Ella Magers, MSW:

Hey there, Linda, it’s so great to have you on the show.

Linda Middlesworth:

Thank you. I’m so glad to be here with you. Yeah, I mean, you are amazing woman, and you do, I mean, you’re way ahead of your time, right? I mean, you’re way ahead of most people on this planet, and that is amazing because how old are you now?

Ella Magers, MSW:

Well, it’s funny you say that because I was just in Nashville last week and celebrating my 43rd birthday.

Linda Middlesworth:

Whoa.

Ella Magers, MSW:

And I proudly tell people my age, and I know a lot of people my age who have a real problem and they call it, oh, I don’t want to admit my age. And then I look at you and think about you. How do you approach and feel about aging? Where are you at?

Linda Middlesworth:

Oh, I actually, oh, sorry about that. Somebody’s coming to the door with my two dogs. But I actually, I’m proud of my age now because of the way I feel so good when I was your age about, well, I was 44 is when I found out how to get well, and I was so fabulously sick. And so to have you be well already, it’s amazing because most people don’t find out bef even when I do, when I was 44. So when I was 44, I was ready to die. I was going to be dead within a couple of years with what I had going on. So to have accidentally found out about it at age 44, I went, oh my God, I can’t believe I didn’t know this before, but I’m the type, and I’m sure you are too. When somebody tells me something that makes sense, I go, that makes complete sense to me.

I mean one sentence. And I said, you know what? That really makes sense. And then I did my own research and I found out everything she told me made perfect sense, and it was so easy for me. So that’s why it’s a little bit hard for me to understand why I have so many friends today close to my age. And even youngsters, especially my youngsters in the animal rights side, they’re already vegan, but they still don’t know how to be a healthy vegan. So I have two types of people. I have the people who don’t want to know anything, and they’re all different ages. And then I have my young vegans who I work with all the time who are animal rights activists like me. I do both the health and the animal side. I have to, and they also don’t know how to be the healthy vegan. So,

Ella Magers, MSW:

Well, let’s take it back, because it was your neighbor, right?

Linda Middlesworth:

Yes. My brand neighbor, I had just moved in the neighborhood and we were walking our two dogs around the park, and I had a beautiful home there in Curtis Park. Sacramento is like the 1925 homes and a beautiful park to walk around with. Tree lined a half a block from me. And so my new neighbor and I were walking around. I barely knew her, and I was telling her about, I guess I told everybody, but I had cancer and heart disease and 50 pounds at least overweight. And I was a full-time aerobic instructor teaching 25 classes a week and doing a graphic design business too. But the point is I was sick and my heart disease was terrible, and I had cancer, I had thyroid cancer. And unfortunately I met her one week too late because one week before my doctor convinced me I needed radiation and chemotherapy.

So I did. Unfortunately for me, I did one radiation before I met my neighbor and she said, oh, that’s too bad you did that because you don’t need that radiation at all or the chemotherapy. I said, why? And she told me about Dr. John McDougal. And I went home that minute and I said, oh, I can’t walk around the park today. I got to look him up. I went home and looked him up, started reading his book. At the time, I didn’t even meet the man. I just read his book and it made sex perfect sense because he took a person unhealthy like me, not even as bad as me, and moved them over here to a healthy state. And I’m like, oh, I said, this guy’s for me. I read it. I started doing it right away. Didn’t even call the guy, didn’t try to contact him, nothing.

I just did the book that I had and I started to get, well, immediately, unfortunately for me, I had the one radiation on my thyroid so I couldn’t get it back. They killed my thyroid basically with that one radiation, if I had been one week earlier, I would’ve never have gone in for that one made me so sick, by the way, when I had that radiation. Now I know what people go through when they have radiation is horrible. It’s very painful and cruel. And so I have to take thyroid medicine the rest of my life. Now I can’t get off of it. But despite that, I found out what to do with everything else. And I am the healthiest I can possibly be now at my age, almost 80 now. And I love my life. I love feeling so good. I feel like I can do anything I want to.

It just feels so good. And I still teaching aerobics, and I just taught two classes this morning before I got here. And I love my classes. I’ve been teaching for many, many years, and unfortunately, you know how it is. Most of the people have one person in my class who eats a little bit like I do, but not a healthy vegan. She’s sort of an unhealthy vegan, therefore she’s overweight because she doesn’t want to do the healthy vegan. So I don’t care, at least she’s vegan and she’s a good friend and has been for years. She’s even helped me with a few animal rights things, which is nice. But most of my class, which I’ve had this particular class I’ve had for about 27 years, and they love me. I love them. I’m not allowed to say a word about vegan, almost got fired once for wearing too much vegan stuff because none of my bosses are vegan and they don’t want anybody to know about that. So I have to be very careful. Sometimes I wear a vegan hat and I’m always afraid I’m going to get fired.

Even at one point, this is about 10 years ago or more than that, they let me teach a cancer class at the gym by Dr. Neil Bernard, because I’m a Food for Life instructor. I was so happy to do it. And who came to my class, and I didn’t know it was the breast cancer doctor at Kaiser Hospital, came to my doctor and brought his assistant. Well, Dr. Bodi this day teaches lifestyle at Kaiser now because of my one class. And he started to learn all about then. And so I named my dog that I rescued his name, his name, Bodhi. But anyway, it was a real exciting time. And I told my bosses at the gymnast, but they said, we don’t care. Hush up. You don’t want any part of it. So that’s the way it is with a lot of people. And I just have to accept that

Ella Magers, MSW:

Was, it’s interesting that, and I always tend to think that the fitness industry in particular is really set in their ways in terms of what animal protein still, despite all the evidence that is not hidden anymore, it is out there. They’ve got you there and still do. What do you think? For me, it’s like, okay, they know what has worked in terms of what has helped them build lots of muscle and get a physique that they like. And it’s scary to think about for many of those people making a change and not knowing, being sure what their physique on the outside is going to look like despite the fact of what it’s doing to them on the inside. What are your thoughts on that?

