and change the world.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:12:17And I think sometimes I feel ridiculous for saying, like, I want to change the world, I want to change the food industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:12:22But then I look at people like you and I look at people like Carly, and I look at people who are in my circle and I'm like, we are liter changing the food industry and it might be moving slower than we would want and we might be going up against crazy social media culture like the carnivore diet and the raw milk trend.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:12:38But I think at the end of the day, like, if all of us can stay true to what we're doing and keep moving that needle and keep stepping forward, I think we will be able to be the change and see the change that we want to see and really be able to connect with people.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:12:53Because at the end of the day, people are on social media, in wellness culture, just wanting to feel better.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:12:58And I think if we can touch them and show them that you can do this in a way that's good for you, but also good for the planet and the cows and the goats and the sheep, then it's kind of like a win, win, win.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:10Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:11No.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:11Bravo, bravo.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:13And everybody listening knows this, you know this, but I think it bears repeating, and that is that, you know, we are the, the wealth, one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest country on the planet.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:26We now spend more than any other country on the planet on our per person on healthcare costs per year.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:34And we are also the sickest and the most overweight country.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:38And so much of it is, I would say 90% of it is because what we're putting into our mouths.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:13:45Yes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:45And one of the big culprits is everything you talk about in your book.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:48It's, it's, it's dairy.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:13:51And whatever form that dairy happens to be in, whether it's milk, whether it's cheese, whether it's yogurt, I want to get it, get into that and your, your yummy, yummy recipes too.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:14:02But tell me, you had the endometriosis, you had all kinds of trips to the hospital, you ended up having surgery.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:14:10Do you feel like a large portion of that was because of your love affair with dairy?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:14:16Yeah, unfortunately.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:14:17I mean, yeah, it was, that was like one of the hardest things for me to really face.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:14:22And I think a lot of people have that same, you know, come to whatever you believe in moment where it's like when you don't feel well or you have a chronic illness.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:14:31Most of the time in the doctor's office, no one talks about diet, they just don't.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:14:36And so a lot of, you know, being your own health advocate has to do with your own self discovery and doing research and really being able to look at things from a third point of view and not, not necessarily looking at specific wellness trends that allow you to still eat what you're eating now, but to really look at the facts of what you're putting in your body, where that's coming from, what the industry is doing and how that's affecting yourself as a whole.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:03And for me, it was a really hard thing to realize.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:06I mean, not only just because I love cheese, but I'm also a classically French trained chef.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:11My entire, my entire career was built on animal products.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:15Like, my grandfather was a butcher.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:16He was a chef.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:18I worked in butchery.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:19Like I can't even imagine this part of my life at this point, but I worked in butchery.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:23When I was in culinary school, I was like all into cheese making.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:27I traveled the world.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:28I like taught people how to catch fish and like I did had this whole other life.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:32And so when I was really looking at my own chronic illness and I was looking at how much suffering I was going through, I was really appointing that to all the other suffering that's going on within the animal agriculture industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:44And that was such a hard pill for me to swallow because it was really opening my eyes and allowing myself to see what was going on.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:52And Relaying how it was causing my suffering as well.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:15:56But then there's that second point where it's actually making that change, where it's actually taking that step and making the change, not just being aware, but really being like, how can I make this change for myself?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:16:08And that is the hardest part, because we live in a society that is engorged in cheese.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:15Engorged.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:16What a great word to describe that.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:18And you're right.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:19I mean, let's say that you decide, yeah, okay, I'm going to give up dairy products.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:25They're so absolutely ubiquitous in this culture that it's a pretty.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:35This is a little strong, but it's a pretty Herculean task to really give it up.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:40And you, in your book, you talk about the five stages of breaking up.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:45So I think this is maybe an appropriate time that we can go through these.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:48So what is the first stage?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:16:50Yeah, so I've got my book right here, just in case, you know.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:16:53And by the way, Rip, you're the first person to ever receive a copy other than me.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:16:58Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:16:59So we're in the VIP club right now.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:17:01Good, good.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:17:02So the first stage is denial.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:17:04And denial is a phase that is just so comfortable because when we're in denial, we don't have to educate, we don't have to dig deeper, we don't have to get uncomfortable because we're in denial.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:17:17It's comfortable being in denial.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:17:19And that's a big place where most people are in when it comes to the awareness of our current state of health and our current state of animal agriculture is denial.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:17:31So that's stage one.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:17:32Getting mass denial is stage one.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:17:34And I think that's the hardest part really, like, is really opening your eyes and seeing everything for what it is.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:17:43And in for denial.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:17:46You interviewed Neil Barnard, right.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:17:49The author?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:17:50I mean, obviously we know Neil runs PCRM.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:17:53He also is the author of probably 20 different books.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:17:57One of them was the Cheese Trap.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:17:58Yes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:17:59Right.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:17:59And so he knows a lot about cheese.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:01He really does.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:02I was.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:03We talked for a couple hours when I interviewed him.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:05And like this, he was just dropping facts and figures for two hours.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:09And I was like, writing as quick as I could.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:12But yeah, I'm.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:12He's a wealth of information.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:13And also he's so passionate about it too, which just kind of, yeah, fueled me up a little bit.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:19But, yeah, he was amazing to interview and he gave me so much inspiration and kind of just, yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:24Permission to almost to write this book because it's, you know, it's kind of scary to go against one of the biggest industries in the entire world.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:32You know, writing a book and talking about, like, going against the norm, going against that industry, going against an industry that is very deep in government corruption as well.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:40So.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:41Yeah, so that's, that's denial.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:18:43And I had some help with that.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:18:45Well, this is Bay versus Goliath right here, you know.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:18:50Well, let me ask you before we go on to the next.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:18:53To phase, the next stage, I want to.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:18:56So you talk about some, some things that are entrenched right now in this culture.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:19:03And, and I didn't.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:19:04I don't know everything about them, so I'd love for you to maybe riff on some of this stuff.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:19:08So what's, what is the dairy checkoff program?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:19:10I don't know what that is.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:11So the dairy checkoff program is essentially a program that allows for government subsidies for the dairy industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:19And it's essentially it's.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:20It's exactly what it sound like.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:22Okay, how can we get dairy into as many places as humanly possible to get people as addicted to dairy as humanly possible?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:30So I'm talking schools, retirement communities, low income communities, all the things, food stamps, fast food programs, everything.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:40So that's the dairy checkoff program.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:42A lot of times when you see these advertisements that are like, this is the triple double cheeseburger with, with cheese on the bun and cheese on the lettuce.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:51Like, you see cheese everywhere.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:53That's the dairy checkoff program.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:19:54Those are people within the government telling these fast food companies that they need to sell more cheese and they don't care how they do it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:01But this is, you know, it's.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:02And then it's all figured out in an advertising meeting.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:05How are we going to get six more slices of cheese on every single burger so that we can get people eating more cheese?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:20:12And are they, are they, are they getting the cheese for a, like a fraction of the cost?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:20:18Yes, because of all the subsidies and everything.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:20Exactly.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:21So it's kind of like it makes dairy seem like it's so much cheaper than it actually is, you know, And I feel that same way with meat, too.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:30There's so many meat subsidies as well.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:32Like, if we were to actually see the cost of what it takes to produce beef and dairy, I mean, those two things are the same industry, right?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:39Like a dairy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:40Cows go to get slaughtered to become beef.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:20:42So if we actually saw the real cost of that, how much water it took, how much grain it took, like paying the agriculture workers, beef and dairy would be so much more expensive and people would be eating so much Less of it if it weren't for these subsidies.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:20:58Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:20:59And the reason why we have all these subsidies is because of the huge lying forces that are behind them as well.