D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
March 2006
D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
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Pass the Produce, Please
By Jeff Berg
Susan Alderman would like to have dinner with you. Just don't order a hamburger. With friend LesLee Alexander, Alderman has formed Veggie Nite Out, a group that is bringing together the meat-free (or meat-free wannabe) in Las Cruces. Alderman says that she wanted to meet like-minded people: "I had met a couple of people here at random, and then I met LesLee. We decided to start a group, and want to keep it as a dining group. We are just getting it started, for anyone who wants to eat with us and talk about lifestyle changes, especially those who might be interested in change, but have no one to talk to."
Veggie Nite Out has met at three veggie-friendly restaurants in Las Cruces so far. Alderman says she has been pleased with the turnout, which has been 20 to 25 for each meeting. "The March 11 meeting will be our first potluck," she adds. "Someone has volunteered their home for the meeting, so we thought, well, if you have room for all of these people. . . ." The group is loosely based on the Vegetarian Society of El Paso (VSEP), a highly successful group that meets once or twice a month and also sponsors guest speakers. VSEP is one of the largest and most active vegetarian groups in the country. Alderman is an articulate and well-spoken professional woman who has two dogs, six cats, and any number of rescued birds living with her at her home just east of Las Cruces. She is one of a small number of people who have been able to make the transition to a vegan lifestyle. Veganism, as Alderman practices it, means eschewing all animal products in her diet as well as in day-to-day activities. No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no honey, no wool, no leather, no household products that are tested on animals. Unlike vegetarianism, which usually just signifies a dietary preference, Alderman's veganism takes much more of a mindful effort, as it requires conscious choices throughout her daily routine. This has not always been her way of life, however. "I became a vegetarian at age 24, and a vegan at 31," she says. As a pharmacy student a few years back, Alderman says, she had the mindset that "drugs will fix me," when she was hospitalized with asthma. She noted that the numerous medications she was taking at that time, and the steroids that she took for years afterward, did nothing to help her condition. "After three days in the hospital, I signed myself out. I began reading books about diet, and at first I gave up cheese. I also gave up all of the medications that I had been taking. No one had ever told me how important diet is" in terms of good health. Other dairy products were soon excised from her diet, as Alderman became more aware of their effect on her health and of various food fallacies. Her path to veganism started as a health-related decision, but the more she read, the more she worked on the switch for ethical reasons, not to mention her commitment to nonviolence. The horror stories about how meat is produced are numerous and well documented, she says. Factory farming practices, the unnecessary destruction of natural resources that stem from the raising of livestock and other health issues (ever hear of "mad carrot disease," "tofu flu" or "broccolilousis"?) are more common now than ever before. But for some people, the transition can still
be hard. Alderman says, "It
is a difficult thing to change your diet. When you look at the hamburger
you are eating, you don't see the actual animal." Alderman's compassion toward living things without thumbs is also reflected in her work with the Dona Ana County Humane Society, where she does volunteer work. She also works with various bird rehabilitators in the area, who often give her birds that are not releasable to the wild, even after their injuries have healed. The number of residents in her home aviary, including some rescued chickens, finds her purchasing 300 pounds of birdseed at a time.
"As a child, I was always rescuing cats," Alderman recalls. "I started doing that when I was seven years old in Brooklyn [where she is originally from]. My mother did not like that," she adds with a smile. The slight contradiction in Alderman's lifestyle, however, is that she is still in a profession that she seems to have lost faith in. As a pharmacist, she says, "I think I am hurting people. People take the pills because they don't want to change their lifestyle. It's too easy that way." But while considering career changes, perhaps to a fulltime wildlife rehabilitator or lifestyle counselor, she works in other ways to help people who are looking to change how and what they consume. She has taken classes and studied nutrition and continued to learn how detrimental a bad diet can be for people. Speaking of lifestyle change, Alderman stresses that "anyone can do it. It is important to empower people, and to remember that you are in charge of your health." With the increased interest in compassionate or healthier eating, a number of people who have stopped using or ingesting select animal-related products—but not all—are calling themselves "vegetarian." Hardcore veg-heads often scoff at this, and also at the new term "flexitarian," which is supposed to help label someone who is "usually" a vegetarian, but occasionally has a meal with meat or sea-life (to vegetarians, it's not "seafood"). But even in this, Alderman has compassion. She says, "Don't call yourself 'vegetarian,' just say that you are 90 percent vegetarian or whatever. Do it to the degree you are comfortable with. Everyone can do it." And Alderman, whose asthma is long gone, also has her own guilty pleasures when it comes to her lifestyle—chocolate and shoes (but not in the same recipe). She claims to have a mouth-watering recipe for "tofu chocolate cheesecake," adding, "Who am I kidding? Chocolate anything is usually fine." She also notes that Oreo cookies are vegan. She then shows off her stylish non-leather shoes. "When I moved here, I must have given away 40-50 pairs of shoes!" "There are a lot of Web sites now where you can order cruelty free
products," she adds with a smile.
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