Dreena Burton
Jim Moore 0:15
Hello, my name is Jim, this is my podcast the bloody vegans. You're very welcome to it. Each week I'll be travelling ever deeper into the world of veganism, discovering along the way a multitude of viewpoints from the political and ethical to the practical. I'll be doing this through a series of conversations, each aiming to further illuminate my understanding, and hopefully yours, of all things plant centric, and this week is no different. Welcome, welcome one. Welcome all. And thank you so much for for tuning into the body vegans podcast. Hopefully you are a subscriber on your podcast medium of choice. That would be wonderful if you are. This week, I'm joined by dreena Burton, I'm pretty sure that anyone in the vegan community quote unquote, will know who dreena Burton is. She's the OG of Vegan Cookbook authors. publishing her first book when it came in 20 inch or 20, in 2001 20 years ago, believe it and but she was she's been vegan for 25 years. So right writing her first book four years in, and she's had, she's had a stream of incredible books come out over the course of time. On this particular episode, we talked about all kinds of different things. But we talked a little bit about dreams, new book, kind kitchen. So over 100 whole foods plant based recipes in this book, and trust me, they are fantastic. I'll know there's a lot of vegan cookbooks out there. But this is a particularly Sterling one, I do recommend you get on it. drainers coined kitchen, available from all good bookshops, and on dreena burton.com. Links in the show notes. As always, before we get into the episode, though, a bit of bit of admin. Sir, wish we start, there's gonna be supporting the podcast. So if you want to support the podcast, you can do so in a variety of ways, and subscribing. Just just simple and free, subscribing to the podcast that helps passing the podcast to a friend, telling a good friend or perhaps even a bad friend, I don't mind telling telling a friend about the podcast would be very helpful as well. So spreading the word that is all free, you can do that for absolutely no pounds sterling. If however, you do want to financially support the podcast, keep the lights on as it were, then you can do via Patreon. So head on over to patreon.com or the Patreon app. And you can subscribe for a small monthly fee. And in return, you'll get all kinds of wonderful bits and pieces, incentives, good easels, all kinds of different things at the different levels. And that really, really would help the more the more subscribers on that particular platform that we get, the more of these we can make, and the more different things we can do and different projects and so on, so forth. And then of course, if you're an apple podcast listener, so you subscribe on there for 99 pence a month, you can get early access to episodes and things like that. So just 99 pence a month are all really helpful. Do feel free to support if you can at all and like I say there are some wonderful free methods to do that too. I think that's it for the admin for today. We'll keep it nice and light nice and simple. So without further ado, here's a conversation between me and dreena Burton, author of drainers kind kitchen Trina would be awesome to get started with a little bit of your personal journey into the world of veganism what what's kind of brought you here? Okay,
Dreena Burton 4:11
it was a long journey. Now I don't really have that great story like you have where it was something that just kind of overnight made a big difference for you. Right. So I began in my early 20s moving into the plant based diet. I'm from Newfoundland in Canada originally that's where I was born and raised and as we were just talking before we jumped on so that's kind of the closest to the UK as you can get in Canada and very neat and you know, very fish as well meat fish will fish is meat but people tend to talk about those frequently. Right? Yes. Centric kind of diet and in my teens, well, it's kind of goes back a bit further, I guess. So I always love food. Like as a kid, I loved food. And I was that kid that would eat a lot of junk food, but also love my mom's cooking, just kind of ate whatever I could. And as I was growing up, and I had a fairly large family, six girls in our family, my dad could never get seconds, we were always eating everything in sight. And, but because of this love for food, I put on weight as a child, and then my dad passed when I was pretty young. So then I kind of turned to food even more. And in my I guess, mom's efforts to try and help me lose weight. You know, back in the day, you do a lot of different diets at the, you know, we call it the plant based diet now, meaning it's a way to eat. But that term diet was very negative for so long, right? It was considered dieting to lose weight. And so I became very conscious of food, like really conscious of food, from an early age because of that. And so my radar, I guess, was up on nutrition. And, you know, first it was how to eat to lose weight, calories, that kind of thing. But then over time it grew. So in my teens, I learned about how red meat doesn't digest well. And that kind of sparked my interest. And then I began to read some books that really kind of lit something up in me. So the first one, one of the first ones was diet for new America by John Robbins. And that book, you know, it covers it was just sort of like this pivotal book for so many people. And it's sold, I think, like millions of copies at this point. Because it covers the health aspects of eating plant based diet and removing dairy from the diet. And of course, he comes from this
