Henry: We can just start with the one thing that we can all control is those three meals a day that we eat. You know, yes people fly and yes people might drive a car and maybe not everyone can afford an electric car or they don't agree that's the right choice. But what the really easy thing we control is what we eat every single day.
Dr Rupy: I'm Dr Rupy and this is the Doctor's Kitchen podcast, the show about medicine, food, lifestyle and how you can improve your health today. My guests are Henry Firth and Ian Theasby. Yes, they are the duo that make up Bosh. You probably already heard of Bosh because they are the UK's leading vegan influencers. Back in 2016, they posted a video, it went viral pretty much overnight, and now two billion views later and an average of 26 million views a month, they are the UK's best-selling vegan authors with their latest book, Healthy Vegan, that's also a Sunday Times bestseller. And I'm very privileged to say that I also wrote the forward for that book as well. They also host the UK's first vegan cookery series on mainstream TV called Living on the Veg. You can catch it on ITV and I think it's a fantastic show that makes plant-based eating a lot more accessible and it's something that I wrote about in the forward too. There's also another connection between me, Henry and Ian. A mutual friend of ours, Dr Nish Bedi, who's a urologist, who's also been on the podcast when we talked about eating for your bladder and eating for urological complaints. He actually connected us a number of years ago and since then we've collaborated on a few projects, I've done a few recipes for them, and I even went through the nutritionals on their first book as well, which I completely forgot about and we talk about that on the show. This show is a little bit different. We talk about how they got into plant-based eating, what their mission is and actually how they create culture within their company and how they get on as a duo because having co-founders is pretty much like having a marriage, a proper relationship. We touch on a few things with regards to veganism and nutrition, but I think overall you're going to find a different perspective on these two because after the podcast we were talking and we talked a bit about how honest this conversation was and just how natural it was too. It's testament to the fact that I just think these guys are doing a fantastic thing, getting more plants on plates, and how they're very relaxed about it as well. I think many people when they think of veganism, they think it's quite an aggressive sort of community, whereas actually I think they do the community a lot of good and it's a great to have them as spokespeople too. I cook one of their incredible dishes in their latest book. It's a Goan style curry where I use banana blossom for the first time and I tell you what, making the paste from scratch was such a good idea because it's just a wonderful, flavourful paste. You can check it out on YouTube and make sure you give this podcast a five-star review. It really does help spread the message. We read all the comments and we'll be doing a competition with the comments soon as well. Check out my guests at Bosh. I'll put all the links on the podcast show notes and make sure you subscribe to this as well. I'm going to stop talking now, going to have a great conversation. Sit back, listen, relax, and I really hope you enjoy this chat. So guys, thank you very much for coming in the kitchen.
Henry: Thank you for having us.
Ian: Good to be here.
Dr Rupy: And you're testing out the new mics for us as well.
Henry: They look good.
Dr Rupy: Thanks.
Ian: They do look very good. Yeah, they're pretty cool.
Dr Rupy: The main reason why we've got them.
Ian: We were just saying they look kind of a bit like an Anglepoise lamp.
Dr Rupy: Yes. Yeah, yeah. I remember having those when I was a kid, doing my GCSEs. Yeah, yeah.
Henry: In fact, it's the Pixar logo, isn't it?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, it's the Pixar one. Yeah, nice. Yeah, yeah. It could tell you you're watching movies.
Henry: I'll watch my fair share. Well, kids movies all stand up.
Dr Rupy: High brow, obviously, high brow. So guys, I'm going to be cooking you a recipe from your book, the one that I did the forward for.
Henry: Yes. This one right here.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, that one right there.
Henry: The blue one. Good looking thing, isn't it?
Dr Rupy: It's quite nice you got a burger on the front of it.
Henry: And forward by Dr Rupy.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, there you go. There you go.
Henry: Thanks for that, mate.
Dr Rupy: So this is the Goan style curry with banana blossom that I've never cooked before. So this is going to be interesting. Awesome ingredient. Already, I think it's kind of got like the texture of jackfruit. Um, so it's, yeah, it's really nice. And I had to go to the Filipino store around the corner to get banana blossom. You can get it online as well. But then he also gave me these, which are green beans.
Henry: King green beans, yeah.
Dr Rupy: King green beans. Yeah. I mean, these are massive. Look at them.
Henry: They're so long.
Dr Rupy: I know. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to chop them. Don't worry. You don't want to get one of those in your teeth. No, absolutely not. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, I've already made the paste that is also in the book as well. Beautiful flavours in this. Cumin, coriander seed, garlic, ginger, amazing. Really, really. And I love the fact that a lot of your recipes actually go into the paste and stuff. I remember you telling me you went hard on curry.
Henry: Oh, yes, we did. Our publisher actually just told us, look, for your next book, you've got enough curries now. Let's dial back on the spice a bit.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Henry: Because yeah, we go deep.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, no, it's good. It's good. And you do your research as well, which I love. Um, so I'm going to get cracking with this. I've got some veg stock, got a bit of coconut milk, um, some mushrooms, going to bulk it up a bit, some of the, um, the, uh, banana blossom that I've just got marinating in the tamarind. Nice. Another beautiful ingredient that you guys use a lot. And, um, yeah, we're going to get cracking. So, tell me about the book, man.
Ian: Incredible.
Dr Rupy: I mean, I already know about the book because I read the book and I did the forward for it because I love you guys. But yeah, tell me a bit more about it.
Ian: Well, I mean, you know, I have to get this off my chest even before we talk about the book. Banana blossom. I actually saw one a few months ago in real life growing. When I was in Bali. Yeah. There was this swimming pool and there was a banana tree there and there was this thing hanging off the bottom, this kind of almost conical shaped item. I was like, I'm sure that's a banana blossom. It's definitely a banana tree. It looks like that's a blossom. So I googled it. I was like, yep, that's a banana blossom. So there you go.
Dr Rupy: And that's how you made it into your book.
