From Moby: "Could you look an animal in the eye and say my appetite is more important than your suffering?"

If you have been vegan for a few years and have sometimes felt like you are all alone -- especially at those family holiday dinners -- boy will you enjoy this hour from the National Public Radio show On Point: http://www.onpointradio.org/2011/01/vegans-america. It aired on Friday, January 14, but can still be heard in full on line.

It opens with a chat with Kim O'Donnel, a food writer who is not vegan but is watching the vegan explosion across America. Cookbook writers Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Mollie Katzen are also interviewed. The host mentions many now famous vegans and closes with a song from Moby, before which he reads a quote from Moby: "Could you look an animal in the eye and say my appetite is more important than your suffering?"

Many interesting points were made. I found of particular interest a comment from a reader who said she went vegan after seeing the superb, Oscar nominated, documentary Food Inc. That supports the research that shows that media does not have to have a blatant "Go Vegan" message in order to inspire a change to a vegan diet. Any coverage of the horror of factory farming reminds people that their hamburgers used to be living, feeling beings; that reminder often leads folks to decide that the veggie burger is a better choice.
Under the "contact us" tab On Point tells us: "Because of the volume of communications we receive, the best way to ensure that we see messages about show content or programming is to post them at the bottom of the day’s show at our Web site, in the listener comment thread."

So please join the conversation at the bottom of the page linked above. Post a quick, appreciative, pro veggie comment. An enthusiastic listener response will encourage similar coverage in the future.

I send thanks to activist Laura Slitt for letting us know about the coverage.
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn

To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime." ~Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize 1915

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