Today, Lisa and I (Colleen) discuss a number of awesome things about vegetarianism in the Fall, including the Oct. 4 Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-Off (to be held from 1-4 pm in Grange Park), World Vegetarian Day on Oct. 1 and being vegan at Thanksgiving.

Question of the week: What is your favourite Fall food? Lisa says pumpkin and cinnamon. My favourite is squash, preferably butternut. I make a delicious butternut squash chai soup based on a recipe in How it All Vegan.

We talk about the Kakayo Chocolate Company who make a line of organic vegan chocolate truffles in the Beaches. Lisa calls them, "the most incredible vegan truffles I have ever tried." Flavours include: Banana Split, Chai Masala and Ginger Pecan. Lisa loves ginger. She even eats the ginger pieces after making tea.

We have some new books in the Resource Centre. Veganomican and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World are available for sale, and Get It Ripe (Jae Steele's new cookbook),  The Thrive Diet (by vegan athlete Brendan Brazier who writes about how nutrient-dense foods can reduce nutritional stress),  The Global Food Economy (by Tony Weis who provides a rare Canadian perspective), and Green For Life (by Gill Deacon) have been added to our lending library.

We discuss Ellen DeGeneres’s increasing interest in animal welfare issues, including the fact that she had vegan doctor, Neal Barnard on the show Sept 29, 2008. He talked about alternatives to sugar, chocolate, cheese and meat.

Speaking of Neal, we also had a number of visitors in the Resource Centre looking for recipes and information about vegan nutrition. One of them was at the Toronto Reference Library two years ago when Toronto Vegetarian Association was presenting a talk by Neal Barnard. He decided to check it out and has been vegan ever since! His mother also visited us today. She switched from cow's milk to soymilk recently. That one substitution was enough to bring her high blood pressure into a normal range. I had a similar story when I first became vegan at age 26. I had high cholesterol that completely went away due to my diet change. In the podcast, I also discuss how my bouts of bronchitis went away.

The next podcast will be Oct. 18 after the Vegan Bakeoff and Thanksgiving.

This podcast is a fabulous vegan 35 minutes long.

Listen Now!