Main Street Vegan

Ayurvedic expert Brian Leaf, author of Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi; and Lauren Ornelas, founder and director of the vegan food justice organization, the Food Empowerment Project.

Anne Dinshah, co-author of kids' cookbook Apples, Bean Dip, & Carrot Cake: Kids! Teach Yourself to Cook and author of Dating Vegans; and Jenny Brown, co-director of the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary and author of The Lucky Ones.

Brian and Anna Maria discuss their books 7 Keys to Lifelong Sexual Vitality and Killer Fish.

Guest co-host Erin Red Grayson of Erin Red Radio joins Main Street Vegan for a discussion with Marty Davey, MS, RD, "La Diva Dietician," on the basics of plant-based eating.

Happy Halloween! But we won't be scaring anybody with today's program: Instead, we'll be inviting "Ooohs" and "Ahhhs" with our delightful guest, animal behaviorist Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D., author of Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals (Macsci). Dr. Balcombe will regale us with incredible stories of the self-awareness, the personalities and the altruism of creatures from fish to rats to birds and all the rest. It's no wonder God looked at what He'd made and pronounced it all good-we'll learn this Halloween that these creatures are good-and smart and fascinating and valuable in their own right. You'll love this show.

A pair of incredible women will join us today: from Minnesota, Robin Asbell, author of cookbooks including Big Vegan: More than 350 Recipes, No Meat/No Dairy All Delicious and the new Sweet and Easy Vegan: Treats Made With Whole Grains and Natural Sweeteners (c'mon, who doesn't love dessert?); and from North Carolina, Rachel Weaver, the young mother of three who was healed of debilitating ulcerative colitis through fasting, juicing, a simple vegan diet, and an unshakeable belief in the healing power of God.

Get ready to get healthy for keeps with today's wise and wonderful guests, Michael Klaper, M.D., and Alan Goldhamer, D.C., both of the True North Health Center in Santa Rosa, California. (Dr. Goldhamer is also co-author of The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force That Undermines Health and Happiness, one of the best books out there on why we eat the way we do and how to make positive changes.) These men have a combined 60 years' experience in helping people heal through lifestyle choices and drawing on the healing life God planted into each and every body. Tune in for information that morphs into the inspiration you need to make the changes you want to make today.

A few years back, Victoria Beckham was photographed with a copy of a book called Skinny Bitch, and it went on to achieve phenomenon-status success around the world. And, well, it ought to: This is the book that showed the world that looking fabulous is about living fabulously-with caring for others as well as ourselves. We're honored to have Skinny Bitch co-author, Rory Freedman, live with us in NYC, to talk about her spiritual path, her dietary path, her ethical convictions, and life after mega-success.

Michael Greger, M.D., may just know more about human nutrition than anyone alive on the planet. He scours every nutrition journal published in the English language and reports his findings on his remarkable site, www.nutritionfacts.org.

Diet and exercise work hand in hand, along with a positive attitude, to create good health. Helping us all to eat better (and quicker) is "the veggie queen," Jill Nussinow, R.D., whose latest book is The New Fast Food: The Veggie Queen Pressure Cooks Whole Food Meals in Less Than 30 Minutes(this is not your mother's pressure cooker); and vegan personal trainer and erstwhile nationally ranked swimming champion, Wendy Siskin.

This is the show that scones built: We tasted the incredible, totally vegan scones of Chef Mark Reinfeld, and knew that we wanted to introduce the author of The 30-Minute Vegan: Over 175 Quick, Delicious, and Healthy Recipes for Everyday Cooking and the upcoming The 30-Minute Vegan's Taste of Europe: 150 Plant-Based Makeovers of Classics From France, Italy, Spain ... and Beyond to our listeners.

Veering from our focus on chefs this month, our show features two amazing guests who care for rescued animals. Katie Vandergrift of Colorado's Wild Animal Sanctuary is "den mother" to large cats and other wild creatures rescued from abuse situations. We'll also have Ron Allison, M.D., board president of PIGS, a Sanctuary, in West Virginia, providing homes for potbellied pigs, farmed pigs and other farmed animals rescued from abuse/neglect and living happy, happy lives.

We're focusing on food this month, and our first September guest is the gifted Chef AJ, author of Unprocessed: How to Achieve Vibrant Health and Your Ideal Weight. She'll talk about her own health and weight loss transformation and how she makes dishes that are animal-free, oil-free, salt-free, and refined-sugar-free, and still super-yummy every time.

Today we'll go fashion forward with two style-savvy vegan women, Leann Mai-ly Hilgart, founder and designer of Vaute Couture (www.vautecouture.com), exquisite, eco-friendly, animal-product-free, made-in-America coats and jackets for women and men; and Michelle Schwegmann of the Herbivore Clothing Company (www.herbivoreclothing.com), an online vegan department store with a brick and mortar location in Portland, Oregon.

A special full hour show with Frank Sabatino, D.C., Ph.D. Adair will be traveling in Africa, and Victoria will host solo this week, doing an in-depth interview with her own health mentor. Dr. Sabatino has a doctorate in cell biology and neuroimmunology from Emory University Medical School, and yet he's gifted at talking to regular people about transforming their health in the real world.