Bits and Blurbs on Veganism in the News

In the UK's The Economic Voice this morning, I found an opinion piece by Richard Henley Davis in the "Lifestyle & Travel" section ("To go vegan or not to go vegan that is the question") that read more like a troll's rant in a vegan online discussion forum than something that should actually be featured in any sort of worthwhile publication. The kindest thing that can be said about it is that the piece's writer uses the term "vegan" when he means "strict vegetarian". It's all downhill from there. For instance, he writes:

The prospect of chewing on a carrot for the rest of my life is about as attractive as Churchill in drag so why on earth would I want to become a vegan?

Because talking about eating nonhuman animals is deemed sexy by food writers, there are many descriptions mean to present the allure of consuming raw flesh (e.g. "the vegan diet just seems like one step too far from the rare bloody steak that I am used to" and "I have my steak dripping with blood and I might use that blood as a sauce I love it so much"). And of course no piece mocking veganism (even if he does have a completely skewed understanding of the term "vegan" and misuses it) would be complete without taking a kick at ethics or animal rights, he mentions "pro vegan scientists who would bore at length on the evils of eating animal produce".

So what reason does Henley Davis offer up for eating "vegan" (i.e. being an omnivore who occasionally eats a meal that contains no animal products)? He says that it leaves him feeling "cleaner" and with "more energy" but then tempers this by stating that not eating animal products doesn't jive with heavy weight training--even though he's not a heavy weight trainer, himself. He concludes his article by saying he'll "appease both camps" and asserts that "the vegan diet is a healthier option" but that "we should gorge on meat and true organic dairy products once a month just give those amino acids and protein levels a boost". I wonder what he would need to gorge on to give his ability to write a respectable article a boost?

Never Forget

For more information on veganism and the abolitionist approach to animal rights, please visit the Abolitionist Approach website.

Spotlight on Activists: Sam Tucker

New Zealand's Sam Tucker is one incredibly busy and prolific teenage abolitionist animal rights activist and educator. He's the creator and host of the informative and nearly-weekly Food for Thought podcast (listen to it here) which features commentary on topical animal-related issues, interviews, cookbook reviews and shared vegan recipes. He also created and maintains the educational NZ Dairy Cruelty and NZ Egg Cruelty websites.

NZ Vegan Podcast's Elizabeth Collins talked about Sam and his activism back in June (listen to it here) and this past December, Sam was profiled and interviewed on the Veganicious website (you can read it all here). He also creates videos about veganism for YouTube and you can check out his latest below.

(Update: Check out the just-released Episode 51 of the NZ Vegan Podcast to hear Elizabeth Collins interview Sam.)

Human Rights or Animal Rights?

Listen to Porolita explain how she responds when people ask how she could focus on nonhuman animal rights when there are so many human rights issues to be addressed. Check out her YouTube channel here.

The Oregonian's Grant Butler is Going Vegan (Sorta)

Who? Grant Butler is a an arts and food writer for Portland's The Oregonian. Where two weeks ago, he was talking up chicken soup as a weapon against winter colds, Butler's since decided to take the plunge and eliminate animal products from his life "... for a while" and for "at least the month of February (hmmm ... the shortest of the year -- a convenient coincidence?)". His "main reasons" given to do so?

• Veganism is a fast-growing part of Portland's food culture, and The Oregonian's barely scratched the surface of all the bakeries, restaurants and food carts that cater to vegans.
• As a cook, I love a good challenge, and going vegan presents a big one. [...]
• It's a greener way to eat. [...]
• While attending last fall's Veg Fest, a fantastic annual event celebrating all things vegan, "compassion" and "kindness" were buzzwords. These are values I aspire to in other aspects of my life, so why not embrace them in the way I eat?
• Let's face it: I'm fat! [...]

I was skeptical that his decision to "go vegan" was presented right off the bat as being something temporary and that it seemed limited to involving changes in diet. I was also a bit disappointed in the emphasis on trendiness and thus the significance of covering it in The Oregonian, weight-loss and the environment with the only only reference made to ethics was the mention of "buzzwords" representing "values". I decided to forge ahead and read further articles post by Butler since he began the series on February 1. What followed was a mix of good and not-so-good.

On February 2, Butler wrote about re-stocking your pantry once you've made the decision to go vegan. He mentions looking for hidden animal ingredients and then stresses avoiding products "swimming in sodium and fat" (which isn't a bad idea, honestly). Alongside processed foods like Tofurky and Coconut Bliss ice cream and Earth Balance, he managed to pick up nuts, lentils, hummus and cannellini beans on his shopping trip. There's no mention of produce, but this initial shopping trip was likely meant to be understood as a one where animal products in your kitchen are replaced with things just as enticing. Butler wrote about his experience in an upbeat and optimistic way and I thought it bode well for the rest of the series.

Somewhat perplexingly, on that same day, The Oregonian published a Super Bowl snacks article of Butler's that suggests feasting on things like tuna salad, crab chowder, Indian-spiced meatballs, meat empanadas and cheese-sprinkled popcorn. In one fell swoop, he promotes eating: tuna fish, crabs, the flesh of cows/pigs/turkeys/lambs/chickens and various forms of dairy (yogurt, butter, whipping cream, cheese, et al.). Granted that the article could have been written before Butler's decision to experiment with an animal-free diet, but seeing it there really undermined the bit of hope I had of Butler's experiment's steering clear of most of the usual mixed messages and stereotypes about veganism that come with food writers' recent (temporary or half-hearted) forays into the exploration of the ethics of consumption.

