Kindness, beauty, health, courage, and intelligence are characteristics personified by the effervescent and lovely lady featured on today’s program. This week on Vegetarian Elite, we proudly present the first in a two-part series on award-winning television legal analyst and attorney Lisa Bloom who is a champion of animal rights and the Earth-saving vegan lifestyle.

Ms. Bloom is a practicing trial attorney who uses her superb legal skills to defend the rights of women, children, and others. Her own successful Los Angeles-based law firm has recently represented high profile cases for Michael Lohan (actress Lindsay Lohan’s father), and Oksana Grigorieva (actor Mel Gibson’s former girlfriend). It is not surprising that her reputation as an outstanding lawyer, coupled with natural beauty and charm, led to a career in television as well.

It’s Monday morning and I am here at “The Insider,” and I am just putting my earrings on.

For eight years, Lisa hosted a live national television show called Court TV. She currently serves as a legal analyst for CBS News and the famed CNN news channel. She also makes frequent guest appearances on popular American television programs such as “Anderson Cooper 360,” “The Early Show,” “Dr. Phil,” “The Situation Room,” “Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell,” and “The Insider.”

This is the news room. This is all the staff; they put together the whole show for “ET” (Entertainment Tonight) and “The Insider.” And this is where we are going to be. Hi.

Hi. I have a camera man today, you guys aren’t enough for me. He’s doing a profile on me.

As a respected legal mind, Ms. Bloom is in high demand to provide her opinions on matters involving the law on-air.

Well, I’m a television legal analyst, so I work for CNN and CBS and some other shows. So I get called as needed, usually about two or three or four shows a day. Some days I wake up at 2 AM to do the CBS “Early Show” which is live at 4 AM Los Angeles time, 7 AM on the East Coast. Other days I do “The Insider” which we tape about 7AM, which means I get up at 5 AM to get there at 6 AM for hair and makeup. Today I got to sleep a little bit later. And in the morning, I do my research. I read the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and then I read in-depth on whatever my topics are for the day.

Some of the stories she covers involve animal welfare, a topic that is close to her heart as she is a lover of all animals.

So today I’m about to go on “(Issues With) Jane Velez-Mitchell” and talk about the roundup of the wild horses in the American West. The Bureau of Land Management is rounding them up with helicopters. Seventy-seven have died already, mostly pregnant mares and foals. And so I’m going on-air to talk about that, and talk about why I think it’s a terrible thing, and why I think it’s grounded in cattle ranching because the land is being used more and more for cattle ranching, and that’s why we’re driving the beautiful wild horses off the land.

So it seems to me that there is really no end to the sad consequences of meat production and meat consumption, this is just another sad example. Sometimes I pitch stories that are of interest to me. For example, California has proposed an animal registry which would require people who abuse animals to register. I think that’s a great idea, so I’ve been trying to get some attention to that and I pitched shows, which means I send emails to the producers of shows that I worked on. I say “I think this is a great story. I think we should cover it, and here is what I think we should do.”

Lisa Bloom follows a plant-based diet for a number of reasons, including her compassion for all beings and the health benefits. She is also deeply concerned about climate change, which prominent scientists say is chiefly driven by the enormous amounts of greenhouse gases released during the cycle of producing and consuming animal products. Earlier in November, Ms. Bloom was invited by the World Preservation Foundation and Dods as one of the distinguished speakers in the climate conference: “Leaders Preserving Our Future: Pace & Priorities on Climate Change,” held at the Central Hall Westminster in London, United Kingdom.

We now know to a scientific certainty that animal production, confinement, and slaughter is destroying our Earth. How is it possible that climate change is still considered a debatable issue, one in which reasonable minds may differ, when the greatest convergence of top scientific minds in human history, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), has convened four times and told us in the clearest possible terms that climate change is real, it is upon us, and it is human caused and it is shaping up to be the worst in humanitarian and ecological disaster in human history.

Diet can no longer be a matter of private choice, when the choice to buy meat and dairy products causes unspeakable cruelty to sentient beings, and when the choice is destroying our planet. Not only is vegan food the healthiest gift you can give your body, not only does it allow you to look in animals’ eyes with compassion, and without shame, vegan food is freaking delicious. Because concern about climate change is not just for the scientists and the politicians, the planet belongs to all of us.

Invited as the special guest of honor for the same conference, Supreme Master Ching Hai shared encouragement via video message urging leaders and co-citizens alike to make courageous Earth-saving changes.

