#56: Plant-Forward Nutrition with Hannah Van Ark

We are happy to have Hannah Van Ark on the podcast this week! Hannah is a registered dietitian dedicated to helping people thrive by eating more plants. She holds degrees in physiology, neuroscience, and human nutrition from the University of Colorado and Colorado State University. She uses plant-based, flexible nutrition to help her clients lose weight sustainably while improving their heart health and boosting longevity. 
This episode is focused on meal planning with a plant-forward approach. Hannah gives lots of tips for how to add more plants to your meals and why this dietary change is great for a lot of people. Enjoy!

Hannah's Free resource: Completing Your First Plant-Forward Meal Plan, https://www.theplantforwardnutritionist.com/freeguide

Instagram: @plant.forward.nutritionist
Website: www.theplantforwardnutritionist.com

Find Hannah's recipe for Buffalo Chickpeas

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

I'm Riley and I'm Roni. And this is the plan to eat podcast, where we have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you answer the question what's for dinner.

Roni: Hello and welcome to the Plan to Eat podcast. Today we interviewed Hannah Van Ark. She is a dietician, a former nutrition and longevity researcher, and she's an expert in nutritional for sustainable weight loss. Her passion is in helping people find their body's happiest weight with plant-forward and flexible nutrition. She uses plant-based flexible nutrition to help her clients lose weight sustainably while improving their heart health and boosting longevity. 

Riley: We really enjoyed our conversation with Hannah. We got to hear her background, like even her background in, in food and research and how she came to a plant forward diet and. Man, our conversation really ran the gamut from her background to how she eats and meal planning tips and tricks.

Um, we're excited for you guys to hear it and hope that you love it.[00:01:00] 

Roni: Hannah, thanks so much for joining us today. We appreciate you being here with us on the podcast.

Hannah: Thank you so much for having me, you guys. I'm really excited for this chat.

Riley: Let's just jump right in and why don't you tell us a little bit about you and how you became a dietitian.

Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Hannah and I'm a registered dietician. I'm also a former nutrition researcher, and I kind of had like a little bit of a roundabout way of becoming a dietician. I would say. I grew up in Boulder, Colorado, which is sort of like a very health conscious community as you may know.

Um, And my mom was very like health conscious, so I kind of grew up around like healthy eating and nutrition. I did have a moment of rebellion in high school where I was like, I just don't wanna deal with any of that anymore. And so after going off to college, I actually had a surgery that, um, Ended up putting me in a wheelchair for like three months.

And through that process I put on, you know, some weight, understandably, and I realized that I had no idea how to feed [00:02:00] myself healthfully. I had no idea how to essentially get my health back on track after that experience. And so I started to like, dig into some research on my own. Um, I ended up coming across like more of like the low carb.

It was, this was like 2010 ish and I feel like that was like a really popular thing around the 20 10, 20 12 thing. Um, but I ended up coming across like a lot of like low-carb info and I was like, this is it. This makes sense. I'm gonna go for like this low-carb lifestyle. And so I started kind of dipping my toe into it and starting to try to change my eating pattern a little bit, but without much knowledge about what actually was good for short-term health, long-term health, kind of just winging it.

Um, and around that time I was also in college and so I wanted to do something. Healthcare related, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do at that point. So I ended up getting involved in physiology research, just starting to volunteer in laboratories. I ended up getting a position at the Integrative Physiology of Aging Laboratory, which [00:03:00] is one of the biggest labs at CU Boulder.

And that was a great experience because we essentially dove into research to sort of try to determine what would help people live their longest and healthiest lives. And a lot of that ended up being nutrition interventions actually. So that was, yeah, another way that. Even though it was a little bit roundabout, I ended up in the nutrition research world for about six years between two universities and kind of running studies and clinical trials and things like that.

Um, and I could have kept going with that because academia and dietician, those are two completely different, you know, paths. But I kind of wanted to focus more on prevention and actually work hands-on with people and. After six years in research, I decided to go through the process to become a registered dietician, and I went through all my schooling and my supervised internship and you know, got my first job and then went off on my own a few years later to [00:04:00] establish my private practice where I could actually teach what I had learned through this entire process, which, as you may guess, is not the low carp lifestyle that I started with.

I now sort of teach more of a plant forward approach where we center the lifestyle on whole plant foods and I help people achieve like those short-term goals that they may have, whether that's to lose weight or gain energy, but also keeping in mind the long-term health as well. I think you can do both, and so that's kind of what I'm all about now.

Roni: That's great. Yeah, so your name online is the Plant Forward Nutritionist. So can you give us a little bit more info on like, what does a plant forward diet look like? What does that mean?

Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. So that's the kind of cool thing about like a plant forward diet is there's no strict definition, but really what we wanna be doing with a plant forward lifestyle is basing the eating pattern on whole plant foods. And the whole plant foods would be things like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts and seeds, beans, [00:05:00] herbs, and spices, those sorts of things.

Um, but it's, it doesn't box you to limit any food at all. I personally am not vegan or vegetarian. I still include all foods in my lifestyle and that includes animal products. So I would say that it's a little bit of a different balance for everybody. But eating. What we do know is that eating a majority of your calories from whole plant foods tends to work really, really well for long-term health outcomes.

And so that's what kind of got. I mean, once I started to get into research and I started to actually learn this stuff as opposed to just like Googling online and like looking at the first thing that popped up in 2010, um, that's when I started to realize that it was a plant forward approach that has thousands of studies behind it to basically say that this is gonna be, you know, one of the best ways that you can eat for like long-term health as well as, you know, any of those short-term goals that I had mentioned earlier.

So that's what it basically means, and the balance is really different for everybody. But in [00:06:00] terms of just like a general goal or benchmark to aim for, we know that eating 80 to 90% plants will get you those long-term health outcomes That sort of I was talking about

Riley: Was it a hard transition for you to, cuz I imagine since you did the low carb thing for a little while, um, that was a pretty big shift. So talk to us about that and how you navigated it and maybe how you help your clients navigate it. Because I think people listening who may wanna start eating that way, um, would love to know how.

Hannah: Absolutely. And I think it was like I was ho, I was like holding two ideas in my mind at the same time. Like I was truly had this like disconnect because I was, um, in the research field and I was learning about how these plant forward, vegetarian plant predominant diets were really, really good for long-term health.

