Prabhat Gautam has an amazing list of accomplishments.

He started Positive Television in 2003, wanting to inspire people to do more good in the world through watching celebrities talking about their causes and charities. About 90% of his work with Positive Television is related to veggie causes.

In 5th grade he learned about how many chinchillas are killed for one fur coat and felt it was very cruel; by high school he was a strict vegetarian. Later, he became vegan and learned about “the horrors of the factory farming system and will never go back. I’ve never been happier and healthier. When I play flag football or basketball with friends, I am always the person who has the most energy,” said Prabhat.

Prabhat helped establish Compassion Over Killing‘s presence in Los Angeles by launching its volunteer chapter, which has resulted in a full-fledged office with interns. Prabhat started and is on the Board of the LA Veg Society, which brings organizations together to work on large scale projects. They created the L.A. Animal Advocacy Leadership Council to unite all the local animal rights groups. He serves on the Board of Directors for Towards Freedom and on the Advisory Board for Compassion Over Killing.

“To be one of the leaders to help get this passed is by far one of my proudest moments as an activist,” said Prabhat.

He’s assisting VegVids.com to complie all animal rights videos onto one site. People will be able to find many undercover investigations, along with hundreds of presentations and recipes, on this ‘YouTube for vegans.’

The list continues:  he’s consulting on bringing Meatless Mondays into schools across California, and in L.A., on an upcoming vegan bar and the world’s first animal rights museum. Believing L.A. is the best vegan city in the country, he is working to connect the key people. He enjoys his city by dining at veggie restaurants including: Veggie Grill, Doomie’s Home Cookin’, Sun Cafe, and Native Foods.

If you own a veggie restaurant, please give this man a meal on the house for his nonstop efforts. He deserves serious recognition, and every city seriously needs someone with the drive and positive energy of Prabhat!

Ron and a Rescued Baby Goat

Ron Prasad is not only writing a book and inspiring people through his work as a life coach, but is an inspiration as an ardent activist for the animals with a healthy lifestyle.  A vegan for two years, he was a lacto-vegetarian for 14 years prior. Thanks to modern technology, I was fortunate enough to interview this friendly man who’s across the globe in Melbourne, Australia.

Paige:  What started your path to veganism?

Ron:  I was involved with the Vegetarian Network Victoria (in Melbourne) since 2008, a mostly vegan organization.  Through them, I realized the cruelty to animals’ aspect in dairy foods, and the health risks of consuming dairy!

Paige:  What activism do you do?

Ron: We are doing our best to highlight the cruelty to animals in factory farming to the general public.  I am a volunteer and supporter of Animals Australia, Animal Liberation Victoria, Edgar’s Mission Animal Sanctuary, Coalition for the Protection of Race Horses, Coalition Against Duck Shooting, World Vegan Day, and Vegetarian Victoria (formerly known as Vegetarian Network Victoria).

Paige:  Besides diet, do you do anything like yoga, meditation, or exercise to keep a healthy lifestyle?

Ron: For me, being a vegan is more than a diet, or a lifestyle.  It is a mindset.  I do meditation each morning.  I run 5 times a week (distance running, sprinting, interval running) and train at a local boxing gym 3 nights a week.

Paige:  Tell us about the veggie restaurants in your city.

Ron: There are around 50 vegetarian/vegan restaurants/cafes in Melbourne.  I love going to Lentil as Anything, Veggie Kitchen, and the Veggie Bar.

Paige:  Are there veggie potlucks/events or meetups there or in Australia in general?

Ron: Yes, vegan social events are always happening here.  World Vegan Day, held in Melbourne during October or November, is the largest vegan event in the Southern Hemisphere, with around 4,000 people attending.

Paige:  How receptive is Australia to veganism?

Ron: Veganism is definitely growing in Australia.  A lot of non-vegan restaurants have started marking some menu items with a ‘V’.  The word ‘vegan’ is becoming more recognized by the general public.  Veganism certainly has a great future in Australia.

By Michelle Inaba Mocarski, reprinted from Vegan Mainstream

How to come up with a list of just 10 things that drive vegans crazy? When you live a lifestyle that is not mainstream, there are always going to be some roadblocks and annoyances along the way. Depending on your situation, where you work, and whether your friends and family members are vegan or not, the frustrations may vary. Still, we’re going to give it a try. Here are some common questions and challenges that we, as vegans (and, in some cases vegetarians too), face on a daily basis - and that sometimes make us feel like banging our heads against a wall.

