What do you make of Huntingdon Life Science's close brush with bankruptcy, thanks to massive and sustained public protest in England?

I think the sooner Huntingdon Life Science and other labs like them are out of business the better off we all will be. I don't see them as providing a service. They are getting potentially dangerous products on the market using out-of-date animal testing methods that are a hair's breadth away from a sham and obviously extremely cruel. Frankly, I suspect you would almost have to be a psychopath to work in a place like that. If you've seen the undercover videotapes recovered from Huntingdon and other labs, you've seen people quite literally torturing animals. If the job is to take animals, restrain them and force them to inhale or digest toxic substances day after day -- the Mother Teresas of the world aren't going to take that job. And you can imagine who will.

Given the formidable institutions and industries you're up against, is it hard to be optimistic?

It depends on what we're talking about. Do I think that every American is going to quit smoking? No, I think that one in four is going to hold on to it for their entire lives. Do I think every American is going to adopt a healthy diet? No, certainly not. But many do. So my goal is to promote this information as vigorously as possible. And luckily everybody makes their dietary decisions one meal at a time.

We are winning ground dramatically. You only have to look at all the new health food products on the shelves to see that. Let's face it, 10 years ago if you wanted to buy a veggie burger, you would have to find a little store with dusty shelves and someone at the cash register named Sunshine wearing a tie-dyed shirt and listening to folk music. And you wanted to kill yourself.

Nowadays, not only are health food stores huge and ripe with thousands of wonderful products, you can also find these products at regular grocery stores and in restaurants. That doesn't mean that everyone is going to choose these healthy options, but it does demonstrate that there is a huge demand for them.

We also have celebrities joining us. You may have seen our ads with Ed Asner or Mary Lou Henner or Kevin Eubanks, the musician from "The Tonight Show." And Keenan Ivory Wayans, he's a vegan.

And Ted Nugent isn't as popular as he once was.

Talk about sexual dysfunction. Even the Ted Nugents of the world -- I don't think of them as nonvegetarians, I think of them as pre-vegetarians. And once his rather public and extroverted mating ritual ends I think he'll be able to play his guitar and also be a little bit more thoughtful about the world around him. I mean it's embarrassing.

I was struck by a statement Indian cabinet minister Maneka Gandhi made about the treatment of cattle in India and the encroaching "McDonaldization" of the Indian diet. She thoroughly understands your position that cycling grain through animals raised to be eaten is both detrimental to human health and cruel to animals. Why do you think we lack these kinds of advocates in our national government?

I think it's time to up your Prozac dose! The world is not so bleak as you paint it. There are many people advocating for healthy diets and they are getting results. The Dean Ornishes of the world may have been rare 20 years ago, but they are here today. This is a battle we are winning.

But there are not so many elected officials.

Oh, they'll come along. Dick Cheney has had his fourth heart attack. Man, I'll tell you, that is a guy who is so ripe to go vegetarian. As soon as he figures out that Dean Ornish has shown that you can reverse heart disease with a vegetarian diet, exercise and not smoking, he'll do it.

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