DATE: Saturday, November 22, 1997           TAG: 9711220329

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

A VEGETARIAN WHO WON'T EAT EGGS, MILK PRODUCTS

``I'm a vegan,'' Anna West said across the lunch table.

``From the planet Vega?'' I asked.

What a vegan was I hadn't a clue.

Our having been friends from her childhood, I expected it would be some crusade to enhance life.

We used to chat as we watched our dogs - hers, a sheep dog, Paws; mine, Labs Tyrone and Bonnie - play in the field across the way.

A graduate last June at William and Mary, she works for a plant nursery near Williamsburg.

``A vegan follows a very restricted form of vegetarianism,'' she said. ``It is a vegetarian who won't eat eggs and milk products.''

That startled me. I thought milk was the foodstuff beyond reproach.

But it has been my experience that intelligent women always have a cogent answer when they are bent on redressing a wrong.

The dairy industry seems more concerned with financial shortcuts than with humane conditions for the herd, she said. Cows, and chickens, too, are confined in narrow quarters, virtual factory warehouses.

I recalled the old slogan for Carnation's canned milk - that it came from ``Contented Cows.''

Hampton Roads is fortunate in having two dairies, Bergey's and Yoder, whose herds are pastured, I noted.

She was pleased to hear that, she said, but most vegans are protesting the entire industry.

Milk, I said, is considered the prime source of calcium.

A tasty soy bean substitute is rich in calcium and free of cholesterol, she replied.

I called Lisa Lange at PETA's national headquarters in Norfolk. ``Am I correct in thinking that women form the bulk of advocates for animal rights?'' I asked.

Not long ago, she said, women made up the animal-rights movement, but support for it is spreading toward 50-50 among men and women as high school and college students become involved.

It started with women because they are concerned with families, and they contest the young being separated from their mothers.

``Milk from the mother is intended for her calves, and we really shouldn't be drinking it,'' Lange said.

The calves, she said, become the industry's byproducts. Chained in darkness in small wooden stalls, they are kept anemic so their flesh will be pale. The bond between the cow and her calf is very strong, and when the calf is taken from her within 24 hours of birth, the cow bellows in anguish.

Direct with details, women reformers really know how to hurt a guy.

In my youth in the Depression, we ate cheap round steak. I never formed a taste for veal.

And I sure don't intend to now.

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