A Bright Clean Mind

Book excerpt: Discover how your diet may affect your creativity, how going vegan is like giving yourself brain food, and how to incorporate veganism into your life. When author and certified vegan lifestyle coach Camille DeAngelis is asked how she feels satisfied on a vegan diet, she thinks of the moment in James and the Giant Peach when the Grasshopper and the Centipede fret that they have nothing to eat until James points out that they’re traveling inside an enormous piece of fruit. There is plenty, Camille reminds us in this self-help motivational book for artists and creatives. Everything we could ever want to eat, and more, is all around us. Because we live in a culture in which the eating and wearing of animals is taken for granted, we rarely recognize our limiting meat-centric mindset. But if we can employ our imagination to create worlds from scratch, we can surely use it to envision a new way of seeing ourselves in relation to the animals we eat. On the other side of this brain transformation is a lifestyle that is ideal for our own health and emotional well-being and is much more environmentally sustainable. Camille believes that creative hobbies and habits reinvigorate one’s primary work. But she knits, sews, embroiders, and bakes for the pleasure of it, too. Her productivity and brain power have been remarkable since going vegan seven years ago, and even more importantly, she no longer feels any of the frustration or uncertainty artists tend to accept as part of the creative process. If you’re a creative suffering from brain fog, A Bright Clear Mind can help. Praise for A Bright Clear Mind “If you are a maker or an artist who feels anxious, depressed or just plain not feeling up to par, I urge you to read this book. In the pages you will discover how to wake up your life force by embracing a more connected way of living and eating.” —Elise Marie Collins, author of Super Ager: You Can Look Younger, Have More Energy, A Better Memory and Live a Long and Healthy Life “DeAngelis roundly disproves the theory that plant-eaters are somber moralists . . . Getting to peer into the lives and creative processes of these vegan visionaries makes me want to write and dance and organize my cupboards and make a tofu frittata.” —Victoria Moran, author of Creating a Charmed Life and Main Street Vegan