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ONLINE RESOURCES FOR VEGETARIANS
(Updated 1/28/95)
by Bobbi Pasternak <bobbi@clark.net>
While vegetarians are not regarded with as much suspicion as
we were in the past, it is not unusual for us to find ourselves feeling
isolated. We may be the only vegetarian in the family or the community or
at work. I was the only vegetarian I knew for seven years. Then I
discovered cyberspace, that place between you and whoever you communicate
with via telecommunications. To participate, all you need is a computer,
a modem, a telephone line and the appropriate software. There's some money
involved too, but connecting to the Information Highway is becoming less
costly all the time.
There are abundant resources available online for vegetarians. This
article provides a sampling of those currently available. The areas
discussed will be commercial online services, the Internet, bulletin board
systems and electronic mail.
Please bear in mind that things change quickly in the online world.
Electronic mailing lists come and go. Resources change addresses. If you
have a problem accessing a resource listed in this article, please let me
know so that I can let you know its status or check on it and make a
correction in the next revision.
COMMERCIAL ONLINE SERVICES
Commercial online services include America Online (AOL), CompuServe
(CIS), Delphi, Genie, eWorld and Prodigy. Their pricing structures and
available services vary. All services offer electronic mail, enabling
subscribers to exchange e-mail messages within the service and with people
who have an Internet e-mail address. Special interest areas contain
message boards where members may post messages, read and respond. Real
time conferencing or "chat" allows users to carry on "conversations" with
others online at the same time. Real time conferences may be informal
gatherings or formal meetings. A feature available on all services except
Prodigy is the file library which allows users to place (upload) or
retrieve (download) text files and software.
In deciding which service is right for you, consider the time of day
you will be online, how much time you will be online, what services you
will use and your comfort level with the service's interface. The best
way to determine all of this is to call the service and ask a lot of
questions. If it sounds good, find out about free or reduced rate trials,
go online and see how you like it. Once you're on a service, here's what
you'll find available for vegetarians.
CompuServe has a well established vegetarian area in the Cooks'
Online Forum with a core of friendly and supportive members. There is a
vegetarian message board and library. A monthly conference is held at
noon, eastern time, the first Sunday of each month. Unlike the other
commercial services based in the USA, CIS is international in scope and
there are vegetarians from Germany and England who participate in the
forum on a regular basis. On CIS, the message sections and libraries
are searchable by keywords, making it easier to find exactly what you're
looking for. While great recipes and cooking tips abound, discussion in
the Cooks' vegetarian section is not restricted to cooking and food topics.
Any topic of interest to vegetarians is permitted (as long as it is carried
on in a responsible and respectful manner) and there have been discussions
of many ethical, environmental and lifestyle issues.
Due to the success of Cooks' Online Forum's Vegetarian section,
CompuServe will launch the Vegetarian Forum (GO VEGETARIAN) February 2,
1995. This forum will include 17 message and library sections
dedicated to vegetarian topics as well as a chat area. In addition to the
sections dedicated to various vegetarian foods, there will be sections
titled Nutrition & Health, Vegetarian Children, The New Vegetarian,
Outreach & Resources, Issues & Lifestyles and In Print & On Disk.
CompuServe has a reputation for being expensive, but there have been
two reductions in the hourly rates in the past couple of years, making it
more affordable. Another price reduction has just been announced as this
is written. In addition, there are several affordable software packages
available which can automate your sessions, allowing you to save money
by doing your reading and writing offline.
Vegetarians on America Online can be found in several places, but
most of AOL's vegetarian activity is centered in the Cooking Club. You'll
find the Vegetarian Lifestyle message folder in The Cupboard/Health and
Nutrition Trends section. Other folders of interest to vegetarians also
come and go in the Cupboard. The Cookbook houses the club's recipe posts
and there is a section for special and vegetarian diets with several
folders each for vegetarian recipes and vegan recipes. Two discussion
folders have been added to the Cookbook's Special and Vegetarian Diets
section recently. They are titled "Diet & Health" and "Diet & Ethics".
The file libraries contain text documents with vegetarian recipes and
vegetarian nutrition information. There is a weekly conference for
vegetarians in the Cooking Club Kitchen conference room on Wednesdays
at 8:00 pm Eastern time.
America Online's Pet Care Forum Message Center has a section
dedicated to discussion of Animals and Society. In this section, several
folders deal with animal rights and animal welfare topics.
AOL's advantages include a pleasant and easy to use interface,
expanding Internet access, and pricing that does not include surcharges
for prime time hours, 9600 baud modem access or Internet access. The most
common complaint I hear regarding AOL is that it is often difficult to
find the special interest group you seek. I've heard former AOL members
complain they found nothing on the service for vegetarians. We were there,
but they couldn't find us.
While Prodigy lacks the file libraries of the other services, it
boasts a friendly and active message board. The Vegetarian section of the
Food Bulletin Board is hosted by Member Reps Cath and Rona who set the
tone and provide an abundance of helpful information and recipes. Live
chat capability was added to Prodigy recently. Check in the message area
to find out if regular vegetarian chats are scheduled yet. A disadvantage
to Prodigy is the constant barrage of online advertising and electronic
junk mail.
Delphi has at least two areas of potential interest for vegetarians:
Custom Forum 112, Animal Rights and Vegetarian Living, and Custom Forum 39,
Hearth and Home. These areas offer message boards, file libraries and have
live chat capabilities. In addition, Delphi offers a complete gateway to
the Internet. If you plan on spending time online during Monday through
Friday business hours, though, beware of the significant prime time
surcharges.
GEnie's Food and Wine Roundtable has two vegetarian areas with
messaging, file libraries and real-time conferences: a general vegetarian
section and one for those following the McDougall Plan. Again, it is the
prime time surcharge that keeps me off this service.
New on the scene is Apple Online Services' eWorld. Coming to eWorld
in the first quarter 1995 will be The Natural Connection with many features
for the health-conscious public. The following features are planned. A
holistic "mini-mall" will offer catalog shopping and classified advertising.
The Holistic Resource Center will contain directories of holistic product
and service providers, a Reference Library, and publications. There will
be discussion areas and real-time conferences. The Natural Connection will
have a special Institutes and Organizations area where vegetarian and
health-related organizations can publish their newsletters and hold
meetings. Currently, eWorld is only available to Mac users, but DOS and
Windows software is planned.
THE INTERNET
The Internet has long been accessible from universities, businesses,
government agencies and military sites. There has recently been a boom in
usage by individuals from their home PCs due to the availability of "dial-up"
services which connect your home PC via modem to the service's mainframe
computer on the Internet. Unlike most commercial services, the Internet
is truly international in scope. From my den, I've placed files on a
computer in Germany and exchanged e-mail with a research librarian in
Estonia.
To receive an e-mail containing information about providers of
dial-up Internet access, send an e-mail to: info-deli-server@netcom.com
The message should include this line and nothing else: send PDIAL
The Internet's answer to message boards is USENET, consisting of
thousands of special interest newsgroups where participants can read and
post messages. Of interest to vegetarians are rec.food.veg and its spin-off
rec.food.veg.cooking. The latter is restricted to discussion of cooking
only, but the former is open to any topic related to vegetarianism and
discussion there is often heated. Another newsgroup alt.food.fat-free
is for discussion of very low fat diets (less than 15% calories from fat),
generally vegetarian and following the writings of Drs. Dean Ornish or
John McDougall. Alt.food.low-fat has just been introduced. It is for
discussion of diets which derive less than 30% calories from fat.
Vegetarian topics are frequently addressed in sci.med.nutrition, the
general nutrition newsgroup as well. For discussions about animal rights,
check the newsgroup talk.politics.animals. USENET newsgroups can often be
accessed via private Bulletin Board Services (BBS) and are also available
through America Online, CompuServe, Prodigy and Delphi.
On the Internet, real time chat occurs in International Relay Chat
or IRC. The hundreds of channels are each devoted to a particular topic.
One evening I found myself on channel #Veggies, teaching a woman in the
midwest how to make the perfect pot of brown rice.
Several Internet features offer users access to information and
files: file transfer protocol (ftp), Gopher and World Wide Web (WWW).
File transfer protocol allows you to visit another computer and retrieve
files. Some examples of ftp sites with vegetarian documents and the
subdirectories in which the documents are found are listed below.
