Introducing Chef AJ
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking to the one and only Chef AJ! Chef AJ almost needs no introduction, but in case you do not know Chef AJ, then she is a vegan veteran of 45 years who has a remarkable health story. She was quite unhealthy and she discovered that eating healthy helped her to lose weight and helped cure her health conditions! These days Chef AJ is all about helping people who really want to eat healthily or those with chronic health conditions through a no-oil diet or SOFAS – no salt, oil, flour, alcohol, and sugar!
Now, we regularly have people who contact us asking to join one of our tours while avoiding some or all of the above things, and I am sorry to say, it is hard to accommodate such a request when traveling in a group and staying in a hotel, but all is not lost, Chef AJ is going to share some tips and tricks on how people with chronic health conditions can travel for business, for fun or for family.
In this episode, we will talk about mindset towards food, expectations, the real reason we travel as well as those tips and tricks that I just alluded to.
Timestamps
- 1:39 Introduction Of Chef AJ
- 5:53 Tips For Safari Trip Adventures
- 13:47 Travel Eating Tips By Chef AJ as Vegan
- 15:59 How Sugar and Oil can be Addictive
- 26:36 Dieting Tips While Traveling or Visiting Family/Friends
- 28:36 How to keep your food cold even without a refrigerator
- 30:45 What Would be the Best Food in Dieting to get While Traveling
- 33:46 Ask in Advance
- 48:03 What in Case you are on this diet and want food
- 54:06 Connect with AJ
Learn more about what we talk about
- Holistic Holiday at Sea: Health Cruise & Vegan Vacation
- Vacation Homes & Condo Rentals – Airbnb – Airbnb
- TrueNorth Health Foundation | Live Longer, Live Better
- Home Page | San Francisco International Airport
- Order Panda Express | A Fast Casual Chinese Restaurant …
Connect with Chef AJ
Transcript
[00:00:00] Brighde Reed: This is the World Vegan Travel podcast, I’m Brighde, one of the founders of World Vegan Travel tours and the World Vegan Travel Podcast is all about showing you how you might explore this world. As a vegan, we do different types of episodes. We share our vegan travel experiences and the experiences of others to inspire you to get out in to this beautiful world and we conduct interviews with people doing amazing things to promote vegan travel as well as individuals and organizations that are protecting human and non-human animals in a destination you could be visiting. So let’s get right into it. On today’s episode, we’ll be talking to the one and only Chef AJ. Chef AJ almost needs no introduction, but in case you don’t know Chef AJ, she is a vegan veteran of 45 years who has a remarkable health story.
[00:01:03] Until her early fifties, she was quite unhealthy and she discovered that eating healthily it really helped her to lose weight and helped cure her health conditions. These days, Chef AJ is all about helping people who really want to eat like her or eat more healthily and help those with these chronic health conditions through a no oil diet or SOFAS diet, which is no salt oil, flour, alcohol and sugar.
[00:01:31] Now, I will say that we regularly have people who contact us, asking to join one of our tours while avoiding some or all of the above things that I mentioned. But I’m sorry to say. It’s really hard to accommodate these requests when traveling in a group and staying in a hotel.
[00:01:50] But if you follow a SOFAS diet or a no oil diet, it does not mean that you cannot travel the world. Chef AJ is going to share some tips and tricks on how people with chronic health conditions can travel for business, for fun or with family. So in this episode we will be talking about mindset towards food expectations that we should have, the real reason we travel, as well as those tips and tricks that I just alluded to.
[00:02:18] But first this podcast is sponsored by World Vegan Travel, the group tour company, where vegan and vegan curious travelers can experience the best of vegan travel to some amazing destinations around the world. Our Botswana trip in March, 2023 is now confirmed. That means that you can book it and you will know that it will happen. We do still have some space on this trip. Let me tell you a little bit about what you might expect. So obviously, Botswana this trip to Botswana is a safari holiday, and it’s one of those trips that we often start dreaming about in our childhood and to have a 100% vegan safari trip. That is just a pipe dream. Well, dream , no more because it is happening. We’re gonna be going to Africa to see animals in their natural habitat while staying at two remote deluxe safari lodges . On top of all of that, we have our very own award winning wildlife photographer, Jennifer Hadley with us at all times. She’ll take some great pictures for you to keep, give two talks on photography, helm a photography focused vehicle during our safari days, and answer any questions that you may have to make your photos that much better.
[00:03:37] Our trip starts in nearby Cape Town South Africa, with a welcome dinner / feast for you to remember, we recommend arriving a few days earlier to take care of the jet lag, but also to take in the wonderful sites on offer in this world class city.
[00:03:52] Next up, we fly into Botswana, an absolute animal lovers paradise we’ll visit with lions, elephants, giraffes, hippos, birds. The list goes on or doing their own thing in their natural habitat. Botswana focuses on quality over quantity in their approach to tourism, which means we won’t be encountering the crowds and zoo like atmosphere of some other safari destinations.
[00:04:17] We’ll be taking over two luxurious and remote camps and getting there by small bush planes. It’s the stuff dreams are made of. You’ll be spending your mornings and later afternoons on blissful safaris returning each time to our deluxe camps for 100% vegan meals and snacks with plenty of free time to relax with a book and a glass of wine and maybe even a swim, while elephants gather by a local watering hole nearby, your nights will start with a drink by the campfire before going to sleep amongst the sounds of nighttime animal activities. We’ve opted to stay three nights at camp one and two nights at camp two to ensure you have enough time to enjoy the surroundings and not constantly rush from one activity to the other.
[00:05:05] So lace up those hiking boots, charge those camera batteries and order the best or rent the best binoculars that you can afford. Dust off that safari hat you’ve always wanted to wear and join us on a once in a lifetime adventure to one of the best wildlife spotting places on earth Botswana. Here we come.
[00:05:26] If you are interested in this trip, then of course I’ll be linking to it in the show notes, please drop an email to [email protected], book a call with us. Send us any questions that you might have. We would love it. If you could join us, make 2023, the chance for you to have the most amazing trip you possibly could.
[00:05:46] So there are a lot of resources and destinations that we talk about in this episode. So make sure you look at the show notes and the blog post to get all of the details. Let’s chat with Chef AJ.
[00:05:59] Hello, Chef AJ. Welcome to the World Vegan Travel Podcast
[00:06:03] Chef AJ: Thank you so much for inviting me.
