Stefanie and I have been friends for years. We both are Food For Life instructors with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). We both have certificates in nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies. We both give cooking and nutrition classes to groups and individuals and we both can’t stop talking about the benefits of eating plant-based foods for health and wellbeing. On this episode of Awesome Vegans, Stefanie Ignoffo of Plantspiration, LLC gets real. An excerpt of our conversation is below.

Stefanie: In 2015 my daughter Hailey was 15 at the time and she came home from school and she said, ‘Mom, I want go vegan,” and I said, ‘No way! Worst idea in the world. You’re going to die of protein deficiency. You’re not going to have calcium. I truly believed that this was going to be the worst thing she could ever do.

She had mentioned she was reading this book (about people) that didn’t use animals. I understood the logic. So, at that moment I backed her up on it. ‘Alright, I’ll go along with your bad diet.’ Then I went to the internet to search, you know. How long can we live without eating meat? How long could we survive? Will she make it a week?

Little did I know that not only can we survive, but we can actually thrive! So, after John and I were finishing up on what had been our ninth surgery in eleven months, I went back and I revisited that Forks Over Knives documentary that I had come across while seeing how long my daughter could live. I sat my family down and, you know, I thought we were healthy eating our lean chicken, eating our low-fat milk and our low-fat cheese.

But after I watched this movie, I just realized here I was enabling these diseases. You know, here I was bringing the food in. I was making my husband overweight. I was helping my son with this childhood obesity. I was watching my girls struggle with energy and skin. I realized we were all being affected by what I was bringing home. So, I went cold Tofurky, as they say, and I completely stopped bringing animals into the house.

Altogether we lost 250 pounds, by accident! Eating only plant foods!  So,100 of that was mine.  The rest was the rest of my family. It was a huge impact, and I couldn’t stop talking about it after that. I felt like everybody should know that this is awesome!

I had tried everything. Nothing had worked like this! All the other diets I’d tried, yeah, maybe I had lost a couple of pounds here and there, but my entire life I had been obese. I had just found what worked and it didn’t just help me lose weight. It helped me reverse diseases and it’s easy- I’ve kept it off easily three years later. The whole family, we’re still crankin’ the plants.

EA: I love this story because you are every mom in America.

You start thinking, ‘What? My kid’s going to die. That’s just crazy talk.’  But then it always helps to have a teenage daughter. They’re so very convincing. So, you say, “Okay fine. I’ll follow you on a lark for two weeks. I’ll be a supportive mom,’ and then low and behold you find 250 pounds later that your kids have more energy, their skin is better, and you’re reversing lifestyle diseases.

SI: You know, here we’re living the standard American life. We’re getting older, we get bigger, we get sicker. Isn’t that the way we think this goes? Well, I’m here to tell people that’s not the way it goes!

EA: Yeah, I say that all the time, too. You are here to take back your health.

People think this is sort of a rite of passage. We get older, so we get sick. No, it does not have to be that way. In fact, you can take back not just your health but your youth. I mean I’ve always had a lot of energy, but in many ways, I felt like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got this newfound lightning bolt in my step, but my health had been kept from me.”

SI: It really was, it really was. Nobody told me about this, nobody explained I could be eating all that I want. I didn’t have to restrict, I didn’t have to count, I didn’t have to measure, I didn’t have to weigh. This was glorious. We were waking up every day and the scale was actually moving, and it didn’t stop. It’s like (eating plants) took us to where we should be.

EA: Naturally, which is what I love.

For the full interview, click here.

Elysabeth Alfano is a plant-based business consultant and helps people transition to a plant-based diet. Follow her @ElysabethAlfano on all platforms.

The post How One Family Lost 250 Pounds and Reversed Disease By Going Plant-Based appeared first on The Beet.

Note to the plant-based consumer hoping to eat healthier in 2022: Not all plant-based or vegan options coming your way are equally healthy. As always, you can be healthiest by making your own cashew cheese at home or creating a delicious burger from mushrooms and lentils and as always, load up on vegetables and fruit. iI’s always healthier to create your own food than to buy packaged items from the store. But sometimes, convenience calls, and we need to buy our plant-based products. When that happens, here is what to look for next. 

But even so-called transition foods like the first Beyond Burger or Impossible nugget you ever ate, that helped you move away from meat and dairy, are either better for you or are better for the planet, or both – and as more consumers than ever are concerned with climate change, plant-based options that have less impact on our greenhouse gas emissions are luring more people to make the switch. So while these gateway foods may be far from perfect, 2022 will see a plethora of options, making it easier than ever for more people to embrace a plant-based way of life.

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Top Food Trend #1. Mycoprotein Makes Whole Cuts Possible

Made from a fungus related to the mushroom family, mycoprotein is a sustainable protein source that uses less water and resources to grow than soy, wheat, peas, or oats. When manipulated into food products, mycoprotein can replicate meat in texture and taste and satiate people’s cravings for the foods they love.

Now companies like The Better Meat Co, Nature’s Fynd, AtLast and Meati are all creating whole cuts of “meat” from mycelium (the strands in fungi that seek water and nutrients), as well as potatoes and more. They do this by using bio-mass fermentation. Mycoprotein is typically 45 percent protein and contains no cholesterol or fat, so is considered a healthy source. When perfected, this technology will be an industry game-changer for the center of the plate protein. 

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Top Food Frend #2. Veggies of the Sea

According to a recent presentation by SPINS at Plant Base World Expo, retail dollars are spreading out from plant-based to burgers (so 2020)  to chicken (very 2021) and now fish (which will be big in 2022), and plant-based seafood is riding a wave that is only expected to gain in speed and momentum.

 Aqua Cultured Foods, Good Catch Tuna and Crab and Fish Cakes, The Plant-Based Seafood Company (made with Konjac!), New Wave Foods, Shiok Meats (made from cellular agriculture), Save to Sea (made from carrots!) are all serving up plant-based fish that would delight any toddler and most adults as well.

And it is going mainstream: Good Catch (named PETA’s company of the year in 2021) has launched affordable options that make vegan fish more accessible than ever, offering both New England Style Crab Cakes and Plant-Based Fish Sticks and Plant-Based Fish Fillets at BJ’s Wholesale Club nationwide.

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Top Food Trend #3. Unique Plant-Based Ingredients

As producers move away from mono-cropped soy, wheat, and corn, ingredients like chickpea, mung bean, fava beans, mushrooms, sorghum, and barley will all play a bigger brand story role. Companies like Ingredion, ABinBev, and InnovoPro are shifting the landscape with unique ingredients, and these ingredients may take front-of-pack positioning for CPG products.

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Top Food Trend #4. Eat (and Package) for the Planet

Innova Market Research states that planetary health has just surpassed personal health as the #1 reason why people are switching to more plant-based diets.  Because of the new-found urgency to lower our impact on climate change, companies are responding by prioritizing environmentally-sound packaging, Leaders include beauty companies selling refillable packages, such as Hear Me Raw, and in the food sector, more are creating packaging that you can compost. One such company is Evanesce, producer of Evanesce^® Molded Starch technology, for sustainable solutions such as disposable food packaging that can decompose in 90 days or less.

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Top Food Trend #5. Whole Food Plant-Based Meals In Your Freezer

Forks Over Knives, the iconic brand known for its eponymous magazine and documentary that encouraged millions to eat whole food plant-based for the sake of disease prevention and reversal, went national at Sprouts at the end of 2021 with its first frozen food line. Like its competitors, Cool Beans, Amy’s, Purple Carrot, and others, Forks Over Knives ensures you can eat a healthy whole foods diet without all the fuss.

