Chatting with Jennifer Markell; Chef, Blogger, Founder, Owner and Operator of Vegan It Real Personal Chef Services

Today I am chatting with Chef Jennifer Markell. Jennifer is the creative mind behind the website and blog veganitreal.com and founder, owner and operator of Vegan It Real Personal Chef Services located in the Tampa Bay area. Since 2017 Jennifer has been standing at the forefront of the plant-based movement with a mission to “veganize” the planet, one meal at a time. As a certified holistic nutritionist and a certified plant-based chef, Jennifer embraces Hippocrates’ concept that “food is thy medicine and medicine is thy food.” She is driven by her passion to bring delicious and nutritious meals to hear clients’ tables along with the knowledge that real, whole food is good for the environment, the animal and your health!

 

Key points addressed were  

• Jennifer’s education and certification regarding nutrition and plant based whole foods within the arenas of vegan diets, cooking, and health
• We also discussed Jennifer’s collaborative efforts via her services as well as her prediction as to where she thinks the plant based and vegan food scenes are headed in the next 5 years

 

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

TRANSCRIPTION

*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors

 

[00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with chef, blogger, founder, owner and operator of Vegan, it real personal chef services Jennifer Markell. Key points addressed were Jennifer's education and certification regarding nutrition and plant based Whole Foods within the arenas of Vegan diets, cooking and health. We also discussed Jennifer's collaborative efforts via her services, as well as her prediction as to where she thinks the plant based in Vegan food scenes, are headed in the next five years. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Jennifer Markell.

 

[00:00:41] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics they can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen Acom, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.

 

[00:01:38] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today I'm excited to be sitting down with Jennifer Markell. Jennifer is a chef, blogger, founder, owner and operator of Vegan Real Personal Chef Services. You can find out more on her Web site about herself, her services and everything we talk about today on her Web site. W w w dot Vegan it real dot com. That is BGA and i t r e l dot com. Welcome, Jennifer.

 

[00:02:05] Hi. So happy. I'm so happy to be here. It's so great to be here.

 

[00:02:09] Absolutely. I'm excited to climb through everything with you. I really love your web. I like the services that you offer. And I know our audience is really going to benefit from everything that we talk about today. For those of you listening, that might be news on this podcast. I will proffer a quick bio on Jennifer. But before we get to that, a roadmap for the line of inquiry, the trajectory that will that line of inquiry will go. We'll first look at Jennifer's academic and culinary nutritional background and training, and then we'll turn towards unpacking her personal Vegan story if it hasn't already been mentioned in the aforementioned. And then we'll unpack Vegan it real Web site, the services, info, education, collaboration, all of the kind of efforts that Jennifer has involved with that. Then we'll turn our efforts towards answering rapid fire questions. For those of you that are returning, these are questions that you have submitted to our Web site, w w w dot, Patricia, Kathleen, dot com and reached out. We always encourage our audience to ask questions based on any profession that we might run into if any of our series and we will get those up on air. And under that we will get to about seven to 10 rapid fire questions that some of you have for Vegan chefs and people in the Vegan food industry who wrap the entire podcast up with them. Thoughts that Jennifer has for things that may be on the horizon in the Vegan food scene and services and collaborative work in culinary enterprises and all that good stuff.

 

[00:03:27] So, as promised, a quick bio on Jennifer. Chef Jennifer Markell is the creative mind behind the website and blog, Vegan it real and founder, owner and operator of Vegan it real personal chef services located in the Tampa Bay Area since 2017. Jennifer has been standing at the forefront of the plant based movement with a mission to organize the planet. One meal at a time.

 

[00:03:51] As a certified holistic nutritionist and a certified plant based chef, Jennifer embraces Epocrates concept that food is a medicine and medicine is the food. She is driven by her passion to bring delicious and nutritious meals to her clients tables, along with the knowledge that real whole food is good for the environment, the animal and your health. So, Jennifer, I love, you know, a lot of your focus. I've looked through all a lot of your information across your social media accounts, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, on your Web site, of course. And you you really do hit that points hard. And so I'm really happy that it's in your bio, this kind of food, as they medicine, let it be as such. And before we climb into your Web site and some of the ethos and the philosophy behind it, I was hoping you could draw out a little bit further your academic and culinary and nutritional training that you've had that led you to launching Vegan.

