From out of Philadelphia in the USA comes a brilliant audio podcast, which celebrates and promotes the Veggie lifestyle. It was the brainchild of respected American DJ, Vance Lehmkuhl, and has been up and running since late 2005.

The podcast, referred to as Vegcast, has emerged as an entertaining and convenient way to celebrate the veg*n lifestyle. It is also a pleasantly simple way for the ‘veg-curious’ to access information about diet, health, environmentalism and activism. New products and recipes are constantly being explored, and there are in-depth interviews with interesting people who are living their convictions. Notable guests have included Dr Neal Barnard from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Dr Richard Schwartz from Jewish Vegetarians of North America and Dr Will Tuttle, author of The World Peace Diet.

Vegcast also has a strong artistic focus, frequently discussing literature and graphic art, and also featuring music from vegetarian musicians, both obscure and well-known.

The shows run for approximately half an hour and the sound quality is high. These podcasts are accessible to internet users free of charge and, being around 20 megabytes each, they take just a few minutes to download.

Vegcast released show number 42 at the end of March, and number 43 is now in production. The main website contains an archive of all previous shows, with additional links to external webpages relating to specific guests or topics.

Once you discover these segments, you won’t want to miss them. Subscriptions are available to web surfers who use the RSS feed facility. Check out the website: www.vegcast.com

WORDS: Christina Louise Dicker