I’ve been vegan for more than twenty years. I was vegan throughout my pregnancy, and now I’m raising a healthy vegan baby boy. I am proud to be vegan and to know that no animal has to suffer or die for my sustenance. Like millions of my fellow vegans around the world, I know that the diet we’ve chosen is the one that reduces greenhouse gases and water pollution so that our planet can have the best chance to heal.
There are many millions of vegans, and our numbers are growing by the day, but in a world of seven billion people, clearly we are still outnumbered virtually everywhere we go. We are surrounded by friends, family, colleagues, and strangers who have not yet made the switch. They have not yet registered how much cruelty is involved in an animal-based diet, and how entirely unnecessary that cruelty is. They have not yet registered how badly our oceans, rivers, farmland, and air are polluted and plundered by the collective madness known as the animal-based diet. They have not yet registered that their diet isn’t as natural as they might have thought.
It’s crucial that we vegans have a way of reaching out to one another in common purpose. There is a natural bond between all people who cannot imagine seeing animals as food. We feel the need to create a community—a welcoming one that others are encouraged to join. No single entity has done more to create an international veg community than HappyCow, the world’s premiere website for all things veg.
I love HappyCow. I couldn’t imagine traveling around the country or the world without it. And now there’s something else I couldn’t imagine being without—The HappyCow Cookbook. Use it as a resource for your travels or for your kitchen, and you will be even more a part of this community than you were before.
—Emily Deschanel