There are so many ways and just in time for No-Turkey Day!

The Woodbridge Library says it is proud to offer a cooking class,“Vegan Cooking for the Holidays” at 7 p.m. Nov. 16. (hurray for the Woodbridge Library!)

Chef Mary Lawrence will "help solve the age-old problem of what to serve a vegetarian for Thanksgiving."

The class will teach you how to celebrate "the holiday season with a harvest feast of vegetables, fruits and baked goods that everyone will enjoy," organizers said.

That includes ideas for appetizers, seasonal side dishes and delectable desserts that are all free of animal products, including eggs, dairy and, of course, turkey, organizers said. (you can't beat that!)

The event will include learning how to prepare a winter vegetable chowder with spiced toasted pepitas "that's perfect for a chilly evening or holiday celebration."

The program is free, but space is limited and registration is required.

To register or for more information, call 389-3433, stop by the library Circulation Desk, or email pvalsecchi@ci.woodbridge.ct.us.

Chef Mary Lawrence is the owner of Well on Wheels, LLC, a vegan personal chef service providing organic whole foods meals prepared in clients' homes, group cooking classes and private lessons. Lawrence has taught at the Connecticut Culinary Institute, Wild Oats Market and numerous adult education programs in Hartford and New Haven counties. She has been a featured guest on WTNH TV's Noon News, and more.

She is a contributor to the Friends of Animals' cookbook, 'The Best of Vegan Cooking (2009)', and in 2007 she published her first cookbook, 'Quick and Easy Vegan Cuisine.' Mary Lawrence maintains a nutrition counseling practice at the Shoreline Center for Wholistic Health in Guilford.

A story in the New York Times says fatty foods very quickly slow down your body and your brain.

"...the new research shows how indulging in fatty foods over the course of a few days can affect the brain and body long before the extra pounds show up," the story says.

Yikes, that means a double cheeseburger for lunch might even make it tougher for you to make your way through the maze of the rest of the workday.

All the more reason to stick to vegetables and leave the cows alone.

Read the full story here

So there I was a few weeks ago, feeling kind of punk. It was that feeling everyone likely gets once in awhile: you feel as though you are getting sick, but can’t quite put your finger on what is wrong. It usually passes quickly.
But on that day, as I sat in my office realizing I was not feeling yucky enough to go home, I spotted a little gift that recently had come to me in the mail: Tea bags from of Homegrown Herb and Tea, a “small herbal tea apothecary” in Portland, Maine.
Just looking at the tea is enough to make anyone with a sense of adventure feel better. The tea comes in little gauzy tea “bags” and through the bag you can see little lumps of flowers and other natural goodies that release an incredible aroma.
So off I strolled over to the office water cooler, which blessedly dispenses both hot and cold water, freshly supplied by none other than the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority.
My choice among the offering the herbal tea company gifted to me was “The Flower Child.” It is billed as a “delightful bouquet of jasmine flowers, rose petals, lavender flowers and lemon grass” and as “uplifting, clean and refreshing.” That sounded like just the ticket.
It was.
Now, I know I am in no way any expert on anything, especially the mysterious qualities of tea that make it so reportedly healthful. But I do know it’s yummy and I drink it every day, usually some combination (not mixed) of black tea, red Rooibos tea and other herbal teas.
I had never had anything quite like “The Flower Child.” It was lumpy with flower parts in its little bag and those flowers seemed to infuse the water with a variety of tastes. I added a little honey and that really hit the spot. It really was uplifting.
Although the owner of Homegrown Herb and Tea, Sarah Richards, hopes her brews outpace coffee sales nationwide, I am not quite ready to give up the cup of coffee I have in the morning when I get to work. I will always love tea more than coffee; my husband also drinks many cups of tea each day.
But this foray into the magic if what Sarah Richards has created – she handcrafts with organic (some grown on her brother’s farm) and fairly traded products – was a wonderful experience and I offer kudos to her for this wonderful business she created.
For more on the teas visit http://www.homegrowntea.com/.

