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contents Learn how to turn your unhappy relationship into the love you want. pg. 25

THE FUN SIDE OF VEGETARIAN LIVING 10 HOT SHEET 14 VEGAN 101 15 YOGA 17 JUICE GURU FAMILY & LIFESTYLE 21

THE WORLD’S 10 MOST ROMANTIC DESTINATIONS

by Carolyn Scott-Hamilton

25

CONSCIOUS LOVE THERAPY: THE DOCTOR IS IN Cookie dough that’s delicious and safe to eat?

You won’t believe your eyes! pg. 67

by Harville Hendrix, Phd

32

ATTACHMENT PARENTING: YOU CAN NEVER LOVE YOUR BABY “TOO MUCH”

by Karen Ranzi, M.A.

FEATURE 36 BUILD STRONG RELATIONSHIPS FROM THE BOTTOM UP

by Dr. Brian Clement Strategies to strengthen relationships with friends, family, and most importantly, yourself! pg. 36

contents NUTRITION AND THRIVING HOW TO KEEP DAVID LETTERMAN 43

(AND YOURSELF) OFF THE OPERATING TABLE

by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD

ORDINARY PEOPLE/ EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS THE BASKIN-ROBBINS HEIR WHO 48

RENOUNCED HIS THROWN: JOHN ROBBINS

RECIPES FOR FOODIES CHEF CHLOE 57 Vegan Mac ‘N’ Cheese Avocado Pesto Pasta Pad Thai Noodles Vegan Cookie Dough Truffles

SPORK FOODS 62 Almond Crusted Tofu with a Roasted Garlic and Fennel Puree Chocolate Dipped Strawberries with a Whipped Vanilla Bean Cream Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse with a Crunchy Topping

66 MARK REINFELD Raw Carrot Brazil Nut Soup Lavender-Infused Cocoa-Dusted Truffles

SPOTLIGHT ON COMPASSION 70

LOVE: THE KEY TO RADIANT HEALTH

Dr. Will Tuttle

REGULARS 06

CREDITS

07

EDITOR’S NOTE

76

REVIEWS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

VegWorld Staff & Contributing Writers

A Message from the Editor of VegWorld Magazine, Steve Prussack

Vegworld’s Pick of the month - Veggie Connection: Meeting Like-Minded Friends and More

CREDITS VegWorld Staff Editor-In-Chief: Steve Prussack Associate Editor: Julie Varon Graphic Design: Veronique Zayas Magazine Layout: Lise-Mari Coetzee Contributing Photographer: Elan Sun Star Media: Raw Edge Productions

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dr. Brian Clement

Carolyn Scott-Hamilton

Chloe Coscarelli

Harville Hendrix, PhD

Jenny Engel

Steve Prussack

Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. M.D.

Karen Ranzi

Heather Goldberg

Mark Reinfeld

Ally Hamilton

Dr. Will Tuttle

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EDITOR’s NOTE

A Message from the Editor of VegWorld Magazine, Steve Prussack

W

elcome to our “Love” issue of VegWorld Magazine. Our lives are full of different relationships.

We have relationships with partners, family members, work associates, animals, peers, and friends. Love pertains to all of these relationships as we seek to improve our connections with those around us.

I

can remember a recent email chain that went viral pointing out that the new kind of connections people have with each other lack true human interactivity. Social media, texting, emails, internet forums are all great ways to communicate with other people all over the world. But we should always make time for face-to-face connection with those in our lives. Sometimes at a restaurant I’ll see a couple sitting across from each other completely engaged in their smart phones. They might not even look at each other during much of their meal or time together. It had me thinking, where did we get so off track? Digital technology should really be just a supplement to connecting with other people, not the primary mode.

S

o the intention of this issue is not to buy into the traditional “Love” magazine you might find around Valentine’s Day. Rather, we are looking at love in a way that goes beyond the intimate relationships some share with a partner. I can remember many years of being single and feeling so alone on Valentine’s Day. I would walk into a restaurant to pick up dinner, slightly shielding myself from all the couples sitting at the table enjoying a romantic meal.

Finding a partner to share our life with is definitely rewarding but not the goal of life on this planet. Part of why we are here is to deepen our connection to the life all around us. This issue will show you how to do that and is filled with incredibly valuable information.

A

nother surprise you will find sprinkled throughout this issue (aside from some brand-new features) are what we call “love notes.” At the end of some of our articles you will find our contributing authors sharing their feelings on love, relationships, intimacy, and much more.

I’ll start it off at the end of this note. Enjoy the magazine and I’ll see you next month. Drop by

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EDITOR’s NOTE

A Message from the Editor of VegWorld Magazine, Steve Prussack our new VegWorld Magazine website for updates and news at www.vegworldmag.com.

Publisher of VegWorld Magazine Subscribe free to Raw Vegan Radio to hear free interviews with the leaders in raw and vegan living.

Steven and Julie Prussack “I met my first love, Julie, in 1984 when we were both sophomores in high school. Back then, our favorite restaurant served Strombolis full of cheese and meat. We were in love, but entirely unconscious, and we drifted apart in the 1990s. Fast forward an entire lifetime when we reunited across the country in 2009. Now married, vegan and entirely conscious, our love is stronger than the first time around because it includes an element of compassion for all life we never had as teenagers.”

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The Fun Side

Of Vegetarian Living

Hot Sheet Vegan 101 Yoga Juice Guru

Vegan Hot Sheet hip and happening vegan stuff Celebrities CELEBRITY CORNER Veganism continues to take the world by storm.

We continue tracking vegan celebrities who are influencing countless people towards the benefit of a plant-based diet.

Just Eat It

P

itarist

ppard Gu

- Def Le hil Collen

Musician and King of the Song Parody Weird Al Yankovic has been following a vegan diet since 1992. He reports he gave up meat, eggs, and dairy after a fan gave him a copy of John Robbins’ Diet For A New America (See article on pg. 48)

DEF LEPPARD GUITARIST Not every 55-year-old rock star sports an incredible 6-pack. Def Leppard’s Phil Collen attributes his incredible physique to a vigorous offstage exercise routine combined with a strict vegan diet (he’s been on the veggie path for 29 years). Rock of Ages!

Karma Chameleon

SAY IT WITH STYLE The Herbivore Clothing Company features a great line of vegan clothing to help spread a message of compassion in a hip and stylish way. The clothes are great quality, soft to the touch and powerful in intention.

The iconic 80’s superstar Boy George, lead singer of “Culture Club,” has been down a rough road since his heyday. But now George is back on track. He’s fit, healthier, and claims to be losing weight thanks to the help of a near-vegan diet.

Rumor has it has been coached recently about the benefits of a raw vegan diet.

Go Boy George!

Celebrities

HILARY’S EAT WELL VEGGIE BURGERS This new veggie burger is delicious. Best of all, the burger is GLUTEN-FREE, DAIRY-FREE, CORN-FREE, EGG-FREE, SOYFREE, YEAST-FREE, and NUT-FREE! The burger made its debut at owner Hilary Brown’s restaurant, Local Burger in Lawrence, Kansas. Customer demand was so high that she started Hilary’s Eat Well™ to get these out to veggie lovers all over the world.

Definitely worth a try!

COMFORT FOOD ALERT! Do you miss pizza and have had a hard time trying to find a yummy vegan alternative?

Amy’s Vegan Margherita Pizza with Daiya Cheeze is a mouthwatering vegan and dairy-free take on a classic, and is sure to bring your friends and families together.

Amazing!

HOT DOG, THOSE ARE GOOD! The Field Roast Frankfurter is full of flavor and perfectly textured, standing out as the only “veggie dog” every American—carnivores and vegetarians alike—will want to romance this year, satisfying our most inherent cravings for a real, quality frankfurter. At the ballgame, a family BBQ, backyard picnic with friends, or walking the streets of Chicago, New York or Seattle, veggie lovers will rejoice and satisfy their hot dog cravings healthfully and compassionately.

UFC Champ’s Secret Weapon

Ultimate Fighting Champ Mac Danzig is an animal rights advocate and full fledged vegan for over 9 years. He says “I saw some examples of athletes that were Vegan and were getting good results and I thought, ‘You know what, I’m going to try it.”

At the very beginning for me it was moral and ethical. In this day and age, buying animal and dairy products causes way more suffering and harm than it does good.”

From Me, To You

Paul McCartney, a founding member of the iconic group “The Beatles” (as if you didn’t know) has been vegetarian for over 40 years.

He states: “Try not eating meat, because it will cut down on the billions and billions of animals that are slaughtered for our consumption each day, each week, each year. If you ask me why I went vegetarian in the first place, it was a compassionate thing. If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”

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Vegan101

101

A Quick and Dirty Guide For The Veg-Curious

In our new monthly feature, we share tips, tricks, and secrets to transition to a vegan diet easily. You won’t miss your favorite staples as we share some of the best replacement foods during your journey. Fall off the wagon? Not a worry. Our videos will show you the way to make positive changes. Just wait till you start dropping weight, feeling great, and experience all the benefits a plant-strong diet will bring to your life! In this video, Kathy Freston shows a typical American family how to incorporate transitional vegan foods into their diet.

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Ally’s Corner: Yoga for the Veggie Soul

Ally’s Corner:

Yoga for the Veggie soul

by Ally Hamilton

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Ally’s Corner: Yoga for the Veggie Soul

A

h, February. The shortest month we’ve got with the most potential to make you feel very special, or very awful depending on your romantic situation. There are people who call it a “Hallmark Holiday,” and those who love it. But like it or leave it, you’re going to hear about it! If you’re in love, hopefully every day is an opportunity to see your partner with fresh eyes, an open mind and heart and to cherish and honor them. If you’re single and happy, you’re probably not troubled

by Valentine’s Day. But if you’re down and alone, it may feel like the whole world is coupled up except for you.

Here’s the thing. We’re sold this idea that someone is going to come along and “complete us,” but the truth is, the only person who can complete you, is you. We get inundated with messages all day long that we are not right in just about any way.

We don’t look right or smell right or feel right, and there are products and diets to help with all of that. We have pills to make hair grow back, and creams to make hair disappear. If you’re not careful about what you’re feeding yourself (and I know in this crowd I don’t have to worry about what you’re putting in your body!), what you’re reading, watching, absorbing as you move through your days, these messages can really begin to get under your skin.

If you are not happy on the inside, it doesn’t matter what you do to the outside. You could lose ten pounds, and you’ll think, maybe ten more would do it? You can live in a huge house and drive a fast car, and meet the person of your dreams, and still, if it isn’t right within you, none of that will matter. You could have raw dark chocolate and romance on the 14th or any time, but if there’s some tiny part of you that believes you aren’t worthy of love, that’s going to reek havoc with your heart.

Yoga is a system designed to strip away anything that isn’t authentic for you. Any way of being, or relationship, or job that just doesn’t “fit” will probably not last long if you start to practice consistently. There’s something incredibly powerful about getting quiet, connecting to your breath, spending some quality time examining the world within you, and working on making it a more loving, compassionate, beautiful place to be. Your truth will out, as they say. Knowing yourself well and deeply is an essential part of the healing process. It’s my belief we come into this world full of love, and joy and curiosity, and sometimes we learn fear and anger and mistrust. I teach yoga because it helps us unlearn those things and get back to love.

That’s a truly great Valentine’s Day gift you could give yourself. If you’re waiting for the “right” person to show up, head for a mirror!

Happy Valentine’s day, Happy February, and Happy You!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ally Hamilton practiced yoga in New York City with the incomparable Dharma Mittra. She has been teaching yoga to students and instructors in Los Angeles, California since the beginning of 2001. In 2009, Ally opened an extremely popular and successful yoga studio, Yogis Anonymous, in Santa Monica.