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:21:06And the misinformation.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:21:07That's real.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:08Yes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:09There are literal people's entire jobs that are lobbyers, and they also, their entire jobs are thinking about how they can get people more hooked on dairy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:18So think of the tobacco lobby, where they're trying to figure out how they can get, you know, as anyone and everyone smoking cigarettes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:25It's kind of the same thing, but just with dairy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:28And it doesn't feel as dirty or as bad as the tobacco lobby, but it literally is.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:35They're thinking, if you think about it, dairy is the only advertisement that is allowed in public schools.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:42Why is that?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:44So you want to get these kids hooked on dairy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:47And not only that, you've seen autoimmune diseases, asthma, endometriosis, all skyrocket in young kids because of dairy periods.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:56Girls are getting their periods at like nine years old now.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:21:59Like, why is that happening, you know?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:22:01Type 2 diabetes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:03Type 2 diabetes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:04Exactly.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:22:05Or actually, actually, I'm sorry, type 2 diabetes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:22:07But in, in children in type 1 diabetes, it's the milk that actually is a contributor to that.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:22:18What about you?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:22:22Talk about late stage capitalism.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:22:25What do you mean by that exactly?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:28Well, I mean, if you think about it, we're just consumers.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:32That's all we are to the government.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:34You know, we're just consumers.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:35So we are in late stage capitalism right now, where, I mean, everything, everyone's just trying to make money off of us.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:41Corporations rule the world, corporations rule the government.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:43And one of the biggest, baddest corporations is the dairy industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:47Big dairy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:48And you know, late stage capitalism is essentially, we feel like we have no control.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:53Right.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:54We feel like these corporations are winning.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:56They're taking everything from us, which in a way they are.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:22:59But in a way, we're also paying them.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:23:01You know, we're funding this.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:23:04So as much as it feels like we're out of control of this, there is so much power in numbers.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:23:11And if we stop spending our money on these things, if we stop spending our money on things like milk and cheese and whatever and letting these silly food trends take over, we stop spending our money on this, then we'll actually see a dent in the dairy industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:23:26And maybe these corporations will change what they're doing, because at the end of the day, all they want to do is make money.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:23:31They don't really care how they do it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:32Yeah, yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:34Before we move on to stage Two, which is bargaining.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:37I got one.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:38One more point that you address.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:40That.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:41That I want to talk about, and that is that.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:44And I just want to drive this home to people because it's so obvious, but yet we somehow.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:50Yeah, we forget it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:51And that is.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:52Milk is for babies, period.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:57Period.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:23:58Exactly.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:00Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:00So when we're babies, you know, a couple things happen.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:04We have an enzyme that allows us to digest milk, but also, you know, it's.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:11It's part of our makeup to.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:13When we get that milk, when we latch onto our moms, we're safe.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:17We're like, okay, we're safe, we're comfortable, we're getting happy hormones.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:21Everything's going to be cool.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:22As a baby, you have no control over anything.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:24Like you.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:25You eat and you sleep, and that's pretty much all you do.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:28And so when you get that milk, it's like the most comforting, beautiful thing ever.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:34So what the dairy industry has done is they have learned how to capitalize on that vulnerable, comfortable feeling that we all had when we were young.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:43And they want us to be addicted to that feeling until we literally die, which is just crazy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:50You know, if you think about it, we are the.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:51The only animal that drinks breast milk from another animal past infancy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:24:58It's weird.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:25:00It sure is weird.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:03It's just weird if you think about it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:05And we don't think about it like that often, but like, I don't know, it's weird.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:09Why would.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:25:09Yeah, yeah, very much so.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:25:12I mean, if you're really after a high protein mammalian milk secretion, then you want to have rat's milk, which is 51 protein.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:22Really?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:25:23Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:25:24There you go.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:25Delicious.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:25:27Put that on my cereal.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:29It's also the idea, too.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:30It's such a good point.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:31Because it's also the idea too, that, like, we've been marketed that the only milk that's normal to drink for humans is cows, goats and sheep.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:38Yeah, but why is that?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:39It's just like some weird cultural habituation.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:25:43That's what it is.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:44It is.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:45Like we've been marketed and like, cows are just this thing that they're only meant for our.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:50Our use and abuse.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:52Right.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:52We don't think about.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:53But dogs, dogs are just supposed to be loved, but not the cows.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:25:57You know, it's kind of weird how we have this.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:25:59Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:26:00Cultural specifics, you know.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:02Well, you know what?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:04Well, you know what's even wild is that in the UK they, they tried actually selling mother's breast milk.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:14Right.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:14To consumers.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:16Because, you know, if we're going to be Drinking any kind of milk.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:18Why not drink breast milk?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:20Right?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:20Yeah, human breast milk.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:22And people were so grossed out by it that it didn't move at all.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:26:26But it's, you know, it's like, again, we're so habituated into thinking that cow's milk, Goat milk.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:26:33Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:26:34And I think, like, to another point, milk is for babies.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:26:37You know, the dedication of my book is to the mama cows.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:26:41And I think we forget that mother cows make.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:26:47Cows make milk because they're moms, not because they're dairy cows.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:26:53So the whole system is just so horrible in the sense of, like, we're using and abusing these moms.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:26:59We're forcibly impregnating them.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:02We are milking them while they're pregnant.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:04They have their baby.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:05We take their baby from them, and then we hook them up to machines and take their milk for us, for ourselves instead.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:12That entire cycle goes on and on and on and on for these cows.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:17So a lot of these cows can have, like, 10 to 15 babies in their lifetime.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:22They're pregnant for nine months, just like us.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:25And those babies are taken from them every single time.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:28And if it's a boy, either that baby gets shipped to become livestock or it gets slaughtered for veal.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:34And if it's a girl, then it goes through the same fate, becoming a dairy cow.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:39And the most horrible part about all of this is at the end of it, when these dairy cows are so exhausted from this cycle of abuse, they collapse, and then they, too, are shipped off for slaughter.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:49And the entire thing is just so disrespectful to the animals themselves.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:53And we forget.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:27:54We forget that these are literal mothers that we're taking advantage of and we're taking their babies from them so that we can drink their milk instead.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:03And that when I learned about that, I was like, okay, I don't need cheese anymore.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:08I'm done.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:28:09Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:28:10No, it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:28:11It's horrific.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:28:12I want to read your dedication because I think it's beautiful.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:28:16This book is for the voiceless, for the mamas and their babies, because it's important to remember that cows don't make milk because they're cows.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:28:25They make milk because they're mothers.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:28:28That's really good.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:28:32So stage two is bargaining.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:34Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:35That's what we all do with everything.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:37It's the pros and cons list.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:39And I was really honest with the pro and con list.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:42We all like dairy because it's delicious.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:44It's creamy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:46It's cachio e pepe.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:47It's your favorite cupcake.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:49And all these things that we love so much.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:51And so bargaining is really being like, but I like it, you know, But.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:55But.