Linda Middlesworth:

Well, it’s very sad, but that whole protein issue, they think that protein is how they get strong and they don’t know. Literally don’t know that all plant foods have protein. We get all the protein we need. In fact, there’s no such thing as quaia core in this country. Quaia core means you have lack of protein. It doesn’t come about, we get heart disease, but we don’t get quaia core. That happens like in sub places, Africa, where they don’t have enough food to get that quaia core lack of protein or protein deficiency. You have to have no food to eat because plant food has all of it. I know. Cause look at my muscle, baby,

Ella Magers, MSW:

You’re insane. Oh my gosh. You guys have to go to YouTube if you’re listening and watch this video if you’re listening on the pod catcher. Cause you’re so vibrant and energetic, I can’t believe it.

Linda Middlesworth:

Any animal protein for 35 years, no animal foods for 35 years. So I know it’s a shame that so many athletes, because I see them at the gyms and they’re all eating the stuff, they’re getting bigger because they’re working out making them bigger. They don’t know the same time they’re hurting their heart. And I think that’s the main thing that people hurt. First is their heart, because their arteries are starting to constrict and pretty soon they have to take high blood pressure medication and they might even have a stroke or heart disease. I mean, it is so terrible. That’s our number one killer. So we got to get people off the animal products and they don’t know it, that’s all. So it’s a shame that they think animal protein is the answer. So it’s even dairy and eggs and all the animal flesh they think is fine. And

Ella Magers, MSW:

It’s unfortunate that it’s often takes getting to that place where they are at risk for dying. Yes. Before they’re willing to listen to the information. I mean, you had not heard the information before. You got this information from your neighbor, you went out, you read it, and it made sense. You saw the evidence and you made the changes and you were in a pretty dire situation at that moment. Oh

Linda Middlesworth:

Yeah, I was going to die probably from the heart disease before the cancer, my

Ella Magers, MSW:

Heart. And you thought you ate healthy, right?

Linda Middlesworth:

Oh my God. I ate what I thought was healthy at the time was chicken and fish. I didn’t even eat red meat because I thought that was sort of unhealthy for some reason. I don’t know why, but I think I heard that somewhere. So I just ate chicken and fish and yogurt, lots of yogurt. And of course I loved ice cream. And when somebody told me when I first started that I needed to get rid of my cheese, I’m okay, you can tell me to give up my meat, but don’t you dare. Don’t you dare tell me to give up my dairy, my cheese. I’m not giving up my cheese. No way. And the reason I know now why I didn’t want it to give up my cheese is it’s so addictive. It says addictive as cocaine mysteriously. And that’s why I thought, oh, I could never give that up.

I could give up the meat, no problem. But the dairy, I just thought there’s no way I could give that up. And I found out later that it’s the ALM morphine in there that makes you highly addicted to it. And it takes about two or three weeks to get over it when you have to not put it in your body in order to be free of that. And then if you eat a piece of cheese again, you’re addicted just all over again, then you have to start over with your addiction as bad as cigarettes or alcohol. If you have one cigarette or one glass of wine, you are addicted. Same thing with cheese and yogurt and ice cream. So many people think, oh, just a little bit of cheese here and there, that’s fine. Or a little bit of yogurt. No, it’s not. It’s addictive.

It actually grabs you and you want it again and again. So it’s a horrible thing. And then of course, we’re for the cows. The poor baby cows deserve that. We don’t deserve it. I I’m also an artist because I was a graphic designer as well, and I have a painting somewhere I did of a cow with a man in a business suit underneath the cow sucking the tip of a cow because that’s how ridiculous it is. Why are humans sucking the tits of them cows when it belongs to the baby who gets taken away at birth from her mother and they scream and cry for each other for weeks. And the poor baby cow has to suck in this tube thing. I mean, not suck from the mother, and the mother wants to give her milk to her baby and she can’t, I’m sorry. But I’m very emotional about animals and what happens to them because what we as humans are doing, what are the top of the pack, and we have control over everything so we can do whatever we want to the animals, we can make money off of it. And that’s what’s happening right now. The drug and dairy, and sorry, the dairy and animal meat flesh industries are in control of our government and our advertising. I notice every day this subway ad comes on TV with all these beautiful people talking about how they, oh, it’s so good, and look how tasty the bacon and the cheese sandwiches. And I just get sick. And we have no control to stop those ads. And they guess people really confused. They don’t know what to eat.

Ella Magers, MSW:

So it does, they’re programmed. We’ve programmed our society to believe all these things. And it’s all, yeah, found the foundation for all of it is money and that’s what’s happening. But can you talk about how you then opened your eyes to the animal side of it? So there’s one thing to start eating a plant-based diet for health, but then you quickly became very connected to the animal rights side. Talk about how that

Linda Middlesworth:

Came to be. Well, the first week my neighbor told me about my health and how to fix it by going whole food plant based. I was pretty good at it. I did oil free. I didn’t do the rest of it all so well. But I did the oil free and plant food. And so I was pretty proud of myself. But then one week later, only one week later, we’re walking our dogs around the park and she says, Linda, you know what happens to dairy cows, don’t you? And I said, no, what? I hate giving up my cheese. I have to tell you. I told her, I really do. I I’ll do it because you said too. And Dr. McDougal said, too, but I don’t like it because I love cheese and ice cream. I couldn’t walk by the refrigerator without grabbing a piece of cheese.

