What if vibrant health and lasting joy could be cultivated through a few simple, daily practices? In this uplifting and energizing episode, I welcome longtime colleague and renowned wellness expert Susan Smith Jones, PhD, for a conversation filled with wisdom, warmth, and inspiration.

Susan and I were born in the same year and met in the 1970s when we called the health side of vegan living "Natural Hygiene" and when this was a very unusual life choice indeed!

Drawing on decades of experience in holistic health, Susan shares her signature W.O.N.D.E.R.S. framework, seven powerful pillars designed to support healing, vitality, and a positive, balanced life at any age. With humor, heartfelt stories, and practical guidance, she reminds us that true wellness is both an art and a daily choice.

This special episode also celebrates Susan and Victoria’s long-standing friendship and shared history in the wellness world, making for a truly joyful and meaningful exchange.

✨ In This Episode

Susan’s journey into vegan living and holistic health

The W.O.N.D.E.R.S. framework for total well-being

Why mindset and outlook shape our health outcomes

The healing power of nature and time outdoors

How a whole-food, plant-based diet supports vitality

Staying motivated with exercise and daily habits

The importance of rest, sunshine, and joy in everyday life

👤 About Our Guest

Susan is a globally recognized holistic health and lifestyle expert specializing in anti-aging, optimum nutrition, and balanced living. She taught at UCLA on being healthy and fit for 30 years and has been a passionate advocate of vegan living. Through her books, lectures, and media appearances, Susan inspires people of all ages to embrace vibrant health, inner peace, and joyful living.

🔗 Connect with Susan

Website: https://SusanSmithJones.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SusanSmithJonesPhD

X: https://x.com/SusanSmithJones

📚 Featured Books

A Hug in a Mug
Uplifted
Joy & the Butterfly

Mentioned Links

The National Health Association (publishers of Health Science magazine), www.healthscience.org

Main Street Vegan Coach Training Academy (www.mainstreetvegan.com)

Subscribe, rate, and review our Podcast to help more people discover the joy of living with vitality, spirituality and compassion.

Sign up for our blog and newsletter at www.mainstreetvegan.com and receive your FREE e-book, Recipes to Help You Age Like a Yogi.

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Episode 555, air date May 21, 2026. Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Can improving your eyesight also deepen your insight into life? 

In this expansive and heart-centered conversation, I speak with Dr. Elisa Haransky-Beck about the powerful connections between vision, consciousness, nature, and spiritual awakening.

Elisa shares her decades-long journey as an optometrist and wellness practitioner, and how she came to integrate natural eyesight improvement with movement, nutrition, and spiritual practice. She explains how reconnecting with our inner and outer vision can help us rediscover purpose, presence, and alignment with our true path. This episode is an invitation to see more clearly, not just with the eyes, but with the whole self.

✨ In This Episode
How natural eyesight improvement became her calling
The connection between vision, awareness, and inner truth
Why nature and groundedness are essential for healing
How multiple disciplines weave into one life purpose
Simple practices to support eyesight and overall well-being
Her passionate outlook on leather and plastics

👤 About Our Guest
Dr. Elisa Haransky-Beck is an optometrist and wellness practitioner, spiritual nutrition counselor, EmbodyVision somatic yoga teacher, educator, and speaker. She specializes in facilitating natural eyesight improvement to deepen insight and supports individuals in rising into their true mission in life, their “raison d’être” for being here at this extraordinary time. Her work integrates vision, movement, nutrition, nature, and spirit into a holistic path of awakening.

🔗 Connect with Elisa
Website: www.EnliveningConsciousness.com
Facebook: Dr. Elisa Beth Haransky-Beck
Instagram: EmbodyVision
LinkedIn: Dr. Elisa Beth Haransky-Beck (Elisa Beck)

Subscribe, rate, and review the Main Street Vegan Podcast to help more people discover the joy of living with vitality, spirituality, and compassion.

Sign up for the Main Street Vegan blog and newsletter at www.mainstreetvegan.com and receive your FREE e-book, Recipes to Help You Age Like a Yogi.

And become an insider by joining the Main Street Vegan Podcast Listeners Group on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/groups/207997266555049

Can our daily food choices shape not only our health, but the future of humanity itself? 

In this conversation, I speak with bestselling author, former Zen monk, and longtime vegan advocate Dr. Will Tuttle about the deep spiritual, cultural, and psychological implications of the way we eat.

