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[00:00:00] Natalie: Have you ever considered a plant-based diet? I have to tell you I've never been a vegetarian, but I have tried to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables in my diet. I've thought about it.

[00:00:11] And I know that what mother nature has to offer is beautiful. It is so healthy. What I've always worried about though is getting enough protein today. I wanna dive into the idea. Plant based nutrition, the benefits and how you might get started. Also the benefits of juicing I have gone in and out of phases of juicing.

[00:00:33] It's just so much work. Is it really worth all of that effort? You're gonna get the scoop on that today as well. My guest is Nastasha McKeean, she's a certified nutritionist. Plant-based diet educator holding a certification in plant-based nutrition and holistic nutrition. She's the founder and CEO of choice Juicery and the author of plant food is medicine.

[00:00:56] She has so much to teach us and she is going to do that [00:01:00] today. Natas passion is studying the connection of food and how it. To health. I'm kind of hungry talking about all of this right now. Be sure you check out my website and all of my social media for health tips. And also are you subscribed to my free newsletter?

[00:01:17] I send out podcast episodes deals on my favorite products and so much more each week. So you'll find all of that in the show notes. Let's get started with this week's episode on plant-based Nutri.

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[00:01:32] Natalie: Natasha. Thanks so much for joining me today. I know you're right outside of one of your locations.

[00:01:38] So let's go right into what you do and why you believe in a plant-based.

[00:01:44] Nastasha: Absolutely. Well, uh, what I do, gosh, I feel like I do a lot of things. I recently authored a book called plant food as medicine, which I think speaks to my beliefs quite a bit.

[00:01:52] Uh, I think that we can all agree that not all food is medicine. Sometimes I get in trouble for saying this when I'm being interviewed on the news, they'll actually bleep out. When I say. [00:02:00] You know, I think we can all agree that fast food isn't medicine, and they'll actually remove that, which I think is fascinating.

[00:02:05] Being somebody who has a background in news, I thought that you might find that interesting. A couple of times I've been interviewed and I said that. And then when I go back and watch the interview, I'm like, they, they cut that out. Yeah. W where did that go?

[00:02:17] Natalie: I can say a lot about the news today and I have that

[00:02:20] Nastasha: let's go deeper into yes, yes, yes.

[00:02:24] So um, food is medicine. Plant food is medicine has really been the mainstay of my life. When I was a little girl, I experienced the loss of a loved one due to the effects of medication she had been given to treat the symptoms of her auto-immune disease. And for me, she was kind of a light in a dark place.

[00:02:39] I had a really rough childhood. She was kind of like my only advocate, my only ally in my childhood. And she died when I was 11. So things went from bad to worse after she passed. But after she passed away and kind of hearing the failure of, you know, Western medicine for her I was really angry. I was 11, so I was angry at the doctors.

[00:02:56] You know, they failed my grandma. She. You know, she was sick. They gave her this [00:03:00] medication to treat the symptom that the medication caused her to have a heart attack. And they didn't listen to her when she was having heart attacks is kind of a state failure. I was really angry with Western medicine or doctors at the time.

[00:03:09] And I, I was cleaning out the effects of her room and I found this gift bag and it had a book in it and she had never even had the chance to open it. But the book was this book. It was actually titled something along the lines of how to heal yourself naturally what the doctors don't want you to know.

[00:03:24] And of course being angry and 11 I'm like what don't they want me to know? So I flipped through this book and the idea of food is medicine was what this book was all about. And that was something that I had never been exposed to. I don't think I'd even seen a fresh vegetable in my life at that point, you know?

[00:03:38] And so. It planted a seed and like all seeds, it needs to be in the right environment to grow. And as I said, things kind of got, you know, went from bad to worse after she passed. So I didn't have the right environment really to cultivate that seed until later in life. But the passion was always there.

[00:03:51] I mean, even at 11, I found out that soda was bad for me and I gave it up and never drank it again for the rest of my life. Like I had a hunger for it. Which I don't think I [00:04:00] understood until later. But um, ultimately it led to where I am today, which is the founder and CEO of a company called choice Juicery.

[00:04:07] We are all about it's all, it's all. Plant-based, it's all organic. It's all. Gluten-free you know, the, the idea of the concept is really that. Make a place where people literally couldn't make a bad choice. Everything on the menu is designed to actually be good for them. Good for the environment.

