As someone who was Vegan before reading this book, I enjoyed it and it reaffirmed my reasons for becoming a proud vegan.
I love the way the authors stress in every part of the book that you should be proud about your choice to follow your ideals and be a proud vegan freak.


"Instead of running from your freakdom, you should embrace it. Your freakdom is you living your life not as someone who is simply content to do what society says because it is the way it as always been but as someone who is living life with full awareness and consciousness. In this time of exceptional cowardice, your bravery will be an example to others, showing not only that people can change, but also that change is necessary. Being the lone voice of dissent is never easy, but the only people who have ever changed anything are those who have has the strength to stand up and say enough when presented with injustice."

I didn't expect to love this, thinking it was written in 2010, how relevant could it be? And it is AWESOME! I most loved the philosophy in the first part of the book. Very well laid out. One I'll keep in mind to recommend when people aren't asking me about my protein.

Blunt and to the point in their characteristic no-shit style Bob and Jenna Torres break down veganism into all it's moving parts. Perfect vegan primer for someone who can handle a little fire in their morality. The authors cover everything from why cheese is addictive to which brands of latex condom are vegan. (Note: non-latex condoms are ALL vegan, hypoallergenic and HELL OF easier to find not to mention cheaper.) Bob and Jenna are not hippies, they are not anachronists. They live in the same world as everyone else, even watching dumbshit shows like Always Sunny and eating Taco Bell. They prove that absolutely anyone can be vegan and give you all the starting info you need to get going.

Good book, written by feminists. But they are relatively decent human beings, and not too politically correct. The humor is from an era before SJWs surfaced. Some wordings probably wouldn't be acceptable today (in the US).
They promote abolitionism in the tradition of Francione.
The Veganism which is promoted in this book is very practicable. According to them regarding food you should basically just read the ingredient list and decide if it is vegan. They also name a few ingredients that may be nonvegan, and suggest to contact the manufacturer in this case. I don't think they mentioned the possibility of nonvegan packaging once.
If you eat in a restaurant they suggest to just ask "does it contain milk, eggs, butter, meat, or honey?". They don't say a word about nonvegan vinegar, nonvegan juice, etc which could be hidden in a restaurant meal.
Regarding clothing they say, if something states "all man made material" it is vegan.
Depending on your stance on practicability and your vegan socialization (some very zealous people or groups would call you pseudo vegan if you followed this approach) you may want to investigate a bit further to decide if something is vegan. This approach is pretty utilitarian (despite being disciples of Francione who considers himself a deontologist to distinguish himself from Singer, whom they also bash a bit btw.)
For me personally this approach is very practicable, I was more zealous in the past, but I think it is necessary that veganism is practicable (as the definition states also). They also promote being nice to others and propagate the importance of nonviolence which resonates with my opinion.

Many useful pieces of advice for people who want to go vegan, but face all kinds of difficulties in their environments - social, financial, convenience, knowledge, availability, etc. The only thing I found disturbing was the occasional bashing of vegetarians. Of course, vegan is the ultimate act of kindness and peace towards animals, and the only way to really minimize our food footprint. But haven't most of us started off as carnivores, and with growing amounts of consciousness first become vegetarians and later vegans? In Western societies where eating animals and their products is the default, I applaud everyone who starts with eating less meat, fish, eggs, and dairy, who goes the extra mile to prepare their own food instead of buying the ham-and-cheeese sandwich or the monster burger you can get at every corner. And usually, when people learn how to cook, when they get connected with other people who refuse animal products, when they get to know the excellent fresh, varied, and healthy vegan cuisine and start to feel better, not only physically, but also mentally, most of them will go all the way themselves. At least that's the experience I made, and a number of my friends did too. No need to put extra pressure on those who are already taking first steps in the right direction.

3.5/5

I have mixed feelings about this book. I understood why the authors were very upfront and direct and insistent that you should go vegan and STAY vegan - it doesn't help anyone if you're being wishy-washy about it - but I still had trouble reading it at times because I felt like it was quite negative. Perhaps I thought so just because I was uncomfortable being judged (I am working on being vegan but am not 100% there yet) and I don't think being vegetarian is the worst thing you could possibly be.
I definitely agree with being vegan for the animals, of course, but comparing someone who is vegan for environmental reasons as similar to someone who is opposed to the "trains to Auschwitz because they have a large carbon footprint" is just ridiculous.
I've been reading lots of vegan books lately and this one isn't my favorite, but it does give some good advice. The prevailing theme in most books is "If not now, when?" and that is what has stuck with me.

