Superfood Goddess with Stephanie B
The Docs have the pleasure to talk with Stephanie B @thesuperfoodgoddess, a health and wellness coach whose motto is “Eat well and Feel well”. She teaches healthy plant based recipes to improve your physical as well as mental health.
Stephanie B
Website: https://www.thesuperfoodgoddess.com/
Transcript:
hi welcome to recommended daily dose i'm steffy the superfood goddess
did you come up with that name yourself or because i because he's the brown guy he's the brown goddess if you haven't uh i am the brown goddess and actually clenton's the black queen so it's odd it's just coincidence now queen is offensive in some in some states oh man i gotta report that not to me not to me we'll say black queen black ronnie ronnie is queen and hindi in the language but um
i just want to warn you guys that i just had lunch so i have a gas pocket so if you're here if i have to meet you guys for any reason oh and you're gonna you're gonna tell me about my diet so this diet is horrendous just so you know we're pleased to have the superfood goddess here she is a health and wellness coach whose model is eat well and feel well she teaches healthy plant-based recipes my favorite is the jackfruit pulled barbecue tacos i haven't tried it yet but it looks great and she also gives amazing advice on wellness and travel so welcome hi thank you so much for having me so we have a lot to get into we'll talk about your your journey what a health coach does things like that so has this always been your passion or how did you get to where you are now yeah thank you for asking i started about 13 years ago and honestly it was it was a little bit by accident i i was already doing some different diet research i was looking into you know paleo afkins i was i was looking into organic foods and right around that time my brother got diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and so you know just like any other emergency situation you start searching the internet you start talking to professionals and and trying to figure out what to do and on my journey i found out about the plant-based diet and this was 13 years ago before it was you know nowadays i feel like it's it's a bigger thing or is trendy basically yes absolutely definitely has become trendy uh which you know in my mind i'm like okay fine if that's what gets you there fine right uh but so yeah so this this book fell into my hand and it made sense to me that the the effects of food could have effect on your body on your organs on on your mood and how you feel and since my brother was dealing with a mood disorder we thought well let's do a three month challenge so mom and i we stopped drinking same thing with my brother we stopped drinking we started incorporating plant-based foods i mean we went cold turkey it was challenge on and you know we were we were searching what do we eat beans rice we were looking for complete proteins we were looking for all the nutrients that we could add into our diet because we had heard from so many people that the vegan diet wasn't healthy and and you know back in the day i i think there probably were some people that did it wrong and i think even today sometimes people do it wrong it really you really have to be conscious about what you're putting into your body you know you i always tell people eat the rainbow you know as long as you're eating the rainbow as long as you're eating a diverse amount of fruits vegetables nuts legumes and whole grains you should be good but you're you should you still need to be you know making sure that you're getting the proper amounts of micro and macro nutrients
was your family on board initially or yeah actually we i think because we were in such an emergency state we were ready to do anything right and you know and i think nowadays that's that's often how it goes to you know all of a sudden we get a disease or we figure something out and it's like ah what do we do we we have to incorporate something to make this better uh so yeah we were we were on board i was really proud of all three of us we did an amazing job and after three months i felt amazing my energy levels were better my skin was glowing um i just i had a new sense of life within me and so for me personally i didn't feel like i wanted to go back to how i how i was feeling because i'll take you kind of a back story before that i was sick my whole life i was on antibiotics a lot and i had bronchitis probably seven eight months out of the year i was yeah i had earaches i always had a stuffy nose and i can't believe that someone didn't say maybe something in your diet maybe it's the dairy in your diet you know just something um nowadays i i realize i haven't been sick in 13 years i have not had i don't know what cold and flu season is it doesn't i i don't take part in it i i eat healthy enough that i feel like my immune system is strong and it is consistently fighting for me so stephanie i went here one second so i um it's very fascinating to me so you know obviously we're both your skin is and i am glowing so you know obviously you know you know where this is headed but you know we know now in medicine uh especially an infectious disease there's