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:28:56But how bad could it be if I like it so much and it brings me so much joy?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:00And so in this page is really a full breakdown of the pros and cons list and what the pros are of eating dairy, which is like, you know, it's delicious.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:09It's easily accessible thanks to the dairy checkoff program.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:13It's affordable thanks to the dairy checkoff program.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:15It's part of our cultural food.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:17All those things are very valid.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:19All of those things are very valid things that consumers deal with every single day.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:22And I wanted to put that in there because I'm definitely not discounting everyone.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:27Personal experience, I think that's so important.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:29But then we have our cons list, which is way bigger than the pros, and I think that alone is something to look at.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:35But, you know, just looking at how the dairy industry pollutes a lot of our clean water sources, how, you know, we take a lot of the grain that's grown to, like, feed this livestock that is also monocropped and sprayed with so much glyphosate.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:49You know, there's so many things can put you at a higher risk for breast cancer, prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, like, painful periods.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:29:57There's so, so many cons.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:00I could literally go on and on and on, but that would make this podcast, like, three hours long.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:05Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:05I think what's also important, and, you know, you.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:08You say how one of the cons is.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:10And I say this all the time.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:12The number one source of saturated fat in the American diet is cheese.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:15Exactly.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:16And I don't think.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:17I don't think most people realize that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:20People are eating a pound of cheese a week on average.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:23Right.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:23So, like, 52 pounds a year.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:26Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:26And, you know, about 50 years ago, we were eating five pounds of cheese per person per year.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:32Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:33And we can thank the dairy checkoff program for that.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:35Yeah, yeah, check off.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:38All right, let's move on.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:39So stage three is anger.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:43We're so angry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:46And I mean, honestly, the anger is Move through.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:30:48How do I move through anger?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:50I think moving through anger is just letting yourself feel it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:52It, like, let yourself be really upset.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:54I think, you know, there's this.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:30:56This thing that, you know, people think about vegans, and they think, oh, just the angry vegans.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:01And I think a lot of new vegans are angry because they're finally just allowing themselves to see what's really going on in the animal agriculture industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:08It Makes you angry, it makes you angry at yourself, it makes you angry at the system, it makes you angry at our government.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:14It makes you angry at everybody.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:15And you just have nowhere to put that anger.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:17You have nowhere to kind of of some.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:19Suddenly you find yourself online, like, commenting back to people, and I feel like that's.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:23In general, that's not what we should be doing to fuel our anger.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:26But I understand where people are coming from when they are angry, when they find out about what's going on.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:30But I think, you know, feel your angry, Feel your anger.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:35Punch a pillow, do what you got to do.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:37Talk to people about it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:39Find someone that's angry, too, so you can have someone to bounce off with.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:43But then fuel that anger into action.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:46Right?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:31:46Pick something that feels accessible to you, whether it's just changing your own life, changing your own diet, or volunteering or reading or learning or having conversations, listening to podcasts, whatever you're going to do, find your community and put that anger into actionable steps.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:32:01So for me, this is my action, this cookbook.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:32:06Now I'm fueling my anger.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:32:08Okay, good.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:32:10Well, you've done a great job fueling that action.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:32:16What about how do we move through stage four, which is depression?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:32:21Yeah, I mean, I think it's all time, you know, and being consistent with yourself.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:32:28So the problem with the five stages of grief, the five stages of breaking up, is if you don't allow yourself to really move through every single step, you're going to feel like a pinball going back and forth.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:32:38So if you find out all these things you go through, you know, you're not in denial anymore.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:32:44You really understand what's going on, but you're not, like, giving yourself actionable steps to actually follow through with.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:32:51If you're not being accountable to yourself and actually doing the thing, actually breaking up with dairy, actually doing these commitments that you've had for yourself, you're going to bounce back and forth from anger and depression forever because you're never going to actually move through it onto the next step, which is actually feeling better, figuring out life after dairy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:33:10You know, it's like with any brain breakup, if you keep going back to that guy, you know, you're gonna keep breaking up, he's gonna keep treating you the same way, you know, and people show you who they are, believe them.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:33:21So it's like if you keep denying yourself that freedom away from that relationship, you're gonna stay depressed, you're gonna stay angry, and you're gonna bounce back and forth.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:33:31So I think in order to get out of that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:33:33You got to commit to yourself and just go for it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:33:38Well, let me ask you this.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:33:39So you talk about going, you know, back and forth like a pinball.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:33:43Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:33:43Did you say that happened to you?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:33:45Like, did you a number of times tell yourself, okay, I'm done with dairy, because I don't want.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:33:50I don't want another trip to the hospital.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:33:52I don't like this.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:33:53The acne.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:33:54I don't like these harsh periods.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:33:57And were you able to make the connection with dairy, but just not have the.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:34:02Not have the fortitude or whatever you want to call it to move through the five stages and stop the pinball process?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:11Yeah, it took me about a year back and forth for.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:15Yeah, it took me a long time.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:16And then I had a really bad surgery, and after that, I was like, okay, I'm over it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:21And they're like, nothing can.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:22Literally nothing can convince me of anything other than just eating plants and being as clean as I can and moving my body and just trying to move forward the best possible way I know how.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:33Because at the end of the day, a lot of times, we know what.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:36We know what we're doing wrong or we know what we're doing that's hurting ourselves.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:40And sometimes we just have to have.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:44Most of the time, you know, I've worked with thousands of people, helping them change their food or helping them learn how to cook or whatever.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:50And a lot of times, people only change when their back is against the wall, unfortunately.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:54And for me, my back was against.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:55Against the wall, and I was.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:56I had to make a change.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:57And so that's really what it did for me.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:34:59And it kind of made me realize that I wish I had done it sooner, because maybe I wouldn't have gone through so much medical trauma.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:06I wouldn't have, you know, which I still am dealing with, you know, PTSD from having medical trauma, having endometriosis.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:14And I think, you know, we don't have to go that far.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:18We don't have to go that deep.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:19We can change before, you know, things get really hard.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:25Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:26Well, I think that everything you've described here, it's also applicable to.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:31To.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:32To Big Meat.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:33Right?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:34Totally.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:35Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:37What a great blueprint.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:38So stage five is acceptance.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:41Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:41Right.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:42Hallelujah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:44Relief.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:46Yeah, relief.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:47And now, what is it time for now?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:35:49Is it time to reset?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:51Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:51Find community.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:52Reset.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:53Acceptance is just.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:35:55It's more of that, like, soft, feminine energy of just like, okay, like, this is where we are, and let's keep moving forward, you know, like, it's Hard to accept when you really learn about stuff that's happening in the world.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:36:08I mean, in general, we're living in a really crazy time to be alive right now.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:36:11Like, everything just feels really crazy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:36:12Every day I'll open my phone with one eye, like, what happened today?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:36:15You know, And I think if we can just have acceptance for the things that we can control and have acceptance for, you know, what's going on and trying to move forward in a way that it could be, you know, surrounding yourself with people who think like you or surrounding yourself with people who make you feel seen and heard and who allow you to make the changes that you want to make.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:36:38Or, you know, could be having a new morning routine or things like that, like taking those little steps.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:36:43Because once you're in acceptance, then you can move forward.