 Welcome everybody. Aloha and thank you for joining us in Lillian's vegan world. The show in Honolulu where we talk about the vegan lifestyle and plant-based diet. First of all I do want to say to all of you I hope that you all are taking care and staying health and safe for those of you who are affected by the COVID-19. I do extend my condolences and wishes and hope that you get back on to track as soon as you can. Today I am welcoming back my dear, dear friend, fellow chef extraordinaire, vegan chef and cooking instructor chef Paul Onishi. Aloha chef. Aloha. Good to see you. So good to see you. Always great to see you and have you on the show bringing your insight to Honolulu about the vegan lifestyle. How's everything going with you? Well believe it or not it's been going pretty good. I've been very busy and doing constructive things so you know, could be worse but I'm very blessed. Yeah that's the thing isn't it? Today actually chef we did want to talk about keeping a positive and healthy mindset during this so-called lockdown. I think you know all of us are suffering from some form of loss, some deeper than others and you know we're all anxious about the future and what lies ahead but I think all we can do now is let nature take its course, get through it the best way we can. We all you know have to realise that we're not alone. There's always someone here that you know can support you and help you through it but today we are going to talk about things that we can do during this lockdown to keep us busy and happy and healthy. Sounds good to me. Okay so chef what's on your mind? First of all how have you been spending your time? Both you and I, I think I speak for you when I say we are both unemployed at the moment as chefs and cooking instructors here in Honolulu so that has freed us up to be creative. Tell us about what you've been up to. Well for me I had to make the adjustment from actually being involved in 12 different part-time jobs and then having them one by one just kind of disappear. You know I was teaching with the DOE substitute teaching I was teaching it down to earth, teaching at Job Corps and every one of those opportunities just closed up so I had to kind of you know reprogram myself and see what I could do in the meantime so I kind of established this culinary sabbatical for myself. Awesome a culinary sabbatical I'm intrigued. Well that's one of my list of five things that I do every day and by culinary sabbatical I mean that I actually go into my kitchen and I think of all the recipes and different food items I never got to do because I was either too busy didn't have the ingredients or just didn't have the motivation at the time but every day I'm doing something from like Indian samosas to Thai curry to you know all kinds of variations on vegan food and I'm surprising myself because I'm actually coming up with some pretty good recipes and hopefully when the virus lifts I'll be ready to go back and teach and have a full armament of things to you know offer my students. Absolutely that sounds fantastic and I do want to mention that yes Chef Paul is a very famous cooking instructor here in Honolulu so once you start getting your events back together we will definitely post them for you so that people can come and take some of your classes and learn about these new recipes that you've been creating. I mean that's fantastic some of the best dishes I think come about when you're not thinking about it you're just working with ingredients that you have on hand and using that you know creativeness that you have within and end up producing like some of the best food. I've also Chef been experimenting here with a lot of Hawaiian favorites actually I've been veganizing Hawaiian favorites and I've found this completely new Philippine cuisine that I absolutely love. Yeah for me it's been you know the same way only we're going down different rabbit trails and finding out it's a lot of fun a lot of fun. It is yeah and I think so one of the things that I wanted to talk about which is sort of a nice segue into this this little tip that I have is while we have all of this time isn't it a great opportunity to start thinking about your health and learning about your health and nutrition? Well definitely because I can't go to the Ikahi Health Gym like I used to do downtown I just started walking around my neighborhood and doing my you know 10,000 steps five miles up and down the hills and at first it was really challenging but then I got used to it and walking by myself you have a lot of time to think and kind of you know just just put things in a different perspective because everybody's going through the same thing you're going through and we all have to find our way to keep sane and to keep productive during this time period. Absolutely and the fact that it's difficult for a lot of people to leave their homes I mean especially for the age to a concern who are in that category of very easily contracting the coronavirus so a lot of people who do have to stay home are finding ways to stay fit and healthy I'm doing my yoga here not every day three to four times a week I'm doing my power yoga my husband has turned into a fitness fanatic gets up at 5.30 or 6 o'clock every morning before he starts work he's working remotely as well from home and he's working on a day working out on a daily basis so it's funny isn't it I think there's going to be two types of people that come out of this lockdown and one of them are going to be people like him who have found this whole new healthy way of working out and getting it done in the morning making sure that there's no excuses to put it off as the day goes on and I think the other thing that can happen unfortunately is the other group of people that are going to come out of this heavier than they were in that more depressed sort of state which is really what we don't want we want people to get through this come out of it healthy and you know get back on track so I do want to ask Paul if you don't mind I do want to ask you where do you get your protein from? Well I get my protein from garbanzo beans for one because as you know I have a couple of garbanzo beans fulfills the daily protein requirement that the US government requires and I don't know how many people know this but the actual proportion of protein you get from a half cup of garbanzo beans is equal to a porterhouse steak Thank you so much for clearing that up see I knew I could count on you that is absolutely right and the thing is Paul all of this talk about protein and all of these misguided dieters I would have to call them are so focused on protein and getting that daily protein when I guarantee not people not many people know how much protein they are supposed to be getting so according to most research it's about 0.36 pounds per sorry 0.36 grams per pound of body weight so if the average 165 pound human person will require about 60 grams of protein a day now the Americans are getting somewhere around 100 grams which is double the amount of protein way more than necessary and on the other hand I should say on the other hand there is one nutrient that Americans are getting less than 3% of the recommended daily intake do you know what that is? No I don't yeah fiber 97% of Americans are not getting the recommended amount of fiber per day so they're saying on average the American is getting 15 grams you need about double that you need about 30 grams of fiber so you just want to fill up on a lot of whole foods apples, pears with their skins on berries, whole grains, faro, millet, back beans here's one that's full of fiber that is a snack that everybody loves popcorn so three cups of popcorn, three cups of popcorn already comes to four grams of fiber so there's lots of ways you can get fiber in and according to e-medi health I do want to just quote this from the e-medi health website dietary fiber promotes healthy digestion and regularity improves gut microbiota composition helps reduce cholesterol and improve cardiovascular health helps control blood sugar levels and diabetes tames appetite by keeping you full or longer and helps regulate weight and protects you from developing colon cancer so I just want to in summary say the next time someone asks you where you get their protein from ask them where they get their fiber from now now I'm according to your list I'm doing pretty good because I have all those things available at home and I'm very fortunate to be able to like you be creative in the kitchen and kind of mix and match these different ingredients to come up with some really interesting food choices well vegans are pretty much all rounded when it comes to getting their vitamins and nutrients and stuff so I think yeah the average vegan who's eating healthy not you know filling up on junk food every day the average vegan is getting all of these requirements daily nutrient requirements so you don't have to worry about it all right Paul we are going to go to a quick break in a second but we will be back definitely to talk more about some of Chef Paul's ideas on keeping it cool during the coronavirus lockdown so do stay tuned everyone and see you after the break my show is based on my book also titled beyond the lines and it's about leadership creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness I feature a wide range of amazing guests who share valuable insights about how going beyond the lines leads to success in everything you do in life I'm looking forward to you joining me every Monday at 11 a.m. Aloha welcome back everyone to Lillian's Vegan World we're talking to Chef Paul Onishi about how we can keep things cool and keep a positive mindset throughout the coronavirus lockdown so please help me welcome our guest back Chef Paul with cat in hand what a gorgeous portrait that is tell us about it this is a portrait of my cat Little and this is a perfect stay at home business and I'm putting it on the screen because this is a college student who's being productive during the time of being at home and all she needs is a photograph of your favorite pet and she knocks these out in a couple weeks and she's really good at it she does oils or an acrylic and I was really impressed when I saw samples of her work so I said I've got to get a picture of my cat that is so adorable she captured the spirit of my cat who by the way is one of my five list of positive things that I do every day which is spend time with my cat, my pet yes I couldn't agree more as you know I well both of us needless to say our animal lovers but I also have a cat as well and I know that life is just so much brighter and so much more fun when you have a pet absolutely definitely not yeah that is a good question yeah I mean it just go ahead sorry Paul go ahead please continue it's different from relating to a human being especially now when a lot of us are kind of incubating and have to stay at home you know I don't have to entertain my cat when he wants to go away he goes off on his own and then when he wants to come back when he's hungry or get affection you know we're pretty independent that way so the relationship works out very well I know that's exactly what I love about cats like they're so independent and so kind of happy to chill and do their own thing they don't sort of hoard your attention or you know make you expect you to spend every living moment with them but yeah they're adorable each with their own personalities like every other animal and hopefully one day chef the rest of the world will see animals in the same light each with their own personality with compassion and not want to harm them and you know let them be just like the dogs and cats that we all adore they're all the same aren't they animals no so what else have you got on your list of things we can do during the lockdown or the incubation period as you referred to well every morning I start off my day doing my daily devotions and meditation that's where I kind of get my mind focused and I get set spiritually for the day and kind of detox from the previous day and get my mind and my whole personality set for whatever it is I'm going to do which you know for a lot of people it's very limited because of the isolation but there's a lot you can do at home for example cleaning up your