Monday, April 20, 2009

Random Veganism Bits in the News

Chrissie Hynde's VegiTerranean restaurant, along with Standing Rock Cultural Arts and Kent State Dining Services hosted the first annual Vegan Iron Chef competition at Kent State to kick off a weeklong celebration of Earth Day. Two Kent State Teams competed against three University of Akron teams in the first half of the competition which involved preparing an appetizer, salad and entrée. Two of the Akron teams took first and second place. The second half of the competition involved seven professional chefs.

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Last month, Newsweek senior editor David Noonan outed himself as being a "vegan". His article focuses on what he should really be calling a "strict vegetarian" diet, however, since no mention is made of the consumption of animal products other than food and his reasons for embarking on it were solely weight-loss related. It's nice to see the eschewing of animal products being promoted in such a mainstream new source, however, Noonan's using the term "vegan" becomes even more problematic when he inadvertently outs himself as actually being a non-vegan: "I have strayed a bit myself—I don't believe it's possible or even proper to eat a baked potato without at least a dab of butter."

2 comments:

kelly g. said...

Of all the areas to stray, butter seems an odd one; margarine is hardly a new culinary invention, after all ;)

M said...

That's sort of what I was thinking. It seems like such a silly exception for him to make, but then again, if he's following this diet specifically to lose and / or maintain his weight, he may view it as a "cheat", the same way someone who's on a low-fat diet might slip in a slice of cheesecake here and there as a treat.