Photo of author Juliana Castaneda

Juliana Castaneda

Juliana Castaneda Turner was born in Colombia, where from an early age she was introduced to ancient Vedic wisdom through her aunty who had decided to become a Hindu nun. Juliana’s love for animals was solidified with her now deeper understanding of the spiritual equality of all beings, as taught in the famous Bhagavad-Gita. At age 5, Juliana decided to adopted a vegetarian diet and at age 9 was already cooking meals for the family under the guidance of her mother. She visited and lived in many Bhakti yoga temples in South and Central America as a young girl, and was fascinated by the idea of cooking with devotion and purifying her meals with mantras. At 18, she traveled to Montevideo, Uruguay to get her BA in Physics, however, with her natural love for animals and a desire to help others and her child dream "Have a big place to save and help animals", Juliana looked for any chance she could to provide food and shelter to humans and animals, volunteering for the local Food for Life (FFL) project. At age 23, Juliana return to Colombia and with the help of her long time friend Ekala Isvara, she founded the first and only vegan animal sanctuary in the Andes Mountains called Julliana's Animal Sanctuary in which 39 animals are cared for, including a cow and an ox, making it the only animal sanctuary in Colombia and second one in South America. Ekala Isvara encouraged Juliana to direct her passion for making new and tasty meals in starting a company called Madhurya, where she distributed vegan cakes, cookies and Indian gourmet sweets throughout Bogota. Today juliana and Ekala still manage the Animal Sanctuary. Along with giving public talks in South America on animal protection, Juliana continues to develop her culinary skills as she visits different countries and is currently a student Australian born, Paul Rodney Turner, the “Food Yogi.” Juliana has held regular gourmet vegan cooking courses in Colombia for the last 6 years and through her teaching, she also tries to instill in her students the importance of food in one’s spiritual development. Juliana is now a certified animal reiki and aromatherapy healer and has been a student and practitioner of bhakti yoga for more than 26 years. She is currently the coordinator for FFL in South America and assistant to the director of Food For Life Global, the world’s largest vegan food relief.

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