It’s All About Food

It's All About Food - Gesshin Claire Greenwood, Just Enough: Vegan Recipes and Stories from Japan’s Buddhist Temples

Gesshin Claire Greenwood, Just Enough: Vegan Recipes and Stories from Japan’s Buddhist TemplesGesshin Claire Greenwood is the author of Just Enough and Bow First, Ask Questions Later. She also writes the very popular Buddhist blog, That’s So Zen. She was ordained by Seido Suzuki Roshi in 2010 and in 2015 received dharma transmission (authorization to teach). She returned to the United States in 2016 to complete her master’s degree in East Asian Studies. A popular meditation teacher, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Find out more about her work at www.Gesshin.net.

It's All About Food - Linda Soper-Kolton, Compassionate Cuisine

Linda Soper-Kolton, Compassionate CuisineLinda Soper-Kolton came to Catskill Animal Sanctuary in 2012 as a guest chef, intending to teach Compassionate Cuisine cooking classes for a season before returning to her vegetarian and vegan café in Fairfield, Connecticut. Lured by the magic of the sanctuary and the urgency of the mission, Linda stayed to lead and grow the culinary program, inspiring and educating with love, patience, and delicious food. Almost 8 years later, she continues to cook, teach, write, and kiss pigs. Unlike many chefs, Linda did not grow up at the knee of a family matriarch in the kitchen. Instead, her early memories of mealtime included mashed potatoes made with milk powder and potato flakes, Friday’s clean-out-the-fridge “spaghetti surprise,” and a lot of liver. Linda learned to cook out of sheer necessity. In the humble kitchen of her first apartment, Linda spent nights baking, roasting, and simmering for roommates, coworkers, and anyone else she could find. With “food is love” as her mantra, cooking and feeding became her way of nurturing and connecting with others. In midlife, she fulfilled a lifelong dream of becoming a chef when she graduated from the Natural Gourmet Institute. Combining her chef’s training with certification as a holistic health coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Linda is driven to love and influence others through compassionate, plant-based eating. When she’s not in the kitchen creating, she’s probably looking for her glasses.

It's All About Food - Amy Jean Davis, The Save Movement & Laura Reese, Vegan Justice League

Part I: Amy Jean Davis, LA Animal SaveAmy Jean Davis is an animal rights advocate, Spokesperson for the Save Movement, and the Founder of LA Animal Save, the Los Angeles chapter of the global Save Movement.
Davis graduated Purdue University in 2004. After having become vegan in 2002, she started an animal sanctuary in the Los Angeles, California area. In 2015, she completed her certificate in Plant Based Nutrition from eCornell, and in 2016, Amy founded LA Animal Save, which is now the largest chapter of more than 600 Save groups worldwide.
Amy also works with her partner, filmmaker Shaun Monson (EARTHLINGS, UNITY), creating films and other media for the animal rights movement. Originally from a small town in Indiana, Amy came to Los Angeles in 2008 as a top 24 Finalist on season 7 of American Idol.
Part II: Laura Reese, Vegan Justice LeagueLaura Reese’s eighteen-year career in the semiconductor industry was largely spent at Altera Corporation, which is now a division of Intel Corporation. In the product planning department, she directed the customer advisory board (CAB) program. She earned a Bachelor of Science in biomedical and electrical engineering with a business minor from the University of Southern California in 1996.
In 2006, she studied personal finance through Boston University and earned a Certified Financial Planning certificate from the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. In 2014, Laura founded a charity for Rohingya refugees in Malaysia called RohingyaFund.org.
In 2017, Laura began researching our food system and adopted a vegan lifestyle. Recognizing the destructive environmental damage of the animal agriculture industry, she became an activist within months. By early 2018, she founded a local Anonymous for the Voiceless chapter. A year later, she lobbied Congress to help animal farmers transition to sustainable, non-exploitative businesses. Laura continues to lobby for environmental and animal justice through an organization she co-founded with Connie Spence, called The Vegan Justice League.