Baskin Robbins heritage, right, John Robbins, he was one of the heirs to that whole industry of Baskin Robbins, and he forfeited it to move into eating plant based and choosing a different lifestyle. So he talked about dairy and meat consumption, what it does to our health, the environmental impacts, and of course, the animal agriculture side of things. So when I read that, it, it started something for me and I had already been feeling not great, I'll say in my early 20s. So, you know, my digestion never felt good. I felt so like low GI and tired after eating. And my joints were not feeling good. And I think I'm probably predisposed to some of those things just as a person, but they hit me very early on. And so I was thinking, you know, this is not how you should feel right? You shouldn't feel so uncomfortable after eating your digestion should be smoother, shouldn't be in pain in my 20s in my knees and and that kind of thing. So I began to remove those products from my die, right, I first began with red meat because of course that was the evil meat right? For a very long time, like this was back in the 90s red meat got like the bad rap, but everybody looked at chicken and fish as being health food. Right? That was very, very prevalent. So that's what I removed first and then moved into removing, you know, chicken and fish and then dairy as well. And dairy. We were taking that on my diet was a huge difference for me personally and how I felt and I love to dairy right. So I love it when people say to me, Oh, I can't give up cheese because I get that right. That was like my final frontier was Parmesan cheese was my favourite thing. And I loved ice cream. And I still love ice creams now, but they're vegan. And that all just kind of led me in that direction. So looking back on, you know, what I was dealing with as a child. I think now it all kind of directed me to where I am. In my career. And and in this plant based scene, developing recipes and writing cookbooks, it came to a really good place, but it wasn't for a long time. Like I did not have a good relationship with food for a very long time. And when I when I made that switch to fully plant based on taking the dairy out for like 30 days, right, it has to be about 30 days to get dairy cheese out of your diet. There was no going back. I was like This feels good. This is this is right. But there weren't many resources around then. So online was not a thing like there was no Facebook or Instagram or anything like that. And so it took some time to feel like more secure in it, even to talk to people about it and that you know I was difficult for a long time because it was very obscurity vegan 25 years ago. And I came from a small town and especially there, it wasn't considered. Like it was just far fetched, like, who are you? You're crazy. So yeah, and as I moved into eating plant based, you just learn more and more, and it kind of strengthened you in different parts of the diet, right? So if you come to it from an ethical standpoint, and then you learn about health that kind of strengthens that foundation, then it's like, it's this vegan trifecta, right? The animal compassion and the environment and health, it all kind of comes together. So. So it was a very slow process. For me, it wasn't like I had that one moment, I'm going to do this. But that was partially also to I think, the day and age and there weren't as many resources, no documentaries, and that kind of thing.
Jim Moore 10:54
Yeah, yeah. What a fascinating kind of journey thinking about that, you know, obviously, you came at it from the health angle. And originally, from the point of view of like, if I remove these things, and then I will feel better, and you and you obviously had that impact, like you say, 30 days after removing dairy. There's no going back for you. It's clear, this removal has made a difference. What was the journey like in discovering what beyond removal, but actually what the additions were going to look like? You know, like, how did you sort of rebuild the diet from a health standpoint? Then? Having Yeah, you've got the benefits from removal. But was there almost a different alongside processing? What do we actually eat? Now? You mentioned resources, etc?
Dreena Burton 11:39
Oh, that's a beautiful question. Because I feel like I also have grown a lot in that regard, I didn't start eating lots of leafy greens, or even beans, it was very much removal for a long time, because I didn't know a lot, right. But I think that still speaks to how abundant the plant based diet is. And that if you're eating mostly Whole Foods, you're gonna get good nutrition. I wasn't focusing a tonne on eating beans, but I was still eating a lot of like starches and complex carbohydrates and foods that were still giving a lot of, you know, nutrients. It wasn't until I think I started my, my family with our children, that I began to broaden that spectrum of what we were adding in because then I was concerned about another being besides myself, right. So you know, you have these little beings and it feels like this awesome responsibility to bring them up and nourish them and do the right thing by them. Right. So that's when I think I started to learn about a whole lot of different grains and varieties of beans and just incorporating more vegetables and greens. And greens are something that you really have to get used to in a way right, our palates adjust and kind of accept those components of greens very much. And so you know, you can start with the sweet or like lettuces, and then maybe spinach, and then you move into the more bitter greens, and then this sort of cruciferous greens with kale and, and collards, and those are much more bitter. And that takes time to kind of open up to our palates adjust to over over time. So that's such a good question, because I think we all need to kind of expand our repertoire. And it happens over time, but doesn't usually happen. Within a few months, it takes time to kind of work into getting comfortable with cooking the foods, right, preparing the foods, cooking them, and then also our palate, enjoying them, which really, really changes over time.
Jim Moore 13:42
Yeah, absolutely. I totally relate to this idea of when you when you have children, things suddenly changed. You know, I had, for me very similar in a short timescale, but a year in and you know, we had a little boy, and you suddenly think you suddenly go back to Ireland if you found this, but you suddenly go back to questioning is what I'm doing actually healthy? Mate, the mate and the mainstream culture is telling you it's not particularly around when when everyone's got an opinion on your children. I'm sure you experienced a similar thing, whether you're vegan or not. I think everyone's got an opinion on every aspect of raising a child. Did you have those initial kind of like, wobble was almost of like, is this the right thing? And was there some sources of sort of confidence and assurance that you found either sort of friends family or other people that you developed within a community?
Dreena Burton 14:44
Yeah, oh, another like I love this question too. It is not easy right to have that backbone. When you're in the midst of an appointment with a professional right you're seeing your doctor or something else is going on and you have that, you know, larger than life it feels in the moment, professionals speaking to you. And they ask something about your diet. And you know that they don't either know much about eating plant based or they don't accept it in what they do, right. One of my resources that was very, very valuable to me was becoming vegan by the Santo Molina and Brenda Davis. And Brenda Davis has gone on to you know, write many books since then. And I joked with her when I talked to her some months ago, and I joked that I, when I used to go to the well baby visits, right with your doctor used to go like, you know, when they're very young, you go with the first few months, and then there's these checkpoints, you go. And I'd come back and I'd like cry into those pages. Because our firstborn was on on the 10th percentile, right? So she was born on the 10th percentile. And so anyone who has a baby realises they know what what I'm talking about, yeah, these growth charts, right. And I was actually induced early with her because she was small, like in utero. And I think when, you know, looking back, and we know now it, my dates were all so that's why she was small, but everyone, you know, they're not everyone, the professionals in the moment, we're thinking there's something going on, there's something wrong, there's something with the placenta that I had was running tests on me all day long, for about two weeks, I was, you know, having tested them. And then they said, Let's just induce and, you know, take the stress out of what's going on, because it was stressful. And so she was small for dates. But all through her journey, she was always on that 10th percentile. And as a mother, I wanted to bump her up, right, this is what we do, we think we can control nature like that. Yeah, I can force her to be bigger. So I would like try to find ways to get all those deeply rich, calorie dense foods in her and take her to weigh in. And she was still on the 10th percentile. My second child was on the 50th percentile. And guess what always stayed on the 50th percentile, because at some point, you stop measuring and weighing right? Once they get like, at past a year, year and a half that you don't keep up with that. And it was a big lesson for me to understand that one. You know, through all that time, there were a few people that were really helpful. I had midwives through my my verse, but also like in the hospital, and one of the midwives was a naturopath and she was supportive. She didn't dislike discriminate against the diet, and she just explained, listen, if you're doing this, you need to breastfeed for like two years, because they need mammalian milk. And so that was something I knew I either had to do, or I had to find a way to supplement with that, like, EPA DHA for them when they were little. So having that kind of like welcoming approach rather than someone who's looking down on it, right? That was helpful. But I did use that becoming vegan resource a lot, and really had to accept that, you know, our children come to us a certain way. And yes, we nourish them, but there are genetic forces in play. And now, you know, since raising them, your girls are now 2016 and 12. The third one, by the way, all mentioned, I never followed the growth chart for measured and weighed because I realised, hey, I kind of finally figured that out, Jim, right. It's like, it's okay. But we do that as vegans, right? We think, oh, my gosh, my child's on the 10th percentile, I must be doing something wrong. When those turns everyone, someone has to follow along that chart somewhere, right? There's always going to be someone on the 19th or the 10th. And your vegan baby could be at the 90th. And your, you know, standard American diet child could be at the you know, fifth percentile is how it is. So, yeah, a lot of learning and, and just having to accept certain things along the way.
Jim Moore 19:08
And it's a range, right, I think that's the thing that Yeah, it's like, it's a healthy range, but you have it in your head, the child needs to be 50 or above, or they're not, they're not doing well, I totally relate to that. I remember in I don't know if it's the same over in Canada in the UK, we've got the little red book, and we plot the chart in the Little Red Book, and you're given it and we go to weigh in and there's a sense almost that when you go to the weigh in that people are looking over and they sort of somehow know that you're picking and they're probably all going out it's because because the child's vegan that their underwear, wherever the thing is, I totally relate to that and sounds like you found you found the confidence in your own experience to know but the third
Dreena Burton 19:55
took a while and I shed a lot of tears for sure because we feel I think We have to prove it's the right thing. Or for a long time, we felt we had to prove it was the right thing. Thankfully, like all the resources are there first now in the science and information saying this is such an abundant diet, not just okay, but healthy, right. And at the time, for me, it felt not just odd, but that people would view it as being risky or dangerous, right. So that that's a hard thing to take on as a parent to have that feeling of judgement from people. So you definitely have to have a backbone in those moments and know that you're doing the right thing, have the resources, know that you're doing, you know, one, we tend to educate ourselves far more than most people do on nutrition anyhow, right? We really do. But I think it's that thing that, you know, if you have a cold, someone might say, Oh, it's because you're baking. Right?
Jim Moore 21:01
Yep, totally relate, totally relate, I'd love to get your experience on this. And maybe this is selfish should be. Because because of my personal you know, I'm at this particular point in, in my sort of journey as a dad and parent, three and a half year old, obviously, and going to nursery, you start getting invited to the the nursery parties and things like that, friends, houses, bits and pieces, and then they get their own opinion. Which, you know, obviously, this is not new news to you. But to me, as a dad of a small, everything was really cool. And then he woke up one day and had an opinion about three years old, and I was for some reason, I was surprised by this. And one of those opinions was that he didn't like vegetables for a period of time. Have you been through that? And obviously, you know, what, what sort of what's the kind of top tips because as vegans that's kind of what we what we want them to eat is this if any advice will be gratefully received,
Dreena Burton 22:11
first off, I'm going to get to my plant carb families book because you need that one. I don't know if I have a copy of it here. But I need to get you that book because it has all these I you know, tips for picky eaters in the book. And you know, once you get into the birthday parties at it all comes right and and having to make sure they have the vegan options at the birthday parties. But okay, so they part of what they're doing is that like power, you know, struggle or I would say struggle a power move with kids because they want to see how much you're going to cave and given a meal, right. And usually, they know foods a good one because we want them to eat healthy. So it's a good place for them to hold a little bit of power. But I will say through raising these three girls, something magical happens at around age 1314. I know it's a ways off sorry. But at around age 13 or 14, they start to accept a lot of the foods that you've been introducing, and some of them that they you know, didn't like for a long time, all of a sudden, something matures with their palettes and they're happy to eat like greens and mushrooms and red peppers. And it's like what's going on? It's a great thing, but for a very long time, right I had kids who would like sneak lettuce under their napkin, or like try to wipe a seasoning off something and then try to lather it with avocado to eat it it was just painful. But so stick with it all I can say stick with it, keep presenting the choices and in time they will, you know open up to more as as time goes on. But some kids really don't like certain things too, right? Like just like we don't as adults. Like I don't love eggplant. I don't use it much of my cooking. It's not a vegetable that I love. Other people absolutely love it. I also don't love beets, but some people like it's one of their favourite things and my middle girl will not eat a berry of any kind. Right? So I've talked about this in my book, she doesn't like a blueberry, strawberry, blackberry, nothing. There's something about the bitterness I think in the little seeds that she just really hates. And so that's something that I've just kind of had to accept she just has never ever eaten them and when I've tried to force her creatively force her like saying, you know, if you eat this, the things we tried to do it wish she would sit there for an hour or more and and just kind of like scrape away and really just be so miserable. So you know, there are things they they won't like, but over time they they do accept a lot of it
Jim Moore 24:55
is I mean it's such it when you say it sounds obvious, but it's Hey comes from comes from wisdom and experience. But you're absolutely right. I was only having this discussion this evening with my, with my wife and my little boy about how I don't really like people don't use can't stand them haven't since I was small, they're not for me. And yeah, I'm not missing out on a major food groups, but it's it just it just goes to show you, your palates your palate, you know and so there is a bit of that as well as obviously the, the, like you say the, the trying to seize a little bit of control over their their lives, which is which I guess is all natural and
Dreena Burton 25:36
they realise they soon soon have this like little bit of power that they can, you know, work with. But also the thing is, too with like, you know, if you look at the vegetable and fruit world, usually there's, you know, something in one category that if you don't like it, there's another option that's very similar. So for instance, you know, we talk about the colours of foods. So if you're eating orange, vegetables and fruit, if you don't like carrots, but you love sweet potatoes, you're basically getting the same nutrients in that orange, you know, orange coloured vegetable. Similarly, if you really don't like broccoli, but you like kale, where they're both cruciferous, and they're both giving you a, you know, those leafy green kind of components. So, there tends to be almost like nature's figured that out for us, right? They kind of give us some options that we can pick and choose and say, Well, I'm getting the oranges and I'm getting the purples and the greens and you know, something will work
Jim Moore 26:32
is like you say, it's funny now nature has kind of figured this stuff out. Absolutely. Well, on that note, and obviously I want to come on to the book because there's that it's an absolute kind of Bible, I think of just some wonderful things that you can you can cook together as a family, and you can certainly get no get get the whole family involved and and get like a really balanced and varied diet, but with some real kind of home cooking favourites and things like that. I absolutely want to come onto it. But I do want to, you know, ask you a question from your your experience, because, you know, being vegan for this period of time, bringing up children in in that way, too. It's always on my mind. So it would be remiss of me not to ask with your your kind of the benefit of your experience. When you kind of first went into this, this diet, I'd imagine the world of pre prepared the world of fast foods, the world of convenience, didn't didn't exist to anything like the degree that exists. Now I was speaking to somebody who was vegan for a similar period of time, who talked about going to, you know, travelling at some distance to get powdered soy milk, and things like that. And then stirring the lumps out of it in their coffee and things like that. Not very nice at all. I'd love to get your view on it. You know, because obviously, what struck me about the book is it you talked about what you're needing to learn to cook leading to learn to, to really embrace that in order to make sure that you you did feel all the benefits for from a health standpoint, what's your view on on the way things have moved? Do you see things positively? Do you view it with a bit of trepidation? I'd love to get your perspective.
Dreena Burton 28:18
Yeah, it's, we kind of have everything we want right now, don't we, I mean, we're little bits boiled almost as vegans except for the fact that all of these alternatives are generally very pricey, right? Most of them are a little bit not all of them, but a lot of them are pretty expensive. And so you know, you can spend a lot of money on little amount of food because it's, you know, it's a specialty product, right, like nut cheeses or vegan ice cream and I you know, I love all of these options. But there's a couple of things that if you come to the diet for ethics and you and that's wonderful and you start eating these products and substituting them over time, you will need to move into like you say cooking and embracing more just Whole Foods and and you know vegetables and fruits and beans and grains. Because there's you know, there's not much health in those foods, right? Especially the the products that are made to be replicating meat or deep fried foods, where they're very processed, and you know, they're fun. But if you're eating those for lunch and dinner for a period of months, then you're just not gonna feel great. And then you're not doing yourself a service, or long term the diet and the lifestyle or service because it's not sustainable. So you you know, I think there's a general group graduating out of those foods or at least mostly out of them. Those convenience highly processed convenience foods, great for transition, right obviously great for our kids when they're out with their friends. Their friends are all going to McDonald's or a and w and now we can finally get a burger there and they can be with their friends and not feel ostracised, right. That's like the best scenario for me as a mom knowing that my kids can have that normalcy in their lives where they didn't have it when they were younger, and I'd be bringing baking cupcakes to parties and making things did you know kind of total long now they can feel more normal in those sorts situations. But I came to the diet from a place of Whole Foods, because like you said, there was very little available, there were a couple of brands of soy milks. There was, I think, tofu in, you know, water pack containers, we had this one little health food store that had tofu in big bins that you scoop out and put it a container. So it was really crunchy, right, it was way back. So but I learned to cook with all these foods. I didn't rely on the substitutes now and I look I'm like, wow, like we have everything from a eggs to you know, burgers and chicken nuggets and yoghurts, there's everything. And there's a place for it. But really, I think the foundation should be about 80 to 90% Whole Foods, and then enjoy those convenience foods when you need them or that treats because you know, we all want trees.
Jim Moore 31:18
Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think, you know, you mentioned earlier that if you're plant based, if you're vegan, you're probably going to have done. In fact, I'd say you definitely are going to have done a lot more research into your nutrition, generally speaking. And so yeah, I think if you think about it, it's sort of flip it around the other way. Folks who are kind of omnivorous, don't live off this stuff, you know that? You know, back in my omnivorous days, I didn't, I didn't live off fast food or generally 9010 8020. You kind of recognise those foods are what they are. I think, sometimes in the early days, we kind of think, oh, okay, well we can eat was especially the sort of the newly newly minted vegan if you like, and come into it thinking, this is what I need to do. And then like you say, not only becomes unhealthy, but prohibitively expensive. And you can be left with a bad feeling about the whole thing, rather than feeling all the joys and the benefits of all the things that we know to be to be true sort of thing. So yeah, I think I think absolutely, again, sage advice, and a place to go to for for a resource obviously, is, is the book. Come on, let's come on to it. So. So what inspired you to write a book? And what you know, what experiences kind of led to it that you thought, You know what, this is a resource that needs to be kind of made? And I need to be the person to make it?
Dreena Burton 32:41
Yeah, well, I wrote my so my first cookbook came out in like, 2001. And it was after my husband's father had a heart attack. And he was someone like most people who have heart attacks. You not most but a good proportion, I guess I'd say, excuse me, you would never know they have heart disease. Right? They they look generally okay, they don't think they have any health issues. It came out of the blue and oddly, very, very oddly, I also think is one of those like things that happen in life that's just kind of like meant to kind of come together. But his cardiologist in Newfoundland at the time said, hey, you know, you need to change your diet. And I want to see you move into a plant based diet and recommended Dr. Dean Ornish, his programme, which is very low fat, like very, very low fat for disease reversal. And at the time, we were already being and my husband and I, and they came to us and said, you know, we need to, we need to do this, what do we need to do? So I helped them, you know, with their pantry and finding, you know, sort of restocking what they needed, but then also started sketching out recipes because I knew that was something I always wanted to do. And this seemed to be like the time to do it, obviously, right, like how to eat, show someone else how to eat this way, and very Whole Foods and healthy. And so with, with that book, I've kind of journeyed on into this is book number six. And with this book, I really wanted the focus to be because with the other books, I tended to focus on the family. Not that I don't focus on the family here, but the recipes are really for anyone but what I really wanted to convey was that you can be at any point in this journey, and I'm going to meet you there with it with this book. So not just that the recipes like the title kind kitchen Yes, it's it's it's a diet that's kind of our health kind of the planet kind of animals but also how I approach it with people and how I have always tried to be in the community is to meet you where you are, and not judge and not shame if you you slip up or whatever, but to just help almost coach you In the direction of eating this way, and and with these recipes, I do the same. So I tried to try to shape the book in a way that it sets you up from grocery store to making the recipe. So here's what you know, when you're doing your shop, when you come home, this is what you will make the process easier. For instance, getting all your veggies just quickly washed and prepped and ready. And batch cooking. I give tips on batch cooking. And then I have a Frequently Asked Questions section. So I answer all the questions that people tend to ask me through forums and through, you know, social media. And then the recipes themselves are easy, like in the sense that after writing a number of books, and there was a time I like to get really fancy with the process and like do things in steps. And then I had kids. And then I realised that was not fun anymore having all these steps. And really all they wanted to do was to make the cooking process as efficient as possible. So that's what I really also offer in this book is like, here's what we're making. Rather than have three steps, we're putting everything in the casserole dish or everything in the food processor, we're getting this in the oven, and it's going to be delicious and wholesome, and not require too much effort on your part. So thinking
Jim Moore 36:20
about that, you know, I think it really struck me, you know, you mentioned about meeting people where they are, I think the book really struck me as, like you say, oh, wouldn't, I'd hate to say it was it wasn't it wasn't as if the recipes were simple, or they were like, but they weren't complex, they weren't like overly intricate, they weren't intimidating, I think is probably the word I've picked up a lot of vegan cookbooks in the past and felt like, just felt a little bit overboard. And a bit like, this is a little bit beyond me. And I think that's when I find you know, the convenience foods or the the alternatives. Or perhaps even just a less a rich, a less rich diet that I am cooking, but it's not quite as varied. Because Because these some of these things can be a little scary. The recipe list the ingredient list, the kind of where to get these ingredients. So when you think Where do I even start? It struck me as you know, that, that that was really thought about thinking about like, like you say the kindness, you know, if I had just picked up this book, how would I feel, which I think is quite remarkable considering you've been in the, the vegan world for a long time. So it'd be easy to say it would easy to it would be easy to come almost complacent to that and to think well, you know, everyone knows this kind of stuff. I sometimes I catch myself thinking it's easy. It's easy, isn't it to catch yourself, sometimes I do it, I do it now and then thinking Well, everybody knows that about X, X product or so on how to cook kale. But not everyone does. So that that was a really struck me how have you managed to maintain that over the years, you know, if you if you kept kept a real kind of community around you who perhaps aren't necessarily and and so on and, and often talk to them about this kind of thing. How have you done that?
