John Bradshaw - Conversation with Carin Lynch
She is a social worker, a health educator, a medical missionary, and an author with a brand new book. Her name is Carin Lynch, I'm John Bradshaw. and this is our "Conversation".
John Bradshaw: Carin Lynch, thank you so much for joining me, great to have you here.
Carin Lynch: Glad to be here, thank you.
John Bradshaw: I am holding your book. Carin Lynch's "Plant-Based Made Simple: Simple, Nutritious, Delicious". It looks good enough to eat, I'm talking about the book not what's inside. So I'm looking forward to talking about this in just a moment, this is your first cookbook?
Carin Lynch: It is my first cookbook.
John Bradshaw: Fantastic looking at it, we all wish this will not be your last, but there's time for that. Let's talk about you a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your background, where you're from.
Carin Lynch: Well, originally I'm from New Jersey, born and raised there, and I relocated five years ago to Northwest Georgia or Wildwood, right in the Chatanooga area.
John Bradshaw: Fantastic, we are glad to have you here. Now talk to me a little bit about your experience as a Christian. Were you raised in a Christian home? What was your background?
Carin Lynch: Sure, I was raised in as a Seventh Day Adventist by my father. My parents divorced when I was younger and my father ended up being able to have custody of both my sister and I. And so by God's grace, because he had a very strong foundation in the church, he was a wonderful Christian father who kept us in a home that just really glorified God.
John Bradshaw: You know, that's a little unusual, isn't it? For a divorce and we're going back just a few years and for the dad to have custody. How difficult was that for you being raised in that milieu that environment having clearly gone through some traumatic experiences?
Carin Lynch: Sure, well, you know, it's interesting, my father was a Christian growing up from his teens. They became a Seventh Day Adventist after he married, and my mother was from a Catholic background. However, she really was pretty much Catholic in name, but not so much in practice. And so what happened was when my father, when he was ready to start a family, he went through the phone book because he says, "I need to find a church that speaks the truth". And so he started in the As, and he would call, speak to the pastor and then go to the church. And so as he went down he started realizing that many churches weren't following the Bible. And he ended up finally finding a Seventh Day Adventist church and this is such an interesting story. And he told because he's called the pastor, but the pastor wasn't available. And so the wife got on the phone and said, "Oh, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer 'em". And he said, this is really interesting because not one pastor's wife was willing to speak with him. They say, "Oh, my husband's not home, you could talk to him". So he started asking some questions and she had biblical answers for him and so he was very impressed, and he said, well, I'd like to come to your church. And she said, "Well, I don't know if you know, but we worship on Saturday, the Sabbath day". And he says, my father said, "Well, you know what? I'm not opposed to that, so I will meet you". And, but he said at the time, I'm concerned, maybe they maybe they're Jewish, but maybe they're Jews for Jesus. So he's like, but I'll check it out. So he went that Sabbath and was waiting, he says, "I know there's gotta be Jewish people here somewhere". And he waited and he waited and what happened was the pastor came out now, interestingly enough, the pastor happened to be Lebanese.
John Bradshaw: Oh, how bad? So he looked very Semitic. So my father said, aha, I knew that this was a Jewish congregation.
Carin Lynch: That's great.
John Bradshaw: He said, but as soon as he started speaking God's word, he said, I heard Jesus throughout his whole message and studied and baptized within probably, a few months of his studies with the pastor and then started his journey as a Seventh Day Adventist.
Carin Lynch: What a fantastic story. Listen, your dad just strikes me as the most remarkable sort of a guy.
John Bradshaw: Oh, he was wonderful, he sadly passed away in 1998, but we had such a great foundation. It was a wonderful childhood, even though my parents divorced when we were younger, my mom actually moved to Florida, and so we stayed in New Jersey and it was like you said, it was pretty remarkable, a man raising two daughters at that time, because even his attorney said, "If you ask for custody, you'll only get weekends". And my father says, "Well, that's not acceptable". And he says, "But I'm gonna let you know, they'll never take custody of away from a mother, for a father". And yet by God's grace, my mother didn't contest it and my father raised us. So praise, Lord.
Carin Lynch: God had a plan and your dad left you a remarkable legacy because his life pretty quickly became all about the Bible, faith in God, following the Lord, and that's what your life has been all about. You are a minister, I'll qualify that. I mentioned a moment ago, you're a medical missionary, you're involved in ministry up to here. So let's talk about, before we talk about the book and I can't wait, I have to wait. But before we talk about that, let's talk about some of the other things you do. You are involved in the Lay Institute for Global Health Training, LIGHT.
John Bradshaw: Yes.
Carin Lynch: A department of, or a ministry of Wildwood Health Institute, not far from here in Wildwood in North Georgia. Tell me about LIGHT.
John Bradshaw: Sure, well, LIGHT, like you said, is the Lay Institute for Global Health Training. It's a ministry that kind of started with people at Wildwood who recognized that the message of medical missionary work that needs to go to all church members was not globally being taught as well as it could be. And so they put together a ministry that would go out and reach people in their own home countries, in their own home cities and take a more, like nuts and bolts essentials of health evangelism, we call it, to the people and train them like in a month, like it's about 125 hour course. It takes about a month to put this together and we've been in over 95 countries and trained almost 40,000 lay people as medical missionaries.
Carin Lynch: Yeah, it's not that we have enough of that either, I think we don't have nearly enough health training, health evangelism training. Look, a world is mired in a pandemic.
John Bradshaw: Exactly.
Carin Lynch: Now more than ever people need good health principles, people know how to look after themselves, people know how to avoid comorbidities to give themselves a far a shot of surviving COVID, we need much more and absolutely zero less of global health training, so thank God for what you're doing.