I was that addicted. It was like a cigarette or something. So anyway, she told me what happened to the baby cows. And she told me all about it on our walk around the park didn’t take me long. And I just stopped right there. And I said, why didn’t I know this? I’m 44 years old. I had no idea. Because the dairy and meat industry, they keep it so well hidden. Do you see people don’t go to slaughterhouses to pick out the cow they want or which dairy cow they want to use for their milk. We never get to see that. They keep it well hidden. In fact, they even have big, beautiful, fancy, gorgeous, architecturally beautiful buildings for people’s offices. And behind it, they even have a factory farm, but nobody knows. Nobody can see it. We’re not allowed to. We never take our kids to the cow to pick it out.

Cow, which beach sandwich do you want? What bacon do you want? Do you want that pig or that pig? So when she told me that, that was it. I became an animal rights a activist one week after I became a vegan and a whole food plant eater, I became an animal rights activist on the spot. But she told me about it. And I don’t know about other people, and I never have understood why people like aren’t like me. They just don’t. They need more than a sentence. Somehow it doesn’t work. They just want to deny it. People don’t need one sentence, probably You did. And I do. I didn’t need more than one sentence about what happens to any animal. It was just the dairy cows at the moment. But that was enough. I thought, this is wrong. It’s completely wrong. And then I found out, I already knew it was why I was sick.

So I got sick and I didn’t know about the animals until she told me. But that was it. Then I became active with peta. And recently I’m also active with direct action everywhere. And I do lots of events between fur and dairy calls. And we have the primate center where they do horrible. This is in uc, Davis, where I used to live. And they do horrible things. They take the baby monkeys and the baby horses even. I mean, they take all kinds of animals, dogs, oh, beagles are big choice for some reason, beagles. And they do horrible things to the babies as well as the mothers and fathers. And then they call it the drug research. They can do more drugs for us. And you notice on tv, we get ads for subway and all these McDonald’s and everything. And then we have the ads for the drug industry. So on our ads on tv, it goes from which drug is you taking, which food you should be eating. And they compliment each other. Yeah, drugs are usually not even very helpful. They usually don’t even do anything for you, but they can make a lot of money selling it to you. So that’s how I became so interested in both sides, the animals and my health.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Yeah, it’s like we’re testing these drugs on animals and they’re needed for people that are eating the animals because they’re making them sick. So who’s winning in that?

Linda Middlesworth:

Not the people, not the animals.

Ella Magers, MSW:

That’s right.

Linda Middlesworth:

Really bad for our environment as well, because we kill so many billions of animals every year, all kinds. And there’s no reason to kill anybody. We don’t need to kill anybody. We don’t need to confine them and make them miserable and hurt them. And then people say, oh, I only buy from humanely raised farms. You love that one. So there’s no such thing as a humanely raised farm. Yeah, they might leave them out on the pasture longer, but they all go to the slaughterhouse. They all have their ingredients. They’re milk taken from them. They, and chickens are, oh my God, the egg industry is one of the coolest of all. People could see what the chicken looked like after they were forced into producing eggs over and over again. And how they have no feathers now and they look like they’re a skeleton by the time they kill them.

People don’t know in the egg industry that all the baby male chicks born to the mother are put in a meat, meat grinder or suffocated in plastic bags. They don’t get a chance to be anything. A baby in a bag and killed or a baby in a em macerated, that grinds them up. I mean, it is so cruel. So when people say, I only eat eggs and I only eat backyard eggs, even backyard eggs, I want to tell you are very harmful for people because, and the animals, because they still kill the baby boys. They have no need for them. And so it’s best not to. Now if you’re rescuing a chicken from a farm, that’s one thing, but really, and then eating the eggs is so unhealthy for the human body is full of saturated fat. It is full of cholesterol. So if you want to get healthy yourself, you want to have a heart, healthy heart, you have to stop all animal products. You can’t have a little bit of eggs or a little bit of yogurt I always thought was fine. It is not fine for the human body. We don’t need any of that. Yeah.

Ella Magers, MSW:

So at what point did you say, okay, I am so passionate about this that I am going to now do something about it and I’m going to direct my career, my work, my life around in that direction. I want to use my time and energy to promote veganism and healthy plant-based whole food diet. What was that journey? Can you talk about that?

Linda Middlesworth:

Yes, I can. Well, first I got active with Peter right away, but then I decided I need something that encompassed both the animal side and the health side. So I think it was 2008 when I started Saal Vegan Society and I became a meetup. And now we have 5,200 people in our meetup, which is nice. But we have people, not even just from Sacramento, but people from all over the world because we do have online events they can attend. So when I started putting not only dine outs, but we’d have potlucks and I’d screen movies like Earthlings or I would show different movies on health. And people were really interested in that. And they came to these things. So we are still going out to eat now. Covid stopped the out to eat for a while, but now we’re coming back into out to eat, which is nice.

And so our members are so excited because I also started a 30 day vegan health watch for people who wanted to become vegan and stay vegan and how to eat. And I show people the healthy way to do it. And then so Sacramento. So we’d have weekly meetups and we’d have 30 day long way monitor their food so I can see what they’re eating and help them make the changes to the healthiest food. Because it takes a while for people, even people who already plant-based to understand how to eat whole foods as nature meant the food to be. It’s not processed food. Whole food is the way to go. And it’s hard for people sometimes because our habits of eating processed food are so ingrained in our whole life, even if you’re vegan already. And then I also am a Food for Life instructor. I think that was 2012 when I became one of those.

That’s with Dr. Neil Bernard, physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine. He’s one of my heroes for two reasons. He’s not just in two food. He’s also, he cares about especially experimentation in animals because when he was learning to be a doctor and taking the courses, they wanted him to cut up little mice and he didn’t want to. And now, today, in fact, he came here one year and we did a big protest at the Capitol building, and I dressed up as a bunny. I was his bunny. And so it was really nice. We had a bunch of us protesting animal experimentation. And I’m glad to say now, even my son who runs our company, V Dog Food, we started that company. They helped get animals off the dog food industry. They don’t need it. We found out they can thrive and be healthy as heck eating plant food.

