On Feeling Grounded

Up until a little over 15 days ago, I had never flown. I grew up in a small working class family and the few trips we took when I was little were limited to car travel. The thought of flying anywhere for a vacation was simply never a consideration: My mother had a horrible fear of flying and even if she hadn't, we wouldn't have been able to afford it. In my junior year in high school, my English teacher had organized a small school trip to London and I remember how I, as a longtime obsessed fan of the British music scene, longingly watched my classmates plan car wash fundraisers to top of their parental contributions to the cost of flying to -- and staying in -- England. My own going was out of the question. It would have been so even if my older sister hadn't been getting married and my parents hadn't been bracing themselves for footing the bill for her Roman Catholic shindig. In the end, my only physical connection to the whole thing involved clutching the virgin vinyl pressing of The Smiths' Girlfriend in a Coma maxi-single purchased and brought back for me by a lanky and geeky boy with no interest whatsoever in British music, but with a vested interest in getting me to agree to accompany him to the senior prom.

During my early adult years it seemed that whenever I would have liked to travel someplace, there was a vet bill to pay. Whenever there was loose change, work or school left no opportunity to book time off to go anywhere.

So?

So a little over 15 days ago, on what I can only describe accurately as an 'impulse', I threw some money towards a ticket and flew to the San Francisco Bay area. I had spent the previous two months planning to fly to the UK to visit friends in Bath and Oxford at the end of February, but when those plans fell through and the itch still needed a good scritch, I decided that staying put wasn't an option. "Come to California," an acquaintance suggested, so I did.

I found out quickly that food options for vegans traveling Economy Class from Canada to the US with Air Canada can be quite limited. The Fredericton-to-Toronto segment of my trip -- a very short jaunt -- included complementary beverages like water, juice, tea/coffee and a small proffered package of "artificially butter-flavoured pretzels" which nobody could guarantee were vegan (and on a flight lasting less than two hours, this wasn't a big deal). The next leg of the trip could have been a bit more problematic, however. Air Canada allows you to request a vegan meal if you're on a flight where complementary meals are offered, but the only food available for Economy Class passengers flying from Canada to the US with a change of planes is what's available for sale on what they call their Onboard Menu. It's basically a limited selection of largely obviously non-vegan entrees and horribly overpriced snacks and I had been unable to confirm in advance through the Air Canada website whether any of the more ambiguous entrees were, in fact, vegan. For the Toronto-to-San Francisco portion of my flight, I had therefore packed some food to eat, including a very well-chilled container of mujaddara and some peanuts.

On the way back after my stay in California, I ate a meal before heading to the airport three hours before my scheduled departure and then once I'd passed through security, I grabbed an overpriced tray of hummus, pita and raw vegetables at a shop. My biggest mistake as a novice air traveler was in not realizing that once past security, I could also purchase a beverage to bring on board with me. Two small complementary beverages were served on the red-eye back to Canada and by the time the second one was offered just an hour outside of Toronto, I was really uncomfortably parched.

I have no serious complaints, though. The absolutely worst part of my trip involved a light scolding from a flight attendant for not having properly tucked my shoulder bag beneath the seat in front of me just before takeoff. The weather was great with the slightest of turbulence (which was more bizarre than unnerving), the attendants and airport staff were all helpful and friendly, the delays were slight with no line-ups at customs. And the flying? The actual act of ascending into the sky for the first time ever and watching the world shrink below? Poking through clouds and then seeming to drift just above them? Trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was traveling 3000 miles -- farther than I've ever gone in my life -- and knowing that I would be doing so within just a handful of hours? That I'd be stepping out into warm glow-y sunshine after having piled into a cab back home in the wee hours, careful not to slip on ice as my teeth chattered? Oh gosh. I mean, seriously -- oh gosh.

I've had reactions from others ranging from polite smiles to the "I-can't-believe-you've-actually-never-flown" that have felt dismissive. Who cares, though? There's no shame in feeling delight over a new experience. It was an adventure to just get on a plane in the first place and, on some inane level, the flying in and of itself was well-worth my portion of the cost of the ticket. I will never again be able to self-identify as someone who's never flown, and that's really kinda neat. I also can't wait to do it again.

