458: Whole30 Starts Over with Melissa Urban

22:46We've had incredible stories from people who have reversed type 2 diabetes. Or I remember this story about Jerry. She was in her 70s and she had a cat that she loved taking for walks in a stroller. This cat would go in a stroller and Jerry would go on walks. But she had so much knee pain and joint pain and swelling that she hadn't been able to walk her cat. And at the end of her 30 days, she sent me a picture of her out within her stroller walking her cat. She had regained all of that mobility and energy. And I mean, it can provide such a radical life changing transformation and that carries over into every area of your life.

23:21Yeah. And then you get to receive cat photos. Yeah. It's a blessing. Oh, Jerry. I loved it. Yes. I love hearing from people like that. Yeah. I'm sure you also hear or see online a lot of like misconceptions of like people who think that they're doing something runway or they have a problem with something. Is there any like Whole 30 misconception that you would want to clear up? I mean, I think the most prevalent is that Whole 30 is a weight loss diet. And like I get it. I get why the media, mainstream media, especially U.S. News & World Report, for example, they come out with their best weight loss diets every January.

23:50And Whole30 is always on the list, and it has historically been at the very bottom. And I don't know whether I should be proud because we're the worst weight loss diet, because we're not a weight loss diet, or frustrated because they keep including us. But we're not a weight loss diet, but weight loss is still a huge industry, and it definitely is still a buzzword for consumers. Consumers want weight loss. And so when media doesn't really know how to classify us. They kind of stick us into that weight loss diet. But then people assume that Whole30 is prescriptive. They're like, oh, Whole30 says these foods are bad and you should never eat them again.

24:21And that's simply not the case. So I think that's a big misconception. I hear a lot of people say it's not sustainable. And I'm like, well, it's a short-term elimination program. It's not meant to be sustainable. And after your Whole30, you take your learnings and you apply them however you want in your food freedom. I am not here to tell you how to eat in life after your Whole30. And I'm not even here to say, hey, that ice cream made you break out and made your stomach hurt. You should never eat ice cream again. If ice cream is worth it for you and you love it so much and it is worth whatever consequences, I want you to enjoy it and savor it and just time it such that it's not taking you out, you know, on your wedding day or during your vacation.

24:59So I think those are two of the big ones that I always try to sort of gently counteract in interviews. Yeah. And you mentioned January, which is obviously such a big time for people to do any kind of lifestyle change. And I feel like recently I've been reading online people talking about, especially if you live in a cold place, like January is a time for rest and kind of like being easy on yourself and that if you're trying to make a big change, like it might not actually be the best time of year to do that, which I find really interesting. Do you feel like there is like a right time or a wrong time to do Whole30?

25:30You know, I would say there is a wrong time to do it in that because it's an elimination program and because there are rules to follow and in order to be effective, you really do need to completely eliminate those foods and then be very careful with reintroduction. If Whole30 is going to add more stress than the benefits it gives you in terms of your energy and sleep, that's probably not a good time to do Whole30. And I would probably wait until you were out of that like very difficult season. But, you know, people, January is always going to be a big month, a new year, a new you. But we find September is almost as big as January for Whole30.

26:06I think people are getting out of, you know, summer has been chaotic. Kids are not in school. You're on vacations. You're trying to make the most. There's less routine. There's less structure. And then come September, people, you know, kids are going back to school. You need to meal prep a little bit more. So people like doing a Whole30. And we always run a big group one in September, I think, for that reason. But people start the Whole30 every single day of the year. There is no wrong time to start. And very often there's some impetus that gets someone to say, enough. I've had enough. I've read about this.

26:38I've been wanting to do it. I'm going to plan prep and I'm going to start on Monday. Yeah. I think September is really interesting. Even if you're not in school anymore, I do think there's that mentality of fall is the time of going back to school. And then also certainly it's easier to be in the kitchen and doing things in the oven, maybe when it's not so hot. And the cooking obviously is a big component of it as well. It is. I love my slow cooker. So I get back and I use the slow cooker all year long in fairness, but I get back to more like soups and stews and chilies in fall. You know, I do feel like it's back to school for me too, even though I'm not going to school.