So my late husband died nine years ago when my son fortunately could take it over and and Dr. Neil Bernard right now are working together with animal experimentation too. So I’m so proud of that. I mean, it makes me so happy that they can work together. So as a Food for Life instructor though, I get to put on classes too about cancer, especially in diabetes. I teach at the local colleges around here, especially in my friend Dr. Stroms class, her biology class. She lets me teach my cancer and diabetes classes. Now. Covid happened and we had to not go to class. We did it on Zoom, and I’m still doing Zoom with her, but at one point I’ll probably go back in the classroom because it’s nice when I make samples of food that they can try. They love that. But right now I’m showing how I make the food online.

But I like to go back. I’m going to tell her I’d like to go back in the classroom. So I do those regularly and I go to their events. Usually I go to their big conference once a year, but which is in August, but I can’t go right now because I have a special needs dog. I’ve never had a dog with this many issues. But he was rescued and he had been a street stray as a puppy. And I don’t know what happened to him. He’s actually afraid to go outside. Ok. He doesn’t like to be away from me. And right now he’s sitting on my feet because he doesn’t like to be apart from me. And he’s 86 pounds. So my partner right now, Jim, can’t handle it alone. So I can’t go to the conferences. Conferences. I was supposed to go to National Health Association conference too, but I can’t even do that. So it’s hard with this dog. But he keeps number one for me because I can’t hurt him in any way. He had too much of a bad experience. And he’s a sweetheart with people. He loves people when they come to visit. Oh my goodness, he just can’t get close enough, but open the front door and he runs to the back of the house, open up the car door, and he gets in the back of the car. He’s so afraid of outside. It’s just a shame.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Bless his heart and bless yours for giving him such a loving home. I love him. I want to talk about the V dog again for a moment, if you don’t mind. Sure. I think it’s such a no-brainer to get vegan dog food. The research is evident. I have a 16 year old chihuahua. They cannot believe how healthy her heart is. They said they really don’t see Chihuahua as her age without heart murmurs and things like that. And her internal organs are so healthy, they cannot believe it. She’s 16.

Linda Middlesworth:

Oh, that’s nice. Yeah. And

Ella Magers, MSW:

Now there are such great brands like your V dog out there. Yeah. So the research around that, can you talk a little bit about that just to help people understand?

Linda Middlesworth:

Oh yeah. In fact, the research shows the lab reports from the dogs eating our food are fantastic. And every dog I’ve had since 2005 has thrived all the blood work and lab work is perfect. And also these people did a big lab test on our dog food, and I’ll have to send you a link and show you how we did. We came out fantastic, so excited. And we’re also going to be in a film called The Future of Food. So we’re finding out that dogs are living longer than normally and see, and they have an extra enzyme that would, over time, they have evolved living with humans. So they have an extra enzyme to digest starch. So there’s no problem getting enough protein, all the protein they need. And the starch helps them to thrive like we do. And they have more energy. They live longer.

My boy, now, I don’t know how old he is exactly, but he’s 12 or 13 and he’s thriving and his blood work is perfect. And his little sister who’s a rescue, her blood work is perfect too. But it is so exciting to know that our food is just coming out so well, and our dogs are thriving, and we have people all over the world. In fact, we’re called V Dog in the usa. We had to put a different name. And I’ll tell you why. My late husband, before he died, somebody from England called him and said, Hey, we like your name. Can we use it? And he said, okay. And unfortunately, they started another company in England called Vog. It’s not a very good company has,

Ella Magers, MSW:

They’re vegan,

Linda Middlesworth:

But it’s not. But

Ella Magers, MSW:

It’s not quality and it’s not yours.

Linda Middlesworth:

And so what we had to do is start another company outside the USA with the same food as our V dog. It’s called V Planet. So if you live in England, or if you live in not England, but if you live, we’re in about eight countries. Hong Kong, Australia, it’s called V Planet. So don’t try to get outside the US as V dog vog.com here in the usa, but V Planet in all the other countries we’re in. So anyway, yeah, I’m real excited about it, but we just had to change the name, that’s all. Got it.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Got it. Oh, that’s a bummer. Talk to us about vegan mentor. I’m very curious how you, and in some of the biggest challenges or most common challenges you find, and I want to talk about you, how you’ve kind of toughened up your approach. You’ve gotten a little more of the tough love now with your clients. If what I have read or heard is correct, and I, I’m very curious about this.

Linda Middlesworth:

When I first started vegan mentored as a coach, I had just individual coaching. Now I have group coaching and individual. The group coaching is 10 people max, and it’s four weeks. And the group coaching is 30 days. I mean, the individual coaching is 30 days. When I first started my individual coaching years ago, I was pretty lenient. I used to say, okay, so I want you to eat this way, and here’s some ideas of what you can’t eat, and here’s what you shouldn’t be eating at all. Well, people didn’t exactly do it the way I wanted. In the beginning. They would start eating every once in a while, they’d have a birthday party with grandpa that turned 102, and they said, had to eat the cake. And I said, okay, all right, forgive you this time. And then next week it was something else. Their friend came over or they went to somebody’s house or they went out with their colleagues and they had to eat.

They didn’t eat animal products, but they eat the oil, which is really harmful for humans. It’s one of the main reasons for heart disease. And they ate a lot of salt and sugar, but the oil, they couldn’t seem to stop the oil. And it is hard because when you go out, the restaurants mostly have, even if they’re vegan, are oil ridden completely. Now, if you cheat on the salt and the sugar a little bit, I’m not so bad, but the oil is a really good way to get heart disease and keep your heart disease and keep your high blood pressure. So I am a stickler on oil. So even people I’ve been coaching for a long time would even fall off the wagon when somebody came over or they went to somebody’s house. And so now in my 30 day, I tell ’em ahead of time, and also my group coaching, I tell ’em ahead of time, listen, the first time you fall off the wagon and have the oil, I forgive you.

Second time, you start over next month because you’re not ready for me. Because when you eat the oil, you become addicted to it and you have to start over day one. So the first time they say in a week they had the oil. I say, okay, tomorrow’s day one for your 30 days, and you have to go 30 days clean. I know it’s over the time you’re supposed to have you. I’m giving you a break here. And they usually do it then. But when I used to say, okay, I’m sorry you did that, but okay, guess what? They kept doing it. So now I’m a really hard-nosed hard line. I tell people, look, you just can’t do the oil. It’s just not going to work. I know you didn’t eat any animals. Thank you for that. But I can’t have that oil in there. It’s why I had heart disease, particularly because I was eating a lot of oil.

I thought it was the Mediterranean diet. But what I tell people about the Mediterranean diet is this, yes, they’re healthier than the standard American diet because our standard American diet is one of the healthiest and unhealthiest in the world, and we have the highest rate of disease over just about anybody else in the world. So yes, it’s better. They do better. The Mediterranean diet is better than us, but that’s despite the oil, not because of the oil. I don’t want you to add oil, so make up your mind. No, and you know what? That’s working really well. I’m getting people to stay on track and it’s helping because then they start to lose the weight. I’ve had people lose 130 pounds. I’ve had people lose 20 pounds. I even have people to know need to lose anything. I have people who need to gain weight.

They get to eat little more high caloric, dense food. So one thing, during the weight loss for people, we also have to watch eating high caloric dense food. I don’t want ’em eating avocados all day and nuts and seeds all day, because that doesn’t help you lose that extra weight. I know because I did that in the past too. I used to eat too many avocados, too many nut based, whatever. And it didn’t work for me either. I could maintain maybe my high weight, but I couldn’t lose it. So I want people to be able to lose the weight so they can feel lighter on their feet so their heart gets healthier and they can help their high blood pressure. And so it’s real exciting to see it happen. And that’s why it was so now I am so hard because of that. It just didn’t work for me having people cheat because then they did it again, and then they did it again and it never ended. And they never get over the addiction. So that’s why. Tell

Ella Magers, MSW:

Us what a day of eating looks like for you personally.

Linda Middlesworth:

Okay. In the morning, sometimes I have oatmeal, but mostly I’ve been having, lately I’ve been having a great big thing of rice and veggies for breakfast. I love it. And I have these little pampered chef steamers. I dunno if you’ve heard of them. I get the $26 one. Jim. Jim, can you hand me the pampered chef? The pampered chef. The pampered chef? You know the little plastic black thing? Yeah. Can you hand it to me please? Thank you. So, huh? The large one or the small one? Both of them. Yeah. So I want to show you what it looks like because it really has made people, it made it easier for people to prepare their food. And I haven’t had it that long myself, but I’m loving it because there’s two sizes. I have both. But I recommend you get the $26 one. You can get it on Amazon, and it looks like this.

Okay? It has holes in the top. And you just use this. I chop up the bench. I just make a about take about a half hour in the morning. I chop up not every morning because I have several, and I just fill ’em up and put ’em in the fridge and then cook ’em in the microwave when I need it. So in this bowl right here in the morning, I’ll have red peppers, mushrooms, onions, garlic, broccoli, kale, zucchini, what else? Oh, Brussels sprouts, anything you want. And I fill this baby up, they’re chopped up. And then I cook my potatoes in a mi on a plate, on a mi in the microwave. I chopped those up, put ’em on a big dinner plate, put the dinner plate on top, put ’em the microwave for 10 minutes, and those potatoes are done. So I already have all the potatoes, but all the other veggies I put in these.

And I have a small one too, that sometimes I just put my onions and garlic in that one. And also red cabbage. I used a lot of red or green cabbage. It’s okay too, but that baby feels up so fast. So that’s why you have to have more than one. And then you put in a fridge and they’re all ready to go into the microwave for 10 minutes and you’ve got your food ready. So then I make up some rice or something or eat the potatoes with it. And I love California balsamic vinegar. Yes. Have

Ella Magers, MSW:

You heard of it? Yes. Chef AJ sent me some.

Linda Middlesworth:

Yeah, Thomas has that, and I order that all the time. So I love the Sweet heat one, but they have all these flavors and they’re kind of sweet. They make anything taste good. Not that don’t bother to put it on, but I love it when my sweet heat on there is so good. They have teriyaki, they have raspberry, they have pineapple. I mean, all kinds of flavors. But you pick out your own. And I get a subscription and it’s just so nice. Yeah. Yeah. So makes leading so easy.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Yeah, I think people are really lost when it comes to cutting out the oil and still they have enough flavor in their food. I think that the California balsamics are one really great way. Oh, do you have any other tips?

Linda Middlesworth:

Yeah. What I do is I make sure that when I’m going somewhere, I’m going out to lunch with a bunch of people who aren’t eating like me. I eat ahead. I eat like five potatoes before I go. And then when I get there, I either brought some potatoes with me or I order a big salad and I bring a little sample of the California balsamic with me, and I put that on my salad. Or I ask the restaurant even ahead of time if I know where it is. But even if I don’t, I say, please give me a bowl of steamed rice and a bowl of steam corn or just some plain beans with nothing on it. And they do. They actually do. But even if they don’t have that, I still, I’m sort of full already, so I’m not that hungry. And I just have some tea with everybody else, and I still can visit with everybody else.

