What Vegans Eat

I've been lax about updating since the holidays. I've started two different posts in the past few weeks and have yet to wrap them up and edit them down since I've been busy with school-related red tape. I'm determined to churn them out by the end of the weekend, but in the interim, a monthly update of what some of my favourite vegan food bloggers (as well as some vegans engaging in some sort of food-related projects) have been up to is warranted.

Krista at Disposable Aardvarks Inc. has started a project that involves attempting to make bento lunches for her family for each letter of the alphabet. Her first entry from three days ago is here. Could there be better proof that when eating vegan, the variety of food choices at your disposal are near-endless?

Jessy over at happyveganface mentioned at the end of her first post in December that she and her fellow were going to be participating in a "pantry challenge". Basically, it involves going through your pantry and clearing out a lot of stored staple food items that have been sitting there for a while 1) to turn 'em over, since they could very well need to be used up or replaced, and 2) to use the opportunity to cut back on your grocery budget by being creative and using what you already have on hand and don't want to see going to waste. As of her most recent post last week, the pantry challenge was still on and some of the staples were, in fact, starting to run out. If the shared recipes and enthusiasm from over the past month and a half don't nab you, you can bet that the the amazing photos she's been taking of the dishes she's prepared during this challenge certainly will.

Adam Kochanowicz, host of the The Vegan News and Vegan Examiner, has started a little web-based project that requires assistance from his fellow vegans. He may not be a food blogger, but he's building a database of vegan recipes at Vegan.FM. You can edit the page directly to add to it, or email Adam at ajkochanowicz at gmail.com. If you have a couple of favourite vegan recipes, please take a few minutes to lend a hand and add them to the growing number already there.

Finally, Elizabeth Collins, host of the NZ Vegan Podcast, recently announced on Twitter that she's going to start documenting what she eats in a Flickr photostream to show New Zealanders all the great vegan food they can make from local ingredients (as well as to show people elsewhere that anyone can make great vegan food--it's so very easy).

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).

Episode 9 of The Vegan News

Part I of Episode 9 of The Vegan News is out today. In it, Adam Kochanowicz travels to Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary in Colorado to talk to Michelle and Chris about the myth of "humane" farming. Listen to Michelle and Chris tell Adam about how all of the sanctuary's residents are former victims of the same types of small-scale farms too often promoted as supposed cruelty-free operations. Aside from letting the animals' stories convince visitors otherwise, Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary volunteers also take the opportunity to educate those who stop by about veganism. Part II of Episode 9 shuld be up tomorrow, so stay tuned for more. In the interim, enjoy Part I:

Adam Kochanowicz Interview w/Gary L. Francione: Update

The last two installments of Adam Kochanowicz's recent interview with Professor Gary L. Francione are now available. Part three can be heard via Adam's Vegan Examiner article here. You can also hear all four installments by visiting the audio resources section of Professor Francione's Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach website.

Bob Torres, who produces the Vegan Freak Radio podcast with his wife Jenna, tweeted earlier this evening to announce that a new show will be released sometime tomorrow morning, featuring an appearance by Professor Francione. You can follow both Bob (@veganfreak) or Jenna (@pleather) on Twitter. You'll find the podcast on the Vegan Freak Radio website, along with many of Bob and Jenna's previous shows.

The Vegan News Episode #8

Another episode of The Vegan News is out--Episode #8 can be enjoyed right here. Aside from covering the latest that's of interest to vegans, host Adam Kochanowicz also responds to a voice-mail from a younger listener requesting information on how to prepare easy vegan lunches to bring to school everyday. He obliges with a show-and-tell of various food items in his pantry. It's a longish episode and (as with previous episodes) is very well worth watching. Support this show made by vegans for vegans!

Incidentally, Adam's featured in a two-part interview with Elizabeth Collins of the NZ Vegan Podcast this week. I just read her update about it on Twitter, so I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet; I'm looking forward to doing so as soon as I can fire up my iTunes.

Eva Batt and What Other Abolitionists Have Been Discussing Lately

A little over a week ago, Nathan Schneider of the Vegan Abolitionist blog "resurrect[ed] a bit of vegan history by posting an essay by early vegan advocate and longtime Vegan Society member Eva Batt. Batt wrote "Why Veganism?" in 1964, around 10 years after she'd gone vegan herself, and close to 20 years after the term was first coined by the Vegan Society's founders. Today, 45 years after the essay was written, some of its facts concerning food or animal usage may be a bit dated, as practices have changed over the years. Worth nothing, though, is that in 45 years, some of the more heinous practices in so-called "animal husbandery" have not changed at all. For instance, while describing the failings inherent in following a lacto-vegetarian diet, Batt wrote:

If, however, we were to compare degrees of cruelty, it would be clearly seen that of all the "food animals" the cow suffers far more than beef cattle. For the whole of her life, this soft-eyed, docile animal is regarded siply as a milk machine. She is kept going with drugs and "steamed up" with hormones, injected with anitbiotics, and still has to suffer the horrors of the slaughterhouse when she has at last become unprofitable.

Overall, much of what she wrote is still valid and the spirit in which she wrote it is more than significant. It's a piece of history in the vegan movement, but it's also a call to eschew the use of all animals which still resonates today.

Elizabeth Collins of the NZ Vegan Podcast wrote about Nathan's blog post on her own blog a few days ago and read the piece aloud on her most recent podcast, reflecting upon the points in the essay that she felt were most relevant and on how she feels it would make an effective introductory essay on veganism for many non-vegans. In her post, she also pointed out that Adam Kochanowicz (of Abolition Vegans) discusses Batt's essay in Episode 7 of his Vegan News video podcast. Please check out what Elizabeth and Adam had to say about Bett's essay and take the time to have a look at the piece itself.

The Vegan News

A vegan I know, Adam Kochanowicz, has recently launched a site called Vegan FM which is devoted to showing video and audio podcasts produced by vegans (albeit not necessarily dealing with vegan or animal rights issues). One of the features of the site is The Vegan News, a news show hosted by Adam and focused specifically on stories of interest to vegans. Check it out and get involved!

Vegan-ish Bits Online

I did a quick scan of mostly online media this morning while inhaling my morning coffee and found a few interesting things to share.

Adam Kochanowicz, a fellow fan of Bob and Jenna Torres' kickass Vegan Freak Radio Podcast, has been writing some neat little pieces for Examiner.com. One of his latest addresses the "3 Most Popular Vegan Fallacies" -- that veganism leads to protein deficiency, that it's difficult to be vegan in certain locations, and that vegans are skinny.

The Dallas Observer featured a brief interview today with former professional tri-athlete and current Austin firefighter Rip Esselstyn about an animal-product-free cookbook he's recently published. Esselstyn is distancing himself from using the term "vegan", however, adopting the label "plant strong" instead, emphasizing a diet that's "all plants, no animal products, no added oils, and no processed foods" as well as containing no caffeine or alcohol. The recipes are suitable for vegans, but the author's focus is strictly on health.