A hunter's daughter takes her shot

By Sara Peck



The rudest awakening of my childhood was not anything Santa-related, but that the antelope heads poking through our family room wall weren’t standing in the adjacent garage and inquisitively looking through—they were dead, there was no body behind those cuddly faces.
After that day I was afraid to fall asleep on the couch watching television. Can you imagine waking up as an 8-year-old to taxadermied heads in the dark? To flip the bill for the thousands in therapy I’d need, my father would probably have to take those heads on Antique Roadshow.
My father was and is a hunter/gunsman/motorcycle guy ardently, passionately and fully. While my mother was pregnant with me, he was hunting in the Arctic Circle. When I was six, I asked him to bring me back a duck bill from a trip in Maine to use as a hand puppet (I would only later realize how morbid this was).
When he needed to blow off steam, my dad loaded up his faithful shot gun and took down the squirrels that dived between trees, fearing for their lives. Why buy Halo II…I hear the thrill of holding a gun in your hands is a little more powerful than a joystick. To prove a point, I brought a squirrel tail to my kindergarten show-and-tell. Other family functions were too marked by light-hearted animal slaying—on Easter, the best eggs were always inside the mouth of our bear rug or hidden behind the pair of taxadermied ducks.
At age 11, I announced that I was becoming a vegetarian. No matter how many times that he explained to me that hunting was not about the killing but about the memories with friends, I had had enough.
Now, I’m not one of those trendsters who saw a "meat is murder" T-shirt on Pam Anderson’s goodies and took it as a message from Hugh Hefner himself, shunning off animal products until sushi came back in vogue. I was honestly opposed to what my father did.
Many of my 9 years as a vegetarian were spent 1. defending my choice and 2. persuading others to do the same. Most of my friends who knew my family were both amazed and amused that a hippy wild child could come from a two-story colonial safari complete with bear rugs and antique shotguns mounted on the walls.
I’ve seen my fair share of fair-weather vegheads — they nibble some tofu, read a little of Civil Disobedience, and muse uninformedly about joining the Peace Corps. But within a week or two, when some handsome graduate student takes them out to a fancy steak dinner, they click their $300 heels back to meateaterndom.
These people annoy me almost as much as those who carry fabric shopping bags screaming "I’m not a plastic bag" only to fill them with designer bottled water—an equally trendy, but infinitely more harmful choice for the environment. Vegetarianism as a trend certainly has its benefits—even a short-lived reduction in meat-eating reduces ones carbon footprint—but ideologically it just seems insincere and petty.
So, when friends of mine leaning towards vegetarianism tell me that it is "too hard" or "I just don’t think I could do it with my crazy schedule" I take it as pure laziness. Even Burger King rolled out a veggie burger in mid-2002 (not that I’d recommend eating it in non-dire circumstances—after many bunches of paper napkins were wasted blotting away grill sludge-fat, I could still hear my arteries waving the white flag). Other, less-intimidating vegetarian staples like hummus are regulars in many restaurants, and might I recommend the roasted red pepper variety? And in Stop n Shop, right next to the chocolate covered pretzels and greasy trail mix, there are packages of soy dogs, just waiting to be grilled. The laziness, I have concluded, is mostly mental.
To his immense credit, my father has always respected and supported my decision. Even if now, 9 years later, he sometimes "forgets" that I don’t eat fish, he will always help me badger the waiter for extra veggies in my emaciated side salad or bought me tofu when I’ve run out. He reminds me to call ahead at family gatherings to ask what vegetarian food will be there; he isn’t even embarrassed when I bring an Amy’s frozen dinner to Christmas.
If you need no other reason to at least convince someone to hide tofu in your dinner, I will leave you with this story.
My father, the gun-toting, cow-blood-makes-the-best-gravy, Harley-riding dad, actually has eaten tofu. And liked it. When he and my mom visited me at college one weekend during my sophomore year, I did what all impoverished, bohemian college students do—give their parents a tour of the local eateries. My roommates and I longed for parental visits to try out that new restaurant or to languish in a full meal not rationed over a week in plastic baggies in our fridge.
After wooing them with stories of great grades, sunshine, rainbows and lifelong friends, I did what any good date would do—I cashed in. I took them to my favorite overpriced but delicious vegetarian eatery that I would only go to on three occasions: 1. post breakup (the vegan chocolate peanut butter cake was always my rebound romance) 2. After finding money on the street (never happened) and 3. When someone else was paying –Blind Faith Café in Evanston, Ill.
My dad was used to my vegetarian antics by now, but never before had he been without the convenience of ordering a burger while I interrogated the waiter about anchovies in Caesar dressing. The whole menu is vegetarian and vegan, even the desserts.
After ordering the Seitan Marsala dish, a feeble shout-out to his love of Italian food, my dad waited grimly for his meal to arrive. I can only imagine that he invited the homonym between the meat substitute and the fiery depths of hell.
And then it arrived, covered in sauce and loving resting on a bed of egg noodles, not the starchy ones he so loved. But no matter how it looked, the "meat" was really just a blob of wheat gluten. He took his first few bites with trepidation, probably mentally plotting a course to the nearest burger place for a real meal after be forced down a few bites of this slop to make me happy.
"This is really good," he said, looking around furtively to make sure no one 1,000 miles away from New Haven knew him. My mother almost gagged in shock—he wasn’t lying. Not even a little bit.
"I know."