[00:06:05] Brighde Reed: I am so excited to have you on the podcast because I have followed your work and, known about you pretty much since I became vegan like 13 years ago for a really long time. So I’ve really watched, what you’ve been doing. But for those people that are not familiar, would you mind sharing a little bit about what it is that you do in the vegan space?
[00:06:27] Chef AJ: No, not at all. It’d be my pleasure. So I am a 45 year veteran of veganism. I’m what they call the OG so became vegan. The minute I left home at the age of 17, I still remember my vegan anniversary September 1st, 1977. And I work as. I don’t work as a chef in a restaurant anymore. I did that for many years.
[00:06:46] I was a vegan executive pastry chef in a Los Angeles restaurant, but I still do many culinary, classes where I live. And for many of the wonderful plant based doctors, like Dr. McDougall, Dr. Rose Vera, they’ll now it’s everything Zoom, but I will teach culinary classes for them. I also write books. I’ve written gosh, three or four by now.
[00:07:06] One of the things that I really love doing that I only started doing since the pandemic, because of the pandemic is I host a daily live show. It is a YouTube show called Chef AJ. , but it also streams on Twitter and Facebook. And I’ve done over a thousand of these since the pandemic began every day at 11:00 AM Pacific.
[00:07:25] And I have wonderful guests on every day ranging from plant-based doctors to plant-based athletes, plant-based chefs. It’s just a wonderful, experience for me to bring this information to the masses.
[00:07:36] Brighde Reed: You adhere to a particular vegan diet. Could you talk a little bit about that? Because that really does play into what we are going to be talking about.
[00:07:44] Chef AJ: It will make more sense what we’re gonna talk about, but before, I’m happy to answer any questions about my diet, but people need to know the reason for it. It’s not some just random, like I’m trying to be difficult to every restaurant owner or host it is because I was obese for most of my life until my early fifties, even as a vegan, I was a very unhealthy person as a vegan.
[00:08:06] And while I think veganism is the most wonderful thing you can do for the planet, for the animals, it is not always healthy. If you do it the way I did it, which was a junk food vegan diet. I went vegan strictly for the animals when I was 17 years old, and I knew nothing about health. There was no internet.
[00:08:24] If Neil Barnard was doing his work, then I hadn’t heard of him or PCRM. And so basically I ate a very unhealthy diet full of sugar, fat and salt, just junk food. Just because something’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s healthy Oreos are vegan. The Coke Slurpees that I were having every day for breakfast was vegan.
[00:08:41] Dr. Pepper that I was drinking every day for lunch was vegan. But having a junk food vegan diet for 26 years, not only got me to close to 200 pounds at five feet, five inches tall, but it also gave me the beginning of colon cancer. And because of having been so fat and so sick for so long and not wanting to have surgery or drugs or die, I went on a more strict version of a and I don’t like the word plant-based I hate the word plant-based because that doesn’t mean anything to me, cuz plant-based you could be 51% plants and 49% animal products or processed food. So I was already vegan, but a plant exclusive diet of whole foods as they were found in nature, fruits, vegetables, whole grains legumes, without the addition of any of the chemicals or processed foods that are normally added to food, like sugar, oil, flour, alcohol or salt, I call it SOFAS free: sugar, oil, flour, alcohol, salt, other doctors like Dr. Al Goldhammer will call it SOS free sugar, oil, salt. But I found when I did that, people were still giving me flour and alcohol as if it were healthy. That is the diet I follow no caffeine as well, but generally caffeine is in beverages, not in food.
[00:09:48] So I, that. You don’t, you don’t have to really well. And I guess unless I had chocolate in it, so I do that for my health, I’m vegan for the animals, but I eat this specific way for my health because I truthfully don’t wanna go back to being 200 pounds and nor do I want to have a reocurrence of my pre-cancerous polyps that I had from eating a junk food vegan diet. So that is why I do it. I always tell people, do the least restrictive diet that you can do that will get you the results you seek. But for me, with my genetics and family history, a more liberal vegan diet just did not work for me in terms of having a not overweight body or having optimal health.
[00:10:24] Brighde Reed: Thank you so much for explaining that. It’s really interesting because we have quite a few inquiries to our website. People are interested in coming on a tour with us. And quite often, I would say on a weekly basis, we get an email from somebody says they cannot have oil And, they want to know if we can accommodate them or not.
[00:10:46] It’s often very hard to because the hotels or the restaurants aren’t able to, it means they have to create something completely different. And it’s certainly not going to be, as gourmet let’s say, as, the non the oil version, I should say. Sadly, we often have to say to these people, I’m really sorry this isn’t going to be a good fit for you right now. Maybe in the future, we’ll have some, no oil or more healthier tours out there, but for now, it’s a little bit too hard. And is that your experience too, with traveling?
[00:11:20] Chef AJ: Yes. Absolutely. And that’s why I wrote in my book, The Secrets to Ultimate Weight Loss a whole chapter called how to eat healthfully anywhere. I probably should have said almost anywhere because I’m sure there’s gonna be exceptions, but for me, I traveled professionally for my job. Speaking at medical conferences, cruise ships, spas.
[00:11:37] Mostly in the United States, but a few internationally for over 10 years. And this was more than, this was not in the last two years, obviously since COVID. And I realized that the world is not set up for people that wanna eat vegan in general, or especially that wanna eat healthy in particular.
[00:11:53] It has to do with a lot of things, but the reality is sugar, fat, and salt. That’s what sells, there’s an old saying in the food industry, no salt, no sale. And so the amount of people in the world that really eat this way are probably so minuscule, even compared to the number of people that eat vegan.
[00:12:08] And because there’s not a demand for it, it’s not gonna be offered, but even if there were a demand for it, if I understand I’m a culinary school graduate, there is no culinary school out there teaching tomorrow’s chefs how to cook vegan for one and how to cook without oil, or sugar or salt. It’s just not because people that go people that like to go to restaurants that like to eat hyper palatable, hedonic food.
[00:12:32] They’re not doing that for a health experience. They’re doing it for, for the pleasure of eating, this kind of hyper palatable gourmet food. And that’s fine. It’s just that people that have medical conditions, especially people that are struggling with their weight or food addictions, these are not interactions that are favorable for them. And again, everybody can choose what they wanna do, but if you’ve struggled with your weight, with food addiction, or even with heart disease and diabetes, or one off plan meal, somebody with really unretractable high blood pressure, one restaurant meal.
[00:13:02] Restaurants use more sugar, fat and salt than listen, I worked in one than you ever would at home. Okay. That can be very detrimental to their health. And this is not everyone, but for the people, for whom this matters, this information may be important. And so that for me, , I’m not gonna risk my food sobriety, meaning, my recovery from food addiction, because for one, cheat or off planned meal for me, it’s just not worth it because I fought too hard, too long to get to this level of health and weight that I’m not gonna compromise it.
