And I'm and Welcome to Food for Thought. My name is Colleen Patrick Gudro from Compassionate Cooks.

I founded compassionate cooks to

empower people to make informed food choices and to debunk myths about

vegetarianism and animal rights. I do this through cooking classes articles and essays workshops and lectures a

cooking DVD a new cookbook called The Joy of vegan baking and of course

this podcast you can learn more about who we are by visiting

our website compassionate cooks.com and joy of vegan baking.com.

Before I do or say anything else first I would like to thank today's sponsor Janet Frick.

Hi Janet I first heard from Janet a few months ago via email and she and I have corresponded a number of times since then

and I'd like to read you some of her initial email which I remain incredibly

touched and moved by here's some of what she wrote. Hi Colleen, I am one of the lucky people who stumbled upon your podcast while searching for other health and veg-friendly podcasts out there. I listened to podcasts while out on my daily walks and have found

this to be a great way to stay inspired and informed. Little did I know, however, when I started

listening to your podcast a week ago that it would change my life.

I became a vegetarian about 14 years ago out of an interest both in healthier eating and

lessening my impact on the environment.

However, my diet was not what you would call a Whole Foods

diet relying far too much on packaged products with far too many sweets, and I had gotten

a bit lax in my principles, starting to eat salmon during my pregnancies and then

other seafood, and a bit of turkey on Thanksgiving, you get the idea.

I also had never given up eggs or dairy products.

Jill Furman's podcast in his Eat to Live book

had begun to get me on the right track

...