this idea of this gut brain access right so it's not just your dna it's how your dna interacts with your bacteria lives within you we call the microbiome so and we know things like antibiotics diet lifestyle environment affects the kind of bacteria in your body and that can then subsequently affect how your dna interacts how it functions that's called the microbiome and we know there's a relationship with um depression anxiety there's even being looked at things like adhd and other uh called central nervous system issues with with diet so really you know i think a lot of people will say in the beginning this was trendy or whatever you want to call it but you know in medicine we always look at the evidence and there's a lot of study right now looking this idea of the microbiome how our dna interacts with bacteria and bacteria of course are influenced by what we eat so if we eat odd things we take a lot of antibiotics even though the infections these doctors and i prescribe them and they're life-saving we know it can alter the flora that is the bacteria inside you and that whole idea of the gut brain access you know may be the might is a way of it's actually a area of research that we're looking at um to kind of explain what i think you're going to continue telling us about was how diet can influence how you feel so we know it influences your your physical well-being but the mental well-being is definitely an area that's now being looked at and that whole idea of the gut brain access you know that connection is really what might explain it so um i want to ask that did you so you went uh plant-based cold turkey were you eating meat beforehand because i'm kind of along that journey uh because of my culture and i don't eat beef and i've never eaten pork but i'm not a pescetarian so i'm not quite there yet but did you give up just cold turkey eating and before this you were eating all types of meat so that's actually a great question thank you i i was eating chicken fish and turkey steak and red meat were were more of a delicacy it was every once in a while you know if i was out with friends and maybe someone else ordered a steak then i would order a steak too or i'd have a couple bites of theirs red meat wasn't huge in my family i think because my mom grew up very poor and they lived next door to a butcher who gave them all the scraps of meat so the red meat just didn't seem she just didn't like it so she that was something that wasn't really in our diet much but but i did eat kind of the the normal healthy american diet you know two percent milk uh lean fish leaned uh lean turkey and chicken so i i was incorporating meat and dairy and let me just tell you i thought life was over when i had to get rid of dairy and cheese and yogurt why do you why do you think people struggle so much with that i i did a vegan um diet for about i think probably can you give your background clenton because just let her know that you are uh a big popeyes fried chicken guy so just let her know i actually had a burger that's right i feel guilty about talking about it but um for me i i agree i felt really good um on that diet you feel like you're it's hard to explain but you feel like you're lighter and you're not you know inundated with heavy toxic foods yeah then you get the cream and you get these cravings so um and i think as doctors we struggle with trying to you know communicate to patients that you know food is medicine that you know what you put into your body is important do you did you find that challenge not for yourself it may be for yourself but um now that you do health coaching do you do you find that challenging for your patients yeah you know i i think one of the things i mean yeah there there are cravings you know and those are those are undeniable and sometimes what we're not taught is that sometimes you have a craving for something and it's it's a nutrient your body needs you know like maybe it is iron or maybe it is protein and because we're so used to eating meat and dairy we go for those items that you know we think immediately oh i need iron i want a burger or i won't want a steak that's a good point because bacon i think people's fascination is probably the salt of a bacon not necessarily the uh probably the texture too but um that's a good point i never thought of it like that just you know your body's telling you need something that you have no idea what the alternatives are so sorry about that i'm just thinking about bacon yeah yeah well bacon i mean they've got unhealthy bacon ice cream now they're baked baking candy like they had bacon beer i've never had bacon so but apparently it's a thing but um can i just ask you why is i get plant-based and we're gonna have you know i want you to educate us much more about that but if you could just explain like for instance i'm kind of stuck you know i gave up chicken and turkey and no problem but why is dairy i have some vegan friends and apparently dairy is like enemy number one or meets enemy number one dairy's enemy number two and uh wha what is it about dairy that is also uh you know worth giving up i mean i have some vegan friends that tell us that look we're the only animal that