Talking with Nancy Montuori: Founder, Chef, Author, and Podcast Host

Today I sat down with Nancy Montuori, a health and wellness advocate, author, chef, consultant and certified plant-based specialist who champions compassionate living through her plant-based cooking blog, Ordinary Vegan. The unifying idea for Ordinary Vegan is to encourage people to be part of a healthy and compassionate community. Ordinary Vegan, LLC (based out of LA)

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia, and this is Investigating Vegan Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vegan life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vegan life. Now let's start the conversation. 

 

[00:01:13] Hi, everyone, welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I am sitting down with Nancy Mantuori. 

 

[00:01:19] Nancy is the founder, chef, cookbook author and podcast host. She is the owner of Ordinary Vegan. You can locate her online at ordinary Vegan dot net. 

 

[00:01:30] Welcome, Nancy. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited. 

 

[00:01:34] I'm excited to have you, too. I can't wait to climb through ordinary Vegan. 

 

[00:01:38] And you have kind of a prolific empire under that umbrella with your podcast and cookbook and you're a chef. So I really want to climb to you everything that you're doing for everyone listening and watching. Perhaps we first I'm going to give you a roadmap of today's podcast and then I'll give you a brief bio of Nancy prior to peppering her with questions. So a roadmap of today's podcast. We'll first look at Nancy's academic background. Early professional life and kind of get a sense of the platform from which she's coming. And then we'll unpack ordinary Vegan, the Web site, the services, all of the different attributes that it offers in both its clients and viewership. And then we might look at unpacking some of the ordinary Vegan podcast that has kind of a prolific history. And then we'll turn our efforts towards looking at goals that Nancy might have for the next one to three years, both personally and as well as a business level. I know that that rhetoric has changed for a great deal of our society as of late. And we'll wrap everything up with advice that Nancy may have for those of you who are looking to get involved in some of her efforts or perhaps emulate some of the success that she has had over the past trajectory of her professional life. A quick bio on Nancy. Nancy Mantri was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts, for twenty three years. She worked for Warner Brothers Records, helping develop the careers of multiple music artists, icons including Joni Mitchell and Prince. In 2011, a serendipitous event changed her life. She went to see a movie called Forks Over Knives and left that movie convinced of the connection between animal protein and chronic disease. From that moment on, Nancy devoted her life to trying to help others live a long and healthy life with a plant based diet. Through her podcast, Ordinary Vegan, her website and her social media, ordinary Vegan became a beacon for those seeking health and wellness. Nancy just released her new cookbook entitled Defy the Easy Five Ingredient Vegan Cookbook. So I'm excited to kind of climb through all of that with you. Nancy and I love the genesis of your Vegan journey. Forks Over Knives is a favorite in my household as well. Prior to getting into what you're doing currently, can you set us like this stage for your academic background or your early professional life? Everything that kind of brought you to now or perhaps the moment that you saw forks over knives? 

 

[00:04:00] Well, you know, my professional life was always to just be next to music. I mean, and to this day, that's really my number one love besides health and wellness. But I just you know, I kept I I decided that in my lifetime that's what I was going to do with my life. And I just got next to it. I started working at a record store. And then we had Lee Warner Brothers heard about me that I was bugging radio stations to play like the police. And. Yeah. And Rickie Lee Jones. And one day they just came in and made an offer to me to come work for them. And I mean, it was like five times the amount I was being paid. I was gonna have an expense account and I had to be at the Doobie Brothers concert on Saturday night so that to introduce them to radio people. And I'm like, I'll take it. Yes. And I didn't go to college. I I just, you know, so I don't have that background. But then so then I got the job with Warner Brothers. I stayed with them for years and years and years. And suddenly I always wanted to make movies. And so I quit my job and I went to film school and I made some movies. One of them is called Stealing Innocence, which has won a lot of awards. And but then in two thousand eleven, everything changed. I went to see that movie and I thought my whole life I've been trying to be healthy because I had polio as a child and I spent a long time in hospitals and I thought I was eating healthy. You know, just like you, I'm sure, you know, lean chicken and, you know, got kind of stuff. And then when I found out that that stuff was bad for me, I just wanted to scream it from the rooftops. You don't have to be sick anymore. You just have to change what you eat. 