[00:13:32] And for some people that would create a lot of, dissonance fear of missing out. But to me, the only thing I miss out on is, heart disease, diabetes, and, obesity.
[00:13:43] Brighde Reed: Yeah, there’s, it’s not a, not such a difficult choice.
[00:13:47] Chef AJ: Yeah, but a lot of people do, I get it. People love it. There are places I can’t speak for the whole world because most of my travel was in the United States, but it’s getting better in the United States because restaurants are, or at least some restaurants are starting to understand.
[00:14:02] Because I’ve trained chefs in restaurants. At least I did when I lived in LA and while at first they’re like, you can’t cook without oil. Like when you teach them how to do it, they are thrilled because you have to understand that oil costs money to a restaurant and, chefs have a budget.
[00:14:17] And when they learn that, like my God. This is not that you don’t need it. That the funny thing is food can taste not only as good without oil, but it actually can taste better because what people don’t realize is oil actually coats, the taste buds of one’s tongue. And when there’s oil and food, you have to then put a lot more salt in it to taste the food.
[00:14:37] And, we like sugar, fat and salt because it’s addictive. These are chemicals that don’t exist in nature, at least not in the form they’re being used in restaurants. And what happens is they stimulate the production of dopamine in the brain, which is this feel good neurotransmitter.
[00:14:49] And that’s why we like them so much. But I have done cooking demonstrations, for example, making a soup. Like I have a black bean soup recipe where there’s no oil and I’ve done side by side demonstrations where I’ve done the same thing and people were like watching me and I put in the oil, an obligatory step, sauteed the onion, and four tablespoons of olive oil.
[00:15:08] And then we would do blind taste tests, and then people would either say, I can detect no difference. Or they would pick the not oil one as the one that tasted better. It’s just, it’s the way chefs are taught. It’s the way people are taught and I’m not against people eating fat by the way, but I’d rather have people eat it in its whole food form.
[00:15:25] Eat the olives, not the olive oil, eat the nuts, not the almond oil, not the avocado oil, eat the food whole, but again, the restaurant industry is not the health industry. So it’s not, this is not important to them. I think for the most part, because that’s not who their customers are, but I think if somebody would actually step out and do this, because there is a cruise ship that will do this, then the National Health Association works with a cruise ship where they train the chefs SOS free.
[00:15:49] They will see that maybe it’s not the biggest piece of the market, but there is enough interest if they would do it, that people would travel more. I think if they knew they could get the food that they’re used to.
[00:16:00] Brighde Reed: Yes. Another one of my, associates, a friend, her name is Kim Giovacco from Veg Jaunts and Journeys. And she started this year, no oil tours based in the United States and all of the travelers get together in a nice place in a nice small hotel or something like that. She brings in a chef and this chef and cooks for everybody that goes there and they go out and do sighting, excursions, get together and it’s really lovely. And she’s doing really well with it. I’m very happy for her.
[00:16:37] Chef AJ: That sounds fabulous. Yeah.
[00:16:38] Brighde Reed: All right. We both know that there are people who really need to eat this way for many really important reasons, but sometimes people do have to travel, whether it’s for work or to see family, or whether it’s staying in a hotel or whether it’s staying with a friend or family members.
[00:16:55] And you mentioned that you wrote a chapter in your book about eating this way when traveling. So do you have any tips?
[00:17:02] Chef AJ: I have lots of tips. So also I wanna say that depending on a person’s personality, this may be more difficult or less difficult because a lot of people, at least people I work with that struggle with excess weight and food addictions. They’re largely female, and they’re largely very agreeable. They’re people pleasers. And if you’re a people pleaser, it’s gonna be a lot harder to ask for what you want in any situation. So that being said, if you are somebody that is able to do that, you have to understand that if you wanna keep your diet, while you’re away, you have to be like your own you’re in charge.
[00:17:35] In other words, like you can never expect a host, whether it’s somebody personally or a restaurant to accommodate you. And so there’s a few things that I recommend. And again, I’m speaking to mostly travel in the United States. The only countries I can speak to obviously are the ones that I’ve been at which are Japan, Mexico, where I go often for work and the Caribbean.
[00:17:55] However, what I’m teaching could possibly be done everywhere, but you would have to check the websites like tsa.gov, because there are certain rules with food, especially produce different countries, have different rules. So for example, like if I’m flying to Hawaii, that’s in the United States, but is part of the United States, it’s not in the mainland. Like I can bring food, but if I’m flying home from Hawaii, I can’t bring the potatoes with me, those wonderful potatoes they have. Now, if they’re cooked, I can. So that’s why it’s really important. I think for everyone to do their homework, if they are trying to bring food into a country, like I said, the United States with the exception of Hawaii, it’s not a problem, in the continental United States. But I think it’s important to go to websites like tsa.gov and really find out what the rules are for those countries. Because the worst that happens, it’s not like they’ll arrest you. They’ll take your food away, if they find it and you know that’s and if.
[00:18:46] If like for me, if you take my sweet potato away, I’m gonna die. No, I’m not gonna die but you know what I’m saying? So that’s one thing I would recommend, but I have become a master at travel within the United States, just by taking food with me, the kind of food I eat. And it’s so funny because I remember one time I was going through TSA and the agent, a lot of times you have these ice chips to keep your food cold, at least for on the plane.
[00:19:08] And they’re completely allowed as long as they’re frozen solid. and, but sometimes for whatever reason, it triggers the machine. So they pull you aside and they go through your bag. And so they were going through my bag and the guy said, oh, you’re taking all your food for the week.
[00:19:21] And I said, no, sir, this is for the day and it cracked me up because I think he has no idea that when you’re on more of a calorically dilute, whole food plant based low fat diet, like how much you need to eat. But the point is that’s very easy. As long as you have a frozen ice chip. If the food requires refrigeration, there’s lots of things that don’t, but another really great to keep your food cold while you travel. And this is good for anywhere is the food that you’re going to want to eat. So for example, I do batch cooking. So I have a lot of entrees in my freezer that are already frozen. That could be my ice chip. I don’t need a, another ice chip that entree can be my ice chip, frozen bags of fruits and vegetables.
[00:19:55] Those can be what’s keeping my food cold. However you wanna think about food that doesn’t require an ice chip because TSA could decide this is a little bit too melted. They could take your ice chip away. That’s why I always buy them at the 99 cent store because I don’t wanna buy an expensive one and have it get taken away.
