Merryn Redenbach

How and why did you go ve­g­an?

I’ve al­ways been mo­ti­vat­ed to try to help pre­vent and alle­vi­ate suf­fer­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in those who are most vul­n­er­able. In our so­ci­e­ty, chil­dren and an­i­mals are among those who suf­fer the most from our bad habits of over-con­sump­tion, poor re­la­tion­ships and not pay­ing enough at­ten­tion to car­ing for others.

I be­came ve­g­an in 2003 when I re­al­ized that be­ing ‘veg­e­tarian’ wasn’t re­al­ly veg­e­tarian – an­i­mals lose their lives to the dairy and egg in­dus­tries as well. As I read more about ve­g­an­ism it be­came clear that it was the right choice: eth­i­cal­ly, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly and for health. An­i­mals suf­fer im­mense­ly when they are part of the in­dus­trial­ized meat, dairy, egg and other an­i­mal in­dus­tries. The en­vi­ron­men­tal and health conse­quences of eat­ing dairy, eg­gs and meat are pro­found. We’re de­stroy­ing some amaz­ing parts of the earth so that peo­ple can eat an­i­mal prod­ucts for plea­sure, not sur­vi­val. Our bad di­e­tary habits are caus­ing us dis­ease and re­duced qual­i­ty of life. And with cli­mate change, we’re at the point that eat­ing an­i­mal prod­ucts re­al­ly is cost­ing us the earth. The Earth is all we have!

Did you en­coun­ter any dif­fi­cul­ties? If so what were they and how have you dealt with them?

At first it was hard to ‘give up’ cheese, and gen­er­al­ly to get used to mak­ing dif­fer­ent choic­es. Some­times be­ing ve­g­an re­quires some plan­n­ing ahead – pack­ing your own lunch, ring­ing a res­tau­rant ahead of time to check their menu, tak­ing veg­e­tarian sausages to a bar­be­cue or find­ing the right place to eat out with fam­i­ly and friends. But, in the scheme of things, choos­ing soy milk rather than dairy at the su­per­mar­ket or a dif­fer­ent brand of bis­cuits is a small cost com­pared to the price an­i­mals and our plan­et pays for eat­ing an­i­mals. It’s al­so re­al­ly good for us psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly to prac­tice re­s­traint and make eth­i­cal choic­es. It’s good prac­tice for lots of other ar­eas of life, and makes us stronger and makes life more ful­filling! Just hav­ing more ‘choice’ of what to eat doesn’t make us hap­pi­er or healthi­er: it’s about hav­ing ac­cess to good choic­es.

When­ev­er I am tempt­ed, I re­mind my­self of the conse­quences of eat­ing an­i­mal prod­ucts on the in­di­vi­d­u­al an­i­mal – and it doesn’t seem ap­peal­ing any­more.

How have your fam­i­ly and friends re­act­ed to your ve­g­an­ism? How have your col­leagues in the med­i­cal field re­act­ed? Have you in­flu­enced any­one else to go ve­g­an?

My fam­i­ly still finds it a bit con­front­ing some­times that I choose to avoid foods they en­joy. It al­ways helps to show them the va­ri­e­ty and plea­sure of great ve­g­an food. My fam­i­ly defi­nite­ly recog­nise the health ben­e­fits of eat­ing more veg­e­tarian meals.

In gen­er­al my col­leagues are very in­ter­est­ed in the choice to be ve­g­an and very sup­por­tive when we choose places to eat out to­gether. Even among doc­tors there is some­times a lack of un­der­s­tand­ing about the nu­tri­tio­n­al as­pects of ve­g­an­ism: I’d en­cour­age ve­g­ans to pro­vide what in­for­ma­tion they can about ve­g­an nu­tri­tion ba­sics to their lo­cal doc­tor.

I’m not aware of any­one who has be­come ve­g­an yet as a re­sult of our con­ver­sa­tions – but it’s a re­al buzz when some­one says they are eat­ing more veg­e­tarian or ve­g­an meals. Quite a few of my friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers eat less meat now that they’re be­com­ing aware of the eth­i­cal, health and cli­mate ben­e­fits of ve­g­an­ism. I think it’s im­por­tant to en­cour­age peo­ple and ac­cept them mov­ing at their own pace – that’s how last­ing changes are made.

