- Food is more than what you eat.

It's memories, special occasions and traditions, all significant points in your life.

But what if you could create new memories with food that is good for you?

How you feel is connected to the food that you eat.

For so long, it has been taboo not to eat meat.

It's been elitist, it's been racist, and it's even said to be expensive, all forms of separation.

Now, one of the biggest myths is that you are sacrificing things that you enjoy.

I get it.

Habits are hard to break, but plant-forward living is just food without the trauma.

I'm Angela Yvonne, and I am a journalist and content creator changing the perception of veganism through conversation, cuisine and conscious living.

Together, we are going to explore, we're going to educate, and we're gonna elevate your mind to the limitless, bountiful life of being on the green side.

Believe me, it's dope over here.

♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Plant-forward living is the philosophy here at Ethos.

Why was that important to add to your medicine practice?

- Hmm.

Well, I guess, if you think about it, all life begins because of plants on Earth, right?

None of us would be here without plants.

- [Angela] Right.

- They're the original food makers.

They collect energy from the sun and turn it into food for every living being on the planet.

You know, it's nice to think that they're so powerful and can do all of that, that, I learned, probably after I graduated, and I was already a practicing doctor, how important they were in preventing and reversing disease.

That was through, you know, my father's story.

My father was diagnosed with an end-stage metastatic pancreatic cancer, and he used a diet of whole plant foods to treat it and help reverse it.

And he had an amazing outcome.

That's how I delved into the world of plants.

- So, why do you think that it's taking so long for the medicine industry to catch up?

Because plant-forward living is not new underneath the sun.

- No, it's not.

You know, for thousands of years, many indigenous cultures have used plants.

Hippocrates, 2500 years ago, recognized that food was medicine and food as plants.

- [Angela] So, Dr. Weiss, you're known as the plant doctor.

And from my experience, people are crazy when you talk about plants or talk about veganism.

They feel like it's a life of sacrifice.

- You know what?

It seemed to me that it was in my journey of many years.

It is so beautiful, eating plants.

It's powerful.

When you eat plants, their goodness, their chlorophyll gets in you, and then they shine out of you like a beacon onto the world.

- Absolutely.

- And I know you know what I'm talking about.

- I know what you're talking about.

I always say it's dope over here on the green side.

It's about finding meaning and finding purpose and also just living a better quality of life.

So we're about to go over to the farmer's market, and you're gonna show me about all this plant goodness.

- Serve it up.

- Yes, indeed.

- Food can make us healthy or sick.

And the way it makes us either way is through the gut microbiome, this amazing world of trillions of lives that are in our colon and our intestinal tract.

And when we put things like ultra-processed foods down there, animal foods, they cause a shift in the relationship of this population, this ecosystem, this neighborhood.

Immune-regulated inflammation that develops, and that causes the joint pains and that causes the inflammation in our arteries, and that causes the cancer.

When we eat plants, it rebalances the ecosystem.

And then the fiber in plants, they're the fertilizer for all the good guys.

And then everything settles down.

No more inflammation.

And then you have health.

That's the choice we have.

Our farmers have special powers.

- [Angela] I see.

- And that comes from giving back.

- [Angela] Right.

- Giving back, the mother has given to us.

- Yes.

- Healthy as a mother.

[Angela laughs] - So let me ask you this, is getting organic groceries worth it?

- [Dr. Weiss] Well, I think in general, just eating a plant-based diet is much cheaper.

- [Angela] Absolutely.

- Well-grown plants are expensive, like vegetables, but starches, they're much cheaper than chicken per pound or meat.

And that's where plant-based people get most of our calories from.

And then you use the vegetables as the medicine.

So you use the starches as your calories to keep you going so that you can... And you use the vegetables to clean everything up and stay healthy.

- [Angela] So Dr. Saul, what is lifestyle medicine?

- This is my favorite question.

So lifestyle medicine, it's an emergent field of medicine that started in 2004.

And it uses six pillars.

Exercise, nutrition in the form of a whole food plant-based eating pattern, sleep, stress management, social connectedness, and the reduction of risky substances to not only prevent but treat, and in many cases reverse chronic disease.

