This Meatless Monday, Will Tuttle, Ph.D. discusses his thoughts on a question many vegans (or Meatless Monday warriors!) receive all the time: “What would happen if everyone stopped eating animals?” After reading today’s blog, you’ll have more knowledge to ponder as your develop your own perspective…

Those of us eating a plant-based diet often find our food choices causing more questions and consternation during the Holidays than during the rest of the year. One of the perennial concerns I’ve found people have is that if everyone went vegan, what would happen to all the animals—chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows, and fish? If we stopped eating them, wouldn’t they just take over the Earth, threatening our survival?

For years this question irked me because it seemed patently ridiculous, and worse, would be used to justify the cruelty of eating animal foods. Now, though, whenever I hear this question, I am delighted to respond to it because it’s an opportunity to deliver a brief meditation on how our world can be healed.

Imagining the world gradually going vegan is imagining the most positive possible future for our species, for the Earth, and for all living beings. First of all, as we reduce the number of animals we are eating, that will send a message to agribusiness to forcefully inseminate fewer female pigs, turkeys, cows, and other animals, so fewer animals will be hyper-confined, and there will be less mutilation, killing, violence, terror, and suffering. It also means there will be lower demand for corn, soy, and other feed grains, and thus less deforestation, monocropping, and pollution. As this continues, there will be more food to feed starving people, and also monocropped land can be returned to being critically-needed habitat for wildlife, whose populations are being decimated by the habitat loss caused by grazing livestock and growing feed grains. As the vegan trend continues, streams will come back and run cleaner, more birds, fish, and other animals will be able to thrive, there will be far less toxic pesticides and fertilizers needed, and the oceans will begin to heal. As recent studies have shown, livestock production is the main driving force behind global warming, and this also will decrease. In addition, by eating less animal-based foods, people will be healthier physically as they eliminate the toxic fat, cholesterol, and animal protein that drive obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, kidney disease, heart disease, and drug use. People will become healthier emotionally and spiritually, also, as they cause and eat less misery, and our culture, as its level of violence decreases, will become healthier also.

As forest, rainforest, and prairie communities come back to life, along with riparian and ocean communities, the devastating mass extinction of species that is going on right now will slow down. To raise and slaughter hundreds of millions animals daily for food on this planet, we are forcing many hundreds of species of animals and plants into extinction every week. Because of our appetites for a few species of birds, mammals, and fish, we are destroying the Earth’s genetic diversity, and it seems absurd to be unconcerned about these tens of thousands of species, but to care only about the few that we’re eating. In any event, the animals we imprison today for food lived freely in nature for millions of years and could do so again. The animals that we most intensely factory-farm, such as turkeys, ducks, geese, chickens, and fish, are all doing just fine in the wild (aside from being hunted and having their habitat destroyed). They would continue to do so, and this is also true for pigs, sheep, and goats, which even today have substantial wild populations. There is no reason to think that the animals we are eating and using wouldn’t be able to return to their natural lives living freely in nature—they already are!

Cows are the only possible question—their progenitors, the aurochs, were forced into extinction in the 1600s, but it is very conceivable that cows could be reintroduced into central Asia and Africa where they lived for millions of years, and with time would return to the ecological niche they inhabited before cruel human enslavement tore them from their ancestral homelands.

So, it’s a refreshing question to ponder—uplifting and heartening—to think of “what will happen to cows, chickens, and pigs if we all stop eating meat, dairy products, and eggs?” I hope we all can discuss this question a few times during the holidays, and by doing so, pull back the curtain to reveal the positive future we can create together. There is no action more powerful that anyone can take to subvert the dominant paradigm of exploitation and inequality than to shift to a plant-based diet for ethical reasons. By going vegan, and spreading the vegan message creatively, we take the most effective action to create a world where peace, abundance, sustainability, freedom, and universal joy are not just possible but natural.

As the winter holidays approach, many of us get overwhelmed as we prepare to host parties and formal dinners for family and friends. I think one of the reasons we become overwhelmed is because our expectations are so unrealistically high. We project these expectations onto our guests and are afraid that if everything isn’t absolutely perfect, we will be judged as inadequate.

Add to that the pressure that this one vegan meal represents all vegan meals and better be extraordinary, lest your guests leave with the false impression that vegan fare is mediocre or inferior.

One of the ways we can take some pressure off is by re-thinking what we have been taught about what a meal – or a plate – should look like.

The foods we choose, the way we construct our plates, our perception of what a “complete meal” looks like are all based on what we have been taught within our culture and within our families: that meat is the centerpiece of a meal, along with some token side dishes.

