Excerpted with premission from Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating, by Erik Marcus, copyright 1998, 2001. Published by McBooks Press, Ithaca, New York.

When I was seventeen, I mentioned to a friend’s mother that I was thinking of giving up meat. "Oh, no," said Mrs. Neumann, who regarded herself as an authority on food because she had studied nutrition in college twenty years earlier. She told me in no uncertain terms that human beings definitely need meat to be healthy. She was so adamant in her warnings that I believed her, imagining vegetarians to be sickly and emaciated creatures. Still, while I went on eating hamburgers, I switched to canvas shoes because I knew that my health didn’t depend on wearing leather.

During my freshman year in college, I encountered two things that finally convinced me to give up meat. The first was an image I stumbled across quite by accident. I was living in a dormitory, and the guys in the next room had a VCR and frequently rented movies. I dropped in on them one day while they were watching a movie that contained footage taken inside a slaughterhouse. The scene I saw was of a dying calf, looking right into the camera. I felt as if this animal, who was rapidly bleeding to death as the film rolled, was looking directly at me. I left the room deeply shaken.

Nevertheless, I ate a hamburger for dinner that night, and I continued eating meat for several more months. But at the same time, I was growing uneasy and even a little angry as I tried to reconcile the general thinking – that we need meat to be healthy – with the image I had seen of the calf in the slaughterhouse. I found I wasn’t very happy with a world in which a healthy diet required that we brutalize animals.

A few months later, the second thing happened, and again, it sprang from popular culture. I was a big fan of the band, Boston, and had just bought a copy of their third album. Glancing through the liner notes, I found a paragraph that announced that Tom Scholz and others in the band were vegetarians and advised anyone interested in learning about vegetarianism to contact the Farm Animal Reform Movement (F.A.R.M., which these days can be reached by calling 1-888-FARM USA).

I can’t say the idea of changing my diet excited me. It sounded like work and also like I was going to have to join some weird club or cult. I didn’t want to become a vegetarian – whatever that was. All I wanted to do was stop eating animals! And what exactly was I going to eat, I wondered? Iceberg lettuce and tofu?

I was almost 20, and my personal spiritual and philosophical convictions were forming. As I thought about how I wanted to live my life, I realized that one of my priorities was to cause as little suffering as possible. I realized that if I wanted to prevent more suffering than I created, I had to stop eating animals. I knew I could never directly harm an animal, so how could I allow one to bleed to death on my account? And yet that was exactly what I was doing – because it was culturally sanctioned and because I was uncertain about how to break a habit.

A 1995 article in The Economist put the point perfectly: "Few people would themselves keep a hen in a shoe box for her entire egg-laying life; but practically everyone will eat smartly packaged, ‘farm fresh’ eggs from battery hens." ["What Humans Owe to Animals," August 19, pp. 11-12.]

I sent Farm Animal Reform Movement a short letter requesting more information. The next week, a flyer from them arrived in my mailbox. It claimed that vegetarians could be as healthy as non-vegetarians, and that it really wasn’t so hard to quit eating meat. The flyer reminded me of how many of my everyday foods were already vegetarian – things like bagels, vegetable soup, oatmeal mixed with fruit, and dozens more.

The F.A.R.M. flyer also contained information about the conditions under which most food animals are raised and killed. I began to own up to the reality behind the burger patties and chicken I ate regularly. I did a little math and saw that if I ate the standard American diet, I’d go through 2,000 chickens, seven cattle, and twelve pigs in my lifetime. Each of these animals would likely be raised in confined and inhumane conditions on factory farms and eventually be stunned, cut, and then bled to death. I decided that I didn’t want to particate in that chain of events. I didn’t want any action of mine to cause animal suffering.

My next realization was that it wasn’t going to be enough to drop meat. Eggs and dairy products had to go, too, because anything but a total vegan diet still creates a great deal of suffering. If I ate just one egg every other day for 70 years, my egg consumption would require the slaughter of 30 chickens, since a chicken usually lays less than 500 eggs before being slaughtered and replaced with a younger bird. The time these birds would be cramped in cages to supply my eggs would total 35 years. Each single egg I ate would require a hen to live in a battery cage for about 30 hours.

I resolved to make vegetarian foods a bigger part of my meals, although I still ate meat occasionally, especially if I was travelling or having dinner at a friend’s house. One thing I quickly realized was that my old meat-centered diet was pretty boring. As a non-vegetarian, I had spent my life eating the same foods day in and day out – hamburgers, chicken breasts, rice puddings, yogurt, pot pies. I didn’t eat those foods because they tasted especially wonderful. I ate them because I was brought up eating them.