 

[00:04:44] Oh, sure. Sure. So it's really, you know, one of those stories where I had spent almost most of my adult life until almost middle age in the corporate world.

 

[00:04:58] And after a horrible, you know, layoff in 2013, that was when I had an opportunity to reevaluate things and submerge myself into learning what it was.

 

[00:05:12] That was going to be my next step in life, my next career. And I wasn't going settle. So what I did was I started doing my own research on food. I learned a lot about organic food. And it was solely just self driven research podcast and TED talks and working actually part time for an organic farmer. So just moving myself closer to the food food systems, food producers. And then in two thousand and eighteen, early 2018, when my mother became ill, very, quite ill.

 

[00:05:55] I was really to the tipping point of deciding, you know, do I want to go back into the corporate world or really just take that leap of faith into my education and my knowledge and learning about food for medicine. So I enrolled in what I could at the time, what I was able to do for my work life balance. I was, you know, a mom of a mom of four kids, two of my own, two stepchildren. You know, I run a home and I had other part time work that I was doing so I couldn't just go and roll into, you know, the call the local college and become a full time student. And I couldn't go to culinary. Well, that was pretty much out of the question for me. So what I decided to do was investigate some holistic nutrition opportunities. There's a few out there and I enrolled in a six month training program that was fully online, a one on one coaching program through American fitness professionals and associates a f, p, a and graduated at top of the class for it with my holistic nutrition certification. So I really understood I had that piece, that credential to really tie food to the body. And I understood how food was both making a sick and healthy at the same time. But that wasn't enough for me. I knew that it worked well, but I really still only knew how to cook, you know, the vegetables that I was used to. And I really didn't know how to take advantage of all the great products out there.

 

[00:07:36] So then I decided to get a little bit of culinary credential and again, did a lot of investigative research, talked to a lot of chefs out there.

 

[00:07:46] What did they do? And again, knowing called actual culinary school was out of the question. I enrolled in Ruby R.O. you. It's so funny. Everybody thinks it's are you b y? But it's not. It's a French word. R o u x b e. And it was a Ruby International online culinary program and they had what was a very focused plant based culinary professional program.

 

[00:08:11] And it's a six month self-paced program where you have access to actual chefs through an interactive program online. So I was able to take that six month program, graduate within four months and really have a really great understanding of not only how food is for your body, good for your body, but also how to actually make it taste good and try to work to convert some of those folks who think that tofu and kale are bad and disgusting.

 

[00:08:46] So I really then I felt like, wow, I have a really good grasp on that knowledge. So, you know, it was important for me, even just when I was a blogger, but definitely when I was going into a culinary profession to have some kind of credential, I just didn't want I wanted to have that education. However, I could get it something that I could say, yes, I took the time to do that. And then just to kind of add on to that and we'll talk about the business in a minute. This year I went and received my certification as a food safety manager.

 

[00:09:21] So funny enough, in January of this year, I learned all about cross contamination and food safety. And now, you know, I could technically go in and, you know, open a restaurant and be part of that food safety and security part of it, because I've been certified there, too. So education was really important to me and I couldn't go mainstream. So I kind of piecemealed my education. And to this day, I just just get involved in lots of different research and my own driven research and try to keep a very diverse and inclusive set of resources that I go to that are also unbiased. That's one thing I learned in my training. Follow the source of the funding.

 

[00:10:07] Thanks. You know, I hope that answers your question.

 

[00:10:10] I'm curious, given that you have this NFPA mixed with Ruby, you know, so from from a layperson's term, NFPA sounds kind of like the holistic dietary, you know, nutrient side of it. And the ruby sounds like it was teaching as flavor you flavors technique, how to bring in some of, you know, those aspects to your cooking. And in that sense, I'm curious which one leads Flagship to your recipe development? Do you first think about nutrition or do you first think about flavor?

 

[00:10:41] OK. That's a great question and here's why. And here's why I developed Vegan it real and there's a story behind that. So I like to keep veganism real. So I, I started off really becoming focused on the nutrition and plant based piece of it.

