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The Plant Powered Collective Podcast helps women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond live vibrantly and nourish boldly. Hosted by integrative nutrition coach Lori Willinski, each episode blends science-backed nutrition with approachable strategies for hormone balance, energy, and healthy aging. Rooted in lifestyle medicine and personalized coaching, Lori shares her story of thriving on plants since age 14 and managing autoimmune disease with nutrition. Discover how a plant powered lifestyle fuels not only your health, but also your leadership and your future self.
Welcome back to the Plant Powered Collective podcast. I am Lori Walinski, integrative nutrition and lifestyle coach and the founder of the Plant Powered Collective. Here, we explore nourishment on the plate, around the plate, and at the table. We build practical foundations that help women support themselves and the people they love without making food feel rigid, complicated, or clinical. This podcast is for educational purposes only and it's not a substitute for individualized medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Speaker 1:Now that I got that out of the way, I often begin by asking, what is nourishing you right now on the plate and around the plate? Today, I wanna answer that question. So on the plate, tomatoes are nourishing me right now. Tomatoes are in season and they are so sweet and juicy and fragrant and delicious. I love them sliced, like, super easy with some flaky salt, black pepper, fresh basil, and a drizzle of really good olive oil.
Speaker 1:I love chopped tomatoes with cucumbers, white beans, lemon, parsley, and toasted walnuts too. I will tell you, I will eat that for breakfast. I will have it for lunch, and then I will also have it for dinner. I also really love to roast cherry tomatoes with garlic until they soften and begin to caramelize, and then spoon them over hummus or stir them in with the pasta. I also love gently pan cooking tomatoes until they burst.
Speaker 1:It always brings me great joy when they burst, and I can take the the bottom part of a spoon and just gently press on the tomato, and it just bursts open and releases all their juices, creating a fresh sauce without even needing a jar of anything. It's super easy and just so delicious and so fresh. Tomatoes can become a beautiful salad, a fresh pasta sauce, a layer on top of hummus, or the acidic juicy element in a composed plate. They are familiar, but there are so many ways to remain curious about them. So I wanted to share that with you because tomatoes are just bringing me great joy right now.
Speaker 1:Around the plate, I am enjoying my weighted vest. I have been wearing it inside while I work, clean the house, move around the kitchen, take care of my dad, and manage the ordinary responsibilities of the day. Before, I only wore my weighted vest when I went on walks with my friend, doctor Charity Godfrey, who I also have recently collaborated with on the Vantage Collective, which is a corporate wellness program. But getting back, I used to wear my weighted vest only when I went walking with her. And now I find taking care of my dad, I don't have the free time that I once did.
Speaker 1:And I don't have time to walk with her as much as I used to. So I have chosen to wear my weighted vest just doing everyday things. For me, it's just a way to add a little bit more resistance and intention to movement that I'm already doing every day. A weighted vest can increase the intensity and energy demand of walking or household movement. It can challenge the muscles of the legs and core, and it can encourage greater awareness of posture and body position.
Speaker 1:I am really intentional about my posture. I remember when I was little, my Nana, my Italian grandmother used to make me walk around with books on my head, and she would say, shoulders back and down, stomach in, and make me walk around the house because she said that I had bad posture, and that's really stayed with me. So I really also feel that the weighted vest helps me with my posture because I'm intentional about how the vest sits, you know, on my shoulders. So, anyway, that's just what I do. I really like wearing my weighted vest right now around the plate.
Speaker 2:So I really just love recognizing that movement can be woven into real life, into every day, particularly when life is busy and overwhelming like it is for me right now.
Speaker 1:So today, I wanna talk about our kitchens.
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 1:really struggled a little bit with this particular episode because it's all about kitchen organization. And most of my clients, most of my listeners are females. And I don't want it to appear that there are only females in the kitchen. I'm too much of a feminist for that. And I'm too much of a feminist not to talk about organization and not talk about how we can make our lives more efficient because we're not only in the kitchen.
