Accessible Ways to Eat to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint with NYT Bestselling Author Thomas Kostigen [Episode #863]

This week’s topic is: Accessible Ways to Eat to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint with NYT Bestselling Author Thomas Kostigen

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Thomas Kostigen, who is the author of the newly released book, Cool Food: Erasing Your Carbon Footprint One Bite At A Time. Listen in as Thomas shares his passion for the environment and social issues, and how it led him to write his book ‘Cool Food’, the concept of carbon footprint and its impact on the environment, the need for conscious food choices to make a positive impact on both personal health and the planet, and so much more.

TOPICS COVERED

12:00 Understanding Carbon Footprint
38:35 Making Conscious Food Choices
42:28 Understanding the Food System
43:04 Flexibility in Food Choices
45:18 Inexpensive and Versatile Grains
46:25 Reducing Packaging Waste
47:29 Empowering Food Choices
48:09 Understanding Expiration Dates and Food Waste

[FEATURED GUESTS]

About Thomas Kostigen

Thomas Kostigen is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning writer of numerous books on the environment and social issues. He penned the Climate Survivalist column for USA Today and the Better Planet column for Discover magazine and is a regular contributor to major publications worldwide.

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Introduction and Background

Kimberly Snyder (00:00.866)

Hi everybody and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited to have New York Times bestselling author, Thomas Costigan here with me today to celebrate and discuss his amazing new book called Cool Food, which he co-authored with Robert Downey Jr. Thomas, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Thomas (00:21.664)

Thanks for having me. And for anybody listening, there was a major tech breakdown, so I’m a little bit sweaty. And I appreciate Kimberly’s patience. Enjoy.

Kimberly Snyder (00:32.89)

So Thomas, I know that, well, I’m so excited to jump in. There’s a lot I want to talk to you about. But first of all, I understand that you love to talk about, you write a lot about the environment and social issues. And that’s really where your passion lies. So this book is really an extension of that.

Thomas (00:50.568)

Yeah, this is my 11th book. Most of what I’ve written has been in the environmental or social issues space for books, as well as journalism and some other work that I’ve done. So it’s really just been a passion of mine going on, almost 20 something years now. So it’s been a really interesting way to take a look at the world from this lens and really have a different perspective and a kind of a…

a pathway to, I don’t want to say empowerment because that sounds goofy, but it is a different way of taking a look at the world and saying, okay, what can we do to make it better? And that sounds altruistic, but at least you can say, okay, what can I do in this big matrix to try and have a little bit of agency in everything that’s going around with all of these threats, whether they’re physical, whether they’re…

you know, from the climate or otherwise, you know, mental health issues. What can I do in my life just to feel like I’m doing something? And that’s really.

Kimberly Snyder (01:59.158)

I love it. And I also love meeting a passionate writer and a passionate fellow writer. I’m publishing my seventh and eighth books this year too, Thomas. So when I meet someone, thank you. Also loves to write, also loves to be in that research writing cave, you know, really digging in. I really feel a immediate kinship. So again, so excited to dive in.

Thomas (02:08.64)

Wow. Congratulations. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (02:25.462)

Before I forget, I want to remind you loves that over on our website, mysaluna.com, we will have the show notes for today’s show. We’ll also have direct links to Thomas’s work as well as other podcasts. I think you would enjoy tons of articles, recipes, offerings, and more. So be sure to also check out mysaluna.com. All right, Thomas, I would like to know, as I was reading your wonderful book, I love how, again, the book is called…cool food, erasing your carbon footprint one bite at a time. So you, right away you dive into this is not a fat diet. This is not, you know, a limited program. This is really about a lifestyle. It’s about experience. To me, I see that as experiencing more connection, right? So we’re becoming more connected to the food. As you mentioned, what can we do? We’re all here, whether we like it or not, we are all connected to everything. We’re connected to each other. We’re connected to nature. We’re connected to what’s happening in the environment. So I wonder the very root, the genesis of where your passion for fostering and teaching about this deep connection even started. Did you grow up with parents that were quite conscious or along the way? Did you visit some farms and where did this come from?

Passion for the Environment and Social Issues

Thomas (03:47.312)

Yeah. Well, my background, you’ll know everything about me in one sentence, and that’s not where this came from. So I’m the youngest of nine kids from Boston. So, yeah, so you get the picture. So, you know, it wasn’t really, you know, everything ethnicity, you know, religious done. Yeah. But I did lose the accent. Whole different story.

Kimberly Snyder (03:58.358)

Wow.

Kimberly Snyder (04:06.837)

Yeah, I got some idea

Thomas (04:14.292)

But at the same time, being the youngest and seeing, it was really like a scrum for food in the house, right? And I have three brothers on top of me age-wise. So that was a lot of bruised shoulders and a lot of stealing of food when I was younger. So I was the last one on the line. But none of that really came through with cooking. This was just more of like, how can we get a mass amount of food on the table? And back then, my parents weren’t very much environmentally conscious, except my father had a huge garden. So we would start to guard with my father and try and understand what that was all about. But it wasn’t really until after, probably into my 20s, when I was probably six, seven years, eight years out of school, maybe even longer, when I really sort of got on this train of social issue. And I had gone to journalism schools, W Mass Communication, went to graduate school, short story, went to Washington, covered a lot of government agencies and Congress and that type of stuff, and then ended up in New York for a long time, for about 12, 15 years of my life, just working for magazines, doing a lot of different work that brought me into contact with people who were in journalism, but we also were experimenting with some documentaries and different things to express ourselves. And I got asked to do this documentary over in Ethiopia and I was revisiting the We Are the World Camps. So it’s like 1996, you know what we’re cutting to about now? And no, 2006, sorry, something like that. And what I was doing was revisiting the camps from the standpoint of, had anything changed? All of these musicians came out, there was this huge campaign, if you remember, like with everyone trying to get food into the mouths of the hungry. Really, really positive thing. And it opened my eyes to all of these issues at once, because when you’re in rural Ethiopia, it’s sustenance living. And so…

Kimberly Snyder (06:18.507)

Yes.

