Christina: 0:00

It’s interesting to watch Americans land in Italy for the first time and everything is like oh my God, are they always this slow? Oh, I’m sorry, are they slow? It’s called enjoyment, and for me, I can’t wait to get off that plane in Rome and linger over this much espresso, because that’s what you do. Their philosophy is that certainly we all have to work, we have to work, we have to make money, keep a roof over our heads, stay healthy, but life is to be enjoyed, not endured, and so their image of us is that we live to work, they work enough to live, and they would rather take a walk at 5.30 before dinner than put in another hour in the office.Ella Magers: 0:45

Hey there and welcome to Rise and Thrive with me, Ella Majors. I created this high vibe podcast from a place of profound curiosity, fierce compassion and the deep desire to connect you with the wisdom of inspirational wellness, health, fitness and conscious leaders and change makers. Here’s to discovering our blind spots and embracing life as the adventure it is. The time is now. Let’s do this. Hey, hey everyone, ella here with my guest co-host, tay Quinn.Quinn: 1:22

Hey, hey.Ella Magers: 1:23

What’s up, babe?Quinn: 1:24

How much? How are you?Ella Magers: 1:25

Doing pretty well. Doing pretty well. I’m excited about today’s episode. We’ve got Christina Perello and she’s just so fun. She’s one of those people that kind of just lights up the room that you’re in I mean the virtual room I guess that we’re in but she’s an award-winning host of Christina Cook’s the TV show. She’s a vegan activist, bestselling author, gym rat food lover, environmental activist and educator about wellness. So she’s got a lot going on.Quinn: 1:57

All the things, yeah.Ella Magers: 1:58

And she’s freaking fun Great and makes me laugh. What else makes me laugh? Well, I share about all of these things in my Soul Aligned Sunday newsletter, you guys. So if you’re not signed up for that, get signed up. I share every Sunday my discoveries, the latest of what’s going on in my life and really awesome new products that are vegan and cruelty-free, of course, like Truffalicious.Quinn: 2:26

Truffalicious for the win.Ella Magers: 2:28

For the win. You guys, if you haven’t checked out my Noochilicious favorite nooch. I mean, I’ve talked about this before, but I felt like such a bad vegan for so long because I didn’t like nutritional yeast. I thought it just had this weird aftertaste. Do you know what I’m talking about?Quinn: 2:46

Same. Yeah, I mean I’ve had the same thing going through my mind when I turned vegan. I tried as well as like, yeah, what is this? I don’t get it. Okay, maybe I’m not supposed to be doing this, because I want that cheese taste. Yeah, then you direct me towards NutriLicious. And all is right in the world now.Ella Magers: 3:05

It does feel like that.Quinn: 3:06

Yes, it’s just With a relief. It would definitely be with a relief.Ella Magers: 3:10

Right, and now I’m kind of. You know there are healthy addictions and I would have to say that Nutri-licious is one of them. And now they’ve come out with all these new flavors and, of course, truffle is one of my most favorite flavors of all times and now they have a truffle Nutrilicious.Quinn: 3:28

Yes, and I actually made some gnocchi last night with it, made a cream sauce with the trufflelicious and some plant milk that I make and some mushrooms, and it was divine, chalks off divine, super easy to make and just incredibly delicious. And yeah, I’m in. I mean I knew I was going to be in, but it was a very easy win.Ella Magers: 3:49

Yeah, and the truffle-icious is cool too, because it’s not just the nutritional yeast, it’s also made with cashews. So when you put it with like a plant milk it makes a cheese sauce like really easily.Quinn: 4:02

Instantly. It couldn’t be any easier and tasty. Yeah, it was mind-blowing, and yeah, the gnocchi is going on the menu.Ella Magers: 4:10

So now a potato. Was it a potato gnocchi? Yeah, there are different kinds of gnocchis, isn’t there?Quinn: 4:15

certainly is. But yeah, we rice the potatoes. That’s putting it through this big press. It breaks it down. Add some flour, a little just egg and roll it out and then a quick little boil and add that cream sauce and it was incredible.Ella Magers: 4:30

Amazing, then you know last episode. So this is our second of three encore episodes. You guys, you’ve got one more after this. This is an encore episode because we didn’t know we would be coming out with more Rise and Thrive, but here we are. Didn’t know we would be coming out with more Rise and Thrive, but here we are.Ella Magers: 4:48

And a lot happened since the last episode, the 50th episode, which we thought was going to be the last one, including me and I mentioned this in the last episode or the last intro, about my ACL totally tearing my ACL fully and having reconstruction surgery on it. I am now at week six, so I mentioned that last time. But I have to just give a little update of one thing that you know we always look at the lessons learned from all these things and you know, one of the reasons I’m so excited to be in a relationship with you, quinn, is that we’re just on such kind of powerful paths of personal evolution, right, and I feel like this ACL tear was a way to really prove the progress I’ve made in my life with my relationship with food and my body, because I know 15 years ago this would have I don’t want to say like it’s maybe a little too traumatic to say destroyed me, but kind of. It would have been really a whole different experience. I would have immediately gone to a place of anxiety, probably depression.Ella Magers: 5:57

I would have thought about, oh, the weight I’m going to gain if I’m not working out, because I had this relationship with working out, even though I loved it. It was also a way to burn off calories and kind of a punishment for overeating. And I was caught still in restrict overeating cycles and disordered eating and distorted body image and all those things and this type of injury. And I know because I had one at that time as well. I had a stress fracture of the head, of my femur, so basically a pretty bad stress fracture at my hip and it spiraled me downward. And I think you could attest to this, quinn, that this experience, I mean I’ve been pretty damn positive, if I do say so myself.Quinn: 6:35