We predict the frozen aisle will continue to expand with plant-based items, as more people focus on healthy eating and reading labels but still need a quick and convenient option. Forks’ frozen bowls are expected to expand to more retailers in 2022 so ask for them at a retailer near you!

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Top Food Trend # 6. Direct to Consumer & Vegan Markets

The direct-to-consumer marketing by vegan and plant-based companies is taking off, but so is the phenomenon of markets that cater to plant-based consumers. With more people eating for the planet and their health, these niche brands and markets are suddenly no longer so small. First, there was Vejii, then PlantX and now that company is growing its brick and mortar footprint. All are selling exclusively plant-based and vegan-friendly products to meet consumer demand for convenient, frictionless, vast choices of vegan foods, all delivered to your door.  Vejii recently announced that it had purchased Vegan Essentials and also VedgeCo as it continues its growth across the US and beyond.

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Top Food Trend #7. Animal-Free Dairy That is Exactly Like Real

At the Superbowl in 2021, the President of Oatly, Toni Petersson, paid millions for an ad in which he sang, “Wow, No Cow.”  This phrase will start to actually make sense as fermented proteins allow companies to start producing dairy equivalent products, but without the animal. This is done by fermenting the dairy in the lab.

By the end of the year, we will see more opportunities to taste everything from ice cream to all sorts of cheeses made from this type of animal protein made without the animal.  Already Brave Robot is creating dairy-equivalent proteins, which are sold to the public by Perfect Day. And more companies like Change Foods, Better Dairy, ReMilk, and Those Vegan Cowboys are hard at work on creating proteins that are dairy-identical but produced without the involvement of cows.

Top Trend #8. Cultivated Oil Made Without Animal Fat

Cultivated animal fats (again created in the lab, without cow) will begin to replace distinctive coconut oil for tastier burgers, sausages and patties that fry up better and offer a more attractive outcome for the environment, animals, and your health. More on this to come, but know this: Coconut and palm oils are high in saturated fat that has been linked to heart disease. These can be engineered to be healthier for the planet, and for humans.

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Top Trend #9. Small Companies Go Big

Plant-based items will evolve from small natural stores and grow into larger national chains. Grounded Foods and Hooray Foods bacon make noise at Whole Foods and clean label Hungry Planet and Barvecue brands take root at Sprouts. While not all brands will scale up and make the move from Mom and Pop stores to big-box chains, those that do will take on more retail real estate as the grocery stores make room for plant-based.

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Top Trend #10. Politicians Invest in Alternative Protein, NYC Elects Vegan Mayor

You don’t hear this too often. California takes a nod from Connecticut.  In early 2021, Rosa de Laura requested funding for alternative protein research. Now California’s Ro Khanna has requested $50 million from the USDA to research alternative proteins that will help to combat global food insecurity. Meanwhile, Tufts University got a $10 million grant to establish the nation’s first Institute for Cellular Agriculture. So it looks like 2022 will be the year that government gets on board with the trend of eating plant-based and alternative proteins.

New York City just elected its first vegan mayor, Eric Adams, who has made it no secret that he wants to help improve the health of the city, both physically and economically. Adam, who went vegan in 2016, changed his diet following a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. From that point forward, the mayor-elect has dedicated his political and public life to enhancing the health of New York City, especially within communities of color. Recently, Adams published Healthy at Last which follows his plant-based transition alongside 50 recipes and discussions about how communities of color face a disproportionate amount of diet-related chronic illnesses.

Adams has appointed like-minded experts to the city’s Food Policy task force to help him bring healthier choices to schools, city offices, and other places that New Yorkers get their food. New York’s Food Policy website was created to share information about how the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy works to increase food security, promote access to and consumption of healthy foods, and support economic opportunity and environmental sustainability in the food system. So 2022 may be the year New York becomes the city that leads the way in helping kids and adults alike eat healthier.

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Bonus Trend: Investing in Plant-based Innovation Got Personal

If 2021 was all about big investment by large corporate and VCs raising big money from big names, then 2022 is shaping up to be all about the individual investor partaking in the secular trend of plant-based eating and backing their favorite companies in the public stock market. As companies like Oatly and Beyond struggle with their stock prices (each down from their IPO prices and their all-time highs) and plant-based stocks have seen rollercoaster rides as institutional investors get flighty, consumers are expected to step in and pick up the slack, just as they have driven up stock prices for their favorite tech companies.

For more on plant-based business trends, follow Elysabeth Alfano, host of The Plantbased Business Hour, Founder of Plant Powered Consulting, and CEO of VegTech Invest.

The post The Top 10 Food Trends for 2022: Vegan Seafood, Mycoprotein and More appeared first on The Beet.

Co-founders Bonnie Brown and Paul Turcotte who created Passion Placement to help people find jobs that they really care about have discovered that the pandemic has provided a springboard for many people to seek more meaningful work. It starts when they either find themselves unemployed or constantly thinking about what they really want to do, and they then begin their search for meaningful work. To address the growing demand for purpose-driven employment, Brown and Turcotte launched Passion Placement, a career matchmaking platform that specializes in placing mission-aligned hires into companies that make a difference for humans, the planet, and animals.

“Passion Placement grew out of my frustration as a financial professional looking to apply my career skills to helping animals and improving life on the planet, only to find myself jumping from one site to another, back and forth, thinking there has got to be a better way,” said Brown.

“I wanted to help mission-driven people use their skill set for companies making a positive impact. Through Covid and into the new year, we have been offering free coaching sessions to help people find their passion placement and joy in a purpose-driven job. We now also offer recruiting, job posting, and consulting for both companies and candidates so we can all use our talents together to create a better world.”

Gen Z Got The Memo

Even before the pandemic, mission-aligned employment was a growing trend with Millennials and Gen Z’s looking to make a difference for their planet.  WeSpire noted in a recent study that Gen Z is the “first generation to prioritize purpose over money. Called the ‘Change Generation’ due to passion and desire to make a difference through work, [Gen Z] needs to see [a] connection between what they are doing and broader social impact. Empowering work culture is two-times more important than higher salary for retention.”

Now more experienced candidates are also looking to begin living a more meaningful life through their work, Brown finds, which is why she and Turcotte decided to connect candidates for all types of positions, from the intern to C-suite positions and from the volunteer to the board member, with organizations from all types of industries provided they concretely and authentically share the mission of positive and measurable change.

COVID Clarity: Do What Is Meaningful

The past year, of COVID-19, coupled with people’s desire to find purpose in 2021, has crystalized the new approach that they are calling: ‘New Year, New Career’ for many workers looking to pivot to a more meaningful direction for how they spend their nine-to-five.

“I’m looking to switch to a more mission-aligned job because our future depends on it. I want to do everything I can to make this world a safer, more equitable place, both in my personal life, as well as my professional life,” said MK (who chooses to be anonymous).

Curtis agrees. “We are living through a very chaotic time where I don’t feel in control of many things. Believing in the mission or purpose of a company makes me feel my job will be important and that I can make difference even on a small scale.”

Employees aren’t the only ones who benefit from a mission-aligned hire. “At abillion app, we get really excited about folks that are mission-driven like us,” explained the app’s founder, Vikas Garg. “Having that passion is like rocket fuel. It means you get through problems faster, find solutions faster, love your team more and it’s easier to form a bond and trust between the individual and the company.”

Founder of dairy-free Revolution Gelato, Jared Olkin agrees. “Values alignment in the Revolution Gelato team and our partners is simply a must-have. I’ve found that when we work with people who really believe in what we are doing and why, it shows — not only are they the most dedicated but also we can trust them implicitly to represent the brand.”