Thomas (06:35.788)

I had been there maybe a few days and had experienced what the culture was like and what was happening around me, kind of this Western white dude showing up. And I was doing this standup by a river bed. And then I saw this color purple in the distance. It’s about a thumbnail in size and got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And it came up to about my waist and it was about an eight-year-old girl in a purple dress.

And she asks my cameraman translator something and he responds, they have a little conversation and he says to me, and before he could get the words out of his mouth, Kimberly, I said, how much? Just like that, just cold, not really understanding the dynamic because we had been exposed to a lot of people coming up, obviously wanting things. And so my immediate thing was I need, I have a job to do.

let’s just get this, you know, what does she need and let’s move on and just real, you know, not really caring behavior. And he said, my cameraman said, Whoa, whoa, she, uh, she doesn’t really want money. She wants to know if we have a pencil and more of a conversation. And it turns out she wanted a pencil so she could do her homework. So, you know, more of a conversation and, you know, right then and there, it’s kind of like, whoa.

Kimberly Snyder (07:50.094)

Oh.

Kimberly Snyder (07:56.268)

Wow.

Awakening to the Impact of Actions

Thomas (08:02.664)

All right, all the empathy comes out, all the sympathy, and I was giving her whatever I could and then checking myself. But what it did beyond just the understanding of, you know, quick to judge, was if I could do something with a physical pencil, and who knows whether she went back and did her homework or what happened, you know, there. But the idea that I could change…

perhaps someone’s life, maybe a village’s life, maybe this could have some impact that would have a huge ripple effect, woke me up. And I said, well, I have a proverbial pencil in what I do for a living. So why don’t I change what I’m doing, just covering things and reporting on stuff and be more prescriptive in what I’m doing. And maybe be prescriptive in giving people the tools to change their lives in a way.

Kimberly Snyder (08:52.194)

Mmm.

Thomas (08:58.192)

And this is when we’re just waking up to environmentalism. So it was like 2006, 2007. And then I wrote a book called The Green Book and I started writing columns and The Green Book provided hundreds of solutions to what you could do in your everyday life to help the world. And it came out just after an inconvenient truth hit theaters. So my timing was like there. The book had all the answers that inconvenient truth raised the questions to.

Kimberly Snyder (09:01.74)

Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (09:19.259)

Ah.

Thomas (09:27.744)

And that became kind of a big deal. And so that set me on this journey of saying, well, okay, what can we do to people, places, and things all over the world? And what do people, places, and things all over the world have an effect on us? And so what is this kind of symbiotic dance that we’re doing? And how can we change that for the better? And so that’s kind of, you know, been the thesis of all my work for a long time.

Kimberly Snyder (09:43.954)

Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (09:56.718)

Wow. I love that story. I’m sure she remembers.

Thomas (10:01.652)

Just kidding.

Kimberly Snyder (10:08.49)

You know, I don’t want to go too much on attention here because I have so much I want to discuss on your book, but I just want to share briefly, Thomas, that my mother came from the Philippines on an academic scholarship and she came from a very poor family. And similarly how you described, there was always this idea of food, like lack and scarcity. So she was a tiny woman, but whenever we went to a restaurant and I didn’t finish my food, she would…

eat every single thing on the plate. She would eat everything on her plate because it was just this, you know, it’s there. You have to get it. So it was interesting how, you know, I grew up kind of considering that, wow, there’s this other, because I didn’t feel that at all, right? Growing up in the United States. And at the same time, I saw this really powerful woman who was able to kind of claw out of poverty on the scholarship and change her life. So similarly to you, I was inspired by

wow, we really can bring change. You know, it’s just all these different pathways when you were speaking. It’s amazing how these situations, our families and what we witness really do influence our lives work. But yeah, thank you for sharing that. And you know, I really felt that in my heart, that was such a beautiful beginning. And I wasn’t expecting to, it had so much heart in your beginnings, you know.

Understanding Carbon Footprint

wasn’t, oh, I just went to school and studied environmental science, which is also great, but there was these really personal experiences. And I can feel that in your book that it’s coming from this deeper connected place, this real passion for these little shifts. If we all make them, they’re not so micro, right? It’s like circles upon circles. It starts to make great change. So let’s dive right in, Thomas. There’s a lot that I want to say here. First of all, let’s talk about carbon footprint for a minute.

because this gets tossed around, greenhouse gases. Sometimes we don’t really understand specifically how our food choices can impact these big concepts. Can you just give us sort of an overarching explanation for those of us listening or watching that doesn’t, hears those terms, but doesn’t quite get it?

Thomas (12:23.424)

Sure. Yeah, and it’s not a fault of anyone’s because, look, we’re all throwing around all of these terms having different meanings. There’s a new one out there called the climate shadow. And so that’s the latest. So it’s been global warming, climate change. There’s all sorts of nomenclature that’s thrown out there. So no one should feel bad about not understanding, because it really is complicated. And you can’t see carbon dioxide.

Kimberly Snyder (12:36.323)

Wow.

Thomas (12:51.604)

But carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which means when it gets emitted into the air, it’s a dark particle, even though you can’t see it, but it’s a nanoparticle, and it’s a gas that actually holds in heat, just like you wear dark clothing on a summer’s day. You’re gonna hold in heat more than if you wore white clothing. So all of these things combined, all those little particles combined, raise the global temperature. And so when they’re emitted, when more of them are emitted into the atmosphere,

Kimberly Snyder (13:05.038)

Mmm.