Oh, yeah, yeah.Ella Magers: 6:36

Big step.Quinn: 6:37

Yeah, that’s great to see and watch and be a part of.Ella Magers: 6:40

Thanks, yeah, you know all these people that we’re interviewing in Rise and Thrive and all the episodes of the Vegan Life Coach podcast. It’s all about inspiration. It’s all about helping you all on your paths of personal evolution. It just brings me a lot of joy to be putting these episodes out and to have a partner in my life now you know that I didn’t start out with who’s also on a really powerful path.Quinn: 7:04

That’s you now you know that I didn’t start out with who’s also on a really powerful path. That’s you. Yeah, the trajectory is a lot of fun to see, and just seeing us both grow through it all. It’s why we’re here, apparently, because there are no coincidences.Ella Magers: 7:14

And love wins. So there we go. I think we can dive into the episode now. What?Quinn: 7:18

do you think?Ella Magers: 7:21

All right, let’s do it, how’s?Christina: 7:25

it going, christina. It’s going really well. How are you Ella? It’s been a long time since we saw each other, even like this.Ella Magers: 7:30

Yeah, right, time flies, but that was a while ago. Yeah, where are you? I love the background of you.Christina: 7:36

I am in my house in Philadelphia. Normally I am in Rome at this point of December, but my term at culinary school is in the middle, so I don’t want to go to Rome for just 10 days, so we’re going for the month of February instead. But I never say no to teaching this course, because we’re the only culinary school in the entire country that requires a vegan, plant-based culinary course before they can graduate with their bachelor’s, which makes us visionary at the best. So I get these students, after four years of classic French deer in headlights for the first two weeks, like what do you mean, chef? No butter, no eggs. What do you mean, chef? No. Can I use cream in this? No, can I use white flour? No White sugar? No, I gave you all the alternatives. By week four, they are doing things that you can’t imagine and they’re so creative and they end the course by saying why didn’t anybody tell us about this? Wow.Ella Magers: 8:32

That’s incredible.Christina: 8:33

I’m so excited because I get to influence these chefs who one day, if I ever go out to eat, will serve me in a restaurant more than a baked potato.Ella Magers: 8:42

Right, no, that’s so interesting. Or pasta with broccoli, right.Christina: 8:47

Or my favorite, grilled zucchini.Ella Magers: 8:51

Yeah, yeah, I mean that must be so scary at first for somebody and then it’s just like gives them permission to start thinking for themselves and being creative. I mean that has to feel really good at the end it does.Christina: 9:08

And I also come to them from the prejudice, if you will, of Chinese medicine. So every class is that there’s more to your food than your food, and they walk around going why doesn’t anybody ever teach us this stuff? Now I know why I feel like this and now I know why my stomach always hurts, and so it’s kind of an interesting forced self-reflection on 20 something year olds that they may not be ready to do, and some students are extremely uncomfortable. The entire term I’ve had one student tell me that he hated me because he had to cook this way. I was like, okay, I had one student in this group who is a challenge to me.Christina: 9:44

Their final has to be community service, so they have to find a charity, prepare a meal and serve it either to the clients of the charity or the staff of the charity, whoever they prefer. So they’ve chosen something called Broad Street Ministries, which feeds the homeless. So they’re going to do a meal and deliver it because it’s not far from the school. So one of my students said this is great, we can make like a roast chicken and macaroni and cheese. And one of the other, her colleague, said I think we have to do vegan food for this class. And she said, yeah, but this is for people outside of here who would want to eat that. And I said well, you not only just failed today, but I’m going to expect a really high bar from you, and she does really nice food too. But her head trip is who really wants to eat this if they don’t have to?Ella Magers: 10:34

Interesting.Christina: 10:35

Yeah, wow, she’s slowly changing, but yeah, no, it’s a program. We say we meet people on the bridge and help them cross. Yeah, I’m yanking her across.Ella Magers: 10:48

Yeah, so one of the recent episodes I recorded was with Paul Rodney Turner Are you familiar with? Yeah, I just got his book in the mail Food Yoga. I just have so much respect and I want to get on this episode too because you have such a broad range of training and background and I want to talk all about that. But before we get there, I want to talk all about that, but before we get there, I want to know. You know you are a very busy woman and you have so much like on your bio and all the accomplishments you’ve had and the projects and the TV show and all the accolades. But behind all of that, who is Christina? Who are you?Christina: 11:22

I’m really quite simple. What you see is what you get. I mean, when people meet me, the first thing they say is oh, you’re just like her on TV and I’m like, I’m not an actress. I am Irish and Italian Italian first, because that’s where the cooking came from and I come from a family of yellers and I’m very noise sensitive. I’m always my whole life as child, you know the yelling. You would find me in the closet until everyone was done. But I noticed in the kitchen no one yelled. They sang, they drank coffee, and my grandmother was the youngest of 17.Christina: 11:52

There were nine sisters and so between them and my mother and my mother’s sister, there were at least 10 people in my kitchen all the time cooking and somehow had this symphonic rhythm of moving around each other. There was no crashing into each other. No, how did you get in my way? Get around. It was amazing to watch and I thought as a little little girl this is where I want to be. It’s peaceful, it’s great, the food’s amazing. Everybody’s so happy when they eat. This is it?Christina: 12:20

So my dad built me a stool and painted little vegetables on it, and I used to stand next to my mother and do things like roll meatballs or stir the soup or whatever minor task they could give you that wouldn’t hurt you or the food. And then eventually your jobs became more and more complicated. And then, when I was 16, I started in kitchens the chef that hired me because women were not. I’ve been a vegan for 40 years this year actually 41 years next April and a vegetarian before that. So my family likes to say that I never had the DNA to eat meat, because I just always hated it and would wrap it in a napkin and put it under my leg or give it to the dog or something. I just never really cared for it. And then my dad was a butcher and when I was 14 and they were still forcing me to eat meat, he had the opportunity to work in a slaughterhouse and make a ton of money. And we had four kids in the family. And my dad was six foot two Irish muscle, the personality of a golden retriever, like always happy, always, always happy, happy to see his family, his kids, his friends.Christina: 13:22

