Veganism (?) in the Media

I read several months ago how singer Alanis Morissette ended up getting a good little chunk of media attention after having shed 20 lbs. The press, of course, is eternally obsessed with publishing reports about women entertainers losing and / or gaining weight. In this case, Alanis made the rounds attributing her weight loss to her switch to a vegan "diet". Back in January, the "green gossip" site Ecorazzi was proclaiming:

Alanis Morissette has joined the ranks of compassionate celebrities by making public her commitment to the vegan lifestyle! HELL, YEAH!!

Of course, the size of the grain of salt with which I took that statement can be surmised just by reading the last sentence of the Ecorazzi blurb, which encourages readers to "join" Alanis by making "the resolution to go meat-free in 2009". Later in October, I'd blogged about another Ecorazzi story applauding more examples of (meaninglessness) supposed celebrity veganism.

Of course, when you actually step back and look at the big picture, adopting a vegan "diet" as an end in and of itself for weight loss purposes (i.e. while continuing to use animal products in every other facet of your day-to-day life) is really just another variation on the same sort of piecemeal eschewing of animal exploitation that going meat-free ultimately is, no? Welfarists will insist that "every little bit counts" and that somehow, whether the people picking and choosing which animal products to consume (or not consume) know it or not, "every little bit" is a potential step forward towards complete veganism.

Today, I read a story that served as a good reminder of how as long as our own self-interest is the motivation to stop consuming this or that animal product, there's no guarantee of any forward motion at all. In fact, in the January 2010 issue of Runner's World, Alanis proclaims that she's taken a few steps back and is now a "semivegan" and that she's "about 90 percent vegan". She said she thinks that veganism is "good for training"; it's a shame she doesn't think that veganism is good for nonhuman animals.

So Says Twitter About Dear Peter Singer

Recent news making the rounds on Twitter is that utilitarian ethicist and animal lover Peter Singer, has agreed to participate in a debate with abolitionists Gary L. Francione and Gary Steiner. That is, he's "agreed" to do so for a $10,000 fee, and only after being permitted to discuss the proposed topics beforehand because of issues he has with them. Oh, and the $10,000 fee would be forwarded to welfarist organization "Vegan" Outreach. General consensus amongst many whose eyes got sore rolling at the news on Twitter is that Peter Singer seems to have become more interested in posturing and self-promotion than in actually engaging in dialogue or debate to earnestly further animal interests. It's a shame that given an opportunity to articulate his beliefs to educate others that he would choose, instead, to make what seems to be some sort of thumb-nosing gesture. Could it be that the purported father of animal liberation has become a deadbeat-dad of sorts?

Why Veganism Needs to be the Moral Baseline

Here's a short 2008 interview on Animal World with Prof. Gary L. Francione discussing why veganism needs to be the moral baseline of the animal rights movement.

A Closer Look at Animal Rights from Gary L. Francione on Vimeo.

Not 'How', but 'Why'

I read an article this morning by columnist Anne Else of New Zealand's Independent News Media ("A fair adjectival cow: Why cubicle farming is a really bad idea") that got me thinking again of how crucial it is that abolitionists continue to educate people--whether inside or outside of the animal advocacy movement--about the immorality of using nonhuman animals. When welfarists focus on regulating the treatment of animals, they miss the whole point; this focus implies that one some level, it's moral to continue enslaving nonhuman animals and depriving them of the very basic right to live out their own lives without existing solely to satisfy the selfish pleasures of those who exploit them and the others who provide the demand for this exploitation. There are so many people talking about treatment right now for any number of reasons; reading their morally confused arguments and assertions just adds so much more weight to my conviction that to do anything other than focus on use detracts from the problem at hand. Focusing on treatment is in fact detrimental when attempting to educate others about taking the interests of nonhuman animals seriously.

So, Anne Else wrote an article expressing a fair amount of outrage over a recent plan in New Zealand to house 18,000 cows being used for their milk in cubicles. In all fairness, Else makes it clear that she is not an animal activist. She writes:

I'm not a vegetarian, let alone a vegan, and I don't stick to organically produced food. But I do care about how the animals that produce my food are treated. And I'm convinced that ensuring our already rather battered claims to be clean, green and 100% pure become a reality is the only way our economy can survive, let alone prosper.

So Else is not someone who thinks that it's wrong to consume animals or their products. She consumes them quite happily herself, whether or not they have the sort of meaningless so-called humane stamp of approval they would have if certified as having been produced according to organic standards. Nope, Else is concerned about appearances. It would look bad to consumers if New Zealand farmers were to start adopting means of raising cows since the "clean green" image [they] depend on so heavily will be completely down the tubes" and the "reputation of [the] entire dairy production will be tainted". She even quotes a member of New Zealand's Green Party as saying: "British consumers literally taste freedom when they eat New Zealand butter."

Freedom, huh?

Else goes on to shift her focus somewhat to how the cows in question will be fed and the environmental impact this will have. She writes that the cows will likely be fed the recent subject of much media controversy--palm kernel expeller, and that New Zealanders will become complicit in the destruction of "fragile rainforest environments". For insight into the palm kernel expeller controversy in New Zealand, please read Elizabeth Collins' Independent Media Centre piece from this past September ("Why are we blaming the farmers?") and listen to Episode 38 of her New Zealand Vegan Podcast. There's not much else that I can say about it, except to agree wholeheartedly with Elizabeth that if there was no consumer demand for cow's milk, this palm kernel expeller fiasco wouldn't be an issue in the first place. (But I digress, since Else's article isn't about use, but about how they are used--their treatment.)

Else raises other concerns about the cubicles that deal with the cows' health and the discharge of their effluent into the surrounding area and the ensuing environmental toll. With this, she brings the article's focus back to her initial concern--that of appearances:

Even if they do manage to meet all the requirements and keep damage to cows' health, and to the environment, to a minimum, what is the point of farming this way in grassy, temperate New Zealand? There can be only one answer: because it enables inhospitable, fragile, and otherwise "unprofitable" landscapes, such as the stunning Mackenzie Basin, to be turned into a conglomeration of giant factory farms. We will indeed be catching up with the rest of the world.

So throughout this article, which takes issue with a new method introduced in New Zealand to confine cows used for their milk, it's made clear that this treatment of them will harm New Zealand's reputation as a provider of happy grass-fed cow produced milk. Hell, it will also harm the appearance of the landscape surrounding the area where the cows will be confined! This really big knot of superficial concerns revolves around the 18,000 or so cows at the center of the story who will, indeed, continue to be used as things to produce the milk products the industry wants to sell to the consumers who are demanding them.

Else managed to write an entire article loosely focused on the treatment of these 18,000 cows, and nowhere in it is the use of these cows ever questioned, since it's a given to Else (and others who in any way ever discuss the treatment of nonhuman animals) that these cows will indeed continue to be used, however it happens. It's also a given for welfarist groups like HSUS, which uses millions in donations to mount campaigns that concern themselves with how animals are used instead of questioning why they are used. This is why it's crucial, if the actual interests of nonhuman animals are to be taken seriously, that someone deliver a clear and consistent abolitionist message; this is why it's crucial that nonviolent and creative vegan education be a strong main focus of animal rights campaigns. Otherwise, we're not leaving people asking why nonhuman animals are being used or considering the morality of their continuing to use them. If we truly want to strive toward abolishing the exploitation of nonhuman animals, we need to get others asking the right questions--not 'how', but 'why'.

Talk to someone about veganism today.

Makin' Tempeh!

My friend Mark makes his own tempeh and recently documented his latest attempt for me so that I could blog about it. I'm including his instructions and the photos he kindly took to accompany them.

Homemade Tempeh
(makes about 2 lbs)

Ingredients:

1 lb (2.5 cups) dried, cracked, dehulled soybeans
2 tsp tempeh starter
water
vinegar (lowers the pH, discouraging growth of competing bacteria)

Prep:

Method 1 (my way): If you have a grain mill that can be adjusted to crack soybeans to dehull them, then this is the way to go. Once they are cracked (in around two pieces--not much more than that), take them outside on a dry and very windy day and pour the cracked beans back and forth between two large containers. The wind carries away most of the hulls leaving only the cracked soybeans for the next step. (I’ve seen suggestions to use a strong fan or hairdryer if the weather is not cooperating.) Soak these (at least overnight), covering them in water with a tablespoon of vinegar. Proceed to recipe.

