Today we talk to Dr. Kristi Artz, the medical director for Lifestyle Medicine at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids. She is also the lead physician of the culinary medicine program and talks to us today about what a plant-based diet is and how it can work for your family. You can listen to this complete podcast on iTunes or SoundCloud.
Alyssa: Hi, welcome to Ask the Doulas. I am Alyssa Veneklase, your host, and today I am talking with Kristi Artz, the medical director for Lifestyle Medicine at Spectrum Health, and she’s also the lead physician of the Culinary Medicine Program. Hey, Kristi.
Dr. Artz: Hi, Alyssa. Thanks for having me!
Alyssa: Yeah, thanks for taking time out of your day! I hear you’re in the kitchen right now?
Dr. Artz: I am. I have three school-aged children myself, so it’s just about school pickup time, and they have after-school activities, and they need a healthy meal to keep them well-fueled.
Alyssa: So I recently met you because Gold Coast is involved in the Spectrum Health Foundations LEAD program where we meet different people from different programs throughout Spectrum Health, and then we allocate funds to those. And we met you because we were doing the culinary medicine program when we met you, and it was amazing. And I’m so happy that I go that recipe book from you guys. I have made the black bean brownies twice.
Dr. Artz: Oh, excellent! Yeah, those are delicious.
Alyssa: My daughter loves them. She’s vegan and gluten-free, so she’s just over the moon that she can eat these. And I don’t care because there’s no sugar.
Dr. Artz: Yeah, and it was so nice to meet you at that event, and we were thrilled to really just get in the kitchen and expose the program, the culinary medicine program, that we’ve been developing at Spectrum Health over the last year and a half and just to gain wider exposure as to what we can do in the program and how we’re hoping to reach people and really better educate, not only the community members and individuals, but also really involve nutrition more widely in how we train healthcare professionals and how we can integrate that in a more evidence-based way in the care of our patients.
Alyssa: Yeah, it’s such an integral part of our overall health.
Dr. Artz: Oh, absolutely. I mean, what we’re really seeing as we care for patients is that a vast amount have diet-related illness. With chronic disease, often the underlying trigger is, to a certain extent, genetics, but more so diet and lifestyle factors.
Alyssa: Right. Now, today we’re going to talk about raising a plant-based family, and I got to thinking: is plant-based a new term? Is that just a new way to say vegetarian, or is it completely different?
Dr. Artz: Well, I think as we look to the science of what a healthy diet looks like, I think a plant-based diet, specifically a whole food, plant-based diet, is really a better term than necessarily vegan or vegetarian. You can certainly be a vegan, whole food, plant-based eater. You can be a vegetarian whole foods plant-based eater, and there’s only slight differences. You know, the vegan pattern of eating, obviously, would exclude all animal-based products, but a vegetarian eating a primarily plant-based diet would be consuming mostly whole-plant foods, lots of produce, beans, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds, but maybe adding in a little bit of dairy at times or maybe adding in eggs if they prefer to do that at times. So again, I think when we talk about diet patterns, I think it’s really pointing out what we want to be including in our diet, so more whole, plant-based foods. That’s really why I like to use that terminology, and I think it’s more approachable for many people. I know my experience as a doctor is that many people feel like — they have a gut reaction when you say vegan or vegetarian. They feel that that’s not something that is attainable for them and their lifestyle or maybe their family, but I think when we start eating more plant-based or plant-forward is another term I like to use, I think people feel like they can make some of those changes, and it’s not too overwhelming.
Alyssa: So plant-based doesn’t mean not eating meat?
Dr. Artz: No, actually it doesn’t. I think oftentimes it is becoming a loaded term, again, like many of these dietary terms that are often then put in a category where plant-based eating is exclusively vegetarian eating, and like I said, it oftentimes is, but it can include a small amount of well-sourced dairy or well-sourced fish. But I do like to point out that there are real indications for many people, and oftentimes with certain chronic diseases, to really advocate for a vegan, whole food, plant-based diet. And there’s also good science to support doing that for better planetary health, as well. So it depends on what angle you’re coming from. If you’re looking for a way to start to feed your family in a more healthy pattern, certainly a whole food, plant-based eating pattern would be definitely supported by science and what we know about what a healthy diet looks like in terms of those nutritional studies that we look towards for the evidence.
