Ep. 167: The Mediterranean Diet Done Right with Debbie Adler
PLANTSTRONG Podcast
Rip Esselstyn
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2022
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention and Debbie Adler epitomizes that phrase. In 2006, she opened Sweet Debbie’s Organic Cupcakes bakery, the first to feature vegan and sugar-free treats.
However, a year later her son was born with many life-threatening allergies, forcing her to take an even deeper dive into nutrition and food-related illnesses. Because of her son's needs, she developed recipes and new baked goods that were not only vegan and sugar-free, but also gluten and allergy free. Her business skyrocketed.
Her son is now 14 and doing great, thanks in part to her diligence. Debbie has since gone on to write three cookbooks, including her latest, The Mediterranean Plate, which is what we discuss today.
This book is filled with delicious Moroccan, Greek, Spanish, Italian, French, and Middle Eastern recipes without all of the oils, fish, meats, and cheeses that are so prevalent on the Mediterranean diet. In fact, not only is every recipe whole food plant-based, but also salt, oil, sugar, and gluten-free.
We dig through foods that may be familiar to you, but with Debbie’s special twist - think gnocchi, moussaka, pancakes, her recipe for feta, soups, and so much more.
Cooking from scratch can be intimidating, which is why most of these dishes are “one-pot” recipes, minimizing mess and clean-up. She even provides her recommended equipment and pantry staples to make this adventure as simple as possible.
So enjoy this conversation and mouth-watering tour through, “The Mediterranean Plate,” with Debbie Adler.
Episode Highlights:
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Debbie’s reason for starting her vegan and sugar-free bakery
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Why write The Mediterranean Plate?
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Her Top 18 Ingredients for Healthy Aging
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Kitchen must-haves and favorite spices and seasonings
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Gathering grains, flours, and powders - What should you have in your pantry?
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Preferred sweeteners, canned foods, and favorite tools/appliances
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Rip and Debbie’s mouth-watering tour through the book!
Episode Resources
Follow Debbie on Instagram @plant.based.debbie.adler
Follow Debbie on Facebook @SweetDebbieAdler
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Plant Strong Gang. If you're looking to stock your pantry with ready-to-eat meals that you can |
| 0:04.8 | make in less than two minutes, I kid you not. Our Plant Strong Chili's and stews are a life saver |
| 0:12.0 | and your answer. Just this week I got an email from Tim Carlson who wrote into say, |
| 0:18.0 | Rip, I'm a super busy dad, a volunteer football coach, and a full-time safety compliance officer |
| 0:24.8 | for my job. My wife is even busier than I am, so it's been a life saver to pick up your |
| 0:31.1 | firehouse chili at my local sprouts. I'm clearing the shelf every time I shop there. Thanks for |
| 0:37.4 | making food that tastes great and does my body good. Well, Tim, you are most certainly welcome. I am |
| 0:44.5 | so glad that you found us at Sprouts. For all of you that don't know, we now have our chilies and |
| 0:50.9 | stews available at about 3,000 different stores around the country. Simply visit our website at |
| 0:57.3 | PlantStrongFoods.com to find the store closest to you. The Mediterranean Plate was inspired by |
| 1:08.5 | a lot of requests by my followers for Mediterranean dishes that didn't have fish or olive oil or |
| 1:16.9 | meat. A lot of people don't even know how to do Mediterranean without those ingredients. |
| 1:22.2 | And so I decided I was going to take on that challenge to figure out, well, yeah, you don't have |
| 1:29.0 | to have fish or meat or even olive oil to do Mediterranean. So I started to study what are the |
| 1:37.5 | Greek Spanish French Italian Middle Eastern recipes that people love and make them whole food |
| 1:44.8 | plant-based. And that was it. That was my inspiration. I listened to my customers, my followers, |
| 1:52.4 | I listened, I asked them questions, what do you want? What do you want from me? And then they tell me |
| 1:59.9 | and then I do it. And that's what they wanted. I'm Repel Sustin and welcome to the PlantStrong podcast. |
| 2:07.1 | The mission at PlantStrong is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based |
| 2:14.0 | movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living |
| 2:18.3 | and envision a world that universally understands, promotes and prescribes plants as a solution |
| 2:25.3 | to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, |
... |
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