My mom, along with most women in the 1960s and ‘70s, did a respectable job of providing well-balanced meals for our family, which in those days meant following the U.S.Department of Agriculture’s Basic Four food groups, two of which were “milk” and “meat.”
As convenience-based living grew in popularity, names like Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemimah, and Sara Lee joined family tables all across the country. The icing on the non-vegan cake was that my father was the treasurer of See’s Candies when I was just one year old. I grew up with the closest thing to having a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. When my Dad came home with empty barrels that had been used to transport chocolate, my brother and I would sit inside them, taking in the aroma, before they became garbage cans or storage containers. Besides the chocolate treats that accompanied every holiday, my father would come home with dozens of brown boxes filled with candy to be donated to various organizations. All I had to do was go into the garage and open one of the boxes to find, for example, sixty pieces of Scotchmallow! This was temptation at its best for an adolescent girl, and I was not good at resisting it. Once I got started, I couldn’t seem to stop. At the same time, I watched my mom and most of her friends go on and off of Weight Watchers while I fell into being obsessed with skinniness.
My obsession grew as I entered college at the University of California Santa Barbara. The dining halls offered up numerous options for every meal every day. “Hmmm… what shall I have for breakfast today? Waffles with strawberries and whipped cream sounds scrumptious! But so does an omelette with mushrooms and cheese with a side of bacon and toast. And look at that enormous cinnamon roll!” At the same time, eating pizza and drinking beer was standard practice.
At the start of my sophomore year, it was time to declare a major. I walked around campus wearing boxer shorts and a baggy sweatshirt in an effort to hide my ‘freshman ten’ - the ten pounds that college women tend to gain during their first year of college, and that today is called the ‘freshman fifteen’ - as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. But my mind could not seem to think beyond my obsession with food. I wondered, “How did something that is so basic to survival become so complex? How can it be that we are born into these amazing human bodies on a planet that serves up an abundance of whole foods and yet so many of us are utterly confused about how to eat? Why does the very act of eating which is intended to nourish body and soul cause so much physical, emotional and spiritual distress? I surmised that this certainly isn’t what nature intended and wanted to be free of this obsession, and so decided to become a nutritionist in hopes of figuring it all out.
This commitment happened just before my father underwent an emergency double-bypass surgery at the young age of 48. To increase my chances of being accepted into UC Berkeley’s Nutrition and Clinical Dietetics Program and his chances at living a longer life, I voluntarily led a county-wide nutrition education program for the American Heart Association. I became well aware of the importance of a ‘heart healthy’ diet, which was furthered through my studies and practice with cardiac patients in various hospital settings. I will never forget having ten minutes to educate a 65 year old man about how to change a lifetime of eating habits while he lay in his hospital bed after having a triple-bypass.
“Can I have an omelette with sausage and hash browns on Sundays after church?” he asked.
“Once in a while,” I answered.
“What about a hot dog and beer when I’m at the baseball game?” he continued. “And what about cake and ice cream at my grandson’s birthday party?”
I don’t imagine that the patient made many changes or lived much longer. In contrast, my father had a fierce will to live and access to a nascent nutritionist. Thus, he changed the way he ate. He wanted to live more than he wanted to enjoy his standard Big Mac and Filet-o-Fish Sandwich with fries and Coke at McDonald’s. He passed on birthday cake with ice cream but enjoyed the celebration all the same, perhaps with a bowl of fresh fruit. He brought his own snacks to sporting events, not even tempted by the fan faire. The changes he made then have continued throughout his life. My father's investment in my education certainly paid off, helping him to far surpass the odds given for his life expectancy.