And I was like, put that in one box. But then on the other hand, I just didn't trust it. I don't know why I, I don't know quite why, but I just didn't trust it. And I was like, but what about all this other stuff I wrote online? [00:07:00] So what I would say there was, there was a couple of reasons why the low carb approach.

Ended up falling apart from me. The first is that it just felt too restrictive. Um, I don't know if anybody's ever been on like a, a, a diet like keto or something like that, where you literally have to cut out all carbs without hope of ever eating bread again. That just wasn't gonna happen for me. And so it just felt too restrictive.

It, it impacted my mental health in a negative way. To think about foods in that way and to think about foods that I could never have again, essentially, or think about foods truly to think about foods as good or bad. That does not work well for me and my mental health. A lot of my clients have experienced that as well.

So I'd say that that was like the first thing. And then the second thing is that I felt like I had always struggled with anxiety my whole life. And I felt that being on a low carb lifestyle truly made my anxiety worse. And I, you know, it took me a long time to actually recognize that. But especially in women, there are [00:08:00] hormonal shifts that can happen when you're not giving yourself a lot of energy our hormones are super sensitive to energy balance.

And so when I ended up going off of the low carp lifestyle, because I started to trust what I was reading in the research a little bit more, um, I started to feel so much better in terms of my anxiety. And you know, this goes for intermittent fasting too. This was something that, again, so I was also in this physiology lab that studied aging.

We were looking at time-restricted feeding, and intermittent fasting is one of our nutrition interventions. So everybody in the lab was all up on intermittent fasting and they were like very interested in trying that. Now it may work in specific scenarios for, you know, some people, but for a lot of women it really messes with your hormones a lot not to eat in the morning.

And that was the case for me because I tried it for a little while with everybody in my lab doing it, and I just felt like my anxiety went off the rails. And so all of that together made me say, okay, I've kind of hit a rock bottom when it comes to my anxiety. What do I really have to lose by making a shift?[00:09:00] 

And I think that part of it is that sometimes if we're, especially in the nutrition field, we can create this identity around how we eat and it can be kind of intimidating to try to shift. Um, and especially, I mean, like I hadn't built a brand or a business at that point, but you know, especially if you do have that, um, component as well.

But even if you just are the person who is the keto person, or even if you're the person who's the paleo person, it can be really hard to shift. But what I would say is that, In science and in research, what we know is that it's always really important to keep an open mind because there could always be new evidence that changes your mind.

And so that's what I always like tried to hold onto. And that's what I would encourage people to do is like if you hear something that makes you curious, there's nothing, there's no harm that can be done by you checking it out if the evidence makes sense to you. And so that's what I ended up doing. And then like I would say about six years ago is when I made the full transition to be more plant forward as opposed to like kind of still holding onto that low carb dogma.

And that was great and I never looked back for it for sure.[00:10:00] 

Roni: Did you guys notice that, uh, in your research study that the men in your group, like had better experiences with intermittent fasting or even some of the more like low carb diets, like just with their hormones being a little more stable than ours?

Hannah: That's a great question. And yeah, I think that in, in our research in particular, I'd have to go back and read that particular paper. I don't know if we looked at like those differential outcomes. I know in the research at large, that has definitely been demonstrated. And so sometimes people with male physiology just respond better to fasting.

They respond better to, to eating patterns that reduce energy availability better than women, because I think women's hormones are just slightly more sensitive to energy availability. I mean, think about when we are not eating enough as women, it's possible to lose our period, right? And so there's these sorts of energy sensitivity processes I think that aren't, aren't at play in men.

And so I think that e, everybody's individual, I'd hate to generalize, some [00:11:00] people could really, you know, some people with female physiology could really do well in intermittent fasting. But I think that for a lot of women, it's something to consider.

Riley: Yeah, that's interesting. Roni and I have done a lot of intermittent fasting, like reading and research and podcasts and, um, I feel like the, the one thing that I keep thinking while you're talking about this is that if you're going to do it, you need to do it, um, in a way like following a pattern that someone who knows about women

Hannah: Yep.

Riley: tells you to do it.

Hannah: Exactly.

Riley: Uh, because if you just go at it, like from some Google article you read, kinda like the low carb thing, you could actually really, you know, like you could really damage hormones and hormone balance, if you just kind of go at it like that. Um, and like cycle syncing and things like that can be so beneficial.

Like, it's possible to do things like that without hurting yourself if you are, you know, following like

Hannah: And that's why I totally agree with you, and that's what I, you know, that's why I say I hate to generalize [00:12:00] because some people really find that that is a super effective pattern for them. I've heard a lot of people have a lot of success. There's also, you know, you have to balance it with how are you feeling mentally?

Because myself, I'm really big on, you know, fostering a really healthy relationship with food. Sometimes with intermittent fasting, I can kind of develop this feaster famine mentality where, you know, you're completely feeling like you're outta control around food within your feeding window, and then you're ignoring your hunger when you're truly hungry outside of your feeding window.

And that can create problems mentally for some women too. And so that's, it's typically in my programs in particular and in the way that I teach, I don't recommend intermittent fasting, but I'm not actually closed off to absolutely anything with my clients. Some, everybody's so individual. I just wanna help people do it safely and then like know what to look for, you know, what to look for and what could be signs of trouble with any given pattern.

Riley: Which is a huge benefit to working with someone like you because you have someone helping you along who has the knowledge and the research background to like, help [00:13:00] you, like look at all the pieces of your puzzle. Um, and I think that, that, that's super important.

Hannah: Yeah, for sure. I think it's definitely if you, if you are having questions and being like, am I doing this even remotely? Right? For sure. Working with a professional can help.

Riley: Yeah.

Another piece of your story that was really impactful when I was listening to you talk about it is the anxiety piece. I think that we don't give our diets and lifestyle enough credit for our mental health. Um, and, and so you talking about that and like that shift for you, I mean, you were, you said you were at a place of rock bottom of like, I have to do something different than this.

That is like, so powerful of a statement and then you changed. And how is your anxiety now, if you don't mind me asking.

Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. I don't mind at all. It's a lot better. You know, it's one of those things where anxiety sometimes is a lifelong thing, that you are always gonna be predisposed towards that. I mean, I could not have been sitting here talking to you guys like this in [00:14:00] 2016, is like all I have to say because I, you know, I remember.

I was, I was intermittent fasting and I had a coffee and I was trying to talk to a subject and I had a massive panic attack. Like it was so bad. And I was like, what is happening? And I was just, you know, what it was, is I was just over caffeinated and under fueled during that particular moment. And it really spiraled into that.

