Vance Lekmuhl, Lee Hall, James LaVeck and Harold Brown (l to r) speak on "Animal Rights: The Basics, the Controversies, and the Future" at the Vegetarian Summerfest.
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com, Inc.

Heather Mills gives the keynote speech at the Vegetarian Summerfest. Mills has just opened VBites, a vegan restaurant in England, that she plans to turn into a chain.
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com, Inc.

Lee Hall of Friends of Animals speaks on "Eco-Radical: What's the Relation Between Militancy and the Vegetarian Movement?" Hall explains that veganism is direct action (as stated on her T-shirt) and that veganism is a conscientious objection to our domination of other animals.
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com, Inc.

The North American Vegetarian Society's book store, at the Vegetarian Summerfest. On Sunday morning, I buy one of Victoria Moran's inspirational books to read on the train on the way home. When I run into Moran at the Amtrak station, I ask her to sign my book.
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com, Inc.

Heather Mills gives out free samples of her VBites vegan food, that will be sold in supermarkets. She packs my sample bag with vegan rashers, hot dogs, fish sticks and Greek style cheese.
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com, Inc.

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Terry Hope Romero (R), vegan cookbook author, makes her vegan tamales at the Vegetarian Summerfest and lets volunteers from the audience try their hand at tamale making. Romero's upcoming book is tenatively titled "Vegan Latina."
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com

Pizza in the dining hall is made with Teese vegan cheese.
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com

Vegan breakfast at the Vegetarian Summerfest includes home fries, a whole grain blueberry muffin, scrambled tofu, and fresh fruit.
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com

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During tonight’s plenary session, Jonathan Balcombe, Senior Research Scientist with the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, spoke about the intelligence and emotional complexity of non-human animals in a talk titled, “Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals.” While some of Balcombe’s information came from animal experiments, Balcombe explained that he doesn’t approve of animal experiments, but if the data is available, he wants people to be aware of it. One of the topics Balcombe discussed was the many symbiotic relationships in nature, for example, flowers and pollinating insects, and (who knew?) warthogs and mongooses. Mongooses will eat parasites and dead skin from warthogs. The warthog gets a grooming, and the mongooses get a free meal. He then stated that veganism is not a sacrifice, but a mutually beneficial relationship: fewer animals are exploited and slaughtered, while we get better health.

Hans Diehl, DrHSc, of the Coronary Health Improvement Project, spoke on “Modern Medicine: Miracles, Medicines, Money & Mirages.” Diehl advocates “lifestyle medicine” - exercise and a healthy diet. Diehl explained that our society needs a paradigm shift. Instead of taking care of symptoms with drugs, we need to take care of the causes of our health problems with lifestyle changes. Too often, someone goes to the doctor expecting a miracle drug to address their symptoms, when what they really need is a healthier lifestyle.

The Summerfest definitely practices what the experts preach. All meals are vegan and prepared with whole foods. Raw foods, gluten-free options, low-oil selections and a salad bar are available at every meal. The conference takes place on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, and the athletic facilities, including a workout room and swimming pool, are available to Summerfest participants. Every morning starts with group fitness classes, yoga and tai chi. Throughout the day, you can find people engaged in planned and unplanned outdoor activities like volleyball, Frisbee, soccer, and nature hikes.

After leaving the plenary session, I ran into Howard Lyman, who had spoken on mad cow disease at the plenary the night before. There was no Q&A at the plenary, but this late evening encounter on the sidewalk gave me the chance to ask him some more about the subject. According to Lyman, approximately 10% of Alzheimer’s cases in the United States are actually the human form of mad cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. CJD is frequently misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease because the symptoms are very similar, but CJD is fatal. While Alzheimer’s itself is not fatal, a secondary infection like pneumonia frequently is. Lyman told me that the state of Georgia, in the United States, has prohibited autopsies on people with dementia, in order to prevent contamination of their medical facilities with CJD. The threat of CJD is real, but money from the animal agriculture lobby is causing our government to stick its head in the sand. One of our nation’s biggest exports is red meat, and acknowledging that CJD is a significant threat in the US would jeopardize that source of income for this powerful industry.

This is one of the very cool experiences at conferences. Not only do you get to hear these expert speakers, but you sometimes get the chance to have a one on one conversation with them about an important issue.

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A panel of lifelong vegans, raised by vegan parents.
© Doris Lin 2009, licensed to About.com

I attended some great sessions at the Vegetarian Summerfest during the day today. First was the "Tweetup," led by Vance Lekmuhl of the "Earth to Philly" blog, where we talked about how we use Twitter and Facebook and found that a bunch of people were tweeting about the Vegetarian Summerfest. In the separate but related session, "Veggie Social Media," led by Vance Lekmuhl and Maynard Clark, we discussed how to use different social media for activism, for fun, and for networking.

A more serious session was “Why Raw Foods? Are You Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired?” by Dan Ladermann of Living Light. As with many things, raw foods is not all or nothing. The more raw veggies you eat, the better. I never thought about this before, but Ladermann pointed out that we are the only species that heats our food. Vitamins, enzymes and phytochemicals are changed when food is heated above 120F. Heating fats destroys the antioxidant qualities and are known to make them carcinogenic. I vow to eat more raw salad.

For me, the most interesting and entertaining session was the panel of lifelong vegans - adults and children raised vegan by vegan parents. They were very positive about being "different" from other kids, and found that the older they got, the more proud they became of their veganism. They also emphasized that vegan parents should allow their kids to choose whether to be vegan, or the kids will rebel. I asked whether any of them had ever eaten meat out of curiosity or rebellion. Several had eaten animal products accidentally, as occasionally happens to almost all vegans. One replied, “I’ve tried cheese and stuff. It wasn’t that exciting.” Another who had tasted cheese said that she found it unappealing, "like mucus."

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