Kathy Freston

Kathy Freston is an American author and promoter of plant-based nutrition. Her books include The Lean, Veganist, Quantum Wellness, Clean Protein and 72 Reasons to Be Vegan.

Freston grew up in Doraville and later in Dunwoody, a suburb outside of Atlanta Her mother, Joan, and her father, Bill, worked together in a printing store they owned in Dunwoody; she has two younger brothers, Kevin and Jon.^{[citation needed]}

Freston started studying meditation in her spare time and began making her own guided meditation recordings. She said, "… I started creating tapes for friends and realized, "Hey, this is very useful to people". People "came to her for counselling," and so she became a meditation counsellor, helping people find relationships or create abundance, get pregnant, or deal with the disease. She helped Cyrinda Fox, ex-wife of Steven Tyler, find peace with her cancer diagnosis and became a minister long enough to preside over the wedding of Cyrinda Fox to her boyfriend while on her deathbed.

Freston's book, The Lean: A Revolutionary (and Simple!) 30-Day Plan for Healthy, Lasting Weight Loss, was named one of VegNews' "Top 12 Vegan Books of 2012."

She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and across Winfrey's network relating to a detox diet.

In January 2014, Freston launched a Change.org petition titled "It's Time for a Healthy, Meatless Option (Please!)" urging McDonald's to debut a vegetarian burger item. In November 2020, McDonald's announced they would be creating a plant-based platform called "McPlant" that could lead to a plant-based burger being available on menus at McDonald's in 2021.

Freston supported California's Prop 2, a ballot measure that – among other things – required that by January 1, 2015, egg-laying hens raised in California be able to stand up, lie down, turn around, and fully extend their wings.

From 2011 to 2017, she occasionally published articles in the HuffPost.