Alicia Silverstone: Embracing "Kind" Diet

Savoring the Vegan Life with Alicia Silverstone
Allan Richter (EnergyTimes.com, Jan. 2010)

Embracing a plant-based “kind” diet, this activist star of stage and screen is energized and at her happiest.

When Alicia Silverstone sought a role in an Aerosmith video 17 years ago, director Marty Callner was so taken with the 16-year-old budding star’s presence and freshness he dispensed with an audition and cast her in not one but three of the band’s videos. That work brought her to the attention of other filmmakers. Silverstone soon landed her breakthrough role as the superficial but likeable Cher Horowitz in 1995’s “Clueless.”

Callner’s most striking reflections of Silverstone are more personal than her film work. “I might have helped her career,” the director says, “but she saved my life. When you talk to me about Alicia, you’ll get nothing but rose petals.”

Those accolades have a lot to do with Callner’s switch to a vegan diet, prompted by Silverstone and now more than 11 years strong. The transformation was so meaningful that Callner recalls the exact date — May 6 — it began. On that day, Silverstone took her friend to a local restaurant for an all-vegan meal. She also gave Callner Food for Life (Three Rivers Press) by Neal Barnard, MD, about the value of a diet rich in grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits.

Callner says Silverstone’s tender guidance motivated him. “She opened the door by example,” he says. “She was never forceful or condescending. It was so pure and beautiful it was almost impossible not to be intoxicated by it. She very cleverly opened my eyes in a way that worked for me....” Read the interview>>

The Kind Diet (Alicia Silverstone)