And then here’s a trick I have when I’m with people who are, don’t get it, and they don’t want to know about it. And I already know ahead and they say, why aren’t you eating Linda? And I said, well, I ate ahead, and the reason is I don’t eat oil on my plant food. And they said, why not? And I said, because my cholesterol’s too high. And my doctor’s given me orders not to have any oil, and they shut up. But they tell you have oil. So then they, sometimes they’ll ask me, oh, I didn’t know that. And they’ll ask me more about it and they get information, but mostly they don’t want to know anything. But that’s fine. I shut ’em up without offending them. They’re not going to tell me to eat something to make me unhealthy. So it works every time. Now I don’t have high cholesterol, but that’s what I have to say to make it easy on the people I’m with.

And sometimes if I know who the people are, I do want to tell ’em what I’m doing. And I said, look, I don’t lost my heart disease, my cholesterol, my cancer, and my pre-diabetes by doing this. And if you’re interested, let me know. And I hand him my Food for Life card with Dr. Neil Bernard here. I teach, I teach nutrition. And I’d love to help you too if you’re interested. Sometimes I hear from ’em, sometimes I don’t. But as I planted a seed, so one day maybe when they get sick, unfortunately, sometimes people like me have to wait until they’re sick and unhealthy before they’re even curious about it. And I even have friends in my aerobics classes, I’ve known now for so many years, they tell me their husband has diabetes or had a heart attack. And I tell ’em one thing. I said, I have a movie I want you to watch.

This is a movie. I say, usually I say what? The health. I love that one for getting people started. And if they’re an athlete, I say the game changers or sometimes both. And if they’re into animals, I say Watch Earthlings and Dominion. But I usually can’t say that because most people don’t want to know about that. But so I give them those movies and my card, and sometimes they do it in my aerobic classes. I gave them the diabetes book from Dr. Neil Bernard Didn’t even look at it. So it people aren’t ready. They’re not ready even when they get sick or their spouse or partner gets sick. Now, if their kids get sick, they get a little more interest, but not when themselves or their spouse. It’s just unusual for them to be interested in any information whatsoever, sadly. But

Ella Magers, MSW:

Linda, how do you stay so positive and energized and motivated to keep doing your work in the midst of so much pain in the world, so much suffering, animals in particular, but also humans? How do you go on with such a positive energy in your world?

Linda Middlesworth:

Well, I have to say in front of you, I’m positive. There are times I just sit down and cry. Sometimes I cry because I just saw something on tv. All the movies seem to have restaurants where they’re eating and killing everything. And so I have to change the movie that if I’m watching a movie, I say, I can’t watch. I can or their think their pastime is hunting and I just can’t bear to see it. So I avoid some of those things, but also, that’s why I have to stay active at it. That’s why I can’t just do the health side. I got to do the animal side. Now, my friends, I’m the only almost 80 year old that goes around with all the youngsters to do to vigils. I go to slaughterhouses, I go to the pig vigil, and I feed water to the pigs on their way to their slaughterhouse.

I look in their eyes, and these baby six month old piggies are so sweet, and they’re all piled on top of each other. And they just went for three days with no food or water and 110 degrees. And we give ’em their water. And I tell ’em, I’m so sorry, guys. I’m working for you as hard as I can. I’ll keep working for you. I go mainly so I can show videos of what I’m doing to show other people, but after those vigils, I have to sit and cry the whole next day. And I put it online and I show people. And that makes me feel better about all of it because we need people to wake up. And then about the healthy part, I try to demonstrate in my exercise classes what she can look like. I think I’m the oldest instructor in all 10 gyms, and I love being in front of people now.

And then Chef AJ did something too. She signs me up for these. Well, she tells me to sign up for comedy classes. Oh my goodness. Not funny, but she thinks I’m funny. And she said, you’re OK at this one? No, I don’t like it. Do it. I said, ok. She tells me That lady has influence on like me. I can’t believe in fact, I’m doing a comedy show, and I’m not telling you when, but it’s hard. It’s hard being funny. But this next comedy show I’m going to do on veganism. And this professional comedian is in my class with me. And he said, Linda, he does it all the time. He’s famous around the world. And he said, Linda, don’t do veganism. No, don’t do veganism. And I said, I have to. It’s my whole life. I have to. So finally my class teacher said, then I think we can do it.

And he kind of helped me figure out what we could say. And I have to say he did a good job, and I think it’s going to be okay, but I’m not sure, still have to memorize the whole thing. But he’s convinced that I can do this. And starting with the idea that like I’ll say, my name’s Linda, and I’m a vegan, and you know what that means? That means I’m annoying, in fact. But though, however, people told me I was annoying before I was vegan, but we’re so proud, grandma, can I have ice cream? I said, that hurts Steri cows and gives you cancer on the angle that people don’t really want to hear from me at all about this and why. And so hopefully I get to do veganism and comedy at the same time. That makes it more bearable for me because I frankly do not stop talking about veganism with every new person I meet.

Even today, I didn’t want to be late for today. So I was speeding on the way home from teaching aerobics, and I got stopped for a ticket going too fast. And this very cute police officer called me over. I was trying to flirt with him a little bit, but didn’t work. And then he has me a ticket and he said, you are going 63 and a 40. Oh. I said, that’s going to cost so much money. He said, yep, but we’ve been having a lot of accidents on this road, so we’re starting to give tickets here. I said, oh, and I had to be a first one, right? He said, yes, I’ve been traveling that road for 27 years. I’ve never had a ticket. And I speed all the time. And I finally get a ticket. And then I said, before he left me. I said, by the way, on my car, I have vegan words everywhere, end speciesism.