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:36:47That's why I put this before all the recipes because I think it's really important to go through a lot of these things before you dive in and change all your pantry items and buy a new Vitamix and do all the things.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:36:56Because sometimes you have to feel all your feelings before you can take those actionable steps.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:01Sometimes people do it all at once.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:03But I do think it's important to go through this.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:06And then you're like, okay, I've got fuel, I've got energy, I have motivation.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:10And that's when you kind of start cooking.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:12That's when you can get into it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:13That's when you can change how you drink your coffee in the morning.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:17That's when you call restaurants ahead of time to see if they've got options for you.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:22That's when you become the person who books all the reservations for your friend group.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:26So that's kind of what acceptance is all about.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:37:28Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:37:29And you have all these fun photos, like, there you are.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:37:33This is with the right across from acceptance.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:37:36But where did you get this outfit?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:39Oh, my God.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:43I.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:43So I had this idea.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:44So that was my idea for the COVID initially is I wanted to be in like a milkman outfit.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:48I don't know.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:49I found the bow tie and the hat online and then I found the white jumpsuit.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:54And I was like, I just want to be like the new age milk woman.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:37:57Like, we're doing dairy free milk only.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:37:59Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:00So that was kind of my.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:02My inspo.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:02It didn't quite make the COVID but I think.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:04Think it's perfect for the beginning chapters.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:38:07I do too.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:38:08The f.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:38:09And let me tell you, the.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:38:10The photography in this book is absolutely so brilliant.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:38:15Did you hire a photographer to do.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:18All this so it was just me and Steve, my husband.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:22Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:23So we.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:23So when we got the book deal, we were living in a super tiny two bedroom beach apartment.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:28We live in San Diego.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:29We were like two blocks from the beach.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:31I miss our old neighborhood so much.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:33But I was like, Steve, we got to build out a photography studio.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:35We can't have this huge book deal and like hire someone to do our own photography.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:39That's not going to happen.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:40And Steve and I have no formal training in photography.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:42So everything has just been like YouTube videos and like we're just trying to figure it out as we go.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:47And so yeah, we moved into this house in La Jolla and we have a whole, we have a three bedroom house.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:53One of the rooms is literally all of our photography equipment.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:38:57And yeah, it's been really fun just figuring it out.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:39:00We got a bunch of our background and stuff from this company in Denmark.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:39:03Like, I sort of scoured the Internet to get everything that we needed for this book.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:39:08So yeah, we've invested pretty much everything into this, this book.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:39:11And I really wanted to do the photography because photography a lot of times is, you know, your soul and your personality and like your point of view.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:39:19And I think that that's so important in a book like this so that everyone could really see our point of view and really feel our energy throughout.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:39:27Throughout the book.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:28Yeah, yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:29Well, what I want to do now is I want to walk through some of the recipes because the rest, the recipe section is phenomenal.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:35I think you've got seven different sections if I'm not mistaken.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:40So I've six.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:42So I've chosen a couple recipes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:44Let's do it from each section just so everybody can get a little bit of a feel.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:49And the first one is almond milk.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:51No, you call it no strain almond milk.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:39:55Yes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:55I want to know what is the trick?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:39:58How can you do no strain almond milk and not have any kind of pulp and weird stuff?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:05Yeah, so that was a big goal of mine.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:07You know, I read every dairy free cookbook there was looking for what I just, I was like looking kind of for holes and seeing the industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:14You know, when you're, when you write a book proposal, like I said, it's like a business proposal.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:18So you kind of look for holes in the industry.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:20And what I notice is like most nut milks require a nut milk straining bag and I loathe the nut milk straining bag.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:27Like I never want to.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:29It gets in my rings and like I just, I don't want to do it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:32And I know most people don't either.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:34So I wanted to create a no strain almond milk, which is really hard to find.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:37And the key is you have to get slivered, blanched almonds and they blend up just like cashews.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:40:42Incredible.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:40:43Incredible.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:40:44Easy, breezy.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:40:45And before I go on with some more recipes, I want people to know that you have a little section, a little box in the book, book where you say out with the old.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:40:55And it includes whole and non fat milk.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:41:00Milk, fat milk powder, whey, casein, colostrum.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:41:05What is colostrum?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:41:06That sounds really awful.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:09Is the worst trend in wellness history.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:11I swear.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:11It is the.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:13It is the liquid that comes out right before the breast milk does that's supposed to go to the baby.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:19And it's like packed with all sorts of things that can boost your immune system and, you know, antioxidants and all these things that are for the baby.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:28But instead these companies are taking it and they're dehydrating it and they're turning it into a powdered supplement.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:41:35Okay.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:41:36Okay.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:41:36So colostrum, then we got condensed milk, we have cream, we have ghee, yogurt, cheese, and butter.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:41:42And so you basically, in your, in the recipe section, you have substitutes for almost every one of these.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:49Yeah, right.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:50Literally, we have like a no way protein powder.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:52So you can make your own protein powder at home.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:41:55No way.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:56No way.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:58Yeah, and that's.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:41:59I mean, I love a protein powder.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:42:01I'm especially like, I have gone through phases where I don't touch protein powder, where, you know, it's just everyone kind of goes through their own phases.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:42:08And I think, you know, one of the biggest problems with people who have a lot of protein powder is whey protein.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:42:14And I remember I used to have the worst stomach problems.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:42:17I was like one of those girls with tummy problems.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:42:19And it's because I was drinking whey protein.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:42:22And it's just so bad for your gut lining.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:42:24It can cause, like so many gastrointestinal issues.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:42:27And so, you know, I don't want to discount people who need that, like, quick source of protein, that quick source of nourishment that, you know, moms or people on the go or whatever.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:42:35So I really wanted to make sure that there was a protein powder option available that was still really creamy and delicious and kind of gave all the things that we're looking for.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:42:44Well, speaking of creamy and delicious and mouthfeel.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:42:47So here you have a whole milk, the equivalent of a whole milk right there.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:42:53Can everybody see it?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:42:54Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:42:54There you go.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:42:56And what do you use?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:42:58What Nut or seed do you use to get that mouthfeel?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:03So you can use a couple different ones.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:05In this and in the beginning of the book, I talk about different replacements.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:09So if you have cashews, there's a replacement for that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:10Or if you're allergic to cashews, there's a replacement for that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:13That if you're allergic to almonds.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:15I talk about all the replacements because I really want this book to be allergy friendly with the idea that, you know, dairy is the number one allergy in the world.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:23But I'm not discounting the fact that people have other food allergies.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:26So I wanted to make sure.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:28So.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:28But we use cashews in that and it's all about ratio, it's all about how long you blend it for.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:33But it is the perfect whole milk substitute.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:36Like, it's perfect to the, to the drop of water.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:41It is like perfect because.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:43:43And you also, in a lot of your milks you have, and I love it, you have some dates in there as well to give it a little bit of sweetness and thickness.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:51So a lot of times in plant based milks, this is also an issue, you know, which you, you have your own line of plant based milk, so you understand this.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:43:59But a big issue in the plant based milk world is gums and emulsifiers and preservatives and oil.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:05And, and the reason why a lot of that is there is for thickness.