Ordinary Vegan Podcast

Eating the rainbow is a simple way of reminding yourself to consume different colors of fruits and vegetables. By consuming an array of colorful plants, you provide your body with a powerhouse of nutrients that helps ward off disease.   Today's podcast will explore why eating a variety of fruits and vegetables helps you and how each color of fruits and vegetables bring their own individual vitamin...

Whether you're giving up animal products for your health, animal rights or climate change, you may need assistance. Today we discuss some tried and tested vegan tips to help this process go more smoothly. Here are a few problems we explore. Eating out or not knowing what to feed your non-vegan family can be challenging. These vegan tips should help you survive as a vegan in a multi-vore household....

Learning how to read a food label can help you make smart food choices. But decoding the nutrition facts can be baffling. Today's podcast will teach you how to build food labeling skills to make it easier for you to use nutrition labels to make quick, informed food choices. Subjects covered in today's podcasts include: Navigating nutrition facts Calories Fat Calories Saturated Fat Carbohydrates Pr...

Fifty-years-ago, the sugar industry funded research that downplayed the risks of sugar and highlighted the hazards of fat. Forty-years-ago, high fructose corn syrup  (HFCS) started trickling into our food supply. Most people didn't know what HFCS was. So began the confusion about what is sugar and what sugars are healthy. When I decided to tackle the subject of sugar, one of the most surprising st...

It's no secret that human activity is changing the climate.  For many, how to protect the environment can seem like a daunting task. In October 2018, the United Nations top climate science panel gathered in South Korea to prepare a new report on climate change. Their report stated the starkest warnings to date of the consequences of climate change. They predicted if significant steps were not take...

In an effort to lose weight, it's easy to be tempted by various fad diets. The difference between good fats and bad fats can get confusing. In today's podcast, we explore the myths and truths about fat and low carb diets. TOPICS INCLUDED: Fat and cholesterol Saturated Fat Unsaturated Fat Trans Fat Polyunsaturated Fat The Ketogenic Diet The Atkins Diet REFERENCES: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/...

Positive emotions have been linked with better health, longer life,  and a greater sense of well being.   If you are reading this, then you already are seeking to live a healthier lifestyle,   And a healthy lifestyle brings longevity.   We talk so much about living longer but do we ask ourselves enough "why do we want to live longer?" What is our sense of purpose that gets us up every day and brin...

Each year, over 50 million Americans experience various types of allergies. Many of these allergic conditions are on the rise.  In medicine, the hygiene hypothesis states a lack of early childhood exposure to germs suppresses the natural development of the immune system.  In other words, living conditions in much of the world might be too clean and being exposed to germs as a child may protect us...

Whether you want to improve your memory during exam season or simple stay sharp in your next work meeting, knowing the best brain food to add to your diet can really pay off. Or maybe you are worried about age-related problems like dementia. Although dementia is not a specific disease, it is a general term for a decline in mental ability. Mental decline comes in lots of varieties, Alzheimer's is t...

You may think dream interpretation is an unusual subject for a health and wellness podcast, but dreaming is an important function for our emotional health. Dreams are often the way the brain solves problems and deals with our concerns. Furthermore, some psychologists think that dreams are nothing more than random brain activity. While others like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung believe that dreams can...

The amount of faux meats and processed vegan-friendly products has exploded in the past two years. Subsequently, if you are a full-time or part-time vegan who regularly consumes processed vegan foods, these foods can be as unhealthy as animal products. Bottom line, vegan lifestyles aren't always healthier if you don't fill your plate with a balance of whole vegan foods. In today's podcast, I discu...

When I saw that September was National Suicide month, a month devoted to inform and engage the general public about suicide prevention, I finally got the courage to do a podcast about this subject.  Suicide is a national health crisis and a serious medical condition like cancer or heart disease, and there should be no stigma attached to suicidal thoughts. Anyone could be struggling and what I hope...