Now, some of us might question: Can our world really eliminate the global meat industry and become all vegan? The facts tell us yes, we can. And our humanity’s survival instinct tells us we must.

It was a beautiful message from Supreme Master Ching Hai. Because what she did was she broke it down, all of the six major problems that our planet is facing, and how the number one cause of each of them is livestock production.

You know, honestly I can’t think of any issue where there’s one act, eating meat, causes so many sad consequences, damage to the environment, damage to the wild horses which I’m talking about today, other wildlife, the environmental degradation, the cruelty to the animals and damage to your own health, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

I want my children to have a better life than I have. I don’t want them to face the world with the worst humanitarian crisis in world history, which is what climate change is going to be. I don’t want people in the third world to suffer any more than they’re already suffering; they’re already suffering terribly, and they’re the first ones who are going to suffer. I don’t want children to have the diseases that they’re already getting because of climate change. I don’t want entire villages to be wiped out as they’re already are in the South Seas.

I’ve been there, I visited them. I visited a village in the Fiji Islands that had to be completely transplanted from their original homeland where they lived for hundreds of years because of the sea levels rose. We used to think recycling is such a hassle, and now we just do it. (Right.) We do it because we know it’s the right thing to do for the planet and for our children’s generations especially. And I think the same with meat eating.

When we return will have more from our interview with the engaging Lisa Bloom. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

I became vegetarian 32 years ago, and if the facts had changed, maybe I would have changed, but instead the facts changed even more in the direction of being vegetarian. There’s more and more evidence about the connection to climate change and human health and the damage to the animals. So, (it) just made me even more strongly want to be vegetarian, and ultimately become vegan.

Welcome back to Vegetarian Elite on Supreme Master Television featuring an interview with the vibrant Lisa Bloom, a vegan attorney and television legal analyst. Lisa promotes kindness to animals and believes that each life is precious. On many occasions she has reported on factory farm abuses on television and cites the unconscionable practices of the animal agriculture industry as the prime reason she is vegan.

I do it because I don’t want to sponsor animal cruelty. I don’t want to give one cent to do the horrible things that go on in factory farms and CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and battery cages for chickens, and I just can’t be a part of it. There is a reason why the factory farms are all enclosed and no one is allowed inside. There is a reason why they need that secrecy, because any time anybody gets a camera inside, they find horrific cruelty. And it’s not just PETA, it’s not just animal rights people, anyone who goes inside and sneaks a camera in. So anyway, I think the reasons why people eat meat is, number one, ignorance, because they’re not aware; and number two, denial, because it’s much easier to go along with the crowd.

It has been found that vegans are healthier than the general population and live an average of 6 to 10 years longer than meat eaters. It is not surprising that the plant-based diet has helped Lisa Bloom maintain her excellent health.

People always ask me about vegetarianism and how it affects my health, which is good because I’m the healthiest person I know. I haven’t been sick in 10 years, and even then I wasn’t very sick. And when my kids were little, they’d come home with flus and coughs and running noses, and I take care of them and I didn’t get sick. And I run marathons, I climb (Mount) Kilimanjaro, I’m extremely active person, and I’m really the healthiest person I know by far.

We asked Lisa if she feels she has inspired others by following a vegan lifestyle.

I think I’ve had a lot of influence. As you saw, I’m always posting in Facebook and Twitter and I’m always on television talking about this. And you know, I used to consider it more of a private choice, and I didn’t want to proselytize. I read a book called “The Life You Can Save” by Peter Singer, he also happens to be vegan and an animal right person, but this book wasn’t about animal rights. It’s about giving to charity, and he talks how you should give publicly when you give, and people will think well, “I’ll give them 100 dollars but I don’t want to call attention to myself because that’s bragging.”

But in fact, you know we’re all influenced by the choices that everybody around us makes. And if you give them in a more public way, you’re going to influence people around you who didn’t know that you were giving your money to this cause and that it’s important to you, and now they’re aware of that cause. So I thought he had a good point. So after I read that book, I started to be more public about the things that I do, which also includes, I give to a lot of school organizations to educate the third world girls. And anyway about animals, to talk more publicly about being vegan and I say to people, “Why don’t you just try it one day a week?”