So classically, we used to look at these factors as things that prevent disease.

- Right.

- Lifestyle medicine shifts that paradigm in that we can actually use these things that are in our everyday lives to treat and reverse disease.

And that's why in lifestyle medicine, like here at Ethos, we take them into the kitchen.

And this is what you do with the vegetables that you just harvested.

Let me show you how to prepare this meal.

- Exactly.

That is definitely key, because when you're operating in the plant-forward lifestyle, I'm finding that it's easier to talk to people when you're showing them.

And when you're saying, "Oh, you can't have meat," everyone just wants the solution.

"So you're telling me I can't do this.

"Show me something that I'm going to enjoy just as much."

- And the best part about that is when you're showing them at the dinner table as they're eating it and they're like, "Oh my gosh, this doesn't have meat in it?

"Oh my gosh, I didn't know that a lentil meatloaf "could be so great," right?

So showing them, just like you alluded to, is the best thing that you can do for someone.

- Now, I'm a firm believer in knowing where you came from in order to know where you're going.

And foraging has become so popular because people are wanting to know where their food is coming from.

I'm on my way to see the Meadow Doctor to have a true field-to-table experience.

So, what are some of the things that you wish people knew about the foraging culture?

- Well, I think the one thing is to respect the plant and to understand, you know, is this a native plant or is it an invasive plant?

So to know the plant more.

And don't have to know 5000 plants, just know the couple that are around you.

And I think that the more you, you know, engage and work with your community, you'll see that things that you might want, they might not and vice versa too.

- Like a barter.

- Yes.

We've lost our senses when we go to the grocery store.

Just get it, this is the thing, I just throw it in the grocery cart.

Whereas this is like, you're actually feeling it.

Can you smell?

It smells this herbaceous smell.

- It smells amazing.

- We're gonna make soup.

It's a soup that I've been now cooking for about 12 years.

It's really good, it's kind of... And I'm trying to pick the the softer, more tender ones.

As it gets older, it gets very aromatic, and you can use it at that time for other things.

- So you said something that is intriguing to me about our senses and how we are so removed from the food that we get in the supermarket versus the food that is really good for us.

Is there a way for us to get back to that, though, where we're knowing these different things?

- I think just start with everything around you.

Even if you have, like, a balcony, you try and put a container plant and see what kind of goes up.

And you can start to engage with it.

[gentle upbeat music] - How has foraging changed your perspective of eating in general?

- Outside this country, it's like been people are still continuing to do this and they always have.

But I think in this country, it's that people are discovering that there's actually really great food around you that they thought were weeds or trash or something.

And so I think they're rediscovering that.

A lot of this is still unexplored.

That's not like, you know, a Wikipedia on this, right?

But this is part of why it's fun, 'cause you're exploring new stuff all the time.

- Yeah, yeah.

- The one thing, though, I'd sort of say to caution is that she is asking me first what is edible, right?

So she has a guide.

So she doesn't know a lot of the plants in the wild in New Jersey, so that's why she comes to me.

- [Nhu] I'm from Vietnam, I grew up over there.

So I'm, like, looking for the ingredient that we can't really find exactly the same ingredients.

- She loves ingredients.

She's an ingredient-focused chef.

- But, for example, this particular one, right, I think that is even more delicious than, you know, the plant that I found in Vietnam, because the cai canh, that's the mustard green that, you know, we often cook-- - I know about a mustard green.

[group laughs] You don't have to explain mustard green.

- But again, it's very important for me to, like, taste the ingredient and how it tastes like.

So I can, like, imagine in my mind, I have to bring the dish together to really, like, you know, celebrate the ingredients.

- But I mean, part of it, this is kind of like exploratory R&D, right?

So people might come out, we do R&D, I get a better idea.

- Nonstop R&D.

I mean, even with the familiar ingredients like mint, right?

So the mint that you taste over here is so different from, you know, the mint that you taste from supermarket.

- Yeah.

Okay, so you can see this is, like, doing its own thing.

