Veganism creates community at Sequoia BY STAN HAMELIN Staff Reporter When Liam Russell pressed play, he saw something he was not expecting. It changed his life. Dominion, an Australian film, displays behind-the-scenes footage of the dairy, meat and egg industries - with an emphasis on the cruelty inflicted upon animals. Although all footage is from Australia, there is a notice at the beginning of the movie that “all material, … in most cases, represents the industry standards across the world.” Russell had been vegetarian for a few months before watching it; watching it was the we’ve proven that they can feel pain.” reason he became vegan. He is open to talking about it to others. “So “I had kind of heard that, you know, the egg industry and the dairy industry are also kind I would invite anyone, if you’ve tried going vegetarian, and it just sucked, give it a month, of screwed up,” he explained. He felt angry and sad about how animals at the very least just give it a month, your body are treated, and about what happens to them. will adjust.” Spanish teacher Scott Stalder agrees He learned a lot from seeing the documentary, he took in and seemingly memorized a few with the difficulties of going vegan and demonstrates that going vegan is a process for statistics. “Greenhouse gases from animal farming some. “[My wife and I] went back and forth - on make up 15% of all greenhouse gases, it’s some ridiculous number. It takes huge swaths of land and off vegan. [We would] even go vegan at and so much water that we really don’t have. So home but when we went out, we would say ‘oh we’re going to literally run out of water if we this looks good, but it has grilled cheese’, or whatever. And then we went vegan.” keep doing this.” To Russell, going vegan is the right choice. Russell’s statistics seem to line up with well“Number one, it’s good for your health, it’s known sources. been proven that eating less meat and dairy A ‘Humane Society’ fact sheet reads, the animal agriculture sector makes up 18% of all and eggs and all that stuff, has many health benefits. [...] It expands your lifespan, it gives greenhouse gas emissions. Watching the film made Russell realize you more energy, it’s just good for you overall,” that there is “an unimaginable amount of he explained. Stalder seems to agree. He sees a lot suffering going on in the world right under of pros his diet brings. our noses that most “It’s low people don’t really impact on the think twice about. I environment, it thought it [all] was [reduces] problems just really, really that people have disgusting.” It made me realize that there with their health. He thought is an unimaginable amount of I won’t have high about the animal cholesterol, I won’t cruelty above all. “I suffering going on in the world have diabetes, I don’t think it’s very right now that most people won’t have a lot of strange to look at an don’t really think twice about. things that a lot animal and say ‘you of people would deserve to not live normally have.” a miserable life and Liam Russell, sophomore Stalder. [not] be tortured or But Russell does killed.” Russell summarized his point of view: “I admit that being vegan is not 100% beneficial.
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mean sure, [animals] are not as intelligent as we are. But they have nerves. They have brains. They’re not too different from us. We’ve shown,
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“[Going vegan ] kind of sucked at first, because there [were about] two or three weeks
where my body was still adjusting to it, I didn’t really know how to get enough protein. So I felt kind of tired and lethargic. After two, three weeks, ... a month, or even less than that, your body gets used to it. And you start feeling fine. And all of a sudden, it was like, ‘Oh, wait, I could do this.’ With all these emotions swirling, he decided to create something that could help his community - he would start a club at school. The club is now established at Sequoia and holds weekly meetings in front of the school. The requirements of the plant-based eating club are simple, Russell said. “There are none. Zero. You don’t have to be a vegan, you don’t have to be a vegetarian. If you have expressed any interest in it, just come along.” Chloe Johnson, an active club member and senior at Sequoia, seems to be an example of this statement. She explains, “I love fish, I’ll eat chicken…” “Right now a lot of it is just sharing vegan recipes that went really well for us, or what didn’t go well, because there’s a lot of trial and error and cooking. ... So [the club] just makes it a lot easier and more accessible to be vegan -we have a community around being vegan… We’re also trying to find a way to get vegan cafeteria menu options. ... I also want to show movie screenings of, you know, all the slaughterhouse videos, that kind of thing - if school lets me, which I’m going to try to make them,” Russell explains. Stalder, who became the club advisor, thinks the vegan club can bring community to Sequoia, which the vegan world lacks. “Even now, there is a lot online, but then we’ll go to restaurants and other places and talk to other people but we don’t really have ... much of a community,” Stalder said. “I hope that it can just really bring community to people that are already either eating one day without meat, eating no meat at all, experiment, vegan pescetarian, or something to bring those people together, make them have some support.”
