NEW YORK, NY May 19, 2008 —Hundreds of vegans and vegetarians - and people dressed as vegetables - marched through the West Village for the First Veggie Pride Parade Sunday. It ended in Washington Square Park, where advocacy groups set up stalls, along with merchants like Roberta Kalechofsky, author of The Jewish Vegetarian Year Cookbook.

KALECHOFSKY: My most popular recipe that people really love is a recipe for vegetarian chopped liver. Incredibly successful. Jewish people love chopped liver. But once you eat this vegetarian chopped liver, you'll never want to go back to meat. Never.

REPORTER: The event was billed as America's first, and featured music, information stalls and non-dairy snacks. Organizers say 10 billion animals are killed each year in the US, and that aside from the ethical and health problems associated with meat-eating, say raising livestock contributes heavily to climate change.