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:08It's for the fact that it won't separate, you know, while it's sitting on the shelf.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:12It's for, you know, product life, all that kind of stuff.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:15So the date is really a great option to have that thickness.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:19And it also kind of helps emulsify the milk so that you get that nice thick consistency without having to use a gum or a filler or an oil.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:44:28How many times did you have to shoot this shot to get.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:31Literally once.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:44:33Seriously?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:34Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:35We had our camera on shutter speed, we got this super fun light and I, I don't have it that much.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:42My wrists are kind of trash from chefing for so long.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:44So I was like, Steve, this is all you.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:46Like you're gonna pop this open.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:47And we did it the first time.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:48I'm really impressed with Steve, actually.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:44:51So you have a pistachio milk and you say that this works like a charm as a latte.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:57Oh my gosh.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:58So good.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:58It's so.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:44:59Pistachios are so fatty and creamy and so flavorful.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:02So it's really good in a matcha latte.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:05And it's also really Good.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:07Just for like a regular pistachio latte too.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:09And it's like slightly sweet sweetened so that you can have it in a latte.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:13But any of the book, any of the milks, you can always make them unsweetened too, because you're making it yourself.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:20That's the benefit you've got.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:45:21You've got, you know, a lazy girl's barista, soy milk.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:45:26You've got all things, Horace, but this one.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:45:30Yeah, this one, I'm like, wow, you got a black sesame seed milk.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:45:37Look at that.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:45:38Right there it is.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:41Yes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:41Yeah, that recipe is one of my favorites because it's so umami, like, and there's so much protein in it because sesame seeds are actually packed with protein.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:50But I love that one.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:45:51So there's actually a ramen recipe later on in the book and we use that black sesame seed milk in the ramen and it is like a flavor explosion you can't quite comprehend.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:46:03All right, I'm moving on from the milk section.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:46:06And you've got so many incredible ones there.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:46:08And let's talk about this one.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:46:12I believe this section is called, let me get it, the one you can't live without.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:46:17It's your ode to cheese.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:46:19Yes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:46:21And the first one is on page 87, and it's the family size cheddar block.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:46:28Yes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:46:29And what attracted me to this was you've got, if I'm not mistaken, what's the first ingredient?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:46:37It's like yellow potatoes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:46:39Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:46:40So we wanted to make all the cheeses basically made from vegetables and some nuts.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:46:45Some of the cheeses do have refined coconut oil in them just a bit.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:46:48Just because you're not going to get a melt if you don't add any oil.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:46:53You know, we.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:46:53So here's the thing about that recipe.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:46:56That recipe was tested almost 40 times because we were like, okay, we tried to do it completely oil free a bunch of times.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:03We tried to do it, you know, with.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:05It was like.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:06We almost gave up.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:07We were like, okay, we just can't figure this out.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:09We can't do this, this cheddar recipe, there's no way.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:12And then, I don't know, one day it just clicked.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:15It just happened.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:15And we were like, oh, this is.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:17This is perfect.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:18Because, you know, a lot of vegan cheddar tastes too much like nutritional yeast or it tastes too much like starch or it tastes too much like oil.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:26And we didn't want any of that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:28We wanted it to be really, you know, I really wanted these cheeses to be like the real thing, I wanted you to really get that cheddar.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:35Cheddar vibe from it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:36And if you are oil free, there are tons of cheese recipes that don't have oil in them.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:41But I like to think of the cheddar recipe as like a.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:45A bridge.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:46You know, it's like a bridge cheese recipe.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:47:48It still melts, it still slices, it still shreds.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:47:51It takes me back to like fourth grade.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:47:55I would come home and I had for a snack, I'd have cheddar cheese on top of a Ritz cracker.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:48:01Yes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:02Oh, man.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:03Yeah, I haven't though, but.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:07So you've got all kinds of cheeses.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:10You've got a creamy gorgonzola.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:12You've got a cheese log that's made from macadamia nuts.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:15I'm going to jump right now because I've got a bunch of sections that I want to kind of give samples of.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:20This is the feta cheese.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:22And I think a lot of people love feta.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:24So what did you use to create your feta?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:48:27So the feta is made from tofu, actually.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:48:30And I wanted it to be like a high protein feta cheese that could kind of use as a snack.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:48:36But it's not like the traditional tofu feta where you just slice it up and then you season it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:48:40It.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:48:41This one is actually like you blend tofu in the blender with a bunch of ingredients and then you set it that way and then you slice it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:48:48And this one's really good too, because you can toss it in seasonings and stuff after it's set.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:48:54So it's.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:48:54You can crumble it and do all those things as well.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:48:58All right, well, you got really cheesy.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:49:02Next section, get sauced.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:49:04Sauces are so important.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:49:07The first thing that you have is so many people that I know are looking for a good yogurt.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:49:14And your first recipe here is, you call it almost instant Mango Greek yogurt.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:49:19So how do I create my own yogurt at home that doesn't have all of the oil and all of the.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:49:27All the sugar?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:49:28Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:49:29So, you know, making your own yogurt at home can be really challenging.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:49:34And I had like a classic coconut, like fermentation yogurt in my first cookbook.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:49:40And what I found is people had a lot of hard times like making that work.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:49:46And it's because when you're fermenting things on your countertop, it's all about the temperature and how clean your glass is that you're fermenting it in.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:49:54And you know how cold the coconut was, or, you know, like, there's so many or what kind of probiotic strains you're using.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:01There's so many different variables.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:03And so when I was making this book, I was like, I don't want to have people have to think about these variables.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:08I want people to know that the recipe is going to work whether they live in the tropics or whether they live in the Rocky Mountains.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:14You know, like, I think that's something that I've noticed in the dairy free world or even in general, when you're making your own cheese or your own yogurt or your fermentation in general, it's all very dependent on where you live.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:25And so this yogurt, there's no fermentation required.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:28It's technically not even, like, if we're being super technical, not quite a yogurt because it's not fully fermented.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:35However, we do use probiotic powder in there, so you're still getting that, like probiotic goodness.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:42But it's super easy to make.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:44Anyone can make it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:45And we use frozen fruit to kind of emulsify it to thicken the yogurt.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:51So it really feels like a Greek yogurt.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:50:53And you get that high protein breakfast without having to worry about, you know, fermenting things.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:51:01Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:51:03You have a spreadable butter, and the first two ingredients are cauliflower and chopped carrots.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:51:08I mean, come on, is that really, Is it really good?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:13It's so good.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:14So.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:15So when you're thinking about butter, you know, you're thinking about margarine specifically, it's all oil.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:19And so we wanted to make one that was all vegetables.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:23And at first, the recipe was turning out so weird.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:26Steve was like, like, this is not gonna work.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:28What are you thinking?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:29I just kept being like, trust the process.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:31We're gonna totally figure this out.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:33And we finally did.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:35And yeah, there's a couple different ways to make it, depending on how the consistency you want your margarine or your spreadable butter to be.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:41But it's really, really good.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:44And yeah, it's made from vegetables, which is so fun.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:51:47Wow.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:51:49And just so the audience knows, and you said this, but some of your recipes do have either extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil in them.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:51:59Yes, a couple of them.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:01Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:01But we, you know, on the bottom of each recipe there's an allergy ledger.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:05So there's nut free optionals, oil free, nut free, soy free, gluten free, grain free.