GREAT article in yesterday’s Washington Post about Ellen DeGeneres’s vegan transition. I love that she doesn’t pull any punches about how difficult it was for her. It’s an extremely relatable and realistic position and one that is ultimately super useful for average American eaters.
However, I think the best info in the article comes from her personal chef, Roberto Martin (author of a new vegan cookbook):
…the key to helping people make the switch – or even simply reducing their consumption of animal products – is to think about creative substitutions. Break a recipe down into protein, acids, liquids and fat. Substitute plant products for the animal products like meat or milk or butter, then apply good technique, such as stir-frying or sauteing to produce deep flavors.
Right on, brother!
Although it probably wouldn’t please Alicia Silverstone (whom I adore), this is much more my style of vegan cooking – especially considering that my husband isn’t vegan – and I find it’s far more appealing to a mass audience to boot.
But seriously, sorry for the continual unannounced blackouts here. Life has gotten busy, etc., etc.
I don’t know when I’ll pick back up with daily posting on a regular basis, but I do know that I’m not finished here so check back every now and again, k?
Now on to the topic at hand: There’s a new networking group around these parts and it’s for VEGANS!!! Clearly, I’m a little excited about that.
St. Louis vegans is an offshoot of “Vegan Drinks,” a group that holds monthly social networking events for people interested in promoting vegansim and advocating for animal rights. The original group was formed in New York but the idea has since spread out to a variety of additional cities, now including St. Louis!
The very first event in St. Louis is TOMORROW, Wednesday, April 25th at 7pm at HandleBar in the Grove. There will be a variety of vegan-food options available, including vegan pizza made exclusively for the event. A list of vegan-friendly beers and wines will also be on hand. In addition to chatting up fellow, local vegans, there will also be vegan trivia for prizes.
Seeing as how I just found out about it, I am super sorry to say that I can’t make it to tomorrow’s inaugural event. Now that I’ve joined the St. Louis Vegans Facebook group though, I should be able to find out when the next gathering is well enough in advance to attend. I absolutely love the idea of having an opportunity to meet up with other local vegans, so I hope this catches on!
If you’re able to go tomorrow, be sure to give me the scoop!
You’re probably familiar with Temple Grandin‘s work via the fantastic HBO Film about her life starring Claire Danes (If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend checking it out). To recap, Grandin is a big figure in autism awareness, agribusiness and animal welfare both because she herself is autistic and is also widely recognized as the industry’s leading authority on humane slaughter and animal handling.
Her unique perspective led her to recognize a problem that few others in agribusiness saw or cared about and design a solution that both improves efficiency and standards of care for animals during slaughter – understanding that it would not be possible to gain support for the second objective without the first.
I have the highest respect for Temple Grandin’s work. Knowing that she designs slaughterhouses, you might think that odd given that I am who I am, but here’s the thing: the meat industry exists. It exists and it’s not going anywhere for awhile – if ever. Knowing that, you bet your a$$ that I’m going to support any effort to make that whole terrible process as humane and painless as possible for the animals involved. If Temple Grandin’s work makes those final terrifying minutes just a little more bearable for the animals that can’t be saved – and it does – then I’m down.
The point of all this, by the way, is that Grandin will be speaking tomorrow night at Lindenwood University as part of their 2011-12 Speaker Series. I’m excited about the prospect of hearing her speak in person and as an animal advocate, I’m intensely interested in what she might have to say.
She is scheduled to speak at 7 pm at the Bezemes Family Theatre at 2300 West Clay Street in St. Charles. Admission is free and open to the public and doors open at 6. It is expected to be extremely crowded, so plan to arrive as early as possible if you’re interested in checking things out. Hope to see you there!
Last week I came across an article on CNN about how differences in diet can cause serious divisions in relationships. As you would expect, the article primarily focused on couples with extremely different diets with more than a few examples of half vegan/half omni pairs. What struck me was how seriously the couples in the story and the author treated the subject, even going so far as to offer up tips for navigating this issue from a licensed psychologist.
I suppose my surprise stems from my own experience as the vegan half of an “interdiet” relationship. When my husband and I met 10 years ago I ‘d never given a second thought about the implications of eating animals and had an appetite for them that matched his own. Fast forward to today where I’m now an enthusiastic animal advocate who keeps a fairly strict vegan diet while he remains a conscientious but dedicated omnivore.
I suppose on paper that sounds like a recipe for disaster (and according to this CNN article, it is!) but that couldn’t be further from the truth for us. Andy has been and remains open-minded and supportive of my slow but steady transformation from unequivocal meat eater to full-on vegan even as he continues to include animal products in his diet.
