Weston Woman Named 'Sexiest Vegan'

WESTON, CT — The sexiest vegan woman over 50 lives in Weston. Laurel Lea, 58, was chosen for the honor from dozens of candidates by PETA Prime, an animal welfare advocacy website.

Good looks were not the only criterion for success in the contest to find "The Sexiest Vegans Over 50," according to Lea. The number of votes garnered via social media and the candidate's "commitment and dedication to the vegan lifestyle" also factored into the final score.

Lea has been on the front lines of animal advocacy for decades, crusading against fur and animal-testing since the 1970s. Before moving to Weston four and a half years ago, she was a resident of Westchester where she founded the Lewisboro Land Trust that preserved a thousand acres of natural habitat. She also spearheaded a successful 12-year effort to save the 383-acre Leon Levy Preserve in Lewisboro, which is now a safe haven in perpetuity for black bears, coyotes, bobcats, and other types of wildlife and endangered plants.

However, she says that most of her vegan advocacy lately has been digital. Lea keeps the Instagram account @GreenerGoddess where she describes herself as "environmentalist, animal lover, mermaid; powered by plants. Just trying to save the planet." Although she may be "#veganaf" now, according to her Insta bio, she has arrived at a completely plant-based lifestyle relatively late in the game.

"I was a vegetarian for 42-43 years," Lea told Patch, and she raised her two children as vegetarians. She says she had become "more and more aware of things I didn't want to know about the dairy industry," and finally made the plunge into veganism a year and a half ago.

"It's easy to say, 'I don't want to eat animals, so I'll just eat dairy,' because dairy doesn't have a face," Lea said. "I wasn't even on Netflix for an hour before I realized, 'I never want to do this again.' When I learned that the United States Department of Agriculture has allotments for how much pus is allowed in milk and ice cream, I was like, 'Ooh, I'm done!'"

Many neo-vegans like Lea come for the animal welfare, but stay for the health benefits. Lea said she felt a big change for the better in her health almost immediately when she switched her diet from vegetarianism to veganism. Her arthritis pain disappeared and she was able to stop taking blood pressure medication, she said.

"If someone says they tried to be vegan and it didn't work for them, they didn't do it right," she said.

The social speed bumps on the path to a plant-based diet have certainly been eroded in just the past few years. Gone are the days of limited vegan options in grocery stores. Now, gallons of coconut milk and tubs of nut butter intermingle freely in the same aisles and shelves with their dairy-based brethren. Even Burger King began offering a plant-based alternative to its signature Whopper sandwich earlier this year.

When she returns from the three-night stay at Balance for Life Florida and an all-inclusive wellness retreat at an oceanfront resort — grand prize in the PETA Prime contest — Lea says she "hopes to have some fun" with her new title. She also plans to use her new Insta-fame to dispel some myths which may still linger about vegans.

"If you look at my pictures, you see that I am not a tiny, little, skinny person. I represent a woman over 50, healthy and sexy and happy and strong, and not malnourished or protein-deficient in any way," Lea said. "If I can get people thinking about it, I'm happy. The more they know, the more they'll change."