Not your mom, not your milk with a cow and a baby cow. Anyway, so I said, before you go, I have to ask you one thing. Are you vegan? I do this to everybody. Are you vegan? And he said, no, but I did try something like that once and lost a lot of weight. I said, that’s wonderful. Here’s my card. You call me no charge. I will help you. I’m a Food for Life instructor. I will help you be the healthiest you you’ve ever been. And he said, oh, okay. And he takes my card. And I said, before I go, I’m going to tell you to do one thing, eat. Watch the movie. What’s your health on Netflix? He said, oh, okay. Now after that, you write to me, okay, Mac Calloway. Oh, okay, I got your name. So write to me. He said, okay,

Ella Magers, MSW:

Sounds like it.

Linda Middlesworth:

I hope he will write to me. But when I’m talking to the bank tailor, I wear a vegan hat and they’ll say something, I can never do that. And then I tell ’em the whole spiel, what happened to me, and people are waiting in line. I’m pissed off, but I don’t care. This teller wants to know about it. So I never shut up. You ask aj, she said, Linda, stop

Ella Magers, MSW:

It.

Linda Middlesworth:

Cut people off all the time. I said, I know. I can’t help it. I just can’t help it. I have to tell people what’s going on. The world has to wake up. And that’s what I do. But yeah, I do overdo it sometimes, but I try to be nice about it.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Well,

Linda Middlesworth:

Most people say they want my car, but then they didn’t do anything. But still,

Ella Magers, MSW:

Well, I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about planting seeds. It’s seeds planted, and then they need watering. And sometimes they grow and sometimes they don’t. And you’re doing your part to plant those seeds.

Linda Middlesworth:

I have one lady who came to me nine years later,

Ella Magers, MSW:

Okay.

Linda Middlesworth:

Comes to me and said, I’m ready now. She got unhealthy first, but she said, I’m ready, Linda. So I have seen that happen before, which is such that’s keeps me going. That keeps me being annoying all the time to everybody. It’s annoying.

Ella Magers, MSW:

What was her name? We can blame. We can blame her.

Linda Middlesworth:

Yeah, exactly.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Somebody, what’s next for you? What’s going to occupy the next 20 years of your life? Do you have thoughts?

Linda Middlesworth:

Well, I also put on events, which makes me very happy. And before Covid, I mean big events at this church, the Seventh Day Adventist Church in the area. I would have like Dr. T, Colin Campbell and Dr. Esthers and all the biggies, all our greats. And they’d come all the way over here. Dr. Clapper, Dr. James Benny. I mean, I had some Dr. Calis, Batiste, Colombia. Colombia. What’s his last name? Anyway, Dr. Patis and all these famous doctors. And I did it in all areas. I did the environment with Dr. See, he wrote Food Choices and Sustainabilities. Dr. Richard Openlander is a wonderful man I had here in California as a speaker, even though he lives back east. And so having all these speaking events was very helpful to get people awakened. And we would serve before Covid serve really nice food too that everybody liked and they would be so excited about it.

Then Covid hit and I did online, which I don’t like as well, but at least I get more people if I want too. And then the really nice thing happened from that Dr. T Colin Campbell. I just had him online recently. And he said, Linda, I want you to become a board member. Wow. He said, for the Center for Nutritional Studies. And he said, yes. And he sent me all these forms to fill out, and I did. I am now a member of the Center for Nutritional Studies with Dr. T, Colin Campbell from Cornell. And it’s me and all these doctors and one nurse like Jane. I mean I, I’m so honored, but he’s had him as a speaker long enough. He knows who I am, and he wanted to include me in this. And I am so thrilled I get to hear from all the doctors online, and I get to get my input in there and I get to share stuff. And it’s just like one of the biggest honors I’ve ever had. So no,

Ella Magers, MSW:

I bet that’s incredible. Congratulations.

Linda Middlesworth:

Very excited about that. But I’m hoping that I have a ebook coming out soon on nutrition and everything, so that’ll be helpful. I haven’t written a book yet. I’ve sort of written a book many years ago, but I never quite got it done. So I’m going to work on that again too, an actual book book, because I like helping people. And I think that’s another way to get to people is with a book. I should have done it long time ago, but I just keep procrastinating because I’m so busy with all three areas and

Ella Magers, MSW:

Got a lot going on in your life.

Linda Middlesworth:

Oh my goodness. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going most days cause I don’t want to give any of it up. My partner, Jim said, Linda, you need to calm down. You’re doing way too much. I said, I can’t say no. And I’m working with a couple people like we did at.health with Peter Goldstein Goldstein, and I’m working with June on the Freedom Project. So I have all these projects to do with them. I’m going to be doing for, we did at Health. I’m going to be interviewing sanctuary owners. I’m going to be doing the compassion side of that. So

Ella Magers, MSW:

Well maybe you can. You’ve got to come visit us at Hogs and Kisses Farm Sanctuary that I’m on the board of in Virginia. We’re a micro sanctuary, but one of my best friends in the world, Ann is the founder. She’s done an incredible job.

Linda Middlesworth:

Okay, I want to interview her. Yes. Okay. I want to make sure I get to interview her because I’m interviewing farms all around. The one here in California is called Animal Place and Farm Sanctuary with Gene Bauer, right? Yes,

Ella Magers, MSW:

Of course. He

Linda Middlesworth:

Used to be located near me.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Oh wow.

Linda Middlesworth:

I would go every year to his big deal. And in fact, that’s where I got a picture. Somebody took a photo of me. It’s one of my logos. The cows kissing me on the cheek. My God, I love that boy. And I took that logo and did a tour called The Animal Compassion Tour. That was about 10 years ago. And during that tour I took 22 people. One of ’em was Colleen Holland, the Veg News. And we took 22 people in the van and I had my logo with the cow kissing me across the side said Animal Compassion Tour. And I was doing a movie and we were going to farms, dairy farms, meat farms, and we would take the sign off the side and get close and I’d tell ’em we’re foodies and we just wanted to know where our food came from. So they let us into the dairy farm.

