Welcome!

 to the

Vegan Voices Website

We are an educational community of animal advocates, environmentalists, health practitioners and everyday folks who believe that moving toward a vegan diet is a central first step to becoming responsible world citizens and creating a sustainable, loving and non-violent world. We host a community potluck on the Second Sunday of each month and another on the Thanksgiving holiday. We offer passionate and well-informed speakers for school or club events and a lending library of books, videos, CD's and DVD's on issues relating to animal welfare, environmentalism and health. We also offer educational literature and recipe exchanges to help each other create delicious meals that are healthy and compassionate.

About Veganism

People often view veganism in the negative, associating it with a list of products to avoid. But veganism is a powerful, positive and compassionate philosophy of life. A vegan lifestyle offers gains for the animals and the earth that far out weigh any inconvenience it causes. Veganism is the embodiment of the Eastern philosophy of Ahimsa- non-violence toward and respect for all sentient beings. It is daily creating positive change. Veganism is also everyday activism. Whenever you ask for the vegan option, you become an example to everyone in your life that compassion is profoundly beneficial to the animals, the earth and your personal health.

When you choose veganism, try not to get frustrated, our world doesn't cater to the ethical choice… yet! Whenever possible, shop at natural food stores. There is a vegan substitute for just about everything. Pick up some vegan cookbooks and create your own delicious vegan food to impress your family and friends! Also be sure to get support, your family and old friends may not be encouraging of your evolution. Most areas have veggie/vegan potlucks to connect with your vegan community. Remember that you are not alone! When you choose the non-violent path, new compassionate and caring friends may come your way and certainly the animals and the earth will walk with you, silently benefiting from your kindness.

Diet and Health

Diet has a profound impact on our health and the health of the environment. Meat and dairy products are implicated in many of today’s most serious diseases. The likelihood of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and many other illnesses, can be significantly reduced by the adoption of a plant-based diet. There is broad agreement among scientific and nutritional communities that meat and dairy products aren't necessary for optimal human health and that these products, in fact, generally increase the risk of serious disease. Please see our health page for more information.

 Eating and Environment

Increasingly, it is also becoming clear that a plant based diet is far more environmentally sustainable than a diet based on animal products. Witness the tragic, wholesale decimation of millions of acres of rain forest for beef production. Thousands of ecosystems were lost with these rain forests and billions of animals were also killed (all so we can raise different animals and then kill them too!). Don’t forget it takes a staggering amount of water and energy to produce a pound of meat. And this just in: a meat-centered diet is a very significant source of greenhouse gases. A typical American meat eater’s diet causes about as much global warming as driving a gas guzzling SUV instead of a small passenger sedan! Please check out our environment page for more information.

 Food Choices and Farm Animals

We humans are capable of great tenderness, yet we routinely accept the cruelty and violence that comes with choosing animal-based foods. In doing so we cause unimaginable suffering. Huge factory farms where meat, milk and eggs are produced, confine billions of sensitive, intelligent beings to a living hell. The very luckiest of these animals are merely murdered at the end of their unnaturally short lives. Most animals are routinely mutilated or branded in some way at birth or during childhood. Violent procedures like de-beaking, castration and tail docking, practices deemed so painful they are illegal in many countries, are routinely performed without anesthesia.

Animals are regularly given hormones to increase production, speed up growth and increase size. This often deforms, weakens or sickens the animals, sometimes making them unable to even support their own weight. Disease can run rampant in overcrowded cages and so antibiotics are administered regularly (this further dilutes the effectiveness of this class of drugs for human use). Many animals live their entire lives in cages so small they can’t even turn around. Animals are often beaten and tortured by underpaid, overworked workers. Many animals will never see the green leaves of a living tree, walk in a grassy field or feel the warmth of the sun on their body. Please see our animals page for more information.

What Next?

By choosing foods based on kindness and compassion instead of cruelty and violence we can be a happier, healthier people and build a more loving and sustainable world. The alternative, to continue hurting innocent animals, degrading the environment and risking our health simply doesn’t make sense and is irresponsible as well. Adopting a plant-based diet can help us feel more connected with our deepest, values, our tenderness, with nature and with life itself.

Please explore the resources offered on this website, come to one of our community potlucks and learn about the many benefits of a vegan diet!

“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.”

- Albert Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.”

- Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

 “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated... I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”

- Mahatma Gandhi

 “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

- Albert Einstein

"Changing the way we eat - from a meat-based to a plant-based diet - is the single most effective thing we can do for our health, for animals, for the environment, for human rights, and for the creation of a nonviolent and compassionate world."

- Colleen Patrick-Goudreau,

 CompassionateCooks.com 

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

- Martin Luther King