house and for me this relates a lot to that culinary sabbatical I was talking about because you know before I used to just get in my car or go to the store just to pick up you know one or two ingredients but nowadays it's not economically or safe you know to do that kind of shopping so what I do is I make a list of the things I am interested in preparing for the next couple of days or the week and then I go out and I actually buy the ingredients and I try to see how many different spin-offs I can do with for example a bag of potatoes rather than just let them sit there you know one of the things I do in the kitchen is try to come up with different ways I can spin off on different ingredients I have and in that way I've come up with so many different variations culturally not just vegan but if people wanted to add meat to it definitely it would be a possibility if that's what they wanted to do absolutely Chef while we are talking about food I would like to ask Melissa to play a video that I prepared of the food that I've been just whipping up in my kitchen in the past month so we'll just let that play and talk over it Lillian's kitchen so this is all plant-based obviously and as I mentioned earlier I am sort of focusing on veganising some of Hawaii's favourites so lots of things here what you just saw previously was a dip made from breadfruit, elu dip so there's all these, that's a high tea that I hosted just before the lockdown started I think you saw some vegetable samosas there too Paul I'm a huge fan of those cauliflower buffalo wings there was some spam-ish mursi-y one of my new recipes for vegan luncheon meat teriyaki tofu twice frozen when you freeze tofu twice and drain it after each freezing it takes on a very interesting texture which I think a lot of people should there's my Hawaiian sweet rolls which a lot of people should definitely test out that looks good so that's a little bit of a taste of Hawaii and yeah definitely your advice is excellent Paul experiment in the kitchen, have fun find new healthy ways of eating don't get sucked into the take out phenomenon that's happening here although I highly and absolutely love restaurants that are really feeling this isolation everyone's sort of doing their part to try and support these restaurants and what have you but again in moderation I think we also at the same time do need to think about health and eating takeaway every night is probably not the best thing to do but we do have here's one of my tips we do have a couple farmers that are actually delivering food straight to your door and here's a list of just a few farm link Hawaii you can look online to get their details and call or contact them if you do want your fresh produce delivered straight to your door or do a pick up so there's Oahu Fresh, Kahumana organic farms Maua organic farms they all range between about twenty and fifty five dollars per produce box but isn't that an amazing way to help support the farmers and if a box of fresh produce is delivered to your door you're going to definitely use it as a matter of fact I just came back this morning from Marys garden out in Mililani and they have quite a few acres of hydroponic fresh lettuces they supply local markets and down to earth and their stuff is no pesticides no garbage in the soil and I could tell the difference because I had a baby romaine package I thought this stuff will never keep but I actually had it for three weeks and it's still as fresh as it was the day I bought it was pretty amazing did they deliver their food or is it just pick up well I went there today and now they're doing an online ordering and then they bring it to your car which is pretty good and they also represent quite a few different farmers on the island too so every given day there's something from papayas to lettuce to all kinds of different types of produce and the quality factor is pretty amazing and I walked out of there with about 20 dollars worth of fresh vegetables and fruits that I probably wouldn't be able to get retail and I don't think the quality would be as good but definitely support the local farmers they're doing a good job alright chef the other thing I did want to mention was the tabata exercise have you come across this or heard of it it's the four minutes you were going to educate me on that so I'm curious it's called the tabata exercise there's lots of names for it but basically it was developed by a scientist that was working in the Tokyo institution of health I think it was working with the Tokyo Olympic skating team and he developed this form of exercise basically what it is is 20 seconds of high cardio exercise with the 20 seconds 10 second break and that is considered one round and you do that for 8 rounds which comes to 4 minutes for a full completion researchers are recommending you do this 2 or 3 times a week take a break within 4 minutes studies are showing that it gets your metabolism up it's enough cardio to act as like a full 30 minute or 60 minute moderate form of exercise so the 20 seconds of exercise you do you can do anything like jumping jacks you can do push ups combination of it it's the longest 4 minutes of your life but after it you do feel you do feel like you've accomplished something even though it's only such a short amount of time so tabata exercise have a look at it online might be something that you want to do if you don't enjoy exercising for long periods of time chef we are coming to the end of our show I do want to thank you so much please give out a message to our viewers before we say goodbye what was that again please say goodbye to our viewers as we close the show be safe be careful wear a mask keep your social distancing and take as much as you can to stay at home and be productive and eat lots of fiber exercise when you can stay healthy stay safe stay positive and do trust that you know faith we all have to hold on to faith don't let go of faith because we're all in this together and we will get through it thank you everyone so much chef Paul and honor and pleasure having you on the show again I look forward to seeing you in person soon take care everyone