Ian: It's not this one. This one had to get canned, but, um, but they are real things.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Henry: Yeah, we, the first time we ever had banana blossom was a place in Stoke Newington. It's a vegan, oh, it's a fish and chip shop that had like jumped on the vegan bandwagon. We rocked up there because we heard that this vegan fish and chips was to die for. And, um, and we tried it and we were like, goodness me, it's absolutely crazy. So yeah, the sort of flakiness of it, like is a perfect mimicry for fish.
Dr Rupy: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Henry: So I suppose this is like the inspiration for the Goan style curry, right?
Ian: Exactly. We wanted a Goan fish curry. And so we're using banana blossom to be the fish in this one.
Dr Rupy: Brilliant, brilliant.
Henry: So the book, you asked about the book.
Dr Rupy: Oh yes, we did.
Henry: Yeah, so the book, um, so yeah, it's called Bosh Healthy Vegan. It's our fourth book, our third cookbook. Um, and yeah, it's the first time we've sort of dipped our toe into 100% healthy. We worked with a NHS registered dietitian and, um, it kind of, if you were to live your life eating food from that book, you would, you'd be in pretty good shape, I feel. Because and obviously there's a bunch of stuff at the beginning of the book as well, not only recipes, but like, um, attitude and philosophy to kind of good living, be it, um, positive mindset or the way that you sleep or anything else like that. It's a good book, if I don't say so myself.
Dr Rupy: Well, we'll have to find out what you think of the recipe.
Henry: Yeah, yeah.
Dr Rupy: Well, this will be one of the first recipes that I'm actually cooking from it because, um, when you guys sent it to me, uh, I never got a chance to actually cook the recipes. So this is like perfect timing. I'm sure it's going to be great because your other books are incredible. So tell me about the journey, man, because, um, we actually, we met through a mutual friend of mine, of ours rather, um, Nish Bedi, who's been on the podcast.
Ian: Yes, he has, yeah.
Dr Rupy: Urological surgeon, lovely dude. Uh, we met in Sydney and I remember him telling me about you guys back then. He was like, you know, you should meet my mates. Um, they're doing like, you know, this vegan thing and it's, it's getting traction. Um, but your story obviously starts way, way before then.
Ian: Yes. And funny story about Nish actually, because, um, I actually had a like,
Dr Rupy: Tell us a funny story about Nish. I love one.
Ian: If you do, if you have listened to that podcast, you'll, uh, hear that Nish is a very, very intelligent guy and he's a urologist and he will have been talking about, you know, how to, how men should eat if they've got, um, they've got issues. And, um, so he's really, really very learned. But he was so nervous. And so I had a big chat with him the day before just to kind of like, you know, let him, because I think he, being a urologist, he was concerned about the science and if he misrepresented some science. Um, so obviously it's a different skill set that you're now employing to come and chat to people on a podcast where you take things a bit more lighthearted to writing papers and like being a proper surgeon. But yeah, Nish is a good mate of ours. Um, and yeah, he introduced us. We were, we were setting up Bosh. We had this new vision that plant-based food was, um, important for planetary health and for the health of humanity as well. About four years ago, we realized there weren't enough recipes out there in the world. And we were fueled by this desire to save the planet, nothing less than save the planet. So we set up the world's biggest vegan cafe, only it was on Facebook and you have to bring your own ingredients, cook your own food and do the washing up.
Henry: Yeah, it's been quite a wild ride because when we first set up Bosh, neither Henry and I, um, are trained cooks. Our background isn't in cooking. So we kind of had to, um, teach ourselves on the job. And to be honest with you, if we look back at some of the original recipes, um, videos we put out, you kind of think, ah, you could have done with a little bit more cumin there, or, oh, you've gone heavy on the oil. Um, but now it's sort of like, yeah, so we kind of threw ourselves into this journey because we were very, um, we were very passionate about it because it's, we feel that like vegan food is something that you really can get passionate about because there's like the three main pillars and then the fourth we'll probably talk about in a second as well, which is obviously, um, animal agriculture and how bad it is for the environment, animal agriculture and how bad it is for the animals. And then, um, human health, because my mum always told me, I don't know if your mum told you, always eat your greens and we've kind of taken that literally. But then the fourth pillar is kind of, um, social justice and how, um, like, yeah, the food choices the West make is obviously very, very bad for the majority of people in maybe slightly lesser well-off nations.
Dr Rupy: And that's a big one for us.
Henry: That's, yeah, it's huge. I mean, you've written like a, um, a non-cookbook. I don't know what you call those.
Ian: Oh, the vegan book.
Henry: They would call it, uh, the smart thinking category. And it's, it's how to live vegan. It's a how-to guide.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, so you've really put like a lot of those sort of principles into that book. I remember, um, reading it because you, you gave me a copy of it as well. Um, you got an endorsement by Russell Brand as well, I noticed in the front, which is great. Yeah. Um, but, uh, this must have taken a while for you guys to actually come to this way of thinking. So take me back before you started Bosh and how you were living your life back then and how you sort of like transitioned on your journey.
Ian: Sure. I guess, um, we, we came from the startup world. So we were both mates living in the same flat. And, uh, I'd founded this company and then Ian was in between jobs and I was like, dude, come help me out with this company. So he did. So together we set up this thing called PingTune where you ping your mates tunes. That was the idea.
Dr Rupy: PingTune, yeah. I didn't know the name of it.
Ian: Yeah, it was called PingTune.
Dr Rupy: Okay, great.
Ian: And, um, the, it was a messaging app before messaging apps really, really kicked off.
Dr Rupy: Got you. Okay.
Ian: If we, if we'd been a bit smarter, we might have pivoted into something like TikTok. But we didn't. And so, uh, we did.
Dr Rupy: Well, to be fair, I think TikTok, um, for those of people who don't know, it's like one of the main social media channels that is like growing rapidly. But I think like back then, mate, it probably would have been way too early. Because you would have needed Snapchat and then Instagram and the stories and then everything else to essentially like teach people how to interact with that sort of platform.
Ian: Absolutely.
