Victoria Moran

There’s so much to consider and Victoria leaves no stone unturned. Covering vegan living from a nutrition perspective, vegan food and cooking, the environmental and social impact, the health aspect and disease prevention, the personal and for some, the spiritual aspect, and of course the ethics of veganism and animal rights, Main Street Vegan is comprehensive, giving you everything you need to know and the freedom to find what speaks to you most. 

You’ll find all the stats, facts, supporting evidence and research but Victoria serves them up in the context of personal experiences, inspiring commentary, and wise suggestions. Main Street Vegan will engage your mind and heart. There are 40 bite-sized chapters and each ends with a delicious recipe that ties in with the theme of the chapter so you can get started making some delicious changes in the kitchen right away.

With all the information she provides, the main objective is to give you the practical, every day ‘how-tos’ of living lusciously, fashionably, and healthfully vegan. From reconfiguring your pantry, cooking and recipes, to eating out and traveling, to talking about vegan issues, how to handle being challenged, dealing with controversial and grey areas, and much more.

There’s so much here, I’m a bit overwhelmed trying to convey how awesome this book is. Basically it’s like the bible for vegan living, giving you everything you need to know and all the tools you need to make living a happy, healthy, vegan life possible. Armed with all the information you need, you can then decide what changes you want to make now and over time. Once again, it’s progress not perfection. As Victoria points out, there is no perfection in today’s world.
 
This book is for the vegans, vegetarians, omnivores that are flirting with veganism and the veg-curious. As a vegan I love Main Street Vegan and got so much out of it. On the other side, Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Michael Moore, not a vegan, wrote,

“Finally, a book that isn’t preaching to the vegan choir, but to the people in the pews—and the ones who can’t fit in those pews. This is a book for the Main Street majority who aren’t vegans. Once you read this, you’ll know it’s possible to get healthy and enjoy doing it—even if you live in Paramus or Peoria.”
 
This book is gift and one that I recommend whole-heartedly as something you should give to yourself and someone you love. Enter our giveaway below for a chance to win a copy. In partnership with Penguin publishers we are offering 3 copies of this awesome book for giveaway.

GIVEAWAY:

There are several ways you can enter the giveaway, and you can do one or all. The more you do, the better your chances of winning. The giveaway ends on 5/22 at 12:01am EST and is open to anyone in the U.S. or Canada 18+.

Winners will have 48 hours to respond to the notification email to claim their prize. If a winner doesn’t respond in time a new winner will be drawn. Rafflecopter will randomly select the winners. No purchase necessary. This giveaway is NOT associated, sponsored nor endorsed by Facebook or Twitter. The information you enter is collected by Rafflecopter and viewed by me in order to facilitate this giveaway.

Enter the Giveaway here for a chance to win! Best of luck

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Exactly one year ago this week, Farm Sanctuary celebrated their 25th anniversary in New York City at Cipriani.

It was an amazing event. Being able to interview charitable supporters and celebrities, and Gene Baur, President of Farm Sanctuary, on the red carpet was incredible. I was overwhelmed by their passion and commitment to promoting cruelty-free living. Today we’re celebrating the anniversary of the anniversary and looking forward to what’s coming up next.

See below for all the interviews and upcoming events.

It was truly inspiring to hear these wonderful people talk about how they came to be involved with Farm Sanctuary, why they went vegan or vegetarian or are moving in that direction.

Lead by President and Co-Founder Gene Baur, Farm Sanctuary is an amazing organization. From passing laws to protect farm animals, bringing animal rights and welfare issues into mainstream awareness, to actually rescuing farm animals and providing a home for them on their farms in upstate New York and in California, they have saved thousands of lives and helped us all open our hearts a little more.

Summary coverage of the event:

Kathy Freston spoke at the event. On one of her appearances on Ellen, she talked about how compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.

I believe that’s true too. As I was dreaming about going up to Farm Sanctuary to visit the farm animals, something you can do, I thought “Once you meet them you can’t eat them.” You may hear me say that once or twice here and now you can buy a tote bag or t-shirt or other merch with that message.

None of this would have been possible without the brilliant filmmaker Charles Riccardi, Torino Pictures, who photographed and edited these videos. Thank you Charles!! You are the best!! Forever grateful for this experience!!