Thomas (13:20.904)

Obviously, the temperature rises when you keep more of that dark matter in the ground or in trees or in the oceans. Oceans are biggest carbon sink storage place. Then it keeps temperatures in check. And we can even roll them back if we start to draw down more of these dark particles from the atmosphere, one of these greenhouse gases. So that’s the goal is to try and keep…

You know, all of these parts, you’ll hear parts per million. You know, how many parts per million of these particles are out there. That’s just a number that’s like, that equates to temperature rise. So what you try to do is keep as much carbon out of the atmosphere, out of the air, so that we don’t have that increased degree that everybody talks about. It’s about a 1.5 degree track that we’re on now, if we keep at the current rate of pluming.

just like your exhaust pipe, these gases into the air. So the idea is to try and mitigate that. And the easiest go-to that I just hinted at with the exhaust pipe is transportation, energy, things that obviously are using fuels. You’ll see that puff that comes out of a school bus. If you’re driving up any of the small roads around the country, and that is like a diesel puff, right?

Imagine that, you know, so, and then imagine coal plants. And that’s basically what’s going on. So if we can just keep more of that in the ground, in the plants and in the trees and in the shrubs and in the oceans, then we can then start to lessen our impact on global temperature rise. And one of the ways to do that is through our food, not through our energy.

Kimberly Snyder (14:47.477)

Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (15:10.85)

Yes, a huge way to do it.

Thomas (15:14.172)

Yeah. So instead of just turning off the lights and, you know, driving an electric car or, you know, trying to use public transportation more to lessen your energy use, because that’s the biggest thing. The next biggest thing is agriculture. And that’s who it comes from.

Kimberly Snyder (15:28.138)

Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (15:31.85)

And with the billions of us eating multiple meals a day, could imagine what an enormous impact that has. And I noticed it. Yeah. Go ahead, Thomas.

Thomas (15:40.936)

Yeah.

So the top five agriculture companies right now, top five food companies in other words, emit more carbon emissions, increase the carbon footprint of all of us than the leading oil company out there. So we’re starting to get to this place of we’re seeing obviously less fossil fuels being used and even declarations. And if you saw the last climate meeting.

Kimberly Snyder (15:58.765)

Mmm.

Thomas (16:10.42)

that was held in Dubai, it was all about, let’s wean ourselves off of fossil fuels that are powering our homes and such, and let’s use solar and wind and alternative energy sources. And the same thing is starting to resonate with agriculture now. It’s like, okay, we’re really using an intensely energy use types of foods when they’re processed.

Pesticides and fertilizers have a lot of different types of things in them that take a lot of processing as well. So if we can start to take a look at our meat consumption and our beef consumption, I’m sure we’ll get into that too, we can start to lessen our footprint and lessen the amount of carbon that goes into the atmosphere.

Kimberly Snyder (16:59.818)

Yes, beautiful. And we will get into that in just a moment because that is a topic that we have been talking about for many years. It’s been, you know, the collective and here on the show and in the community. First though, I loved how your first few chapters were about grains and fruit, which are these ancient foods that have been consumed since the times of the Babylonians and the Egyptians

The Importance of Grains

Thomas (17:20.636)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (17:29.642)

My dear friend, Dan Buettner, founder of the Blue Zones, who’s been on the show several times, really emphasizes how these regions that have, both these rates of longevity, the lowest rates of degenerative diseases, they’re eating carbs, right? And then in society today, you’re seeing no carb diets, you’re seeing the carnivore diet, which is telling us not to eat kale.

because of the exogenous toxins, right? There’s just so much going around, Thomas. So I love that you went right in. You even talk about wheat. We live in a culture that’s really scared of gluten. You talk about some of the ancient grains. Tell us about why you started with grains first and how that relates to health and the carbon footprint, the health of the planet.

Thomas (18:17.636)

Yeah, well, I mean, it wasn’t where I wanted to start. I had this whole other idea of where I wanted to start. I wanted to start very elegantly with seaweed in the ocean and bring it inland and sort of track our evolution. And then they’re like, no, no one understands. So start with ancient Greece.

Kimberly Snyder (18:30.922)

You right.

Kimberly Snyder (18:38.314)

I love seaweed by the way, but yes, it got pushed to like chapter six or something.

Thomas (18:43.58)

Yeah, we’ll start with the old and then go to the new. That was how I was thinking in terms of like a structure from writing it. In the ancient grains, which is kind of more of a marketing term, it’s really whole grains. And there’s a whole grains council out there that are phenomenal. And, you know, we’ve, I think, lost touch with the amount of variety of different things that we can consume. There are three foods that

60% of the global population eats as a majority of their diet. And all of them are processed. Rice, wheat, and corn, all those three things. And they’re all processed. And so when you look at some of the benefits that come with whole grains that are traditionally grown in a polyculture type of environment, which means they have helped they enhance the soil. And the soil then has a better capacity to hold carbon in it and keep it from being

Kimberly Snyder (19:18.21)

Bye.

Kimberly Snyder (19:38.359)

Mmm.

Thomas (19:39.424)

pluming up into the air like we just talked about. So the whole idea is can we increase this variety beyond just three, you know, and the average grocery store only has about 80 at most types of different vegetables for us to choose from. There are thousands of edible plants out there. So if we could start to look at increasing the menu of foods available to us, so we have more of a choice. Well, not only…

Kimberly Snyder (19:56.281)

Mmm.

