Melissa's Produce

Lecturer, Cookbook Author, Teacher

Early Years

Best selling author and soy foods expert Marie Oser became a vegetarian in 1971, but it wasn’t until 1990 that she was able to take her personal food style to a broader audience. After studying psychology and counseling new mothers and pregnant women for the Childbirth Education Association in the 1980’s, Marie went into television commercial production. Deciding to take a break and become a stay-at-home mom to her two school-aged children, she took this opportunity to pursue her intense interest in food, nutrition, and her newly acquired, plant-based diet.

Current Projects

Incorporating the expertise of food scientists, she was able to create amazing desserts that were egg and dairy free, with no added fat. Her books include:

Her first book, Luscious Low-Fat Desserts was published in 1994, and to this day, scrumptious desserts are Marie Oser’s signature. When she became aware of the nutritional research linking soy to disease prevention and cholesterol reduction, she turned her focus to soy. At the same time, she had become aware that soy was a factor in every stage of the meal, from appetizer to dessert.
Her second book, Soy of Cooking: Easy to Make Vegetarian, Low-Fat, Fat-Free, and Antioxidant-Rich Gourmet Recipes, published in 1998, became a best-seller, and is now in its 6th printing.
A second soy book, More Soy Cooking: Healthful Renditions of Classic Traditional Meals was published in 2000.
Her latest book, The Enlightened Kitchen: Eat Your Way to Better Health, published in 2002, is a sensible guide for health and another collection of delicious recipes.

In addition to writing the first and only plant-based food column to run consecutively in a major metropolitan newspaper, Marie Oser has a popular discussion board, Soy Talk with Marie Oser, at VegSource. She has been interviewed on ABC, NPR, and the Discovery Channel, and her excellent communication skills have made her a popular lecturer and instructor at schools and health centers, including Pepperdine University in Malibu, California and Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

The goal of all of Marie Oser’s work is to encourage and support health conscious, mainstream consumers as well as vegetarians and vegans, to get the information they need and recipes they’ll want to make, in order to lower their cholesterol and minimize fat in their diets. Creating gourmet recipes with plant-based ingredients gives Marie Oser a chance to improve the quality of life for people and for the planet.

More info about this chef: