Vegan Action
Elsa Spencer, PhD
Advocate & Educator
By Lucia RiveraDespite the inherent difficulty that comes with activism, educator, and 28 year-long vegan Elsa Spencer, who has a PhD in nutrition and health sciences, has continually immersed herself in vegan advocacy.
“There was no promotion of vegetarianism, certainly not veganism,” Spencer said of her PhD coursework, but the research in specialties from epidemiology to toxicology suggested that “plant-based diets were the healthiest diets.
Spencer said that studies ranging from small to long-term reinforced this finding. “It didn't matter if you're talking about chronic disease, or acute nutrition or pregnancy or children; just across the board,” plant-based diets were associated with better health outcomes.
With her background in nutrition and education, Spencer recognizes the way her career and her activism interconnect, but are not one and the same.
“You don't have to be in a career that's promoting causes that you're attached to in order to be doing anything important,” she said.
One way in which her multiple passions intersect is through the legacy she hopes to leave behind, which is to help people understand whatever it is they seek to understand. Spencer teaches and tutors science, math, and biology.
She said her students often “didn't know they enjoy science, or that they were good at math, or that they could eat vegan [...] like they didn't know it was possible, and that they could do it and that it was fun, or enjoyable, or easy. But whether it's doing math, or taking on this idea that you don't have to eat animals,” or that a vegan diet can be enjoyable, her role in helping her students seek understanding is “pretty powerful. If I have that legacy that would be great.”
Spencer's vegan advocacy has also taken the form of working with different organizations like Camp4Real and The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG). As a summer camp consultant and food coordinator, Spencer has helped provide kids with nutritious vegan meals. As a volunteer, she has done outreach at events and fairs for The VRG. Spencer has been able to use her Spanish- and French-speaking skills while doing so, allowing her to communicate with a wider range of people.
For others seeking to become vegan activists, Spencer advises honing in on a couple of meaningful causes and finding a supportive community to work with.
To avoid burnout, Spencer suggests deeper investment in fewer groups, ones that work for causes that are meaningful to you.
“If you care about factory farming, focus on that. If you care about animal experimentation, find a group and focus on that. Or if you just want to work in your local community, find whatever group [that] is doing something in your local communities [that] you want to focus on,” she explained.
Lucia is a high school student and long-distance VRG intern in southern California. She has been vegetarian for almost 10 years and spends her spare time volunteering, baking, and reading.
