Veganism and its Discontents
	A look at people who only eat their vegetables.
	By MATTHEW COOPER

Posted Sunday, July 7, 2002; 10:31 a.m. EST
Honey is sweet and a spoonful can help life's medicine go down. But not for the vegans, the radical vegetarians who avoid the use of any animal product — even if the animal happens to be an insect that stings. For them there's nothing cute about those squeeze bottles shaped like bears. Honey represents enslavement, the oppression of the worker bees. Just ask the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the folks who brought us the anti-fur campaign. On their website the group denounces commercial honey farmers for everything from artificially inseminating queen bees — they call the procedure the "rape rack" — to taking away honey that the bees use to sustain themselves through the winter and replacing it with a sugary water that's "less tasty" for the bees.

Not every vegetarian is a vegan, of course. If you think of vegetarianism as a religion with many sects, ranging from orthodox fanatics who eat only raw fruit and vegetables to liberal deists who skip steaks but enjoy fish and fowl, vegans represent the fundamentalists. They see sin everywhere: in a silk tie (the worker worms), in Jell-O (gelatin from animal products), in a slice of cheddar (no dairy, thank you). [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Although vegans can be pretty fierce — like the vegan animal rights activist arrested in the shooting of a Dutch politician last May — when it comes to food preferences most tend to be gentle evangelists rather than Taliban-style enforcers. They view dairy-eating vegetarians as misguided souls and are willing to put aside scripture when they see signs of enlightenment. Even PETA, having fought for years with the fast-food industry, is now heaping praise on Burger King's new Veggie Burger, even though it is served with (the horror!) low-fat mayonnaise. "We're not trying to make anyone feel really bad," says Pamela Rice, the friendly soul who runs The VivaVegie Society in New York City and dresses in a Penelo Pea Pod costume when handing out pro-vegan leaflets. "I mean, some people do that, but we don't."

What makes someone go vegan? Health reasons are a major motivator, as they are for three out of four vegetarians. That's what drove Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (a Democrat, not surprisingly), Congress's sole vegan. Feeling bloated from a campaign diet of Cleveland's famed pierogies, he took up veganism at the behest of his girlfriend. Having given up steak for breakfast, he insists he feels much better starting his day with miso soup, brown rice or oat groats.

But more than other vegetarians, vegans are motivated by higher concerns — religious beliefs, the love of animals, a passionate disdain for violence.  They look at farm life, even organic farming, and see only cruelty. "They slaughter animals," says Bruce Friedrich, PETA's vegan campaign coordinator. "Even on small-scale organic farms they steal the babies away and don't allow them to suckle."

It's not easy living like a monk in a meat-and-potatoes culture. It takes constant vigilance and a thick skin. Kucinich, not surprisingly, gets his share of ribbing, especially from the beefy Texas delegation. But though life without milk or honey may seem impossibly ascetic to the rest of us, vegans say they don't feel deprived. They maintain there's a world of good eats beyond tofu hot dogs and wheat gluten — especially the Thai, Chinese, Indian and Malaysian delicacies that much of the world enjoys.

In her cramped Manhattan office, in a neighborhood known as Curry Hill for its abundance of Indian restaurants, Pamela Rice says she doesn't miss ice cream or grilled cheese sandwiches, although she confesses that plastic shoes are less comfortable than the leather kind. It's her husband's birthday — he's also a vegan — and she plans to "really celebrate." "Cool," says a visitor. "What are you going to have?" "Vegetables!" she replies.  

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