Speaker 1:We are also in the boardrooms. We are in the office. We are in the community. We are making a difference in every aspect of our life and our larger life and our community life and our global life and our work life. I mean so I still have this push and pull with this episode, but I also think that it's important because anything that makes our life easier is worth talking about.
Speaker 1:And anything making our bodies, minds, and souls healthier is also worth talking about. So that's where I sit with this. I am a self professed feminist. I always have been. I've always questioned why is it this way.
Speaker 1:Anyway but I do believe anything making our lives easier is worth a discussion.
Speaker 2:So what I'd like to talk about is the kitchen as another foundation around the plate.
Speaker 1:I do not organize my kitchen because I want it to look like a photograph. I would love it to be that way because it provides me peace and calmness in my very busy topsy-turvy world right now. I organize it because I want it to invite me to be curious and to focus on my nutrition. I don't want it to overwhelm me. I want to open the pantry and feel possibility.
Speaker 1:I want to see a jar of lentils and imagine a warm fragrant dish with ginger, scallions, and sesame. My dad just walked in with his caregiver, so I am going to put on my earbuds and, so hopefully, you won't hear them downstairs as the TV is put on and gets extremely loud. I am in my office with the door shut, but it doesn't really matter. So as I was saying, I want to see a jar of lentils and imagine a warm fragrant dish with ginger, scallions, and sesame. I wanna see white beans and think about lemon and tomatoes and basil and toasted walnuts.
Speaker 1:I want to look at a sweet potato and know that it can become something elevated, colorful, and deeply satisfying. Organization should not remove creativity in the kitchen. What it should be doing is making our lives more efficient,
Speaker 2:and it should make creativity and nutrition easier.
Speaker 1:A kitchen that invites curiosity does more than help us create beautiful nutritious meals. It can also support the brain and gut by encouraging us to learn, experiment, engage our senses, and introduce greater variety into what we already eat. Curiosity is mentally active. When we wonder how a new vinegar might change a familiar salad, how ginger will smell when it hits a warm skillet, or what happens when we toast walnuts before adding them to pasta. We are paying attention.
Speaker 1:We are learning. We are meditating. We are providing neuroplasticity to our brains. We are making connections between aroma, flavor, texture, color, and memory. Research suggests, and this is where my science nerdiness comes in, that curiosity can enhance learning and memory, including in older adults.
Speaker 1:I'm not suggesting that experimenting with dinner is a treatment for cognitive decline. I'm not doing that. I am suggesting that cooking can be one meaningful way to remain mentally engaged, creative, and open to learning.
Speaker 2:Creating nutritious meals asks the
Speaker 1:brain to perform many tasks at the same time. We plan. We sequence. We measure. We make decisions.
Speaker 1:We adjust when something does not taste right. We remember what worked before, and we imagine what we might do differently next time. We also engage the senses through color, fragrance, sound, touch, texture, and taste. That is one reason why I want a kitchen that feels like an invitation rather than an obligation. Curiosity also supports the gut indirectly because it encourages greater food variety.
Speaker 1:When we feel confident experimenting, we may be more willing to add a different bean or even try a
Speaker 2:bean if you've never tried a bean or a lentil. We might want to try a new herb or a seed or whole grain or vegetable or spice to food we already enjoy. A plant based culinary intervention has
Speaker 1:been shown to improve cooking confidence in the variety of plant based foods participants felt able to prepare. Other research has associated greater food agency, meaning the confidence and ability to plan and prepare nutritious food with higher vegetable consumption among adults and children.
Speaker 2:So you see, talking about the kitchen is not putting us back in the nineteen fifties. It's actually bringing us to today and the future. And that matters because different plant foods
Speaker 1:provide different fibers and plant compounds.
Speaker 2:In my kitchen, in my organization, and what I'm sharing today will help you to look at
Speaker 1:all of those things. We are not trying to eat every plant in the grocery store at one meal. We are creating small opportunities for variety over time. Use lentils, but add fresh mint. It's really good, which doesn't sound like it would.
Speaker 1:Right? Because you think about mint as being sweet and lentils as being earthy, but it really complements one another. Make the pasta you love, but finish it with lemon zest and toasted walnuts. So good.
Speaker 2:Prepare a familiar sweet potato, but place it over hummus with a quick pickled fennel and pumpkin seeds. The familiar food keeps us comfortable. A new flavor keeps us curious. Both can exist on the same plate and be incredibly nutritious for your brain, for your gut, for your cardiovascular health. A kitchen that is easy to navigate may also reduce some of
Speaker 1:the daily frictions surrounding food. I hear it all the time with my clients. They talk about no time. They talk about wanting to eat more nutritiously, but they talk about
Speaker 2:their pantry, not being organized, and they can't find anything, or
Speaker 1:they forget what they have. Interestingly, I had, friends of mine come over on Sunday, and, actually, Heather has been on the podcast before, and she is designing, closets and organization systems right now. And I opened up my pantry, and I'm like, oh, don't look in my pantry. And she said, you'd be surprised. Yours is a lot
Speaker 2:more organized than what I have seen in some of my clients, which was which is interesting to me. My pantry, although organized, is not pretty. It's a little bit less organized than it is usually because I don't have the time that I had to keep it organized with my father and having my father live with me. As some
Speaker 1:of you know, if you've listened to the podcast before,
Speaker 2:he has dementia and primary progressive aphasia. So it is a full on job taking care of him even though I have caregivers that help me.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot of overwhelm in my life right now.
Speaker 2:However, what I have found is having zones that I'm about to talk about really helps me and helps me to still, in a really easy, efficient manner,
Speaker 1:still prepare nutritious meals because my nutrition and my body and my health as well as my father's health is really important to me. When ingredients are visible, fresh herbs are accessible, and a few components are prepared, we have fewer decisions to make when we're tired or overwhelmed. I would not claim that pantry organization alone reduces physiological stress, but
Speaker 2:it is reasonable to recognize that a calmer,
Speaker 1:more functional environment may make meal preparation feel less overwhelming. This matters because the brain, nervous system, digestive system, and gut microbiome communicate bidirectionally and chronic stress can influence that relationship. So when I talk about building a kitchen that invites curiosity I'm not only talking about trying unusual ingredients. I am talking about creating an environment where we can notice what is available, engage our senses, practice new skills, introduce plant variety, make confident decisions, adapt familiar foods, experience cooking as creative rather than restrictive. The kitchen becomes a place where brain nourishment and gut nourishment meet.
Speaker 1:We stimulate the mind through learning and creativity. We support the gut through plant variety, fiber, herbs, spices, and thoughtfully prepared nutritious food. And perhaps most importantly, we begin to trust ourselves. We learn that we can taste something and decide what it needs. We can remain within our comfort zone and still experiment.
Speaker 1:We can build a meal without following every instruction perfectly. A curious kitchen helps us move from asking, what am
Speaker 2:I am I doing this correctly? To asking, what might be possible with what I already have? I often encourage my clients to get curious. Try a new vinegar. Buy one fresh herb you have
Speaker 1:not used recently. Toast a spice before adding it to a dish. Add a quick pickled vegetable to something familiar. But I also believe in staying within your comfort zone. Those may sound like opposing ideas, but both can be true at the same time.
Speaker 1:You can begin with food you know and enjoy and then change one element. Make the pasta you already love, but finish it with lemon zest, fresh basil,
Speaker 2:and toasted walnuts. Prepare a simple salad, but add quick pickled onions. Bake a sweet potato, but serve it over hummus with herb seeds rather than placing it alone on the side of the plate. Curiosity does not require abandoning familiarity. It simply means leaving a little room for discovery.
Speaker 2:Instead
Speaker 1:of organizing only by product category, I think about how ingredients function in a meal. So I have different zones.
Speaker 2:Zone one is the foundation. These are ingredients that give the meal structure, and they're usually around complex carbohydrates like brown rice, quinoa, farro, oats, whole grain pasta, lentils or chickpea pasta, polenta, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, lentils, canned tomatoes, and whole grain bread. These are not complete meals. What I think about it as is that they are the campus. They are the foundation.
Speaker 2:A bowl
Speaker 1:of brown rice can become a fresh and Asian inspired dish with ginger, scallions, edamame, cucumber, sesame, and rice vinegar. Really good. It can become Mediterranean with tomatoes, chickpeas, parsley, lemon, olives, and tahini. The foundation remains familiar, and the flavor direction changes. Zone two of flavor bases.
Speaker 1:I love starting a composed plate with a flavor base. Rather than placing food directly on an empty plate, create a foundation of flavor first. This might include hummus or lemon tahini or white bean puree, herb olive oil, basil pesto, miso sesame sauce, romesco, tomato and roasted pepper sauce, unsweetened yogurt blended with herbs, avocado and lime.
Speaker 2:All of those are really great. You can spread
Speaker 1:the hummus in a circle on a plate and then use a round form or ring mold to layer grains, vegetables, beans, and herbs over it. You can spoon herb olive oil onto a plate and arrange roasted sweet potatoes, lentils, tomatoes, and greens over the oil. A sauce is not simply added at the end. It becomes part of the structure and visual composition of the meal.
Speaker 2:And it feels elevated, but
Speaker 1:it does not have to be difficult. Zone three is fragrance. I love to fragrance food. That is how I like
Speaker 2:to think about spices, herbs, citrus zest, garlic, ginger,
Speaker 1:and toasted seeds. I like to think that they fragrance food like they perfume food. Fragrance begins before the first bite. It is the scent of cumin warming in a pan.
Speaker 2:It is a fresh ginger hitting a warm skillet. It is the lemon zest being grated over warm pasta. It is basil torn just before serving. A practical collection might include cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, ground ginger, red pepper flakes, black pepper,
Speaker 1:fennel seed, oregano, thyme, rosemary, Chinese five spice, and toasted sesame seeds. Fresh fragrance might come from basil, cilantro, parsley, mint, dill, scallions, garlic, ginger, lemons, limes, and oranges. You do not need all of these things at one time. Choose a few
Speaker 2:that connect with you and what you like to eat. Zone four is acidity and fast flavor. Acidity can transform a meal within seconds. When food feels flat, it may not need more salt. Although I love my salt.
Speaker 2:It may need brightness. Keep several acidic ingredients available. Fresh lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice, lemon or orange zest, balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, sherry vinegar, rice vinegar, apple cider vinegar, champagne vinegar, pickled onions, and pickled radishes. Different vinegars
Speaker 1:and pickled vegetables create different moods. Rice vinegar feels clean and works beautifully with ginger and sesame, cucumber, edamame, and scallions. Sherry vinegar adds depth to lentils, mushrooms, roasted vegetables, and beans. Balsamic vinegar works with tomatoes and strawberries and roasted vegetables and leafy greens. Lemon brings freshness to almost everything.
Speaker 1:Zone five is texture and earthiness. I do not enjoy a play where everything has the same soft texture. To me, texture matters. It makes a meal feel complete and keeps each bite interesting. Nuts and seeds are some of the easiest ways to create texture and earthiness while adding nutrition and plant variety in your food.
Speaker 1:It helps with brain health. It helps with your gut. And some of those things include walnuts and almonds, pistachios, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, hemp seeds, hazelnuts, and pine nuts.
Speaker 2:Raw nuts and seeds are wonderful, but gently toasting them in a dry skillet makes them magnificent because the heat of the dry skillet brings out their natural oils, fragrance, and flavor. Place them in a skillet over low medium heat and stir frequently. Within a few minutes, they become warmer, deeper, and more aromatic. Stay close because they go from toasted to burnt really quickly. I've done this so many times.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you. And as I mentioned earlier, finish a pasta with toasted walnuts or pine nuts. Add sesame seeds to an Asian inspired green bowl, or cashews work really great too. Place pistachios on top of a citrus and fennel salad. So good.
Speaker 2:Add pumpkin seeds to a composed sweet potato plate.