 

[00:06:00] Absolutely. And, you know, I think that I've taught I've spoken to a lot of people. What I love about the vegan lifestyle as we're kind of uncovering it and investigating it through this podcast series, is that the way in which people get to it is is never one. 

 

[00:06:14] And even even when you say, you know, people come at it from the health aspect, there's just this myriad of ways. But the disease early in life or even latters onset disease is bringing what I call unlikely candidates, you know, to the Vegan lifestyle. It's some people you wouldn't think of normally. You know, there's always a type cast with with Vegan and things of that nature. But disease and health is bringing just an insurmountable amount of people. I think every day to the vegan lifestyle. And so I do appreciate that, especially having something early in life. My father had polio as a child and post-polio as an adult, which is a different disease. And he came to a lot of Vegan decisions later on as well and was equally as upset, you know, with this kind of realization that everything that he was told all along when nutritionally was exactly opposite in calcium, you know, from milk does not exist. Those types of things. So when you saw the movie, you I mean, you have this empire and I'm kind of curious with the steppingstones with how it was built. You know, did it come up in one day or did you kind of start off soft? 

 

[00:07:22] I mean, it was kind of crazy because I am a private person, actually. And but I decided that I was going to devote some of my time to helping people, you know, get well, like sharing information and showing them how easy it was. And so I started blogging. And that's how it started. And to be honest with you, I never thought of it as a business in the early years. I just wanted to help people, you know, get back their health. That was it, you know. And then, you know, it's you know, social media started growing and things started, you know, getting bigger. And. And then I realized that was I was devoting 24/7 to, you know, trying to keep people well. So. So then I. I just decided. Well, as far as my podcast went, I just thought that would be give me. It would be bigger thing for me to reach people, but I decide do get certified in plant based nutrition. That was the first thing. One of the first things I did so that I was able to give out good information. I did that with Dr. Campbell's school. And then, you know, so my podcasts grew and my podcast became popular and. I don't know. You know, I just. And then eventually I was in, you know, since I love health and wellness in 2016, I discovered CBD from hemp and I thought this seems like a natural extension in what I'm doing. So I decided to develop my own line of CBD from hemp and went to Kentucky and visited hemp farmers. And eventually I did that. So now I have a CBD business, I have a podcast, I have a website, I have a I have a lot of things. I mean, I don't do this to get rich and be honest with you. I work a lot. But, you know, the greatest gratification is when somebody tells me that, you know, I changed their life. 

 

[00:09:35] You know what? It sounds like it all kind of grew organically out of itself. I'm wondering really quickly, returning back to the sort of your certification and plant based nutrition. 

 

[00:09:48] As someone who has not done it, I'm curious at who would you advise do that? I know a lot of people who become involved in this arena feel it's necessary to become certified in one area or another. What did the certification do for you? How long did it take and would you advise it? Everybody who wants to be serious about being plant based in one area or another becomes certified. Can you kind of clarify that? 

 

[00:10:12] First up, I want to say that I highly recommend Dr Campbell's course. It's not, you know, a three day course. It's going to take a few weeks. I don't know how you know, this was a long time ago that I did it, but they still offer it. And, you know, it educated me. I didn't want to go out and share information with people without being, you know, completely educated. And now looking back on, it was one of the best things I ever did. And I recommend that course to anybody who can afford it. Honestly, you just it's just so enlightening. And, you know, you couldn't have a better teacher than Dr. Campbell. I mean, he's the God of the plant based world, so. Yeah. So it might have changed, you know, like I said, I did a long time ago. But, yeah, I would highly recommend doing that, especially if you're going to get into this world, even if you're just sharing recipes, a plant based recipes, you shouldn't. Right. 

