Hi friends! I’m Stefanie, a vegan recipe developer, certified nutritionist and the sole creator of Life, Veganized. LV began as a just-for-fun Instagram account in 2016, and has since evolved into a resource and platform for vegan advocacy and to share my recipes, recommendations and guidance as a long-time vegan!

I’ve been vegan since 2009, and it is my biggest passion. I spent years working towards my dream of getting into a career that was vegan-focused so I could fully dedicate my life, and in turn, as much of my time as possible, to making a positive impact on the vegan movement and helping others find and navigate this lifestyle. I find so much fulfillment in promoting veganism, whether that’s helping others on an individual basis, or working with other vegan businesses to help them grow and become even more successful. To read more about my transition to veganism when I was just a teenager, scroll down to the next section!

I’m originally from Columbus, Ohio, and had many fun years with the amazing friends I made there both inside and outside of the vegan community. However, I always felt that Ohio wouldn’t be my permanent home, and in 2018 I said goodbye to my loved ones and relocated to Los Angeles. I love living in LA, I had always imagined living here since I was very little! But I enjoy visiting Ohio (usually only during the summer!) to see my friends and family, and typically attend at least one of the epic music festivals that the Midwest is known for.

My puggle, Zeus, is my greatest love! He’s 11 now, and I’ve had him since he was 8 weeks old. I was just 19 when I got him, so we’ve really grown up together. He’s seen the country with me; we’ve lived in multiple states together, I’ve taken him on cross-country road trips, and he’s been to landmarks such as Garden of the Gods, The Golden Gate Bridge, Mount Rushmore and Arches National Park; he’s also been to Vegas with me many times and even got a picture with the Chippendale’s boys! I have 2 tattoos; one of Zeus and one of the vegan symbol (Ⓥ)! The two loves of my life that I know will permanently be in my heart.

Aside from the dishes I create for LV, I love making big, fresh salad bowls, and I also have a killer sweet tooth! A couple of my favorite original recipes are my Caramel Apple Pancakes and Rainbow Quinoa Salad!

Chuck Carroll and Dr. Neal Barnard, The Exam Room Live

I have been interviewed by The Humane League, Elephant Journal and countless podcasts, and have worked with companies such as The Feed Feed, Vkind, Annie’s, Cocomels, Abe’s Vegan Muffins and many more! I love attending VegFests and other vegan-themed meetups, whether they’re within my local community or in different cities when I travel!

In true LA fashion, I have several professional ventures, Life, Veganized being just one of them! I have an Etsy store called Canyons and Pines; my most popular item being a digital download of my Vegan Grocery List. Gaining popularity are my new Vegan Snack Boxes, personally created by me, from the choice of snacks to the handwritten thank you card! They can both be bought through my Etsy store!

I mostly work at home, but I like to change up the scenery and work remotely in cute coffee shops or vegan restaurants around town! In my free time, I love spending time with Zeus of course, taking him on hikes or walks around the city! I also enjoy attending yoga classes, visiting museums and botanical gardens, strolling local farmers markets, brunching and thrifting, and on nights that I’m not at home catching up on my Bravo shows (PUMP-TI-NI!) I can often be found dancing the night away in West Hollywood!

How I became vegan…

I went vegetarian at 15 because I didn’t want animals to die because of me. I had always known I would become vegetarian and not eat animals anymore one day, even from a very young age, living in Ohio, being raised on all types of meat. It was just something I knew I would do one day.

Even after I became vegetarian, I had no desire to be vegan. I had heard of veganism at this point but didn’t exactly know what it was, and I believed that as long as I wasn’t eating or wearing animals, that was good enough, and being vegan (avoiding dairy, eggs, honey, etc.) was pointless and excessive, because I thought that consuming byproducts like dairy and eggs were not harmful to animals.

I ended up stumbling into information about the dairy and egg industries after I had been vegetarian for a year and a half, and I was appalled by what I found out. In a nutshell, when I learned that dairy cows get sent to slaughter right along with the beef cows once they get older and their milk production slows, I changed my stance and I realized that if I truly wanted to align my actions with my values, I could not continue to consume dairy products, because I was still funding and supporting the beef industry by drinking milk. At this same time I learned about the egg industry, and learning that male chicks are killed the same day they’re born because they don’t produce eggs made me feel the exact same way–I stopped eating chickens because I didn’t want chickens to die for my taste buds, but I would need to stop eating eggs as well to truly live up to the values that I hold close, and stop being responsible for the deaths of chickens. I was 16 at the time; I didn’t make my own money, have the ability to drive or do my own grocery shopping. I didn’t even know how to cook. No one in my family was even vegetarian like me, and they definitely didn’t know what veganism was. Additionally, we were already struggling financially, but thankfully my mother was very supportive and open-minded, and even went vegan with me for the first two weeks. We went grocery shopping together and tried new things, and an unexpected bonus was that we actually ended up saving money on groceries since fruits, vegetables, beans and grains are some of the most inexpensive foods you can buy.

In the beginning, I had no idea what I would do with the knowledge I had gained about the dairy and egg industries; I didn’t know if I could try to “unlearn” it and just go back to normal vegetarianism after some time. I couldn’t imagine ever actually being vegan for any substantial period of time, avoiding meat was one thing, but dairy and eggs are baked into things and added to all types of foods, and it seemed pretty much impossible to pull off trying to be vegan and cut out so much. But I just knew that I could never look at an egg or a glass of milk the same. I remember deciding that day, I’m not consuming eggs or dairy today. And the next day I told myself the same. And the next day, and the next day. I boycotted those products day by day, pretty much meal by meal, while I thought of a more long-term solution. No thank you, I’m going to have something else. After a few days, I decided that I would be vegan for two weeks. The two weeks came and went, and it was in that time that my mother and I were grocery shopping together, trying new foods and exploring what veganism was all about. It wasn’t difficult at all when I took it one day at a time, one meal at a time, and I remembered why I was doing it. Every time I thought of the barbaric practices of the dairy and egg industries, passing up those products was easy for me—it wasn’t that I couldn’t have these animal-based products, I simply didn’t want to.

After the first two weeks, I didn’t want to reintroduce dairy and eggs back into my diet. I was still horrified by the practices of the dairy and egg industries, and I was still dedicated to saving animal lives, rather than contributing to their end, just as I had always pledged to do as a well-intentioned vegetarian. On top of that, I was learning about how unhealthy those products are for us, arguably worse than eating meat. And by that point, I was learning so many things so quickly that made veganism easier for me by the day. I still had a lot to learn, and many of my meals consisted of rather bland potatoes or oatmeal, but to me, it felt better than living a life that was not conducive to my values and ethics. So for now, I decided that I would keep being vegan until I didn’t want to do it anymore. 14 years, a vegan tattoo, a plant-based nutrition certification, and a career in vegan advocacy with an audience of 70k supporters later, and here we are. I think it was around year two though that I realized I will always be vegan, and there is nothing else I would rather be.