Thomas (20:06.596)

increase the capacity for soil and have healthier foods that are grown organically because, you know, that’s an easier thing to do when you’re growing a smaller amount per. When you start to get into this mass production of food, that’s why, and it’s seasonal, that you need pesticides and fertilizers because you got to keep it going. And you’re just depleting the soil of its benefits. You lose about 40% of the carbon content of soil annually when you have seasonal vegetables that

you know, lettuce and things like that, you know, icebergs, those types of things, where if you did like perpetual spinach, it’s a perennial. Every year it comes up, you just chop it off, you don’t have to dig up the soil, anything like that. And so the ancient grains, especially in the Native American, you know, type of diet, when you look at the way they would, you know, grow squash and beans and, you know, that type of stuff was done in a three sisters system that would compliment.

Kimberly Snyder (20:45.415)

Oh, Hannah.

Thomas (21:03.056)

know, the shading, you know, possibilities with the watering, with, you know, the ability to increase the nutrients for the soil. And we’re starting to really understand that now better with, believe it or not, technology, because we all, these fancy watering systems and infrared devices that you can, you know, now monitor these farms and how healthy the soil is.

So when you have a merger of the new, you can start to bring back the old to the benefit of everybody, because now you can start to grow those things that were more small batch, let’s call them, in bigger quantities, because now you can regulate the soil a little bit better with the benefit of technology. So there’s one benefit there. Beyond just getting you… Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (21:44.525)

Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (21:51.214)

Wait, hold on, Thomas. Thomas, before you keep going, you said something really interesting. Sorry to interrupt about seasonal. Because that’s another thing that we get. We know you hear that a lot is eat seasonal foods, eat the seasonal produce at the farmer’s market, get the freshest and the most seasonal. But you’re saying that actually we want to look at more perennial crops or shift over in the farms. Can you explain that a little bit?

Perennial Crops and Seasonal Eating

Thomas (22:18.524)

Yeah, well, there’s.

Kimberly Snyder (22:18.791)

That sounds a little different than what we hear sometimes.

Thomas (22:21.352)

Yeah, well, there’s a difference between in season and seasonal. See what I mean? So seasonal vegetables definitionally are torn up every year and then replanted. Whereas you don’t have to do that. You just pulling, you know, strawberries off a tree or, you know, lentils off of vine, those types of things, you know what I mean? So you’re not digging up the soil. And so that’s what the perennials are. And there’s different things. Correct.

Kimberly Snyder (22:25.038)

Ah!

Kimberly Snyder (22:32.479)

Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (22:40.822)

Got it.

Kimberly Snyder (22:46.986)

Like kale versus lettuce.

Thomas (22:50.864)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that’s an interestingly, when you talk to how kale became so popular is, and this is something else for people to really understand is that it came from consumer demand. Because, you know, I went to the biggest food market in the world, which is in the Bronx, in New York, Hunts Point, and I started to talk to the food distributors and I started to talk to the retailers there and it’s a massive operation, as you can imagine.

Kimberly Snyder (22:52.63)

Wow.

Thomas (23:20.436)

I said, well, how do you choose what gets on our shelves? Because you guys are making the decisions for us. We can only buy on the shelves what you guys are deciding here en masse, right? So how are you making these decisions on our behalf? And you start to think about the food system that way and where do our choices come from. We only have choices really at the store. So they said, look, just send us an email.

Kimberly Snyder (23:20.738)

Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (23:44.902)

Mmm.

Thomas (23:49.416)

go online and tell us what you want, and we’ll get the word out. And then they gave the kale example. So one of the farmers there said, yeah, distributors there said, well, we heard that kale was starting to get bought up and people liked it more and it was cheaper to grow. So we asked our farmers to grow more of it. And then we asked more of our farmers to grow more of it. And that’s how it became a phenomenon. So we do have a voice in it. And it’s often like those stupid surveys that come after you have a phone call and it’s like,

Kimberly Snyder (24:08.334)

Wow.

Kimberly Snyder (24:11.938)

Wow.

Thomas (24:18.772)

how was the call or how was your experience, which is really annoying, but it does matter because those things do get taken into account. So it was a real eye-opener there that, oh, they do listen. You know what I mean? Like, you know, it’s like.

Kimberly Snyder (24:28.961)

Wow.

Kimberly Snyder (24:37.329)

It inspires innovation, right? There’s all these kale chips and then they’re using kale and everything. Interesting.

Thomas (24:43.742)

Yeah, 100%. All hail Kell. Kell Nachos. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (24:47.87)

Wow. So sorry, Thomas, I interrupted you, but yes, thank you for making the distinction between in season versus seasonal, perennial. And you outline that in your book. Actually, you give great examples that we don’t usually think of the difference, like you said, between kale and spinach. Carrots have to be pulled up.

Thomas (25:05.532)

Yeah, exactly.

Thomas (25:35.24)

And if they can do that, it has longer roots that will keep more carbon in the ground. So it’s one of those things that if we start to think through what we’re actually planting and what we’re actually eating, we can start to think our way up the food system and decide what’s best for us from a health perspective as well as for the planet. Because it’s just the evidence is so there. I’ve been vegetarian for…

Kimberly Snyder (25:41.187)

Wow.

Kimberly Snyder (25:57.804)

Mmm.

Thomas (26:04.372)

Well, vegan now. Vegetarian for 25 years, you know, something like that. So, and the question is always, don’t you miss meat? And I was like, no.

Wait.

You know, it’s like, and there’s so many other choices out there for us, you know, you know, especially in LA or, you know, it’s just so easy. And even here in London, you know, more people want this type of diet. They feel better. It goes back to that same thesis that I was talking about that got me on this journey of can we have a say in it? Can we make a difference? And if it’s buying an apple and knowing, all right, if it’s an organic apple and it’s in autumn,

that’s probably a better choice than, you know, bag of chips. And if I can do that, I’m doing something good for myself and I’m doing something, you know, good for the planet at the same time. And it sounds super simple, but it actually makes a huge difference, just making these little choices. And a lot, it’s not just the apples, by the way, people, there’s a lot of different choices that are in the book that you can make that, you know, don’t take a heavy lift, don’t take, you know,

Kimberly Snyder (27:15.308)

Yes.

