Yearly Archives: 2014

[Edited and updated 1/1/20]

It’s New Year’s resolution time and maybe you or someone you know is resolving to adopt a vegan diet. But how do you do it so that the change will stick? It’s a big deal, after all, that encompasses a whole bunch of new habits.

Taking it one step at a time with a gradual transition to veganism is one way to ensure long-term success. For some people at least, it can be easier to maintain and build on small-step changes than to dive into a complete overhaul of your […]

Findings from the American Institute for Cancer Research and World Cancer Research Fund

My husband and I are big Costco fans. We love to nose around to see if they are carrying any new vegan products, argue over the wisdom of buying a 50-pound bag of sweet potatoes, and endlessly discuss whether we should purchase a home surveillance system so we can spy on our cats when we’re traveling.

One fun thing we don’t get to do is try all the freebie samples that the nice ladies in […]

In celebration of Vegetarian Awareness Month, the non-profit group Oldways interviewed me and my colleague Mark Rifkin, MS, RD, LDN to get some historical and practical perspective on vegetarian diets. Oldways, while not a vegan or vegetarian organization, promotes traditional plant-based food patterns for health.

I was especially happy to be teamed up with Mark for this interview. He and I bring some different perspectives to our work, but we agree on most of the important issues—in particular that nutrition guidance has to be based on current research, […]

It’s sometimes hard to imagine what a vegan world might look like, given our dependence on animals for all sorts of uses. Convincing people to simply eat more beans and rice, and wear cotton and hemp will be a big part of it. But so might innovations for products and processes we can’t even imagine.

One of those innovations in the works is for Real Vegan Cheese, using the milk protein casein but without the input of a cow. It boggles the mind (or at least my mind) but […]

When I was collecting stories for Never Too Late to Go Vegan about how and why over-50 vegans transitioned to a plant-based diet, a response I heard many times was this: I wish I had gone vegan a long time ago. I get that. I was well into adulthood before I stopped eating meat, and then it was still some years before I went vegan.

I have had a heart for animals for as long as I can remember. I was always “rescuing” baby birds. (Those poor birds!) And […]

One of the big food stories this past week was Tom Philpott’s article in Mother Jones on almond milk. Philpott deplores the current popularity of almond milk because 1) It’s not an especially nutritious food and, 2) Almond-growing is not friendly to the environment. He says that it’s just a bunch of “ignorant hipsters” who have made almond milk a bestselling beverage.

It’s true that almond trees are thirsty plants. But, from an environmental standpoint, almond milk is still […]

JL and I are celebrating the first anniversary of the release of Vegan for Her with a pretty amazing giveaway.

First prize is a brand new Big Buddha “Arlene” rosette satchel, a signed copy of Vegan for Her, a Plant Plate refrigerator magnet and 3 notepads.

Two second place winners will receive a signed book, the magnet and three notepads.

Head over to the Vegan For Her website to enter. And yes, the contest is open to guys, too! All of these items make great […]