Youll remember, Im sure, the debacle involving 5 notes during the tail end of 2016. You can find my original articles on this hereand here. It seems the story has progressed even further down the rabbit hole since, and its with great annoyance that I find myself having to talk about it again.

The petition that started it all was rejected by the Bank of England and subsequently, the new 10 notes arriving this September will also contain tallow. The bank is, however, toying with the possibility of using a plant based substitute for the new 20 notes, which will not be in circulation until 2020.

The Vegan Society or as I like to call them, the You Dont Have To Be Vegan Society had thisto say in response:

While it is unfortunate that the new 10 note will contain tallow, The Vegan Society is pleased that the Bank of England has been transparent in their response to this important issue, and has taken the beliefs of the public into consideration.

We look forward to the consultation around the 20 note and hope that any future bank notes will be free from ingredients produced through harming animals. We hope that other companies will follow this positive example and review the use of animals in their products.

Along with the many other folks upset by this development, the Vegan Society are missing the point. The problem isnt that tallow a byproduct of animal slaughter is used in currency, its that the system of exploitation that results in tallow exists in the first place. Focusing on this byproduct assumes the legitimacy of the underlying exploitation. There are many non-vegans who consider the use of tallow unnecessary but who consider their own exploitation of animals to be perfectly acceptable. The outrage over 5 notes does nothing but tell these people that there is something different about this form of animal use to the use that they themselves engage in.

The use of tallow in our currency is wrong. Just as the use of animal products in our roads, computers and automobiles is wrong. But you dont change that by drawing arbitrary lines and forming campaigns that tell people that these products exist in some kind of vacuum. They exist because there is a demand for animal exploitation. Take tallow out of our currency and tallow would still exist in the exact same quantities. We have to get to grips with the fact that the use of animal byproducts will not cease until we have a sizeable population of vegans. At that point, demand will decrease to the point that slaughterhouse byproducts are not as cheap or readily available as they are now.

Until that point, anything less than promoting veganism merely ensures that the systems of exploitation resulting in these products continue on as ever. The people who are campaigning over 5 notes need to explain why there is a difference between this and any other unavoidable byproduct we encounter in our daily lives. There is literally something everywhere you look. It is as nonsensical as basing a campaign on tarmac. This hasnt stopped Doug Maw, founder of the original tallow petition, being quite angry over the 10 note news. He claims that they are forcing people who have religious and ethical objections to use something thats against their religious beliefs and their ethical beliefs. But the same could be said for credit cards and house bricks. This is nothing but yet another form of self-indulgence on the part of advocates, who are incapable of recognising the very real exploitation they promote through normalising all others.

Doug goes on to say this: Im most definitely as of now looking at legal advice and we will definitely be bringing a test case against them because Im pretty sure we will win it. Wonderful. A victory would not mean any decrease in demand. It would not mean that there is any less tallow being brought into the world. All it would mean is that people can feel better that an animal product is not being used unnecessarily. Well Ive got news for you, Doug. Such a victory does literally nothing for animals. But what it does do is tell the public there there is something different about that form of animal use to their own. It makes them feel better about their own exploitation by implying that there is some necessity or compulsion involved.

People need to stop advocating for themselves and see the bigger picture here. A non-vegan world equals millions of tons of byproducts whether theyre used in our currency or not. A vegan world equals no byproducts in existence in the first place. Advocating for the end of byproducts in the former merely normalises the legitimate forms of exploitation that people consider to be acceptable.

Want to do right by animals? Be veganand advocate veganism. Want to end animal byproducts? Advocate veganism. There is no other option that doesnt throw animals under the bus.

Originally posted here:

5 Note Nonsense & The Vegan Society - Ecorazzi

Kiki Adami is coming for your meat.

The 28-year-old restaurant consultant wants to veganize every restaurant in New York City, and shes setting her sights on Bleecker Street. The fact that the Greenwich Village stretch is home to meaty mainstays like JG Melon, Faiccos and Murrays Cheese Shop doesnt deter her.

I want the whole street to be a vegan mecca, says the Hoboken, NJ, resident and adamant vegan of 10 years. Like, the Great White Way is where all the Broadway shows are I want this to be the Great Vegan Way.

