Students polish off vegan plates

The first time Karen Coyne heard the word “vegan,” she wasn’t sure what it meant.

The future Newport Harbor High School English teacher had sworn off red meat since junior high, but she still filled her diet with animal products — including the Baskin Robbins ice cream cone she craved every week. Then, in 1992, she met a college classmate who presented her with a recent book on eating habits: John Robbins’ “Diet for a New America,” which encouraged readers to forsake meat, eggs, milk and any other food that came from a living thing.

Coyne stayed up all night reading the book, and by the time she finished it, she had made up her mind to pursue a completely plant-based diet. Thanks in part to her persistence, students in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District will have a similar choice on the menu this year.

Newport Harbor High, where Coyne runs the Compassion In Action Club, plans to serve vegan burgers in the cafeteria starting today. Meanwhile, the district’s nutrition coordinators have the goal of introducing vegan foods — which contain no meat, eggs or dairy products — at every secondary school this month.

“We’re willing to bring it in and give it a try,” said Todd Hatfield, the accounting supervisor of Newport-Mesa’s nutrition services department. “This has been what appears to be a hit.”

For Coyne, getting vegan food on the menu is a long-held dream. It’s part of a greater mission, however, as she has hopes to turn Compassion In Action into a nonprofit organization and to open vegan clubs in schools around America.

“It’s all about being compassionate,” Coyne said. “If kids can learn to be compassionate toward animals, it seems a natural progression that they would be compassionate toward people.”

Nutritional ethics

Vegans, who swear off animal-derived foods altogether, represent only a minority of people who refuse to eat meat. A Time/CNN poll in 2002 found that only 5% of respondents who called themselves vegetarians said they obeyed a strictly vegan diet.

For those who follow it, however, veganism is a passion as much as a lifestyle. Celebrities including Woody Harrelson, Grace Slick and Joaquin Phoenix — who narrated the anti-factory-farm documentary “Earthlings” — have championed the cause. Author Rory Freedman, who visited Newport Harbor High on Wednesday to talk to Coyne’s students, said she abandoned a lucrative career to dedicate her life to animal rights.

Many practice veganism for health as well as ethical reasons — and that was on Hatfield’s mind when he attended a conference last summer with the nationwide School Nutrition Assn. At one booth, a nonprofit society called Veg Advantage invited administrators to drop in business cards if they were interested in a campus visit from vegan chefs.

Hatfield is not vegan himself, but he had grown concerned over his intake of cholesterol, and his card quickly landed in the jar.

“Anything that can increase the overall nutrition in my diet, I’m interested in,” said Hatfield, who added that he eats Newport-Mesa cafeteria food two to three times a week.

Months later, he got an e-mail from Veg Advantage promising a visit to the first 10 responders, and he replied soon enough to make the cut. Newport Harbor High, where Coyne had founded Compassion In Action the spring before, was the logical destination.

On Jan. 17, the chefs congregated in the cafeteria to prepare free soy nuggets and vegan burgers for students, while club members braved the rain and distributed literature outside. Nearly all the plates were cleaned in half an hour.

Tracking the Vegan wave

Cafeterias throughout Newport-Mesa have long offered meatless burgers and other vegetarian items, but after the positive response at Newport Harbor, the district opted to push straight through to veganism. Ultimately, administrators were able to find the right products through their usual food distributors.

According to Newport-Mesa nutritionist Dale Ellis, schools would probably start with small quantities.

“We probably have more demand for vegetarian than vegan, and even that is not a large part of our business,” she said.

In the past, meatless foods have been a tough sell in Newport-Mesa. Judy Wheeler, the kitchen supervisor at Estancia High School, said she couldn’t recall ever getting a request for vegan food. Teresa McCarthy, the head cook at Corona del Mar High School, said her cafeteria used to offer vegetarian burgers but discontinued them due to lack of business. The school started making them again recently at students’ requests.

“It kind of goes in waves,” McCarthy said. “Sometimes stuff will get really popular, and then after a while, it kind of dies out.”

Veganism as a way of life

Coyne, in her fourth year at Newport Harbor, wants to make sure that veganism is more than a fad.

The granddaughter of Indiana farmers who raised cows to be butchered, Coyne founded Compassion In Action last spring with less than half a dozen students. This fall, she plans to teach one fewer class and devote her extra time to turning the club into a nonprofit.

Coyne has campaigned to raise awareness of animal abuse, appearing on Global Talk Radio and contributing a chapter to the book “People Promoting and People Opposing Animal Rights: In Their Own Words.”

Coyne’s message has found a few receptive ears around Newport-Mesa. Kelly DeBusk, a health teacher at Costa Mesa High School, hopes to open a chapter of Compassion In Action at her school; she converted to vegetarianism a few months ago.

Corona del Mar High’s animal rights club recently held a Vegetarian Week on campus, screening movies and distributing free soy meat and cookbooks.

Senior Melyssa Griffin, who founded the club in 2005, said nearly 100 students participated in the event. Afterward, she and her fellow officers asked them to fill out questionnaires, then posted some of the answers on Tuesday.

“I think that vegetarianism should definitely be something that everyone should learn more about,” read one comment, which the club members taped outside the school’s kitchen. “Especially the horrible conditions that animals go through.”

Replied another student: “I used to eat an insane amount of meat, and it was so easy giving it up.”