Editor's note: Vegging Out barely needs to say "Sara Peck rocks" at this point because you have read her truly tasty visit to her family dinner table. However, for the record "Sara Pack rocks," and Vegging Out offers a big thank you for this post - and for teaching a hard core carnivore a thing or two about meat.

Do you LVTOFU?

Yes, the question is whether you love tofu. Whether you do or you don't, you better not love it too much in Colorado.
It seems a woman there who wanted to profess her love for the bean curd wanted to do it through a vanity license plate that read: ILVTOFU.
The folks that regulate motor vehicles out in the Centennial State, however, decided that that combination of letters might be seen as something other than a statement by an enthusiastic vegan. The first time I looked at, I saw what she did - I love tofu. They saw something that folks might misread, according to news reports.
Now, I am a little familiar with that part of the country, as my sister has lived in Colorado for about 10 years. It's a great place to visit. But it's also a place where meat seemed to me to be king. Before I came over to the side of the light, as a vegetarian, I even some years ago ate a buffalo burger in Denver.
Is there a dark plot to promote more meat eating in this decision by the Colorado DMV? Probably not. But is there some silliness in assuming people would see some nasty or naught in the tofu plate?
You know what they say about assuming.

Read the full tofu-gate story from one publication here

Anyone have any ideas for how to save your bones?

A new study from Downunder claims those of us who live on vegetarian diets have "slightly weaker bones" than those who imbibe on flesh. This is according a story posted here and making its way across the Internet at many sites.

For anyone who does not want to read the entire story, it basically says a joint Australian-Vietnamese study of links between bones and diet of more than 2,700 people found vegetarians had bones 5 percent "less dense than meat-eaters."

"The issue was most pronounced in vegans, who excluded all animal products from their diet and whose bones were six percent weaker," the story quotes lead researcher Tuan Nguyen as saying.
He went on to say there was "practically no difference" between bones of meat-eaters and ovolactovegetarians, who excluded meat and seafood but ate eggs and dairy products.

"The results suggest that vegetarian diets, particularly vegan diets, are associated with lower bone mineral density," Nguyen wrote in the study, published Thursday in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the story said.
"But the magnitude of the association is clinically insignificant," he added.
Nguyen, who is from Sydney's Garvan Institute for Medical Research and collaborated on the project with the Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine in Ho Chi Minh City, said the question of whether the lower density bones translated to increased fracture risk was yet to be answered.

This is all food for thought so to speak.

But we also should note that the online charts at http://www.health.gov/ give numerous sources of non-dairy calcium, such as fortified ready-to-eat cereals, soy beverage, tofu, collards, molasses, spinach, soybeans, turnip greens, oatmeal, plain and flavored, cowpeas, white beans, kale, okra, beet greens, Chinese cabbage, and dandelion greens. Calcium levels in those foods vary and absorption rates vary.

Many sites catering to vegetarian and vegan lifestyles also mention concerns about high levels of protein consumption interfering with calcium absorption.

The Vegetarian Resource Group online site here , citing various sources, reports recommended level of calcium for adults 19-50 years is 1,000 mg per day. An intake of 1,200 mg of calcium is recommended for people 51 and older, it says. It also, however, warns "there are a limited number of studies of vegans, most of which find low bone density as well as low calcium intakes," and notes one study where vegans had calcium intakes close to recommended levels found that calcium was well absorbed from a vegan diet.

What a menu

Mary Lawrence, author of the blog, The Traveling Vegan Chef at http://wellonwheels.blogspot.com/ recently held quite a shindig in New Haven - it had an entirely raw vegan menu using fresh, seasonal produce sourced from local farm markets and gardens.