And then I feel like all of 2016 was this battle of me trying to like, figure out what was going on with my body. And it was really discouraging because as somebody who really, you know, I, I love my body. I've grown to trust my body. It felt like almost a betrayal. And I was like, what am I doing? Or what is my body doing?

Or what is, you know, happening here and. It opened my eyes that maybe my health wasn't as optimal as it could be. Maybe I was holding onto some old ideas that were no longer serving me even in terms of nutrition. And this is, this is me, you know, five [00:15:00] years into my nutrition research career, still trying to figure this stuff out.

And so I've been studying nutrition for now 12 years. So I've been studying nutrition now for 12 years. And this is like five years into that career. I was still trying to figure this stuff out. And I think that just like being open and saying I need to figure out what works for me is really important, and nutrition can have a huge impact on this.

And truly, I think that can nourishing ourselves really consistently can have a really, really big impact. More than you think. And so when I see, you know, people or women in particular go kind of like on and off these fad diets, it's like, It is very difficult to nourish yourself consistently when you're constantly trying to starve yourself.

You know? So that's why I'm really passionate about showing people that you can, you know, heal a lot by just adding in the right types of foods, adding it in. That's like my number one thing that I try to like say, okay, if you're gonna start somewhere, just start by adding in more whole plant foods and start by adding in more nourishment and doing this really from a place of self-care and self-love, [00:16:00] not from self-control.

Riley: I love that. And it always gets, it makes me excited for people when they, look to nutrition as a resolution for whatever it is that they're struggling with because, uh, I mean, we at plan to, you know, we really think that what, how you're nourishing yourself really affects you. And so I I, it gives me really excited when people talk about how they decided they needed to do something because something wasn't working for them.

And because these were the, you know, this is what was happening in their body or their mind. And they take this and they do this. Shift with their diet or they add, start adding things in that maybe they had taken out because it's so easy to have the bad food, good food, mi mindset, um, and they can really start to heal from that, which is really beautiful.

Hannah: Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, like that's, it, it, that's why I love plan to eat too. I don't, I haven't mentioned this on the podcast yet, but I am a huge fan of the software and I've been using it for nine years, so I have been using it since, I think it was 20, [00:17:00] like 13 was my first year. And I have used it every single week since I've never stopped.

And it's been like so revolutionary because it helps us to be prepared and truly like meal planning. My definition of meal planning is making sure that you have access to nourishing foods to build meals and snacks, and so how do we do that? But we have to do a little bit of pre-planning and a little bit of pre-work in order to make that happen and plan to eat makes it so easy.

I recommend it to everybody. I love it.

Roni: I wanted to say a little bit related to your, just like your own personal journey of changing your diet. part of that is really comforting to me to know that. Even as for you as an expert and somebody who studies this, like you went through your own process of figuring out what was right for you. So like we all, nobody has it figured out, like, particularly, not like right off the first bat.

But I was also curious, um, like what are some of the most common reasons that people come to you? Like what, what's the reason that [00:18:00] somebody would come to a dietician, um, in the first place 

Hannah: yeah. Um, it sort of depends. So in my case now, clearly we went through the low carb kind of like phase of my life. I started to adopt a more plant forward approach. And the way that I did that for myself is I really did go to the research and I said, okay, what does it look like Is going to. You know, what does it look like is going to produce the, the best long-term health for me?

I found that that was about 80 to 90% plants. I gave it a try. I never looked back, like I said. So now what I teach is essentially how to adopt a plant forward lifestyle for a variety of reasons. There's people who come to me to want to learn how to eat plant-based because it aligns with their values in some way.

Or there's people who come to me who want to find their body's best weight, and I phrase it like that, find their body's best weight because that's gonna be different for everybody. And if that involves weight loss, that's completely fine, but we do it through a habit change based approach. Those are the two main reasons.

But in terms of a plant-based diet, [00:19:00] there's a lot of reasons why somebody might wanna go plant-based that actually have nothing to do with your own personal health. So for example, in terms of environmental, you know, um, sustainability, Plant-based diets are a lot more sustainable than, you know, heavily animal-based diets.

And so if you're really concerned about your carbon footprint, plant-based diets are super important for that. That's one of the main reasons why it kind of snowballed in for me, because that's something that I care about a lot. You know, it also has, might have to do with animal welfare. Say somebody wants to go vegan because they don't want to be involved in the animal industry anymore, you know that those are reasons why people would.

I wanna go plant-based and I have no idea how to do it. I need some help. And so some people might come to me for those reasons. Um, the other reasons, of course, is just the personal health piece and just for, you know, trying to figure out a way to eat all foods and have all foods fit while honoring their long-term health and still achieving those short-term goals of either weight loss or gaining energy, or just feeling more in control around their food.

I hear this a lot. I feel like people just [00:20:00] feel out of control and out of sync with what's happening in their whole nutrition world. Some people just want to come to me to get structure of meal planning, you know, like honestly and be like, how do I actually do this for life? And what are the strategies and things like that.

So I would say that those are the main reasons why I see people come to me. So it could be just plant-based or they could want to improve their health as well.

Riley: I don't really have a question. I just love the phrase all foods fit. Um, because I think Roni and I can both attest to the fact that we have, uh, cycled through, uh, foods that are great and foods that are bad, and foods that are like, uh, Not what I'm eating right now, or foods that I am eating right now.

And if you've gone through cycles of different diets and like, you know, I would not say, what is the phrase people use? About like, dieting all the time.

Hannah: Oh yeah. Like yo-yo dieting

Riley: Yo-yo dieting. Yeah. Like, I'm not even like, not even that. Um, like if you do that, that can certainly lead to this. But that confusion you [00:21:00] mentioned earlier, like suddenly you're just at this place where like nothing is right.

Like I, nothing I can eat nothing. Like, that food has a bad connotation or that's a trigger food or this is a bad, or Oh, I'm, but I'm keto, but wait, maybe I'm not anymore. Like it can get so confusing. So the phrase all foods fit really feels like freedom. And so I bet a lot of potentially, if you work with anybody who's had that place of confusion that you were at, um, that could probably feel really good to be like, no, all foods fit.

We're gonna, how are we gonna make this work? Like, no, like, take away all the connotation you have for anything.

