Speaking with Vegan Author and Expert Victoria Moran

 Today we sat down with Victoria Moran. Vegan since 1983, Victoria Moran was listed among VegNews magazine’s “Top 10 Living Vegetarian Authors,” voted Peta’s “Sexiest Vegan Over 50” in 2016, and featured twice on Oprah. She has written thirteen books, including the iconic Main Street Vegan and the international bestseller, Creating a Charmed Life. She hosts the award-winning Main Street Vegan podcast; produced the 2019 documentary, A Prayer for Compassion.www.mainstreetvegan.net

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

 

TRANSCRIPT 

 

Patricia [00:00:10] Hi, I'm Patricia. And this is Investigating Vigen Life with Patricia Kathleen. This series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. Our inquiry is an effort to examine the variety of industries and lifestyle tenants in the world of Vigen life. To that end, we will cover topics that have revealed themselves as common and integral when exploring veganism. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who like myself, find great value in hearing the expertise and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals, you can find information about myself and my podcast at Patricia Kathleen dot com. Welcome to investigating Vigen Life. Now let's start the conversation. Hi, everyone, and welcome back.

 

Patricia [00:01:15] This is your host, Patricia. And today, I'm sitting down with Victoria Moran. Victoria is the best selling author, a podcast host, a documentary film producer and a vegan expert who has been around for the past 30 years shedding her wisdom on all of us. You can locate her directly on her Web site w w w dot main street vegan dot net. Welcome, Victoria.

 

Victoria [00:01:39] Patricia. Thanks for having me.

 

Patricia [00:01:41] Absolutely. I'm so excited to crawl through. I don't know. One podcast guest that I've had speaking with us over the past three months that has not mentioned you. And so now I'm getting it straight from the source.

 

Victoria [00:01:54] There's something to be said for being an early adapter. Yeah, absolutely.

 

Patricia [00:01:59] Your flagship to be certain.

 

Patricia [00:02:01] So for everyone listening or watching on the podcast, I have a bio I will read on Victoria, but I want to offer everyone a quick roadmap. For those of you that listen to my podcast, you know that I offer everyone a quick roadmap before we get started. So we'll first look at some of Victoria's early academic background and professional life that may have kind of launched her into where she's at. And then we'll turn our attention straight to unpacking Main Street Vigen dot net. There is there is an academy, there's podcasts, there's books, there's online courses. And I kind of want to crawl through some of that so that we get a better understanding of Victoria's platform. And then we'll turn our efforts towards looking at some of the ethos and philosophy behind her books and other more heavy research endeavors as to her vegan life and philosophy. We'll look at the documentary that she had a handle with with. It's called A Prayer for Compassion. And I know she did it in conjunction with filmmaker Thomas Wade Jackson. So we'll talk a little bit about that. And then I want to turn our efforts towards contemporary conversations, obviously, in the middle of what we're doing right now and how we're living as a society. Then we'll look at goals that Victoria may have. Those have been changing for everybody across the platform, not just with her business, but with her with her vegan endeavors. We'll wrap everything up with advice for those of you who are looking to get involved with her or reach out and maybe emulate some of what Victoria's been doing. Quick bio on Victoria before I start peppering her with questions. Vigen Since 1983, Victoria Miron was listed among vege newsmagazines as the top ten living vegetarian authors voted PITAs Sexiest Vegan over 50 in 2016 and featured twice on Oprah.

 

[00:03:43] She has written 13 books, including the iconic Mainstream Vegan and the international bestseller Creating a Charmed Life. She hosted the award winning Mainstreet Vegan podcast, produced the 2019 document documentary A Prayer for Compassion and Directs. And Durex of Main Street, Vigen Academy. She's the director of the ministry, Vigen Academy. The exciting and in person certification program training vegan lifestyle coaches and educators. And a magical week in New York City.