Henry: I think at that point the hardware wouldn't have been there either. Because it's like sort of video based. So it's like TikTok, um, and Snapchat have kind of come about because the, um, the phones have got better.
Ian: Absolutely. So we were working together in this startup and we got used to working together and we got used to the thrill of building something of your own rather than working in a, in a job. But it didn't, it lacked purpose. And we'd raised money into that company. We ended up pushing it down and and and wrapping it up in the end and, uh, learned a lot of lessons from that. And I guess both of us just went searching for something with a bit more meaning. And then we both discovered vegan food separately.
Henry: Yeah, um, my sort of, um, response to finding veganism and wanting to pursue it as a career was to, um, head back to Sheffield where we're both from and, um, set up a vegan cafe because I mean, my philosophy was, okay, um, I want to show people that vegan food is really, really good. And my like, my matter of fact kind of, um, attitude to it was just actually put food on people's plates. Um, so I went back to Sheffield for around about four or five months and found one of my friends who was also in a bit of a sort of place where he wanted to do something different. And, um, yeah, we kind of started looking for new spaces in Sheffield, um, for potential places. And we kind of went quite far down the line. And then Henry called me up and was like, uh, mate, I think this idea of a cafe of yours is a good one, but I think I can counter your idea of a cafe and say, why don't we open a vegan cafe for the whole world on the internet? And my initial response was like, you're a crackpot. No, we're not doing that. Um, but after a little bit of cajoling and gentle persuasion, Henry was like, uh, persuaded me to come back down. And that I came back down, I think it was on the 23rd of May 2016. I remember that because it was,
Dr Rupy: 23rd of May 2016. Exactly.
Henry: And our first video came out on the, in, on the 16th of June 2016. The reason why I remember is because I was coming back down to London because it was Hull City versus Sheffield Wednesday in the, uh, in the playoff final. My dad's a Stoke, um, Hull City fan, so.
Dr Rupy: Really? Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. So, so you started this project and the idea was to create, as you beautifully put it right there, like the world's first online vegan cafe where you bring your own materials, your own ingredients, and you do your own washing up. Um, but like, what was the, what was the plan? Like, what, what was like, I'm assuming you guys didn't have jobs then or?
Ian: Yes. Um, yeah, we were kind of both in between, um, but, but knew it would be fairly straightforward to build something up again. I think the plan was, it was the plan was never to feature us as part of Bosh. But the plan was to create a vegan version of Tasty, BuzzFeed's Tasty. Those videos had just become super popular that were top down. And there was nothing vegan. There were no good vegan recipes that we were aware of. And so we thought, let's just build a brand. That's why we got a name Bosh that sounds like a brand. And eventually we'll make food and and we'll kind of build this this kind of all these products and solutions around this brand. But to begin with, let's just give people recipes for free and put this resource out there because ultimately that will reduce the number of, um, like high carbon meals that are getting made and it will improve people's health. So the plan was start making videos, work really hard, become really like big on Facebook, and then work it out.
Dr Rupy: Work it out there after.
Ian: Work it out later on.
Dr Rupy: You're just literally just going head first and like you didn't really have like a business plan as such or like, you know, a strategy.
Ian: Well, there was, you know, it's interesting you ask, right? Because I, I looked and I found a manifesto from early 2017. So that would have been six months after we'd kicked off. And, um, I remember we were sat in the Hoxton Hotel in, in London. We were sat in the Hoxton Hotel in London and we, uh, manifested our thoughts down onto a Google document. And this Google document, it's only about four pages long, but it does say, we will build the biggest plant-based vegan publishing channel, launch the biggest vegan cookbook, um, get the first vegan TV show. And then the fourth thing was get a range of products in supermarkets. Wow. Yeah. So that was three years ago.
Dr Rupy: That's insane.
Ian: So there was kind of a strategy that we've adhered to, but it took longer than we thought.
Henry: But that and but as you said, that strategy came after six months of building an audience and sort of realizing that in actual fact, we're onto something here. Vegan, um, as, um, kind of philosophy is growing and more and more people are becoming interested in it. And we're kind of forging a, um, a place like as one of the influencers in the space. So yeah, I think the business plan came after the audience. And, um, yeah, it's been pretty, pretty good. So now we've just put pen to paper on the next kind of goals.
Dr Rupy: Tell us about those.
Henry: I, you can't, you can't leave us on a hang there.
Ian: Well, there's, there's, there's a few, like, we were talking about it before, right? About like there's, um, obviously the book thing has done really, really well. Um, so we're going to continue like kind of keeping our sort of place at the top of the tree when it comes to vegan cookbooks. Um, hopefully, we've got the TV show now, so hopefully the next stage on that is the continuation of and getting another TV show in. And then, um, we've already got a couple of products in supermarkets. We've got the collaboration with Kettle Chips. We've got our brand on Vitalite, which is kind of part, um, part partly kind of advertising our new, uh, platform, Bosh method, which we can talk about in a minute. But then, yeah, we're working on our actual own products. So that's going to be another sort of thing that we'll build out on.
Dr Rupy: But it's interesting this whole goal setting thing because, um, we, we set that and then we didn't look at it again. It wasn't something we came back to every six months and thought, are we achieving this? We set it, we set our intentions and then we pretty much forgot about it and just got on with month by month, day by day decisions. Um, but it, I do find it helps to steer you if you spend that time to sit down and put your intentions on paper and your mind almost subconsciously just makes that your direction.
Henry: Absolutely.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. So it's a useful exercise to do. Um, but I think also it's important to state that our number one goal is all about improving the health of the planet and the number of people eating plant-based meals. So we're not about converting people to go vegan, but we are about getting more people to have more vegan and plant-based meals and maybe even rebranding the word so that we've got a more inclusive, um, dip your toe in kind of approach to the word vegan.
