I recently entered and won the PETA-sponsored Sexiest Vegetarian Over 50 contest. After winning, PETA asked me to write a post for Prime reflecting on the process, so here goes!

First, I would like to thank all of you who voted for me. I am so happy and honored to represent our generation. But honestly, I had already considered myself a winner before actually entering. Not the winner of the contest, of course, but a winner because of feeling decades younger than my age. A winner because of not taking part in the inhumane treatment of animals by consuming them, a winner because of looking younger than my years, and a winner because being vegetarian is better for the environment. Winning the contest was a huge honor, as all the contestants had great stories and admirable vegetarian backgrounds, but one thing I know is that all vegetarians are, in their own way, winners.

Since claiming this title, I’ve given several television interviews and have been written up in newspapers and various blogs. Hundreds of people have contacted me telling me they are motivated by my story and are now trying a vegetarian diet. My Facebook account continues to grow as I receive notes from around the world from both women and men of all ages asking me for advice and telling me their stories. They show my television and written interviews to their parents or grandparents hoping to inspire them to become a vegetarian.

I’m still surprised when people ask me about my longevity secrets, as I don’t feel my age. I don’t have any aches or pains in my body, and I’m loaded with energy all day. Really, I don’t mind getting older; what I’m after in my future years is optimum health. I don’t let the idea that I’m 71 stop me from educating myself concerning health. I don’t think, “It’s too late” or “Oh, that just happens when you get older.”

As I talk to people both younger than myself and those around my age, I find that many of them are on one or more medications. They have aches and pains and are tired all the time. They listen to their doctors but don’t try to help themselves by researching any alternatives to their health problems or trying a vegetarian lifestyle. People eat all kinds of processed fast foods and animal products, not realizing that what they are eating affects their health. The saying “You are what you eat” is something I firmly believe in. Diet is important, and outlook on life is important. But most of all, I think that besides the inhumane treatment, eating animals and animal products is responsible for much of the illness and obesity problems in this country.

We are now aware that antibiotics and steroids are given to animals, that chickens are raised and forced to grow in larger numbers by keeping them crowded in pens, and that animals are treated inhumanely-grown, slaughtered, and brought to market as fast as possible. Imagine how good it feels being a vegetarian and knowing that animal products are not necessary for our health and happiness.

I’ve traveled extensively around the world this year, and whether I was in a medieval Tuscan village; Bogota, Colombia; or a rural town in Pennsylvania, I had no trouble finding and enjoying delicious vegetarian meals. I remember when I first went vegetarian 40 years ago—it was difficult to find things to eat away from home. Now, it’s a completely different story. I find most restaurants accommodate the vegetarian lifestyle.

Once you truly love yourself, have the desire to be at your optimum health, and have compassion for animals, you will not question that we are meant to eat from the garden and enjoy life in our later years pain-free, happy, and full of vigor.

Click here to take the 30-day Pledge to Be Veg.

Our dog Sydney loves all the same things that most dogs do. Mention the word “walk” and her tail goes into overdrive. Start loading the car, and she leaps uninvited into the back seat, hoping to go with us. Ask her, “Where’s Bodie?” and she runs through the house to find our other dog.

She wasn’t always this way. We adopted her from our local humane society when she was about 9 months old. They had found her wandering the streets with a collar grown into the flesh of her neck. The day that we brought her home, she was frightened of the car, of the stairs in the house, and even of us—a sudden hand movement would send her cowering to the floor. That first night we kept her right next to the bed, and by morning she had chewed a substantial hole in the box springs.

It took years, but she finally learned to trust us. She’s never quite lost her fear of being left alone, and we still wonder what happened to her in her first months of life. Was she lost? Abandoned? Abused? She wasn’t the most attractive dog at the shelter that day, with scars on her neck from the extraction of that ingrown collar and a short stump of a tail. But somehow she touched our hearts, and we knew she needed us. It made us miserable to see how full the shelter was and to realize that many of the dogs wagging their tails at us would be euthanized by the week’s end to make room for new arrivals. Back out in the reception area, we watched dog after dog come through the doors, scared and shaking, to be handed over by their families to an uncertain future.