Alyssa: I like the term plant-forward because you’re saying that it’s not 100% plant-based, which I think was the confusion I had between plant-based and vegetarian. I’m thinking, what’s the difference? You’re saying that it needs to be heavily plant-based, even if you do eat some meat here and there or go outside of that; that’s the focus?
Dr. Artz: Yeah, the focus really should be how can you base your diet primarily around whole plant foods, and again that includes not only produce, fruits and vegetables, but includes nuts and seeds, beans, legumes, and whole grains. So that should be the base of your diet, and when, again, you look to the evidence and the science of it, really, if you can achieve 90% of your dietary intake to be from a variety of whole plant foods, that leaves about maybe up to 10%, a little bit of wiggle room, and I think, again, that works really well for people who are healthy and trying to maintain their health and don’t necessarily want to remove all animal products. The science would really support eating in that pattern; leaving, maybe, that 10% of wiggle room for inclusion of some high-quality dairy products or maybe some fish that they want to include for omega-3 fatty acids. So yeah, that’s really what the science shows. Now, I know we’re not going to be talking specifically about chronic disease, necessarily, but if you find that you’re affected by diabetes or hypertension or other cardiovascular disease, there really is an amazing body of research that supports eating an exclusive vegan, whole foods, plant-based diet, and that can be part of your care of your illness and it oftentimes can actually reverse some of the illness, as well. So it’s really powerful.
Alyssa: It is powerful, and I think it’s also, like you said, really scary for someone to think about completely changing their diet like that. Is that part of the reason you started this culinary medicine program and have these amazing recipes, to tell people it isn’t as frightful as they think it might be? That it might not be so hard, and they don’t just have to eat bland foods? Because I looked through that recipe book, and it’s like, wow, there are so many great recipes. You’d never know that every single one of these is healthy for you.
Dr. Artz: Thanks for saying that, and I’m glad you’re enjoying the recipes! Yeah, that’s really the premise behind the culinary medicine program is really, over the last 20 or 30 years, we’ve had a pretty dramatic shift in how people feed themselves, and more and more, it’s focused on convenience and not focused on cooking food in the home. And as a result of that, foods that are oftentimes more convenient can very well be highly processed and contain lots of salt or sodium. They can have a lot of saturated fat. They can have a lot of preservatives and dyes and things that are going to create pretty widespread inflammation in our bodies, children and adults, and can put us at risk for those diseases that we want to try to avoid. So culinary medicine also realizes that, as a program, that it’s one thing to have awareness of what the science shows or to have knowledge around what a healthy diet looks like, but you also have to know how to cook and prepare that food. But you don’t want to spend all day, necessarily, doing that. So what we have tried to really implement quite broadly at Spectrum Health is a program that allows for basic skills development in the kitchen as well as pairing that with some nutritional knowledge. So when you pair the skill and the knowledge, you can really make positive changes in your own home kitchen.
Alyssa: So who has access to the culinary medicine program? Is it Spectrum Health patients who are, let’s say, battling diabetes or some of these other chronic illnesses? Or could my mom off the street come in and say, I want to take a class and learn more?
Dr. Artz: Both, actually. We’re still planning and developing and really trying to see as we intentionally grow and expand the program that we’re really making it as accessible as we can to not only patients whose doctors want to refer them to classes, but also community members who are looking to the health system that they trust to provide programming that can really help them achieve better health and wellness goals than, maybe, they have set for themselves, if they’ve worked with their physician. Excitingly, as of yesterday, actually, we just launched our webpages at Spectrum Health, so if you search for culinary medicine, you can actually reach us directly, and you can have access to all of our 80-plus recipes that are now online and available to anyone who wants to use them.
Alyssa: Oh, awesome! Good timing!
Dr. Artz: Yeah, it was a lot of work getting that together. We had great support in creating that webpage, and coming in January, and hopefully before that, we’ll be able to have this class listing up, but it will also be — the place to go will be that webpage on Spectrum’s website. You’ll go to our website to find all of our recipes. We also have some information sheets about how to build a healthy pantry, about vital nutrients or those plant nutrients that are represented by the colors that plants often have, whether it’s red or orange, and how those impact your health. And then we’ll also have all of our class listings available there with online registration.