John Bradshaw: Amen, amen. Well, and my husband actually, him and I are the North American directors for our division here.
Carin Lynch: Okay, well, that's gonna keep you hopping and running.
John Bradshaw: Yes, well, it does. He's driving, we do a lot of miles every year because we travel mostly by car.
Carin Lynch: Fantastic, hey, listen, let's go back a little bit, even further because you mentioned, we discussed, LIGHT is a ministry of Wildwood. Talk to me about Wildwood and its very rich history, the Wildwood Health Institute. Which has been in Wildwood Georgia for, well, you tell me.
John Bradshaw: It's almost 80 years now. It was the first Institute actually, that really followed the blueprint of having not only a sanitarium, which sanitariums had popped up, at the turn of the century. But having a sanitarium along with an education department that would educate medical missionaries. So they would not only be able to work in the ministry right there at the Lifestyle Center, we call it now, but they also can go out and take that message of health to the world.
Carin Lynch: Wildwood has had a huge impact on medical missionary work and health evangelism. So thank God for what you're doing and what you're a part of explain it's to me a little bit. So you give out your health evangelism, I wanna know more about this, so what are you involved in?
— Well, we do something very specific. My husband, Ron and I, as directors in North America, what I had mentioned is this going out throughout the world and taking these courses these one month courses to train medical missionaries in churches all over the world. However, in the United States, it's a little different, and the reason why is because we see the commitment, we've been all over the world as well, doing trainings through LIGHT. And we see people traveling three hours each way on a bus every single day, not missing a day to come and absorb everything we're teaching them about medical missionary work. However, let's fast forward now in the United States, you don't even see people committing to weekends sometimes. It's sad we have these busy lives that we've probably self-imposed, to keep up with the lifestyle that we live here in the United States. So we don't have a big opportunity to do these schools, the one month schools. So what we do is we travel to the churches by invitation, so they call us and we'll come, and what we do is we do a health emphasis program, whether it's a weekend or maybe a one week or 10 days of really focusing on different parts of medical missionary work, just to kind of revive the church members to revitalize the church to embrace health evangelism, to reach their community for Jesus.
— Let's make sure we're not talking past people here, 'cause I think you and I both have a frame of reference here, but what's health evangelism? What is reaching your community using health evangelism? What does that look like?
— Well, I have to say there's so many aspects. A medical missionary, we talk about a lot of times that every church member should be a medical missionary. That could be something as simple as your coworker saying to you, "You know, I've been meaning to lose these 10 pounds and I've been, I don't know, I don't exercise enough". You know what, hey, how about when we have lunch, why don't we walk after lunch, walk in the park for 20 minutes? That is as simple as medical missionary work can be. But it also can go all the way to being fully trained in natural remedies, things like hydrotherapy or massage therapy, or even like herbal therapies, things of nature that God has given us. We talk a lot about the eight laws of health and how to apply those to our lives. And so when we go to the churches, we really try to emphasize being able to go God's way and being able to open up doors that way for people.
— I know somebody is concerned because they hear you mention herbs and you mentioned this and that and the other and they're wondering, does this mean that medical missionary work is opposed to conventional medicine? How do you answer that?
— No, absolutely not. God has given wisdom to doctors and nurses and medical professionals. I believe that when we go out to speak to people, even at Lifestyle Center at Wildwood, there's a time and place for medications, there's lifesaving medications out there. We did a health expo, which is kind of putting together the eight laws of health in different booths and having people come and get screenings, all these different booths. And we were doing the sunshine booth and this was in Newark, New Jersey, one of our expos that we did when we were first medical missionaries and a gentleman came in and his blood pressure was, I believe 210 over 190.
— Oh, have mercy.
— Now, took the blood pressure like, okay, there must be something wrong here. Took the blood pressure again, must be something wrong, called over one of the doctors took the blood pressure. Now at this point, is this the place where you would say, okay, I want you to go home and take some garlic or maybe you a hot foot bath. No, this is where, you know what, I think it's best if we get you to the hospital. Because obviously to get his blood pressure down, may take some medical intervention, however, God has a way of using natural remedies, not only to prevent disease, but also to reverse it as well. And so we could then teach about these lifestyle changes that this gentleman could do to actually naturally lower his blood pressure and continue in a healthier way.
— And it's too bad that many people don't realize that, God does have a way to wind back high blood pressure and in many, many cases, reverse diabetes, and other what we would call lifestyle diseases. If people just knew and were willing to invest a little, I don't know, little time or energy, a little application, there can be dramatic results, can't there? From natural interventions.
— Absolutely, and the thing is, is that we have to also remember that we have to give God time to do the miracle in our life. I tell a lot of people, I say, when we apply the laws of health, somebody could start eating perfect plant-based diet, they could exercise everyday, they can drink their water, they can go through all these, they get the sunshine be very temperate, fresh air, the good rest, and of course do all those things perfectly, could they still get sick though?
— Oh, sure.
— The answer is yes, but the thing is, is that when we tie those seven laws of health with the last one, which is trust in the higher power, when we accept that God has given us these natural laws of health, it gives him permission to do a miracle in our life when we obey them. And that's really what I tell people that when we are obeying these things that God has given us, it has given him permission to do the miracle.
— I'm sure we'll get back to this, but I do not wanna wait too long to start talking about this book. It's clear that your ministry is far broad than a book, but oh wow, this is quite a book. I think I just wanna eat the front cover immediately, you got me with that front cover, but why the book, how did the book come about? What prompted you to write Carin Lynch's "Plant-Based Made Simple.