I didn't really plant this here.

So just pick it yourself.

Pick like this, just this top part.

- [Angela] Just the top?

- Yeah, because that's the most tender part.

Smell, and then try it.

- Oh, wow.

Hold on.

Oh.

Oh, that's good.

- See, it's just, like, alive.

That actual mintiness, that's only produced in response to environmental stress.

The plant has to produce more chemicals to combat the environment.

So if it's too coddled, it's not gonna produce that.

- That's a great tip for the farmers market.

The smallest and the most bruised is the most beautiful.

I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it.

- Cause it sometimes kicks.

- Wow!

- So if you see hollow it is here, right?

Yeah, so you stuff the rice inside.

- [Angela] You stuff uncooked rice?

- Uncooked rice.

You have to soak the rice overnight until it, like, gets soft.

So you stuff in here and then you use, so we use a banana leaf to, like, cover it.

And then we rotate it, roast, grill it over charcoal.

- You know, you're gonna have me in my kitchen burning something down [indistinct].

- See, forging is very dramatic.

- I love it.

- It's very dramatic.

- Bees are an important part of our ecosystem.

And when you're coming over to the plant-forward community, you may decide that you want to tackle one of the controversial topics of honey, to honey, or not to honey, now, that is the question.

The number-one reason the plant community does not eat honey is the unfair treatment of bees.

But we're gonna go talk to Lana the beekeeper, and maybe she'll change your mind.

Hey, Lana.

- Hey, Angela.

- Oh, the garden looks amazing from the last time that I was here.

- Welcome, we're happy to have you here.

- So, what all do you grow out here?

- We're growing pretty much everything you can imagine.

Lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, tomato, everything grown from seed right here in Montclair.

- Oh!

- So you can...

This is their scratch.

It's basically like their snack, like their popcorn.

It's made out of grains and corn.

- [Angela] Okay.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!

Ah!

- Let me get them [lips smacking].

Come on, come on!

- Oh, there you go.

- I wanted to increase vegetable production in my backyard garden, and I started learning about how to attract bees to pollinate my vegetables.

So I became a beekeeper.

Without bees, native and honey bees, European bees, we would not have fruit production or vegetable production.

Before we go into any beehive, we wanna get our smoker going.

And what the smoker does is basically disrupts communication between the bees.

We do not want them to signal danger as we're cracking open the hive, because then the bees will get very aggressive.

We have some pine needles, which tends to be the favorite of the bees.

I'll top it off with some grass, which just cools down the smoke.

And then, of course, we need body protection.

The last thing we wanna do is end up with a bunch of bee stings.

[upbeat music] - People are up in arms because of the way that the bees are treated.

There's ethical ways and then there's unethical ways.

- I consider myself an ethical beekeeper.

When I first started beekeeping, actually, I didn't feel qualified to, like, extract honey, and I really left the honey in the colony for about two or three years before I actually started pulling some frames out, to benefit myself and those around me.

- I like for people to understand that, when you're in nature, you have, it's a give and take.

- Absolutely, it's a relationship, you have to remember.

And, like, when we were talking about the dangers of being in the hive, like, I'm listening to what the bees are telling me.

And when they get loud and aggressive, I know they're telling me to back off.

There's reciprocity, and that's what nature teaches us.

You tend to me, you take care of me, and I will do that right back.

Okay, so we have our smoker going.

So the first step is always to give them a couple pumps right at the entrance.

And this is gonna help the smoke travel throughout the hive.

Gotta loosen.

Okay, so what's going on here?

- Wow!

[gasps] Look at them.

- So here, you see, honey that we just pretty much uncapped because we just removed the lid there.

But this is all their comb.

These are all the female worker bees.

- One of the unethical ways is that they'll keep the queen and they'll clip her wings.

- Some beekeepers will clip her wings, forcing her to stay, which is an unnatural process for the hive.

They want to swarm every so often in the spring, and they want that reproduction of hives to happen.

Beekeepers will come in at the end of the season and take all of the bees' honey stores, and then feed them sugar.