 

[00:04:17] That's exciting because I can't wait to hear how some of that may be shifting a little bit. Victoria and I want to climb through all of those endeavors, especially some of your past things. It is exciting to look up and see, you know, old version of Oprah with you on and then some of your later things. But before we get to all of that, I was hoping you could kind of draw for everyone listening. Like a platform of what you're early academic life and professional life was prior to you kind of embarking on the vegan journey. That was over 30 years ago.

 

[00:04:48] What a wonderful question. Well, I knew from the time that I was a little kid that I had one gift and it was words spoken and written. And I really was not at all good at anything.

 

[00:05:02] So I did learn early on that writing and speaking would be how I spent my life. I also had a great interest in the big picture in the religions of the world and spirituality in what it all means. And so with those things together, I tried the first time to be vegetarian at 13. That didn't last permanently, but it certainly planted a seed. I developed an interest in yoga at age 17. And all the books that were out then about yoga, I think there were three of them said over and over again, if you're gonna be serious about yoga, you have to be vegetarian. So that bed in.

 

[00:05:46] And I was also writing at that time for magazines, mostly teen magazines. I had a press card that any little girl could get for a dollar. But I took my very seriously and I met all of the rock groups of the era from the Beatles on down. I had a lot of fabulous stories there.

 

[00:06:09] And when I did go to college, I was in my late 20s. I'd been writing and working in journalism during my 20s. And everybody said, oh, so you'll finally get your degree in journalism. And I said, Are you kidding? I've been doing that all my life. I quoted Einstein. I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are commentary. So I got a degree in comparative religions. And in my junior year there I was awarded a fellowship to do foreign study. So I could study anything as long as I left North America to do it.

 

[00:06:45] And I opted to go to the U.K. to study vegans, because at that time there were so few in the U.S. that an institution of higher learning actually funded me to cross an ocean. Excellent study vegans in the country where it had started. So that led to my very first book, Compassion The Ultimate Ethic, which came out in nineteen eighty five and the rest. You've already told people.

 

[00:07:14] Yeah. That's exciting. And I have a pilgrimage.

 

[00:07:17] It's so it's daunting to think about it as being so specialized and miniscule that you know that you're getting this grant to go and cover them like this rare tribe of individuals. And it's it's exciting. And that kind of states it as as where you're coming from. And I love that, because having that breadth of knowledge of where trends, even within the community and understanding and public awareness, you know, that change has been so significant. I think when it comes to the vegan world, I'm wondering really quickly so that we can kind of give everyone who's still listening. You're this maverick individual, you know, who's had this history. But right now. So if we jump on to, you know, your the main street begin Web site and we look at it, you have a host of offerings. It's first of all, it's a wealth of knowledge. You know, it's kind of this beautiful index. But you have you immediately have books. You have a cat at the academy, you have a podcast, you have online courses. How did these all develop? Blake, what did they all come about all at once when you had the website or did it start with specific things and kind of grow and branch off from that?

 

[00:08:27] That's a that's a fascinating question. At least it is to me. So I started my writing career with vigor. I mean, I guess I started my writing career with rock groups when I started writing books. I wrote vegan books. I wrote three specifically vegan books. And then I thought, what else can I say about animals and vegetables, especially when very few people were interested.

 

[00:08:52] So I used my degree and I went out and wrote a lot of books about spirituality and contemporary living and well-being. And it was in. T12 that I had cycled back to writing a book about veganism called Main Street Vegan. Now, you've told me that you come from a documentary family, so you will appreciate the story. The book was sold to Tata Penguin and the day after that. The editor called and said, We're so happy to have you, but you really have to change the title. They didn't like Main Street, so I was trying to write the book and give it another title and walking up Broadway here in Magical Manhattan. We saw somebody who is so famous that you can recognize him from the back. And that was Michael Moore. Now, he had read an earlier book of mine, a weight loss book, and he'd gotten some help from that and written about it in Oprah's magazine. So I had some vague idea that he might know who I was. So I gave my card to the woman who was with him. And a few seconds later, we hear Victoria Michael Moore is following us up Broadway after exchanging pleasantries. He said, we need to talk. We need to talk about food. And so we started doing that. And at one point in one of these phone conversations, I mentioned that I was trying to get a new title for my book because the publisher so disliked Main Street and he said, they're wrong. Let me talk to them.