I saw some things I will never get out of my head, but the mama cows trying to cook, push off those machines. And they had swollen mastitis breasts, and you could see they were in pain and they get milk three or four times a day against their will. The baby never got the milk. And I, so seeing all that was so horrible and I got it all on film. And then we went to Harris b French, and all we did was drive up in our van, no sign. They didn’t know what we were about. I told ’em we were doing our food foodie tour, and they called the police on us and they arrested the other Linda. They thought she was me and another person. And that ended our tour because the two of ’em got arrested. So I didn’t get very far, but I had some pretty good film of both of that.

Both of those places. Harris Beef Ranch knew somehow that no one’s allowed to see anything of their ranch, nothing. They didn’t want anybody to see it, whether we are foodies or not. So what happened was Eric, this guy who was doing my film, took off with the film. I never got it. I never got my part of my movie. I mean, it wasn’t a very big movie yet, but I don’t even have the film. So he took off. I don’t know why he did that, but he did. And then right after that, my husband died. Right after that tour, my husband died hiking on a mountain, glacier, Montana with my grandkids and my kids and he died. And so I didn’t care about anything after that. So the movie didn’t matter. I didn’t do anything for quite a few years. I stopped my artwork, everything stopped.

I still haven’t gotten back into that, but I found this great guy not eight years ago, and he’s a wonderful man. And so I have a new guy in my life and I’m getting back into life as before I would start drawing again and painting and doing sculptures and things like that. But anyway, that’s what happened on my Animal Compassion tour, which was going to be good. And I want to tell you about somebody who, one of my heroes in the whole world, I don’t know if you know of him, and I want you to know of this man. His name is Phillip Woolen. Do you know him?

Ella Magers, MSW:

I don’t know him personally. I know the name

Linda Middlesworth:

Of him. Yeah, it’s Philip with one l Wallen, W O L L E N. I want everybody in the world to know about this man because he’s the most incredible man I’ve ever met. And he’s the leader, literally, of our movement, of our plant movement. Here’s why. It was about 35 years ago, I think. But he gave a speech, he won the international debate with this one speech, and I want you to look it up. It’s called Animals Off the Menu. If you hear his 10 minute speech, his articulation, every word is just amazing. He’s the most articulate man I’ve ever heard in my life. He lives in Australia, and I want you to hear his 10 minute speech. Get the animals off the menu, just Google Philip Wallen, get the animals off the menu, and you’ll hear that 10 minute speech. I listened to it about once a month just to get inspired.

And we are good friends because I met him at the Animal Liberation march in LA years ago, and I met, in fact, his wife Tricks was there too, and it was sort of embarrassing, but when she was down there, I didn’t know she was his wife. And I pushed her out of the way so I could get picture with Philip. And then I realized later that was his wife. She’s a wonderful lady too, but I didn’t know her at the time. But anyway, I want you to listen to that really, honey. And then he speaks all around the world. If you can ever get him as a speaker, you will be blown away during that speech. He calls the farm sanctuary. I mean the gula, the slaughterhouses, gulags of despair and things like that. He has the most articulate way of talking about things I’ve ever heard, and we are very dear friends to this day. And I write to him about once a week and we talk to each other because he inspires me. And, oh, this is what I want you to know about the man. He is at the age, he was at the age of 37, the vice president of Citibank. He gave it up, as he said, for, he gave up Lear jets and caviar to help the animals.

And what he does is give his millions away to people all over the world to sea shepherd to the people who stop rhino to being killed or elephants. And he gives money to all these great organizations. Every year, hundreds of thousands of dollars he gives away, and then he goes and speaks in all around the world and in India, I mean all over. And he just blows everybody away. One of the kindest men I’ve ever known. But because he’s so articulate, I call him the Martin Luther King of our movement. So if you can ever, Ella, if you could ever please interview the man, please do. Because he is, you will be blown away like I am. Yeah.

Ella Magers, MSW:

I’m going to go listen to that right after this.

Linda Middlesworth:

Okay, good. It’s only 10 minutes.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Yeah. Oh, I think that’s so powerful when somebody is able to utilize language and call it out like it is, but also in such an artful way. I, I’m really, really excited to hear the speech if I haven’t heard it yet. And if you

Linda Middlesworth:

Catch him on Facebook, you’ll see the way he writes. Oh, blown away. It takes me about an hour to read it because there’s words. Some of ’em, I have to look him up in the dictionary, but it’s amazing. Just amazing. Thank you. He knows, I think that Eddie also uses our v Planet dog food.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Fantastic. All right, one last question for you. Okay. You have a billboard and you get to put whatever you want in it for thousands of people to see as they drive by every day. What does that billboard say?

Linda Middlesworth:

Oh, my, just one thing on the billboard. Yeah.

Ella Magers, MSW:

One billboard

Linda Middlesworth:

Finger. If you want your health back and you want to save animals and our planet Earth, please go vegan. I think that would be, I don’t know what else to say.

Ella Magers, MSW:

No, that sums it

Linda Middlesworth:

Up with my contact information.

Ella Magers, MSW:

We’re here to help.

Linda Middlesworth:

I can help you.

Ella Magers, MSW:

Yes. See Linda Vegan mentor. Amazing.

Linda Middlesworth:

Thank you. Thank you, Ella. So such an honor to be here with you.

Ella Magers, MSW:

It’s an honor to have you on. Thank you for the tireless work you do, and for just day in and day out, speaking your truth, sharing your knowledge, and it’s a pleasure to have you here.

Linda Middlesworth:

Thank you so much, Ella. Thank you so much.

Ella Magers, MSW:

My pleasure. I.