First Person

Aidy Acres Rogers tried every diet under the sun to lose weight and feel like herself again. She counted her points on Weight Watchers, tried the Military Diet, and felt like a failure as the extra weight stayed on, and began to impact her mental health...

Doug Schmidt loved to eat meat and ate it every day, until at the age of 49, out of the blue, he suffered his first heart attack. "No one expects to have a heart attack at age 49," he said. In the hospital, near his home in Rochester, NY, he made the decision to follow the American Heart A…

One morning, Eric Adams remembers waking up, 56, as the new  Brooklyn Borough President and blinking to try to see. He was suddenly nearly blind in one eye and completely blind in the other. Rushing to the doctor, he was told that his blood glucose level was 17, three times …

Anna Rios is a Registered Dietician at Marin Community Clinics in California providing medical nutrition therapy to patients of all ages. She finds that if you can give them one recipe it can be the key to opening their minds about eating a plant-based diet...

My introduction to plant-based eating began with curiosity: People I knew and respected in the food world were advocating for it, and as a writer and food lover, I decided to investigate. I’d check it out, get a story, somehow survive, and then move on...

About fifteen years ago, the age of 23, Candace Brookins was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal disorder where one of the main symptoms among many women is infertility: Her doctors told her she would face difficulty trying to have a child it would&nb…

Berto Calkins has been vegan for six years after scaling back on consuming animal products a few years prior. He shares his drool-worthy vegan eats on his social media channels as well as his tips for vegan fitness. Calkins is a personal trainer powered by plants...

Last month, The Beet's TikTok hit close to half a million views on the making of a VegStart Diet recipe called Roasted Carrot & White Bean Soup. The video showcased a step-by-step process on how to make the delicious soup by plant-based chef and TikTok editor, Livia …

Torre Washington is a life-long vegetarian who went fully vegan over two decades ago as he learned about the principles of Rastafarianism. It wasn’t health reasons, the environment, or the animals that made him go vegan—he did so for his integrity within the teachings of Rastaf…

Barbara Livesay had been around the health care world most of her entire professional life, as a salesperson for skilled nursing and hospice, so when she got diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer just over two years ago, she had strong views about the course of treatment she wanted to foll…