From the final segment of my flight:

Just leaving Toronto Pearson International Airport.

The city of Toronto -- a place in which I hadn't set foot since I was a child.

The more familiar wooded landscape of New Brunswick (with the snow drilling it home that California was left far behind).

Almost done.

Staring down at myself while approaching the tiny runway during the last few seconds of my flight.


Over the next few weeks I hope to share some photos, stories and restaurant reviews from my trip to what was one of the most wonderfully vegan-friendly areas I've ever visited. The truth is that if a non-profit or other interesting employer from Berkeley or the San Francisco Bay area plopped a job offer on my lap this week, I'd pack up the cats, some books, and would gladly return and call it 'home'. I truly hope to at the very least be able to spend some time there again some day.

Noggins

"He thought in other heads, and in his own, others besides himself thought."

-- Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera

Sent from my iPod

What This Vegan Eats

I've been eating more than writing. Oh, the shame!

Salad w/romaine lettuce, radishes, hot banana peppers. Tangerine. Mini fava bean burger patties (fava beans, rolled oats, wheat germ, grated onions, celery seed, ground chipotle, parsley and a dash of tamari, dredged through whole wheat flour and pan-fried).

Chopped purple cabbage and pineapple, shredded carrot. Tossed with: Lime/sweet onion dressing, sesame oil, grated ginger, dried jalapeno and a hefty pinch of sugar.

Soup: Turnip, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, onions, peas and garlic. Seasoned with caraway & dill seed and smoked paprika.

Red potato/tofu scramble with onions, garlic, black salt, turmeric and parsley. Tangerine & strawberries.

Guac with avocado, diced tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, jalapeno, lime juice & onion. Broccoli and corn chips.
Frozen banana & blueberries, fresh strawberries, a tangerine, minced fresh parsley, a heaping tsp of ground flax, a heaping Tbs of organic almond butter and a drizzle of water.

Organic tofu marinated in tamari, sesame oil and coriander, then dredged through whole wheat flour & five-spice powder and oven-baked. Bean sprouts, shredded cabbage/carrots sautéed with tamari, sesame oil, crushed garlic and ginger. Mustard dip for the tofu.

Lettuce, cherry tomatoes, shredded carrot, radishes, mushrooms, shredded beet greens, tofu & romano beans marinated in a lime/sweet onion/sesame vinaigrette, ground flax seed.

Red lentil soup with spinach, potatoes, onions, carrots, corn, ginger, turmeric and tons of other Indian seasonings (including hing).

Romaine lettuce, vidalia onion, radishes, topped with Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream and smoked soy bits.

Black rice, French lentils, carrots, purple cabbage, onions, potatoes, celery. Seasoned with (as odd as it may sound) rosemary, dill seed, parsley and black pepper. Hearty winter soup, sez I.

Udon noodles heated w/sesame oil and crushed garlic. Stir-fry (broccoli, onions, carrots, mushrooms, celery, tamari, grated ginger, five-spice powder). Organic tofu marinated in tamari and five-spice, dredged through whole wheat flour w/coriander & baked.

On Getting that 'Word' Out!

'Veganism' Is Everywhere!!

I remember a few years ago how articles about veganism in online media sources were just occasional finds. They still are, really. I mean, the word 'vegan' gets tossed around a fair bit these days. You'll find it in food and health-related articles in the NY Times or in articles on the ethics of factory farming in The Atlantic. You'll hear it brought up on daytime talk shows whose hosts have either dabbled with some sort of plant-based thing or who've actually taken it further to refrain from using animal products altogether. You'll hear it in soundbites on entertainment gossip shows when this or that celebrity self-identifies as having embraced and/or rejected veganism (e.g. Larry Hagman is the latest to throw his hat, claiming to have 'gone vegan' to fight his cancer, while Eva Longoria was recently widely-quoted as having suffered almost immediate negative health effects when she supposedly went vegan). The thing is, though, that with few exceptions, none of these article that drop the v-word actually educate the public about anything having to do with veganism.