eats another animals or drinks dollar animals milk is that what it is is it more of a uh environmental issue is it a moral issue or what it what why is dairy according to a lot of people not necessarily uh so needed by us where i grew up thinking like milk you know three glasses of milk a day is how i'm gonna get taller and healthier like you know that's i think a hard for a lot of people a lot of people might be able to give up meat but if you tell me living in jersey to give a pizza it's really impossible so yeah yeah and and i get that too you know i mean because again that's something that we've been used to we've that's it's very hard i personally think it's hard to it's hard to unlearn things and you know if you grew up your entire life thinking that you needed these items it's hard to kind of rewire your brain and what i will say with dairy it's mucus forming uh so first of all that's for me it was a health thing at first there's three ways that you go into the the vegan or plant-based diet it's either health environment or for the animals and i understand all of them um i went into it for health and what kept me accountable down the line aside from just feeling really great and also realizing i wasn't getting sick anymore um i did start i started facing the truth of what happens behind the scenes and you know i'm not saying that every single animal is is not taken care of but you know you you just don't know and and i know humans and i've met good humans and i've met bad humans and you know and so you just don't know what's going on behind there and there are horror stories i'm sure you've seen the videos of the the mistreatment of animals and you know they're they're living beings just like us and so that was something that as i started learning that truth that's what kept me strong in what i was doing because yeah for the first year to i kind of struggled and i and i would think well do i have to have this label and do i have to stop eating my raw sushi oh my gosh i loved sushi and i loved my dairy and like i didn't want to give get rid of that it's personal and and a lot of times when i talk to people about it people get offended when i you know even just hearing that i'm vegan or plant-based and i say listen if i'm not offended by you i please don't be offended by me if anything like i'm not going to sit here and preach about veganism if that's you know if that's offensive to you but if you have questions i'd be so happy to you know to enlighten you or to let you know the information and research that i found out no i appreciate breaking it down that's that's actually great because i find that a lot of people think like you said the health benefits but talking about environmental concerns or moral concerns with animals i mean there's a documentary food incorporated i don't know if you're gonna solve it it kind of takes you behind processing plants and even how um uh calves are separated from the mothers you know so the mothers can produce milk and it can be um really heart-wrenching to watch so that's an interesting way but you know you're right you bring up the idea i feel like a lot of people think that vegans are um can be preachy and then you're saying no to each their own you're just trying to educate um about the benefits but um do you find that some people sometimes are taken back or become defensive when you when you were talking to them about veganism and the benefits of such yeah absolutely because you're talking to them about their beloved steak that they're not they're not ready to get get rid of you know or their ranch and and yeah they're they're burgers or they're ranch salad like and i get it i 100 get it we have that attachment and and even to go a little uh dive a little deeper the the case in that's in the the milk in the milk protein it's it's very addictive it hits that same receptor that that sugar and cocaine hit you know in the pleasure center of our brain so it's like it keeps bringing you back for more kind of subconsciously you don't you don't even know that you're addicted to the substance when you say mucus producing so mucus produce things that you're talking about in terms of gastrointestinal illness like bloating is that that's interesting a lot of people say they feel lighter when they give up dairy um and i wonder if that's because just you know uh milk has obviously sugars and those get fermented in the body and that produces all gas but um that's that's interesting i mean i i never you know as a physician we never really taught these things you know nutrition is something that is severely lacking in med school so the idea of mucus uh production is is interesting i uh explains your gas i'm still stuck in that cheese are you i've tried vegan cheese and i'm trying to switch out of it but um i will not lie to you that's kind of where i'm stuck you know giving up meat no problem i'm still eating sushi and fish um clenton i'm trying to get on board maybe you can help us you know because i know you are a coach also right health coach can you tell us a little bit about that like what that means and what that entails yeah so you know just like i started 13 years ago uh which there were way