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:11And again, I really wanted to have everyone feel seen when it comes to Their preferences, their food allergies or their chronic illnesses or things that they're dealing with.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:22And I know that, you know, oil is not for everybody.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:25I know that a lot of people can't eat nuts.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:27I know that a lot of people are gluten free.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:29So that was something I really wanted to highlight, and I really wanted to make a very solid effort to make as many recipes oil free as humanly possible.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:38You know, there's certain things, like I said, the cheese or the butter stick, like if you want it to melt, it kind of has to have a little bit of oil in there.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:46Or, or it's not going to be the real thing when it comes to that melty.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:50But then there's going to be another separate option for you.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:52:53So there's, like I said, there's something for everyone.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:52:55Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:52:56And this is going to be the last get sauce recipe I'm going to share with everybody.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:01And that is one of my favorite comfort foods in the Hawaii world is macaroni and cheese, Mac and cash.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:08And so you have this baked truffle Mac.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:53:10Yes.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:11Here she blows right here.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:13But that's not the photo that, that, that caught me.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:16It was this one.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:53:17Oh.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:18Oh, my gosh.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:20That is so gorgeous.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:53:21You know, that photo I actually scrapped, and then at the very last second, I threw it back in.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:53:26And it's one of my favorites now, too, that it's printed.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:29Oh, it's so nice.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:53:30It's so good.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:53:32I made it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:53:32I actually cooked a farm sanctuary dinner for 70 people for Thanksgiving a couple weeks ago, and we made that recipe and everyone was freaking out over it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:43What, what makes the truffle?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:53:45Well, we use truffle.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:47Okay, so it's, it's okay then.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:53There you go.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:53:56So where do you, where do you get truffle?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:53:58So you can get truffle oil like, anywhere.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:00You just want to make sure that the truffle oil that you get is ethical.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:04But yeah, you can find truffle oil so many different places.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:07I, I, so I live in San Diego.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:09We have Little Italy here in San Diego, and I have some friends who own Italian restaurants, so they, they definitely hook it up for me when it comes to truffle.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:17But yeah, you can find it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:18Or if you don't want to, like, use truffle oil.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:20The Mac and cheese recipe alone is essentially like a white cheddar style Mac, so you don't have to do the truffle oil either.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:27Okay, good to know.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:28All right, well, I'm moving on now to main meals.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:31You had so many of them.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:33It was so hard.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:33I just wanted to pick two of them.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:35Okay, so this one I've never.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:38This is so creative.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:41And I'm going to show the photo and then I'm going to say what it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:44Or you can say what it is.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:45What is this a photo of?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:47What main meal?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:48It's lasagna soup.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:50Lasagna soup.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:54:52I cannot wait to try that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:55So good.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:54:56You, like, make this, the broth by roasting everything and then you blend it and then you add it to the broth, which is so cool.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:55:03How in the world did you think of a lasagna soup?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:06I mean, it's a pretty typical dish, actually.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:08And I wanted to do a lasagna, but I was feeling a little lazy that day.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:12So I was like, you know what, let's make a lasagna soup.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:16And it's actually really good.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:55:17Well, you say it's loving a bowl.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:20It's not comfort.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:21You know, I think a lot of times with dairy, people just want comfort.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:24They want to feel those feelings, you know, And I think sometimes we don't need the dairy, we just need.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:29Need to a little push in the right direction.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:55:32One of my favorite, one of my favorite foods on the planet is Indian food.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:55:39And when I saw this, I was like, okay, after the lasagna soup, I want to make this.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:55:43This is a paneer masala.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:55:46And obviously you've got rice, you've got tofu, and you've got this, this sauce.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:52And the paneer cheese.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:53So that is the last cheese in the cheese chapter.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:55:56And that cheese, if I believe is actually oil oil free as well, and so is the mozzarella.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:03Okay, wait, can we just go back to the cheese chapter really quick?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:05Because we have this one recipe where you can make a mozzarella block, mozzarella balls and burrata cheese.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:12It's completely oil free.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:13You can switch it depending on your allergies.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:15And it's truly mind blowing.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:17Like, it will change everything you think about cheese.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:56:20So as a cordon Bleu trained chef.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:24Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:56:24Challenging was this cookbook for you.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:28It was the hardest thing I've ever done.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:31Truly.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:33Truly.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:33It was.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:34You know, I, I can't wait for my next cookbook because it'll be so much easier to write now that you've done this.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:42Yeah, it's so hard.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:43It's so hard to like rewrite.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:45You know, vegan cheese is already very much a thing.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:47I'm not inventing anything, but, you know, I'm really trying to rewrite the way that we're doing it in a sense of.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:52I want it to be accessible for people because at the end of the day, like, you don't go to the grocery store and make your own cheese.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:56:59You know, we're used to going and just buying cheese and then it's done.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:02So I really wanted it to be accessible and again, not have a lot of fermentation and, you know, have steps that the regular person could do.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:10And I think that was just.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:11It was hard.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:12Like I said, some of the cheese recipes took 40 tries to get the right thing, because I just wanted to be just right.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:20When did you first have the.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:22When did you lock yourself in the room and do that proposal?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:26Like, was that in 2022?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:2823.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:29When was that?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:292022?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:30It was October 2022.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:32The book was sold by November.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:34Contract was signed in December.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:35It was.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:37That's crazy.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:38And then, so, so.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:40And then how.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:41How long did you spend on the book?
Rheb Esselstyn
00:57:43Like, the recipes and the photos and all that?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:46So the entire year of 2023, we were so busy locked in our house writing this book.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:53Because, I mean, we also run our own business, me and my husband.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:56So, you know, we have our business.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:57We are still private chef.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:57:59We still do pop up dinners, we do content online.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:02You know, our audience exploded in 2023 too.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:05So that was kind of like a lot to deal with.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:07And that's when I let go of the podcast because I was like, I just can't juggle all this.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:11This is too much.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:12And so it took an entire year of us working every single day.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:17You know, all of our friends were like, you guys are insane.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:19You guys are working every day.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:20And it really was a week.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:22We invested all of our own money into it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:24We were just like, we want to change how we look at the food industry, how we look at cheese, how we look at all this stuff, and we.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:29We have this incredible opportunity and let's just go for it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:33And I mean, we had to move, so that takes a lot of work.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:36Like, there was just so much that happened.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:38But, yeah, it was all of 2023.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:42And, yeah, I ended up, yeah, you.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:58:45Guys just put it all, all on the line.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:58:47I love, love it.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:58:48I love it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:48Everything on the table for it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:50I actually got injured from writing the cookbook.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:52I dislocated my collarbone from my sternum from working too much.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:58:58And my doctor put me on like, a strict no cook for two months after I submitted my manuscript.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:59:04Oh, my goodness gracious.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:59:06Injury on the job, literally.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:59:09Okay, so life of the party section, you've got these sweet pepper poppers that I want one now.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:59:21So what can you tell me about these pepper poppers?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:24Well, you know, I love the concept of a jalapeno pepper popper, or what are they originally called?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:33God, my brain.