Ally also instructs a world-wide audience at https://yogisanonymous.com/ members/. Ally’s corner will be a regular feature in VegWorld Magazine.

VegWorld readers can also try Ally’s site for 15 days free using the coupon code “VegWorld.”

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Juice Guru | Steve Prussack

with STEVE PRUSSACK Join us for our new monthly series, Juice Guru, featuring VegWorld Publisher Steve Prussack, author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Juice Fasting.” Steve will teach you all the essentials of the power, magic and how-to of juicing and juice fasting. This month, Steve invites you to participate free in Global Juice Fast Day, coming Friday, February 15th!

To find out more about Juice Guru and get free juice recipes, tips and more, visit www.juiceguru.com. Register now for our FREE Global Juice Fast taking place on February 15th, 2013 at www.globaljuicefast.com

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FAMILY

AND LIFESTYLE

The World’s 10 Most Romantic Destinations Conscious Love Therapy: The Doctor Is In Attachment Parenting: You Can Never Love Your Baby “Too Much”

The World’s 10 Most Romantic Destinations | Carolyn Scott-Hamilton

The World’s 10 Most

Romantic

Destinations

by Carolyn Scott-Hamilton “The Healthy Voyager”

S

o, you’ve given all of your gifts, put away your decorations and rung in the new year.

And now that the December holidays are through, you’re launched into Valentine’s Day mode! What to do, where to go, and who to spend it with? Well, while I can’t help you in the dating department, I can certainly help you in choosing some of the most romantic Valentine’s destinations.

These special places are the ones that make my heart beat fast and leave me sighing. But, whether you have a special Valentine or not this year, these destinations are so magical, you will want to explore them all – with or without a romantic partner. So, get on your travel shoes, and happy adventuring!

Aspen, Colorado

A notable haven for the rich and fabulous, Aspen offers more than just good celebrity spotting. Yes, this is a skier’s paradise, but it’s also a great outdoor romantic destination winter or summer with its stunning scenery, great hiking, superb accommodations and busy nightlife. Travel 15 miles southwest of Aspen to Maroon Bells with its lake and alpine meadows, and where there are no cars allowed. Hike the trails, enjoy the mountain air and take in the stunning scenery. Glenwood Hot Springs, just 40 miles northwest of Aspen, is a perfect romantic indulgence. You can also get your Western adventure fix with a visit to T Lazy 7 Ranch with its Western feel and camping trips. Whether you choose to curl up in your lodge in front of a roaring fire or live it up at the myriad pubs, clubs, discos and country and Western bars, you will love this adventure spot.

Veggie & special diet locale of note: Explore Booksellers.

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The World’s 10 Most Romantic Destinations | Carolyn Scott-Hamilton

Paris, France

With its beautiful public parks, ubiquitous sidewalk cafés, famous art museums, and historic churches and palaces, Paris is a city that you come back to again and again. There is so much to see and do, especially out of doors. Whether you choose to stroll hand in hand along the Quais, ride a Bateau Mouches around the Ile de la Cite, browse the wares of the bouquinistes, or cross the Pont Neuf, the Seine is the lifeblood of this ancient city and its chief point of reference. But if you really want to know why Paris is the city of lovers, visit the tomb of Abelard and Heloise at Pere Lachaise Cemetary. Veggie & special diet locales of note: La Victoire Suprême du Coeur & Saveurs Végét’Halles.

New York, New York

Romance is always in the air in the Big Apple. The city that never sleeps is always ready to host lovers around the clock and year-round. What’s more romantic than a carriage ride in Central Park in the spring or skating at Rockefeller Center in the winter? Shopping, museums, theater, river cruises, fantastic dining, it’s all available in NYC. Take in the neon lights of Times Square along with a spectacular Broadway show, or make your way to the alternative SoHo and funky Greenwich Village. Cuddle up on the Staten Island Ferry, or walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and take your time lingering over a romantic candlelit dinner at any one of New York’s fabulous restaurants.

Veggie & special diet locales of note: Candle Cafe & Pure Food and Wine are the “can’t miss” restaurants in NYC. Other sumptuous surprises can be found throughout the City, including at The Cinnamon Snail Food Truck and John’s Italian.

Hayman Island, Whitsundays Queensland, Australia

Ah, the Great Barrier Reef. If you haven’t seen it for yourself, you would be forgiven for thinking this sailing and water sports hub at the tip of the country is the figment of someone’s imagination. Crystal clear waters, pristine sandy beaches and a world-renowned reef make this the quintessential sun, sand and sea romantic paradise island holiday.

Seventy-four islands make up the great Whitsundays, and while there are ten resorts on eight of the islands to choose from, Hayman is the place to be. Renowned for its luxurious surroundings as well as outstanding chefs and cuisine, it’s the epitome of romantic indulgence. Wouldn’t you want to be surrounded by a huge lagoon pool overlooking tropical vistas and sandy white beaches? Quaint island boutiques, sumptuous dining and killer sunsets with a cocktail in hand are the stuff romantic vacations are made of. Veggie & special diet locale of note: Azure at The Hayman Island Resort.

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The World’s 10 Most Romantic Destinations | Carolyn Scott-Hamilton

Guangxi Province, China

Located in the south of China on the Gulf of Tonkin and sharing a border with Vietnam, Guangxi Province enjoys a subtropical climate, lush landscapes and rugged mountains. If you saw the film The Painted Veil, then you are already familiar with this picturesque region. After visiting the colorful caves, pagodas and former royal complex in the capital Guilin, drift lazily down the river amid otherworldly karst peaks towards Yangshuo.

Then visit the dramatic Longsheng rice terraces and sample the region’s famous rice noodles with its chili sauce made of fresh chili, garlic and fermented soybeans. Veggie & special diet locale of note: Pure Lotus.

Nassau, Bahamas

All Caribbean islands know how to pour on the romance, but for my money, Nassau Paradise Island in the Bahamas not only has the requisite pink sand and turquoise waters, but also offers the greatest variety of places to eat, nightlife, and resorts. Stroll the cobblestone streets, indulge in water sports, shop for traditional Bahamian handicrafts, or sip cocktails overlooking the ocean. Take a romantic carriage tour. Check out the Changing of the Guard every other Saturday at the Government House, make a trip to the Straw Market to purchase some handmade souvenirs, or spend a day sailing the island on one of New Zealand’s former America’s Cup yachts. Then head back to your luxury room and drift off into sweet slumber and perfect Caribbean dreams.

Veggie & special diet locale of note: Carmine’s.

Costa Rica

Stunning natural rainforests and exotic landscapes make Costa Rica not only a superb romantic getaway, but also an eco-friendly one. There are so many romantic things to see and do in Costa Rica that it’s hard to know where to start, but be sure to include at least a few of the following: a trip to the Irazu and Poas volcanoes, the romantic La Paz Waterfall and Butterfly Gardens, or a tour through the Braulio Carillo National Park. Bond with your loved one as you zip-line through the rainforests or take a rafting trip. Only in Costa Rica can you see big cats in Corcovado National Park, monkeys and turtles in Tortuguero, or oodles of orchids in the Monteverde Cloud Forest.

Veggie & special diet locales of note: Lands in Love Vegetarian B&B, Casa Metta Vegetarian B&B, & Waterfall Villas Eco & Veggie B&B.

Tahiti

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Tahiti is the largest island in a cluster of 118 islands, grouped inside the archipelago of Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. Deep valleys, clear streams, and high waterfalls make it a picture-perfect destination and help explain why its intimate resorts, small peaceful villages, and miles of quiet pristine beaches are considered one of the best places in the world

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The World’s 10 Most Romantic Destinations | Carolyn Scott-Hamilton for “alone time.” True romance is an over-water bungalow, and there are plenty to choose from here. Sleep high above the turquoise lagoon waters in your thatched-roof hideaway with all the amenities and service of a first-class hotel room. Take a romantic cruise around the islands, enjoy endless water sports and be sure to indulge in a romantic Polynesian-style spa treatment utilizing fresh flower baths, body wraps with banana leaves and fresh fruit masks.

Veggie & special diet locale of note: Mobile Food Booths at Ferry Plaza & Farmer’s Market.

Santorini, Greece

What would a romantic vacation be without a trip to the Greek Islands?

There are so many to choose from, and while all offer reasonably priced vacations, island cruises and great Mediterranean fare, Santorini is my favorite for lovers, with all hotel rooms offering stunning sea views. Visit Perissa and Kamari beaches with their black volcanic sand, meander through the quaint ancient villages of Pyrgos and Akrotiri, and sign up for a romantic swim in the Volcanic hot springs, accessible only by boat. Veggie & special diet locale of note: Ampelos.

Venice, Italy

It’s impossible to think “Venice” without using “romance” in the same sentence. Make sure to visit this romantic city guaranteed to capture your heart and soul before it finally sinks into the Adriatic Sea. This ancient port city replete with canals, bridges, and centuries-old buildings is guaranteed to make your romantic heart beat just a little quicker. An evening gondola ride along the Venice canals is an absolute must, as is a stroll around Piazza San Marco, one of the grandest squares in Europe. If you’re still not romancedout, then head to both the Rialto Bridge and the Bridge of Sighs, where the two of you can declare your undying love once more. Veggie & special diet locales of note: Osteria Giorgione & La Piscina at Pensione La Calcina.

“While Valentine’s Day is pretty much for couples, I still feel like it’s a great day to express love to everyone you hold dear in your life. For me, I express my love by being compassionate, tolerant and leading by example when it comes to my vegan lifestyle.”

- Carolyn Scott-Hamilton, aka The Healthy Voyager

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carolyn Scott-Hamilton, aka The Healthy Voyager, is the Executive Producer, Creator, Host and Writer of The Healthy Voyager web series, site and overall brand. A holistic nutritionist, plant-based vegan chef, best-selling cookbook author, sought-after speaker, film-making, screen-writing, traveling, singing, dancing, fun-loving, healthy and green-living wife, The Healthy Voyager aims to help people live well, one veggie at a time!

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Conscious Love Therapy: The Doctor Is In | Harville Hendrix, Phd

Conscious Love Therapy:

The Doctor is in

by Harville Hendrix, Phd

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Conscious Love Therapy: The Doctor Is In | Harville Hendrix, Phd Are you and your partner struggling with anger, sadness or constant conflict in your relationship? If so, you are in good company.

Statistics confirm that most relationships either end badly or continue on well past the point where each partner is happy. The story could be the same whether you are just dating, newlyweds, or married for many years – the days of wine and roses now a dim memory.

Shattered dreams, whatever form they take, are painful. But there is hope. In fact, the pain and conflict of committed relationships arise not out of lack of love for our partners, but from a misunderstanding of what love relationships are about. Your conflict can be the very fuel for the fulfillment you seek. You too can discover the secret to conscious, lasting love. Here’s how.

Why do we fall in love?

What is really happening when we fall in – and out of – love? What’s really going on when couples fight? To gain insight into the hidden agenda of a relationship, we need to look at the complex process of human growth and development.

I believe that we are creatures of nature and that we all begin life in a state of relaxed and joyful bliss. If our caretakers are attuned to our wants and needs, ready and able to provide warmth, safety and sustenance, our feelings of aliveness and well-being

Every pleasure or pain of childhood form an unconscious picture of your perfect mate - “the person who can make you whole again.” This person is the “Imago.”

VegWorld Magazine

You may already be with your dream partner, but at the moment he or she is in disguise - and, like you, in pain. A conscious relationship will set you on the path of real love.

are sustained. We remain whole. But even in the best of circumstances, our parents are not able to maintain perfect standards, to be available every minute, or to always understand exactly what is needed or to meet every demand. Tired, angry, depressed, busy, ill, distracted, and afraid, our parents fail to sustain our feelings of security and comfort.