27:11It's just, it's more, you want to be a little bit more regimented, a little bit more structured. Your days are shorter, so you kind of have to make the most of your days. It just feels a lot less laissez-faire than than summer to me. Yeah, definitely. And you mentioned your slow cooker. I'm curious about what your cooking habits are like. Obviously, you're super busy. So how much cooking are you doing in the first place? And how does cooking kind of fit into your life? I still cook quite a bit, although I do lean on we have made by Whole30 meal delivery. So I do get six to eight Whole30 meals delivered every single week.

27:43And I lean on those in between, you know, between Zoom calls or if I just need a quick dinner because my husband's out, my kids are rock climbing. I'll you know, throw one of those in the microwave or on the stove. I like to keep my meals really simple. The bulk of my diet is still Whole30 because it makes me feel great. And it's very easy for me at this point. But I also eat white rice regularly and corn. I love black beans. I love hummus. These are all foods that work really well for me. So I'm throwing a chicken breast and buffalo sauce and like a ranch packet and some ghee in my slow cooker.

28:19And I'm doing two pounds of buffalo chicken, and I'll serve that maybe in tortillas or maybe in lettuce wraps, maybe with some rice, maybe with sauteed veggies. I kind of do these like big meal preps maybe two or three times a week where I do protein and a bunch of vegetables, and then I'm sort of mixing and matching it as the week goes on. And then once or twice a week, I'll do an actual recipe, something that's either new or something from my old cookbooks or one of my kids' favorite recipes and put that together. So let's mix and match. Yeah. I'm really interested in hearing about the foods that you reintroduced for yourself after going through Whole30.

28:50Do you ever do like a total Whole30 reset all over again? Or at this point, do you kind of know what works for you? Yes. So I haven't done a full Whole30 since April 2020. And I probably won't ever do one again. You don't have to. It's okay. No, I don't need it. And that's the whole point. I want you to get to the point where you're like, I don't need a Whole30 protocol anymore because I've eliminated, reintroduced. I know what works for me. I trust myself to make those decisions. And now I just go off and live the rest of my life with my food freedom. So yeah. And April 2020 was probably a really good time to do that because there wasn't much going on in the world.

29:25Yes. We ran a Whole30 at home in the middle of the pandemic and people really leaned on the structure, the support, the community. You know, a lot of people say the Whole30 taught them how to cook. And so we were all cooking at home anyway during the pandemic. So it was a good time to do it. But, you know, like I mentioned, all of those foods that I eat now because I've discovered they work well for me. Dairy also works much better for me now than it did when I first did my Whole30. So I do some cheese. I do some Greek yogurt. I still can't do cottage cheese, which is a real bummer because it's having a moment right now.

29:55Yeah, she is having a moment. It's kind of fun because it's high protein, I guess. I know. And just fun to eat. It is fun. I really do miss it, but it doesn't work well for me, but Greek yogurt does. And I can even throw like a little goat cheese or feta in my salad now, and I tolerate it much better. Yeah, I think it's interesting to have that reminder also that our bodies change over time and that's something that doesn't work for you could work for you in the future. It's a nice reminder. That's such a great point. I always say reintroduction is a lifelong process. There were many years where I would eat, I would try oatmeal, reintroducing it, and it just didn't work.

30:26It left me feeling bloated and kind of like just like sluggish and slow. And then I really started upping my hiking game and running more. And I reintroduced oatmeal again. And all of a sudden, And my body loved it. And now oatmeal is a staple for me. So your context is always changing. Your health is always changing. Your goals are always changing. Your body is always changing. And that's a big part, I think, of why people do come back to the Whole30 from time to time is to get that experience again in their current context. I want to talk a little more about the plant-based Whole30 that you introduced.