 

[00:10:59] But then I realized the way to people and the way to maybe transform people's lifestyles is to keep the food real. So I then started focusing on the flavor side of things and the Shefi side of me kind of came out and I, I wanted to play with the new products out there and I wanted to see if I could fool my friends or my family with, you know, the latest plant based sausage. And so that's where I kind of got away from that Whole Foods plant based.

 

[00:11:34] No oil, salt, sugar menz. Ality, but still with that said. I try to really I don't submerge myself in, like, the deep fry and, you know, oil frying and things like that. So I'm very conscious. And I was so thankful for that training. But it's it's a great question because initially I thought I would go into that coaching about food for health. But then once I got into the kitchen and started playing with food, I couldn't get out.

 

[00:12:05] Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like a great love for flavor and the culinary arts. You know, that's those dimensions. Is it the French, the triangle of of spices or flavors that affect you? I can't remember. I was talking. It's not my forte, but I was speaking and chef one time when they were talking about the simplicity of patissier and things like that and really getting into the French flavors and the classical techniques that are developed around those very simple moments and deaths. It's an absolute art, you know. No doubt. No doubt about that. I want to kind of unpack Vegan it real for a minute now before we start getting into, like, the key components that someone will hit when they hit your side, some of the services you offer and the collaboration and things like that that I'm actually quite moved by. I want to first know personally how you define the terms plant based. You've gotten into the Whole Foods and how, you know, keeping it real was more an introductory and a conversion from people who were eating meat. But how do you personally define plant base as opposed to injecting position or next to defining Vegan?

 

[00:13:11] Absolutely. And it is confusing. And that's why I use. I usually say I'm a plant based vegan because veganism is really a movement.

 

[00:13:24] Veganism in itself is a movement. So when in vegans, you know, true vegans who are passionate about the animals and driven towards that activism will definitely call you to the mat on how you define yourself, you know? But so veganism itself is a movement. However, when you are when you eat a vegan diet, you will allow for those processed foods. So you might go get the annys mac and cheese and you might go get the Gardein bagged, frozen, you know, check on Nugget's, you know, the fake chicken nuggets and the plant based processed foods to incorporate into your daily life as a supplement when you are living a Whole Foods plant based lifestyle, those processed foods are very, very, very limited. If if you incorporate them at all. And it's funny because one of the things I learned in my research and doing my through my education and tea calling Campbell is a hero who who's book who whose books I have read, sometimes more than once. And in reading those types of resources and folks material, I didn't realize that you can still incorporate fish and meat and cheese into a plant based diet. Right. Plant based diet is really 90 percent of what you are consuming is whole. It's, you know, so whole grains. It's it's not your process greens. It's not your process. We test your whole wheat, your, your whole Raices, all of those foods and your fruits and vegetables. But it allows for a very small portion of animal based products. Veganism does not allow for any portion of animal based products. I mean, and so that's why as far as when I define myself, some people will relate more to the plant based side of things for the health. And some people relate more so to the veganism for the movement. And interestingly enough, I started to be plant based and Vegan for the health. And now I am holistically for everything, the animals, the health and the planet, because I have just learned so much. It's kind of you kind of have to embrace all three.

 

[00:16:00] Yeah. I feel like that's kind of the narrative that's really common along a lot of people's lines. You know, the gateway into what led to plant based vegan lifestyle. It starts to curing itself. You know, I, I just haven't spoken to a vegan who's been Vegan for five years that still trying to score, you know, the Gardein chicken stuff as much anymore. It starts to be right off. If they came at it from the environment, again, that has something to do with age and education. But I think that it's an interesting tie in. So given your personal Vegan.

 

[00:16:37] I mean, you've you went along this whole path you had. Did you have a health improvement when you came Vegan?