[00:20:11] So I never try to rely on refrigerated food. Always food that doesn’t require refrigeration. And, I actually had a client once and lost a hundred pounds and she was going on a trip to Morocco and all she could bring was a backpack. And we had to figure out like, oh, she’s on these camels, like what can she bring that’s compliant?
[00:20:28] And, there, there are things you can bring. So generally. Like for instance, dried grains, that’s not a problem going to any country. So oats, for example, you just need to have your calories. You need to have some starch. So having bags, little Ziploc bags of rolled oats, because with rolled oats, unlike steel cut and the oat groat, you can eat those like dry with a splash of maybe water juice or almond milk, but what I’m saying is they don’t require cooking. And so one of the things that saved me many times was to have little baggies of what I call overnight oats where each little baggy would have a half a cup of oats. I would put in a little bit of vanilla powder, a little bit of cinnamon, some chia seeds and maybe some dried currents.
[00:21:07] And that would save me for when I couldn’t find food, because you usually can find an apple somewhere, a banana somewhere, hopefully. And you can add that to that. That’s just one trick and also little bags of votes. They take up almost no room. They have all they don’t weigh anything practically.
[00:21:21] So even on this backpacking trip for her, that was a much better choice than trying to have her, bring cans of beans or things like that beans, by the way, what’s cool now is, they have beans, regular and salt free, not just in cans because cans require a can opener.
[00:21:36] But in these aseptic card cartons now, where all you have to do is tear off the top. And so those are good things to have because beans just beans are satiating in their high in protein. So if you get to a situation like, oh my God, the only thing they have is a dry salad. Guess what? Dump those beans on there.
[00:21:52] So those are tricks I learned. In the United States, what some people do. And again, it depends, obviously if you’re, if you have an emergency situation, you’re going to somebody’s funeral, it’s a lot different than when you know, in advance, what you’re gonna do.
[00:22:05] And so what I recommend to people is if at all possible, find a place where you can do your own cooking: Airbnbs, for example, you know, like rental homes. And then that’s what that makes it very pleasant. Because if you’re in charge of your food, you’re gonna be able to get it the way you want. So I used to travel with my instant pot electric pressure cooker.
[00:22:24] It comes in a small enough size, a three quart size that fits in a bag, easily underneath the seat on the airplane or in the overhead and then when I would get to my destination, and again, I was doing this before Lyft and Uber. It’s so much easier now, at least in the United States, because, before it was like, Ugh, just so hard to go get my food.
[00:22:41] But now I used I could get to wherever I am . Get a Lyft or an Uber, take me to whole foods or trader Joe’s stock up because most places have a fridge. And I’m gonna tell you that little funny fridge story in a second, and then I can get my food and, Whole Foods. It is not a place I normally shop because I don’t have one near me.
[00:22:58] But if I’m in a big city, they can be a real godsend because not only do they have one of the most exceptional salad bars in the world, but everything that I’m talking about, from oats to beans, things like that are available there. Rice is another great thing. Even at Costco, they sell rice that’s already cooked in, at quinoa too, in these little packages, which I guess if you had to, you could eat ’em cold, but you could easily microwave. So those kind of things, cuz I’m looking for calories. When I travel, I’m looking for calories from starch that are gonna keep me full because I know that for the most part, either at a store or somewhere I can get fruits and vegetables, but I need my starch. My favorite starch is potatoes and sweet potatoes. And what was great about always having an instant pot with me is I can cook not in the cruise ship. I wasn’t allowed to bring it there, but almost every place, even if it’s international, there’s plug converters, I was able to cook, and cook my rice.
[00:23:49] I could cook sweet potatoes, cook potatoes, those kind of things. So that saved me. Having refrigerator can be enormously helpful, whether you are cooking your own food or not, when you’re away and I can tell you a funny story about a refrigerator. I didn’t say this in my book, but it is funny.
[00:24:04] So ever since I was in I was vegan since I’m 17 and in 1977, there weren’t a lot of vegan restaurants or any vegan options. And I knew back then that I had to bring food with me if I wanted to eat sometimes, and I never saw it as oh, this is so inconvenient because we were raised kosher and we pretty much had to always bring our food because the world wasn’t set up for kosher people in the sixties and, we weren’t gonna eat non kosher food.
[00:24:30] So we just got used to it. And I got used to it. I used to go to Las Vegas a lot in my early twenties, as soon as I got GA, not that I was a gambler, but you could go for $29 for a weekend. My friend, Elaine, and I would get in the car drive for four hours, $29 to stay at the Flamingo Hilton three days and two nights.
[00:24:48] And it’s a cheap vacation when you’re 22 and you just wanna do something so there wasn’t really vegan food there, at least at that I could eat and I wasn’t a healthy vegan, then I was just a vegan. And so I would bring food with me and some of it needed refrigeration. And I remember asking for now it’s more common I think for most hotels, even motels to have a refrigerator for the most part. And I, I asked for a refrigerator and they said they didn’t have any. And so again, I’m not trying to get people to lie, but I did tell a white lie and I said I’m on a medication that needs refrigeration and I take it four times a day.
[00:25:25] So will you store it for me? And I’ll come down four times a day to get it. And then like within 10 minutes, a refrigerator was magically delivered to my room. So this was like in the early eighties. And so I knew that they had them. It’s just that at that time they didn’t routinely put them in everybody’s room.
[00:25:42] Fast forward, almost 40 years later and I’m back in Vegas and I have taught other people to eat this way. We were all at a conference together, so of course, everybody wants a refrigerator now. So I get to the hotel. And there’s no refrigerator. And so I call up and because my friend who had checked in earlier got one, so I knew they had them and they said, sorry, we don’t have, we’re out or whatever.
[00:26:03] And I said, oh, that’s okay. I’m on a medication. I take it four times a day. So please store for me and I’ll come down. And then within a few minutes they delivered something I’m not kidding was about the size. I don’t know of, like, how can I explain this? It was really, it was a refrigerator for medication. It was basically like the size of an envelope, or and it was a refrigerator that you could use just for medication. So somebody has been talking about what I’m doing and now the hotels have gotten smart and they’re not giving full size refrigerators to everybody.
[00:26:38] Brighde Reed: That is hilarious. Yeah. I definitely have talked about needing needing little blue bricks, like for your cool bag, getting them frozen. If there’s no refrigerator or no freezer, I go to the hotel and reception, I say, would you mind freezing this for me? I have medication. Yep. I will admit I’ve told similar white lies, but that’s so funny that that the whole hotel ran out of refrigerators.