Method 2: Buy the soybeans already cracked & dehulled. These are sometimes called ‘full-fat soy grits’. Soak these (at least overnight) covered in water with a tablespoon of vinegar. Proceed to recipe.

Method 3: Cover whole soybeans with boiling water with 1 Tbs of vinegar, and let soak at room temperature at least overnight. Next, pour off the water and rub the beans in the pot vigorously between your hands to slide off the hulls and split the beans into halves manually. Fill the pot with water and stir to allow the hulls to rise to the surface. Skim off the hulls and repeat the process till most of the hulls are gone. (Ugh!) Proceed to recipe

Recipe:

1) Rinse the soaked soybeans, place in large pot with 10 cups of water and 1-1/2 Tbs vinegar. Bring to a rolling boil and cook, uncovered, for 30-45 minutes. Keep an eye on them, as hulls and foam will rise to the surface in the beginning and can overflow. Skim off the hulls/foam as they rise to the top (it gets less touchy after the first 15 minutes or so).

2) Drain beans into colander and then transfer into large clean bowl. Let beans cool uniformly by pressing the beans into the concave shape of the bowl till about room temperature.

3) Sprinkle 1-1/2 Tbs of vinegar and mix thoroughly using a clean wire whisk. Now sprinkle 1 tsp of tempeh starter over the beans and whisk in thoroughly. Add the other 1 tsp of tempeh starter and mix thoroughly again.

4) Press inoculated beans into clean containers or Ziploc bags. Avoid touching the beans with your hands (even though you washed them very well, with soap, before you started all this, right?). Beans can be anywhere from 1/2" to 1-1/2” thick. If pressed into a container for incubation, cover lightly with plastic wrap so top does not dry out before it gets a chance to colonize.

Note: I have made myself plastic tempeh moulds out of old margarine containers. Any clear plastic containers would do (so you can see the progress). Drill small (around 1/8”) holes spaced about an inch apart and in a grid pattern into the container. Perforated Ziploc bags can be used too.

5) Tempeh needs an ideal temperature of 86-88 F. (30-31 C) to incubate. Slightly cooler (down to 80 F / 27 C) will still work, though much slower increasing chance for contamination, and too hot can kill/end the process. The easiest method without building/buying some contraption is to use the oven with just the light on inside, but you have to use an accurate thermometer to figure out how to have the oven temp ‘hover’ around that ideal temperature range. An outdoor thermometer will work fine. Variables include room temperature, which rack inside the oven you're using, how close to the bulb your have your stuff, whether the oven door is closed or propped open more (or less). Do all of this temperature experimenting BEFORE your first batch goes in and you should succeed the very first time!

Incubation takes about 20-24 hours at the proper temp. About 2/3 of the way through, the tempeh starts generating it’s own heat (a lot of it--you can really feel it). At about this time you should a) move the tempeh to a lower rack, or b) prop the oven door open a bit more wider, or c) turn off the oven light altogether to avoid overheating. Sometimes you’ll see the corner of the tempeh closest to the heat source seem more advanced; rotate the tray so that the other side can ‘catch up’.

6) When the tempeh looks all white and firm (pretty much like the store-bought stuff) you can cut it up and use it, refrigerate it, or freeze it. If you let it continue to grow it will begin to produce surface spores (grey to black). This is no problem and is still edible. Ammonia overtones will increase and tempeh will get stronger if allowed to over-ripen and is still safe, within reason (some people even prefer it this way). If it starts smelling foul or turning odd colours or textures, maybe you’ve gone too far and it’s time to toss it and make a new batch.

Note: If unavailable at your local health food store, you can order tempeh starter online from a place like GEM Cultures.