30:57I don't eat a lot of meat. And I think when we're talking about the groups you eliminate in Whole30, there are a lot of what I would lean on when I'm making more of a plant-based meal, like dairy or legumes, for example. How did you approach developing that? And are there any foods that you think are really key to the plant-based Whole30? Yes. So when we were, of course, you can't do the original Whole30 if you're vegetarian or vegan, because we do rule out most of your plant-based protein sources. So we worked with a registered dietitian specifically on the plant-based Whole30 to ensure that it was nutritionally balanced, that you got enough protein to be healthful every day, and that it was regulating for your blood sugar.

31:34So we on the Plant-Based Tool 30, your protein is coming from soy, tofu, tempeh, minimally processed forms of soy and legumes. So beans, peas and lentils. You're also supplementing with some plant-based protein sources. So like Abbott's Butcher is a really good example of a plant-based protein that they make like crumbles and like a ground beef. But their ingredient list is like very short and minimally processed. And then you'll supplement with some single ingredient plant-based protein powders as well. So that allows you to get enough protein in your diet, but it also allows you to exclude all forms of grains.

32:14So you can reintroduce grains and determine which of those, like maybe quinoa, work best for you in life after Whole30. That's really interesting. I feel like the expansion of the plant-based pantry is something we haven't talked about, but I would imagine that's also useful. So if you're eating meat and doing Whole30, can you be leaning on those legumes that we're talking about or is it kind of better to keep it separate? We do ask that you keep them separate. So with any elimination diet, the more items you eliminate during that first phase, the better learnings you'll have about how foods work in your system.

32:49And because soy and legumes can be problematic for some, soy is often allergenic. Legumes typically can produce digestive distress, gas, bloating, because you're eating plenty of protein from animal sources on the original Whole30, we say leave soy and legumes out and test them during reintroduction. That way you'll get to figure out how and which ones work best for you. On the plant-based Whole30, you have to get your protein from somewhere. And so those minimally processed forms of soy and legumes are really your best option. But we do have tips for incorporating them in a way that could be more digestively friendly if you discover that all of a sudden adding a bunch of legumes to your diet is digestively disruptive.

33:31Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I guess it's just about how much data you have to work with at the end. Exactly. Yes. So I'm catching you on the beginning of this big three-week-long book tour. I'm curious if there's anything you're excited for, like any cities you're going to for the first time, or at this point, I feel like you've probably covered the country a million times. I have. I don't think I'm going anywhere for the first time. And I'm going back to a bunch of cities, Toledo, Atlanta, a bunch of cities on the West Coast, Salt Lake City and Austin. I'm always most excited just to hear people's whole 30 stories.

34:01I will do a big meet and greet. I'll sign books. I'll answer questions from the audience at these bookstore events. Sometimes people bring me like note cards or letters where they want to share a little bit more of their journey. I have an enormous Lululemon tote bag at home just full of cards and notes that people have left me. And sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I just open them and read them and they make me so happy. So meeting whole 30 years is hands down my favorite part of the tour. Yeah. How does it feel to kind of take a step back and realize the impact of what you've built and what you represent to people?

34:34I don't do that often. And I don't, it's not that I'm purposefully preventing myself, but when you're in the middle of it, I'm in the thick of it every day. I'm writing articles, I'm answering DMs, I'm writing a book, I'm doing media. When you're in the middle of it, I think sometimes. And also in my head, sometimes Whole30 is still this scrappy little word of mouth, like this person told this person. And it's kind of hard for me to take a step back and see what the brand has become over the last 15 years. But I was in the grocery store checking out the other day, and I happened to have three or four Whole30 approved products in my cart at once, a buffalo sauce and a broth and a ghee.

