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.

Everyone Loves Ellen

Whether you’re craving tamales, potato latkes, or something else for the holidays, you’ll find vegan recipes on the website of popular TV show host Ellen DeGeneres, who’s generous in providing veggie-friendly resources for fans. Since putting down the cheeseburgers and steak she loved and going vegan, Ellen has served as a source of nutritional information, shopping ideas, and more for her fans. Ellen is one of many famous vegetarians informing and inspiring people interested in becoming vegan.

Someone in the spotlight for his recent work and appearance on Ellen is Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, who realized something about eating animals made him uncomfortable. He also noted that factory farming is the number one cause of global warming. Cruelty to animals on factory farms has been spoken of for years, but perhaps the masses are finally ready to listen, and find it refreshing to hear from a new advocate on the disheartening topic.

We are not all lucky enough to have a personal chef in our homes like Ellen, but luckily she shares chef Roberto Martin with fans, and entices us by posting his cooking videos and recipes online. Martin moved in a vegan direction when cooking for a celebrity family whose child had juvenile diabetes.

Another chef who was a guest on Ellen was award-winning Wolfgang Puck, who whipped up a vegan pizza that looked delicious, covered with pesto and fresh vegetables from farmer’s markets. Ellen also featured Dr. Neal Barnard, founder of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and President of the Cancer Project, who educated the audience on the current American diet, saying, “We are not where we need to be, we are heavier than we have ever been, we’ve got heart disease, diabetes and cancer, and most of it is related to what we are eating.”

With so many experts and famous vegetarians willing to lead the way, becoming vegan has probably never been easier.  I am so happy the well-liked Ellen is one of the mentors.