Victoria Moran

We've all heard it: vegans are cool and plant-based dining is hot. What other diet can promise to keep you trim without working at it, clear clogged arteries, save the lives of animals, and do more to stem climate change than driving a Prius—or not driving at all?

You never know what a man—or a woman—has inside: how much grit, how much courage, how much willingness to change. When someone draws on those qualities, you're looking at a person of substance. And power. And promise. This world needs more of those.

98 percent of the animals raised for food suffer horrifically on factory farms before being slaughtered. Every time you eat a vegan meal, you're voting for something different.

There are as many ways to eat a vegan diet as there are people who discover it. Just about any way you do it, provided you focus on unprocessed foods, include vitamin B12, and make a few adjustments for your individual needs and preferences, can be viable and health-promoting.

If you hear yourself saying “I could never give up ice cream” (or something else), realize that you may just be short on vegucation. There are lots of rich, luscious nondairy ice creams on the market … If you have the necessary information and you're still saying “I could never give up...,” listen to yourself. You're affirming weakness. … You're bigger than that. You can eat plants and save lives. You can give your life exponentially more meaning by living in a way that decreases suffering just because you got up and chose a kind breakfast.

Nothing fills us with deep and lasting joy the way that doing a good turn for someone else does. Saving somebody's life, human or animal, is that “good turn” in spades.

Cruelty to animals is an enormous injustice; so is expecting those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder to do the dangerous, soul-numbing work of slaughtering sentient beings on our behalf.