Finding The Sweet Spot

Hi, my name's Wendy, and I'm in charge of passion and sparkle at ALMOST PERFECT, where I help women over 45 reclaim their identity.  No more people pleasing, overeating and not feeling good enough; changing their lives to be happy. No diets, no shame, no judgement.

This week I'm joined by my special guest Marcia from Abundance Foods, and if you love sweet food then you'll absolutely love Marcia, the Queen of all things tasty and healthy.

Do you think your sweet tooth is a problem, yes? 

​Is that because...
​​You want to eat healthily​ but struggle to give up your sweet treats?

• Your cravings for sweet things trip you up when you're trying to lose weight?
• Your excessive sugar intake is creating health problems for you?
• You feel isolated. Your friends and family can't get enough of the stuff, but you want to reign it in?

If you're answering YES to any of these questions...then listen carefully.

• 21:57 - The Sugar Dip
• 25:21 - 80/20 Rule
• 28:25 - Marcia's Pet Peeve
• 30:50 - Protein Sources for Vegetarians and Vegans
• 35:17 - Marcia's Top Tip!

If you'd like to connect with Marcia you can visit:
Her website | Her Blog | Her Facebook group | Her Instagram account

And if you'd like to know a little more about me and my journey of body shame and not being enough click here, visit www.almostperfect.me/about

Or....

Connect with me on:
Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | Pintrest

Chapters

• 21:57 The Sugar Dip
• 25:21 80/20 Rule
• 28:25 Marcia's Pet Peeve
• 30:50 Protein Sources for Vegetarians and Vegans
• 35:17 Marcia's Top Tip!

Transcript

Hi, and welcome to the almost perfect podcast. I'm Wendy and I am almost perfect, but not quite, if you are a woman who's inundated with the things you need to do and the people you need to do those things for, if you were as well. Or if you think you started to lose your identity, you recognize yourself anymore.

Then you're in the right place.

You amazing. And you are, I'm going to help you see that in true Italian style and let's have a chat. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Oh, do you have done that way too loud? Again? It happens every week or every time I've got a special guest and this week I have a special guest Marsha Marsha. Oh my God. You are going to love Marsha because Marsha is one of the sweetest, sweetest, sweetest ladies in more ways than one.

Well, I'm going to tell you Marsia makes absolutely stunning desserts. Sweet. So anyone with a sweet tooth? Marsia is your lady so welcome? Marsia oh, hi. Greetings everybody. Thank you so much for having me on when that's my absolute passion. You're based in Leeds on you. Brilliant. Okay. So we met with.

Quite a few years ago, I think probably on, on a Facebook group about wellbeing. So your involved in making beautiful, sweet things. Can you just tell us a little bit about what you do and what made you decide to do what you actually do now? Yeah, well, I'm living, I'm not, I never set out to set up a business.

And he very possibly had heard that one before. And I suppose that speaks to And if you believe in that, say in about having a Y and that you know, a lot of people haven't, I think there's whole books devoted to it about having a pair purse. And sometimes you don't always know that we're all here for a purpose, and then you eventually work out what your purpose is.

And I guess that steers you to you know, whether you're gonna set up a business or do a podcast or whatever it is. And I. Another thing I like about, about my business, that it came from my own journey, my own personal journey. So quite a few years ago well I have a significant number of years ago, actually.

I decided that I needed to eat a much healthier, healthier diet and look after myself better. And some of that was prompted by the fact that my father developed type two diabetes. And it basically, he didn't look after his health. And as you may or may not know with diabetes type two diabetes, you can live a full, healthy full and healthy, active life with type two diabetes.

If you're mindful and taking care of the adjustments that you need to make your diet and your lifestyle. And, and unfortunately that didn't happen. And so we succumbed to the. The side effects of having type two diabetes and not managing it properly. And it just highlighted to me that our generation, I think we've got so much more information and so much, so many more opportunities to live healthy lifestyles with certain illnesses and diseases without having to you know, Create an end of life kind of situation.

And I think that, you know, I just needed to take up that opportunity really. And like I said, just look after myself much better. So I started looking at, I think that there's the big catalyst for me was finding out that actually your food is a significant part of your. Your lifestyle. And and I really believe in like kind like diets and restrictive kind of.

