Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, it is something that can be challenging for all of us, especially at this time of year.

There are lots of holiday gatherings with tempting treats, and they just make it really difficult to stick to your health goals.

My first guest is on a real mission to teach people how to eat to live all year round, with a focus on plant-based meals.

I'd like to welcome Chef Quiana Rice, better known as Que, to "American Black Journal."

Great to have you here.

- Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

- Yeah, so first tell me, what is your Achilles' heel during the holiday season?

What's the thing that you know you're not supposed to be eating a lot of, but that you just can't resist?

- Portion control.

- That's for all of us.

I think we're all guilty of that.

Overeating.

- There's so much food everywhere.

So I think that's probably, my god.

- Mine is pie.

And that's not just Christmas, right?

That starts at Thanksgiving and then I just don't stop.

Like I'll have pie at Thanksgiving, and then I'm eating it.

- Every day until Christmas.

- I'm eating it for breakfast a lot of days.

And so, I mean, I think we all have issues.

- It's a thing.

It's a thing.

- Yeah.

- And it's like an ongoing thing.

It's an ongoing thing.

- But your mission, as I said in the open, is to get us to be able to resist more of that.

How do we do it?

- So in real life, I think it's not as complicated as it sounds.

My biggest thing is just making sure people understand, like it's really a choice.

Like, we make choices every single day.

You know, am I gonna get up and go to work?

Am I gonna go to sleep on time?

Food is just another thing.

So I think my biggest thing is just, making sure people pay attention to what they're putting on their fork.

So, you know, Thanksgiving starts the food train, okay?

There's a food train from here until New Year's, and it's just watching that fork.

And I tell people all the time, like, have what you want, but like, understand having it in moderation.

So that's my biggest thing.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

But at your restaurant and in other spaces, I mean, you're also really advocating for better choices in the meals themselves as well, right?

- Across the board.

I tell to pay attention to like a 70/30 rule.

I think no matter what you are, whether you're a vegan, a meat eater, a pescatarian, a pie-etarian, you know what I mean, the goal is 70/30, have 70% fruits and vegetables, and then 30% everything else.

Because if you look at it that way, it makes it easier for you to be able to break that down, no matter what type of plate you look at.

- So when we think about preparing meals and what we put in those meals, I think for a lot of us that the idea of fruits and vegetables seems more difficult than it should be, right?

I mean, a lot of vegetables, you don't have to prepare fruits, you don't have to necessarily prepare.

But when we sit down and think about the meals we're gonna make, I tend to say, "Well, it's too hard to include too much of the vegetables and fruits."

What's a good way, I guess, to think about the way to incorporate more of those without driving ourselves crazy about it?

- Bananas.

Well, honestly, if I were to be perfectly honest, if I tell people all the time, if you just remember 70/30, no matter what, I'm from a household where, even when we were young, there was always a protein and two vegetables.

And I mean, my family's from South Carolina, okay?

And they ate everything from the ruler to the tour, but there was always a main dish and sides.

And the sides were always like some hot veggies and then a salad, because these are folks who grew their own vegetables.

So it's almost the same thing that I do at my table.

So that's the same thing I try to tell my folks in my community, the vegetation is there, it's available for us.

We just have to start using it.

And I think most of the time people think that eating healthy is gonna taste bad.

Like eating healthy doesn't have to taste bad.

It's just making sure you're mindful about what you put on that fork.

Like the fork is the person.

The fork is what determines a lot of our things.

And if we just paid attention to what we put on that, it would change a lot of our outcomes.

- Yeah.

I know at your restaurant, I mean, you're serving things, well, one of the things I really love about it is that you're serving things that we all want to eat all the time, but they aren't the things that we eat all the time, right?

So if I get mac and cheese there, it's healthy mac and cheese.

- It's dairy free.

It's dairy free.

- If I get, you know, sweet potatoes or a sweet potato kind of dish, it's different, but it doesn't taste different.

Like, I wouldn't know that I'm eating healthier.

And I think that's a really, it's a really sophisticated way, I guess, to get people to really open their minds to the idea that we don't have to sacrifice what we like in order to eat healthier.

- It's the biggest thing on our plate is what you get, like, nobody walks around, if you're a meat eater, nobody walks around and says, "Oh my goodness, I want flesh today."

That's not what you walk around and say.

What you say is, "Oh my goodness, I like some fried chicken," Or on my holidays, "I want mac and cheese."

So the only thing I did was take the things that you like and love, and I won't fry it because we don't have any fryers.

I'm like, "There's enough fried foods, so I won't give you any fried foods."

But number two, it's your brain.

Everything is in your mind.

So if I give you something that tastes like it's fried chicken, even though it may be a fried piece of cauliflower, you don't know because it's flavored the way that you want, because that's what you actually have a taste for, the flavor.

So my biggest thing is even creating the mac and cheese, our vegan mac and cheese is because it doesn't taste like, it's a dairy free mac and cheese.

It's still creamy.

There's still noodles.

But I'm just trying not to give, you know, heart issues, high blood pressure, hypertension, you know what I mean?

I just care about you a little bit more.

But again, I think people associate healthy eating with it lacking flavor.

And so my brain just wants to break that thought process.

- Yeah.

So how easy is it for us to do that in our homes?

I mean, you're doing that in a restaurant and you are somebody who's, you know, thought a lot and worked hard to be able to perfect that.

If I'm getting home and have to make food, how easy is it for me to emulate that and, you know, follow those health guidelines and rules, but still make really, really good food?

- What happens is, it starts at the store.

I tell people everything starts by just turning your bottle around.

You're reading the label.

If you just read the label, that is the beginning of like, every benefit that you can find.

If people just turn the labels around and actually read what's inside of it, 'cause most of the time when you read labels, you realize, I can't even pronounce this.

So if I can't pronounce it, my body probably can't break it down.

- Maybe I shouldn't eat it.

Right.

- If I can't pronounce what's inside of this, my body can't break it down, so maybe I should look at something else that's easier for me to break down.

You know, if you go to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, I don't necessarily have to read the labels.

The only thing you have to do is, you know, "Hey, is this organic or is it not?

Where did it come from?"

Because that's what your brain should be looking at.

How long did it take to get from the farm to my fork?

How complicated was this?

- Yeah.

- So everything that happens at your house, you brought those things into your house.

And if you do one, the one thing that you can do is flip it around and read the label.

If you can't pronounce it, your body can't digest it.

And that's why we end up with a lot of the things that we have, because it's things that we've eaten that don't know how to leave our system, so it's just stuck there.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Very simple.

Like, I try to make some very basic for everyone, just so that, like, if you remember it, when you're at the grocery store, oh, let me read this label.

Oh, I should shop the perimeter of the grocery store, because that's where all the fresh things are, your fresh meats, your fresh fruits, your fresh vegetables.

- Yeah, yeah.

So in this stretch, holiday, I mean, there are two things that we're challenged with.

One is we're going to parties and gatherings all the time.

- My god.

- Other people are cooking.

- My god.

- Right?

But then also, lots of us have things that we're hosting.

I'm hosting a Christmas brunch at my house, for instance, this year.

It is about, I mean, those are different choices, right?

When you go to someplace else, what you eat is somewhat dependent on what's there.

But then when you're serving, you get to have more control.

So give us some advice about both situations, how to handle 'em better.

- Well, if I'm going out to eat, if I'm going to eat anywhere, I look at everything.

If I see vegetables overcooked, I don't eat it.

That's the biggest thing in our community.

Honey, we will overcook something.

- Cooking.

- The vegetables have died twice, Jesus.

They don't have no color left.

If the vegetable has nothing left, it was a waste for me to eat.

So there's that, right?

Number two, if I'm out, just look at my plate.

Let me get 70% fruits and vegetables, 30% everything.

Let me eat more of the things that I know my body will be able to digest.

It's not to say you can't have fried chicken, but your whole plate can't be fried chicken, honey.

- Right.

(laughs) - You know what I mean?

So there's that.

And then if we go on the opposite spectrum of you hosting, I think people are in the place where they're okay with trying new and different things.

So when people come to like, something I'm hosting at my house, they absolutely know they're going to get a plethora of things.

- Yeah.

- And they're going to try it.

What's even crazy is, I'm in a family where they're used to like ham, yam, ham hawks, collar greens and everything and everything.

But now, instead of having fried chicken or ham, there's salmon.

And you know what?

It still gets eaten.

Nobody's gonna eat less, because people eat what is there.

So whatever you make available for your guests, they are going to eat and they're going to love it.

And I think sometimes we just get stuck in wanting to do what everybody else said.

We cook like mama them.

And we are not mama them.

- Yeah.

Right, right.

- That's the main thing.

- So as I said, I have a pie addiction that I fight, - Lord.

- This time of year.

What do I do about that?

Is there a better way to eat pie?

Is there a healthier way to eat pie?

- Yeah, I think you just need to pick up a different sweet, 'cause it sounds like you like pies.

- Yes.

- For me, instead of using a bunch of sugar in all the pies, we use natural sugars.

So when we make like a apple pie, our apple pie doesn't have a bunch of sugar.

We use dates.

We cook the dates down.

The dates are still sweet, but that's natural sugar as opposed to a manmade sugar.

So it's just small, small, small things like that.

So for you, I want you to have your pie, but, you know, eat the cake but not the whole cake, okay?

- That's right.

(laughs) - That's the thing.

- That's right.

Moderation.

Moderation.

That's the thing.

- Moderation.

- Moderation.

Moderation.

- Yeah.

All right.

Well, Quiana, it's always great to see you and to talk to you.

And I just love what you're doing at your restaurant.

Happy holidays and thanks for being here on "American Black Journal."

- Happy holidays.

I appreciate you guys.

This is great.

Very great.