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We recently caught up with Todd Anderson to discover what fueled his meat-free journey, how the love become article marketing and restaurant ownership, and also the connections between Black background and plant-based eating.<\/strong><\/p>\n Todd Anderson isn't your typical vegan – and that's the purpose. The information creator and co-owner of San Diego's Spoiled Vegans Cafe loves getting creative in the kitchen, crafting plant-based dishes which are approachable and catch the attention of both vegans and the not-yet-converted. <\/p>\n His Instagram is really a crave-worthy collection of videos showcasing chicken sandwiches, burgers on pretzel buns, creamy nacho cheese sauce, and air-fried cheese sticks (all of it vegan, obviously). If your mouth is watering – that's the point. His strategy is simple: Create animal-free versions of people's favorite meals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SG: Let me know about how your trip with veganism began.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There was one doctor within the documentary having said that one sentence that changed my entire life. It was that we are the only real species that drinks milk from another species. That sentence connected with me, and I sat there for a few seconds, and I was like man, that's strange. That's weird. Like, that's very weird that we're an intelligent species, and we're the only species that drinks milk from another species.<\/p>\n So that was my connection. I watched all of those other documentary, and at the end, I said, you realize, I will do this plant-based lifestyle for any week or so. Throughout that first week, I began to seem like I'd more energy. I had been waking up more alert. The large thing that woke me up is by the 2nd week, I lost some weight throughout my waist. I usually worked out, but I couldn't eliminate that little part of it. So once that left, I believe that motivated me to visit longer. Following a couple of months of being plant-based, I made a decision that this will probably be the life-style for me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SG: How did your passion evolve after that?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was like, you know what, I'm going to show you guys things i eat. So I started documenting on Instagram the food I had been eating, and that i started noticing my buddies and family saying, 'oh, that don't look bad.' In my experience which was motivation, which was intriguing for me. It lit the fireplace within me to prove people wrong.<\/p>\n When I made a decision to go vegan, I started to look for other vegans like me. Or people who I could connect with, and I missed many. And i believe that that was something which lit my fire, too. I think we want a male. We need someone Black to represent veganism in a cool way since i feel veganism could be a turnoff to numerous people because a large amount of times it's aggressive, the approach.<\/p>\n “After i decided to go vegan, I started to look for other vegans like me. Or people that I possibly could connect with, and I missed many. And I think that which was something which lit my fire, too.”<\/p>\n Todd Anderson <\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A lot of times, the approach makes people feel below par or makes them feel guilty, and, in exchange, if one makes someone feel guilty, they're probably going to close their doors and not even open their brains as to the there are here. So that was huge to me so that you can produce a safe space where non-vegans would go on my page and never feel guilty or otherwise feel wrong or like they're less than me or something like that. I would like them to go to my page and go 'oh, that looks very good. I'm going to try that.'<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SG: Do you think showing plant-based versions of meals like hamburgers and chicken sandwiches in your social channels makes veganism more approachable?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I don't eat processed vegan options constantly, however i think it's a great introduction for someone who's looking to make a transition and never dive right into lettuce and tofu. So I do think by creating foods which are very familiar, that opens the door towards the mind saying 'oh, that looks delicious,' which could lead to an action where, okay, maybe I should go by Spoiled Vegans and try a sandwich. And I think that's activism at its best.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SG: You've mentioned in other interviews that you originally thought that veganism was just for “certain groups of people.” What did you mean by this?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We aren't seeing veganism from your eyes or see veganism from our view. After i went vegan 4 or 5 years back, I think it was unusual for Blacks to become open-minded to going vegan. Today, I just read something which Blacks are some of the fastest-growing number of vegans.<\/p>\n I started questioning like, why? How come we so available to it now? And I think it features a lot related to freedom. It features a lot related to having the freedom to make the choice by what to set up the body and not be dictated by tradition or what's been influenced, but it is us selection by what to put into our body.<\/p>\n “When I went vegan four or five years back, I think it was unusual for Blacks to become open-minded to going vegan. Today, I just read something which Blacks are some of the fastest-growing number of vegans.”<\/p>\n Todd Anderson <\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read more: <\/strong>Go Veg For a Day<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n SG: What do you credit for this shift in the past few years?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n You look at the wellness community, too – I don't think there is lots of representation within the wellness community 4 years ago, and now you visit a much more representation. I think it's more available for the Black community to determine wellness and also to see people that remind them of themselves, and i believe in return that inspires.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SG: Would you still get a lot of people asking why you went vegan?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n SG: Do you know the historical and cultural ties between Black background and a plant-based diet?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I feel we hold that as pride because we took nothing making something by using it. And now it's this phase where we would like more than just that. We would like more than just taking scraps and which makes it gourmet. We want to go ahead and take plants making gourmet. So it's this same creativity that originated from taking scraps and visiting the plants.<\/p>\n “My goal is to create recipes where individuals may take canned beans and things they are able to grow in your own home to create meals. That's something huge to me that I wish to focus on within the next year – teaching people how you can grow their own food at home.”<\/p>\n Todd Anderson <\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n SG: What barriers do you consider still exist to a plant-based lifestyle?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My goal is to create recipes where individuals may take canned beans and things they can grow at home to make meals. That's something huge in my experience that I want to focus on within the next year – teaching people how to boost their own food in your own home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We recently caught up with Todd Anderson to discover what fueled his meat-free journey, how the love become article marketing and restaurant ownership, and also the connections between Black background and plant-based eating. Todd Anderson isn't your typical vegan – and that's the purpose. The information creator and co-owner of San Diego's Spoiled Vegans Cafe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-foods","tag-green-foods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenfuturemedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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