35:08And as I'm scanning it, I'm looking at this Whole30 approved logo on the products. And I did have a moment where I thought, like that this is me on these brands. And it felt really, really good. But then I'm immediately back to like, okay, what else do people need? What can I write? What can I help? Yeah, what can I help with? Yeah, I mean, I feel like you have literally changed the grocery store aisle in terms of these products that are being introduced. And to be able to take a step back, whether you're shopping for yourself or you're talking to someone else is probably a good practice as well.

35:36Yeah, I was at a book tour event not too long ago. I think that for the last tour and someone in my audience said to me, have you taken a step back yet and just, you know, experienced this moment? Like you wrote this book and now it's out and we are all here to celebrate this book. And I got really teary-eyed. It was a lovely prompt from someone to do just that. Yeah. I love whoever said that. I know. It was sweet. And to close today, I want to play a little rapid fire taste check with you. So I'll give you a question. You can just tell me the first answer that pops into your head. I love it. Okay.

36:08Your favorite cookbook? Oh, anything from Danielle Walker. She's a good friend of mine, but she also has written a ton of cookbooks that I love. I think her newest one is called Make It Easy. Your favorite season for cooking? Fall. Slow cooker. Yeah, slow cooker. Your favorite recipe in the new Whole30? Oh, okay. There's a tandoori spiced fish with an apple coconut reta that is hands down like blowing me away. Sounds really good. It's so good. Your favorite Whole30 cookbook? Probably Whole30 slow cooker. I know I'm a broken record, but I love that one. No, you know what you like. I do. Your favorite music to listen to while cooking?

36:45Audiobook. Ooh. Always audiobooks. A specific genre or all over? I tend to listen to thrillers, but I won't read a thriller. I like listening to it. So I like candy in my ears when I'm listening to an audiobook. I don't want literature. I don't want nonfiction. I want candy. You want to be like, what's going to happen? Yes. Your favorite local restaurant? Ooh, in Salt Lake City? That's tough. I love... Takashi has incredible sushi. Lizzie's Kitchen has incredible Mediterranean. And Vessel has a fast, casual, Whole30-approved menu. That's like to die. Something that you will never make from scratch yourself, but you'll buy.

37:23Pizza? Yeah. I'm never making pizza. Especially not the cauliflower crust. No, no. I'm not even a pizza person, but my kid likes it, but we're always going to buy it. Okay, and finally, a fictional food scene? like in a book or a movie or TV show that you wish you could eat in real life? Okay, that's so easy. Anything from Yellowstone. When they sit down at the dining room table at Yellowstone and chef brings out all of their food and they never eat it. They always end up getting into a fight at the dinner table and they leave all of that food. And it makes me so sad because I would eat anything on that table.

37:56Someone needs to put you in Yellowstone and just clean up after. Absolutely. I'll be the extra that just sits at the table and stays out of it and minds my business. but enjoys that food. Well, I'm manifesting that for you. And thank you so much for coming into the studio. It's been so fun. Oh, thank you for having me.

38:20Eliza, we're here. We're talking about fall cookbooks. How are you doing? I'm great. You know, I feel like we wait all year to talk about fall cookbooks. So it's finally happening. It's finally happening. And we're kind of doing a little different this year. We're going to be doing a number of segments based on the categories we find have like prominent publishing this year. And the first one we're going to take on is baking. Eliza, what do you look for in a baking cookbook? I'm curious. Well, I feel like I look for a couple things. I look for things that sound really delicious off the bat. I feel like a lot of people have like a comfort brownie recipe or a family chocolate cake recipe.

38:58And if you're going to bring in something new, then it needs to be something that you haven't seen before, whether it's like a technique or a flavor or just a completely different style of baking. I also look for weights and measurements in the cookbook. So I know a lot of people like to use cups and tablespoons and that totally can exist. But I think having the parenthetical grams alongside it so you can use your scale and make sure it's super accurate is important to me also. Me too. I love having a gram measurement. It's not always required, but I really do appreciate that. And what I also seek, I agree with you, like having a new twist on old classics is cool.