Adami launched her company, Veganizer, in 2015 with the goal of converting restaurants all over the city to a menu in which half the options are meat- and dairy-free. She has also convinced several restaurants around the city to hold vegan pop-up nights, including Pagani, on Bleecker Street. This year, shes decided to focus her efforts on Bleecker because the thoroughfare is home to a location of the constantly packed vegan restaurant and bakery By Chloe (185 Bleecker St.). She believes that when restaurant owners see By Chloes success, theyll want to replicate it with similarly plant-based options.

Thus far, shes gotten another Italian place, Romagna, to make half of its menu vegan, and shes confident that this is only the beginning.

I have no doubt in my mind that the seed has been planted, says Adami, who hasnt eaten animal products in a decade and gave up wearing leather six years ago.

But most restaurateurs on her target block highly doubt shell be able to get a hand on their meatballs.

Weve been open for 40 years, and people come from all over to have the paella, says Cafe Espaol owner Irene Becerril. We cannot change the menu.

Restaurantgoers on the street are similarly protective of the dishes they know and love. For Money Sealy, its her favorite 50-cent wings at dive bar Wicked Willys (149 Bleecker St.).

To turn a whole street vegan is absurd, says Sealy, a 27-year-old Upper West Sider. Variety is what makes the village.

Adami, a former cruise director, broke into the restaurant business working at GustOrganics, a Greenwich Village restaurant about 10 blocks north of Bleecker. When it opened in 2008, Gust catered to the paleo crowd those who eat only meat, nuts, vegetables and seeds. Adami started working there as a waitress in 2010, then stepped in as a manager and turned the menu entirely vegan in 2015.

I started to feel guilty, knowing that I was paying my rent from a company that was not really in line with sustainability, she says.

The restaurants paleo regulars revolted. Hate mail and bad Yelp reviews poured in, and the eaterys investors sued the restaurant for alienating its original clientele.

This is a case of imposing your own personal views on Gusts devoted clientele, one commenter on Yelp wrote.

The lawsuit was eventually dropped, but the legal fees cost Gust and it closed in 2015. At the time, Adami said the restaurant wasnt profitable, but now she says it was.

While most would take this failure as a sign from the meat gods, Adami ran the other way: I just said, You know what? Screw you guys Im going to veganize another restaurant.

And so her crusade began. Adami approaches restaurants with the promise of money, keeping her real intentions hidden at first.

I dont even use the word vegan. I talk money, I talk p.r., I talk business and I talk market trends, she says. I also wear a really cute outfit when I go to meet the owner You use whatever tools you have you flirt, you giggle, you laugh at them.

At the end of the conversation, she proposes just one vegan pop-up night, like she did with Pagani. After she gets buy-in on that, she suggests an even more aggressive change: making half the menu vegan.

If the restaurant is game, Adami cashes in, taking a 10-percent cut of the restaurants pop-up night profits and acting as the middleman for its vegan food supplies. The business model is how she, and Veganizer, make money.

To turn a whole street vegan is absurd.

Adami says about five restaurants on and around Bleecker Street are interested, and shes looking for more. But when The Post contacted their owners, many say they had never even heard of Adami and werent looking to give up their tasty meats and cheese.

Georgian cuisine doesnt allow it, says Vasil Chkheidze, owner of Old Tbilisi Garden (174 Bleecker St.), whom Adami says she contacted. And if a veganizer were to come by, he says, they would probably turn her away.

Adami also says she had some interest from a staff member at Deninos Pizzeria & Tavern on the corner of MacDougal and Bleecker, but owner Joe Castellano says he has no intention of putting fake cheese on his famous Staten Island pies.

When you put that material on the pizza, it totally takes away the quality of what we captured for the past 80 years, he says. For us to be a 50-percent vegan restaurant I think its pretty impossible.

Abi Sharma, the owner of Indian restaurant Surya (154 Bleecker St.), is even more blunt.

Our chicken tikka masala pays our rent, he says.

Still, Adami isnt discouraged and says her crusade is just beginning. Shes also helping to organize the first vegan dinner at the James Beard House in March and mentoring Veganizer chapters in Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, Brussels and Toronto.

Thomas Watts, the owner of newcomer sports bar JoJos Philosophy sports bar (169 Bleecker St.), says he would never open his doors to Adami. But he encourages her efforts on Bleecker Street.

If all the other restaurants go vegan, we could be a home run over here, Watts says, with a laugh. Meat eaters will be pounding at our windows.

