I noticed that almost all the photos in the article feature meat or meat production. Seems a little odd to me, but I guess even many hippies are raging carnivores in America.
It seems like everyone in the community does a lot of manual labor, and it's really hard to get a ton of calories from a vegan diet especially when you need to feed 73 people.
Dairy and meat are calorie and nutrient dense. There are some fruits/vegetables/nuts that are as well of course, but it sounds like they mostly sell their nut butters.
The best nut butter is when they switch production from almond butter to cashew butter, there's like 50lbs of nut butter that comes out that is (::gasp!::) mixed in unknown amounts, so it can't be sold with accurate packaging. Hot tip, almond/cashew butter is amazingly delicious regardless of what proportions you mix it in.
There were tons of happy vegans at East Wind last time I was there.
For common meals, East Wind wasn’t quite as on top of the wide variety of dietary preferences people express as Twin Oaks was last time I checked, but vegans are most definitely welcome.
Are vegans welcome at this commune?