Partitioning Veganism

We end up with a jumble of mixed messages from mainstream media sources or others in the public eye. Even so-called animal advocacy groups like Vegan Outreach end up condoning animal consumption, either setting up false dichotomies or basically shaming vegans that we're wasting time and energy in actually avoiding personal consumption of animal products. In the words of its co-founders Matt Ball:

I like to sum up this philosophy by pointing out that a half hour of leafleting will likely reduce more suffering than the effort it takes to go from 99 to 99.9% vegan for one’s entire lifetime.

You had better turn a blind eye to those anchovies or to that casein, lest you somehow magically get a couple of hours lopped off your life that you could have used to hand someone a pamphlet!

Vegan Outreach's other co-founder Jack Norris, a self-identified vegan, takes it even further, calling upon vegans to consume animal products to convince others that it's easy to not consume some animal products :

If a food is 99% vegan, then it’s vegan enough for me. I want other people to think that they too can boycott animal cruelty and still eat in as many places / situations as possible, but I also feel okay about it knowing that the small amounts of animal products I might be eating are probably not causing any measurable harm, especially compared to alienating one person from trying vegetarianism for even a few meals.

A few issues arise from this statement, assumptive and straw man-ish as it is. First of all, Norris is using percentages to qualify a food as being "vegan enough" to indicate how convenience should influence the quantity of animal products a vegan should feel comfortable consuming. The fact that it's sometimes difficult for a vegan to eliminate all animal products from his or her daily life (e.g. driving or riding in a car involves using a vehicle whose manufacturing has at some point involved animal testing, tires containing animal products, etc.) isn't a license to shrug and deliberately choose easily avoidable animal products just for the sake of convenience or the sake of appearances. As for appearances: Do you really think that by eating animal products, you're going to convince another human being that going vegan is easy? If anything, you'll just be successful at conveying to that human being that vegans shrug off animal use. Norris doesn't mention trying to convince another human to go vegan, though, but uses the term 'vegetarian'.

I suppose that if you self-identify as a vegan and want to convince your meat-eating friend that it's easy to find a meal that doesn't include meat, going ahead and ignoring that pat of butter on your baked potato or the sprinkle of parmesan on your marinara sauce might be effective. I should hope that as a vegan, though, you'd know enough that there's no ethical distinction between eating a chicken's leg or her eggs, a cow's tongue or the milk meant for her calf. There's as much suffering involved in the lives of those enslaved for their so-called products as there is for those enslaved for the taste of their flesh. There's no less injustice involved and the truth is that they all end up in the slaughterhouse in the end. Where eggs and milk are concerned, even additional lives--those of male chicks and of the calves produced through repeated impregnation--are lost. Norris confuses the issue completely. To him and to Vegan Outreach, it's "vegan enough" to continue to deliberately provide demand for this enslavement and slaughter of others. And why? To convince someone that it's not difficult to sometimes consume some animals, since it would supposedly be off-putting to try to show them that it's not difficult to be vegan? Vegan outreach, indeed. And it's not just Vegan Outreach rejecting the opportunity to send a clear vegan message. PETA does it in all shapes, sounds and smells (e.g. in a letter to the editor where they promote "go[ing] vegan -- at least for one or two days a week" to save water).


Mostly Plant-Based Diet?

The truth is that when the word pops up in print these days, its meaning has become quite commonly understood to be something akin to 'mostly plant-based diet'. We have non-vegan foodies like Mark Bittman to thank for that, along with every other food or health fad writer who's jumped on the bandwagon to find ways to pimp the word 'vegan'. Upon pointing this out here or there on the interwebs, I invariably end up with at least one person raising an objection, insisting upon one (or a combination) of the following, that

a) every little bit counts,
b) I can't expect things to be 'all or nothing',
c) anything that lessens [sic] animal suffering at all should be celebrated,
d) I'm being overly-critical/judgmental/divisive in not embracing that Person X (who is advocating not eating this or that species or part of an animal on this or that day of the week) and I are really fighting for the 'same cause',
e) and that it's important to get The Word out there. (Apparently, I tend to forget about this thing called The Word again and again!)

The thing is, though, that something is spreading, but this so-called 'word' has little to do with examining the ethics of using other animals. More often than not, it has nothing to do with educating others to reject animal exploitation at all--even when it appears to do so.

