Review of new vegan diet book: not what you may think

The Love-Powered Diet: Eating for Freedom, Health, and Joy
By Victoria Moran, a vegan, a Kansas City native, and the best-selling author of Creating a Charmed Life
Published by Lantern Books, a division of Booklight, Inc., New York, 2009

A book review:

The day that the complimentary review copy of this book arrived from the publisher, at least one vegan made the mistake of opening the package immediately and making herself late for work and everything else in her life that day. She could not put the book down and get out the door. The book is everything that she has ever longed for in a diet book. The book is for vegans, old and new and soon to be, for seekers of Light anywhere along the path, for avid readers who appreciate good research, good writing, and good editing, for cooks who are always on the lookout for new ways to enjoy tofu, and for dieters who recognize that they have an addiction to food and may need to go back to their Overeaters Anonymous group and resume their recovery.

Take, for example, the section of the book called “Tofu 101.” The writing is fun and inviting and user-friendly, especially for anyone too timid to try tofu: “By itself, tofu is like wet foam rubber, but you’d no more eat it by itself and expect fine dining than you would stare at a blank canvas and expect to see fine art.” A genuine primer on tofu, the section explains how to read the label on a package of tofu, how to store tofu, and how to incorporate more tofu into one’s diet.

Before even opening the book, this reviewer knew that the book would be a powerful read. It came highly recommended by a friend of its author, Victoria Moran, Kansas City’s own Kevin Kelly, author of Letting the Lotus Bloom. Also, the book abounds with endorsements and quotes from some of this reviewer’s favorite vegan gurus, such as John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America, Dr. Neal D. Barnard, M. D., President of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and Dean Ornish, M.D., author of Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease.

If you want to know what love has to do with your diet, the book, now in its third edition, explains the connection this way:

“So, what does love have to do with the way you eat? Chances are, it hasn’t had much to do with it, and that’s what put you in the pickle that led you to this book. But surely no loving God and no loving part of yourself wants you tormented by food cravings, subject to depressing and even dangerous diets, or risking your life with morbid obesity or a binge/purge merry-go-round that ceases to be merry long before the ride is over. It also stands to reason that a loving God or your most loving self would be interested in your overall welfare and the welfare of all people, all forms of life, and an Earth so nurturing we easily call her mother.
“Because love encompasses everything, nothing is unimportant, including tonight’s dinner menu. Think about it for a minute. If you were pure love, the loving parent of all life, how would you want people to eat? I think it would be a way that:
• Is generous, delicious, and aesthetically pleasing
• Promotes high-level health as well as normal weight
• Is economical and provides plenty for everybody
• Respects all life, and
• Is environmentally sustainable.
“That describes a love-powered diet.”

This reviewer laughed and/or cried throughout the book, sometimes both on the same page. How refreshing to find an author willingly and openly sharing many kinds of prayers, many ways of praying, many reasons to pray before and after eating, and the benefits of praying with others, praying alone, meditating, and journaling. The author spells out how to love oneself with food choices, sunshine, good water, rest, activity, and play, among others, and how to both give and receive love, which can be especially difficult for people with food and other addictions. This reviewer expects to continue to find nuggets throughout this book with every reading to come, whether an ah-ha moment of spiritual awakening, a new vegan recipe, another quote from a favorite author, or a scientific explanation of why a particular vitamin is good for you and where to find it in a vegan diet.

This book is a beacon of light in a dark morass of diet books that seem to ignore vegans and vegetarians (except, of course, for the books listed in the back of this book) and to pooh-pooh the notion that dieting has less to do with counting one’s caloric intake than with counting one’s blessings. Do your body, mind, and soul a favor. Read this book.