Her blog and Web site should be checked out as her intent is: "Well on Wheels is Connecticut's premier vegan personal chef service providing fresh organic whole foods cuisine prepared in your home kitchen. We help make healthy eating easy for people too busy to cook."

In the photo, published here with Mary's permission, she speaks to the crowd at the picnic.

Seems many scientists think we would be more well, if we were to give up meat.
And I quote from another source:

"Says Dr. William C. Roberts, editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, "Although we think we are, and we act as if we are, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us, because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores."

Read the full post by Kathy Freston here

I must begin this blog with a total disclaimer - and a request for dispensation!

That means what I am about to blog about is not limited a vegetarian eating - but it is interesting news about a new show on food.

“Food for Thought," featured on the newest episode of CPTV’s All Things Connecticut,
a weekly series for which Diane Smith acts as host, will air at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 14 at 8 p.m.
(Rebroadcasts will air at 11 p.m. May 18 at 11 p.m. and 5 p.m. May 20)

It is the fourth installment of the new series’ eight-week run, CPTV said in a release. In “Food for Thought,” Smith and contributing reporters Ed Wierzbicki, Eric Clemons and Christina DeFranco, with videographer Mike Dunphy, "highlight some of the state’s people, places and ideas that exemplify how food can both stimulate the senses and inspire great thought," CPTV's release said.

Shown in the photo are, l to r: Wierzbicki, Smith, DeFranco and Clemons

According to CPTV, this week’s Treading Lightly segment, includes DeFranco interviewing Avon resident Terry Walters, a champion of “eating locally,” who started giving tours at health food stores and teaching cooking classes in her home. Walters has written and self-published a cookbook called "Clean Food," which includes recipes that are both nourishing and seasonal, and next fall Clean Food will be re-released by a major publisher that hopes to spread Clean Food’s message across the nation, CPTV said.

For more on CPTV, visit: http://www.cptv.org/

Eggs, glorious eggs, hot tofu and cheese, while we're in the mood...yes, the theme to that catchy song from "Oliver" should be playing as I muse about eggs.

It's true, as a vegetarian - not a vegan - eggs are the wonderful answer to my protein needs and I am sure I eat more than the recommended weekly allowance. The only thing I think I like more are the incredible salad sandwiches that George makes for me.

But I digress as the important issue here is eggs.

I finally learned from Trader Joe's what is means when their egg cartons say "cage free."

It means:

"That the birds are not kept in cages. They are held in warehouse-sized enclosures with free access to food and water. There are no hormones, antibiotics are used to treat specific illnesses and they are fed an all-vegetarian diet."

The question that I don't have an answer to is whether these enclosures are better or worse than other ways of keeping hens and whether it give the birds a better life. Do they fight more in such an enclosure (it's not called a pecking order for nothing) or do they get to dance about making friends and enemies the way they would in a barnyard?

What I am hoping is that someone out there know the answers to these questions.

We can read every Web site about egg farms - the horror of some of these places is unspeakable - but what about the places that try hard to make life easier for the little layers?

I don't want to give up eggs. But I do hope someone can help with this conundrum: does cage free go far enough?

I am not alone in my adoration of yogurt! Now, it's time to make my own.

Read here

I’d say it’s a damn good reason for a lot of crabs to be very crabby. Ah, but the little crustaceans never will have the chance to get crabby over this issue, because seconds after they find out about it they will be dead.
The issue?
A new study shows that crabs feel pain.
Duh.
But for all those people who were consoling themselves with the idea that there was no suffering involved in their favorite dish made from a sea creature with an exo-skeleton, there’s no excuse now.
According to a story posted on livescience.com, “Not only do crabs suffer pain, a new study found, but they retain a memory of it...The scientists say its time for new laws to consider the suffering of all crustaceans.”
That means that boiling pot of water really does smart like heck when a living creature is tossed into it.
This should be food for thought for all the people dreaming of their next crab Rangoon or Cajun casserole.
What hurts me is that I fear it will not.
For more, see: http://www.livescience.com/animals/090327-crabs-feel-pain.html

I hate to say I told you so. Heck, no I don't, so I told you so.
A new study, the results of which are published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, concludes that, "red and processed meat intakes were associated with modest increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease mortality."
Hmm...red meat and bologna not so good for you...might even kill you, albeit slowly. Even if you don't think factory farming is an abomination, (and it mostly is, I believe) these results are something to chew on.