— Sure, well, I was going to be recording a cooking program and when I went to record, they said to me, "Do you have a cookbook"? And I said, "Oh no". And they said, "You don't have a cookbook? You don't have a cookbook". And they kept on like... And it was almost like shock. Like you don't, you don't have a cookbook, you're just gonna come and do a thing. And I'm like, oh, maybe I need a cookbook, I don't know, I kind of it was new to really ministering with, I did cooking schools, and I can tell you a little bit more about that later, but I had done cooking schools for my church, but I had not really gone out in ministry and did a big events or anything. And so after I was done, it was always in the back of my mind, maybe I should write a cookbook. And so when I finally realized that I maybe I should put these recipes together, I really prayed about it, and God really put that book together. I didn't pick certain recipes, I let him put the book together and I went to a publisher and being a missionary, we're not salaried or anything, so we don't get a lot of income. So when they said, "Oh, we'll take care of the printing, we'll do this and that, but you have to pay for the layout and all that". And I'm like, okay and then the price was like, almost like seven or $10,000. I'm like, okay, that could be 7 million, it's still probably unattainable for me. And so I was like, oh, how am I gonna do this? And at Wildwood, I had just mentioned it to the Director at the Lifestyle Center where I was teaching the cooking school. And they're like, we'll do it with you, and I'm like, what? And so we put our heads together, they co-copyrighted the book with me, they sponsored the book, I had them review everything that I was going to put in there to make sure it met their needs, which it did, and they were able to do my layout, all my editing and all my pictures, and here we are today, Praise the Lord, right?
— Fantastic, fantastic, yeah, God's blessing is certainly on this book. I don't a hundred percent know where to begin, but I'm gonna ask you, I think a general question, what is it about a book like this that gets you excited?
— Oh, well, what I did was when I prayed about putting this book together, I said, Lord, what should I put in here that would attract people, not just people who are already plant-based, not just brand new people, maybe it could be a book that anybody could pick up and it would be appealing to. And so I tried to find certain things that I saw in other publications and I wanted it to be like, I call it Barnes & Noble quality. I wanted it to be able to be on any bookshelf, it didn't have to be just in a church bookstore or just at your church or just online. I wanted it to be something that anybody would pick up and could be attracted to this book. So I put things in like QR codes where you could scan it and I can be in the kitchen with you and doing the recipe. So we did a lot of those recipes, go right to videos. I really put a section in there of heart of need to knows, different ingredients, different techniques, things of that nature that could help somebody starting on a journey of plant-based health. So I tried to make things and I wanted every picture to be a big color picture so that it would be appealing. You say, okay, that looks delicious because we eat with our eyes, don't we?
— Yeah, we sure do
— But on the front cover, especially, you'll see where it says simple, nutritious and delicious. That's my catchphrase, because I believe that food should be as grown and simply prepared with simple ingredients. So we shouldn't have to go to the health food store all over the world, buying all our ingredients every week. Maybe make that journey once or twice a year and get a couple things that might be some interesting things that you might not have in your cabinet nutritious, well, so that's the simple part, the nutritious part is the fact is, is that it should be whole food plant-based. And my book is primarily, it's about 95%, whole food plant-based. That's right, I have some things processed in there, maybe a little tofu, maybe a little olive oil and one or two recipes here and there, but for the most part, it's whole food plant-based.
— I wanted to ask you about that because some people hear plant-based, and they think, oh, well, I've gotta traverse the widest ocean to try to find some obscure berry or some ancient grain that you can only buy on a full moon. You've managed to avoid all of that, and I'm not against berries or ancient grains, I'm simply saying sometimes, sometimes, plant-based can just be intimidating, because it makes good food, less accessible. You've avoided that somehow, that takes some skill.
— Well, that's why when I do cooking schools, especially I try to make sure that people can get, I get all the ingredients locally so they can see what I demonstrate they can actually do. That's where the simple, nutritious, and then delicious, if it doesn't taste good, then who's gonna to eat it, right?
— Exactly right. Well, we're gonna eat it and maybe by the time this program is over, I will have started munching on the cover because the book looks great, we'll talk about some of the specifics in just a moment. Cheers, Carin Lynch, and I am John Bradshaw, this is our "Conversation", we'll be back with more in just a moment.
John Bradshaw: Welcome back to "Conversations" brought to you by It Is Written. My guest is Carin Lynch, a Cornell University trained. Tell me a little bit about that, that's impressive, you've studied at Cornell.
Carin Lynch: Well, I did a program, their plant-based nutrition program. So I got a certificate in plant-based nutrition from their Center from Nutritional Studies. It was really founded by T. Colin Campbell, who is really a forerunner in plant-based nutrition. If you remember, the China Study, a lot of people know about the China Study and he really has taken the secular world into a more plant-based, and medically studied where it really had the benefits of plant-based. Now, of course, we know we've done our own studies throughout our church with Loma Linda and the health studies there. But it's nice that we also have that to validate the things that we already knew.
John Bradshaw: Absolutely, okay, talk to me a little bit about the book, some things in the book that you like.
Carin Lynch: Oh, you mean recipes?
John Bradshaw: Yeah, recipes, that might be all of 'em I don't expect you like some dislike others, but let's talk about a couple of your favorites.