Dreena Burton 38:15
Well, that's, you know, it's tricky, right? Because with like when you're creating recipes for myself, I want to offer something new, I want to offer something interesting, something maybe somebody hasn't tried before, but at the same time, I want to also offer recipes that are well rounded for people that want to eat just real food, right? That they want to just make doable recipes, so that it's not overwhelming, not intimidating, like you say. Because most of us, that's not all we have time for if we want to entertain, that's when to pull out, you know, the book with the fancy recipe, but even that can feel like too much to do, right? We're putting all the pressure on ourselves. And most of us just want to eat like good food day to day and not feel like it's gonna be a huge daunting process. I do have the most amazing I have to say I have an amazing community that like through my social channels and my newsletter that I've you know, kept sort of in touch with over the years and there's been people who have tested recipes for me from the beginning, and who have been with my work from the beginning, I had this one lady who, you know, bought my very first book. And when my fourth book came out, she made a quilt for me and quilted in the names of the recipes are just like oh my gosh, this right but this is the kind of like goodness that is in. I think when you you know cultivate that feeling and you want to give that to a community you know, you can get it back. But at the same time sometimes I feel like oh I should have you know I look at this book Jim and then I sometimes I think I can you know you're we're all human right it goes, Ah, sure. Maybe I should have put some fancier recipes in there or maybe I should have done this and this and that. I'm thinking, well, maybe my next book, I'll do that, like, oh my gosh, I haven't even just come off a month on this one yet. And I'm already thinking ahead. Because you know, you want to offer something for everyone, right? You kind of want to be able to, to make the diet feel like it can be for everyone and offer both the doable easy recipes, but also something that Wow is right. So hopefully, there's a few things in there that give the wow factor. But mostly I wanted to give the hey, let's just eat really good food.
Jim Moore 40:33
Well, that I think he absolutely did. And so as I was sort of, you know, like I said, I was I was struggling around the word simplistic because it is not it's not simplistic it but it's also not intimidating. And that's quite a hard balance to strike a thing. You can come at recipe books the other way as well that you think, well, this isn't, you know, this isn't really satisfying my kind of urge to cook and feel like I'm developing skills. And so I think it manages to strike both, which is a difficult thing to do. Absolutely, folks who are just coming to veganism, or perhaps folks who maybe have been in the vegan world for maybe a few years, but particularly if they a few other recent years, maybe they came to the route, I did documentary route and so on. And grew up in this sort of the Beyond Meat generation of vegans, I feel, which I've just coined as a true, yeah. But if they've come up in that generation, and they think you know, what, now is time to take control of things from where do they start, you know, if we think about going to, as you've done in the book, if you think about going to the the supermarket, the grocery store, wherever, what are the kind of staples, you'd say, these are the ingredients that you need to get your head round as a new vegan or a vegan looking to become a little bit more whole food plant based and cooking from scratch.
Dreena Burton 41:56
Yeah. Oh, awesome. So I'd say first, don't be afraid of the starches, right? A lot of people tend to be think that we have to focus so much on protein and that eating things like potatoes aren't nice. Potatoes have gotten a bad rap for a long, long time, right? Potatoes are wonderful food, we should all be eating them unless you have an allergy to potatoes. So you know those really good starchy vegetables, potatoes, sweet potatoes, root veggies, winter squash, those are wonderful staples to incorporate into your diet. And if you're nervous about cooking them, I always say just throw them in the oven and let them roast up. Because that's the easiest way to cook anything like you know, a potato, sweet potato again, winter squash, you're not having to peel it and worry about you know, the cutting because those winter squash, they're like beasts, right, trying to cut into them. And I tend to roast them holes so that you don't have to hack at them because they're big and difficult to work with. And then also pick a couple of grains that you like. So for me, we love keen one we love brown rice and different varieties of rice. I don't utilise other grains quite as much like millet, amaranth, but you know, if you want to explore those great, but I think focus on a couple of new things rather than a whole bunch, right? Don't go out and try to you know, get every new vegetable that you haven't tried, like maybe maybe just one new vegetable a month or one new grain a month. And so if you're focusing on the beans, whole grains, a couple of whole grains of range of vegetables and fruits, and of course your leafy greens, you want to get those in there, then you're really set and nuts and seeds as well. I like to encourage people to use seeds a lot. I tend to work with seeds a lot in this book as well versus not that I don't use nuts, but I do I do use them. But I have a lot of people that have nut allergies, right that I've connected with over the years. So in the book, I offer recipes that are traditionally not based in plant based cooking, like say cheesecake, right, we make a cheesecake with raw cashews. So I have one that's not free in this book and also oil free. So encouraging people to you know, kind of expand their horizons with using things like pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and that kind of thing. But you know if it's if it's a big leap starting with one thing that you love a lot like if you know you love potatoes or you know you love sweet potatoes, then start making those more of a staple in your diet and build around them right so sweet potatoes can be not a side dish. You could stuffed them with like salsa and make like almost like tacos with sweet potatoes. You can make a pasta sauce with them. You can add them to soups and stews and all kinds of things. So making that one element that you really love more of a focus and building around it.
