The Boston Vegetarian Food Festival is coming up this Saturday. Here’s a full list of speakers and their bios:
10:45 AM — Vegan Travel Tips and Q & A with Sarah Kramer
Cookbook author Sarah Kramer
Sarah Kramer combined her love of cooking and her love of animals to become a world-class vegan cookbook author and vegan superstar. How It All Vegan! and The Garden of Vegan, co-authored with Tanya Barnard, followed by her solo cookbook, La Dolce Vegan, brought her onto the world stage and fulfilled her aspirations to do something with her life that would make a difference in the world.
Declared “The World’s Coolest Vegan” in a cover story by Herbivore magazine, Sarah is also a photographer, tattoo shop owner, and traveller. The latter inspired her new release, Vegan a Go-Go!, a cookbook and advice book for veg travelers. Sarah will share some tips for going on the road and being able to locate and/or make animal-free meals that are easy to prepare with a minimum of ingredients but guaranteed to deliver energy, good nutrition, and great flavor.
We also will hear a bit of Sarah’s personal story, and have time for Q & A. Sarah comes to us from British Columbia, Canada, and her fun, retro style is loved by fans around the world. Her books will be available for sale and signing following her presentation.
11:30 AM — Meat Production’s Impact on Climate Change and the Environment
Danielle Nierenberg
Danielle Nierenberg is a leading expert on animal agriculture and sustainability. As a Senior Fellow with the Worldwatch Institute, she has authored significant reports addressing the damaging effects of factory farming on the environment, human health, and communities. Worldwatch declares, “Growing demand for meat has become a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future.” The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports that animal agriculture contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions than all transportation combined.
Danielle’s knowledge of factory farming and its global spread has been cited widely in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and other publications. She worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She holds an M.S. in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in environmental policy. Danielle lives in Washington DC and serves as Animal Agriculture and Climate Change Specialist for the Humane Society of the United States.
12:15 — Cooking Demo and Nutrition Talk: Favorite Whole Foods to Energize You Throughout the Day
jae steele, RHN
jae steele is a Toronto-based registered holistic nutritionist. She is the author of Get It Ripe: a fresh take on vegan cooking and living (2008), which features uncomplicated yet delicious recipes that use unprocessed ingredients. The book has been lauded for being packed with culinary tips and simple holistic health information.
While working on organic farms in her early twenties, jae developed a love for vegan whole foods. She has been a professional vegan baker, and has maintained a food blog, Domestic Affair, for almost four years. Her strength is in providing practical information for healthy living - she regularly lectures and leads workshops about eating well in everyday life. jae was trained at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition and holds a level II in Reiki.
jae will offer a nutrition talk and food preparation demo using tasty, whole foods ingredients that will start your day off right, satisfy you at lunch, and keep you energized throughout the afternoon. jae’s book will be available for sale and signing following her presentation.
1:30 PM — Understanding the Evidence for a Plant-Based Diet
T. Colin Campbell, PhD
T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. is a giant in the field of nutrition research, with a brilliant career spanning over 40 years. His legacy, the China Study, is the most comprehensive study ever conducted of the connection between diet and disease. Dr. Campbell is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, and Project Director of the renowned China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project, the largest population study in world history of the effects of diet on health. The study was the culmination of a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. The results were clear:
People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease, and t
he closer you get to eating an all-plant diet, the greater the health benefits.
Dr. Campbell was trained at Cornell (M.S., Ph.D.) and MIT (Research Associate) in nutrition, biochemistry and toxicology. His principal scientific interest has been the effects of nutrition on long term health, particularly on the cause of cancer. He has authored more than 300 research papers.
Dr. Campbell has been a member of the National Academy of Science’s expert panels on issues of carcinogenicity, food safety policy, and research recommendations on diet, nutrition and cancer. He was the Senior Science Advisor for the American Institute for Cancer Research/World Cancer Research Fund.
His book, The China Study; Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health (2005), is an engrossing, illuminating, and lively read which details the connection between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and the effects of aging, and how nutrition can reduce or reverse their risk or effects. The China Study also examines the source of conflicting nutritional messages produced by powerful lobbies, government entities, and irresponsible scientists. It has been translated into 10 languages.
Dr. Campbell will do a book signing following his presentation.
2:30 PM — Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals
Karen Dawn
Born in the US, Karen Dawn grew up and studied in Australia. She worked as a news researcher and writer for Australia’s national nightly news magazine show The 7:30 Report, then moved to New York, where she played the downtown music scene—and made fruit salad at the Saint Francis of Xavier soup kitchen every Sunday. After reading Animal Liberation, she was moved to devote her efforts to those most abused by society and least able to help themselves—the animals.
Karen founded the animal advocacy media watch DawnWatch in 1999. As a spokesperson for the animal protection movement, she has appeared on MTV and hosted talk shows on major radio stations. Her opinion pieces have been published in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, New York’s Newsday and the UK Guardian. She is a contributor to the book, In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave, edited by Peter Singer.
Karen’s first book, Thanking the Monkey, was published this year and has a host of endorsements from celebrities and fellow authors and rave reviews from readers. Karen will do a book signing following her presentation.
3:30 PM — The Latest in Human Nutrition 2008
Michael Greger, MD
A perennial hit speaker at our Festival, Dr. Greger will introduce an engaging new interactive quiz show format that lets us test our nutrition knowledge with some surprising outcomes. Dr. Greger has scoured the world’s scholarly literature on clinical nutrition and developed this brand-new talk of the latest in cutting-edge research. Focusing on studies published just over the last year in peer-reviewed scientific nutrition journals, Dr. Greger offers practical advice on how best to feed ourselves and our families to prevent, treat, and even reverse chronic disease.
Known as one of the most entertaining medical speakers of our time, Michael Greger, MD, is a physician, author, and internationally recognized speaker on nutrition, food safety, and public health issues. He has lectured at the Conference on World Affairs, the Bird Flu Summit, the National Institutes of Health, and universities, medical schools, and conferences around the world. He is a graduate of Cornell University School of Agriculture and Tufts University School of Medicine and is Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States. 
Dr. Greger’s presentations are described by audiences as “riveting,” “spellbinding,” and “brilliant,” and you can always count on great wit and humor. He is author of the books BIRD FLU: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, and CARBOPHOBIA: The Scary Truth Behind America’s Low Carb Craze, and has produced nutrition and cooking DVDs.
Following the presentation, Dr. Greger will do a book signing. His books will be available all day at his table in the exhibitor room. All proceeds go to charity.
5 PM — Passionate about Dessert
Hannah Kaminsky
Nineteen-year-old Hannah Kaminsky shares her creative genius for food, writing, and photography in her first cookbook of original, luscious recipes for desserts and baked goods, My Sweet Vegan. Each recipe illustrated with her own amazing food photography, the cookbook was created while she was still in high school.
Her egg-free, dairy-free recipes are cholesterol free, but that fact is overpowered by the sheer sumptuousness of her creations. From Whoopie Pies to Green Tea Tiramisu to Pumpkin Pecan Pie to Mocha Devastation Cake, these inventive recipes use creative flavor combinations and please every sweet tooth. Hannah writes an award-winning blog, BitterSweetBlog, and writes a regular column for VegNews Magazine. She has begun work on a second cookbook, and hopes her books will help support her college education. Hannah also loves crafts, particularly crocheting tiny animal figures as pictured here.
Hannah has a lot to say about how to frost and decorate cakes. She will demonstrate this practical art using her own frosting recipes and sharing baking and cake decorating tips. Her books will be available for sale and signing after her talk, and all day at her table in the exhibitor room.
[via Boston Vegetarian Society]
