Articles Reflecting a Vegan Lifestyle From All-Creatures.org



Becoming a Vegetarian 51 Years Ago: Thanks to Amanda

From Kim Stallwood
December 2024

My biggest disappointment is the failure to make the moral and legal status of animals a mainstream political issue alongside, for example, the economy, defence, climate crisis, human rights, and so on. Consequently, we continue to kill billions of animals for human consumption. Going vegan and speaking out for animals are important steps for people to take. However, optional lifestyle choices must be complemented with initiatives that seek institutional, political, and legal change for animals.

Kim Stallwood
Mandy inspired me to go vegetarian. I am forever grateful to her.

On January 1, 1974, I became a vegetarian while I was a student at Westminster College in London, learning how to cook French cuisine and manage posh restaurants. During the summer of 1973, I worked in a chicken slaughterhouse.

In September, I returned to college for my last year. I was anxious to meet up with my friend Amanda, who was in the year below me. She was the only vegetarian I knew. I couldn’t wait to argue with her, even make her cry, at what I’d been doing. I took out on Amanda what I couldn’t deal with in myself. My growing awareness of animal cruelty and killing.

Amanda and I argued back and forth about how or whether it was cruel to eat meat. I can’t recall the details of our conversations, but no doubt I came up with all the stupid and self-serving reasons for why I should continue to eat animals that I have countered ever since.

Thankfully, Amanda was unassuming and patient, hearing me out. Simply put, she won: Amanda convinced me that eating meat was wrong. Two years later, I was a vegan working full-time for Compassion In World Farming campaigning against industrial animal agriculture.

Looking back over a half-century of vegan animal rights advocacy, I’m embarrassed by some of my comments, decisions, and actions but proud of these accomplishments.

  1. The Kim Stallwood Archive at The British Library in London
  2. The Kim Stallwood Collection at Tier im Recht in Zurich, Switzerland
  3. My current project, Topsy the Elephant
  4. My leadership role in radicalising the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (now Cruelty-Free International) in the 1980s as a pioneering contemporary advocacy organisation inspiring many activists and organisations across the world
  5. My role as PETA’s first executive director (1987-1992) when I helped lead it from a Washington, D.C.–based regional organisation with national aspirations to a national organisation with international prospects
  6. Writing my book, Growl: Life Lessons, Hard Truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate (2014), and editing The Animals' Agenda magazine (1993-2002)

My biggest disappointment is the failure to make the moral and legal status of animals a mainstream political issue alongside, for example, the economy, defence, climate crisis, human rights, and so on. Consequently, we continue to kill billions of animals for human consumption. Going vegan and speaking out for animals are important steps for people to take. However, optional lifestyle choices must be complemented with initiatives that seek institutional, political, and legal change for animals.

Kim Stallwood
Kim and Shelly


Posted on All-Creatures: December 31, 2024
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