Read the results here

How did you do on Great American Meatout Day?
What? It came and went with no fanfare in your household? The bacon still fried and the chicken was still marsala-ed?
Bummer.
March 20 really was Great American Meatout Day (and the 25th such event) but I do realize that there probably were not a lot of new converts to the vegetarian lifestyle. The day asked everyone to "kick the meat habit” on the first day of spring and “explore a wholesome, nonviolent diet of fruits, vegetables and whole grains," its Web site says.
That was not so tough for me, though I am fonder of vegetables than I am of fruit.
But try as I might, I could not find any statistics to tell me how many people participated in the meat-free day, or even in any events that organizers across nation held.
Yet, while March 20 has come and gone, and with it the official meatout day, that does not mean that everyone can’t try to give up meat on any given day.
For health and for the planet, it’s worth a try.
As the meatout organizers say: Change your diet, change the world.
For more, visit here

P.S. Everyone, since I wrote this blog, great news: Michael A. Weber, outreach coordinator for Farm Animal Rights Movement, was kind enought to point out that the Meatout database has more than 700 registered events in 50 states and almost 30 countries. He said they also have a Meatout report showing that hundreds of unregistered events also occurred and that it looks like "all in all there were over 1,000 events." GO Meatout!

I always think honesty is the best policy.
That is a self evident statement as I am a long time journalist and no matter what anyone with a negative attitude about the news says, you don’t get far and you don’t last in this field without being honest.
But I am going to go out a limb a little here and take my hat off to a man who is not quite honest. He won’t even tell people what his real name is.
But “Pete,” according to a story here: timestory does claim to be truthful about what he sees when he goes undercover at certain farming operations around the country.
To give you an idea, here’s a quote from the time.com story.
“On an egg farm, it's very, very normal to see live hens thrown in the trash. If you spin them around to break their necks like they tell you to, that doesn't always cause cervical dislocation. So they just kind of throw them away live in the trash. You'll always come across birds that are barely breathing, missing all their feathers, all bloody in the trash. You never get completely desensitized to that.”
Now, that’s enough to make anyone lose their brunch.
I won’t pretend that I don’t eat eggs – I have said many times on this blog that I have not been able to become a vegan. And while I do buy only cage free eggs, I also won’t pretend that that lets me off responsibility when it comes to how chickens are mistreated in many agricultural operations in this nation. But it is a step in the right direction.
It’s a direction that people like Pete have helped us take.
The real shame here is not only that “Pete” can’t be honest about who he is when does his work. The real shame is that Pete has to do this work at all.

I think I am addicted.
To yogurt.
Is this possible? Can we get bitten by the bacteria bug? I think so, as I crave yogurt these days even more than I do chocolate.
This might sound perplexing as chocolate is definitely one of nature’s perfect foods, especially the kind that come with very little milk or sugar in it and without the labor of children forced to picks the beans.
Ah, but I must not digress – the topic here is yogurt and I now hereby swear by the stuff. I had grown away from yogurt for a time, both because I tend to be sensitive to milk products and because I had been trying to wean myself from using any animal-based products.
It was not a good idea for me to stray.
Then, some weeks ago, when I had had a stretch of not feeling so hot – nothing specific, just a general blah feeling and some intermittent nausea and upset stomach. Around the same time, I picked up one of the numerous “health” magazines that float around my gym and spotted a short piece on the benefits of making sure your digestive tract has a good quantity of the right kind of bacteria floating (or whatever it is those little one-celled friends of ours do) in your intestinal tract.
It worked. I do not pretend to have any knowledge of the real (medical) reason that yogurt and its active cultures and probiotics make our bodies happy, but for me it does.
I felt better within days.
Yogurt, I will never leave you again. I now even dabble sometimes with your cousin, kefir. (cultured milk)
While I am now eating yogurt made from low fat milk at least once a day, it does also come in a soy based formula that would be appropriate for vegans. Either way, it tastes yummy and all that bacteria make it even better.