Carin Lynch: Well, I have to say, it's funny because people always say, "Are these all your favorite recipes"? And I always tell them, no, I actually cook a lot of different things at home. These are the ones like the Lord really impressed me to put in the book, I said, but some of them are my favorites. One of our breakfast favorites that we have, and we do this like on Sabbath every morning is I make, well, I don't make 'em on Sabbath. I make ahead of time, but we do the corn-oat waffles. That's actually the first recipe in the book, in the breakfast section. And when I got that recipe together, my husband said, I will never eat another waffle, he loves them with some nice, like fruit sauce, especially we do a lot of blueberry fruit sauce 'cause that's one of our favorites. So that's great, let me try to think of one of my favorites in the entrees in there. Well, one of the all time favorites and it's a fan favorite too, I do it in a lot of cooking schools is mac and cheese. Oh yeah, the mac and cheese, because the cheese sauce, my husband is actually from Tennessee, he was raised here in Tennessee, mostly and Southern cooking is really home cooking, comfort foods and mac and cheese is one of the biggest comfort foods. I mean that not only for a holiday, not only for a weekend for a dinner, but oh, you have the sniffles, I'll make your mac and cheese. I mean, it's like mac and cheese goes with everything in the South. And so I kind of put that cheese sauce together and you know it's funny because when my husband and I first got married, we were vegetarians, but not completely plant-based. So I had to really ramp up my mac and cheese recipe because I was competing with like his mom who was making mac and cheese, her whole life. And he loved it, but then when I started making it plant-based, he said to me like this even better.
John Bradshaw: Even better.
Carin Lynch: He's Southern boy.
John Bradshaw: I'm looking at the recipe here and I'm not gonna give the game away because I'm just not. One thing I notice here, and I've seen this in several of the recipes, two teaspoons of Himalayan pink salt, or salt of your choice. So what is it about the Himalayan pink salt that you like?
Carin Lynch: Well, it's interesting because learning a little bit about salt, Himalaya pink salt is actually mined about 5,000 feet below sea level. And so it's like 99.9999% pure and it has 84 trace minerals in it. And now trace minerals are minerals that we only need in small amounts in our body, but we have to get them from foods, our body doesn't manufacture them. So getting 84 trace minerals, I think, wow, that's a great bonus. Comparing it to like something like a sea salt, a lot of sea salts have probably about 60 trace minerals in them, which isn't too bad either, that's pretty good. The only thing though, and I think that mined sea salts are the ones that I would recommend, like kind of like that maybe like real salt, which is from Utah, I could tell you a great story about that, I'll tell you that in a minute. But then also like the Celtic Sea Salts, those are ones from the UK that are mined. Now, there are also sea salts that they get from the ocean, those are not ones though that I really recommend. And sea salt really came on the market probably 20 years ago and became like the super fad, everybody thought they were doing themselves a huge favor. And they had in the sense of minerals, but what we do find now is all the ocean dumping and things like that, there's something called microplastics. And microplastics are these minuscule plastic that has not been fully dissolved. And so this is the study show that actually every person... We get microplastics through the air, in our foods and all this, we eat about approximately a credit cards worth of plastic a week. Can you imagine that? One whole credit card. So I'm not trying to get more plastics, so that's why I don't recommend those regular sea salts. But then of course there's regular table salt that most people are the Morton and the Diamond and whatever salt you would use. Unfortunately, that has zero trace minerals because it's so over processed, not only are they bleaching it to make it nice and white, they are using aluminum derivatives in the process as well. And there's such a link to like dementia and Alzheimer's with aluminum and aluminum toxicity. And then of course the other thing too, is that they use something called yellow prussiate of soda. Yellow prussiate of soda is actually an anti-clumping agent, 'cause back in the day, people would put like rice in their salt shakers so that it wouldn't get clumpy, but you don't see that anymore. People just pour and it pours out it's because they have an anti-clumping agent in it, it is a known carcinogen. And so it's one of those things that you've got now bleach in there, aluminum, a known carcinogen, plus you've now stripped out all the minerals out of the salt. They actually do throw a little iodine back in because iodine's so important for like your thyroid, and they do put that in there, but it's not the natural sourced iodine.
— Every good plant-based cookbook has to have a recipe like this, but this is the any bean veggie burger. So ordinarily black bean, I was surprised to see any bean.
— Yeah, I actually use white beans more than I would use black beans in that one.
— No kidding.
— But you can use any bean, that's why any bean, whatever be you have at home, whatever be you like, I happen to like it with a white bean, like a Cannellini bean or like a white kidney bean.
— Well, it looks good, the photography team did an outstanding job. I notice you have a jackfruit recipe and jackfruit's become popular in recent years and for good reason, it's good.
— It is, it's a great meat substitute, especially for like those shredded chicken types of things, or I've actually done a faux pot roast with jackfruit as well, it's not in the cookbook though. I just kind of put that together one day for my husband and it came out excellent.
— Yeah, where do we go here? I'm getting past the primavera and the Southwestern chicken salad, besides in the sauce, ah, that's what I was seeing a minute ago. I mean, I'll give you one guess, dessert.
— Desserts.
— All these look good.
— Which ones are they?
— All of them, what are you talking about? All of them, banana date nut cookies, Carin's Chacolay chunky carrot candy cluster. Yeah, they wouldn't last a minute around here. Carin hazelnut moose. Is that as good as it looks and sounds.
— They came out excellent, when I put that together, I was doing a program called "Italian Made Simple". You know, all my cooking shows that I've done is whatever made simple. And one of the first ones was "Italian Made Simple", and I said, well, I wanna get a dessert that kind of, is with my Italian heritage 'cause I'm Italian. And so I said, oh, hazelnut, it's like kind of that Nutella flavor that people know and love and that came out excellent, really.
— Hazelnut are just the most fantastic things out there.
— They're delicious.
— Oh yeah, I think they're underrated, undereaten, they are magnificent.
— Exactly.
— Oh yeah. So I'm just gonna divert a little bit here and ask you more general question. When it comes to cooking and okay, two questions first, you said made simple. Are these, I mean, are these really simple recipes?