On February 3, Butler wrote about a trip to the bookstore to pick up some vegan cookbooks for "inspiration". In this post, he mentions Mark Bittman (mister "Vegan Before Six", himself) as an author who caught his eye and in the pile of books pictured in the article's accompanying photo is Bittman's Food Matters. Another book in the photo is Pat Crocker's misleadingly named The Vegan Cook's Bible (find out why here). The one book he discusses at length is Dynise Balcavages's The Urban Vegan, which he praises for "leav[ing] out the food politics of being vegan," adding that "there's plenty of that elsewhere". I find it curious that Butler would purport to have been looking for "inspiration" and would have turned to books by someone like Mark Bittman (i.e. foodie darling of the "conscientious omnivore" movement) to find it, but then felt the need to single out for praise a vegan cookbook's not mentioning "the food politics of being vegan", as if it's somehow distasteful to discuss ethics beyond environmental concerns.

The next few days offered up a mix of short blurbs containing fairly good information. For instance:

• On February 4, Butler churned out a really decent article on why honey isn't vegan. In it, he linked to information on vegetus.org about the exploitation of bees--a must-read for any vegan who shrugs off its consumption as being ethically insignificant.
  
• On February 5, he wrote about dining out in Portland and how vegan-friendly a city it is. In it, he referenced Erik Marcus' website as "useful" (which is funny, considering how little time or energy Marcus spends on even promoting veganism).
  
• On February 6, he wrote a little blurb about processed meat subs he'd sampled.
  
• The next day, he wrote a brief piece about the encouragement he'd been receiving from vegans and "the role that community plays in making veganism work".
  

Now, this last piece really got me thinking quite a bit, because "community" is indeed key for vegans; rather than go off on a tangent to present limited thoughts on it now, I think that I'll flesh it out into another blog post over the next few days.

Sidetracked by considerations of this, I opted to catch up on the rest of Butler's vegan-for-a-month series later this weekend and blog about it some more, then, hoping to find that he'll have written more useful tips and that maybe through his research he'll have gained better and deeper insight into what leads people to actually become vegans in the first place. All warm fuzzies triggered by this dissipated, however, when the last thing of his I read on read a restaurant review of his published just yesterday, in which he discusses the deliciousness of waffles topped with "creamy gravy that’s studded with bits of spicy pork sausage" or "folded around three strips of smoked bacon and six pieces of Canadian bacon".

So I'm left wondering again whether the harms can outweigh the benefits when non-vegans position themselves as willing to try on and talk to others about "veganism". I've spent the past two days conflicted over whether something like this upbeat series of Butler's should be deemed a good starting point for some, or whether it ultimately sends out mixed messages by focusing on diet and by seriously de-emphasizing the most important reason of all to stop exploiting nonhuman animals. Are human health and the environment relevant factors to consider when deciding to go vegan? Of course. But it seems to me that anything that presents veganism as being mainly restricted to food, that does so in the form of a decidedly temporary experiment and where the writer publishes articles promoting animal products as delicious alongside his articles discussing an ethical framework that involves the eschewing of animal exploitation... well, it just misses the point. And I'm not sure how effective a tool can be in educating others about veganism if that point--that sentient nonhuman animals are not ours to use for our own pleasure since they have an interest in living out their own lives--is missed or altogether ignored.

Meals and Such

With morning coffee comes lackadaisical googling. This morning's web-meandering led to some interesting finds, including the following:

It's apparently Meat Week, according to a CBS News article ("Carnivores, Delight: It's Meat Week") about the goings on concerning it in NYC. "We know it is stupid," the NYC event's organizer admitted.

Meat Week was conceived by two bored coworkers in Tallahassee, Fla. Back in 2005, Erni Walker and Chris Cantey were using a word generator on Cantey's Web site that came up with the "holy combination" of "meat" and "week." [...] Now the gospel of meat overindulgence has spread across the country as 16 cities have organized chapters venturing to barbecue restaurants from Jan. 31 to Feb. 7. -- with some locations drawing as many as 70 meat eaters a night.

OK, the eye rolling was a given with this one, but what actually caught my attention in the CBC article was when they continued by saying that

[i]n fact, many participants at Meat Week are vegetarians. The draw for many is the communal, family-style environment that is the hallmark of many Southern-style barbecue restaurants.

"That's why a lot of vegetarians come out, even though they are appalled by what's going on around them," Walker said.

I find it difficult to wrap my head around a reality where people who eschew animal products and who would purportedly be "appalled" by an event completely devoted to eating as much animal flesh as one can stuff into one's stomach would be drawn to its "communal, family-style environment". Could I be wrong or should I assume that the event's founder was being facetious?

I'm wondering how other vegans feel about (and deal with) food-related gatherings (involving family, work or friends) where animal products are part of the feast. Is it a non-issue for you? Do you grin and bear it, but try to minimize the number of occasions that come up? Do you sit silently, or do you take the opportunity to educate others about animal exploitation? Do you Do you defer questions that may be asked until after the meal? Do you altogether avoid participating in meals where animals or animal products are consumed?