 

[00:16:43] Well, funny enough, I will say I'm novice, so I have only been completely Vegan for three years. It was three years. June 24th, I believe, was our anniversary. June 24th was my anniversary. And then my husband and my stepdaughter, me and her, her. Their anniversary is, quote, a goal. They say July 1st. So two thousand seventeen. So three years. I'm I'm I'm very, you know, very early in my veganism compared to some folks who I have come into contact with who have never eaten meat or have never eaten a plant based product or, you know, plant or I'm sorry. Animal based product before. So, you know, I have so much to learn and I never, ever want somebody things that I have it all figured out because I am not the expert. But I did notice changes and we noticed changes a lot, especially initially, because you think you're going to lose weight and you don't. Some people don't. And we gained weight. And then, you know, and then we felt, you know, bloated all the time. And so you start to question yourself in the commitment. Same thing with any other, you know, change or trying to make. And we did. And, you know, my husband had suffered for, gosh, since almost since the time I had met him in 2012 with what was called chronic to Carea, which is chronic hives. And you don't know why and you can't figure out why. Surely after I would say within six months to a year of going Vegan, his hives disappeared completely. And this is by no means and this is just my personal story. I have TMJ and I've had diagnosed and received cortisone shots for pre arthritis conditions, you know, pain and things like that. Wow, what a difference. I now I hardly ever have pain where I used to have pain. I'm not not saying that I don't get older and we don't have pains, but I just saw an overwhelming sense of. Feeling young. Just feeling better.

 

[00:19:02] I don't know how to describe in a lot of vegans, it's hard to describe. You just feel. And I. I almost think that there's a connection between the animal consumption and, you know, your your mind and where your head that because you just feel a little lighter. No pun intended. But over the course of three years, for instance, I do not. I eat as much as I want today without having to worry about a calorie. I don't. I try to just eat a little bit of everything that the Earth has given us. You know, every day I don't stress about what I'm going to, you know, if I'm going get on the scale and it's going to say five pounds heavier or not. Because I just know that's gonna all, you know, just just shake on it. And I have seen over the course of the first two years, my husband and I equally lost between 15 and 20 pounds. And people would look at us and they said, well, you didn't need to lose 15 or 20 pounds. But clearly we did because it it just you know, now we are at optimum weights, you know? I mean, I weigh less now than I did in high school as. And he's the same way. And we are you know, he's fifty one and I'm hearing that a hitch.

 

[00:20:19] Yeah. And there's, I mean there's future payoffs as well.

 

[00:20:23] I think, you know, the immediate health turnaround. I've never spoken with anybody who was under the age of 30 that didn't go from eating some kind of animal byproduct or animal based diet to Vegan that didn't have an alleviation from everything from occasional pains. Athletes that just have less inflammation to, you know, turnaround's of chronic issues, you know, with autoimmune and diabetes and all sorts of things that I'm certainly not the first to chronicle these. You know, there's them what the health and conspiracy and all of these stories that kind of implement that health aspect and people that dedicated their lives to it. But it is a common theme. And when you don't speak with anybody who doesn't have a story like that, it just becomes like, wow. And then there's the future. You know, there's there's less of Alzheimer's with, you know, with. Yeah, Vegan Dice's. There's correlation studies being done. There's just some of the things that come to get all of us in our older age seem to be at least a lesser extent, which is kind of a nice aspect in addition to saving the planet for our future generations, as well as being kind to other sentient beings.

 

[00:21:32] Oh, absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head. I had mentioned, you know, my mom was was very ill and she suffered from Crohn's disease for many, many, many years, many undiagnosed years as well prior to that. And along with some of her other conditions that I visibly expert, you know, saw and experienced firsthand in what she went through, I chose that, you know, to make a lifestyle change. I you know, I chose that. I didn't want to experience those things because a lot of Alzheimer's runs in my mother's side of the family. She had several sisters that were diagnosed with it as well. And you know it.

 

[00:22:15] You start to think, gosh, do I want to start taking pills to try to avoid these things that I could genetically, you know, inherit? Or do I want to change those and try to repair those broken DNA as cells to actually repair them and not just put a Band-Aid on them with the actual food that we were meant to eat. So you made a great point it all.

 

[00:22:41] It all began and continues to this day because I don't want to have to rely on, you know, a medicine cabinet when when I'm much older.

 

[00:22:51] You right? Yeah, absolutely. It's it's a great fear of mine to discover how many of my colleagues were on, you know, Daily Pharmaceuticals at the age of 40 was daunting for me.

 

[00:23:02] I am not sure I could keep up with the time getting up on the same time every day.

 

[00:23:08] I'm wondering, unpacking your Web site was interesting for me. I want to know about some of the impetus that when you went to launch it because it's different then. You know, I can't get enough of Vegan food Web sites anyway. I'm a kind of suer of sorts. But yours has a very unique and different tone to it. And I'm thinking that had something to do with some of the reason, the impetus behind the inspiration. Can you kind of speak to what inspired you to launch it?

 

[00:23:35] Sure. Well, it's been it's been a long time in the making. And I was actually fortunate enough to have a great web designer that helped me push it over the edge there and get it launched, because I'll tell you, if it was up to me, I would I would have never pulled the trigger because it was never good enough. But thank you. Thank you. Because it's gone through a few different transformations. I initially, as mentioned when I started looking at a new career in food, was going to look at the consulting and the coaching and the the blogging and being able to get my voice out there and my message heard and try to just bring more awareness to veganism and the really real ness of it.

 

[00:24:25] And so it started off as more of like, hey, I'm gonna sit here and I'm going to blog about food and I'm going to coach people.

 

[00:24:33] And then again, once I got submerged into the food, I was getting asked a lot of questions about my recipes. And I would post a picture. And, you know, obviously people want to know what's in it. And. And so I just said, you know, I got to start documenting it. And so I do have a good amount of recipes out there.

 

[00:24:56] I'd love to have more recipes out there. I focus on my blog. I was also doing some big in travel with my husband a little bit, whereas when I say Vegan travel, we would pick a destination that had a big Vegan footprint so I could go taste all the food. I mean, I'm a foodie. That's we were driven by food at some point. So there's some on there about my art Vegan travel that's kind of been nipped in the bud right now.

 

[00:25:24] But then up until just recent. So I was really focused on the informing, you know, let's inform people. Let's share my experience. Let's share the products that work for me. Share the food tips that work for me. And then once I started seeing that my recipes were making a difference and that I was going to pursue the actual culinary piece of it. That's when I have been transforming. And it's still going through a transformation if you go out there into the personal chef services. So I wanted to make. I wanted to keep Vegan it real the brand altogether because I love my brand and I wanted to also incorporate that services piece into the Web site where my locals could go out and take advantage of the services that I do offer from a personal chef's perspective. So it's gone through quite a few transformations, and I'm pretty certain that when my web designer receives an email from me, she shakes her head and, you know, it's it against the wall or something. But yeah, she I'm to the point where I can go in and just not break it.

 

[00:26:35] But it's definitely going through transformations and I do get a lot of feedback on it. I'm not big into advertising, you know, right now.

 

[00:26:45] I like I like people to just go get the information and keep it raw and real and transparent. I'm not necessarily out at my site to make money. I just want people to really profit off the information that I bring.

 

[00:26:59] And that's what it seems like. It really feels like it's even curated the recipes that you have.

 

[00:27:04] Yeah, photos are beautiful and the stuff that you're making. And I fancy myself, you know, in a fairly tidy, Vegan, self-taught chef. And they're beautiful. You know, I was looking at some of the reinventions, even the cheesy, like sausage and tartar torte, Vegan casserole and just different things like that. You know, I really it was inspirational.

 

[00:27:28] The Tater Tots casserole.

 

[00:27:29] Yay, not tartar casserole. I have children. These are the types of things that I'm thinking. I could make that a little bit more fun, particularly when they have friends over that. You're trying to kind of woo into this whole like, no, we're not a weird household. This is this is a great way of eating. I'm curious, you have a collaboration. You kind of tapped touched on it. It's this seems like the future of you know, it's the fact that you're constantly evolving the site and things like that that's, I think, evolve or die. Right. And the collaboration aspect of it is really the area that I feel a lot of chefs in general, Vegan chefs, you know, they go and they might eat at someone's establishment or get some information or get on someone's Instagram feed. But you never hear about this collaborative moment, like, let's work together, let's apply my lens to yours. Where do you see that heading in your future?

 

[00:28:20] Well, I'm fortunate because I have a ton of an area that's very new to the Vegan world where I live in the Tampa Bay area. I would say it's fairly new compared to, say, like Portland or, you know, something that has a much bigger Vegan footprint. So Vegan Vegan restaurants are popping up all over. And which means that the Vegan footprint, the plant base, cost conscious eater footprint is growing every day. So I recently plugged into, you know, all the restaurants because we we like to convert more vegans. We're never going to.

