NBSV 232: Dominick Thompson on 40 nights in solitary, vegan activism, and life beyond the walls

After 230+ episodes, I have a new winner for the most interesting vegan origin story I've heard on this show. Dominick Thompson grew up on the west side of Chicago. He broke up dog fights as a kid, refused chicken wings at age eight because they looked like "little bitty arms," and then spent years dealing drugs to get his family out of poverty. That lifestyle landed him in federal prison, and in his first week there he got down on his knees, remembered that childhood moment, and gave up meat for good. That was about 25 years ago. We talk about how a chess game ended in 40 nights in solitary, how Dom placed in the top ten at prison lift-offs while trading his meat for his cellmates' carbs, and how he went from ex-felon to healthcare executive to one of Instagram's earliest high-profile vegan men. We get into what social media has turned into, why being a real human online matters more than ever, and how his book Eat What Elephants Eat got its name. Plus, Dom's story is now a feature film. Beyond the Walls is slated for release in winter 2027.

Dotsie Bausch went from hospitalization due to an eating disorder to standing on the Olympic podium as a fully vegan athlete. She was the oldest in her discipline to ever take the Olympic podium, and she gained ten pounds of muscle for the switch from road to track cycling (all powered by plants, of course). We trace that arc, then get into how an anti-dairy ad that the dairy industry got pulled from NBC sparked her nonprofit Switch4Good, and the fight she's leading now to get plant milk into US school lunches (including the wild stat that nearly a third of school milk cartons get thrown out unopened). Switch4Good ran a successful campaign to get Starbucks to drop its plant milk uncharge, and runs many initiatives for kids, college students, athletes, pediatricians, and more.

Zineb "Zizi" Hattab set out to open a restaurant, not make history. A month before signing the lease, the trained chef had a change of heart and decided her new venture, KLE, would be fully plant-based. Today KLE holds both a green and a red Michelin star, making it the first vegan restaurant in Switzerland to do so. Zizi has since opened two more concepts on the same Zurich street: DAR, inspired by her Moroccan and Spanish roots, and COR, a wine and pinchos bar. In this episode, I speak with Zizi about the engineering background that led her to veganism, how her team builds trust with skeptical guests, and why she refuses to let go of dishes like traditional harira soup just because they're now plant-based. We dig into food and identity, the industry-driven stereotypes around vegan food, and the many traditional cuisines around the world that are plant-based by default. Zizi also shares a preview of her new cookbook, Vegan Vegan!, out in September.

Kaylin Foisy has been part of the K.I. team for five years — podcast production, social media, and now stepping into a bigger coaching role. In this Coaches' Corner chat, we get into Coach Kaylin's 20-year vegan journey (which started with ethics at age twelve, long before she'd heard the word "vegan"), what it's actually like coaching clients online versus in person, and how a chronic illness diagnosis three years ago forced her to rethink training entirely, including why she'd rather "level out" than "level up." We also cover raising vegan kids, the senior fitness class she teaches, and the vegan bakery she founded that's fooled more than a few farmers market skeptics.

Growing up in a farming community in Southwestern Uganda eventually led Nabaasa Innocent to animal welfare work, and to organizing the country's first vegan festival. Founder of Uganda Vegan Society (now transitioning into Humane Shift Alliance Africa) and senior co-manager of Thrive Africa at Thrive Philanthropy, Nabaasa joins me to talk about why veganism gets dismissed as "a Western concept" in Uganda even though plant-based eating has always been the norm there. We also discuss how her organization is shifting its language from "vegan" to "plant-based" to reach more people, getting kids excited about tofu and beans in school lunch programs, and why she's rebranding to build a pan-African alliance. Plus: her favourite vegan meal, beans and matoke (starchy East African cooking bananas), and how you can support her work.

Dr. Phil Narini spent decades hunting, fishing, and eating meat-centric Italian home cooking before a single lecture on fish and mercury changed his and his wife's eating habits overnight — no cravings, no willpower. Fifteen years later, he's a reconstructive plastic surgeon who insists he's not a nutrition expert (and thinks you should be suspicious of anyone who claims to be), co-founder of a whole-food plant-based café built on the idea that healthy food has to taste good first, and an outspoken advocate for scientific skepticism over Instagram influencers. We get into the "trifecta" most doctors won't connect to diet, why medical school teaches close to zero nutrition, what a trip to Sardinia's Blue Zone actually taught him about longevity, and why he'd rather trust someone with fifty years of grey hair than a six-pack and a supplement code.

Gym culture likes to pretend it's apolitical: just protein, PRs, and personal responsibility. My guest this week isn't buying it. andrea bennett is a senior editor at The Tyee and the author of several books, including Hearty: On Cooking, Eating, and Growing Food for Pleasure and Subsistence, which won a Taste Canada Gold Award. andrea also happens to be my open water swim buddy of several years, and the author of a recent Tyee piece on how MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) is trying to co-opt fitness culture, and why progressives shouldn't let it. We get into the difference between training for aesthetics and training for your actual life, and why so much of commercial gym culture is coded white, male, and able-bodied by default. andrea also walks me through their 10-month journey to a first unassisted pull-up (I may have had a hand in the programming), and why representation of bigger bodies in fitness matters. We also talk protein hype, the class and access issues underneath population-level "under-muscled" stats, and why choosing a goal that feels borderline impossible is worth doing at any age.

Co-founder of Clean Food Dirty Girl and certified life coach, Molly Patrick, joins me to talk about why knowing *what* to eat is only half the battle. We dig into the mindset work behind lasting behaviour change, why abundance — not restriction — is the real engine of sustainable eating, and how dismantling shame-based diet culture is just as important as knowing what to put on your plate. Molly also gets candid about her decade of sobriety, and why the best thing you can do for the non-vegans in your life is to stop lecturing them.

I'm turning 40 in a few days, so (obviously) I'm hosting an online taco party Hope to see you there!   Cook along with me, or just watch and hang out. We'll do a book giveaway, Q&A, and share vegan intel with likeminded folks. Join me on Wednesday, June 17 at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern. It's free, it's going to be a super-fun community event, and I'd love to celebrate with you.   Grab your spot at www.karinainkster.com/40!

Five years after her first appearance on the show, Nana-Serwa Mancell returns to share her journey from running a vegan African food business in Dubai to building a sustainability-focused retreat and community space in Ghana. We discuss West African vegan food traditions, overlooked plant protein sources, ethical tourism, sustainable fashion, environmental challenges in Ghana, and why she believes Africa's future is full of innovation, creativity, and hope.