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 reason he became vegan.

“I had kind of heard that, you know, the egg industry and the dairy industry are also kind of screwed up,” he explained.

He felt angry and sad about how animals are treated, and about what happens to them. He learned a lot from seeing the documentary, he took in and seemingly memorized a few statistics.

“Greenhouse gases from animal farming make up 15% of all greenhouse gases, it’s some ridiculous number. It takes huge swaths of land and so much water that we really don’t have. So we’re going to literally run out of water if we keep doing this.”

Russell’s statistics seem to line up with wellknown sources.

A ‘Humane Society’ fact sheet reads, the animal agriculture sector makes up 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Watching the film made Russell realize that there is “an unimaginable amount of suffering going on in the world right under our noses that most people don’t really think twice about. I thought it [all] was just really, really disgusting.” “

He thought about the animal cruelty above all. “I don’t think it’s very strange to look at an animal and say ‘you deserve to not live a miserable life and [not] be tortured or killed.”

Russell summarized his point of view: “I 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,

we’ve proven that they can feel pain.” He is open to talking about it to others. “So I would invite anyone, if you’ve tried going vegetarian, and it just sucked, give it a month, at the very least just give it a month, your body will adjust.” Spanish teacher Scott Stalder agrees with the difficulties of going vegan and demonstrates that going vegan is a process for some. “[My wife and I] went back and forth - on and off vegan. [We would] even go vegan at home but when we went out, we would say ‘oh this looks good, but it has grilled cheese’, or whatever. And then we went vegan.” To Russell, going vegan is the right choice. “Number one, it’s good for your health, it’s been proven that eating less meat and dairy and eggs and all that stuff, has many health benefits. [...] It expands your lifespan, it gives you more energy, it’s just good for you overall,” he explained. Stalder seems to agree. He sees a lot of pros his diet brings. “It’s low impact on the environment, it [reduces] problems It made me realize that there is an unimaginable amount of that people have with their health. I won’t have high suffering going on in the world cholesterol, I won’t right now that most people don’t really think twice about. have diabetes, I won’t have a lot of things that a lot of people would Liam Russell, sophomore normally have.” Stalder. But Russell does admit that being vegan is not 100% beneficial. “[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.”