About Us

Welcome to Sacramento Vegan Challenge.

We are a community site designed to both support and “Challenge” you in your Vegan path through providing resources, awareness, and promoting local events and opportunities through which you can become better connected with other vegans throughout the Greater Sacramento area.

V-Healthy

…Whether you are just curious, leaning toward becoming vegan, or fully ready to jump into a plant-based diet/ lifestyle, we have resources, recipes, suggestions/ideas and support groups available to help you move forward through this life-changing transition to become a healthy, fit vegan.

…If you are “already vegan,” we can help you with health, nutrition, and fitness ideas and resources to support your vegan lifestyle.

V-Aware

Going vegan is more than a diet change, it’s an opportunity to take on the challenge of a compassionate lifestyle based service to others, stewardship to our earth, and ahisma (non-violence) to all living entities.

V-Connected

We also hope to connect you with local vegan groups, activities, and events happening throughout the Greater Sacramento area:

We have on-going cooking/ nutrition classes; monthly Vegan Society potlucks, dine-outs, and meet-ups; guest speakers that are prominent experts: doctors, dietitians, authors, chefs, and celebrities promoting vegan issues including health, compassion, and animal welfare; and a wide variety of additional special events and participation opportunities.

 

Bethany Davis

Bethany Davis is a credentialed K-12 home school teacher, and has been highly interested in nutrition & health for over twenty years. After reading Kathy Freston’sThe Veganist in February, she and her family made the switch to a plant-based diet. She and her daughter assisted with the Meals for Health program hosted by our Sacramento Food Bank. Bethany has recently completed eCornell University’s Plant Based Nutrition Program, and is pursuing a career as a Nutrition and Wellness Coach & Educator. She is active in promoting local vegan education/ outreach events throughout Sacramento, in cooperation with the Sacramento Vegan Society.

Lauren Michele

 

Lauren Michele's Vegan Cupcakes (gluten/sugar-free too!)

In between running her business and authoring a book on sustainable community planning and policy (Policy in Motion), Lauren ‘Iolani Michele is an active volunteer with the Lotus Garden Meditation Center and has a daily yoga and meditation practice in addition to being an avid gluten-free vegan baker and raw foodie.  She manages the “V-Aware” section of the Sacramento Vegan Challenge – combining her knowledge of environmental impacts from the livestock industry, practice of ahisma/non-violence, and dedication to consciousness based in service to others.  Lauren is vegetarian as part of her practice of ahisma, and vegan for environmental and personal health reasons.  In addition to her love of baking, Lauren also loves to photograph vegan dishes and provided the food photography on the site’s homepage (as well as those gluten/sugar free and vegan carob cupcakes with raw avocado mousse!)

Lauren’s health was a major driver for considering how food impacts not only others and the planet – but herself.  Diagnosed with epilepsy at age 18 after a year of unrelated health issues varying from chronic sinus infections to acute asthma and allergies, Lauren suffered from debilitating nerve pain and degenerative lumbar discs for nearly three years in her mid-20’s.  The combination of a health plan including Chinese medicine, holistic nutrition, and a svaroopa (restorative-style) yoga asana practice has led Lauren on a journey from daily mediCation to daily mediTation.  Healing was a physical, emotional and spiritual process for Lauren and going vegan (and gluten-free!) became so much more than just a diet change – but rather an opportunity to take on the challenge of a compassionate lifestyle for herself, planet and all living entities.

“Quality of Life” is a recent concept in Lauren Michele’s primary profession to depict how the creation of sustainable communities fosters individual “livability” — or happiness.  As a “Livability Expert” in the profession, her work has been used at the local, regional, state and federal level to help policy makers and community planners understand how to foster interdependent communities based on principles of simple living.  She hopes her personal story might inspire others to start a journey toward a happier and healthier life for themselves, others, and the planet.

As part of her service to the Sacramento community, Lauren is happy to direct anyone interested in further resources if you wish to contact her at YogaFoodie@yahoo.com

Monica Biery

Monica is a wife, mother of three and a business owner in Sacramento.  She has been a vegetarian for almost 15 years and vegan for three years.  Nutrition became extremely important when she decided to start a family and she began researching the health benefits of a plant-based diet.   Her goal is to raise her family to be as healthy as possible physically, mentally and spiritually and whole-heartedly believes it all starts with nutrition.  Her reasons for helping out with this challenge are to get more vegan-friendly menu items in the restaurants in Sacramento, as well as share her knowledge with others in the community~ especially other moms & families raising their children as vegan/ vegetarian, or transitioning to healthier eating & lifestyle.

 

 

Jedediah Soliz

Running on Vegan!

 

Jedidiah Soliz is a self employed Landscape Gardener and Designer. He graduated from American River College with an AS degree in Horticulture for both the landscape industry and nursery industry. During his time there, he competed in Cross Country for the College team. Once graduated, he continued to compete in races, mostly focusing on the 5k to 10k. Jedidiah became interested in the idea of vegan first in 2003 from a close family member, but later started a transformation plan in 2008 to become vegan by his 30th birthday in 2012. At the beginning of 2011 he went full vegetarian and mostly vegan. 2011 has been his most successful running year to date; with personal records in several race distances. He credits this mostly to his change in diet. Jedidiah is very passionate about Holistic Nutrition and the Plant based diet. His mission is to educate and show, with his own experiment, that one can thrive in competitive sports on a plant based diet!  He is concerned about every aspect of the benefits of the vegan lifestyle, including health and how our food choices impact other people, the environment and how we can save and conserve our land, and the animals and all we can do for them by what we put on our plate. Jedidiah truly believes that you are what you eat and what you eat really makes a difference!

Events

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