 

[00:10:21] So in a three way call with my editor who happened to be a Michael Moore fan, a lot of people are not. Have an Academy Award winner and myself. I got my title mainstream again. And when my editor called three days later to tell me that that was my title, it was as if the world opened up. And I knew that there needed to be a main street vegan radio show. I don't think I even knew the term podcast in 2012 that there needed to be a mainstream vegan production company, and certainly that there needed to be mainstream vegan academy which would train and certify vegan lifestyle coaches and educators. So I put that out into the world just before the book was published. And I remember I hadn't had a vegan book since nineteen ninety four new vegan book. And so I didn't know if I had any following in that world or not, but they're amazing. People showed up for that first academy and everything has grown from there. And I believe that the reason for that is that veganism is now a force to be reckoned with. People want it. People are looking for it. Even people who aren't sure they want it like, oh, I'd have to give up cheese are finding it because it's the wave of the future. And certainly right now, even the wave of the present.

 

[00:11:52] Absolutely. And the radio show, it sounds like a lot of these efforts are coming in. Most of the drive behind what you've been doing is this educational platform. And so when you when you launched your radio show, the first big and radio show, did you what did that look like in the beginning? Were you just trying to implement an understanding of some of the core tenets of veganism? Were you interviewing experts? How did you shape shape what you spoke about or who did you interview people? Was the platform not interview based tenet of that look?

 

[00:12:22] Right. It's always been interview based. I actually didn't know how to do something like that. I had had a show in two thousand five and six on the Martha Stewart channel at Serious, which was to become Sirius XM. And then when the Martha Stewart channel took a different direction, I was no longer doing that. But then I had interviewed people. I had interviewed people in the personal growth arena, and many of them were vegan. I had had Jim Bauer from my farm sanctuary. So I'd even put a little bit of vegan in. Back then when I was on tour with the Main Street Vegan book, I got a call from the woman who was then the head of Unity Online Radio, and she said, Would you like to have a radio show?

 

[00:13:13] You can call it Main Street again. It's about time we get back to our roots. Well, come to find out. Unity is a very liberal Protestant denomination that was founded by two extremely dedicated vegetarians. I'm sure they would have been vegans had veganism been a thing in the 1890s when they started out. But they were very staunch vegetarians. They didn't wear leather. And so as they passed away and other people took over the reins of unity, a lot of that fell away. But the foundation was still there. So I have been doing the Main Street Vegan live radio show every other Wednesday identity online radio since June of twenty. Well, and then it's a podcast. So the next morning it goes up on all the podcast platforms. So it is an interview show. And because it is called Main Street Meegan. What that means to me is opening the gate really widely. So we're not specializing to a certain aspect of veganism.

 

[00:14:21] We're not just animals or just health or just the environment. We're not geared to a particular age group. We're not geared to athletes. We're geared to Main Street. And so that means that I get to have on all these incredible guests that represent all of those worlds and other worlds besides people who have followings, people that begins have heard of and people that nobody has heard of. Who are sometimes the most fascinating guests because the stories might not get out in the world. Media are still so relatable and so precious.

 

[00:14:59] Yeah, no, I agree. And I think that it's still necessary to have kind of an overarching view, this unifying factor. And I think there have been a lot of things as of late that have done that as well.

 

[00:15:10] There are works that have happened. You know what? The health and and a bunch of different, you know, forks over knives over the past decade, if you will. And then the game changers. A lot of more recent works that have turned and kind of unified people under an understanding of health, you know, and what veganism is. It unifies humanity largely. And I like the idea that you came and did it that way first, because the niche communities, I always feel can branch off. But they become very sporadic. It's very confusing as someone who's trying to educate in the very beginning.

