LETTERS IN VIEW : Principles Collide Over Natural Products

Re “Faking It” (Dec. 17): So the vegans get free press in View promoting their lifestyle sans animal products. Thankfully, in America we have the freedom to choose what to wear, eat and benefit from (medical advances, for example).

I choose to wear natural products--fur, leather, wool and silk. This way my conscience is clear. I’m not polluting the planet with rubber and vinyl manufacturing plants. I’m not supporting those huge tankers that carry gasoline from which synthetics are made, and that in one accident at sea have wiped out entire ecosystems.

DANIEL WACHTENHEIM

Los Angeles

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I am willing to bet that vegans, typically, are conscientious about the environment. The refining of oil and the production of vinyl is extremely harmful to the biosphere, so who are they helping? Let them wear jute.

HILARY HARTMAN KIP

Van Nuys

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Have these self-righteous fonts of compassion considered the fact that by replacing all animal products with synthetics such as polyesters and acrylics, they are rapidly helping to destroy the ozone layer protecting our atmosphere, thereby threatening all life on this planet?

One wishes that the morally high-minded would consider the big picture and not simply their immediate emotional responses.

JOANNE G. MURPHY

Los Angeles

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Thank you very much for the balanced article on vegans. Usually we’re regarded as being strange or weird.

The point of being a vegan is to express compassion and pity through an active nonviolent lifestyle. As a vegan, you strive to do the least amount of violence the society will allow, thereby moving society forward toward living in peace, not only with other humans, but also with the creatures of the air, land and sea.

BERNADETTE M. AMAKER

BARBARA AMAKER SAVILLE

Los Angeles