Jim Moore 44:58
Absolutely, yeah. Great. Great. Shout out to me. If I think about the beginning of my journey, the roasted tray Baker vegetables was the absolute go to the staple of like, I don't know what to do with this
Dreena Burton 45:17
too, right? You could do a tray of roasted vegetables and still love it.
Jim Moore 45:21
Yeah, there's that and houmous were like the the kind of like hope and are quickly cottoned on to homemaking Homer. So yes. A shop bought is expensive. And pretty much, you know no difference if Yeah, yeah, it's not as good. Very oil, oil heavy as well. And in fact, I noticed a wonderful homeless recipe in your in your book in the new one. I think it was called The Good day sunshine homeless. Yeah. And I yeah, I think folks should definitely get on that if they're, if they're new to it, or even if they're still buying shop, or I recommend this recipe
Dreena Burton 45:59
I'm on that I think this should be like a campaign to get people making their own hummus because I joke I have this hashtag hummus is a food group. Because you love hummus, you really love hummus. But if you only try storebought, you think that's what hummus is. And it's not it does not taste anything like making it your own. And I just did a video the other day making hummus and giving people tips on how to make it really creamy. And making a lot of it because you can freeze portions of hummus and have it in the freezer for later and pull it out. And someone asked me do you have to peel the chickpeas to make hummus? I was like, Oh my gosh, no, if we all did that no one would make hummus. Make a thing like forget this is way too much. But that's you know, these are some of the things that people like you say you think you know that you think you figure people know that? But they don't. Right. So they may not know how to bake potatoes, for instance. So just, you know, guiding them in that way. And people don't know that you don't have to peel chickpeas for hummus. So there's a lot, right. There's a lot of information and misinformation.
Jim Moore 47:04
Absolutely. Yeah. Just a question six, six books in coming up with a book of this scale over 100 recipes. I don't even know how like, how, what was that process? Like of, of coming up with the recipes. You mentioned, you've got some tried and tested sort of recipe testers within your community and so on. But where where do you even where do you even start from the development perspective?
Dreena Burton 47:34
I, I It's weird. I feel like I need intervention at this point. Because even now I'm testing new recipes. I'm like, why am I doing this already. There's just something fun, I guess to like, kind of create something new, I don't always go back to the there's certain favourites that I go back to, like recipes that I've loved over the years and use a lot. But I enjoy the process of creations. So I find myself just kind of getting in and marking up something new. My challenge now is writing things down because they don't like to measure anymore. And I don't I've gotten lazy with measuring and gotten lazy with writing it down. So I'm just like, I want to get it and create it and think that I'll have some, you know, mass memory of it all. And I don't And it's funny because I create things now. And then my youngest hope who's 12? She'll say, Mom, this is excellent. Is this a new recipe? And she says, Wait, you didn't write it down? Did you? I was like, No, I didn't. But it's you know, it's either that I sketch out a recipe like I know, I want to create a new caesar dressing for instance, which I've created a number of different Caesar dressings, but you can still you know, there's oodles of variations on the classics, right. And so the one in this book is not just vegan and oil free, it's also nut free. And it has a smoky essence with smoked paprika. So I if I'm sketching out a recipe, I may like, kind of get the foundation of what I want to have in the in the recipe for elements and then tweak it as I go along. But more often than not, I get in the kitchen, and I go, Oh, I'm going to do this. And I just grab a piece of paper and start sketching down the rough misery measurements. And then hope and pray that if it works out that I'll remember it or be able to replicate it because that's that's where the magic is, is being able to replicate it with similar or the same, you know, as much precise replication as you can get.
Jim Moore 49:31
When you get into like, you know, I'm going to try and make something not free. I'm going to you know, think about oil free, I'm going to get into these different variants. And that might might be you know, like you say you've done that recipe 50 times you've made a cheesecake recipe, but this is the first time you might go right, I'm going to I'm going to rethink this whole thing. How much trial and error is there in that and I guess is there is there a greater degree of pride when you get to the end and you've like I've nailed it.