I'm looking forward to hearing about your different experiences!

Fur

What could possibly be a more stereotypical image of animal rights activists in pop culture than that of their demonstrating outside a fur store? For almost 20 years, groups like PeTA, as Prof. Gary L. Francione recently discussed on his Abolitionist Approach website ("The State of the Movement"), have been mangling perceptions of animal advocacy horribly by nurturing this stereotype, while singling out the fur industry as particularly worthy of the ire of those who take the interests of nonhuman animals seriously. But is the fur industry really any more worthy of such ire? As one advocate recently pointed out Twitter, for instance, 'fur' is skin and hair while 'leather' is skin. To obsess over people's wearing of fur while turning a blind eye to others' wearing of leather (which is much more common and involves so much more loss of life) seems odd and illogical. Furthermore, as Prof. Francione often points out when discussing anti-fur campaigns, considering that a large percentage of those who wear fur are women, fur becomes a convenient and sexist target. After all, when's the last time you saw PeTA demonstrators bombard a leather-clad biker with paint-balls?

Single-issue campaigns are problematic on many levels, not the least of which is that in focusing on this or that thing, other equally relevant issues get sidelined or marginalized. The impression given is that the object of the single-issue campaign in question carries more ethical significance. Sometimes, the very focusing on a single-issue can even lead advocates themselves to get a little lost--to lose sight of the wider or broader reasons that campaign may have been deemed important. This all becomes so tricky in a morally schizophrenic and speciesist society where we already have people categorizing some nonhuman animals as "pets", some as "food" and some as "pests". It becomes tricky in a society where many are drawn into believing that the consumption of flesh is more ethically troublesome than the consumption of animal products like milk or eggs, and then choose to eschew one for the other and convince themselves that they're making a huge difference in the lives of those nonhuman animals.

Somewhat telling (albeit somewhat less significant when looking at the big picture) is that with all of these years of anti-fur campaigning, PeTA hasn't even managed to effect any sort of tangible and permanent change in the general public's thinking concerning the wearing of fur. A recent article in the UK's Telegraph ("Why Fur is Fashionable Again"), for instance, discusses the resurgence in popularity of wearing "vintage furs", but as the editor of Red fashion magazines states in it:

I think the wearing of any fur at all, vintage or otherwise, anaesthetises the wearer. You’re only one gold card away from a new fur coat if you’ve bought an old one.

Ironically, another industry insider quoted in the article--one who admits to wearing so-called vintage fur--actually nails the problem with single issue campaigns and the resulting confusion from their mixed messages quite effectively, saying: “I can’t understand people who’ll [...] eat supermarket battery chickens, and then give me a hard time for wearing fur.” Where does this confusion come from? Animal advocates engaging in the sort of welfarist campaigning that either a) flat-out condones certain forms of animal exploitation (e.g. Erik Marcus applauding Jonathan Safran Foer, a promoter of "happy meat"-- see here and here) or b) lauds wee incremental changes to small segments of a wider-scale problem (e.g. HSUS spending so much money from its supporters to pressure restaurants to use cage-free eggs rather than educating consumers about not consuming eggs or other animal products in the first place).

More recently, the organisation Friends of Animals posted an open letter on its website to figure-skater Johnny Weir, in response to a New York Times article describing an outfit he wore at the US Figure Skating Championships as including fox fur. Priscilla Feral, Friends of Animals' President wrote:

Please consider that there’s nothing pretty about the fox that suffered and died to trim your outfit. The beautiful fox was likely anally electrocuted, or may have had its head bashed in, only to serve as decoration for someone’s performance.

If you buy fur, no matter what size piece, or which animal it comes from, you’re supporting an industry that has no respect for animals.

Feral announced on Twitter yesterday that "Johnny Weir's NEW decision to not perform in real fur at Olympics--victory for Arctic foxes, lynxes,wolves- free-living animals in nature." Um, OK... But what of the leather skates that Weir will inevitably wear, not unlike the skates worn by most professional figure skaters? Why all the fuss over one bit of skin and hair worn by a celebrity athlete, while ignoring that he and most of his fellow-skaters customarily wear skin (and otherwise consume animals)? Considering the several postings on the Friends of Animals website, the numerous tweets from Feral and others, the supposed faxes sent off hither and thither (including one to his costume designer, as reported here) and the claim that Weir's decision is somehow a "victory", one is left to wonder if the victory is more in terms of the publicity generated for the group than one for nonhuman animals.

So? From this mini media blitz, the public is left confused about the ethical significance of wearing one part of one animal's body rather than another's. Where Weir himself is concerned, he's no further ahead in terms of having had his conscience shifted; the reason Weir touted as being behind his decision to forgo wearing the fur is that he's purportedly received "threats" concerning it since the blitz started. Where is the victory here? All I see is a lost opportunity to earnestly educate people about the exploitation of animals and to educate them about veganism. (Check out Gary L. Francione's blog post from earlier today on the Weird story.)

