The Vegan Life

I’ve always loved animals, or so I thought. I grew up with a house full of animals-cats,dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits. They were all part of our family, and we loved them dearly, but somehow I did not make that connection between the animals I loved and the meat I was eating. I was well into middle age (OK, I’ll admit it, I’m a grandmother, now) when I saw a pamphlet about modern factory farming. I was absolutely horrified! I stopped eating all meat and fish immediately except turkey. Someone told me turkeys were too stupid to suffer. I found out that this was not at all true when I visited Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary in Poolesville, Maryland. I found the turkeys there were affectionate and very responsive to attention. I feel I owe turkeys a huge apology. I’ll never again eat turkeys or any creature that ever had a beating heart.

I thought that being a vegetarian was enough to not be participating in the abuse of animals. Shortly after adopting a vegetarian diet, I went to Summerfest in Johnstown, and there I learned about the horrors of dairy and egg farming, and so became vegan.

I soon discovered the health benefits of a vegan diet. I fount that the most compassionate diet is the most healthy diet. Since I have adopted a vegan lifestyle, I lhave lost weight with little effort, my cholesterol is great, and I have more energy than I ever did. I have been having fun discovering new foods, and researching vegan nutrition, and I have met wonderful, compassionate people.

Since I live in a small, conservative Pennsylvania city in the United States, in a big dairy farming area, I thought I was the only vegan around. I wanted to get the word out to people about the horrors of the factory farm, so I starting holding tabling events at a local shopping center to provide information about factory farming and vegetarianism. I had to give an organization name to be allowed to do this, so I made up the name of a veg club. I was, of course. the only member of the club. Eventually, I decided to try to form a real vegetarian club. In order to find interested people, I signed up for the use of a community room at a local library to hold a tofu cooking demonstration, and advertised this by posting fliers at the local health food store. Public speaking scares me, but I fooled my self by advertising the event long before the day of the presentation so that I wasn’t yet nervous about it. As the time approached, I became very scared, but the event had been advertised, and it was too late to back out. The day of the cooking demo, as I loaded the car with my supplies, I kept thinking that I was out of my mind to do this. I figured, though, that maybe three people would show up. Actually, twenty people came to the presentation, and it actually went well.

Most of those original twenty are still club members, eight years later. We now have about 110 members, which I think is great for a small, conservative Pennsylvania city, in a big dairy farming area. Some of our club activities include restaurant outings (we have no veg restaurants nearby, but we get restaurants to make special vegan meals for us), pot lucks, movie nights (just for fun), speakers, bus trips to larger cities for veg friendly shopping, and book discussions. I edit our monthly newsletter for the club, and I really enjoy doing that. We have been interviewed for newspapers and a local TV station (although, I not sure anyone actually watched the program). We still hold tabling events at the local shopping center, now with a real club behind us.

I often get asked if I feel deprived as a vegan. Most definitely not, I feel blessed.

This recipe is one of the dishes we had at one of our veg club potlucks..
It was adapted from Karen Davis' book, Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey, published by Book Publishing company, Summertown, Tennessee.

Serrves 6 to 8

1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup sliced carrots
2 cups potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen corn
2 packages (or about two cups) vegan "chicken" (nuggets or any
other kind), chopped coarsely
2 1/2 cups soy milk
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/3 cup fresh minced parsley
1 teaspoon garlic powder
3 tablespoons powdered vegan "chicken" soup base, "chicken" style seasoning, or powdered vegetable soup base.(I find this at natural food stores.)
1/2 teaspoon crushed sage
1/2 teaspoon thyme
Baking powder biscuit dough (see below)

Preheat the oven to 350.

Steam the vegetables for 5 minutes. Combine with the remaining ingredients, except the biscuit dough, in a large saucepan, and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Press half of the biscuit dough into a large, oiled baking dish. Pour the filling into this crust. Bake for 30 minutes. roll out the rest of the biscuit dough to a size large enough to cover the pie. Top the pie with biscuit dough, and bake for another 15 minutes, or until the top crust is golden.

This is double the normal recipe, and is enough to cover the Deep-dish "chicken" pie (see above) if the pie is made in a 13 by 9 inch baking dish. If your baking dish is deeper with a smaller top surface, you may need only half of the following biscuit dough recipe. You can make half the recipe and use it for biscuits.

4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon salt
6 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup vegan margarine or vegan shortening
about 1 and 1/2 cup soy milk

Add salt and baking powder to flour and mix well. Cut in shortening with pastry blender or fork until thoroughly mixed. Stir in soy milk to make a soft dough and work lightly on a floured board.

If making biscuits, roll out to 3/4 inch thickness and cut with a cookie cutter. Brush with soy margarine and and bake at 450 for 12 to 15 minutes. Half the recipe will make 18 biscuits. These are great with jam.

At a recent club book discussion, we talked about Voices From the Garden, Stories of Becoming Vegetarian, Edited by Sharon and Daniel Towns, published 2001 by Lantern Books. I found the book helped to strengthen my resolve. Here are some excerpts from the book..

"A nurse friend of mine at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) looked down at her beloved cat, 'Beanie', one day and 'for no apparent reason,' suddenly thought, 'If I wouldn't dream of eating Beanie, why on Earth do I eat other animals?' "-Ingrid Newkirk, page 9

"..... the next time you use eye shadow or lipstick, did these products burn the eyes of a laboratory dog or cat? The next time you wash your hair, was the product responsible for the blindness of a laboratory rabbit or monkey?........When you attend a circus, did that elephant being poked or prodded, and hooked make you smile?........And when you take that bite of roast beef, was that cow skinned alive? Think about these things. See animals as they are-living beings who feel pain and have emotions, just as you and I do."- Daniel and Sharon Towns, page 12

"I feel great compassion for meat-eaters, since I believe this is what they were taught by the majority culture, even though it is wrong in my view."-Tom Gallagher, page 47

"I was paying others to be cruel to animals while I ate the spoils. Did the fleeting flesh of animals matter more to me than their suffering?"-Ingrid Newkirk, page 70

"The brutal existence that these so-called 'farm' animals are forced to endure is really too much to bear, not only for them, but for those of us who suffer with them every minute of every day."-Maryanne Appel, page 81

The torture of animals can go on no longer. Nonhuman animals have as much of a right to their health and happiness as human animals do"-Erin Moore, page 90

".......meat-eaters indirectly support and inadvertently cause the starvation of people living in less economically developed countries.....The land is used to produce food for animals that will be exported. Therefore the land cannot be used for growing crops for the population's own consumption. This leads to widespread famine and many unnecessary deaths.....So while others starve, we are being supplied with more than we can consume and do not even need to have."-Alison Webb, page 101

"I finally decided to stop eating fish partly due to environmental grounds (I'd heard that over-fishing had drastically lowered fish stocks to an unsustainable level) and partly on health grounds after reading how fish were contaminated by the pollution the industrialized countries were regularly discharging into the sea."- Dave Snowdon, page102

"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, Mahatama Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, and dozens more. Society's best and brightest have been attracted to this diet for 2,000 years, even when society at large dismissed vegetarianism as dangerous or odd."-Erik Marcus, page 113

"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."-Erik Marcus, page 113