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Militant vegan drives neighborhood nuts - New York Post

By Anna Johansson

Most people think of veganism as a highly-debated personal issue, one related to health and nutrition, but few outside the vegan community stop to think about how such a diet impacts our environment.

For vegan-centered businesses, however, our food choices arent just about physical health; theyre about global sustainability and long-term economic health. It goes far beyond changing the way we eat, but rather is a statement about how we treat our planet and what kind of future we hope to have and intend to create.

When people talk about veganism, the first question most people ask is: But where do you get your protein? Due to a lack of nutrition education, many Americans think that the only way to get protein is through meat products, and many even over-consume meat products, believing its necessary for their health when its, in fact, bad for their bodies and the environment.

In fact, vegetarians and vegans can get their protein from many non-meat sources, including soy, nuts and nut butters, peas, seeds and even whole grains. Grains like quinoa are actually very high in protein, as are peas. Meat eaters are often surprised to hear that these foods they think of as poor sources of protein can boast more protein than an equivalent serving of meat.

With this in mind, then, companies are rapidly centering alternative protein sources in their business plans. Ruoquette, a French company, is in the process of bringing the worlds largest pea protein factory to Canada. Andin the U.S., plant-based foods contribute $13.7 billion to the economy. And because of its complexity and status as a near-complete protein, pea protein alone is expected to be an $18.5 million industry by 2021.

Health food, in the broadest sense, has become a viable, mainstream marketing point rather than just a niche market, and vegan protein sources are a key example of this. In part, this is because of an increase in health issues. The risks of things like heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some kinds of cancer can be reduced by a vegan diet.

In this day and age, however, its not just our health we should be worried about. Rather, we need to consider how what we eat impacts the health of the earth and this kind of ethical appeal works well for vegan-centered companies.

Simply put, a vegan diet has a much smaller carbon footprint than diets that include meat and animal products. In 2017, if everyone across the globe switched to a plant-based diet, we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to food-production by 70 percent by 2050. Thats an enormous reduction.

Looked at more carefully, theres an even more intimate link between our health and the health of our earth because of the implications of global warming.

When 80 percent of food-production greenhouses gases are related to meat production, evidence suggests veganism may be the only answer.

In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a vegan diet has other environmental benefits that could decrease resource scarcity around the world but only if changes are made on a corporate, rather than individual, scale.

A quick look at resources needed to produce a cup of beef versus a cup of kidney beans makes it clear why. From land and water to fertilizer and fuel, it takes fewer resources to grow the kidney beans and theyre better for you. Considering the scarcity of potable water, the amount of land devoted to animal agriculture, and the damages done by fossil fuels, why wouldnt we want to reduce our use of these critical resources?

Finally, its important to put to bed the fiction that vegan diets are not attainable for many people, particularly those living on limited incomes. Lets take, as an example, the fact that veganism and vegetarianism are practiced most widely in the developing world.

Even among those who dont identify with this particular dietary practice, meat tends to be a relatively minor part of peoples daily diets its expensive and ultimately out of reach, saved for celebrations or when guests are invited. It isnt a staple in the way it is in the United States. And the more popular plant-based diets become, the less expensive basic meat alternatives will become.

Animal agriculture is the enemy of the environment and the enemy of our health, but it has distinct advantages for todays food businesses. As advocates for the earth, then, its time to push for a vegan revolution. High-end restaurants are catching on, vegan butchers are opening, and your local grocery increasingly stocks vegan alternatives.

Now, more businesses need to step up and support this change.

Image credit: Pexels

Anna is a freelance writer, researcher, and business consultant. A columnist for Entrepreneur.com, HuffingtonPost.com and more, Anna specializes in entrepreneurship, technology, and social media trends. Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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The Vegan Food Boom is Good for People, Planet and Profit - Triple Pundit (registration) (blog)

The Denver Post

Bravo actress pens letter to Colorado bagel company pleading for vegan shmear The Denver Post That's why I'm writing to you today urging you to consider adding vegan cream cheese options to your menus so that people who can't or won't consume dairy foods might still be able to enjoy a good bagel with shmear at your many establishments.. Hey, Einstein Bros., Vegans Like Cream Cheese With Their Bagels, Too!PETA (blog) (press release) all 2 news articles »

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Bravo actress pens letter to Colorado bagel company pleading for vegan shmear - The Denver Post

This semester, there is one fewer option for vegan and vegetarian Ohio Universitystudents eating at The District on West Green.