Gene Baur Interview
Jane-Velez Mitchell Interview
Ally Sheedy Interview
Wendy Malick Interview
Corey Feldman Interview
Bonnie-Jill Laflin Interview
Fred Willard Interview
Nellie McKay Interview
James Costa and Joy Pierson Interview
Bart Potenza Interview
Leanne Mai-Ly Hilgart
Joshua Katcher and James Koroni Interview

Up next, there’ll be a benefit coming up on June 16 in Los Angeles. You can go visit Farm Sanctuary, and of course the annual New York Hoe Down happens August 4-5, details to be posted soon.

The New York Green Festival was awesome and I especially loved this panel discussion that Earth Balance put together.  I posted a video a few days ago, and here’s another one where they focus in on the environment. Evidence shows that eating a plant-based vegan diet has such a positive impact on the environment.

These people are all so brilliant and each offer a different perspective on the subject.

Jeffrey Smith, GMO expert and author, Seeds of Deception, states, “The entire system of GMOs reduces biodiversity, harms monarch butterflies, probably contributes to the demise of the bees, and is a perfect storm for environmental disaster.”

Tara Stiles, founder and owner of Strala Yoga and author Yoga Cures, brings up how everything is interconnected, “Practicing yoga has been important in my life and in people around me because it sensitizes you and the more you do things like yoga or starting to eat plant based, you become more sensitized to all these things.”

Bart Potenza talks about how inspiring it is working with local farmers as a restauranteur.  ”When you become a vegan, your carbon footprint is automatically 25% less on the planet.”

Alex Jamieson talks about how she is teaching kids about plant-based healthy foods through cooking classes at her son’s school. With this exposure, they can start to develop a taste for healthy foods. She has lots of kid friendly recipes on her website, DeliciousVitality.com.

Marisa Miller Wolfson talks about the section in her film Vegucated that speaks to the environmental impact of food production. “I used to think that organic and free range was enough, as an environmentalist I’m doing my part, that’s all we need. Well guess what, it’s not because the average dairy cow consumes 50 or more gallons of water per day…When you stop eating fish, then guess what, you’re saving the ocean. A third of the ocean species are already in collapse. By mid century they’ll all be in collapse if we still continue at the rate we’re eating fish.” She goes about the myth of sustainable meat, “If all the cows in the US were pasture raised right now then you would need half the land of the US for that pasture….A swath of Brazilian rainforest the size of France is gone for pasture for cows.”

Victoria Moran, author Main Street Vegan, “Going veg is such an effective and efficient way to help the planet b/c your helping it on so many levels.  We’re talking about decreasing the green house gasses, saving water, saving trees.  The statistic is every person who doesn’t eat meat saves 4 acres of trees a year. Most people aren’t planting 4 acres of trees, especially not here in Manhattan. We’re saving vast amounts of water and it’s all by doing something so simple that we’d be doing anyway which is eating 3 times a day.”

What do you think? Drop a line below in the comments section. Always love to hear from you!

Starting today and running through May 6th, there’s going to be a free online Summit, the Food Revolution Summit, where 21 renowned leaders in the movement for health, wellness, plant-based nutrition, sustainable and compassionate living, will be talking with best-selling author and pioneer John Robbins.

The Summit offers training, inspiration, practical information, tools and tips from modern day heroes of health and sustainability. Participants are promised answers to burning questions, tools for dealing with family and peers, ideas, and motivation.

They’ll be covering a lot of ground with the latest information on GMOs, raw food diets, the environmental, ethical, and social impact of our food choices, plant-based vegan living, preventing and reversing degenerative diseases like heart disease, cancer and diabetes, and more.

There are going to be 3 interviews a day. You can call in by phone or tune in on your computer and with Skype to listen in. The Summit is free and registration is easy. To get more info on the brilliant lineup of speakers and to register head over to their site.

Register at Food Revolution Summit.