We try to drag them in a little bit. “Why don’t you try one day a week or you try two meals a day, breakfast and lunch go vegetarian, see how that goes.” I know Paul McCartney has Meatless Monday (Meat Free Monday) or something that he advocates. And people have said “That’s a good idea I think I can do that.” Or post a recipe for some delicious vegan pumpkin bread, or try to be positive about it. So I think definitely I know, my boyfriend is almost entirely vegan because of me, my daughter, my kids are both vegetarian, so I had some effect.

Wow! Lisa sure presents a convincing case to adopt the planet-pleasing, plant-based diet. Please join us next Saturday on Vegetarian Elite for the conclusion of our two-part series on the beautiful and brilliant Ms. Lisa Bloom. We’ll hear her views on compassion for animals and respect for all life, and learn how she gifts peace.

To stay up to date with Lisa Bloom, visit: www.LisaBloom.com, search “Lisa Bloom” on Facebook.com, or follow her at www.Twitter.com/LisaBloom

Esteemed viewers, thank you for your company today on our program. Coming up next is Between Master and Disciples. May kindness always prevail in your life.

I do take very seriously the responsibility I have as a television commentator, that I have access to the airwave. I can get a message out, but most people don’t have that access. And so I want to be very responsible on what I say, and I want to get the facts out there and educate people about things that I think are important.

Welcome, splendid viewers to Vegetarian Elite, as we continue our interview with Lisa Bloom: champion of animal rights and the Earth-saving vegan lifestyle. On last week’s program, Lisa shared her passion and love for our animal friends and the necessity of adopting a humane plant-based diet. We also found out about how Ms. Bloom uses her respected position as a legal analyst and attorney to provide a voice of righteousness and hope for those in need. What was it that led Ms. Bloom to pursue a career in law?

I went to law school because I wanted to be an advocate for women and children. And I had work in college at a battered women shelter and I felt very passionately about women’s rights and children’s rights. So, after I finished law school, I did work on behalf of children. And I did a lot of women rights cases like harassment, and race discrimination, and age disability discrimination, that kind of thing.

Lisa learned from the very best early on. She is the only daughter of Gloria Allred, one of the most famous female lawyers in the US who has represented defining cases involving OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson. Upon her graduation from the prestigious Yale Law School Lisa practiced as an associate in her mother’s law firm for a number of years. Lisa is now a practicing attorney in her own firm.

And after about 14, 15 years of that I was approached to host a show on Court TV. So, I moved to New York and for eight years hosted a show on Court TV, and that was a great experience because we followed trials live; we watch them gavel to gavel, and really gave me insights into the American criminal justice system. And it changed my mind about a few things like how we treat juveniles, changed my mind about the death penalty. Some of the facts are so horrific that I felt that death was the only real justice we can do for somebody like that.

But I became anti-death penalty after realizing there’s just too much error in our system as long as it’s administered by humans. There’s always going to be innocent people who’ll be put to death and that’s just not acceptable. And we know we had people on death row who are exonerated by the innocence committee, innocent project, who they’re proved definitively to have been innocent. There’s been a lot, dozens and dozens, of people like that by now.

After watching trials where I thought that people were convicted where there was reasonable doubts, I know that as good as our system is – and I think we have a pretty good system – there’s always going to be mistakes because we’re all human and we all make mistakes. I also do think it’s uncivilized and it’s barbaric to have the death penalty that puts people to death. It’s something that we need to move beyond. And having spent a lot of time in Europe, for example, where the death penalty is just completely gone, and I think it’s a different sensibility.

During Supreme Master Television’s fourth anniversary concert, “Gifting Peace,” hosted by Ms. Lisa Bloom and NBA basketball champion John Salley, Supreme Master Ching Hai expressed similarly magnanimous views on forgiveness.

If you ask my opinion, my opinion is forgiveness. Yes. Because God is love and forgiveness. When Jesus was challenged about a person in his lifetime who also so-called committed adultery and people want to stone her to death as well. Do you remember that story in the Bible?

Yes, we do.

We remember.

And what did Jesus say?

Yes, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Yes.

Even for any gravest sin, so-called sin, like a crime, there is always a doubt whether it has been truly committed or it has been wrongly accused. So, in many countries right now, the death penalty has been abolished. I hope the whole world soon will do that. Yes. Let’s hope so, hm? (Yes.)

We should always give the suspected a chance, a chance in case it is wrong. Or another case is to give them a second chance to change, to redeem their sin if that was really a sin that they have committed. Don’t you think so, all of you? (Yes.) Give people a chance, yes.

Yes, we do.