Commercial servicesproviding ftp access are CompuServe, Delphi and America
Online.
ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de: /pub/doc/vegetarian. This site, at the
University of Hamburg, Germany, houses the collection of materials
available electronically from the Vegetarian Resource Group. In addition
to the text files, the DOS compatible "Vegetarian Game" is available here.
Also available is the World Guide to Vegetarianism. Compiled by Internet
vegetarians all over the world, the guide geographically lists vegetarian
restaurants, vegetarian-friendly restaurants, natural foods stores and
vegetarian organizations. The rec.food.veg newsgroup's FAQ (frequently
asked questions file) is also here, providing the information most commonly
requested in that newsgroup.
ftp.geod.emr.ca: /pub/doc/Vegetarian/Articles/ and
/pub/doc/Vegetarian/Recipes/. This site has the VRG material and also
boasts thousands of vegetarian and vegan recipes.
sunsite.unc.edu: /pub/academic/medicine/alternative-healthcare contains
health articles from the USENET newsgroups.
Gopher is a menu based system that allows you to search by topic.
One gopher site with vegetarian information is gopher.geod.emr.ca. Look
under the section titled "Vegetarian Info". This site houses the same
files as the ftp site ftp.geod.emr.ca. Gopher gives you a different way
to look for them.
World Wide Web (WWW or the Web) creates links between many of the
Internet's resources. A new and exciting resource for vegetarians, the
Vegetarian Pages, has been developed by Geraint "Gedge" Edwards. To get
to the Vegetarian Pages, use WWW, Lynx or Mosaic (depending on what is
available from your Internet provider) to go to
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Vegetarian/. This takes you to the Vegetarian
Pages and from there, you can choose a number of directions. There is
information about vegetarian electronic mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups.
You can peruse the World Guide to Vegetarianism at your leisure. You can
be taken directly to the vegetarian ftp sites where you can view, save or
print the documents while online. The Vegetarian Pages will link you
with information from the Vegetarian Society of the UK, Veggies Unite!,
the Animal Rights Resource Site (ARRS) and others. You can look up recipes,
environmental articles, nutritional data and more. WWW technology is still
under development, so if you find something doesn't work, don't be
discouraged. Just go back and try again later.
To access the ARRS directly, use this address:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/arrs/index.html
For a searchable database of vegetarian recipes, visit Veggies Unite! at:
http://www-sc.ucssc.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/recipes/
ELECTRONIC MAIL
Whether you're on the Internet or on a commercial service, you will
have electronic mail. There are also e-mail services which give you that
capability without allowing access to the other features of cyberspace.
All commercial services now have Internet e-mail gateways, allowing e-mail
to go between services or anywhere else on the 'Net. Cost involved in
sending and receiving e-mail will vary, as will the ease with which you
can manage your mail.
Even if e-mail is your only link to the information highway, you
still have a number of options for exchanging information with other
vegetarians and receiving vegetarian resources. The most popular of these
is the electronic mailing list. A list is much like a message board except
that it comes to you via e-mail and its use is restricted to its
subscribers. Subscribers post messages, sending them to a central
computer which then distributes the messages to all subscribers. Upon
receiving a message, you can read it and reply if you like. Usually, each
message is sent to each subscriber as it is received at the central
computer, but this can become overwhelming on a busy list with 50 or more
messages daily. An option is the Digest. When you subscribe to the
digest format of a list, you receive one mailing per day which contains
the previous day's posts. I highly recommend the digest format for those
first subscribing to a list. The following are electronic mailing lists of
interest to vegetarians with directions for subscribing to the list in
digest form. Do not include the <>'s when placing your name in the space
indicated.
VEGLIFE is for general vegetarian discussion. To subscribe, address
e-mail to: listserv@vtvm1.bitnet
The message should read: sub veglife <your first & last name>
set veglife digest
VEGGIE is also a general list. It is a manually run list, so there will
be a person reading your message rather than a computer. Mail your
subscription request to: veggie-request@maths.bath.ac.uk
In the message, explain briefly that you'd like to subscribe to the
list in its digest form. The Veggie digest appears every few days
rather than daily.
VEGAN-L is a list for vegans and aspiring vegans. To subscribe,
address e-mail to: listserv@templevm.bitnet
The message should read: sub vegan-l <your first & last name>
set vegan-l digest
FATFREE is a list for those interested in a very low fat vegetarian
diet according to the guidelines of Drs. Dean Ornish or John McDougall.
To subscribe, send e-mail to: fatfree-request@hustle.rahul.net
In the SUBJECT area of the message, enter: ADD DIGEST
The message itself is irrelevant, but you might want to let list
administrator Michelle Dick know where you found out about it.
VEG-COOK is a list devoted to vegetarian cooking. To subscribe,
address e-mail to: veg-cook-request@netcom.com
The message should read: SUBSCRIBE veg-cook
There is no digest option at this time.
VEG is a new list devoted to vegetarian recipes and discussion of
wines. To subscribe, send e-mail to: emailurl@flevel.demon.co.uk
The message should read: subscribe veg <your e-mail address>
end
Please note that when subscribing to VEG list, the <> marks _should_
appear around your e-mail address.
(Note: Veg-Cook and Veg have not transmitted messages recently. It is
unclear at this time if they are still active.)
Two e-mail lists are available for those interested in discussion or
information about animal rights issues. AR-TALK is a discussion list
and AR-NEWS is a newswire. (With AR-NEWS, you receive the e-mail but can
not contribute posts to the list.) To subscribe to AR-TALK, send e-mail
to ar-talk-request@cygnus.com. The message should read:
sub ar-talk <your first and last names> For AR NEWS, follow the same
directions, but substitute "news" for "talk".
You can obtain files by e-mail by using either a mail server or
an archive server. One example of each follows.
The World Guide to Vegetarianism and the rec.food.veg FAQ file
may be obtained by sending e-mail to: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
Include any of the following lines (and nothing but those lines) in the
message:
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/canada1
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/canada2
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/california1
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/california2
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/california3
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/usa1
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/usa2
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/usa3
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/usa4
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/usa5
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/europe1
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/europe2
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/other1
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/other2
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/faq
The FatFree mailing list has an extensive recipe archive, available
via archive server for those who can not access it by ftp or WWW.
To get started, send a message to: archive-server@halcyon.com
The message should read: help
You will then get information for further use of the archive server. Using
it will allow you to receive a listing of the available recipes then to
request the recipes you want.
If e-mail is your only access to the Internet, there are ways in which
you can access World Wide Web pages and Gopher sites via e-mail. To
request a WWW page, you must know the exact name of the WWW page you want.
Send an e-mail to listproc@www0.cern.ch. In the body of your message, type
the name of the Web page you want. For example, to retrieve the Vegetarian
Pages' home page, the body of the message should read:
www http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Vegetarian/
To learn more about accessing Gopher databases via e-mail, send an
e-mail message to gopher@nips.ac.jp and it will send you the GopherMail
home page with further instructions.
If you are interested in the Vegetarian Resource Group's
electronically available material but have no access to file libraries
or ftp, the VRG will send material via e-mail. For a list of available
material, write bobbi@clark.net.
BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS
A bulletin board system (BBS) operates in a similar fashion to a
commercial online service, but on a smaller scale. A BBS is generally
local. While it could be accessed outside the local calling area, such
usage would incur long distance phone charges for those outside the local
dialing area. Sometimes a BBS is free and sometimes a membership fee
is required. This information will be provided when you first sign on.
A few bulletin board systems with areas of interest to vegetarians are
listed below.
Perry Lowell (rollerskate@delphi.com) runs the BBS, SKATEboard
(Fidonet 1:333/359, Echonet 50:5016/359, or (508) 788-1603). SKATEboard
has specialty areas for vegetarians and vegans and can also be used to
access USENET newsgroups of interest as well as Fidonet and Echonet echos
in which vegetarians participate. Perry says to look for Fidonet echos
INTERCOOK, GOURMET, COOKING and HOME_COOKING and Echonet's
RECIPE_CORNER. For further information, contact Perry Lowell.
SALATA BBS is operated in Redondo Beach, CA. The phone number is
1-310-543-0439 and the telecomm parameters are 8N1. Salata supports
connections up to 14,400 bps (V.32bis). It contains an online database
of vegan recipes and many vegetarian/vegan files are available for
downloading. Access to Fidonet and USENET conferences are available as
is e-mail. All services are free of charge. For further information,
send e-mail to Karen Mintzias <km@salata.com>.
HealthMate Wellness System BBS is operated by the San Diego Knowledge
Network. The modem phone number is 619-745-HLTH and the voice number is
619-739-1912. HealthMate offers forums, e-mail and file libraries covering
a broad range of health and fitness topics. There is a membership fee for
this BBS. For information via e-mail, contact Lorraine Harris
<sdknownet@aol.com>.
ONLINE ETIQUETTE
No matter what method you use for telecommunications, there are some
basic rules of behavior to keep in mind. When they are followed, cyberspace
is a more pleasant place. Every commercial service, BBS and dial-up
Internet provider has terms of service governing online behavior. Mailing
lists will send you rules for posting. Read them and abide by them. It's
best to read a message board, list or newsgroup for awhile prior to posting
your first message. This will help prevent potentially embarrassing
situations. Remember that your words are all others will see of you. There
is no body language and no vocal intonation to help explain your meaning.
If you are unsure about posting something, don't do it. Never post anything
you wouldn't mind seeing come back at you next week or in the next
millennium. Do not publicly post private e-mail you have received without
the author's permission. Do treat others with respect and be non-
judgmental. When you disagree with someone, be sure to respond in a
manner that does not attack the person. If you're presenting something
as fact rather than your opinion, have the resources to support your
statements. There are those online who seem to exist only to annoy
everyone else--they are best ignored. Fortunately, most people online
exhibit behavior consistent with these suggestions.
VEGETARIAN KIDS ONLINE
Vegetarian teens and preteens are often encountered online, particu-
larly on Prodigy and America Online. Kids are welcome in the previously
discussed areas for vegetarians on these services. There is a folder in
AOL's Kids Online (KO) in the Clubs and Hobbies section called "Mission:
Animal Rights". It's hosted by a pre-teen named Mike, and topics include
both animal rights/animal welfare and vegetarianism in general. Mike also
hosts another folder with the same title on eWorld. Any kids who would
like to get in touch with Mike may send the e-mail to me and I'll forward
it to Mike.
RESOURCES
Phone numbers for the commercial online services are:
America Online 800-827-6364
CompuServe 800-848-8199
Delphi 800-695-4005
GEnie 800-638-9636
Prodigy 800-776-3449
eWorld 800-775-4556
To learn more about the Internet, the following books are recommended.
"The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog", Ed Krol, O'Reilly and
Associates, Inc., 1992. ISBN: 1-56592-025-2
"The Internet Guide for New Users", Daniel P. Dern, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994.
ISBN: 0-07-016511-4 (PBK)
If you are online and having a problem finding your way around, I'd be
glad to help you or send you to someone else who can. You can contact
me via e-mail at the following addresses:
America Online: NurseBobbi
CompuServe: 70302,3442
Internet: bobbi@clark.net
Those on Delphi, Prodigy, eWorld or GEnie may write to me at my Internet
address.
This file is electronically published by Bobbi Pasternak and the Vegetarian
Resource Group and may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes,
provided it is not altered.
The Vegetarian Resource Group
P.O. Box 1463
Baltimore, MD 21203
Phone: (410) 366-8343
Fax: (410) 366-8804
WHAT IS THE VEGETARIAN RESOURCE GROUP?
Our health professionals, activists, and educators work with businesses and
individuals to bring about healthy changes in your school, workplace, and
community. Registered dietitians and physicians aid in the development of
nutrition-related publications and answer member and media questions about
vegetarian diets. The Vegetarian Resource Group is a non-profit
organization. Financial support comes primarily from memberships,
contributions, and book sales.
An earlier version of this article appeared in "Issues in Vegetarian
Dietetics", the newsletter of the Vegetarian Nutrition practice group
of the American Dietetic Association.
For questions or comments on this article, please contact Bobbi Pasternak
at bobbi@clark.net.
Copyright 1994-1995 Bobbi Pasternak