[00:27:02] Chef AJ: Worst case scenario. Again, I haven’t been to every hotel in every part of the world, but for the most part, even like lower cost motels have ice machines usually. And so what I’ve done when I absolutely couldn’t get a refrigerator and I had something perishable or something I would’ve preferred, it’s not even so much.
[00:27:18] That the food is perishable. There’s just certain things you enjoy more cold. For example, they sell boxes of plant milk, really tiny that are like one cup serving, which is perfect. Because if you don’t have a refrigerator, you don’t wanna keep opening, a cork and then having it go bad.
[00:27:33] So these little boxes and they come, they sell ’em in fours. Usually are perfect for that. Now you could have that at room temperature but it’s just more enjoyable, cold. So if I couldn’t get a refrigerator and I wanted something cold, I would just get ice buckets. You could fill your whole bathtub if you wanted.
[00:27:47] So that’s one way to also help keep things cold. But that’s just one thing I do is I try to always when possible get a situation where I can cook and Airbnb, and if it is a hotel, I just bring what I can now, since I started, writing about this, , there are companies now it’s interesting that exist.
[00:28:03] Now that didn’t exist. When I was at the height of my travel, like Mama Says, for example, and what mama says is it’s a whole food plant based, no oil. And then you can get a version without sugar and salt food delivery company. It’s fresh food that is delivered refrigerated. It’s actually quite delicious.
[00:28:19] And so what some of my clients do, especially those for whom, one meal off, one meal off plan is not a big deal to most people, but people, like I said with certain conditions or even people that are severely food addicted, they get they have such a hard time getting back on track.
[00:28:32] And so they’ll what they’ll do is they will order Mama Says and have it shipped to their destination and they’ll have that food. To eat so that can help people too, especially because if you’re on vacation, like you don’t wanna cook. You really don’t have to, you get Mama Says, and you can supplement of course, with some fresh fruits and vegetables, but I’ve known people to do that. And they’ve been very happy with that. The other thing I do is I bring things that don’t go bad. So in other words, while I tend not to eat a lot of dried dehydrated food because it’s missing the water when I’m traveling. That is when I bring everything like that. So bananas, for example, bananas are a great source of delicious calories when you need them.
[00:29:11] But bananas can get really mushy, even on an airplane. It’s something happens to bananas when you get up in the air, like they just go they’re not great. And so I get dried bananas. That’s a company banana. They come in all different flavors, like peanut butter and chocolate.
[00:29:23] I just get the regular ones. And those. They keep my belly full and they’re delicious. So I’ll travel with things like be chips and carrot chips that you can get brands without oil and salt. It places like Sprouts and on Amazon. So those are great for travel as well.
[00:29:37] There’s companies like Dr. McDougall’s, right foods that make cuppa noodle type soups too much sodium for me. But for some people that’s a good option to have those kind of things. Or like I said, even soups with a septic packages where you tear the top off. Those can be good choices because I’m a chef and because, I’ve always used a food dehydrater I can make things that I can bring. So I make different types of granola type cereals where, crunchy little snacks that aren’t gonna go bad. So I’ll bring a lot of those types of things with me. And again, those those are great, cuz they don’t take up much room in a suitcase or a backpack or even a fanny pack.
[00:30:10] And I love. Dehydrated snacks for this type of experience because they’re not perishable, so that’s the other thing to think about, even if it’s hot and things like that. So again, it’s not the most glamorous answer that most people wanna hear, because again, people wanna enjoy their vacation, but again, if you’re one of those people like me, where it’s just not worth it to go off plan, there’s strategies.
[00:30:31] Oh, let me tell you another story. This is about you really have to call ahead too and ask. It’s always better to just call ahead and in any kind of situation, whether it’s just to inquire, if they have a blow dryer or refrigerator, the more information you can gain in advance the better.
[00:30:45] But one of the things is you can often learn to navigate restaurant or hotel menus. And again, there’s phones and there’s internet. So you can ask before you get there if you can be accommodated and I find that it’s much better, if you have a special diet, whether you’re going to a wedding or a Bar Mitzvah or a restaurant or some kind of tour to ask in advance, because you can’t expect somebody to just drop everything and make the food the way you want it. If you ask them in advance, they still may say no, but if you wait till the minute you get there, it’s gonna be much more difficult to do your request. And so the thing is if they can’t accommodate you, I would think generally they would. But it depends on the size of your group, for example.
[00:31:27] So like on a cruise ship, they can’t make something for one person the way they could if you’re on some kind of expensive kind of tour with, 10 people in your tour group, or you’ve talked to them in advance there are some cruises. Lines that are extremely accommodating to special diets, but that’s why you need to have this conversation before you sail with your travel agent.
[00:31:50] If you’re using one or the line, because different some cruise ships are, they will bend over backwards for you. And some will just say, look, we can’t accommodate you. I know this because I’ve been a speaker many times on the holistic Holidays at Sea, and they do a great job of providing no oil for people, but they just can’t do no salt.
[00:32:07] It’s not possible because they’re cooking for thousands of people, so just ask in advance. And like I said, if you don’t ask the answers always, no, if you do ask, there’s a good chance they may help you. There’s usually things that you can get within your diet.
[00:32:19] They’re not gonna be like you say the most glamorous, you’re not gonna, don’t expect like a lasagna, and a chocolate cake, if you’re on a very special diet, but if you are willing to eat more simply, which is how I eat, even when I’m not traveling, you’re usually gonna do okay. But if you’re somebody, that’s a real foodie, the way I’m proposing is gonna probably be like a punishment to you.
[00:32:41] Brighde Reed: Yeah. It’s really interesting. I’d love to talk a little bit about the dehydration of foods as well. I’ve been starting to follow these Instagram people they’re called through hikers through a T H R U hikers. And I don’t think they’re vegan, but they do these incredible hikes, like from Canada to Mexico, like 2000 miles, 3000 miles, that kind of thing at one time. And they create very interesting content. They prepare all their food in advance with dehydraters and they pack it all up. And I actually think it probably would be SOFAS compliant when I think about it and they create this content where they dehydrate huge amounts of onions and beans and salsas and things like that they dehydrate it and then they break it all and they put them in little baggies and then they have to mail these boxes to different places, like in week, long intervals, along the trail. And then they go off the trail and they go into the town and then they pick up their box and that’s their food for the week.
[00:33:46] Chef AJ: That’s brilliant. It dehydrated or is it freeze dried? Cuz there’s two different mechanisms by which you can do food.