less options back then um but i know how hard it was i know that the transition was hard you know people people are asking you why and you know and they're they're kind of grilling you about it you're trying to figure out what to eat you you at first i was eating kind of the same three things because that's what i knew and then i you know every week or every day i would i would incorporate one more thing um and so i don't want someone to have to do that alone i know what it's like to struggle and you know and that's even just like outside of my diet you know like coming from childhood and coming from past traumas i understand what that's like and and and flailing you know it doesn't feel good and so i want to be able to to i meet people where they're at i i don't require them to to be vegan or plant-based but i do help them incorporate more plants and you know and getting to more whole foods too because yeah i know that there's the vegan cheeses i know there's the vegan meats um and i do oh i would love you to i would love you to comment on your thoughts on uh you know we go to bear burger a lot i flip for the menu to the vegan side and i get the beyond burgers and possible meat but then there's some people who say there's not really it's too much salt etc i mean any thoughts on those um pseudo meats you know i buy this stuff at whole foods i mean is it worth using is it not worth using yeah you know so i call them transitional foods i they're there because it it help it satisfies a craving it satisfies that meat or dairy want because there's still that you know that meaty texture or that that ooey gooey cheesiness that that you like um but at the end of the day yeah they are made with oils and preservatives and additives and salts and sugars so that's food yeah processed food so i mean even me personally i mean i'll i'll take someone from eating a burger to eating these transitional foods to eating whole foods that's really where i'm trying to get people is holy you want to eat the apple right okay pull right off the tree you know the um the bear not the absolute fault
exactly unless unless you make it not apples absolutely what what 40 year old eats applesauce anyway i wanna you were having apple brandy last time i saw you were out on a friday night this is true this is true um i want to get back to um the health coaching because i think it's an interesting point you made about uh individual and groups because when i was doing the vegan diet i felt kind of isolated right so my family they meet and it was just me so you you find that that's an easier transition to incorporate amongst a group of people right yeah yeah and i do i do group coaching and i do one-on-one coaching uh one-on-one is definitely more intimate we can we can spend more time together we have a meeting once a week together where we talk about what's going on you know kind of like you would go see a therapist or a doctor like we just talk we see what triggers are we see where the roadblocks are and how we can get past them right in a group it's a it's a nice group setting it's a it's a smaller cost because you know there's more people it's not as intimate but it's still intimate because there's people there that are going through the same things as the others and and so when one person shares their story someone else is going to get something out of it too and so what i usually i teach for for some part of it and then i allow q a i let us to talk and just you know kind of kind of how we are now just asking questions what do you eat when you when you go out uh you know different recipes that kind of stuff and it has that accountability factor too right so every year checking in on everyone else so i think i think we missed that in individual diets go ahead so yes getting referrals from physicians because you know there's a whole aspect of medicine i mean i'm infectious disease clenton is a nephrologist so we don't necessarily get involved with this but um although we try in the operation setting um there's a whole aspect of medicine called functional medicine you know it's kind of like lifestyle medicine it's a growing trend i won't say trend that makes it sound like it's just a fad but it's a growing area of medicine you know quite frankly with its own fellowships education certification so um are you finding people coming out to you or reaching out to you uh perhaps that maybe have seen their physician and now you know they're they're saying they're being referred like how do people find you i guess is what i'm trying to say and i wonder if physicians are now utilizing uh either yourself or people with similar backgrounds and training and passions um this is kind of a new burgeoning area of medicine absolutely yes there are uh physicians that are referring out to health coaches i currently i'm not in in contact or with someone that's that's sending me referrals that's actually my next step that's that is what i'd like to do because i do realize i mean you guys have learned such information you know so i understand to a certain extent why maybe nutrition isn't hasn't always been you know the the biggest learning point for you guys because you're thinking about you know uh the brain about the gut about all the organs in the body it's a lot i mean even just me learning about nutrition it's there's so much information so that that's definitely an avenue that people can take i'm i haven't done that yet but i'm i'm on instagram i have a website and a blog where i do post healthy recipes and people can find me on there and and see my story and then you know word of mouth i i get my mom's a hairdresser so she talks to a lot of people and so you know people whether they're the ones sitting in her chair or it's a family member somehow it gets back to me and and so that's kind of how i've i've been doing it recently can your mom help him out look look at his uh hugs i also have a very strong jawline and nice features that'll be my hair's kind of wasted on clenton as you can see he needs more help i um it's actually on purpose i could have a big uh you know indian fro no problem but it's just i keep my hair short on purpose can you share with us just just you know i know i people will and you have to tell us again um where specifically they can find you on instagram and other social media but just an example of perfect example um my wife and my son they uh do eat meat they eat chicken and turkey and we and and you know we don't eat red meat but so sometimes um if i want to make something very simple for myself a whole plant-based can you just give me one example of something easy uh that can be done especially during the week right that would still fulfill cravings that would have enough nutrients that i wouldn't be snacking uh you know and what happens is a lot of times i eat a bowl of cereal after having a salad for dinner which i think defeats the purpose so um he just gives me an example of one i one example of a recipe you might recommend gosh all the milk you know yes all the collard greens i'm just thinking of you in the refrigerator looking for uh pouring a bowl of cereal with no milk you put put some water on you know what um there's actually that's actually a scene from our favorite movie i believe she knows i know she knows i know we always try to throw a friday reference or going to a coming to america reference i want some of those big feet
and then my dog goes yeah yeah all right no sorry keep going you know i i think that one of the one of the the first recipes that i taught myself was tacos you know it's something familiar to us we we all i think most people like tacos sorry for those who don't um but you know they can be so versatile and you know you can use corn or flour tortillas i myself am gluten free so i i do corn organic corn i love um yeah nice flavor and they get nice and crispy um and so what i love to do is i'll spread a little bit of hummus on the taco shell and then i'll just also take up some of my favorite veggies you know for example fajita veggies uh red bell pepper some onions some mushroom and and then i'll add some black beans i'll saute all that up i'll do a little cajun seasoning or taco seasoning then i'll put a little bit of cabbage on top of that that hummus throw the veggies on top top it with some avocado and salsa if you want to yeah i mean you can you can leave it just like that because i think the hummus creates a nice creaminess if you need a cheese substitute there are so many different brands of cheeses and you know they all taste differently so if you try one and you don't like it i always urge people try a different brand you know there's there's different ingredients in all of them or you can make your own cashew cheese sauce and again that's how i eat but when i'm trying to tell people you know to make it a little bit easier if you want like the same exact thing you can go grab the vegan cheese otherwise cashew cheese sauce is awesome too you soak some cashews you add a little bit of lemon and some salt a little bit of nutritional yeast which has a cheesy flavor and also boasts some nutrients and b12 and yeah i mean you've got a taco plate you can serve that with rice and some more beans if you want or a salad so so and what kind of dressings are allowed on the salad so you obviously ranch is out but can you put um and so i'm saying i'm guessing oil and vinegar you don't want to use as well so what what could we utilize on the salad why can't you use oil and vinegar you can use it i'm thinking she's gonna say i'm i'm guessing but i'll let her say i'm guessing he's gonna say that oil is not allowed no no you know it i i i've gone back and forth yeah i mean avocado oil oil ooh baby oil would be interesting oh now we're going different direction here i see