Speaker 1:Or like I've done over the last couple of days,
Speaker 2:add toasted sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds to a sweetened yogurt. They are so delicious. I have that for breakfast. Texture should not be an afterthought. It is one of the layers that makes nourishing food pleasurable.
Speaker 2:So now let's talk a
Speaker 1:little bit about the refrigerator. The refrigerator should also invite creativity. Store herbs where you could see them. I love to store my herbs in the refrigerator,
Speaker 2:and I also love to put them in vases. So, normally, what
Speaker 1:I do is when I get herbs from the grocery store, I'll wash them immediately, make sure they're nice and dry. I put them in vases, and I'll put them in my refrigerator. It's like opening up your refrigerator and seeing, like, these beautiful little vases full of these beautiful green herbs. I also put them on my table as a centerpiece instead of fresh flowers. I just love sometimes being able to when I'm sitting down for dinner is to say, oh, I'd love to put
Speaker 2:a little dill on this. And then I can just go pick the dill from my centerpiece and put it on my food. It's a wonderful way, and it's such a visual reminder. Like, oh, I can do that right now because it it's already clean, and it's right there as a centerpiece on my table. So some of the herbs that I love are basil, parsley, cilantro, dill, and mint.
Speaker 2:They can completely change simple food. I
Speaker 1:use basil with tomatoes and pasta. I use dill with cucumbers, potatoes, and white beans. I use mint with citrus, grains, peas, and fresh salads. I use cilantro with ginger, lime, rice, and lentils. I use parsley.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love a good Italian flat leaf parsley. I use so much of
Speaker 2:it with lemons and beans and tomatoes and roasted vegetables. Rather than preparing complete meals, I usually will prepare flexible components. So I'll cook a lot of grains, whether that's rice, you know, or farro or quinoa. I'll roast sweet potatoes. I'll cook a bunch of lentils, wipe you know, I'll
Speaker 1:have white beans available. I'll roast a bunch of mushrooms. I'll blanch green beans. There's a
Speaker 2:lot that you can do with green beans. I'll wash greens, or, you know, I'll
Speaker 1:buy them already washed from the store. I'll always have some hummus or tahini sauce in my fridge. I'll toast nuts and seeds and make sure that they're available, and I'll quick pickle some vegetables. And I won't do this. Like, I don't meal prep, honestly.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna do this, you know, every Sunday. But what I do is when I'm cooking rice, I'll cook a bunch of it. So I won't only have it for the meal I'm eating now. I'll have it for a meal that I'm eating tomorrow and the next day. And the
Speaker 2:same goes with all the other things that I talked about. These components can become visually different meals throughout the week, and that's what I do. And if someone else wants something different in your household, it's super easy to prepare it because you already have a bunch of different things. And, you
Speaker 1:know, always my go to, because I lived in Asia and in Shanghai for so long, is having rice in my refrigerator. And when I don't know
Speaker 2:what I'm gonna eat, I simply look at what else
Speaker 1:what what vegetables I have. I'll usually have some some beans or some tofu in my refrigerator as well, and I'll make a stir fry. And it's always delicious, and it's always good.
Speaker 2:And it's easy. It's nutritious. It's whole foods. It's plant based. There's plant variety, and
Speaker 1:it's good for my gut, and it's good for my brain, and it's good for my health. So I wanna talk a little bit about quick
Speaker 2:pickling. Especially during the summer, I love this. It's the easiest and most simplest way to add acidity, color, and contrast.
Speaker 1:So for a simple refrigerator pickle, thinly slice things like red onion, radish, cucumbers, carrots, fennel, or jalapenos. You can place the vegetables in a clean jar, and I cover them with a mixture of vinegar and water. I can't tell you how much water, how much vinegar. Maybe, like, a third vinegar usually is maybe what I use, and the rest water. And then I add small amount of salt.
Speaker 1:I'll usually add some sort of sweetener, whether it be, like, a really good, maple syrup, or I also have a pomegranate, molasses that I like to use. And then sometimes I'll add peppercorns or coriander seeds. Sometimes I'll add fresh dill or garlic, ginger, a little bit of red pepper flakes. It just depends on how I feel, what I think will be good. And then I let the vegetables sit for around thirty minutes in the refrigerator, and they become brighter and crispier and more flavorful.
