Anita: 0:00

Hey there, sunshine. Welcome to the power on plants podcast, where your host, Jared and Anita Roussel and we're absolutely head over heels for whole plant foods, and helping you navigate this incredible plant based journey. That's because our lives have been completely changed by plant based goodness, we used to struggle everyday with excess pounds and low energy, vascular disease, joint pain and lack of sleep, just to name a few. And even though we're medical professionals, we still weren't getting practical answers that actually worked. So we dug into the research, we started living what we learned. And now we both of our lives back. And that's what we want for you to the truth is you can do this, and it's not hard, you just need a way that will bring real and lasting change. And that path, it has to be simple and enjoyable. And it's got to be delicious, too. So are you ready to live your life to the fullest, then you're in the right place, because Living without limits. That's what power plants is all about. So pull up your chair, grab a matcha latte, and let's get started. Hello, sunshine. Thanks for joining us today. I wish you were here. We just got back from the farmers market in our area. And let me tell you, if you do not go to local farmers market in your area, and you have one, find out where it is and go. If you don't you are missing out. My Word we just got in the kitchen, we brought in arms full of better lettuce grown from straight from the ground. And these farmers are amazing. I mean, talk to your farmer Get to Know Your Farmer, you need to find out more about them because they all have different farming practices. So maybe you're buying organics in the store. But some organics can still be sprayed now it's safer pesticides. But somehow that organic label helps us to feel better. And in most, most cases, it is a lot better to get organic.

Jarrod: 1:58

Well. And if you're dealing with a much bigger company that halfway around the world, it does give you some reassurances that they're following certain practices, but like you said, sometimes they are sprayed, but they are with the quote unquote, natural insecticides. So that doesn't mean they are completely without some type of spray on them.

Anita: 2:15

But if at the farmers market, you can walk around and talk with them. You don't have to say is it organic? What you want to say here your keywords? Are they do you have any produce that sprayed? Is it sprayed? Is it treated with pesticides in any way? Or how do you grow? What are your foreign farming practices? These are the types of things you want to be asking because being organic and certified organic cost a lot of money. So many of the smaller farmers who grow and more ethically and like really claim more sustainably right, then those farmers are not having that organic label a

Jarrod: 2:52

lot of times, and we're talking about 1000s of dollars a year to maintain that type of certification. It's a

Anita: 2:57

lot of money out of pocket. And do you know how time money can be these days. So it's really, really important that you support your local farmer number one, because they're going to get you the freshest most in season produce. So if you're looking to boost your nutrients this year, if you're thinking, oh, I want the absolute best thing for my family that I can get on the table and for myself, because I want to heal my body. This is how you do it. Because it's picked

Jarrod: 3:23

fresher. I was just about to ask you. How is it better? Yeah, it's picked

Anita: 3:27

at the freshest, like the peak of freshness. So instead of being picked, when it was not ripe, and then put on cargo ships and shipped halfway across the world to you, then when it gets to the market and it's fresh, it's really been weeks or I don't know, maybe sometimes even longer depending on

Jarrod: 3:44

what it is on some of them. I think it could be a week. Some of them it could be a few weeks.

Anita: 3:48

Yeah. And so you're getting it within a day or two sometimes same day. And one of the farmers that we go to, they don't even use machinery on their farm. I'm talking it's hand grown, handpicked everything. So look for the best of the best and we have some farmers and so they won't say they're organic, but when I start talking to them, there's one woman we love her table and she knows I'm always looking for entreated produce and the freshest and the best so she'll go she'll see me coming and go oh hey, okay, so this is what you're looking for. This is what I grew on my farm and then she sells things from other farms as well. And so she can't guarantee that that's not sprayed or treated but hers. She can tell you agree the bees on my plants in my yard you know in my garden, so then we know how she hasn't traded those and we just cut I've been one of the best, most juicy pomelo it's it's like a great large type of grapefruit and it's absolutely fantastic. So if you haven't tried one of those and you can ever get it in the cooler months in Florida, absolutely pick one up if you're visiting Florida during that time of year because they are super sweet. You think about grapefruit being kinda bitter, and you just don't get that when they're fresh. It's really just

