It’s All About Food

Jonathan Balcombe was born in England, raised in New Zealand and Canada, and has lived in the United States since 1987. He is a biologist with a PhD in ethology, the study of animal behavior. He is the author of four popular science books on the inner lives of animals, including Pleasurable Kingdom, Second Nature, and What a Fish Knows, a New York Times best-seller. He has published over 60 scientific papers and book chapters on animal behavior and animal protection. Formerly Department Chair for Animal Studies with the Humane Society University, and Director of Animal Sentience with The Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy, Jonathan works as an independent author, and performs editing services for aspiring and established authors. He also serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Animal Sentience, and he teaches a course in animal sentience for the Viridis Graduate Institute. A popular speaker, Jonathan has lectured on six continents (the penguins eagerly anticipate his arrival in Antarctica). Jonathan currently lives in southern Ontario, where in his spare time he enjoys biking, baking, birding, Bach, and trying to understand the squirrels in his neighborhood.

 Links mentioned in the program:

Hartglass & De Mattei, Good Food Karma

Hartglass & De Mattei, Here’s to Vegans Who Lunch

Hartglass & De Mattei, An Absolutely Perfect Day to Go Vegan!

Michele Simon, What’s Happened to the Plant-Based Food Movement?

Michele Simon is a public health attorney, food policy expert, author, and thought leader in the plant-based foods industry. In 2016, she founded the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA), the nation’s only membership association promoting the interests of plant-based food companies. For five years as PBFA’s executive director, Simon grew the association to over 300 members, leading a team of policy and retail experts. Through her strategic efforts, PBFA fought off the powerful meat and dairy lobbies, and forged new marketplace opportunities for the plant-based foods industry.

Simon has written extensively on the politics of food and alcohol. Her first book, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back, was published by Nation Books in 2006. NYU Professor Marion Nestle (who calls the book “brilliant”) made it required reading for her nutrition students. In 2010, she founded her own consulting firm, Eat Drink Politics, and has written countless articles and reports while becoming a sought-after media pundit.

Simon also offers legal advice on federal regulatory compliance for labeling and marketing, among other legal and policy services. She is admitted to practice law in California, working “of counsel” to Handel Food Law. Simon has a master’s degree in public health from Yale University and received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Dilip Barman, So Many Cooks in the Kitchen

Dilip Barman has been involved with plant‐based lifestyle for decades. He is President of the Triangle Vegetarian Society in North Carolina where he hosts the country’s largest vegetarian (all vegan) Thanksgiving. He is a Food for Life instructor (and has a promotional video); Food for Life is a nutrition education program of the Physicians Committee, a non‐profit organization with a goal of improving lives through evidence‐based research in food and nutrition. Dilip is Executive Producer of the film Code Blue that shows how lifestyle choices can profoundly affect health; the film had its international release on May 26, 2020.

Dilip is on advisory boards of the Plant‐Based Network, Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute, and Piedmont Farm Animal Refuge; a “Vegan Information Point” and Speaker Bureau member of the American Vegan Society; North American representative of the International Vegetarian Union; and an Affiliate of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. He has given cooking demonstrations and talks in a number of countries and states (see, for example, a May 2021 magazine article (forthcoming), a January 2021 chef interview, an October 2018 panel discussion, a June 2017 interview about children and health, a February 2016 podcast interview, an October 2011 World Vegetarian Festival cooking presentation, and March 2011 podcast). His recipes have appeared in a variety of local and international news programs, books, magazines, newspapers, and online, such as a video and subsequent published recipe of his signature dish jerk seitan. Dilip teaches at a number of local schools, including as Nutrition Education Director of an elementary and middle school where he has created a Healthy Snack Program to provide nutrition education and, several times a week, healthy plant‐based food for children.

In May 2020 Dilip helped to found a monthly internet show So Many Cooks in the Kitchen where a dozen or more whole food plant‐based Food for Life instructors go kitchen‐to‐kitchen sharing nutrition and food preparation tips. The show, as well as a spinoff that began in August 2020, So Many Kids in the Kitchen, has been picked up by the Plant-Based Network.

Dilip writes on plant‐based eating and lifestyle for a local online periodical, The Local Reporter and for the Plant‐Based Network’s member magazine, and is a features writer for a regional magazine, Saathee, serving the South Asian community of the Southeast (US). Dilip is proud never to have repeated a meal for his wife in over sixteen years of knowing her (since mid‐2004); he blogs about his plant‐based creations. He tweets (about whole food plant‐based eating and nutrition, as well as math, which he also teaches, and other topics) @dbarman.

Jim Mason, An Unnatural Order, The Roots of Our Destruction of Nature