Oh the many ways we love Martha Stewart. You gotta give her props. She is to holiday meals what Michael Jordan is to the NBA. She could probably do some pretty amazing things to basketballs too. Just give the woman a glue gun and some felt scraps... But we're even more stoked to hear that her prison days haven't imbued her with a post-slammer meanstreak. In fact, she's embracing the vegan diet in an upcoming episode.

While Martha going totally forever-and-ever vegan herself is less likely than another prison visit for the mogul, she knows a good ratings opp when she sees it. Good Housekeeping magazine just released a vegan cookbook and Oprah challenged her staff to go vegan for a week, which turned into a great episode earlier this year with authors Michael Pollan and Kathy Freston. Ellen DeGeneres regularly talks about her vegan diet on air. She even recently sent Freston and our favorite vegan chef and author of "The Conscious Cook", Tal Ronnen, to veganize a San Diego family Gardein style. They were gushing with praises after the meal, as to be expected when Tal is in the house!

Stewart's run some vegan themes on the show before, including vegan brownies made by Erin McKenna, founder of BabyCakes vegan and gluten free bakery. The vegan episode will air on the Hallmark Channel this Wednesday, March 30^th (check your local listings for times) and is reported to include apparently-vegan Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone, to help Martha make some vegan mock-meat recipes (no report if the directions will be given in 140 characters or less). Also on the show, of course, will be "Veganist" author, Kathy Freston. And, according to Ecorazzi, Gene Baur, homemaker for rescued farm animals at Farm Sanctuary, is also going to be on the episode.

For anyone who is not familiar with the term, "vegan" means avoiding any animal products, which includes meat, fish, eggs, dairy, honey and certain hard to pronounce and gross-when-you-discover-what-they-actually-are ingredients such as castoreum, carmine and L-cysteine. Vegans also do not wear animal products, such as leather or wool, and they most certainly avoid harsh, unnecessary chemical cleaning and body care products that are tested on animals.

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Photo: david_shankbone