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gertvegan
Nov 3rd, 2004, 11:54 AM
Vegan desires

Stockton woman opens her doors for a vegan potluck to help spread the word on this alternative lifestyle

By Emil Guillermo, Wednesday, November 3, 2004


Vegan Bobbie Landau is so proud to be a vegan that she'd shout it proudly from the local rooftops if she could.

Inviting the public over to her house for a vegan potluck just seemed a lot more practical.

A potluck you know. But vegan? The term describes a person who eats nothing derived from an animal.

They are the pickiest ( :mad: )of vegetarians because they eat no eggs. No dairy and cheese. No honey.

And definitely no animal meat -- no cows, pigs, chicken or fish.

What's left?

"There's a great variety and diversity of foods," said Landau, 64, of Stockton, who moved here from Walnut Creek and enjoys eating greens, nuts and legumes, mostly raw.

While it takes some doing, vegans such as Landau have found delicious alternatives that they say deprive them of little.

Sharing dishes through potlucks have been one way to support and spread their lifestyle. Landau said it worked in Walnut Creek.

But she doesn't know how many vegans will come to her Stockton home for her inaugural vegan potluck.

There are a lot more vegans in Stockton than you think, said Adeline Rios, 54, who works at the Artesian Health Food store on Pacific Avenue.

She became vegan eight years ago for health reasons and gradually began to notice other vegans in the area, she said.

"More are adopting the vegan lifestyle here," Rios said. "A man comes in who has been vegan four years. He used to be heavy. He's lost 100 pounds."


Landau became a vegetarian 34 years ago but still ate fish and eggs. Then she made the next step after considering the toxins in fish and the steroid use in dairy farms.

"I lost 10 pounds after I stopped eating eggs and dairy," she said.

It also affected how she thought about food.

"I really believe what we eat has more to do with the brain and the mind than the stomach," Landau said. "That's what did it for me."

Generally, vegan diets do not lack any of the basic nutrients: proteins, fats or carbohydrates. But the diet can produce vitamin deficiencies.

"They tend to be low in vitamin B-12,
so most take B-12 supplements," said
Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a family physician in New Jersey, author of "Eat to Live" and himself a vegan.

As a spokesperson for the Physician's Committee on Responsible Medicine based in Washington, D.C., Fuhrman said vegan diets doesn't mean an automatically healthy diet. In fact, a vegan diet can be unhealthy, Fuhrman said, if it's not balanced, and if it's based on a higher percentage of unrefined plant food.

He said the average American eats 42 percent from animal products, 51 percent

from processed foods such as white flour, and 7 percent from vegetables, beans and nuts.

A good vegan diet eliminates the animal products and minimizes the intake of processed foods, making it far healthier than meat-based diets, he said.

Health reasons are usually the entry points to vegetarianism, but it's the sociopolitical reasons that lead people to eat more consciously and become vegans.

Landau said she read the books of activist John Robbins, who claims it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce a pound of feedlot beef. That means to feed one meat eater for a year requires 33Ž4 acres of land.

"Feeding one vegetarian for a year requires just one half-acre," Landau said. "Thus, it takes seven times more land to feed meat eaters than vegetarians. Being environmentally conscious, the vegan diet makes for better land use."

If there's an egg white in a dish, she's aghast.

"That's an unborn chicken," she said.

Rios said suffered from allergies until she became vegan.

"There's too many things in animals these days," she said.

Rios said she'd bring a nice stir-fry to the potluck.

"Some nice vegetables with some tofu," she said.

Landau said she likes ethnic foods, including Ethiopian dishes that use a nonwheat flat spongy bread, that can be filled with cooked greens, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, rice and lentils.

If the potluck is successful, Landau said she'd like to see if there's enough interest here to form a vegan society in the county.

Vegan potlucks are grass-roots affairs, and Landau is just excited that there's a greater awareness in Stockton.

"My next-door neighbor said his sister was a vegan," she said. :) "I keep running into people who happen to know someone who is vegan. :cool: It would be great if we could all get together."

Vegan times are changing.

Gorilla
Nov 3rd, 2004, 01:10 PM
A potluck you know.

i don't - is this mostly an American event? i haven't heard of this sort of thing taking place in the UK.


Landau became a vegetarian 34 years ago but still ate fish and eggs

:rolleyes:

interesting article though, thanks gert :)

Sarabi
Dec 15th, 2008, 03:34 AM
:rolleyes:
LOL. I love the expression on your face.

I didn't care for the "unborn chicken" comment. An egg is far worse than an unborn chicken. Every egg is at least 34 hours of chicken misery, among other things. And it's not an unborn chicken. It's an unconceived chicken. Saying it's an unborn chicken makes it sound like some "pro-life" argument, which at least half of Americans don't agree with for humans, much less animals...

Roxy
Dec 15th, 2008, 03:58 AM
To me, it's an unfertilised egg, much the same as a period, which is also excreted from the body.