With time, even the occasional piece of chicken or fish became distasteful. I learned to bring food with me when I took a trip, and to patronize restaurants that offered a salad bar or good vegetarian menu options. I bought a stack of vegetarian cookbooks, and kept finding great new foods that I liked. The process of switching my diet had become exciting – and not at all what I expected. Instead of limiting my food choices, my meals became tastier and more varied than ever before.

Perhaps if I had focused my energy on what I was giving up, I would have felt hungry and deprived. Instead, I concentrated on expanding rather than contracting my diet – taking joy in finding new favorites rather than lamenting the losses. Becoming vegetarian requires not willpower but willingness – a willingness to try new foods.

As my diet became more vegetarian, I decided I was ready to begin the last step: breaking the milk and egg habits. Cutting out eggs was fairly easy for me. But the dairy – could life be worth living without cheese pizza?

Around this time, I moved into a new house, and I resolved to have an all-vegan kitchen: I would never bring any food into my house that wasn’t vegan. However, I did allow myself to buy and eat a slice or two of pizza when I was downtown. I knew I’d never go back to the standard pizzeria after I invented my own "cashew cheese" pizza recipe. One non-vegetarian friend called it "the pizza that sounds like it would be horrible but tastes even better than cheese pizza." With the cashew pizza breakthrough, I had become exclusively vegan.

It had been two years since I first realized I wanted to change my diet. And it had been hard at first – because I had to give up a lot of foods I loved. To become a vegan, I had to say: no more ice cream, no more pancakes, no more pudding, no more cheese pizzas. But then vegan products began to appear, including desserts like "ice cream" cookie sandwiches, puddings, brownies, donuts. Vegan cookbooks started to show up and I found vegan recipes for all my favorite foods. Muffins, pancakes, cakes, and pies could all be made totally vegan.

Nowadays, as increasing numbers of people move toward vegetarian and vegan diets, dozens of companies have started to develop tasty and nutritious vegan foods. It’s no longer uncharted territory, and every new vegan helps the natural foods market grow, making things easier for everyone else making the switch.

Some people like to label vegetarians as sissies or freaks. I’ll concede the point that it’s possible to find strange vegetarians, just as it is easy to find strange people who follow any other diet. But what some hold as sissified is really the starting point of a new way of looking at the world. At the core of vegetarian philosophy is a concern for personal health, for the environment, for world hunger, and for animals. And it hinges on what veteran animal rights activist Henry Spira calls the "non-violent dinner table."

The Economist editorializes: "To see an animal in pain is enough, for most, to engage sympathy. When that happens, it is not a mistake: it is mankind’s instinct for moral reasoning in action, an instinct that should be nurtured rather than mocked."

History’s list of famous vegetarians reads like a roll call of the greatest thinkers and gentlest souls civilization has yet produced – Leonardo Da Vinci, George Bernard Shaw, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, and dozens more. Many of the world’s best and brightest people have been attracted to this diet for 2,000 years, even when society at large dismissed vegetarianism as dangerous or odd.

Today it’s not just eminent people who follow a vegetarian diet. People of all ages and all walks of life are becoming vegetarian and vegan. Perhaps it’s because people are better informed about health than ever before. Or perhaps we are gradually learning to value compassion.

The typical American diet puts us at war with animals, the environment, even our own bodies. Whatever one’s reason for becoming vegan, it is at bottom an act of compassion, and compassion can become an act of deep transformation. If you are what you eat, switching your diet remarkably changes who you are. After becoming vegan, many people find their health improving over the ensuing months and years. Perhaps this improved health sets the stage for a spiritual awakening that often follows. This awakening may take years, but ultimately you are likely to find yourself a different being than the one you were before you changed your diet. This awakening is, I believe, open to anyone.

There are few choices as vital as what to eat, and yet many people still don’t make the connection between what they eat and what they believe. A person can become a teacher or social worker in order to make the world a better place, without considering that dining on animals three times a day is doing just the opposite. Other people plan fitness programs without first making the decision to keep their systems free from dietary cholesterol, saturated fat, and animal protein.

It was once mainly the greatest thinkers in history who weighed the consequences of their diet. Today, almost everyone has the resources to reconsider their food choices. It is an awakening whose time has come.