As someone who is trying to transition to a vegan lifestyle, I found the advice in this book to be somewhat condescending. It totally trashed lacto-ovo vegetarians as well as vegans who "cheat" every once in a while. I think the draconian message of this book is likely to discourage people who are on the verge of becoming vegan, rather than encourage them to take the steps necessary to complete their transition.

I would have appreciated advice on how to avoid temptation at restaurants and around the holidays. Instead I was made to feel like an asshole because it is hard for me to resist cheese sometimes. Although there was some decent advice on how to handle comments from curious and/or insensitive omnivores, it wasn't really anything novel.

However, after reading this book I think maybe I need to remember my reasons for adopting this lifestyle, and put a little more effort into completing the transition.

The best advice book for people who want to go and stay vegan about dealing with all the non-vegan bullshit they will inevitably encounter from other people. The most helpful piece of advice is these three words: MEEK VEGANS SUFFER!

This book will teach you to be a strong vegan and not compromise your animal rights ethics just to fit in to the dominator culture, which is full of people who are always looking for an excuse to justify animal exploitation. I'd recommend borrowing this book from someone (like me) or finding this book used, because there'll be a new edition coming out in the fall of 2008, which will be better.

See also:
- Bob Torres's book Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights
- Bob 'n' Jenna'a podcast: Vegan Freak Radio

I also really did not care for this book. The section on making your cats vegan just blew me away. As a vegan AND a student of veterinary medicine, I can tell you that cats are true carnivores that quickly become quite sickly when fed a vegan diet. If you don't want to feed your pets meat, get a naturally veggie pet; but don't risk your pets' health, and don't read this crappy book.

I do believe that in “Vegan Freak” Bon and Jenna Torres had the best intentions in mind but good intentions aren’t enough to convey such an important message. Plus some mistakes were made…

To start, there is a language problem. The language used in this book is not the language for persuasion, it is instead the language of confrontation. This is not the best way to pass on an ethical and moral code to strangers. You cannot confront someone during 200 and something pages and expect that they would change their lifestyle and views.
Not to mention that the usage of swear words does detract a percentage of your audience immediately independently from the message you are trying to pass across.

Jokes are another issue here.
Despite the fact that in several pages the authors try to pass as inclusive and non discriminatory, and for that I applaud them, there are lots of jokes made in relation to some types of people that are not in good taste. Mocking people for following trends, having certain tastes or being in certain “groups” is on the vulgar side and comes across as weird when at the same time the authors try to be inclusive.

There is a lot of good information in this book but it is mixed with some misinformation.

This book also does not consider the difficulties that people might live in that might make a struggle to go vegan. Being monetary, of general resources around, the environment the person lives in, the mental state of the person, etc.
It bluntly tells you that being vegetarian or plant based is still bad and only a vegan lifestyle is acceptable.
It would be much better to advocate small changes to reach a big goal, instead of just telling people to do the major change in one go. Plus, they basically state that going vegan for health or ecological purposes is not acceptable, and only should be done if you do it because of your ethics.
None of this sounds like a conductive path to a major change in society.

To summarize these are the changes that would have to happen to make this book a decent informative text:
-Promoting small step changes to a larger goal;
-Advocating for health and ecological benefits;
-Giving tips for a peaceful dialogue with people that might not be so favorable to vegan views;
-Actually writing a book in a way that persuades people to think about the matters in stake and draw their own conclusions;
-Not making jokes about any group or individual;
-Make sure that you do have in mind that people do not all live in the best that first world can offer.

Hilarious, abrasive, direct, cutting, precise. This book is a lot of fun if you don't take yourself more seriously than you take veganism. They don't sugar-coat things: exploiting animals needlessly is not an option. If you went vegan to feel good about yourself because you love (cute) animals, then don't bother. If you went vegan because you give a shit about the rights of sentient animals to be left the fuck alone, then this is probably worth a read. Denying rights to others is not a choice, it is an abuse of power, and it is violence.


Mostly a practical guide to living vegan, while Bob's other book Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights fills in the blanks where vegan ethics theory is concerned. They take a similar approach to Gary Francione and reference him a fair bit.


This is vegan education through a law/sociology/professor lens, it can grate occasionally for folks from less litigious countries, but it's also an approach worth being familiar with given the legal and legislative issues involved in creating change.


It will definitely grate on folks only in it for the feels, spiritual status, magic healing powers, or whatever... but whatever, Bob and Jenna aren't out to stroke egos. Animal lives being mindlessly extinguished matter more, and this is a book to educate people. It was useful to me in my early vegan years.


Some of the old Vegan Freak Radio podcasts are available on YouTube, check them out. They're a lot of fun.