If you are feeling a spark of hope and are thinking that 2021 is the year that you turn your employment around to work with companies that you know are making a difference, here are Brown’s top five tips to find your mission-aligned job,

Top Five Ways to Find Your Mission-Aligned Job

1. Look forward to your second most important day

Take time to define your passion and purpose. This may take longer than you want it to, and may not be resolved in an afternoon, but the time invested is time well spent and the key to finding the right direction. According to lore, Mark Twain said: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” There is an entire website dedicated to the idea that he did not in fact pen or speak those words, called The Apocryphal Twain, which sleuths out misattributions, but the same site reports that it’s been searched over 5 million times in a short period, so obviously the line resonates.

2. Make a List of companies that are aligned to your passions, not just appear to be

Start doing your homework. Once you know what industry or area you care about find out which companies share your mission by researching those around the themes that move you. Dive deep into learning about them (go on Glass Door for instance and read up on the corporate culture. There’s nothing worse than a fitness company that never lets its employees workout, for instance), and you will have a list of mission-aligned companies that you admire. Connect with them through social media, particularly via Linkedin.

3. Figure out the narrative to your story, then tell it

Everyone needs to be able to tell the story of why they want to make this change. You’re bringing your skill set to a new set of problems, so connect the dots for a future interviewer. This may start to feel a little bit like therapy at times, as you figure out the narrative, so don’t be surprised if you find yourself lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. Get clear about your natural and experiential talents and what brings you joy. (And avoid ever saying: “I’m a people person.” Instead, tell how you use your background or skills to accomplish a difficult task.) Then, write these down and define your ideal job or career path.  Be as tunnel-vision as possible here as you want to go for your dream job. You can always expand later to cast a wider net if need be.

4. Write a customized resume for each company or industry if you need to

Customize your resume to prioritize the areas that best suit your future job or employer, not your past. You want to address your perfect job specifically on each line, and be clear in your profile or summary section as to what your passion is and what you bring to the job that will be a benefit to them (you are there to solve their problems, remember). Expect to do several revisions until you think: If I were them, I would want me to join their team (not: I want to join their team). Be concise about what you bring to the situation. Then, head on over to Linkedin and tailor your profile there.

5. Start connecting to people over zoom “just because” and before you need them

There is so much truth in ‘It’s all about who you know.’ Oddly, COVID has, in many ways despite social distancing, made this easier.  Make a commitment to network with like-minded people and companies that share your passion.

What does this mean exactly?  Comment thoughtfully with ‘value-add’ on Linkedin when the companies or people you respect make a post. Share their posts with others on your page, with relevant hashtags, so you can engage and network on Linkedin and form a community.  Linkedin is your new home-away-from-home.

Hit up every Zoom meeting that you think is going to make you connections. Networking is the job before you get the job. Follow up with fellow participants or speakers from the Zoom meeting, webinar, speaker series, etc. because, as we know, ‘It’s all about who you know.’

The Big Bonus: You don’t have to go it alone

And if all of this has you in a career crisis, of course, just reach out to the experts like Bonnie or others to talk it all through and find some clarity and direction.  Looking for a job – like living through a pandemic – can be extremely stressful, and you don’t have to go it alone!

Elysabeth Alfano is a plant-based business consultant and helps people transition to a plant-based diet. Follow her @ElysabethAlfano on all platforms and at ElysabethAlfano.com.

The post New Year, New Career: 5 Expert Tips to Help You Find a Mission-Aligned Job appeared first on The Beet.

Daniella first appeared on our collective consciousness for her role as Trina Vega in Victorious, the popular Nickelodeon show about the usual social upheaval and traps of high school. The show was canceled despite huge fan appeal after just three seasons but all of the major cast members (Ariana Grande, also a vegan) went on to enormous success.

Daniella’s recent stardom has come from her social media channels, especially Instagram, where she connects with millions of fans around the globe with her incredible candor and authentic approach. They love following her healthy lifestyle, where she talks about being vegan, healthy, and kind while touting her boxes of vegan beauty products.

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A vegan since her early teens, Daniella has parlayed her success as an actress and Instagram star into becoming an ethical and impact investor. She is one of the powerhouse investors supporting vegan companies such as Outstanding Foods (they sell Pork-less Pork Rinds, or as they say: Pork rinds without the pig!). She also is a co-creator of Kinder Beauty Box, a monthly beauty subscription service delivering boxes of vegan cruelty-free, clean beauty, which she founded with her partner, Evanna Lynch, who most notably played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies.

Motherhood has strengthened her voice to speak out for what matters to her

Daniella has long been living out her vegan life on-line. Back in 2017, she launched her YouTube show is called “D Takes Your V-Card” to help others eat more vegan or plant-based choices. In the first episode, Daniella shows her younger cousin Shane how he can choose to eat plant-based eggs for breakfast. The series was a modest hit, but it gave her a voice in the vegan food and ethical beauty space: She got her most watches when she shared getting her period and searching for vegan, cruelty-free, all-natural feminine hygiene products. It was at the beginning of her vegan beauty journey toward her latest venture, Kinder Beauty.

More recently, motherhood has given Daniella the conviction to speak out about her vegan values, and she said she thinks that being pregnant instilled in her the strength and the platform to promote a vegan lifestyle. “Being pregnant has instilled a totally different level of strength in me. I’ve always been empathetic and just generally very compassionate toward animals, but when it comes to mothers – mother cows – I feel a connection and a strength in me to provide a voice for them that I didn’t even know I really had until being pregnant myself,” she said in a video for Mercy for Animals.

When asked whether she will raise Gio vegan, in an interview with Mercy for Animals’ Compassionate Life, she said: “Nothing makes me more giddy than to imagine him growing up knowing this from birth. Something about having instilled this from infancy seems magical to me. And to be able to give that to him… ”  She added:  “Whatever he decides to do in his life… the best that I can do is shed light on the things that I think matter and speak the truth and watch him sort of run with it.”

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Here Daniella Monet talks about vegan life with The Beet’s Elysabeth Alfano

In this interview, Daniella and Elysabeth discuss how and why Daniella went vegan, how her relatives overcame cancer by doing the same, her favorite recipe, and her vision for using her platform for change in the world. Grab your plant-based milk and watch excerpts from Elysabeth and Daniella’s inspirational, long-form conversation below.

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Elysabeth: So how did you become vegan?

Daniella: Well, first I became a vegetarian at about five years old. Yeah, I was pretty young. I was also very inquisitive.

Elysabeth: Did you choose it or did your parents?

Daniella: I chose it. But I kinda I hate to say this but it really did choose me.  I was in the right place at the right time. I went to a family dude ranch with my family and it was beautiful and everything, but there was one day where they did a rodeo on the property and the guys lassoed the cow’s feet and legs together, flipped them on their backs and literally, it just sounds like the most dramatic fall ever. And then they score them with these horrendous torches to brand them and shortly after that, I think we were eating dinner at the dining hall, and they were serving these steaks and talking about their meats and how they raised them, and so on and so forth. I asked a lot of questions and I got really lucky because I remember my dad being really honest with me, and just saying this is what it is and that was it for me. I did not ever want to eat an animal after that, and I think as I got a little bit older, I learned more about veganism organically. My uncle was dying of cancer and I actually grew up near Follow Your Heart [the vegan mayo and cheese company]. So, I was really fortunate.

Elysabeth: Oh yes, the company Follow Your Heart!

Daniella: But there’s also a restaurant which is amazing. It’s like a tiny little [lunch spot] and it’s been there forever since I was a baby. And so that was really the only experience I had with vegetarian and vegan food and my aunt when my uncle was struggling with cancer, decided to have a chef come over and I think they were related to Follow Your Heart because they were teaching us recipes that he could be eating while he was at home. So, she was like “come on over, you’re vegetarian, you might like this” and I learned about veganism in that moment.