Enjoyment of food. I love you because I know that that might not apply to certain other people, but I think when you, when you read into this and all the information is available freely on the internet about this, and I've just done it from my own reading, you know, I'm not on trend sh Fisher nest or psychologist or any of that kind of thing, but I am really fascinated.

How we behave as humans and how, how much power we have to influence the way our lives can go. Don't get me wrong. There are many things that can make us feel powerless. But I think we've, we've confused what power is. And we feel that, you know, government has power and, and food manufacturers are power.

And everyone else has power balls and we've got the biggest amount of power once we know that and, and overstand that, and, and put it into, into, into practice really. So I started to realize that actually, you know, you w you food and what you drink and that kind of stuff. And to a degree, your external environment should leave you feeling.

Yeah. You know, feeling nourished and satiated and satisfied and happy and joy, and like bouncing with joy really. That's generally how I feel about, about it. And I also realized that the food that we eat and. Obviously affects us physically, but it can affect us significantly, psychologically and spiritually as well.

And, and so I think that when, once you wove a stands, that then you realize that actually, you know, this low mood that I might have, or, or this you know, some of the, sort of the feelings that we ended up having. That we think we have no control over. They can be really impacted by our food and our relationship with food as well.

You know, I think we do a lot of relationship. Work on our friends and our families are now an employment and that kind of stuff, but our relationship with food, this sort of significant and of course you deal a lot with sweet things, don't you as well. And that's where a lot of people fall down because they feel that they need a treat.

So they get automatically go for sweet because that is what makes the brain. You know, it's really, really good for me. And then that's what of course when the depths and the things come in, isn't it. So you, you found a way of, of satisfying yourself, but with healthy and it is really, it's still beautiful stuff.

It's still, well, we we'll we'll we'll, we'll talk about that later on, but it's still really, really tasty. And, and it looks fantastic too. Cause if you see Marcy's website, oh my God. I've actually, if I spit quite a lot during this, this, because I was looking at your, I was looking again at your, your there's a lime cheese cake.

And the thing I have got this thing about is salted caramel and you've got a. But a picture of your salted caramel thought. I see. I'm getting rid of, can you see, I'm getting excited, which just talking about, but you've got this salt and caramel thing and I read a review on it and there was a woman who said I was sitting and I used to eating it out of the jar.

And if I had that, I can assure you that if I have that, that is what I would do because I have this thing. But, but things like, but that is because you're what you've made. See, I'm starting to know so excited. What you make is a healthy version. So you, you, you can enjoy things. It, it is. It's just that you're you take as natural.

Yeah. And yeah. So just back to what we're saying, I can be, I can be under, off to the other side of the world when I guess I'm quite passionate about it. So yeah, so as I was starting to eat healthier and look after myself better and, and, and be more mindful of what was putting into my body and its impact and stuff, I, I, you know, I had to face up to the fact that my sweet tooth was tripping me up.

So, you know, I go for a big, long run and, you know, are the prime, primarily healthy food and this and the other. And then it got to the supermarket and you know, I could get four for mass pass for pound door, or, you know, four touches for a pound of whatever other sweets. And and I realized that it's this type of stuff that was tripping me up and back then it was starting to make me feel guilty and crappy and, and, and you know, not great about it.

And again, you function never leave you feeling like that now. So I started to. Well, I took responsibility for that and realize that, you know, nobody comes into, I have the say in that, and I'll be littering, this, this chat with lots of these scenes that have, but one of my big sayings is that nobody comes into your.

Into your fridge at two o'clock in the morning and forces you to go in there and that stuff that you shouldn't be absolutely. There's nobody holding that over your it's only you. And so therefore it was only me that had to take responsibility for that. I can't blame the food manufacturers for making it see, oh, you know, my life is complete when I have this stuff in it and this kind of stuff, I have to take responsibility for.

You know, my relationship with food and why I was craving things and that kind of stuff. And so I started to experiment in my kitchen with trying to make healthy. Versions of the things that, you know, well, like tripping me up and that coincided with a time in my life where I met, I met a guy at a networking event and he told me about these gatherings that people have called vegan.

So basically everybody comes together and meets or somebodies house, and everybody brings a vegan dish with them. Right. And we all lay all out and everybody just kind of like talks in and, and the idea is you know, it's it it's for those people who, you know, enjoy you know, vegan or vegetarian food, but it's also for the people that might be what they called vegan here.