— I'm gonna tell you that those recipes are so simple. Sometimes I always say I'm a little embarrassed, how easy I made the recipes, 'cause I'm not a complicated person, I don't wanna spend all day in the kitchen. And we were doing mission work in India, Ron and I, and I noticed that the women would get up 'cause a lot of people, we were staying at different in places, so people were cooking for us everyday. And they would get up at like six o'clock in the morning and cook breakfast and we would eat like at eight o'clock, then they would clean up and then they would cook lunch all morning and then they would serve lunch, just say at 12 noon. Then they would clean up and then they'd start cooking dinner, we would eat dinner maybe at like five or so and by the time they clean, they didn't leave the kitchen until eight o'clock at night. They were there from six in the morning till the night. I said, wow, I said, I wish I could simplify their life a little bit because I just felt like that was their whole existence was just in the kitchen. But I don't think in our busy lives that we need to spend that much time, I think we should make things simple because we're using simple ingredients, make them simply prepare, make them easy because also too, when we overcook things, we also lose nutrition too, 'cause we bring you up to a temperature that kind of breaks down the enzymes and things of that nature. We don't wanna do that, we wanna eat things, as grown as fresh as possible and very simply prepared.
— Now you just about blew me outta my chair here, when you started talking about food cooked in India, 'cause I've been long convinced that when we get to heaven we'll discover that the people in charge of food preparation are Indians. What's your favorite food, ethnic, national, whatever kind of a food?
— Oh my goodness.
— And if it's not a favorite, what's one or two or three or four that you like, Italian or Chinese or whatever it might?
— I'm gonna say I eat a lot of Asian food. And the reason why is too, is because it's very easy to find things that are full of vegetables and are plant-based in the more Asian culture. When we get into other cultures, they really focus, if you look at like European cooking, you'll see a lot of meat on that potato, excuse me, on that plate, then some potato, a lot of carbohydrates and carbohydrates are good for us. I mean, most of our food should be carbohydrates, but in a complex carbohydrate, not a refined carbohydrate. So we want to really, kind of, I try to focus. So I love Asian food, but I like all ethnic foods, I can find something everywhere I go. And it's really, it's kind of a fun journey when you travel as a missionary because you get to taste so many different culinary treats.
— Yeah, absolutely. What do you think are a couple of things that everybody should have in their kitchen that maybe many people don't? And it could be ingredients or tools, what's something that someone likely doesn't have in their kitchen, you say you gotta have this.
— I think if you're transitioning to a more plant-based diet, the first probably big purchase that you should make, and I always have a good way to get this purchase is a high speed blender. I personally have a Vitamix and I love my Vitamix, I wouldn't trade it, I actually have more than one because I take one on the road, I don't wanna take the one from home, I like to make sure everybody has their place, right?
— Sure.
— But the Vitamix is probably the most cherished piece of equipment that I have. And I always say they run like a Cadillac, but they also cost like a Cadillac too. And so how do you get a Vitamix? Many times people are on a budget and I kind of understand that, but I always say to, especially the ladies in my cooking classes, I'll say, if you want a Vitamix, you start with in January, you've got Valentine's day, you've got your birthday, Mother's Day, you've got anniversaries and Christmas. Right there five holidays, if you just say, oh, if you wanna just gimme money toward my Vitamix, you'll have it within a year, right?
— There you go.
— Nice and easy, right?
— Very smart.
— If everybody maybe a lot less than in a year, if everybody jumps in and gives you a little bit for your birthday.
— So what does a high speed to do for you, because someone's saying, ah, I'm just gonna cut a corner and get something not quite as good. What are you missing out on by getting something not as good?
— Well one of the things that I find that an ingredient, if you wanna say another ingredient, an ingredient that people will transition to more is using nuts, nuts and seeds, let's say too, because there are people with nut allergies, but nuts and seeds. And the high speed blender not only saves time in the kitchen, that's the bonus, but it really will blend things in such a manner that would not have any grittiness, creaminess. And I just find that like a high speed blender is just a necessity when it comes to making sauces and soups and milks, nut milks and whatever, everything, I probably use the vitamix more than anything in cooking in my kitchen.
— So tell me another one or two things that people should have in the kitchen that maybe they don't, maybe ingredients that people using enough of.
— I think an ingredient that is a great ingredient that has a benefit as well as it's a flavor enhancer, let's say is nutritional yeast flakes. Now nutritional yeast flakes are actually made by taking the yeast that's grown on molasses and they deactivate it by heating it up and then they grind it up and they actually add some B vitamins, especially B12. And B12 is one of the vitamins that a lot of people lack, and so it's nice as a condiment, but it has a nutty creamy, cheesy kind of flavor.
— A lot of cheese sauce use that as the base.
— It's a base ingredient in a lot of cheese sauces. I have a few in my cookbook, I've got some that are made with nuts, some were made with like a potato cheese. And I use the nutrition least a lot as a condiment in cooking. But I think that's another ingredient that really, will really help enhance food, but it also has a health benefit with the B vitamins.
— I'd like to ask you more about the desserts, but I'm gonna move past them as challenging as it is because wow, they look good. Here's a section that can just kind of change your meal, dips and dressings. If you've got the right dressing, the right dip, I mean, you can turn something pretty mundane into something really well.
— Exactly, I think sauces, gravies, sauces, dips, dressings, all of those things, really have to have a real punch of flavor, but we can get that even if we're cooking plant-based. People sometimes think you're gonna lose flavor or you're gonna compromise. And I'm gonna tell you, I don't think that you compromise at all. In fact, I think that your palate gets expanded with such freshness and so many flavors by embracing these foods that maybe we kind of overlook or we overcook, or we buy in a can versus getting fresh. So I think that these things definitely will enhance our experiences.
— I'm gonna ask you a question here that the entire program could be taken up with this one answer. So it's a little unfair just to spring it on you in the hope that we can get this done in about 90 seconds or two minutes, but why plant-based? Why should a person embrace the idea or start leaning towards plant-based foods?