Do you often feel the pain of others? Do you feel drained after being around certain people for too long? Do you find yourself caring for or taking care of others more than yourself sometimes? Do you feel feelings deeper, harder, and longer than others. Are you sensitive to smells, crowds or excessive talking. Do you have a strong connection to nature or the animal kingdom? If so, you may be an em...

Cooking with plants is a lifestyle that can be enjoyed full or part-time. Even adding two or three plant-based meals to your diet every week can have significant health benefits. A recent study published in the Journal of The American Heart Association revealed that swapping one or two servings of animal protein for plant protein could lead to a reduction in three main cholesterol markers for card...

Health and wellness are not merely about diet and exercise, but also about limiting our exposure to toxic chemicals. For the past two decades, toxic chemicals have been added to everything from make-up, household cleaning supplies, clothing, pots, pans, building materials, mattresses, and even perfume. And scientific studies are now showing us that chemicals found in a wide array of household good...

"The Starch Solution is a diet based on starch. Yes, let me say that again, it is a diet based on starch"                              --Dr. John McDougall "Dr. John McDougall is the dean of medical practitioners in nutrition-centered medicine- because of his incredible accomplishments, knowledge, and courage to stand up for what he believes. Thousands of his patients know him as an icon. When you...

For those of you who are new to eating vegan, shopping for food can be daunting. Today we take a look at what staples go into a vegan refrigerator, and we prepare a very versatile, rich, savory, creamy vegan white sauce. It is the perfect replacement for a traditional cream-based sauce and has many uses. Filling your refrigerator with healthy, whole plant-based food makes cooking delicious vegan d...

The documentary film, Eating Animals, begins with a simple question: where does our meat, eggs, and dairy come from? It then takes us on a eye-opening journey of today's industrial animal agriculture. Eating Animals, is a enlightening movie about the environmental, economic and public health consequences of factory farming in America. It is slated to hit theaters across the country this month.  Th...

Can what you eat determine how long and how well you will live? Today we discuss fasting, aging and longevity with Dr. Valter Longo who has devoted his life to answering that very question. Dr. Longo is one of the world's leading scientific authorities on the subject of longevity and fasting. He is an Italian-American cell biologist who is the director of USC's Longevity Institute. He also has a b...

What if I was to tell you that the best home remedies for chronic disease come from Mother Nature and may be sitting in your refrigerator right now?   Though plant-based herbs and foods have been used for hundreds of years to heal, scientists are finally starting to substantiate plant's abilities to reduce blood pressure, improve skin problems, fight coronary disease, improve symptoms of vertigo,...

Most of my podcasts are centered around nutrition and the value of a plant-based diet to help you live a long, healthy life, but today I want to get back to the basics.   When you first begin experimenting with a plant-based diet, it can be confusing. What are the essentials to buy? How do I   properly cook those essentials? And what foods are needed to keep your family healthy and energized? Thos...

With the sharp rise in dementia and other brain disorders, it is vital to do everything we can to prevent brain disease. In this week's podcast, we learn brain disease symptoms and how to grow healthy brain cells for extra protection. Many people understand the importance of having a healthy body, but many overlook the value of brain health. The human brain is an exceptional and complex mechanism,...

Researchers have found that adopting a vegan diet for diabetes has the potential to prevent and even reverse Type 2 diabetes. A healthy plant-based diet could also help improve symptoms for anyone suffering from the many types of this disease. And one of the best ways to manage diabetes is to learn as much as you can about your condition. Diabetes is now a disease that affects 371 million people w...

Americans alone, increased their seafood consumption to 15.5 pounds of fish and shellfish per person in 2015. Up nearly a pound from the previous year, making it the biggest leap in seafood consumption in 20 years. Overfishing has been created by advanced fishing technology and an increased demand for fish. This has caused several marine species to become extinct or endangered.  The seafood busine...

Menopause is a natural period in the life of every woman.  On average, menopause starts after 45 years. It is defined as the point in time when menstrual cycles permanently cease due to the natural depletion of ovarian cells from aging. Many women experience physical and emotional symptoms during menopause, caused by hormonal imbalance.  Today we learn the common symptoms of menopause and key food...