[00:33:52] Brighde Reed: Definitely dehydrated
[00:33:53] Chef AJ: Yeah, dehydrators are fairly affordable for most people, freeze drying that machine is a lot more expensive, but that works as well. I haven’t traveled since the pandemic, so we’re talking three years now, but you are reminding me of some wonderful things that I used to teach people. So for example, hummus is something that when you go through TSA it’s to the discretion of the agent, sometimes they think it’s liquid and they take it sometimes they let it go in. If it’s on a wrap, sometimes they’ll let it go in. If it’s in a little container, they won’t, but you can actually buy hummus or make your own your preference and dehydrate it. And then when you get to your destination, rehydrate it so brilliant. I’m I thank you for saying that because I forgot that is something that people can do.
[00:34:36] And like you said, the same thing with soups and stews, then you just, because most places even lower cost motels will have that little coffee pot where you can boil water, so you can get it again, for people for that, For whom this is travel is a way of life and restaurant eating they look at me like you are. You’re crazy. However, for the people that eat like me, they’re like, oh, thank goodness. There are some things that we can do.
[00:35:00] Brighde Reed: We had an inquiry for one of our France trips a little while ago, and he wasn’t able to come in the end, but , he wanted to come with his family and he wanted to go to France. He really wanted to have a sightseeing experience of France and we talked about and I said, look, we’re probably gonna be able to accommodate no oil.
[00:35:18] It’s not gonna be French food. It’s not gonna be SOFAS versions of the food that everybody else is eating. It’s gonna be very basic, but healthy and good in calories and enough food for you. And he was like, it’s okay. I just wanna experience France.
[00:35:35] Chef AJ: That’s my kind of person.
[00:35:36] Brighde Reed: And I think very often we put food on this pedestal that it is the be all and end all and
[00:35:42] Chef AJ: We put it before people. It’s like when you go to a wedding or a Bar Mitzvah, yes, people can get married more than once, but generally they don’t have more than one Bar Mitzvah. You’re not going for some meal. . If you are, that’s pretty sad. And so who cares?
[00:35:54] It’s you’re right. People are more important than food and, but for some people, food is elevated to the level of the most important thing to them. But then again, it comes down to you eat to live or live, to eat. I see a different part of the population. I see people whose lives have been lost and health has been compromised and limbs have been lost because of the way they eat. And so I don’t give food that power. And the other thing is once you start to learn to manage your food addictions, this quote, plain boring way of eating, it’s actually quite delicious.
[00:36:23] You might look at my meals oh my God, she’d sweet potatoes and broccoli every day. My sweet potatoes are the Hannah yams or the Japanese and they’re roasting and then they’re air fried and they have some California balsamic vinegar on ’em. And to me, my food is just as delicious, but that’s because my taste buds have neuro adapted.
[00:36:38] Oh, but that’s the other thing, California Balsamic or some kind of dressing. Most places you can get a salad is, can be so boring when it’s a dry salad. However California Balsamic. In addition to making their large glass bottles sells travel bottles that are plastic in three ounce sizes, that is the exact size that TSA allows.
[00:36:57] So you could even get like a Ziploc bag and a gallon size and put like 10 of those in there. I’m so thankful that those bottles exist cuz they won’t take them away even a full three ounce bottle. So having a delicious sauce like that, like a California Balsamic in teriaki, if all I can get is raw veggies now, it, it elevates it. So that’s the thing. And generally, like for me, I’m, when I do travel, I’m not going. I know a lot of people do go for the food, but that’s not my purpose in travel. Also I’m a chef and it’s I don’t mean to be snobby, but my food tastes better to me than somebody else’s.
[00:37:28] I, know what you need to do as a vegan travel agency from, and again, we never really got to the root of why Chef AJ does not like to travel. And probably the main reason is cuz I love my dog so much. And I don’t wanna be without her. And, we need to find some travel agencies that were like, like dog friendly, cuz then I would go because I miss her so much that it’s it’s just not worth it for whatever experience I could have because their lives are so short.
[00:37:54] our pets. It’s not that I never go away. I get this wonderful job for eight days. Quite often teaching it the number one spa in the world, Rancho La Puerta. And she can’t come and I get that, but it’s like, why would I then wanna leave her on purpose?
[00:38:08] So I don’t know how other people feel about leaving their pets at home, but I don’t like to do that.
[00:38:14] Brighde Reed: I will tell you that that, I’ve just came back from six weeks nearly and leaving my cats, which was very difficult. I’m very lucky. I have my mother-in-law that lives in the building and she comes and spends like three or four hours a day with my cats and gives them lots of attention. So that’s good. But of course, missing our animals is really difficult. There are some really great options like trustedhousesitters.com is a really great way of finding someone really good , to look after your animals, and they’ll send pictures every day and send let you know if everything’s alright. I know it’s not the same as being in the same room as your companion animal, but it’s not bad if you do want to travel.
[00:38:52] You’ve talked a lot about what we can do when we’re actually at our destination going to Airbnbs and fridges in the hotel rooms or these kinds of things. What about if you, maybe aren’t completely prepared and you are at an airport and you need to get some food maybe for on the plane as well.
[00:39:12] Chef AJ: That’s a great question. So there’s a couple different ways that I can answer that. First of all, I used to work at the True North Health Center where people would fast on water for 40 days for health conditions. And so if somebody can fast on water for 40 days, it’s very likely that you could go six or eight hours without food. If you can’t get it, I’m never saying go without water. So that’s number one. And truthfully, if you’re somebody that’s prone like me to jet lag. When you don’t eat during air travel, it’s actually much better for you. So that’s one number two. What’s really cool. Now is most people have the internet.
[00:39:46] Obviously you must, if you’re listening to this and you can actually find out. What every airport has to offer before you get there. And I believe that PCRM even still has an app that helps you do that, but you can always just use good old Google. And, I remember, I’m so old that when I used to travel, when I was younger, you, there was actually somebody called a travel agent.
[00:40:06] Like you couldn’t go anywhere without hurting. My mind was named Eda. And, I’d say I need to go to Philadelphia. And then she would do it for me now we make most of us make our own reservations. At least when we’re traveling within the United States and pretty much gone is the nonstop flight. It’s very few nonstop flights anymore. And almost every flight within the United States requires a connection. And what’s cool is you can pick your connecting airport based on which airport is going to have the best food for you. And I know this because I gotta tell you have somebody who traveled almost every week for over 11 years.