Winnipeg

Like vegetarians in general, members of the Winnipeg Vegetarian Association are increasingly becoming vegan. The group's potluck dinners, picnics, and special restaurant events are always vegan so all can attend (including non-members). The WVA also publishes a bimonthly newsletter and holds lectures, film presentations, and other public events to raise consciousness on issues vegetarians and vegans hold dear. The association's website includes a Vegetarian Guide to Winnipeg and a generous recipe department, including "Favourite Recipes from our Potlucks." For info, call (204) 889-5789, email wva@mb.sympatico.ca, or write to WVA, Box 2721, Winnipeg, MB, R3C 4B3.

Online

A search on the keyword "vegan" at Google.com yields a startling 154,000 hits. Here are some examples of what you can find when you surf the vegan web:

• In an essay at vegsource.com on the origins of veganism, popular vegan author Joanne Stepaniak writes that the vegan movement was born in 1944 with the launch of the British Vegan Society by Donald Watson. "Veganism," Watson wrote, "starts with vegetarianism and carries it through to its logical conclusion." The Society was inspired by Albert Schweitzer's ethic of "Reverence for Life." Similarly, the American Vegan Society, founded in 1960, "promotes the philosophy of Ahimsa, a Sanskrit word interpreted as 'dynamic harmlessness,' along with advocating service to humanity, nature and creation." 

• At www.vegan.com, author Erik Marcus is giving away electronic copies of his acclaimed book Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating – and loads of vegan recipes too.

• "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, as Paul McCartney is so fond of saying, we would all be vegetarians," writes PETA's Bruce Friedrich at veganoutreach.org. He continues: "There is so much violence in the world, from war torn regions of Africa and Europe, to our own inner cities. Most of this violence is difficult to understand, let alone influence. Veganism is one area where each and every one of us can make a difference, every time we sit down to eat."

The veganoutreach website also has a graphically illustrated section called "Why Vegan?" It includes a textbook quote from a professor of Animal Agriculture at Oregon State University: "For modern animal agriculture, the less the consumer knows about what's happening before the meat hits the plate, the better." On the lot of dairy cows: "People commonly believe they do not hurt cows by drinking their milk. However, it is unprofitable to keep cows alive once their milk production declines – usually at 5 to 6 years of age, though the normal life span is 25." There are gruesome details: "According to Steve Cockerham, a USDA inspector at Nebraska slaughterhouses, and former USDA veterinarian Lester Friedlander, some U.S. slaughterhouses routinely skin live cattle, immerse squealing pigs in scalding water, and abuse still-conscious animals in other ways to keep production lines moving quickly. . . .Cockerham said that he often saw plant workers cut the feet, ears, and udders off cattle that were conscious after stun guns failed to work properly. 'They were still blinking and moving. It's a sickening thing to see,' he said."

• The website of Canadians for Ethical Treatment of Food Animals laments the lack of legal protection for farm animals in Canada. "Legislation has, in effect, been replaced by RECOMMENDED VOLUNTARY CODES OF PRACTICE, having no force of law, and administered within the industry itself." What happens when you put the fox in charge of the chicken coop? A Washington Post exposé disturbingly reveals how lax regulation south of the border causes many farm animals to "die piece by piece."
• At www.McCruelty.com and www.murderking.com – two of many provocative websites by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) – we learn that McDonald's is the only major fast food chain, so far, to give in to pressure from PETA to ensure its suppliers follow minimally humane animal treatment standards. "Murder King" et al. are still holding out.

• An extensive position paper by the American Dietetic Association concludes that veganism is healthy for everyone: "Well-planned vegan and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy and lactation. Appropriately planned vegan and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets satisfy nutrient needs of infants, children, and adolescents and promote normal growth."

The definition of veganism is in a state of flux. In its most basic form a vegan is someone who refrains from eating any animal foods, typically out of compassion for animals, a desire to leave a small ecological footprint by eating low on the food chain, and/or  for better health. Compassionately motivated vegans (likely the majority) typically avoid anything that derives from the unkind exploitation of animals - including clothes made of leather, fur, or wool. Some vegans avoid all products that have even a remote connection to animal exploitation, like sugar processed with animal bones and camera film that contains gelatin. It's here that conscientious vegans differ, with some opting not to sweat the small stuff and even using time and money saved to do things of greater direct benefit to animals. For a thoughtful essay "On Being Vegan," click here.