Dr Rupy: I'm really glad you mentioned that because this is definitely something that I wanted to chat about in a little bit more detail because I think sometimes the word can be off-putting for a lot of people who would have otherwise dipped their toe. Because, you know, it makes it seem like it's either this way or you can't do it and you can't label yourself a vegan. Um, so we should definitely talk about that. And the other thing I do, I want to mention is the goal setting thing, I think is fantastic. I had no idea that that's what you guys did. And it's honestly, it kind of gives me goosebumps because I think, you know, the fact that it wasn't front of mind the whole time, you had it tucked away in a little Google document. It must have, you know, sat in your brain literally and it's now manifesting itself into the books, the TV shows, the products, etc.
Henry: It's fascinating how the mind works, isn't it?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And I'm a big believer in that. It's like, you know, people, some people call it the secret or law of attraction or whatever. But I think, you know, there is some science behind goal setting, setting your objectives, and having your metrics and your key results and executing on that as well. You don't have to be fastidious about it every single day. But as long as you know the general sort of direction, you'll meander toward it.
Ian: Completely. And you mentioned the key results thing. I presume you're up to speed with OKRs.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've just set them for my company.
Ian: Good man. Yeah, it's so good. Um, for the benefit of any of your listeners or viewers, um, OKRs is objectives and key results. And that's the way that like Google and a lot of future thinking startups are articulating their plans and then having measurable results that they can look for and things they want to achieve. And yeah, it's something we're looking to do more and more as we grow is be a bit more religious at looking at them every month.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, totally. Because I think like, um, so the OKR document, uh, that my friend sent me, he, he started a company called Yieldify, um, a few years ago now. It's one of the fastest growing tech companies in the UK. And he sent me this, uh, video of, um, I'll link to it in the show notes actually, the podcast. Uh, it's a guy from Google talking to a whole bunch of people outside and inside Google about how everyone, regardless of the size of your company, should be setting OKRs. Even if your company is just one, you should be setting your object. And so objectives and key results are essentially making, uh, more transparent the general, uh, top level direction of your company by, okay, what do you want to achieve? I want to write a book, or I want to, um, have a community, uh, where I can teach them about XYZ. And then your key results will be the metrics by which you measure that objective measure. And then you come back to that Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, or you can do it biannually as well. And I just think it's like the tech guys have been doing this for years. I think, uh, it was IBM who even started it and then Google sort of like gone thereafter. Um, but it's, I think it's just something you can just do in life, regardless if you have a company, right?
Ian: Yeah, absolutely. There's a good book actually by the founder of, uh, Intel. It's called High Performance Management. And he talks about that a lot. And then another one called Measure What Matters, which is literally like a playbook on how to set OKRs.
Dr Rupy: Measure what matters. That sounds familiar. Who's that by?
Ian: I can't remember the author's name.
Dr Rupy: We'll link to that in the podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Oh, that's brilliant, man. So tell me about your, uh, your, your new sort of objectives. I really want to know. Give us a scoop.
Ian: Well, we're still working them out, but, um, I think Ian pretty much hinted at them all then. Um, you know, product range is important. We, we want to also start coaching people, um, a bit more personally with their diet. Um, so we've got the new book, Healthy Vegan. We're also launching an online plan where people, it's not so much a plan as a subscription service where people can come and hang out with us and we will feed them three meals a day based on their weight, their age, their sex, their goals. And we'll also, if they want to, um, allow them to test their blood and find out like any nutrients that they may be deficient in, and then we'll tweak the recipes that we suggest. So if they seem to be a little low in iron, we may help them eat more iron in their food and also let them know that. So, um, it's a really cool thing because obviously a lot of plant-based people might be deficient in certain things. It's one of the things that people are scared of. Um, so we're going to help them to understand what healthy eating means.
Dr Rupy: That's brilliant. I mean, like, I think even those who are not plant-based, uh, are deficient in a lot of things. Um, I certainly see that from doing histories with patients and actually finding out clinical symptoms that could be indicative of nutrient deficiencies, whether that be vitamin A or D or, um, you know, a whole plethora of different issues that people can, um, use food as an adjunct to therapy and actually helping people with them. Um, but it's, I think people love to see, uh, improvements and, and they love an investigation. I, I try, us in the NHS, we try and limit that as much as possible, but there are certainly, uh, instances where it's necessary.
Ian: That's so, it's so good to be sat here actually talking to an actual doctor because we talk about this stuff all the time, you know, people, um, will ask us the question, isn't vegan a deficient diet? And, um, it's not a complete diet. And what we'll typically say, and maybe you can validate some of our thinking here, but it's, we will take a B12 spray from time to time. Um, we take this, uh, one that actually is specific for vegans. But other than that, we're just very focused on making sure we're trying to get as much colour in our body as possible. And obviously, like anyone in the UK can be deficient in vitamin D. B12, my granddad was deficient in B12. And arguably, we're probably better off with B12 than most of the population because we supplement it, whereas a lot of people could be deficient if they're meat eaters in B12.
Henry: One thing that we definitely have enough of in our diet is fibre, which, uh, I mean, a lot of people, you say, how many fruit and veg have you eaten like this week? And, you know, we've probably nailed as many fruit and vegetables as a lot of people eat in a week in a morning. So, um, so yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for, um, eating a plant-based diet because veggies are great.
Dr Rupy: Oh, 100%. Yeah. I think like this is the one thing that kind of frustrates me about the wellness industry in its current form is, you know, we latch onto one thing, whether it be a particular dietary regimen or protein, for example, which is like dominating the conversation, not just like vegans, where do you get your protein, but even people who eat way more adequate protein, which is all of us pretty much, vegans, vegetarians and omnivores, we all eat, you know, adequate amounts of protein. Um, but it's become like a thing like, oh, you need to get your protein. That's why we're putting it in like chocolate bars and water and coconut and stuff like that. So you don't need to do that. You do need to focus on fibre because that's what we're really, really lacking. And it's about the nutrient density of your food and the number of different ingredients you have, diversity and variety, rather than just adding one particular type of protein to your, your, your products and stuff, right?
Ian: Makes sense. It definitely makes sense. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: So what's going on with this food, by the way?
Ian: Oh, yeah, sorry. We should probably come back to this.
Dr Rupy: It's looking amazing. It smells amazing.
