2013: The Final Countdown

This week, we’re all counting down to the start of a new year. How was 2013 for you? Did you quit smoking or complete our 21-Day Vegan Kickstart? Did you improve your diet and kick your diabetes medications to the curb? 2013 was a big year for health-conscious people. So we’re counting down with this list of some of the major trends from 2013! Hopefully everyone has a healthy, happy new year! Let’s keep the good habits rolling into 2014 and beyond. Here are a few of the noteworthy events of the year: 5 Healthy Trends

• Vegan Fast-Food Options: In February, Chipotle launched its plant-based Sofrita in the Bay Area. Due to popular demand, the test launch rapidly increased to include all of California. By October, the Sofrita had reached the East Coast! Subway also jumped on the vegan fast-food bandwagon and debuted a falafel sandwich at select East Coast locations. Dominos has also dipped their toe into the vegan international market, by releasing a vegan pizza in Israel.
• The 21-Day Vegan Kickstart: Our global Kickstart programs reached a total of 300,000 participants! Kickstart Japan was just added to the lineup of international Kickstart programs. All of the programs help reverse the problems of meat and dairy products with plant-based recipes and resources.
• Plant-Based Thanksgiving: After the release of the turkey-friendly movie Free Birds, The New York Times featured more than 600 vegetarian and vegan recipes in their Thanksgiving recipe database.
• Healthy School Lunches: P.S. 244Q in Queens, N.Y., won the grand prize in this year’s Golden Carrot Award with their completely vegetarian school cafeteria menu.
• Meatless Monday: This year, Meatless Monday marked their 10th anniversary! With schools, city councils, restaurants, and hospital across the globe participating in Meatless Mondays, the program is more popular than ever.

4 Vegan Celebrities

• Just in time for Thanksgiving, Al Gore transitioned to a plant-based diet—helping improve his health and the environment.
• Tia Mowry went public with how a vegan diet helped her get healthy—and start a family!
• For Jay Z’s 44th birthday, he and Beyoncé adopted a 22-day vegan diet. They frequented vegan restaurants, uploading photos to Instagram and promoting plant-based recipes. They started it as an experiment, but hopefully they’ll like it so much they’ll decide to put a ring on it.
• Santa Claus is vegetarian! At the prompting of his elves, Santa made the switch to a vegetarian diet so his belly no longer shakes like a bowl full of jelly.

3 Big Events

• At the Physicians Committee’s International Conference on Nutrition and the Brain, the world’s leading experts shared their insights on how foods can help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other serious conditions. We also unveiled our Dietary Guidelines for Alzheimer’s Prevention. Lectures from the conference are available online at no cost—health care providers can also earn CME credit.
• To win the debate of the century, Gene Baur and I squared off against two opponents on the proposition “Don’t Eat Anything with a Face.”
• Among PCRM’s many big events, our Hamptons fundraiser, at the home of John Bradham, supported our work to raise awareness of how diet can prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

2 Innovative Food Inventions

• Treeline Cheese launched a hard nut cheese now available at grocery stores and restaurants across the country. Made of cashews and entirely plant-based, it is tangy, creamy, and cholesterol free.
• The first in-vitro burger debuted this year in the U.K. While meat is still an unhealthful food item, this advancement does remove the slaughter of animals and allows for the potential removal of the artery-clogging components.

1 New Book

• Power Foods for the Brain: In February, I released Power Foods for the Brain and gave talks all across the country. Along with our new PBS show on the same topic, we helped people learn how to use food to combat memory loss.

There were many more items we could have picked, and so much more coming for the new year!