Buffy Ellen is one of Australasia’s leading plant-based nutritionists and naturopaths, with over 10 years’ experience and an international online audience of more than 180,000. She’s also New Zealand’s number one plant-based food blogger and the founder of Be Good Organics. After experiencing her own healing journey from Graves’ autoimmune disease, using plant-based food and medicine, she is now passionate about helping others achieve their very best health.
Buffy: Hey! My name is Buffy Ellen and I’m a nutritionist and naturopath and the founder of Be Good Organics which is my business which I’ve had for almost ten years now. I’m really passionate about inspiring other people to eat more plant-based food because there are so many incredible benefits for our health, so many benefits for animals, and the planet we live on. So the more people I can get excited about eating more plant-based food, then that’s my mission complete!
I live in Auckland with my partner and I’ve got two young kids who are three and six – anyone who follows me will know those kids well because they have been on Instagram and Facebook with me since before they were born.
Hayley: What are the biggest health benefits of eating plant-based?
Oh my gosh, so many! I think some of the biggest benefits are long term. I talk about the fact that there is so much scientific research that eating plant-based leads to lower levels of diabetes, lower levels of cardiovascular/heart disease, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s, greater longevity – the world’s longest-living centenarians, the highest number of people living till 100… they all eat a plant predominant diet. So there are so many benefits from that perspective. But speaking to young people, it’s hard to think so far ahead, they think that’s not relevant to me. It’s hard to tangibly connect with that. Even me, I’m in my 30’s and even I think ‘Oh, cardiovascular disease, that’s not a 30-year-old’s problem’ and yet these diseases develop really, really early on. We know this from post mortems of children who are 8,9,10 years old who have died from other causes, say a car crash, and they examine these children and the arteries around the heart and it shows they are already building significant plaques around those arteries i.e. early stages of heart disease.
It’s such a big problem. We live in a world where we eat so much meat, dairy, sugar, processed foods and alcohol to wash it down and that’s so normal. Everyone has grown up with that type of food. I know very very few people who were born into a vegan family and then were vegan because of that. Nobody dropped from the sky and was vegan; all of us grew up in a meat and three veg family. We grew up with dairy, milk and yogurt and mince and sausages and it’s normal. It is quite a big mindset shift to think ‘I’m going to have this whole other ideology’ but the health benefits are huge. Outside of those long-term benefits the shorter-term benefits people experience are more balanced hormones, clearer skin, and most people generally lose weight if they need to, and feel lighter and more energised with better clarity of mind.
Hayley: I really relate to growing up with the meat and three veg. I’m actually vegetarian myself and my Mum works at a butchery so I’ve always grown up eating meat like every dinner. I became vegetarian because I have jaw issues and I can’t actually chew meat to begin with and I never really liked the taste. It is such a change from eating meat all the time to being vegetarian and it’s quite a life and a mindset shift which can feel really hard for people.
Buffy: I think it can be confronting as well. People often say to me ‘Well you’re vegan!’ and I’m like well, I’m mostly plant-based and that’s only for the last 10 years. Before that, I was a heavy dairy and meat eater every day just like everyone else. That is the norm, so I think what people have to reflect on is that virtually all of us were brought up like that, that’s what feels normal. So it’s about shifting into something new and thinking ‘hey, you know what? Maybe I’ll just have a little less red meat, only have meat three times a week, or ask for a soy flat white instead of cow’s milk.’ It’s so readily available now and tastes just as good.
It’s just about making those small shifts. Putting labels on diets can be quite off-putting at times because it feels like it’s all or nothing, but it’s not like that at all and no one is all or nothing. All of us were omnivorous and those that have already moved on to eating more plants have done it gradually.
Hayley: We are so spoilt for choice these days as well, there are so many beautiful options to make beautiful plant-based meals and be able to swap those out for your meat meals. Do you have three easy tips you would suggest to switch to a plant-based diet?
Buffy: I think my first overarching tip would be to go easy on yourself. Think of it as a journey and it’s just like trying something new on the menu or trying some different recipes. So it’s not about I am this, and then I’m going to be that. It’s about starting to include one more plant-based meal a day, or maybe it’s even a week depending on where you are starting. We are starting to see a huge shift in the number of people that identify as vegan, vegetarian, or flexitarian. Almost 35% [of people] associate with one of those three labels. So baby steps… maybe start with breakfast. Super easy to switch your milk out for a plant-based milk that you really like – there are so many options now. Switch from a dairy option to a coconut yogurt or any other plant-based yogurt.
The one food group I would suggest experimenting with a little bit is legumes. Lots of us are eating fruit, we’re eating veggies, we’re eating nuts and seed and we’re eating some sort of grains but the 5th key food group that I talk about is legumes. Fruit, veggies, nuts and seeds, grains, and legumes are what I call the top 5. They are the fundamentals of a plant-based whole food diet. But one [food] that we didn’t grow up with at all in New Zealand is legumes. Legumes are a food group that is not super common [here]. You can try adding legumes to your diet through eating hummus, chickpeas roasted up with your pumpkin, kidney beans in a Mexican chili (do your regular chili con carne but add in some kidney beans), black beans mashed up with some Mexican spices and guacamole or cannellini beans blitzed up into a white bean dip. The reason why we should add more legumes to our diet is legumes are high in protein, really high in fibre, they keep you full, are low in calories, low in fat, and they are cheap!
If people tell me that a plant-based diet is not affordable – I say you’re buying the wrong products. You’re buying all the fancy stuff. Buy from the 5 key food groups and buy in season!
Hayley: What is one meal you would give to an avid meat eater to convince them to go plant-based?
Buffy: I think the reason I don’t have an answer off the top of my head is that in my early days I did try and convince everyone around me, and I think this is what happens to many of us. For me it was a health thing, I was diagnosed with Graves disease and I was really sick and I was told that I had to have surgery to take out my thyroid gland or have a radioactive iodine treatment and I would be on drugs for the rest of my life. Once you take the thyroid out you have to take another hormone to replace it. So it was more desperation personally that saw me looking at what else I could possibly do? How can I heal Graves disease? And that’s what led me to discover a plant-based diet… for health reasons. Once I went down that avenue, that’s when I discovered all of the huge elements around animal welfare, planetary health, and climate change.
But in those early days, I’d post things on my personal Facebook page and I’d have friends saying, ‘Can you stop posting the animal cruelty videos on your Facebook page, it’s really off-putting?’ and I was like ‘yeah, they are!’
It’s just a global atrocity how we treat other animals on this planet, I was just so shocked, and like most people I really love animals. Humans are actually born with a whole lot of natural compassion for other beings, and as a young child, we have that, and it’s only because we are socialised into thinking that eating meat every single meal is normal. But what I realised is that in those early days saying ‘I’m going to convert you!’ didn’t really work, in fact, it put a lot of people off like close friends and family. Now I don’t go out of my way to convince meat-eaters, what I do instead is I go out of my way to make sure every recipe I create is so delicious and tasty that you eat it and you think ‘Man, that was so good’ regardless of whether they are a meat-eater, a vegetarian, or vegan. I would probably start with a classic like a lentil bolognese or a lasagna, or my breakfast burrito where you scramble up tofu to make it taste like an egg. I would create those familiar flavours like egg and a mince-style dish. I think it’s getting out of the mindset that a meal should look like meat, potatoes, and a little salad.
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Healthy and delicious caramel maca latte recipe
What do you get when you combine dates with maca…? Caramel. Not the sickly kind though. No, I’m talking the earthy, malty, bear-hug kind, that feels like you’ve just put on a
Hayley: How do you keep up with eating your healthy nourishing foods when you’re having sugar cravings during the transition and beyond?
Buffy: I am such an advocate for eating all of those soul foods that you love still and not getting rid of those. I try to eat 80% plant-based whole foods, dirty vegan 19% of the time and then 1% who knows what sneaks in there. Realistically, that’s enough.
I would say make healthier versions of your favourite foods, and that’s what I have so many on my website. So you can make your favorite ginger crunch or caramel slice.
I don’t think you have to think ‘I’m going to have a craving and I’m going to have to block it’.
No! If you feel like something sweet, have something sweet and choose a really nourishing option if you can but if you feel like a doughnut – eat the doughnut.
Hayley: How did you get started on your business? Were you a nutritionist before you were plant-based?
Buffy: No! No way! I did a BCOMM at University, in Economics, Finance, and Languages and I worked in Finance during my 20s. When I was diagnosed with Graves Disease I was selfishly googling what can I do and that’s when I discovered plant-based and vegan diets for health so I started to make that shift because I didn’t want to have the surgery. After about 18 months, I completely came off all my medications, my Graves disease was basically in remission. This was from changing to a plant-based diet, and changing what I use to organic products as much as possible.
During that process, I was like ‘why do I not know this stuff about animals?!’ So it got me thinking about why is this information not out there, and why do people not know about it. So I started my blog Be Good Organics to share what I was learning, the recipes and a lot [of information] around animal welfare and the environmental side [of plant-based eating.] After sharing recipes every week on my blog for a full year, I thought I need to go and study this because I was getting so many people asking me questions about my content. I was doing a reasonable job at answering them from what I had been researching but I just thought ‘I wanna go back and be a professional about this’.
The way that I’m going to help change this situation is for people to feel like they can trust what I’m saying and that I’m not just giving my opinion. [Having a qualification meant] that I could actually say that this way of eating is better for your health, and it is universally better for the planet. I went back and studied for four years and did a Bachelor of Nutrition and Naturopathy so I could learn more about this area and share and teach people knowledgeably so they would feel really comfortable with me and really give someone accurate information.
Hayley: So.. last question. How can we find you? How can we work with you? How can we get involved?
Buffy: Yay! You can find me on Instagram and Facebook Be Good Organics
I’m also on Pinterest, so Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are kinda the three places I hang out. I also have a website (begoodorganics.com) so you can go there and you can sign up for free recipes, enter your email address and I send out a free recipe every week.I try to make them as easy and affordable as possible as well.
I have an online cooking school – so if you want to learn more about plant-based food, how to cook it, and you have all these burning questions like: what about my iron? B12? Calcium? then I have created a nutrition school where you can come and get a bit more detailed video-based content. I have seminars on proteins, iron, B13, omegas, calcium, zinc, so you can watch those and get fully armed with what you need to know around protein for example.
I created this to just get even more education out there for people who want it, so they can have it for themselves and also feel confident in sharing [this information] with others.