 

[00:15:43] And I'm curious. So with it, you've had now you've had three books out of the 13 as of late that have been cited as and then kind of touted as these major industry changers. And not to delineate the others, of course. But the love power diet is your personal story of weight loss, as I as I kind of read it. And then there's also the good karma diet. And it's choosing a diet based out of compassion and the global responsibility. The rhetoric within that is kind of how, you know, it's it's thinking about your diet as something that's actually based on questions other than what sounds yummy.

 

[00:16:16] You know, how is this affecting humanity? And I wonder if you can speak to. I don't know if it was in that order. I don't know if it went mainstream. The Love Power Diet and then the good karma diet. But I wonder if you can kind of talk about the road that led you through all of those who were.

 

[00:16:32] Well, actually, the Love Power Diet started a very long time ago. It was first published in nineteen ninety two. And it was my story because I am a compulsive overeater in recovery and that was tough for me. My dad was a diet doctor.

 

[00:16:51] My mother was in the fitness industry for a time and I was a fat kid. Bad for business. So I struggled with that through my childhood and adolescence and young adulthood.

 

[00:17:03] And when I finally got a handle on that through a 12-Step recovery program, I also knew, oh, wow, I really can be vegan because before that I wanted to be vegan. I was vegetarian. I went vegetarian at 19, but I was always running into a problem with either the binge eating disorder would crop up or I would try to pull myself up after a binge and try to lose some weight and get my life back on track. And then all the information out there talked about plain yogurt and egg white. And it was so confusing and so difficult. But once I really got it together on the inner level through that recovery program, and once I knew that a day at a time, if I stayed in fit spiritual condition, I would no longer need to eat for a fix. It became very clear that I could be vegan. And stay that way forever. And I was a little bit afraid of all those carbs. I struggle with weight for so long and I thought, oh my gosh, if I'm vegan and not eating all this protein, what will happen to me? Well, what happened was that I lost over 60 pounds and stayed off for 35 years and counting. And now at 70, I don't have the diseases that were prevalent in my family. There's no high blood pressure, high cholesterol or, you know, any of that kind of stuff that I just assumed would be inevitable through heredity. So that took us a little bit away from the books. I'm sorry for the little.

 

[00:18:48] Oh, no. That's good. I like the back story as well. I think it's so pertinent. You know, when someone speaking of those things.

 

[00:18:55] So did the Love Power diet. If I can just finish on that one, it kind of proves reincarnation because it went out of print after a few years, because in nineteen ninety two, again, not many people were looking for books that had to do with veganism. But then it was republished with a different name, love yourself. Then in 2007 and that one did well enough that it actually went into a mass market paperback. You know those little ones that are in kiosks at at airports and then that eventually went out of print. And there's a wonderful man. Maybe you've had him on your podcast. His name is John peire. He's a personal trainer. He was Ellen Degeneracy, his trainer. And he went to L.A. and kind of endured that to develop enough reputation so that he could leave L.A. and do the good work that he really wants to do. But he said to me, you know, there is nothing out there like the Love Power diet. So I photocopy it for all my clients. And I thought, oh, my goodness, just for John peire. Let me see if somebody will publish this again. So the good people at Lantern Books, which is a big and publishing house here in New York City, did a 2009 edition.

 

[00:20:06] So to anybody who's got an idea that you want to put out there, just do it. You never know when it's going to find its time and when it's going to find its time again.

 

[00:20:17] Absolutely. I think that that's core. You know, I think people underestimate the value of evergreen content. Well, there's updating that can happen. You know, there's reasons why old books are still around. When clean knowledge is clean, you can never get enough of it and it can never be dated. I'm wondering. So with the good karma diet, when and when did you write this and what was the impetus for it?