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

Be­ing ve­g­an has been a re­al­ly pos­i­tive, healthy choice. I’m con­s­tant­ly amazed at how much younger old­er ve­g­ans look com­pared to other peo­ple their own age. I think ve­g­ans de­vel­op a good un­der­s­tand­ing of nu­tri­tion and gen­er­al­ly make healthi­er food and lifestyle choic­es. Oc­ca­sio­n­al­ly I’ve tak­en iron sup­ple­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly if I’m drink­ing too much tea, which hin­ders iron ab­sorp­tion. Hav­ing said that, a low­er iron di­et is prob­a­b­ly healthi­er for men, con­tribut­ing to a low­er risk of heart dis­ease. Ve­g­ans should take a B12 sup­ple­ment though, at least a cou­ple of times a week.

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

Eat­ing out, you can’t go past the Most­ly Greens at Mel­bourne’s Vegie Bar – tem­peh, ve­gies, brown rice and tahi­ni: nu­tri­tio­n­al­ly com­plete and de­li­cious! My fa­vorite quick recipe at home is a red len­til soup I in­vent­ed while study­ing hard for my spe­cial­ist ex­ams: just cook red len­tils in wa­ter with some salt and fresh rose­mary for about 20 min­utes (while you study!). At the end, grind in fresh black pep­per and stir in the juice of a le­mon just be­fore you serve it. Peo­ple al­ways ask for the recipe!

Is there any­one who has par­tic­u­lar­ly in­spired or helped you?

One of my friends in­spired me to be ve­g­an and since then I’ve met count­less other im­pres­sive ve­g­ans. I find that ve­g­ans are of­ten in­spir­ing in other ar­eas of their lives: they’re usu­al­ly dis­ci­p­lined, com­pe­tent and high­ly eth­i­cal and make de­ci­sions about how they live bear­ing in mind hu­man rights, an­i­mals and the en­vi­ron­ment. Some of my fa­vorite in­spir­ing ve­g­ans are the crew of Sea Shep­herd: they car­ry out great, high-en­er­gy ocean ac­tivism and rec­og­nize that, in a world of in­dus­trial­ized food pro­duc­tion where so-called “by­catch” is used to feed land an­i­mals, you need to be ve­g­an to ef­fec­tive­ly pro­tect the oceans. There are lots of high­ly ef­fec­tive ve­g­an an­i­mal rights and en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivists around who rec­og­nize that pos­tive change and so­cial progress on­ly oc­cur when we make them hap­pen.

Have you en­coun­tered any ab­surd stereo­types, com­ments or neg­a­tive at­ti­tudes?

Some­times the fun­ni­est com­ments come from veg­e­tarians “I’m veg­e­tarian but ve­g­an­ism is too ex­treme”. Re­al­ly, what is the ad­di­tio­n­al nu­tri­tio­n­al val­ue of a slab of cheese full of sa­t­u­rat­ed fat and salt – com­pared, say, to cal­ci­um and pro­tein-rich tahi­ni on bread? Oc­c­ca­sio­n­al­ly peo­ple get an­noyed at par­tic­u­lar ve­g­ans and con­fuse their frus­tra­tions with an ob­jec­tion with ve­g­an­ism in gen­er­al. It’s pret­ty dif­fi­cult to argue with ve­g­an­ism in the de­vel­oped world when you make a rea­son­able as­sess­ment of the health, en­vi­ron­men­tal and eth­i­cal ben­e­fits.

What do you think are the most ef­fec­tive ways of help­ing ve­g­an­ism to be­come more main­stream?

Ev­ery time we ex­plain ve­g­an­ism to some­one, share a ve­g­an meal or ask about ve­g­an food at a shop or res­tau­rant it’s an ac­tion to make ve­g­an­ism vis­i­ble and more re­spect­ed. Solv­ing the cli­mate cri­sis will re­quire a shift to more lo­cal­ly pro­duced, tru­ly veg­e­tarian foods. We need to talk about how ve­g­an­ism will help us have a safe cli­mate fu­ture in our work­places and when­ev­er we have a chance. Pos­i­tive ad­ver­tis­ing cam­paigns about ve­g­an­ism are re­al­ly im­por­tant too.

Mer­ryn is cur­rent­ly ap­pear­ing in Sea­son 3 of the An­i­mal Plan­et se­ries Whale Wars, about the Sea Shep­herd Conser­va­tion So­ci­e­ty’s on­go­ing strug­gle to end whal­ing.