Within an hour of leaving to go to that job, came back in tears, his huge shoulders shaking at the table, saying to my mother I know we need the money, I can’t do it. I can’t look in their eyes and do it. There’s our living creatures and for that, for six months after that, we didn’t eat meat in our house. He would not bring it home. And then my mother one day said to him I’m either going to write a cookbook 365 ways to cook broccoli or you’re going to bring home some meat. And they kind of went back and I never did and they never tried to make me go back. But then I became a junk food vegetarian. You know, oreos are vegan and Diet Dr Pepper and that typical teenage. I’m not eating this. I’m not eating all the vegetables we grow in our big Italian garden, right, vegetables we grow in our big Italian garden, right.Christina: 14:06

Left home at 18, totally done with this whole chain to the stove thing my mother did, as I’m off to become a chef, got my first job in a kitchen when I was 16, washing vegetables, then dicing onions, then shredding cabbage, and then the chef turned to me. One day I’ll never forget this guy as long as I live, although I can’t remember his name said aren’t you the vegetarian? Yeah, so your next job, if you really want this job, you’ll clean the insides out of roasting chickens All day. That’s all I did for three months. I was a wreck. And then at the end of that he said you must really want this job, don’t ever leave my side. I’ll teach you everything I know From him. I ended up in pastry, which was great because I loved baking. It was like the job that was made for me Then, when I was 20, then my mother passed away at 49 from colon cancer because of smoking and coffee and eating junk and along with the vegetables from the garden, my mother lived on chocolate and coffee and cigarettes mostly.Christina: 15:01

So she passed away and I moved to Philadelphia and thought that I was in grief and it turned out I was diagnosed, six months after she died, with what would be considered stage four leukemia and it was sort of like looking up at the heavens and going, holy shit, are you kidding? Like are you kidding. So they gave me six to nine months and I met the man that I married in that process who introduced me to macrobiotics, and I remember the first time we met he said you really have to change what you eat. And I said well, I’m a vegetarian, duh, I don’t eat any of that. And then he went through this laundry list. Do you drink soda? Yes. Do you eat sugar? Yes, do you? The whole? It’s like, oh yeah, okay, I guess I could do some changing.Christina: 15:45

So then from there I got into macrobiotics and Chinese medicine and discovered there was more to food than food and in 14 months my blood was cancer free. But there was still a bunch of healing that had to happen physically and spiritually. And you know, I remember meeting the teacher who became my teacher, michio Kushi, and him saying you really will never be fully better until you take responsibility for your illness. And I remember thinking, oh yeah, like at 26, I woke up and said, hey, man, let’s get cancer, that’ll make life fun. But I always felt like you’re probably too young to remember. But there used to be a TV show where David Carradine played some kind of Kung Fu guru, and he had a guru who always told him, as grasshopper, to go reflect. And every time I was with my teacher I always felt like he was telling me go reflect, grasshopper. And so I did and studied with him, studied Chinese medicine.Christina: 16:37

And then one day my husband said well, what do you want to do now? I’d like to go sit in oncology offices and tell them there’s a better way. And he’s like well, hon, we don’t have the bail money for that, so find something else. So I went back to my teacher and he said why don’t you teach cooking? And I thought, oh, teach cooking, I mean, I guess. But is that just because I’m a woman? That’s what we do, black. But then, as I thought about it, I thought, well, I could talk to you for four hours about a carrot, every bit of nutrition, its energetic quality, all of it, and then you leave me and you still don’t know how to cook that carrot. I gave you nothing, but if I could do both, then I’m doing something.Christina: 17:29

And so I realized that at 14, I became a vegetarian for animals, and certainly that still is always in your brain. Then I moved to veganism for human health. That has also changed for me, not that I don’t care about humans. Sometimes I feel like, as vegans, we lack compassion for the one animal that needs it the most, which is us. But at the same time I thought it’s bigger than us. Now the planet’s on fire. It’s way bigger than us. Now it’s about listen, you need to stop eating meat. I don’t care if you don’t care if you get heart disease, but I do care that my godchildren’s children won’t have a planet. I do care about that. So the vision has become very big picture in my world.Christina: 18:03

And while we still have a lot of fun, I was raised by a hippie mother, so when you say who am I, I guess I’ve turned into her. We drove 45 minutes to recycle newspaper and any cans that we used. We had to turn the water off when we brushed our teeth. We didn’t waste, you know, and a lot of it was about money. But my mother also was a big fan of the Rodales and read Prevention Magazine and all these.Christina: 18:27

By the time I left home I was exhausted about hearing about the environment, and that was in the 70s. So that’s how much nothing has changed, because now I’m the mom lecturing and saying turn off the water while you brush your teeth, doing the whole. So I feel like cooking and some level of social activism and justice is in my DNA. That’s who we were as a family. We talked about it all the time and not only talked, we did stuff. I could send you photos of me as a little girl with this wild pink curly hair and sandwich boards on me Don’t drop bombs on me, don’t pollute my water. And my mom would say go get dressed. We’re going to a parade, okay, and she’d put this thing on me and there’d be all these kids walking around with these. It’s like, I mean, I guess that’s who I am.Christina: 19:16

I mean, I have pictures of that and go to the opera and I don’t know. Yeah, do you have pictures of that? I’d have to find them, but somewhere they do exist. My brother might have them, but somewhere they exist. And it’s like, really, and I remember as a little little girl that my brother got a cowboy outfit and I got a cowgirl outfit, of course, and they had guns on the hip, and I remember taking the gun and saying to my dad I don’t want this part, and I would walk around with the empty, which was quite yeah, yeah, I don’t know.Ella Magers: 19:47

