Podcast Review: Vegetarian Food for Thought

For more than a year, Colleen Patrick Goudreau's "Vegetarian Food For Thought" podcast has motivated, comforted and inspired vegetarians and vegans to continue, begin or support a vegetarian lifestyle. Topics runt he gamut - from nutrition to cooking to animal rights.

Colleen has recorded and released 46 episodes of the program since starting "Vegetarian Food For Thought" in March 2006, as one component of the larger nonprofit Compassionate Cooks, through which Colleen conducts cooking classes, creates recipes. Colleen has also produced a vegetarian cooking DVD, and is writing a cookbook titled "The Joy of Vegan Baking."

What I love about this podcast is how Colleen addresses vegetarian nutrition. She emphasizes that vegetarianism is not about French fries and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, it's about eating whole, plant-based foods - foods as close to their natural state as possible. Which is the most important thing all of us could do for ourselves and the environment - eat healthfully. Not processed, packaged vegetarian goodies - but vegetables. Actual vegetables that you cut up and cook yourself. Think your grandma's cooking. Think Michael Pollan's recent New York Times piece. Just eat more vegetables, even if you're still eating meat. Have a no-meat day, or cut out red meat (cattle ranches are the most devastating to land).

Colleen also powerfully asserts that the common questions about nutrition that vegetarians get asked, such as "Where do you get your protein? Iron? Calcium?" can all be answered with the same question: "whole, plant-based foods."

One of the most fascinating and empowering things that Colleen covers in the podcast is the "cutting out the middle man" aspect of nutrition as it pertains to a vegetarian versus a meat diet. I'll give you one example: Calcium. Where are we told to get calcium? Cow's milk. Did you ever ask yourself, "Well, where does the cow get the calcium from?" As Colleen says in her podcast titled, "Where do I get my calcium if I don't get it from cow's milk?" Calcium is a mineral and therefore can be found in the ground, and in whole, plant foods that come from said ground. It doesn't just naturally and exclusively occur in cows. In short, there are other, better places to get the nutrition requirement for calcium than from the milk of another animal.

"Vegetarian Food For Thought" is unapologetic, meaning Colleen encourages her listeners to not let their non-vegetarian (or, as I like to say, pre-vegetarian) friends get away with nitpicking about the nutrition in their diet - like asking questions about how their vegetarian friends get protein, iron and calcium - and suggests asking them back how they get antioxidants, vitamins and minerals in their meat-based diet, and reminding them of the long term effects of their diet - to name one, heart disease.

"Vegetarian Food For Thought" is also a good thing to listen to if you're into any particular movement, whether it be vegetarianism, feminism, social welfare, peace or whatever, you'll be stricken by Colleen's approach. She is unabashedly pro-animal rights and she speaks honestly and openly about it. Being under the mainstream media's radar, podcasts in general have more honesty than what you might be getting already. She's giving you the straight dope on animal rights and vegetarianism - no apologies, no sugar-coating, no beating around the bush. That said, this is NOT a strident podcast. It can be intense - but necessarily so; we're not used to being told the truth, so when we hear it, it seems in-your-face. The vast majority of the 'casts are self-righteousness-free.

Let me suggest a nice "gateway podcast" to start with: it's called Turning the Tables. It's great for everyone - vegetarians, people interested in becoming vegetarian, omnivores who just want to understand vegetarianism more and perhaps completely anti-vegetarianism people. It's also good for those movement members I just talked about, as it addresses 'moral superiority' issues.

You can find "Vegetarian Food For Thought" through iTunes and sites like it, or directly through Colleen's Web site, compassionatecooks.com.