Vegan Travel in Peru | Food & the Amazon | Ben Riddle

Link for the show notes

In today’s episode, we’ll be talking to Ben Riddle, also known as Your Friendly Vegan Cook. Ben is a vegan chef, author, and musician who has cooked for retreats, private events, and clients around the world.

He’ll be sharing the story of his three-month journey through Peru, a trip that took him from the vibrant food scene of Lima to the mountains around Cusco and deep into the Amazon jungle.

We’ll talk about vegan food in Peru, slow travel, plant-based living, and the deeper connection between food, healing, creativity, and Ben’s personal experience with ayahuasca.

There are a lot of resources, restaurants, and destinations we talk about in this episode, so make sure you look at the show notes and the blog post for this episode to get all the details.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Brighde: [00:00:00] Welcome, Ben, to the World Vegan Travel Podcast.

[00:00:03] Ben: Hi. Thank you. Nice to meet you.

[00:00:06] Brighde: I'm so happy that you are going to be talking with us today because we're gonna be talking about an incredible experience that you had as a vegan traveler, and that is this amazing three months that you had in Peru, where you had a very specific objective, something very specific that you wanted to explore and experience in this beautiful country. So before we dive into this amazing trip that you had, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do in the vegan space?

[00:00:44] Ben: So my name's Ben. I am Your Friendly Vegan Cook. This is kinda like my brand and the name I use. I am a vegan chef for a lot of retreats, private events all around Europe, all around the world actually. And I'm an author and I'm a musician, so [00:01:00] there's many hats that come on and off. But yeah, I've been in this kind of vegan space cooking and chefing for the last 15 almost...

Yeah, 15 years. Exactly.

[00:01:09] Brighde: Oh my goodness, wow. And what brought you to being a chef in the first place?

[00:01:17] Ben: I've always really been fascinated by food. Like my grandparents, my mother, all my family, are very good cooks, and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen learning recipes and spending a lot of time around them. So food has always been like a visual, but like all the senses are going. A lot of memories I have are to do with smell and taste and being around those spaces with family. And I've always been really fascinated by travel, so any place I like to go, I like to go straight to the market or learn about the different things that I'm eating and tasting and the different recipes that are local.

So I don't know, cooking is so vibrant and colorful and interesting. It involves a lot of your senses, so I think that's where my passion comes from and I just love food. [00:02:00]

[00:02:01] Brighde: So I'm curious, what inspired you to want to spend three months in one country and in Peru? Because most of the time people would say, "Okay, I've got three months. I'm gonna pack in as many destinations as I can because three months is such a big trip. Maybe I'm not gonna get an opportunity like this again." What made you decide just Peru?

[00:02:28] Ben: Yeah, that's a good question. I personally, when I like to travel, I like to take my time. I like to not really plan it so much either. I find that if you're going to a new country, you might just suddenly fall in love with the place, and something makes you wanna stay longer, and you just can't find yourself to leave, and suddenly you've got to be somewhere else or get on a plane or...

I try and just embrace the moment and just let the travel plans evolve a bit organically. I wasn't always like that, but the more I travel, the more I just realize that maybe just arriving and taking it slowly to feel the country, to feel the [00:03:00] people, how the energy is evolving, gives you a bit of a guide of how to travel and maybe where you want to visit.

But the three months for me was, I've been interested in plant medicine for a long time, so part of that trip was to spend a whole month in the jungle with a shaman, doing a lot of detoxing and dieting with plants for spiritual, psychological, different kind of reasons and things that I'm searching for in my own kind of spiritual journey.

And so that was the basis of my trip, but I wanted to have these months either side to explore, take my time, to also just prepare myself for this quite a big emotional, physical journey with the shaman. And also just to embrace it afterwards. I knew I'd be feeling like I wanted to travel and explore, and friends were coming to visit, so I thought, what a nice experience to have a whole month at the end to explore places and explore the country and what it had to offer, because I'd heard so much about it, how colorful, how much interesting food there was, some of the best chefs in the world, some of the most interesting restaurants and places.