She's got your health in mind

GUILFORD – Chef Mary Lawrence, of Well on Wheels, will hold a vegan cooking class called “Healthy Eating for the New Year” beginning at 7 p.m. Feb. 27 at the Guilford Senior Center.
The class is intended to teach participants how to make "delicious whole foods meals that will be enjoyed by everyone," from one diner to an entire family, Lawrence said.
The session will include a cooking demonstration, meal planning ideas, kitchen shortcuts, and shopping tips.
At the end of the evening, attendees will enjoy a quick and easy recipe prepared by the instructor.
“The meals are just incredible – so delicious, beautiful to look at and a pleasure to put in my body,” said student Jean Vogel. “I am aware of feeling better, physically, after eating them… my appreciation for her artistry just keeps growing.”
Lawrence said she works with clients to adjust their diet by cooking foods that are organic, unrefined, plant-based and free from common allergens. "Many people want to improve their health through dietary changes but they don’t know where to begin," she said.
But the class, she said, will help people be more healthful, and "how to get started on the path to wellness.”

To register online for the class, visit http://www.guilfordparkrec.com/. Or call (203) 453-8086. For more information, visit http://www.wellonwheels.com/ or contact Chef Lawrence at (860) 985-1645.

Editor's note: Lawrence, a New Haven resident, has been vegan since 1995. She is the owner of Well on Wheels, LLC, a personal chef service that provides vegan meals prepared in clients’ homes, nutrition consulting and private cooking lessons. Lawrence teaches at the Connecticut Culinary Institute in Hartford and has been a featured guest on various TV and radio shows.
Lawrence earned Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Connecticut and a Master's degree communication from the University of Hartford. She has studied culinary arts at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City, and has trained in the kitchen of It's Only Natural restaurant in Middletown, CT. This notice is provided as a service to Vegging Out readers.

The pancake breakfast will help folks stay warm

ORANGE — The Fuel Assistance Fundraising Team of the Orange Senior Leadership Class of 2009 will hold a pancake breakfast from 8 to 11:30 a.m. March 21 at High Plains Community Center, 525 Orange Center Road. Tickets are $5 for adults, $3.50 for children $3.50 and $15 for a family. There is a $1 discount on each ticket purchased in advance. The event will include a raffle of items donated by local businesses, and face painting and balloon sculpturing for children.
Tickets are available through the Community Services Office at the community center. For those unable to attend, donations can be made through checks, made out to treasurer, town of Orange and marked for the Emergency Fuel Fund, sent to OCS, 525 Orange Center Road, Orange, 06477.


Hmmm, even if there is some kind of meat served here (hope not!) it's for a great cause!

By now everyone knows that PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is burning up the news wires with the tale of its too-hot-to-handle commercial made to air during the Super Bowl. The networks, however have decided to err on the side of caution and said a big 'no' to PETA, thereby drawing even more attention to commercial that depicts some rather attractive women getting very friendly with some broccoli, summer squash and even a pumpkin. (a pumpkin?)
The point of the ad was for PETA to tout that vegetarians have better sex. Is this true? You decide.
You also can decide whether you think the ad was too over the top for Super Bowl Sunday, as it is posted below - along with a funny spoof by Whoopie Goldberg.

P.S. When my husband viewed this relatively hilarious (albeit sensual) ad, he said, "It looks like she is cooking herself into soup in a hot tub." Not the reaction that PETA was looking for I would imagine, but he does live with a vegetarian.

For the link to PETA and the ad:

Funwithvegetables


To watch parts of the video and to see Whoopie Goldberg spoof it, click on this link:
Whoopiemakeswhoopie

By Joel Marks

Helen Bennett Harvey has graciously offered me this space to report on my vegan experience. I am a recent convert – very recent, as this was my new year’s resolution.

But I have been sympathetic to veganism for a long time, and it was a combination of factors that “pushed me over the edge” on Jan. 1.

I’ll tell you what they were, and how it’s been since.

I am a philosophy professor by trade, and so it was natural for me to discuss vegetarianism with my students in courses on contemporary moral issues. Then one day a student, Cindy Casper, asked me, “So, are you a vegetarian?” She was no doubt moved by the persuasiveness with which I had been presenting the arguments. But my intent as a teacher had only been to stimulate my students to think for themselves, not to “impose” any particular position on them. So I thought her question irrelevant. Until I thought about it some more. As a matter of fact the arguments in favor of vegetarianism were utterly persuasive to me; and yet I was not a vegetarian.

What sense did that make?