Certainly it helps that he is the least picky eater possible (he can be counted on to dispose of the failed vegan experiments that even I won’t touch with a ten foot pole) but more than that I think the reason our differing diets have been such a non-issue for us is owed to our deep mutual respect for each other. While I do keep an entirely vegan kitchen/home, he’s free to buy and prepare anything he wants (an option he very rarely exercises). Likewise, when we eat out, he orders as he pleases. As for me, I keep all my gross-out facts and guilt-inducing stories of animal abuse and neglect to a bare minimum in his presence (sometimes it slips!) and abstain from food-related judgement or preaching.
Sure, I would love it if he decided to become vegan but if things are just the way they are now in 50 years, I’m cool with that too. I’d bet you he feels the same.
I know our situation isn’t an uncommon one, so I’m curious: if you’re in an “interdiet” relationship, how does it work for you? Is it a major issue? Give me the scoop in the comments!
I missed this “top 10″ list of famous vegans LA Weekly put together a while back. The list includes everyone from Lisa Simpson to Bill Clinton and Steve-O (quite the variety!). Click here to see the entire lineup.
Just like everyone else, I’m guilty of paying way more attention to the lives of celebrities than I should. Whether we like to admit it or not, they have significant influence on our lives and culture as a whole. Even though it’s fun and interesting to read about who’s who among vegan celebs, I’m careful to take it with a grain of salt not only because the lifestyles (and eating habits) of the rich and famous tend to evolve with the latest trends but also because, as LA Weekly has done with the inclusion of Bill Clinton here, “vegan” tends to be used pretty loosely by the media.
Technically, my favorite ex-President isn’t vegan – and not just because he still eats fish here and there. President Clinton’s avoidance of animal products only applies to his diet. And as ya’ll know, being vegan is about more than food.
All that said though, there’s no harm in reading up about celebs with vegan habits. Just be careful not to toot the vegan horn too loud the next time a new movie star declares themselves a convert. You don’t want to look like a dope when she’s caught downing a milkshake by TMZ a few weeks later.
On the heels of the “Shit Girls Say” videos, all kinds of similarly themed content has since shown up online. Vegan, 100% soy candle entrepreneur, Ari Solomon, recently jumped on the bandwagon with a few videos of his own, appropriately titled: “Shit Vegans Say” and they are two kindsa funny!
I think my favorite thing is that he’s wearing various PETA t-shirts throughout the videos but there are some seriously hilarious lines in there too, several of which have passed through my lips over the last year or two. I refuse to identify those I have and haven’t said, but I will say that if I see you doing something super-animal unfriendly in public (like wearing fur, for example), it is highly likely that I’ve called you an unpleasant name…
It’s not as if Wendy’s was ever considered a champion of animal welfare, but foie gras burgers? Really?
In an effort to lure Japanese customers, Wendy’s has apparently made several additions to the menu in that country including a $16 foie gras hamburger. The burger is available in Japanese locations only and is part of their plan to appeal to the Japanese market after a two-year hiatus.
As you’re probably aware, foie gras is made from the liver of a duck or goose that has been “specially” fattened. What makes this particular animal product so much more offensive than your average factory-farmed piece of meat (which, of course, is plenty offensive in its own right), is the particular cruelty with which it is produced.
The unfortunate birds being farmed for foie gras are force fed two or three times a day with a large tube that pumps as much as 4 pounds of grain and fat into their stomachs. This routine results in livers that bloat up to 10 times their normal size – a condition so painful, most of them cannot stand or walk. The process of force feeding also often results in horrifying injury to beaks and throats. Death by choking or as a result of ruptured organs is quite common.
This process has been outlawed for its cruelty in over a dozen countries worldwide including the U.K., Germany, Italy and Israel. Laws banning the sale and production of foie gras have been enacted in cities across the U.S. and a total ban goes into effect in the state of California next year. There have also been several notable chefs and high-end restaurants that refuse to serve foie gras including Wolfgang Puck and Charlie Trotter’s.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying: Wendy’s, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
I hate to say I told ya so, but…wait, who am I kidding, I’m THRILLED to say I told ya so in this case.
Today on Slate, Daniel Engber posted a very long and very well researched article about animal testing, in particular about testing on mice – which account for 4/5 of all animals used in laboratory experiments and testing worldwide. The basic question his article poses to readers is whether or not it is wise to use one (non-human) animal for virtually all testing purposes.
The answer is no, by the way.
