May 2019 marked the beginning year of the Yoga Is Vegan Podcast. In The Best Of: Part 1, Holly Skodis features excerpts from some of her favorite interviews this year. This is a great episode to listen to if you are new to the show or haven't quite yet listened to them all. Clearly there wasn't enough time to share as many as she would have liked. Stay tuned next week, for Part 2.

Episodes featured in this episode:

Joy Pierson and Bart Potenza are pioneers in the vegan restaurant business. They have been New York's staple for fine dining for over 16 years and their restaurants have included Candle 79, Candle Cafe West and Candle Cafe. Unfortunately, their episode was corrupted while editing and the full episode never aired. What remains is golden non-the-less. For more information on the Candle Cafe's visit http://www.candlecafe.com

Sri Dharma Mittra: Legendary yoga teacher Sri Dharma Mittra first encountered yoga as a teenager before meeting his guru in 1964 and beginning his training in earnest. Sri Dharma founded one of the early independent schools of yoga in New York City in 1975 and has taught many tens of thousands the world over in the years since. Sri Dharma is the model and creator of The Master Yoga Chart of 908 Postures, the author of ASANAS: 608 Yoga Poses, the LOAY Teachers’ Manual and Yoga Wisdom, has released two DVDs to date – Maha Sadhana Levels I and II, and recently captured classes are available for streaming via alomoves.com, YogaJournal.com and Vimeo On Demand. Sri Dharma continues to disseminate the complete traditional science of yoga through daily classes, international workshops and his Life of a Yogi Teacher Trainings at the Dharma Yoga New York Center. For more information on all things Dharma Yoga, please visit: www.dharmayogacenter.com.

Listen to Episode 28- Sri Dharma Mittra

Victoria Moran is a vegan of over three decades, a yoga practitioner of half a century, and was voted “Peta’s Sexiest Vegan Over 50” in 2016. Listed by VegNews among the Top 10 Living Vegetarian Authors, Victoria made her reputation in the self-help and spirituality genre with books including the international bestseller, Creating a Charmed Life. In the vegan space, she’s written books including The Love-Powered Diet, The Good Karma Diet, and the iconic Main Street Vegan.

Moran is founder and director of Main Street Vegan Academy, an in-person program in New York City that trains vegan lifestyle coaches, educators, and entrepreneurs. The Academy has over 400 alumni in twenty-eight countries, who are engaged in vegan enterprises ranging from counseling to cooking to cowboy boots.

Featured twice on Oprah and regularly appearing on television and radio, Victoria is an internationally celebrated speaker and host of the award-winning Main Street Vegan podcast. She is also lead producer of A Prayer for Compassion, the 2019 documentary from Student Academy Award winner, Thomas Jackson, that explores the intersection of food choices and spirituality. She lives with her husband, writer and musician William Melton, their rescue-dog, Forbes, and a handicapped pigeon named Thunder, in a “green” building in New York City.

Listen to Episode 16- Victoria Moran

Dotsie Bausch- After concluding a prolific professional cycling career that produced a medal at the 2012 London Olympic Games, eight US national championships, two Pan American gold medals and a world record, Dotsie Bausch has become a powerful influencer for plant-based eating for athletes and non-athletes alike. Named by VegNews in 2019 as one of the top 20 most influential vegans in the world, she utilizes her degree in plant-based nutrition to inform her impassioned messages as an advocate on behalf of humans, planet earth and animals.

Never one to shy away from facing staggering odds – just like she did in the Olympics while riding for Team USA, whose unlikely and triumphant story is chronicled in the Netflix documentary “Personal Gold” – her latest initiative is founding the non-profit Switch4Good. Switch4Good launched in early 2018 with a television commercial featuring six Olympians from four different countries and proves that cow’s milk is not part of a high-performance diet. The ground-breaking commercial aired on NBC during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games closing ceremonies and on ABC during the Academy Awards broadcast. View the commercial at: https://Switch4Good.org. Bausch is also one of the stars of the film The Game Changers (http://gamechangersmovie.com), which chronicles the story of the world’s most dangerous myth. Directed by Academy Award winner Louie Psihoyos and executive produced by Oscar winner James Cameron, The Game Changers released to worldwide audiences in October of 2019 and in just one week, became the #1 downloaded film of all time on iTunes.