What I have learned in my many years of observing people is that it’s not the lifeless animal that sits as the centerpiece that people are attached to as much as they are attached to having a centerpiece, a focus on the table, a focus on the plate, and this can be accomplished in so many ways using beautiful, compassionate plant-based foods.

In fact, a spread based on plant-based foods is so much more aesthetically pleasing than one based on animal products. Taking advantage of the huge variety of colors, textures, sizes, and shapes of plant foods, here are some suggestions for creating a focal point out of a main dish.

STUFF IT: Stuff eggplants, bell or jalapeno peppers, mushrooms, winter or summer squash, potatoes, olives, pea pods, or corn husks.

CONTAIN IT: In the spirit of serving food in something else, create a main dish using ramekins, custard cups, or individual bowls, or make miniature pot pies for each person.

MAINSTAY IT: Tofu, tempeh, seitan, and portabello mushrooms are all great options to serve as the “main dish.” They are hearty, “meaty,” and protein-rich, which is one of the criteria by which people tend to judge “main dishes.”

MOLD IT: Anything made as a loaf, patty, timbale, mold, or burger also serves as great main-dish items.

And remember it is your intentions that your guests appreciate. They do not expect perfection – and neither should you. It is about creating a compassionate center around which you and your loved ones can gather.

After I finished writing The Vegan Table, my publisher and I began throwing around ideas for titles of this book. I insisted that we not use the phrase “vegan entertaining.” To me, that phrase implies that vegans employ some special method of entertaining unique only to them, when in truth, they are just normal folk who want to celebrate holidays and gather with friends – just like everyone else.

It would be disingenuous, however, to say there isn’t something special about a gathering where no animals are harmed for the sake of our pleasure. When a sense of consciousness informs our actions, when our intentions reflect kindness and nonviolence, when our thoughts turn to someone else’s needs rather than our own desires, there is no denying that something profound takes place.

In the absence of suffering, there is peace. In the presence of compassion, there is joy.

That is vegan entertaining.

Whether you are hosting an intimate gathering of close friends or a large celebration with an open guest list, may you have a blessed and healthful holiday. May you make choices that reflect your deepest values, and may you find abundance and joy in a life lived simply so that others may simply live.

Hello Happy Holiday Elves!!

The Holiday Season is upon us again. Spending time with family on special occasions can bring such joy and happiness but for many it can create overwhelming stress. Since you are the architect of all of your life experiences, decide how you want to feel this holiday season. Then go about systematically making decisions that are in line with that result. There are big and small changes you can make this year to relieve stress and have happy holidays!

Below is a list of actions for de-stressing the Holiday Mess:

1. Prep Before:

Create a gift list and budget and stick to it. Decide beforehand what gatherings you will attend and what you will bring. Choose easy uncomplicated dishes that store well. Whatever you complete prior to holiday week will reduce your stress and leave you available to have a good time. No Christmas Eve shopping EVER!

2. Adjust Your Attitude:

Go into the season with the mindset of gratitude. Decide that no one has the power to take away your joy and mean it. Try to meditate ten minutes a day, master on the spot breathing techniques and carry a small bottle of Lavender essential oil for instant de-stressing.

3. Keep Your Side Of The Street Clean:

You are only responsible for how YOU behave and react in all situations. If every year your mother-in-law criticizes your culinary skills, expect her to be different but if she is not, smile and do not utter a sound. Dial down your energy from any stressful situation or person. See yourself as Un-offendable. You know that someone being rude or nasty is their issue and you can either chose to do your old familiar dance with them or just…not. Don’t micro manage anything or anyone. Find family members whose company you enjoy and focus your time with them while affirming how calm, peaceful and grateful you feel. (Of course the key here is to FEEL it and hold that feeling in your chest.)

4. NO Is Not A 4 Letter Word:

You have the right to say no to anything that will take the joy out of the season for you or your family. If certain family gatherings create debilitating stress then give yourself permission to respectfully decline and create new traditions that bring you joy. If a situation is too toxic, it is your job to protect yourself from it. If you have children, let each one chose an event or party to attend that really matters to them, politely declining the rest. If exchanging gifts with grown siblings is too costly say so and perhaps pull names out of a hat so you are only buying for one person. If hosting is too much work and money, transition to a potluck meal with everyone contributing their own special flavor. Being over burdened financially or emotionally is not fun. Say no and feel good about taking care of yourself and your family.