This experience witnessing the huge changes and challenges one faces when confronted with a chronic disease clarified my desire to focus upon prevention rather than treatment and to reach as many people as possible. I next pursued a Master’s Degree in Public Health Nutrition, also at UC Berkeley. Alongside my studies, I worked as a nutrition researcher for Project LEAN (Lowfat Eating for Americans Now), a grocery store education program intended to influence consumers to purchase lean cuts of meat. At the time, it fit my perspective of moving the public towards ‘heart healthy’ diets. But I remember one of my colleagues teasing with a scornful tone that (I) was working for ‘that meat project.’ Indeed, it was a program funded by the California Beef Council. In my immaturity, I hadn’t quite grasped the political and financial undertones of the program.
I next attended Holy Names College in Oakland, California, to study Culture and Creation Spirituality, which encourages us to teach the story of the universe in such a way that we can identify ourselves within it and become part of its creative process. Because I was pregnant with my first child during that time (1996), I served as a living example of concepts central to the program: creativity, transformation, and compassion. During one of our class meditations, I had an image of being pregnant with the earth. In my vision, I was connected to the planet by a cosmological umbilical cord that both nourished the planet and removed waste from it. As I worked with this image, I considered that the human body is a microcosm of the earth, composed of the same elements in the same proportion: about three-quarters water and one-quarter solid, organic and inorganic. It was beautifully symbolic, given that the way a woman eats during pregnancy has a significant impact on the life-long health of her baby. Pregnant women take better care of themselves during pregnancy than at any other time in their lives. They want more to give birth to a healthy child than to indulge in alcohol, tobacco, or unhealthy foods.They do this out of love and compassion for their unborn child, something they perceive to be of greater value than themselves.
I realized that the way each of us eats has a significant impact on the health of the planet. This image of being pregnant with the earth then extended to a vision of every one of us being pregnant with the earth. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Even if you do not have a baby in your womb, the seed is already there. Even if you are not married, even if you are a man, you should be aware that a baby is already there, the seeds of future generations are already there.” Placing the earth within our body helps remind us of our intimate connection with the natural world, our great dependence upon it for survival, and its great dependence upon us for survival. Taking into account our growing diet-related health crisis in regard to obesity, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune disorders, it is clear that making choices to benefit our individual health does not provide enough reason for many to do so, but perhaps the motivation to care for something greater than ourselves can.
Then, I studied the impact of our food choices on the environment. I learned about the vast swaths of forest that are cleared for cattle grazing and to grow livestock feed. I learned that livestock production contributes 37 percent of human-induced emissions of methane, which has a 30 times higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide. I learned about the depletion of our oceans due to human consumption patterns. All of this completely raised the bar on how I eat, releasing animal foods from my diet and focusing on plants instead. And, over time, my compassion grew to include the animals who experience the ultimate sacrifice due to our animal-based ways of eating. Unlike the many other efforts I had made to support my relationship with food, this came naturally. The insight that I am eating for something other than myself provided huge motivation for me to make better choices. The struggle to make food decisions melted away. I felt stronger, more vibrant, more beautiful, and more aligned as a spiritual being. Eating became a pleasurable activity that had me volunteering every day on behalf of the planet.
By prioritizing authenticity, however, I never felt comfortable saying that I was vegan. To be truly vegan means to give up all animal foods all of the time: no honey in your tea, no wearing clothes, shoes, or accessories made from animal products (even if you bought that leather purse twenty years ago), no use of products that may have been tested on animals, and not one bite of cheese at that holiday cocktail party. So, about ten years ago, when a friend asked me if I was vegan, knowing that I eat a plant-based diet, I said, “I’m imperfectly vegan.” She stared at me and nodded her head in silence. It made perfect sense to her. At speaking events, when I unveil this term, I often hear a collective sigh of relief in the room.
“Imperfectly Vegan” piques people’s curiosity, and many seem interested in locating
themselves within that definition. It feels doable and represents a more significant step toward
plant-based eating than vegetarianism does; it engenders a sense of peace, ease, and hope
in people who are interested in following a vegan diet but are unsure whether they can successfully do so; and it seems to make sense to those who already practice a vegan lifestyle but admit to consuming small amounts of animal foods, for one reason or another, consciously and not.