um you know i um oil in moderation and so if i know you know i i think that's something that is is good to be touched upon uh we do have a lot of oil in our diet and and we we definitely overuse it if you want to use a little oil on your salad go right ahead but i mean a little oil is like a tablespoon not even like if you could if you could keep it to a teaspoon uh two teaspoons that that's great because again you're still getting oils in in other meals other snacks that you're having throughout the day um i love doing i'll make like a balsamic i'll even i'll add a little bit of vinegar a touch of oil or if i'm doing it without oil i'll throw in a couple cashews and mix that in a blender a little bit of lemon and some herbs and voila you can even use mustard to make it a little bit if you want to go like a mustard route you can make that a little creamy with a little bit of really any kind of vinegar you can use white vinegar you can use balsamic vinegar now you can transplant lemons and limes i think we have two last questions we want to ask you one is so um let's say it's a friday night you're making this lovely taco is a little wine or uh cocktail or beer allowed and is there you know and then is that allowed and then you know so first on that and then going into that because we've heard reports during the quarantine of people drinking more just want to quickly your thoughts on how people have changed their diet either for the better for the worse uh during uh the coba 19 quarantine yeah you know so i mean sure uh alcohol technically you know it you could call it a poison right i mean it's yeah um but i do understand that we are human uh you know this is something again that's been part of our daily life for for however long if you're not abusing it if it's in moderation you know life is about balance and i don't want anyone to feel restricted i do know that you know it alcohol changes your gut flora which again having the the healthiest cleanest gut is going to help help you have the healthiest cleanest mind um you know so it will change your gut flora a little but you know having a glass while you're cooking they do say that some of the healthiest people you know they talk about grease the mediterranean diet these people are eating tons of plants there is a little bit of fish involved very little dairy but it's it's plants it's beans uh they do incorporate wine they're happy they're jolly there's a there's a different mindset and so i don't think there's anything wrong with a little bit of balance um you know with with beer uh it does have gluten in it so i don't i don't drink that and i often get bloated from it and so i i do tell people you know you this healthy diet and nurturing your body is is separate to each and every body i'm different than than you i mean yes plants all around are great for us but you know there's different there's different foods that we're going to be allergic to there's different things we're going to have sensitivity to i mean you know i have to make sure i chew my kale really well otherwise even raw kale i mean that'll bloat me a little bit you know from cruciferous vegetables can can can make that happen in your body so it's understanding your body and knowing what works so if you know that you're fine with beer have a beer you know if you if wine works for you and it's not going to keep you up yeah you know it's like it's about balance it's in moderation yourself yeah yes and i'm sure that you probably i i'm just your your passion is so palpable i wish we could just you know i hope that you continue to share it with everyone and you know where can people find you if you have a website or a youtube channel yeah so i'm the superfood goddess all across the board so you can find me on instagram as the superfood goddess uh thus superfood goddess.com ask her hair below yes i do have a youtube channel uh but i i'm i'm not a youtuber i i don't have a film crew so my videos aren't like top quality i just throw things on there you know when i have time it's not like a a weekly thing that i do but you can find some interviews on there and uh you know like little things like that but mainly instagram and and my website and the superfood goddess gmail.com that's you know it's as simple as that to get a hold of me on on email i know i was put on earth to serve i want to help people and i will do that till the day i'm not here on earth i i just don't want anyone to have to suffer feel isolated or feel down and especially during this time in covid we need to keep our accountability up our health up our immune system up and really taking care of ourselves and one another in supporting one another oh well said stephanie uh that you know that positivity is so needed in general certainly during the COVID19 time we want to thank stephanie b the super food goddess uh for joining us today this has been incredible and like clenton said your passion is palpable uh please uh keep us informed and uh you know we want to everyone to check her out on social media and you know this is not this is really for the betterment of people's lives and you know clent and i both uh are trying to uh better people's health obviously from a medical point of view but this is incredibly important i have an idea i challenge you to to go vegan for for a month for me we'll have we'll have the superfood goddess moderated and we'll check in with her i i will uh you got him out of the debate individual coaching for sure because i'll see you i like my pizza that's what i come with but i tell you what i i am your co-host dr serge sugger with my co-host dr clenton coleman aka the kidney goddess i think that could be a new name or new tagline but yeah until next time you want everyone to be healthy be safe and be well thanks for listening
