Get a look at the new face of veganism.
The mousy hippie chick who couldn't imagine eating a brown-eyed baby
cow any more than she could imagine eating the family pet has grown
up.
She's a sexy, sassy babe with a smart-aleck attitude about the food
choices you are making.
Fashion has met food, and the work of a couple of escapees from the
world of modeling has put veganism on the runway, creating a
perceptible bump in the fastest-growing food trend among girls and
young women.
Credit for the new look of veganism goes to Rory Freedman and Kim
Barnouin, authors of Skinny Bitch, "a no-nonsense, tough-love guide
for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking
fabulous," and a new companion cookbook, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch.
The cookbook extends the sensational hold veganism - a fringe
discipline even on its best day - suddenly has on the popular
imagination.
"I think they are fabulous," said Casey Hall, 23, of Baltimore, who
stopped eating meat when she was 11 and became a vegan at 18. "I like
their cursing and their up-front attitude."
Freedman and Barnouin, whose books have sold more than 850,000 copies,
use a combination of girl power and gross-out stories from the
barnyard, and it is an approach that resonates in the tender hearts of
young girls, who represent the fastest-growing segment of the
vegetarian population.
Roughly 1.4 million American children younger than 18 - and 11 percent
of girls between 13 and 17 - identify themselves as vegetarians or
vegans, according to the American Dietetic Association. That compares
to just 7 percent of the adult population.
Not so long ago, you could scratch a vegan and find an
anti-establishment punk rocker - angry and in your face.
Freedman and Barnouin make their case much differently: If you eat
better, you will look better.
"Now the Skinny Bitches appeal to all these girls who wish they lived
in L.A. and wore Juicy Couture pants," said Hall, who teaches yoga and
tends bar.
...
"I remember we were on the Eastern Shore, driving behind a truck that
was carrying chickens in cages," said Carolyn Curcio of Northwest
Washington, whose daughter gave up beef and pork in the second grade
because she felt bad for the animals.
"We had insisted that Cara continue to eat chicken and fish for health
reasons," said Curcio. "But when she saw the truck, she said there was
no way she was eating chicken again for the rest of her life.
"Having seen what she saw, we knew there was no way we were going to
change her mind," she said of her daughter, a vegan since 16 and a
freshman at New York University.
...
Erin Marcus, 25, who gave up meat in the fifth grade and became a
vegan at 20, said Baltimore is a wonderful town in which to be a
vegan.
"There are so many choices," said Marcus, who describes herself as an
animal-rights activist and "a huge vegan baker."
The Sun recently asked Marcus and two other young women to dinner at
the Yabba Pot, a popular vegan restaurant in Baltimore, to talk about
their vegan food choices.
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full story:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bal-fo.vegan26mar26,0,7719769.story