So yeah, it was [00:04:00] just a place I wanted to spend as much time as possible.

[00:04:03] Brighde: I love it. So you decided that you were going to go to Peru. And obviously, you knew that you wanted to spend one whole month in the jungle, which sounds very interesting.

I can't wait to hear more about that experience because that is something that I've never done. But you started your journey in Lima, correct? And you spent a

good amount of time there, a couple of weeks or something?

[00:04:29] Ben: I spent just over 10 days in Lima, yes, when I first arrived.

The capital, where all the flights come into, so it was a good base to start.

[00:04:36] Brighde: And what were some of your highlights? Maybe we'll talk about food highlights and favorite restaurants, but what were some of your favorite moments or favorite things that you saw in Lima?

[00:04:48] Ben: I think the first thing about Lima, it's a very vibrant city. It's very active. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of people. There's a lot of contrast. There's beautiful art and graffiti and murals and there's this [00:05:00] vibrant sort of color just surrounding you all the time.

It's beautiful, yeah. It reminds me of Mexico or somewhere where there's a lot of really bright kind of primary colors, and the markets are all yellow and it's very beautiful. And then so that kind of drew me in too. It made me want to just keep walking. I didn't take the bus.

I didn't take the metro or anything. I just explored on foot. It was so nice.

[00:05:20] Brighde: It's quite a walkable city?

[00:05:22] Ben: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's a couple of areas which I really like. There's an area called Miraflores. It's like a flowering area. And it has a lot of really cool raw cafés, vegan cafés, very ethical, environmentally conscious coffee shops, and yeah, there's a lot of vibrant areas for food.

And then if you go down south a little bit ’cause Lima's right on the coast, you can swim there, you can surf there. It has a really beautiful climate. And there's another area called Barranco. So it's got really cool pubs and nightlife, but all these great vegan cafés, and there's a place that has all fermented foods and a wall of different kombuchas [00:06:00] and really nice fermented foods that you can taste and sample.

And yeah, just wonderful place to hang out and sit in a café, and lots of markets and people and, yeah, just a beautiful place. And if you like surfing, I'm Australian. I grew up surfing, so you can also just take a board and have a surf sometimes too, so that's nice.

[00:06:18] Brighde: I did not realize that Lima was a surfing destination. That's awesome.

[00:06:23] Ben: Yeah. Yeah, I was surprised too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:06:26] Brighde: And what were your favorite vegan restaurants or- Or your favorite culinary experiences, I should say. 'Cause maybe not all of them were in vegan restaurants. Maybe they were in other places. Would you mind sharing those with our listeners so they can go and star them on their Google Maps and have them right there when they happen to be in Lima?

[00:06:46] Ben: Oh, absolutely. So there's Raw Café, which I briefly mentioned, in Miraflores. It's nice to have a whole selection of raw desserts and raw food pretty much the whole menu. And I just rented a little apartment just around from there, so that was like breakfast, [00:07:00] lunch, and dinner sometimes ’cause it was so nice and very affordable.

Like quality ingredients and yeah, just wonderful. And there's also Germinando, like germination, so they have a lot of sprouted foods and homemade sauerkrauts and a lot of micro herbs and fermented foods into their cuisine.

And this place has all the kombucha and kefir and different types of things too, so it's like a really healthy hub, and they also have a lot of good raw desserts as well. They're in two different areas, so I'd spend a lot of time going in between those. And along the way, there was just some very interesting little, almost like somebody's house that had just opened their garden and set some tables, and suddenly there was a menu for the day.

I was always surprised to just take a different path one day and find some amazing little restaurant. So I'd spend a lot of time just chatting with them, taking pictures, and helping them also post photos to their Google Maps to get more people. Yeah, it was just a nice place.

And those two areas I would highly recommend for any vegan traveler because there's a whole smorgasbord of things to [00:08:00] explore and lots of markets in between those too. So much good local produce, which Peru is very famous for.