The Result?

With wrongheaded messages like these, is it really any wonder that those outside of advocacy get it wrong? When so-called animal rights activists--well-funded groups perfectly capable of disseminating truthful and consistent information--choose instead to 1) send mixed messages to the public, and 2) to shame those who take the rights and interests of animal seriously out of trying to set things straight, should we be surprised that the word 'vegan' is now being tossed around by so many to mean anything from vegan, to someone who occasionally eats an occasional salad with an oil and vinegar dressing? All of a sudden, everyone's a spokesperson for veganism and neither being vegan nor actually taking animal rights seriously seem to be qualifying criteria for this.

A blurb I read sometime last week on the Indianapolis Star's website ("Vegan diet can be a healthy, satisfying start to the new year"). In this bit purportedly promoting a "vegan diet", its author, in fact, recommends "eating vegan or vegetarian a couple of times a week" and partitions veganism into 1) something that merely means not eating animals and 2) something that sometimes means not using them at all. In this other article I read today ("Local vegetarians have limited options"), a self-described "flexible vegetarian", who excuses away awkwardly re-branding her regular old omnivorism bent by insisting that she doesn't like "labels", is quoted as saying that it's "hard to be a vegan" in her area and that one would likely "starve to death". The article continues by using 'vegan' and 'vegetarian' interchangeably and quotes another apparently stellar authority on veganism-cum-vegetarianism, an assistant professor of dietetics, who offers up that it's hard to find vegan-friendly food in grocery stores and that (because he's also got a degree in sociology or psychology tucked into his jeans), it's also difficult to not eat some animal products (e.g. meat) because you can't go out with your friends and not "be the picky one". These are the people who are out there getting the so-called 'word' out.

Get Talking!

Who's going to tell the public that veganism isn't about having the occasional grilled cheese sandwich or sprinkle of smoked pig's flesh on a salad and calling it "vegan enough"?

Who's going to tell the public that the animal enslaved and slaughtered for human use doesn't care whether you wear her flesh on your feet or gnaw on rib once she's dead? Meat = dairy = eggs = leather = fur.

Who's going to tell the public that we owe other animals more than to continue to use them for the sake of convenience, or worse, for the sake of appearances?

Who's going to tell the public that we owe other animals--these sentient persons--more than to continue to use them as things?

Who's going to tell the public that we don't need to keep participating in or perpetuating this cycle?

Who's going to show them by example that going vegan is easy?

If not vegans, then who else? If you're not vegan, then please consider what's involved in your continued use of other animals today. Visit Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach for more information. If you are vegan, get that 'word' out--but please just make sure you get that 'word' right. Talk to someone about veganism today.

What This Vegan Eats

Thai coconut curry soup with potatoes, carrots, red bell peppers, zucchini, onions, garlic, green curry paste, galangal, coconut milk, organic brown sugar and a dash of Indian chili powder for extra heat.

Baked sweet potato, "Garlicky Cheezy Kale" and cranberry sauce

Oatmeal raisin-date cookies!


Baked potato topped with homemade seitan, roasted red pepper and zucchini, and some of the cooking liquid from the seitan.

Chopped Gardein "chicken" patty, pickles, hot banana peppers, pan-fried mushrooms, roasted garlic hummus, mustard on panini.

Mixed greens & herbs with zucchini, radishes, grape tomatoes, pickled hot banana peppers and ground flax, topped with a drizzle of lemon juice. A perfectly ripened pear.

Potato-bread stuffing casserole, baked sweet potato, Gardein patty, cranberry sauce, carrots & baby peas cooked with herbes salées.

Half an organic Fuji apple and a banana, sprinkled with lemon juice. Toasted whole wheat pita with organic unsalted/unsweetened peanut butter.

Cabbage soup with tomatoes, onions, green beans, mushrooms and seasoned with dill seed, dried chipotle and smoked paprika.

Fruit smoothie with frozen banana, raspberries, a few clementine oranges and some ground flax.

Small baked red potato, "boiled dinner" (cabbage, carrots & celery cooked with salt and a dash of liquid smoke), grape tomatoes.