 

[00:20:41] Well, that that was the first book after Main Street began The Good Karma, which I did in 2015. Actually, I'd had the title prior to that. I had done a lot with raw foods around two thousand eight. And I felt really, really great. And I thought, oh, wouldn't that be a wonderful title, the good karma diet? And I wasn't really in that headspace. You know, winter came. It got cold. I stopped being a rough rider. But my agent, an editor, really liked the concept. And so that was really at the heart of the good karma diet. And it's a little bit more where Main Street Vegan is about every aspect of veganism, sort of like we were talking about the podcast. And I think the reason that it's so wonderful that we have all these aspects to the vegan lifestyle is you open the door that says vegan or you open the door that says plant-based or however you get here, but you find behind that door so much else that in addition to the healthy animals, the environment, you know, there's a whole spirituality world, there's a fashion world, a travel world, a dating and marriage and raising children world. I mean, it's just it's huge. And so that's what Main Street Vegan is all about. But then the good karma diet zeroes in really on the body mind health aspects of this whole thing. And it celebrates a high, green, high raw. And even though I'm not raw, I am high raw diet that I think really likes people up. You know, some people just just want to do this for animals or they really like burgers and fries and cherry pies. And they want to do that in a vegan way that is totally legitimate and totally great. But for those who really want to have that glow, for those who who really want to feel what high level health and vitality is like, that's what I wrote about in the good karma diet. Because if you take this thing up a notch and if you really focus on those fresh, colorful foods, you can look and feel very, very different.

 

[00:22:59] Absolutely. And I think it's bringing about the largest from what I have seen my. Humble experience.

 

[00:23:05] The largest unlikely vegan population. You know, the latest converts and things like that I think are coming about. Even prior to Cauvin 19 were, you know, these these people that just didn't fit the prototype of someone who was searching for that vegan answer and they were coming into the lifestyle. And. And I've had a lot of conversations with even restaurant owners or different people who are saying, you know, my clientele has changed. It's no longer the 20 year old hipster. It's the 50 year old whose doctor said it's now or never. You know, you're going to burn looking at heart disease. It's that kind of a thing that has been creating, I think, more dialog than I've seen over the past 10 years. And I'm wondering, you dropped the word and I usually always wait for my guest to do it because I try to gage how long it takes, which you just said plant based in one of your last questions. And I love this conversation because it's just beginning. And I don't think anyone has a definitive answer. And so it's all very personal.

 

[00:24:00] But I'm hoping that you can define what do the terms plant based as opposed to or in juxtaposition to vegan. Well, what are the differences between those two words for you?

 

[00:24:11] Unfortunately, a plant based has many, many definitions. And that's why I'm not crazy about the term because I am a writer. I love the language and I think that we need to be able to have words that say exactly what they mean. So when some people say plant based, they mean eating more plants than animals. But if you look at it from a per calorie of observation, the standard American diet is plant based because more calories come from non animal foods than from animal foods. Other people will use it to mean something like flexitarian or reduce the Terrian.

 

[00:24:54] I'm getting more and more plant based in my diet. I still eat everything but, you know, lots of salads and lots of Reggie's burgers and stuff like that. And that means plant based.

 

[00:25:04] Now, the term whole food plant based, which was coined by Dr. T Colin Campbell, means that you're not only leaving out animal foods as any vegan would, but you're also leaving out refined products such as oils, sugar, salt, most packaged foods. And this is done for health reasons. And so a lot of people who say that their plant based mean that. And in the states, most people in this world would know what that meant. But if they were to say that to somebody in Europe or Australia, then it would probably be interpreted that they were flexitarian. So it's a little bit confusing. I like the idea of being a plant exclusive. I actually love the word vegan because people finally know what it means. And I think that if you really want people to know specifically what you eat, you could say I'm a whole food vegan or I'm a raw food vegan or I'm a macrobiotic vegan or a diabetic vegan. I think that's very, very clear. But we don't quite have all the terminology down yet. And yet the cool thing about all these terms is that everybody who calls themselves any of these things is on the path. You're sort of on one of those moving walkways at the airport to get to a destination which doesn't just lead to physical health for the individual or the best chance for physical health for the individual. I mean, this is planet Earth. I certainly don't want to be one of those people that says it this way and you'll never get sick. I mean, when you hedge your bets. But listen to that. It's also leading to the sustainability for the planet. So incredibly important and also to a kinder, gentler world to what spiritual teacher I used to have would call the upward progression of the universe. And if you really think about it, who wouldn't want to be part of that?

