Two separate roads can lead to veganism. Some people eat a plant-based diet and refrain from eating animals for the health benefits; other people do it because of their compassion for animals. Some do it for both reasons. And although both types of people technically fall into the same category—vegan—they don’t always see eye to eye. Sometimes there can be a cavernous divide between these two groups, but we’re here to welcome them all and to win the battle for both our health and for the animals.
In the following paragraphs, you’ll read how Gerrie came to veganism for her health and how Joni became vegan for the animals. We’re here to show you how the two really do overlap in so many ways, and that there is a whole lot that we can learn from each other. It’s really exciting.
This book is for anyone looking to make a switch to a plant-based diet, either for your health, for the animals, or for both! Regardless of your reason, we want to provide recipes that everyone can enjoy. There’s a lot of information and opinions out there about which foods are “healthy.” There are also a lot of edicts, such as don’t consume too much oil, cut out oils altogether, and/or cut out salts. But we know that going vegan can be challenging enough, so if we then also told you to cut out sugar, salt, or oil, you might find the whole process too hard and just give up. That’s not what we want to happen! So we’ll include some transitional foods—such as vegan mayo, vegan cheese, and vegan meat—along with some really healthy, tasty, vegetable-heavy recipes for those of you looking to cure whatever ails you with food.
We want to show even the biggest skeptics that a melty, gooey grilled cheese sandwich can still be made without the use of animal products, and how you can make simple swaps at the supermarket for vegan versions of traditionally non-vegan items.
The interesting thing is that, even in some of the no-added-sugar-oil-salt recipes, we still rely heavily on naturally occurring fats, sugars, and salts, so the overall calorie and fat counts tend to be similar, even though neither of us counts calories or emphasizes counting calories. The recipes with no added oils, sugar, or salt are simply much healthier, and the nutrient density per calorie is much higher.
When you eat a well-thought-out, plant-based diet, the need for calorie counting is almost eradicated. So there will be no calorie counts listed for our recipes. We also don’t believe in fixating on the amount of carbs, fats, and proteins, so you won’t see any references to these macronutrients either. The focus of eating well should be on eating wholesome foods that are nutrient dense. The beauty of these types of foods is that they are naturally low in calories, and they provide fats, carbs, and proteins in a natural, wholesome way. We will give you suggestions for replacing sugar, salt, and added fats, when warranted, but this book is not a weight-loss book, because losing weight and becoming healthy do not always equate.
While working together on this book, we began looking for a word that would encompass all that we love. We love the animals, we love the planet, we love each other, and we love ourselves.
The word vegan is very specific in its meaning. According to Webster’s, a vegan is a strict vegetarian who does not eat animal products. Okay, fine, that’s true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t convey the compassion that lives within us.
In our search, we came up with all sorts of silly terms, but when we read the meaning of the term well-being, we knew we were on to something. Once again referring to our friend Webster’s, well-being is defined as being healthy, happy, or prosperous.
So we have decided to call ourselves WellBeings (WeBes for short!) instead of vegans because, while all WellBeings are indeed vegan, all vegans are not necessarily WellBeings. We invite you all to join us.
Each one of us has our reasons for making the choice to live a compassionate and less-cruel life. Whether for our health, or the health of the animals, we all have a story to tell on how we came to be WellBeings. Here are ours.
I had the good fortune of growing up in a traditional middle class family with a breadwinning father and a very dutiful and dedicated stay-at-home mom. We were a typical American family with a very typical American diet. My mother thought she was being a “good” mother by serving us what she had been taught was a “well-balanced” diet. In fact, I distinctly remember not being allowed to leave the table until I had tried a little of everything and I had eaten all of my vegetables. However, if I had known then what I know now, the food on my plate would have been a lot different. I would probably still have all of my organs. I would have been able to have children. And I would not have lost my mother to cancer at the early age of forty-five.
Even though I was fed what was thought of as a “healthy” diet, I grew up not being a very healthy person. As a child, I could count on having tonsillitis or strep throat at least once a year, plus numerous colds. I was always told that my illnesses were due to the bad sinuses that ran in our family. All through my teenage years, I struggled with my weight, and I suffered tremendous cramps, water weight gain, and mood swings with my “monthly visitor.” In my junior year of high school, my appendix became severely infected and ruptured before the doctors detected the problem. I came closer to dying than I would have liked.
When I was twenty-five years old, my gallbladder had to be removed due to “gallstones too numerous to count.” In fact, it took the doctors three months to diagnose my condition because gallstones were unheard of in a twenty-five-year-old in great physical shape. As if all of these health problems were not enough, I developed endometriosis in my early thirties, and by age thirty-five, I had my right ovary and fallopian tube removed. I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful fertility doctor who was able to save my left ovary and fallopian tube so that I could continue to try to become pregnant. However, after many years of trying, I was still never able to have children. Exhaustive testing never uncovered the reason why.