[00:40:41] I can’t tell you how many times I was delayed in an airport sometimes up to 24 hours. That’s why I always say if it’s all possible, take 24 hours worth of food for you. So knowing that this is a real situation, I always chose my airport based on the food at that airport. So a lot of times certain cities like Chicago has two well known airports Midway, and O’Hare Texas has three airports. And a lot of times you can get your choice of which one. So a lot of people say, oh, I’ll pick O’Hare, it’s a better airport, more connections, Uhuh, not me. Yeah. I always picked Midway.
[00:41:13] Why? Because they had a salad bar restaurant that was open till eight o’clock. And I’ll tell you the last time that I flew there and I was delayed and my plane didn’t take off till 2:00 AM. That was a good thing that I made that choice. So I also choose my connecting airport also based in if I know people.
[00:41:31] So a lot of times like gimme a choice of do I want Phoenix or do I want Vegas? I’m gonna pick Vegas and I’ll tell you why. Cause I’m thinking if I’m stalled. What city’s gonna be more fun? What city do I know more people in, but I know the Vegas airport, like the back of my hand, I know that they have a Peewee Chinese restaurant.
[00:41:48] I’m gonna be able to get steamed vegetables and rice. I know that they have a salsa. I can get rice and beans. I know that they have a Jamba Juice, I can get smoothies, I can get oatmeal, I know that they have a Wendy’s, I can get a baked potato. So I pick my travel airports, not my destination, but the connecting flight, obviously the final destination too, because especially if it’s cities like Texas I pick it based on the food that is going to be available there.
[00:42:14] And one thing you can do, think about it, the little places that you eat it And our ports are basically restaurants for the most part. And just like any other restaurant, you can often customize the menu. And I’ll talk about that in a second, one of the things you can do is for. If there’s a juice bar, there’s fruits and vegetables, even if they may not offer them, you can ask to buy them. I’ve done that. San Francisco is a great airport, by the way, especially if you’re gonna get stuck because they have a fresh juice bar and they have a yoga room to de-stress, things like that. Definitely get to know your airports. But the other thing is like I remember getting stuck. I wanna say it was Florida in one of the airports and they had a Panda Express and now Panda express uses chicken broth. There’s a great app. I’m sure you’ve heard of it called Happy Cow.
[00:43:00] So everybody that goes anywhere needs to get that app, but Panda express while the food ostensibly is vegan, they use chicken broth in a lot of their even vegetable stir fries and of course oil. And so what I’ll do if their line is out the door and it’s 12, o’clock no, you’re not gonna do this, but if it’s an off time, a lot of times these food places in these restaurants, they open early, like nine or 10 and people aren’t really eating entrees.
[00:43:24] Then, I have said to them, I said, look, I’ve heard great things about your food. And I don’t mean to be difficult, but I’m on a very special diet. And then I say these two words, doctors orders, could you help me? And never when they’re busy and they go tell me about your diet. And I explain that I can’t have a single drop of oil. Sometimes I’ll say I use the word allergy, cuz they can relate to that more. And sometimes they say no, but a lot of times, if they’re not super busy, they will do it. They’ll steam me some vegetables over here or something. And then and when they accommodate me, I am like the most generous tipper. You would not believe, you know what I’m saying? So don’t ask, don’t get, and if you do ask, there’s a chance you may get it, but never ask them when they’re super busy and the line is out the door, that’s why planning in advance.
[00:44:06] They say. Yep. Plan, plan to fail. It can be done. Is it difficult? Yes. Do I wish the world was set up differently to make it easier for vegans and healthy vegans in particular? Absolutely. Some cities, Austin has Casa de Luz. Maryland has Green Fair. These are SOS free restaurants. I don’t know any others than that.
[00:44:26] Oh, another word to the wise. If you can find a restaurant, sometimes believe it or not as a healthy vegan, meaning one that avoids at least oil, it’s easier to find a compliant meal in a non-vegan restaurant. I wish that wasn’t true. But a lot of times in vegan restaurants, they will not accommodate vegans, but you go to steakhouses, you go to Asian type restaurants, like poke restaurants.
[00:44:52] Yes. Meat and fish is served, but they’re also used to having a lot of sides. I’ve gotten better meals at steakhouses than I have at vegan restaurants, because they have vegetables like asparagus and broccoli and all kinds of things, mushrooms, and they will steam them. They will roast them. They will make them for me without oil.
[00:45:10] And they’ll give me a baked potato, the size of a football, and then there’s condiments. You can get like salsa, for example, like you, you just have to sometimes think outside the menu, like you I’ll look at the menu and they’ll okay. So they have fish and it comes with a pineapple salsa. So I. Can I, can you gimme sides? Things like that, a poke bowl restaurant, I love this new concept where these restaurants that are doing bowls, they’re not vegan, and often they have like oil free vegetables, oil free grains, fruits. So you can customize a bowl or a salad. And I’m telling you it’s delicious. It’s an oil is not what makes food delicious people you think it is, but it’s not.
[00:45:46] And so it’s become easier in certain types of restaurants to eat. And remember, a lot of these type of restaurants will exist within airports. Think about airports as restaurants, and learn to navigate restaurants. Oh, one thing though, you gotta realize this is a funny story.
[00:46:01] You’re bringing back so many memories of funny stories. I was staying at a hotel and they had on the menu, French. And sweet potato fries. And I’m like, oh, this is great. So that means they have sweet potatoes and potatoes. So I’m gonna just ask them if they will cook me one and I don’t care if it’s microwaved or steamed or baked or whatever.
[00:46:20] And so I talk to the chef, they go, I can’t help you. And I’m thinking why he goes well, cuz it comes to us frozen. So in other words, the fries already came to them, frozen with oil, sugar, and salt. So the first point I’m trying to make is even though they had it on the menu, they didn’t even have sweet potatoes or potatoes on the menu.
[00:46:37] Oh, one other thing before I forget is okay, so refrigerators, this is funny. I don’t know if you ever saw a movie called flight with Denzel Washington, he was nominated for an academy award. His performance was so good, but he lost unfortunately to Daniel Day Lewis who played President Lincoln.
[00:46:52] But man, I, this was a, just a chilling performance. He was a pilot who was a drug addict and an alcoholic, but there’s a scene with a refrigerator in a hotel. And it reminded me of this because a lot of times when you go to places, whether it’s, a hotel in Vegas or somewhere else, or even on a cruise ship, there will be a refrigerator there. But that refrigerator is. With crappy food or water, that’s $6 a bottle or peanuts. That’s $10 a can or a $5 thing of Pringles and a $6 Snickers. Cuz they want you to be hungry and eat it. And so I have said, you need to take this stuff out of the fridge. I go, oh we can’t. And I said I’m a food addict.