As convenience-based living grew in popularity, names like Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemimah, and Sara Lee joined family tables all across the country. The icing on the non-vegan cake was that my father was the treasurer of See’s Candies when I was just one year old. I grew up with the closest thing to having a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. When my Dad came home with empty barrels that had been used to transport chocolate, my brother and I would sit inside them, taking in the aroma, before they became garbage cans or storage containers. Besides the chocolate treats that accompanied every holiday, my father would come home with dozens of brown boxes filled with candy to be donated to various organizations. All I had to do was go into the garage and open one of the boxes to find, for example, sixty pieces of Scotchmallow! This was temptation at its best for an adolescent girl, and I was not good at resisting it. Once I got started, I couldn’t seem to stop. At the same time, I watched my mom and most of her friends go on and off of Weight Watchers while I fell into being obsessed with skinniness.
My obsession grew as I entered college at the University of California Santa Barbara. The dining halls offered up numerous options for every meal every day. “Hmmm… what shall I have for breakfast today? Waffles with strawberries and whipped cream sounds scrumptious! But so does an omelette with mushrooms and cheese with a side of bacon and toast. And look at that enormous cinnamon roll!” At the same time, eating pizza and drinking beer was standard practice.
At the start of my sophomore year, it was time to declare a major. I walked around campus wearing boxer shorts and a baggy sweatshirt in an effort to hide my ‘freshman ten’ - the ten pounds that college women tend to gain during their first year of college, and that today is called the ‘freshman fifteen’ - as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. But my mind could not seem to think beyond my obsession with food. I wondered, “How did something that is so basic to survival become so complex? How can it be that we are born into these amazing human bodies on a planet that serves up an abundance of whole foods and yet so many of us are utterly confused about how to eat? Why does the very act of eating which is intended to nourish body and soul cause so much physical, emotional and spiritual distress? I surmised that this certainly isn’t what nature intended and wanted to be free of this obsession, and so decided to become a nutritionist in hopes of figuring it all out.
This commitment happened just before my father underwent an emergency double-bypass surgery at the young age of 48. To increase my chances of being accepted into UC Berkeley’s Nutrition and Clinical Dietetics Program and his chances at living a longer life, I voluntarily led a county-wide nutrition education program for the American Heart Association. I became well aware of the importance of a ‘heart healthy’ diet, which was furthered through my studies and practice with cardiac patients in various hospital settings. I will never forget having ten minutes to educate a 65 year old man about how to change a lifetime of eating habits while he lay in his hospital bed after having a triple-bypass.
“Can I have an omelette with sausage and hash browns on Sundays after church?” he asked.
“Once in a while,” I answered.
“What about a hot dog and beer when I’m at the baseball game?” he continued. “And what about cake and ice cream at my grandson’s birthday party?”
I don’t imagine that the patient made many changes or lived much longer. In contrast, my father had a fierce will to live and access to a nascent nutritionist. Thus, he changed the way he ate. He wanted to live more than he wanted to enjoy his standard Big Mac and Filet-o-Fish Sandwich with fries and Coke at McDonald’s. He passed on birthday cake with ice cream but enjoyed the celebration all the same, perhaps with a bowl of fresh fruit. He brought his own snacks to sporting events, not even tempted by the fan faire. The changes he made then have continued throughout his life. My father's investment in my education certainly paid off, helping him to far surpass the odds given for his life expectancy.
This experience witnessing the huge changes and challenges one faces when confronted with a chronic disease clarified my desire to focus upon prevention rather than treatment and to reach as many people as possible. I next pursued a Master’s Degree in Public Health Nutrition, also at UC Berkeley. Alongside my studies, I worked as a nutrition researcher for Project LEAN (Lowfat Eating for Americans Now), a grocery store education program intended to influence consumers to purchase lean cuts of meat. At the time, it fit my perspective of moving the public towards ‘heart healthy’ diets. But I remember one of my colleagues teasing with a scornful tone that (I) was working for ‘that meat project.’ Indeed, it was a program funded by the California Beef Council. In my immaturity, I hadn’t quite grasped the political and financial undertones of the program.