[00:08:07] Brighde: Very interesting. So after Lima, you went and had your spiritual journey in the jungle. I'd love to learn more about that. Something I'm very curious about is how you learned about the experience. I can't imagine that- It's something that you can— maybe you had a recommendation or from a friend or something like that. It's not something that would necessarily be, like, super high on Google. Maybe I'm wrong.

[00:08:36] Ben: There's a huge renaissance happening with psychedelics and plant medicine and a lot of people going into therapeutical spaces to work on mental health or physical issues. But ayahuasca is a plant-based medicine, a very traditional plant-based medicine coming from the jungles of the Amazon specifically.

Now it's spread out and a lot of centers and places around the world are doing it [00:09:00] also. That's another topic. But that's the center of where this happens in most of the places along the Amazon River and up in the jungle areas of Iquitos, which is where I ended up.

But how I got there: some friends of mine who I've spent time with in Melbourne have been working with these medicines for many years have written and directed a lot of documentaries based on this, have written also novels based on the experience and how to navigate that space because the space of psychedelics is very precious and very, very complex.

I've always been passionate about the mind and spirituality and exploring those ways for healing that might not necessarily be Western medicine. My whole journey started healing, going vegan is because I had a lot of health issues, a whole list of things that I wasn't quite sure how or why they were just manifesting, and it wasn't until I went completely vegan that all of those things pretty much stopped within a month.

So that— that's my journey of becoming

[00:09:57] Brighde: power of plants.

[00:09:59] Ben: I just saw [00:10:00] the power of plants and I saw the power of healing yourself through diet and y- yeah, even the people around you, all sorts of things. My journey started from there. But how it took me to the jungle was really a recommendation from a friend and working with a specific shaman in a specific place, and he also takes groups of people there to do that kind of experience and a retreat-type situation.

I was researching, exploring this whole medicine concept for many years, and it wasn't until maybe the time is right where it's like, "Okay, now I'm gonna go."

[00:10:30] Brighde: Fabulous. All right. I'd love to know about this experience. Obviously, you were there for a month. I'm sure there's a lot to say given the nature of the experience. But tell us what you would like to about it.

[00:10:43] Ben: Wow. This is a whole topic all on its own. I could talk for days. But the intrigue with working with such a medicine like this, I think the essence of it is to try and purify the body so the medicine can actually work more effectively. A [00:11:00] lot of us try and struggle with illnesses and diseases ’cause we're at dis-ease with our body, and we're trying to get a grasp on what's going on.

So I had a lot of questions there already. And what ayahuasca does and what the shaman does is gives you a way to detoxify and clean the body and purify the body first, before they start working with these medicines. So they can really work more effectively, work more deeply, so you as a person can channel some of the information that's coming to you.

So it's more, if the signal is clear, like now with our Wi-Fi, trying to get a good connection it makes that relationship with the medicine a bit cleaner and more precise, and you can maybe interpret things a bit more holistically and more grounded. So there's a whole dieting kind of process.

So there were reasons why I spent a month before, because I wanted to stay away from alcohol, stay away from sugar, refrain from sexual activity, stay away from very high [00:12:00] processed foods. No salt, no... This whole diet is quite strict, but for the right reasons, because this medicine is quite strong.

And the cleaner, the more pure we can get our bodies beforehand, I think the more interesting the experience is. I spent a bit of time with the shaman beforehand just drinking a certain type of plant to clean the blood, to strengthen the mind and the body, to allow the medicine to come to me.

So that's very interesting, and there's a whole plethora of plants. Even Western medicine, the majority of these medicines come from specific plants found in the Amazon jungle. And they're still discovering more and more. So there's a real essence and a real beauty and power that's already there in the jungle.

So this medicine was very curious to me to explore it. And sitting with the shaman, for a month, not entirely a month, but many ceremonies, many different types of plants. all surrounded by [00:13:00] this beautiful ceremony with music and a lot of love and compassion and a lot of sacredness.

