“One of the best ways to learn how to do something is to ask people who know how to do it. So, as you can see on my cooking show, one of the things I did, to learn how to cook vegan, was inviting these expert chefs on to show me.” — Mario Fabbri, Vegan Chef
Mario Fabbri is a charismatic, young, vegan chef and the host of Trying Vegan with Mario, a 22-episode cooking series now streaming on UnchainedTV. In his series, Fabbri brings on other top vegan chefs, like Lauren Toyota and Gaz Oakley, as well as top vegan physicians, like Dr. Joel Fuhrman. The aim of the series is to teach people how to whip up succulent, easy-prep, plant-based dishes and to explain all the nutritional benefits of a vegan lifestyle. And, Fabbri is brilliant when it comes to making the whole process fun, fun, fun.
“My quick elevator pitch for someone interested in being vegan is, ‘If I can do it, you can do it.’ I grew up working at an Italian sausage factory surrounded by meat carcasses thinking that it was the most normal thing on the planet.” — Mario Fabbri, Vegan Chef
He Started in an Italian Sausage Factory
Mario Fabbri has eight years of experience producing cooking shows and commercials for television. His many shows have accumulated millions of views across all social media and TV platforms. Fabbri has a strong entrepreneurial background, with a focus on building a company that does something good for the world. He explains how his career began:
“I was born to a father who was the owner of an Italian Sausage Factory, so I grew up in the food business my entire life. My first job was when I was 14 years old at a pizzeria. Growing up working at a sausage factory, I always thought I’d be a part of the food business in some way or another. I remember being just a little kid in the kitchen with my grandma Rosie testing different spice blends for her Italian sausages and Italian beefs and just being fascinated by the food industry, but not even realizing that – many years later – I would go the complete opposite direction, still in the food industry but leave the meat supplying industry, become vegan, and start learning how to cook vegan food.”
Then… Mario Witnessed a Transformation
Fabbri’s journey to veganism started when he was 20. He explains how one of his best friends, who was very overweight, experienced a remarkable transformation after switching to a plant-based diet.
“He lost a ton of weight, totally did the whole glow-up thing, got new energy, transformed his attitude about life, and that was one of the first things that really inspired me to rethink the food that I was eating. What he had mentioned was… he just started eating more plant-based food. That’s what started to transform his body and his health. He ditched the fast food, he ditched the Italian sausage, and I saw it make a huge difference in his life.”
The Health Benefits of a Vegan Diet
One of the guests on Fabbri’s series is Dr. Joel Fuhrman, who also has a whole channel of videos on UnchainedTV. Dr. Fuhrman is a famed physician specializing in helping patients prevent and reverse disease. He’s a best-selling author, creator of multiple PBS specials and president of the Nutritional Research Foundation. Chef Fabbri explains his deep connection to Dr. Fuhrman:
“I was living in Boulder, Colorado, where I was getting interested in videography and film, and I thought, ‘Why not start making some cooking videos where I learn about food, and share the things that I’m learning?’ Through that whole process, I read a ton of books. One of my favorite books was ‘Eat to Live’ by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, and that book really put the science, the data, and the research behind the transformation that I saw happen in my friend.”
Through Dr. Fuhrman, Fabbri discovered that many other people had experienced the same transformation as his friend simply by rejecting the Standard American Diet (SAD) and adopting a whole food, plant-based diet. Most had radically improved their health stats and some had reversed heart disease.
When Fabbri launched his show, he was not yet fully vegan, so viewers get to see him learning and going through the whole process of becoming 100% plant-based, which he now is. Fabbri explains:
“At the inception of the show, I was actually representing non-vegans. I was Chef Mario, or not even Chef Mario at the time, but just Mario, who worked at his dad’s sausage factory, who grew up eating the most insane meat diet. And, then, all of a sudden, out the blue, I learned about the health benefits of plant-based food. I, then, also started to learn about the consciousness inside of an animal and the way that we can treat animals with much more compassion.”
