The Great Plant-Based Con (book excerpt)

Is a vegan diet really all it's cracked up to be?

Let’s get the New Year started right! We have said it before and we will put it right here.

2024 is the year of the child.

This year we promise to bring you more exciting book clubs, documentary and tools for parents to continue to assert and advocate for their children's best interests and best health.

Which brings us to our very first book club of the year featuring a topic close to my heart (and stomach) “The Great Plant-Based Con” by Jayne Buxton.

As an omnivore who has studied food and culture, I was thrilled when my husband pointed out Jayne Buxton’s book last summer at the Cambridge University book store in the UK.

I grabbed it and rushed to check out.

I took to X and tagged Jayne Buxton, the author: “Came across this gem by@JayneReesBuxton at a bookstore in Cambridge & had to buy it! Can't wait to read & feature as a book-of-the-month at our upcoming @Rstorechildhood book club. We need to stop fad diets & go back to the basics. Eat real food always.

“I’m very pleased that you found the book in a bookshop. Some have not been brave enough to stock it, for fear of controversy,” Jayne tweeted back.

Jayne’s book was being suppressed because of “fear of controversy?” What was next- the banning of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma? Even though Pollan advises us to “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” he does not push a vegan diet and simultaneously tells us to eat foods our grandparents would recognize.

Animal-based products like dairy, eggs and meat certainly fit that criteria.

Yet we are constantly being told not to eat them, guilted into believing that lab-grown meat is better for the planet and our own health. It is easy to understand why any conscious consumer would be confused.

This book is of particular interest to me because as many of you know, I am an alumna of the NYU food studies program having graduated almost 20 years ago. That program shaped my life.

At NYU I studied food and culture, agricultural production and key principles of human nutrition with Dr. Marion Nestle, whom I got to interview earlier last year (WATCH below). After I earned my master’s degree, and after having children of my own, I became focused on pediatric nutrition. A few years after graduating the program, I co-founded a family nutrition consultancy called Apple to Zucchini (which still remains my Twitter handle). Through that organization we worked with families to help them identify healthy eating practices, both for the body and the mind.

We always emphasized naturally grown produce, meats and dairy, with as minimal processing as possible. We talked about the importance of family meals, starting when children are very young- the dinner table is sacrosanct, it is where we feed our bodies and minds, a place to gather and break the bread, so to speak.

But I digress. I want to urge you all to read Jayne’s well-researched, beautifully readable book on why veganism is not going to save the planet, nor make you healthier. Jayne and her publisher were generous to allow us to EXCERPT the book BELOW.

And I hope you REGISTER to join me at our book club meeting with Jayne Buxton on Wednesday January 24th 12:00-1:00 pm EST.