Hello, my name is Jeff. This is an evolving story—here’s the foundation.

I went vegan in 2011 after watching "Gary Yourofsky’s Best Speech Ever". At the time, I made no deliberate attempt to “eat healthier.” I simply stopped consuming animals and replaced them with more of what I was already eating—including French fries.

In 2016, while completing bloodwork to save money on my health insurance, I was stunned to see my total cholesterol was 121. That prompted me to dig up earlier labs from late 2010, just before going vegan. Back then, my total cholesterol was 168. Six years of not eating animals—with no other lifestyle changes—had significantly lowered my LDL and triglycerides, raised my HDL, and eliminated the visceral fat that had been steadily accumulating around my waist, just as it had for my father and both grandfathers.

At 42 years old in 2017, I was essentially the same physically as I had been in my late 20s. I also noticed something else: I stopped getting sick. Prior to going vegan, I typically got sick twice a year with seasonal changes—one of the reasons I had bloodwork done in 2010 in the first place.

All of this deeply intrigued me. Around that time in 2016/2017 I began listening to doctors on YouTube and started taking long walks in my neighborhood—something I had never done before. On those walks, I absorbed everything I could. That curiosity led me deeper into whole plant foods, nutrition, science, biochemistry, anatomy, evolution, and logic. I compared my trajectory with that of my extended family, many of whom were already struggling with health issues in their 30s. Meanwhile, here I was in my 40s—mostly sedentary due to editing work—and still physically healthier.

Although I went vegan for ethical reasons in 2011, by 2017 I realized something profound: almost everyone can be vegan—and most would likely be significantly healthier on a well-planned vegan diet. Understanding the potential impact of this way of eating on human health, I felt an obligation to learn more, explore further, and help others along the way.

I repeatedly asked myself a simple question: Is there any reason to eat animals? I researched, asked others around me and on the public via social media. I could find no justification beyond social conformity—essentially an inherited habit.

When it became clear to me there was really no reason to eat animals I began to organize my efforts and contribute more meaningfully. That was when I launched VeganLinked.com as a directory for vegan businesses, events, and services in 2017. With no budget and no help, progress was slow. After a few months, I put the site on autopilot and shifted my focus to building the companion channel, YouTube.com/VeganLinked.

From 2017 to 2019, I offered free video, website, and marketing services to vegan businesses while traveling to events, networking, and filming talks by doctors and advocates. In 2019, I produced a documentary for Jane Velez-Mitchell. By March 2020, momentum was at an all-time high—I had shoots scheduled with Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Michael Greger, Dr. Joanne Kong, and the Minister of Wellness Nathaniel Jorden. But COVID shut everything down.

That same month, I met with Dr. Garth Davis in Asheville, North Carolina, to discuss an ongoing collaboration. He was fully on board. I purchased a nearby property, renovated it, rented it out for income, and converted an accessory building into a studio. By fall 2020, we had completed five projects together—before he and his family unexpectedly moved back to Texas.

Like many others, I was deemed “non-essential” in 2020 and became financially dependent on rental income. Around that time, Dr. Joanne Kong approached me about her book "Vegan Voices", featuring stories from 50 authors. I offered to interview contributors in exchange for help with travel and coordination. Those first twenty plus interviews set everything in motion.

Within the first three interviews on that initial run, I knew I needed to make a documentary—not someone else’s vision, but my own. One that unfolded organically through the stories I was capturing as I navigated the vegan movement myself.

Over the years, as time allowed, I returned to developing VeganLinked.com. From late 2022 through early 2023, I overcame long-standing technical barriers related to listings and events. In 2024, I finally resolved persistent user profile issues and added new features. In 2025, I began passively promoting the site in every video I released.

In 2025, while maintaining weekly uploads, I helped Alex Hershaft—now in his 90s—with a six-part docuseries. I traveled across the country, shooting more than 90% of the footage and editing multiple versions. Alex ultimately scaled it down for his immediate needs, leaving me with a more expansive version to release in 2026.

I also collaborated again with Jane Velez-Mitchell on a project alongside Anne Dinshah of the American Vegan Society and Seth Tibbott of Tofurky, shooting approximately six hours of interviews, b-roll, and event coverage over three days. This project pushed me fully into using new cinematic camera gear I had invested in during 2024—gear I’ve since used for projects like filming tours of Dr. Ron Weiss’s Ethos Farm to Health.

My goal moving forward is deeper storytelling—true documentary work. I’ve invested significant time and resources into upgrading my skills and equipment. Several major projects, captured before 2026 and still unreleased, are now coming into focus.

These projects center on four key themes: Omega-3s, chronic disease, ahimsa & dairy, and raising children vegan—with the latter two potentially merging.

In December 2025, I purchased 192 terabytes of hard drives to build a RAID-10 system, finally consolidating eight years of footage scattered across 20 external drives. This marks a turning point—allowing me to fully organize, reflect, and create with everything I’ve captured.

Since 2017, this work has been my full-time focus. As of early 2026, the channel is approaching 100,000 subscribers. I’ve filmed hundreds of interviews across the country—solo. Over the years I've come to realize growing vegan food, raising children vegan, and the pillars of lifestyle medicine are—without exaggeration—the most important topics in the world.

In 2025, I completed a year-long weekly series on Raising Children Vegan, and launched RaisingChildrenVegan.com to support that initiative. In 2026, I will continue amplifying the voices of lifelong vegans while also focusing heavily on lifestyle medicine, raising children vegan, professional health services, food cultivation, and normalizing veganism.

I’ve made connections I never imagined possible, including with many of my heroes. As I refine my focus and work through years of unreleased material, my hope is that VeganLinked evolves to reflect all of this—perhaps with a redesigned homepage that better tells the story.

To make that redesign happen, I need more practitioners who *get it*: physicians, dietitians, nutritionists, health coaches, and professionals practicing lifestyle medicine in meaningful ways. Showcasing these voices is one of the most powerful ways to help people transition to veganism in the healthiest way possible.

So please—join, connect, add listings, add events, and help me build a truly vegan world.

This is how my vegan life evolved: from ethics, to health, to everything—and now, this is what I do. I still dream of making a major documentary. For now, it’s just me, with no budget. If it becomes a compilation rather than a traditionally produced film, so be it. The story still matters.

As I continue this work, I hope to eventually settle down and purchase some land—somewhere conducive to a like-minded community. A place where food can be grown, where people can gather to learn how to eat and live this way, and where educators, advocates, and creators can come to share ideas, give talks, or simply find respite. A place that allows me to slow down, travel less, stress less, continue learning, and teach more—while living in alignment with the values that brought me here in the first place.