Jarrod: 5:03

really like a grapefruit that's been pre sweetened how like when you eat an orange that it has a sweetness to it, it's like that, but the grapefruit variety, so it's just

Anita: 5:12

amazing, amazing training. So we came home with just armfuls of kale and other greens swiss chard, P sheets. Yeah, little tiny turnips and little fresh carrots and the kids are going crazy. Oh, yeah. And here we are. And now it's cold here but it's been warm enough that people are still actually growing really delicious heirloom tomatoes right now and we had them straight off her plant. I cut into them they were ripe, juicy, the flavors of a summer tomato were there the kids were freaking out. I could not keep them sliced fast enough. And we were making tomato sandwiches and so that

Jarrod: 5:50

wasn't the original plan though. We were just gonna sample it and then our oldest daughter said you've got to make that into a sandwich gonna make a tomato sandwich right That's an excellent idea. We'll do it

Anita: 6:01

right and so they took out the Ezekiel bread which we love to use if you're not staying away from gluten. There is really good it's a lot of seeds and they do use whole grains but it does have whole wheat but I'm not eating a lot of gluten right now and so I'm really trying not to eat it if I know it's in there. So I have these little crackers that I eat that are so good you can use a brown rice cracker which is a whole grain or you can use something like and that's Edward incense Bran those are really good but for tomato sandwich I have these long crackers I don't even know how to say the name but I can put a link in the show notes of what they are. They're so good they're keen wah and they make the best sandwich substitute their long rectangle like a long graham cracker would be and you just put your favorite plant based spread on there and you put the tomatoes so I did like my PLANT BASE May I that takes about two minutes to webapp then I put my tomato slices on there a little fresh cracked black pepper salt but our secret weapon Yeah, so

Jarrod: 6:59

I was just I was waiting to see if you're headed there and I was gonna jump in

Anita: 7:03

No, I'm not leaving out the secret weapon. So here's what you do. If you don't have something really smoky to put on there like a tofu or tempeh bacon or you don't want to take time to make that but you want it to have that BLT flavor so we took the butter lettuce we put that on top of the spread put the slices of tomato and then on top of that sprinkle of smoked paprika and it gives you that bacon a flavor and it's absolutely fantastic for a tomato sandwich so we were all loving it and it was slice after slice and sandwich after sandwich but we love the Farmers Market

Jarrod: 7:39

Now one thing you'll do too is if you're trying to avoid bread are grains for whatever reason many times we'll just take several leaves of lettuce whatever type in the case of this sandwich it was the butter leaf lettuce and then we'll wrap whatever like with this the tomato in it and then that becomes like your bread but you want to get more than just one leaf you want to get several so it's got some good substance to it so that way when you bite into it's got that crunch and just stack the like a I don't know a rap. Really Yes,

Anita: 8:05

it's like a lot of trap. That's exactly what it is. You can do a collared rap you could do a prime to a kale rap. If you had dyno kale that would be amazing. So if you haven't tried dyno kale, try some it is amazing. So it's a more thick, filled out leaf and it would make a great rap and absolutely great rap. So yeah, one of the kids grabbed our butter leaf lettuce stacked a couple of leafs together, put the tomato smoked paprika, the mayo drizzle on it, rolled it up and ate it and they were going this is so much better than the bread Why'd I even use bread because sometimes the bread overpowers and takes away the flavor of the sandwich so and sometimes we'll eat them open face. I think everybody ate an open face one because when you have two stacks of bread with the veg inside, you almost don't taste anything. Dilute the flavor of the veg plus you just ate more sandwiches that way which is really great. Nobody's going to complain about that. It just tastes so good. So the thing is get to know your farmer now doesn't have to be at the farmers market. Get online and look up where your local farms are, you know where we lived in. And between Jacksonville and St. Augustine who used to live in Ponte Vedra, we had a local farmer his name's Simon his farm is absolutely amazing. If you happen to be in that area, check him out or email me Anita at power plants calm and I'll try to get the information to you about his farm, but they have a CSA if you live close. So what that is is basically a bunch of people different different people from different families go together and say hey, we want produce when you have it in season and they will bag it bags of it for you and you pick it up at certain time periods and sometimes they have a drop off area where you can go and pick that up but it really is reasonable to support your local farmer and the produce is always just been amazing like