And also just feeling embraced by this beautiful jungle environment, this kind of like your nest for a month. You're like this little bird in a nest just being nurtured and fed and loved and being sung to and just given this beautiful blessing. And then it's "Okay, now it's time to fly."

Here you go.

[00:13:23] Brighde: It sounds like it's a place that's really set up for people like you to have an experience like this. I'm curious, in that period of time where you were having the ceremonies with the shaman, what was your daily life like?

I'm sure you weren't having ceremonies for eight hours a day. So what was it like? Were there other travelers to chat with? What was the accommodation like? I'd love to know all of those kinds of details.

[00:13:47] Ben: Where I was is a center up up in the jungles out of Iquitos. And their accommodation is like individual sort of self-sustaining huts. Really beautiful, made out of [00:14:00] bamboo and whatever's on the land. So you have your own space. It's really important to have isolation and time to reflect.

And after a very kind of emotional, sometimes very physical ceremony, it's nice to just disconnect a little bit and rest and sleep and all those sorts of things. But they have a lot of communal spaces where all the other people that have been there in the ceremony meet for breakfast and they chat, and then they also come back and meet for lunch and dinner sometimes.

You have this— And there's libraries where you can read books and those sorts of things. And so your days are, doing yoga just by yourself, or maybe you're swimming in the river 'cause all these places are quite often by a river source. And or speaking with the shaman if he's there or just go for a walk or just enjoy nature or journaling and just very slow.

There's no phones, there's no TV, there's no distraction, there's no,

[00:14:46] Brighde: Wow.

[00:14:48] Ben: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I actually was journaling a lot. I wrote poems, I wrote music. I wrote a whole book, which I've recently published based on this whole experience. But, so there's a lot of reflection, a lot of [00:15:00] meditation, a lot of kind of just processing because you spent hours in a ceremony and it's like you've been given all these gifts and information.

It's time to sit with them and reflect on it. But there's a nice family to bounce off sometimes and you share experiences and I think that's really important to have that kind of network around you. Yeah, a lot of time alone, but time to share in that beautiful kind of space.

[00:15:20] Brighde: And you mentioned there are other people like you having this experience. Was this a large group? I'm thinking like eight people would probably be a good size but how many people were there?

[00:15:32] Ben: Yeah. This center in particular there was about 10 people when I was there. And some people are there just for one evening. Some people are there— there was an elderly woman in her 60s that had been there for six months. And there was another man my age who'd been there for nine months living there permanently.

The shaman comes three times a week, so there is a ceremony three times a week. So there's time in between to have time for yourself. And yeah, some families would come. There was a mother and a daughter that came for a few [00:16:00] days and they left. So a lot of people are coming and going, but no more than maybe 15 people at a time.

Which is what drew me to this center because there are centers, in Peru and other parts of South America where there's like hundreds of people in a ceremony, which was really not interesting to me at all. There's a whole kind of like tourism explosion around this medicine, and a lot of it's being exploited too.

So the concept of being in a room with 100 people if you knew about what these ceremonies can bring up, was really not in my interest. So a place that was quiet a bit more isolated and a smaller community was really more interesting to me. Yeah.

[00:16:39] Brighde: Are you able to describe what the ceremonies were like?

[00:16:44] Ben: Yeah, I can try. I can't really give you a sense of what was going in my mind. That is very hard to describe in words sometimes. The medicine has a language of its own, which is like very interpersonal. But the ceremonies themselves are... So in the afternoon the [00:17:00] shaman would come.

Everyone comes to the river and he does a flower cleansing bath. So he has a whole concoction of flowers and herbs and leaves and aromatics in this big water basin. And individually, he invites you to come and he washes you in this water, which is smelling so beautiful with all the flowers of the forest.

Sorry, I'm talking about my experience, but there are shamans of both sexes. But they use a lot of tobacco smoke. So there's smoke being blown on the body to clean the body and protect you. And so there's cleansing in the water, and then later in the evening we'll come back.