Ian: It's incredible.
Dr Rupy: So, uh, I hope I'm doing your recipe right. Um, I've just, uh, so first of all, I put the paste in with the coconut oil. I use coconut oil instead of sunflower oil. Um, and, uh, the shallots, and then stirred that around, added the chopped tomatoes. Um, I've annotated your recipe very, very slightly because I couldn't get baby tomatoes. I just got regular tomatoes. I'm sure you guys are very easy with that. That's all good. Exactly. Uh, and then I've added, um, the veg stock, the, uh, mushrooms, coconut milk, a little touch of, uh, syrup, um, but you can use maple syrup. And, uh, the green beans have just gone on and they're just going to take about five, six minutes to steam through. And mate, it's smelling delicious.
Ian: It does smell amazing.
Dr Rupy: It's incredible. Yeah. And we've got like four hungry guys here to, to feed after this. The crew are like looking at this like amazing. So, um, the, the word vegan, tell me about that and how, what are your thoughts for the future on the rebrand?
Henry: Well, we've kind of, um, for our first book, we avoided the word vegan because we knew, uh, like two years, three years ago when we were working, when we were working on it and two years ago when it came out, the word vegan was still pretty misunderstood. You would struggle to sort of see the word vegan outside, um, an eatery on the high street, whereas now, three years on or two, two and a half years on, um, you struggle not to see the word vegan. It's kind of just been a completely different attitude to what it was. It's kind of, um, it's a flip shift in the way that people think. Um, and I think that there's a lot of people out there, um, like, well, like us and like loads of other sort of influencers online who are kind of doing their bit to put vegan food in the places it needs to be seen. And obviously, people have sort of watched documentaries like Cowspiracy, like Earthlings, now like Game Changers, and they're changing their attitude to plant-based food. And, uh, big supermarkets have jumped on board with it and they're all just like, like just flooding their shelves. There's like 23% of all new products last year. 25%. 25%. Yeah. Of all new products last year happened to be plant-based, which is quite unbelievable. Um, so when it comes to the word vegan, um, I think we're obviously had the how to live vegan and healthy vegan. We're a lot more warm to the idea of using it. And I think we're warm to the idea of using it because people are warm to the idea of receiving it. So, um, but essentially plant-based is cool, vegan is cool, just as long as, um, like the, the, the, like the food is plant-based, it's all good.
Ian: And then I think if you fast forward into the future, like five years, 10 years from now, we would anticipate that everybody can dip their toe in to be vegan and eat vegan food without, um, being criticized for using the word without following a strict set of rules. If you actually look at the dictionary definition of vegan, which we talk about in how to live vegan, um, the definition as set by the vegan society is a way of living that seeks to avoid animal cruelty, um, and animal ingredients as far as is possible and practicable. And in that, as far as possible and practicable, there's space. And that space means we will eat, um, an avocado or a fig, which may have had bees involved, um, or or wasps involved in the pollination process. And it also, depending on your interpretation and the fact that every human is different, it might mean that someone, you know, like someone we used to live with who's vegan, but will happily eat non-vegan sweets all week long, um, can still call herself vegan because she's saying she's vegan. And it also kind of means the actual word vegan is almost an unattainable ideal that we want to get to, but it's impossible in our day-to-day lives because the iPhone wouldn't be vegan. A motor car might not be vegan because of the parts in in the engine. Um, your books might have non-vegan glue in them. So vegan is a really beautiful thing and everyone who aspires to be that is an incredible person and it comes with like love and passion and and and kindness to the world. But I think if we're going about this judging everybody based on how they vegan they are by our own standards, we'll just end up going around in circles. And we want to move away from that and get to a more welcome all-encompassing meaning of the word, which also, it's not just us, like Veganuary, they made it okay for you to try it out for a month and see what you think. And so everyone, future people and the London bubble are all thinking about the word vegan like this that we experience. But I think once you move outside of London, um, you can find more old-fashioned perspectives on the word.
Dr Rupy: I think we kind of agree that plant-based food is better for the environment than meat-based food, right? So it's like the best way to measure like, um, is not so much the people that are saying I am vegan because they can pick holes in how vegan they are. It's ultimately how much plant-based food is being sold. So and that's like really the only measurable out there. So like when you're looking at like, I don't know, big supermarkets figures and like they're five years ago, it was like 2% and then it's rising and it's just rising year on year. That's really the only marker of how much plant-based food is getting eaten. So I think we need to pay a bit more attention to that.
Ian: Big imperfect changes rather than like requiring everybody to be perfect.
Dr Rupy: Vegan-ish.
Ian: That's our, that's our vision.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I think like, I heard something on the radio today actually about how we shouldn't be looking for perfection, we should be looking for progress. And I think certainly progress is what what you guys are advocating, which is, you know, eating more plants, trying vegan for a month or so, educating yourself about the, um, transparency in the supply chain of where your food comes from and stuff. It feels sometimes we could the the more you dig, the more you realize like how difficult it is to be a 100% true vegan. Um, you know, it's it's and it's quite overwhelming for a lot of people, I think, right?
Ian: Yeah. And is it even like, can you imagine someone that has every single, because like paint, once you really delve into it, you can really like find it very hard to find vegan products. We use vegan products at home, so we'll use vegan, uh, shampoos and conditioners and and but we do drive a car. And so, so I think the more we can just be progressive and be accepting of everybody and let welcome them in to try some vegan food and then see what they do with it, the better. And the less time we energy we spend judging people on their choice of car, the better.
Dr Rupy: Because I think like people who are anti-vegan, and it really does rile some some people up, you know, they're less accepting of the term, they're less accepting of the people. They have, you know, prejudice against them and stuff. They can use a whole bunch of arguments to argue about how un-vegan vegan people are. How do you respond to that?