Jarrod: 9:51

subscription service where you pay into it so much and different ones will do it differently where you either pay per month or pay just outright in full And then that way, you get so much per month and you're supporting your farmer, they have the resources that they need to be able to run that farm, and you're getting produce the freshest it can be when we've done that lately, it was usually picked that morning of the pickup day. So you're getting it, whenever it's fully ripe, you're going to have the most nutrients, and that's why we're eating this food anyway, to heal our bodies is to fuel our bodies well, and it can't do that if the nutrients and the things that the food needs to have isn't in the food. So if it's early before it's fully ripe, yes, it will continue to ripe. But still, it's just not quite the same, it's better than, but if you have the opportunity to get it, where you can get it pick day of, and it's not having to sit on a shelf or in a warehouse or in a cooler for a week. That's the best. And that's where you're gonna get the best flavor to.

Anita: 10:51

Absolutely, I mean, you can't you just can't replace that flavor. You know, I was sitting here thinking, I wonder if sometimes we think we don't like certain things, because we haven't had it fresh one point. I mean, we haven't had it fresh. So we're thinking, I don't like green beans, but all you've ever had are the can mushy green beans, and you just don't know that because that's how you grew up eating

Jarrod: 11:11

or with the tomato. If we had the heirloom tomato today, in any of you that have grown your own tomatoes, you know what intense flavor it has. But then if you get one from the store, and sure it's a bright red, and it's packaged nicely, but you bite into it, and there's no flavor, there's no flavor, and it's might be kind of mushy, it just doesn't have that full experience. And so that's an excellent point. If you think maybe you don't like brussel sprouts, well, maybe it's because you haven't had a good fresh brussel sprouts prepared the right way, right. I

Anita: 11:39

mean, think about a page, if you've ever had a page where it's kind of mealy and there's no juice flowing out of it when you bite into it, or you grab a ripe summer page and the peach juice rolls down your arm down your elbow like that this is the flavor, this is the good stuff. And if you can learn how to love these foods, and one of the big keys is get it fresh. Do that for yourself find out you know, you may be driving right by a local farm or doing your errands close to one and not even know it's there. Think about that for a minute. Or maybe you think I will that's not an organic farm. And I'm really trying to go all organic call and ask there may be certain things that they grow that are or do you think the same thing about the produce stand near your house? Ask them anyway because you just don't have to ask. And one

Jarrod: 12:27

thing too is you might think that when you're farther up north, hey, it's it's snowing outside, there's no way anybody's growing food around here, talk with them and ask maybe they have direct connections with farms that are farther south. So instead of being picked, same day, maybe it was picked a day or two before and they get shipped to them, we know that it's common for farmers where we are to when they go to market is to grab produce from other neighboring farms, because they may not have everything and they want to offer people a variety. So they'll buy from their neighbors, and then their their neighbors will do vice versa with them. The other thing too are greenhouses. I mean, there may be a greenhouse that's pretty a greenhouse type farm that's producing these things. And again, you won't know it, you'll think it's no and it's just going to be the typical produce. No, ask, that's where you're gonna get the information you won't know if you don't ask. And