5. Know When To Say When:

Drunks are stressful AND boring. This time of year produces many opportunities to overindulge in alcohol. The reasons not to drink too much are obvious. If you don’t think you drink too much and everyone else in your life thinks you do…it’s probably not a conspiracy, you probably drink too much…but that is a blog for another time.

6. Pay It Forward:

Remember what the holidays are really all about and donate your time to help others less fortunate in your community. This is a wonderful way to teach children the importance of service to others and to keep your head at the heart of what really matters. Forgive a grudge you have been holding and reach out, help an elderly neighbor or family member, go out of your way to communicate your gratitude to the important people in your life for their presence. No material gift ever received is as satisfying as truly making a difference in someone else’s journey (although those new Louboutins platform pumps come pretty darn close…hee hee…kidding!)

I hope that some of these ideas help you create the holiday experience you seek, filled with love, light joy and laughter.

Sending you twinkly lights and sugar plum hugs!

Love Love Love

Your Crazy Sexy Life Coach,

Terri

It’s that time again. The holidays are here. For many people there are gifts to make or purchase, parties to go to, family gatherings to attend, and lots of planning to do. I feel stressed already! Of course, I admit I put these stresses on myself.

With so much to do it is important to take EXTRA good care of yourself at this time. This can be a challenging thing to do when faced with social engagements such as parties and family gatherings with tempting festive food to gorge upon. Here are some of my special tips to help when those difficult moments arise…

Plan ahead. If you are visiting family or going to a party eat before you go, bring food with you, call ahead and ask what kind of food will be served, bring a dish that will be big enough for you to eat and share with others.

Say as little as possible about your diet. Be an example of a healthy person and that will speak for itself. If you talk in detail about your diet you will welcome the possibility of a debate, others may feel uncomfortable and threatened, and you may end up feeling like a freak.

If your host feels sorry for you because you don’t want to eat/drink toxic substances, say “I feel so good eating this way and it’s worth it!” Your enthusiasm will shine and no one can ever tell you how to feel. If others are insulted that you are not eating their food and you have explained that it may make you sick to eat then they are not being considerate to you. When you are a guest in someone’s home they should be concerned that you are comfortable and happy. Right? Answer: make sure you bring your own chow.

Cravings. A beast. The definition of a craving is ‘to long for’ or ‘a desire.’ Temptation will be everywhere and whether you’re happy or gloomy anyone can find cause to lose his or her head.

Ready for the answer? Stay conscious and present in the moment. It really is your choice. The question is: Is the payoff of giving into a craving really worth it to you? When I have a craving I tune in. What is it that I really want? Is it the taste? Do I want sweet, salty, crunchy, chewy, spicy, or creamy? Or is it that this gal can’t resist free food? How about the numbing out experience of a starch overload? When we overeat we become so sedated from the chemical reactions in our body that it causes a stimulating effect. Foods such as meat, dairy, wheat, and  sugar all contain opiate like substances that induce pleasure sensations in the body and can cause dependency. That means food addiction. So, if you reach for the bread or the pastries your healthy diet may go down the drain. Kaput! Chances are you will soon be dreaming about when you can eat those cupcakes again. If you think you can get away with eating just one, you may want to think again. Remember how you felt last time you gave in.

Solution. Try having some great substitutes on hand. Raw food desserts are delicious. Break open those cookbooks and get the dehydrator on. Mine is on right now!

Negotiate. I do this all the time and I have been eating raw food in great abundance for two decades. So, you want a potato chip. A good tactic is to ask yourself if you can avoid having it today and make a deal with yourself. If you want it tomorrow then you will consider it. Usually, the craving is long forgotten. However, if the next day you are still thinking about that darn potato chip that you missed eating at the party, consider finding a healthier substitute. How about dehydrated crackers or air popped popcorn? If you try this strategy, you may be able to let it go.

Can you let it go? Are you ready? That is the true question. As long as you feel it is okay to still eat food that you know is toxic it will continue to be a temptation and have a hold of you. I haven’t eaten pizza in 20 years and I can watch someone eat it without developing a craving for it. I used to love pizza.

Of course, this blog would not be complete without mentioning the good old colonic. Often, when one is holding old food in the body it will interfere with good digestion and assimilation. Cleansing the colon will help to heal food cravings and improve digestion. Any illustration of a human colon will reveal a thread running along it also known as the nervous system. A full toxic colon will aggravate the nervous system and can create irritability, anxiety, mood swings and those crazy food cravings. There is no better time then now to wipe the slate clean!

