Show notes:

Our sponsor for today's episode: Etsy shop Green and Experience: Natural and Reusable Vegan and Cruelty Free Hemp Dryer Balls - get 10% off your purchase by using promo code: BROWNBLE10

Make sure to follow Victoria Moran’s work through her website

Follow Victoria on instagram where she is @Victoriamoranauthor  

Follow Victoria on Twitter

Follow Victoria on Facebook

Follow Victoria on LinkedIn

The Main Street Vegan Academy: Certification Program for Vegan Lifestyle Coaches and Educators

Documentary A Prayer for Compassion

The Compassion Consortium (Interfaith Services)

Victoria's podcast: The Victoria Moran Podcast (previously the Main Street Vegan Podcast)

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Today's sponsor:

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When I started doing interviews for the first time in our podcast’s history this season, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined I’d be interviewing one of my writing and animal advocacy idols.

My connection to her work is so special that just months ago as I was going through an old journal, I found quotes by Victoria and journal entries about the things I was reading about in her books. Everything she wrote about resonated so much with me, the emotional connection to the way we feed ourselves, the ethical and spiritual connection behind our food choices, always written through the voice of a relatable and knowledgable  friend. 

If current me went back to younger me and told her "in a few years you’ll get to meet Victoria and you’ll get to ask her all the questions you’ve always wanted to ask her", I would have said: "Seriously?! Where’s my time machine?!".

There are hundreds of ways to introduce Victoria, and I’m about to share so many of the incredible things she’s done, but to me, she was the very first author that made me see that there was a connection between my relationship with food, my values, spirituality, ethics, that every step I took had meaning, that even my messy past with food and eating could find healing, and that most of the work with my issues had to start internally, not externally. She got me started on a path that has taken me to so many places since then, all on this quest to find peace with food, while still being in connection with the meaning behind my choices and my love for animals.

In today’s episode we talk about her 38 years of being vegan, what she’s seen, how she’s stayed the course, how she found veganism back when there weren’t hundreds of books and podcasts and documentaries about it. We talk about having missteps on our journeys to veganism, how imperfection is a part of the process and what we can compassionately tell ourselves to celebrate even the smallest victories.

We talk about some of the reasons many people stop being vegan, and one essential piece of the puzzle that can help keep us on course. We talk about the importance of taking things a day at a time, as well as the deeper, spiritual meaning behind our food choices. I ask Victoria a question I’ve been wanting to ask her for years about religion and spirituality. We discuss her passion for and practice of yoga, and why it’s so important, when practicing a philosophy that stems from another culture, to honour and incorporate its many teachings, and what is TRULY going to stay with us throughout our lives (spoiler alert, it ain’t that headstand!). Victoria talks about all the exciting projects she’s got coming up including the incredible documentary she helped produce “A Prayer for Compassion”, her incredible Mainstreet Vegan Academy where they prepare and certify vegan lifestyle coaches and educators, her upcoming and newly revamped podcast The Victoria Moran Podcast and much more.

Listed by VegNews among the “Top 10 Living Vegetarian Authors,” Victoria Moran has written thirteen books including Main Street Vegan and Creating a Charmed Life, and was featured twice on Oprah. She is the founder and director of Main Street Vegan Academy, training and certifying Vegan Lifestyle Coaches and Educators since 2012; and she was lead producer of the 2019 documentary, A Prayer for Compassion, about food choices and spirituality. Victoria is one of the cofounders of the Compassion Consortium, an Interfaith, inter-species spiritual center for people who care about animals. After 475 episodes of the Main Street Vegan Podcast, she is about to launch the Victoria Moran Podcast, an exploration of vitality, spirituality, and compassion.

A huge thank you to Victoria Moran for her timeless wisdom, her advocacy for animals, humans and our planet, and for spending this time with us today.