Speaker 1:And I use them on salads. I use them on grain plates. I use them in pasta dishes, on sweet potatoes. I use them on hummus plates. I put them alongside roasted vegetables.
Speaker 1:I mean, so good. Sometimes I'll have them in the morning over an avocado toast
Speaker 2:just to share with you a recipe that I really like. And it begins with a small pool of sesame lime sauce. I love a good toasted sesame oil. I put it with a little bit of lime. Sometimes if I wanna have a give it a little bit of a bite, I might put put some red pepper flakes in there.
Speaker 2:But I put a small bit on the bottom of a plate, and then
Speaker 1:using a round form, I layer brown rice, edamame, cucumber, roasted mushrooms, and scallions. And, you know, the the ring form comes with, like, a little top to it, and you can press it down a little bit so that then when you take off the ring form, it's just this beautiful, like, little round layered nutritious group of foods on top of this beautiful sesame lime oil. And then I'll on top of that, I'll put some fresh sesame seeds, cilantro. I will put a quick pickled radish, a little bit more lime, and a drizzle of chili crisp. I love this, and I usually will have most of these things really readily available in my refrigerator or freezer in the case of edamame.
Speaker 1:And it's super easy to put together. And it's beautiful visually,
Speaker 2:makes me feel a little
Speaker 1:bit like an artist, makes me feel creative. I feel like I'm using my mind, and then I'm eating the food that will help my mind as well. And all of these flavors are inspired by my time living in Shanghai. It's fresh and fragrant and visually beautiful, and
Speaker 2:I just love it. So
Speaker 1:what I often hear from my clients is that it's really hard to change and focus on nutrition because of traditions, cultures, the things that their family enjoys eating. And there's just not the opportunity or willingness to want to cook, like, a ton of different things based on everybody's preferences, based on traditions, based on the culture of
Speaker 2:the family. I'd like to invite you to think about a few things that just because your family doesn't eat like you do, just because your family may not
Speaker 1:want to focus on nutrition like you do, that does not mean that you need to hide the food that you love or want to prepare.
Speaker 2:What I invite you to think about is creating a shared foundation and allowing the people in your family, the people in your lives to engage with it differently, you may create a beautifully composed dish for yourself with a ring mold and a base and layer beautiful textures and colors. For someone else in your family, you could serve the same grain, vegetables, beans, herbs, nuts, and the sauce separately. One person may combine everything. Another may prefer distinct components. One other person might add different protein.
Speaker 2:The invitation is the same, to be curious, to taste something, to notice the fragrance, to try the quick pickled onion, add a few toasted seeds.
Speaker 1:But the goal is not to force everyone into the same style of eating. We're all bio individual. The goal is to show how accessible, pleasurable, and flexible plant forward food can be. So a takeaway from today is simple. An organized kitchen should not tell you what you must eat.
Speaker 1:It should remind you what is possible. Your kitchen can help you build meals that are fresh, fragrant, colorful, and satisfying. You can remain in your comfort zone while introducing one new flavor, texture, herb, or vinegar. You can prepare food that feels elevated without making it complicated. This week, I invite you to choose one small experiment.
Speaker 1:Maybe toast a handful of nuts, make a jar of quick pickled onions, try a new vinegar, or create a plate over hummus instead of placing the sauce on top. Use a round form to make a simple meal feel intentional and elevated and restaurant worthy. Then share your creation inside the Plant Powered Collective Community. The Plant Powered Collective Community helps women, helps you turn plant forward nutrition and lifestyle insights into practical, sustainable action. And then the community helps us share it with other people.
Speaker 1:Like, let's not keep our creations, our intentions, our goals, our successes in nutrition to ourselves. Before you go, reflect on this question. What familiar food could I present or fragrance differently this week? Join the community and let us know the answer to the question. Until week, nourish next boldly and live vibrantly.
Speaker 1:I'll meet you next week back here at the table.