Thomas (27:15.976)

thousands of dollars, they don’t take a lot of homework, and you don’t have to have a PhD to understand your impact. You can just get on this train by understanding what you’re shopping for every week at the grocery store.

The Power of Fruit

Kimberly Snyder (27:30.738)

That’s right. And you know, we spoke, Thomas, we started our conversation talking about connection, right? So it’s like starting to care in the first place, right? People are like, well, I don’t care. I like the way this double cheeseburger tastes. And this is how, this is what tastes good to me. But I do think there is a great awakening happening. And the more of us that tune into nature, people are going outside. I think COVID shifted things. We’re starting to feel more connected to our body. There’s the rise of the wellness industry.

So it’s just this connection in that moment, right? It only happens in the now. What am I gonna buy at the store right now? What am I going to choose? What am I gonna fill my cart with? And so it starts this energetic shift, right? It starts a little, but it actually is quite pretty huge because you’re choosing this or that, right? It’s an enormous shift. And I like in the book, because I teach this as well, Thomas, it’s not all or nothing.

Right? Because we all have lots of friends and people around us who do eat meat and we’re not shaming them or we’re not saying it’s bad. So you have options and talk about shifts like, you know, having your sandwich being half veggie. So you’re not eating as much deli meat or maybe we’re having a lentil based protein meal instead of a, you know, whatever, a chicken meal. And for me, Thomas, I’ve been vegan now for, whoo.

Kimberly Snyder (28:56.886)

I was saying like 14 years, right? I was backpacking in India. So for me, it started for spiritual reasons, you know, studying yoga, meditation. And the yogis have always taught to avoid animal protein. So there’s less density in your body and ahimsa, there isn’t the violence, the killing, that energy. So you can feel lighter and you can meditate. And then I went back to nutrition school and I learned about nutrition. So then it was health and then environment became really important for me.

But what I found is you can’t force people to care, right? You can’t force them to change, but you can offer, you can give, you know, I like the tone of your book too. It’s not preachy, it’s fun. And huh, there’s just like these little a-has because we never know what’s gonna wake someone up and say, yeah, nuts are carbon, you know, they’re better from a carbon perspective and I like nuts or whatever it is.

Thomas (29:50.92)

Yeah. I mean, actually I started becoming vegetarian because of yoga as well. So, you know, I was reading Paramahansa and started to go down this path and, uh, yeah, I was practicing a lot and, um, my

Kimberly Snyder (29:57.618)

Mmmm

Kimberly Snyder (30:01.736)

WHAT?!

Kimberly Snyder (30:05.698)

Thomas, look at my book behind me. Do you know that’s what my latest book was about?

Thomas (30:08.764)

Now I didn’t know that at all. It’s so weird.

Kimberly Snyder (30:11.758)

Come on. So he Paramahansa Yogananda, my last book, You Are More Than You Think You Are, is taking his teachings and breaking them down for modern life. Yeah. So I’ll have to send it to you, but I’ve been a Kriya Bod. I’ve been practicing Kriya Yoga for over 12 years.

Thomas (30:22.681)

Oh, I have to get that now. 100%.

Thomas (30:30.98)

Oh, wow, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that’s how, you know, all of the sutras and everything else talk about the respect of sentient beings. And, and, you know, you it’s kind of out there when you’re reading it, but when you’re actually practicing and you’re in the moment, if I found my body just didn’t want it, just didn’t, you know, just wanted something else. And so just listening to what my body was telling me, not just my mind, that’s why I’m saying it.

Kimberly Snyder (30:37.171)

Yes, yes.

Kimberly Snyder (30:51.347)

Yes.

Thomas (30:59.512)

It’s like my body was telling me, you know, you need something else. This is a work of view. And so that’s what got me on that path.

Kimberly Snyder (31:04.158)

Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (31:09.418)

You know, I’ve been watching this, I don’t watch a lot of, I don’t watch much at all. I don’t have a TV or anything, but sometimes I watch the little things on my computer and I was watching this survival show called Alone. It’s on Netflix and it’s about these survivalists and they’re hunters and they’re out there and a few of them, it was really interesting, Thomas, they were like sitting there alone for days and hours. And a couple of them were like,

I can’t do this killing anymore, right? They were like so face to face, they were contemplative and they didn’t wanna kill that grouse and that squirrel. And of course, we respect all the different viewpoints. There’s hunters that say, we’re about conservation and this is a really honest way to acquire food. But then I question the scale of that, right? There’s these farms that are.

Thomas (32:03.016)

Well, it’s not.

Kimberly Snyder (32:05.086)

It’s just like when we consider portion size and when we consider like the actual human population, right? It’s just, anyways, everything is about our own, um, introspection. We have to tune into our intuition and make these choices that deeply align to our hearts and our own values.

Thomas (32:22.304)

100%. And you know, it’s, it’s just doing what’s right for you. But then understanding, you know, what your place is in it and where your voice is, you know, I do think that, you know, we do have to educate, you know, educate more people on what is the right path. And I think once you do that, people, just like those hunters you’re talking about, they don’t want to start killing animals. You know, there’s a great food psychologist in the book, Charles Spence.

Kimberly Snyder (32:32.99)

Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (32:48.852)

Yeah.

Thomas (32:52.208)

one of the more fascinating interviews that we had, who was talking about what influences our decisions and what influences taste. And it’s really a very fascinating look at why fast food companies have red and yellow in their logos because that creates the sense of hunger, just that color association.