Hannah: Yeah, I would say that's the number. That is probably the number one thing that people come to me f like truly the phrase that I hear the most is I don't know who to believe anymore. You know, it's, everybody sounds like experts. How am I supposed to know who actually knows their stuff? You know? You know, being involved in research and having, like, you know, I've got my peer reviewed publications, I've spent six to 11 years reading the [00:22:00] research every single month.

Like that's not the only way to become an expert, but it certainly is helpful to be able to interpret research in my opinion. And so when people come to me and they sort of see that my programs are based on evidence, evidence-based is what we call that, they can feel a little bit reassured that um, even if their experience is a little bit different, I can at least help guide them through that in a way that's like safe and informed.

And I think you're right. I think people just are like, okay, I just wanna know what it's, I, I wanna know what the research says. But then I also don't want people to discount their personal experience, you know, cuz everybody has their own personal experience as well. So some sort of combination of the two of those things with the help of an expert who knows how to do it safely, that can be really helpful.

Roni: Right. So then what does, meal planning with a plant forward diet look like for you.

Hannah: Yeah. So in terms of meal planning with a plant forward diet, I think that meal planning is super essential if [00:23:00] you want to ensure that you're eating a certain amount of plants. And the reason why is because we just need a record of like what's happening during a week and how many plants am I eating right?

So for me, eating 90% plants, I, that's like a personal goal of mine is I try to eat 90% plants. Um, and I actually have this guide that I developed because so many people have been asking like, okay, how do I actually create a plant forward meal plan? And so I have this guide where I have detailed my exact strategy for how to eat 90% plants in a given week.

And so it's like kind of just laid out there. One of the things that I recommend is basically trying to evaluate, trying to use more plant-based proteins. First of all, because typically the protein foods and the protein heavy foods are where a lot of our, our animal products come from. Those aren't, like I said, not bad foods.

I don't eliminate red meat. I don't eliminate chicken. I don't eliminate dairy. But in terms of the quantities that you're [00:24:00] using, you can actually kind of like mix and match the quantities of animal products with plant foods to make a do, to make it more plant forward. And by doing that, typically what you're doing is two main things.

Your number one, reducing saturated fat. Saturated fat is, tends to be found more in animal products. This tends to increase L D L cholesterol and it tends to increase your risk for heart disease a little bit more than plant products, which don't contain that much saturated fat at all. The other thing that you're doing when you're swapping a plant protein for an animal protein is you're increasing fiber.

So animal products don't contain fiber zero because essentially what fiber is, is it's the bones of the plant holds up the plants, gives them structure. Animals have like bones and connective tissue. We don't really need that. But you're not gonna get a lot of fiber, which is the number one nutrient associated with healthy weight loss, by the way.

If you're not eating a ton of plants and in particular fruits, grains, and beans. So by choosing a plant-based protein, which is often bean based, you [00:25:00] know, some of the best sources of plant-based proteins are gonna be your beans and they're gonna be your tofu and your Tempe and sort of things like that.

All of those contain fiber and they don't contain the saturated fat that could increase risk for heart disease, kind of a win-win. And so that's one. That's one of my tips is that if you're new to plant forward eating and you're new to plant forward meal planning, try try just swapping half of your meat for beans.

Just do a half and half. Let me give you an example of what I did last night. I made a curry dish and it was a Teka masala and it called for two pounds of chicken. And instead of using two pounds of chicken, I used one pound of chicken and two cans of chickpeas. Kind of just did the half and half thing and.

With that, I'm reducing the amount of animal protein. And there's, there's, I'm really simplifying this. There's actually like a lot more that has to do with why I would do these swaps and everything like that. I teach that in my courses and things like that. But by increasing the amount of beans, essentially what I'm doing is increasing fiber, reducing saturated [00:26:00] fat and getting some more healthy fats into the meal.

And so, and just getting more whole plant foods and volume and sort of things like that. So that's just one tip that I have for meal planning in terms of plant forward meal planning is you can actually just swap those things. A couple of other tips, like I mentioned earlier, just add things in. It's easier to, I mean, thinking about like the whole plant foods that I mentioned, which are vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds.

It's easier just to add in fruits and vegetables to most meals than it is to completely revamp your diet, you know, from scratch. And I think that's the other thing that, um, I wanted to mention is that when you hear plant-based, you might be thinking vegan, you know, and I think that a lot of people do hear plant-based and think vegan, but that's not what plant-based in, is.

Plant-based is essentially just basing your diet on whole plant foods. And so it doesn't have to be an all or nothing shift. You can make small steps and you can make super effective steps [00:27:00] by creating like sort of more of a small steps approach. Um, so just adding things in, adding in more fruits and vegetables can be really, um, a powerful tool as well, I would say.

Riley: I'm just kind of like envisioning how I would do this in my own life, you know? And it feels like, like meat becomes more of a side, like the vegetables become the main and the meat becomes the side. To kind of like, in my mind there was like thinking like, how would I shift the thing I'm having for dinner tonight?

You know, like, okay, well maybe make that salad the main thing and then meat part the side would kind of help, like help people shift or at least, I'm just trying to think about how I would do that to like start adding in more. Um,

Hannah: an example of something that you might eat for dinner, and let me help you think through a way to shift, like for example, if you, if you want to

Roni: Last night I ate fajitas and we usually make fajitas with quite a bit of amount, quite a bit of meat. So

What 

Hannah: kinds of fajitas would, was it like, um, beef fajitas, like

Roni: it was actually, it was actually venison.

Hannah: Venison. That's what I eat too, cuz my husband's hunter.

Roni: Mine is too.[00:28:00] 

Hannah: So when we do eat red meat, I think we might have actually mentioned this. Um, yeah, we eat venison, you know, and we eat red meat. Okay, so venison, venison tacos, so, or venison fajitas.

What you can do is, you know, defrost your venison, you know, cook it according to, um, however you like to cook it, but add in a type of beans along with it. So black beans go great with Mexican food. I always like to say there's a bean for every cuisine. So there's like black beans for Mexican food and Caribbean inspired food and things like that.

You've got edamame for anything Asian inspired. You've got white beans for Italian food, you've got. You know, um, chickpeas for Greek or Mediterranean inspired food. So there's like a bean for every cuisine you can pretty much add in beans, to, in, in a lot of ways. And so what I would've, you know, potentially done in that case is you can add in a ton of maybe double the veggies, add in more peppers and onions, add in half beans, you know, as like a base to the fajitas, and then put some venison on top, you know, and that's more of a plant forward meal.

