Vesanto Melina

Vesanto Melina is a Canadian Registered Dietitian and co-author of books that have become classics in the field of vegetarian, vegan, and raw foods nutrition, have sold over 700,000 copies and are in 8 languages (Italian, Dutch, Traditional Chinese, Czech, French, Portuguese, Israeli, English). She has presented workshops on various aspects of vegetarian, vegan and raw foods and nutrition for dietitians, health professionals, and vegetarian associations in 17 American states and 9 Canadian provinces, and in Europe (Paris, Copenhagen, Aarhus, Dresden, Ghent, Barcelona, Oxford, London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Venice).

Melina was born on March 13, 1942 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with the given name Louise Elizabeth Goranson. Her parents were also both born in British Columbia. Her father was physiologist Ed Goranson, who specialized in diabetes working in the Toronto lab of Sir Frederick Banting and Charles H. Best, who received a Nobel prize for the discovery of insulin; he taught physiology at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia,and did cancer research at Princess Margaret Hospital and at Mill Hill in London, England. Her mother was teacher Margaret Goranson (née Humble) who taught at the University of British Columbia’s Child Study Centre. Vesanto's sisters are Toronto actress Linda Goranson and stuntwoman Leslie Goranson, who is Annie Oakley in Disneyland Paris’s “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show”. Melina studied nutrition at the University of London, England, and the University of Toronto, Ontario (1960–1964) and completed a Master's degree in Nutrition at the University of Toronto, Ontario (1964–65). She married her childhood sweetheart and mathematician John Crawford in 1964, and they had two children, Christopher (Xoph) Crawford in 1968 and Kavyo Jennifer Crawford in 1970. The couple were divorced in 1973. She spent 4 years at an ashram in Poona, India, between 1978 and 1981, changing her first name to Vesanto and traveled to Nepal 4 times before returning to British Columbia. She was married to David Melina from August 1994 to 2000. She has a grandson Chance (born December 2011), whose parents are Kavyo Crawford and Stefan Schielke.

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