Summit Broadcast Calendar

Saturday April 28, The Science Of Healthy Eating – Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Joel Fuhrman
Sunday, April 29, GMOs: How Dangerous Are They? – Jeffrey Smith, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Dr. Vandana Shiva
Monday, April 30, How To Win Friends And Influence People Without Being A Nag – Morgan Spurlock, Rory Freedman
Tuesday, May 1, Eating As If The Earth Mattered (Which It Most Certainly Does!) - Bill McKibben, Ronnie Cummins, Frances Moore Lappe
Wednesday, May 2, What Is The Optimum Diet For Humans? – Dr. Neal Barnard, David Wolfe, Dr. T. Colin Campbell
Thursday, May 3, Healthy, Humane Food For Everybody - Nicolette Niman, Nikki Henderson, Gene Baur
Friday, May 4, The Politics Of Dinner Food Policy For Healthy People – Raj Patel, Michele Simon, Hon. Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich
Saturday, May 5, Food And The Human Spirit – Geneen Roth, Marianne Williamson, Kathy Freston
Sunday, May 6, Connecting The Dots (special hour-long presentation) – John Robbins

The Summit is free but there are additional materials you can purchase if you like. These include downloadable MP3 recordings and transcripts of all the interviews, plus other resources provided by the experts.

Register at Food Revolution Summit

Get educated, get inspired with Dr. Dean Ornish (Preventive Medicine Research Institute), Dr. T. Colin Cambell (author, The China Study), Marianne Williamson (Spiritual Principles for Weight Loss), Kathy Freston (author, Veganist and The Lean), Morgan Spurlock (filmmaker, Supersize Me), Rory Freedman (author, Skinny Bitch), Joseph Mercola (Mercola.com), David Wolfe (Radiant Health Now), Dr. Vandana Shiva (How to Stop Big Ag), Ronnie Cummins (Organic Consumers Association), and more.

2012 Food Revolution Summit

Me and Marisa at Vegucated Premiere in NYC

Marisa Miller Wolfson, creator of the award winning documentary film Vegucated, took some time out to talk with me at the New York Green Festival about her film, her next projects, what inspires her, and easy first steps for people to take to transition to a healthier way of eating for personal health, the planet and the animals.  Incorporating more healthy plant-based foods in place of animal-based foods can be easier than people think.

I’m really excited to bring you this interview.  Marisa is such a warm, brilliant, kind person with a great sense of humor and personality to spare.   With a belief that change is not just possible, it is inevitable, she is driven to keep the momentum going.  She created this incredible film yet she humbly talks about how that was only the beginning.  The next part begins the ‘real’ work.

On the agenda, turning this into a movement, creating online Vegucated Challenges, launching a community website, providing more resources and turn-key solutions to make it easy for anyone to host a screening, and creating a worldwide vegan buddy system. Well, here’s Marisa to explain it all…

I surprised her with the question about what inspires her, but she woke me up with her response. I was expecting something vegan-related. I love what she said, just brilliant… “Hearing from people who are making changes in their lives and not just going vegan…people take on challenges and become things that they never ever thought they could be. Because we define ourselves, we say “I’m not this”, “I’m not that.” You don’t know who you are. You don’t know what you’re capable of, so just give it a shot.”

Words to live by.

P.s. If you haven’t seen Vegucated, it’s a film for everyone.  My die-hard omnivore friends loved it as much as my vegan friends.  It inspired them to make some changes, to incorporate more healthy vegan foods into their diet, do meatless Mondays, and explore vegan versions of foods they love.  They didn’t do a 180 but the wheels are churning.  The film has a big impact, in large part due to how incredibly entertaining and engaging it is. Jam packed with information, inspiring stories unfold and weaving throughout the film there are many really funny moments.  As you can tell, I really didn’t care for it, lol, as if!  I loved it and chances are, you will too so check it out.

Check out Get Vegucated too and stay in the loop with all the great things happening over there. Also, sign up for the free Big City Vegan newsletter below if you’d like to get updates.

Drop a line here too if you have any comments, questions or something you want to share. Look forward to hearing from you!

People everywhere celebrated Earth Day and in NYC many of us took in the New York Green Festival. 

Earth Balance sponsored a panel discussion with a diverse group of experts on plant-based living.  Coming from a vast array of areas of expertise,  the talk was inspiring and rich with facts, stats, and information.  The structured Q & A format, hosted by Jeff Golfman of TheCoolVegetarian.com, made for a well-organized presentation.