I’ve been a shelter volunteer for almost nine years now. People surrender their dogs to a shelter for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes dogs’ owners become too ill to care for them. Sometimes the owners die, and no one from their families wants to keep the dog. These stories always make me sad. Sometimes the family moves away and surrenders or abandons their dog. Sometimes the dog has a behavioral issue, and the owner doesn’t have the knowledge or the patience to work on it. Sometimes the dog just doesn’t fit into the owner’s lifestyle anymore. These stories make me even sadder. But, one way or another, dogs keep coming into the shelter in need of homes.

Animal shelters and rescue groups are typically understaffed and underfunded. It’s difficult for these groups to compete with other sources for pets, such as pet stores and breeders. Animal shelters are often located in a bad part of town or lack the funding to stay open on evenings and weekends or to advertise their animals. So people look elsewhere for a dog, and potential loving homes for shelter and rescue dogs are lost. And then more dogs come into the shelter, and the staff must make the terrible decision: Who must die today?

Not all shelter dogs are like Sydney, who had a lot of baggage from her early life. We later adopted Bodie from the shelter where I volunteer, and he’s a normal and happy mixed-breed dog who has delighted in showing Sydney how much fun dog games can be. Wonderful dogs are waiting at every shelter. And if your heart is set on adopting a particular breed of dog, breed rescue groups abound and are always in need of good homes for their rescued purebreds.

Every time I walk in the door and see Sydney’s happy face, I’m glad all over again that we were able to save her life. People are always asking us, “What a pretty dog—what breed is she?” and we always answer the same thing: “She’s a shelter dog, and we love her.

This post was originally published in KP’s Dog Blog.

I love to garden. When I was younger, I thought nothing of gardening out in the back 40, rototilling, hauling produce long distances to the kitchen, and bending over weeding for hours. Now that I’m older, my gardening motto has become “Work smarter, not harder”: Why bend over if you don’t have to? I’ve found that I can grow more food in less space with a lot less work in planter boxes and raised beds.

I’ve tried all different kinds of raised beds. I even built our front walkway to incorporate wooden planter boxes with storage underneath rather than railings. After experimenting with all kinds of raised beds and planter boxes, I’ve found that the cheapest, easiest, and most productive raised beds can be made by digging up the grass in the yard and stacking up cement blocks.

There are only really three rules for successful planter boxes:

1. They must have drainage.

2. They should be at least 18 inches deep.

3.  They should be no wider than 2 feet if you can reach them in only one direction, and 4 feet if you can access them from both sides.

I fill our planter boxes with potting mix and compost. I am very careful to read the ingredients and make sure that I buy PLANT-based potting mix and compost, so as not to expose our future food to the bone meal, blood meal, manure, and slaughterhouse byproducts so often found in potting soil and compost. I plant really thickly and leave no room for weeds. The soil never compacts because it is never stepped on, and the few weeds that grow can be pulled out easily.

I’ve also found that I eat lots more salads if I have a salad-bar planter as close to the kitchen as possible. There is nothing quite like stepping outside the kitchen door in the early spring and picking lettuce, spinach, bok choy, parsley, and green onions for a big dinner salad. I add sautéed tofu, nuts, and whole wheat crackers, and voila-dinner is served!

Do you have any favorite vegetables that you’ve successfully grown in a planter box?

This post, written by Karin Bennett, originally appeared on The PETA Files.

PETA’s headquarters in Hampton Roads, Virginia, is well known to local residents, many of whom volunteer to help animals in their spare time. Thousands in the area have taken advantage of our low-cost animal clinics and the Bea Arthur Dog Park, which is open to the community.

But every once in a while, someone visits PETA headquarters with ill intentions-like the guy who dumped this sweet, starving, nearly-naked bag of bones in our parking lot late one August night and then tried to drive away.

Not realizing that people were watching, the driver shoved an ailing cat, who has since been named Nadia, out of his car, and ignored the terrified and confused animal as she tried to get back into the car, running after it as the man drove away. Fortunately, he was spotted by two PETA Foundation staffers who immediately approached him and saw right through his lame excuses for dumping Nadia on the street.

It took us more than 10 days, during which time the temperature soared to more than 100 degrees, to catch the poor, petrified cat. When we finally did, we rushed her to a veterinarian, who determined that Nadia was 3 pounds (!) underweight-she weighed just 5 pounds-and that she was missing hair on more than half her body, likely because of a severe allergic reaction to fleas. Nadia has been recuperating in foster care ever since and is waiting for her new forever home.

As for the heinous man who attempted to abandon her, he had his moment in court on Friday. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of abandonment and received a suspended sentence of a $1,000 fine and five days in jail. He was also sentenced to two years of probation, during which time he cannot own or keep any animals, and he had to pay restitution to PETA. Most importantly, he learned that abandoning an animal is never an option, no matter the circumstances.

Actually, to be more accurate, it’s the armadillo’s nose and the mole’s tunnel, but why quibble with semantics? I’m talking about video artist Sam Easterson’s beautiful videos shot from an animal’s perspective by mounting tiny cameras on their backs and in their nests and burrows. He assures viewers that the animals—who have included a sheep, a falcon, an alligator, a buffalo, a wolf, a turkey, and a tarantula, among others—are not harmed during the short time that they wear the camera, but as a veteran of numerous epic battles between domesticated cats and cat carriers,  I have trouble imagining attaching a camera to a tarantula without a struggle.

Nevertheless, the videos Easterson has created are remarkable. You can view several of them at the Museum of Animal Perspectives Web site. My personal favorite is the snuffling armadillo.  Those ears just don’t look real! Hopefully, these videos can bring us closer to the realization that all animals are sentient beings who also have a point of view, which is all too often ignored.

What’s your favorite video?

In the early 1980s, I received a complimentary copy of Animal Liberation from PETA. Within a few years, I became a PETA member and started to live my life from a different perspective. After moving from Chicago to Ocala, Florida, I started my own animal rights group, called “Marion County Voices For Animals.” We were successful in getting the local pound to stop using a decompression chamber and to switch to a more humane form of euthanasia.

We followed up on all cruelty-to-animal cases we heard about to make sure they weren’t swept under the radar. Then of course, we held demonstrations against all forms of animal exploitation, and we wrote countless letters to the editor. In the early 90s, I was arrested for crossing a picket line at a protest during the annual youth deer hunt in Start, Florida.

During this time, I met the man of my dreams, Bobby. We got married and moved to San Diego, where I continued to be active for animals. It wasn’t long until I was arrested again after a fur demonstration for walking into a mall still wearing a bloody fur coat and chanting animal rights messages.

After two years in San Diego, we moved back to Florida, where I kept up my fight for animals. In 2002, I was one of the top signature gatherers for the ballot initiative to outlaw gestation crates for pregnant pigs in Florida. I got more than 5,000 signatures to help get the initiative (that eventually passed) on the ballot! In 2007, I received the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Vero Beach Humane Society. The group gave it to me for assisting them on daring animal rescues. On one mission, I got 14 staples in my head after falling out of an attic while rescuing a nest of baby raccoons. After the fall, I still went back into the attic to save them, and all six survived. I also worked with the organization on a project in which we relocated almost 50 gopher tortoises from an 80-acre construction site.

I am now 46 years old. My husband and I have been vegetarians for more than 20 years, about the same amount of time I have been a PETA member. I had my first and only baby at age 45! After having her, I made the decision to serve only vegan meals at home. I want our daughter to grow up as compassionate as possible. Her favorite meal is steamed tofu. My husband and I get a great deal of joy watching her stuff her sweet little face with tofu. It’s really just so cute. My favorite meal to prepare is vegan tacos. I use TVP (textured vegetable protein), vegan sour cream, and vegan cheese. All my friends have tried them at least once, and they are a huge hit!

Animals are my passion and a huge part of my life. I live my life trying to educate others. So many people just never stop and think about the suffering of animals. The truth is, animals experience the worst and most vast suffering that exists in the world today. I will fight for them and speak up for them until my last breath. It is comforting to know that groups like PETA exist, exposing the truth about what really happens to animals on this planet.

What about you—how did you get your start in animal rights?

Benjamin Franklin once said that nothing in this world is certain but death and taxes. Tax codes in the U.S. and Canada are very charity-friendly, so tax savings are one reason that people make PETA the beneficiary of their retirement accounts. By going that route, you can save animals with your generous support, and as a bonus, you can do so without giving any of your left-over retirement money to the government. Here is a quick introduction to the processes.

