New mom Beyonce was spotted out on the town looking healthier than ever just one month after the birth of her daughter. Beyonce and her husband Jay-Z welcomed Blue Ivy into their lives on January 7, 2012.
On February 7 and 8, 2012 the power couple was attending and hosting a major benefit at New York’s Carnegie Hall. While Jay-Z was the headline performer as he performed a benefit concert for the United Way of New York City and his Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation, it looks like Mrs. Jay-Z may have stolen the show.
Both nights of the show Beyonce showed up wearing skintight dresses and heels to match. Not many new moms can even manage a grocery trip in sweats one month postpartum, let alone recall to accessorize. Beyonce not only accessorized, but had flawless hair to match her impressive look. Read Full Post >
If you’re curious about a vegan diet, but don’t know where to start, Vegucated is a good place to start. Directed by vegan educator and filmmaker Marisa Miller Wolfson, the documentary follows three individuals as the go from serious meat-eaters to complete vegans. The movie is funny at some moments, while eye-opening and dark at other moments.
The film explores not only these individual’s social and emotional journeys as they try out a vegan diet by cutting animal products out of their lives, but also educates the viewers about the realities of the industrial meat industry and shows viewers some of the first steps to becoming vegans themselves. “My hope is that people will watch this and say, veganism is not only not crazy, but it’s also a common sense solution to some of the world’s most serious environmental problems,” Wolfson told DietsInReview at a NYC screening in October. Watch our full interview below.
Venus Williams, the seven time Grand Slam winner known for her colorful appearance both on and off the tennis courts, has decided to go vegan. Specifically, she has begun a raw foods vegan diet in a quest to manage her recent diagnosis of Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease which has no cure in which the body attacks itself.
Williams has taken up her new dietary regimen to try to get a handle on her disease. She hopes that by swearing off of all animal products she can manage the symptoms of her disease, which include dry mouth, joint pain and often crushing fatigue. Sjogren’s presents in a similar fashion to fibromyalgia, and studies have shown that those who suffer from fibromyalgia have found some relief by choosing a vegan diet. In some cases, people who suffer from Sjogren’s have experienced kidney disease.
Venus Williams was diagnosed with Sjogren’s a month before the U.S. Open began. She attempted to compete, although she was forced to pull out just before her second match. She’s visited multiple doctors to try to determine why she’s suffered from so much pain and a lack of energy over the years, reporting that at times, it’s been difficult to even lift her tennis racket.
I find Russell Simmons fascinating from the perspective that he is a maverick in every sense of the word. He’s not just a successful business man, but he’s a legendary figure in the notoriously macho male world of hip hop, yet he’s a vegan, animal rights activist, and avid practitioner of yoga and Transcendental Meditation (TM).
It’s the vegan and animal right part of his lifestyle that has earned him the honor of PETA 2011 Person of the Year. He’s in good company, since last year the honor went to former President Bill Clinton for raising awareness about the health benefits of a vegan diet.
In a written statement, PETA says that Simmons earned the honor because “he tirelessly advocates for animals and sets a positive example for others by promoting a vegan lifestyle.”
Simmons is known for spreading the word on how his philosophy of compassion and his vegan diet has made his life better for it. You can’t accuse him of mincing his words:
“The horrible abuse of animals is the worst karmic disaster in the history of human kind,” said Simmons. “The work that PETA does to combat this catastrophe is amazing. I’m truly humbled to be chosen as this year’s Person of the Year but the praise should go to the hundreds of thousands of volunteers that are on the ground doing the work. I accept this honor on their behalf.” Read Full Post >
In the documentary Vegucated, filmmaker Marisa Miller Wolfson sets out to show how the vegan lifestyle can be adopted by anyone. It follows three New Yorkers of different backgrounds as they adopt a plant-based diet for six weeks, and then asks them if they’ll go back to eating as they did before. After winning the prize for the Best Documentary Feature at the Toronto Indie Film Festival, Vegucated debuted in the U.S. last week in NYC with a screening and a Q&A with the director and cast.
Although most of the audience members at the New York screening were already vegans, the film serves as an introduction to the vegan diet. None of Wolfson’s subjects had ever been vegan before, and the film teaches viewers the basic tenets of veganism along with Ellen, Tesla, and Brian.
To illustrate the health benefits of a vegan diet, Wolfson takes her subjects to see Dr. Joel Fuhrman before and after the six-week experiment. Fuhrman specializes in helping patients achieve better health by adopting a plant-based diet and is the author of several books on the subject, including Eat to Live and Eat for Health.