Meanwhile, throughout our childhood, we are also being socialized and molded by our caretakers and communities to fit into society. Observant and malleable, we learn what to do to gain love and acceptance. We repress or disown parts of ourselves that society finds unacceptable or unlovable. Our sense of “allrightness” diminishes, and we end up as shadows of our whole, true selves.

When we fall in love, we believe we’ve found that sense of joyful aliveness. Suddenly, we see life in Technicolor! We nibble each others’ ears and tell each other everything; our limitations and rigidities melt away. We’re sexier, smarter, funnier, and more giving.

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Conscious Love Therapy: The Doctor Is In | Harville Hendrix, Phd when it comes to selecting our partners.

But regardless of what it is we think we’re looking for in a mate, our unconscious has a compelling, non-negotiable drive to restore the feeling of aliveness and wholeness with which we came into the world.

Many couples’ problems are rooted in misunderstood, manipulated, or avoided communications. Clear communication is the key to resolving conflict.

We feel whole, we feel like ourselves. Finally we feel safe, and breathe a sigh of relieved deliverance. It looks like everything is going to turn out all right, after all.

Why does falling in love go wrong?

But inevitably – often when we marry or move in together – things just start to go wrong. The veil of illusion falls away, and it seems that our partners are different than we thought. But that’s not all the bad news. We tend to seek the qualities missing in ourselves that got lost in the shuffle of socialization. If we are shy, we seek someone outgoing; if we’re disorganized, we’re attracted to someone cool and rational.

But eventually, when our own feelings — our repressed exuberance or anger — are stirred, we are uncomfortable, and criticize our partners for being too outgoing, too coldly rational, too temperamental. Even qualities we once admired grate on us. Our dream shatters.

What is going on here? Apparently, you have found someone who is uniquely unqualified (at the moment) to give you the love you want. But the truth is that this is what’s supposed to happen! Let me explain. We all think that we have freedom of choice VegWorld Magazine

You’d think, then, that we would choose someone who has what our caretakers lacked. But, while we consciously seek only the positive traits, the negative traits of our caretakers are more indelibly imprinted in our subconscious because those are the ones that caused the painful experiences we now seek to heal. Every pleasure or pain, every transaction of childhood, has left its mark on us. And these collective impressions form an unconscious picture we’re always trying to replicate as we scan our environment for a suitable mate.

This image of “the person who can make me whole again” I call the Imago.

How we can use conflict to bring us closer What we need to understand and accept is that conflict is supposed to happen. This is as nature intended it: Everything in nature is in conflict. Conflict is a sign that the psyche is trying to survive, to get its needs met and become whole. It’s only without this knowledge that conflict is destructive.

Many couples’ problems are rooted in misunderstood, manipulated, or avoided communications. Clear communication is a window into the world of your partner and the key to resolving conflict; truly being heard is a powerful aphrodisiac. To communicate, you need to create a meaningful dialogue, in which you and your partner feel you are both being heard.

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Conscious Love Therapy: The Doctor Is In | Harville Hendrix, Phd true dialogue. Often when you are listening to your partner, you might also be planning how to respond. You may be fervently figuring out how to show him that he is wrong, or how to defend yourself from things he says that you don’t want to hear. You may get a solution which works for a while. But it is unlikely to be the best solution for you both long term, and leaves the true underlying reasons for conflict unresolved.

True dialogue helps people cut through their natural defenses to create a more genuine connection. Based on our years of experience, we have created what we call the Imago Dialogue. These are the steps we have successfully applied countless times to resolve conflict and create a meaningful dialogue between partners, and help them get on the path to healing and a loving, conscious relationship.

shell, you need to feel safe. The first rule is to banish all shame, blame and criticism. That might sound tough if you are really angry at your partner for all the things he did or didn’t do.

To make it safe for your partner to listen to you, you need to talk about your own feelings, not about his actions. What does this mean to me? Why am I frustrated? What do I feel? The key is to make it easy for your partner to remain open and available to hear.

2. Stop talking, start connecting

1. Create safety for you and your partner

Listening to your partner may be the most difficult part of a dialogue, especially if you are going to talk about a hard subject. Am I going to hear something painful? Will I want to jump out of my chair and run out? Will I want to shout and deny it? Listening well can sometimes be a very courageous act. As the words come out, your first reaction might be to think “No – he’s got it wrong – it’s not like that!” The key is to put that aside, and instead listen without judgment. You need to open yourself up to hearing your partner’s reality. If you deny it, then you break the connection, and start an argument.

Try it. Practice. Practice again.

If you are going to meet others in an authentic way, and lower your protective

3. Create a sacred space for the dialogue and the relationship

STEP 1: PREPARE FOR YOUR DIALOGUE

The key to Imago dialogue is to prepare, prepare, prepare. Starting an argument in the heat of the moment will never end well. Three elements are needed even before you begin.

Before you start to dialogue, it’s good to create some space where your relationship can grow. You can do this in the room by sitting on facing chairs, knees close together, with eye contact. But it’s also a good idea to spend a few moments quietly too, and become aware of the two of you. Let your breathing be quiet, and remind yourself to be calm, with no shame, blame or criticism as you speak, no judgment as you listen.

Even before you begin an open dialogue with your partner, you need to create a safe, sacred space where your relationship can grow.

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Conscious Love Therapy: The Doctor Is In | Harville Hendrix, Phd

The Anatomy of an Imago Dialogue Use Imago dialogue any time you want to share a concern with your partner. A great way to start using the dialogue is to share something that you appreciate about your partner. Try it, and see how you feel when your partner mirrors back your appreciation of them.

Here are some specific phrases you can use as you practice dialogue:

SENDER

I would like to dialogue about . . .

Is now okay?

I feel . . .

I love . . .

I need . . .

What’s bothering me is . . .

RECEIVER

1. Mirroring Let me see if I’ve got you.

I heard you say . . . or You said . . .

Am I getting you? Or, Did I get that?

Is there more about that?

Is that a good summary?

2. Validation You make sense to me, and what makes sense is . . .

I can understand that . . .given that . . .

I can see how you would see it that way because sometimes I do . . .

3. Empathy I imagine you might be feeling . . .

Is that what you’re feeling?

SWITCH ROLES! VegWorld Magazine

start? What do you say? We have found the Imago dialogue can be broken down into three steps: Mirroring, validation and empathy.

1. Mirroring Mirroring helps you to listen to what the other person is actually saying, rather than listening to the reactions and responses going on in your head while your partner is talking.

One of you will begin by sending a “message” to convey your thoughts, feelings, or experiences to the other. You avoid shaming, blaming or criticizing your partner, by instead talking about yourself and using “I” words, such as “I feel,” “I love,” “I need …” In response, the receiving partner echoes the other’s message word-forword or by paraphrasing, using a lead-in like: “Let me see if I’ve got you. You said ....”

The receiving partner can then ask: “Is there more?” This allows the two of you to go deeper and share more. That sharing can be the most fascinating part of your dialogue and allow for deep healing and connection.

2. Validation When you mirror your partner well, he will likely already feel that you have heard his point of view and seen that – for him – it is valid. But it’s nice to say that too. You can validate your partner by simply saying “That makes sense to me.” You don’t have to agree with him, but show that you respect his reality.

This part of the process can be quite hard if your partner has a very different perspective on things from you. Sometimes his view might be so different from yours that you are tempted to think that he must be wrong. But in dialogue, creating the connection is paramount. Who is right and who is wrong doesn’t matter. I like to say: “You can be right, or you can be married!”

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Conscious Love Therapy: The Doctor Is In | Harville Hendrix, Phd empathy. In the empathy step, you imagine what your partner might be feeling. Feelings are simple words like angry, sad, lonely, afraid, and joyful. Just ask your partner something like: “I imagine you might be feeling afraid and a little sad. Is that what you are feeling?” Then, check in with your partner. If he shares other feelings, then mirror them to show you heard.

This kind of dialogue will undoubtedly feel artificial at first. With practice, though, it will become seamless and connecting.

Finding true love To find real “true love,” you must now turn your dialogue into action. In a Conscious relationship you agree to change in order to give your partner what he needs. This is a radical idea. Conventional wisdom says that people don’t change, that we should simply learn to accept each other as we are. But without change, there is no growth; we are stuck in our unhappiness.

I call this process of changing “stretching,” for it requires that we conquer our fears and do what comes unnaturally. Often we may feel that we’re losing ourselves, but we are not ourselves now. It is in the crucible of change that we regain ourselves.

Over the course of time, as our partners

“You can be right, or you can be married!”

– Harville Hendrix

demonstrate their love for us, as they learn about and accept our hidden selves, and as we stretch to love our partners, our pain and self-absorption diminishes. We restore our empathic feelings for our partners, and our feelings of connection to the other that were lost in the pain of our childhood. Finally we learn to see our partners for themselves, with their own private world of personal meaning, their own ideas and dreams, and not merely as extensions of ourselves or as we wish they were. We no longer say, “You liked that awful movie?” But rather, we say “Tell me why you liked that movie. I want to know how you think.”

You may already be with your dream partner, but at the moment, he or she is in disguise — and, like you, in pain. A conscious relationship itself is the practice you need to restore your sense of aliveness. The goal of Imago Practice is to change the power struggle and set you on the path of real love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. has more than forty years of experience as a couples therapist, educator, clinical trainer, and public speaker. He has appeared on many national television shows including seventeen guest appearances on the Oprah Winfrey show. One of his appearances won her an Emmy award for the “most socially redemptive” daytime talk shows.

Harville and his wife Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D. are bestselling authors and creators of Imago Relationship Therapy practiced by over 2000 therapists around the world. Partners in life and work, they have together and separately authored 10 books including the bestseller Getting the Love You Want, which has sold over 2 million copies. To find out more information about their work, visit www.HarvilleHendrix.com.

Harville and Helen’s new book Making Marriage Simple: 10 Truths for Changing the Relationship You Have into the One You Want will be on sale March 12, 2013. To order or find out more, visit www.makingmarriagesimple.com.

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Do animals have souls? What happens when they die?

And where do they stand in the larger scheme of things?

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Animals and the Afterlife True Stories of Our Best Friends’ Journey Beyond Death

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Author Kim Sheridan faced the death of many a beloved animal, and along with the pain came the same questions. Then mysterious things began to happen which led her on an incredible journey to uncover the truth. This book details her journey and her amazing research.

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Attachment Parenting: You Can Never Love Your Baby “Too Much” | Karen Ranzi, M.A.

Attachment Parenting:

You Can Never Love Your Baby “Too Much”

by Karen Ranzi, M.A.

W

e are all natural beings who crave close attachments to the people we love the most – especially our children.

But in today’s fast-paced world, our ability to connect has become hampered, and our focus on our children less directed.

Huge corporations tell us to feed our children formula from bottles, and society often sits in judgment of mothers who breastfeed for “too long,” hold their children “too much,” or (gasp) allow their babies to sleep with them. The

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effects of this unnatural influence on parenting can be seen in our society’s increasingly troubled families and youth. But what’s the solution? In my experience, we need to return to a natural approach to parenting; one that centers on the developmental needs of our children rather than societal pressure.

The loving approach of “attachment parenting” is the best way I have found to rekindle the vital bond between parent and child and to raise secure and happy children.

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Attachment Parenting: You Can Never Love Your Baby “Too Much” | Karen Ranzi, M.A.

What is Attachment Parenting?

Attachment Parenting is a philosophy originally coined by author and pediatrician, Dr. William Sears. This parenting style supports focused love and attention, which is crucial for a child’s positive self-esteem and emotional development.

Following the philosophy of attachment parenting, you keep your children close to you and hold them until it is their choice to be more independent. You should carry your baby constantly in contact with your skin, inside your clothing, during the first hours, days, weeks, and even months after birth. Babies that are held in this way feel safe and right in the world, a feeling that, like breastfeeding, is a continuation of life in the womb.

The human infant fears being attacked and eaten by an aggressor. When your baby enters our world, he or she does not know or understand the new surroundings and wholly depends upon you for survival. Carrying your baby affords security, trust and increased brain development. Your baby craves being close to you, warmed by your skin and close to your heart.

People may also scare you into thinking longterm nursing is unacceptable in our “modern” civilized world and that sleeping next to and holding your baby all day is “strange” or will spoil him or her. You as a parent need to take a step back from what is considered “normal” in society and choose those actions that will best serve your child and your family. Ultimately,

Attachment parenting also encompasses the notion that breastfeeding and co-sleeping with our young children are the most beneficial ways to raise healthy, well-adjusted children. In a nutshell, attachment parenting places your baby at the center of your attention during his or her crucial initial development processes.

Overcoming Societal Pressure Many women feel insecure about carrying their baby skin-to-skin because of outside pressures to put the baby down. I hear from many mothers who report they are told everything from: “Put your baby in a stroller or her torso will not develop properly” to “you are spoiling your baby by carrying him around so much” to “your baby will not learn how to crawl or walk.”

Attachment parenting means putting your baby’s development But carrying your baby against your skin is a natural instinct of our species. needs front and center by holding your baby skin-to-skin, breastfeeding and even sleeping together.

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Attachment Parenting: You Can Never Love Your Baby “Too Much” | Karen Ranzi, M.A.

Despite societal misconceptions, methods like the family bed lead to more secure - not spoiled children. And mom and dad get more sleep too!

inner peace and confidence will give you strength to live in the midst of others who don’t agree with your style of parenting.

The Benefits of Attachment Parenting The science behind attachment parenting overwhelmingly demonstrates its many benefits – to you and your baby.

Holding your baby has an immediate beneficial impact. The stress hormone, cortisol, is reduced when your baby feels safe and secure against your skin, and the love hormone, oxytocin, is increased. In addition, babies who are held skin-to-skin are often noted as having lengthy alert periods to view the world around them from their peaceful and loving environment.

As for long-term benefits, numerous studies over the last three decades have shown a relationship between parent touch and increased infant intelligence. This is one of the major reasons not to let anyone take your baby away following birth. Separation

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of mother and newborn infant is standard procedure in hospitals.

The scientific benefits of breast feeding, another critical component of attachment parenting, are abundant and welldocumented. Numerous studies from around the world have shown that stomach viruses, lower respiratory illnesses, ear infections, and meningitis occur less often in breastfed babies and are less severe when they do happen. A substance called secretory immunoglobulin A is present in large amounts in colostrum, the first milk your body produces for your baby, and in lesser amounts in mature breast milk.

This substance forms a protective layer on the mucous membranes in your baby’s intestines, nose, and throat and protects against invading germs.

Not only that, but moms benefit from breastfeeding too! From reduced breast and other cancer risks, to rapid weight loss, to emotional wellbeing, breastfeeding your baby long-term will make you strong and healthy.

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Attachment Parenting: You Can Never Love Your Baby “Too Much” | Karen Ranzi, M.A. Mammals that take the longest to mature also have the longest breastfeeding periods.

Since humans take longer to mature than any other mammal, their nursing phase needs to be longer than that of any other mammal. I recommend a minimum nursing period of two years, but of course it’s best for the child to follow his/her own weaning schedule instead of a forced weaning time set by the parent.

Finally, common sense also supports attachment parenting methods, such as the “family bed,” where babies are allowed to sleep next to their parents, rather than cry alone in a separate crib. Most importantly, everyone gets more sleep in the family bed. Many babies wake frequently throughout the night to nurse, and it’s easier for mother if she can nurse while lying in bed. Many women tell me nursing during the night doesn’t wake anyone in the family bed.

everyone, including father gets enough sleep.

One of the many benefits of the family bed is that it helps fathers who are away from home all day to establish close bonds with their babies. As far as the marital relationship, the mother and father will need to be creative in finding their time together, such as when the child is napping, or when the children are fast asleep at night.

Co-sleeping families are able to work out arrangements with king-size beds, or mattresses and futons lined up on the floor, so

The article is based on Karen Ranzi’s book, “Creating Healthy Children.”

Through attending an Attachment Parenting Group with my children, I learned so clearly that my intuitions as a mother were important, and that I should listen to them, heed them instead of ignoring them, and keep my little boy close to me even when observing so many women doing otherwise. All children crave a happy and relaxed mother who gives her time to her children. Listen to them; and listen to yourself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Ranzi, M.A. is an author, lecturer, living foods consultant and speech pathologist. She authored Creating Healthy Children: Through Attachment Parenting and Raw Foods.

Karen travels throughout the U.S. presenting health and wellness workshops at universities, health institutes and seminars. Creating Healthy Children is available for purchase and you can sign up for Karen’s free ezine at www.superhealthychildren.com.

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“By not eating animals, nor abusing animals in any way, we open ourselves to beautiful relationships with all the creatures of the world.

How wonderful to share this with our children!”

– Karen Ranzi

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E R TU A FE

Build Strong Relationships from the Bottom Up | Dr. Brian Clement

Build Strong Relationships from the Bottom Up

by Dr. Brian Clement

N

o man is an island. And there is no question that we need others in our lives to maintain vitality. In fact, studies show that interaction with others is a major factor in longevity. The simple act of reaching out to someone else lowers your blood pressure and releases endorphins. Those who have the largest support systems also live the longest.

The problem is that most of us don’t know how to go about creating, building and nurturing our relationships – whether they are with romantic partners, family or friends. And many of those who do know the secret to solid relationships don’t invest the energy and care needed to be successful. A relationship is like a potted plant: To survive, it needs to be nourished and fed. A neglected relationship, like a neglected flower, is not long for this world.

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Build Strong Relationships from the Bottom Up | Dr. Brian Clement To create a solid foundation for any relationship, you need to start by looking in the mirror. In a perfect world, each of us would be a cup that flows over, spreading and mixing our lives with others. Unfortunately, most of us in today’s society tend to be nearly empty vessels, searching outwardly for needed energy and vitality. Too often, it seems as if we try to mine it from others, especially those who are closest to us. I cannot count the number of people I have counseled who have said, “When I went into the relationship, I thought that this person would make my life better.”

The reason that these relationships do not work is because when one requires constant maintenance, an inequity surfaces and the desired harmonious balance disappears. This is compounded when both people are lacking. Ideally, two people entering a relationship have developed their own strength and health independently and are not – as was made so famous in the movie Jerry Maguire – looking for the other to “complete” them.

For our own health and that of our children, families, friendships and communities we need to reassess the way we love ourselves and others.

Families and Marriage Are in Crisis Family is of foremost importance, since there is often no one who will stand with and support you in your most troubled times except family. Ironically, most abuse, disharmony, and even criminal activity occur within families.

This does not reflect the average household, but spotlights the disconnection that some people have to the importance of their family. Eckhart Tolle once said: “If you think you are enlightened spend a week with your family.” It is amazing how the most “together” people suddenly revert to childish patterns when they are around their family.

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Build Strong Relationships from the Bottom Up | Dr. Brian Clement Just remember, family is the most important connection in your life. No other people in our lives can cause so much emotional satisfaction – or emotional stress. The state of families today underscores the need for better tools in our society to nourish these irreplaceable connections.

In our culture, marriage is also at a critical crossroads. The vast majority of couples separate.

And staying together does not necessarily demonstrate success. Recent polls show that less than ten percent of married couples are happy in their relationship. Obviously, something is wrong with our approach to romantic love.

Our Children Need Nourishment Too Statistics show that unhappy parents beget unhappy children. Children and young adults today are more obese, more addicted, and more confused than any generation before.

Most parents spend all of their time pursuing economic success, ignoring their families in the process. In North America alone, there are over two million grandparents raising their grandchildren due to the incompetence of their own children as parents.

Television and teachers have seemingly taken the place of overworked parents. Our educational systems, however, leave a lot to be desired. Overcrowded classrooms and violence among students are issues of great concern, and the situation seems to be growing worse, not better. We are now Children and families are victims of our society’s drugging our active children as a treatment for failing relationships. We need to reassess the way we love ourselves and others. so-called “emotional disorders.” Rather than deal with a child’s emotions stemming from a disharmonious or broken home, we use prescription drugs as a quick fix.

Eight Steps to Building Strong, Lasting Relationships At this point, you see the dire need for each of us – and our culture as a whole – to have better relationship tools. The good news is that better relationships are within all of our grasp.

So, what are the secrets to creating stronger bonds with our romantic partner, families, and friends? In my experience, the path to strong, lasting relationships comes down to eight critical steps. And just remember, it all begins with you.

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Build Strong Relationships from the Bottom Up | Dr. Brian Clement

Reach out and touch someone. Statistics show that having a network Step 1: of family and friends increases your life expectancy.

Start with yourself! Participation in our accumulation of happiness is one of our central reasons to live. Fill your own cup with the work and activities that resonate with your soul. Eat a healthy diet, exercise and feel good about yourself. As you develop your own inner security and trust, your confidence levels will rise and your potential will increase.

Self-esteem can bloom into charisma, which gives you the energy that can be shared with your intimate circles. Never look to another to “complete� you; only you can make yourself whole.

Step 2: Look for stimulation within the circle of your family and friends, rather than seeking it from external sources. Time spent together enjoying each other, supporting each other, and honoring each other will enrich your lives.

Step 3: Make time for your family and friends. Spending quality time with your children will ensure that they are well adjusted and content. Quality time spent enjoying your romantic partner will solidify your bond and strengthen your relationship.

Step 4: Develop strong bonds with your parents, grandparents, and children, so that trust will manifest. Stability will come from this simple act. This nucleus will enable you to step out of the family system and develop further relationships with those you meet throughout your life.

Step 5: Reach out and touch someone. Statistics show that having a network of family and friends who you contact on a regular basis actually increases your life expectancy.

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Build Strong Relationships from the Bottom Up | Dr. Brian Clement Step 6: Recognize that relationships take work; you need to give, not just receive. Realize that each person has a unique viewpoint based on their individual experiences. Try not to judge opinions that are different from your own.

Step 7: Try to be truly “present” when listening to others. Presence is a gift that you can give to others that is truly appreciated. Often a person feels better just by feeling that they were “heard.”

Step 8: And finally, learn to accept critique and criticism from those closest to you. This often difficult process will bring great rewards when you learn to synthesize those bumpy spots into graceful living.

When you build your relationships from the bottom up – i.e., beginning with yourself first – you create your own energy and vitality. When you have all you need, there is no need to look to those closest to you to fill in your missing pieces. Those relationships built from this starting point have the strongest foundations.

Lasting relationships, then, are those that you never stop nurturing. Without a doubt, relationships take work. But the rewards on your health, happiness and longevity are certainly worth the effort.

“I would like to leave you with three thoughts: • Purity opens hearts.

• Plants’ persuasion raises libidos.

• Compassion grows not only in the heart, but also in the garden.

Thank goodness in 1998 I found the most attractive lady from the plant kingdom with whom I have spent decades of love and happiness.”

- Dr. Brian Clement,

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

In their roles as co-directors of the Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida, Drs. Brian Clement and Anna Maria Gahns-Clement are internationally recognized as leading experts in the fields of health, natural healing and anti-aging. Both have dedicated their entire professional careers to supporting Hippocrates’ historic mission, “Let Food Be Thy Medicine and Medicine Be Thy Food,” by imparting knowledge on how to improve health by trading nutrient-deficient “dead” foods for a diet rich in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and plant-based proteins. Together, the couple has raised four children according to this philosophy, all of whom have led happy, healthy and disease-free lives since infancy.

