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The most exciting thing is that so much is possible. So much is within our power to make better. We can be healthy and happy. And we can do it so easily, simply by adjusting and tweaking our favorite meals so that they are healthier versions of the things we love. Still delicious, still hearty and satisfying. Just healthier. I promise.

Let me tell you a little about me, first of all, so you don’t think that I came out of the womb a veganist. I was born in the South and grew up on chicken-fried steak and cheesy grits. I loved nothing more than a vanilla milkshake and barbecue ribs. I had an appetite for meat like anyone else, and I didn’t think twice about it. I wasn’t a thoughtless person; I was just enjoying my life and eating what tasted good and what I was told was good for me. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I started considering where my food came from. When I made the shift to being vegetarian, it was gradual. I gave up eating one animal at a time. I’d come home and tell my husband, “I’m not cooking any more steak.” He’d roll his eyes and say, “Whatever.” And some months later, I’d be standing in the kitchen saying, “I can’t put chicken on the table anymore”—he was a little more perturbed about that. Later still, when I said I couldn’t bring myself to buy cheese anymore, he thought I’d lost my mind. Luckily, by then, I began hitting my stride with this lean toward a plant-based diet. I found so, so many delicious foods that were actually the same as our favorite meals, but without the meat. Sometimes I brought home meat alternatives (vegetarian versions of chicken or ribs, etc.) and sometimes I focused more on beans, legumes, and whole grains (like black bean burritos with guacamole or lentil soup with cheesy bread and salad).

I actually began to love this food, and so did my husband. He told me, “If I thought I could have eaten this well as a vegetarian, I would have gone that way a long time ago.” There was no loss. No stringent diet or “bird food.” We simply lightened up on the animal-based foods and replaced them with plant-based fare. Before too long (it was a period of a few years, actually), we had a vegan home and were entertaining friends and family with unbelievably delicious (and nutritious) food.

Mind you, my husband is still not vegan… not even vegetarian (although he is certainly leaning in that direction). I am, though, and in our home we have only vegan food. I’m flexible with him (I don’t bug him when he orders fish at a restaurant) and he lets me be me. Some of our friends and family have changed their diet because they love the food and see what a difference it’s made in me, and some of our friends simply find it interesting cuisine for the time spent at our house. In all cases, I’ve been thrilled to see how people have gravitated toward and been interested in hearing more. Hence the book!

I want to shine a bright light on the whole world of positives that flow from the decision to eat a plant-based diet—positives for your health (eliminating meat leads naturally, even effortlessly, to weight loss; blood sugar balancing; prevention, even reversal of heart disease; etc., etc., etc.) but also for your mind and your spirit, positives in terms of feeding the world and keeping the earth from deeper peril, in terms of putting money in your pocket and saving precious natural resources and deepening your sense of kinship with life.

You see, following a vegan (or vegan-ish) diet is a choice that has no downside. It’s a home run, a good-for-everyoneand-everything solution. It can help you lose weight, heal your body from disease, and start making the world a more peaceful and livable place. And it’s as delicious and inexpensive as it is good for our planet Earth.

In an effort to find a word to describe this magnificent tapestry of good that surrounds the choice to eat only food that grows on trees or from the ground, I landed on the term veganist. (Actually, my husband, after listening to enough of my spiels, said, “Honey, you’re a veganist!