Wow, that’s pretty incredible.Christina: 19:49

Yeah, that’s who we are. I say we because it’s like my husband and I are like attached it, we’re one unit. So it’s the life we built together. And people always say to me to this day I mean, you love marriage. I’m like, no, I like marriage to him because we like each other, we respect each other, we have the same vision for the world. So our passions are not only personal but they’re global and so together we can do what we do without I don’t know, there’s not a lot of strife in my life. I mean, there’s a lot of big picture worry. There’s not a lot of ground level stress. There’s just not. We both do our thing, we both stay in our lanes and the business and yeah.Ella Magers: 20:26

How do you compare this big level stress that you’re talking about now, in this big picture that you’re really focused on, with the stress of the cancer and facing your own death? How does that relate?Christina: 20:39

You know, at 26, I mean, I was anyway at 26, I was still quite high level of an idiot. You know, it’s like it’s not, I’m not really going to die. It’s like being in a bad movie. I was afraid of it. But my fear was quickly taken away because I didn’t do treatments, I didn’t go to the hospital, I didn’t lose my hair, I didn’t do chemotherapy, I used food and I figured I’m either here or I’m gone, you know. And I became very existential about it in a way. I met my teacher really early.Christina: 21:07

My husband was always there supporting me and the minute I went into remission I thought, okay, there’s something to this, this whole acid and alkaline thing. And I remember the doctor saying you’re not going to stay in, you’re not going to stay in remission. And I was like, okay, and then I’d go out of remission for the first nine months. It was kind of this in and out. And then finally, when I stayed in remission, they said, well, you’re having something that we call spontaneous regression and we don’t know why it happens, but it’s not going to stay, so don’t get too excited. And even when they couldn’t find leukemia in my blood anymore, I remember them saying you know this probably won’t last. And I remember thinking shouldn’t you guys be happier, seriously? So I had that outrage that you can have in your twenties. But there wasn’t a whole lot of I could die, cause I kind of never believed I would and I had a lot of support around me and friends and family and my future husband. Now I could lose sleep Now if I read news or I never watch news, but if I read news before going to sleep at night. That’s it, I’m done. I pace all night because I think there’s only so much one person can do. But if everybody did what they could do, it would change. If everybody voted, if everybody recycled, if everybody stopped eating meat, and so then I could lose sleep. I mean, I’m older, so I kind of won’t be here for the worst of it, unless I live to be 150, but other people will.Christina: 22:27

And what I guess shocks and disappoints me the most and does make me lose sleep is not the manufacturers who pollute. They’re going to do that. It’s all about profit for them. But what shocks and disappoints me is the fact that we can bury our heads in the sand collectively and think it’s going to be okay, we don’t have to do anything. We don’t have to change anything, we don’t have to do anything. It’s going to be okay and I think, but it’s not. But it’s impossible.Christina: 22:50

And I travel a lot, which I also stress over, because we do all these wonderful things to save energy and don’t pollute. And then I get on a plane and you’re like, darn, couldn’t they make these more sustainable? But then you get to other countries and I was just telling a friend of this. Yesterday I was in Puglia filming and every apartment, house and city has different bins out One for plastic, one for paper, one for organic food, one for mixed trash and one for glass and metal. And your house is numbered and so you put a different trash out every day Monday is paper, tuesday is whatever, and then by the end of the week all your trash is out and you start over.Christina: 23:31

If you mess up, you get a letter from the city. If you mess up again, you get a strong letter. Then you start being fined until you get it together and start recycling. This country of Italy alone has lowered their greenhouse gas emissions by 60% over the last five years, but they still suffer heat wave and drought and all sorts of effects of climate change because India, china and yours truly collectively have not. So until we can kind of get our heads around the fact that every action we take, every piece of plastic we throw in the trash, every plastic water bottle we think doesn’t make a difference, makes a difference somewhere for somebody. So that’s what I lose sleep over. I mean literally could lose sleep over it.Ella Magers: 24:16

And what I love I was watching some of the episodes of your show is I love how you so are able to work in this, messaging right into a cooking show, and I mean you talk about factory farming, you talk about sustainability, you are at the kitchen cooking, really entertaining the show. How many seasons are you on now?Christina: 24:37

Oh, our first show went on the air at the end of 1997. So we’re in. I don’t know. I don’t know how many. We’ve produced over 300 episodes. Let’s say that incredible.Ella Magers: 24:46

Yeah and yeah. So you know you so artfully do that, you so artfully work that in. It’s really remarkable.Christina: 24:55

So everybody, well, from the day we started developing the show literally from the day we started. I remember my husband sitting in production meetings with our very first producers now we self-produce and saying to them we are not a cooking show. Food is the vehicle for the message to get out there that there’s a better way to look at food, a better relationship to have with food, the planet, whatever Like. The message has never, ever changed. You could go back to a show from 1998, which will have me hair looking like I’m going to the prom and I never knew you could say I don’t really like this. I always thought I could get fired. I forgot it was my show and more Asian oriented food to now more Mediterranean and more casual cooking. So it’s more accessible. The message never changed and I try not to, although I have emails that I do. Do this. Try not to be too luxury, you know, finger in the face, because then they just grab the remote and they’re out.Quinn: 25:54

Right.Christina: 25:55

And sometimes they’re out because they know it’s the truth, right? So I do try to couch it in a little bit of humor or within a recipe, because food is sexy and so you know you can kind of suck people in. But I mean, my husband just told me today that he said there’s an email you have to address from the website which I do as often as I can and this one’s nasty that animal agriculture does not pollute. And where’s my proof? So it’s like, well, here’s all the links, here’s’s all the links, here you go. But you know when they’re mean about it, well, it certainly hurts your feelings, certainly hurts your feelings. It’s also because they know. They know. So you always have to like, as I feel I’m being gutted by somebody being mean, I also have to always try to remember ah, this really isn’t about me at all.Christina: 26:43