Find out more about Hippocrates Health Institute by clicking on this link.

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NUTRITION

AND THRIVING How to Keep David Letterman (and yourself) Off the Operating Table

How to Keep David Letterman (and yourself) Off the Operating Table | Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD

How to Keep David Letterman (and yourself)

Off the Operating Table

by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD

A while back, a Barbara Walters’ television special highlighted six celebrities and their thoughts and emotions surrounding their open heart surgery. Barbara Walters, Robin Williams, and Charlie Rose had valve surgery, while President Clinton, Regis Philbin, and David Letterman had bypass surgery for coronary artery disease. Few would challenge that the stage of illness of these celebrities required surgical intervention. But, the real eye-opener of the show was David Letterman’s remark that he fully expected a second bypass operation in the future. The sober resignation to an inevitable recurrence is what we must challenge vigorously.

Let’s be clear: Coronary artery disease is a food-borne illness that need never exist. If the gifted surgeons identified in the television special had, for example, opened their offices in rural China, the Papua Highlands VegWorld Magazine

of New Guinea, Central Africa or among the Tarahumara Indians of Northern Mexico, they would need to take on second jobs. Why all the empty waiting rooms? These cultures enjoy plant-based nutrition, and have no coronary artery disease and no need for bypass surgeons or stents.

The Answer to Preventing Heart Disease Lies in the Food we Eat The key to our vascular health is the innermost single layer of endothelial cells which line our blood vessels. Those cells produce nitric oxide molecules, which smooth blood flow, enlarge blood vessels on demand, inhibit inflammation in the blood vessel wall, and most importantly prevent the formation of blockages or plaque.

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How to Keep David Letterman (and yourself) Off the Operating Table | Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD So how does nitric oxide fail?

Every time we eat a western diet of oils, dairy, meat, fish, poultry, and caffeine in coffee we injure our endothelial cells and deplete our protective level of nitric oxide.

Autopsies of 20 year olds who died of accidents, homicides, and suicides confirm coronary artery disease is now ubiquitous (albeit still in an early stage). Continued nutritional insult to endothelial cells leads to plaque blockages, chest pain, heart attacks, strokes, and the need for stents and bypass surgery. Cardiologists agree these procedures are a temporary patch job and have nothing to do with the cause of the disease.

Cholesterol – Alone – Plays Less of a Role Than You Think

and often achieve significant disease reversal. As a result, patients rarely require stents or bypasses.

What Your Doctor Doesn’t Tell You Could Hurt You The cure for the coronary artery disease epidemic is not a pill, a procedure, or an operation. The cure is to empower the public with nutritional literacy and to make each individual the locus of control when it comes to protecting their health and vanquishing this food borne illness.

Why then don’t physicians offer a plantbased nutrition option to their patients?

There are several things that explain this glaring omission:

What about cholesterol? Cholesterol is an innocent bystander in populations that enjoy a plant-based diet, healthy uninjured endotheliums, and copious amounts of nitric oxide. Once nitric oxide levels fall with the introduction of the meat- and dairy-based western diet, the endothelial tissues become sticky, allowing cholesterol to burrow into the vessel wall, creating plaque buildup and blockages, and impeding blood flow.

Lowering cholesterol is helpful, but the key is to avoid eating foods that further injure the endothelium. That has been the focus of our counseling goal with patients since 1985. It is also why we have been able to successfully treat this disease through dietary intervention in hundreds of patients with the plant-based technique described in my book, “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.” With this dietary approach, the endothelium can rapidly recover its nitric oxide production, halt disease progression, VegWorld Magazine

Doctors treat the symptoms instead of the cause of heart disease for many reasons, including the huge financial paydays of the stent and statin drug industries.

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How to Keep David Letterman (and yourself) Off the Operating Table | Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD 1. Physicians are not taught nutrition in medical school and are unfamiliar with the efficacy of a plant-based approach.

2. Doctors often don’t have time these days for patient nutritional counseling.

3. Physicians often lack the skill set for behavioral modification.

4. Insurance support for counseling is sparse.

5. The status quo offers a handsome income stream.

Since the time of Hippocrates there has been a covenant of trust between the physician and the patient. Informing patients of the causes of their disease is a crucial part of that trust. In the case of coronary artery disease, that conversation is not taking place. Stents and bypass surgery may be lifesaving in an emergency. But all too often at the first sign of disease, these invasive procedures are being employed.

We perform 1.2 million stents annually in the United States, with a mortality of 1% and procedural heart attack rate of 4%. This translates to 12,000 deaths and 48,000 heart attacks every year – resulting from the cure itself. We perform 500,000 bypass operations with a mortality rate of 3% and a similar procedural stroke rate. This totals 15,000 deaths and 15,000 strokes annually.

Over a decade these procedures results in 270,000 deaths, 480,000 heart attacks, and 150,000 strokes.

option to halt and prevent it in the first place.

This can never happen while symptomatic therapy reaps enormous financial rewards.

Change would also be disruptive for powerful institutions. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), which subsidizes the animal food industry, constructs a food pyramid for the public every five years laden with nutrition suggestions that further promote, rather than prevent, disease.

The $5 billion stent and $25 billion statin drug industry are hardly anxious to see this epidemic go away. Few interventional cardiologists or cardiac surgeons are seeking fewer patients.

Note to David Letterman: Your fate is on your fork As heart-warming as Barbara Walters’ television special on celebrity heart surgery was, just imagine a one-hour primetime special devoted to educating the public that coronary artery disease — our number one killer — need never exist and that our fate is in our hands. Maybe David Letterman could host.

More than forty years ago brilliant pioneers set the interventional mode of cardiology treatment in motion. Back then it was all we had. However, today, with the understanding we have gained as to the cause of this disease, we have the powerful VegWorld Magazine

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How to Keep David Letterman (and yourself) Off the Operating Table | Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. from Western Reserve University. In 1956, pulling the No. 6 oar as a member of the victorious United States rowing team, he was awarded a gold medal at the Olympic Games. He was trained as a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic and at St. George’s Hospital in London. In 1968, as an Army surgeon in Vietnam, he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Dr. Esselstyn has been associated with the Cleveland Clinic since 1968. During that time, he has served as President of the Staff and as a member of the Board of Governors.

He chaired the Clinic’s Breast Cancer Task Force and headed its Section of Thyroid and Parathyroid Surgery.

In 1991, Dr. Esselstyn served as President of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, That same year he organized the first National Conference on the Elimination of Coronary Artery Disease, which was held in Tucson, Arizona. In 1997, he chaired a follow-up conference, the Summit on Cholesterol and Coronary Disease, which brought together more than 500 physicians and health-care workers in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

In April, 2005, Dr. Esselstyn became the first recipient of the Benjamin Spock Award for Compassion in Medicine. His scientific publications number over 150.

Dr. Esselstyn and his wife, Ann Crile Esselstyn, have followed a plant-based diet for more than 26 years. Dr. Esselstyn presently directs the cardiovascular prevention and reversal program at The Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute.

Learn more about Dr. Esselstyn by visiting his website here.

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ORDINARY PEOPLE

EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS

An Interview with John Robbins

The Baskin-Robbins Heir Who Renounced His Throne: An Interview with John Robbins

The Baskin-Robbins Heir Who Renounced

His Throne to Keep His Integrity

I

An Interview with John Robbins

t is the 25th anniversary of the release of John Robbins’ international bestseller, “Diet for a New America,” the first book to draw a clear line connecting America’s factory farm system with disease, animal cruelty, and ecological crisis. VegWorld Magazine sat down with John to talk about his past, how the industry has changed, and why he gave up his fortune and the throne to the Baskin-Robbins enterprise.

VegWorld Magazine (VW): So taking us back 25 years, John, what led you to write “Diet for a New America?”

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John Robbins: The crying need for people to be aware of how their food was produced, to break through the veil that the meat industry and the industrial food machine was maintaining over people’s eyes. To allow people to become informed so they could make informed choices, rather than being simply at the mercy of the “information” – and I put that word in quotes – provided to them by the industry and by government, which often is in industry’s pockets.

VW: Take us back even further, if you could.

You were born into Baskin-Robbins, the ice

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The Baskin-Robbins Heir Who Renounced His Throne: An Interview with John Robbins cream family, a billion dollar company. And yet you walked away from this lifestyle of immense wealth that was set up for you.

What made you do that?

John: Well, a lot of things. There was a particular moment that seemed to crystallize it. My uncle, Burt Baskin, who was my dad’s partner and brother-in-law – they were the two men who founded and owned the company – died of a heart attack at the age of 54. My Uncle Burt was a very big man who ate a lot of ice cream. He died pretty young, and it was a blow to everyone in the family. I loved him, actually, very much. When this happened, I was quite distraught, and I asked my father if he thought there could be any connection between the amount of ice cream that my uncle would eat, which was a lot, and his fatal heart attack. My father said, “No, his ticker just got tired and stopped working.” Then he looked at me in a way that said, “Don’t ever talk about that again. Don’t ever ask that question again.” I could understand why he wouldn’t want to be in that part of the conversation with me because he had by that time manufactured and sold more ice cream, along with my uncle, than any other human being who’d ever lived on the planet. He didn’t want to think the family product was harming anybody, much less that it could have contributed to the death of his beloved brother-in-law and partner.

But I felt that I needed to reflect on that question. I needed to find an answer. And the more I looked into it, I came to the conclusion that the more saturated fat, ice cream, and sugar you eat, the more likely you are to be obese, diabetic, to have heart disease, and to have heart attacks. And I just decided that I didn’t want to derive my life support, my income, from selling a product

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John Robbins wrote “Diet for a New America” 25 years ago to “break through the veil that the industrial food machine was maintaining over people’s eyes.”

that was undermining people’s health. I’ve never said an ice cream cone would kill anybody, but if you’re selling it, you want people to buy as much as possible. And when people eat it in excess, then these problems definitely arise.

Then I began to look into it further. In all the Baskin-Robbins stores in those days, in the actual stores behind the counters, there were these beautiful sepia-toned photographs of mainly Guernsey and Holstein dairy cows grazing in beautiful Wisconsin pasturelands.

The feeling that the photographs evoked in customers in the stores was of closeness to nature. It was a feeling of wholesomeness – that these cows were grazing on beautiful land and they were eating grass. But what I found out was that Baskin-Robbins’ main factories in those days were in southern California, and the dairy products that they used came from California dairies, not Wisconsin ones. California dairy production is located almost exclusively in the Central Valley, particularly the San Joaquin valley.

This is a part of the state that gets very little

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The Baskin-Robbins Heir Who Renounced His Throne: An Interview with John Robbins rainfall; it’s very dry, and the cows there are in feedlots. They’re in dirt. They never see a blade of grass. Those photographs were lies.

The same photographs that had previously evoked feelings of connection to nature now began to evoke for me creepy feelings, queasy feelings.

I looked into it further, and I went to some of the operations where Baskin-Robbins bought its milk products from. I was disgusted by what I saw. The treatment of the cows was terrible. It was really cruel.

I also found out that this is the standard operating procedure for most of the large dairies in this country, and certainly in California. And then I looked, and I saw how other animals and other livestock are treated – beef cattle, hens, broilers, turkeys and pigs; all livestock animals basically. Every animal was subjected increasingly to horrible conditions. And I wanted nothing to do with it anymore.

I needed to walk away from the money too.

So I told my dad that I did not want to have any access to his fortune. I wanted to live by my own values, and they were in fact different from his. So there was a lot of pain in the family at that point, but it was the choice for integrity that I had to make.

VW: And here we are all these years later, and Baskin-Robbins continues to thrive, right?