At the age of forty, I decided that I didn’t want to undergo any more major surgeries. I was running out of organs to have removed and still have my body function normally! At this point in my life, I decided to start researching on how I could make positive changes to my physical health.
I became a voracious reader, combing through every book on nutrition and diet I could find. Then one day on TV, I heard actress Marilu Henner being interviewed and talking about her new book, The Total Health Makeover. After ten years of studying anatomy, physiology, Eastern and Western medicine, macrobiotics, vegetarianism, acupuncture, and chiropractics, and experimenting with different eating behaviors, Marilu had come up with a lifestyle that afforded her optimum health and vitality. In fact, she looked so good and had so much energy that her friends, family, and fellow actors all wanted to know what she was doing. After much encouragement, she decided to share her program in a book. I was intrigued by the information she gave in her TV interview, and I went right out and purchased the book.
In short, Marilu’s book changed my health—and my life. I took two years to incorporate all of Marilu’s recommended dietary changes by doing one step at a time, and I only progressed to the next step when I had mastered the current one. With each step, my health improved. After I gave up dairy foods, the weekly, painful sinus headaches I had experienced for years disappeared. When I eliminated red meat from my diet and added in more whole grains, leafy greens, and vegetables, my chronic constipation disappeared. As welcome and incredible as all of those improvements were, my biggest life-changing moment came once I had completed all of the recommended steps.
Marilu had stated in her book that all of the problems women suffer during our monthly menstruation are due to our diets. In short, I did not believe it. I couldn’t believe that the ten pounds of water weight gain, cramping, bloating, mood swings, and facial breakouts were caused by what I ate. It took me untold amounts of painkillers to get through the first two days of every menstrual cycle. After experiencing these same symptoms like clockwork every month for more than twenty years, two months to the day after I incorporated all of my new-found dietary changes, I started my period, and I didn’t even know it! All of those symptoms were nonexistent. I became a believer for life. Marilu was right. Everything I had been experiencing really was a result of what I was eating!
I realized that if I hadn’t believed that we “are what we eat,” then I knew the majority of people didn’t understand or believe it either. At that point, I decided to change my career and dedicate the rest of my life to studying nutrition and helping people become more aware of how their dietary choices affect their health—and also the health of the planet.
The next sixteen years were an amazing time of learning and validating that I had made the correct decision for a new career path. I went back to school and graduated at the age of fifty with a bachelor’s of science degree in food science with emphasis in nutrition. Through my classes in anatomy, nutrition, and chemistry, I learned that our bodies are amazing healing machines, and my studies helped me understand why we “are what we eat.” The next seven years of developing and selling an all-natural food product gave me an incredible insight into what really goes into processed food. I learned that manufacturers do not have to declare everything that is put into food products! But the most life-changing information came from my current employment. Over the past four years, working as a Healthy Eating Specialist for Whole Foods Market, I have had the amazing pleasure of studying with many doctors who have been preventing and reversing conditions—such as heart disease, cancer, high cholesterol, diabetes, digestive issues, and many autoimmune diseases—with food, not drugs. Through studying with incredible doctors such as Joel Fuhrman M.D. (author of Eat for Life, Eat for Health, Super Immunity, and Ending Diabetes), Colin Campbell, Ph.D. in nutrition, biochemistry, and microbiology (author of The China Study and Worth), Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D. (author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease), his son Rip Esselstyn (author of Engine 2 Diet and My Beef with Meat), John A. McDougall, M.D. (author of Digestive Tune Up and The Starch Solution), I have learned and experienced personally that food is for nourishment, and it is also a powerful healing tool.
After having access to the overwhelmingly amazing research and the results achieved by these doctors over the past forty years, I made the decision to adopt a completely plant-based diet. Since making this decision, I have enjoyed a level of health that I had never before experienced. In addition, over the past four years, I have helped numerous people adopt a plant-based diet. I watched as their heart disease, diabetes, and other conditions disappeared, and their lives were totally changed.
There’s no doubt in my mind that a vegan (or 100 percent plant-based) diet is the most effective way to achieve and maintain optimum health. I intend to live, teach, and share this way of eating with all who want to learn—for the rest of my very long and healthy life!
I am, first and foremost, an ethical vegan. The health benefits I have enjoyed through my veganism have simply been a bonus.
I grew up in a family where hunting and fishing were the norm, and stuffed animal heads on walls were common. My parents were divorced, and my amazing mom made sure that we had a hot meal together every single night. But between her full-time job and my and my sister’s swim team and water polo practice, school, marching band (yes, I played the tuba in marching band!), and other extracurricular activities, there was little time left for home-cooked meals. Prepackaged convenience foods—such as boxed macaroni and cheese, hamburger meal mixes, and minute steaks made appearances almost every night.