[00:04:23] Good for their bodies animals. Aren't complaining about it, just all around. It's a, it's a healthy place where you can come and trust that the food that's on the menu is good for you. You don't have to, you know, look at the menu and say, gosh, that burger and fries looks really good. Let me go with a salad.

[00:04:37] You know, that's hard for most people to. So creating an environment where healthy food tastes good. It's actually yummy food. People crave it. It's really good, but at the same time, it's designed to be good for you. And there's nothing in here that's not good for you. So it's kind of the idea behind Joyce.

[00:04:52] I love that I

[00:04:53] Natalie: am really excited to visit one day. So we went into, then this world of nutrition.

[00:04:59] Okay. [00:05:00] And tell me what that looked like as you, as, as you decided, this is what you were going to do and it led to this store, but tell me how

[00:05:07] Nastasha: that looks. Yeah. So early in life, I always like to say I was practically a baby when I ended up in the banking industry and I.

[00:05:14] Got a headstart really early in life. I was on my own pretty early, so I started working early and I was in banking and finance and I was doing pretty well for myself. You know, according to, you know, our standards, you know, as buying houses and toys and all the things. And I was a mom, I was married, all those, all those things everything, but the white picket fence.

[00:05:33] And I was like, okay, I made it. This is what life is all about. And I just, I wasn't fulfilled or happy in any way. Work was just work. I went to work, I made a paycheck. I came home and, you know, just kind of the monotony of life. And I started to ask questions like, I should, it's gotta be more to life than this.

[00:05:47] You know, like this is it. And one day I was actually working with when I had business clients and we were talking about this and he said, you know, if you love what you do, you'll never work another day. I was like, what is, what does that look like? What does that really look like? What [00:06:00] does that mean?

[00:06:01] So I really took an inventory of my life and I was like, well, what do I love? You know, outside of being a mom, which I love, but last time I checked, I don't get paid to be a mom. You know, what is it that I love? And that for me, I realized that. The best part of my day at work was always enough sitting in the break room.

[00:06:15] And I was sitting there eating my little keenwah salad and telling everybody about how the benefits of it and making extra and sharing it, and people would eat and be like, wow, this is really good. This is good for me. And I'd be like, yeah, do you want the recipe? And I'd share recipes. And over the years of working in the bank, I realized like people I worked with unintentionally and untrained at that time, just self-taught at that time.

[00:06:35] Had done things like this girl, Joe, I worked with, she had reversed type two diabetes just by eating the way that I was eating. And I wasn't even classically trained in any way, shape or form at the time and nutrition, just self tie. And that I had learned a lot about plant based nutrition and I was loved food.

[00:06:50] I'm a foodie. And so when I started going plant based, it was really important to me to really enjoy the food that I was eating. So I got creative in the kitchen and I had so much fun with it. And then I would love to share [00:07:00] that with people. And I found that when I said people good food that tasted good.

[00:07:03] They be open to the conversation about like, well, why should I eat this? And you know, why is this good for me? Because they're eating something they can actually appreciate and enjoy. So I'm, at that point, when I had that realization, I realized like, okay, I've got to do something with this. Like, this is, this is where my joy is at.

[00:07:21] So I decided at that point to. Start studying nutrition. And I jumped into like a holistic nutrition program and a um, a plant-based certification program through Cornell has like an online plant based certification program that I did. And I fell even more in love with it. I feel like I didn't learn anything new.

[00:07:37] It was all stuff that I had really learned on my own at some point. Yeah. Yeah. And then from there, I Gotcha. Wasn't except I started teaching actually kind of to bring things full circle. In my childhood, I mentioned that I had some, you know, pain around, you know, the loss of my grandma and some anger and resentment towards Western medicine.

[00:07:56] And then I found myself teaching at Scripps. I was doing a [00:08:00] employee wellness program for them, and I was teaching plant-based cooking and nutrition to one of the largest medical facilities in San Diego. And uh, my students were doctors and nurses, you know, and I remember being. Really nervous about that going into the first you know, class.

[00:08:14] And it was like filled with, I think there was like 30 people in the class and they were all doctors and nurses. And I'm thinking, when am I going to teach doctors and nurses about nutrition, you know, and come to find out like they didn't, they barely had any nutrition. I never knew that prior to that. So you know, they were so open and receptive to everything that I was teaching.