Dreena Burton 50:00
Oh, I always put it on Instagram when some nail that I'm like, Look, I look at this recipe, there are some that just don't come together. And usually if it's if it's causing, I know that if it's causing me a great deal of frustration, and I've retested a number of times, and I'm just not getting it that either I need to abandon it, or just shelve it for a while, because then something might like come up in my mind later, right? It could be driving to get the kids at school and then go, oh, use that ingredient. And then, so sometimes you didn't really like anything in life, right, you have to just step back from it. And let it just kind of do its thing and stew and then you can come back to it. But there is a recipe like in this one, there's a crackle blender brownies. And it's a brownie recipe that is made from red lentils, which I know sounds really wacky. But it's naturally like flour gluten free, because it uses red lentils and I do it in the blender and everything is made in the blender and then poured from the blender into the pan to bake. So there's not even a mixing bowl involved, which is really nice. But that one I think I tested like, I don't know, 2025 times and started almost abandon it. But then I got it. And I was like, Yes, this is what I wanted. So it's very exciting. Yes, when I do when I do get that like prize moment, and then I cross fingers that I can replicate it.
Jim Moore 51:17
And I guess by this point, the kids are probably are they the harshest critics at
Dreena Burton 51:21
this point? Yes, actually. Yeah.
Jim Moore 51:24
And don't pull any punches.
Dreena Burton 51:26
Not really. And they'll say I like this, but the textures, whatever. I would like it to be a little bit more this way. But when they were little, like you mentioned the picky eater. So my I always think back to my youngest, who for a very long time, whenever I would give her something, you know, whatever I made, she'd say, I don't like this. It's yucky and stinky. So that's about as harsh criticism as you can get. And I know it's I you know, obviously you know it. That's not what it is. But then one night I was making a soup and she's like, Mommy, what soup is this? And I said, Oh, it's a new one. And it's called that not yucky and stinky soup. And she gave me a smirk that was the end of that phase. You know, once I told her this is not yucky and stinky soup. I know what you're doing.
Jim Moore 52:16
I might try that one stage right now. Yeah. You've spent hours cooking something trying to hide every single vegetable, right? Yeah. Making it nutritionally balanced is got all of the micronutrients he could ever need. And then it's yucky and stinky.
Dreena Burton 52:34
Those little buggers, right.
Jim Moore 52:38
It's the nature of it. Yeah. Is there is there one or two recipes that you know if if folks picked up the book, you'd say you have to try this. These are these are like for you the ones that you feel really proud about you feel like these, these really showcase some great whole food plant based cooking.
Dreena Burton 52:55
Oh, that's a nice question. I think one that I love. It's called the curried carrot lentil soup. And I love that one because it uses things we always have on hand. We almost always have carrots and onions and red lentils pretty simple basic ingredients, a little bit of curry powder, but the combination of flavours in there and then a little bit of lime juice just kind of makes everything come together. It's really delicious and homey and and simple though, right? That's the kind of thing you can throw together any night. A lot of my readers are loving the lentil and sweet potato meatloaf so it's like a loaf you know meatloaf kind of thing made with lentils but also has sweet potato in there a lot of people are loving that. Let's see those are a couple of my afraid favourites. And you know I could go on about the desserts but yeah, I think those ones like for savoury recipes. Those are probably a couple of my favourites. And yeah, and there's another queso dip that I make with pumpkin seeds. I love that one too. Absolutely get me time to eat
Jim Moore 53:59
the the meatloaf one actually struck me because it that was the one that sort of just rung rung bells of like home comfort food, traditional feels family friendly. Just it was one of those that I felt like this, this is the kind of thing that you know as as a as somebody who's a parent and so on and and has has no family around. That's the kind of thing I think, you know, everyone just enjoys eating and it's just that my recipe did really strike me actually is one that should be should be there, you know? So yeah, I was pleased to see that.
Dreena Burton 54:31
Oh, awesome. Yeah, I actually had a reader made it last just like yesterday for her family. And she said I've made a many loaves like many different vegan meat loaves and my family said this was their favourite so that was really nice to hear. Not that you know, it's always everybody's favourite right? Everyone has different tastes, but it's become popular already. So I love to hear that because you should have that kind of like classic homey comfort food, right that's, we all want that and we you can make it wholesome when you can make it vegan and also wholesome. It's a bonus
Jim Moore 55:06
100% 100% Well, let time time is getting away. But I absolutely want folks to know where to pick up a copy of your new book. So where would they go to pick up a copy?
Dreena Burton 55:17
Yeah, any online retailer, Amazon or you know, whatever online retailer, you usually purchase or stores bookstores, and if they don't have it, it's really important to also just say, Hey, can you bring that book in because sometimes bookstores don't know about it, or haven't brought it in. So either way, and they can also go to my site, dreena Burton, my full name.com. And I've got information there.
Jim Moore 55:39
Definitely worth checking out. And also check out your Instagram, like there's some great, great content on there. Sort of a really good starting place for folks who want to find out a little bit more about you and so on. So I'll make sure we link everything in the in the show notes. So folks can check it all out and pick up a copy of the book. But during the day, it's been it's been amazing chatting with you. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it and good luck with everything with the book. I think it's a fantastic resource. I know myself and my little boy Arthur and my wife are going to no doubt enjoy cooking this recipe so thank you.
Dreena Burton 56:13
Thank you a pleasure and good luck with the you know, picky eating.
Jim Moore 56:17
Thank you. I'll be I'll be back in touch with. Absolutely. Thanks, Gina. Thank you