“I realized if you’re struggling with cancer you need to get your health in check. It’s important to take away the animal products and so that triggered it. And in middle school, in about 6th grade, so [when I was] about eleven or twelve years old, I read a book that was called Skinny Bitch, which is so weird that it’s called that, but it’s such an amazing, informative book about animal activism and about what really happens in the food industry. It’s so old now but I would imagine it’s pretty relevant to even today because it talked about (it)- like that was the first time I ever heard about factory farming and what happens in factory farming, and that was it. I just knew– I had already been vegetarian, mostly vegan–and when I was about eleven-years-old, I went completely vegan.

Elysabeth: How was the transition for you? That’s almost twenty years ago now so not many people were doing it, and then your folks were maybe on board or maybe they weren’t, or your friends at school, what did they think?

Daniella: Yeah I think I’ve always just kind of been different. Like people would always say, “Are you going to be okay? Are you going to be able to eat something?” Or you know “I made you this” like people want to help you for sure. My family was pretty supportive I’d say.

My grandma, I remember her trying to sneak meat into the tomato sauce because she was just worried, naive, and worried that I wasn’t getting the right nutrients. But everyone at this point, like my parents both had cancer, at one point, and they both went vegan while they went through treatment. So, they actually came to me and that was a cool moment for sure.

Elysabeth: When you’re busy, what’s the go-to meal you can make every time? It’s always good. It’s super fast. What’s your go-to meal?

Daniella: Okay, well, if it’s not a salad, which I know sounds so boring, but I eat a salad like every day. No question. I just crave it. I usually make a stir fry. I always have San Marzano organic cento tomatoes, always. So I’ll always have the tomatoes and I’ll throw in any produce that I have, whether it be onions and garlic to start with, olive oil, kale, and then a bean of some sort like a white bean or cannellini or garbanzo, whatever I have. And then, gosh you could go anywhere from there like you could put roasted potatoes and make it more hearty. I mean that’s my go-to.

Elysabeth: Rice and beans is it for me. I mean, how easy can you get.

Daniella: And it’s a complete protein.

Elysabeth: Complete protein! Yeah, really wonderful.

Elysabeth: Do you have a favorite phrase that you live by? I’ll give you a little example while you’re thinking about that. I love to say, “Nose to the grindstone, eyes to the sky.”

Daniella: I got a tattoo about five years ago. It was my first tattoo and I thought about it long and hard and it’s going to sound really young initially, but it really means something to me. It says, “You only live once” and at the time everyone was saying “YOLO, YOLO” whatever. So, I just think to me if you really think about it broader, like your real true body, form, whatever you want to think after us, great. But as this person right now, like I’m living once and I’m going to take advantage of that. So, take adventures, like take risks, you know, especially when you’re younger, you know. Set yourself up for the future so that you can really enjoy.

Elysabeth: There’s this expression I love: “Today’s the day.” Your life is today, you just don’t know about the rest of it, so today’s the day. Today’s the day to go get it, go after it.

Daniella: I love that.

Elysabeth: Yeah super helpful. Okay, so you’ve talked a lot about purpose… What would you like to be known for?

Daniella: I want to be known for being someone who’s just a good person and a good role model. A role model for me has always been important, and I think being on Nickelodeon for twelve years, I grew up in a lot of families’ homes and I was babysitting then, as well. Like I still am very involved with a lot of kids in my family. I’m the oldest of my cousins. I just want people to look up to me and think like, “She may not be perfect, but she’s doing the best she can” and I just hope that people would call me a role model, you know?

Elysabeth: That’s wonderful and I think many do actually.

Daniella: I hope so. I have a lot to learn but I’m willing to share along the way, you know? I’m willing to figure it out at least.

Daniella, with 4 million followers, is so popular because she makes us all want to make positive changes and lives, and live our best lives while we “figure it out.”

To watch the full interview, click here.  To watch more Awesome Vegans Influencer Series, click here.

Elysabeth Alfano is a plant-based journalist covering plant-based health, food, culture, business, and environmental news. Follow her @elysabethalfano on all platforms.

The post Daniella Monet on Being a Vegan Mom and a Role Model for Plant-Based Living appeared first on The Beet.

Holy Guacamole! The Vegan Knights Ride Again!

On a recent interview on the Awesome Vegans Influencer Series, Vegan Knights Founders, Chris Green and Burak Sarac talked about exactly what it means to be a “tough guy ” on the road and a softie in the kitchen, or at mealtime, and shared their favorite vegan snacks for life on the road.  Here is a clip from our longer conversation.

Elysabeth: What are your top tips for being a tough guy?

1. Being a tough guy means having a sense of purpose 

Burak Sarac: To me, being tough is just being tough within a [personal] definition. What does being touch mean to you? And defining that to me means living with a purpose. Otherwise, it’s meaningless [to be tough] since you want to leave a legacy. So, for me… on a bike, I’m a tough guy, But I always remember the purpose of that tough guy. It’s standing up for the voiceless and for the animals.

Elysabeth: I love it, a tough guy is someone who stands up for the voiceless.

Chris Green: Yeah, so I think [being touch means] standing up for what you believe in and never backing down. You’re always going have the naysayers or someone who wants to challenge you, but I feel like, certainly with the Vegan Knights, it’s our job and our purpose to stand up for the unheard voices and that’s the vow we’ve taken, to protect animals.

Burak Sarac:  It’s also breaking the mold. I liked riding bikes for many years before I was vegan, and I probably knew I could have gotten into a bigger club and had a lot more hierarchy up the chain and be respected in a different way by these big tough bikers. But, I thought: I’m going to be tough by making the tougher choice, breaking the mold, and doing the right thing.

2. Have the bold and uncomfortable conversations

Chris Green: Not being afraid to take criticism and then turning it around to make a bold statement. As I mentioned earlier [there is a perception that] vegans are ‘weak and pale.’ Or that we humans need meat to survive, and yet here I am, 20 years later, living the dream, right? So, you’ve got to have those bold uncomfortable conversations, such as dairy being a byproduct of [cruelty] and things like that. We’ve just got to stand up and take that criticism and turn it around.

3. Stick to your convictions but don’t be judgmental

Burak Sarac: Sticking to your guns and being able to learn and listen when you speak with people. They’re all in different places, different parts of their journey. I am tough about what my beliefs are and where I am, but I’m not judgmental, because being judgmental is not tough. It’s just not being understanding. I have to be open and stick to my truth.

Chris Green: Yeah, I think being comfortable enough to surround yourself with different kinds of folks [is key]. Being comfortable with who you are and what you truly believe in.

4. Have a big heart and accept change

Burak Sarac: I think the last one would be having a big heart. I think that’s where my toughness comes from. Being able to bring out what’s in there and just see it and not be afraid of it and if it doesn’t sound manly or it doesn’t sound strong, maybe there’s a reason for it. Dig in there and find out what it is and be okay with who you are.

Chris Green: Alright, I think it’s never being afraid of change. Attacking change: Laws change, people change, minds change, single-issue campaigns change. I mean we’re an ever-evolving society and, and change is not going to stop. It’s going to continue. It’s going to be here to stay, so we’ve just got to deal with it and roll with it.

5. Do no harm and know when to walk away

Chris Green: You know, I was just going say that in some circumstances we just have to ignore the opposition and know when to walk away. Some will never get it, because they don’t want to. But, I think we just need to know when to save our breath and move onto the next person. We’re not going save any lives arguing with people, you know, over and over and over again, that same person. So, you’ve just got to know when to walk away and seek the next victory.

