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A couple of weeks ago, I took myself to the pharmacy for the first of two doses of the shingles vaccine. I didn’t want to do it at all. For one thing, I’m highly needle-phobic. (I don’t even have pierced ears.) Also, I was working toward a major deadline and didn’t have time to be sick. Headache, fatigue, and low-grade fever are common side effects of this vaccine, according to the CDC, and they can last for several days.

But I had recently heard from two people who have had shingles in the past […]

photo credit: Can Stock Photo/ftlaudgirl

Despite media pieces aimed at discrediting vegan diets for kids, vegan children clearly can thrive when they have appropriate diets. For a project I’m working on, I’m hoping to learn more about the experiences of people who are raising vegan children or are in the process of transitioning their family to a vegan diet.

What kind of challenges have you faced as a vegan parent regarding nutrition and food choices? Which foods are especially important in your family meals to help your kids meet nutrient […]

I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel with Andy Tabar of Compassion Company and JL Fields of JL Goes Vegan at Vegfest Colorado in late July. We spoke about body shaming and food shaming in the vegan community.

Although this is admittedly an unusual topic for a vegfest, it’s an important one. Not just for those who are already active in vegan and animal activism, but also for newcomers who might wonder if there is a place for them in this community.

Andy posted a live recording of our […]

In our new book, Protest Kitchen: Fight Injustice, Save the Planet, and Fuel Your Resistance One Meal at a Time, Carol J. Adams and I suggest that your food choices offer a way to challenge the rise of repressive and regressive values. That is, a vegan diet offers opportunities not just to confront factory farms and environmental destruction, but also to impact misogyny, racism, and injustice.

Our book is headed to the printer this week and is due to arrive in bookstores in the fall, but it’s available for preorder on

Is there such a thing as the one and only healthy way to eat? Best-selling authors like Dr. Mark Hyman would like you to think so.

Recently, he’s become a proponent of an eating style that he calls “pegan,” which as you might guess is a portmanteau of Paleo and vegan. In designing this diet, Dr. Hyman says that he “synthesized the best aspects of each and integrated them with the anti-inflammatory and detoxification principles of functional medicine to create a balanced, inclusive dietary plan that changed my life and my patients’ […]

FODMAPs are carbohydrates that are fermented in the gut and can cause painful gas and bloating for people who have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). I shared resources for vegans with IBS in a blog post in 2016, which gives a more thorough explanation of a low-FODMAP diet.

The diet is a challenge for vegans since many foods that are common in our diets are restricted, at least in the early stages of a low-FODMAP approach. In particular, legumes are limited and so are certain nuts, fruits and vegetables. Because IBS is such […]

If you’ve followed this blog for any period of time, you know that I’m a big fan of the website VeganHealth.org. In fact, I consider it to be the most reliable and comprehensive source of information about vegan diets on the web – or anywhere for that matter.

The site was founded in 2003 by dietitian Jack Norris who is co-founder and executive director of Vegan Outreach. Jack has single-handedly kept this site updated for all these years in an effort that can only be described as heroic.

Last month, the site […]

A joint news release from Dietitians of Canada and the Canadian Paediatric Society urges parents to be careful in their selection of milks for young children. Specifically, they are concerned about the low protein and mineral content of unfortified plant milks.

I agree with most of what they say. Unfortified plant milks should not be a main part of toddlers’ diets. It’s also likely, as they suggest, that there are advantages to providing children with either breast milk or commercial infant formula up to the age of two years. But I disagree […]

A couple of months ago, a study on depression among male vegetarians made the social media rounds (1).  I know from the flurry of emails I received that many vegans were alarmed by the findings. As is often the case, though, the headlines were far more dramatic than the actual findings.

The subjects were a small group of self-identified vegans and vegetarians, many of whom turned out to be nothing of the kind. In fact, 5% of the vegetarians and 72% of the vegans (72 percent!) said they currently consume some red meat. […]