033-Whole Food and Unprocessed! – An Interview with Chef AJ Part 1

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On this podcast I am delighted to interview my new friend and colleague, Chef AJ. Chef AJ is the author of the book “Unprocessed”.

She was the executive vegan pastry chef at Sante Restaurant and has been a chef and culinary instructor in Los Angeles for the past 12 years.

You can get her book at Amazon here

or the kindle version here

She is the creator and co-producer of the annual Healthy Taste of LA event held every year in Redondo Beach, California. This year it is being held on November 3.

I first met Chef AJ over a year ago at an event for Colin Campbell that was held at the USC school of medicine. She was the main chef there and the food was absolutely delicious. In fact many non-vegans said it was the best food they’ve ever had!

Then recently, AJ invited me to a vegan whole food plant based cooking class which she held at her house. I was totally inspired by this class and how easy it could be to cook in a whole food unprocessed plant based fashion that I went on to take some private training with her so I could make my own food! (My wife was delighted!)

Chef AJ’s primary focus is to encourage us all to eat UNPROCESSED food. Ideally this will be whole food plant based but even if it’s not she encourages us all to eat only or mostly unprocessed.

In this, Part One of our interview Chef AJ talks about the Healthy Taste Of LA event which will be held in Los Angeles in November. You can find a link to the event here.

Also at that event Dr.Caldwell Esselstyn will speak about why we all should be eating a whole food unprocessed plant based diet. Dr. Essestyn wrote the book entitled Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition – based Cure.

His book is available here

or on Kindle here

His most famous patient is President  Bill Clinton who came to him about his own heart disease when drugs and surgery were not enough. You can watch President Clinton‘s interview about his diet program at this link.

So in this the first part of my interview with Chef AJ, after we talk about the Healthy Taste of LA event , we go on to talk about “Unprocessed” and I ask AJ what is Unprocessed?

She references Jack Lalane who said “If God made it, eat it. If Man made it, don’t eat it!” She also notes Margaret Mead said  “It is easier to change a man’s religion than to change his diet” and I would agree with that as a doctor that works with sick patients and talks to them about diet!

Chef AJ talks about making your own food at home.

Most Americans eat 70% of their calories from processed foods.

She talks about what the problems are with processed foods. They cause inflammation which my readers know is the underlying cause of many diseases.

She says that even in Whole Foods, be careful because 90% of what is there, is processed food.

The End of Overeating by Dr David Kessler the former Surgeon General reviews the processed food industry and the problems resulting from it.

You can get it on kindle here.

Processed food is so addictive because it contains sugar, fat, and salt . In combination these 3 foods are highly addictive.

Now we have unprecedented rates of diabetes in kids. But our genes do not change that fast, so it has to be diet she points out!

I then direct our talk to “what is wrong with sugar”. Simple sugars are micronutrient poor foods and that leads to the problems from it.

I then go on to ask Chef AJ to talk about the problems with oil. And we will be discussing that in the next podcast.

Thank you for joining me in my podcast. Remember you can send me questions at question@askdrsoram.com,  or you can call our hotline for questions at 310-499-0275.

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