— Sure, a few reasons. I think first, if we go back biblically speaking, if we go back to the Garden of Eden, we'll see that our man's original diet was the nuts and the seeds and the fruits.
— It was plant-based, was it?
— That's right, then after sin God actually incorporated the vegetables and the herbs of the field. So we are physiologically are built for a plant-based diet. I like to tell people when they ask me questions like that, not only if we look at our anatomy, we'll see that we have teeth, that are grinding teeth. We're not carnivores, we don't have teeth like a cat. A cat rips and tears flesh, we don't have those kind of teeth, so we are there to grind foods. We're also built to eat fiber. A cat doesn't have to eat any fiber, they could be a diet of 95% fiberless diet, and they're fine because they have an esophagus, a stomach, and everything goes out. For us, we have an esophagus and a stomach, but then we have our small intestines, which absorbing our nutrition. Then we have our large intestines that is pushing out the waste. But without fiber, fibrous foods, high fibers, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, things of that nature, we are not, and especially in the United States, we do not get enough fiber. And what happens is that we're not pushing these things out. Plant-based diet, medically speaking, most plant-based vegetarians probably have a good, and this is a rough statistic, maybe 95% less likely to have like colon cancer. Because we eat a much more high fiber diet. So we have to understand that our body is built for this, and of course with disease, you know, 94 to 96% of all disease is actually lifestyle, so only four to 6% is actually true genetic.
— That's a crazy statistic, isn't it?
— It is, because if you think about this, we might have a genetic propensity for something, but we have to trigger it with lifestyle. You've probably heard this before, but if lifestyle was a gun, I mean, if genetics were a gun, your lifestyle pulls the trigger. So a gun is not dangerous unless the trigger is pulled, right? So what happens? Well, 94 to 96% is lifestyle, but almost 70% of that lifestyle is exactly what we eat, and that really is what does a lot of determining of the genes and the mutation of the genes and of course disease. And so changing our diet to a healthier plant-based diet can be extremely, extremely preventative of disease and of course, reversal of disease.
— Oh, fantastic. Carin Lynch's "Plant-Based Made Simple", the book is a masterpiece, but there's a question I wanna ask you. Even the title of the book gives rise to a question, I'll ask that question in just a moment. We'll be back with more with Carin Lynch, I'm John Bradshaw, this is our "Conversation" brought to you by It Is Written.
John Bradshaw: Welcome back to "Conversations" brought to you by It Is Written, my very special guest is Carin Lynch. She's the author of Carin Lynch's Plant-Based Made Simple", which gives rise to a question. Carin Lynch's "Plant-Based Made Simple". Now someone might have called that vegan made simple, but you have called this, plant-based made simple. So I wanna find out if there's a distinction, a delineation, why are we talking plant-based and not using the term vegan here?
Carin Lynch: Sure, well, I actually, when I describe, when I do cooking schools, when I talk to people, I always tell people I'm plant-based or whole food plant-based technically. But the reason why I called the book plant-based made simple was because the word vegan now, that's probably the most common term for people that take animal products out of their diet. But the interesting thing is that a vegan diet, although not only takes animal products out of their diet, but also stays away from using things that are animal products, such as...
John Bradshaw: No leather.
Carin Lynch: Leather.
John Bradshaw: Don't use honey.
Carin Lynch: Exactly, things of that nature. And I said, well, the reason why I've re made these changes in my own life was because of the nutritional way reasons why, but the word vegan really stems, really beginning from far Eastern religions, because there was a time when people started not eating animals because of they believed in reincarnation. And so if mom passed away and she came back as a chicken on your farm, it would not be a good thing. That if you had chicken for dinner one night and it was your mom. And so, because of that, that's where the philosophy of a vegan diet came from. And then if we go now fast forward to the United States, it became very much more like animal activism.
John Bradshaw: That's right.
Carin Lynch: But vegan diet doesn't necessarily have to be nutritious, and a good example, I tell people in my cooking class all the time, if I'm gonna cook you breakfast tomorrow, would you be excited? They always say yes. And I'll say so when you come to the table and I open, I lift up the top of the tray and you'll see all the food there and it's Oreo cookies. I said, you don't have to tell me if you like Oreo cookies, but that's vegan.
John Bradshaw: That's vegan that's right.
Carin Lynch: But is it nutritious?
John Bradshaw: French fries are pretty vegan as well.
Carin Lynch: Oh, that's a good one too. Yeah, so if you think about that, I always say a vegan diet doesn't necessarily have a component. Now, there are people who are vegan, they call themselves vegan that are much more nutritious, but a vegan diet, you can go to the store and buy vegan food, and it can be full of preservatives and a lot of junk, a lot of refined sugars and refined flours, but they're vegan.
— Yeah, that word vegan it's become a bit of a loaded term, hasn't it? You know what? You just answered a question, I had planned to ask you, but let me do that. Someone is saying, oh, I can get Carin Lynch's "Plant-Based Made Simple". That burger on the front cover looks good enough to eat, it's simple, but man, it's still gonna take me some time. So I'm gonna stop at Trader Joe's on a way home, not to pick on Trader Joe's, and I'm gonna go and buy a couple of vegan, plant-based, ready to heat and eat foods, why wouldn't you, right? Why wouldn't you.
— The problem that we face when we purchase foods, they're always processed. Processed food is a huge problem in the lifestyle of the United States, standard American diet, has it has an acronym, standard S, American, A diet D what is its spell? SAD.
— So sad.