I became a half-hearted vegetarian in high school when my favorite singer, my beloved, Morrissey, told me meat was “murder.” A girlfriend and I did an oral report on the horrors of animal testing and vivisection. We even made a ’zine to pass out to the class, and we played the video for “Meat Is Murder” in the background while we gave our report. (My teacher was so impressed that she had us come back and do the report for two other classes that day.)
I’d always been anti-fur and against animal testing, but I faltered with my eating habits throughout early adulthood. I toyed with vegetarianism off and on, but I never fully committed.
As a swimmer and a water polo player in high school, I could shovel as much food into my mouth as I wanted and never had a weight problem. During the school year, I worked out for two hours, five nights a week, and I had meets and matches on the weekends. During the summer months, we had morning and evening practice for four hours each day!
Then I went to college. Although I was a dedicated swimmer, I wasn’t very fast, and I only lasted one year on the team. I stopped the crazy workouts, but I kept up the crazy eating. It didn’t take long for the pounds to pack on. I worked my way through school, so I relied heavily on cafeteria and fast food on my way to and from school and between classes. My “freshman fifteen” was more like “sophomore sixty.”
Fast-forward a few more years. I was out of school and living with my soon-to-be husband. I had really begun to understand how bad fast food, processed foods, and all the other junk I was putting into my body was. I was extremely overweight and tired. It was time to get healthy.
I tried a lot of fad diets, and I lost and gained back a lot of weight over the next few years. In the back of my mind and deep in my heart, I knew what I needed to do.
In 2005, I decided to make it official and go vegan. I kicked it all off with a ten-day Master Cleanse on the 4th of July. I figured that if I could spend the entire holiday watching everyone else chow down on barbecue and guzzle soda and beer while I was only sipping on lemonade spiked with cayenne pepper, then I could do it for ten days. So I did. Then I changed to an almost completely raw diet until I married my husband in September 2005. I have been vegan ever since.
Once I was eating vegan, it became a lot more important to eat at home, because there were very few vegan restaurants at the time. I was cooking at home far more than I had ever done before. I learned about different cooking techniques from vegan cookbooks and websites. I began blogging about my adventures in the kitchen. I became obsessed. I bought vegan cookbooks left and right. I “veganized” old family favorite recipes, and I began to find my own voice in the vegan community. I began meeting up and doing outreach with other vegans.
At the same time, I started to learn about the horrors that were occurring on factory farms. I made a conscious effort to read all labels on my foods—and also on my body-care products and household chemicals. After all, going vegan wasn’t only about what I was eating, but also about what I was wearing and about all of the products I was using in my life. I wanted my consumer dollars to support companies that were promoting animal-free products.
As time went on, I became more vocal with friends and family. I tried not to be preachy, but rather lead by example. Being vegan wasn’t about what I couldn’t eat, but more about all of the things I could eat without harming any living creature to have a tasty meal.
The more I have learned over the years, the more frustrated I get by the practices of factory farms, the industrialized food system, and the lies we are told by our own government about what is healthy. The fact that any amount of meat or dairy is recommended each day is simply a mystery to me.
I know it’s tough to give up the foods we grew up loving. Almost every single day, I catch a whiff of barbecue or bacon, and my mouth waters. I can’t help it. It’s a physical response to my taste buds’ “memories.” But I don’t waver in my veganism, because I know that it’s wrong to eat the flesh of a sentient being.
Lucky for me—and you!—now is an awesome time to be vegan. So many products out there make it so easy to eat a plant-based diet. From chicken-less chicken, to cashew “cheese,” to coconut ice cream, there really isn’t any food we can’t enjoy completely free of guilt. It’s my goal to teach others how to live a compassionate and cruelty-free life. A life free of murder, torture, and exploitation. A life free of body shaming and name calling. A life free of animal products.
Let me end by saying that I’m in no way perfect. I don’t grow my own food, and I admit to really enjoying some of the most ridiculous vegan convenience foods. But I’m a vegan in every sense of the word. I have a “V” tattooed below my right ear to remind me of it every single time I look into the mirror. (Yes, the tattoo ink is vegan!) This is a commitment I have made for life. I hope you’ll find the courage to join me!
We wrote this book to share what we’ve learned on our journey and to guide you through yours. We would like to help you transition from a SAD/Sickness and Disease-promoting Diet to a HAPPY (Healthy and Planet-Preserving Yummy) one, while bridging the gap between the people looking to improve their health and those looking to improve the lives of the animals.
We hope you find this book enlightening, inspiring, and helpful on your journey to becoming a WellBeing.