Actress Alicia Silverstone, who released an advice book titled “The Kind Diet,” will be speaking at UCLA on nutrition and how food choices affect lifestyle, health, the environment and animals. Daily Bruin’s Laurie Allred spoke with Silverstone about the event, her book and what it was like becoming a vegan.

Daily Bruin: What will you be talking about at the event?

Alicia Silverstone: I really want to encourage people to come who are not vegetarian. … What I really want to share with people is the possibility of them having the most healthy and abundant joy they could ever imagine. … I’m not coming to talk to people and tell them, “You have to be vegetarian.” … I want to tell people my journey and tell them what happened to me and what is possible for them.

DB: Why do you encourage non-vegetarians to attend the event?

AS: That’s actually who I’d rather see. I really want to talk to those people because they have more health issues. … What I’m really interested is having people be incredibly informed … and being excited and inspired by the choices they make and realizing they absolutely have the power to change the course of their life. In my personal experience, I went from having full-blown asthma with an inhaler and acne beyond belief and quite a few extra pounds – being generally a normal person. Once I cleaned up my diet, I found balance and peace that I didn’t have before.

DB: Tell us about your book, “The Kind Diet,” which was released a couple years ago.

AS: I wrote this book to help people know that you don’t have to do everything. I think a lot of people get scared. “I want to have all these things, but I can’t go (vegetarian).” No one’s telling you to go (vegetarian). I just want people to read my book to get informed and to start dabbling. I have a special section called the flirt diet, so you can dabble and try things and take on more and more and see how it feels.

DB: What benefits did you notice when you first became vegan?

AS: When I first (became vegan), I did it for personal, moral and ethical reasons. I didn’t do it for health. … (After about) two weeks where I was on this (vegetarian) path … people started to say I was glowing. … It’s like a higher vibrancy you get. … Right away, I was dropping weight, and I wasn’t even trying. All these things started to magically happen – my nails got really strong and my skin cleared up, and I started to feel amazing. I had so much more energy. I started thinking, “What’s going on? It’s not karma, is it?”

DB: When did you realize you wanted to become a vegan?

AS: Basically, I’ve been dabbling with the idea for so long. I started when I was 8. … Most little kids don’t want to eat animals until they understand what animals are. At some point, I finally had a meeting with (event organizers from PETA). At that meeting, I was so passionate about trying to make a change. I realized as I was driving away (from the meeting) that I’m the problem. … I’m trying to get them to fix all these things, but I’m not making any changes in my life that (are) going to stop this abuse (against animals). … I got home and was crying to my husband and telling him, “I (have) to change. I can’t expect these things to change if I don’t change.”

DB: Is your husband vegan as well?

AS: He’s not completely vegan. He’s been on this journey for a long time. He mostly is. He’s called a heavy, heavy flirt vegan-ish kind of thing. He’s not perfect; he’s a naughty, naughty one.

DB: Will you raise your child to be a vegan?

AS: I want my children to be the healthiest they can possibly be. I adamantly want to protect him. … Obviously, for me, knowing that eating meat and dairy that are poisonous (is) hurting (the) kids … I would never give him those harmful things. Healthy eating is becoming much more common, so it’ll be easier.

Email Allred at lallred@media.ucla.edu.