Whole wheat peanut butter cookies!

Long macaroni (maccheroncelli?) with roasted garlic tomato sauce with onions, carrots, garlic, celery, green bell pepper, zucchini and fresh basil.

Nestled in between Xmas and New Year's, Canada Post's own version of Santa (minus the reindeer) brought me my very own copy of Vincent Guihan's new cookbook, New American Vegan. Look for a review, a shared recipe or two and possibly a giveaway over the next several weeks!

Harvard's New Food Guide: A Victory for Whom?

The Hype

Animal rights activists, welfarists, cookbook authors and bloggers have been sharing a link to a recent Care2 article for the past couple of days with a sort of fervent jubilation. Maybe it lies in the hope so many animal advocates have that a new year will, ultimately, bring about real change. Maybe it's also a reflection of our willingness -- or eagerness -- to assume that information presented to us from familiar sources is accurate. The article ("Harvard Declares Milk NOT Part of Healthy Diet") by Michelle Schoffro Cook is the sort of thing I've come to expect over the years from the predominantly welfarist Care2 which, with very few exceptions, mostly features short and poorly-written opinion pieces. Schoffro Cook's piece, designed to do little more than to promote her own work and to obtain hits (Care2 has a pay-per-hit / comments policy for to compensate its writers), contains a very simple yet crucial bit of misinformation. This misinformation was published regardless of the string of letters following her name (i.e. MSc, RNCP, ROHP, DNM, PhD) and regardless of the rumoured existence of editors at Care2.

The Dirt

The title of the article hollers out Schoffro Cook's big news. In the short piece itself, she then proceeds to tout Harvard's release of its latest "Healthy Eating Plate" food guide as a sort of nose-thumbing response to the USDA's not-so-long-ago release of its "MyPlate" guide, meant to replace the horribly outdated food pyramid previously used. Although she mentions Harvard's criticism of dairy products for their high levels of saturated fats and their link to cancer, Schoffro Cook's mistake is in elaborating that the "greatest evidence of [Harvard's] research focus is the absence of dairy products" from the guide. The diagram used for the guide states quite clearly that milk/dairy -- even if restricted to what I'm guessing she must think is the infinitesimally small amount of 1-2 servings a day -- is one of several beverage options provided by Harvard. Animal rights attorney and advocate Doris Lin pointed this out on Facebook today and it's raised in several of the comments left directly in response to the Care2 article, itself.

Less Muddy

It's a shame that so many vegan advocates have been misled into passing around a link to this article, calling this new guide some sort of victory for veganism -- a victory for cows and other animals enslaved and exploited for their milk. It is most certainly not. It is also confusing to me how some could think that even if dairy had been omitted, that this new Harvard "Healthy Eating Plate" is in any way all that significant when it comes to making serious changes to the lives of nonhuman animals, since although some non animal-based alternatives are listed in the Harvard poster's protein section, they're buried among the usual animal-based sources: "Choose fish, poultry, beans and nuts; limit red meat; avoid bacon, cold cuts, and other processed meats."

So I'm left asking amidst all of this, in response to assertions that it's somehow a victory: "A victory for whom?" Surely it's not for the animals who will continue to be raised for human consumption -- a good portion of it with Harvard's stamp of approval.

What This Vegan Eats

I haven't been posting much in December, since work and new friends have kept me occupied. It feels as if I just shared photos of the various concoctions I've thrown together recently. With almost two weeks' vacation looming, I anticipate having more time to spend updating this thing. In the interim:

Grape tomatoes, scallions and roasted red pepper hummus on a small whole wheat pita. Steamed asparagus with Dijonaise sprinkled with nutritional yeast.

Sweet and spicy Thai coconut curry soup with red lentils, coconut milk, onions, turnip, carrots, green pepper, jasmine rice, green curry paste, organic brown sugar and keffir lime leaves.

Organic tofu marinated in tamari, dredged through whole wheat flour/nutritional yeast/black pepper and pan-fried. Dill pickle, hot banana peppers, mustard and tahini on whole wheat. Vanilla almond milk.