Most people are dressed in white, not necessarily, but it's like a pure color to help this kind of ceremony. And so the shaman will clean the space with palo santo and sage and herbs, and then he will invite everybody to drink the medicine. Most people will say a kind of prayer, and he's actually throughout the ceremony, he's going around the circle [00:18:00] and singing individually to people in his native language.

Singing and playing instruments and giving a kind of cleansing and a blessing to each individual person and then also to the group. It's very beautiful. The songs really stick with you and the shaman is really using the songs as a message. The medicine is there as a real guide, but the songs are like the keys to unlock the medicine into each person.

So each person will receive a different song which I really found quite beautiful, that someone is singing to you to heal you. The words in the song is really the power in the medicine too. So yeah, it's a really beautiful experience. That's the beautiful, nice side of it.

Once the medicine starts to take effect, it has a very physical kind of effect. They call it the purge. So what's happening is this medicine can go deep and actually make the body purge in different ways. It could be through vomiting, it could be through crying, it could be through sweating.

It could be in a way that actually the medicine is trying to get things out that are not supposed to be there. It could be [00:19:00] toxins or poisons or any sort of thing. So there is the beautiful ceremonial kind of sacredness, but there is this kind of like physical, internal kind of dialogue and things going on too, which is maybe I don't really want to explain, but there is that part of it too.

[00:19:15] Brighde: It sounds fascinating. I don't know much about this. I know some people who have helped guide people on psychedelic experiences. It's never something that I have done, but it's certainly very interesting. I'm curious, what made you decide that you were done after one month?

Or were you always only going to spend one month there?

[00:19:38] Ben: The shaman recommends, if you wanted to come and just do one ceremony, they say that one session of ayahuasca is about 25 years of psychotherapy or working with a... What's the word? Oh,

[00:19:51] Brighde: Therapist.

[00:19:52] Ben: Kind of like a therapist. Yeah, it's like one evening is like 25 years of therapy.

After one evening, sometimes that's enough for people. Some people maybe are looking for a bit [00:20:00] more. So the shaman recommended you can either come for a short amount of time, or if you want to spend a bit more time and immerse yourself in the landscape and have a bit more of a personal journey, you're welcome to stay as long as you want.

But one month would be a really nice time for you. It was about 12 ceremonies over one month. And like I said before, like going somewhere and just taking time and being present is important to me in travel. So I thought, "Hey, I'm just gonna spend one month, totally disconnect from everything and dedicate this time for myself."

And it was completely life-changing. So after one month, I was like, "I think I've had the most beautiful journey, but I'm ready to go now and put all this into practice and to integrate a lot of what I was learning." Integration is probably the most key word to any experience like that, is how you actually take it and integrate it into your life.

Yeah.

[00:20:44] Brighde: I'm curious if you wouldn't mind sharing who is this experience really good for and who isn't it good for, in your opinion, based on what you've done?

[00:20:57] Ben: That's a very good question. I don't think it is for everybody. [00:21:00] I personally felt ready because I'd spent many years with Vipassana with meditation with detoxing and healing and feeling very clean and pure anyway. When I learned about the diet that they wanted to do, I was like, it's basically a vegan diet, a very healthy diet.

It's not processed food. There's not a lot of salt. There's no dairy products. There's no animal products. There's not a lot of alcohol. All those sorts of things that I was already quite there which I think which made my experience a bit more grounding. I think that has a bit more of a steady mind that can really anchor themselves in an experience like that.

Somebody with a really open mind that's willing to explore those kinds of dimensions and healing, p-personal healing. What the medicine is really is probably who it's not for is people that are taking a lot of prescription medicine or antidepressants or any of those kind of things that might interfere with medicine because they can have a really very dramatic and not a fatal effect, but can really disturb the process.

So that's also why you have an interview with the shaman beforehand. That's also why the shaman [00:22:00] recommends a bit of a dieting kind of process, detoxing beforehand. It's not just "Hello, welcome. Here's the medicine." It's absolutely not that. And if it is, or if anyone recommends that to you it's probably not a place where you should be going.