So, you know, that might be thinking about wanting to start on, on more live them on vegan lifestyle, but don't know where to start. And so it's it's just a meeting of like-minded people all getting together and sharing information and sharing tips and helping one. To get on that journey, really, because a lot of the time with certain things you know, if you say like vegan or vegetarian to some people that they're physically shorter the idea of it, because I think it's going to be like flavor, cardboard and tweets, and it's going to be boring and not tasty and all of that.

And it's great to be in an environment where, what I think is also very important where people are accepting. And I'm an inclusive, and I'm not beating you around, you know, brow beat in your, about the fact that, you know, you still might eat animals or wear leather or wherever it is, you know, it's people helping you along with the journey.

And so just just from that, really, I started to realize that it was, I'm surrounded by all this abundance of ingredient. Healthy ingredients that you can use to create many of the sweet things that we're all kind of like, you know, really fascinated and taken with until the combination of that and like experimenting in my kitchen and creating things and sharing them with like family and friends and stuff.

And, you know, I do see, you know, they give me feed. And I just get quite anal about it and say, well, that was, that change will make you have a juice that, and what have you. And I just think to be compile obsessive. Thinking well, yeah. That's Amar most of the way there with that. If I just tweak it like this and that kind of stuff, and that's what I doing.

And I just seem to have got better at that. And people started saying to me, you know, what is so good? You know, you should set up a business. And the rest is history, I suppose, was fantastic story. The reason I, well, I like it all, but the reason I like it is because you recognize that you were responsible for what you were doing to yourself and you had a choice and you made the choice of recognizing you had a problem and make and deciding do something about it rather than trying to blame somebody else.

Because that, that is, that is the whole thing. As soon as you take responsibility and think I'm going to change, that is when the magic happens. And not only did he do that, but now you're helping. Other people who who love sugar and, and have the same problem, cause most, a lot of people have the same problem helping them.

And that's absolutely amazing. It's an, a brilliant, brilliant business to have and you, well, that's why, that's why you're here. Thank you. And let's say them as it was starting to learn more about our food and what's in it and you know why it's not always leaving us necessarily very feeling like really bonded and joyful and blessed and stuff is because.

So many more people are having problems with certain kinds of ingredients and additives and things. And so you know, the core feature of, of our, my USP, if you want, for a marketing term of my products is that they're free from dairy gluten. We saw. Refined sugar, eggs, Palm oil, and the chemicals or preservatives and flavorings that are not like naturally found in nature.

And, and, and, and a lot of people would think, well, what else is there? But there is so much more than, than all the things that we have been led to believe that we need. And in actual fact, as you say, most of your, your stuff is raw, isn't it? So it's not even cooked. Most of it is raw. Yes. And I started out doing raw versions of things.

So for instance foam to my, my cheesecakes that I do when I first started making them, they was just so you know, a general traditional cheesecake will have like big biscuit crumbs and you crush them up and add like butter or to those. But I, when I first started, I started my basis, which was made from.

Not. Raisins dicks at sweeten them with a Garvey that had some coconut oil in there and cat cow, which is like a roll version of chocolate, really. And the idea behind raw again, it's something that people can get confused about or scared of, but basically what we're were means. And obviously I'm not referring to like me and stuff that you should cook here.

I'm just talking about how our ingredients are processed because. There's a lot of research out there that shows that the less heat that you apply to, especially the more, the more natural ingredients and the less you're likely to destroy all the vitamins and minerals and nutrients and antioxidants and things that you know is abundant in nature.

Really? Yeah. So Th the less heat you can apply the better. And like I said, I, I you know, the more I was chatting to people, the more I was realizing that people were having so many issues with all those things that blue within the day area and all of those types of things. And back then, when I started making mine, there was a lot of them, it was emerging onto the market now, more healthier versions of our sweet treat, but in a lot of ways, that was the issue with a lot of the research.

Some people that felt like they were too healthy, if that makes sense. It, they, they just didn't necessarily feel like they were really rich and indulgent and that kind of thing. And, and this is one of the key things that I say about my product was even though I said that, you know, there's no dairy gluten wheat.

So all of those things, sometimes you say that to people and you can see that Cox turning into. Well, that will taste very nice. I always follow that up by saying I insist that they test very indulgent. Because the idea is that, you know, you can still have an indulgent tree, but, you know, just using nature's harvest of things.

And without all the, and there's nothing wrong, you know, if people like all the chemicals and that kind of stuff in their food, and they think they're in such small quantities, that it doesn't bother them and that kind of stuff, then that's fine. I'm not, I'm not bashing anybody for enjoying their treats that way, but I just think.

You know, just from meeting people like yourself and, and, and other people that we've met in the wellbeing groups and those kinds of things. We we've all seen that. There's a shift in people now. We've I was saying before, we've never had more access to information and an opportunity to really shift how we look at forward and our relationship we fold and you know, how, what we see as a treat.

And I think. The word treat. I'm not quite sure w you know, where the term treat was coined from bones. When you think about it in the English language treat can also be about how you behave towards something or something else, or some person. And I like to see it as you know, it has two meanings, it's a tree, but it's also about how you treat in your body.

And it's important how you treat your body just the way just as it is as important, how you treat your mind. Hmm. You know, you will know yourself that, you know, if you speak to yourself and say that you're, you're a terrible person, you're bad, you're ugly your thought your, this and that and all these kinds of stuff.

And these horrible things that we sometimes say to us, We're not treating our mind particularly well when we behave like that towards ourselves. And so I think that you're, you should look at your food the same way and use it to treat your body because you love your body. Yes. Not in a narcissistic way, but you know, You know all the psychologists and that kind of people will tell you that, you know, you have to love yourself before you can look for the people, not in a narcissistic way.

And I think if you, as part of that, if you're going to treat yourself well, then you should treat what you put into your body as well, as well as you can. Yeah. As I know, a lot of people suffer or a lot of people feel that they're dieting and I won't mention the name of the swimming clubs, but but you have things like.

Coca-Cola chicken. And because it's, they think it's low in calorie, they think that it's doing them good. But the fact is that the Coca-Cola that they using, and we all know that Coca-Cola is the most terrible stuff. You can clean the toilet with it. Your, your, your thinking that you're doing yourself good by, by only looking at one factor, which is the amount of calories that's going in.

Yeah, but the fact is the most of those calories are chemical calories as a slightly say, if people are fast, what people want that that's absolutely fine. But the thing is you're more important. You're more important than taking in really nasty chemicals that you've paid over the odds for when you could be having something that's really good for you makes you feed on top of the world is easy to reproduce.

It doesn't contain anything nasty. That's going to do your insides. Then it's actually going to make you feel much more, better in the long run. It will make you feel an awful lot better inside, have more energy. And and you're not going to get the depths because again, if you're using natural products, you're not getting the depths and highs and lows with when you, when your sugar runs out, when your energy starts to wane, because it's.

It's expired. That's my name? That's my lecture. Sorry. No, no. All you just touched on something there about the sugars and this is why I only use like on refined sugars because when you overprocess and refine sugar or any product, really, you know, you strip it, strip out a lot of, it's not natural, good things.

And, and they find that they found that with there are certain types of sugars that They don't spike your blood sugar levels as much as you know, the more refined sugars. Yes. And you can go on them. You know, I always encourage people to go online and do their own research, but I don't think people know this, but there are, I think it's, we're up to 56 different names for sugar and you know, a lot of the time, this is what's confusing, a lot of people.

Cause you remember, I remember a few years ago there was all this emphasis on the sugar. And the idea was about, you know, a lot of food manufacturers are using too much sugar in their products and from their point of view, we act as a preservative. So yeah, the, you know, that's great for them, but especially when a lot of these products are flawed, you know, halfway across the world and that kind of stuff, you know, you want them to last.

You know, outlive a nuclear war kind of thing. And but that's like having an impact on us and, and the truth is we're all generally eating too much sugar, too much added sugar. Yes. But there is don't get me wrong. I'm not here saying that. The but you can go look on refined sugar as well.

It's about, you know, managing your quantities and things balanced. Yes, but like I say, it, they're less likely to spike your blood sugar levels and give you that, that high. And then that dip, because the dip is a committed, dangerous time for a lot of people, because that's when there might be more likely to reach for what's in the vending machine, you know?

