Happy Friday my friends:)

I am super duper excited for today’s interview because we have Andrew Olson, aka the One Ingredient Chef, here!

Andrew is the first male we have had on Foodemental Fridays!!! I was starting to think Peter was the only one passionate about health and wellness… ha ha I kid:)

This guy is super cool and I know you are going to like him… I mean look at that photo – Avocado in the mouth? (love it) and his favorite restaurant is a Vegan, Gluten-Free, Organic Mexican Restaurant!! I have talked about that, and you know my feelings!

Meet Andrew:

One Ingredient Chef

1). Your Food Secret: Real food always tastes better.

2). Favorite Thing to Eat: If I was forced to eat just one meal for the rest of my life, it would probably be the Sesame Rice Bowl recipe on my website (see links below) – brown rice tossed with sesame oil, tamari and fresh veggies. It’s so good, I never get tired of eating it.

3). How often do you Cook: Typical, 2-3x every day– cooking doesn’t have to be complicated, difficult or time consuming.

4). Favorite Restaurant of all time: Gracias Madre, without question. It’s an all-vegan Mexican restaurant in San Francisco (and now Los Angeles too).

5). Why is that your favorite Restaurant: The food is phenomenal, and creative, and I love how they share my philosophy of using real, plant-based ingredients.

6). Your ideal food day consists of: I eat chocolate peanut butter cup oatmeal for breakfast almost every single morning (see links below). It’s a healthy “one ingredient” meal that I never get tired of eating. And throughout the rest of the day, I vary it up with meals of different grains, legumes, and fresh fruits & veggies.

One Ingredient Chef

7). Someone you look up to: In terms of cooking, Jamie Oliver has been a big inspiration for me. He doesn’t cook plant-based or even particularly healthy food, but he does have a strong commitment to using quality ingredients and getting people to cook from scratch more often.

8). Do you buy Organic? Local? Both? When it comes to fruits and vegetables, anything not grown locally is like a “knock-off” brand. The taste and quality just don’t compare. Plus, shipping half-ripened food around the country is so inefficient. I try to buy as much produce as I can at farmers markets, and always choose organic when possible.

9). If we were to look in your kitchen, what would we be most impressed by? You would be impressed by how unimpressive it is! It’s a tiny kitchen with a bunch of plant-based food. I try to keep things super simple and minimalistic in my kitchen.

10). If we were to look in your kitchen, what would we be most surprised by? The inordinate amount of chocolate products. You’ll find Swiss dark chocolate. South American dark chocolate. Chocolate chips. Cacao nibs. Cacao powder. Cocoa powder. Cacao butter… I may have a problem.

11). Where did you learn how to cook? Practice. While I’ve relied on many sources to get inspiration and learn techniques (my mom, Jamie Oliver, and so many others), the best cooking lessons happen when you step in the kitchen and start experimenting with new flavors, ingredients, and techniques.

12). Can you explain the concept of the One Ingredient Diet? The One Ingredient Diet is my answer to a world of processed food. Once I discovered that some fast food meals have over one hundred different ingredients, and how dangerous this concoction is for our health, I developed the One Ingredient Diet which has just one simple guideline: eat plant-based foods that have one ingredient on the label. If the label says “Ingredients: brown rice.” it’s perfect. But if it has disodium-whatever and 34 other things, put it back on the shelf.

13). What triggered you to start blogging? My mission is to make food more sustainable. Not just for the planet, but for our own health. The unhealthy diet we eat today is killing more people than anything else in America and that’s just not sustainable. Eating a diet of “one ingredient” foods has incredible power for our health and our planet. But as I started cooking this way, I realized that One Ingredient foods can also create some of the most delicious and satisfying meals. One Ingredient Chef was started to show that healthy food can be delicious.

14). What’s one ingredient everyone should always have in their kitchen? Cashews! As a plant-based cook, cashews are the most versatile ingredient in my kitchen. Not only are they delicious by themselves, they make incredible cheese and cream substitutes when blended…. No cashews in this kitchen, Peter’s allergic:(

15). You said you run long distances… How many miles are we talking? Nothing too crazy. I try to keep my mileage around 30 per week. Though, that might be increasing soon as I’m becoming more interested in running marathons more regularly.

16). Do you do anything else to stay fit? Definitely. I lift weights several times per week and try to fit in a yoga session as often as possible.

17). Where can our readers find more about you?

One Ingredient Chef – and my Facebook, or Instagram

Check out the recipes Andrew mentioned above: