Vegetarian Star

Photo Credit: Craig Davidson

Besides the whole Freedom of Speech thing, NYC, and baseball, name some great things about the United States of America.

Add Leilani Munter to your list, as the vegetarian race car driver who races with divisions of both NASCAR and IndyCar has made Reader’s Digest’s 10 Reasons to Love Our Country.

“Münter, 33, who’s both a stock-car and open-wheel driver, has made it her mission to “green” big-time auto racing—which, at 100 million strong, may have the most enthusiastic fan base on the planet. Her goals: renewable biofuels and recycled tires for the cars and recycling programs at the tracks. For doubters, she has a message: “Never underestimate a vegetarian hippie chick with a race car.””

Leilani consistently delivers her message as an environmentalist through public speaking engagements, interviews, and her website, carbonfreegirl.com.

Not to mention she’s lightening her carbon footprint every time she sits down at the dinner table and consumes a plant based meal.

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,” she said, “are the ones who end up doing it.”

What can we say? We love those crazy girls.

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Yesterday we told you vegan cookbook author Isa Chandra Moskowitz was featured in Grist.org’s 13 Badass Greens for her vegan cooking show and delicious recipes that can lighten your footprint by shedding that heavy egg and dairy.

But who is the greenest badass of all?

None other than vegetarian race car driver Leilani Munter.

“Stunt double? Check. Race car driver? Check. Biologist and conservation activist? Uh, OK. Munter doesn’t mess around when it comes to the environment: she hopes to educate racing’s 100 million racing fans about green living, serves as an ambassador for the National Wildlife Federation, has testified on Capitol Hill, and wants to convince her industry to use more alternative fuels. Says this CarbonFreeGirl: “Just because you’re green … doesn’t mean you can’t be fast.””

You can learn more about life in Leilani’s fast lane at her website, carbonfreegirl.com.

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Photo: Phil Cavali

Leilani Munter is an environmentalist and race car driver who races in both Indy Lights, the development league of IndyCar and ARCA, a development league of NASCAR.

Is anyone else in your family vegetarian?
As far as family members go, I have two vegetarian nieces right now. All three of my sisters have at one time been vegetarian and my sister Natascha was vegetarian throughout both of her pregnancies and during breastfeeding, which is interesting, because those are my two nieces that are now vegetarians. She told me that she had read that whatever you feed a child from zero to three is what they will crave for life. So she did not feed them meat and both of them are vegetarian by their own choice. Also, when I was a child, I never craved sweets, my mother told me that I always would refuse cookies and ask for parsley instead and to this day, I don’t crave sweet foods.

Is Craig (Leilani’s husband) vegetarian too? Did you have any eco features about the wedding?
Craig is not [completely] vegetarian but I would say he is about 95% vegetarian now. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw him eat meat and we never, ever bring meat into our house. We had a small seaside wedding in New Zealand (where Craig is from) and we had an eco conscious cruelty free vegetarian meal. Our wedding invitations were printed by Green Field Paper on tree free paper that you can plant and wildflowers will grow!

You volunteered at a wildlife rescue and rehab center in college. What were some of the best parts about working with these injured animals?
The best part was when we were able to release them back into the wild, where they belong. Nothing is more magical than giving an animal its freedom. It is a truly beautiful moment.

In the future, do you see yourself being just as active and public with vegetarianism as you are with environmental issues?
Yes, I definitely would like to be just as active with promoting vegetarianism as I am with speaking out about environmental issues. They go hand in hand. [When] I give speeches on a regular basis, I am often discussing the environment and I always talk about the fact that the meat industry contributes more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere than all the planes, trains, cars, trucks, ships, and all other forms of fossil fuel based transportation in the world. Besides the obvious animal cruelty issues, going vegetarian can do wonders for our environment and for world hunger. Vegetarianism is one of the most important issues that is not talked about nearly enough. We hear a lot about alternative fuels and clean energy, but we need to be talking a lot more about our meat consumption. I know that it’s not realistic to think everyone in the world is going to become vegetarian, but if everyone could just start by reducing the amount of meat they consume, it would change the world for the better.

Learn about Leilani’s Eco-Dream team and her love for cooking with fake meats after the jump… (more…)

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It might not have been easy being vegetarian growing up if mom and dad were meat and potatoes kind of parents.

Luckily, for race car driver Leilani Munter, she didn’t have that problem to worry about as mom wore the pants along with her apron when it came to meals and one day decided to make the whole fam go veg.

From the May/June issue of Vegetarian Times:

“It was my mom’s idea. One day she came home and announced that the whole house was going veg. It was fine with me, because when I realized hamburgers came from cows, I was horrified.”

Way to go mom! 

Are you a parent who put your foot down and banned meat from your household? Tell us about it.

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