Kimberly Snyder (33:02.763)

Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (33:16.517)

Like McDonald’s.

Thomas (33:17.716)

Yeah, exactly. Or Carl’s Jr. And you know, like any fast food usually has that type of red in it. Burger King, think about it. And so there’s a reason for that. And the same thing, they tried all these interesting experiments and there’s an experiment in the book, but they tried this interesting experiment with ducks. So they got this Michelin star chef and they had this really nice dinner. And before they served, they had playing over the speakers and a visual thing of

duck being slaughtered for the meal. And then they serve the duck to see the reaction. And there was a visceral not wanting it. So the point was, can we start to think of different ways to point people in the right direction of, maybe it’s not having those red and yellows to create hunger. Maybe there’s a disassociated factor that we can implant with people.

Kimberly Snyder (33:50.538)

Ugh.

Thomas (34:16.52)

that they will have the want for more vegetables, which take less energy, they’re less costly to grow. So it helps smallholder farmers more. And look, everybody says we haven’t eating meat since caveman times or what have you. And it’s just, it’s bullshit most of the time because meat was a delicacy, so you weren’t eating it three times a day. It’s like, no, that’s, and most of the time you’re eating vegetables and those types of.

Kimberly Snyder (34:37.175)

Yes.

Thomas (34:45.983)

things. And now that we’re, I like to think more evolved, we may have a different perspective on what we’re feeding ourselves. So, you know, there’s some hardcore, you know, people who are into that space of like, don’t tell me what to eat. And I get that. But at the same time, you should know what you’re giving up and know what the ramifications are your choices on.

Kimberly Snyder (35:09.33)

And I think that when we step back, you know, people talk about the cavemen, but there’s, you know, the Ayurvedic medical system, there’s the blue zones again, where it’s not just these studies, you know, study against study. I’ve been on some panels like that, Thomas, where I’m like talking to the paleo people. And it’s just like, hey, let’s look at what’s really happening with the human populations. When we see the potential for health and longevity in these communities that are

90 to 100% plant-based. You know, it’s just saying, Oh, you know, can I go beyond this craving and shift? Because when I gave up, when I became vegan, I did crave cheese for a time. I never, I didn’t care that much about meat, but then I just shifted over and now I don’t, right? And there’s all these amazing plant-based cashew cheeses and other cheeses. So it’s like, it’s this bigger, more expanded.

thing we’re talking about, not just in that moment of that craving.

Thomas (36:11.388)

Well, that’s exactly it. It’s like that reptilian brain type of idea of what’s in front of you you’re gonna grab, as opposed to the critical think of, okay, let me think about that for a second. There’s a documentary series on Netflix now too that gets into this whole eating type of thing, and it proves the same thing we’re talking about. This is science.

Kimberly Snyder (36:33.004)

Mmm.

Thomas (36:39.208)

And of course you’re gonna have the wingnut who’s got a cow in his backyard and grows, you know, grows the, he has the milk and it’s like, yeah, but that’s not scalable. You know what I mean? You can’t do that in Manhattan. So how are you gonna, you know, start to talk about these things when we have to rely on other people to tell us what is organic and what’s better for us and how do we have a choice in this? And that’s really just to speak up and understand what we’re putting into our bodies.

You know, of the three things we need to survive, water, air, and food, food is the only one we have a variety of choice on. So why can’t we make that a positive one for all of us?

Kimberly Snyder (37:07.915)

Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (37:16.156)

Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (37:20.042)

Mm. And then I love in the book how, again, back to grains, and then it’s all connected. And then you go into fruit, which seems like, oh my gosh, obviously, right? Like children love fruit. It tastes good. It’s all around. We live in a world now where people are scared to eat fruit because the sugar and it’s like, but it’s literally bananas, right? Figuratively and literally.

Thomas (37:27.464)

Back to that.

Thomas (37:47.776)

Great. Yeah, yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (37:48.718)

speaking. And it’s like, you know, what is going on here? What is going on? We should be eating fruit. I am a huge fruit eater myself. And in the warm months, you know, I’m in LA and Hawaii. In the really warm months, we should say my percentage of fruit gets huge. And you know what, Thomas, and you know this too, I have more energy. I feel clear. Everything is just, you know, easefulness. I don’t have aches and pains in my body. It’s like this

Thomas (38:12.862)

Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (38:18.034)

amazing energy source that’s packed with antioxidants and vitamins. And you go into detail in this chapter about mangoes and local banana, like things like that. So can you give us just a few of your fun facts about fruit or anything you’d love to share?

Making Conscious Food Choices

Thomas (38:35.036)

Yeah, I mean, fruit, I think is kind of this, we forget about it often because it’s what you were saying before you go for the other thing that maybe you think is sweet. So as opposed to like fruit, you’re going for chocolate or you’re going for something else, which you crave. But, you know, I started incorporating fruit into my morning routine with whole grain and the energy pop was crazy. The clarity was crazy. And…

Kimberly Snyder (38:44.802)

Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (38:55.873)

Yes.

Thomas (39:03.716)

It’s just a whole different way of going through it. And I think that’s a benefit for a lot of people to experiment with when you start to look at, you know, what types of fruits are you eating? Now there’s better fruits for the environment, you know, which come from, you know, trees and these types of things, you know, because they hold more carbon in the ground. So mangoes and those types of things have, you know, a strawberry, which is like a multi-fruit.

Kimberly Snyder (39:24.663)

Mmm.

