The Plantwise Podcast with Brigitte Gemme

Hunger, climate change, antibiotic resistance, and pandemics are all caused by animal agriculture. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone got the memo and went vegan? Yes, but Bruce Friedrich - a vegan of 39 years - knows it's not going to happen. So he's on a mission to make better meat instead... without animals. Tune in to my conversation with Bruce Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute and author of Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity's Favorite Food - and Our Future on the Plantwise Podcast. 

Donate to the Good Food Institute and help transform the future of food: https://gfi.org/donate/ 

Learn more about the book: http://meatbook.org

Order Bruce Friedrich's book Meat from bookshop.org to support your local bookstore and the Plantwise Podcast at the same time (at no extra cost to you): https://bookshop.org/p/books/meat-how-the-next-agricultural-revolution-will-transform-humanity-s-favorite-food-and-our-future-bruce-friedrich/128b983789c3bab8?ean=9781637747933

Love beans and books? Need a community of healthy plant-friendly people who want to experiment with healthy evidence-based habits? Join the Plantwise Community. http://brigittegemme.com/plantwise-book-club/ 

My life is very full right now: an online business, two kids, and wrapping up a divorce. How do I take care of my own physical and mental health through the final months of 2026? 

In this episode, I talk you through how I think about my habits for the pillars of healthy lifestyles: nutrition, exercise, stress management, sleep, social connection, and substance avoidance, plus extra benefits from my superpower: reading. I share the habit I neglected for the past two decades, and what I'm finally doing about it, plus the simple strategies that keep the habits mostly on track in my life. 

🧠 Get the free mini e-book about easy habits for brain health: https://brigittegemme.com/brain-health-habits/

👋 ABOUT ME 👋

📚 JOIN THE PLANTWISE COMMUNITY

Seniors live longer than before, but on average they spend 13 years in poor health. Do you really want to spend your retirement popping pills and chasing doctor appointments? 

In this episode of the Plantwise Podcast, we dive into the newly published health guide for the older crowd: Plant Powered Seniors. 

Join the conversation with two of the co-authors, Vesanto Melina and Dr Charlyn Black to find out what a well-planned plant-powered diet looks like... and how much protein we actually need after 50. 

Get your copy of Plant Powered Seniors on Bookshop.org. Your purchase will support the Plantwise Podcast and independent bookstores... at no extra cost to you! Canadians can shop on booksellers.ca  🍁.

💚 Love this conversation? You'll be right at home in the Plantwise Book Club.

This podcast is brought to you by the Plantwise Book Club: a welcoming community of curious people who want to learn from the top sources about plant-based nutrition and put what they learn into practice in their everyday lives. Learn more here.

I avoided talking about weight management for 10 years. I'm finally talking about it.

Not because I had a dramatic transformation story to tell, I didn't lose 50 pounds, and I'm not selling anything. But because I'm a 48-year-old woman in perimenopause who has been intentional about weight maintenance for the past four years, and I've learned a few things worth sharing.

In this video, I walk you through the 20 habits I actually use to stay at a healthy weight without dieting. They are about food, movement, and mindfulness.  Some of them are obvious. Some are tactical. One of them connects to spirituality, and it might be the most important one on the list.

What I cover:

🚗 How our society is rigged against healthy weight

This is not a prescription. It's my honest experience as a healthy habit coach, plant-based nutrition educator, and real person navigating midlife with as much intention and as little guilt as possible. These habits are good for weight maintenance, but above all they are critical to keep chronic disease at bay. 

Join us at Cooking Club - it's free! https://brigittegemme.com/cooking-club/

Take your Healthy Habit Snapshot: https://brigittegemme.com/#snapshot 

0:00 — Why I avoided this topic for 10 years

On my 48th birthday, my mom reminded me that my grandmother died of a heart attack at the same age. That conversation sent me to review my cholesterol results... and changed what I put on my plate (a little bit).

I already eat a plant-based diet, exercise regularly, and don't smoke. But new guidelines from the American College of Cardiologists have shifted the target for LDL cholesterol from 130 down to under 100 mg/dL. At 102 (in May 2025), I had work to do.

So I made some small, deliberate additions to my diet. No meds, no overhaul, no yucky supplements! A retest just last week showed promising results. Here's what happened.