I next attended Holy Names College in Oakland, California, to study Culture and Creation Spirituality, which encourages us to teach the story of the universe in such a way that we can identify ourselves within it and become part of its creative process. Because I was pregnant with my first child during that time (1996), I served as a living example of concepts central to the program: creativity, transformation, and compassion. During one of our class meditations, I had an image of being pregnant with the earth. In my vision, I was connected to the planet by a cosmological umbilical cord that both nourished the planet and removed waste from it. As I worked with this image, I considered that the human body is a microcosm of the earth, composed of the same elements in the same proportion: about three-quarters water and one-quarter solid, organic and inorganic. It was beautifully symbolic, given that the way a woman eats during pregnancy has a significant impact on the life-long health of her baby. Pregnant women take better care of themselves during pregnancy than at any other time in their lives. They want more to give birth to a healthy child than to indulge in alcohol, tobacco, or unhealthy foods.They do this out of love and compassion for their unborn child, something they perceive to be of greater value than themselves.
I realized that the way each of us eats has a significant impact on the health of the planet. This image of being pregnant with the earth then extended to a vision of every one of us being pregnant with the earth. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Even if you do not have a baby in your womb, the seed is already there. Even if you are not married, even if you are a man, you should be aware that a baby is already there, the seeds of future generations are already there.” Placing the earth within our body helps remind us of our intimate connection with the natural world, our great dependence upon it for survival, and its great dependence upon us for survival. Taking into account our growing diet-related health crisis in regard to obesity, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune disorders, it is clear that making choices to benefit our individual health does not provide enough reason for many to do so, but perhaps the motivation to care for something greater than ourselves can.
Then, I studied the impact of our food choices on the environment. I learned about the vast swaths of forest that are cleared for cattle grazing and to grow livestock feed. I learned that livestock production contributes 37 percent of human-induced emissions of methane, which has a 30 times higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide. I learned about the depletion of our oceans due to human consumption patterns. All of this completely raised the bar on how I eat, releasing animal foods from my diet and focusing on plants instead. And, over time, my compassion grew to include the animals who experience the ultimate sacrifice due to our animal-based ways of eating. Unlike the many other efforts I had made to support my relationship with food, this came naturally. The insight that I am eating for something other than myself provided huge motivation for me to make better choices. The struggle to make food decisions melted away. I felt stronger, more vibrant, more beautiful, and more aligned as a spiritual being. Eating became a pleasurable activity that had me volunteering every day on behalf of the planet.
By prioritizing authenticity, however, I never felt comfortable saying that I was vegan. To be truly vegan means to give up all animal foods all of the time: no honey in your tea, no wearing clothes, shoes, or accessories made from animal products (even if you bought that leather purse twenty years ago), no use of products that may have been tested on animals, and not one bite of cheese at that holiday cocktail party. So, about ten years ago, when a friend asked me if I was vegan, knowing that I eat a plant-based diet, I said, “I’m imperfectly vegan.” She stared at me and nodded her head in silence. It made perfect sense to her. At speaking events, when I unveil this term, I often hear a collective sigh of relief in the room.
“Imperfectly Vegan” piques people’s curiosity, and many seem interested in locating
themselves within that definition. It feels doable and represents a more significant step toward
plant-based eating than vegetarianism does; it engenders a sense of peace, ease, and hope
in people who are interested in following a vegan diet but are unsure whether they can successfully do so; and it seems to make sense to those who already practice a vegan lifestyle but admit to consuming small amounts of animal foods, for one reason or another, consciously and not.
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A sustainable lifestyle for ourselves and the planet.
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