6. Strength requires sustenance, and especially snacks

Elysabeth: Speaking of food, what are your go-to snacks for life on the road.

Burak Sarac:  For a half day on the bike, I go for Nature’s Garden Omega 3 Deluxe Mix of mixed nuts and dried fruit, RW Garcia 3-Seed Sweet Potato Crackers, Kind Bars, apples, bananas, and oranges.

For a full day on the bike, I make myself a garbanzo bean salad sandwich on a sesame bagel with vegan gouda, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I don’t mess around.

Chris Green: I can’t lie, I go for easy access and taste. I like Pig Out Pigless Pork Rinds, Louisville Jerky, Gardein Jerky, Noble Jerky (I mean, c’mon.  I’m a motorcycle rider after all), Spicy, Sweet Doritos, Blaze Doritos, Sunflower Seed Kernels, Gobstopper Runts, Sour Patch Kids and Corn Nuts.  I don’t mess around, either.

So be on the look-out. The Vegan Knights Motorcycle Club is riding loud and fast to a dive bar near you and standing up for the voiceless.

For the full interview, click here.

Elysabeth Alfano is a plant-based business consultant and an expert for mainstream media, breaking down the plant-based health, food, culture, business and environmental news. Follow her @ElysabethAlfano on all platforms.

The post Vegan Knights Motorcycle Club: Easy Riders Take to the Road to Save Animals appeared first on The Beet.

Brooks is a mixed martial artist who was fighting at the highest level of competition, but to be specific he is a “Brazilian JiuJitzu practitioner” who has been grappling since he was a kid. “Wrestling runs in my family,” he explains, so when his wrestling career came to an end he kept going with jiujitsu. . “Brazilian jiujitsu is not so much of a striking martial art but you want to close the gap and get your opponent on the ground and use holds to submit your opponent with holds. Basically, anything that makes your opponent feel pain and either tap out or tap out. “it’s not a walk in the park,” says Brooks. “You can control how much pain you want to endure. So if your opponent locks up some kind of submission on you, you can decide whether you want to fight through it or tap out.”

He is a second-degree purple belt and training for jiujitsu is one of “the biggest passions in his life” but until he can get back in the ring, he still works as a videographer, creating videos for clients such as engagement videos or modeling videos. “It’s something I am passionate about along with jiujitsu” and it’s part of what helps him maintain his happiness along with his martial arts career. 

He had read that going plant-based could help get athletes back into action, and he used it to return to the life and workouts he loved. His comeback is now something he shares with others to help athletes suffering injuries to heal, feel stronger than ever, and learn about the power of fueling up with plant-based protein.

In a recent interview, Brooks explains how easy it is to build muscle and get enough protein on a vegan diet, despite the myth that you can’t get enough protein to workout and train at the highest levels on plant-based food alone. Below are some of his tips for any athlete who is considering going plant-based, on how to harness the power of a protein-filled vegan diet.

How this athlete used a vegan diet to recover faster and get back to the gym

“The story about how I transitioned to a vegan lifestyle is unique in itself. It started years before I went vegan. I met this big guy at the gym and he looked like a linebacker. We were talking about routines and weights and supplements and diet. And he told me he was vegan and I thought he was lying to me because I thought there is no way he is getting enough protein from peanuts or chickpeas or pea protein, or whatever. He looked like a linebacker!

But then I met my future wife and she was vegan. She was never very forceful about it but she eats vegan. She would show me videos of animals being slaughtered and I would just grimace and look away. I didn’t want to deal with it. I managed to stay nonvegan for so long because I shut myself off from seeing animals being hurt.

“I tried being vegan once and failed at it. I went back to my own way. I then tried it again and I stopped eating cows. And then I stopped eating pigs. and then I stopped eating chicken and turkey. And it was around that point that I hurt my neck. I had been doing barbell crunches on one leg, 275 pounds. And me being the all or nothing person I am, I was not doing the correct form, and my knee would hit the ground, and eventually, I was doing it wrong and I blew out my disc. It hurt to walk, just the vibration of when I would put my foot on the ground. I needed surgery, there was no way around it. It was to the point where I was considering giving up jiujitsu and I thought maybe Im just getting old. but it was because if what I was eating was all meat-based, which is very inflammatory.

“I was injured and I had my surgery and I had to sit still while the screws had time to settle. and if you are injured it’s hard to eat healthy in that state.I lost all my muscle mass and put on a lot of fat. And I was depressed. But then when my doctor gave me permission to go, I went back and jumped back in too hard. And then my neck was fused. and then Margie, the vegan angel she is kept sprinkling hints here and there. She showed me vegan athletes and she showed me what happened to animals. And when people think they go vegan, they don’t want to see what is going on with animals. But I never want anyone to feel bad about that. … it’s your journey and initially, I went vegan because I thought it could help my joints. and withint 2 weeks the pain in my neck was gone and the pain in my elbow and then I was able to push the weight like I was 18 again, and by then I was 34.

“I got back to where I was when I was pre-injury. And then I started lifting even more. I have metal in my neck, I have had plenty of injuries like broken ribs .. but once I stuck with it for 2 weeks all that pain was gone. And the amazing thing is once I was well into being plant-based I thought I need to stop looking away from what animals go through so I started to watch videos and learn more. So here I am learning empathy because I needed to feel better. My selfish beginnings then led to empathy and I didn’t want to say I was fully vegan until I was ready. I didn’t start off as vegan for the animals but they are a huge motivator and anchoring for the rest of my life. You can still be muscular and strong. It’s okay to be a man and to care about the animals too.

“Now, I think about that big linebacker and how I thought he was lying but I realize he wasn’t and now when people ask if I’m supplementing, then I think it’s a compliment. Another guy at the gym asked if I was vegan and I said yes and then he admitted he was too and we go out with that robot-like strength, and people can’t believe it. I help tell people who say they gained weight. When someone goes from a meat-based diet to a plant-based diet, when you eat a meat-based food they are dense in calories, but when you switch to a plant-based diet if you are not tracking what you are doing, it can help. Since if you have a physical goal in mind if you begin to drop weight they are clearly not eating enough. Or on the other hand, people go vegan and plant-based their shopping list off processed junk food. But if you ever talk to a coach, or nutritionist, switching to a whole-food, plant-based diet, that makes the difference. That’s what makes the diff. I like to make a meal plan and calculate my food one time and that makes it so much easier.

5 Tips to transition to a plant-based diet, and get the protein you need

1. Be Patient

First and foremost, you need to be patient with yourself. You’re going to make mistakes, everyone does. I did. It’s not a reason to give up. So just stay patient, Allow yourself some leeway. I’m hard on myself so I understand that feeling very much. Don’t worry about it, you’re fine.”

2. Time Is On Your Side

Go slow. You don’t have to go full vegan overnight. Some people do and they’re successful with it, but don’t let that make you feel pressured. You don’t need to do anything overnight. I cut out certain groups of meat and animals over a few months period of time and then when I tried to go fully vegan, and I didn’t succeed. I messed up. So instead of giving up, you just keep trying, and you learn along the way and you’re going to make mistakes.

3. Don’t Go It Alone

If you’re not comfortable jumping on Google and doing your own research, there’s nothing wrong with hiring a coach. I do coaching for people who want to transition to a vegan lifestyle. I do coaching for people who want to transition to a vegan lifestyle and maintain muscle mass or gain muscle mass or lose fat. So, there’s nothing wrong with asking for help.

(The Beet‘s Beginner’s Guide is a good place to get started if you’re overwhelmed.)