Ian: I mean, I think, um, so if we're talking about hypocrisy, we're talking about, um, as some people would say, exposing vegan's hypocrisy. That that was, um, that's the kind of term that somebody would use. And how ridiculous that someone can be living their life, trying to make the world a better place, talking about trying to make the world a better place, eating a better diet, like being selfless in terms of their diet and trying to encourage others to be more selfless. And then we'll pick them up on something because they're not wearing shoes that we think match up with what we think they should wear. Or they've had a leather jacket they've had for 10 years or something like that. So you know. It's like therefore that would mean that the only people that could talk about vegan food would have to be living in a farm in the Cotswolds with everything self-sustainable, no products from Apple or Google or Microsoft, um, and therefore unable to communicate with anyone anyway. So I think if we can move away from thinking that, um, vegans can be hypocrites and move towards just celebrating the fact that they're saying we should all be better. And maybe we should all be better than I am. Like I'm not perfect, Ian's not perfect, you're not perfect, but we're all trying in our own way and let's celebrate that rather than criticizing people for not being good enough.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Ian: That's what we should be doing.
Dr Rupy: It reminds me of the a quote from the latest Aziz Ansari stand up where he's like, you know, in 50 years time, we should always be looking back on ourselves and be like, we were what on earth were we doing 50 years ago? Yeah, yeah. We were horrible people.
Henry: Just like need to adopt that kind of marathon mindset of just kind of like just chip away, just like 1% better every day. And, um, if everybody was doing that, in 100 days time, we'd be 100% better.
Ian: That's so true.
Dr Rupy: So true. Yeah. And I think like, um, I mean, we talked a little bit on the podcast before with Venetia, um, who obviously has got like, uh, um, an an amazing engaged following that is all about reducing consumption in general and conscious consumption as well when you do choose to consume. And we talked about like how it can just get really overwhelming when you're like, when you realize, wow, how many things are wrong with our supply systems when it comes to everything beyond just food. I mean, the food and clothing are the big ones that come to mind, but then like you mentioned like the cars and like the paint and transport, exactly.
Henry: And what's shocking about it is as well, it's like in living memory, it's become infinitely worse, even though we should be getting a lot, lot better. And like a really good, like for instance, there's mushrooms there, right? So, um, you go to the supermarket when we were like 11, because we're roughly the same age, right? You go to the supermarket and you're like 15 years old and there'd be loads of open mushrooms and there'd be a brown paper bag there and you'd fill it up. Now, walking to that same supermarket, you can't do that. It's like you've got the same product wrapped up in plastic, wrapped up in cling film. And, uh, things like the advent of like coffee pods or, um, you know, there's just like there's an abundance of things that has like making our lives easier, but just with complete disregard for the environment completely. Um, so yeah, I think we, some big, big changes need to sort of happen and need to happen pretty damn quickly.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. And I think, you know, it's, it's funny because it's having not only a detrimental impact on the environment, um, but also on our brains as well. I've been reading a lot of Dan Leviton's work, um, and, uh, another one, uh, it's a book called Less is More. And it's all about actually reducing the amount of choices that we have because we have a finite, uh, amount of neuronal power, so brain power to make decisions. And if we expend those all by choosing what type of milk to buy or like, you know, trying to get the best type of mushroom, uh, or trying, you know, looking through your Twitter feed and actually being bombarded with all these messages, it takes a lot of brain power to compute all those different choices. And when it comes to the, the big choices that you actually need to make, like, you know, your life decisions or like decisions at work, etc, we've expended all our energy. And so it's almost like the whole vegan argument is actually about, okay, let's just do better with all these things so we don't have to make those, uh, undue choices and we can shape our food landscape by making choices when you're in the supermarket or when you're in the clothing store.
Ian: It's so true. I think it was David Attenborough's show. It wasn't David Attenborough himself, but it was, um, someone on his show that said, we can just start with the one thing that we can all control is those three meals a day that we eat. You know, yes people fly and yes people might drive a car and maybe not everyone can afford an electric car or they don't agree that's the right choice. But what the really easy thing we control is what we eat every single day. And as you talk a lot about the health and we love your, um, your books and your guidance on health, we find really invaluable. Um, and very progressive because a lot of people aren't thinking and some doctors still aren't thinking about plant-based as being a good way to go. Um, so, so I think it's really important that we as humanity are thinking about what we eat because it's so easy and it can benefit the environment too.
Henry: So it's like it's quite a simple thing really. It's like the best thing that you can possibly do for yourself to improve the environment is just eat delicious food. That's it. Like we're about to eat now.
Dr Rupy: What's been like the most, um, sort of shocking thing that you've found along your journey? Because I'm, I'm assuming like through all the books and through communicating with the, uh, what like basically chatting to people within your community and going to conferences and what not that you've learned and chatting to people abroad as well through your travels. Like what's been the most shocking stuff that you've actually found about like how we live currently and what we actually need to change beyond food?
Ian: Shocking in terms of?
Dr Rupy: In terms of like what, what actually made you realize, wow, okay, we actually do need to make like huge changes, uh, to how we're living and.
Ian: I mean, to be honest, this stuff's easy because it's broadcast into our brains every day through Facebook. Um, if you have a look at what's going on in farming, um, we're not talking about, you know, really nice family farmers who in on the hills in Wales. But when you look at mega dairies in the US or even some of that stuff in the in the UK, it's just inhumane. And like if we we animal agriculture isn't the first thing that we talk about, but we became real lovers of animals after after going vegan. And if there were a hell on earth for animals, if there were a hell for animals, this is it. And so I think you're shocked when you see that stuff, but you're not shocked just for the animal welfare, although you do think about that, but it's just, it's just not the right way to do business. The amount of waste that a, um, factory farm will give off, the amount of slurry that will go into the ecosystem and will mess up the people's health who live nearby, the amount of methane being pumped out by all of those animals that's then kind of going into the atmosphere. And by the way, methane is much, much, much more, um, has a much more heating effect than carbon dioxide. So the methane is a real problem, uh, for the environment. Just sheer, the sheer irresponsibility of the way this mass consumption of meat is, is taking place. It's shocking once you really look into it. And that's what motivates us as well as the desire to feed people nice food. And I think the only other, the only other aspect of it is, have you seen, um, the film Elysium with Matt Damon?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I've seen, I haven't seen it, but I know the general synopsis of it. Yeah, yeah.
