What If You Question Your Religion? Poh Ling Yeow on Leaving Mormonism
5/27/202639 min
Beloved cook, artist and TV personality Poh Ling Yeow joins me to talk about her journey with religion and her decision to leave the Mormon Church. Growing up, I watched Poh on MasterChef Australia and Poh's Kitchen, so this conversation felt incredibly special. We chat about her teenage years in the the church, Mormonism's unexpected pop culture resurgence, the material that made her begin to question things, and what her relationship with spirituality looks like now.
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First 90 secondsPoh Ling Yeow· Guest0:00
[upbeat music] A LiSTNR production. What is reasonable is when you meet in the middle. If one person can't prove there's a god, and one can't prove there isn't a god, you cannot be anything but meet in the middle and actually tolerate each other's views. That is the answer to everything. It's tolerance.
Sarah· Host0:19
[upbeat music] Hi, I'm Sarah, and this is Small Talk. It's not quite a news headline, but it is what the girls are talking about, and I am so excited to be joined today by Poh Ling Yeow. Thank you for joining us.
Poh Ling Yeow· Guest0:38
[laughs] Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for having me. I feel so honored.
Sarah· Host0:41
I feel star-struck. [laughs] Like, I've grown up watching you on, on MasterChef, and for anyone that doesn't know, you've also hosted multiple cooking shows. You've had ABC's Poh Kitchen, SBS's Poh & Co. You've lived just an incredible and full life, and we, when we got an email saying that you [laughs] were keen to come on the show after reading Hannah's book, my, like, jaw dropped to the floor. What was that experience reading the book like for you?
Poh Ling Yeow· Guest1:06
I really loved it because Hannah is just a real, like, um... obviously, [laughs] she just cuts to the chase. She's real, no BS, and I really, really appreciate that. And I think I appreciate it even more because she's so young. Both of you are so young. And to learn to be able to do that and be an example to younger women is, uh, such a big deal to me, 'cause I feel like