Michael is a programmer. Rachel is an English teacher and an artist. We both live in Seattle. Michael was vegetarian for 18 years and has been vegan for nine years. Rachel has been a vegetarian for 3 years and is vegan every January (veganuary). Every January, Rachel finds more and more substitutions or ways to alter favorite recipes to get closer to a purely vegan lifestyle. Rachel can be contacted for illustration work via Facebook messenger.

To satirize some of the reasons people give for not being vegan.

Michael says: Before becoming vegan, I don't think I ever used the phrase, "I could never be vegan." But I definitely said that it seemed very hard, that it was on a completely different level of difficulty compared to being vegetarian. But in reality I find it a total cinch. The hardest part is being in certain contexts where people make me feel like an alien who eats some kind of special, weird, horrible food. In reality I eat pretty much all the normal food, just minus a small handful of ingredients, literally about ten ingredients out of the hundreds of ingredients in the world.

I don't think so, but Wikipedia says he left most of his estate to an animal welfare organization.

Yes.

Yes.

If you like funny, snarky things, check out the genius that is Vegan Sidekick.

If you like unfunny things, the website Free From Harm does a good job listing and refuting many of the common objections to veganism.

For an empathetic look at some non-vegans giving it a try, and the emotional, ethical, and cultural challenges that can arise, check out the movie Vegucated.