39:30I like learning about cultures through baking and especially cultures that maybe aren't published as frequently in the baking category. And that leads to my first pick. And we're not really calling these picks. They're not like the best of. We're going to be rolling out several segments throughout the year as we get into like the big cookbook buying season and the release season. But the first one I want to talk about is Desi Bakes. 85 Recipes Bringing the Best of Indian Flavors to Western-Style Desserts. Wow, that is quite a subtitle. By Hetel Vasavada. Now, I have to say, I don't know too much about South Asian baking.

40:08And it's kind of an interest of mine, having just returned from India. And I think what Hetel is doing here, and Hetel is from the Milk and Cardamom Instagram account, which is quite popular, it's definitely a book that is framed for the Western audience. So there's a lot of like Western paradigms. There's brownies and there's shakes and things that kind of fall into Western cooking, but all with like more of a South Asian Indian lens. There's a lot of gluten-free, egg-free and vegan dishes in here. But I really like what I reviewed from the PDF. And we should say that like we haven't seen all these books.

40:47We've tried our best to get the PDFs, but we're recording this in mid-August and we'll definitely be catching up later when we start seeing the books in physical form. But I really love like the strawberry rose valuta, the coconut lime loaf cake. Those are a couple that come, they kind of jump off at me and things that I would definitely make. And I'll just close here and I'll hear your first one. I love Sola's quote, the blurb. You know, there's lots of cool blurbs here. It's perfect for blowing away the PTA at the next bake sale. Love that quote. It's really fun. New mom, Sola, already ready to blow over and out of the water.

41:22Ready for the PTA meeting. I love it. So what is your first selection? Well, I just want to say that in addition to doing these roundups, we're also going to be doing interviews with a lot of authors that are going to be coming to the studio or coming in on Zoom. So there are some great baking books that we're not going to talk about in this roundup because we'll have more time to talk about them, et cetera. My first pick is called Crumbs by Ben Mims, who used to be a cooking columnist at the L.A. Times and is someone whose recipes I really admire. And he is kind of doing what you're saying in terms of looking at all kinds of different cultures that have baking.

41:50And he is focusing on cookies specifically. So he has hundreds of cookie recipes from all around the world. Because of Cake Zine, we did an issue called Tough Cookie where we were looking at cookies in different global cooking traditions. So I'm already kind of interested in this. He has like an Azure Brazani egg yolk thumbprint cookie. He has beer cookies, which I'd never heard of before. They're called Piriaki and they're from North Macedonia. And it's like a soft, crumbly cookie that has beer for that kind of malty, yeasty flavor. And a lot more. And he also is talking about the significance behind these cookies in terms of what a shape could symbolize or how ingredients came into this culture and then were showcased in that cookie.

42:28And so I think if you're someone who likes baking, it's something you can really kind of geek out on. I love a fresh cookie book. And Ben is one of, you know, the sharpest minds in recipe development. I loved his work at the L.A. Times and previously Lucky Peach. big fan of Ben here. My next selection is Richard Hart Bread. It's by Richard Hart and Laurie Wolliver. And, you know, Richard Hart is, you may have recognized that name from the bear because his book is featured, I believe, in season two. The character Marcus has a copy of this book and is really kind of analyzing it and really, or at least it's not necessarily his book, but it's his work.

43:11So I have to clarify that. It looked like a book, but it's more just like his online persona. And really, Richard Hart is a real deal. He was born outside London. He worked in the Bay Area, places like Della Fattoria and Petaluma. It's like a really famous Italian-style bakery. And then he worked at Tartine for many years. It was the head baker, which had Robertson there. And then he was recruited by Rene Redzepi to move to Copenhagen and open Hart Bagheri, which has now grown into eight branches in Denmark. And so the book is beautiful. Credit to Laurie Wolliver for collaborating on this and bringing Richard's story to the forefront.