It's All About Food - Ian Theasby and Henry Firth, BISH BASH BOSH!

Ian Theasby and Henry Firth, BISH BASH BOSH! Ian Theasby, Creative Director and Co-FounderIan is a creative marketeer with a background in fashion whose wordplay and creative concepts create new go-to favorites for BOSH’s thousands of fans. He also desires to bring plant-based food to the world, helping people and planet to thrive.    Henry Firth, Founder and CEOHenry is a creator with a background in digital video and businesses, and a passionate home-taught cook. His life’s mission is to make a positive impact on reducing climate change, by showing the world just how easy, delicious and fun plant-based food can be.

It's All About Food - Karen Davis, PhD, For the Birds: From Exploitation to Liberation

Karen Davis, PhD, For the Birds: From Exploitation to LiberationKAREN DAVIS, PH.D. is the President and Founder of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl including a sanctuary for chickens in Virginia. Inducted into the National Animal Rights Hall of Fame for Outstanding Contributions to Animal Liberation, she is the author of Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry; More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality; The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities; a children’s book A Home for Henny; and Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless ‘Poultry’ Potpourri, a vegan cookbook.
For thirty years, Karen Davis has been advocating for, writing about, and studying the world of chickens and other domesticated fowl. As the founder and director of United Poultry Concerns, Davis has done more than perhaps anyone to reveal the complex and socially rich lives of birds. Her writing―intellectually rigorous, passionate, erudite, and witty―brings fully to the fore the great injustices we have perpetrated on these intelligent and loving creatures.
For the Birds showcases Davis’s three decades of popular and academic work. She tells the story of how she became an advocate and the many individual birds she has known and whose lives and deaths have deepened her commitment to seeking their freedom from suffering.
Stirring, provocative, and brilliantly written, For the Birds illuminates one woman’s enduring quest to change our perceptions of those animals we routinely confine, abuse, and kill by the billions.

It's All About Food - Robin Lamont, The Experiment - 07.16.19

Robin Lamont, The ExperimentRobin Lamont worked as a Broadway actress and singer, playing lead roles in Godspell, Grease, and Working. Her original cast recording of “Day by “Day” and her film version of the song have drawn fans from around the world. Utilizing her acting experience she became an undercover investigator for a PI firm in New York City that specialized in investigations into counterfeiting. During that time she went to law school and later practiced as an Assistant District Attorney in New York. More recently, while continuing her writing Robin volunteers for animal welfare organizations, trying to raise awareness about the plight of animals throughout the world.

It's All About Food - Joanne Lefebvre Connolly, DVM, Animal Teachings

Joanne Lefebvre Connolly, DVM, Animal TeachingsDr. Joanne is a veterinarian promoting intuitive medicine. She guides families in tuning in with their pets, themselves, Nature & the Universe to make better medical decisions. She is vegan and inspires all animals & humans to live in balance, as One, with the web of life. Dr. Joanne published her first book titled Animal Teachings from Hayley’s Angels Methodsand is currently writing her second book.

It's All About Food - Encar Garcia Vila, Jaguar Rescue Center

Encar Garcia Vila, Jaguar Rescue CenterAfter obtaining a degree in Biology from the University of Barcelona, Encar spent 15 years working with primates and mammals in various habitats, including 8 years at the renowned Barcelona Zoo, where she cared for many animals including Snowflake, the unique albino gorilla who called the zoo home for 37 years.

It's All About Food - 21st Century Plant-Based Products

Caryn Hartglass, 21st Century Plant-Based ProductsCaryn talks about lots of new products that are made from plants, or trying to be. Can our food go from “soup to nuts” to Legos, Shoes, Fuel, Burgers?

It's All About Food - Sheldon Krimsky, GMOs Decoded

Sheldon Krimsky, GMOs DecodedSheldon Krimsky is the Lenore Stern Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences and Adjunct Professor in Public Health and Community Medicine in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of sixteen books, including Science in the Private Interest and Stem Cell Dialogues.