What Other Abolitionists Have Been Saying

I've been too busy over the past couple of weeks to keep up with the sort of posting I'd ordinarily like to be doing. That being said, expect a nice lengthy abolitionist's review of on-again, off-again vegetarian Jonathan Safran Foer's now famous animal welfare tome Eating Animals sometime over the next week and a half. Fellow-abolitionists, on the other hand, have been keeping busy and I figured that I'd take the opportunity to spotlight what a few have been up to:

Just a short while after Bucknell University's Gary Steiner ended up on the receiving of criticism from meat lovers and animal welfarists alike for his op-ed piece on veganism in the New York Times ("Animal, Vegetable, Miserable", Nov. 21), Prof. Gary L. Francione invited him to participate in his Aboltionist Approach Commentary podcast. In it, they discuss Steiner's guest editorial and the reactions to it, as well as discuss the abysmal failure of welfare reform in general. Dan Cudahy recently posted on his Unpopular Vegan Essays blog in response to welfarist Erik Marcus' short attack of the Steiner piece.

Adam Kochanowicz of The Vegan News also recently finished tweaking and uploading all seven parts of his recent interview with Prof. Francione at Rutgers University. You can watch the entire thing here at the Vegan FM website.

The word on Twitter from Bob Torres (aka @veganfreak) is that the updated version of Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World (co-written by Bob and his wife Jenna Torres) has finally left the printers and is on its way to stores at this very moment. You can also order it here (it is apparently shipping out on December 15).

Vegan, you look like HELL!

Here's a favourite video of mine from YouTube covering some of the things that well-meaning friends and acquaintances may say without thinking to you if you're vegan. Visit porolita22's channel there for more videos about veganism.

What Vegans Eat

I'd hoped to kick-start a periodic vegan cookbook review feature on My Face Is on Fire but have been too swamped at the office to follow up with the vegan bloggers and food-lovers who'd volunteered to submit occasional reviews several weeks ago. In the interim, here's an update on what some of my favourite vegan food blogs have been offering up over the past few weeks:

The VeganDad blog's writer's home must be smelling wonderful this month given his recent posts for Ethiopian Sweet Potato Stew and Ethiopian Lentils. I've never cooked Ethiopian before, but am intrigued by the use of garlic with cinnamon in these two recipes, along with all of the other wonderful spices called for in either.

Speaking of the aroma of spices filling a kitchen: I can just imagine how scrumptious it must have been to just stand beside the stove while Sinead over at Kitchen Dancing prepared her Parsnip Perfection soup with its ginger, cumin, chipotle chilies and lime. (While you're at it, do check out her blowtorched Green Tea and Almond Crême Brulée recipe from a week and a half ago.)

My friend Thomas has been visiting me from Pennsylvania this past week and a half, and just yesterday we were discussing "cheesecake" and I was telling him about how I used to make a killer chocolate tofu cheesecake. Maybe I should test this cinnamon-y Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe posted by Ed recently at his Eating Consciously blog over the next few days.

Speaking of pumpkins, Vegancognito's Batgirl offered up a recipe last weekend for her chili cook-off contest winning Pumpkin Mole Chili w/Chipotle Creme and Homemade Cornbread Croutons that also calls for--cinnamon! She describes the chili as "spicy, smoky, rich, deep, and complex" which seems like a dead-on description just from reading its ingredients.

Have you ever thought that vegan cooking's too complicated? Have you found yourself having a hard time knocking your kitchen "know-how" out of the box to play with new seasonings and to try different things? Just keep your eye on vegan cooking blogs like these (see the numerous ones listed off to the right of the screen in the "Vegan Cooking and Nutrition" links list) and I guarantee that you'll soon find yourself wondering what you've been missing.

Going vegan is easy. Not only is it ultimately the delicious thing to do, but most importantly, it's the right thing to do.

Shocking People into Short-Term Change (a.k.a. Animal Advocacy Fail)

Samantha Friedman, writing for Boston's Daily Free Press, took the opportunity today to explain (in a really, really roundabout manner, I'll admit) why nonviolent vegan education is the only sensible method to use to lead people to commit themselves to living the remainder of their lives without exploiting nonhuman animals. What Prof. Gary L. Francione describes as "blood and guts" advocacy can sometimes miss the mark altogether. As Friedman writes:

PETA, also known as People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, is responsible for the reason I can no longer stomach a beef gyro. You see, PETA has conducted an array of investigations on the management of slaughterhouses throughout the United States, and I was lucky enough to learn about their studies. Given little time for mental preparation, my health class began showing clips of animals all mutilated in the process of mass meat distribution. Before that, my theory was, “If you don’t have to meet it, then why can’t you eat it?” However, this video greatly challenged my ability to continue turning the other cheek. I realized that these helpless chickens and cows had families, careers and homes, all beyond our understanding.