[00:08:32] They loved the class. They loved, you know, I was teaching them how to cook food, why to eat this food. You know, it was such a fun class for me, but I realized over the course of the year that I was doing that, that people weren't making lasting changes. And when I would talk to people about I'm giving, like why, and I'm giving you the tools I'm giving you the recipes, I'm teaching you the why?

[00:08:50] Like, why aren't you implementing this in your life? What I, the hangup I'd always get was the MTV. I can't, I don't have the time to make this for myself. And I'm like, well, there's [00:09:00] always, you know, there's always a healthy option on every menu. You know, you go to any restaurant, there's a salad, there's a healthy option on every menu.

[00:09:06] And people were like, it's really hard to make a good choice when you go to a restaurant and like, you know, you walk in the door and you're being hit in the face with like the smell of fries and a burger. It it's really hard to choose to have the option. So that's when I realized it wasn't enough just to make healthy food tastes good.

[00:09:18] And I realized I had to serve it in a convenient way. It had to be convenient for people like they could grab it and they could go. I also needed to serve it in a place where they couldn't make a bad choice, everything was going to taste good to them. And so that's kind of when I had the dream was born for like creating a place and serving the food to the people in a convenient way and designing a menu that was meant to heal people and keep people healthy.

[00:09:41] Natalie: Tell me about, so plant-based being something that you believe in, but we've seen so many, if you want to say diets or food plans over the years, we focused on protein and I know you can get some protein when you're doing some plant-based. But tell me about that, because I think that's the concern for a lot of people.

[00:09:58] Like I try to keep my [00:10:00] plate, you know, Green and fresh. And then my family eats the chicken or the burger or

[00:10:07] Nastasha: whatever.

[00:10:08] Natalie: Yeah. But tell me about that. Why,

[00:10:10] why that works for you and why you believe in that?

[00:10:14] Nastasha: Absolutely. I think most people are surprised to find out there's actually this really cool documentary.

[00:10:17] I watched a while back and it was interesting. They went around and they were asking people like, where does protein come from? What does protein? And you know, everyone's like protein is animal meat. Like meat, protein is meat from animals. You can find protein in so many different plant foods.

[00:10:31] There's such a huge variety of proteins and plant foods. And we used to have this belief that you needed a complete protein, but our body actually builds proteins when you don't have to have the whole, all of the essential amino acids in one. Sitting, which is what we used to believe. So that's why people thought that, you know, a complete protein was the most important thing.

[00:10:50] You can eat a variety of different proteins and it's amazing. How much easier it is for your body to assimilate those proteins. And. Less [00:11:00] taxing. It is on your body. So one small example, I like to give, when I was taking my holistic nutrition class, they don't subscribe to any nutritional philosophy, but I remember sitting in class one day and they were talking about how we had this like, list of all these ingredients that like these things, not an ingredient, excuse me, nutrients that we need to consume outside of ourselves.

[00:11:17] And there were two lists of places where you could get those. Those nutrients. One of the lists was, you know, animal-based and the other one was plant-based and next to the animal based list, there was all this potential, like dangerous, like too much of this will pause this too much. That will cause this too much of this we'll pause that.

[00:11:35] And the next to the plant lists, there was no sub list. There was no list of negative side effects of getting these things from. List. And I raised my hand. I was like, wait a minute. So shouldn't, we just be getting all those things from this list. And you're just like, whoa, we don't subscribe to any nutritional philosophy, but I'm like, it's right here in the textbook.

[00:11:52] Like those negative effects of eating too many of these things, but you can get all of these essential. [00:12:00] Nutrients from this list without any negative effects. Like to me, it just seems common sense. So I don't like to, I'm not about perfection. I believe in progress over perfection. I'm fully plant-based myself and the lifestyle has been incredible for me and what it's done for my personal health and the people around me in my life, my family.

[00:12:16] But I don't believe that everyone has to be completely plant-based. I think we can all agree that eating more plants is good for us. Right. And I think it's fun to, you know, for people to experience, you know, what it looks like to create a healthy plate that doesn't have an animal-based protein, but plant based protein, you know, there's beans and nuts and seeds.

[00:12:33] There's so many incredible ways to get those proteins. You don't have to. You know, I'm succumb to like the fake meats and all those things that are highly processed. Don't get me wrong every now and again, I don't mind having a veggie burger, but you know, I try to eat whole foods plant-based, you know, versus vegan, which I think is you know, there's a stereotype around veganism and rightly so, I think that some people are vegan just for say the animals, right.