Thomas (39:31.208)

and berries are another undiscovered one. And so they’re really good for the soil. They’re perennials, so you’re not digging anything up. You’re picking fruit off a tree, pretty literally. So dates and olives and all that stuff, there are fruits. And so that’s really positive for the environment. But also, just for help-wise, you can incorporate it into so many different things. I took this sort of tutorial with the head of the vegetarian society’s cookery school.

which was, yeah, so that was Gandhi’s school. And so that’s a whole thing of really, really interesting people. And she was showing how you can use fruit as like your main course, which you don’t really think about, right? You always think of it as a side dish or a snack, but you can actually make fruit your main course for your, like jackfruits are amazing and stuff like that, that you can use, yeah, for your main meal. And it just makes,

Kimberly Snyder (40:00.558)

Oh yes, I read that.

Kimberly Snyder (40:14.279)

Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (40:26.222)

a little bit.

Thomas (40:30.936)

You know made me think like I’ve had such a limited You know thought around what each types of food that we have and what their use is like nuts Snack, but now you can actually make you know milk, you know make my own almond milk and stuff like that So you can make other things out of it and you can then make you know With with all the grind from that you can make like almond burgers and so you can just start think through

Kimberly Snyder (40:41.886)

Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (40:57.693)

Yes.

Thomas (40:59.888)

what you’re eating and why is it good for you and why are you eating it? And it is like tracking your diet in a way. If you’re into health and wellness, and you’ve ever gone on a program, you’re like, okay, I’m gonna do this. You get a calorie count and you gotta keep your log of all your meals. Well, what if you did that without the thought of just losing weight? What if you thought about it for like doing something else with that knowledge? And maybe it’s…

Kimberly Snyder (41:28.16)

Mmm.

Thomas (41:29.724)

Maybe it’s not just about the planet. Maybe it’s not just about buying sustainable foods, which you should. But maybe it’s about lessening your food waste. Because when you start to plan your meals, you have less food waste, which is another huge issue that we got into in the book. Because it’s just crazy how much food we’re wasting out there. And I think we can do a lot more with that just by planning out your meals.

Kimberly Snyder (41:52.821)

Ugh.

Thomas (41:58.556)

and understanding what foods are good for you and give you kind of more energy and make you feel better. Robert talks about eating blueberries and then eating strawberries in the book and eating nuts on set and things like that. And so there’s some anecdotes kind of woven in there to make it more accessible. And then when I started to do the research on fruits, it just became kind of fascinating, how many we have and some of the ones I never even heard of that are in there. So it’s…

Kimberly Snyder (42:09.972)

Yes.

Understanding the Food System

Thomas (42:28.816)

It’s, it’s our food system is massive. We can do something to make it better. And it’s really just about learning where our food comes from when we all eat and we all go to the store and buy it. And it’s kind of an interesting, I think, you know, a sense of power when you go, okay, I know where that came from. I know what the nine in front of that five digit PLU code means. That means it’s organic. And so I’m going to choose that.

Kimberly Snyder (42:53.971)

Yes.

Thomas (42:56.04)

And so now I know why, you know, this is being fed to me, as opposed to just blindly grabbing a meal.

Kimberly Snyder (43:00.023)

Mm.

Flexibility in Food Choices

Kimberly Snyder (43:04.322)

I love that. And you know, when you were speaking about that, Thomas, you know, this word comes to mind, which is, I was just thinking flexible, but getting out of this rigid way that we look at food, like each meal, it has this and this, and then there’s all this waste, because then I move on to the next meal. And so when we’re less rigid, we think about food in a different way. For me, that’s led to incredible simplicity, right? So I focus on freshness, I get ingredients, and then I kind of just,

cook it really simply, I use different spices, shelf stable spices, and then I’m like, oh wow, look, I have all this cabbage left. Let me do something, let me stuff it instead of stir frying it or whatever it is. So we’re not so fixed in the same ways we’ve been eating for so long, right? It’s just like, oh wow, you know, I usually have mushrooms in my fridge and let me do it this way, or let me try putting oregano on them. That’s what I did last night. So I love, there’s a lot of inspiring, creative.

recipes in your book as well. I loved, I’m going to try your cashew cookies. And you know, it’s great when you see, oh yeah, here’s a new fresh way. I think, you know, recipes don’t have to be rigidly followed, but they’re great inspiration. And also I have to say, Thomas, I’m so glad you talked about millet because when I started studying Ayurveda and it’s such an important grain.

in the Ayurvedic system, it also was gluten-free. My first book, The Beauty Detox Solution, I had a lot of recipes with Melit, and people were like, what is that? And you know what, what’s also great about Melit, Thomas? It’s cheap, right? There’s people that are like, it’s inexpensive, healthy food, doesn’t, see, you know, the carbon footprint, all these foods are accessible and they’re very inexpensive.

Thomas (44:40.776)

Yeah. A lot of.

Thomas (44:49.448)

Yep. Millet’s a great one, you know, and it is kind of unexpected. There’s actually a millet recipe in there as well. So, uh, it’s, it’s one of those things like Teff that you don’t hear so much about or sorghum that we don’t have that much exposure to, but, uh, just kind of inexpensive, especially now with food inflation, you know, a lot of people are struggling to, you know, just buy food and you see in your food bill, you know, go crazy. And even when I go out now, I’m like, really? Like.

Kimberly Snyder (45:01.412)

Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (45:13.069)

Yeah.

Inexpensive and Versatile Grains

Thomas (45:18.952)

When did this all of a sudden become that? It’s like, you know, it’s a lot, you know, and you know, no one wants to pay 30 bucks for a salad. You know, it’s like at their local grocery store. So what else can you do that’s healthy, that’s good for you, that’s gonna last? That’s the other great things about millets and sorghums and grains. It lasts for a long time and you can use them for multiple purposes. You know, so, you know, you make cookies and then you can have porridge or, you know.

Kimberly Snyder (45:19.019)

Yes!

Kimberly Snyder (45:22.918)

Yeah, it’s a lot.