 

[00:28:59] For everybody, so we I think and this is just this is I think a lot of the business owners around here would say the same thing. We promote each other's business. We don't compete for their business, the business, the client business. So I may go to my local Vegan Deli and, you know, take a picture and promote, promote, promote on my pages. And they're certainly gonna scratch my back, too. They're gonna promote my food, even though, you know, I'm cooking for other people. And it might feel like I'm taking away from their business. They know I'm not going to make a dent necessarily, you know, because I'm doing my own thing. I'm not trying to do their thing. So I think that there's a big collaboration just in general in the Vegan community where I live.

 

[00:29:47] And then, you know, I have been fortunate to be approached, to be part of some of, you know, opening of Vegan restaurants and whatnot, to be able to even have the opportunity to, you know, lay the groundwork for some of the places around here, even as just a subject matter expert, whatever the case may be, whatever the role may be, has been really great. And there are a lot of Vegan small business owners outside the restaurant that are product owners around here as well that I'm hoping, you know, we've already made connections, but I'm hoping that we can make much deeper connections. Right now. Social media is everywhere. It's everything. Live. Live collaboration's kind of hard right now because of Hovig, you know, so you just think outside the box. And I just think that as far as in just a step back to apologize. But with branding as well, we have a lot. We were having the veg fests around here. We have several per year. I don't know how that's gonna go, but just the brand collaboration in the community seems very cohesive and noncompetitive. And I maybe that's naive of me to think, but it just. And in the future, I'm sure it will become more competitive. But I think the collaboration's I like to take part in are those who bring transparency to their company, their brand, their their food, their product. And just making sure that their their future forward thinking model is, you know, all about sustainability and still aligns with my fundamental beliefs. Yeah, absolutely.

 

[00:31:44] And I think so, too. And kind of to that end, I want to move into one of our rapid fire questions is kind of in that arena.

 

[00:31:50] And we have a lot of people right in asking where do you, as you know, in your food and culinary expertize, do you have a hit on? Do you have a feel for where Vegan food or plant based food in the industry is headed? If you could toss a prediction out for the next five years, what do you see growing in track or any trends?

 

[00:32:10] Well, the financial predictions are in the billions. And I, I personally every say here's a great indicator that when you when you go to your store, go to the Vegan section and I'm talking in your produce section and I'm talking over the course of, say, three months, six months. Anybody can do this. Look at the brand expansion in those categories. That's that's a great way to see how that trend is going. The trend is going up. I talked to everybody in it. Let me put it this way. The people that I talked to in the industry, I've yet to meet somebody who says, gosh, I wish I would have picked printing or I wish I would have gone in to accounting. I mean.

 

[00:33:04] Pretty much it's not only is it going to be in, it is consistently a profitable business. I saw my business launch immediately at the beginning of this year and covered hit and I was going through my launch during Koven and I saw great demand. So I just foresee. The Vegan movement is no longer going to be a movement. It's going to become a lifestyle for more people than not, especially when we're going through times like like now with Cobh. It it's a it's a great example. And, you know, again, I'm not a medical professional, but sadly, through a lot of these cases that that I've been reading and researching and the underlying conditions, so many are preventable. And so that saddens me. I mean, I get so sad because I know that if folks would just do their own research and be open minded and, you know, bite the bullet and make hard lifestyle changes, you know, it might take three years like me, but you will you will feel the benefits of it. But yeah. So I think I when when Burger King is offering impossible burgers and KFC is offering getting ready to be on offer beyond meat nuggets. I think the trend is definitely going in the right direction.

 

[00:34:27] Yeah, absolutely. And that's funny you say that it leads address into the direct next question with Rapid Fire, which is what do you think about the main offenders in the meat industry and the propagators of kind of everything that's been wrong with, you know, not just the animal rights issues, but also the environmental impact that these places like Burger King and KFC and McDonalds, if it ever joins, which it doesn't really need to, because they have like 40 percent soy products and half of their meat products anyway, they've partly joined. But what do you think about the different kind of soy you think? What do you think about? Do you do you welcome the change? Because any change towards, you know, this sustainable, healthy vegan lifestyle is good? Or do you think that it's tragic that they're kind of benefiting yet once again? Or was it just destined to be do you have, like, a takeaway on that?

