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When third-year law student Vicki Steiner came face-to-face with a cow at a zoo in Chicago, she vowed never to consume animal products again.

“I couldn’t help but make a connection with this beautiful creature and what we call ‘meat,’” Steiner said.

Steiner became a vegan, eliminating meat, dairy, eggs and refined sugar from her diet. Her subsequent involvement in the animal rights movement reflects a larger fact of life for many vegans – that the vegan lifestyle extends far beyond the dinner table.

“I think most vegans are vegans because of an association with animal welfare or animal rights issues,” Steiner said.

Third-year sociology and policy studies student Erica Sutherland, co-founder of the on-campus Students for Animal Liberation, became vegan when she was 14 after attending an animal rights club meeting at her boarding school. After the meeting Sutherland wasn’t initially convinced, so she wrote letters to 50 different animal rights organizations, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and In Defense of Animals.

“Over the next three months I received tons of information in the mail,” Sutherland said. “I became convinced that it wasn’t just one group’s opinion, but that there was no other ethical lifestyle.”

After eliminating animal products from their diets and wardrobes, both Steiner and Sutherland became more involved in animal rights issues.

“My personal interest is in using the media to educate the public about the cruelties faced by animals used for food,” Steiner said.

Steiner currently serves as the treasurer and director of animal legislation for the UCLA School of Law Student Animal Legal Defense Fund.

“I am particularly interested in approaching (animal) issues through the legislature,” she said.

Sutherland began her involvement by volunteering at animal shelters. Her interests eventually expanded to include issues of animal welfare and liberation, and she soon started attending demonstrations against the factory farm and fur industries, and against laboratory testing on animals.

“I don’t hesitate now to support more radical animal rights organizations,” Sutherland said.

Active participation in animal rights helps vegans live in a meat-centered world, where they face stereotypes and jokes every day.

“At demos, people will shout stuff like, ‘Get a life!’ or ‘Why don’t you do something for humans?’” she said. “I’m not interested in wasting my breath on those kinds of people.”

Steiner makes an active effort to educate non-vegans by example.

“When I do eat with non-vegans, I always try not to preach, but rather offer explanations for why I eat the way I do,” she said.

Dwelling among animal consumers poses fewer problems for vegans at UCLA and in Los Angeles than elsewhere.

“L.A. is probably the easiest place I’ve ever lived to be vegan,” Sutherland said. “People always say, ‘It’s too hard to be vegan at UCLA.’ That’s the biggest cop-out, though, because there’s always an option.”

As a law student, Steiner finds on-campus vegan eating more difficult, since she spends more time on campus each day and doesn’t always “have time to pack a lunch or buy groceries.”

“I think it’s getting easier to be vegan in our society as more and more people become enlightened, and more cruelty-free food choices become available,” Steiner said.

She produced a vegan and vegetarian dining guide that she distributes at the law school.

While the majority of vegans excise animal products from their life as part of a larger interest in animal rights issues, others become vegan for health or environmental reasons.

Doctors often prescribe a vegan diet, which is low in cholesterol and lacks the accumulation of pesticides and hormones that are more concentrated in animal products than in plants.

“A lot of older people are vegan for health reasons,” Sutherland said. “But those are usually the people who will still wear leather. They are definitely not animal rights activists.”

According to Sutherland, many environmental activists also adopt a vegan lifestyle since the factory farm industry takes a major toll on the environment.

Overall, though, vegans continue to live in a predominantly meat-centered world.

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