Retirement plans are equipped with a couple of features that are sometimes forgotten—or too painful to remember—even though these accounts are among the largest assets many of us have. This applies to IRAs and 401(k) and 403(b) plans, plus rollovers and spousal accounts in the U.S. Same story for RRSPs and RRIFs in Canada (please see the note below for Canadians).

What all those retirement plans have in common is that money going into them was never taxed—it was deducted from your income when it was first socked away. But the government most certainly does want a chunk of it when you take the money out. Distributions from those accounts are fully taxed as ordinary income. Taxes are due even on the gains accumulated from investments within the retirement plan—they don’t qualify for capital gains tax breaks. (Roth IRAs and Canadian TFSAs aren’t taxed on withdrawal, so they are the exceptions to the above, but PETA can also be named as a beneficiary for them as outlined below.)

What happens to the money or investments left in retirement accounts when the owner dies? The remainder goes to whoever was specified on the beneficiary form attached to the account. This form takes precedence over beneficiaries named in wills and trusts. So it’s a good idea to review your beneficiary designations and make sure they still reflect your wishes.

Generally speaking, when death benefits are paid out to a person rather than rolled over to a spouse, the payments are taxed as income. In the U.S., it’s the recipients who pay up. The income is added to their other income and can push them into a higher tax bracket. When state or provincial taxes are piled on, the results can be confiscatory, wiping out 40 percent or more of the principal!

If all that sounds complicated and displeasing, here’s the happy and simple solution: Make a charity the beneficiary of your retirement accounts—PETA, of course—so that all the money goes directly to PETA and not to the tax man. If you have other loved ones to provide for, see if you can accomplish your wishes by leaving other assets to them, since those do not generally incur transfer taxes when bequeathed.

Making PETA the beneficiary of a retirement account is an easy way to include animals in your estate plans: Simply fill in the blanks on the beneficiary form. The designation can be changed just as easily, so you can update old accounts with minimal paperwork. If you do decide to make this commitment for animals, please use PETA’s full name, tax ID number, and address, and mark the relationship to you as “charity.” If it’s a 401(k) and you’re married, you’ll need your spouse to sign a waiver, which accompanies the beneficiary form (this doesn’t apply to IRAs).

Heads up, Canadians! For your retirement accounts, and donations and bequests to PETA in general, you may want to consider giving through the Tides Canada Foundation-PETA  Fund. Tides Canada is a registered Canadian charity (http://tidescanada.org/), but PETA is not because of our advocacy work. The RRSP beneficiary paperwork is just as easy, so if Canadian tax credits are important, you can only get those benefits by making the beneficiary of your retirement accounts the Tides Canada-PETA Fund rather than specifying PETA. The same applies to other donations.

So Mr. Franklin’s words are still correct about death, but you can actually help save animals without paying taxes.

gossipcheck / CC

I have always loved Michael Jackson. His music meant the world to me, and I was saddened to hear about his passing.

As a battered wife living overseas, I was miserable. It was Michael Jackson’s music that helped me survive that awful time. I danced wildly and with abandon to his music every day, resulting in a weight loss of 80 pounds. I used to think, “I wonder if that little kid from Gary, Indiana, knows that there is a terribly unhappy military housewife living far from home and family who is depending on him to get her through yet another day.” If we had had the Internet back in the late 70s, I would have found a way to send him a message to let him know.

It’s ironic how he always said that his fans helped him get through the difficult times in his life. When news of his death reached me, I was heartbroken. When I tried to explain my adoration of Michael Jackson to my kids and grandkids, they looked at me like I was crazy. They never knew the adorable little Michael of The Jackson Five; they didn’t grow up with his amazing roster of hit after hit after hit. They never danced to Thriller or Billie Jean, and they never heard the heartbreaking song he sang to a rat named Ben. Their idea of Michael Jackson was the “Wacko Jacko” we saw in the papers.

But I didn’t care-I still loved him and missed him, and I devoured every piece of literature about Michael I could get my hands on. I watched his funeral and cried the entire time. I felt like I had lost a beloved family member because indeed, he was about my age, and we had grown up together. Not only that, I was also happy that he had recently taken steps that showed that he was indeed a compassionate person who did do the right thing when confronted with the facts.

So it was with deep sadness that I learned that PETA had to step in when he abandoned the animals at Neverland. This was devastating news to me, and I found it hard to believe, given the millions of dollars he has spent on charities.

But it was true-he turned his back on those animals, and their destiny was to be farmed out to the highest bidder, not the best home. PETA wanted the animals to go to a sanctuary, but for reasons of his own, MJ never took the organization up on its offer to help. One can only surmise that he was not in the best state of mind.

I was very sorry to learn of the callousness with which he left others to dispose of his animals. It’s a tough pill to swallow when your idol falls so hard. How can someone who loves animals so much not make plans to make sure his companions would be taken care of? This got me thinking about how even people who profess their love for animals can sometimes not think deeply enough about what that really means. Here is someone who had all the resources in the world and seemingly truly cared for animals who unfortunately ended up abandoning those he claimed he loved.

It is time for another yummy and fantastic recipe from our friends at VegCooking. Enjoy this dish by Dawnula Koukol and let us know how it goes!

To smoke the seitan cut a piece of foil 6 inches by 12 inches and fold in half making a 6-inch-by-6-inch square. Fold the side edges at least twice, pressing each fold firmly along the entire side. Put the wood pellets in the pouch and fold the top to seal. Poke a hole in one side of the pouch with a toothpick. You will need a perforated pan or pot to go inside another pan or pot. The food goes in the perforated pan and the wood chip pouch goes in the bottom pan. Cover tightly with foil and allow to smoke over medium heat.

1/2 lb. dried cannelini beans
8-oz. can seitan (mock duck), roughly chopped
2 oz. crimini mushrooms, quartered
1/8 cup alderwood chips or pellets
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced
1 medium parsnip, peeled and diced
4 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 bunch Italian parsley
1/2 bunch thyme
1 bay leaf
3 cloves garlic
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
2 Tbsp. chopped garlic
2 stalks celery, diced
1 oz. white wine
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 Tbsp. herbs de Provence
Salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
1-2 cups vegetable stock

For the Crumb Topping:
1/2 bunch Italian parsley, chopped
1/2 bunch thyme, chopped
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. salt
2 oz. shredded soy cheese
2 Tbsp. vegan margarine

• Soak the beans overnight in water before cooking. Boil the beans in water until they start to soften. Drain and set aside.
• Mix the seitan with the mushrooms, and smoke for about 30 minutes. Set aside.
• Roast the carrots and parsnips in 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a 400°F oven until al dente, about 15 minutes. Set aside.
• Put the Italian parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and garlic into the center of a cheese-cloth square and tying it with a string.
• Heat a large pan to medium-high, add the rest of the olive oil and onions, and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté another 2 to 5 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Add the carrots, parsnips, and celery and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes.
• Deglaze with the white wine.
• Add the tomato paste, stirring everything together, and brown the mixture while stirring occasionally.
• Add the herbes de Provence, fresh herb sachet, salt, pepper, cooked beans, and vegetable stock.
• Lower to medium heat and stir continuously until the flavors meld together and it becomes a little thick. Add the liquid from the beans if the mixture is too dry.
• To make the crumb topping, mix the Italian parsley, thyme, bread crumbs, onion powder, salt, and soy cheese together. Add the margarine and mix evenly.
• In an 8-inch-by-12-inch cake pan, pour the bean-and-vegetable mixture and top with the bread-crumb mixture.
• Bake in a 350°F oven until the topping starts to brown.

Well, dear Primers, we did it! We are excited to report that our booth at AARP’s 2009 convention in Vegas was a smashing success.

For those of you who made it there, thank you so much for stopping by. We had lots of fun talking to you about how easy it is to pursue a healthy, compassionate, and ethical lifestyle, whatever your age. With the help of our fantastic Lettuce Ladies, we were able to give out nearly 4,000 copies of our “Vegetarian Starter Kit“  to the crowds of wonderful and friendly folks who came to talk to us.

If you attended and we took a picture of you with the Lettuce Ladies and Chris P. Carrot, you should be able to find it on PETA Prime’s Facebook fan page. If you are not on Facebook, you can also access the photos here.

For those who entered our contest for the $50 gift certificate to Whole Foods, we have our winners! Congratulations to Donna V. from Park Ridge, Illinois; Ilean T. from Bronx, New York; and Horance M. from Mount Olive, North Carolina. Your Whole Foods gift certificates are on their way!

See you next year!