43:49I really enjoyed reading through this book and learning about Richard, somebody who I didn't really know much about outside of the bear and maybe some recipes. It's funny, Eliza. The book is really he's like not into science. He's like right away saying I'm not like a numbers geeky guy. I just like cook by spirit and bake by spirit. But then you start reading it and you're like, holy shit, this is actually really technical. it's almost like a production book I would call it intermediate to advanced in terms of what you need to make recipes from this book and that is absolutely okay I don't think every book needs to be easy and simple and really he's telling you how to scale he has a lot of baking math in it and has a whole early section about what baking math means and really I love this book there's a lot of QR codes in it so it shows like videos for technique and really if you want to get serious about baking bread and there's lots of rye breads, there's laminated doughs, there's lots of a variety of baking projects, you're really going to be satisfied.

44:50It's definitely like an AP-level book, again, and I like that point of view from a baking book. And Richard is kind of a mad genius as a personality, too, so that really comes out. I enjoy this book. I like AP bread as a category. Totally. What's your next one? My next one is called Breaking Bound. It's by Clarice Lamb, whose name you might know from. She's been kind of a career restaurant person here in New York. She worked at Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery. She was at Spice Market. And she was the opening pastry chef at Kimika, which is a kind of Japanese-Italian restaurant here in Nolita. And the food there, I think, is really special.

45:26And this book is just like a really fun and playful baking book. She has like all kinds of recipes, like a pork floss and scallion focaccia. That sounds rad. Which is a riff on a focaccia that they do at Kimika that I really enjoyed. She has a sweet corn custard bao, which I think sweet corn is like the cool dessert flavor here in the U.S., at least this summer. And a lot of other recipes that are kind of showing it how like baking cultures and traditions around the world have intersected. I think if you look at like Japanese patisserie culture, for example, which is like influenced by the French and Italian and then also like very much Japanese flavors.

45:59She has a cool mix of things. And there also are some kind of snack recipes as well, but it's mostly a baking book. So that's my next one. I love that. Well, my next one and my final one for baking is the King Arthur Big Book of Bread, which I've had a chance to read for about a month. And wow, it is big. It has 125 recipes from the legendary Vermont Flour Company. I'm sure our listeners know about King Arthur. It's a cool company. It's cooperative. It's employee owned. It has a great story. And we're having some reps from the King Arthur Baking Company coming on the show. So we'll talk more about that.

46:38But I really like the way they integrate all of their styles of flour into the recipes. And it's not necessarily endorsement to buy the flours, but of course it is. And they do a great job with their flours. And I really like the way naturally leavened breads can be thought of with this scope with 125 recipes. it's for serious bread folks and really I think there's a lot of bread books out there and like do we need more it's a big question but this one's definitely filling a little bit of a gap because it does hit a lot of alt flours and I love this quote from Claire Saffitz it's truly a bread book for every baker well here you go I feel like there's definitely going to be advanced recipes some simple focaccia pan breads as well but I really enjoyed my time with this book yeah you said naturally leavened Is it all sourdough or do they have like instant yeast and things like that as well?

47:34From my reading, there was mostly naturally leavened is the kind of the emphasis here. I think there might be some instant yeast recipes. There's definitely some like yeast breads, like some buns and things that might use those instant non-fermented doughs. So I think like it's for all types of bakers. Going back to Claire's quote, it's for every baker. Yeah, my favorite sandwich bread recipe is a King Arthur classic on their website. So I'm sure that would be in the book alongside some other ones, too. Very much so. There's lots of sandwich bread there. What's your last one? I'm going to keep it there for now because I'm going to be talking to some bakers on the podcast.

48:09Oh, OK. Well, we're going to have lots of bakers coming on the show. These are just a few of our favorites or ones that we're calling out. But, Eliza, we'll be back to talk more about baking. There's so many more titles. And it was great catching up. Yeah, you too.

48:25This is Taste is hosted by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things happening.