Thomas (45:49.248)

whatever. So I use, you know, different grains for different purposes all the time.

Kimberly Snyder (45:55.71)

And like you said, planning ahead, I get things in bulk. So then it cuts down on all those tiny little packages, which have more waste, obviously, and also tend to be a lot more expensive. So if you’re getting red lentils in a bigger container, or you’re getting the millet, I mean, it’s, it’s amazing how many meals that you can get out of these foods. So everything all together, cost, health, environment, it all is the same solution.

Thomas (46:15.7)

Yeah, it’s fun.

Thomas (46:21.629)

Yeah

Reducing Packaging Waste

Thomas (46:25.152)

Yeah, and there’s actually, I was here in London, a different place over by the Thames. And there’s these bulk food places. So you can just go in, bring your own bag, buy things in bulk, you know, right here in the city. So, I’d love to see more of those kind of, you know, crop up in different cities as well, because I think that’s an important lesson, not only in just packaging, but also, you know, encouraging people to really plan things out and buy things, you know, that.

Kimberly Snyder (46:34.046)

Okay.

Kimberly Snyder (46:48.479)

Yes.

Thomas (46:53.824)

they’re going to use for a longer period as opposed to one-offs. So that’s another thing.

Empowering Food Choices

Kimberly Snyder (47:00.362)

I love it. Well, Thomas, I could speak to you forever. Your book is awesome. Once again, everybody, it’s called Cool Food Erasing Your Carbon Footprint, One Bite at a Time. It’s also beautifully designed so you can flip through it and learn so much. There’s the recipes, there’s chapters you may be drawn to if you want to learn more about actually how you can eat from this perspective, your vegetables, your fruit, how you can choose,

Um, things we can actually do. So I know you hesitate to use the word empowering Thomas. I like that word. If we come from the heart when we use it because it’s saying, Oh, wow, that is the better choice. And I didn’t know that. So it’s easy for me to switch to this versus that. Um, it’s more out of the box as well than so, you know, a lot of certain things we hear, but I actually did learn a lot of interesting facts from your book. And I read a lot of.

I read a lot of food information. I read a lot of food books in my time, Thomas. So thank you so much. Is there anything else we didn’t cover that you’d love to share with us?

Understanding Expiration Dates and Food Waste

Thomas (48:09.)

I think it’s just really understanding what’s in season and understanding that there’s a lot of myths out there when it comes to your food with expiration dates. Those are just kind of more of a guidance than anything else except when it comes to baby food. But otherwise they’re just a guidance. So you get to sniff it and taste it a little bit yourself to understand what it’s from. And then the food waste thing I think is huge. And just understanding that it’s

Kimberly Snyder (48:25.334)

Yes.

Thomas (48:38.5)

We’re all connected, as you said, in the very beginning of this, and it’s a great way to kind of end it through our food choices. And so if we can just be respectful about what we’re consuming, we’re respecting the entire food system, and that does have a ripple effect. So that’s, I think, just a really nice thing to be able to go through, knowing you’re making these good choices and eating not only for yourself, but you’re also eating for…

Kimberly Snyder (48:53.867)

Mm.

Kimberly Snyder (49:05.43)

Amazing. And you know what, Thomas, I realized I didn’t even ask you about how you or why you decided to co-author with Robert Downey Jr., how you guys connected. And obviously he’s passionate about food for the environment as well.

Co-authoring with Robert Downey Jr.

Thomas (49:21.824)

Well, yeah, Downey and I have known each other for a while. And we were working on another project with another one of my books in the climate space. He has something called the Footprint Coalition, where he invests in a lot of different climate technologies and businesses and things like that. And so we got to talking and we were working on this other thing and we were up in Malibu and we had just…

had lunch and we had like a miso soup lunch, we were walking along Malibu beach and we’re talking about seaweed. And I just read this article about how seaweed is a climate killer. And so we just started talking in the context of climate and seaweed. And then, you know, sort of the light started getting brighter for both of us as to, oh, we could actually do something with this. You know, we could start to talk about what foods we could eat.

You know, he almost did this little improv thing was like, okay, we show up at the grocery store, go. Like, what’s the best thing for the environment, you know? And so it’s like, we started just doing that. And then after a lot of like texts and emails, just, you know, and talking, we said, I guess we’re gonna do this as a book. And we did. So that was how it kind of came about organically. It wasn’t forced, it was.

you know, common interests and we’re friends. And it was just like, let’s, let’s just do this. So we did.

Kimberly Snyder (50:43.423)

Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (50:49.998)

amazing with that pure intention. I love to hear that. I love to hear it. And it really does come through in this book. So tell us Thomas, as we close up here, where can we find the book? Where can we find out more about your work?

Thomas (50:52.596)

Mm. Yeah.

Where to Find the Book

Thomas (51:05.236)

Oh yeah, if you go to coolfoodbook.com, you’ll see all the places you can buy the book and it’s available at all bookstores. And we hit a few lists last week, which is very nice. So we hit the New York Times bestsellers list, USA Today list, we hit a lot of like bestselling lists. So we’re out there now and it’s great to see it so well received that people do care. So that’s, you know, more than anything else, that’s what matters. And then…

Kimberly Snyder (51:26.028)

at least.

Thomas (51:33.188)

Anything more about me, you can just go to thomascostigan.com.

Kimberly Snyder (51:38.826)

Amazing. And we will link to that directly in our show notes over on mysaluna.com, our main hub, where hopefully you will definitely check out this book, check out more about Thomas and his amazing work. We’ll also have links to a plan based recipes, meditations, guided meditations, more articles, other podcasts I think you would enjoy and more. So thank you so much for tuning in with us today. As always, we’ll be back here Thursday for our next Q&A podcast. Till then, take great care and sending you all so much love.