So 

Riley: [00:29:00] viewing it more like a, like more like shredded cheese or something. Like you're viewing it more of like the, this is the extra thing.

Hannah: Sure. And that's another tip that I give, is that you can use, you know, if you are interested in reducing your use of animal products for whatever reason, you can use animal products as a condiment and as a flavoring, as opposed to as the main event. So an example is that, I'll make a minestrone sometimes, but I do like the umami flavor, which is like that savoriness of, you know, cheese or meat.

And there's ways to get that on a plant-based, uh, completely plant-based diet too, like, don't get me wrong, um, but if you wanted to add in a little bit of the, the flavor of animal products, you still totally can. So in the case of minestrone, you know, I make it with vegetables and I make it with whole grain pasta and I make it with white beans, but I might use chicken broth boom, or I might use Parmesan cheese in it.

Boom. Parmesan cheese is like super highly flavored, and so suddenly it has that kind of savory quality that we're used to and familiar with. But you're still eating 95% plants. You know, [00:30:00] in that situation. So I think that that's what I would encourage people to consider is that it really doesn't have to be all or nothing.

You can still kind of like mix and match and create your favorites, but with that, you know, with that mindfulness of like, how can I, how can I increase the crease, the plant volume of these foods? And then another tip is like, just think about which foods and which meals you might wanna just consider making entirely plant-based.

Because if you have, uh, you know, meat-based dinner, but you have two plant-based meals earlier in that day, that's a pretty close to 90%, believe it or not, because you're just having meat for part of that meal and you have other plant foods I assume, with that meal. So for me, like I like to make my lunches ahead of time, I'll do some meal prep, you know, and I'll kind of like put them into individual containers.

I almost tr always try to make that like a completely plant-based meal so that I know I'm checking that box and then we'll have some chicken curry for dinner or you know, whatever else. Looks and sounds good to us.

Riley: What do you do for breakfast?

Hannah: Great question. So [00:31:00] I am a fan of eggs because they're a really good source of protein. So I will do eggs quite a bit, um, maybe three times a week or so. I also really like granola, particularly high protein granolas, cuz you can buy protein granolas that are like, I think Nature Valley has one and kind has one that are like higher in protein.

The, the challenge with breakfast and plant-based breakfasts is the protein because you do wanna have a good amount of protein at breakfast and you wanna have a good amount of protein with every meal. But the challenge with it, I think is the, the plant protein sources aren't as concentrated as the animal protein sources.

You don't need to maximize protein, you just need to get some protein and even whole grains have protein and things like that. So I use a protein granola. I do hemp parts, which are a great source of protein on top of it. Sometimes I'll add in a plant-based yogurt. Um, So that's one meal that I would do, can do the same thing with steel cut oats, adding in some hemp things and or hemp seeds and things like that.

Um, my husband makes a green [00:32:00] smoothie every morning. He really likes a green smoothie with protein powder, peanut butter, turmeric, all these like great things in there. So we'll have that too. Sometimes we'll do like waffles, like a protein waffle with like a little bit more high protein ingredients like Greek yogurt or, um, protein powder.

So a little, little bit of everything here. But I would say that eggs can definitely feature in. Um, it would just be a matter of also adding in a lot of whole plant foods alongside it. So maybe like with a fruit salad and a smoothie on the side or something along those lines.

Roni: I have a, a question that I, I feel hesitant to ask it because it's potentially a sensitive subject for people. Okay. But if you're not somebody who's used to eating a lot of beans and suddenly you're adding a lot more beans into your diet, how do you deal with the gassiness of that?

Hannah: I love this question and I'm so glad that you're asking it because this is something that I would say 70% of my clients voice, like mention as they go [00:33:00] plant-based. And let's talk about like why that would happen first of all. So basically what happens when you experience gas, bloating, or any sort of digestive distress, there's a mismatch between where you're eating and what your gut bacteria can handle.

So we have a gut microbiome, you've probably heard of this. It's the community of flora that is inhabiting your colon. It impacts wide-reaching areas of your health. Um, it impacts every single, you know, every single facet of your health truly. And the, the gut health, the gut bugs that are the healthy gut bugs, eat only fiber.

So that is the only thing that they eat. So again, plants being very important as being like the only source of fiber. If you are eating a type of plant that you don't normally eat, you may be eating a type of fiber that you don't normally eat, and the population of the gut bug that does a good job of digesting that type of fiber might not be so, prevalent in your gut at this time.

So essentially, if you're [00:34:00] eating beans and you just wanna start adding in beans and you add in like a half cup of beans to your meal and then you get some serious bloating, what's happening is that there's not enough of the healthy gut bacteria that digest beans well to actually make that a comfortable experience for you.

Does that make sense? Okay. So part of it is learning and, and it doesn't mean that you're intolerant to beans. It doesn't mean that you're never gonna be able to eat beans because you're allergic or something like that. It means that you don't have the right composition of gut bacteria yet. And so what you wanna do is you wanna slowly start growing that garden by going really low and slow with the fiber.

Um, so with beans in particular, what I recommend is starting with two tablespoons a day for like. Two or three weeks, but every day, you know, so that you're constantly kind of giving your gut that exposure. You're constantly trying to grow that right population of gut bacteria and then maybe you increase it to three tablespoons and then to a quarter cup and it'll become more comfortable over time.

would say that probably within [00:35:00] two to four months, most people don't have a problem with beans anymore. If they had a problem with beans initially. Beans aren't the only thing that can cause this. There can also be an intolerance to vegetables if you're not used to eating like a ton of vegetables.

Cruciferous vegetables in particular and raw cruciferous vegetables in particular are are really big problem for a lot of people. The second thing I want you, everybody, to whoever struggles with this to remind themselves o of, is that you need to chew your food extremely well. This was my problem. So I, when I first started going like more plant-based, I had the worst gas and bloating, you know, I had like, it was just so painful and just like unpleasant.

And I was a super fast eater my entire life. And when I slowed down and chewed my food to applesauce, consistency, which is what we wanna be doing before it goes down, it changed my world. And so first things first, be sure you're chewing your food. And especially like your raw vegetables, even soft foods like beans, you [00:36:00] still wanna be chewing.

Um, and making sure that they're the apple sauce consistency before you swallow them. And then from there, try cooked vegetables versus raw vegetables. If you're having trouble, it's all a matter of. Continuing to expose the gut to these things without completely eliminating that stimulus essentially. You still wanna be challenging your gut.