4. Keep An Open Mind

Keep an open mind. I started trying all kinds of new foods that I never would have eaten had I not been open-minded. Things like seitan, for example. You know back when I was meat-based, I wanted to eat the leanest meat. The meat with the lowest fat and the highest protein and the lowest carbs. It was ridiculous, but now since I became vegan, the seitan I eat is actually leaner than the chicken I used to eat, and there’s no estrogen in it. It doesn’t require something to be killed. So keep an open mind. Try new things.

I used to think tofu was extremely strange and now I love it. There are so many things you can do with tofu, so don’t be scared to try new things because there’s a whole other world out there and it’s an amazing one.

5. Spice Up Your Life

Lastly, I would say learn to use spices and powders and sauces, because I see a lot of people that go vegan and they’re just throwing plain broccoli in with plain beans and plain rice and they’re struggling through it. I would struggle through that, so don’t be afraid to experiment with different spices and powders and even if it’s terrible, you know, “Okay, I don’t mix that next time.” So, get experimental, try different things. You’ll find your way I promise.

Will Brooks’ 3 Tips to Get Enough Protein on a Plant-Based Diet

1. Say It With Me: I’ll Have the Seitan!

There’s a variety of ways you can get protein. As a new vegan you might think, “Wow, I only have a handful of options.” But really you have a treasure chest of options. So, if you’re not even looking at the whole food plant-based options if you want to look at your seitan, your tempeh, your tofu, even your textured vegetable protein, or textured vegetable protein (TVP). Those are some of your more processed options, some less than others, but I partake in all of those. I love those.

2. Get More Protein with Black Bean Pasta

I also love protein pasta. So that’s actually a simple tip to immediately increase your protein as a vegan where you take your pasta or whatever you make your spaghetti or linguine with and you switch it out for black bean pasta or edamame pasta or any of those. You’re going to instantly increase your protein substantially. A single serving, I believe, of edamame pasta has around twenty grams of protein and that’s plant-based protein.

3. Eat More Lentils and Beans to Get Lean

And then you can go to the whole food options where you’re looking at lentils which are also a carb source. I love lentils. You’re looking at beans, black beans, pinto beans. Beans and rice? I mean come on, what kind of a combo?! You gotta love that.

Elysabeth Alfano is a plant-based business consultant and interviewer: @ElysabethAlfano at ElysabethAlfano.com.

The post A Vegan Athlete’s 5 Simple Tips to Get Protein on a Plant-Based Diet appeared first on The Beet.

“At this point, I hadn’t realized that for health reasons, it was best to be whole-foods plant-based,” recalls Desiree Mora.  “I had done the research. I also knew that most doctors only get about four to eight hours of nutrition in medical school.”

Being Borderline Anemic Sparked Her to Learn How to Eat Iron-Rich Foods

This brush with a health condition prompted her to turn to a whole-food, plant-based diet, full of nutrients, and to fight her fatigue naturally, through a healthier diet of foods that are rich in iron, such as beans, lentils leafy greens, and nuts and seeds. Here is the full list of iron-rich foods to eat on a plant-based diet, according to an RD.

Mora then decided to turn her borderline anemia, a condition that millions of Americans suffer from, into a solution-driven company and launched a line of supplements called VictuaLiv, designed for people who want to be active and strong while eating a plant-based diet. She credits switching to a whole-food, plant-based diet for bringing back her energy, her iron levels, and her optimal health, and transforming her life.

The Beet: Why did you go fully plant-based?

Desiree Mora: When my son (now five) was six months old, I began introducing solid foods into his diet. I was told to start with fruits and vegetables, and I began making these foods baby-friendly at home. Being a full-time mom at the time I began researching the best foods to make for an infant or growing child. This led me to consume all food-related media, including food documentaries. I watched Vegucated (thinking it would be about vegetables) and my life changed.

I had always been into wellness and fitness and thought of my diet as healthy. I stopped eating pork when I was fourteen after reading some books on how unhealthy it was, and I had replaced cow’s milk with soymilk years ago due to its high-fat content. I had never, however, stopped to think about the ties to animal cruelty and the detriment of our environment to our food choices. I was shocked. Being an avid researcher, I set out to verify all of the information I saw on the documentary, and, to my horror, all of it was true. The more I verified, the more I began to remove animal-based foods from my diet. It wasn’t long until I made the decision to go vegan. It’s been about five years since that day.

The Beet: What was the health impetus to going plant-based?

DM: I didn’t necessarily have a health impetus. As I began to learn more about the vegan diet, I became convinced that plant-based foods are healthier for the human body than animal-based foods; the scientific evidence is overwhelming. I also did it for ethical reasons. Becoming vegan was better for me in every way and gave me values I am proud to share with my son and the world.

The Beet: What were the immediate benefits of eating plant-based?

DM: I did lose weight… however I had gained a good amount during pregnancy. Something else I noticed was my food waste diminished considerably. I was always throwing away cheese or meats that had gone bad in the fridge. Plant-based foods seem to last longer.

The Beet: What were the biggest challenges of eating plant-based?

DM: I grew up dining on meals separated three ways on my plate: One meat, one carb, one vegetable. My biggest challenge was replacing the meat. The easiest option was to substitute with faux meat. I’d buy everything I could find (chicken, burgers, fish…). My energy began to dip. I was always tired and sleepy. At this point, I hadn’t realized that for health reasons, it was best to be whole-foods plant-based.

Worried, I got some blood work done and my doctor told me I had borderline anemia, and I needed to eat meat. I told her I was vegan, and she pushed back, saying I had to “stop that.” But I knew better, I had done the research. I also knew that most doctors only get about four to eight hours of nutrition in medical school.

Most Americans, regardless of their diet, have nutrition gaps. On a plant-based diet, I knew I would have fewer nutritional gaps, but that I would probably want to take an iron supplement and a B12 supplement or make sure my foods were enriched with these. I began searching for a vitamin that would fulfill my needs as a vegan. I couldn’t find anything. There was nothing on the market except supplements with an enormous list of nutrients, most of which cancel each other out. I researched it. I know! This is when I decided I would have to make my own supplement if I wanted the key nutrients that were right for me. That’s how VictuaLiv was born.

As I mentioned, at the time I wasn’t aware that a whole foods plant-based and B12 diet gives you everything you need to thrive. However, even now that I know this, I don’t have the time or headspace to cook every day. I can’t always shop for fresh fruits and veggies and convenience and restaurant food do end up in the house. We don’t all eat like Dr. Neal Barnard every day, even though we try.

Between work and being a mom and the stress of covid, I can’t always be perfectly eating legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, dark leafy greens, veggies, and fruit. Let’s be realistic: plant-based ice cream, faux meat, and snacks do end up in my diet sometimes, which is why I wanted to be more sure than ever that I had a supplement that was right for me, my sort of ‘worry-free’ card to get everything that I needed.

The Beet: Biggest triumph along the way?

DM: Being an entrepreneur, I wanted my next business had to somehow promote the vegan lifestyle. Not finding a supplement at the time for my new vegan diet gave me (and my business partner) the idea of creating one. It took a long while, but having my heavily researched, scientifically-backed multivitamin VictuaLiv – meaning food and life, custom-made for my diet, from sources I trust, in my hands, has been the biggest triumph in my journey. I have since fully recovered from borderline anemia, and feel more energized than ever. I hope to help others on their journey as well.

I want people to know that they have a way to get all the nutrients they need when transitioning to a plant-based diet…even if they treat themselves to some plant-based burgers and fries.

The Beet: What’s your favorite snack on a whole food plant-based diet?

DM: Mixed nuts; whatever fruit is around (banana, apple, mandarin), chips, and hummus.