At the beginning of the 2016-17 academic year, The District, also commonly referred to as Boyd Dining Hall, provided different tofu options and vegan chicken created to accommodate the vegan and vegetarian student population at the make-your-own-sandwich station called "Between the Bread." However, OUCulinary Services has removed the vegan-friendly hot sandwich options this semester.

The change has students like freshman Azure Moon wondering why Culinary Servicesmade that particular choice.

I was disappointed to see them go, Moon, who is studying entrepreneurship, said. Boyd has the best vegan options, even without the sandwiches.

Due to the less-than-1-percent consumption rate among students, the vegan items were removed at Between the Bread because of a weak demand, Dan Pittman, an OU spokesman, said.

However, we have increased vegan options throughout the other concepts at The District. For example, we offer six different varieties of hummus daily at our Destinations concept, Pittman said in an email.

Pittman explained how Culinary Servicesuses other stations at The Districtto accommodate those who are vegan. Those options include vegan chicken strips and plain tofu at the Noodled station, white bean meatballs and whole sweet potatoes at the Carvers Cut station and spiced lentils and vegetarian ratatouille at Destinations.

As a vegetarian for three years, Jensen Tata, an undecided freshman, said she goes to The District every day and used to always get the vegan chicken as it was one of her favorite options.

I think (the removal of those options is) ridiculous, Tata said. They didn't just remove the options but they removed them and replaced them with only meat replacements. It is very disappointing.

As for the other dining halls, vegan and vegetarian options are also available.

Vegan and vegetarian eating is a hit or miss at dining halls. Nelson has a lot of options, so that is nice, but it's not usually the best, Tata said. Probably Shively now has the best options, but they aren't always healthy. Boyd's pasta can easily be made vegan and vegetarian, but there isn't a lot of protein in that.

There is hope for those who are looking to bring a hot sandwich option back into their diet.

Every semester we are looking at new menu options to meet the need of our customer base, Pittman said in an email. We do not plan on changing the hot sandwiches for fall semester 2017 but will be looking for spring semester 2018.

Although some students seem to be disappointed about the change, Pittman said Culinary Services has not heard any formal complaints about the removal of the options.

My suggestion to Between the Bread would be to offer one or two vegan sandwich bases at all times, rather than having them as specials, Moon said. That way, vegans know they will always have an option.

@lesliemilkie37

lm755415@ohio.edu

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Vegan options removed from The District on West Green's Between ... - The Post

Miami Herald

How to do SOBEWFF like a vegan or vegetarian Miami Herald For those living a cruelty-free, plant-based existence, there's no better event than the Vegan Dinner happening at Wynwood's Plant Food and Wine. You may have heard of chef Chloe, as she was the first vegan chef to win a culinary competition on ...

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How to do SOBEWFF like a vegan or vegetarian - Miami Herald

Using nuts, soy and seasonings ranging from sriracha to Old Bay, home cooks and caterers alike brought their creamiest, cheesiest entries to the Vegan Mac and Cheese Smackdown.

Organizers estimated as many as 3,000 attendees came out for the second annual event, held Saturday afternoon at Baltimore City Community College, to sample from 28 cooks. The cookoff was part of the inaugural Baltimore Vegan Weekend, a series of events throughout the city celebrating vegan cuisine.

The event drew both repeat and new contestants, as well as a number of first-time attendees.

The people's choice winners from last year's smackdown, who call themselves Flying Pig Labs, returned with a slightly modified recipe. Wife and husband P. Jeanie and Doug Ciskowski of Southern Maryland have been vegans for 30 and 17 years, respectively. Jeanie entered the contest last year after spending about a month developing her recipe.

"You need a smooth-melting cheese and a sharp flavorful cheese," she said. She uses Daiya, a brand free of dairy, gluten and soy, to achieve the creamy texture, and her own cultured cashew cheese for the sharp, cheddar-like punch.

This time she used a bit more cashew cheese in her bid to defend the couple's title.

Other contestants, like Rebecca Daniels-Smith of Prince George's County, were entering for the first time. Daniels-Smith went vegan about 18 months ago and has worked on a perfecting a simple white cheddar-style mac and cheese over that time. Her entry, VGGF (Vegan Geek's Gluten Freeks) centered on gluten-free macaroni and Miyoko's Kitchen cashew cheese, a vegan mozzarella.