The truth is that whether one chooses to wear leather, fur or silk, animals are exploited and treated as though they're ours to use. Whether one eats flesh, milk, eggs or honey, animals are exploited and treated as though they're ours to use. It seems to me that the most straightforward, simple and honest message that we can deliver as members of the "animal movement" is this: The only way to remove oneself from the cycle of suffering into which billions of nonhuman animals are enslaved and slaughtered every year is to actually remove oneself from the cycle altogether. When we start playing fast and loose with the term "ethical" or obsessing over single-issue campaigns, we lose sight of advocating for the most logical means by which to attain the best-case scenario for nonhuman animals. Instead of spreading (or implying) the misleading message that it's worse to consume one animal product over another, why not advocate for veganism?

Bits and Blurbs on Veganism in the News

Zimbabwe's Thought Leader (part of the Mail & Guardian online network) featured an opinion piece today that 'ignorant' just doesn't seem to qualify adequately. Sipho Hlongwane's piece "Vegetarians Cause Me Grief" is just one long anti-vegan diatribe. Using 'vegetarianism' and 'vegetablism' interchangeably, the writer at least seems to get that veganism is something altogether different (for whatever little that's worth):

There’s the other type of vegetarians. The really pale, thin ones. Vegans. The fanatics. I like to think of them as the provisional wing of vegetablism. I’ve had the odd run-in with these vegan people. My reaction is always the same. Shame, man. All that malnutrition can’t be fun. And their reaction to that is always the same. They faint, but only after losing too much energy, trying to swing a punch at me. Tsk. Really man, shame.

And if you didn't quite get out of that last bit that he's not particularly fond of vegans:

My philosophy is quite simple. Live and let live — in the case of vegans, live and let die. I do me and you do you. I may find your dietary habits odd and perhaps quite insane, but if that’s what you want to eat, then bon appetit. Trouble is, the reciprocal is never true. Vegetarians cause me so much grief. They’re the biggest source of under-the-skin, itchy irritation in my life, more than taxi drivers, traffic cops and government workers. As soon as they see meat on my plate, they’re at my heels, yapping away like a pack of excitable terriers.

We get it, Hlongwane. You're snappy and clever and needed to scratch an itch and to earn a buck. We also get that it's not just the cows you mention that are full of methane.

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Nosing around online, I uncovered yet another former "vegans" getting their rocks off slicing up nonhuman animals article ("Conscious Carnivores, Ethical Butchers are Changing Food Culture"):

Why go to Jim and Wendy Parker's Dallas hog farm to meet the Red Wattle and scratch his belly, Reed has been asked, knowing you'll eventually butcher that animal?

"To me, that's exactly how it should be. At that point, there's no argument against eating meat. These pigs live a good life. They are animals raised to be food. And that's OK."

Former self-described "militant vegan" Berlin Reed's obviously spent too much time reading HSUS pamphlets. And that's not OK. There's nothing good about living a life where your only purpose is to end up on someone's plate, guy, whether or not someone scratches your belly before scalding it or slicing it open.

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Word on the street (OK, on the Examiner website, really) is that Philadelphia is going to be the only US city hosting a demonstration on January 30 for the "World Day for the Abolition of Meat". Philadelphia Animal Advocate Examiner Megan Drake touts it as being a good way to encourage veganism, but does it really? It seems to me that the article does a pretty good job of explaining all on its own that it doesn't:

The purpose of 'World Day for the Abolition of Meat' is to inform the public of how much suffering meat eating causes non-human animals and how unnecessary it is to human beings. Goals are twofold: encouraging vegetarianism and veganism as forms of boycotting the products of the animal farming industry and secondly to explicitly request the abolition of meat production.

The truth is that singling out meat as a cause of animal suffering side-steps the fact that there is as much--and often much more--suffering involved in dairy and egg production than in raising animals for their flesh. Protesting the consumption of meat to promote vegetarianism also misses this point altogether. Furthermore, saying that one is protesting for the "abolition of meat" to encourage veganism makes about as much sense as saying that one is protesting for the "abolition of yogurt" to promote veganism. You want to promote veganism? Promote veganism!

Additionally, focusing on suffering turns the treatment into the main issue and feeds right into the popular "happy meat" trend, by which many let themselves get lulled by producers and animal welfare groups (like HSUS) into thinking that it's actually just fine to eat the flesh or excretions of some non-humans, since small supposed improvements in the way they're caged or tortured their entire lives somehow validate enslaving them and slaughtering them in the first place. (Whether those supposed improvements actually even lead to less suffering is another issue altogether, best saved for another post.)

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).

Veganism and Animal Rights in Online Media

Some bits and blurbs I've stumbled across online while catching up on internet goings on after a brief holiday hiatus:

Last week, Gary L. Francione published a piece on the debate-provoking website Opposing Views concerning "Meatless Mondays" ("Vegan Gary Francione on Why He's Against 'Meatless Mondays'"). In it, Francione describes how the trend is problematic since it

reinforces the idea that animal flesh is morally distinguishable from other animal foods [and] is also promoted by many as an end in itself to reduce the environmental consequences of flesh consumption or as a health measure similar to reducing alcohol consumption.

Francione goes on to explain how he would have no issues with supporting a "Vegan [Day]" as long as

it were made clear that this was: (1) in recognition of the ethical imperative that we cannot justify animal use; and (2) just one step toward complete veganism.