Had I, perhaps, been using the supposed virtue of pedagogic neutrality as a screen behind which to hide my own lack of moral commitment? That would hardly serve as a model for my students to live their lives in accordance with reason, which was supposedly the justification for having them take a philosophy course in the first place!

That was the turning point. I became a vegetarian … or so I thought. For at that time – a couple of decades ago – I was very far from realizing what vegetarianism really means. Like many others, I’m sure, I thought it meant: don’t eat meat. Furthermore, “meat” meant mammals: cows, goats, pigs, etc. But I was still eating chicken and turkey … fish of every variety … eggs, milk, cheese …. Honestly, chicken and fish just seemed rather far down on the phylogenetic scale compared to mammals; and I had never even heard of veganism.
Eventually I came to appreciate the beauty and wonder of birds – for instance, while I took my daily beach walk in Milford – and gave up eating those as well.

But -- so near yet so far! – the fish in the sea (or Sound) were still strangers to me: unseen beneath the surface. In the back of my mind I suspected that they were fully sentient beings as well, but … out of sight, out of mind.

Then a couple of years ago I began to study animal ethics more seriously in my professional capacity. In the course of my researches I happened upon Friends of Animals in Connecticut and struck up an e-mail dialogue with their legal director, Lee Hall. She opened my eyes to the progress that has been made in the field since the pioneering arguments of philosophers Peter Singer and Tom Regan. That led me to Gary Francione, a law professor at Rutgers and perhaps the most outspoken and articulate promoter of veganism. After reading his articles, I arranged for him to speak at Yale, and after that meeting I could no longer remain content with mere vegetarianism (not to mention, ovolactopiscovegetarianism!)
The argument is simple: If you know the facts about factory farming, then there is no logical distinction to be made between eating animals and eating animal products, such as eggs and dairy, if your concerns are for the welfare and dignity of the animals.

Part 2

Having become convinced of the logical cogency of the argument for veganism, and finding it ethically compelling as well, I was almost ready to take the plunge. A little further dialogue removed the final hesitations.
My concerns were threefold:

1) Had the nutritional adequacy of a strict vegan diet been scientifically demonstrated?

2) If so, was it possible to acquire the proper nutrition without stuffing oneself?

3) If so, was it possible to do so without spending the whole day in the kitchen?

The answer to (1) turns out to be yes and no in very interesting ways. The answer is “yes” in that the American Dietetic Association, among others, approves a vegan diet. See for example

here.

Indeed, a carefully designed vegan diet is considered not only nutritious but may also ward off various serious illnesses. The answer is “no,” however, in that nutrition science appears hardly ever to be definitive. We are all acquainted with the flip-flopping of dietary recommendations that shows up in the news from time to time. The reason for this is not that nutrition is a pseudo-science or that nutritionists are sloppy researchers; it is simply the nature of the subject matter. There are so many potential interaction effects in diet, and every one of them would need to be studied on groups of people for a lifetime to be sure of their efficacy and safety, that progress must forever be slow-going and tentative.
What makes this situation interesting, though, is that it applies not only to a vegan diet but to any diet, including our everyday omnivorous one. This telling point was made to me by one of my many helpful correspondents, Victor Tsou, who is affiliated with the new vegan organization L.O.V.E. at http://loveallbeings.org/ .

So my special concern about the nutritional adequacy of a vegan diet may have been simply an artifact of my having to make the deliberate effort to adopt it; but in fact it could be nothing but a double standard to insist that veganism prove its health-worthiness beyond the level of certainty with which we know our everyday diet to be healthy.

I obtained a very satisfactory answer to (2) from corresponding with Caroline Trapp, Director of Diabetes Education and Care at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine at http://www.pcrm.org/. She suggested that I might simply have been eating too much. Sure enough, when I turned my attention to serving sizes on food labels and diet charts I discovered to my amazement that in my regular diet I had sometimes been overeating by two or three hundred percent! It does not show on my skinny body for some reason, but I know I felt it in my belly. Although this observation pertains to any diet, vegan or otherwise, it directly addressed my concern about veganism that I would have to eat more than would feel digestively comfortable in order to assure myself of adequate nutrition from plant sources in lieu of animal sources. Not so!
And (3) was answered at the same time. Because now that I saw how simple it was to meet my nutritional needs, it became a cinch to prepare enough food to eat without having to become a chef.
While the final roadblocks to veganism were thus removed, the main lesson I have learned from this experience is that a life-change like this is immeasurably facilitated by having a community of advisors and well-wishers. In addition to those already mentioned, I would attribute my turning of theory into action to many local animal activists it has been my privilege to know, including Justin Goodman, Chelsea Rhodes, Joseph Klett, and Wendy Horowitz. Also, I have received continual encouragement and support for developing my understanding of animal ethics from Carol Pollard, David Smith, and Wendell Wallach at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics.