— Yes, and so what happens is, is people get into that routine of quick grab and go type of stuff, throw it in the microwave, even microwaves, I don't recommend using them so much, for cooking. Every once in a while, somebody might have to heat something up, but people are using this as a way of life, tons of preservatives, tons of refined sugars and oils and things of that nature. And so is there a place for those foods? I always tell people, yeah, there is, we're on the road 40 weeks out of the year sometimes, can I eat every meal, a home cooked meal? The answer is no, can I make better choices? Well, yes, sometimes my options are maybe going to Trader Joe's, but I call that the exception, not the rule. We do have to live in this world, and so we are faced sometimes with those things, but making foods yourself, you not only have the ability to monitor the salt, that's another thing with packaged foods, you're gonna find high salt, high sugar, and high oil, those are the three biggies and low fiber, those are the things. But you can monitor your seasonings, you can make things to your palates taste. You're using fresh ingredients, and so there's so much benefit. I like for people to think that you have to work smarter, not harder. I always mentioned about my waffles, I do a whole truckload of waffles, when I'm gonna make waffles, I make a ton of waffles and then I freeze 'em. I have 'em ready, I take them out the night before, I let them defrost, I throw them in the oven and just to crisp them up a little bit and voila, there's nothing easier than that. And so you can do this, and if you just take a little time to prepare, you can really do some meal planning and do a good job of that.
— And there's another facet too isn't there, when it comes to preparing food? There's just something cool about it. It can be a very social time if it's you and somebody else preparing the food together, there's just something wonderful about handling food and preparing food and seeing it transform from what it was to what it is. And then eating the work of your own hands and preparing and providing for others, there's something special about that process? At least, I think that is.
— I agree, I think time in the kitchen, remember I mentioned I'm from an Italian family and everybody congregates in the kitchen, no matter what, we're always in the kitchen together and it's just kind of a bonding experience. So it's nice for relationships as well, but again, putting things together and seeing like the fruits of your labor on the table is really a blessing, and I really can share that with others too.
— One thing I've not asked you about, today, gluten-free recipes are everywhere, gluten-free has become a very, very big thing. How does your book approach gluten-free food?
— Sure, well, I noticed too, when I teach classes that there are a lot of people that have gluten sensitivity, gluten intolerance, and then of course, there's celiac disease, which is you extremely dangerous for people to eat when they eat gluten, it damages their system. But there the gluten itself in the United States, we see a high content of gluten, gluten really helps the texture of things. And so what happens is, is that we hybridize our wheat to make it higher gluten content. So people that might have a little sensitivity, all of a sudden feel these, like some of these maybe bloating or those gassiness, or those little bit of stomach discomfort. So it's funny because when I put this cookbook together and then I said, I wanted to make sure I identified, if you had a special dietary need that you would know this recipe identifies that you could have it or not. So I put a little like legend in there where it'll say gluten-free, oil-free, soy-free or nut-free, so at the recipes. So when you're looking at that, or it could say gluten-free option where I might give you an alternative to have gluten. Now, when I put that recipe together, there's about 98 recipes in the cookbook, I found out when I counted them all up that 75 of them have gluten or gluten-free or gluten-free option.
— Hold on 75 out of recipes, are gluten-free or gluten-free option?
— Yes, exactly.
— That's phenomenal, you did not set out to do that.
— No, not at all and it's funny because I'm not gluten-free at home. We try not to eat a tremendous amount of gluten, but we don't have to really, we don't have any kind of sensitivity. But how the Lord put that together again, it's all on Him, I give Him the honor and the glory.
— Well, that is fantastic. So listen, in case you missed that, if you are looking for recipes that are also gluten-free, you have come to the right place, this is a book for you. In putting a book together, what do you find challenging? What were there any things that, oh, this is a grind or I'm not quite sure how I'm gonna get over this hump?
— I had a big challenge because I am a cook that is creative in the kitchen, but I'm not a person that measures a lot. So what happened was...
— That's my wife all the way and she'll make something just unbelievable, drop dead fantastic, not heart attack, drop dead, you know what I'm talking about?
— Yes.
— And then tomorrow, for example, it isn't gonna be the same because, well, I...
— I don't remember exactly, I just threw it in.
— Put this much, I don't know, I just.
— That's exactly what happened, so I had to actually recreate most of the recipes in that book. So my husband was like, I'm like, okay, we have a whole thing of you know, I would have to do the recipes and then write down the measurements of what after I tweaked them a little bit. So that was a little bit of a challenge getting that on paper. So that's what kind of took me so long, to get things on paper was because... So it didn't happen overnight, I had to really work on it and be really diligent in trying to figure out all my recipes.
— Yeah, my kids are like that too. I have a couple of kids who are absolutely astonishingly good cooks. And for them it's the Braille method, it's feeling your way through.
— It is.
— Yeah, well maybe that's the right amount of salt and maybe that's the right amount of whatever it is and works for them, but boy, it makes absolutely recreate things.
— Well, that's what happened, but I was able to put 'em on paper, so that's the good news.
— Oh, that's nice and now you have it codified.
— That's right.
— And that's a relief, so it can be pretty uniform every time. What's your favorite section in the book if you were to pick one?
— I think I would go with the soups and salads. I love soups soup is one of my favorite foods.
— You guys have nice soups in here.
— Yeah, I love soups, so I love the soups and the salads, there's kind of a fun section.
— How many of these recipes did you originate just for the book or are these recipes that you kicked around for years? Or was there something you said, you know what? I'm going to come up with an A, B, C recipe, whatever.