From left to right, the panel of experts are:

Marisa Miller Wolfson — Filmmaker, Vegucated
Alex Jamieson — Author and founder of Delicious Vitality
Victoria Moran — Author, Main Street Vegan
Jeffrey Smith – Author and Anti-GMO Activist, Institute for Responsible Technology
Bart Polenza — Co-founder of Candle 79, one of the top organic vegan restaurants in the country
Tara Stiles — Author, Yoga and Nutrition Expert

They started out talking about trends in plant-based diet and lifestyle and why it’s catching on for more and more people. Here’s the first in the series of videos, soon to follow.

I’ll have more posts on this and interviews to share with you over the next few days.

How was your Earth Day?  What did you do to celebrate?  Any Earth Day resolutions?

Check out Kathy Freston on The Talk talking about tips on eating healthier with plant-based foods instead. She has a new book out now with even more tips and a 30-day plan, The Lean: A Revolutionary (and Simple!) 30-Day Plan for Healthy, Lasting Weight Loss. I love she engages people in such a positive way.

Kathy’s Tips

1) Choose a non-dairy milk. It’s super easy to do with all the rice, almond, hemp, soy, coconut milks on the market and tastes great. The purpose of dairy is to make a baby cow gain a 1000 pounds in 9 months and is not healthy for humans. The non-dairy milks have as much if not more calcium, without all the bad stuff, saturated fat and cholesterol.

2) Substitute cow’s cheese for non-dairy vegan cheese like tapioca-based Daiya cheese on pizza’s.

3) Have a hearty, fiber rich breakfast to keep your metabolism going.

4) Eat your super foods. They will energize you so much that you won’t want to eat the bad stuff, plus you won’t have room in your belly to eat the bad stuff. The ‘crowd-out’ affect. Super foods she recommends – loaded with fiber and antioxidants, you have blueberries and goji berries have lots of good stuff and enhance your sex life.

5) Make cashew cream to use in place of heavy cream in all kinds of foods, from pastas to tiramisu.

You can have all the things you love and enjoy. You don’t need to give up anything.

I do love Kathy’s approach. I would have added a ton of veggies to that pizza first to make it more whole-foods based instead of just making substitutions, vegan cheese for dairy, but I appreciate where she’s going, just getting people to transition, 1st step. Then after that, maybe rely less on substitutions. My own opinion. What do you think?

This vegan parmesan-like cheese topping is so delicious and couldn’t be easier to make. I say it’s a vegan parmesan-like cheese topping but it’s not a faux food. It’s not trying to be something it may or may not be. It stands on it’s own as just plain good.

That said, if you miss cheese since becoming vegan or are still eating cheese, this could be an alternative to try to use in the same places where you would otherwise use dairy parmesan cheese topping.

All you need are 4 ingredients and a spice or coffee grinder and you’re good to go. Note: The amounts listed below can be adjusted to taste. My friend said she preferred less nutritional yeast and more walnuts and hemp. Play around with the ratios and see what you like best.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 cup raw walnut pieces
2 T raw shelled hemp seeds
pinch salt, sea salt or Himalayan salt if you have

Put the nutritional yeast flakes in first, then the walnuts, hemp seeds and salt. Grind, pulsing for a count of 20 to 30. Check as you go. Once it’s crumbly like in this photo, it’s done.

I eat straight up sometimes, it’s that good! Great sprinkled on salads, veggies, pasta, any savory dish.

If you’re not familiar with nutritional yeast, it is an inactive yeast that has a nutty cheesy flavor. It comes in flakes or as a powder. For this recipe, we are using the flakes. Nutritional yeast provides an excellent source of protein, B-complex vitamins and minerals. Some brands, like Red Star Nutritional Yeast are fortified with vitamin B12, especially important for vegans.

Hemp seeds are high in protein and have many other nutrients as well. I found this brand that I like a lot. Manitoba Harvest Shelled Hemp Hearts

You don’t need to eat fish to get your omega-3 fatty acids. Walnuts are an excellent source of those omega-3s as are flax seeds and chia seeds!

This is one of those tastes great, is great for you recipes. I hope you’ll try it and let me know what you think. Is there anything you like to use to add a little vegan cheesy goodness to your life? Drop a line below and let me know.