Absolutely like I posted something about climate change. I was in Italy and it was the yellow fog that was here from the wildfires in Canada, and I said I feel so bad for my home city and somebody wrote on Instagram you should get cancer and die. Climate change is not real. And I was like okay, well, there you go, just pull that lever when you vote, we know who you are, you know, so it’s kind of like, but you go, wow, really Wow. Reactions are so strong and so extreme that I’m also careful, because you know we live in a crazy time.Ella Magers: 27:17

Sure yeah, and being careful with your energy too, and who you spend too much energy responding to. I find that people that are that angry, I mean they have a commitment to keeping a wall up, oh yeah. And so, no matter what the response is, as logical and kind as it might be, they’re ready to reject it immediately.Christina: 27:38

I mean one of my culinary students. Just the other day I was telling a friend yesterday. I asked them because they were a little blasé in the beginning. I’m like, wow, this is going to be like pulling teeth, this group. So I said to them what are you passionate about? And one of them said I’m passionate about being angry. To which I said, wow, I hope you don’t own a gun. I was just at 22. You’re this angry, you know? And interestingly, if my teacher were still alive he would say because no one’s eating vegetables. There’s no moisture to put out your internal fire, nothing’s softening you, because everyone you meet almost is right at the boiling point Every second of every day. It must be exhausting who we are as a culture.Ella Magers: 28:16

At this point in your life, what? What’s the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning? What gets you out of bed?Christina: 28:23

my work and my husband makes the best breakfast. Oh yeah, Tell us. So we get up early in the morning, we work for a while and then we eat breakfast sort of later in the day, Cause I’m not an early eater. In the morning I get up. First thing I want to do is Qigong. What sets the tone for my day is waking up in the morning and meditating for 10 minutes and then 10 minutes at night, because I really can’t go longer than that. I don’t have the bandwidth. I never did. I was never a good meditator. But Qigong is moving so it’s kind of like I’m good with it. So that’s kind of really what wakes me up in the morning.Ella Magers: 28:58

Do you do the seated meditation or the Qigong as meditation, qigong as meditation, okay.Christina: 29:04

But also, you know the way we live our life gets us out of bed in the morning. We always wake up. I mean, he’s the first face I want to see in. The last face I want to see at night, but somehow within the first 10 minutes of being awake we’re laughing about something, and it’s always something stupid. I don’t know what, but I would never even begin to tell you because I’d say and you’d go wow, they’re morons. But we have a great deal of joy in our house and in our life. So that’s kind of what really starts the day. And then he makes a very traditional savory breakfast. Robert’s been practicing macrobiotics since 1968. So for him, like this is his life, this is how he does it. Even when he worked outside of our business, he made breakfast. He’d get up an hour earlier to do it.Ella Magers: 29:50

Can you?Christina: 29:50

explain macrobiotics real quick. So macrobiotics is whole, seasonal foods, plant-based, cooked in accordance to your health, lifestyle and condition. Now, within macrobiotics and I get a lot of stuff from vegans about this macrobiotics is not necessarily vegan. I choose it to be. I would say 90% of macrobiotic people do choose it to be plant-based. But there is a small segment of macrobiotic teaching that says there are some people who lose their strength, lose their vitality, lose their ability to get their muscle back and temporarily use animal food with gratitude to restore them.Christina: 30:32

In macrobiotics, human health comes above everything else. Not with disregard, not listen. I feel weak today. I think I need a burger. It’s not that, it’s medicinal If that’s a really strong word therapeutic maybe. I never needed it, never felt like I did. It was recommended for me very often when I was sick you should be eating fish, you should buy a roast beef, put it in the oven and when the blood comes out, drink that blood. And I’d be like listen, I’m not a vampire, I’m not doing that. And I managed. I still struggle with anemia. I mean, you can see how I’m pale. I still struggle with anemia. I don’t care, I manage. My body has adapted. I’ll be 68 next week I’m good, you’re 68?. Next week, 67. Still Hold on.Ella Magers: 31:16

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, wow. You kept saying your age and then you’ve been vegan for 40 years, but wow.Christina: 31:24

I know the math didn’t work. You’re like, wait, what? Yeah? So that’s what macrobiotics is.Christina: 31:27

Macrobiotics is eating in accordance to your health and condition, but the primary goal of macrobiotics is to become an organism that lives in harmony with nature. Because in Chinese medicine you probably know this there are two conditions ease and dis-ease, which has become disease. In Chinese medicine, if you’re sick, you’ve just become too uncomfortable in your environment and your environment is trying to get rid of you. In Chinese medicine, the most common colors of illness are blue and green, the two predominant colors of nature. So when you become ill with degenerative disease, mother nature is just basically trying to turn you back into compost, because she’s kind of done with us and the fact that we don’t listen.Christina: 32:09

And I was one of them at 26, I needed a safe dropped on my head. I thought I was misenvironmental because I carried a canvas bag to the store. I still bought things in plastic containers. I still bought mascara in plastic, in a paper thing that got taught. It’s like we still were so unconscious. I mean I was, but the safe on the head was like no, okay, okay, now I need to wake up or I’m going to be out of here.Christina: 32:34

