Say Hello to America’s First All Vegan School, Thanks to Suzy Amis Cameron and James Cameron

Gather up your eco-friendly backpacks and recycled notebooks kids, coming fall of 2015, MUSE school in Calabasas, California will be the first school in America serving an entirely plant-based menu to their students.

I love kale at school!

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The school, which opened its doors in 2006, has two campuses and was founded by Rebecca Amis and Suzy Amis Cameron, wife of famed film producer and director, James Cameron.

With a strong seed-to-table program already in place and lots of flourishing gardens tended to by the students, the plan to guide the entire menu toward an entirely whole foods, plant-based one has been in the works for the last year and a half.

“It’s about raising kids who don’t think it’s strange or exotic or worthy of a pat on the back to be doing the right thing for the living biosphere.” Cameron said of his reasons for the menu offerings.

“It’s moments like these when I think, wow, this would never have happened if we’d all just eating more plants.”

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Inspired to go vegan in 2012 after watching the documentary Forks Over Knives the Camerons initially made the transition for their health, but then began to focus on the positive environmental impacts a plant-based diet can make.

“What has really been a major eye opener is the connection between food and the environment,” Amis Cameron said of their transition. “Now, we’re benefiting greatly from eating plant-based, as are our children, but the environmental piece has become really our sole focus.”

Considering that the entire purpose of the school is to be a nonprofit learning center to teach students about the environment, responsibility and leadership, this choice fits seamlessly. “You can’t really call yourself an environmentalist if you’re still consuming animals,”

“You can’t really call yourself an environmentalist if you’re still consuming animals,” Amis Cameron said. “You just can’t.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know what I ate had an impact on the environment, okay. I can feel your look Neytiri, you don’t even need to go there.”

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Climate scientists and even the U.N. agree with her, citing meat production as one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions, recommending a global shift toward a plant-based diet in order to eliminate the problem.

It’s clear that the Cameron’s aren’t interested in going half-way. From the ecologically sustainable construction of the school and now to their menu, they are interested in making a difference. What’s even better is that they’re empowering the next generation to continue the trend.

If more people were like them, we might just have a world left for Leonardo DiCaprio to be King of!

Lead image source: Actress Picz