And all too often, many of these vendor machines are really full of, you know, you, you, you know yourself there's the, not so many alternatives in there. And, and then quite often, if you've got that blue, that blood sugar, Then sometimes you're over focusing on eat, eating, and again, it can be undoing your good liberal relationship with full, particularly if you are trying to die or you are trying to change your lifestyle and that kind of thing.

And that can because that's an unnatural behavior that you're creating in, in, in your, you know, your brain's activity, it can make you want to reach for something on natural. And I don't believe that we're meant to have such an excessively sweet. As we have, but there is lots of research that I've read about certain behaviors.

Shall we say that food manufacturers engage in and one of them is something called head-on X. And it is essentially put, put really simply it's about creating a situation where you know creating food or food store. But what they do is they send signals to your brain, not to switch off that you've had too much sugar.

So this is why, you know, if you look you've probably heard about how many teaspoons a Colker in like, say for argument's sake, a two-liter bottle of Coke, the full, full sugar version. Yeah. Normally speaking as humans, we're not supposed to be able to drink off a two liter bottle of Coke like that because there's far too much sugar for our body to deal with and process naturally.

But yet we can, and we see many, many people doing that in particularly children and they've manipulated our food in a way that it's switching those signals. To tell you that you've had too much sugar now, and that is not great. It's just really quite horrifying. And you know, like I said, this is one of the reasons why I stay away from a lot of these over-processed things.

Because And I said, I've just learned a lot of this stuff just through reading and being inquisitive, but like says ultimately about taking responsibility for how are you to act with my thoughts? My relationship with it really. And so, like it says, I do still use some sugar. There's probably scope for in the future to be completely sugar-free there's a lot of people talk a lot about being completely sure.

And et cetera, et cetera. And then I think that's great, but you know, from the customers that I have and the people that I talk to, they do want some sugar in that route, but I try and use the minimum that I can get away with if you like, because I also think that and I don't know if this happens with you or with some of your listeners, but there's particularly now because I've cut back on the amount of sugar that I have in my diet and my processed sugars.

And. The sometimes you can eat some things sweet and it's so sweet. What I call makes your teeth rattle. Yes, it does. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and sometimes I can feel the taste on my I can feel a change in the texture of my tone as well when I'm having. Process stuff. Yeah. You know, I could sit here and say that, you know, I'm one of these, my body's a temple and all that kind of stuff, but that's not me.

I'd be lying if I said that because I would describe it. If I had to put a label on it, I'd say that 80% of my value is, is healthy and well nourished and that kind of stuff. And then 20% of the time, you know, I'll eat stuff that I'm probably not supposed to. Because that's just how I am. I, you know, I'm, I'm not, I'm not paid.

Embodiment of, you know, how I should necessarily treat my body, but you're saying that, but that is actually, that's what I tell people. 88 80 20 is absolutely perfect because there's no way in the world, unless you're an athlete or you're doing it for, for work. There's absolutely no way that you're going to stick to that all the time.

There's no human being can. So an 80 20 split is absolutely perfect. Enjoy a glass of wine, enjoy whatever you like, but do it responsibly and have, and make sure that the most of that, most of the time you're eating well. And that's exactly. And you, you, you say that. That's two of us. And like you say, it just, it just works for me.

It works for me. And it means that, you know, I'm not lacking, received before feeling guilty or crying about my food. And you know, when I do indulge in the 20%, you know, I am, I don't hold back. So if I'm going to do it, I really do it. So if I'm going to have fish and chips, I'll have fish and chips with scrapped and

I might have some as well. And so I know that, you know, Probably cooked in lard or whatever, you know, it's not a healthy way of eating fish and chips. Although I have their healthier options sometimes, and sometimes they do make an effort cause we cook most of my meals from scratch. So sometimes it will make a healthier version of fish and chips out of colic, pasta, fish, and chips.

But there's just some times where you just need to lard as I call it and I'll go out and enjoy that and I'll enjoy every mouthful. And then I know that tomorrow. You know, I need to be back on it. So, you know, I'll be back on the water, drink a lot of fluids, I think you know, keeping the hydration levels up and just drinking water.

It's one of the, the, the pure rest and simplest ways to like flush out all the toxins that you might take in and your body. Brilliant. So I'll do that. And then I'll probably have a, have a vitamin boost the next day. So I'll make sure that you know, my smoothie has got some extra vitamins minerals and that kind of thing in there.