"I found this vegan mozzarella cheese, and it became like the holy grail of all recipes because you can do anything with it," Daniels-Smith said.

A panel of judges picked their favorites in eight categories, including best-from-scratch, most-like-grandma's and gluten-free.

Saturday's event marked the second time Pep Foods Inc., a local vegan collective, and Baltimore Vegan Drinks hosted the mac-and-cheese cookoff, which attracted more than 1,000 people in 2016.

Brenda Sanders, one of the event's organizers, attributed the event's growth to the allure of the vegan lifestyle.

"Folks are just ready to try something different. People are ready to get healthier, people are ready to change what they've been doing and do something a little different," Sanders said. "This whole health movement is really picking up steam in Baltimore right now."

The vegan lifestyle was new to Kevin Braughton, 43, who attended the event with his children Holly, 8, and Alec, 6. They adopted veganism as a family at the start of the year.

Braughton, a Severna Park resident, said the transition to vegan eating has been easy.

"Once you get over the first two times, 'Gosh, I wish I had a cheeseburger,' you begin to realize how much other food is out there and how enjoyable it is," he said. "And the more you eat it, the more you end up craving that rather than some of the old stuff."

Longtime vegetarians, like Howard University student Rachel Kenlaw, turned out for the smackdown, too. Kenlaw, 21, was raised on a vegetarian diet and said she eats mostly plant-based foods now.

"This excited me because everyone likes mac and cheese, and I'm starting a health and wellness-type blog because of the position I'm in at my school, and I was like, this is the perfect place to try some new things out," she said.

She tried eating meat for a few years, she said, but switched back to a mostly plant-based diet in college.

"I saw how my body reacted to [a plant-based diet] and I was healthier and I was actually getting sicker when I was eating meat," she said.

Baltimore's Vegan Weekend kicked off Friday with an informal restaurant crawl, and included events to celebrate vegan cuisine. After the mac-and-cheese competition, Pep Foods and Baltimore Vegan Drinks were scheduled to host an after-party at Thrive Baltimore, Pep Foods' new event space and community resource center.

Events continue Sunday . Five restaurants, Harmony Bakery and Cafe, Land of Kush, NuBohemia Cafe, One World Cafe and Red Emma's Coffeehouse and Bookstore, are hosting vegan brunches. And Paulie Gee's Pizzeria and Bar will also host a vegan pizza fest from noon to 4 p.m. The Hampden restaurant will serve at least 12 specialty vegan pizzas, plus appetizers and desserts.

smeehan@baltsun.com

twitter.com/sarahvmeehan

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Second annual Vegan Mac and Cheese Smackdown grows in Baltimore - Baltimore Sun

Popular UK fashion brand Illamasqua is forcing its customers to take an anti-fascism pledge to purchase its products. In the pledge, prospective buyers must vow to accept responsibility on challenging social and climate issues and actively promote social justice, which it refers to as Human Fundamentalism.

The vegan brand, which produces makeup and perfumes, says that it believe[s] in the freedom of expression, quality and diversity and expresses horror at President Donald Trump. The company says it refuses to remain silent while extreme right-wing populism gains momentum wherever it is happening.

In a post on the companys official blog, Illamasquas founder Julian Kynaston says that the company will never knowingly sell our products to people who support President Trumps values, which includes anyone who supports Trump and anyone who sympathizes with his views on immigration and climate change.

To be part of our community, and to buy our products, you must first pledge to Human Fundamentalism values:

Illamasqua admitsthat it cant really stop anyone from buying what it sells, but that no matter how hard some people work to make themselves beautiful, make-up can never hide the ugliness inside and states inno uncertain termsthat anyone who disagrees with the pledge should take their business elsewhere.

So please, if you dont agree with the aboveDONT BUY US, reads the statement by the Illamasqua founder.

The companys forceful statement was met with celebration from social justice warriors, who cheered the company with positive responses in the comments beneath the post.

Well done. Thank you for being in the right side of history, wrote one commenter.

This is wonderful, as a long time brand cheerleader, this makes my heart sing, wrote another. Love and compassion is true beauty.

Illamasqua is not brave, and the risk-free statement is unlikely to come at any cost to its bottom line. Given that it only sells vegan products, the statement will do little to ruffle the feathers of any of its buyers, who mainly identify as progressive leftists.

Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken mediacritic. You can reach him through social media at@stillgray on Twitterand onFacebook.

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Vegan Fashion Brand Illamasqua Forces Customers to Take Anti-Trump Pledge - Heat Street

Purple Sprout, a caf and juice bar serving organic and vegan fare, opened in Wheeling in November 2015, but co-owner Irina Raimbekov said some people are still nervous about dining there.

"We get a lot people who come in and they say 'This is our first time eating vegan' and I say 'Really? I'm sure that you ate an apple without bacon on it before,'" Raimbekov said. "There's nothing scary about vegan food. It's things that people eat all the time."

The restaurant is hoping to introduce more people to plant-based eating and build a community of people who enjoy it by running a vegan supper club series.

"We want to create this fun environment, private community-style dining, and introduce people to conscious food, plant-based, organic, non-GMO all the good things that are good for people and the planet and the environment," Raimbekov said.

The series launched on Jan. 29 with American Favorites with a Healthy Twist, which featured hempburger sliders, sweet potato fries and pizza. For the next event, which runs at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 26, the restaurant is marking the Slavic holiday Maslenitsa, or Butter Week.

"Winter is about more dense foods," said Raimbekov. "To stay warm the blood needs to be thicker. Butter Week signifies the end of winter, before people start spring cleanses."

Irena and her husband, Karim Raimbekov, are from Kazakhstan and speak Russian as their first language. They thought bringing a taste of home their native cuisine to the restaurant would be exotic, particularly in a vegan context. The menu will focus on crepes including a version made from sprouted and fermented lentils, brown rice and red rice, and dehydrated crepes incorporating mango and coconut. While the couple won't be cooking the dishes in front of attendees, they'll discuss each one, sharing what went into preparing it, why they made it, and its health benefits.

"Healthy food is delicious," Raimbekov said. "Hopefully they'll be inspired to start cooking at home and incorporating healthy recipes and they'll be inspired to come back here whether it's for the supper club or otherwise. We're really hoping to create buzz with this."

The owners hope to bring in about 30 people for each event. They'll all be seated at a long table to foster community and served six to seven small portions along with a drink, which will be beet kombucha for February.

"Nobody's walking away hungry, but the idea is not to overfeed people since it's supposed to be healthy," Raimbekov said. "A lot of people are excited. We're seeing a lot of community support."

Only 50 percent of Purple Sprout's customers are vegan or vegetarian, but some of those who aren't still come in several times a week.

"Some people are in transition, some people just enjoy how they feel after eating our food," Raimbekov said.

The menu offers a few meat substitutes like seitan and tofu, but the owners prefer to emphasize the diverse natural flavors of the plant world. Along with serving a highly customizable menu, Purple Sprout also has a juice bar, a bakery stocked with sugar-free desserts including several varieties of vegan cheesecake, and a coffee bar with hot drinks including chicory coffee and tea loaded with fresh ginger and lemon. Most of the menu is gluten free, some of it is raw and everything is served in biodegradable packaging.

"We try to be conscious in everything we do," Raimbekov said.

Purple Sprout also sell frozen dumplings and pies plus sauces, kombucha and vegan cheese products so that the growing number people who want to change their diets have an easier time eating vegan at home.

"People are talking more and more about why it's good, the different health benefits for people," Raimbekov said. "They're not even talking about animal advocacy but the environment."

Vegan Supper Club Series

When: 6:30 p.m. Feb. 26

Where: Purple Sprout, 341 E. Dundee Road, Wheeling

Admission: $40

Information: 224-223-7133; http://www.purplesprout.com

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Purple Sprout Cafe digs into Vegan Supper Club series - Chicago Tribune

Special To The Washington Post.

Eat better, drink less, exercise more, sleep enough: It's common advice for heart health - and it's frequently ignored. Just 3 percent of American adults meet the standards for healthy levels of physical activity, consumption of fruit and vegetables, body fat and smoking, according to recent study.

But a major lifestyle overhaul isn't the only way to help your heart, studies suggest. Even small changes can make substantial differences.

Eventually, little changes can add up, says David Goff, director of the cardiovascular sciences division at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda.

"Any small change you make in a positive direction is good for you," he says. "It's not an all-or-nothing phenomenon."