Ian: So the synopsis is like the earth is, uh, struggling, but there's this really nice like satellite, um, satellite space station, yeah, outside of earth where all the rich people live and they've got perfect health and perfect food and everyone on earth is struggling. For me, it feels a little bit like we're living in the West, it's all nicey-nicey. We've got access to doctors like you who can tell us what to eat and and everything here is lovely. But then we've got vast continents of places where they can't eat good food, can't get good health care, they're dying from diseases because of the way that we eat. And if we were to eat all plant-based or all eat like 95% plant-based, then we would have more space for land, um, we would, we would have more space to let land like grow fallow, there'd be less climate change and we could find a way to get food to people who need food. And that for me, that injustice is huge.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, and again, it kind of resonates with me in terms of your perspective. I think, uh, progress does look like collaboration. Unfortunately, yes, it does mean, uh, it not necessarily outwardly endorsing, but just getting on with the fact that other people are going to jump on this bandwagon, but actually that, you know, that just speaks to the amount of influence that people like yourselves are having. Tell us about your, uh, the, the next steps for for Bosh and what you're up to at the moment because you mentioned you have a plan.
Ian: Yes. The immediate plan is to be in the pub at 3:00 p.m. No, I'm joking. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Although I think I'm going to have a red wine.
Ian: Oh, yeah.
Dr Rupy: I've got some red wine here. I've got to make sure that it's vegan though. Yeah.
Ian: Oh, yeah. Um, you know, the, the blue zones studies. So they talk about wine at five being okay. So maybe I'll have a little red wine tonight.
Dr Rupy: I think it's definitely part of the whole culture around eating, right? Um, it's, you know, who you eat around the table, uh, with as much as the, the food on the table. And I think, you know, the Mediterraneans have had like a really good relationship with little bits of alcohol. And I think the stress relieving impacts of half a glass of red wine or whatever, you know, are actually something that is quite intangible because you can't look at, you know, the mechanistic impacts of like what that resveratrol is doing or what the alcohol is doing to your cardiovascular system. However, there is something in it. So enjoying.
Ian: You're prescribing me to drink a glass of red wine tonight.
Dr Rupy: Every now and again once a month, it's fine.
Henry: Yeah, but in terms of like what's going on with Bosh, I mean, in the immediate future, we have, uh, the last four episodes of our TV show is coming out. ITV one, Living on the Veg. Um, it's Sunday mornings at 10, 10:30 a.m. 10:30 a.m. And it also is repeated on a Saturday. So that's been really, really cool. So we're seeing that out. Um, we're working on book number five currently. We shot the, uh, a few, the first seven, um, photographs because it's going into a blad, which is kind of like a taster for, um, booksellers and journalists because it's going into, I think there's the London Book Fair at the back end of February. Um, then Bosh method, which we've been beavering away on for bloody ages. Um, and we're, it's kind of, it's all coming together beautifully now. We've got bucket loads of wonderful recipes in there. We've got workout plans. As Henry said before, we've got the blood thing that you're going to be doing. Uh, so that's a big thing that's in the diary. And I think we will hopefully be pushing for a bit more, uh, transatlantic kind of stuff, you know, because like our, our numbers in America are really good in terms of our social following and also in terms of book sales. So we might sort of, um, push that a little bit further. Yeah, what else we got going on?
Ian: I mean, that's, that's, that's all of it from, from our perspective. I think, um, you mentioned OKRs before. It's 2020, the start of 2020 now. So we've both been away over Christmas and now we've got Natalie on board. We're thinking really carefully and really granularly about what our goals are and what we want to achieve. But at the high level, it's getting more people to eat more plants. As Ian mentioned with the Bosh method, helping them be healthier, because there are too many people eating vegan junk food. And we want to help move them a little bit towards 80% colourful food and 20% naughty food. Moving them in that direction. And hopefully, yeah, more, more TV, more vegan mainstream stuff, and more showing that vegans can just be two normal guys like us that aren't necessarily preachy, aren't judgmental, and like a wine in the pub from time to time. Just more of that.
Henry: But also in terms of the, um, like personal development, both Henry and I at the start of this year have kind of really adopted a more kind of fitness focused approach to the way that we're going about life. So Henry's in the gym, what, like you're doing?
Ian: Every single day.
Henry: Yeah, you're doing the like yoga.
Ian: Gymnastics and mobility and yoga. That's why I'm in my tracksuit.
Henry: And I'm on a, uh, like a self-imposed 365 day challenge where it's basically going to do some form of exercise every single day for 365 days. In because I suppose what we're trying to do is kind of like, um, buy life longevity with the currency of exercise. Because I think like, you know, like sweating every day now is the sort of thing that will give you an extra six years at the back end of your life, which is always a good thing.
Dr Rupy: How do you look after your mental health?
Henry: Um, sleep is key. Like lots of good sleep. Um, I think like not like this is the benefit of having a co-founder as well, like having, uh, the opportunity to kind of split duty. But when it comes to mental health, like I think, um, uh, I kind of try and get some meditation in by in like the savasana at the end of yoga or just like chilling out in the sauna and just kind of sitting through or even just going on a run. Do you know what I mean? Like, uh, like that's quite meditative. And I'm kind of, um, I'm taking a lot of solace in podcasts at the moment, which is a good thing to say since this is a podcast. But like in the morning, like say if you're going for a run, you stick your headphones in and you just listen and it's sort of you just get into this kind of just like nice flow, like brain flow, body flow. You might not be doing the om thing, but like it is meditative and you come away, you come back after your run or after your exercise and you just feel like a damn sight better than what you did before you went out. So yeah, and it's also having some kind of life discipline is, is, is really good for mental health as well. It's sort of like, I'm getting out of bed and I'm going to get some shit done. And, uh, I'm going to go to bed and I'm going to get some sleep done. Do you know what I mean? And everything in between.
