Want to hear a vegan and non-vegan have a civil/productive/educational conversation about food? All jokes aside…

Full transparency, I was a bit apprehensive going into this episode, mainly because of the personal stance we each hold on food (from a “label” perspective). Julia is vegan, and I’m not vegan. And for some reason in this current climate, it seems to be really challenging for vegans and non-vegans to have productive, educational, open, civil conversations about food (actually, it’s more like a f#cking unicorn)…but having a productive and open conversation about food is exactly what we did in this episode. It was SO refreshing!

Julia holds a degree in biology from Hamline University and a plant-based nutrition certification from Cornell University. She’s also a certified yoga teacher and currently works as a content developer for a plant-based protein company. She is in the works of applying for a masters program in health & wellness coaching from the University of Minnesota, and is the creator of the page @v.ganofficial. Julia recently just found out she was selected for a TED talk (huge kudos to her!) and she walked me through the concept she will be speaking about, which is focused on peas and their sustainability for farming practices in both a regenerative/restorative sense as well as how they contribute to sustainability of the environment. Very interesting.

We honed in on the importance of the individual awareness surrounding food choices…this goes for whether you are vegan, paleo, keto, or whatever. LEARN ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE EATING. I can’t stress this enough. We take a deep dive into this concept in this episode. She also shared a lot of food awareness tips like the benefits of frozen fruits and veggies and the importance of sourcing locally. We briefly touched upon ethical hunting for food and population control purposes. This was more me than her because that’s something I’m personally into. We also touched upon fasting, her personal process with eating (unique and definitely worth a listen!), a discussion on what “truth” is, a profound mushroom experience that showed her the importance of listening to her body, and at the end we touched upon some personal experiences we both had working as hospital and hospice CNAs, and how seeing people near-death really deeply affected us, but in different ways.

  Watch this episode: https://youtu.be/pdGuOgY5AQ8   Connect with me:
IG: @ashrothstein
www.ashleyrothstein.com
Think you would be a good fit for the podcast? Send me an email with your story.
[email protected]   Connect with Julia:
IG: @jalbrecht32 / @v.ganofficial