And sugar is nothing close to what honey does for their systems.

- [Angela] So, what are some of the ethical ways that we can enjoy honey?

- Well, for me, the most important thing is knowing your beekeeper.

You wanna have this very straightforward conversation and understand the relationship that the beekeeper has with the bees.

You know, you can ask them about what kind of treatments they use or how often they harvest honey.

You can also ask about how much honey they harvest.

So if we're looking right on this side, this is actually a queen cell.

Thank you for showing us how amazing and beautiful you are.

And thank you for pollinating all of our beautiful vegetables.

- And thank you for behaving.

- [laughs] Most importantly.

- Thank you for behaving.

- So after all that hard work, I feel like we deserve a sweet treat.

- So I can eat all of this?

- Yep, you can chew on the honey and the beeswax.

- Mm.

- So good, right?

- Oh my God.

That is some of the best honey that I've ever had in my whole life.

- [Lana] They work hard for all of us.

♪ They work hard for the honey ♪ ♪ So hard for the honey ♪ - We're here at Greens Do Good, where they have the best butter lettuce and microgreens.

FYI, next time you see them on your plate, make sure you try 'em.

They are the best part of the meal.

So let's go.

Jen, this is an amazing space.

I am just so excited to be here.

Now, you're doing so many dope things in the community and you're specifically helping the autism community.

How did all of this come about?

- We're called REED Autism Services.

Nearly half of all 25 year olds with autism have never held a paying job, and we wanted to work really hard to solve for that.

- [Angela] When you walk in the door, it's filled with organization, it's filled with love, and it's filled with a purpose.

- We really think it's important to provide vocational training, but not just that, food literacy.

We think it's important to remember where your food is grown is so important.

What it's grown in is so important.

We don't use pesticides, we don't use herbicides.

We're produce with a purpose.

- My friend, Brandon, is about to show me how to harvest.

Hey, Brandon.

- Hi!

- Thank you so much, Brandon.

I'm here to help you.

So, what are we gonna do today?

- I am going to pack the basil into the bag.

- Okay.

How much do we put in here?

- One or two.

- One or two?

What?

Thank you.

- That's good and healthy.

- It's good and healthy?

How'd I do?

- Good.

- I did good?

- Yes.

- Awesome!

Thank you so much, Brandon.

I really appreciate it.

Imagine being able to farm without soil and being able to get leafy greens all year round.

What could be better than that?

- It wasn't until I became a farmer that I just got introduced by a whole new world of different vegetables and greens.

A lot of people don't realize that this is not just a garnish.

These actually have a lot of flavor in them.

- So, what kind of nutrients go into making these hydroponic plants?

Because I know that it's grown without soil.

- Right.

So in the case of microgreens specifically, these are embryonic leaves that already contain an inert amount of energy in them while they're in a seed.

And so when we're consuming a microgreen, we're taking all of that energy for ourself.

- Yes, yes.

- Yeah, so this one is actually called bull's blood beet.

And I promise that it's vegan.

- Okay.

- It gets its name from its bright red stems.

And this is a beet plant.

So, again, if we were to let this grow out, eventually it would produce an entire beet.

But for now, it's typically used as a garnish.

And it does have a nice bite to it as well.

- Ooh.

I like that.

With the nutrients that you're using in order to grow these plants, what is different from the plants that we get outside, and how is that nutrient different?

- In a system like this, I actually have the opportunity to track exactly what the plants are getting.

So we'll use a measurement called the EC.

It stands for electrical conductivity.

And this number is representative of how much nutrient is in the water.

And this is something that you can't do in soil.

We harvest everything day of, and it gets shipped out to our clients the same day.

So chances are if you're going to the store today, we just had a shipment that went out today, so you're gonna buy stuff that was harvested today.

- "A Rose That Grew From Concrete" by the late Tupac Shakur is a metaphor for resilience and being able to thrive in difficult circumstances.

Urban farming is just that, creating spaces in concrete jungles in cities across the country, providing solutions to nutritious food and bringing underserved communities together.

- I want people to understand that urban agriculture comes with its own different cultural diversity.