Rheb Esselstyn
00:59:36I don't know.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:36I just want to say pepper popper 10 times.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:40But yeah, I love the concept of a jalapeno popper.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:43That's what they're called, jalapeno poppers.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:45Um, but I just, I get heartburn when I eat too many spicy things.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:48So I wanted to do, you know, and that's a very classic dairy recipe, is to have a jalapeno popper.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:54So I wanted to do something that was a little less spicy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:56You can always use jalapenos if you love spicy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
00:59:59But this was with the small sweet peppers, and I wanted to make sure they were gluten free and they had just like a.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:00:04You know, and I think that one is food allergy friendly too.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:00:07I think we use sunflower seeds in that one so that literally everyone can eat that recipe.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:00:11You know, for these party recipes, I wanted to do it so it was really crowd friendly so that your grandpa, your breastfeeding friend, like everyone can enjoy no matter what food allergies they have or what they're going through.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:27So this one, I just felt like just by looking at the photo and so many of your photos, I can actually.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:34My mouth starts to water and I can actually taste what it.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:38What I think it tastes like.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:40But just to give people an example, like, look at this.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:42Look at these lobster rolls.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:00:44That's exactly where I just was.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:47Really?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:47That's.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:48Yeah, there you go.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:49And look at that.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:51And what are you using there?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:00:52Jackfruit?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:00:54I'm like, what are we using?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:00:55No, we're using king oyster mushroom, oyster mushrooms and hearts of palm.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:01:00Oh, my gosh.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:01Yeah, so that one's really fun because, you know, we think butter, we think lobster roll.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:06And I was like, I just want to make this more San Diego inspired.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:09So one of our crema.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:10So in the sauce recipes, we have a recipe called crema four ways.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:14So that you can make a base, whether it's soy based or nut based, depending on your food allergy.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:19And then you can make different flavors from it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:21So we have a lemon poppy seed crema.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:23And then we have what we are calling a base special sauce crema, which is essentially like chorizo flavor inside of a crema, which is so delicious.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:34And so we decided to make this more of like a San Diego Mexican kind of Inspired lobster roll that has the base special sauce on there.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:43And the use of the king oyster mushrooms plus the hearts of palm is like the perfect lobster replacement.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:48It's one of the best recipes in the book.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:50Honestly, I love it.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:01:52Did you.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:01:53So you said you moved to a new location, a new house?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:01:58Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:01:59When you're making all these recipes, you're testing them.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:02:02You said you did that one recipe.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:02:04I mean, it was the cheddar cheese 40 times times before you got it right.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:07Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:02:08Are you sharing it with neighbors or what are you doing?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:02:10So the food doesn't just kind of go in the trash?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:12Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:13So we, when we moved, we accidentally moved into a retirement community and we.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:19Yeah, we had no idea.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:21And so all of our neighbors at the time were like 80 plus.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:24Like 80 was the youngest.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:26And so I was just like going around to all my elderly neighbors and giving them like cakes and sandwiches and cheese.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:34And they had no idea it was vegan.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:35They were like, oh my God, this is amazing.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:37Thank you.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:38So we were kind of feeding the neighborhood for a while and then we would invite friends over, you know, and we would do big, big shoots when the recipes were finalized.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:47But actually this lobster roll was a one and done kind of thing.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:51We like made it the first time and I was like, that's it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:02:53This is perfect.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:02:55So you have a hundred recipes.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:02:58How many recipes did you have that just kind of hit the, the cutting room floor?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:03:04Didn't make it into the book?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:07You know, not a lot because I snuck a lot of recipes in.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:10So it says 100 recipes, but a lot of recipes have recipes within the recipe, if that makes sense.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:03:16Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:16We've got like the crema four ways.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:18We also.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:19So if.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:20So we did a pre sale incentive too.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:23So we had like five coffee creamers that didn't make it in there.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:26So I ended up doing a little coffee creamer ebook.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:29So when you purchase the, the cookbook on pre sale, you can get that as well.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:34And I'll probably extend that for the first week of, of the book launch as well.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:38But yeah, not a lot.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:40You know, I wanted this book.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:41I mean, it's 320 pages.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:03:43So I wanted this book to be as packed as humanly possible and to have every single option in there.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:03:48Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:03:49So the last section, of course, is the dessert section.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:03:53The sweetest thing.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:03:55I actually love this, this, this photo of you.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:03:58You look so relaxed.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:00Like.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:00I know.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:01I'm like, who is she?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:02I know.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:02I'm like, wow, that's.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:04Is that who I think it Is.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:07You know, this whole book is inspired kind of by a rom com, you know, so all the titles and stuff.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:12So.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:12Yeah, so this one, of course, whipped cream.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:18Right.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:19Look at that on top of that, strawberry.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:21But you call this.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:23Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:24So how do you make a whipped cream that's dairy free?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:27So the traditional way is to use coconut fat.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:30So you use really cold coconut fat.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:32But I know a lot of people don't want to have the saturated fat that comes with coconut fat.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:36So I ended up doing dairy a whipped cream two ways.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:39And the other way is using really, really cold silken tofu.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:45So cold meaning what?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:47Like you have it in the back.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:48Of the fridge for a day or two too.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:50You want it like cold.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:04:52Got it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:52Not frozen, but just icy colds.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:54That's a really big key with making dairy free whipped cream is to make sure the temperature is right.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:04:59And if you're having a hard time with the temperature, a trick you can do is if you have a KitchenAid mixer, you can actually put your bowl in the fridge or the freezer too.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:05:07So this, again, these are pretty indulgent.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:05:11But I just want to show the photo.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:05:12This is a granola cookie dough milkshake cake.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:05:16Look at, look, look at that.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:05:19Such a gorgeous photo.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:05:21This is, this is food porn right here.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:05:23This is what we're really.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:24It really is like definition food porn for sure.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:27Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:27That recipe is great because that also has that cookie dough in there.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:30And the cookie dough is a high protein cookie dough too.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:33So you can just eat the cookie dough if you want.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:05:35And then I just had to show this because it, it looks so like five star, ten star restaurant.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:05:43This is a black sesame BlackBerry flan.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:47Yes.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:48Had to have a flan.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:50You know, look at that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:57Classics.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:05:58But like being creative with the classics and realizing that you can like have fun with it too, you know?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:03Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:04And then I just gotta show this is an almond French silk pie.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:07I look at this and.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:08And this is.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:10I could just eat the whole thing.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:11I know I could.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:12Good.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:12And literally.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:14Literally.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:15And then I would go to bed.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:06:18Oh, but maybe not, because it's all healthy ingredients.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:23Then maybe not, but.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:25Oh, my gosh.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:26So you said that now that you've written this cookbook, everything else will be a little easier.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:34So I.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:35I mean, I hate to even ask you this question, but have you started.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:38Started think.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:39Putting thought into what your next book will be?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:06:43Yeah, I already, yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:06:45Oh, my God, my husband thinks I'm insane.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:49So, I mean, how.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:51It sounds like Steve has been so incredibly supportive throughout this Whole process.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:06:56And he sounds like he's actually been a major part of it.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:07:02Has it brought you closer together?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:05Totally.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:05I mean, it's so funny because Steve and I started as co workers, so when I first moved to San Diego, I was working at a bar just until my business got off the ground, and we bartended together.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:16And so that's how we met.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:17And so we've kind of are used to working in the fire together.