The Beet: What do you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

DM: I definitely incorporate more veggies and grains every chance I get.

Breakfast: Usually avocado toast; oatmeal with fruits; pancakes with fruit or chocolate when I’m feeling fancy, Arepa with tofu scramble and vegetables (a treat). Tea or coffee with plant milk.

Lunch: I normally have takeout or leftovers for lunch: (all veggie) hummus wraps, burger and fries (guilty pleasure), empanadas (filled with spinach, or faux meat, or potatoes and veggies in curry), arepas with black beans and avocado, lentil or bean soup, water or soda stream soda. I normally take two VictuaLiv with my lunch or dinner.

Dinner: Spaghetti and faux meatballs, veggie pizza (no cheese if no vegan cheese available), soft tacos with faux chorizo and salad, vegan ravioli w/chopped cooked vegetables, miso soup with tofu steak and veggie noodles (another treat!). Water or soda stream soda.

The Beet: What advice would you have for somebody?

DM: Incorporate a daily multivitamin in your routine, not because whole food plant-based diet can’t give you what you need, but because life keeps you busy, and you may not always find the time or headspace to eat everything you need – every meal – every day.

You may think iron is synonymous with meat, and while animal protein certainly has it, that doesn’t mean you can’t get enough iron if you eat a mainly plant-based diet. In fact, you can, if you know the right foods to choose and how to pair them. The daily recommendation from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for iron intake is 18 milligrams (mg), but not all iron sources are created equal. Here’s what plant-based eaters need to know about iron and which iron-rich foods are best to help reap the benefits.

1. White Mushrooms

1 cup cooked = 3 mg iron (17% daily value (DV))\There are many reasons to eat mushrooms on the regular, but their meaty texture (try a Portobello cap as a meat replacement for a burger!) and ample protein are two of the highlights. Add them to your stir-fry, tacos, or even instead of meat in a faux Bolognese sauce.

2. Lentils

1/2 cup = 3 mg iron (17% DV)You don’t need to eat a huge serving of lentils to get a hearty dose of iron. Just a half-cup provides close to 20% of the iron you need in a day. Just like mushrooms, lentils have a meaty texture that works well in burgers, tacos, or grain bowls.

3. Potatoes

1 medium potato = 2 mg iron (11% DV)The poor potato has gotten such a bad rap. Fear of this carb-rich spud is unwarranted because it’s actually an affordable and delicious source of iron and potassium. So go ahead and have that hash, baked potato, or potato soup and leave the skin on for some added fiber.

4. Cashews

1 ounce = 2 mg iron (11% DV)Most nuts contain iron, but cashews are a standout because they have less fat than some of the other nuts. One ounce of cashews (about 16 to 18 nuts) has 160 calories, 5 grams of protein, and 13 grams of fat. Add a handful of cashews to smoothies, soups, or sauces for some extra creaminess.

5. Tofu

½ cup = 3 mg (15% DV)Not only does tofu have plenty of protein and calcium, but it’s also a good source of iron. It’s very versatile and takes on the flavor of any sauce or marinade, making it a great meat substitute.Keep in mind that you can easily get the iron you need from a plant-based diet.

The post This Military Vet and Mom Cured Her Mild Anemia With Diet. Here’s How appeared first on The Beet.

Julieanna Hever, plant-based dietitian and author shares her tips for how to start your plant-based diet, as well as all the health benefits. By going plant-based she tellsus, it helps to reverse disease, gain energy and lower your risk of heart disease and even other major lifestyle illness. She shares her top five foods everyone should eat and how easy it is to start your plant-based journey..

She is the author of six books on healthy eating and nutrition, includingThe Healthspan Solution: How and What To Eat To Add Life To Your Years, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition and The Vegiterranean Diet).

How to Go Plant-Based, With Expert Tips

Elysabeth Alfano: Obviously, you have so many individual clients but for those who maybe are still considering a plant-based diet and still aren’t sure if it’s for them.

I wonder if you could give us your top five tips for starting a plant-based diet.

Julieanna Hever: Sure. Well, first of all, I think people have to want to try it. I try to not convince anyone anymore [even though] it is the best way to eat in terms of what I’ve seen and the literature.

But if you are interested, it is a fabulous, fun, and positive journey and that’s my first tip, to keep it really positive and exciting instead of thinking, “Oh, I can’t eat these seven animal product groups.”  You can eat thousands of delicious versions and variations of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices in infinite tasty combinations.”

And to explore and think positively about what you’re going to add to your diet. What are all the different things you’ve never tried before? Have you ever tried ruby quinoa? Have you ever tried jackfruit? There are so many different things that people have never even explored. It’s like this whole new world opens up. So that’s tip number one: have fun with it and explore.

The second thing I would say is to explore a wide variety. Anything you could eat, [you can] eat vegan. So, figure out something that you love and then veganize it.

Now we have the Google machine, so you can go in there and type in whatever you love to eat. If it’s a Bolognese or whatever you love to eat, you can make it plant-based.

So, it’s never been an easier time because there is so much information and infinite recipes at your fingertips.  So find stuff you love and enjoy it. Make it really positive.

The third thing I would say is to find like-minded people that are on the same page or that have been doing it for years or decades because they will have lots of tips for you and there are great social media groups out there. There are people everywhere now that they are wanting to talk about it and like you said, shout from the rooftops. So, connect with like-minded people just to have some of that support.

The fourth tip for going plant-based would be to make sure you are mindful of your notable nutrients.

So if you go to my website plantbaseddietician.com and all over my social media, I’m @plantdietician or @plantbaseddietician or Julieanna Hever on social media, and I have videos on notable nutrients and six daily threes. And I have, like I said, six books out there that are just filled with all this information. Just to educate yourself, empower yourself, and find out what you need to be mindful of so that you can do this in a real strategic way. No diet is perfect, and every diet requires being attentive to it.

My fifth tip would be to find foods that you love. It has to be foods that you love to eat.

EA: I’ll hop in there and say what I find is really helpful for people particularly in the beginning when they’re thinking, “How’s this going to go? How’s this going to shake out?”

Go ahead and plan your week ahead of time. So, if you have some time on a Sunday and you can cook for the rest of the week, make that quinoa and sauteed vegetables with beans and avocados. The avocados you would put on at the last minute but everything else you can have ready so that you don’t have to stand in front of the refrigerator door saying “I’m not sure I can do it. I’m not sure what to do.”

So, I would just spend some time at least in the beginning when you’re still figuring out go-to recipes. You know you are starting a new habit so give yourself a little bit of prep time in advance.

For more information about starting a plant-based diet, visit The Beet‘s Beginner’s Guide to a Plant-Based Diet.

Elysabeth Alfano is a plant-based business consultant and helps people transition to a plant-based diet. Follow her @ElysabethAlfano on all platforms and at ElysabethAlfano.com.

The post How to Start a Plant-Based Diet: 5 Easy Tips From a Registered Dietician appeared first on The Beet.

So, when the doctor said that the way for Raydel to live with his gout was to commit to a life of pills, he was less bothered than when she said if he wanted to reverse his gout, he would need to go vegan.  Pills he was willing to accept.  Giving up meat…not so much.  Still, this was his life he was making decisions about, so he decided to do some research, starting with watching Forks Over Knives.

Things clicked in his mind and, though his family thought he was crazy, he decided to try to cut out meat and dairy to see what would happen.  He started slowly and it wasn’t always easy, but soon he felt better. He had more energy.  He had more focus. He had more clarity. He stuck with it and soon he lost 25 pounds, dropped his cholesterol 100 points, and got his life back…without pills.