[00:12:55] Or for the environment, but they're not taking their health into account. So I think you can certainly eat an [00:13:00] unhealthy vegan. Just as much as you can eat and trying to healthy, you know, meet late and diet. And I think that you can have a healthy diet and incorporate healthy meat into that diet. I'm not going to sit here and say you can't live a healthy lifestyle and still, you know, have meat be a part of that.

[00:13:14] I know a lot of people that, that live a healthy lifestyle and they eat. They incorporate more plants. They are really responsible with the meat that they choose. So I don't think it's about progress over perfection. I'm a big advocate for the plant-based movement. It's the best thing that I've ever done for my life and my health.

[00:13:29] It's what I serve at my restaurants. That's what I, I believe in. And I think that everybody can thrive on a plant based diet, but yeah, you do have to put a little bit more effort and work into learning it. Okay. Yeah. Once you learn it and understand it and figure out how to cook that way. It's. It becomes, it's such a fun journey to be on.

[00:13:46] Truly.

[00:13:47] I

[00:13:48] Natalie: feel better being plant-based. You said when, when you first decided to do that, you felt different. What is that? What does that

[00:13:54] Nastasha: feel like? Yeah. So for me, I went and plant-based in stages. You know, I [00:14:00] first went pescatarian and I removed red meat and poultry and things like that from my diet. And that first step of doing that, I just noticed a huge impact in my energy levels.

[00:14:09] And then I think it was maybe a year after that, that I removed, you know, eggs and dairy and all those things. And when I went fully plant-based My friends make fun of me all the time. I'm like the Energizer bunny. Like I, I never stopped and people always ask me, how do you do it all? You're a single mom.

[00:14:23] You run this business. You like work out, you know, all the time you have all these hobbies you serve. You like, you're crazy. How do you do it all? Like, and I always say, I could not do it without my diet. Like my diet eating plant-based has given me so much energy that I literally run out of things to do.

[00:14:39] Like, I, I just go, go, go, go, go all the time. But I have the energy for it. My sleep has never been better. My mental health also, I, I came from a family that struggles with mental health. My father took his life. He struggled with mental health. My mom has struggled with depression and suicidal tendencies, her whole life.

[00:14:54] So it runs in the family. So. I found out more and more and more. And [00:15:00] in this life, in this journey of mine, that a lot of the diseases that we think run in our family, like our diet runs in our family, you know? And I think there's a huge correlation there. So I, when I changed my diet that gave me the energy to work out and that energy to work out and working out in the endorphins and all of those things that you get when you have a healthy, active lifestyle changed my mental health.

[00:15:20] I had. Just incredibly balanced energy moods. I'm happy. 99% of the time. Of course, I'm human and we all have our days, but you know, for me, happiness, you still look like, you know, 10% of the time I'd be happy. And I, some of the time I was tired, lethargic, unhappy, you know, depressed even. And in the last, you know, 15 years since I've been plant-based, it's like I am 95%.

[00:15:45] Happy good mood, high energy energy has a huge, huge contribution to our mental health. When we have energy, absolutely feel better when we don't have energy or low energy, it's hard to be happy. So, you know, [00:16:00] I just feel like in so many ways it's had such a positive impact on my life.

[00:16:03]

[00:16:03] Natalie: everyone. It's Natalie. I am excited to let you know that I'm opening up spaces for collaboration and advertising and sponsorship on this podcast. And on my YouTube channel, if you're a brand looking to grow in the wellness family or mindfulness spaces, I would love to collaborate with you. You can find a link to get in touch with me in the show notes, and you can always find out more about what I'm up to on Natalie tisl.com.

[00:16:31]

[00:16:34] Tell me about juicing, because I know that's a big part of your life.

[00:16:37] I go through stages of being like I'm going to juice and it's really great and I'll do carrots and apples, and then it kind of falls off the wayside. It's a lot of work. And tell me about that. Why, why that matters, how that helps you? I mean, I know when I have done it, I get immediate energy from that natural food.

[00:16:57] But do you keep up with that? I mean, I know that's what you do there [00:17:00] in your restaurants too. Yeah. What advice do you have for people who are thinking maybe that's what I should do or

[00:17:05] Nastasha: where I should start. Yeah, absolutely. You know, the thing is um, part of the reason why selfishly I started a juice businesses so that I'd never had to like be in the kitchen, you know, throw in those veggies and the thing myself.

