Have you ever stopped to consider why dead or abused animal by-products (aka meat, milk, and eggs) are the default ingredients in nearly every catered event, restaurant, bakery, café, food stand, or airplane meal?

Even if you are a meat and/or dairy consumer, you have to wonder why animal products are so ubiquitous in our food products, even those that in no way require them (e.g., baked goods and desserts) and when we know that an over-consumption – or really any consumption – of animal products is more deleterious to our health than plant-based options?

Not to be rude, but…

I am not a confrontational person, and I hate making a fuss even if I get served the wrong dish in a restaurant or have a bad customer service experience. But I have to admit I’m getting to the end of my rope with the lack of awareness about the impact we have on our planet (and animal suffering) by assuming dairy, egg, and meat filled foods are ‘normal’ and ‘expected’ and that plant-based options are a mere after-thought. Nearly every coffee shop in Santa Barbara, where I live, offers one vegan pastry item. By why only one? Why should the twenty other items be filled with pig, chicken, and cow tissues or secretions when it is just as easy to make wonderful vegan croissants, Danishes, donuts, and breads (check these out if you don’t believe me). Why shouldn’t animal-based items be the token extra option instead? There’s plenty of people who are sensitive or allergic to animal products that would be grateful as well.

With food like this, from vegan sushi to vegan smores, its pretty easy to ditch the animal products these days.

With amazing plant-based options like these (vegan sushi and vegan s’mores dessert), ditching meat and dairy is easier – and tastier – than ever.

Until very recently, I was one of those vegans that just felt grateful when there were non-dairy milk options at cafes (regardless of how ridiculous the up-charge was) or vegan-friendly options at meat-heavy restaurants. But perhaps thanks to getting older, plus recently joining a community group composed of strong, inspiring women, I am starting to appreciate the need to take bolder steps to push the boundaries of what people accept as ‘normal’ and force us all to question our assumptions about how we treat animals, our planet, and each other.

The group I joined is called Vegan Lady Bosses (VLB), a community of women who seek to lift each other up, support each other in professional and personal endeavors, and together build awareness and appreciation for a plant-based, sustainable, cruelty-free lifestyle. These women mean business, and they don’t politely accept that they should pay up to a dollar more for their latte because they choose the cruelty-free option. The VLBs don’t blindly accept that ‘vegan’ means outlier; they intend to make plant-based the mainstream, and empower people in their choices and activism. For a quiet, non boat-rocking introvert such as myself, this newfound power is both a bit frightening and incredibly enlightening.

My local VLB group has been successful in pressuring local cafes to remove the up-charge for cruelty free milk, and to add more vegan options to their menus. They also rally behind businesses that make positive changes toward plant-based options, supporting them in person as well as on Yelp and social media. The VLBs show on a local scale the power of combining forces behind a cause, and the power we all have as concerned consumers and citizens.

I don’t expect everyone in the world to immediately go vegan. It’s not always practical, or available, depending on where you live or who you live with. But it is certainly time for mainstream discussions centered on why we are so complacent about the lack of concern for our unsustainable, unhealthy food system. Even if you don’t eat meat but consume dairy and eggs, or buy leather or wool products, you are (perhaps unwittingly) supporting very large, very cruel – to animals and humans – and very dirty industries that treat living beings like cheap objects. You shouldn’t have to feel like NOT supporting these industries is too difficult or radical.

Time to Rock the Boat

Just this week, the organization I work for sent around an email announcing that our Christmas party would be catered this year, and we have the option of three types of tamales – all of them meat or cheese based. This organization’s main mission is to focus on solving environmental issues for the benefit of people and the planet. Yet most times when we cater an event (such as the dozens of working groups and workshops and parties per year) at our office, the main dishes are centered on meat and dairy with plant-based options as the exception. Only one other person in my organization that I know of, out of nearly 100 people, is vegan. A handful are vegetarian. I am slowly losing my patience for a whole field of experts on environmental and climate issues who can’t seem to change their lifestyles in the way they keep arguing we all must do in order to ‘save’ ourselves from the worst impacts of climate change and pollution.

I probably wouldn’t have done this in the past, but with my newfound confidence and feeling of community support, I responded to my organization’s email, very politely asking if there would be a vegan option available. I also volunteered to lead a sustainability task force to look into making sustainable choices for our organization as a whole, including how we source food, office supplies, and how we run activities. I look forward to seeing whether my colleagues are receptive to such changes.

I understand that I do not make perfect choices. For example, I want to reduce how much plastic I buy, and how much plane travel I participate in. But choosing a plant-based diet seems like such no-brainer, particularly in California, where it is nearly effortless to do so and in fact you can find some of the most incredible vegan food and restaurants in the world. Eating plant-based has a huge positive impact on fossil fuel emissions, but also makes a statement that you refuse to accept that we must abuse and torture animals to sustain ourselves. Like it or not, think about it or not, that is what is happening to nearly every animal whose meat or milk or eggs you end up consuming, unless you or your benevolent neighbor raised them yourselves (even then, you assume that killing an animal before their natural time is humane).