John: It does. It’s changed hands. My dad passed away. My uncle, as I mentioned, died a long time ago. There are no Baskins or Robbinses involved in the company in any way shape or form anymore. It is no longer a family business. And they’ve actually changed some of their manufacturing processes for the worse, frankly. They use dairy products from cows that are injected VegWorld Magazine

“I’ve never said an ice cream cone would kill anybody, but if you’re selling it, you want people to buy as much as possible. It’s in the excess that problems arise.”

with bovine growth hormone. A lot of the ice cream manufacturers don’t; Ben and Jerry’s doesn’t do that.

But here’s another thing: Ben Cohen, the co-founder and for many years the co-owner of Ben and Jerry’s, had a quintuple bypass in his late 40s. I am not pointing a finger at Ben and Jerry’s in any way. Ben Cohen is a peace activist and a very fine human being. But he’s a big guy, and he ate a lot of ice cream, and he had a very serious heart condition in his 40s. I just want people to understand that ice cream is not a health food, that ice

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The Baskin-Robbins Heir Who Renounced His Throne: An Interview with John Robbins cream is bad for your heart, as are frankly just about all animal products. The healthier diet is to eat a plant-strong diet, and to get as many of your nutrients directly from plants as possible. When we do that, we’re a lot healthier.

VW: What else did you find in your research about the connection between health, the way we’re treating animals raised for food, and caring for the environment?

John: Well, those are the connections that are so important for people to make, and often we don’t. We kind of look at things with blinders on, and we look over here at the health issues of diet, and over here we look at the environmental implications of food production systems, and over here we look at issues of animal welfare, animal rights. We don’t realize how connected they all are.

I’ll give you an example of the connection.

When we treat animals cruelly, which is standard operating procedure in factory farms today, the animals are stressed by that cruelty. The conditions are unnatural, and the diet they’re fed is unnatural. They’re very sick, and the only way that they can be brought to market, kept alive long enough to gain weight and so forth and be productive is by using drugs. Antibiotics are mixed into every meal they eat. A whole plethora of pharmaceutical agents are employed to keep this factory farm system operational.

But when all these drugs are used, residues end up on our plates and antibiotic-resistant bacteria end up in our foods. It is one of the main reasons that our antibiotics are losing their effectiveness now. So what happens is the more cruelly we treat the animals, the more drugs are used; our medical system loses its most powerful weapons, and we become much more susceptible to damage

John gave up his fortune and ties to Baskin-Robbins in part when he saw the conditions in America’s dairies: “I was disgusted by what I saw. The treatment of cows was terrible. It was really cruel.”

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The Baskin-Robbins Heir Who Renounced His Throne: An Interview with John Robbins

“Twenty-five years ago, the word vegan was hardly known in American culture. I didn’t actually use the word vegan in “Diet for a New America” because it would not have been recognized.”

from bacterial infections and death. There are several hundred thousand people now dying every year in the United States from bacterial infections that 15 years ago would have been easily treated by antibiotics.

VW: What progress has been made in the 25 years since the original edition of “Diet for a New America?”

John: Well, on the positive side, there’s a lot more awareness today about how animals in modern meat production are treated. There’s an emerging recognition that all beings are related and that how we treat animals says something important about who we are as people. There’s a growing understanding that the confinement of animals in factory farms and feedlots is a crime against nature. I also see industry trying to greenwash and profit from pretending that their products aren’t bad anymore when they often are. But at least people are becoming more aware.

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There have been some tremendous breakthroughs on the health side of things.

Researchers like Dr. Dean Ornish, T. Colin Campbell, and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn (see page 43, “How to Keep David Letterman (and yourself) Off the Operating Table”

by Dr. Esselstyn) have published studies showing that a plant-strong diet that’s healthy, not processed, and low in sugar and fat, is tremendously successful, not just in preventing many diseases but in treating them – in reversing or arresting prostate and other forms of cancer, in helping people be lean and preventing obesity and also preventing and lowering the incidence of diabetes. This information now is becoming so clear, the research is so impeccable, convincing, and compelling that at this point in time, it’s almost medical malpractice for doctors not to recommend this kind of diet – although we know that they still do not. We know this now much more strongly than we did 25 years ago.

I mean, now Bill Clinton is a vegan. Twentyfive years ago, the word vegan was hardly known in American culture. It’s a British term in its origins. I didn’t actually use the word vegan in “Diet for a New America” because it would not have been recognized. I just spoke in degrees of vegetarian, and I talked about being a pure vegetarian. My goal has never been to make people vegan, but to help people transition to a more conscious, healthy and compassionate diet and way of life. People can only make intelligent and conscious choices if they know the truth about what’s going on, how the food’s been produced, and what’s been learned in medical research. They will not learn that from industry.

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The Baskin-Robbins Heir Who Renounced His Throne: An Interview with John Robbins for lobbyists and for industry power and industry money. The USDA, for example, the Department of Agriculture, has a dual mandate. On one hand, it’s designed to create the food pyramid or the food groups and oversee nutritional education in the schools of this country. On the other, its mandate is to promote the sale of U.S. agricultural products and in particular U.S. animal products. So what happens then is we get a Farm Bill that has $60 worth of subsidies to the meat and dairy industry for every $1 it has in subsidies to fresh fruits and

vegetables and whole grains. This is the kind of thing that totally corrupts the system.

In the face of that, people have to inform themselves by reading books like “Diet for a New America,” and reading magazines like you produce to learn the truth because the standard thinking is getting us into a very sick place. We have the highest rates of obesity of any country in the history of the world right now. We have the highest spending on medical care. We call it health care, but really it isn’t health care – it’s disease care. On every level our health is declining. You see it in the cancer rates; you see it in the tremendous profits of the pharmaceutical companies; you see it in the bankruptcies that families experience from medical bills; you see it in the cost to business of insuring their workers because the prices are going up all the time, and that undermines the viability of a lot of companies. There are so many ways that our disastrous eating habits are undermining our well-being. At the same time, there’s a tremendous opportunity here for individuals and us as a society collectively in terms of our policies to reverse this damaging course and start to eat in a way that’s healthy for us and produce food in a way that’s healthy for the environment. If we did that, and we can, the benefits and values to us, the rewards, would be miraculous. They’d be spectacular.

VW: You advocate for a plant-strong diet.

Can you talk more about that?

Today, at age 65, John Robbins can bench press his own weight 25 times. He attributes his good health to his plant-strong diet.

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John: Yes. The more of your nutrition that you get from plants, as opposed to from animals, the healthier you will be. Now when I say the healthier you will be, what I mean is this: your immune system will be stronger and you will have less susceptibility to infectious disease. Your cardiovascular

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The Baskin-Robbins Heir Who Renounced His Throne: An Interview with John Robbins system will be stronger, so you’ll have a lower incidence of heart disease and you’ll have lower blood pressure. Your respiratory system will function more optimally, so you’ll have less incidence of emphysema, lung cancer and asthma. You’ll be leaner and stronger and more flexible and more resilient.

Your emotional well-being will also be enhanced. You’ll have more inner peace But there’s also an unquantifiable benefit that happens in that people just feel more alive. Their hearts sing more. There’s a sense of being grateful for the miracle of life.

There is a sense that instead of life being a burden that you slog through, it’s more of an opportunity or an adventure to explore.

You have the capacity to live with more love in your life and more beauty in your life. I can’t prove those things mathematically; I’m talking now outside of the range of what we can measure and quantify. But many, many people have told me this. I received 60,000 letters – actual letters through the post office – when “Diet for a New America” first came out in 1987 from people telling me about the improvements in their lives and their gratitude. This was before I had the internet and email. I had to think, well, if 60,000 people actually took the trouble of writing me, how many more felt similarly but didn’t actually write?

or research to substantiate their claims, but they are so widely believed that I call it part of the cultural trance. Their marketing budgets are absolutely extravagant. And they’ve come out with these lines like meat gives strength or milk is nature’s most perfect food. And none of it’s true, really. Cow’s milk is nature’s most perfect food for a baby calf, who has four stomachs and will gain several hundred pounds in its first twelve months.

If you have four stomachs and you want to gain several hundred pounds in the next year, then drink a lot of milk. You’ll find it’s the perfect food for the job. But it’s not the optimum food for human beings. And beef is not necessary for strength. One of the star runners in the NFL right now is a vegan.

There are so many major athletes, strength athletes as well as endurance athletes, who are achieving phenomenal success as vegans or near-vegans. Personally I grew up rather sickly. I had polio as a kid, and I was in a wheelchair for a while. But I outgrew that in some remarkable way, and I became a triathlete and a marathon runner. I’m 65 now.

I can bench press my weight 25 times. Very few people in the world can do that at this age.

VW: But to this, a lot of people would say, “That sounds crazy” or “I’ve been told all my life that I need meat to thrive and grow muscle” or “How is it possible that you can live off rabbit food?” What do you say to that?

In fact, as you get older, the benefits become even more so. I saw a bumper sticker recently, and I think it was intended to mock vegetarians. It said, “Vegetarians die healthier.” I think that they were saying, “Well, see, vegetarians die too,” which of course is absolutely the case. Life is mortal. We’re all going to pass away at some point. No diet’s going to prevent that. That’s life. But the fact

John: Well, the meat industry has put out a great deal of corporate, industrial propaganda. There is absolutely no science

that vegetarians die healthier is actually quite significant. It’s true – vegetarians have lower rates of Alzheimer’s. They have healthier

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The Baskin-Robbins Heir Who Renounced His Throne: An Interview with John Robbins elderhoods. They aren’t brought to their knees by these really harsh afflictions that most of our older people experience nearly as much. They have lower rates of cancer, they have lower rates of heart disease, they are really healthier by every measure we have of assessing health outcomes.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT JOHN

John Robbins is the co-founder and co-director of the Food Revolution Network, which now has 90,000 members. To learn more about John and the Food Revolution Network, visit foodrevolution.org.

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RECIPES

FOR FOODIES Vegan Mac ‘N’ Cheese Avocado Pesto Pasta Pad Thai Noodles Vegan Cookie Dough Truffles Almond Crusted Tofu with a Roasted Garlic and Fennel Puree Chocolate Dipped Strawberries with a Whipped Vanilla Bean Cream Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse with a Crunchy Topping Raw Carrot Brazil Nut Soup Lavender-Infused Cocoa-Dusted Truffles

Vegan Mac ‘N’ Cheese | Chef Chloe

Vegan Mac ‘n’ Cheese

Serves 4 to 6

Try my vegan and all-natural recipe for comforting mac ‘n’ cheese that both kids and adults can enjoy! You can use Barilla mini Piccolini noodles, or any mac ‘n’ cheese-friendly pasta shape.

Ingredients

• 1 pound elbow macaroni or piccolini • 3 cups broccoli florets • ¼ cup vegan margarine • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (or glutenfree all-purpose flour) • 3 cups soy, almond, or rice milk • ½ cup nutritional yeast • 2 tablespoons tomato paste • 2 teaspoons sea salt • 1 teaspoon garlic powder • 1 tablespoon lemon juice • 1 tablespoon agave

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Procedure

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Add macaroni and cook according to package directions. Add broccoli for the last 5 minutes of boiling and let cook until broccoli is fork tender. Drain and return to pot.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, make a roux or paste by whisking the margarine and flour over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes.

Add nondairy milk, yeast, tomato paste, salt, and garlic powder to the saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Reduce heat to low and let simmer until the sauce thickens. Adjust seasoning to taste and stir in lemon juice and agave. Toss the noodles and broccoli with the sauce and serve immediately.