[00:17:16] Yeah. You know, it's, it's available all the time now. I get to walk into a store and grab a juice now. And it is, it's a lot of work juicing. It's so much work. So one of the best things you can do in terms of it. For juicing would be to get yourself like a masticating slow juicer. Um, When you do Cintrifuse juice, which most people aren't aware of, the old style juicer, like, you know, you'd walk into a juice store and they like you pick out your things and they throw them inside this machine and it spins it around and spits out this loop, warm juice that juice has already started to oxidize the moment it hits your lips.

[00:17:44] And so we want to stay away from Centra fuse juicers and Cintrifuse juice. We want to stick with like a cold pressed or a slow masticating juicer, and then you can buy them. They, they have. Great in home units. Now it used to be like, you could only buy a commercial grade unit. Now you can buy [00:18:00] in a whole months and do it at home.

[00:18:01] But when you do that, your juice will have at least a few days shelf life. And so, whereas like a centrifuge machine, isn't going to give you a shelf life on your, just you, you juice it and then you drink it and all that mess. And I do it again the next day. It's like a lot of work. So I would say that's a pro tip would be get like a masticating juicer.

[00:18:18] So you can juice a lot for the week kind of like meal prepping. You know, set yourself up for success. But for me juicing and why I fell in love with juicing was I did my first cleanse years ago. This is still when I, I had a love affair with bread and pasta and still ate a lot of processed foods and dairy and all those things were still a big part of my life back then when I did my first cleanse.

[00:18:40] And I remember I did this, it was a, it was a 30 day cleanse and incorporated a lot of things, a smoothie, a few juices. It incorporated a lot of things. But I remember after the 30 days. At first, I remember being really hard cause he couldn't eat. There are so many things you can eat on the cleanse.

[00:18:52] You know, you got you pretty much juicing and drinking smoothies and eating like raw foods for the most part. And I remember after the first 30 [00:19:00] days being like, oh my gosh, I couldn't wait to like go grab a slice of pizza and a beer. I was like, thank God. Let's go celebrate with the. Cause me to want to go do a cleanse to begin with.

[00:19:10] And I remember like feeling horrible after words, you know, and it was funny cause it was like, wow, I've actually felt this way my whole life. But you don't realize that you feel bad until you feel good. Even though I was healthier than 90% of my friends at the time, you know, I still, I still indulge in a lot of foods that weren't good for me.

[00:19:29] Like things like processed, breads and these types of things. And that when I admitted them, I started to feel. Incredible. And part of that was also the juice I was putting in my body. And this high amount of live enzymes, any chance. I mean, when in our lives, are we ever sitting down eating like three plates of broccoli and spinach?

[00:19:47] Like, it doesn't happen. Right. But in a juice you can, in one juice, you can drink like up to six pounds of organic produce. So you're getting all of that. Live enzymes and vitamins and minerals and all the things that are in that juice on such a high level. [00:20:00] I really do believe that it changes your body on a cellular level.

[00:20:03] People have always said like, you are what you eat. And I do agree with that. But I believe that you crave what you eat. So you've noticed ever, like, you know, when you're like slurred, you can have a dessert tonight. It's like the next. Kind of craving another sweet thing. It's like more, you want more? So the same is true when we put good food in our body.

[00:20:19] When we fill ourselves with high amounts of live nutrition, like a raw juice, a raw organic juice. Oh my gosh. When you put that in your body, you notice you'll start to crave those things. Do you feel good? And then you start to notice when you don't feel good and then you want to feel good again. So it's like you really start to get in tune with your body.

[00:20:37] So. That juicing changed my life. That cleanse changed my life. So I'm a huge advocate for cleansing to help people to feel what it feels like to feel.

[00:20:45] Natalie: Let me pause for a second, ask you this because the few times that I have tried to do a cleanse and I know other people are out there like, oh, I'm going to do this.

[00:20:53] I know your body has to adjust to it. And I remember the last time I tried, this was a couple of years ago that I'm just going to do this for a week. And [00:21:00] I bought this kit within the first two days. I had the worst headache of my life. And I remember another health friend of mine saying your body is trying to get rid of all this stuff.

[00:21:12] And the juice is actually helping, but you got to get over that hump. Is that true? Do you find that with a lot of people? Because I think a lot of people stop because they don't feel good right

[00:21:20] Nastasha: away.

[00:21:21] I would agree with that completely. I would say with, with my choice plans, we have, we have a lot less of that.

