South Florida Couple Spreads The Word About Choosing Vegan Life

By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley |Food Editor

July 24, 2008

Living in a vegan commune for the past 26 years, M. Butterflies Katz is used to her door being open. So when she and her brother Brook decided to open their door to fellow vegans and vegetarians by hosting an open house and dinner, it wasn't that unusual.

They put out the word on the Web, and on a recent Sunday afternoon about 40 people showed up at their Coconut Creek home.

But that didn't faze this duo, who have been members of the Gentle World commune, a nonprofit organization that teaches people the advantages of a plant-based, sustainable lifestyle. After all, they've both written vegan cookbooks and cooked at The Vegan on Maui, a once-popular restaurant the Gentle World group used to educate people about the vegan lifestyle.

Butterflies, 50, has been a vegetarian since she was 15 and entered the vegan communal group when she was 24. She still lives with them, commuting between their facility on the big island of Hawaii and their land on the north island of New Zealand.

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