Drawing from decades of teaching and writing, Will explores the ideas behind The World Peace Diet, Food for Freedom, and The World Peace Way, explaining how modern food culture reinforces systems of domination, disconnection, and violence and how compassionate living offers a path toward healing.

This episode is both philosophical and practical, inviting listeners to consider vegan living not merely as a diet, but as a transformative spiritual practice rooted in peace, awareness, and compassion for all beings.

✨ In This Episode

The central message behind Will’s life work and books
How food choices affect cultural, ecological, and spiritual well-being
The connection between freedom, health, and compassion
How vegan living supports personal and collective transformation
Why these ideas are often overlooked in mainstream culture
What each of us can do to contribute to peace and healing every day

👤 About Our Guest

Dr. Will Tuttle is the author of the international bestseller The World Peace Diet. Publishers have released the book in 18 languages. He also wrote Food for Freedom, The World Peace Way, and several other books on spirituality and healthful living.

Will has followed a vegan lifestyle since 1980 and previously lived as a Zen monk. Alongside his spouse, visionary artist Madeleine Tuttle, he has lectured in all 50 U.S. states and in 50 countries.

🔗 Connect with Will

Website: www.worldpeacediet.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@WillTuttle

Subscribe, rate and review the Podcast to help more people discover the joy of living with vitality, spirituality and compassion.

Sign up to the Main Street Vegan newsletter at www.mainstreetvegan.com and receive a FREE e-book, Recipes to Help You Age Like a Yogi.

Become an insider by joining the Main Street Vegan Podcast Listeners Group on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/groups/207997266555049

Where did the foods we eat every day actually come from and what stories do they carry? 

In this fascinating and far-reaching conversation, Victoria Moran speaks with prolific author Nathaniel Altman about the origins, evolution, and healing potential of plant foods across human history.

Nathaniel and Victoria also reminisce about their early days at the Theosophical Society in America in the early 1970s, a formative time that helped shape their shared interest in spirituality, consciousness, and compassionate living. We touch on the influence of spiritual teacher Geoffrey Hodson, whose work Nathaniel has helped reintroduce to modern audiences.

Nathaniel explores how ancient food traditions, global migration, and cultural exchange have shaped the plant-based foods we know today. The conversation also nods to an earlier Main Street Vegan Podcast episode featuring Dr. David J. A. Jenkins, creator of the Portfolio Diet, connecting historical food wisdom with modern clinical approaches to lowering LDL cholesterol and improving heart health.

This episode is a rich reminder that food is more than nourishment it is history, medicine and a thread connecting body, mind, and spirit.

✨ In This Episode

The origins of the world’s oldest plant foods
Surprising stories behind everyday ingredients
What phytochemicals are and why they matter
Foods linked to disease prevention and longevity
The global roots of modern plant-based diets
The spiritual influences that shaped Nathaniel’s work
Connections between traditional diets and modern health science

👤 About Our Guest

Nathaniel Altman is a Brooklyn-based writer and the author of more than twenty books on diet, alternative healing, metaphysics and relationships. His extensive body of work includes titles on vegetarianism, natural health and holistic living, reflecting a lifelong interest in the connection between food, healing, and human consciousness. His latest project, The Genealogy of Plant Foods, explores the origins and cultural journeys of the foods we eat.

🔗 Connect with Nathaniel

Website: https://foodgenealogy.net/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nathaniel.altman.9/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathanielaltmanauthor/

Subscribe, rate, and review the Main Street Vegan Podcast to help more people discover the joy of living with vitality, spirituality, and compassion.

Sign up for the Main Street Vegan blog and newsletter at https://www.mainstreetvegan.com and receive your FREE e-book, Recipes to Help You Age Like a Yogi.

And become an insider by joining the Main Street Vegan Podcast Listeners Group on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/207997266555049

What would it take to truly transform the global food system? 

In this compelling episode, Victoria Moran speaks with nonprofit leader and animal protection advocate Dan Shannon about the strategies, challenges, and breakthroughs shaping a more humane future.

Dan shares insights from his decades of experience in advocacy, philanthropy, and corporate campaigns, explaining how sustained public pressure and collective action are driving major shifts, including recent landmark victories in the push toward cage-free eggs. He offers a behind-the-scenes look at how change happens at the highest levels of the food industry and why progress, while complex, is accelerating.