Essentially, "Meatless Mondays" is often considered or touted as an end in itself, when what needs to be conveyed is that all animal exploitation is wrong and that eschewing this or that animal product one day a week doesn't somehow serve to justify exploiting animals the rest of the week.

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Somewhere in Canada, somebody tried to write an article about animal shelters and to--uh--clarify the differences between animal welfare and animals rights ("The Impact of Animal Rights, Rescues and Shelters on Animal Law"). In doing so, he managed to prove that absolutely anybody can write absolutely anything on the internet and that it need not make any sense whatsoever or reflect anything resembling truth or honesty. I don't even know where to start picking it apart. When you've finished reading it (if your eyes don't get sore from their rolling before you're able to do so), here's a piece on why you should, in fact, adopt from your local shelter.

Oreos: Where PETA's Got it Wrong

Just before the holidays, Oreos came up in a discussion on Twitter. Was it true? Were they vegan? For some time, PETA's listed them in the snacks section of its "I Can't Believe It's Vegan!" lists of so-called "accidentally" vegan foods on its website. Surely, PETA would have verified this, no?
No!
Or rather, PETA's got a definition of veganism that it keeps flexible enough to include animal products and thinks that your definition should be that flexible, too. The disclaimer on the main page of its "I Can't Believe It's Vegan!" website reads:

Items listed may contain trace amounts of animal-derived ingredients. While PETA supports a strict adherence to veganism, we put the task of vigorously reducing animal suffering ahead of personal purity. Boycotting products that are 99.9 percent vegan sends the message to manufacturers that there is no market for this food, which ends up hurting more animals. For a more detailed explanation of PETA’s position, please visit http://www.caringconsumer.com/labels.html.

Basically, PETA says that fussing over ensuring things you put into your mouth are actually vegan is nitpicking and becomes an obsession over "personal purity". How far PETA takes this was recently reflected in a press release back in May to promote The Animal Activists' Handbook, co-written by its Vice-President Bruce Friedrich and Vegan (?) Outreach's Matt Ball. In it, Friedrich was described as arguing "against questioning waiters in restaurants about the ingredients in menu items". I mean, if PETA thinks you should even ask if any ingredients are animal-derived at all, then one really has to wonder about the work it put into assessing or ascertaining whether anything in its list of purportedly accidentally vegan processed foods is, actually, vegan.

It's one thing to acknowledge that in a world where animal exploitation is rampant that it's impossible to always avoid consuming foods whose ingredients or processing have involved some sort of animal exploitation; it's another matter, however, to fall into the practice of deliberately turning a blind eye where a simple question or two can provide that information and allow you to choose and act accordingly. So? I wrote to Nabisco and asked if its Oreos are animal-free. Specifically, I asked if the sugar used in them is processed with bone char. The response on December 23:

Hi Mylene,

Thank you for visiting http://www.nabiscoworld.com and for your interest in our OREO product.

I understand that knowing what ingredients are in the food products you eat directly affect how you practice your lifestyle, and Kraft Foods does all that it can to assist its consumers in making educated food decisions.

I apologize but unfortunately this ingredient information is not currently available.

As you can imagine our products change frequently, and maintaining a list of products that contain enzymes would be virtually impossible.

Thank you for contacting us and please add our site to your favourites and visit us again soon!

Kim McMiller Associate Director, Consumer Relations

Enzymes. I hadn't even considered those when first writing to Nabisco (some enzymes used to condition dough in processed based goods are animal-derived). Not having received a response to my question concerning the sugar itself, I asked again and this time received this information in the following response on December 28:

Kraft has several sugar suppliers. Sugar in our products can come from either sugar cane or sugar beets, depending on availability.

Some of our suppliers DO use the animal-derived natural charcoal (also known as "bone char") in their cane sugar refining process and some suppliers DO NOT use this process.

Since we may use any of the sugar suppliers at any given time in production, we cannot give a definite answer as to whether or not bone char was used in the sugar refining process of a particular product.

So there you have it, straight from Oreos' makers, themselves. There is no way to confirm whether one package of Oreos or another contains animal-derived ingredients (e.g. enzymes used to process the dough) or sugar that's been processed using the charred bones of animals; there's no need to embarrass yourself, as PETA would have you think you are, by asking if any animals were used to concoct 'em.

Spread the word that PETA's information on what is or isn't vegan should be examined critically by all vegans. While you're at it, maybe ask yourself something I've been asking myself since the Oreo discussion came up: Why support a company that ordinarily profits off the massive exploitation of animals anyway when other options are available? Better yet, do a Google search or three for vegan cookie recipes and go nuts while ensuring that no animals were used to satisfy your sweet tooth. Feel free to post any links you find to recipes yielding particularly scrumptious results in the comments below!

What Vegans Eat

With the holidays just a few days and a nearly two-week long internet hiatus looming for me, I figured that now would be as good a time as any to take that periodic peek at what's been happening on some of my favourite vegan food blogs.

Nathan Kozuskanich shared a recipe for Green Potato Soup on his Vegan Dad blog a little less than a week ago. With heaps of leeks, chard and spinach, it looks as good as I've no doubt it tastes. It sounds like the perfect thing to ladle into a big bowl and curl up on the sofa with to watch holiday claymation specials.

Mike K at Vegan for the People posted a couple of recipes over the past few weeks that caught my attention and that I hope to try out soon. One is for Sesame Long Beans with Five Spice Tofu and the other for Somali Sambusas. The sambusas are filled with lentils , scallions and cilantro and seasoned with spices like cardamom, cumin and coriander. They sound wonderful --and I'm not just sayin' that because I'm a huge fan of filled things and finger foods.

Speaking of filled things, check out the Baked Whole Wheat Empanadas recipe Alicia shared with her readers on the Vegan Epicurean blog. This blog is relatively new to me and I'm already sold on it after looking over the dozen or so most recent recipes and their photos. I also appreciate that she includes nutritional information on the recipes she posts. I'll be lurking over there a fair bit in the New Year, I'm sure.

Just in time for holiday entertaining for those who like to cater to their guests sweet tooths, Claire at Chez Cayenne offered up a recipe last Saturday for Orange-Chocolate-Chocolate Chip cookies. She also provided a recipe for those who like to cater to those guests who like to indulge a little to engage in their holiday merrymaking: Vegan Irish Cream! (By the way, for some great info on chocolate and what is or isn't vegan, check out this 2006 blog post by cookbook author Dreena Burton!)

Cookbook author Bryanna Clark Grogan featured a recipe for a simple Rustic Apple-Almond Cake on her blog a few days ago that does indeed sound like a yummy treat to have on hand for family or friends who might come calling.

Finally, the six vegans over at Cooking from 1,000 Vegan Recipes have been busy! As of last Saturday, they'd prepared 155 out of the 1000 recipes in Robin Robertson's book. Go have a look at the gorgeous photos of the dishes they've reproduced from it. Better yet, buy the book and cook along with them, using their notes as pointers.

So there you have it--the last instalment of "What Vegans Eat" for 2009. If you think that going vegan is hard because your food options somehow become limited, or, if you're just stuck in a food rut and can't think of what to make for dinner, read the food blogs mentioned above (as well as those whose links I've listed off to the right) and let yourself be convinced otherwise.

Go vegan and stay vegan and enjoy the good healthy eats that come with it!

Why Erik Marcus Really Needs a New Domain Name - Part 2

Jonathan Safran Foer mentions 'suffering' over and over throughout his interview with Erik Marcus, making it clear, in case any of his readers or the podcast's more distracted listeners were still somehow left wondering, that his concern is with the treatment--not with the use--of nonhuman animals. His views on those who do take issue with the use of animals altogether get revealed as the interview takes a less-than-interesting turn and vegan advocacy suddenly gets kicked around like a crumpled soda pop can on a dirty beach. That old familiar shaming game begins and Marcus and Foer play off of each other to display how they have a heap more in common than merely having written books about factory farming.

It's sad enough when those who are either unsupportive of or outright opposed to veganism and vegan advocacy (and who themselves choose to exploit animals) can't articulate their stances any better than to ridicule vegans and equate consistency with fanaticism; it makes me wonder about what truly motivates people to say the things they do, however, when someone who is purportedly a vegan decides to turn on other vegans for having the (gasp!) audacity to talk to people other than vegans about veganism. Considering that as early as p. 6 of his book, Foer brings up the term "proselytizer" in his first mention of someone's having talked to him about the ethics of eating animals, the remainder of the interview, although horribly disappointing, is not particularly full of surprises.

Marcus' voice takes on an almost gleeful quality as he suggests that in writing his book, Foer left himself open to criticism "from hardcore level 5 vegans in our movement". Foer insists that he's all for criticism and then indulges in a fair bit of it himself, dancing a little jig around the ethics of eating animals while talking about "steps". Foer questions whether we should really be asking people to take the "first" step (i.e. any lessening at all of animal consumption) or the "last" step (i.e. veganism); he then suggests that it is altogether unreasonable to ask people to start by taking the "last" step. He insists that asking people to take the "first" step introduces the issue in a way that is "cast less militantly" and "opens a conversation".

For someone who asserts in this interview and elsewhere that he is no animal activist, Foer certainly seems to have rather strong opinions about how advocacy and activism should be carried out. The thing is that I can understand to a certain extent why an on-again, off-again vegetarian of many years who has yet--even after researching a book about the horrors of factory farming-- to make the decision to go vegan would perpetuate the myth that going vegan is extreme or that going vegan is difficult. We all have baggage when it comes to personal weakness; it seems somewhat disingenous, however, for Foer to project his weakness on to the public and to so grossly underestimate the average person's ability to hear and respond to a clear vegan message. And that Marcus, a vegan, should not see fit to point that out to Foer was what was perhaps the most shameful part of the interview.

But it doesn't stop there...

Foer insists that taking a first step (e.g. skipping meat for one day a week) always leads to a second and further step. Prof. Gary L. Francione, though, has successfully argued here and here both how and why this isn't the case. Foer then backtracks by asserting that even if those small steps "are the only steps made" that it still "makes a tremendous difference". The truth is that coddling anyone into thinking that any level of animal exploitation is OK since they've made a "tremendous difference" in dropping this or that animal product does a disservice to them and merely confuses them about what it is that we in fact owe animals. Marcus, however, states explicitly that he condones small changes that never lead to veganism. He describes what he calls his "two track activism", by which on one hand he a) purports to want to convince anyone and everyone that veganism is simple, but that b) if they're "absolutely unwilling", he still thinks that it's "a big win" to convince them to eat less meat or at least buy "more expensive" meat from animals that are not factory farmed. It's patronizing at best and dishonest at worst to communicate this sort of wishy-washy message in lieu of a clear and honest message. Furthermore, it would be an understatement to express the disservice that holding this mindset, and consuming accordingly, does to the nonhuman animals who do happen to be the unlucky ones who continue to be used by humans who've received this message from purported animal advocates. Is focusing on that first step and following it up with a pat on the back not really more akin, then, to taking two steps back while losing an opportunity to get someone to consider veganism?

Foer and Marcus bring up abolitionism and eventually switch the term out to opt for 'absolutist'. Foer describes abolitionism as drawing a line in the sand and then focusing on how to get others to draw their lines in the same place, rather than getting them to work "toward" that line as a "goal". In saying so, Foer shows a complete lack of understanding of the abolitionist approach to animal rights and the way in which vegan education is often conducted. Prof. Francione has repeatedly said in interviews, himself, that incremental change is encouraged as long as it involves moving forward towards the ultimate goal of going vegan. What's not condoned by abolitionists is the sort of incremental change that goes nowhere and merely serves to reinforce someone's views that in giving up this or that animal product, he or she has done enough and should not feel concerned or guilty about continuing to exploit nonhuman animals.

Where abolitionists believe that people have the ability to hear, process and react to a clear vegan message, Marcus takes an altogether different view. He describes assessing which message should be communicated to non-vegans as an issue of "trust", where someone like Foer feels that getting someone to the first step and then letting that person suss things out (whether or not this entails a progression to the logical conclusion of going vegan) shows that Foer "trusts" the recipient of the message. On the other hand, according to Marcus, others who are adamant about delivering an unequivocal vegan message don't, in fact, trust the message's recipients:

I think a lot of the absolutist position really has to do with distrusting your listener. [...] I am going to proscribe for you exactly what kind of behaviour you should be carrying out and if you come up anywhere short of that, or god forbid you advocate lesser steps to others, then you don't get to be in the camp of good people who care about animals.

Not only is this a total mischaracterization, but it is completely mean-spirited (and that's as generous a term as I could come up with). Marcus knows better than this, which is why I have to ask why he would deliberately try to deceive his listeners about abolitionists who are unequivocal about the need for nonviolent creative vegan education, and who instead put a great deal of faith into the ability of others to be able to connect the dots when presented with a clear message concerning the immorality of using nonhuman animals.

Furthermore, Marcus rants that the most "objectionable term" he's heard is the expression "moral baseline" and that using it suggests to people "that if they don't go vegan, automatically they're immoral people" and Marcus says that the more you "judge other people's integrity or quality as a person" the more opportunity you have to "alienate" those people. The irony in all of this is that on top of completely misrepresenting advocacy or education that has an unequivocal vegan message, Marcus is pretty much doing exactly what he accuses abolitionists of doing--finger-pointing, judging, questioning integrity and alienating.

Insisting that not consuming or exploiting animals should be a starting point--a moral baseline--for expressing that one is taking their interests seriously is logical. If one were advocating against rape, would Marcus tell us that it's objectionable to insist that if one is to take the interests or rights of rape victims seriously that one should start by themselves not raping others? It would be speciesist of Marcus to agree with one scenario and not the other. (For more information on why veganism needs to be the moral baseline of the animal rights movement, please read this essay on the Abolitionist Approach website by Prof. Francione.)

Erik Marcus ends his interview with Jonathan Safran Foer by stating that if you want to consider yourself an activist or if you're truly seriously interested in animal protection that you absolutely "have to" read Foer's book. I disagree and assert that if you want to consider yourself an animal rights activist and are truly seriously interested in animal protection that you should start by going vegan. In his write-up for his podcast interview with Foer, he claims that Eating Animals "will become the default title recommended by vegetarian activists for the next decade". Perhaps that is so, but I am fairly confident that, contrary to what Marcus in all of his confusion may also believe, Foer's book will never become the default title recommended by vegan activists for the next decade. I am also fairly confident that vegan Erik Marcus will never become the default animal advocate whose name gets recommended by vegan activists for the next decade. At least one can hope.

Why Erik Marcus Really Needs a New Domain Name - Part I

I've been reading Jonathan Safran Foer's book, Eating Animals, for the past couple of weeks now, squeezing in a paragraph here or there during lunch breaks and usually scribbling as many words down--shaking my head in disbelief--as actual words I've read. Around a month ago, I had a conversation with a vegan writer on Twitter about Foer's recent media darling status. She asked if I'd read the book and I told her 'no', and that the idea of actually spending money on such a thing was disconcerting to me, given all that I'd read about it. She suggested I contact the publisher to obtain a sample copy to review for my blog, and so began my slow trudge through what I'm starting to suspect may end up being the most beautifully written piece of absolute garbage I've ever read. (I'll reassess that once I get to the end, of course, when I plan to write a review of it--an autopsy, more or less.)