So macrobiotics is more than just what we don’t do. It’s more about what we do. It’s more about being proactive about your health, and my teacher used to always say that when your internal environment became clean or balanced, you had no choice but to be more conscious in the world, to be compassionate, to be kind, to not take life because you couldn’t bear it. And he’s right. The more years that I practiced macrobiotics, even as a vegan, the more intolerant I am of injustice, of the voiceless not having a shot, the injustice of people who are making decisions for people who were not even elected to their office but appointed by some autocrat in the making, and it’s sort of like it becomes less tolerable for you. So for me, macrobiotics and veganism kind of go hand in hand. But for me I learned about nutrition through macrobiotics and Chinese medicine more than I did when I was a vegan, and I’ve kind of blended the two with Mediterranean cooking and my Italian relatives wisdom into this weird minestrone.Ella Magers: 33:43

That has become my work, right? Don’t you use the term macro, macroterranean, macroterranean? Yes, I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my husband came up with that. That’s good, that’s good. Okay, back to breakfast.Christina: 33:55

Oh. So for him, he makes miso soup every morning. As a woman and many women find this I find that miso soup in the morning makes me hungry all day, so I have miso soup later in the day. But then he makes a soft whole grain porridge, millet, brown rice, farro, quinoa, whatever strikes his fancy, a mix, and then we have a protein which is either red lentils or split fava beans or tofu or tempeh, and a vegetable stew of whatever’s in season. It could be summer vegetables in the summer, or now it’s like it’s cold here, so it’s winter squash, rutabaga, you know, together and always, always steamed or boiled greens, because that’s what gives you vitality and good skin and every nutrient we could ever need.Christina: 34:38

So our breakfasts are enormous and then lunch is on me, lunch is usually right now I have split fava beans cooking that I’ll serve with sauteed greens and a big chunk of bread. And dinner we eat late because we both come from European families, so dinner’s like eight 30. So it’s a bowl of soup, a chunk of bread, bowl of soup and a salad kind of thing, and then we watch a foreign film and that’s our day. Like that’s when we leave our house at five 30 every day for the gym, and then that’s it. We’re done, we don’t go back to work, we don’t answer the phone anymore. And then it becomes what Italian or French thing will we watch? To turn off the TV and be smarter when it’s over?Ella Magers: 35:17

Okay.Christina: 35:18

So that’s my life, in a nutshell, unless I’m working, and then it’s craziness.Ella Magers: 35:23

Okay, all right. And what kind of bread are you eating?Christina: 35:27

Sourdough from a local bakery, or that we make Sourdough whole grain from a local bakery. A bitey bread.Ella Magers: 35:33

How do you help people overcome this carb phobia?Christina: 35:37

that is so rampant.Christina: 35:39

Well, I go to a one-off gym that we used to call a duh gym. It’s keto. Everywhere it’s paleo. There were four guys who used to be members that would order a whole cow and split it so that they would have enough meat for a month. They ate 60 eggs a week, and so there’s places where I just don’t you know, I just don’t, and I’m also after so many years of doing what I do.Christina: 36:02

I say nothing unless you ask me. You don’t want to eat carbs, don’t eat carbs. But if you ask me, then I’ll give you all the science that you need to help you understand that white flour and brown rice are not the same carbohydrate. And the same thing will go with gluten. The same thing goes with protein.Christina: 36:18

Somebody just asked me at an event last Friday, something I’ve heard God, I wish, I really wish I had a nickel every time I’ve heard it that where do I get my protein? So I just take off my chef coat, show them my biceps and say, really, so that some myths will never leave us. And the problem is and the reason we have these myths in my opinion, this is just the way I see it is that we are constantly looking for the one ingredient that is the cause of everything that’s wrong with us obesity, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, all of it. We can never, as a culture, look at our diet as a big picture and say it’s all of it. It’s not the white bread you would eat today when you were out with a friend, it’s not the milk in your coffee, it’s all of it. It’s all of it, and that’s too big for people.Christina: 37:07

So I’m very much of the approach that, because I get the email all the time, can I make your Brussels sprout dish to go with my chicken breast? Well, I wouldn’t. But if it gets you eating a vegetable, I’m in. That gets me in a lot of trouble with vegans because I’ll take whatever I can get from you. The longer I do this, the more my philosophy has become. If I could just convince mothers that choosy mothers would not choose Jif, I could die happy. Their tagline since I was a kid choosy mothers choose Jif. Have you read the label? So my bar gets a little bit lower every time.Ella Magers: 37:44

It was meeting people where they are right. I mean you try to meet people where they are, but I mean you try to meet people where they are.Christina: 37:48

But then the food industry which are not farmers and ranchers, but the food industry comes up with something new every year to sell us more and make us more afraid of something else. So somebody said to me the other day what about all this stuff? You hear now about lectins and lentils and I’m like, really, really, you’d never read an article about what’s really in a McDonald’s milkshake. But we’re going to worry about the lectins and lentils that are neutralized when you cook them. Unless you’re eating raw lentils, you’re probably okay, right? Or the oxalates. Or the oxalates, yes, these minute little ingredients, but they’ve done it for decades.Christina: 38:25

When I was a teenager, one of the things we drank was a soda called Fresca. And suddenly there was an article and it was considered healthy because it was no sugar and right, so everybody was drinking Fresca. Then there was an article that the cyclamates and Fresca would kill you. So now no one’s drinking it. All our mothers took our soda away and at the same time then you read an article by the Rodales who say by the way, you’d have to drink two cases of Fresca each and every day in order for the cyclamates to do to you what they’re saying. So nothing’s changed. They’re always looking for some way. I guess people are easily manipulated if you can make them scared and if you can make them.Ella Magers: 39:02

It’s fear, all fear, based Absolutely.Christina: 39:05

So there’s nothing wrong with carbohydrates. Certainly more refined ones affect you differently than non-refined ones. So that’s the discussion I have constantly in my life. I mean, my oldest and dearest friend hasn’t had a carbohydrate in 12 years. She’s completely dysfunctional around food, but she eats things that I go, wow, okay, yeah, I fight every day of my life with every person that I knew Can’t do it. I don’t have the personality for it, not the energy. I have the energy. I just don’t want to live like that.Ella Magers: 39:35