It's like lifting weights at the gym. It's like if you go to the gym and you're trying to like lift a 50 pound pound dumbbell, you might not be prepared to do that, and it might really hurt, but it doesn't mean that lifting is bad for you. It means you're just not ready for that level yet. Does that make sense?

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: that's a. Great example, but all those tips, those were so good, and I think they're things that, well, one, Roni, your question was great, and something I hadn't, it's it's great. Um, but all of your tips for that I, I think, are things that no one really talks about that, like, no one talks about eating and chewing more, and like, even just in introducing things and like the gut flora, all that, I learned so much.

That was great.

Hannah: I'm [00:37:00] so glad. Yeah, this is a good, this is a great topic cuz, and believe me, I've done this now in private practice for three years. I've heard it a lot and so I have my like structured approach that I help my clients with. I'm like, okay, if you're experiencing this, then we do this. And so that's where that comes from for sure.

Riley: I, I think that your research background, I'm sure that translates into working with your clients because you're, they're essentially their own research project, like you're helping them navigate what's right for you. Okay, well if this is okay, we, how can we start? How do we build? And then because of your background, you know exactly how to help them and like, what are the, like all the like scientific method, like how do we do this, um, trial and error like that.

I, that's great. I'm sure that all of your clients super benefit from that,

Hannah: Yeah, I call it my levers. I call it my levers. Like I have a thousand levers that I can like kind of push and pull on every client, and we can, and everybody, like you said, is an N of one. We like to call them the N of one because N is the, the subject's number and the research study, if you're [00:38:00] an N of one, you're your own research experiment.

And so we can pull all of these different levers and what we don't wanna do too often is change too many things at once. That's how we control, you know, again, my research background being like, I wanna keep everything controlled. I wanna know that if we're changing something, it's due to the one thing we changed.

So it's sometimes a slow process, you know, to go through it, but it can be really beneficial and it can be really targeted, which is I think what most people want.

Riley: Yeah, I have done that to myself a lot where I am just like, okay, I'm gonna change one thing. I'm gonna see how this goes because I don't know if I change 10 things, how am I gonna know which thing worked? And then I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to narrow it all down. And that's more work then, cuz I have to backtrack.

Um, so yeah, I love that, love that approach.

Roni: Uh, you're, this is a little bit of a backtrack and a very rabbit trail thing to say, but your comment about chewing more, being a kid of the nineties, there was a episode of Full House where Bob Saget's character, he was the dad of the family and he was, uh, he was a [00:39:00] very, like type A personality person.

And I remember there was one episode where he was like yelling at everybody at the kitchen table cuz they weren't taking, they weren't chewing their food enough. And he was like, you have to chew your food 25 times before you swallow.

Hannah: I think there was like a, a doctor like way back in the day that said something like that. Like I think, and I can't remember who it was for the life of me, but somebody came up with the idea that you have to chew 30 times and that was like, chew 30 times and all of your health problems will go away or like something like that.

And I thought it was funny. I was like, yeah, it's, it's a good idea to chew that much, but it's like, probably this is not gonna solve every health problem under the sun. So

Riley: Yeah, you've, you've unlocked some memory of for me of like, when I, when I was a kid, like I feel like my siblings and I would like, okay. No, it had to be 30 and they'd all sit there and we'd like, you know what you do.

Hannah: It was

Riley: I don't know.

Hannah: it was like a popular thing for a while.

Riley: I think it was, that's funny. I have another question and uh, it is a bit of a rabbit trail, like, [00:40:00] uh, Roni, this was, but you mentioned that your husband's a hunter.

What, I guess I'm curious, like what's his background and how do, like was this a hard transition for him? Was he already on board? Like, I know that this is a question that listeners will have because oftentimes when one person in a relationship wants to make a change and the other person doesn't, that's a big roadblock, particularly if you're the person that cooks.

Cuz nobody wants to be the short order chef cooking, you know, two meals a night. Um, so yeah, I'd love for you to speak to that in y'all's situation.

Hannah: Totally. Yeah, and it's, it's really interesting because. The way that we got into hunting. Um, because here's the thing, I'm a plant forward dietician and a lot of people come to me for plant-based eating, but my husband and I, we chose to go into hunting ourselves. Our parents don't hunt. Um, we don't have anybody around us that hunts.

We did it from an ethical sourcing of meat standpoint. So we really wanted to get the highest quality, you know, health bias in terms of meat, but then also we're really [00:41:00] passionate about sourcing. And when we do eat animals, we're really passionate about that coming from like a really the most sustainable source that we can do.

So we're like, well, let's just give this a try. And so as we, you know, decided in our family to continue to eat meat, that's sort of just something that we decided to do. In terms of my husband's background, he is a, he was definitely grew up with the standard American diet. You know, we both grew up in this area in Boulder.

Um, I grew up like kind of with this really crunchy hippie mom who vegetable gardened and, you know, did the macrobiotic diet and like all of this stuff for a while. And, um, he grew up with a very more standard American diet where, you know, there was. You know, more processed foods probably in the house and things like that.

Very meat and potatoes kind of guy and still is, and still enjoys his meat and potatoes and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. What I would say is that he, when we, when I started to, we've been together for 12 years, when I started to transition into wanting to take care of my [00:42:00] health better, he. was

Very supportive, but then also wanted to make a similar transition for himself. Um, you know, he had a lot of health problems in his family that he wanted to avoid. And so I would say that it both started for us from like a health standpoint. And I think that he put a lot of trust in me to tell him what I knew about what I was learning in terms of what was best for health.

So when I was in my low carb phase, so was he, you know, and when I started to, and when I started to transition out of that a little bit more and started to explain and have conversations and talk about it, he was very open to it. And I think that that's really lucky for me. And like he's just a very supportive person and he's trusting of me and we have that kind of relationship, which is great.

But you know. When I told him we're gonna start cooking tofu, he was like, okay, but like, is it gonna taste like good at all? And so it did take like a minute to basically find the right [00:43:00] recipes. But I think that. I think that the important thing is like open communication too. It's completely okay for him to tell me that something wasn't his favorite.

I'm not gonna take that personally and I want to know so that I can know kind of how to tailor things for both of us so that we're both enjoying things. Like there's so many plant-based meals that I love that are not his favorite. I'll make them for my lunches and I won't make them for our dinners.