Anita: 13:17

always remember you're voting with your dollar. So whatever you're buying is what you're going to see more of in your store or the park farmers are going to grow more of that, right. So by the things that are lovely, and tasty and fresh, and the things that don't have as many chemicals and things like that, because they will grow more of it. And then that's what you're going to find when you go to the market, which is great, because if they know there's a demand, they're going to find a way to fill it and supply it. So that way everybody wins. Exactly. So you want to do that for yourself. Listen, try something new. Pick two fresh new fruits or vegetables that you're going to try this week that you think maybe maybe I didn't like that. Get online and find a new way to prepare it. Go back and listen to some of our previous podcast. We've shared all kinds of ideas, get on power on plants calm and grab your free resource. All you have to do is give us your email, we'll send it right out to you how to get 15 ways actually to get more leafy greens into your life on a regular basis that you'll actually enjoy. You know, we don't think about this and if I was talking to the women at the farmers market today that were growing all these greens, she didn't really know how to recommend people eat them and I said just go get this download it's going to show you and you tell your people when they come to your table. You know you can chop them up really family that here's the great one of the green secrets I'll give you one of them is and I don't even think I put this in the guide. This isn't a bonus bonus. So what you do is you'll wash them and freeze them wash them and dry them pretty well. You could use a salad spinner or something like that. It's Quick and easy, you get in the habit of doing it, it doesn't take but a few minutes, then you freeze them and we freeze them in some type of freezer safe a bag or container. When you're ready to eat them, take them out of the freezer, leave them frozen, you're going to add them to all kinds of things. I've shown you that in the guide, but you take that and while they're still hard and crunchy, don't let them sit for five minutes, they're gonna get soft, they're gonna thaw very quickly, take them while they're fries and crush them up inside the bag to start, squeeze in the bag, crush, crush crush, and then you're going to end up with all these little bits, you don't even have to chop them, I'm telling you, they will Brickle and crush inside the bag. And then you're going to dump them in something like a soup, or a chili. Okay, I've got all kinds of ideas in there for you. And you won't even know they're there. It's amazing. And if you want to even smaller, you think I really don't want pieces and you have a food processor or a blender or something, they'll chop them, throw them in immediately after you take them out of the freezer. Because what is going to happen, you're going to end up with a greens powder. That is way healthier than any greens powder you're going to buy and pay a ton of money for. And it will be frozen, but you're going to put it in your food and cook this is what you do when you want to cook it like in a soup or a casserole or something like that. And you'll get so much more in there. And you won't even know I mean, it's nothing for us to cook a pot of soup or something. And I'll use one of the big how many there. But it's a

Jarrod: 16:23

I believe the bags that we use are typically 10 ounces, but it may do two bags, it just depends on the size.

Anita: 16:30

So we're using a ton of greens and you want to get the greens they help fight, prevent and even reverse cancer, they help with blood pressure, they help with auto immune disease, there's so many things. So get those greens get all this rainbow of color that's naturally been put in creation to fuel your body. Well learn your favorite ways to eat them. We are so excited for you to start exploring the farmers markets and the farms and the CSAs in your area. And we want to hear from you if you already go to the farmers market. Or you just go because you've heard this podcast and you pick up an incredible haul. Take a picture of it and share it with us, tag us on Instagram. Absolutely tag us on Instagram or email it to me and Anita at power plants.com. And we'll talk about your favorite vines and things because it gives other people ideas, and Jared and I are all about helping other people to get ideas. Help him busy women to know how to build your body to build your best health so that you can live the full life you're after. Because it just opens up the door possibility for you. It's ours you absolutely app empowers you to do all the things that you want to do in this life. And we always say you are your number one asset. And if you don't take care of you, who's going to take care of you. So you've got all these amazing things you want to do. We're here to help you find new incredible ways to get more of these fantastic foods in your life in a way that actually tastes good. So if you have any questions about anything again, drop us an email. We'll be happy to answer those. And we'll look forward to hanging out with you again next time on power on plants.