 

[00:11:13] Yeah. And that's kind of what I'm thinking of. You know, there's a lot of quarantine cooking happening and a lot of recipes being shared. 

 

[00:11:20] And I think that, you know, this is an opportunity, especially for online courses, for people who do have a curiosity and things like that certification in addition to research and things like that, just seems like two birds, one stone type of scenario. So do you have an official date that you feel like you launched ordinary Vegan? What was there a year that you launched the website or because it kind of grew naturally? Did it just appear on your lap one day? 

 

[00:11:46] May 2011 OK. Like my second, I saw the movie May 1st, 2011. I started the website the very next day. You know, I was a little technical savvy, too. I mean, it wasn't like a difficult thing for me to, you know, just go out and do you know? 

 

[00:12:05] Did anyone co-found it with you or was it just you? 

 

[00:12:08] It's always been just me. I have a cousin who has been helping me out the last couple of years because I was writing a cookbook. Now I'm writing my next cookbook. What more of a self-help cookbook? And you know, but I do it all and it's it's a lot of work. 

 

[00:12:29] Yeah, well, let's unpack some of that, because it is a lot of work. And we were talking off the record before we started this podcast. And I was mentioning to you that as I was poking around and investigating the Web site and some of your research, there's a there's a great deal there. You have different areas. So if if someone wasn't looking at your Web site right now to briefly describe it. You have your CBD, which I want to get into in just a minute, because that's a whole nother beast unto itself. But you have your podcast link there and then you also have links to information on things. Can you describe like the composition of the website, the landing page and how you came to that? 

 

[00:13:07] Sure, I have it. Weirdly, I was inspired by Martha Stewart's setup. And so I Billys I will I was releasing a recipe a week, a podcast every two weeks. And, you know, on the top of the. Of my website, you'll see what I do. The latest thing I've done, whether it's a recipe or a podcast. And then I also have, you know, Vegan essentials. I have protein lists, big protein proteins that can be downloaded. I offer all this stuff free. I go, you know, this is just graphics that I have made in the past. So that can help people. And then I have so then I have my podcasts and then I have some videos I've made. Video seems to be the biggest connector, to be honest. That works the most for me. I get the most engagement from my videos. I should do more in right now. Well, we'll get to that. What my goals are. But yeah, so OK. 

 

[00:14:18] And so, yeah, I was mentioning you had a video on there. You know, you have original content you've created and you also bring in other people's content. 

 

[00:14:26] And you had a Ted X video with a young woman speaking that I sent to all of my nieces and nephews. So it's really not just what I would like about the engagement of your site, is it? I feel like as much as everybody says their site crosses all, you know, populations and and demographics and age groups, yours actually does. There was something on there even for a little 7 year old to watch, you know? And I like the idea of that. Did you do that consciously or did that just come again about organically as you're creating your content? 

 

[00:14:54] You know, I'm trying to educate everyone. And, you know, it's just very natural for me to want to, you know, show people things that inspire people, young people, through me or, you know. 

 

[00:15:07] Absolutely. So let's crawl into the CBD aspect. You said that you became aware what was your your introduction to CBD and how did you decide to bring it on and courageously kind of develop your own brand with it? 

 

[00:15:24] Well, I go to the Natural Food Expo every year because, you know, I need to look at new products, new plant based products, and they invite me every year. And one day, I think 2016 there was this booth and I was talking to this guy and he was talking about this natural remedy and how it was from hemp and which is a cousin to marijuana. It doesn't have THC, very low amounts. And and then I started investigating it and I started hearing from my community, my health, the wellness community, that people with chronic pain, anxiety, insomnia were all using it and it was helping them. And, you know, but I mean, I didn't jump in. I like I said, I went to I went to Kentucky. I visited hemp farmers. I only wanted organic hemp. I wanted you know, I wanted to know every step of the way. There was not I wasn't going to have this a lot of hemp CBD, oil from China, places like that. So you got to be really careful when you buy it. And I just figured, you know, this is a natural extension of what I'm doing and I'm going to devote my own mind and start selling it and. He's been doing great and it's been helping people and, you know, it doesn't help everyone. It doesn't work for everyone, but it works for most. So together. 