Yeah. And just said to my body, you know what? I know I abused you yet efficient chip, but I do. I do love you and I'm not going to get back then, you know, giving you back some love today. Oh well, that's, that's beautiful. And I think that's a good way to think about your body. You've actually covered all the questions I was going to ask you without me having to even ask you about them.

it's fantastic. It's brilliant. The one question that I haven't covered at the moment is what is your top peeve? So what's, what is it that people think is incorrect about what you do or the things that people share that perhaps on social media, which you don't think is correct? I would probably say my biggest peeve would be that a lot of people believe that having a predominantly plant-based.

And I think I've touched on this before in the conversation that, you know, would be boring and tasteless and leave you feeling dissatisfied or like you were lucky in, in something. Because it's just like, like not true anymore. No. I mean, I, I've only been well, it's the idea of like eating a predominantly plant-based diet quite recently, but, you know, I speak to people of lots of different ages and many of the people that are are a bit wiser than me in years.

They. Many of them are being vegan or vegetarian. Plant-based whatever you want to call it for for decades. And they remember what it was like in the old days and how, what a struggle and what a challenge it was. And like we're seeing now it isn't like that anymore. It doesn't need to be like that.

And you know, I just really love people to just try even you know, Think about the idea of perhaps having a more conduct plant-based diets because, you know, there's obviously you know, me and my obsession with it and my passion about it, but you know, there's more and more research coming out now that showing us that the harm to our environment and our planet is not just being done by us.

You know, taking holidays abroad and driving Gaskell's linked has, you know, one of the biggest impacts on the damage to the planet. The mass food production system. Yeah. It's all the resources that you use. So, you know, there's, there's this figures out that can tell you how much water it takes to produce just one beef burger.

You know, how much Lum this begin set aside and not be made available to everybody. It's been set aside for growing of certain crops and that kind of stuff. There's massive destruction of the rainforest and all the ecosystems to plant things like Palm oil and that kind of stuff. Like I said, I don't use using my products and I try not to eat it as well.

What about your protein intake? How do you keep that up? Like I say before, when I started out making that much cheesecakes as an example, I used a lot of knots. So there really Not and likely tombs, beans, pulses, those kinds of things are really good sources of protein, lentils, chickpeas tofu Sonya alternatives.

Good for some people that, that might you consume soy. I don't agree with soil, so I don't use it in my products, generally eat it. But it's a great source of protein for, for people that do. So Mike says you've got all your notes. You've got things like chia seeds and Groundlings seed hemp seed. So all those things can be used to make things like burgers nice stews and stuff like that, can't they?

Yeah, absolutely. And things like slack seeds and all of those kinds of things. And those kinds of the kinds of things that, you know, a while ago you would have to search really hard and you probably have to find a health food shop to get them in. But now they're all available in that even the The, what we call the disrupt in supermarkets, like your Aldi's and your levels and stuff.

You can buy pockets, pockets of that kind of stuff there. Yeah. And even here in Italy is a little different, it's starting to, it's starting to come around to it, but it, it, I mean, in the last five years, it's certainly got a lot better and we certainly do have the dried pulses and things like that. But even here now, we, we're seeing a lot more of that sort of stuff, which is really handy because.

I live in this area particularly is very rich. It's a farming area. So there's lots of pork and lamb here. So again, if you go out for a meal there aren't very many, if you go for a vegetarian or a vegan, it can be quite a challenge, but even now it's, it's starting to get a lot better. So I know in the UK, you know, it's anything you can think almost there now.

It's great. Yes, yes, absolutely. And one of my other motivations with it, with the business as well, is that a. I always used to think it might say one of the things that held me back from having a more plant-based diet was that you'd look on the menu when it's, like you said, you know, there'll be a vegetarian dish and that love cheese in it.

So you know, it could be again, you know, there, and then when, when it comes to the sweets, which you know, is, is one of my favorite, obviously one of my favorite things. It would tell me to be like a fruit salad or a Solvay and don't get me wrong. I've got no issue with fruit salad or Sobeys that really nutritious and healthy and grapes.

Well, it just wants something different. Don't, you know, it's that you go out with a big group of people and they're all talking into this rich indulgent, salt, caramel cheesecake, and you're there with the fruits of that. And then sometimes it's come out of a 10 sort of Sera. I know there's just not a pocket.