Yeah, one of the other things I really enjoy about this season in the show is the cultural aspects that you bring in and what we can learn from the Italian culture, the less stress. I love how you talk about the type A personality. I bet Can type A. I mean it’s the best, yeah, it’s the best.Christina: 39:53

Can you tell about that? Yeah Well, we have a travel company on the side of everything else we do, because it’s really fun and it’s interesting to watch Americans land in Italy for the first time and everything is like, oh my God, are they always this slow? Oh, I’m sorry, are they slow? It’s called enjoyment and like for me, I can’t wait to get off that plane in Rome and linger over this much espresso, because that’s what you do. Their philosophy is that certainly we all have to work, we have to work, we have to make money, keep a roof over our heads, stay healthy, but life is to be enjoyed, not endured, and so their image of us is that we live to work. They work enough to live, and they would rather take a walk at 5.30 before dinner than put in another hour in the office. And do they get stuff done? They do. I mean, I watch my crews here in this country and if I say, oh, you know, it would be cool, my crews here in this country, and if I say, oh, you know it would be cool, could we like that and move over there and do the stand up there? It takes three hours. They have to think about it. Maybe we should. And I’m like, oh, not three hours, that’s a little exaggeration. But you’re like, wow, really, my Italian crew.Christina: 41:03

We arrived at a vineyard to film and it was supposed to rain. It hadn’t yet. So the vineyard, on their own, said let’s move inside to this beautiful little building we have that way, if it rains, it won’t matter. I was cooking with the chef and I said, yeah, but it’s a white wall that we’re up against. We could be anywhere. So they said well, what if we turn the table, you can see the vineyard behind us. My director of photography from Italy said no, let’s go outside In 15 minutes. They had that covered, us covered with plastic in case it rained. The lighting changed, the thing set up and we started filming in 15 minutes.Christina: 41:36

So I never want to hear Italians are inefficient, don’t do their job. They’re amazing For me two things they have life and perspective, and as Americans, we have a very naive belief that we can control the chaos around us. They know they can, so they either embrace it or move around it. So when I say, type meh, they work very hard to get it done, but at the end of the day, if they didn’t get to everything on their list. Their life doesn’t end. They’re gonna go to dinner and do it again tomorrow. We don’t sleep, we’ll stay up till four o’clock in the morning to get that thing done. So for me I feel much more balanced and natural there, the way I move through life, the way I cook, than I do here. And I’m a born and raised American. I’m not European. I was raised by European parents, but I’m not European. It just feels.Christina: 42:30

Sometimes I feel like my country are like a bunch of drunks on a bus with no brakes and we’re still singing party songs as it heads toward a cliff. And I don’t mean to be like a downer, I just think we need to wake up. We just need to be awake. If we just were awake we could solve everything, everything. We’re just waiting for somebody else to do it, and I’m not sure why. Just do it.Christina: 42:49

Get up in your life, in your day and do it. Do something that makes a difference. I don’t care if it’s take your neighbor grocery shopping or smile at a stranger. Do something to the tiniest thing changes somebody’s day and that person will change somebody else’s day and somebody else’s day and before you know it, you have a changed community. Because if we think that the way we consume, the way our country behaves, will change from the top down, it’s never been that way. We’re a country built from the bottom up, we’re a country built on revolution. So what happened to that spirit of I can do this, we can be better, we can make this better? Now we’re just too busy, caught in our own tribes, in our own corners, in our own bubbles, in our own anger. I don’t know, and I don’t know how to put this genie back in the bottle. I’m not that good. I don’t know how to change it, except one person at a time. Start with yourself.Ella Magers: 43:44

Right, yeah, and I think everything you’re saying makes so much sense and I think part of the messaging that I try to use is you know, people do need a reason, sometimes a selfish reason, absolutely. But it feels so good to do good To me, it feels really good to live purposefully and meaningfully, and Dalai Lama famously said if you can’t do charity for charity, do charity to fill your karma bank because you’ll feel so good doing it.Christina: 44:15

You won’t care how full your karma bank is. And so I use that a lot with people. Well, you know who cares. I don’t have time to volunteer. Actually you do, and it feels so good that. And to look in the mirror and think I didn’t do any harm today, I didn’t hurt an animal, I didn’t say anything mean, you know, I didn’t do anything, that I mean I’m maybe somewhere unconsciously but to consciously cause harm, you think, well, okay, all right, I’m okay, I’ll wake up tomorrow and I’ll do it again. I don’t have anything to be ashamed of today. Tomorrow, who knows, but today I don’t have anything to be ashamed of.Christina: 44:48

So often when I get like an angry email from somebody, I think so often when I get like an angry email from somebody, I think, first of all, that took a lot of time. They had to write it, spell, check it and decide I’m sending it. So you’re really angry at I’m pretty benign on TV, you know, I cook, I make jokes’ll turn people off, so I kind of save that for live events and watch people walk out. But it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Sometimes, I think, if they walk out, they heard you and they just aren’t ready to hear it yet, but they really heard you and it gets stored in their Rolodex for later.Christina: 45:24

But I just feel like if something this benign as food, as cooking vegetables, can make you angry, we have a lot of work to do. We as in you, me, this community we have a lot of work to do because in the past we were not the most welcoming, we were not the most compassionate. We did create an image that makes people go, oh, oh, hold on until they see that there’s a softness and a compassion that is real and a kindness. So I don’t mind doing that work, I don’t. I don’t mind going out there and surprising people with kindness and compassion at all. I’d rather do that than surprise them with oh, she’s really awful, she seems nice on TV, but wow.Ella Magers: 46:09

