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I am 22 years old and I am from Argentina.
I have been to New York on vacation some
weeks ago and someone gave me the Why Vegan brochure inside the Grand Central
Terminal. I definitely decided to be vegan after reading this
brochure. I cried when I read some parts of it. Wow, it was striking.
I have also influenced my boyfriend. He
used to eat lots and lots of meat. He used to say that it could not be
possible for him to live without eating meat and now he does not even
taste it. He is a real vegetarian. I am really proud of him.
MA, Argentina, 3/5/02
News & Announcements
Meet Your Meat ... Fellow Vegan Outreachers
Jack Norris, Matt Ball, and lauren Ornelas of VivaUSA
will be giving a talk in the San Francisco Bay area the evening of
Saturday, March 30. Anne and Ellen Green will also be there. For
more details, keep watching this space.
I have just read your Why Vegan a friend gave me. I can
look at the pamphlet and be absolutely sure I will never eat again
any farm animals or any of their products.
KC, Bellingham, WA, 3/6/02
Deadlines for Events!
We assume that everyone has their booklets for their Meatout Events.
If you're still looking for events in your area, see this listing.
Remember to get your literature
orders in for the National
Day of Leafleting High Schools about Veganism (make sure you
provide a street address so we can send large quantities via UPS).
The deadline for ordering literature orders for the April 5th event
is March 22. Thanks to all those who have already registered, and
all those who have donated
in support of this great outreach event!!
I appreciated the letter you sent out after the 9/11 disaster –
pointing out that we can make progress, that we are making progress
toward compassionate living.
DG, Palm Harbor, FL, 3/4/02
See Vegan
Outreach's take on this.
Your booklet helped me adopt a vegan lifestyle
and I hope it will be used similarly by others at my school.
ME, Brunswick, OH, 2/26/02
I was recently encouraged to give veganism a go after finding a
Why Vegan? booklet at work. I have not eaten meat since
Thanksgiving, and have gone totally Vegan in the past couple of
months. While I have not been at it long, my new diet feels very
good. I suppose you could say that it feels like coming home.
SJ, Champaign, IL, 2/28/02
I found this website yesterday. I felt so bad last night, and tonight,
I worked at the restaurant as usual, but I ate Tofu instead ofchicken.
Your site really made me think more.
YY, 3/4/02
Letter to E Magazine
E Magazine recently published
an entire slew of letters regarding their cover
stories on vegetarianism and environmentalism. A number of letters
repeated the "I tried to be vegetarian, but wasn't healthy,"
with one letter singing the praises of fad diets. Jack Norris wrote
the following:
Dear E-mag Editor,
Thank you for your issue exposing many of the environmental problems
created by modern animal agriculture. I have read many of the letters
to the editor regarding this issue. Unfortunately, becoming vegan
does have nutritional implications and changing one's diet can have
both positive and negative effects, depending on the person. Certainly,
meat-eaters have health problems. Additionally, there are many differences
from one vegetarian or vegan diet to the next.
Some of the people writing letters to E-mag in response to the vegetarian
issue have not had good experiences with a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Without knowing more, some of the problems sound like B12 deficiencies,
which can be easily solved in most cases by taking a B12 supplement
(which vegans should be doing anyway and with which many older meat-eaters
must also be concerned). There are some other nutrients that also
need attention in vegan diets (see discussion
on our site).
There are some popular books which say that people should eat according
to their blood type. One book says that people with Type O blood
should not be vegetarian. The theory is that different humans evolved
eating different foods, that your blood type corresponds with the
humans from whom you descended, and you should eat what your descendants
ate.
Actually, the ABO blood types existed long before humans existed,
according to Stephen Bailey, PhD, a nutritional anthropologist at
Tufts University. In fact, blood types do not vary as much between
races of people as within the same race. What this means is that
two people of African descent are no more likely to have the same
blood type as a person of African and a person of European descent.
Both the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter and
the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter have criticized the blood type diet
as unscientific. Additionally, there is no published research to
back up the theory that some blood types have a worse time as vegetarians.
Out of curiosity, I did a survey of vegetarians and vegans to see
what blood types they were and what their experience with the diet
was like. In a survey of 76 people, 39 were Type O, their experiences
were mostly positive, and there were no detectable differences in
experiences between the various blood types. I'm also a Type O, healthy,
athletic, 13-year vegan.
It should be noted that in general, vegetarians have excellent health.
For example, life expectancies in the Adventist Health Study have
recently been published in "Ten Years of Life: Is it a Matter
of Choice?" (Arch Intern Med. 2001 Jul 9;161(13):1645-52).
The data showed that white, non-Hispanic Seventh-day Adventists,
who are often vegetarian, live longer than other white Californians
(7.28 years for men, 4.42 years for women). According to the researchers,
these Seventh-day Adventists appear to be the longest-lived, formally
studied population in the world (78.5 years for men, 82.3 for women).
Among these Seventh-day Adventists, those following a vegetarian
diet lived longer than those not following a vegetarian diet.
For more information, please see Staying
a Healthy Vegan.
-Jack Norris, Registered Dietitian
Director, Vegan Outreach
I would like to commend Matt Ball on his
wonderful comments on veganism and activism. I have been slowly
transforming to the vegan lifestyle over the past few years after
being introduced to it by an individual with the same sense of
compassion, humor, and understanding as Matt portrays in his words
on veganism. No person will be persuaded to be sympathetic to the
vegan way of life after having blood dumped in their lap at a steak
house by some raving militant vegan. In fact, my biggest internal
hurdle in becoming vegan has been my reluctance to associate myself
with these types of individuals. The tactic which has worked best
for me is to make veganism a personal choice issue, lead by example,
and make exceptions when I feel it would be too presumptuous of
me to decline others' hospitality. An example would be when a cake
is baked for your birthday at work by a person who did not know
you are vegan. I take a small slice, thank them, and tell them
that in the future I would prefer foods without animal products.
This usually prompts sincere questions over my choices and leads
to a discussion which often leaves a lasting impression. This does
far more good to promote veganism than the damage done by accepting
a slice of cake made with good intentions. It is refreshing to
see others sharing in this vision and gives me new hope that one
day we can truly live in a less cruel world. Thank you!
JH, 2/24/02
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Vegan Outreach is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the suffering of farmed animals by promoting informed, ethical eating.
All donations are tax-deductible.
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