You're in the hands of someone that's professional, and you're also putting your life in the hands of somebody, and you're feeling very vulnerable. So you want it to be safe and someone that you trust. And I spent a lot of time researching different shamans, and it was really just a recommendation from a friend who'd already been working there for about 10 years to go here.

I really felt safe. But yeah, there's a bit of a screening process and yeah, it's not for anybody. It's definitely a very fascinating and interesting way for healing and personal development. There are other ways. There are other roads. There are other highways to get there.

This one is a bit of a kind of a fa- a fast track or a...

[00:22:49] Brighde: Intense.

[00:22:50] Ben: Unique and very... Which is not always for everybody. Absolutely. Yeah, for me it was... I've been on a journey for a long time, so I think I was ready to take that next step. But yeah, definitely.

[00:22:59] Brighde: It's [00:23:00] funny that you mention Vipassana. I did a Vipassana 10-day silent course quite a while ago now, and I basically went in cold. I'd never really done a lot of meditation before. Oof, that was baptism by fire. It was not easy, and I really struggled and, I got there in the end.

But goodness, it was incredibly difficult and I couldn't talk to anyone about it. And on day two, I asked to leave, and they encouraged me to stay and I ended up staying. And I got a lot of good things out of it, but oof, it was really hard.

[00:23:39] Ben: Yeah. I'm very proud of you. I'm very proud of you for staying 'cause I know a lot of people who also... I think I've also been through that and I've done several of them now. I've been doing them since 2016. But yeah, my first one was a real struggle. I think even if I compare doing a whole month with ayahuasca, I think the 10 days of Vipassana was probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. [00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Brighde: Interesting. Interesting.

[00:24:02] Ben: This is what my book is about. I explore both of them, of how do we explore those inner realms of both of them, of ayahuasca and Vipassana. Vipassana was a big journey, but it was completely life-changing and, like I said, one of the hardest things I'd ever done because you're operating on your mind on your own.

It's like surgery for your mind without the hospital. I was operating on my own mind. So fascinating. It just opened the whole Pandora's box for me, and I explored ayahuasca after I did those Vipassana retreats. Yeah. I think it was a kind of another step to go a bit deeper.

[00:24:39] Brighde: So tell us about your book. You've written several books, and you've now published one on ayahuasca and Vipassana. What inspired you to write this book?

[00:24:52] Ben: Can I show you a little picture of it?

[00:24:54] Brighde: Sure. People watching on YouTube will see it. Ah, A Song Is a Seed. Oh, I [00:25:00] love it. The cover's so beautiful.

[00:25:02] Ben: Thank you. Yeah, a friend of mine had done that for me. "A Song Is a Seed," I'm also a musician — this book is like a journal, an exploration of the tools of both ayahuasca and Vipassana meditation, and how we can use them as deep spiritual transformation.

So it's really an introspective journal of these chronicles that I experienced through both kind of very interesting techniques, and I wanted to explore both of them. But a lot of the book is, there's a lot of pictures from the jungle. There's also poetry, drawings, and also a lot of quite deep introspective reflections on how Vipassana really changed me and how it's really a useful meditation technique.

There's also a whole musical element and "A Song Is a Seed" is one of the names of the songs, is one of the poems. And the song is a song is a seed is a song. It's kinda like how planting a seed or planting an idea can really be this beautiful blossom for change, for transformation.

And also the song, like a shaman, is the seed that gives [00:26:00] you the kind of hope and the willingness to change, or maybe the seed that's supposed to be flowering inside of you kind of idea.

[00:26:06] Brighde: Oh, I love it. And where

is this book available?

[00:26:10] Ben: So I independently published and released this book through a platform called Books.by.

Basically, they are an independent kind of platform where a lot of the— pretty much 100% of the proceeds go to the author. And I found this interesting rather than going with big platforms like Amazon, for example, where you don't really see your money and I feel like all my money's going to somewhere else.