But one thing was missing: He still wanted to eat the classic Cuban recipes he grew up on.  He still wanted that time in the kitchen with his Grandmother.  So, Raydel got to work on veganizing the Cuban classics which resulted in the book, “It’s Delicious! It’s Vegan! It’s Cuban!”

Learn about his personal journey in the long-form interview here. Raydel’s Top Five Tips for Meat Eaters To Eat Less Meat are below.

Elysabeth Alfano: So, before we went to break, we were talking about this incredible transformation that you’ve done, but, of course, you grew up a meat-eater. In fact, you really relied on it as part of your deep Cuban heritage.

So, for those meat eaters out there who are just thinking, “I don’t know if I can do it. Help me through,” what are your top five tips to start working out the meat and bringing in the plants for your health?

Raydel Hernandez: Well, I don’t know if I have five, but I definitely have tips.

1. It’s Not Do or Die (Well, It Could Be)

It doesn’t have to be an all or none thing and I think most people would agree. Do it gradually. It’s almost like running, right? You don’t run six miles your first time. You run half a mile or a hundred yards and you build and you build and you build and you get used to it. It’s the same thing. Maybe you pick a day of the week and that’s- and I wouldn’t even say vegan, [let’s say] vegetarian day. So, you start gradually working your way out of it.

2. You Got This. Literally.

The other tip I could tell you from my personal experience is you are giving up nothing. You don’t have to give up a thing. There are meat substitutes out there. If you want a hamburger, you can eat a plant-based hamburger.

I’ve lost my taste for meat. Anything that’s flavored like meat I don’t really care for it that much anymore. But we live in a world now where you can go to Burger King and have the Impossible Burger. You’re not giving up anything, there’s no sacrifice.

3. It’s Not Fake Meat. It’s Fake News.

The other tip I would tell you is, and this is a big one, it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around this. You’re brainwashed. You have to un-brainwash yourself. You have to unstick yourself from the tar because everyone is trying to sell you something and that is no different in the meat and food world.

They all want to convince you that what they’re selling is good for you when it’s really not. And they confuse the situation by putting misinformation all over the internet. Unfortunately, in this country, if you Google something, whoever pays the most comes up first and that’s not necessarily the best thing because they’re trying to sell you something that isn’t true.

4. Homework is Your Friend.

Another tip is you have to self-research. You can’t take it from me, you can’t take it from Elysabeth. You have to read and read and read. What I did was I started off with a few documentaries. The most famous one is Forks Over Knives.

That’s the one that really turned the page for me. But if you look in the credits, they list all the scientists and all the studies and I contacted those people on email and I said, “I saw this documentary, can you send me the research?” And they all sent it to me free of charge. It’s all public information at this point, and I read everything. I can’t tell you I understood every single experiment, but I read it all first-hand and it’s been common knowledge that the foods you eat affect your health for at least eighty years. It’s all out there. So those would be my tips, I think I hit four.

5. You Are Your Own Best Advocate

EA: You did hit four, but I’ll give a fifth, which kind of riffs off what you were saying in three and four: You must advocate for yourselves. You were saying you must research for yourself. Absolutely, 100%.   You must also advocate for yourself. You have to take your own health into your own hands. Even farming it out to your doctor is not always in your best interest.

So, take the time. Start gradually, whatever works for you. We’re not here to tell you what to do. Figure it out for yourself, but it has to be your own journey because there are a lot of forces out there trying to sway you one way or the other, regardless of what is best for you.

Ultimately, the only thing you have to give up is the notion that it will be hard, it won’t taste good, you’ll be missing out and eating won’t be fun…because nothing is as fun as feeling great. It’s time to get your health back.

Elysabeth Alfano is a plant-based business consultant and helps people transition to a plant-based diet. Follow her @ElysabethAlfano on all platforms and at ElysabethAlfano.com.

The post 5 Tips To Eat Less Meat From a Former Die-Hard Meat Eater appeared first on The Beet.

It’s easy to see Schinner as a leading light in the vegan movement, since she has been a vegan for 35 years, is an outspoken advocate for animal rights, and has created a runaway hit product (her vegan butter and cheeses), but even she admits she got tripped up on the road to becoming fully committed to veganism. In her early days, Miyoko admits she would “cheat” by eating cheese from time to time. “That was the hardest thing. I didn’t eat cheese very often, but occasionally I would cheat. And I just kept cheating,” she explained, “but when I finally made the connection about the babies being taken away (from their mothers), it was like, okay, I can’t cheat anymore.”

Her decision to go full-on vegan eventually led to the launching of Miyoko’s Creamery. Giving up cheese was a tough decision, so making her own vegan cheese was on her bucket list of must-dos. Miyoko credits her husband for launching her into action, as a line of self-defense.

“One day (my husband) said, ‘I’m tired of not having cheese in the house.’ And he started buying cheese. And next thing you knew, I had cheese in my refrigerator. And that was it. I was like, ‘Okay, this cannot happen!’ And that’s when I started playing around with vegan cheese.”

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Fast forward several years and Miyoko’s newest products, melty-gooey Cheddar and Pepper Jack Cheeses (cashew-free and indistinguishable from dairy cheese to most tastebuds) are rolling out across Whole Foods this month. Cheese lovers who are vegan or plant-based will be delighted to know they can get busy on the classic grilled cheese, a staple of the American diet! Below, Miyoko shares her tips for rocking a grilled cheese sandwich like a pro!

1.) Be sure to use the right cooking method. You should use either a panini/grilled cheese press or use a griddle/skillet with a lid to ensure the best melting.

2.) Start with good ingredients. Traditional grilled cheese is simple, so it’s important to use quality ingredients. Personally, I love a high-quality sourdough bread, perhaps from your local bakery. I also suggest using our new cheddar cheese or pepper jack cheese, if you prefer a little spice! Not all vegan cheeses melt equally, but our new cheddar and pepper jack melt and function exactly like dairy cheese, which makes them perfect for making a gooey grilled cheese sandwich. Finally use your favorite vegan butter – my go-to is always Miyoko’s cultured vegan butter. Slather both sides of the bread with this before putting into the pan.

3.) Have fun with it! There are so many ways to liven up the traditional grilled cheese and it’s hard to mess up if you’re adding flavors that you like. Maybe you want to add caramelized onions for some sweetness, or mushrooms and truffle for something a little more elegant. Don’t be afraid to get creative! (The Beet has a grilled cheese and spinach recipe that is perfect; just use Miyoko’s cheese in the recipe.)

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Vegan Cheese and Dairy are Leading the Plant-Based Market Growth

More and more consumers are discovering plant-based cheeses, milks, and yogurts. According to the Good Food Institute, plant-based cheeses racked up $189 million in sales in 2019, up 51% since 2017. Plant-based yogurts accounted for $283 million in sales in 2019, up 95% in two years. Plant-based milk topped $2 billion in sales in 2019 and now represents 14% of all milk sales.

Even in these uncertain times, Miyoko is optimistic for the future. “I’m just full of hope. I really do believe that this is the pivotal point when things are going to change. I think COVID-19 is a really horrible time for people, but if we can see this as our opportunity to make change, it’s going to happen faster and faster. I’m very hopeful for the future of a vegan world.”

To watch and listen to the full interview, go here. To watch and listen to other vegan celeb interviews with Elysabeth on her podcast, Awesome Vegans, go here. 

Elysabeth Alfani is a plant-based expert for mainstream media, breaking down the plant-based health, food, business and environmental news for the general public on radio and TV.

The post Miyoko’s Top Three Tips for Making a Killer Vegan Grilled Cheese Sandwich appeared first on The Beet.