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:20You know, when you.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:21When you bartend, you're.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:22It's kind of a hectic, stressful situation.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:24You're kind of in the weeds together.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:26And so when he first started working with me in 2020, it was hard to kind of navigate and figure out how because it was my business.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:33And it's weird being your husband's boss in a way, you know, like, that's kind of something weird to navigate.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:37But now we're full partners.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:39And, you know, he does a lot of our.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:41Our blog and our photography and all that stuff.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:44And he's just someone that just is down for all my ideas.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:48I'll wake up one day and I'll just be like, you know what?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:50Let's do this.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:51And he's like, all right, show me the way.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:53Let's go.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:54You know, So I think everyone needs someone like that in their lives to just fully believe in them.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:07:58And, you know, I wouldn't have been able to build the audience and the platform and everything that we have without having Steve in my life, because he's really been someone that's supported me and helped me through, you know, all those hard times, having endometriosis and just, you know, dealing with life in general, you know, pandemic, all that stuff.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:08:18So it's been nice to have him by my side because I just truly can't imagine doing any of this if he wasn't here.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:08:28What can we do?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:08:30Like everybody that's listening to this right now, what can we do to help make sure that Breaking Up With Dairy becomes a New York Times bestseller?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:08:40Oh, I would imagine that's one of your goals with this book.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:08:46And so.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:08:47And so, like, can we pre order?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:08:50What's the best time for us to order the book?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:08:52What can we do to help out?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:08:53Thank you so much for asking that question.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:08:55That is a big goal of mine.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:08:56So, I mean, the best thing to do is to order the book from.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:08:59From either Barnes and Noble, Target, your local bookstore.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:03You know, trying to diversify where we get book orders from, and also supporting those smaller bookstores is really, really important for them.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:10And also for things like the New York Times list.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:13And also pre ordering is really important.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:15If you do pre order, you can go to breakingupadairy.com and submit your receipt from anywhere you pre ordered from.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:22And there's a ton of goodies in there.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:24There's like a guide to meal prep.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:27There's all these pre order bonus goodies.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:28There's like, like so many.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:30I think there's six ebooks or something like that.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:32I just wanted to make it really juicy and hold you over until the book comes out for sure.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:37And there is that coffee creamer ebook in there as well.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:39And other than that, if you're listening to this or watching this, you know, the books come out.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:45It's the week of pub.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:46Just order it the week of pub.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:47Buy one for your friends.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:49And yeah, we really do, like, authors really do need so much rallying of the community to kind of get to those bestsellers lists.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:09:55Because, you know, if we were able to get Breaking up with Dairy on the New York Times bestsellers list, that is definitely saying something, right?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:10:03That's saying that the culture is changing, we're ready for something new and you know, it could make a really big impact and how we're all looking at food and the food industry and what we're all expecting from, you know, big corporations and how we're going to move the needle forward.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:10:22You know, you, you bring such a, a wonderful perspective, a very necessary voice into the movement.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:10:35And as you say in the opening of this, I want to get it right.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:10:41So let me just, let me access my, okay, my notes here if I can find them.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:10:48But you, you, you say something like, this isn't just a fad, this isn't just a, you know, this is a full fledged movement that is underfoot right now.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:11:02And we've got to do our best to move past just everything that's wrong with dairy.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:11:10The egregious, you know, nature of the abusive relationship that we subject these, these cows and these calves and everything to the planet, the deforestation.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:11:23So, yeah, thank you so much for bringing this like, to life, bringing this into the universe and thank you for.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:11:34Thank you for being here with me.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:11:35You know, we can all make change.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:11:37I, for so long I thought, what am I gonna do?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:11:39Like, how could I make a change?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:11:41And then at some point you just have to get out of your own way and decide that like, I am, am big enough to do things, I'm big enough to make change in my community.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:11:49My voice can be loud enough.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:11:50My voice deserves to be Heard I can take up space.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:11:53You know, I think a lot of times we're, we're taught that we shouldn't be taking up space and we can take up space and it is going to take a collective of us to really make change and to do things.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:05But I have faith that like things are changing right now for better or for worse.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:09Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:12And yeah, I'm just, I'm here right along with you.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:15I was, you know, so inspired by you, you, your TED Talk so many years ago, before I was even vegan, inspired me to kind of be more allowed to change my whole business to becoming vegan.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:25And you know, look what that's done.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:27And so now here I am.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:28And hopefully whoever is listening can be inspired to know it's not too late to change.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:33It's not too late to, to go against the norm.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:35And if you don't feel supported, like DM them me or Rip and we'll support you, you know, like, so where, where.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:12:43What is your handle on TikTok Instagram if people want to follow you?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:48Yeah, so it's Chef Bae Bai and we're also on YouTube and we also now have a sub stack which I am so excited about.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:12:56We've heard the community feedback on advertisements on recipe blogs and so we decided to completely drop the ads.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:03And we have a completely ad free recipe blog with so many recipes on Substack and we release a new recipe every single week on there.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:11So that's exciting.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:13:13Help me out.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:13:13Help.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:13:14Help an older, an older guy out here.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:17Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:13:17What exactly is Substack?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:19So it's essentially like it's.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:21I mean, I just figured it out myself, honestly.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:13:25What's up?
Rheb Esselstyn
01:13:25Stuff.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:13:26Yeah.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:26Substack is essentially like an online forum.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:28So it initially started for people who have newsletters or journalists or people who want to write more long form content.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:35But I started seeing a trend of recipe bloggers going over to Substack to have a very low monthly kind of paywall.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:44So for us, it's $8 a month and you get access to everything.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:48Our challenges, our favorite episodes of our podcast that we used to have, it's all on there as well as all of our recipes ad free.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:55Because I think, you know, people are sick of ad free ads.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:13:58And the other thing with advertisements on my blog is I couldn't control exactly what ads were going on the blog.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:14:04So a couple of times I saw advertisements for the dairy industry on my own blog and I was like, I cannot do this anymore.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:14:11And you know, it's expensive to run a blog and to test all these recipes and all that stuff.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:14:14So a substack is a very simple way to support the creators that you love, no matter what type of creators that they are.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:14:21And in return, you get amazing content that's advertisement free and that you can really kind of control what you see and what one.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:14:29Yeah.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:14:30Well, Bailey Ruskus, I, I am, I am so proud of you for diving in head first and just tackling this incredible project.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:14:46And it is such a winner.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:14:48So everybody, Breaking up with Dairy.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:14:52Chef Bailey Ruskus, what an absolute gem.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:14:56Just like you are.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:14:57And thanks for coming back on the Plantstrong podcast.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:15:01On the way out, can you give me a virtual plan strong fist bump to Breaking up with dairy?
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:15:07Oh, yeah, let's do it.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:15:09Let's make a movement.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:15:10Millions of people.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:15:11Let's go.
Chef Bailey Ruskus
01:15:12I'm ready.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:15:13Let's go to pre order Breaking up with Dairy.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:15:18Just go to breaking up upwooddairy.com and you can get $175 worth of free content.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:15:25I'll link up exactly how to do that in today's show notes.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:15:29Keep in mind that Chef Bailey Ruskus will be visiting Austin February 23rd.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:15:36She'll be doing an event at Williams Sonoma in the early afternoon.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:15:41And then, fingers crossed, if we can make it happen, we'll be doing a Plan Strong potluck at the world headquarters here in Austin the evening of the 23rd.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:15:51If we can't make that work, we'll do the 24th.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:15:54So just keep an ear to the ground by following us on GoPlanStrong, on Instagram, and my personal Instagram account, RIP Esselstyn.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:16:04And we'll be sure to keep you up to date on those exact dates and times for that Chef Bailey Plan Potluck.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:16:13And stay tuned because in February, our podcast episodes are all going to be focusing on the wonderful, beautiful heart as we celebrate National Heart Month with guest appearances by some of your favorite heart doctors.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:16:28Thanks as always for listening and remember to always, always keep it plant strong.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:16:35The Plan Strong.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:16:36Our strong podcast team includes Kerry Barrett, Lori Kordowich, and Amy Mackey.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:16:42If you like what you hear, do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:16:48You can always leave a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:16:53And while you're there, make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:17:00As always, this is and every episode is dedicated to my parents, Dr.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:17:05Caldwell B.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:17:06Esselstyn Jr.
Rheb Esselstyn
01:17:07And Ann Kreu Esselstyn, thanks so much for listening.