[00:21:27] I really, we really try to prepare people for a cleanse. Like we have some guidance we give you before you even start your cleanse. Cause there's some things that you can do to help. That cleanse transition. If, if you prepare ahead of time, so we always ask people, you know, start drinking a green juice every day for a couple of days leading up to it starts limiting all.

[00:21:47] You know, a lot of people are drink caffeine every day, sometimes three times a day. They're drinking, they're hitting the afternoon, lattes the morning coffee to get out of bed. So it depends on where you're at in your health journey. You know, if you drink consume a lot of caffeine, if you consume, [00:22:00] you know, a decent amount of alcohol, if you consume a lot of processed foods and the detox process will be a lot harder.

[00:22:05] So it really does depend on where you're at in your own health journey. Um, Right before I

[00:22:10] Natalie: started. And that

[00:22:11] Nastasha: was probably the opposite of what you want to do. You want to, you want to start acting like leading onto your clients, kind of start limiting. Processed foods start to like, get rid of like added oils and sugars slowly, because then it's not so extreme.

[00:22:26] Like overnight, all these things are gone. Plus you're consuming a lot of things like juice, people like to say juices detoxing, you really, what, what doing, what juicing is doing is it's allowing for your detoxification systems to do their job. And there's no magic juice that you're going to drink. And it's like, okay, it's going to take all this stuff out.

[00:22:43] It's not really. That's not entirely true. Yes, they do support detoxification, but really your body was magically, wonderfully designed to detox you. The problem is it's overworked, just like a human being. That's working 65 hours a week. The quality of our work work starts to suffer when we're [00:23:00] overworked.

[00:23:00] So the same thing happens to our bodies. We're overworking. We're always eating or eating too much or snacking between meals, reading too many foods that are hard for our body to process and assimilate eating at all hours of the day. Our bodies are overworked, so we can't detox effectively. So when you take a break, give your digestive system a break with the juice cleanse, your, your body is kicking into gear.

[00:23:21] Plus you're flooding with led nutrition. I don't agree with, you know, a lot of, I think when in certain situations, you know, if you're dealing with a health crisis, some people, you know, do these crazy master cleanses or just drink water. And I think there's a time and a place for lots of different Cameron modalities that are cleanse.

[00:23:36] And how I believe in fencing is it's supposed to be restorative to your body. Yeah. And complimentary to what you're already designed to do. Um, We don't, we actually incorporate a little bit of food with our cleanse because I don't like to throw anybody into starvation and deprivation because a lot of people, when they cleanse, they also want to shed a few extra pounds.

[00:23:55] And the problem, when you start, you go into starvation deprivation. When you start eating again, your body will hold on to [00:24:00] that. So we try to do away with those things. We also try to help you to our cleanse is more of a way. Kick off a new way of living, you know, to flood your system with nutrition.

[00:24:11] You're not, you're not starving to the point where you get off the cleanse. You're like gave me that pizza and that, you know, whatever you get off the cleanse, what I find, we have a, we have a three-day cleanse and I always see our guests in here on day four. And I'm like, Hey, you're off your friends. What are you doing in here?

[00:24:24] They're like, they're coming in from work. Cause they feel so good. They don't, they don't want to stop. So rarely do I have people complain about that hump, but I have heard of that obviously I'm in the industry. So I've heard that. But an art cleanse because we sent out an email in advance. We let them know like, here are the things that we recommend leading on your cleanse.

[00:24:42] So when people follow those guidelines and they ease themselves onto the cleanse and start acting like they're cleansing before the cleanse, it makes it a lot easier. And then if you're, you know, a caffeine drinker, if you drink coffee every day, then. You know, you're going to get that hard headache. So I always tell people like, start cutting coffee down [00:25:00] a week or two before, you know, do green tea instead of coffee, start to limit the copy.

[00:25:04] That way, when you jump onto the concern are not going to have this horrible headache that's unbearable. That makes your whole experience miserable. You know, it's all the

[00:25:12] Natalie: other things, not the juice, the juice. Yes.

[00:25:15] Nastasha: It gets the shoe gets the blame. Yeah.

[00:25:17] Natalie: Yeah. I really like that approach. Well, I know there are people listening, thinking of.

[00:25:23] This is something I like to try or I'm more interested

[00:25:26] where can they get more information from you and tell us about your book and the restaurants and

[00:25:31] Nastasha: all of that good stuff. Absolutely. So my book is called plant food is medicine and you can find it on our website choice, gcb.com. I think it's also available on Amazon and Barnes and noble, but I always tell people it's a better, it's a better print quality through our website.