Friedman then proceeds to write about her ensuing period of vegetarianism and how she spent all of it drooling all over herself with her near-madness-inducing cravings for the flesh of dead animals. Until the day a turkey pecked her and purportedly gave her an excuse to eat turkeys again. I'd hate to see what she'd do if a toddler slapped her shin or her cat stepped on her arm in her sleep.

Now, obviously Friedman's piece is none-too-serious. I suspect that she wrote it with her fork firmly lodged in her cheek, bent on writing something titillating in time for Thanksgiving. However, I thought that her PETA example provided a good opportunity to address the issue of using violent imagery to discourage people from maintaining the daily habits that leave them, in turn, participating in the cycle of violence that is the continued exploitation of nonhuman animals. As Prof. Francione points out in his piece "A Comment on 'Blood and Guts' Advocacy", there are many ways in which using violent imagery becomes problematic when one is engaging in animal advocacy. First, you risk alienating some people (thus losing the opportunity to educate them about veganism) since some will flat-out refuse to look at the images and shut themselves off altogether. On the other hand, thanks to overexposure to graphic imagery on the telly, at the movies and so on, attempting to shock people out of consuming animals could be met with a shrug of indifference.

The most problematic aspect of using graphic imagery to advocate for animals, however, is that it can often turn the focus away from use and instead leave it on treatment, as if the fact that nonhuman animals were being raised to be slaughtered would somehow be more acceptable if the images were of "happy" animals. Take, for instance the Humane Society of the United States' (HSUS) recent investigation into the treatment of calves at Bushway Packing, Inc., where they claim to have discovered signs of "shocking" cruelty at this one location. As Wayne Pacelle states in his A Humane Nation blog:

It’s always deeply disturbing to see the mistreatment of animals, but there’s something even worse when the victims are babies and seem so utterly vulnerable and frightened.

The footage is indeed shocking, but it's not exactly breaking news. Every single nonhuman animal bred and raised for human consumption is forced to live an existence that is "disturbing", where he or she is deprived of living a life according to his or her own interests; every single nonhuman animal bred and raised for human consumption is merely shuffled and shoved according to whatever is most convenient and cost-efficient until the day comes when his or her life is taken. And what for? To end up with pieces of his or her cooked flesh on a plate. Every single animal bred into slavery as part of a cycle that leads to his or her consumption by humans is "utterly vulnerable and frightened". This is not the exception--it is the norm.

So HSUS presents its "shocking footage" and instead of taking the opportunity to inform the general public that this is, indeed, the status quo for most animals we call "food" and to press for the general public to disengage itself from this cycle--to stop providing the demand that perpetuates this cycle of slaughter, it uses footage such as this to prompt people to continue funding its anti-cruelty campaigns seeking to regulate what is ultimately the continued use of animals. As Prof. Gary L. Francione has illustrated and explained repeatedly over the years, regulating the treatment of nonhuman animals is beside the point:

We certainly ought to make clear to the public the nature of the treatment of the animals we consume. But we also should make it clear that this system cannot be fixed in any way that would address the fundamental moral concerns. We should not promote the idea that some of this is “abuse” and some is not. It’s all abuse. It’s all morally unjustifiable. We should never use the word “humane” to describe any component of this machine of violence, torture and death.

There is really no such thing as "humane" treatment and images such as those captured by HSUS in this (and numerous other investigations) are the bona fide norm, and not exceptions that can somehow be "fixed" by HSUS or any other welfarist or new welfarist organisation. As Prof. Francione states, "We have got to get away from this fantasy that it is possible ever to produce animal products without torture. It’s impossible. [...] Consuming animals necessarily means that we support torture."