Spicy green Thai coconut curry with onions, carrots, green pepper, potato, tofu and water chestnuts. Sesame-ginger udon noodles with scallions.

Brown rice and lentil casserole with onions and soya sauce.

Plain (salt/sugar-free) organic peanut butter and organic strawberry jam on kamut bread. Hot cuppa tea.

Tofu marinated in tamari, coated in multigrain flour/nutritional yeast/garam masala, coriander and pepper and pan-fried. Tangy dipping sauce. Stir-fried green and orange bell peppers, zucchini, sprouts, crushed garlic, ginger, tamari and sesame oil.

Asian stirfry with a bit of mild leftover Thai curry paste and tamari. Onions, celery, carrots, green pepper, mushrooms, zucchini and mung bean sprouts.

Homemade seitan, ketchup, long macaroni noodles with seitan gravy & extra nooch, chopped spinach cooked with a bit of coconut milk & curry paste.

A wrap before the wrapping: Lettuce, tomato, red onion, hot banana peppers, dill pickle, roasted red pepper hummus, Vegenaise and ground flax.

Soup: Pinto beans, quinoa, tomatoes, collards, green beans and carrots. Seasoned with chipotle, smoked paprika, garlic and dried orange peel.

Whole wheat pita w/roasted garlic hummus, tofu/carrots/celery cooked with salsa & crushed garlic. Steamed frozen asparagus (which isn't half as nice as steamed fresh asparagus).

HSUS: Carving Out a Niche for Family Farmers One Campaign at a Time

HSUS president and CEO Wayne Pacelle has popped up in dozens of mainstream articles over the years to defend HSUS to American farmers. Pieces in which he insists that HSUS is not a pro-vegan organization have shown up anywhere and everywhere to assuage the fears of those who raise animals for human consumption. Now it seems that even those who raise animals for slaughter themselves are stepping up to defend it for the work it has accomplished to make the idea of consuming animal products even more acceptable (dare I say 'palatable'?) to the general public.

HSUS' director of rural development and outreach, Joe Maxwell, is actually a Missouri hog farmer. He recently spoke on HSUS' behalf at a Nebraska Farmers Union state convention to explain how HSUS helps both facilitate and ameliorate sales for American farmers who raise animals for slaughter. Nebraska Farmers Union president John Hansen even emphasized its'

"commitment to help develop and expand marketing opportunities to help reward farmers and ranchers for producing livestock in a mutually agreeable fashion."

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying things, but to me, this sounds an awful lot like taking the millions in donations HSUS receives each year and investing them into animal agribusiness to help promote and perpetuate the continued exploitation of animals.

Joe Maxwell, as it turns out, could be a poster child for how lucrative HSUS' welfarist or regulationist work has been to American farmers. According to the article, Maxwell

is not only a member of HSUS, but also raises hogs and is part of a cooperative group of farmers who sell certified pork into whole foods and other markets for a premium using a value-based method of humane animal production.

The "humane" label, it seems, can indeed be more profitable to farmers. Lump HSUS' rewards to them in with this aforementioned premium and it sounds as if collaboration with HSUS can only be a win-win situation for them. Maxwell reinforces this clearly, stating: "They have helped create a market that has allowed my family to continue to raise pigs when most people can't find a way to do that."

HSUS' mandate seems to be to give a kinder gentler appearance to the raising of nonhuman animals for slaughter. According to Maxwell, even its support base consists of those who choose to continue to consume animals. One suspects that its supporters and staff would also like to think of their continuing to do so as somehow possibly involving a kinder gentler process, as Maxwell defends HSUS as striving to bring this to its supporters:

"They want to find more ways to assist family farmers," Maxwell said. "Why do they want to do that? Because they believe that it is more likely family farmers are exactly who HSUS' 11 million people are likely to buy products from."

He said 95 percent of the members of the HSUS are meat eaters and HSUS is not a "vegan organization."