 

[00:16:55] Absolutely. And there are more and more studies being done on home for everyone listening. You know, I know it can be a daunting universe. 

 

[00:17:02] And being a California resident myself, I know that I have a little bit more knowledge base to it than people who haven't legalized marijuana. But as you said, it's a very different it's it's a medicinal aspect. And I think that kind of divorcing the knowledge and understanding that is there's a lot of really great people online that do that as well. An information YouTube anyway. You want to get your information. There's people that can speak to the efficacy and the power behind it. And as you mentioned, you know, just a few they're still finding remarkable ways, not just with pain alleviation, but that that CBD is really helping, you know, people in their struggles and things of that nature. So I think it's an awesome thing to look into and it goes very well with health. You know, and what you've done with your own trajectory in your life. Speaking of that, like looking at this this incredible growth and that you've had from from launching ordinary Vegan website to the podcast and now the cookbook and everything that you've done. Do you base your goals on your goals for the next one to three years on your past, or do you base it on solely where you want to go forward? Do you look back? In other words, and think this was working, I need to further that or do just base it on whatever is coming to you right now? 

 

[00:18:17] I positively look back. You know, I've made a lot of mistakes and, you know, wasted money or something like that. But now I'm definitely much more focused. You know, I leave a lot of money on the table because I don't. I won't let you know if you look at my Web site. It's a very clean site. 

 

[00:18:39] You're not like seeing all these ads pop up and stuff like that. 

 

[00:18:44] And, you know, the anyone who sponsors my podcast has to, you know, be eco friendly, 100 percent Vegan, you know. So it's not like really easy to get, you know, find a lot of those sponsors. But. You know, might that in the future. What I found out I do these Facebook live videos and there are a lot of work. You know, they definitely are a lot of work. And but I find that people respond the most to those, too, like seeing and engaging in that kind of thing. So my goal now is in quarantine is to have my, you know, have a cooking show that is consistent, you know, certain days of the week. And right now, I'm not even you know, I'm I'm probably going to focus a lot on the easy five ingredient cookbook, because, you know, that makes it easy for people to to go go on to a plant based diet. But but I'm also, you know, I'm pulling out all my favorite old cookbooks like Padma's and just get them that aren't Vegan. But I'm borrowing a lot of the flavor profiles and I've been making some outstanding food, to say the least. And it hasn't been difficult. So I'm going to share that now. All that, you know, in there, no plant based cooking shows on Food Network or, you know, they're hard to find. 

 

[00:20:21] Yeah, they are. Absolutely. I think that they're still rare, which is odd because I feel like a lot of things aren't order. These are rare these days. 

 

[00:20:29] You know, in network, I mean, it's like they promote such unhealthy food. And it makes me you know, I don't I don't get it. 

 

[00:20:40] I don't know. Even with that Paula Deen tragedy and every, you know, everyone feeling so betrayed. I thought for sure that would launch some kind of a plant based, you know, sub culture in there. 

 

[00:20:50] And it really didn't. And while you're cooking show be live or have you have you planned it out that far? 

 

[00:20:56] I'm I'm I'm writing some scripts for it right now. And I'll probably make that decision probably in the next week or two. I don't know. 

 

[00:21:07] You know, like a whole different beast. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I do know. 

 

[00:21:15] Do you? Looking back over what you've done since the launch of the Web site in 2011 and everything that you've gone along the way. Are there certain lessons that you've learned, like the top three pieces of advice you wish you could have given yourself, knowing what you know now? You know, something that either could have saved you pain or gotten you ahead? 