The bottom line is that violent video footage may shock some people into making changes in their lives, but those changes may be the wrong ones. And even if they are the right ones, there's no guarantee that the shock won't wear off sooner than later, particularly if the imagery ends up associated with treatment instead of use, and that any false-impression given that treatment has improved won't lull humans back into that same sort complacency that allowed them to turn a blind eye to the cycle perpetuated by their initial demand in the first place. The truth is that many welfarist groups use violent imagery as a tool to emphasize the need for further regulation of the continued use of animals and that the general public is most often exposed to those images within that context and with that subtext.

The current paradigm can only be shifted by making people understand why it needs to be shifted. The only meaningful, unequivocal and lasting manner in which to convey to people how and why sentient nonhumans have the same right not to be treated as things as sentient humans is through nonviolent and creative vegan education. You cannot rely on images alone without explanation, and for advocates seeking the abolition of the use of nonhuman animals to really make a difference in the lives of thos nonhuman animals, that explanation needs to address the immorality of using animals as things in the first place.

Outlook

"You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible."
--Anton Chekov (1860-1904)

The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights

There seems to be a hell of a lot of confusion among animal advocates about what it means to promote and support the abolition of the exploitation of animals. The abolitionist approach to animal rights, as developed by Prof. Gary L. Francione, makes it quite clear that regulating the use of animals in no ways leads to the abolition of their use. Furthermore, regulating their use ultimately does more harm than good, by reinforcing the belief held by industries and most of the general public that nonhuman animals are ours to use in the first place--that they're our property, as well as by making people feel better about continuing to consume them.

This slide show presentation, taken from the The Abolitionist Approach website clarifies what indeed is meant by "an abolitionist approach to animal rights":

Theory of Animal Rights from Gary L. Francione on Vimeo.

Plant-based Eggs and Confrontational Conversation Bombs

The Baltimore Jewish Times ran an article today about preparing Thanksgiving dinner for a group that includes omnivores as well as vegetarians. Hilary Belz (described as a former vegan) was interviewed for supposed tips on how to accommodate. The piece was weirdness incarnate on many levels. For instance, the founder of EarthSave, Baltimore is quoted as saying that some vegetarians "will put a piece of turkey (on their plate) so as not to make waves in the family" at Thanksgiving. Where the article mentioned vegans, however, is where it got my attention: "Vegans don’t eat any animal products but, in addition, some won’t eat eggs and/or honey either."

So, um, do eggs and honey grow on trees?

---------------------------

This student commentary in The McGill Tribune was a nice change from most of the muck that comes up in in online media concerning veganism. I can completely relate (as I'm sure that many other vegans can) to the experience of having non-vegans feeling compelled to share with you stories of the most delectable (to them) dead animals they've enjoyed in the past, whether to tempt or taunt you. That being said, I can't help but think about possible opportunities for vegan education that could arise if more vegans were comfortable defusing sometimes apparently (and sometimes obviously) confrontational conversation bombs. Any tips or tricks anyone would like to share in comments are most welcome!

Oh, What to Eat?

Vegan Examiner Adam Kochanowicz's recent post ("How to eat vegan: practical ideas") reminded me this morning that it's been a while since I've poked around online to see what some of my favourite vegan food bloggers have been tossing together in their kitchens. I've said it before that it was 1) the availability of vegan recipe sites and cooking threads in vegan online communities, as well as 2) the assortment of decent vegan cookbooks I accumulated that both taught me how to really cook for the first time, as well as facilitated a healthy transition to a plant-based diet. These days, those who are adopting the vegan lifestyle also have an incredible number of vegan food blogs to peruse for everything from cooking tips to recipe suggestions (or even plain old tempting photos of vegan dishes).

As Kochanowicz points out in his article: "It's not just the presence of non-vegan food but the absence of vegan food which creates a barrier for you to immerse yourself in a vegan way of living." I agree with this and also think that an absence of meal preparation ideas can be detrimental for vegans--particularly those who've never really spent much time cooking for themselves. When you just don't know what to make or how to make something, it's all too easy to reach for junky alternatives. Not being a food blogger myself, I'm grateful that I can pick and choose from a wide variety of offerings from others online and highlight them here from time to time. I also hope to begin a regular (and possibly monthly) series of guest cookbook reviews within the next few weeks, thanks to some fellow vegans who've offered to pitch in occasional posts. In the interim:

Claire over at Chez Cayenne shared a recipe for Tempura Nori this past weekend. I could definitely see these becoming quite an addictive snack.