 

[00:27:14] Yeah, absolutely. And the upward progression of one's life, you know, and then contributing to that universe. I agree.

 

[00:27:21] So the good karma, it sounds like all of these things kind of build this beautiful and perfectly written and scripted platform for your collaboration involved with A Prayer for Compassion, which is the documentary that you did in conjunction with Thomas Wade Jackson and all of his team, the executive producers over there.

 

[00:27:40] Can you speak to how that came to fruition and kind of the time period and for everyone listening? You can see a prayer for compassion on leave. Amazon Prime has it. Is that correct?

 

[00:27:50] Is Amazon Prime and Vimeo. There you go. Very excited. We did a theatrical release because we really wanted a lot of people to be able to see it on the big screen. So we had a. Here in New York City in March of twenty nineteen and another in London in May, and it screened around the country, around the world, there was a two week tour of India with Thomas Jackson and Dr. Stylish Rao, one of our executive producers, and Tyrone Flynn from Game of Thrones, who came in as a supporter and executive producer of the film. So it was out there. And and now we are on Vimeo and Amazon Prime so people can watch that way. So the cool thing about a prayer for compassion, while there's quite a lot, but it's really to me both of the passions that I mentioned to you. It's about veganism. It's about the intersection of vegan values with the teachings of spiritual and religious traditions from around the world. So Thomas meets all kinds of people traversing the US a couple of times. He goes to the UN climate conference in Morocco and tours India, meeting lots of amazing Jains and Hindus and Buddhists. And and we really come to the conclusion at the end of this that regardless of of the name of one's religious or spiritual tradition, every single one is about compassion, mercy, care of the body, care of the planet. And these are vegan values. We just need to make that jump.

 

[00:29:40] Absolutely. And I did I as we talked about earlier. I haven't watched it yet. I'm excited to do that this weekend. And the trailer did look like exactly what you said, the synopsis of this intersection. And within the brief trailer, in fact, you know, there was.

 

[00:29:54] They have a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist. All these people kind of giving what you were talking about this march to the rhetoric of the dogma that they have, which is honoring the body and the earth and the environment around it.

 

[00:30:07] So it sounds like it was perfectly suited. Did they find you when you were going to be collaborate on this? Did or was it something that you your people scouted out?

 

[00:30:17] No, actually, we had a book give away the radio show. And it's interesting, in the years of doing the mainstream Reagen show early on and more people listened live on Wednesday afternoons, and now almost everybody gets a podcast because that's what we're used to. But back in 2015, Thomas Jackson was listening live. One day we had a book giveaway. He won the book. And when he was giving his address to the engineer, he asked if I would be in touch with him. And when I called him, he said, Would you like to be the producer of my movie? And my first thought is, I don't know how to produce the movie, but then that it's about veganism and spirituality. And I thought, shoot, I have to learn how to produce a movie. I don't want this one to be made without me.

 

[00:31:06] Mm-Hmm. Yeah. I think that that's that that's the right answer. And it's you know, it's never too, it's never too late to learn a new skill even if it is film production.

 

[00:31:16] That's fantastic. I'm wondering, looking at the local climate, I know everyone's personal conversation and in your case personal and professional kind of intertwined, but I'm wondering if you've had dialog. I know you on your website, you've had these these April shares with your your your customers and your audiences and things where you're sharing your environment and your thoughts and things like that. But for the purposes of this podcast, do you have any look recent dialog regarding Cauvin 19 pandemic and kind of where you see things headed or takeaways that have been really significant for you over the past couple of weeks.

