Healthy Enough and Vegan Enough: Dreena Burton on Plant Yourself Podcast 487
Channel: Sick to Fit | Plant Yourself Podcast
Date: 2021-10-19

Dreena Burton's first appearance on this podcast was in May, 2013, before this even was a podcast. I was just interviewing my favorite vegan cookbook authors just for the fun of it - I hadn't even figured out that I could get their publishers to send me free copies!

Then we had another chat in 2015 when her game-changing book, Plant Powered Families, came out in 2015: https://amzn.to/3vrf8uA

Well, that's a long time not to be connected with such a lovely person and amazing recipe-maker. So we talked again recently, about her latest book, Dreena's Kind Kitchen: https://amzn.to/3aSblNv

Rather than fanboy over the recipes, I wanted to explore the arc of Dreena's career as a cookbook author in the vegan/plant-based space. After all, she's been at this for 20 years now, and has witnessed (and contributed to) an astounding evolution in cooking and eating.

We talked about a bunch of stuff I was curious about:

What it was like to be a cookbook author before social media.
How she navigates the "kitchen appliance of the month" phenomenon and decides what's a useful addition and what's just a fad.
How the explosion in plant-based meat and dairy analogues have changed her world, both as a culinary influencer and a mom.
How she's navigated the conflict between the vegan and plant-based factions of the movement.
What's it's been like for each of us to meet our plant-based heroes (T. Colin Campbell, Neal Barnard, John and Ocean Robbins, etc.).
How she views her responsibility as a cook on the "front lines" of the plant-based movement.
How she navigates being a public persona for health and vitality, including portraits of herself on cookbook covers and blogs, with body image issues and aging.
The challenges in monetizing what has always been a "passion project," especially in an online world where "information wants to be free."
How Dreena went about conceptualizing Dreena's Kind Kitchen and how she decided which recipes to include.

Enjoy!
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