Coming to a Theater Near You!

I make little secret of my firm belief that a vegan revolution is underway.  As of yet, it’s just gaining gradual momentum.  We make up only about 1% of the population.  Want to know what’s going to blow this vegan movement out of the underground and into the mainstream consciousness?  Two films, which are coming out this year within weeks of each other.

Sure, there have been books like Diet For a New America and Vegan With a Vengeance for a decade or so, but movies are so much more consumable!  (And did you know most movie theaters serve vegan popcorn?)  After becoming vegan, I felt obliged to read Animal Liberation in full, and I’m currently slogging through The China Study, with its extensive scientific data on the health risks of consuming even small amounts of animal products.  I sell books for a living, and I’m very aware that not everyone’s going to read a book about animal rights, or about their diet.  That’s why I was so thrilled to learn about Forks Over Knives, a documentary which will outline the incredible health benefits of a whole food, plant based diet. Many medical and scientific experts are featured in this film, most notably Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study, Dr.Dr. Neal Barnard, author of Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes, and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.

I think it’s perfect timing for this critical information to be shared with the public. People are ready to hear the truth about the link between their food and their health, and this film will refute pervasive myths about the healthiness of vegan eating.

The second film is fictional, but tells a very important story –one that would be difficult to show in any other way, though from what I can tell, it closely mirrors reality.   Bold Native is about an animal rights activist and liberator, someone who illegally rescues animals, and who is pursued by the FBI for prosecution under a new law called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, or AETA.  (Another great article on AETA and its effects here.)  I know this is a highly controversial issue, and I look forward to seeing how people react to the film.  Are animals legal property, or are they creatures in their own right, with as much of a claim on their future lives as a human has?  If the laws are immoral, should we behave lawfully or ethically?  This film will drive viewers to think critically about issues they may never have considered before.

I anticipate the convergence of these two films this summer will bring about an expansion of veganism.  Neither film has a specific release date yet, but to stay updated, you can follow them on facebook. 

Forks Over Knives is at http://www.facebook.com/forksoverknives

Bold Native is at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bold-Native/162792945925

The End of Dieting

Well, it’s January 1st, and that means an avalanche of salads are being eaten today.  People are jogging in frigid temperatures, joining gyms, and dusting off forgotten exercise machines in an effort to lose the pounds they put on over the holidays, or over a lifetime.  The number of diet and exercise books sold between Christmas and Groundhog day could (and used to) fill a forest!

I don’t recall at what age I started making New Year’s resolutions, but I can tell you that the first thing on my list for many years was “lose weight”, “get in shape”, “lose 15 pounds”, “get a flat stomach“, or some other variation on that theme.  Ironically, it wasn’t until I stopped dieting that I lost weight, dropped body fat, and felt truly healthy for the first time.  It didn’t happen until I was vegan.

Further irony lies in the fact that I didn’t go vegan to lose weight, or to be healthier.  To me, veganism was not a diet.  It was a moral imperative.  I had read the facts, watched the gruesome footage, and knew what I had to do, even if it meant suffering from protein deficiency.  (Which, of course, it didn’t.)

By that point in my life, I had come to peace with my several extra pounds around the waist, but a strange thing happened when I started reading labels and paying attention to what I ate: without ever trying, without touching a treadmill or counting a calorie, I started losing weight.  And I kept it off.  Not only did the gut I’d had since my chubby childhood vanish, but I stopped feeling tired halfway through the work day, stopped getting sick every time one coworker got a cold, and stopped suffering from chronic digestion problems.

Ruefully, I think of how much of my life I spent feeling trapped behind the fat, even though there wasn’t that much of it.  How self-conscious I was, how afraid to go swimming (I never learned), afraid I wasn’t attractive, afraid to relax (belly flab might stick out), to have my picture taken (the double chin).  Over 5 years ago, my then-boyfriend bought me a floor-length, backless gown for me to wear out on a fancy date.  Instead, I had an emotional breakdown over how fat I felt, and wore a “safe” shirt and skirt.  I wore that dress for the first time at a party several weeks ago, and loved how I felt in it.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Americans are sick.  Obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are all caused primarily by eating poorly.  Our health care system is about to collapse under all the weight (pun intended), and the answer doesn’t lie in protein shakes, calorie counting notebooks, or infomercial exercise gimmicks.  (I’m ashamed to tell you which ones I tried.)  Plants are the answer: high in fiber, vitamins, and anti-oxidants, and low in fat, cholesterol, and calories.

If I sound like I’m selling the latest diet craze, let me make one thing clear: veganism is a way of life, not just a way of eating.  But it has undeniable health benefits.  Maybe it’s karma. Maybe I had 25 pounds of guilt around my waist.  Maybe it’s the fact that I finally had a reason to eat veggies instead of cake.  But what I know is that now I eat guilt-free 100% of the time, and I’ve never loved food, or the way it makes me feel, so much.