World Peace Yoga Center

World Peace Yoga Center, a new facility, opened recently in Healdsburg. It is located behind at the corner of Mill Street and Healdsburg Avenue.

This center is the second of its type in the country -- the first is located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Both were founded by Dr. Will Tuttle. The space has been donated by the Cafe Gratitude building’s owners who have a passion for this work.

Tuttle, author of the book,"The World Peace Diet; Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony,"  was in Healdsburg last Monday, Aug. 22, at the center to give a talk about his views on being vegan and the impacts that it has on the planet.

As with many yoga studios locally, World Peace Yoga Center combines   a wide variety of yoga types with nutritional education.

Tuttle's nutitional education talk covered the issue of world hunger and how a meat-based diet affects people and society. According to Tuttle, our planet produces enough fruits, grains and vegetables to feed 15 billion people easily.

There are only 8 billion of us here on Earth, so where is all of the food going? The bulk of that excess food is going to feed animals and fish farms, Tuttle said.

Those animals and fish are then slaughtered to produce food. They are not great processors, and it is a terribly inefficient process, Tuttle said. It is clearly not sustainable, he added.

Tuttle contends that we are conditioned to eat meat and it is not natural.

He told the audience to "Just go in the store and look at the baby food -- Gerber's Veal Picatta or Pot Roast."

Tuttle said he believes that if we are not fed these foods and go with a vegetarian diet from birth, we will be healthier and live longer. We slaughter 75 million animals a year for food and it is not needed, he said.

One of the big aspects of Tuttle’s philosophy is the violence of the kill itself. He says that it has a ripple effect throughout our societies.

The people that work the slaughter houses have the highest rate of
violence in the nation. It is a culture that is predatory and perverse. It
extends all the way into and is manifested in our nations hunger for war and its competitive nature, Tuttle said.

More information on Tuttle's philosphies is available at the World Peace Yoga Center's monthly get-togethers. See the schedule for more details. Healthy, tasty food is also available from the

Dan "Yoga Dan" Gottlieb is the center’s director and a yoga teacher. Dan has a passion for all of this and he is very informative.

The World Peace Yoga Center is located at 111 Mill St., Healdsburg. www.WorldPeaceYoga.com or email yoga@worldpeaceyoga.com. Peace!