[00:47:31] Just if I was an alcoholic, you cannot have alcohol in my room and they will remove it. They remove it. And guess what? When they remove it. I got a fridge and I am not lying. That is not a white lie to say, I cannot coexist with Pringles and Snickers cuz I can’t. So that’s worked in my favor too to, to do that. And they’ve cleaned out the mini bar for me.
[00:47:49] Brighde Reed: That is a great tip. Yeah. One of my pet peeves is when I go to a hotel and it is usually in some of the fancier hotels and you see there’s a fridge, so you get all excited, like my partner and I, we often like to have some things for sandwiches that we can take on the road and have at lunchtime. So we’ll often have a few little sandwich supplies, and then they have these really annoying refrigerators where if you take out the drink and you have it out for more than 10 seconds, it will automatically charge you. Have you seen that?
[00:48:23] Chef AJ: I have not, but that is ridiculous.
[00:48:26] Brighde Reed: Yeah, it’s extremely frustrating. It happens a lot in Europe. And I dunno whether I’ve ever experienced it in North America, but they have these little lasers that automatically detect. When you take out a small bottle of wine, let’s say, so you have this refrigerator, but you can’t use it. It is the most annoying thing.
[00:48:47] Chef AJ: Tell them you’re an alcoholic. Tell them they have to, again, other countries, I don’t know but I, yeah I would pay by the way. If somebody would allow me a refrigerator I would pay and I’m, cuz I, I, here’s another interesting thing that, I, cuz I work with a lot of people. You who really struggle with food addiction and they really have to have compliant food. And so some of the things they’ve done, for example, whereas maybe they’re traveling and it’s just too inconvenient to be, to bring an Instant Pot. They have gone to the nearest Walmart and for 10 bucks bought a microwave and used it while they were there and then gifted it to the cleaning person when they left, for example and sometimes microwaves are available anyway, like in the shared area, especially hotels that serve breakfast and they allow you to use it.
[00:49:29] And that, that can be a possibility too. If microwave food, isn’t like the greatest, oh, there’s Hot Logics too. If you go by car, there’s this really cool thing that like heats up your food in the car using, I don’t know if we have cigarette lighters anymore, but again, if there’s a will, there’s a way.
[00:49:42] And if you really are somebody that wants to stay compliant. That is like you say, traveling either for work or for the experience, not the food. There is a way to do it. If you just get over the fact that not every meal is gonna be a five star meal. Oh, I gotta tell you, the a recent trip when we moved from the desert to Northern California. So we came up here for a period of a couple days to, to look, to see if we wanted to live here. And, we were staying at a very low, motel kind of thing. And basically, they did have a microwave, but it was like, it was, we got in late, it was like nine o’clock almost nine.
[00:50:13] And I stopped at Trader Joe’s and I travel with this thing cuz see eating vegetables is really important to me. And so I travel with something and it’s not very a big and it fits in the suitcase. Very small. It’s called the Pamper Chef Microwave Steamer. And you can steam vegetables in it or other things too, probably.
[00:50:29] And so I went to trader Joe’s and I got a bag of organic broccoli. They sell white and brown rice, organic in these little packages, they take three minutes to microwave and I didn’t really have any seasonings with me. So I got, I bought some scallions it was delicious. I needed calories and it was similar to what I ate at home and, I was okay with it.
[00:50:48] But I, I think that just that brings to a whole other subject about food addiction, which we could talk about another time, why it’s so difficult for people to eat plain or simpler food, to each his own. But if you’re somebody that just wants to travel, I think you can do it.
[00:51:03] For sure in the United States and many countries too. Oh my God. Mexico it’s for me, it’s easy in Mexico and I’m told for other people too, if you can find fruits and vegetables and have some source of starch, either from rice beans or potatoes, either that you bring or buy, I think you’re gonna be okay.
[00:51:20] Brighde Reed: I agree. I think where there’s a will, there’s a way if you really wanna travel just don’t have very high expectations of food and really focus on the real reasons that you’re going, whether it’s to relax, whether it’s to see a new culture, whether it’s to see incredible architecture to hike in the forest. That’s, what’s really important. The food really should just be second fiddle in my opinion
[00:51:42] Chef AJ: also the lower your expectations, the least likely you are to be disappointed.
[00:51:47] Brighde Reed: Exactly.
[00:51:48] Chef AJ: You may be pleasantly surprised. I remember one time when I was in Orcas Island somewhere in Washington, I don’t remember. There are some chefs that are so excited about this way of cooking, that when you tell them like a lot of them are just really annoyed and they’re annoyed, even if you’re just vegan, but some will bend over backwards to try to accommodate you and you can end up something that’s not only delicious, but better than anybody else in your party, that’s eating because of your quote restrictions, which to me are not restrictive. But yeah. It’s a process it’s gonna get easier. It’s gotten easier over the years and it’s gonna only get easier.
[00:52:22] Brighde Reed: Chef AJ, thank you so much for joining us on The World Vegan Travel Podcast. I know that this content is gonna be really helpful for people who really want to travel, but they have certain reasons why they can’t eat in every single restaurant. So thank you so much for taking the the time share these tips with our audience here, and I’m sure people are wanting to learn more. So can you share a little bit about how people might find you tell a little bit about your books and that live stream?
[00:52:51] Chef AJ: Of course. If you Google Chef AJ, you’ll come up with quite a few things, but every single day, at least for the last two and a half years, I have been live at 11:00 AM. Pacific time on YouTube. The channel is my name, Chef AJ, with an interesting guest, and I’ll be there talking to you in the chat, welcoming you. And that would be really fun to have people watch.
[00:53:12] Brighde Reed: Fantastic. All right. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:53:16] Chef AJ: Thank you.
[00:53:18] Brighde Reed: So I hope you enjoyed that episode and we’ll check out Chef AJ and her books and all of the stuff that she does, particularly, if you are wanting to eat more healthily, stay tuned here for more episodes, which will help you get ready to discover this beautiful planet.
[00:53:39] Whether you stay in your local area or go further afield. If you are interested in finding out more about World Vegan Travel and what we do please check out our website: worldvegantravel.com. And if you like this podcast and want to dig a little deeper into the content we make, you can do that by going to the show notes.
[00:53:56] Thank you so much for joining us. Consider subscribing and leaving a review, and we hope you’ll join us next time.