 

[00:35:25] I do it's a hard question because, you know, I think the easy answer for vegans or is, you know. Well, if we can Kimber anybody, it's it's a step in the right direction. And I don't necessarily have that belief because I'm not into GMO, like I'm not into genetically modified ingredients, which is why I tried to personally stem my my processed foods. And I'm definitely one of those folks who's who tries to live more on the organic side of of the lifestyle. If, if and when possible. So, you know, holistically, I don't like, you know, the large scale models because it is propagating the same systems more or less, you know. So sometimes it can be within the system, the processes that need to be fixed. For instance, here's an example is we mentioned C.M.A soy. So, you know, subsidizing for soy. Our governments subsidize for, you know, GMO tons of, you know, soy. So why are we supplementing those folks when we could. Across the board, change diets by supplementing and subsidizing organic farmers? You know, why are we right. Supplement. It's almost like we're we're focused on the wrong things. And of course, this is just me looking in. But I think that. It's it is they are profiting off of Vegan for sure. And I mean, that's that's a great case in point, because, you know what? If it goes back to your last question, if the trend wasn't growing, they wouldn't want to have a footprint in the market. So I think that we definitely need laws change within the system itself. And this this goes I mean, I could talk all day about our food system that goes into the school systems and our hospitals and, oh, my gosh, don't get me started. So, yeah, I am definitely I keep a very conscious mind, especially with the brands I work with and for about that exact thing. So no where I'm glad burgling has the impossible burger for people. I don't eat it. Right. James, your question.

 

[00:37:56] Yeah, I think it kind of does.

 

[00:37:57] And I it's it's quite similar to my own narrative, which is, you know, I interviewed Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA, not too long ago. And I believe while I didn't ask her that exact question, she would say, you know, when support like any anything to get away from the abuse and suffering of animals and and to promote a healthier future. But that being said, I don't think she's running out to try one anytime soon. Right. You, myself as well. My final question for today is get a lot of people who want to know your personal take away. So your elevator pitch, your top three. You know, if you were sitting down with someone who was open, not angry, which there is a huge difference, but I heard you were Vegan and you were writing up to the 20th floor in an elevator and said, what are like the top three reasons as to why do you have kind of things that you find yourself prattling off as to kind of give people as this gateway moment?

 

[00:38:53] Yeah, only if they ask. And I say that because I have already learned that you can't sell things to people who aren't listening or who aren't open to that. So once they ask and I don't have elevator speech and I probably should because I just ride alone all the time. But what I do is I will just tell them my personal story and I tell them about basically I'll just, you know, plants. There's no food out there today that you cannot basically enjoy that wasn't made from plants. And I say that because I've tried it. So, for instance, if I wanted to become vegan 20 years ago, it's not the Vegan as veganism it is today. So I would say that before you poo poo the whole idea, let me cook you a meal and then we can talk about whether it was vegan and whether it was cruelty free and whether it save the planet or not.

 

[00:40:00] Nice. That's a good pitch. You don't need an elevator pitch. That's it. I don't know.

 

[00:40:05] I don't. I can't. Do I? You know, you're supposed to have that. That three 30 second pitch. I'm a rambler.

 

[00:40:14] No, you don't need one. You're fine. And you're willing to have someone to dinner, you know, and to put in the legwork so you don't need an elevator pitch just right. Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I appreciate your time. I know you're busy and I really appreciate your candor and all of your information.

 

[00:40:30] Well, this was a great collaboration. This is where it's at. So I appreciate. I appreciate your time as well. This is great. Thank you so much.

 

[00:40:39] You bet. For everyone listening, we've been speaking with Jennifer Markell. She's a chef, blogger, founder, owner and operator of Vegan at Real Personal Shefford Services. You can find out more on her Web site. W w w dot Vegan at real dot com. Thank you for giving us your time today.

 

[00:40:56] And until we speak again next time, remember to stay safe, eat responsibly and well and always bet on yourself. Slainte.