You know, that's kind of like how, how we will structure that now. Skye really thinks that he feels better eating the exact same way that I recommend eating, which is about 90% plants. When we just got back from the holidays, he wanted to eat vegetarian for the week because he just felt, you know, like we had been eating a little bit differently than we normally do.

And so it's, it's things like that where he had to recognize for himself that this was something that he wanted for himself. And this is something that I always encourage clients and people that I work with as they're managing those family dynamics. You can't want something for somebody else. But you have the right [00:44:00] to carve your own path for what is best for you.

So either lead by example and sort of, you know, your family may see and sort of recognize how you're changing and how you're feeling and might wanna give it a try. Make it a fun game of trying to find, you know, foods that everybody likes that can still be more plant-based. Do it halfway where, you know, maybe you make a stir fry and you have chicken and tofu available, right?

So there's like mix and match dishes that can help with that. But I think that, you know, in my case it came from a place of, cuz I'm, I'm a pretty firm believer that I don't have the right to tell anybody what to eat or how to eat unless I'm asked, including my husband. So it was like one of those things where he had to really choose for himself and I said, I'm gonna cook this.

Would you be open to trying? If he says yes, then great. You know, and then it's, it's one of those things where, He did happen to be open to it and he felt the difference. But not everybody is [00:45:00] gonna be as receptive necessarily, and that's okay. What I would say is that it's act, it's actually probably most appropriate in that situation to find meals that you can serve to the family that fits their needs and your needs.

So for example, you can have, if you wanted to be vegetarian and you had venison, fajitas, you can do black beans on the side and that can be yours and the family can have venison, you know, that kind of thing. And so that, that's a good strategy for a lot of people too.

Riley: That's great. You've given us so many tips from meal planning. But one thing I was thinking of when you were talking about, uh, cooking tofu and finding the right recipes and things like that, um, do you have kitchen tools that, like kitchen gadgets, like an air fryer or a instant pot like that you lean on a lot that really helps you eat this way?

Cuz I think every kind of like way of eating has things like this. So I'd love to hear what Plant forward eating works really well with.

Hannah: Absolutely. I would say it's kind of boring cause I don't do a ton [00:46:00] of kitchen gadgets. I tried the Instant Pot for a while. It didn't end up, and this may change now that I'm having a, a baby and I need to like, do things quicker and like, who knows? Um, but I did find that it didn't create the same flavors, a slow cooker.

It kind of did more of a steam cooking as opposed to like that really slow cooking roasty flavor. I use a slow cooker quite a bit. So slow cookers are really, really good for kind of, dishes that can contain meat, but then can be modified later to contain a ton of beans. Like what we did last night with the, the chicken teka masala, for example.

Just adding in like a ton of chickpeas. Your standard kitchen knife to really cut up all those veggies. Um, and having those on hand I would say is a really good idea. And then, you know, in terms of just like the strategies that I use to make plant-based actually taste good, that's what I focus on more as opposed to the special kitchen gadgets, I would say.

We also have a really small kitchen, um, and we don't have like a lot of room to [00:47:00] keep things in. Blender is essential because we do like to make those smoothies in the mornings and so a blender is, is there for sure. But what I would say is that I focus less on like using cer certain gadgets to make plant-based foods and focus more on how do I make the plant-based foods actually taste good.

And there's a couple of ways that you can do that. And one of them that I use a lot is just roasting. So roasting and creating and basically using soy sauce in a lot of things that don't even, you wouldn't even think would require soy sauce. Cuz soy sauce is essentially a concentrated source of umami and umami, if you're not familiar with it, is a taste that is basically gives the savory quality to meat and cheese, but also to mushrooms and to soy sauce and things like that.

I mentioned it a little bit earlier, so I'll add a dash of, I'll add a dash of soy sauce to the black bean chili that I'm making all add, like all of this stuff because it actually gives it that depth of flavor that's a little bit different. So I would say that the, the most used items in my kitchen would [00:48:00] probably be my slow cooker, my blender, and then also my um, Dutch oven can't live without my Dutch oven.

I think I use it like every single day, like pretty close to every single day, especially in the wintertime.

Riley: Yeah, those are great. Um, and I think that it's really valuable for people to hear that you don't need to do a ton of gadgets. I don't have a place to put a ton of gadgets, and I know Roni doesn't either. But a kitchen knife, like a really good kitchen knife, honestly, that's gotta be like our number one tip for people who in, they're trying to like, get into meal planning, cooking, any, if you're in the kitchen, you need a really good knife because

Hannah: You just need that chef's knife, you know, like that chef's knife, that's like the, I have like a Woff I think it's called, or Woff or something. And we got it for our wedding. And I can't, I don't even travel without it guys. Like when we go, when we go to like the mountains or like go somewhere else, like I, it's so important to me that I will literally bring it.

Like if we're driving, obviously [00:49:00] I can't fly with it, but if we're driving I will put it in my suitcase or wrap it up or something like that and I'll bring it to wherever we're going. Cause I don't trust the knives there. It needs to be a

Riley: Look, nothing's worse than an Airbnb knife.

Roni: It's so 

Riley: know, like it's like cutting with this pencil right here. It's

just like, 

Hannah: I know it's awful and I'm like, I can't enjoy myself in the kitchen and like enjoy the experience if I'm like hacking this, you know, really dull knife.

So I understand that for sure.

Riley: Yep.

Roni: So with your style of eating, being really focused around whole plant foods, what's your take on the um, like beyond burgers and that kind of stuff?

Hannah: That's a great question. Yeah, so I'd say there's like a spectrum and it sort of depends on your goals. So from a health standpoint, there's a spectrum on these things. Um, there are some that I think are better for health than others. Beyond Burger is still gonna be relatively processed, but my definition of like a processed food is nothing unhealthful added and nothing healthful taken away.[00:50:00] 

So canned beans are processed, you know, they're cooked and canned, but there's nothing. Good, taken away and nothing bad added. So those in my mind are like an unprocessed food. So that's kind of what I would like consider in terms of my definition of processing and beyond. Burger is still made with like largely whole ingredients is what I would say.

Um, it has less saturated fat than a regular burger, so it's going to be better for heart health. Um, it's got more fiber because it's a plant food. So there's things for the Beyond Burger that I think could be slightly of a benefit, you know, for somebody who has specific concerns and health concerns. Um, it's a great food.

For those who are most concerned about the environmental or animal welfare or impact, obviously, you know, that's gonna be one that doesn't contain animals. Um, in terms of. You know, I'd say it's still, it's, it's what I would consider to be like a yellow food. I have in my, in my programs and in one of the things that I teach is like a food frequency guide of like green, [00:51:00] yellow, and red foods.