[00:25:45] So I would recommend you get it through our website. I think it's also a little bit less expensive than it is on Amazon and some of those other. And then obviously our website, you can learn all about our cleanse programs through our website. And the book has a lot of incredible recipes, a lot of recipes that are in our [00:26:00] funds program.

[00:26:00] So if you're not local to San Diego the book is a great option because you can certainly get a lot of my juice recipes that are literally at our store and included on our cleanse are in the book. So if you want to design your own plans, you absolutely could have a lot of the recipes instead of.

[00:26:14] Natalie: do you ship or did the juices not last, if you try to send them to me here in Colorado?

[00:26:19] Nastasha: Uh, I wish I could. I know. I know. Uh, so, so that's one thing, you know, and that's something else that I want to touch on.

[00:26:24] So I'm glad that you asked that question. People have different experiences on different cleanses and rightly so, because not all cleanses are created equal.

[00:26:31] I'm always saying I am a huge advocate for. When I say the right way. You know, because I've had a life altering effect from drinking organic raw juice. So when I started my business back in 2014, there were a lot of people that are getting into the cold pressed juice industry. And it was kind of blowing up at the time and people realize really quickly.

[00:26:52] There's not a lot of money in cold pressed juice because you're putting six pounds of organic produce inside of this bottle. And you only have like five days to [00:27:00] move that product. It's, it's tough to make that work from a business standpoint. And so most people started shifting gears and doing what they call HPP high pressure pasteurization or pasteurization.

[00:27:10] It's a type of process where they pressurize the juice, but it's a pasteurization process ultimately, and it extends the shelf life of the juice up to 45 days, but it compromises the integrity of the product and um, it changes it on a molecular level. Okay. So to any other type of pasteurization processes, whether it's heat treated, whether it's light filtered, which is another fun way that they pasteurized juice, it's actually gamma radiated.

[00:27:34] We want to steer clear of those types of Jesus. The point of drinking juice is to get the live enzymes and minerals and nutrients. So if you can't find a raw, organic, cold pressed juice place near you, that can do a cleanse for you. The best thing you can do for yourself is to get yourself a cold, you know, juicer masticating juicer and do it at home.

[00:27:53] You're not going to have the impacts. That's why people, you know, if you go to the grocery store and you buy a cold juice from the grocery store, it's in order to be on the [00:28:00] shelf in order to be shipped to you in order to any of those things, it has to go through a type of pasteurization process, according to the FDA.

[00:28:07] And so you're, you're not going to be able to get that, that true raw experience. And you're not going to have it, the changes on a cellular level that you can. Yeah through juice. And I'm not saying there's no nutrition benefits. I'm not saying there's not benefits to giving your digestive system arrest.

[00:28:22] Are those Jesus. But what I'm saying is that the, what I believe in you know, to get that ultimate benefit, you want to drink Rodger juice and you want to drink organic juice. That's super important as well. If you're going to juice. To me, it has to be organic. Um, I always say anything else would be a pesticide cocktail and you're moving all of the fiber.

[00:28:40] You're there's no nothing slowing down that digestive process. You're just throwing back, you know, a bunch of pesticides and they're just going right into you. So I highly recommend if you're going to juice, make sure it's organic. Make sure it's raw. It's not been through any type of pasteurization process.

[00:28:54] If you want the most benefits you can get from your juice and why wouldn't we, why wouldn't we want the most. [00:29:00]

[00:29:00] Natalie: We love it, that you wrote a book so that if we can't be there in San Diego, which I do intend to visit and I'll come and see you and try it.

[00:29:06] Nastasha: And I intend to open stores where you are, don't worry.

[00:29:09] Natalie: Okay. When that happens, I will be there. And, uh, and I'm going to try it for myself. And I think for other people give it a try. See how you feel. I know the times that we have gone through juice phases, We feel incredible and it's just a habit. Like anything else, you just get into the habit of doing it.

[00:29:24] Well, thanks so much. I'll put all the links that you mentioned in the show notes for people, and I just really appreciate your time and all that you're doing enjoy sunny, California. Today. It's

[00:29:35] Nastasha: so much. Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to be on this show with you. I'm so grateful for the opportunity.

[00:29:42] Natalie: You bet will all the best to you. And I hope to talk again soon.