Dan's Papers - March 21, 2008

Dear Dan,
Dear David,
Re: the truth will set you free!
Hey there, I'm writing in response to your article "The Truth Will Set You Free" about your experience finding out about factory farming. First and foremost, I would like to congratulate you on seeking out the truth. It does take a special sort of courage to swallow that "red pill," so to speak. (Yeah Matrix!)
Anyway, being a vegan, my first response was to feel defensive. If I had a quarter for every time someone asked me, "Where do you get your protein?" I'd be a trillionaire. (Okay, well...if not a trillionaire, at least a billionaire!) And the idea that avoiding animal products is a "wussy" thing to do is, well, annoying as anything!
If anything, it is the more courageous thing to do, especially in the social setting it sounds like you live in. To go against the norm and to do what is right, and say "I don't give a @#$% what other people think of me" is very difficult. In the case of veganism, I think it's especially difficult for men, who might worry that they will be labeled as wimpy or otherwise un-masculine.
Anyway, I have some good news. There are much more options to being vegan besides cereal, salad, pasta and Boca burgers. I recommend you get a cookbook or look up some recipes online. Or, depending on where you live, you could check out some vegan restaurants. I live about an hour from NYC, and I've gone to a couple amazingly good vegan restaurants there, and it has totally opened up my eyes to all the possibilities! Actually, I have a much more expanded palate now than I did before I became vegan. This is not to suggest that there are not vegan options at regular restaurants. I haven't had any problems thus far - pasta dishes, as you suggested, are always good.
As for cage-free eggs, well sadly the industry doesn't have any enforced rules/regulations for that, so it's pretty easy for a company to label its products "free range." Plus, when the egg-laying chickens are born, all the male chicks are thrown into a trash bag (where they just suffocate and die) immediately, since they're not "useful" (i.e. cannot lay eggs; are not of the optimal "breed" to become "broiler chickens"). This is the case even for free-range chickens. And finally, what is so "manly" about eating the menstruation of a chicken? And, for that matter, of stealing a cow's breast milk from her baby calves? All right, well I'm sorry if I'm starting to get "preachy." As you can tell, I am pretty passionate about this subject. But really, one other thing to know is that it is not required that you eat tofu and soymilk in order to be a vegan. I actually do not like soymilk much myself, and I'm still sort of afraid of tofu (although I'm trying to get over that!) Basically being a vegan is so incredibly EASY. You would be surprised.
Enough of my ramblings. If you have any questions, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I won't lie - I obviously would love for you (and the rest of the world, actually!) to become vegan. But I will certainly not berate you if you decide otherwise. At the very least, I hope I can at least debunk some of the stereotypes you and others may have about vegans i.e. we actually are NOT all angry misanthropes who care more about animals than we do about people! :)
Hope to hear from you - if not though, I wish you all the best in your continued pursuit of truth.

Dear Dan,
Dear David,
I'm not emailing with information on free-range meat, but because someone posted a link to your article on a vegan forum I belong to. I just wanted to say that I was really impressed by your article. It's exceptionally honest, and of course the most impressive thing is that you looked something you didn't really want to know about in the face, and made changes you would rather not have to make accordingly. Many people either keep the blinkers on their whole lives, or manage some mental dissociation between the evils of factory farming and their own responsibility as consumers. I applaud you. It took me sixteen years of being vegetarian to realize that I needed to be vegan if I really cared about the suffering of sentient creatures. I don't think free-range meat is the answer, but it would be a step in the right direction. The problem is that only eating meat from one source could be even more difficult than vegans, when eating in restaurants or traveling. But I don't want to criticize. I am genuinely impressed, and I want to help. If you are really living off cereal, salad, pasta and Boca burgers, it seems to me that what you need most is some decent vegan recipes, and there are loads out there. Some cookbooks that come to mind are Vegan with a Vengeance, The Everyday Vegan and Eat, Drink and Be Vegan (I love that last one). If you're not at that stage yet, check out these great food blogs - www.Vegweb.com, Veganlunchbox.blogspot.com, www.Veganyumyum.com, www.Theppk.com/blog, Blog.fatfreevegan.com.
The most powerful argument for not supporting industrial farming of animals is that there is no need to. There are loads and loads of delicious recipes out there, and the number is always rising. If you are worried about nutrition, check out www.goveg.com or Becoming Vegan, which tells you all you need to know about what to be careful about and what the myths out there are. And if you need any help/advice, please feel free to contact me. I've been vegan for six months and my only regret is not doing it sooner. Even if you end up finding a farm that satisfies your conscience, you might want to expand your vegan repertoire and knowledge for the rest of the time. My diet actually got much more varied and interesting when I went vegan.