— I would say most of the book, the recipes in the book were ones that I continually developed and took recipes, from growing up and things. And because we were primarily vegetarians, but to make it plant-based, I had to figure out what is the equivalent. Because what happens is, is that a lot of times when people are going from like even a meat eating diet or a vegetarian diet to a more plant-based or a whole food plant-based diet, your taste buds sometimes remember the old foods. So you want things that are similar, that you're going to resonate with you and be that comfort food that you loved. Now, I tell people, you know me, especially people who are meat eaters, you like a hamburger, did you ever have a veggie burger, I ask them? And they'll say yes, I say did you like the veggie burger? Yes, I say, did the veggie burger taste like the hamburger? And they'd say no. And I said, but if we can find things that we like that taste good, then can we make that replacement and say, you know what, when you take the bite of it, don't think it's gonna taste like a hamburger, but think of it, does this taste good? And if it tastes good, then it's something that you could substitute. So I think that I didn't really plan any specific recipes that I can think of. There are a few in there, like you brought up like the carrot hazelnut moose, that was something that I did specifically, and it made it into the cookbook. Like I put that together for that cooking show and I said, that can go in the cookbook.
— Yeah, we're trying that at the Bradshaw house, maybe tonight, that really looked good. So as you look forward, what's on the scheduler, on the horizon for you? Sounds like you do a lot of cooking schools.
— I do, I think that that primarily a lot of people have seen me, so they recognize me for cooking schools. So when we do go to churches, I usually finish our program with a cooking school that they can invite their community to, and open up a door to build a relationship. I believe in friendship evangelism, we talked about medical missionary work, but we need to meet people where they are and show them a better way. And if they can do a cooking school and people can come and taste delicious food, that may be healthier options than what they had, then this is a great way to build friendships and people in your community to open up the doors for Jesus.
— And that I think is so key and we don't wanna forget that. We don't need this one more healthy, lost person. The point isn't to create healthy lost people, but to encourage people on a whole person journey to faith in Jesus. I just can't shake that story, we started off you telling me about your dad who just went through the phone book and I hope I'm not just forgetting, but what was it that prodded your dad to want to know more about God or to find a church that would really feed his soul?
— You know, it started when he was a young boy, his father passed away when he was eight years old and he was one of five boys, my father was the middle child of five boys. So my grandmother now has five young sons, and they had lived next door to actually a Baptist pastor. And his wife every afternoon would have a Bible story hour with her children. My dad was the same age as his daughter, so he would go over, and my father always from that, so as a young child was so intrigued and wanted to be there every day to hear the Bible stories. And so as he grew up, his friend group in his high school years were Christians. And so he really felt a calling that the Lord was calling him to give his heart to Jesus. And so he spent time with that group of friends, and then of course, when he got married in his early 20s, he knew he needed to find a church that had the truth because as he studied, he saw a lot of traditions going on, but were they biblical? And it's funny because sometimes people are truth seekers, and so that's where the journey began with the phone book, through the phone book. He said, he used to tell me that when he would have these key questions after a while, he learned that some religions go off in a lot of different directions. So he'd have some key questions, and if they couldn't answer them, he started crossing the them off and not even going, 'cause he could like weed them out pretty good. He said, but he stopped when he found the Seventh Day Adventist Church, because he said, they may not have all the answers, he goes, but I've never found a church that had better answers that were to the Bible.
— Yeah, amen, amen. So what do you do today when you meet someone like your dad and occasionally you do, you'll have people come to your events and you know that deep back there, this is a searching person. Maybe they're not a hundred percent satisfied with the status quo in their life, they're reaching out after God, how do you encourage that person?
— I think our testimony is really our best witness. And so God is always so good because I think he gives us experiences that we can relate to any person on the earth. And when we have those encounters, God brings back to your memory, something that you can connect with that person. And I think that when we personalize it on that level and bring Jesus into that mix, people really feel connected. And so when we talked about being a medical missionary and I had mentioned friendship, evangelism, I think the most important way that we can reach people is to be personal with them. And so these open up doors, we think about Christ method alone. Christ went to the people and He saw their needs, He ministered to their needs and that's how He won their confidence. And then once He won their confidence, He opened up the door to say, let me show you a better way. And I think when we read about Christ's method, it's Christ's method alone, will give true success. There's a lot of ways that we can minister to people and yes, they can be successful, but when we follow exactly what Jesus did, this is how we can reach people for the kingdom of God.
— Fantastic, you are doing an awful lot to grow God's kingdom. The book is impressive, it's a work of art and it's gonna bless lots and lots of taste buds. But I don't wanna narrow you down to a book, I mean, it'd be a great thing to be narrowed down to. You are truly a health evangelist and an educator and someone sharing the Gospel. God bless you for what you're doing and in what you're doing and I wish you continued success. And selfishly, I'm kind of hoping there'll be a book number two one day.
— Well it it's already in the works in my mind, how that?
— Oh, good.
— Yeah, so I'm gearing up to of sit down again and put that together.
— Oh, can you preview it at all? If this is "Plant-Based Made Simple", is it gonna be something similar? Are you gonna start zeroing in on this food or that food?
— At this point I think I was gonna do a continuation, but I let the Lord lead. So maybe there was a specific niche that I can kind of get people excited about more plant-based cooking, but I don't know.
— Indian food, I think it's Indian food.
— I only have a few Indian recipes that I can... I know a lot about a lot of things, I mean a little about a lot of things, so you know what, but you never know.
— Well, it has worked so far, you've done an outstanding job, whatever you do next undoubtedly God's blessing is gonna be upon it. Carin Lynch's "Plant-Based Made Simple" is the book, LIGHT is the ministry that Carin has so much to do with. Thank you very much and God bless you, this has been a joy.
— Thank you, thank you so much for having me.
— And thank you for joining us, this has been fun. She's an author, she's the teacher, she's an educator, she is a medical missionary, her name is Carin Lynch, I'm John Bradshaw, this has been our "Conversation" brought to you by It Is Written.