Part 3

So what has it been like to go vegan? It has turned out to be surprisingly easy and enjoyable. My journey has only just begun, but the trajectory is promising and, indeed, exciting.

The main surprise has been the new physical energy and clarity of mind I experience. This occurred instantaneously: the first day. And it has continued now for the two weeks I’ve been vegan. I attribute it mainly to the reduction in the amount of food I have been eating rather than to the removal of animal products from my diet. But I can’t say for sure since those are two independent variables that have been operative at the same time. I suspect both have something to do with it since animal foods are more fatty and that could induce sluggishness. I am speaking impressionistically, however, and do not know, or care, which is the true cause. The bottom line is that going vegan, which I was motivated and, I believe, morally obligated to do anyway, has turned out to be a delightful experience.

Another offshoot of the reduced caloric intake has been feeling hungrier at meal times. You might unthinkingly suppose that that means I’m not eating enough. But a little more thought should convince you that, quite the contrary: it indicates that I am eating the right amount. For shouldn’t one be hungry when one sits down to eat? (Of course I am not talking about starvation.) Isn’t the point of eating to satisfy the body’s nutritional and energy needs? So if you aren’t hungry, why eat? (My grandmother used to go that one better; she had an expression, “Always leave the dinner table a little bit hungry.”) Furthermore, being hungry when you eat aids digestion.

Lastly, “hunger is the best spice.” This not only assures that one will enjoy eating, but it has particular purchase on the switch to veganism. For we would naturally miss foods from our previous diet and might even find some vegan fare to be unappetizing, at least in our mind. But I have discovered empirically that in very short order, feeling hungry makes that hummus/cucumber/tomato/lettuce/sprouts sandwich look and taste just as yummy as my previously accustomed grilled cheese sandwich did! So on Day One I had put together a vegan sandwich for lunch grudgingly. By Day Two I found myself enjoying it. By Day Three I was anticipating it with gusto.
It is also the case that as one opens up to seeking alternatives to animal foods, one discovers an endless array of plant foods. There is simply no excuse to find a vegan diet uninteresting or unappetizing. I have even found myself enjoying cooking again, which had become a boring routine I tried to get over with as quickly as possible.
Now everything is accelerating. I have become so eager to pursue this diet that today I am going “cold turkey” (so to speak!) by discarding all remaining animal food I had in the cupboard and frig. (Well, maybe I will donate it to the food bank lest the animals have suffered and died in vain.) Goodbye tuna cans! So long cheddar bar! It’s been nice knowing you, but, frankly, I’m already losing the taste.
Another trick of the trade, of which I was reminded by Glen Colello of the Catch a Healthy Habit Café in West Haven, is to eat slowly. (Grandma knew that too.) This not only aids digestion, but also allows your belly time to communicate to your brain when it has eaten enough. So you will feel “full” and stop eating before you stuff yourself.
Glen also emphasizes that changing what one eats is not simply a matter of diet but of lifestyle. How true that is. This may seem daunting at first; but ultimately, as a philosopher, I appreciate that everything that we do has a larger significance. In the case of eating, I have found that, the less meat in my diet, the more meaning in my life.
I would like to thank Allan and Janice Saltzman for their constant encouragement, Huibing He for showing me the joys of simplicity in the kitchen and of cooking green leafy vegetables, and Melanie Stengel for her example of caring and her company on this journey; and all of them for challenging me every step of the way. My further publicizing my resolution in this blog is intended to help keep me honest and persuade others to hop on board.

Joel Marks is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven and a columnist for Philosophy Now magazine. His Web page is www.moralmoments.com .

Editor's note: The tops photos shows "Dagwood goes vegan." The bottom photo shows vegan "dinner is served. Both photos are by Joel Marks.

Helen Bennett Harvey is delighted to have this guest blog and is immeasurably grateful to Prof. Marks.