 

[00:21:37] Definitely the number one thing if anyone's out there wants to start a Web site. Educate yourself in MCO search engine optimization. That is the number one thing when you're blogging. In order for people to find you, you have to understand how SEO works. So that was probably the biggest mistake I made because like I said, I never thought of it as a business early on. So I didn't worry about stuff like that. But now, you know, it's you know why I always do a keyword search before I even, you know, post a blog. And you know what? Going to make most sense. I think that. Follow your bliss, whatever you absolutely love. That is what you should be doing. And no matter what it is, and that's what I practice my whole life. I did it with music. And then I found out, you know, I loved helping people and teaching them nutrition, teaching them recipes, you know, and I followed that. And, you know, that's. I think it's as simple as that. You don't have to overthink it. I mean, so many people are like, I want to start a business, but I don't know what it should be or blah, blah. And it's like, well, what do you love? Yeah, I agree. Here's your answer. And you know, it might not be really sexy. You might need to start, you know, if you love music like I did, I just went to work in a record store because, you know, I love music and. 

 

[00:23:15] You know, that's that would that's my advice. 

 

[00:23:18] That's great. Yeah. I mean, educate yourself and follow your bliss. I love those two things. I really do. They think that they will serve throughout business and was as personal life. You know, I think those two pieces of advice can be carried all over. 

 

[00:23:32] I'm curious. I don't know if you have a conversation with yourself that you're comfortable in relinquishing. But I know of a lot of people, not just in the Vegan world, but all over the world who have had conversations with themselves in the business format. And they've taken time to kind of reassess and reengage and requestion themselves. Given the pandemic that's upon us right now and they've had conversations with themselves and with their employees and their company regarding change or dialog that they intend to put out there. And so it's an inclusive conversation. You know, it's not just we all held our breath, went into quarantine, left, and it's business as usual, but rather this evolution that happened, you know, during this time period. And I'm wondering if you can speak to any of that and that you may have had personally or with your company regarding the ordinary or ordinary Vegan Web site or your future plans. Can you kind of speak to how covered 19 has affected it? 

 

[00:24:32] No, absolutely. I think what I think about a lot now is tone is, you know you know, it's so important to be giving out the right information, too. I mean, I can do a podcast right now without talking about it. I mean, that's the elephant in the room. So what then? What information I share? I you know, I have to research it, you know, weeks to make sure I'm saying the right thing and things change changing so quickly. It's so hard to keep up with the information that you're reading about or even don't even know if it's true or not. And that's why I am focused. I decided to focus on like foods for respiratory health recipes from your pantry rather than me focusing on, you know, I'm trying to keep people well during this. You know, and, you know, building up their immune system. So so I found that that's you know, I'm focused on all the Cauvin 19 ailments come along with it and, you know, try to help people there with food because, you know, food is medicine. 

 

[00:25:42] Yes. Yes. I think it's the most powerful medicine. 

 

[00:25:45] Exactly. So it as a matter of fact, the the food for respiratory. Health podcast is one of my most popular now. 

 

[00:25:57] Absolutely. And everyone tune into it. You're on i-Tunes, I believe. 

 

[00:26:01] And people can also get to your podcast through your Web site, through my Web site on i-Tunes. I'm everywhere where whatever you list, Spotify, you know, anything, I'm slightly podcast is everywhere. 

 

[00:26:16] I love it. Well, we are out of time today, Nancy. But I wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us and give us all of your wisdom and your history with such candor. 

 

[00:26:28] And I really appreciate it. I'm hoping that we can circle back around in in phase two of this podcast and find out more about post pandemic. You know, how things are going and how that Facebook live cooking classes going for you. 

 

[00:26:44] I pray. I'd love to share that. Thank you so much for having me on. And I wish everyone out there to stay safe and stay well. Stay strong and stable. 

 

[00:26:56] Absolutely. Thank you. And for everyone listening. We appreciate your time. Thank you for lending us your ear. We've been speaking with Nancy Mantri. And you can find her at ordinary Vegan dot net. Until we speak again. 

 

[00:27:10] Next time, eat well. Eat clean. Stay safe. And remember to always bet on yourself.