Not to say that any foods are good or bad, but that some we need to use more frequently and some we need to use a little bit less frequently. That would be in my v in my view, a yellow food. It's like something that, you know, you can use, but use it together with whole plant foods and maybe don't use it as often as like the real whole plant foods.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Hannah: Impossible burger. No difference, in my opinion at all between the Impossible Burger and a beef burger from a health standpoint. Um, there's no, they've, they've engineered that particular food to be super similar to meat, down to the taste. Have you guys ever had an impossible burger?

Yeah, it's pretty wild.

I've had it once because I was so curious. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, is it really, does it taste like meat? And it does. And so the reason why it tastes like meat is because they add in something called heme iron. Heme iron is the form of iron that's found in red meat. It's the most absorbable form, but again, too much of a good thing isn't a good thing sometimes.

So one of the issues and why we think that red meat increases cancer [00:52:00] risk, which it does if eaten in large quantities, is because the iron, when you're eating iron in excess, you're actually increasing the presence of something called Pharaoh cyclic amine, and that can actually contribute to cancer. So enough iron is super important.

Too much iron can actually have this unintended consequence. So if people are avoiding red meat to lower their cancer risk, impossible burger, not such a good choice. Has as much saturated fat, if not more than I wanna say the beef burgers do and obviously is very, very highly processed food. I don't recommend it from a health standpoint. If you're interested in environmental, you know, sustainability and you're interested in the animal welfare is still a better choice maybe than beef, depending on your beliefs about this kind of thing. So it really just depends. But I would say that there's like a spectrum on it and that they're not always healthier than just like a whole food, even if that food is an animal product, for sure.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: I haven't tried either. I haven't tried Beyond,

Hannah: I don't think, I mean, I'm just, yeah, beyond Burger, and [00:53:00] I'm just not a fan of faux meats. I mean, like if I'm gonna eat plant-based foods, it's going to be in plant-based sources of protein. It's going to be tofu or Tempe or beans.

Riley: Mm-hmm.

Hannah: very min, like tofu and Tempe are very minimally processed. They basically are just beans mushed up.

And so that's not, it's not like there's any, you know, a lot of additives or sort of stuff like that. And so those, I consider to be whole plant food sources of protein on a plant-based diet. Those are what I stick to. I don't tend, I don't think I've ever cooked beyond burger. I don't think I've ever, you know, eaten those sorts of foods.

It's just not my thing. Not that you can't, but you know, it's just not my thing.

Riley: yeah. Certainly like sticking to the whole real food as it exists.

Hannah: same. Yeah, I think that that is what our bodies are used to. You know, I think that that is what we, um, you know, have eaten for a very long time for all of human history. And so I think that there's wisdom in that. Like I really think that, you know, our bodies know how to handle that kind of stuff.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

All right, Hannah, thanks for joining us today. Why don't you tell everybody where they can find you, um, tell 'em about your [00:54:00] courses and that kind of stuff that you offer.

Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. This was a super fun conversation. I really liked talking to you guys. Yeah, so you can find me. The main place that I'm around is on Instagram, I would say, and I'm plant forward nutritionist on Instagram. So that's plant dot forward dot nutritionist. Um, know the, and then you can go to my website, the plant forward nutritionist.com.

And I had mentioned a little bit earlier that if you are interested in basically getting a more structured approach to plant forward meal planning, I did create a free guide for it because it was something that was so, um, in demand. I would say like a lot of my, a lot of my followers really found it valuable.

So what you could do is go to my website or a link if we include a link somewhere in this podcast. Great. So it'll, it'll just be there and you can download it. And essentially what it is, is it teaches you exactly how to do a plant forward meal plan. And I have two approaches. I have a beginner approach called the added in approach, and I have a more advanced approach called the 90% [00:55:00] plants approach.

And so you can follow the steps, you can incorporate it into your meal plan with the steps that I have. And I've also included a. Um, day meal plan for weight loss, if that's something that's interesting to you and it's something that fits within your goals within that as well, so you can get that. And in terms of my courses and offerings, I'm kind of shifting my, I used to do a lot of like coaching and, and that I'm taking a break from that.

I would say over the next. Maybe six to eight months. Won't come back to coaching until September at the earliest, cuz I'm pregnant having a baby in April. Um, but I am offering a new course which basically teaches my whole method that I've taught for three years and it's a comprehensive, a hundred percent online self-paced course.

It's by far my best offering yet I'm super proud of it. It actually launches on Monday and we're recording this in January. I'm sure this'll release later. But, um, it's, it's great and it basically teaches you how to go from that really overwhelmed and confused and just like totally stuck state to confidently [00:56:00] eating more plants and losing weight with a really sustainable lifestyle.

So that will be available, you know, upon this podcast probably being released and you can check that out on the website as well.

Riley: That's awesome. Congratulations.

Hannah: Thank you. I know it's really been a labor of love, but I'm excited about it. It's gonna be great.

Riley: That's awesome. Uh, so we like to wrap up every show by asking our guests, uh, what's something they ate recently, uh, that was just amazing and that they would wanna share with our listeners.

Hannah: Yeah. Let's see. What did we make recently? Okay, so last night we made, no, night before last we made Buffalo Chick peoples. And so what that is is basically, you know, buffalo chicken, you can chop up chicken and add like buffalo sauce to it. We just did it with chickpeas. And so, um, I've been working late this week and so my husband's doing all the cooking this week and he was like, all right, we're gonna do this.

And so we put it on a bed of greens. We had a little bit of blue cheese for the blue cheese flavor. And then we had the buffalo [00:57:00] chickpeas, we had onions, we had quinoa, and we cut it all up into like a big chopped salad. And that was really delicious.

Roni: Mm.

Riley: great. Thank

Roni: it does. All right, cool. Well, thanks again, Hannah. We appreciate you being here. 

Hannah: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks guys. This was super fun. 

Roni: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Plan to Eat podcast. We love hearing different approaches to food, and we hope that you enjoy hearing it too.

Riley: We would love to invite you to find all the recipes mentioned on the Plan to Eat podcast, um, in our podcast account on Plan to Eat you can go to plantoeat.com/PTEPOD that's PT, E P O D and the variety of recipes that you've heard about and the variety of eating types that we talk about, those can all be found in that account.

Roni: Thanks again for listening.