Life Can Change In A Moment

To go back to Caroline’s moment we have to go back 20 years. Caroline grew up in the deep south and at the age of 15 she found a book which completely changed the way she looked at food. Her grandmother’s death due to food related disease really set her life on the path that she currently walks.

[2:50] Like a lot of girls, Caroline was trying to understand what she had to eat in order to be her best self. At the age of 15, she ate like most of her peers, which is to say lots of fried food, meat, dairy, and cheese.

[3:55] A family friend had stayed at the house around that time and left a stack of books on the kitchen table after leaving. It was one of those books that transformed the way Caroline perceived dairy products and their connection to diseases that many people suffer from.

[4:50] In the 90’s the dairy lobby was responsible for some very persuasive commercials targeting young boys and girls. Marketing is a powerful tool but it can also be misleading.

[7:30] The book referred to milk as bovine slime and interspecies adult breastfeeding. Caroline dug into the claims of the book and did some research, which revealed some very disturbing facts.

[9:45] Animal agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases and not only is dairy not good for us, it’s disease promoting. Learning about the dairy industry set off Caroline’s identity as a plant based eater. Removing dairy from her diet had immediate positive impacts on her health and energy.

[11:00] Feeling like she was eating in line with her values was one of the most powerful moments in Caroline’s life.

[11:40] Being a teenage girl is the US is harder today than it was in the past. Social media puts a spotlight on us that didn’t exist before and tends to amplify the small things that don’t mean much once you have more life experience.

[14:15] There is a difference between plant based and being vegan, Caroline started out on the plant based path but has since moved closer to the vegan paradigm.

[15:25] The LA Vegan Fashion Show highlights the issues in the fashion industry that are shared with the food industry. The fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters to the planet outside the food industry, but that fact isn’t very well known.

[16:55] Vegan fashion is focused on removing the animal products used in many different types of garments. It’s interesting that we as a society decide which animals are okay to wear, which animals are okay to eat, and which animals we love. As westerners we don’t believe it’s okay to eat dogs, but it’s common in other parts of the world.

[19:10] Caroline looks back on her grandmother’s death with a mix of sadness and gratitude, because without a hard experience something may not ignite within you. A few years after reading the book that changed her life, Caroline’s grandmother was diagnosed with stomach cancer.

[20:20] We now conclusively know that meat causes cancer, and stomach cancer has been linked directly to processed meat. What we feed our body, that’s what we become. Watching her grandmother waste away from stomach cancer affected her greatly.

[23:35] Caroline remembers thinking that her grandmother’s food choices lead to her diagnosis and eventual death. It wasn’t her grandmother’s fault, but if she could prevent someone else from suffering the same way she could. Food wasn’t originally going to be her career but the mission felt too important and Caroline wanted to use her energy helping people.

[26:10] Losing someone close to you at such a young age is very traumatic but some of the hardest things in life become the reasons for who you are today.

[27:30] There is a myth that eating vegan is more expensive but that’s not true if you have a little knowledge about how to cook and what to buy.

[28:30] Food activism wasn’t Caroline’s first step. She originally started out as a journalist which is where she really learned to question and challenge authority, and that ties in directly to her food activism. Even while working as a journalist Caroline felt the pull towards what she really cared about.

[32:30] Carolines relates a story of when she was a rookie journalist and working on a morning show during the Christmas season where she was elbow deep in macaroni and cheese.

[36:15] Society may not have been ready for a plant based diet or vegan eating 15 years ago but the world has changed. There are a number of plant based food alternatives available in fast food restaurants that just didn’t exist back then.

[37:05] That moment was another pivot point in Caroline’s life. From there she transitioned her career and her life from South Carolina to California to pursue her mission as a food activist.

[39:00] It wasn’t the easiest transition, it took time to establish her new life. Caroline recalls how out of place she felt in South Carolina eating food different from everyone else. She remembers finding places to eat alone just so she wouldn’t have to deal with mean comments from the other kids.

[41:00] To social media’s credit, influencers have normalized the plant based diet for much of society and highlighted the issues going on in the food industry. It’s very interesting seeing people transition away from the traditional American diet to more plant based foods. In many ways it’s very vindicating.

[43:00] Caroline’s activism grew out of a root of loving animals but veganism is as much about helping humans as well as animals. People are affected by the food systems too by the diseases that become more prevalent due to our diet.

[45:00] A recent study has found that the number one cause of death is no longer smoking, it’s food.

[45:20] Caroline started her new life as a food activist by moving to San Francisco and going to events and meeting people. She got work in a vegan food production startup and after five years she pivoted into becoming a growth consultant. She now helps other companies in the plant based food space grow their business.

[48:55] Currently the government is subsidizing disease promoting food, the question is why?

[50:15] The Game Changers is a new movie debuting on Netflix that is disrupting one of the biggest myths associated with being an athlete. In many ways athletes can get a competitive edge by switching to a plant based diet.

[55:45] One of the messages in the film is “what are you going to do with your strength and your power? What does it mean to be a man?” The movie really explores the way meat is tied to masculinity and how it’s harming us.

[57:20] The food industry is using the same playbook that the tobacco industry used in the past to convince people that what they are selling is not only safe, but good for you.

[59:20] Game Changers became the fastest selling documentary on iTunes in only 9 days.

[1:00:40] Based on a discovery in Turkey, we know that some of the strongest athletes in history, the Roman gladiators, ate a primarily plant based diet.

[1:01:15] While the film was being made, James’s father had a heart attack and that became another facet of his journey. Everything stops when someone you know gets sick, and the story became about trying to save his father’s life while also healing his own body.

[1:03:25] Some of Caroline’s favorite foods include Gardene meatballs and other relatively simple staples like lentils. When someone asks what she has had for a particular meal, it’s usually the same as someone else with a few changes from meat to plant based protein.

[1:06:15] People always say that cheese is hard to give up, and it’s true because milk has an opioid in it. People are literally addicted to cheese, but there are tons of plant based alternatives available now. If that’s the case it’s okay to be a vegan and eat a little bit of cheese when you want to. It’s not about perfection, it’s about progress. 

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