So I keep some of that stuff for you but wow, so I keep some of that stuff for you. I’ll take it. I’ll take it. Do you create your own titles?Christina: 46:20

to the show titles.Ella Magers: 46:21

Cause they’re really good. I love it. I do in my twisted brain, yes, yeah, no. They’re great titles and I would just a few of them once, cause there ain’t no planet, because I love that.Christina: 46:32

But the truth is, I actually stole part of that. There’s a vegan restaurant in Rome called Buddy and they all wear t-shirts that say because there is no planet B, and I was like and I said to them could I use that?Quinn: 46:45

And they’re like yeah, we didn’t Sure Go ahead, I see, that all the time.Christina: 46:49

But they wear these t-shirts and the first time I saw it I thought that’s great, that’s the greatest thing. But most of them, yeah, come out of my brain.Ella Magers: 46:59

So amazing. You’ve got the show. Are there any other projects, anything else you want to share with the audience? We have a new book. It’s on the website, called Veg Edibles. Oh, you’ve got nine. How many? 10 books, nine books, 10 books, 13, 13 books 13.Christina: 47:13

It’s called Veg Edibles, which we just thought was funny and I like that. And we’re actually we’re in development of always for a new series, but we’re in development for a docu-series that we’re hoping to have meetings on when we go to Italy in February. It’s about the history of food and it’s the past of food, the present of food. But then the future of food is what path will we choose and the results of those, whatever path we choose. So we’re pretty excited about that. It’s really early, it probably wouldn’t hit till 2025, but we’re working with the agriculture departments of Italy, in Parma and in Tuscany and in Rome, to kind of bring experts together to talk about the past and to talk about the present and to talk about, you know, the differences in different countries of what they’re doing with sustainability and organic and how in other countries and I realize other countries are small, you know, all of Europe is kind of like the US, except the different states are countries and they all have different cultures and philosophies, but they all have this seemingly deep, ancient commitment to the quality of the soil, the quality of the food, and certainly junk food has crept in.Christina: 48:26

I was watching a video the other day. I was crying with laughter. It was an Italian, american and an Italian going into the first Starbucks that opened in Rome and they were talking and he was saying to his Italian friend I cannot wait for you to try this. There’s so much variety, you can have all these different kinds of coffee drinks and the Italian’s like, okay, but you know, the best coffee shop in Rome is right there and there’s no line because they were in this big long line. And he said I know, but you got to try this.Christina: 48:50

So they go in and the Italian standing there and his friend goes what’s up? And he said what do you not smell in here? He goes what? And he said this is a coffee shop, right? He said yeah, and he goes I don’t smell coffee. So they end up having a nice experience but then he takes them to across the street to the coffee shop. So their commitment to the little things like why am I in a coffee shop and I don’t smell coffee? Or why would I buy this when I could buy something fresh it’s still there. It’s deep seated in their tradition and one of the biggest fears that I have is that it can be lost as younger generations who love American, everything want to be like us and that worries me. Nutritionally, spiritually, that’s fine.Quinn: 49:31

Why do they want to be like us?Christina: 49:34

Because they have this vision of us that when they talk about it, I think where exactly are we talking about? Like what, right, right, but you know. And also they feel like we are able to produce and sell tremendous amounts of food. And they aren’t, but they don’t factory farm. Well, they do on a very small level, but they can’t export some things to us because we can’t export things to them because they don’t accept GMOs. And this is really interesting dynamic of why can’t we be more in sync. And it’s because we don’t want the same things. So we want volume at any cost and they want quality at any cost. So it’s still so. It’s kind of an interesting dynamic. So we do trips and I love my time there and it’s interesting watching American tourists relax as the days go on, you know, and kind of fall into the lifestyle. So that’s always very fun for us.Ella Magers: 50:26

Yeah, I bet Amazing. And where can people find you connect, you watch your show.Christina: 50:30

Everything’s Christina Cooks the show, the website, instagram, facebook. Yeah, everything’s Christina.Ella Magers: 50:36

Cooks. We’ll put the links in the show notes. Of course, Christina, you rock. Thank you so much. I’m so happy to talk to you, Ella. Yes, it’s been so much fun.Christina: 50:44

I hope we do it again one day. And I just want to say before we close that I have watched you for a while and I’m not I’m going to try to not I’m so proud of you and the work you do. Keep it up, because you’re young and you’re gorgeous, and if somebody doesn’t look at you and go, yeah, I want some of that, you’re crazy. So keep doing it. You have a huge fan here. Oh, I don’t know why. Anyway, sorry, thank you. Thank you so much. That’s so unexpected.Ella Magers: 51:09

I appreciate that so much. That’s so unexpected. I appreciate that so much. You’re a doll. Keep doing it. I needed to hear that right now.Christina: 51:23

Yeah, we all do, and you need somebody to tell you, and don’t ever waste the opportunity to tell someone ever. Life is short, crazy short, so go get them. Kid. Thanks, christina, look at him kid. Thanks.Ella Magers: 51:33

Christina, Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Rise and Thrive with me, Ella Majors, I truly hope you found it inspiring and, if you did, please help me spread the word by leaving a rating and review on your favorite podcast player and by sharing the show with your friends.Ella Magers: 51:51

As you probably know by now, my life’s purpose is to use my voice to make this world a more conscious and compassionate place, and your reviews and shares make a huge impact. And last, I’m getting a ton of insanely positive feedback about my short and sweet monthly newsletter called the Way short for the Way Out Is Through. I give my top five latest badass discoveries, insights and explorations, like vegan products and recipes. I’m obsessed with books and shows I’m loving and workouts that have me fired up. Head on over to my website, ellamajorscom, to sign up and check out all the other awesome resources I have for you and projects I’m involved with, including Hogs and Kisses Farm Sanctuary, where our mission is to create the best life for farm animals while inspiring compassion for all living beings. Thanks a lot, and I’ll see you on the next one.