So Foer has been all over the news on the internet, in magazines and in newspapers. Kathy Freston, vegan cleanse diet guru (who enjoyed her own fifteen minutes of being a media darling a few months ago thanks to PETA-approved Oprah), recently called him "the Michael Pollan of a younger generation". Now, the last time I checked, Michael Pollan wasn't trying to talk anyone into going vegan. Neither is Jonathan Safran Foer, for that matter. In fact, from interviews, it seems that Foer isn't even necessarily bent on talking anyone into becoming a vegetarian, so it made enough sense that someone who made her name talking a famous talk-show host into adopting a vegan "diet"either for a month for health reasons should compare him to a guy like Pollan, who is known for promoting a trend known as "ethical" omnivorism. They're all people who seem to be cashing in on various food-related trends that, on some level or another, either directly involve or lead to the excusing away of varioius types of animal exploitation. What amazed me, however, was to hear fellow-vegans pick up on the Foer-mania and start lauding him for supposedly promoting veganism.

One such vegan is Erik Marcus, who's apparently written a couple of books about factory farming (neither of which I've read) and who happens to own the domain Vegan.com where he serves up what he refers to on Twitter as his "snark" (often just links to news stories about meat consumption, with a line or two of commentary) and where he features episodes of his podcast which is listed on iTunes as VegTalk (which, given the number of times Paul Shapiro has been a guest during the past several months might be more appropriately called HSUSTalk).

Marcus recently announced on Twitter that he'd be interviewing the non-vegan Foer and asked his followers what they'd like him to ask Foer. No surprise that many of the responses included asking Foer 1) why he doesn't promote veganism and 2) why after having done all of the research into factory farming that he did for the book, Foer is not vegan (he's on the record as being an on-again, off-again vegetarian at best). Marcus blew a gasket after Adam Kochanowicz, host of the Vegan News, offered his suggestion:

AbVegan @VeganDotCom Ask yourself why you're interviewing him. Ask Foer why he's not a vegan.

To which Marcus responded, tweeting:

VeganDotCom I should ask Foer how he's already managed to accomplish a million times more for farmed animals than what you've done. @AbVegan

Numerous tweets from various animal advocates imploring Marcus to elaborate upon what it was, exactly, that Foer had supposedly accomplished that was a million-fold better than Kochanowicz for "farmed animals" more or less went unanswered (albeit with Marcus' repeated insistence that Foer's having merely appeared on "Martha and Ellen" was somehow concrete evidence of his having made a difference in the lives of the animals we enslave to slaughter and eat). Other ignored tweets pointed out that on his own website's main page, Foer directs people to where they can buy locally raised turkeys to eat. Why indeed, as Kochanowicz asked, would a vegan who claims to be pro-veganism get excited over interviewing someone who exploits animals and enables and assists others in exploiting them?

So on with the interview...

Marcus starts the interview off gushing over how much he and Foer have in common, particularly since they've both written about factory farming (Marcus returns to this gushing state several times in his interview, but in the interest of not overstating what was already embarrassingly overstated, I'll refrain from revisiting it myself). They talk about the wrongful vilification of farmers, described by Foer as being mostly people who "care" about the animals they raise for food, but who are somewhat helpless when it comes to whatever technology they use to confine and kill and who are ultimately driven by consumer demand. Where demand driving exploitation is concerned, they get it right. Unfortunately the portrayal of helpless and caring farmers gets carried a bit far by Foer as he goes on about all of the farmers he met who were bona fide members (or former members) of PETA. He then goes to talk about what he calls "values" these farmers apparently share with "animal rights activists", citing this as the reason there is a need for animal activists to move "away from obsession with the divisive questions which, frankly, right now, in America, are not the relevant questions".

At this point, I wondered how much coaching Marcus did before this interview. I don't recall Foer ever using the term 'divisive' before, but it's been volleyed at abolitionists (and particularly at Prof. Gary L. Francione) innumerable times to silence differing opinions (usually when those abolitionists' opinions involve rejecting regulationist welfarism--which perpetuates the continued exploitation of nonhuman animals--and insisting on vegan advocacy that has as its goal the end of the exploitation of nonhuman animals). It's no wonder that Foer would conflate animal advocates with farmers, or confuse animal rights advocates with animal welfare advocates, given that throughout the interview, Marcus himself refers to the animal movement as the "vegetarian movement" and sometimes seems to use 'vegan' and 'vegetarian' interchangeably. But I'm getting sidetracked when there's so much more to cover...

I'll be doing that in Part II of my Marcus/Foer love-in review tomorrow.

THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.

Yesterday, Prof. Gary L. Francione wrote on his Abolitionist Approach website about setting up a virtual billboard to "spread the message that nonviolence against our nonhuman brothers and sisters is possible—if we want it". To do so:

Send this message on all your social message boards and ask your friends to send it on theirs. Text your friends and ask them to text their friends. Add this message to your signature line on your emails. Let’s start a friendly wave of creative, nonviolent vegan education.

Today, the remarkably multi-talented Vincent Guihan (who writes the We Other Animals blog and maintains the abolitionist Animal Emancipation discussion forum) created some banners that can be used for this very purpose. You can find them here (along with their HTML code) and re-post or distribute them freely.

Take the opportunity to share your vegan story when you do, or to talk to people about how easy--and right--it is to go vegan!