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.