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."