Ian: Yeah, Ian's blessed with the ability to just sleep through anything. There was one time that I was, um, I was locked out at about two in the morning and I was banging on the door. His bedroom was just right by the door. I, I spent half an hour screaming and banging on the door. He didn't wake up.
Henry: The other day we had a fire alarm. Didn't hear it.
Ian: I will wake up from time to time. But, um, I'm also really, uh, cognizant of my sleep. And I'm trialing this new thing called, uh, Miracle Mornings for me. There is a book, um, around this topic. And it's just making sure that every morning, up at about 5:00 or 5:30, before any of the day begins, I will do some stillness, so a bit of meditation, um, or yoga, savasana. Um, A is for affirmation. So I'll just will just write something in my journal. V is for visualization, which is kind of similar to the affirmation, but you just visualize the kind of day you're going to have. E is for exercise, and I'll do either yoga or gymnastics. R is for reading, so you'll 10 or 15 minutes reading. And then S is for scribing. I think he couldn't get the W into the acronym, so he he did an S. Um, so a little bit of writing. And so the idea is that by the time we start work about 9:30, 10, I've kind of meditated, exercised, set my intention for the day, read a bit, written a bit, and my brain is on me. And I've not even really looked at my phone yet. So that's, that's how I'll deal with it. And it really levels me out and allows me to build habits aided, I would say, by the bullet journal method, like really strict adherence to, um, Ryder Carroll, who is the guy who wrote the bullet journal method, his method of journaling. I follow that to the T and it just helps me control everything and track everything.
Dr Rupy: Follow it to the dot. Yeah, exactly. I'm definitely going to try that out. I have to read those books as well. I mean, I I do my affirmations in the morning. It's a recent thing.
Ian: Because you used to do them, um, you used to do gratitude on Instagram, didn't you?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've dropped them, man. I enjoyed them. You need to bring them back.
Ian: I know, it's a bit, I bring it back every now and then because what I found was, uh, doing the gratitude thing every single day didn't allow me to be quite honest with myself because it was like, I'm sharing it with everyone else, so I don't want to go too personal. And then I realized after doing it for like 700 days straight.
Ian: You did it for so long.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it was a long, it was a long time. Yeah, it was two years.
Henry: Did you record all of those? Like, like, did you, have you got the actual raw files? Because if so, you should bang that up on YouTube. That's long form content.
Dr Rupy: It's just like every three seconds of a new day.
Henry: Man, I think it's a great idea. Like, like 24 hours continuous Dr Rupy gratitude.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. People, yeah, be good for your minutes.
Henry: You know, it may be on my Instagram. So when I look at like how much data my apps are using, Instagram is like right at the top. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Gigs and gigs worth of data. So it's probably in the archives somewhere, but that's a really good point. I'll look into that. I will credit you in that.
Dr Rupy: Well, that's really good like to get some insight into how you deal with mental health because I think the way people, particularly in the position that you guys are in, you know, process everyday life, but also process the amount of pressure it is, you know, to maintain all the socials, create a team, instill a culture within that team, and then also strategize about the future. Like it's a lot of mental power. Um, and I think people who perhaps don't have as much responsibility can still learn a lot from those insights into how you deal with it. Guys, thank you so much for coming in. I'm going to try this myself.
Ian: Yeah, let us know. This is the big question. What does Rupy, house of the Doctor's Kitchen, think of our food?
Dr Rupy: What do I think of the Goan style curry? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to have a bit more. Yeah. And this is your first time trying banana blossom?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, first time with banana blossom. Oh, wow. Guys, the sour tanginess of that is awesome.
Ian: It's interesting, isn't it?
Dr Rupy: Really good. Yeah. It's got to be like the tamarind, the like the syrup's like slightly offsets that as well. It's got my wholehearted approval. Can you tell us anything about the health benefits?
Ian: Oh, yeah. I mean, we've obviously written it, so we know.
Dr Rupy: I mean, you've got like three or four different varieties of of proper veg here. You've got fibre in the green beans. I don't know much about banana blossom, I'll be honest. I've never cooked with it before, so I need to look into that. You've got novel antioxidants in the mushrooms, like ergothioneine and a whole bunch of other B vitamins as well. Some mushrooms have vitamin D, uh, if you put them in sunlight with the gills up, but I don't think these are the ones, but either way, um, we need to be taking our vitamin D supplements regardless. And then you have, um, uh, the tomatoes that will have the lycopene spilled out of them because they're cooked for a little bit longer. So you're disrupting the cell walls and you're allowing the absorption of all those antioxidants.
Ian: Wow. Good knowledge.
Dr Rupy: But also it's delicious, warm, spicy, hearty. And and quite light as well in terms of the we've toned it down in terms of the saturated fat. Um, and it's just delicious.
Henry: Yeah, a funny, a funny dish this as well because you know how some dishes you look at it and go, that's winter food and some that's summer food. That bridges the gap.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I really, you know what? That's such a good point because I could eat that in summer because it's a Goan style dish, so it's something that I would imagine, you know, would be served on the beach somewhere. But that's perfect for like right now when it's like freezing outside.
Henry: Bosh. Amazing.
Dr Rupy: I hope you agree that Henry and Ian are just two wonderful human beings who are just super chill, massively relaxed. I love the chat we had about culture within creating an organization. Um, and I and I think it was definitely an honest conversation that, um, it was definitely one of the most honest conversations that I've had with them. Um, and I and I do, like I said, appreciate, uh, their mission and what they're up to. Please follow my guests, uh, at Bosh.tv on Instagram. Um, make sure you check out their website as well, bosh.tv. You can catch their show on itv.com, uh, and their books as well all over Amazon. You pretty much can't miss these guys. They've got a few interesting things coming out like a Bosh method, um, which you can find out more about on their socials, um, and a whole bunch of other projects too. I just can't keep up with these guys. Um, make sure you give this podcast a five-star review if you liked it. I'd love to hear your feedback and any other topics you want us to discuss. That'll be it for now. Thank you so much for listening and I'll catch you next week.