This episode explores how everyday choices, combined with organized advocacy, can help reshape a system that affects billions of animals and all of us.

✨ In This Episode

What consumers might not realize about the egg industry

Why transforming the food system is urgent and possible

What the shift toward cage-free eggs really means

Surprising trends in consumer behavior

How global campaigns create change across cultures

The power of collective action in animal advocacy

What a fully humane food system could look like in the future

👤 About Our Guest

Dan Shannon is a seasoned nonprofit strategist with over two decades of experience in campaigns, philanthropy, and animal protection, including leadership roles at PETA, Purpose, and Tides. As CEO of The Humane League, he drives corporate campaigns, public policy, and global coalition-building to accelerate progress toward cage-free eggs and end factory farming. He is also the co-author of two acclaimed vegan cookbooks and continues to promote compassionate living through his writing and advocacy.

Subscribe, rate, and review the Main Street Vegan Podcast to help more people discover the joy of living with vitality, spirituality, and compassion.

Sign up for the Main Street Vegan blog and newsletter at https://www.mainstreetvegan.com and receive your FREE e-book, Recipes to Help You Age Like a Yogi.

And become an insider by joining the Main Street Vegan Podcast Listeners Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/207997266555049

Can building muscle be an act of compassion? In this inspiring conversation, Victoria Moran speaks with natural bodybuilder and Organic Muscle co-founder James Benefico about the powerful intersection of veganism, fitness, and spirituality.

James shares how his journey led him to see caring for the body not as vanity, but as devotion — a way of honoring life, embodying discipline, and living in alignment with deeply held values. Drawing from early Christian teachings as well as modern plant-based nutrition, he offers a fresh perspective on strength rooted in kindness.

This episode is a reminder that what we eat, how we train, and how we live can all be expressions of love.

Website: https://www.organicmuscle.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesbenefico
Organic Muscle Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/organic_muscle

Dr. Michael Klaper shares what 50 years in medicine have taught him: most chronic disease is preventable—and often reversible—with diet. Now through his nonprofit, Moving Medicine Forward, he’s working to bring nutrition education into medical schools. A hopeful, eye-opening conversation on food, health, and the future of medicine.

Can kindness change more minds than confrontation when it comes to helping animals?

Animal advocate ​Cheryl Moss, founder of Better Life for Animals, believes the most effective way to help animals is through patience, empathy, and respectful conversation. In this episode, she and Victoria explore why gentle outreach often works better than pressure, how people really change, and how compassionate advocacy can inspire more people to move toward vegan living.

Sign up for the Main Street Vegan blog and newsletter at https://www.mainstreetvegan.com, and receive your FREE e-book, Recipes to Help You Age Like a Yogi.

Caregiving is often called a labor of love. But what happens when love collides with a broken system?

In this powerful and deeply human conversation, Victoria speaks with Laura Mauldin, PhD, author of In Sickness and in Health: Love Stories from the Front Lines of America’s Caregiving Crisis. Together, they explore the intimate realities of disability, partnership, policy failure, ableism, and what it truly means to love someone when bodies change.

This episode is about story because story is how we understand one another, and how we begin to change the world.

_____________________________________________________________________________

About Our Guest

In Sickness and in Health
Laura Mauldin

Laura Mauldin is a sociologist whose work focuses on disability, caregiving, and health inequities. In her 20s, she became a caregiver to her partner after a traumatic brain injury — an experience that profoundly shaped both her life and her scholarship.

Her book weaves her own story together with the lived experiences of couples navigating disability and caregiving today. It is both tender and unsparing — a love letter and a wake-up call.

Learn more at: https://lauramauldin.com/

Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sickness-Health-Stories-Americas-Caregiving/dp/0063339137/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DrLauraMauldin/

What happens when Manhattan luxury real estate meets plant-based living and deep Christian faith?

Victoria sits down with Darryl Williams — known as “The Vegan Broker” — a real estate professional with SERHANT., the firm featured on the Netflix series Owning Manhattan.

Raised vegetarian in a Seventh-day Adventist home and now a committed health vegan, Darryl boldly brings his values into one of the most competitive industries in the world. Married with two young children, he shares how faith, integrity, and family shape both his business and his plant-based lifestyle.

This uplifting conversation explores authenticity, courage, and what it really means to live your values out loud.