Gaia at Live It Up Vegan! posted a recipe for James Barber's Tofu on Pita. I remember watching Barber's old cooking show The Urban Peasant in my pre-vegan days, too. It was a CBC staple.

Kitchen Dancing's Sinead salvaged some leftover Halloween pumpkins to make Scavenged Pumpkin Buns, using whole grain spelt flour and the kinds of spices that leave a kitchen smelling that almost comforting sort of way it always should when the weather starts to turn cold -- of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom and nutmeg. (You should check out Sinead's other web project--her Ask Science Dude website and podcast.) Speaking of pumpkins...

Mihl at Seitan is My Motor posted a recipe a few days ago for Curried Pumpkin Soup with White Wine and Seitan, with a link to one for another blogger's Pumpkin Chili.

Finally, if you want an eyeful of what gorgeous and delicious vegan food looks like, check out Cooking from 1000 Vegan Recipes. Better yet, pick up a copy of Robin Robertson's book 1000 Vegan Recipes and cook along with them. So far, the six bloggers have 79 recipes down and 921 to go.

Mumblings and Musings About Earnestness in the Animal Movement

I like communication. No, really. I like to bounce ideas off of people and also appreciate it when someone else takes the time to contextualize his or her opinions or conclusions for me, whether by filling in blanks with information previously unknown to me, or by walking me through the process of how he or she came to connect certain dots. I listen as well as I can, and being human, I'm as guilty as the next body of being preoccupied with personal matters or of wielding my grains of salt unapologetically. Whether or not I have a pretty good hunch that I'll disagree with what's presented, I have--at the very least--a genuine interest in listening and in trying to understand where the other person is coming from and how he or she got to that point. Every once in a while, I get to note where he or she may have missed a dot; sometimes not. At the very least, I walk away from the experience with something to consider, whether or not my own opinions regarding the subject at hand have budged a hair's breadth.

I rarely plug my ears unless it becomes clear to me that someone is just arguing for the sake of arguing and that his or her opinion or view isn't grounded in anything other than a need to just be plain old contrary. Going out of your way to give people the benefit of the doubt leaves you running into a lot of people like this, but it also leaves you better able at assessing when to walk away from a discussion that's really just someone's indulging in an opportunity to snipe or browbeat. I also walk away when it becomes apparent that someone is merely engaging in so much rote recitation--the passing on of a convenient "this is how it is and I don't have to justify a thing to you" sort of statement that might as well be a "no comment" as far as its usefulness and sincerity are concerned. I see less of that with individuals and more of it with enormous and well-funded welfarist orgs that actually keep people on the payroll to come up with variations on empty and dismissive statements (or to bombard people with simplistic propaganda). For instance, I sometimes wonder how many spay/neuter surgeries could be performed with the money HSUS spends on Twitter PR alone any given month, but I digress...

Call me naive, but I guess that on some level, I'd like to think that at least some people are also willing to listen, and by this I don't mean just staying mum while contemplating the next thing they'll say, themselves, while you're yammering: I mean an earnest sort of open-minded listening that--at the very least--leaves them with a better idea of how I came to connect my own dots. Only when two participants in a discussion are willing to listen will anything fruitful come of the discussion for both those participants. I see people in the animal movement who could save a lot of time and energy in learning to listen.

By this, I don't necessarily mean learning to let themselves be talked out of their convictions and am certainly not saying that everyone should hold hands and pretend to share the same convictions. What I think would help tremendously, however, would be to spend time discussing how we came to our conclusions rather than just repeating those conclusions over and over again to each other--and to all around us--just to try to drown each other out. We don't have to agree; we also don't have to walk away from disagreement. I'd like to think that most who are seriously committed to helping nonhuman animals are willing engage in critical thinking and possess a certain amount of intellectual honesty. Maybe that's just my still being very much immersed in learning theory and learning the history and politics of the movement, myself. Maybe I merely belie my nasty naive streak in expressing hope for dialogue so that we can--at the very least, and even as we disagree and debate--maintain some sense of civility and stay focused on the issue at hand rather than get lost in the politics and posturing.