 

[00:31:57] But it's interesting that you would ask that now, because as I told you just before we started, I got my blog post for May just under the Wired today on the Main Street, you can dot net Web site and it's really about that.

 

[00:32:13] It's called Notes from the epicenter of being a vegan in New York City during Koven, 19.

 

[00:32:21] So what I see is first, I guess it's what I feel, which is a great love for my adopted city. I've been here for 20 years. I've been here one year when 9/11 happened and 19 years when covered 19 happened. And I see so much resiliency and so much bounce back. And I think about people in other parts of the country and other parts of the world. And I wonder sometimes if they're thinking we have to go through all this because you're really having the biggest problem in New York. You know, after 9/11, airports became an entirely different. From how they had ever been in the past and everybody had to do that even though the primary attack was was here, and yet I think that sometimes when you hear a very bright light, you're very easy to see. And New York City is a bright light and has historically been that because we are this incredible experiment in people living together. And for the most part, getting along. I remember going to a presentation several years ago in Queens at the park where the 1960 World Fair. Half the World's Fair. Nineteen sixty two, maybe sixty four. That was it. I wasn't there anyway. And Mayor Bloomberg at that time said within ten miles of where we sit. One hundred thirty five languages are being spoken. So in this amazing place, we're very close together. So we are environmental stalwarts in that we have been taking public transportation for years. And yet public transportation is a great way for an infection to spread. People close together holding the same pole. So New York City has been hit very hard by the virus. And what I see just in my life is that it started with like, OK, well, it's all right. Well, we'll mostly stay in, but I'm five blocks from Central Park. I'll take the dog to Central Park every day. That will be lovely. But then that became not wise, certainly for someone at my age who would be considered in the high risk category. So on the one hand, life started getting smaller and smaller. But this miracle happened. I think a lot of people all over the country and all over the world have experienced the same one. And that is how much we all done online. So through Xoom, through Facebook, Leive, through YouTube, we have both received and been able to give much information. And then the other great surprise in this horrible, tragic, awful time, one of those lights that just seems to find its way through in the worst of times is that the world, meaning newspapers, media, are noticing what prior to this, we're just big issues, things that you would read about based news or vege news or live kindly. All of a sudden, the plight of the slaughterhouse workers, the wet markets and the problems there, the similar problems that can come from factory farms in general. It doesn't have to be a wet market in China. It's it's crowding. And and these are all problems. And then we see articles about certain Wendys don't have any meat. And so they're open, but not offering burgers. I mean, whoever bought it. And so the idea is that that is positive in all of this negativity. Is that more and more and more people are thinking about, well, maybe I could eat something else today and that could change the world.

 

[00:36:30] Absolutely. I agree. And I also think anything that brings our conscious thought into questioning connections between ourselves and what we're doing to our bodies is healthy, you know, and looking at these things and starting to question diet even for the most sage of experts. I just don't believe that learning ever stops. You know, even about one's self as opposed to one's community and everything else, and creating a dialog or a space for a dialog or a call for dialog, even if it's on a very individual level, I think is one of the most beautiful things to come from this that end that the room, the reminder that we are all here together. We are you know, we're an entire like creature system. It's not just continents and things of that nature. I was traveling when covered. The pandemic broke out. The State Department advised everyone come home. And I remember thinking it's not it's really unifying. You know, when when something like this happens starts to take place all over the world because everybody starts thinking it doesn't matter what language you're speaking. And I think you get reminded of this a lot in New York City, but in other pockets in places like Australia. I think that it's like a lot like other cities in America where people tend to forget about the global citizenship we all have on a health level.

 

[00:37:45] You know, there's just things that unite us. And they can be good as well as bad. So I think that this is reaching into that. And I hope so, too. I'm wondering when you look forward. I don't know if you and your team or how you personally drive your own business or. Personal life. But most people tend to make goals on some trajectory a year to three years. And this has changed. Obviously the covert conversation changes everyone's dialog, which again is not always a bad thing. But I'm wondering, when you look at the future, particularly with someone such as yourself, this matriarch of the vegan voice. Do you you ever hypothesize you've been given such a history? You know, three decades of this relationship in this industry and all of it that goes and in between. Do you ever hypothesize about where it's headed next? We're talking about contemporary times and everything else. But if you do, can you tell us anything about what you've been thinking about, what the next one to three years and the vegan world or your vegan world looks like?