Physical activity is a perfect example, Goff says. Official guidelines, which recommend 30 minutes of moderately intense activity on most days, are based partly on evidence of substantial health benefits from doing 150 to 300 minutes of exercise each week, according to a 2011 review study by researchers at the University of South Carolina at Columbia. Those benefits include reduced risks of coronary heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure.

But the guidelines also come out of an assessment of what is obtainable for most people, Goff adds. And while it would be ideal to get at least 150 minutes of exercise weekly, getting less than that also has benefits. When the researchers looked at deaths from all causes, they saw the sharpest drop in mortality when exercise jumped from half an hour to an hour and a half each week.

Just getting up for a minute or two to interrupt bouts of sitting may also improve health, the study noted. And moving for as little as eight minutes a few times a day provides the same cardiovascular benefits as 30 uninterrupted minutes.

"If you can't find 30 minutes a day, try to find five or 10 or 15," Goff says. "Anything is better than nothing."

The "some is better than none" philosophy applies to dietary improvements, too, Goff says. According to the National Institutes of Health, an ideal meal plan includes lots of fruit, vegetables and whole grains, with limited amounts of fatty meat and tropical oils.

But eating an imperfect diet with more of the good stuff is better than giving up entirely. That's a conclusion from a 2016 study that created food-quality scores from the self-reported diets of about 200,000 people. Over about 25 years, the study found, people whose diets scored lowest had a 13 percent higher risk of coronary artery disease than did people in the second-worst group.

Even just switching out soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages can help eliminate a couple hundred calories a day and control weight. That helps lower blood pressure, levels of harmful cholesterol and the potential for diabetes - all risk factors for heart disease, Goff says. Large long-term studies have shown that people who average one sugary drink a day have a 20 percent higher risk of heart attack than people who rarely drink any.

It's not just food and diet, adds Michael Miller, director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in and author of "Heal Your Heart: The Positive Emotions Prescription to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease." Heart strength can also come from battling stress by boosting emotional health in simple and unexpected ways, he says, such as enjoying a good laugh.

In a small 2005 study, Miller played movie clips for 20 people. When participants watched a scene that made them laugh, 19 of them experienced dilation of the blood vessels. In contrast, a stressful scene led to constriction in 14 of the 20 viewers. Since then, Miller says, other small studies have found similar results, including one showing that vessels stayed dilated for 24 hours. Dilation allows more blood to flow, decreasing blood pressure and heart rate.

"Cross-talk" between the brain and heart explains the potential long-term benefits of laughter, Miller says, particularly when laughter is intense enough to induce crying. Belly laughing releases endorphins, triggering receptors in blood vessels to produce nitric oxide, which in turn, dilates blood vessels, increases blood flow, reduces the risk of blood clots, and more.

People are far more likely to laugh when they're with friends, Miller adds, adding yet more evidence of the health benefits of being social.

Accumulating evidence suggests that another easy and enjoyable way to help your heart is to listen to music. During recovery from surgery, several studies have shown, listening to relaxing music leads to a reduction in anxiety and heart rate. And in a 2015 study, Greek researchers found reductions in how hard the hearts of 20 healthy young adults were working after 30 minutes of listening to rock or classical music.

"I tell my patients to dust off their old LPs now that LPs are coming back and listen to a piece of music they have not heard in a long time but in the past made them feel really good," Miller says.

Also on his list of recommendations: mindfulness meditation and hugging. Both, he says, look promising in studies of heart health and heart repair.

"Considering that stress probably accounts for a third of heart attacks," he says, "it can have a dramatic effect if you do all of these things in sync."

Small lifestyle change help at any age, suggests a 2014 study that started by assessing cardiovascular risks in more than 5,000 young adults in the mid-1980s. Twenty years later, people who had made even small but positive changes - such as losing a little weight, exercising a bit more or smoking a little less - showed less coronary artery calcification than people who didn't change or changed in a negative direction. Coronary artery calcification is a risk factor for heart disease.

For the best chance of success, Goff suggests taking on one little change at a time.

"The idea is to make a small change and then make another small change," he says. "It's about changing the way you live over years and years, not hours and days."

Keywords: heart exercise, small changes, heart health, diet, weightloss, last five pounds, BMI, exercise, workout, sugar consumption, LDL cholesterol

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To take care of your heart, even little changes can help - Cortez Journal