It just feels really lazy. And an unfulfilling really. So and there's actually a woman out. I can't remember her name, but I have her book always tired. And the book's called vegans deserve better than fruit salad. And because you know, it's obviously irritated her as well. And she's like, I think she's like a, like a pastry chef and stuff.

And so it's just to like give people that option really and allow people to house them, have a nice tree. But you know, I appreciate that it can be difficult if. If you you know, if you're in an area, like you said, where traditionally, you know, they like things really rich and, and, and that kind of stuff.

And as you were talking there, I was thinking about where the Italian ice creams and the Italian terrible SU is that what time? Yes. Oh, no, no, no. Stop. Tiramisu is ah, mascarpone eggs. Ah, it's delicious, but maybe you couldn't maybe, maybe that's your next challenge. Do a tiramisu. Yes, there is definitely a vegan term assumed to be hard.

And so it's on my list of things to create really. So one of the products I make is is a a vegan lemon curd, cheese care. And unlike the idea that it is really, it is still really, really rich. So I use like coconut milk in there and yeah, make it lighter by using so normally when you'd make him things lighter, you use things like egg white as an example.

So Moran, you can get a plant-based version of Moraga, something called aquafaba, ah, basically the EAs you know, when you buy a tin of chickpeas, you buy them in teams or in the cartons, and normally you put it open or open the. And you'll pull the juice down the sink and then just have the chickpeas left.

Well, that juice there is called aquafaba. And if you whisk that, just like you would with egg whites, it behaves like egg white. Wow. It's a miracle. And I was chatting with somebody the other day about the. But discovered this and it needs to be given a Nobel peace prize or some wow. Because it is, it's an, a remade and obviously you know, egg, egg, white and egg yolk have the wrong particular benefits and stuff.

But if you think about that that's the water from chickpeas. So you've got all your protein in there. Some of the protein from the peas is likely to sit into that liquid and it means it's completely plummeted. And you know, it's got all these, whatever it's between it's minerals or whatever it's got in that, in that water.

And she can have all of those benefits, but without you know, if you've got an allergy to eggs or you're trying to you know, have a more plump plant-based lifestyle. It's all these things that I'm kind of like discovering them things like we use corn con flour or cold starters. Some people said they used to thicken soups and sauces and things like that.

And there's nothing wrong with that. But I, me personally, I believe that the certain products like corn and soy and those kinds of things that really over the process and quite often the genetic genetically modified as well. So I don't have any GMO stuff in my ingredients. So a really good alternative that I assume they called Arabic.

Which completely comes completely from a plant. And it behaves in very much the same way. I remember my mum having that actually years ago, or my grandmother having that, using that. So now you've said you've mentioned arrow root. Yeah. And it's just, you know, like I said, it's just knowing that there's just such an abundance of natural plant-based ingredients and.

Additions that we can add to our, to our food and our desserts or our meals, or what have you with. Having to go down the EAD number routes and that kind of stuff. Well, that's absolutely amazing. Thank you so much, Marcia, because you've, you've covered everything. You covered everything without me having to ask the questions you've given us some absolutely fantastic tips.

Given me something to think about as well with all the arrow root and things like that, and the chick pea water, which I'll definitely try. I'm going to, what I'm going to do is I'm sure that people are going to want to get in touch with you. So what I'm going to do is I've got your web address and your, all your links to your social media and everything.

I'm going to put that in the podcast notes so everyone can contact you. I would say a mass, if you go into Marcy's website and you have a look at her, absolutely amazing. She did the treats, the truffles, cheesecakes, the bars, the protein bars and stuff like that. Absolutely outstanding. Very, very good quality.

And as she says, with nothing added, or it's just all just beautiful goodness, and you can ship them as well. Can't you not miles like to here to Italy, but you do actually have a few things that you can ship out there. Yes. That's right. Yeah. So things like the things that won't be overly affected Cadillac by heat and that kind of stuff.

So like the granola bars and the energy bowl. It appears that Marcy is connection has disappeared. I'm not quite sure how, but thank you Marcy very much for everything. All the details will be in the links below, and I hope you really enjoyed that as much as I did. And that is the end of this podcast.

I hope you've enjoyed it. And I'll see you again soon. Ciao.