We’ll be back in just a moment to conclude our interview with the ever radiant Ms. Lisa Bloom. You are watching Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Vegetarian Elite on Supreme Master Television and our special 2-part feature on attorney, author, television legal analyst, and vegan Ms. Lisa Bloom. Lisa explains how faith has helped nurture her humane heart and foster her activism in issues she holds dear.

Well, I am Jewish and the branch of Judaism is reconstruction as to Judaism. Which is that basically it is, that you have the obligation to bring about the existence of God in the world by your good acts. So it’s not enough just to sit home and think good thoughts. You have affirmative obligation to get out there and to do positive things. One of the core phrases is “Tikkun Olam” which is heal the world, and the legend is that the Earth is shattered and it’s broken and it’s our obligation to repair it, and you may not be able to do everything but you can do something and it’s your obligation to do that something.

Impassioned to use her voice to empower the voiceless, Lisa has accepted invitations to share her expert viewpoints on numerous television programs. She has been interviewed by media icons, including Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, and Barbara Walters. She often appears on CNN’s Headline News “Issues with Jane Valez-Mitchell” to highlight concerns on animal welfare. Here, Lisa speaks on behalf of wild horses in the US who are being forced from their natural grazing lands.

Jane, these are beautiful wild animals, as you say, and what is the excuse for saving them? Saving them from starvation, really? Because the horses seem to be very healthy. The ones who have died from the helicopters chasing them until they ran themselves to death tend to be pregnant mares and young foals. These animals are reproducing, they are healthy. And the real reason, as you say, is that we’re clearing the ground, the land, to provide more land resources for cattle ranching. In other words, this is yet another sad consequence of the meat industry. We already know it’s the number one contributor to climate change. It’s a terribly cruel industry, it’s damaging to human health, and now it’s killing wildlife. This has got to stop!

I think you got to the point where you just can’t participate in it anymore. And I think about my dogs and a lot of times I’m home in my home office working and they’re are at my feet, and I just love them so much. And I look at them and I think I know I can’t be part of anything that hurts animals. It’s such a natural way to feel, I think. If a deer ran out on the road when you’re driving, you’d swerve to avoid it because you don’t want to hit the deer. But yet, you would eat a cow, and I think it really is fundamentally unnatural.

The other thing about vegan eating is you’re not really giving things up, you’re just substituting. I mean, like last night I had bacon burgers which I hate to even say, it sounds so weird to me. But you know, vegan bacon, vegan burger, delicious! So, there are so many great… There’s a great Vietnamese vegan place in Reseda where they make vegan everything, vegan shrimp, chicken, etc. It’s so good, so, really you’re not giving things up. You’re just substituting. You’re eating the different kind of shrimp, or the different kind of chicken, or the different kind of bacon burger.

When you talk about taste, I don’t know if you’ve read, “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer. It’s his new [book], it’s a really good new book. He’s a novelist and he decided to investigate eating animals, and wrote a sort of book about it which is very good. And he quotes someone in the book who said, “Why is taste the one craving that we give so much paramount importance to?” For example, how about a visual artist? If a visual artist wanted to torture an animal, let’s say for a video, would that be okay? I think most people would say no. Or if a musician wanted the sounds of a tortured animal screaming for some art with music, would that be okay? Most people say no. So it’s not okay for hearing, for vision, but it’s the taste (Yeah.) that justifies it? That I thought was a very good point.

Between her television appearances, legal representation for clients, and speaking engagements, Lisa finds time to write her first book titled “Think: A Girl’s Guide to Staying Smart in a Dumbed Down World.” It is due out in 2011.

You know, honestly I can’t think of any issue where there’s one act, eating meat, causes so many sad consequences, damage to the environment, damage to wildlife, the cruelty to the animals and damage to your own health, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. The only reason to eat meat is because you like it, because you like the taste, and because you’re used to it. But you take that verses all the enormous consequences on the other side, it’s just so irrational.

We send our heartfelt appreciations to Ms. Lisa Bloom for devoting her time and talent to courageously champion the rights of the innocent and the vulnerable; the women, the children, and the animals. Your shining example is sure to inspire many towards a more compassionate way of living.

To stay up to date with Lisa Bloom, visit: www.LisaBloom.com, search “Lisa Bloom” on Facebook.com, or follow her at www.Twitter.com/LisaBloom

Gracious viewers, thank you for joining us today on Vegetarian Elite. Up next on Supreme Master Television is Between Master and Disciples. May kindness prevail always in your life.