Although Pacelle and some of his HSUS cronies like Paul Shapiro have already made it repeatedly clear in mainstream media that HSUS is not a pro-vegan organization, it's interesting to hear its director of rural development and outreach overtly describe both HSUS' financial supporters and staff as being the people with perhaps the greatest interest in the success of HSUS' campaigns so that they too, in turn, may continue to consume nonhuman animals and their products with less guilt:

"They want to find more ways to assist family farmers," Maxwell said. "Why do they want to do that? Because they believe that it is more likely family farmers are exactly who HSUS' 11 million people are likely to buy products from."

He said 95 percent of the members of the HSUS are meat eaters and HSUS is not a "vegan organization."

[...]

HSUS would rather reach out to organizations, such as the Nebraska Farmers Union, that are willing not only to work toward common goals of humane animal welfare, but also to create marketing opportunities for those producers to sell their animal products to a growing market of people who are asking for that type of accountability when it comes to the humane treatment of farm animals.

So perhaps, then, it isn't an oversimplification to assess HSUS' goings on with the millions in donations it receives as its -- quite literally -- investing in the continued practice of treating nonhuman animals as things existing for human pleasure. It's also become even more undeniable that their goings on are tantamount to what Gary L. Francione has described as the selling of indulgences. But as Francione has written,

buying a few shares of cage-free egg compassion from some organization is not going to keep animals out of the hell that most certainly exists for them and in which they suffer and die every day.

Perhaps even more so than ever before, we need to focus on formulating and delivering a clear unequivocal message -- the simple message that nonhuman animals are not ours to use, that their exploitation is immoral, and that their consumption is in no way necessary. It may not be profitable to deliver this message, but in terms of what it is that we each owe nonhuman animals, it is surely the right thing to do. To learn more, please visit Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach.

What This Vegan Eats

Vegan food is boring! Vegans can't eat anything! Vegans only eat sprouts and potato chips! (Yeah, whatever!)

Raw carrot and green pepper strips. Roasted red pepper & paprika hummus. Coleslaw with clementine orange segments.

Cream of tomato soup seasoned with dried orange peel, crushed garlic, smoked paprika and topped with shredded kale. Hummus sandwich with Nayonaise, sliced cherry tomatoes, hot banana peppers and shredded kale on 12-grain bread.

Root vegetable stew with potatoes, turnip, onions, shredded broccoli/carrot and peas. Seasoned with "herbes salées", nutritional yeast, coriander, thyme, black pepper and sage.

Super dilly noodle soup. Gardein strips, dill pickle, broccoli slaw, black olives, Vegenaise and ketchup in a folded whole wheat pita.

Noodle soup with onions, tvp, broccoli, carrots and zucchini. Seasoned with parsley, nutritional yeast, black pepper, turmeric and salt. Pan-fried dilled zucchini and cheddar Daiya on whole wheat pita, grilled in the oven.

Vegetable soup with green lentils, brown rice, quinoa, potatoes, carrots, collards and wax beans, seasoned with a variety of Indian spices (hot!). Roasted garlic hummus, Vegenaise and slaw in a wrap.

Cabbage salad tossed w/roasted garlic vinaigrette and and dried cranberries. Potato salad made with Nayonaise, onions, nutritional yeast and freshly-ground pepper. Oven-baked marinated tofu sticks. Cherry tomatoes.

Spaghetti squash with garlicky gomasio and basil. Steamed broccoli and cherry tomatoes on lettuce and sprinkled with lemon juice.

Oven-roasted potato wedges, ketchup and plain thickened soy yogurt (using cheesecloth) mixed with lots of crushed garlic & a bit of dill weed. Kale!

Red lentils, onions, carrots, kale, celery, garlic and crushed tomatoes with sambar seasoning.

Tater tots, navy beans in tomato sauce, pickle and ketchup.

Gardein strips, lettuce, sauerkraut, Vegenaise and ketchup on a kamut roll. Beet greens sautéed with olive oil, garlic and a wee pinch of salt.

Shredded kale, broccoli, cherry tomatoes and green pepper on lettuce. Topped with a drizzle of dressing, oat bran/rye cracker "croutons", ground flax and a couple of Gardein strips.

Homemade seitan and gravy on half a kamut roll. Oven-roasted beets, potatoes and carrots.

Panang coconut curry with potatoes, onions, collards and zucchini. Sesame-garlic udon noodles. Clementine orange segments.