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Avocado Pesto Pasta | Chef Chloe

Avocado Pesto Pasta Serves 4 to 6

Put a healthful California twist on a traditional Italian favorite and you’ve got Avocado Pesto Pasta. Adding avocados to pesto creates a rich and creamy texture without using cheese.

Ingredients

• 1 pound linguine • 1 bunch fresh basil, reserve some leaves for garnish • ½ cup pine nuts • 2 avocados, pitted and peeled • 2 tablespoons lemon juice • 3 cloves garlic • ½ cup olive oil • Sea salt • Freshly ground black pepper • 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes or sliced sun-dried tomatoes (optional)

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Procedure

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Add linguine and cook according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, make the pesto by combining basil, pine nuts, avocados, lemon juice, garlic, and oil in a food processor. Process until smooth. Season generously with salt and pepper.

Toss pasta with pesto. For an extra touch of color and flavor, top pasta with cherry or sundried tomatoes. Divide pasta among serving bowls and garnish each serving with a basil leaf.

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Pad Thai Noodles | Chef Chloe

Pad Thai Noodles Serves 4

You won’t be disappointed with this healthy vegan version of traditional Pad Thai. Using brown rice noodles instead of white rice noodles is a deliciously sneaky way to increase the nutritional value of this dish. These tangy, sweet and slippery noodles are seriously addicting!

Ingredients

• 8 ounces brown rice noodles • 3 cups broccoli florets (fresh or frozen) • 4 tablespoon brown sugar • 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice, plus wedges for serving • 4 tablespoons soy sauce • 1 tablespoon canola oil • 3 scallions, thinly sliced • 1 garlic clove, minced • Chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish • Chopped roasted salted peanuts, for garnish

Procedure

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Add noodles and cook according to package directions. Add broccoli for the last 5 minutes of boiling and let cook until broccoli is fork tender. Drain, rinse with cold water, and drain again.

In a small bowl, whisk together brown sugar, lime juice, and soy sauce. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add scallions and garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant. Add soy sauce mixture and noodles and broccoli to the skillet. Toss constantly until noodles and broccoli are coated with the sauce.

Serve noodles with lime wedges and garnish with cilantro and peanuts.

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Vegan Cookie Dough Truffles | Chef Chloe

Vegan Cookie Dough Truffles Makes 45

Cookie dough eaters -- you know who you are. I, too, have baked countless batches of cookie dough that never made it to the oven. The best part about vegan baking is that it’s always safe to eat the cookie dough straight up because it is egg-free. I’ve taken trufflesized mounds of cookie dough and dipped them into warm semisweet chocolate and then refrigerated them. There is nothing better than a delicious crackly chocolate coating covering the chocolate chip cookie dough center that we all know and love.

Procedure

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Using a mixer, beat margarine, brown sugar, salt, vanilla, and water until combined. Add flour and beat until incorporated. Fold in mini chocolate chips. Cover dough and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Ingredients

• ½ cup vegan margarine • ¾ cup packed light brown sugar • ¼ teaspoon salt • 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract • 2 tablespoons water • 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour • 1/3 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips (dairy-free) • 12 ounces semisweet chocolate (dairy-free)

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Roll chilled dough into 1-inch balls with the palms of your hands. Place on prepared baking sheets. Freeze for 15 minutes.

Melt the remaining 12 ounces chocolate in a double boiler or microwave. Let cool to room temperature. Remove one tray of cookie dough balls from the freezer. Dip each ball into the melted chocolate and remove using two forks. Place the coated balls back onto the baking sheet and transfer to the refrigerator.

Repeat with the second tray of cookie dough balls. Chill until the chocolate is set, about 20 minutes. Store in refrigerator until serving.

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Chef Chloe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A lifelong vegetarian and vegan for more than eight years, Chloe aims to bring delicious, meat-free dishes to the mainstream. Her decadent desserts and savory entrees prove that vegan cooking offers healthy choices without sacrificing flavor.

Chloe is a graduate of The Natural Gourmet Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. She has also completed Cornell University’s Plant-Based Nutrition program based on Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study.

Her professional work includes Millennium Restaurant, San Francisco; Counter Organic Vegetarian Bistro, New York City; and Herbivore Restaurant, Berkeley.

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Spork Foods

Spork Foods is a Los Angeles-based gourmet vegan food company owned and operated by sisters Jenny Engel and Heather Goldberg. They offer live cooking classes in Los Angeles at Spork Foods (www.sporkfoods.com), an online vegan video cookbook at www.sporkonline.com, one-on-one in-home healthy pantry makeovers, and recipe development/ trainings for chefs, food companies and colleges. Their cookbook, Spork-Fed, is currently in stores, with a foreword by fellow fans and sisters, Emily and Zooey Deschanel.

“Valentine’s Day is one of our favorite holidays, not because of the boxed chocolates or stuffed teddy bears, but because it’s your chance to cook with foods that are known aphrodisiacs! If Aphrodite had written a cookbook, these recipes would be front-and-center!”

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Almond Crusted Tofu with a Roasted Garlic and Fennel Puree | Spork Foods

Almond Crusted Tofu with a Roasted Garlic and Fennel Puree Roasted Garlic and Fennel Puree Ingredients:

• 1 bulb garlic, base sliced off • 2 bulbs fennel, large dice • 2 tablespoons, plus 2 tablespoons brown rice syrup • ½ teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste • ¼ teaspoon finely ground black pepper • ½ cup un-salted cashews • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil • ½ cup un-sweetened almond milk or soymilk creamer • 6 leaves fresh basil, thinly sliced

Directions: 1. Pre-heat oven to 375°.

2. Place sliced fennel on a baking sheet and coat with 1 tablespoon oil, 2 tablespoons brown rice syrup, ½ teaspoon sea salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper. Add bulb of garlic to the baking sheet, cut side down. Roast about 30 minutes, or until well browned.

3. Cut tofu into ½ inch thick slices. Place in large bowl and add 1 tablespoon oil, lemon juice, brown rice syrup, herbs d’Provence, basil, sea salt and pepper.

Set aside to marinate, about 15 minutes.

4. In a large shallow bowl, combine almond meal or flour, sea salt, pepper, herbs VegWorld Magazine

Almond Crusted Tofu Ingredients:

• 1 package extra firm organic tofu • 2 tablespoons neutral tasting oil, divided (safflower or refined coconut preferred) • 2 tablespoons lemon juice • 2 tablespoons brown rice syrup • 1 teaspoon herbs d’Provence • ½ teaspoon sea salt • ¼ teaspoon finely ground black pepper • 1 cup Almond meal or Almond flour(Bob’s Redmill preferred) • ½ teaspoon sea salt • ¼ teaspoon finely ground black pepper • ½ teaspoon herbs d’Provence • ½ teaspoon garlic powder

d’Provence and garlic powder. Coat the tofu in the mixture.

5. Pre-heat a large sauté pan over medium heat and add remaining oil. Add each slice of tofu to heated sauté pan. Cook for about three to four minutes on each side until well browned.

6. To create the puree, transfer the cooked fennel, four to five cloves roasted garlic, additional sea salt and pepper, cashews, vinegar, olive oil and almond milk or soy creamer to a high-powered blender or food processor. Process until smooth and uniform.

7. To serve, place 1 piece warm almond crusted tofu over a dollop of the puree and top with basil.

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Chocolate Dipped Strawberries with Whipped Vanilla Bean Cream | Spork Foods

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries with a Whipped Vanilla Bean Cream Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Ingredients:

• 1 pound fresh organic strawberries, washed and dried well • 1 cup organic dark chocolate chips (Enjoy Life brand preferred) • Dash sea salt • ½ teaspoon ground Ceylon cinnamon

Directions:

Whipped Vanilla Bean Cream Ingredients:

• 1 can full fat coconut milk (refrigerated overnight) • 1 tablespoon maple crystals or organic evaporated cane sugar • 1 vanilla bean, seeds only • ¼ teaspoon sea salt • Optional - shredded coconut (1/4 cup), chopped nuts (1/4 cup)

1. In a double boiler (or small sauce pot with water, and a heat-proof bowl), melt chocolate.

Add sea salt, and cinnamon. Whisk until uniform and smooth and turn heat to low.

2. If using coconut or nuts, before the strawberries cool and firm up, roll the strawberries in shredded coconut, or chopped nuts for a nice presentation.

3. Dip strawberries into the chocolate mixture and transfer them to a baking sheet, lined with parchment or wax paper.

4. Let cool for about 10 minutes, and then transfer to the refrigerator for about 20 - 30 minutes to set up before serving.

Whipped Cream: 1. Refrigerate the coconut milk can overnight. Open the can carefully and make sure not to shake it. With a spatula or spoon, remove only the cream from the top and discard the coconut water. Place the cream in a standing mixer.

2. On a cutting board, slice carefully into the vanilla bean lengthwise. Pry open the bean and using the back of your knife, scrape out seeds and place them in the bowl with coconut cream.

3. Add the maple crystals or sugar and sea salt to your mixer and blend on high, until the mixture is whipped and thickens up.

4. Place whipped cream in the refrigerator until using. The mixture can keep approximately 4 days.

5. To serve, place dipped strawberries on a platter and serve with a small bowl of the vanilla bean whipped cream.

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse with a Crunchy Topping | Spork Foods

Chocolate Peanut

Butter Mousse with a Crunchy Topping

(gluten-free version optional) Serves 4-6

This dessert is so decadent, no one will believe it’s vegan. And not only that ... no one will be able to guess that there is tofu in this little sucka. We’re not usually the kind of vegans that slide tofu into everything, including dessert—but in this mousse, it works like a charm. The crunchy topping adds a great texture to this smooth and creamy dessert, so it’s not optional.

Mousse Ingredients: • • • • • • • •

11⁄2 cups vegan dark chocolate chips 1 (14-ounce) block silken tofu 1/3 cup maple syrup 1/3 cup chunky peanut butter 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1⁄4 teaspoon almond extract 1⁄4 teaspoon ground cinnamon Dash sea salt

Nut Topping: • • • • •

1⁄4 cup evaporated cane sugar 1 cup toasted walnuts or pecan pieces 1 tablespoon neutral tasting oil Dash ground cinnamon Dash sea salt

Directions:

Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler, or in a metal bowl over a small (2-quart) pot, filled with about 1 inch water. Let chocolate chips melt for about 3 minutes, then stir until all chips are melted. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large blender or food processor, combine tofu, melted chocolate, maple syrup, peanut butter, vanilla and almond extracts, cinnamon and sea salt. Blend until mixture is uniform and creamy. Transfer mousse mixture to a bowl and refrigerate for 2 hours, or overnight for a thick consistency.

For the topping:

Add sugar, nuts, oil, cinnamon and sea salt to a food processor and pulse 7-10 times, or until well ground.

To serve, place a small amount of mousse into a dessert cup or bowl, and sprinkle with crunchy topping.

Note: Double check your chocolate chip ingredients if you are gluten-free, to be sure barley is not in the list.

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Raw Carrot Brazil Nut Soup | Mark Reinfeld Looking for a romantic dinner for two or a light meal to bond with your closest friend? This one-two punch from Award-Winning Chef Mark Reinfeld will serve as a scrumptious delight any day of the week.

Raw Carrot

Brazil Nut Soup Makes 5 cups Soup

• 3 ½ cups carrot juice, fresh (approx. 3 ½ lbs carrots) • ½ cup Brazil nuts, soaked • ¼ cup avocado, mashed • 1 tablespoon peeled and minced ginger • 1 clove garlic • 1 tablespoon lemon juice, fresh squeezed • 1 tablespoons wheat-free tamari (optional) • 2 tablespoons fresh mined Italian parsley • 1 teaspoon seeded and diced jalapeno pepper • 2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion • Pinch crushed red pepper flakes • Sea salt, to taste • Black pepper, ground to taste

Directions 1. Prepare the soup by placing all ingredients except parsley, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and cashews in a blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to a large bowl.