➡️ Join us to discuss Dr. Greger's Lower LDL Cholesterol Naturally with Food book:

📚 Plantwise Book Club: https://skool.com/plantwise

🧠 Download the Brain Health e-book: https://brigittegemme.com/brain-health-habits/

🙌 Get support: https://brigittegemme.com/coaching/

🍲 Learn more about the Healthy Vegan Cooking Club: https://brigittegemme.com/cooking-club/

Dr. Michael Greger — physician, bestselling author of How Not to Die, and founder of NutritionFacts.org — joins the Plantwise Book Club crew for a live fireside chat focused on how he reads and writes. 

In this conversation, we ask Dr. Greger how his team tracks thousands of new studies every day using PubMed alerts, a team of 100+ volunteers, and an increasing use of AI. 

He shares how he actively seeks out evidence that challenges his own positions — and the times he's had to reverse course (including a heartbreaking breakup with his favorite fruit).

We also cover:

Dr. Greger donates all proceeds from his books to charity, takes no corporate sponsorships, runs no ads, and sells no supplements.

📖 Currently in the Plantwise Book Club, we are doing a deep dive into How Not to Die. Join us: https://brigittegemme.com/plantwise-book-club/

#PlantBased #NutritionFacts #MichaelGreger #HowNotToDie #PlantwisePodcast #WFPB #PlantBasedNutrition #EvidenceBased

Dr. Michael Klaper was raised on a dairy farm, became a physician in 1972, and spent his first decade in medicine watching his patients get sicker. Then, he connected the dots: it's the food, doc!

For the past 40+ years, he has been one of the most beloved voices in plant-based medicine, reversing high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune disease, and more thanks to the whole plant food diet. 

In 2017, he founded his not-for-profit Moving Medicine Forward to (finally!) bring nutrition education to medical schools across North America. He just published his book by the same name, and it's FANTASTIC!

In this conversation we talk about: 

Whether you are in the medical system as a patient or as a health professional, you'll LOVE this episode. 

Support Dr. Klaper's work by donating at http://movingmedforward.org/

Get your copy of Moving Medicine Forward: https://bookshop.org/a/114636/9781637748268

-- 

Love this conversation? You'll be right at home in the Plantwise Book Club. Learn more here: https://brigittegemme.com/plantwise-book-club/

What if the real reason why we can't change our habits has nothing to do with willpower?

Leo Babauta, creator of Zen Habits and one of the original voices on mindfulness and simplicity on the Internet, joins the Plantwise Book Club crew for a conversation that goes deep. We talk about the emotions hiding underneath our food choices, why "should" never works, and what happens when we stop running from discomfort and just… sit with it.

Plus, Leo shares how he went from overweight, in debt, and smoking to running marathons, going vegan, and building a life aligned with his values. The real shift? Love.

This starts with "pick a tiny habit and go from there" and goes much deeper.

Recorded live as a fireside chat with the Plantwise Book Club during our deep dive into Leo's book Essential Zen Habits.

Javant Benton's healthy journey started when a possibly lymphoma diagnosis shook him to his core. Pre-diabetes and high blood pressure ran in his family but he wasn't prepared for cancer. This health scare set him on a path of discovery that led to losing 80 pounds, reversing his chronic disease signs, and falling in love with whole food plant-based cooking.

His Instagram is super inspiring! https://instagram.com/healthyveganeating/

Everything he does is oil free, refined-sugar free, and wheat free... and it all looks AMAZING! 

Javant's first cookbook, Make Your Own, is just coming out on March 17th, 2026, and it's a MUST HAVE! I hardly ever endorse cookbooks but I love everything about how Javant creates delightful meals from whole plant foods, and I know my Plantwise people are going to love it too. 

📚 Get Javant's first cookbook, Make Your Own, from Bookshop:

This podcast is brought to you by the Plantwise Book Club: a welcoming community of curious people who want to learn from the top sources about plant-based nutrition *and* put what they learn into practice in their everyday lives. Learn more and join us here: https://skool.com/plantwise/about/

Welcome to the first episode of the Plantwise Podcast! Host Brigitte Gemme sits down with legendary vegan advocate Victoria Moran, a 2024 Vegan Hall of Fame inductee, author of 14 books, and founder of Main Street Vegan Academy.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Victoria shares:

Whether you've followed Victoria for years or you're just discovering her work, this episode is a masterclass in living with purpose, compassion, and good sense.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join the Plantwise Book Club to go deeper and go from knowledge to healthy habits!