Lisa Tharps

How and why did you go ve­g­an?

The sim­ple an­sw­er is I sup­port life and I choose not to de­stroy it un­ne­ces­sar­i­ly.

Have you en­coun­tered any dif­fi­cul­ties in go­ing ve­g­an? If so what were they and how have you dealt with them?

The easi­est part was not eat­ing or drink­ing an­i­mal prod­ucts. The dif­fi­cult part is deal­ing with peo­ple who do not care about an­i­mals, and ex­plain­ing to them why I choose to be a ve­g­an. There are peo­ple who are com­plete­ly dis­con­nect­ed from what is on their plate, how their food got there from the slaugh­ter­house, and who are just not open to even think­ing about ve­g­an­ism. It’s dif­fi­cult be­ing around folks who say they care about an­i­mals but still eat them.

I ran in­to a wo­m­an to­day who is an an­i­mal rights per­son but still eats fish. Her rea­son is that she does not be­lieve that fish are con­sid­ered an­i­mals. I was at an au­di­tion and tried to ex­plain that when eat­ing fish, you are sup­port­ing the killing of not on­ly the fish (who are of course an­i­mals), but al­so the de­struc­tion of the ocean and the en­vi­ron­ment, and the other forms of ocean life that die as part of the fish­ing in­dus­try. I have to steel my­self be­cause af­ter view­ing doc­u­men­taries and read­ing ar­ti­cles on an­i­mal slaugh­ter, It has be­come in­creas­ing­ly pain­ful to see death on some­one’s plate just be­cause they’ve got to have that tas­ty meal.

I am a pret­ty good ac­tress, I am able to ac­cess a deep well of emo­tion that makes me good at my job. It al­so means that my re­spons­es to peo­ple’s ques­tions about ve­g­an­ism can bring out my vo­latile side. I still have loads to learn about dis­cuss­ing be­ing ve­g­an so that peo­ple will en­gage and even­tu­al­ly re­con­sid­er their re­la­tion­ship with an­i­mals and the en­vi­ron­ment. My chal­lenge is find­ing a way to tame the dra­g­on within, if you will, when I see the dis­con­nec­tion around me in ac­tion.

How have your fam­i­ly and friends re­act­ed to your ve­g­an­ism?

Most of my fam­i­ly and friends give me their full sup­port, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter see­ing the ef­fects on my physique! They ad­mire the changes I have made and the fact I am stick­ing with it. Un­for­tu­nate­ly they think it is a re­al­ly hard thing to do. But it’s not, all you re­al­ly have to do is ac­tu­al­ly SEE what hap­pens to an­i­mals and what is hap­pen­ing to our en­vi­ron­ment, then learn about the many, de­li­cious, food op­tions that are avai­l­able to ve­g­ans.

How do you feel switch­ing to ve­g­an­ism has im­pact­ed your health?

Well, to start with, I lost 60 pounds. Through a con­s­cious ef­fort in mak­ing bet­ter food choic­es, chang­ing my re­la­tion­ship with food, and through ex­er­cise, I am clos­er to my weight in col­lege, I am not com­plete­ly there yet, but am very close. I feel like my sens­es have been height­ened. I feel and touch in a dif­fer­ent way. It’s sub­tle, but it’s there, and I like it. It changes you, all for good, in­side and out.

What are some of your favou­rite meals, take­away or home cooked?

For take out I like Pad Thai with Sei­tan and Ja­mai­can Jerk dish. At Home some of the foods I like in­clude raw av­o­ca­do, spi­nach and po­ta­to bur­ri­to, and raw kale, onion and gar­lic to­furkey stir fried in al­mond sauce. I al­so like fruits such as man­goes and blue­ber­ries. The Whole Foods ve­g­an deli sec­tion, the one in the val­ley, ROCKS!!

Is there any­one who has par­tic­u­lar­ly in­spired or helped you?

Yes a dear friend Syn­thian Sharp helped show me the way. Be­fore him there were books that I read on the sub­ject of eat­ing clean, not ne­ces­sar­i­ly ve­g­an but eat­ing healthi­er. Then when I met Syn­thian he had a mouth­ful of knowl­edge and doc­u­men­taries to share and I took the reigns for my­self from there. Al­so, Me­lanie Joy has some su­per great books out there look­ing at why we love some an­i­mals and eat others. I at­tend­ed her pan­el dis­cus­sion at a re­cent An­i­mal Rights Con­fer­ence – it was bril­liant. Th­ese are some of the many peo­ple who have fu­eled my de­vel­op­ment as a ve­g­an for an­i­mal rights and hu­man rights rea­sons.

How do you think we can get peo­ple to think more about ve­g­an­ism?

I think gett­ing away from pro­pa­gan­da and the me­dia is a good step, turn off the tv and turn on a kin­dle (the new book), read more and learn about the is­sues, com­mu­ni­cate with peo­ple, and get some con­ver­sa­tions start­ed about why ve­g­an­ism is a good idea.