Alyssa: That’s so great! Do you think you’ll have anything for pregnancy, like specifically for pregnancy or postpartum?
Dr. Artz: You know, we don’t have any specifically-designed classes for pregnancy or postpartum yet, although we’re in early conversations with a really awesome program through the Women’s Health CenteringPregnancy, if you’re familiar with that?
Alyssa: I am, yeah.
Dr. Artz: So we’re in early conversations how we can support the great work that they’re already doing with their group visits for pregnant moms. But we will be launching a seasonal plant-based series beginning in January, and those classes are for everyone. So if you’re curious about how to properly nourish your family, or if you’re a pregnant mom now and you’re wanting to learn ways to add more plant-based foods into your diet, that would be a great way to try out some new recipes, to learn some of that nutritional science as to why you may want to look more and more to a plant-based or plant-forward diet for you and your family. So that would be a great way to get involved.
Alyssa: Yeah, and did you say there are some tips on ways to kind of introduce this into your family?
Dr. Artz: Yeah, so like I said, I have three daughters myself, and when they were very young and I was early out of my training program and residency — and my husband is actually a physician as well — you know, we were just trying to get by day by day and trying to feed our kids the best we could, but I think over the first couple of years of them being toddlers, we realized that kids get colds often and they get respiratory viruses or they get those irritating little GI bugs where they have a lot of vomiting and diarrhea, and how could we best support their little bodies and their immune systems so that they could be more resilient, for them to have better growth, better energy? I’m an emergency medicine doctor by training, so all the nutritional training that I’ve undergone in the last decade or so has really been training that I’ve sought out personally and has been incredibly beneficial to how I practice medicine and also how I feed my children. And a lot of that really transitioned us to a plant-based eating pattern for our entire family. I would say that my children are not exclusively vegetarian 100% of the time, but like I said, that 90% rule: they eat plant-based foods; they’ll eat a lot of beans, and I would say that’s a really good place to start. Beans have a great texture and flavor, and they have a great amount of fiber; they’re filling, and it’s not an ingredient that is often — I would say it’s underutilized with children. It can be a great early finger food for toddlers if you squash them up a little bit so they’re not too round and a choking hazard. Really, if we feed our children peas, which is great, you know, why not try a black bean or why not try a white bean and just get children used to those different tastes and textures? And same goes with using fresh herbs or adding spices to your meals, and not the hot spices, but warming spices or cinnamon or things like that, really just exposing children to those textures, those flavors. We eat a lot of soup in our house year-round, and that is a great way to start to transition to plant-based eating. You can load your soup up with tons of vegetables and beans. I like to make my own vegetable stock, and my do-it-yourself hack is to just keep a freezer bag, like a plastic freezer bag or a container, that you can store all the trimmed ends of carrots and celery and mushrooms and tomatoes and just pop them in your freezer, and then on the weekend or whenever you have an extra afternoon, let those simmer with just some water and a bay leaf, and you have a really nutrient-dense vegetable stock that you can then use for the base of your soup, or you can use it when you cook other whole grains or quinoa or things like that, as well.
Alyssa: Oh, that’s great! How long do you have to boil it or simmer it?
Dr. Artz: You know, I always thought it was longer than I’ve discovered it needs to be, because we do this all the time over the winter, and I would say when I’m really in a pinch, I can simmer it at a pretty good simmer or a low boil for about an hour or so. Then you strain it, and I get that really deeply-colored broth. I think adding a tomato is always a great idea and adding some mushrooms, because mushrooms have these amazing nutrient properties, and that can be a tricky vegetable for kids to really want to eat a lot of, but mushrooms are incredibly healthy, and finding ways to even sneak those into a young child’s diet is a great idea. A homemade vegetable stock is a really easy way to do that.
Alyssa: I’m going to try it!
Dr. Artz: Awesome, you’ll love it!
Alyssa: Thank you so much for your time today.
Dr. Artz: Sure! Everyone, please use our recipes, connect with us, and let us know what you think or topics that you might be interested in. We’d love to hear from you!
Alyssa: We’ll talk to you next time!
