Can what's on your plate really fight climate change? I sit down with policy researcher and lifelong vegetarian Nandita Srivastava to break down the hidden climate cost of meat — including why livestock methane is up to 80x more warming than CO2, and why India has one of the highest vegetarian rates in the world.

Nandita grew up vegetarian in India and later worked on international food systems and climate change projects across Asia and Africa. In this episode of the Climate Diet Podcast, we dig into the real data behind animal agriculture and climate change, the sneaky role food waste plays in methane emissions, and why sustainable eating doesn't have to mean giving up flavor — or your morning coffee.

🎧 WHAT WE COVER ✅ Nandita's vegetarian origin story growing up in India ✅ Why India has one of the highest vegetarian rates on Earth ✅ The staggering number of animals slaughtered for food every single day ✅ Methane vs. CO2: why livestock emissions matter more than you think ✅ How food loss and food waste quietly fuel climate change ✅ Simple, doable food swaps that actually cut your carbon footprint ✅ Why plant-based eating is also a personal health choice ✅ Climate Diet's Meat Down Pledge and Power of Food school program

📚 SOURCES & REFERENCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE - Our World in Data – how many animals are slaughtered for food every day: https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-get-slaughtered-every-day - The Rockefeller Foundation – True Cost of Food report: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/True-Cost-of-Food-Full-Report-Final.pdf - Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop, "Increased Transparency in Accounting Conventions Could Benefit Climate Policy," Environmental Research Letters (2025): https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/adb7f2

Host Erin DeMarines sat down with Chuck Carroll — "The Weight Loss Champion" — who lost 260 pounds after weighing 420 lbs, and we got real about food addiction, weight loss surgery, and why he had it reversed years later.

At his heaviest, Chuck was eating 10,000 calories a day, half of it from a nightly run to Taco Bell. In this episode he opens up about the gastric bypass surgery that saved his life in 2009, why he believes food is more addictive than nicotine, the study showing your brain lights up the same way for a donut as it does for cocaine, how a plant-based diet helped him keep the weight off for over a decade, and the terrifying mystery illness that forced him to have his bypass surgery reversed earlier this year.

If you've ever struggled with food addiction, emotional eating, yo-yo dieting, or you just need proof that it's never too late to turn your health around — this conversation is for you.

🎙️ WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE:

* Growing up on fast food and how it turned into a 10,000-calorie-a-day addiction * Hitting 420 lbs by his mid-20s and the chest pains that scared him into change * The gastric bypass surgery that changed everything in 2009 * Why he compares quitting Taco Bell to quitting nicotine — and says food is worse * The "bliss point": how food companies engineer cravings to mimic cocaine in the brain * Discovering plant-based eating through WWE wrestler Austin Aries * The documentaries that changed his life: What The Health, Food Inc., and The Game Changers * Building The Exam Room into one of the biggest nutrition podcasts in the world * His mystery illness, the Mayo Clinic diagnosis, and reversing his gastric bypass in 2026 * Daily habits: morning sunlight, gut health, and his go-to healthy "splurge" Why the plant-based community can be its own worst enemy

📚 RESOURCES & SOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: * Chuck Carroll's website & newsletter: https://chuckcarroll.com * The Exam Room Podcast (Apple Podcasts): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-exam-room-by-the-physicians-committee/id1312957138 * The Exam Room Podcast (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/6XElJTfdDQLQBd8Wm5BeOv

📱 FOLLOW CHUCK CARROLL: Instagram / Facebook / X: @ChuckCarrollWLC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chuckcarrollwlc

Vegan author Victoria Moran joins Climate Diet to reveal why animal agriculture — not cars — is driving climate change, and what a plant-based diet can actually do about it.

I'm Jane DeMarines, founder and executive director of Climate Diet, and in this episode I sit down with Victoria Moran — bestselling author of 14 books, founder of Main Street Vegan Academy, and one of VegNews' Top 10 Living Vegetarian Authors — to talk about the real link between what's on our plates and the climate crisis.

We get into the climate data behind animal agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions, why the word "vegan" still scares people away from plant-based eating (and what to say instead), the surprising blind-taste-test bias that proves plant-based food already tastes just as good as meat, the truth about vegan protein, and the strategy Victoria calls "attraction activism" — living in a way that draws people toward veganism instead of pushing them away.

Whether you're vegan-curious, already plant-based, or just here for the climate science, this conversation will change how you think about your next meal — and your carbon footprint.

🔗 RESOURCES & SOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Victoria Moran (official site): https://victoriamoran.com/ Main Street Vegan Academy: https://mainstreetvegan.com/ Victoria Moran, PETA's Sexiest Vegan Over 50 (2016): https://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/detroit-cardiologist-petas-sexiest-vegan-50/ Victoria Moran's 2024 Vegan Hall of Fame induction: https://www.compassionconsortium.org/victoriamoran

🎓 Want to become a certified vegan lifestyle coach or educator? Main Street Vegan Academy's 39th cohort runs this fall (October–November 2026). Use code VEGCOACH250 for $250 off, or email victoria@mainstreetvegan.com to ask about scholarships — tuition should never be the reason someone can't train.

#VictoriaMoran #VeganDiet #ClimateChange #PlantBasedDiet #AnimalAgriculture