 

[00:38:48] Yeah, well, I think for the vegan world in general, the future is very bright. And unfortunately, that's prompted by things not looking very bright in terms of climate change and pandemics. But you know what? It has been very not bright for a long time for the animals in the food system. And so it's time it's time that we start looking at this. So I am very excited about this, this move toward a more. And I'm going to say the phrase plant based diet over the next twenty three years. I mean, the sales of pho mates are up 200 percent in April. I mean, this is this is stunning. So I think that veganism is a force to be reckoned with. It's no longer something fringy that odd people do. It's something that just about everybody who is intelligent, educated and up on things does some of the time. And more and more people are doing more of the time. And even all of the time. So that I am very, very positive in terms of my personal vegan world. Like I talk to other people who are in big business. And I think like anybody in any business, we have to be in ratably flexible. So I'm glad I've done yoga for 50 years because mainstream vegan academy that we mentioned has always been in person and I have been very connected to the fact that it's in person because there is something magical about an in-person event. There's a British futurist who said the value of content is rapidly being replaced by the value of breathing the same air. And that was true until 2020. Now and for sometime in the future, we really want to breathe the same air. So we have all discovered Xoom and other online platforms. And so I'm actually going to be offering a Xoom option for Main Street Vegan Academy in 2020. And probably going forward it will be a part and part of probably do a couple of Xoom courses and one I guess we'll call it the elite course in Manhattan. And I think that like so many things that change, even if we go into it kicking and screaming, it's really going to be wonderful because people couldn't come to New York City even in the best of times. We'll never be able to get the certification and go out into the world as vegan lifestyle coaches and educators at a time when more and more people are doing this and more and more people want information.

 

[00:41:36] Absolutely. I've spoken to a couple of personal trainers that have gone out and sought out vegan certifications simply because of their clientele, asking them if they were going to become a little bit more well versed upon it.

 

[00:41:49] So I think it's it's kind of infiltrating a lot of different supply will meet demand, you know, even on the service ramp. So it's exciting. And it's it's it is this summer. And this is a with was previously an in-person weeklong seminar that you offered out of New York City, because that's where you're based.

 

[00:42:06] Right. Yes. And hopefully it will continue to be that in some form, but it's going to have an online component as well.

 

[00:42:15] Absolutely.

 

[00:42:16] So if anyone's listening and they want to kind of drop into we talked about where you can where you can see the documentary and a bunch of other things. But if anyone's listening wants to grab any of your books, is everything on Amazon. You have sites or places that you send people. Should anyone be following you on a specific social media platform? What do you have for us?

 

[00:42:36] Oh, that's so kind. I'm Main Street vegan everywhere. So Facebook and Twitter, you can find me at Main Street Vegan or certainly the website Main Street Meat Vegan dot net. And the books are on Amazon. B end up indie bound wherever you like to buy books.

 

[00:42:54] I love it. Well, Victoria, we're out of time, which is very disappointing to me because I feel like we have just scratched the surface here. I could talk with you. Forever.

 

[00:43:02] But we are going to wrap it up.

 

[00:43:05] I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time. Your. You're such a prolific individual and you I know that even in this time of everyone being at home, everyone's busy. And I really appreciate you taking the moment to give myself and our audience your splendid expertise.

 

[00:43:23] Thank you so very much. It's been my pleasure.

 

[00:43:25] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been talking to Victoria Maron. You can find out more on W WW Dot Mainstreet Vigen dot net until we speak again next time.

 

[00:43:36] Remember to eat well, eat clean and always bet on yourself. Sainte.