Rushing around during the holidays isn’t always conducive to eating healthy meals. I’ll often take snacks such as nuts and raisins with me just in case, but there are times when I’ll just plain old forget (beware the friend or relative who accompanies me on those journeys!).
But there are some great products on the market that are a) vegan and b) healthy. It’s just knowing where to look. Sometimes that means ordering online if something’s not available in your own city (or country for that matter).
One of my on-the-run faves is Probar, a super healthy, organic food bar that comes in all sorts of (delish) flavours.
I caught up with the Probar founder, Art Eggertson, in LA earlier this year to chat about the state of food (specifically in America, but much of what we talked about is relevant to other countries such as New Zealand, Australia and the UK).
Art has been vegan for many years and founded Probar while snowboarding in Utah in the late 90s. Looking for a healthy snack to sustain him while on the slopes, he soon realized there were no nutritious alternatives to “bland-tasting, rock-hard” energy bars on the market—or the next option of “greasy slope-side-fare of cheeseburgers, fries and soda”.
Here is an excerpt from our interview:
VG: What is your mission?
AE: To co-create the new world centered on principles of truth and birth the lives of others into it.
VG: You’re one person making a big difference to the world. What advice could you give to someone who doesn’t think they, as one person, could possibly make a difference?
AE: I would encourage them to do some self-examination and learn what it is to be a human being. The awesome power that is inside each of us is greater than standing armies. The single most powerful thing in this world is the individual.
VG: What advice would you give to someone who does think they can make a difference?
AE: We must stick to our guns! Be on the side of truth and love. Pick our issue or issues and stand by them no matter what. Give our lives to it and the Universe will provide the details and organize itself around us in its own time and in the BEST possible way, we must trust it.
VG: What’s wrong with the food in America? Who has the power to fix it?
AE: The food in America has been industrialized, modified, manipulated, pasteurized, homogenized, corporatized, processed, reprocessed, preserved, shipped, stored, condensed, evaporated, distilled, enriched, enrobed, freeze dried, flash-fried, irradiated, dyed, stabilized, subsidized and just plain messed with in every way. We eat Frankenfood!!
The power to fix this mess is in our hands; we are the ones making the purchases. We must demand better! We need to know what our food is, where it is coming from and who is growing it. Supporting the right producers is critical; independent, family owned, cooperative and sustainable players need our support. Ideally we need to be producing our food locally. From local bakeries and breweries to roadside produce stands and individual vendors who craft real home made preserves and other items; the choices are all around us.
We can network into community gardens if we are urban dwellers. We can have backyard gardens if we live in suburbia. Combining our efforts with our friends and neighbors nets huge returns as well. Tear up a flowerbed and grow tomatoes and other veggies instead. Plant fruit trees instead of decorative trees. Whatever the steps are required to end industrial food systems are the steps we must take. Wall Street agribusiness and global markets must shift to Main Street and the neighborhood farmer’s market.
VG: Your definition of real food?
AE: My definition of real food is twofold. Real food is from nature, the tree, the vine or the field with nothing added or taken away. Real food is also specie specific and must be right for the organism consuming it; termites eat wood and not cotton candy, for example.
VG: What is one thing people may not know about the food in their kitchen?
AE: Something most people don’t know about the food in their kitchens is that it is responsible for over 1.5 million preventable American deaths every year. This includes deaths from obesity related conditions like heart disease, diabetes, cancer and stroke. The number of Americans suffering from these and other chronic conditions is staggering, as is the amount of money we pay to relieve our symptoms. This is the key to unlocking our health care disaster.
VG: Who are the people you admire for making a difference?
AE: I am blessed; one of my heroes is a family member. My Aunt Esther is not only one of my heroes she is also a mentor. Among her many accomplishments is the Consumer’s Bill of Rights which she co authored with JFK. She also wrote the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act for women. She is known as the Mother of Consumerism.
I also admire Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Vandana Shiva, John Robbins, Dorothy Day, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Nelson Mandela and countless others who inspire me with their fearless lives.
VG: How long have you been vegan? For someone isn’t familiar with why someone might choose to live a vegan lifestyle, can you explain the benefits and misconceptions?
AE: I have been vegan for over 15 years and I really believe that the biggest misconception that people hold about it is that somehow it is a diet of deprivation. Nothing could be further from the truth! Plant foods are what we season our meats with, without them most people would never enjoy animal flesh. The flavors, textures, and variety of vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, nuts, beans and lentils, herbs and spices is staggering and endless. A plant-based diet can be just as decadent and delicious as any other diet. Only on this road we end up feeling great physically, mentally and emotionally. Food is no longer the enemy.
Food becomes a powerful solution to our health and well-being. It becomes a powerful tool against water pollution (over 60% of the water pollution comes from animal waste, more than all other polluters COMBINED). It becomes a powerful force against global warming (animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gasses than all transportation combined) and it helps us side-step our own suffering from poor health! It does require change and most of us resist any form of it, but we also manage and get through it when it comes!
This is no different, the question is will we wait for the invitation to come in the form of disease and suffering or make it proactively before we end up having it forced upon us? 1 in 3 women in this country will have a heart attack and be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime and one in two men, respectively. This is a painful invitation to receive and many of us are getting it! Global warming is also an invitation, only to all of us.
VG: What makes up a Probar? Why are the ingredients so good for us?
AE: Probars are made with organic whole food ingredients, a lot of them! Nuts, seeds, dried fruit, rolled grains, malted grains, natural nut butters, in other words it is food. We do not cook our bars; that means the nutrient quality is as good as it gets! Healthy organic soil produces nutrient rich foods; left unprocessed those foods deliver optimal nutrition and flavor.