Long before embodying radiant health and becoming an influential game changer, Bausch struggled for years with severe eating disorders and a recreational drug habit, that combined, led to a suicide attempt. It was during her recovery that she discovered her gift and love for the bike.

Bausch speaks passionately around the world, spreading her message about the numerous benefits – humane, nutritional and environmental – of plant-based eating. Her popular TEDx Talk, “Olympic Level Compassion,” has garnered over 275,000 views and has been a catalyst of change for thousands of people.

Listen to Episode 27- Switch4Good & The Game Changers Dotsie Bausch

Anna Ferguson is the author of World Peace Yoga: Yoga for People Who Breathe, a companion book to Dr. Will Tuttle’s book, The World Peace Diet. In addition to being co-creator of World Peace Yoga studio in Cincinnati, Anna is engaged in several evolving paradigms as a co-founder of Heärt Montessori, a school where empathy and compassion are taught as part of core academics, the Jubilee Animal Sanctuary, providing a glimpse of what a peaceful world looks like, and the Cincy VegFest, an annual one-day vegan festival.

Listen to Episode 4- Anna Ferguson: Yoga For People Who Breathe

Dr. Will Tuttle, visionary educator, has presented widely throughout North America and worldwide. A 39-year vegan, he is the author of the #1 Amazon best-selling book The World Peace Diet and is a recipient of the Courage of Conscience Award and the Empty Cages Prize. He is also author of the recent book, Your Inner Islands: The Keys to Intuitive Living, as well as editor of Circles of Compassion: Essays Connecting Issues of Justice and the newly-released Buddhism and Veganism: Essays Connecting Spiritual Awakening and Animal Liberation.

Devoted to cultural healing and awakening, he is a former Zen monk and Dharma Master in the Zen tradition, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, focused on educating intuition and altruism in adults. He has taught college courses in creativity, humanities, religion, and philosophy, and is also a composer and concert pianist. He is noted for his clear and inspiring presentations, and is featured in many documentary films, including Cowspiracy; A Prayer for Compassion; Vegan: Everyday Stories; and HOPE: What You Eat Matters.

Listen to Episode 7- Dr. Will Tuttle

Gabriel Cousens, the “liberated vegan from Eden”, is the author of thirteen internationally acclaimed books including Spiritual Nutrition and Creating Peace by Being Peace. Known worldwide as a spiritual teacher and the leading expert in live, plant-source nutrition, Dr. Cousens functions as a holistic physician, psychiatrist, family therapist, and cutting-edge researcher on healing diabetes naturally. He holds an M.D. from Columbia Medical School, a doctorate in homeopathy, and diplomas in Ayurveda, and holistic medicine. His multicultural background as an ordained rabbi, an acknowledged yogi, and a four-year Native American Sundancer, adds insight to his “whole-person enlightenment” teachings. Dr. Cousens is the founder and director of the Tree of Life Foundation.

Dr. Gabriel Cousens will recommend raw honey and bee pollen with vegan alternatives in his books. While this is not discussed in this episode, I do want to acknowledge that this is in conflict with strict veganism. He addresses this topic in http://treeoflifecenterus.com/the-art-of-live-food-preparation/

Tiffany Paultauf and her husband Joe Bonitatebus started the Sleepy Pig Farm Animal Sanctuary where they have rescued over a dozen farmed animals from slaughter. Their goal for the future is to grow the sanctuary and to rescue more animals, as well as educate the community about obtaining a vegan lifestyle. At the the moment they are in the process of becoming a non profit.

Listen to Episode 19- Tiffany Paltauf: Rescuing Animals and Starting an Animal Farm Sanctuary