Todd Anderson is leading a wave of vegan influencers

Written by Margaret White

Todd Anderson, also known as Vegan Influencer on instagram as @TurnipVegan, describes his decision to go vegan as unintentional. “Prior to being vegan, I used to do music. I did a lot of fun stuff that young people used to do. And I was living an unhealthy lifestyle,” he says. But his life changed in 2016 after a trip to Vegas. “I went to Vegas in November of 2016 and partied hard for about a week. When I came back, I felt horrible.” Todd felt like his body was rejecting his lifestyle; so he decided to watch a documentary that would hopefully inspire him to make healthy decisions.

He ended up watching a documentary called Food Choices. “A little way into the documentary, the guy says one sentence that stuck with me. It was that we were the only species that drink milk from another species. And to me that was very odd. And it was like my moment where I felt like maybe I should rethink some of the things that I’m doing,” Todd shares. That moment sparked Todd to change his diet and go vegan.

As @TurnipVegan, Todd wants to inspire others to make healthy choices. Now, his page is filled with so many tasty recipes and his own cooking; but he actually started off with interviewing others and just showing off restaurants he would eat at. He says, “A lot of people were asking me: ‘What do you eat, rabbit food?’ and start making funny jokes and stuff. And I’m like, you know what, I’m gonna show you how I eat.” That experience led to him filming in kitchens all over the world like Hong Kong, Brazil, and the Amazon River. 

But then the Pandemic hit and the whole world shut down. Todd lost his gigs filming and editing for restaurants. While at home during the pandemic, Todd decided to remake one of his very first dishes as a vegan. Not only was he proud with the outcome, he realized that his last few years filming in others’ kitchens were preparing him for this— filming and sharing his own cooking and recipes. 

“And so I actually spent the last two years introducing myself and learning myself to cooking styles and developing my own cooking style.”

As we spoke about one of his many recipes, a garlic shrimp dish made out of Lion’s Mane, I asked a question that Todd says he gets asked a lot. Where do we find Lion’s Mane? It’s not in our typical grocery stores. Todd says that there is a fair chance you’ll find exotic mushrooms at your local farmer’s market, but he actually started growing his own mushrooms. “Right now I have a system at home where I could grow certain mushrooms within five to seven days,” he says.

And if you aren’t the biggest fan of mushrooms, Todd recommends the documentary Fantastic Fungi. “Because this was one of the first documentaries that I saw that started to change my mind on how to do mushrooms.” Todd describes himself as someone who didn’t like mushrooms when he first went vegan, but the documentary gave him a whole new perspective on the fungi.

As for the future, Todd Anderson looks to continue to inspire and share vegan foods with everybody.