Omnivorism as the New Vegetarianism

I guess that there's only so far down a slippery slope someone can push an issue or an idea. Once you get to that point, it's sometimes easiest to cry uncle and go on your way and effect change where things haven't been left a heaping mess. This morning, Prof. Gary L. Francione tweeted a story from the BBC's online News Magazine ("The Rise of the Non-Veggie Vegetarian") -- the sort of article that leaves you walking away with sore eyes (i.e. after you've rolled them so damn much). The article focuses, for the most part, on what one friend often calls 'pesky-tarians'--that strange breed of purportedly ethical eater that insists on self-labeling as 'vegetarian'.

The article points out that Britain's Vegetarian Society, "the custodian of British vegetarianism since 1847", defines a vegetarian as someone who "does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacean, or slaughter byproducts" and then goes on to explain the justifications those who eat fish give for doing so. In some cases, eating fish is defended for health reasons (and the article counters this by clarifying that "some nutritional benefits of eating oily fish can be gained" from eating substances like nuts and seeds). In other cases, those who cling to the vegetarian label, yet choose to eat fish, do so because they attribute less ethical weight or worth to fish, even though according to Revd Prof Andrew Linzey, director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics:

"There is ample evidence in peer-reviewed scientific journals that mammals experience not just pain, but also mental suffering including fear, anticipation, foreboding, anxiety, stress, terror and trauma."

"The case for fish isn't so strong, but scientific evidence at least shows that they experience pain and fear. Anyone who wants to avoid causing pain should give up eating fish."

Of course, many will also point out or acknowledge that the "cuteness factor" has a lot to do with attitudes towards fish. Neither furry nor cuddly, they don't evoke the same reactions as wide-eyed calves or of fuzzy lambs teetering on shaky legs.

While the article does provide quotes and explanations of why, by definition, eating animals is not vegetarian, and although it clarifies how health and ethical arguments touted by some as justifying the eating of fish are more or less bunk, it continues to use the term "fish-eating vegetarians" to describe those who eat fish. Then it slips into an exploration of the words that have come and gone to describe these non-vegetarians who seek to associate themselves with vegetarianism. The word 'pescetarian', one that's been used to define omnivores who eschew all flesh other than that of fish, is described as being somewhat out of fashion; the newer term 'flexitarian' (which, let's face it, really just means 'omnivore') is brought up as the up-and-coming label to use for non-vegetarians who want to be identified with vegetarianism. The article goes on to describe 'meat avoiders' and 'meat reducers' and asserts that "one of the reasons it's so hard to assess the level of vegetarianism is because of the multiple definitions of the term."

The truth is that strong arguments have been made that the term 'vegetarian' as it is now commonly understood (i.e. as describing one who refrains from eating animal flesh, while still eating and / or otherwise using animal products) does not reflect a lifestyle that differs in any significant moral way from omnivorism. So one could ask if it's even worth the bother to concern oneself over whether we now have so-called "fish-eating vegetarians". Is it really even all that relevant, since there's no moral distinction to be made between the consumption of animal flesh or of animal excretions? It seems to me that the issue at hand, with regards to terminology, should be to keep what's clear and consistent from being conflated with this whole heap of confusion from ongoing attempts to co-opt the term 'vegetarian'.

Perhaps it's time for vegans to stop concerning ourselves with the variations involved in the dietary choices of those who are on the path to veganism or who've stalled along the way to reach a plateau they feel is "good enough". Instead of arguing over whether or not we should commend people for shuffling out this or that product and worrying over the watering down of the term 'vegetarian', our focus--particularly for vegan abolitionists--should remain to deliver the clear and consistent message that all animal exploitation needs to be abolished and that the only truly ethical lifestyle choice one can make when it comes to our consideration of nonhuman animals is to go vegan and to remove oneself altogether from the cycle of slavery and slaughter of nonhumans. Think about it.