Add the parsley, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper and stir well.

2. Prepare the Creme Fraiche by draining the cashews and rinsing well. Blend with water and lemon juice, transfer to a small bowl and add salt to taste.

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Raw Creme Fraiche

• 1/2 cup cashews, soaked in a few cups of water for 45 minutes or longer • 1/2 cups water • 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice • Sea salt to taste 3. Serve soup with a dollop of the Creme Fraiche and garnish with colorful grated or chopped veggies.

Serving Suggestions Garnish with grated carrots, beets, zucchini, jicama or daikon radish. Sprinkle with black sesame seeds. Enjoy cold or at room temperature.

Variations

Replace carrot juice with other veggie juices.

Experiment with different nuts, seeds and herbs.

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Lavender-Infused Cocoa-Dusted Truffles | Mark Reinfeld

Lavender-Infused

Cocoa-Dusted Truffles Courtesy of The 30 Minute Vegan’s Taste of Europe Makes about 20 truffles

Yes, the relaxation-inducing herb of spas and wellness centers has innovative applications in the culinary world. Here it is used to infuse flavor to these ambrosial and heavenly chocolate delights. Adjust the sweetener to taste, as some chocolate chips have more sugar than others.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons culinary-grade lavender flowers • 1/2 cup regular (not light) coconut milk • 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 1/4 cups vegan dark chocolate chips • 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup, agave nectar, or coconut nectar, or to taste • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract • 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom, optional • Lavender flowers, for garnish

Directions: 1. Place the coconut milk in a small pan over very low heat. Add the lavender flowers and allow to simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain out the flowers and discard. Set aside the milk in a small bowl. Add the maple syrup, vanilla, and cardamom, if using, and stir well. Place the cocoa powder on a small plate.

2. After ten minutes of heating the coconut milk, melt the chocolate chips by heating them in a double boiler over medium heat until the consistency is smooth, lumpfree, and creamy, stirring only once or twice. (If you don’t have a double boiler, you can place a glass or stainless-steel bowl on top of a pot with 1 to 2 inches of boiling water in it.)

3. When the chocolate is melted, add the bowl of coconut milk and stir well. Place in the refrigerator until firm enough to scoop, approximately 5 minutes.

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4. Using a small scoop or a rounded tablespoon, form small balls. Place on the plate with the cocoa powder and cover each ball entirely with a light dusting. Sprinkle each truffle with a few lavender flowers. Place on a parchment paper–lined or lightly oiled baking sheet.

Refrigerate until cook. approximately 10 minutes.

Variations • Place a pitted cherry or a 1/2-inch piece of candied ginger, vegan marshmallow, or dried fruit such as papaya, fig, or apricot in the center of the chocolate ball before dusting with cocoa.

• Dust with vegan confectioners’ sugar instead of cocoa.

• Add 1/2 teaspoon of chipotle chile powder to the melted chocolate.

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Mark Reinfeld ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Reinfeld is the winner of Vegan.com’s Recipe of the Year Award for 2011 and has over 20 years experience preparing creative vegan and raw food cuisine. Mark was the Executive Chef for the North American Vegetarian Society’s 2012 Summerfest, one of the largest vegetarian conferences in the world. He is described by VegCooking.com as being “poised on the leading edge of contemporary vegan cooking”. He is the founding chef of the Blossoming Lotus Restaurant, winner of Honolulu Advertiser’s ‘Ilima Award for “Best Restaurant on Kaua’i”.

Mark is also the recipient of a Platinum Carrot Award for living foods – a national award given by the Aspen Center of Integral Health to America’s top “innovative and trailblazing healthy chefs.

Looking for more great videos and recipes from the award-winning vegan chef Mark Reinfeld?

Check out “Cooking Healthy Lessons”, a fantastic online vegan cooking program with a huge selection of vegan recipes. Click here to find out more

VegWorld Magazine

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SPOTLIGHT

ON COMPASSION

Love: The Key to Radiant Health

Love: The Key to Radiant Health | Dr. Will Tuttle

LOVE:

The Key to Radiant Health

by Dr. Will Tuttle

W

hat is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves, our loved ones and the world? It is the gift of deprogramming ourselves and reconnecting with our inner wisdom to love all living creatures and the earth we share.

Virtually all of us, including myself, have been programmed from infancy to accept our meatbased culture. Only when we get past that early programming can we find our inherent compassion, inner peace, creativity, radiant health, joy, and spiritual clarity. We then become a benevolent force for healing and blessing our world, and we become successful and rich in the only way that matters — living a life of meaning, healing, authenticity, and love.

But how do we deprogram ourselves? We do this by understanding the program. As I explain in The World Peace Diet, meals are, cross-

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culturally, the most powerful social conditioning factors. And the food program in Western culture underlies everything else: It enforces a mentality of exclusion, reductionism, might makes right, privilege, and disconnectedness.

This is the subtext of every meal, and virtually all of us were raised eating this program and incorporating it into our body-mind at the deepest levels.

As naturally loving beings, we yearn to awaken, to live authentically, to love and be loved, and to celebrate our lives with vitality, creativity, and harmony. And yet, we see a culture rife with disease, inequity, war, and pollution. These negative forces gain deep entry into our lives though our culture’s food program.

It is remarkable, but not surprising, that whenever an animal protection organization

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Love: The Key to Radiant Health | Dr. Will Tuttle

Meals are the most powerful social conditioning factors. And our meat-based food program enforces a mentality of exclusion, “might makes right,” and disconnectedness.

such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) or Mercy For Animals (MFA) places an undercover investigator in any of the animal agriculture operations — egg production, dairy production, hatcheries, slaughter operations, auctions, feedlots, stockyards, factory farms, or fisheries — there inevitably is graphic footage of extreme violence by workers toward the animals. Why is it that animal food operations bring out cruelty and disconnectedness in people?

agriculture videos; and the cold violence of drones dropping bombs on villages, like the cold cruelty inflicted on hens confined in battery cages where they are institutionally maimed and killed in the relentless industrial meat grinder.

The renowned social psychologist Robert J. Lifton has called war “an atrocity-producing situation.” Animal agriculture is, in fact, a war against animals. And the soldiers in this war, the workers, are similarly in atrocity-producing situations — situations that bring out the worst in them. Lifton and other psychologists have pointed out that war reduces enemy combatants and civilians to the status of mere pests and objects, and produces two types of atrocities: The hot violence of infuriated stabbing, beating, and killing, as we see in an endless number of undercover animal

This war on animals, killing an estimated 75 million animals daily in the U.S. alone, is the underlying war driving our war on other humans, the Earth, less-privileged people, wildlife, and, ultimately, ourselves. It is vast and invisible, and yet everyone, except for vegans, is participating in it and, with her dollar votes, demanding it to continue. Until we understand that purchasing and eating animal foods is also a form of cold violence, we will never achieve peace, justice, freedom, health, and wisdom. The mentality of disconnectedness, reductionism, and violence ritually injected into

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Love: The Key to Radiant Health | Dr. Will Tuttle all of us through our meals is the underlying mentality driving the U.S. war machine and the war on nature and animals. We are forced to harden our hearts as well as our arteries to buy and eat these foods. And the ramifications of these actions devastate the web of life and the culture in which we live and upon which we depend.

If you’re reading these lines, you’ve most likely undertaken this adventure of questioning the deeply engrained food hoaxes and myths of our meat-based culture, and are on the path of greater health for yourself. What I’d like to encourage in all of you is to deepen your motivation beyond the personal to the universal.

Without passing judgment, I am sure that many of you have turned to a vegan diet for the vitality, clarity, weight optimization, purity, detoxification, and vibrant health that a plantstrong diet can bring you. This is a great first step. If this remains your sole motivation, however, what happens if you experience intense food cravings, pushback from your friends and family, or other difficulties? You may be tempted to slowly incorporate some animal foods back in your diet like eggs, dairy products or fish. Or, if you consider yourself to be a raw foodist, for example, rather than a raw vegan, you may find yourself ultimately including raw meats, dairy or eggs into your diet. You can do this easily, because your primary motivation was not necessarily about compassion for others, but your own health and wellness.

The definition of vegan, as originally coined in 1944 by Donald Watson, is making an effort to minimize, as best we can, our exploitation of and cruelty to all animals, including our fellow humans. As you broaden your motivation to include a deeper understanding of this definition, as well as the word “health,” you will never again be tempted to partake of animal-sourced foods. When your understanding grows, and you realize

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The daily slaughter of 75 million animals in the U.S. is an underlying war driving our war on other humans, the earth, less-privileged people, and ultimately, ourselves.

Going vegan will definitely slim your waistline. But if you think of good “health” to include the health of our culture, environment and other beings, you will easily stay vegan.

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Love: The Key to Radiant Health | Dr. Will Tuttle how your physical health is connected to your psychological health and spiritual health, as well as the health of our culture and our environment, it will become easy to refrain from purchasing or eating animal-sourced foods.

Food is our most intimate and far-reaching connection with our culture and the world.

Our culture is in a critical situation, and we are all needed – more than we probably know!

We can turn things around, but we have to go to the roots – to the food program – and effectively deprogram ourselves. This means authentically questioning the official stories

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about protein, calcium, and everything else relating to nutrition, and exploring the deep structure of healthy living. Read current publications like VegWorld Magazine to learn the truth behind these myths. Read books and watch movies, such as Earthlings, to see the truth and to provide you with motivation beyond your own good health.

As we extend love, freedom, and health to nonhuman animals, hungry people, workers, and future generations, we sow the seeds of joy, harmony, and wellness in our lives, and bless everyone. Nonviolence and love are the ultimate keys to radiant health.

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Love: The Key to Radiant Health | Dr. Will Tuttle ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Tuttle, Ph.D., composer, pianist, and Zen priest, is author of the Amazon bestseller “The World Peace Diet” and is cofounder of Karuna Music & Art and the Prayer Circle for Animals.

Visit Dr. Will Tuttle’s website and learn more about his incredible work here.

Learn more about Dr. Will Tuttle’s Online Self-Paced World Peace Diet Mastery and Facilitator Training Programs here.

“When I met my wife, Madeleine, in the 1990s we realized how deeply we shared the same values and vision. We had both stopped eating meat in the same month and year in 1975, and realized our lives had been running parallel in numerous ways. Our love blossomed, we had a vegan wedding, and have been together now for twenty years.” – Dr. Will Tuttle

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REVIEWS

AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Veggie Connection: Meeting Like Minded-Friends and More

VegWorld’s Pick Of The Month

VegWorld’s

Pick of the Month Veggie Connection: Meeting Like Minded-Friends and More

W

hile there are many good internet dating sites to meet like-minded people for friendship and dating, VeggieConnection is one of the best. Their website hosts thousands of vegetarians all over the world. And you can even search for friends or romantic interests based on type of vegetarian (vegetarian, vegan, raw vegan, macrobiotic).

VeggieConnection.com, now the largest vegetarian/vegan dating site in the world, was founded

by Ken Greer, a vegetarian of 30 years and vegan for the last five. Ken lives in the San Francisco Bay area and has been a promoter of vegetarianism most of his adult life. A frequent participant in vegetarian causes, Ken was also a founding member of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of EarthSave and has been a regular with local vegetarian groups.

Ken thought it would be of great benefit to other vegetarians if he brought his web development skills to the veggie world. VeggieConnection.com is a place for vegetarians to find new friends, and yes, to fall in love! The site has been instrumental in bringing together tens of thousands of fellow vegetarians and vegans.

VeggieConnection.com is honored to be awarded the “Top Site to Find a Veggie Mate” award.

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