Paul Wenner, A Man With Missions

Paul Wenner has put out a remarkable cookbook called Garden Cuisine ($14.00). But this is more than a cookbook. It is part autobiography, part a how to start and maintain a successful business; how to achieve and maintain a healthy body; how to prevent cruelty to animals; and how to turn around some of our biggest environmental disasters.

He begins with his own origins and how he was born a sickly kid with asthma and tuberculosis. He struggled through childhood and when he was a teenager, heard three things that changed his life: 1) "You don't have to accept disease;" 2) "check into diet;" and 3) "health food store." Through trial and error, he became a vegetarian and grew to healthy adulthood.

Then he talks about developing the Gardenburger®, a non-soy burger that now rivals McDonald's in sales. From there he incorporated Wholesome and Healthy Foods, Inc., also named one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens by Business Ethics and selected by Oregon Business as one of the Best Companies to Work For in Oregon.

He is interested in promoting health for all people and tells how eating meat, poultry, fish and dairy products is terribly harmful to human beings. He is also interested in stamping out cruelty to animals and talks about the unspeakable horrors of American animal husbandry and fishing methods. He goes on to explain that growing animals for food depletes our natural resources and fouls our land, water, and air more than all other industries combined.

But, this is not a grim book. He is living the solution and he shares with us the most scrumptious and satisfying meals you can imagine. How about Pan-Roasted Portobello Mushrooms with Red Potatoes and Kale for supper or Healthy Caesar Salad, French Onion Soup and Spice Cake for lunch or Mango-Dango Cocktail, Home-Fried Potatoes and Sliced Bananas for breakfast? He has a 21-day menu plan to help you get started and lose weight, build strength and energy to boot.

Paul is a man with many visions. He is a chef promoting healthy, tasty food for people; he's an environmentalist; an animal rights activist; a principled businessman; and an enthusiastic promoter of health foods.

His book, Garden Cuisine, is fascinating and fun reading and gives you great recipes, too. He has really taken to heart what Albert Einstein said: "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances of survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.