1. Finding vegan products in a mainstream grocery store. Where’s the soy cheese and the animal-free cleaner?  Sometimes it can be quite a challenge to find vegan-friendly products in your local grocery store. Sometimes it makes you feel like you have to be a Google Search wizard to find a piece of soy cheese or seitan.
2. “What do you eat, then?” is one of the most common question people shoot at you, wondering what on earth you eat, since you don’t eat meat, eggs or dairy. For those who forgot, we also have vegetables, fruit, grains, soy, nuts, which make up a large array of options for vegans.
3. A lack of sympathy and understanding in the workplace. The “you’re-a-weirdo” face. You go to lunch with your co-workers, or there is a birthday cake for someone in the office and there always seems to be somebody who corners you and harasses you about not eating dairy/meat – and someone else who likes joking about how you think you can change the world one chicken at a time. Totally annoying.
4. “You don’t wear leather? Why? The cows are already dead!” Some people just don’t see how leather can be related to cows (or other animals)…
5. “Aren’t you afraid of getting osteoporosis?” Who said that you can only find calcium in milk? There are many superior plant-based sources of calcium in nature.
6. Eating out at a restaurant. It can be embarrassing to ask all your vegan questions when the server is clearly annoyed because of your long list of questions and your companions are staring at you like, “Could you please just order?”
7. “How can you live without eating chocolate?” Well, truth is: you don’t have to. You can be a vegan and eat chocolate. You just need to be careful not to eat milk chocolate. Dark chocolate is a good (healthy and delicious!) option for vegans.
8. BBQs. You have your Boca Burger with you, but the insistent offering of a piece of “real” BBQ from your well-intentioned friends can drive any vegan crazy (for the insistence and the smell)!
9. When people start lecturing you about how purposeless it is to be vegan. And then, when you try to explain the reasoning behind it, and people claim you’re trying to “look superior” or “convert” them. Well, guess what? You asked!
10. People who posit the human suffering in the world against animal suffering. Some people say you should be more concerned about people dying of hunger in the world rather than wasting your time worrying about not eating dairy/egg/meat.  So, just because you can’t stop human suffering in the world, you should increase animal suffering? What’s the logic of it?

Gary in Action

Gary Yourofsky, who founded Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow (ADAPTT) in 1996, the same year he became a vegan, is seriously dedicated to preventing cruelty to animals. He has lectured to more than 50,000 students nationwide over the years. While 99 percent of his talks are in college classrooms, a few are in elementary, middle, and high schools.

“My 60-minute lecture is on veganism, the only way to express genuine kindness to ALL animals.  I do 30 minutes on ethics, 15 on health, 10 on what to eat/how to eat, and 5 on the environment,” he said.  He makes it clear he does not preach to the choir — the lectures are in private classes for philosophy, ethics, women’s studies, and other subjects.

Yourofsky has an impressive 15 percent rate of converting students from meat-eaters to vegan or vegetarian.  In 2004 at SDSU, a hunter came up to him after class, took out his hunting and fishing licenses, ripped them up, and while pointing toward his heart, told Yourofsky, “You touched me right here, man.”

Besides lecturing, Yourofsky’s activism has included civil disobedience, direct action (13 arrests), op-ed writing and protesting. He plans to continue educating as many meat-eaters as possible, which he finds the most effective method of curtailing cruelty to animals.

It’s great that many people are becoming aware of animal suffering and making a compassionate lifestyle change by embracing veganism, but from the animals’ point of view, change is not happening fast enough, Yourofsky said.

“Animal rights activists shouldn’t be ecstatic because Ellen is vegan, Ronnen appeared on Oprah and Foer was on Larry King Live. Ultra minor victories like that can lead to complacency. And that’s the last thing animals need from us. I expect a vegan world in 100-200 years, or a world void of humans, animals and flora. The earth cannot survive forever with parasitic-carnivorous humans,” he said.

Marti and Her Three Daughters

My mother Marti Paskal is a great role model for healthy eating and reducing cruelty to animals. She will also always be appreciated for supporting my decision at only four years old to go vegetarian, a passion that has lasted over 30 years.

Marti grew up in Ohio in the 40’s and 50’s when it was unheard of to be vegetarian. All the moms cooked meatloaf, chicken, and steaks. After her fifth grade class visited a farm, she was the only kid who refused to eat chicken for months after seeing how they were slaughtered.

When married to my father Peter Newman in the 60s, one night she sliced a grilled steak – then “Watched in horror as it bled all over the clean counter. I had an epiphany, striking with great force:  I was not meant to eat this poor, dead  atrocity that had once been a gentle brown-eyed cow,” said Marti.

She simultaneously stopped eating poultry — at the time considered radical — because she could not justify the cruelty to animals.  A few years later, our mother was chastised about not feeding me and my sister Dana “normally.”

So she fed us bologna — the very food that created my own life-changing decision at four-years-old to never eat meat again. We lived on spaghetti, grilled cheese, pizza, fondue, lasagna, enchiladas…..and string cheese.

“Given what we now know about consuming too much dairy, I was over the top with cheese; but we loved it (and other protein/calcium options were less well known),” said Marti.

When my mom moved in with her second husband Joe Paskal in 1981, they had an agreement he would eat meat and poultry at restaurants and she couldn’t say a word; but their house was to remain meat free. That worked.

Several years later Joe had his own epiphany in England.  At a lodge that took dinner orders by phone, Joe requested lamb chops. On the way they parked near a lovely pastoral scene of lakes, hills, and lazing lambs. Soon they were with their daughter Tara petting lambs and marveling at their gentleness.

At dinner, Joe took one look at his lamb chops, put down his fork and said “I can’t eat this.”

Today, with the healthy influence of Marti and Joe, several family members are vegetarian or nearly vegetarian and love visiting Marti and Joe’s Postcards Cafe on Kauai, Hawaii which has many veggie options.