I am even more dismayed that the very people at the forefront of climate change and sustainability research by and large consume meat (including fish, shrimp, and other unsustainable fisheries products) and dairy regularly, drive everywhere, and fly to multiple scientific conferences per year. If they didn’t change their transportation but changed their diet, that alone would be huge. If conferences provided better support for remote participation and focused on making their events zero waste, that would be even more significant. When the very people and institutions studying climate change can’t lead by example, how are we to expect the rest of the world to change their ways? What is it about human nature, our tendency toward cognitive dissonance, that prevents us from changing our behaviors even when we know our current behavior is detrimental to ourselves?

This is a topic I am beginning to explore in depth. We all have mental, socio-economic, or cultural barriers to change – the question is how can we learn to overcome these when we know that such change is beneficial? Based on some initial conversations I’ve had with colleagues, it appears that feeling supported (or pressured!) by peers is one important factor in whether someone chooses to change their diet. If a person is surrounded by others who eat vegan, and who enjoy cooking plant-based foods, they are more likely to adopt this lifestyle change. Many people, even those working in climate science, feel overwhelmed or intimidated by a plant-based diet because they don’t know where to start – what products to buy, what recipes to use, what restaurants they can go to, etc. Having trusted friends and family members that can guide them through this process lowers the barrier to entry in making this change.

Another key element is being exposed to pleasant plant-based meals. This is again where friends and colleagues can make a big difference, but also where organizations, companies, and restaurants can play an important role. If plant-based foods become the default option, and they taste great, people will either not notice that meat and dairy are ‘missing’ or better yet feel more inclined to choose plant-based options in the future. At scientific conferences where they have experimented with this, they’ve found that there were no riots or complaints when plant-based options were front and center; on the contrary, many people appreciated the switch or didn’t even notice. A lot of times, we make things harder for ourselves than they need to be, or assume an easy fix will be more controversial than it ends up being.

Some people are even convinced to go vegan based on watching powerful documentaries (e.g., Cowspiracy, Game Changers) or books about this topic. I went vegetarian, and later vegan, at the age of thirteen, after reading a book called ‘A Teen’s Guide to Going Vegetarian’ that opened my eyes to the horrors of factory farming and environmental and health benefits of eating plants. But for most of us, it’s ourpersonal connections that have the largest impact on our lifestyle choices, no matter how much knowledge we have about a subject via books and research papers. Community support is important for many things, and shifting behavior change is one of them – if the community is conducive to change.

I realize that terms like ‘animal cruelty’, ‘animal abuse’, ‘violence’, and ‘needless death’ make animal consumers uncomfortable. But instead of directing anger at the messengers, perhaps we need to more deeply explore why we find it hard to hear these words spoken about actions we choose to directly or indirectly support through our lifestyle choices. Did you choose to kick that injured baby cow or slice the beak off that turkey? No, of course not. But by drinking your nonfat latte (even if its organic) or eating your Thanksgiving meal, you implicitly gave permission for those actions to occur. Did you pour thousands of gallons of pig waste into river ways, or inject millions of cows with antibiotics that are creating super bugs? Again, no; but your purchases directly support industries that are doing these things. If you don’t feel good about that, you are a prime candidate for considering a plant-based lifestyle.

Not all plant agriculture is benign, of course. Choosing crops that are locally grown, organically produced, and produced by farms that pay living wages to their workers are all important things to consider no matter what you eat. Every type of food we eat has some sort of environmental consequence – but the evidence is unequivocal that raising livestock is much more intensive than growing most crops. For those people who are concerned that they aren’t able to maintain their health, or strength, or certain vitamin levels on a plant-based diet, I’ve found that often they simply haven’t received sufficient information and guidance about how to do so – or have received some of the abundant misinformation that’s out there. I’ve been vegan for over a decade and have never had abnormally low levels of B12, vitamin D, protein, or other essential nutrients or minerals.

Eating plants instead of factory-farmed animals is a no-brainer for most of us. It’s better for your health, your peace of mind, animals, and the planet as a whole. But I get that we can’t always make such a big shift on our own. I encourage you to reach out to community groups in your area to find the support and comradery to help make your transition to plant-based eating successful and enjoyable. Besides the VLB group I found (there are many VLB chapters throughout the country), I’ve found a sense of community by joining vegan potluck Meetups, animal welfare and environmental sustainability groups, and visiting local farm animal rescue centers.

If you ever have questions or want to discuss topics about plant-based eating and sustainable agriculture, I am always open to conversations. I don’t feel that forcing anyone to choose a specific diet (or worldview) is conducive to positive change, and I like to consider different perspectives and approaches. So please feel free to reach out! What challenges or barriers do you face in changing your diet or lifestyle? There is so much more I could go into about this topic, but I will save that for future posts.

In the meantime, here are just a few sources of inspiration for the vegan-curious out there. Stay tuned for more exploration in the near future.

Happy Cow website and app – helps you find vegan and vegetarian restaurants in cities around the world!

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Information about a plant-based diet for children 

Awesome, easy vegan recipes

Powerful vegan activism

Environmental impact of meat/dairy production

Inspiring new Netflix movie, The Game Changers, about top athletes who’ve gone vegan (and here’s their resources page)

The Vegan Society – Why go vegan

ASPCA facts about animals on factory farms

Negative effects of meat/dairy on human health