Finally, tuning in also means looking deeper inside yourself to see what your craving is really about emotionally. Perhaps, this holiday season you don’t have a mate, or it feels stressful to visit family, you may be grieving a loss in your life, or struggling financially. We all have dilemmas that we contemplate on a daily basis. Instead of feeding the problem with a fast fix of food indulgences why not think of something else. Feed your soul with a walk in the park, call a long missed friend, take a hot bath with essential oils, schedule a massage or sauna, or put on your favorite music and sing and dance. I do!

Gratitude is the best medicine on earth. Even if you can only be grateful for each breath you take. Your life is a treasured gift to cherish during the holiday season.

Happy Holidays!

For many of us, Thanksgiving is about indulgence. Around this time of year, I’m usually flying down to visit my parents in Florida, where we prepare a feast and eat much more than we typically would. Thanksgiving, not unlike the other major holidays, has become more about buying certain things assigned to that holiday and subscribing to a ritual that makes us feel good (indulging in the company of friends and family) under the guise of goodwill. And maybe that goodwill isn’t just a guise, but as we all try to act out that famous Norman Rockwell painting, accurate history just doesn’t seem to matter.

Consider what historians have recently discovered – that Spanish-speaking, Catholic settlers dined on bean soup with the Timucua Indians almost a half-century prior to the famed 1621 Plymouth celebration (which incidentally did not have a single factory farmed Turkey at the table – and no cranberry or potatoes). So how is it that 500 years later, this holiday has become a showcase of nothing but Turkey? It is know as “Turkey Day.”

Last Thanksgiving I warned, “It’s Me or the Turkey,” vowing to never again sit at a table where the body of an individual whose existence was thankless is set out on display. A bird whose morbidly engineered body: painfully detoed and debeaked without anesthesia, forced to live in one sq-foot of space, pumped full of drugs and hormones – is somehow turned into the centerpiece of gratitude. An individual whose life is not considered valid. How is it that this abstinence I have asserted is seen as “radical”, yet the processes by which this dead body arrived is not? How is it that talking about the truth of turkey farming is avoided like the plague, yet putting the product of that truth in our mouths is so enthusiastically embraced?

Every year almost 300 million turkeys are slaughtered in the US. Of that, 46 million are specifically killed for Thanksgiving. Having been bred to grow at alarming rates (twice as fast and twice as large as their ancestors, often causing heart attacks), commercial turkeys are slaughtered after only 14-18 weeks. Many of them die of exposure during transport to the slaughterhouse, and when they arrive, many are not properly stunned prior to slaughter. Turkeys and other poultry are specifically excluded from the Humane Slaughter Act, which requires that animals be stunned prior to slaughter. Finally, as the birds who have not been stunned avoid the automated blades slitting their throats, they are often boiled alive in scalding tanks. Even “free-range” turkeys are no better off. In an industry where maximum output and profit are king, it is no surprise that suffering by individuals who fall between the cracks is so easily overlooked. As much as we’d like them to be true, our delusions of these birds having come from peaceful, Utopian farms must be shattered.

Please take a look at these undercover investigations in turkey facilities from our friends at Compassion Over Killing and Peta.

As Johnathan Safran Foer says in Eating Animals, “We can not plead ignorance, only indifference.” Given what we now know about food production and factory farms, where 99% of animal products come from, it’s difficult to rationalize eating turkeys in a symbolic gesture of thankfulness. The scientific community recently re-wrote the book on bird-brains, revealing how incredibly intelligent turkeys and chickens actually are, shaming the community that capitalized on their perceived stupidity. We also know that the environmental consequences of raising animals for food is greater than the entire transportation sector. We know that we don’t need to eat a Turkey any more than a Twinkie, yet the sentimentality of tradition persists, and so many of us purchase the anonymous, plastic-wrapped, frozen body of a creature and gather with our families around it like some sort of shrine that we are entitled to, never giving a second thought to who he or she was, and what his or her perception and experience of this world was like.

Please take a moment to watch the short video I produced for Farm Sanctuary featuring actress Ginnifer Goodwin as she considers this “tradition based on cruelty” while hanging out with some rescued Turkeys at the sanctuary in Orlan, California.

So what’s the alternative? Can Thanksgiving be Thanksgiving without turkey? Here are a couple tips on a conscientious celebration and ideas for a truly thankful holiday:

-Check out my recipe for Pumpkin Pockets with Smoky Seitan, Mushroom Mousse, & Braised Apple, or check out my recipe page for other ideas!
-Try Celebration Roast, Tofurky, or Unturkey as the new centerpiece!