And every garden or farms site we go to is completely different from the previous one.

- Ooh, I'm excited.

- Yeah, I'm excited too.

And as we approach, as it says here on the billboard, Rabbit Hole Farm, welcome.

And let's see what they have going on.

- People aren't gonna eat what we grow 'cause they don't understand the value of healthy, nutritious food.

I said, they're afraid of nature.

So we totally changed our concept.

We stopped growing these crops that we were turning into compost and started doing with medicinal stuff and herbs and let's say, vegetables that were interesting and we could educate people on.

'Cause it would attract them.

"Oh, wow, this is good for my diabetes," or, "This is good for my skin, my bones."

- I know what it's like to go to bed hungry.

I know what it's like not to have access to get healthy food.

I just know what it's like not to have access to food in general.

When I'm put in a position to create some significant change in the community and someone's life, I tend to just act on it without giving it much thought.

- What I'm finding is that people are not, you know, putting the relationship with food to how they are operating day to day.

And health is our biggest currency, so... - I wanna say amen, 'cause, you know, you're preaching my gospel.

Well, it can be their first stop to becoming reconnected with where food comes from and knowing how to properly read labels, knowing how to support their local farmer through the supermarket, as well.

And so it's so much benefits that a person can have when they come in contact with growing food in a urbanized, populated community.

[group laughs] - So I think that people have this idea that a farm is, like, neatly trimmed hedges and parallel rows and everything is mowed down, and then there's, like, a little cow somewhere.

We practice regenerative agriculture here at the Hawthorne Avenue Farm.

- When people come to you, what are some of the biggest questions, as in what they can grow and what they can't grow?

- People who grew up in urbanized, industrialized communities, they've become so disconnected with nature and where food comes from.

They become so conditioned to their own habitat.

I knew nothing about certain leafy greens until I got into this work.

And so growing up in my household, collards was like, you know, that was like the god of all greens, you know?

- Yes.

There's so much culture and there's so much history in agriculture as a whole.

But when you're dealing with your food, it's important for you to understand, you know, your past in order to go to the future.

What are some of the things that people are not understanding with the relationship with the food that they are consuming?

- The legacy of many cultures is deeply rooted in the connection of themselves and their eating habits to the land.

Much of the negative habits or harmful habits that have crept into various patterns of eating for folks, both in urban areas and in rural areas, is not because of the history and culture from which they come, but from the history and culture of the economics of agriculture and food systems.

It is oftentimes having trees and open spaces taken out of our communities, where people used to grow food, and having it replaced by more housing and grocery stores and corner stores, where we began to have more and more dependency on processed food and meat products.

As we continue to evolve and to remember and to reflect and to connect to the land, we stay connected to our roots, respecting the importance of culture and finding ways to take all this wonderful things we're learning about plant-forward and plant-based and fiber and healthy eating and connect that to our individual cultures.

So it really becomes a rebirth of these lessons that come from time immemorial, as opposed to just a trend.

Because the more you can understand it's not something that you're, a new suit of clothes you're putting on, but it's really a suit of clothes that didn't fit you, that you're taking off, and you're rediscovering who you truly are, that it becomes something that you carry with you, and you don't just drop it when the trend is over.

- Yes, ma'am.

Are you inspired or motivated yet?

The plant-forward lifestyle is changing lives daily.

And as you can see, the seeds of change is rooted in knowing where your food comes from.

Now, this is not about sacrifice.

This is changing old habits, creating a healthier you, protecting your environment, and being the best version of yourself.

I'm Angela Yvonne, and this is "Vegan Pop Eats."

♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ - We work through our challenges.

[laughs] - Do anymore, everybody's gonna be out there dancing and popping.

[dramatic music] - Do you smell that?

- Smell what, Captain?

- A smoker, son!

Nothing else in the world smells like that!

I love the smell of a smoker in the morning!

It smells like ethical beekeeping practices!

♪ It's a bee world after all ♪ [Captain B. Sting hiccups] ♪ It's a bee world after all ♪ [Captain B. Sting coughs]