So this was an interesting way to self-publish and to distribute globally basically for free and make a bit more money in the pocket, which we can't all complain with that. So yeah.

[00:26:42] Brighde: not at all. Not at all. So you are feeling very different after your experience in the jungle, and then you went to Cusco. That must have been interesting, your first sort of re-entry into a town or a city. How was your experience there?[00:27:00]

[00:27:00] Ben: Yeah, the transition was, it was a little bit strange to have a month in the jungle and suddenly you're in this city. But the city itself is very beautiful. It's up in the Andes Mountains. It's quite high up in altitude. Really beautiful city, beautiful stones. It's a really vegan eco-friendly hub for food as well.

There's quite a few really famous restaurants that do vegan sushi and also integrate a lot of permaculture principles and very ethically minded sourcing of local foods.

And it's a really beautiful city to spend some time and a bit of a gateway to the Andes where I actually explored a bit more into Pisac and explored some other medicines and things around that area too. So if you're looking for an interesting place up in the mountains, it's also a really good vegan hub for food and restaurants.

Lima has one of the world's best restaurants called Central. It's not fully vegan, but they have a whole vegan/vegetarian tasting menu, which is so fascinating. It's like art. And their sister restaurant, which is called MIL Centro, is like up in the Andes Mountains, which is like one of the most [00:28:00] incredible restaurants in the world where you can have this whole vegan art dining experience in the most beautiful setting.

It's like eating art. I can't even explain this food, but Pía León is the chef there, and she was voted the best chef in the world in 2021, and this restaurant was the best restaurant in the world. If you're in Lima or, you're in Peru and you have a chance to eat at one of these restaurants, you'll absolutely not regret it.

[00:28:23] Brighde: I love it. And you're actually based in France now. How are you enjoying your time in France?

[00:28:32] Ben: I love France. I've been here for almost 13 years. Now I'm living in Normandy. Yeah, I've been coming and going from France for a long time, but I've been based here for the last 13 years and yeah, it's great. I have a lot of work. I have a lot of customers and clients for different yoga retreats and Pilates and different sort of seminars and business events, all based around like vegan cooking and very healthy, eco-conscious, zero-waste cooking.

I do a lot of cooking classes and things. So [00:29:00] yeah, I'm very busy here and very active and I live in the country and it's such a beautiful place to spend time and have a garden and, yeah, be creative and explore a lot of the things around me. Yeah.

[00:29:10] Brighde: I love it. I love it. All right. So thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast, Ben. Would you mind sharing with our listeners all of your website and social media handles and where they can find the books that you have written? And they might learn more about you.

[00:29:27] Ben: Absolutely. Yeah, I have written... I showed you this book about ayahuasca. It's called "A Song Is a Seed." You can find me on Instagram @yourfriendlyvegancook. So you can look that up and you can find my recipes and my videos and you can find this book, which is called "Happy Heart."

So this is over 70 recipes, very simple. A lot of them are gluten-free, non-refined sugar, a lot of alternatives, very simple recipes that don't involve a lot of ingredients and time. It's also been translated into French. [00:30:00] Da-da-da. Which is like healing your heart. All these books you can find on books.by/benriddle. So yeah, books.by/benriddle, which you can find all these books, and I've also been writing some children's books which are coming out soon too. So that's like a whole other thing. That's another hat that's coming on.

[00:30:15] Brighde: I always like to

learn about upcoming projects, and children's books always

[00:30:19] Ben: Ah, okay.

[00:30:20] Brighde: I love it.

All right, Ben, I want to thank you again so much for being on the podcast. All the best of luck with your future endeavors, and thank you so much for coming and talking about such a unique experience that you've had while traveling.

[00:30:34] Ben: You are very welcome. It was so nice to have this chat, and I hope to hear from some of you that are out there listening. Please contact me, share your ideas. I'm happy to give you some advice. These are some of my favorite spots, so thank you so much, and yeah, I hope to see you again soon.