I’m going to completely skip over the idiot from the lede who oh so brilliantly noticed one day that the mice we’re testing on are so engineered and alien from their natural living conditions that it probably has a negative effect on testing results because it still hasn’t occurred to him that maybe it’s a bad idea in general to test medical techniques and medicines for humans on anything other than humans. Dude from the next example though, “the government’s top researcher on tuberculosis,” Clifton E. Barry, is catching on:
…No drug can be tested in man until it’s been shown to work in mice, and no drug is tested in mice until it’s been shown to have a reasonable effect in the (Petri) dish. “The bad part of that,” says Barry, “is that no part of it is predictive:” A new compound that succeeds in the dish might flunk out in the mouse, and something that can cure tuberculosis in a mouse could wash out in people…”mice are mice, and people are people. If we look to the mouse to model every aspect of the disease for man, and to model cures, we’re just wasting our time.”
To reinforce the point, the author goes on to note that the only drug we have that works against TB in humans was discovered 40 years ago, when the system for testing wasn’t as rigid. The drug would never make it to the market today because it does nothing in the dish and has only a weak effect in mice, and yet the effect in humans is profound.
The fact that nothing gets to humans today without first passing the mouse test, says Barry, “has cost us a new generation in medicines.”
Good to know.
Also good to know: despite the fact that most researchers today are fully aware of this fact, the vast majority continue to test on mice. Why is that?
The mouse is small, it’s cheap, it’s docile, and it’s amenable to the most advanced tools of genetic engineering…(and also) it’s what we’ve always done.
THIS is the answer that scientists give. Read it again. And then go jump off a cliff because these are supposed to be the smartest among us.
The most astounding and frustrating thing about this article is that scientists, researchers and the author suggest that the solution to the “mouse problem” is simply the use of other (and possibly, more varied) non-human animals in clinical testing environments. Even the TB guy directly quoted above has come to this conclusion.
…Really, guys?
You seriously don’t see that it’s not about the friggin mouse? It’s so clear that the problem with testing on non-human animals is that they’re not human that I just can’t wrap my head around the possibility that this isn’t also obvious to everyone involved. I don’t buy it. This is about money and close-minded “tradition,” period – and it shames us all. Not just the people in the labs or the NIH or the CEO’s at big pharma, all of us, for turning a blind eye to an industry based on atrocity.
You know, it’s really not my style to be pushy and preachy. I’m far more the “lead by example” type. I’ve gotta say though, this article really makes me want to step it up a notch. I think imma get loud.
Because U.S. News & World Report has never met a ranked list they didn’t like, they recently put together a massive review/ranking of popular diets commonly used for weight loss. They gathered a large panel of nutrition experts and established that their rankings would be based on whether a diet was “relatively easy to follow, nutritious, safe and effective for weight loss and against diabetes and heart disease.” Quite the tall order, but as you and I know, doable.
In addition to the usual suspects, the Mediterranean diet, Atkins, Weight Watchers, etc., they also analyzed the vegan diet. They ended up ranking the diet pretty low for a variety of different reasons, some fair, some not. Their analysis seemed to follow that general pattern, getting a lot right and a lot wrong.
Rather than try to refute the conclusions of professional nutritionists or regurgitate what has already been said on the subject elsewhere, I’m going to defer to vegan, Registered Dietician, Ginny Messina, who wrote an excellent post on the topic.
Her final paragraph sort of gets at the heart of why she thinks the vegan diet got such a bum wrap from U.S. News, and I agree:
I’m sure that they were primarily concerned that people who adopt a vegan diet for weight management and who aren’t familiar with this way of eating could fall short on nutrient intake. And that is certainly a valid issue. Vegans do need to understand how to obtain sufficient calcium, zinc, iodine, omega-3s, and vitamin B12 (and, along with the rest of the world, sufficient vitamin D). It’s not true that it requires a lot of work to do this; it is true, though, that it requires a little bit of knowledge. That’s why spreading the word about how to plan healthy vegan diets is crucial activism. Helping nutrition professionals gain a better understanding of vegan diet planning is important, too.
Once again, The New York Times is making it crystal clear that a Turkey-free Thanksgiving is not only non-tragic, but actually a culinary delight! As they did last year, the folks at the Well blog will be posting an array of Thanksgiving themed recipes for veggie soups, sides, main courses, salads and desserts every day for the next three weeks.
The way they figure it, turning the focus of the largest, most elaborate meal you’re likely to eat all year on a plethora of fresh fall fruits and vegetables rather than a big dead bird can be an excellent way to alter your regular eating habits and inspire inventive and healthy cooking the other 364 days. Touche.
As you’d expect, they’re kicking things off in high style with four palate-pleasing recipes from popular vegan chef and author, Nava Atlas. A star lineup of famous chefs, cookbook authors and TV food personalities are ready and waiting to wow with their own contributions, so be sure to check back daily for the latest and greatest!
