Wildly popular across the pond, Henry Firth and Ian Theasby are steadily becoming the most recognizable faces of vegan cooking.

The British duo has published four books in less than two years on the importance of a plant-based diet. Five years ago, they adopted a vegan lifestyle and started experimenting with recipes on social media and YouTube.

In addition to being healthy and feeling better, Firth and Theasby believe that promoting a vegan lifestyle can help save the planet because the production of meat requires processes that release large amount of greenhouse gases.

In BOSH! How to Live Vegan, they write, We can literally save the world by eating more plants.

Their latest book, BOSH! Healthy Vegan, was released at the end of 2019. The cookbook incorporates recipes with less all-white, processed carbohydrates, a pitfall to many vegan dishes, they said in an interview with ReNew Houston.

Q: Why should people adopt a vegan lifestyle?

A: Plants are really good for you. Since adopting a plant-based diet, were both fitter, happier and healthier than weve ever been. Theres a reason so many of the worlds top athletes are doing the same. So whether you cut out meat three times a week or are entirely plant-based, were there for you if you need some good grub.

Q: Your vegan cooking empire started on social media. How did you make the transition to the publishing world?

A: We went vegan about five years ago, when lots of vegan recipes were pretty uninspiring. We relearned how to cook and started sharing our recipes on social media. After a month of uploading them, we had 100,000 followers and now have over 2 billion views.

During that first year of posting our recipes, the same comment kept cropping up over and over again: When are you bringing out a book? So we reached out to publishing houses in the U.K. and, fortunately, pretty much all of them were interested. After a six-way bidding war, we found a home with HQ, HarperCollins and here we are, four books later!

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Q: We get hundreds of cookbooks in our newsroom every year, many of them on the latest fad diets. What makes veganism and your products more than a fad diet?

A: The thing about a lot of diets is that the results can be short-lived. People end up crashing in and out of very different ways of eating potentially affecting your bodys metabolism.

We like to have a more flexible approach to nutrition, healthy eating and fitness. We always use the 80/20 rule: 80 percent healthy and 20 percent naughty. It means you can find a way of eating, rather than a fad diet, that really suits your lifestyle.

Q: The name of your latest book, BOSH! Healthy Vegan, is interesting. Is there an unhealthy way to be vegan?

A: Its really easy to think that being vegan means youre automatically healthy and getting your five-a-day. We fell into that trap a few years ago.

We were trying out several new recipes a day, eating loads of white, processed carbs plus there are so many vegan junk-food places available now. We were beginning to feel the effects of it all. So we started making a few changes to the way we eat. Thats what weve shared in BOSH! Healthy Vegan, which has over 80 healthy recipes, meal plans and guidance.

Q: What started you both on this lifestyle?

A: We became vegan around five years ago after watching Kip Andersens documentary, Cowspiracy. It showed us that eating a plant-based diet can change the planet and theres nothing more important than saving the world we live in.

Q: What is different in the new cookbook from your previous cookbook, BISH BASH BOSH!, which was released last year?

A: We want to show that healthy vegan food can definitely still be hearty and even decadent. Weve made our favorite recipes, but just with lower fat and sugar. Think hearty stews, pastas, warm pies, curries and theres definitely still desserts.

Q: Are there plans for a Netflix, Hulu, Apple+ series?

A: Were currently the faces of Living on the Veg, which is on ITV in the U.K. Its the first-ever mainstream plant-based cooking series in the U.K., so its been an honor to be part of it, as its a real marker for the vegan movement. Ultimately, wed love to reach as many people as possible to show them how tasty and accessible vegan food can be.

Q: Houston is considered a foodie city by most. But we still eat a lot of meat, especially beef. What would be the easiest way for native Texans to shuck those meat-eating instincts?

A: Explore the fruit and vegetable aisle and find out just how versatile they can be. Lots of people are surprised by how easy it is to re-create the texture and flavor of meat with vegetables alone. A great example is mushrooms, which can used to replace minced beef, or ground beef in the U.S. The mushrooms take on so much flavor and replicate the meaty consistency in dishes like spaghetti bolognese, lasagna and pies.

Jackfruit is also incredible for replicating chicken, lamb and fish. There are so many ways to be creative with food that we discovered after becoming vegan. Its easier than ever to be vegan, so try something new.

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Q: What are your favorite dishes to make?

A: We love the challenge of creating a dish thats usually centered around meat or dairy and remixing it with plants alone. Recipes like our Healthy Saag Paneer, Meaty Mushroom Pie and Salmon Tofu Steaks from BOSH! Healthy Vegan are great examples of how you can still get those amazing flavors and theyre healthy, too.

BOSH! Healthy Vegan , BISH BASH BOSH! , BOSH ! and

BOSH! How to Live Vegan are available wherever you buy books.

julie.garcia@chron.com

twitter.com/reporterjulie

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Henry Firth, Ian Theasby want to save the world by promoting vegan lifestyle with BOSH! series - Houston Chronicle