The Witness An award-winning documentary that is making people see their fellow animals with new eyes. Read our review	Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating Erik Marcus's acclaimed reckoning of vegan values and the harsh realities that give rise to them. Read our review
Becoming Vegan Everything you ever wanted or needed to know about following  a vegan diet safely and healthily. Read our review	The Uncheese Cookbook From "gee whiz" to "mostarella," by the Julia Child of vegan cuisine. Read our review

My response would have to be "Why are you not vegan?" The taste of rotten dead animals and their glandular secretions is what originally turned us off animal products eleven years ago. . . .The more we learned of the effect meat consumption had on the environment and how the animals were being treated, the more convinced we were of our dietary choices. Mad Cow disease has many people becoming vegetarian out of fear. I'm so glad we made our decision years ago out of knowledge.

I became lacto-ovo vegetarian in the fall of 1991 after watching . . . "Sea of Slaughter," based on Farley Mowat's book by the same name. A shocking exposé of the senseless slaughter of animals in and around the sea, it predicted the collapse of the cod industry and, through graphic footage, made me resolve to never again eat animals.

Two years later I attended my first summer vegetarian festival in Portland, Oregon. After the first night with lectures by the likes of Michael Klaper, M.D., and Howard Lyman, as well as all the delicious vegan food, it was very simple for me to take the next step. . . .Without a doubt, going vegan was the best thing I've done in my life! 

For years I would jokingly say, "If I had to slaughter my own meat, I'd be a vegetarian!" I can't believe it took me so long to actually hear what I was saying! Better late than never, I suppose. My husband, myself and our three children (ages 19, 16, and 13) have been vegans for over 12 years. . . .The bottom line for most people, however, is: food has to taste good. Now, with the abundance of plant foods that simply taste wonderful, I can't imagine choosing to eat any other way! 

My goal is to live in balance and harmony within myself and with the world around me. Veganism helps me that way. I feel healthier, lighter, more peaceful, and more connected to the environment.

For me, what it comes down to is I don't feel that the food that I eat to sustain this body should come from animals; I don't think animals should have to give up their lives to feed me. 

After having been lacto-ovo-vegetarian for about five years, I became a vegan at the suggestion of my homeopathic physician. She felt my asthma and arthritis would clear up if I cut out all dairy. Further self-education brought me to the belief that consuming animal products of any kind was wrong, both ethically and environmentally. Incidentally, I am free of both asthma and osteoarthritis, plus I no longer have constant overweight concerns.

I became a vegan last summer for the same reason I became a vegetarian twenty years ago: I love animals so much I could eat them - not. With all the suffering most animals endure to put meat, milk, and eggs on our tables, my conscience won't have it any other way.

On April 22, the Winnipeg Free Press published a Washington Post exposé revealing that many slaughterhouse animals are still conscious as they are skinned, dismembered, or drowned in scalding water. Diana Cox, who had been searching for words to express why she became vegan 13 years ago, felt the article spoke for her:

The Free Press article says it all. I couldn't read it. I started to, but I still can't get through it. It's just awful, awful, awful.

NOTE: for a more up-to-date guide to vegan (and vegetarian) restaurants and other resources in Winnipeg, please click here.

Winnipeg boasts three exclusively vegan eateries:

• Delicious Vegetarian Restaurant. 1467 Pembina. Vegan, actually. Huge overwhelming menu, but no-brainer combo dishes always seem to please.

• Mondragon Bookstore and Coffeehouse. 91 Albert. Eclectic, organic vegan cuisine in a counterculturally chic atmosphere. Trotsky ate here.
• The Raw Experience. This all raw, organic food spot, formerly known as Book Storm, has relocated to 106 Osborne Street. Woody Harrelson drank juice here.

• Two East Indian restaurants - Sweet Palace at 1425 Pembina and Taste of India at 9–510 Sargent - offer vegan/vegetarian or mostly vegetarian buffets on Wednesdays and Thursday nights, respectively. 

• Stone-Ground Daily Bread (1399 Pembina) and Tall Grass Prairie Bread (859 Westminster) are where it's at for vegan breads and pastries. Tall Grass even sells vegan birthday cakes.

• Restaurants where you can order vegan entrees and side dishes are common. But at Organza Food's juice bar and mini-restaurant (664 Corydon) and the recently opened Urban Ojas Restaurant and Juice Bar (684 Osborne), the vegan vittles are health food-quality and organic. 

• Zhimbasto is Winnipeg's entrée into the world of vegan meat substitutes. "Some vegetarians actually refuse to eat it because it's so meatlike," says Lori Michaelson, whose friends urged her to bring it to market. It's available in the deli at Harry's Foods, a vegetarian-friendly grocery store at 905 Portage.