The Beginning
I truly feel that most people hear about the benefits of switching to a plant based diet, yet most of us are scared of change. People hear about vegetarians and vegans having better health, losing weight, and in general living a cleaner lifestyle yet, are stuck in their ways and the very thought of changing their entire life is out of the question and can seem overwhelming.
I think that in the back of our minds we always hear that a vegetarian diet is better for you but for most, the thought of giving up meat is simply not an option. After I watched an undercover video of animals in slaughterhouses I couldn’t bare to eat another piece of flesh. When I made that connection from meat to animal, meat to living and breathing, I just couldn’t handle the thought of ingesting another living being.
When I first made the choice to stop eating meat I was working on a grill in a steakhouse in a sports arena. I was terribly overweight, unhappy with myself as a human being, and knew I needed to make a change. My job was to cook 200 pieces of flesh in an hour. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I proclaimed to the 40 or so cooks and 10 sous chefs that I was to become a vegetarian. All of the chefs told me that my hair was going to fall out, I was going to become anemic, I would be deficient in protein and that my life as I knew it was essentially over.
The Realization
I was in utter shock. I was a cook and cooks cook meat. This is what we are trained to do. We bread it, we fry it, we simmer it, we sauté it, we grill it. This is just what we do. When I saw those pigs being brutally abused, when I learned of the horrors that go on in the name of dairy, a whole host of emotions built up inside of me. I was angry, I was upset, I was in fear yet most of all I had no idea what I was going to do to make a living. “How could I go back to cooking meat after I witnessed such terrible actions?” which was what I thought to myself. “How can I call myself a good and decent human being and still serve people what I related to be murder on a plate?” I had a decision to make and that was do I still create food for a living or do I join Greenpeace and try to save the world that way?
New York
I was spending a lot of time in New York when I first went vegetarian and I was lucky enough to eat at some of the top Vegan restaurants in the world. Back then I had no idea what quinoa was, I had not the slightest inkling of a tahini cream or even how to cook lentils. I began googling names and buying books. I was like a madman over the next year filling my brain with as much information as I possibly could about a vegan lifestyle and of course, vegan restaurants and chefs.
One of the first books I picked up was Anne Gentry’s. She was/is one of the first people to really come out in the mainstream and introduce people in LA to a vegan diet and all of the health benefits associated with it. I purchased her cookbook and began to research how she made magic out of nuts, seeds, grains and legumes. I continued searching and names such as Matthew Kenney, Chad Sarno, Sarah Kramer and Isa Chandra Moskowitz were popping up in my google radar. Restaurants like Candle Café, Candle 79, Pure Food and Wine, Real Food Daily, Millenium, Julianos Planet Raw and Madeleine Bistro were all names that were becoming recognizable. I was on to something and decided to see where I could take it.
Back in Toronto
After spending nearly 2 years going back and forth between Toronto and New York I made the decision to utilize my kitchen powers to become a vegan chef. Over the course of those 2 years I had lost nearly 100 pounds, learned a plethora about health and wellness, become a dedicated gym attendee and broken into the world of animal rights. Friends I had in high school thought I had lost my mind because I now had a cow tattooed on my shoulder that said, “How about I eat you?” People called me extreme because I refused to eat cheese or wear leather. For the first time in my life I was happy and it just so happened that I was making a difference, not only for me but for the environment, the animals and all of the people I would be able to help through an organic plant based diet.
Learning All Over Again
I was out protesting and giving it to the man but I was still cooking meat. Not only was I cooking meat, I was butchering it, making stocks and sauces out of it and I had to taste it, well, not eat it but taste the skin for seasoning or taste my sauces to see if they needed salt or not. There is no doubt that back then this did turn my stomach but its what I did for a living. At the age of 23 I was making a living but I had morals to live up to and if that mean taking a pay cut then so be it, I humbly bowed down from my job working for a local celeb chef and went to work at a vegan café serving coffee and muffins. I went from an above average salary to just getting by but I felt great, for the first time was slinging kale and lentils next to people who felt and lived the same way I did.
Time Goes On
I had my fun making vegan sandwiches and serving muffins but for someone trained as a classical chef I needed to expand my wings and take off. I was offered a head chef job at a vegan restaurant in the city and right away was given carte blanche. One of the perks of the job was the ability to learn the art of a new style of cuisine called Rawfood or Livefood. Instead of ovens I had dehydrators and instead of sauté pans or pasta machines I had things like spiralizers, vegetables peelers and high powered blenders. I was making tacos out of corn and carrots, pastas out of zucchini and alfredo sauces out of cashew. It was a great opportunity because it was a restaurant that featured rawfood but also afforded me the opportunity to create some magical cooked vegan offerings as well. I loved all of it and over the course of a year and a half of running that restaurant I grew leaps and bounds as a chef. I was offered a job as Executive Chef of a completely Raw Organic Vegan Restaurant 20 minutes outside of the city shortly after the year and a half mark and I couldn’t pass the offer up. Within a matter of days I took the job and began to write a completely rawfood menu as the new chef.
Health and Ethics
The word vegan doesn’t necessarily mean healthy and this is something I have always struggled with. When I first went vegan I instantly thought that I was going to be super skinny my entire life and never have to worry about food ever again, was I wrong. A vegan diet if not done properly can be very taxing on the environment and defeat the entre purpose of ethical eating. A person who is vegan for example may not be consuming animals or animal products but still be supporting the very companies that fund animal experimentation or even direct animal exploitation through umbrella companies. It is important to know who it is you are supporting, where your money is going and why they have those products on the market. One thing I like about a Rawfood or Living food diet is the fact that it is a completely unprocessed way of eating, everything is organic and it makes you feel great. I now strive to have days in my life where I am entirely raw but do no beat myself up over eating a few French fries here or there either. It is all about balance and enjoying life to me. When it is all said and done you want to be able to look back and say that life was great.
Doing My Time in the Burbs
I was working at the Rawfood restaurant and enjoying myself. The restaurant was 20 to 30 minutes outside of the city in an area that is dominated by fast food chains, pubs, and quick service grilled meat establishments. It was not an easy feat to bring 100% organic living food to people who had not so much as heard the name kale before, but we did it. With a dedicated team of employees and hard work we managed to fill that restaurant to the point where I was calling guests on their cell phones while they would walk around the block waiting for a table. I was putting in my time working endless hours and striving to create beautiful dishes. Slowly I began to get asked to appear on TV, I was holding cooking demonstrations, giving public talks, and teaching private classes at the restaurant. Things progressed really well with the food and I created four seasonal menus over the course of the first year, which led to me being a featured chef in the Toronto Star. The story was of how veganism literally saved my life. The feature in the Toronto Star led to a publisher reading my article in the newspaper, which 6 months later led to me signing a book deal for a Rawfood cookbook. The book will be published in the Spring of 2012.
Presently
Life is great, I am working on finishing my book and about to head out on my own to teach, consult and share the passion and knowledge that I have created. I have my health, I have my family and I have my friends, what more could I ask for?
