Go Vegan!

On Grudges

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

"Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude."

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

What Vegans Eat

It feels as if I just finished writing up January's short highlight of some of my favourite vegan food blogs--February has been zipping right by! So, on with it, I guess:

Anna over at Carrot and Potato Time just blogged about her experience making almond milk. I really, really have to try this for myself, soon since it seems so easy to make. Many don't realize that almond milk has been enjoyed for hundreds of years, its origins easily traced back to the Middle Ages, when refrigerators were a luxury only enjoyed by time-travelers.

Speaking of milks: Mihl at Seitan Is My Motor recently posted a recipe for a delicious-sounding Carrot-Coconut Soup w/Lime. It's described as "creamy, spicy, fruity and slightly sour" and looks absolutely beautiful, to boot!

Speaking of carrots (and beautiful dishes): Sinead at kitchen dancing shared a recipe for a Multicoloured Carrot Pilaf that sounds as delightfully complex tasting as the aforementioned soup. I always love her descriptions of how she goes about assembling her vegan culinary concoctions.

For a quick dessert or just a snack to satisfy a sweet tooth, how about a couple of the Banana-Maple Oatmeal Cookies from SusanV's FatFree Vegan Kitchen blog?

Go forth and cook up some good vegan eats!

Communication!

Cal State Fullerton's Daily Titan printed an opinion piece yesterday by student April Ehrlich ("Shades of Green: Vegan Arrogance"). In it, Ehrlich complains about a friend (maybe a former friend, after this public diatribe?) Ehrlich and her father recently invited along on a camping trip. She sets the piece's jeering tone at the beginning, writing:

I don’t know why I took my vegan friend camping with me and my family. You’d think a vegan would know better than to trek off on a week-long vacation without an endless supply of trail mix or dried edamame, or whatever it is that vegans live off of when they’re on the road.

What precipitated such a complaint? Ehrlich's father offered her vegan friend foods containing animal products and she chose to decline them. Ehrlich shows a complete misunderstanding and lack of acceptance of her friend's ethical choices by accusing her of being "snobbish" and of not being "open-minded" for having turned down cheesy eggs and for refusing crackers that contained chicken broth, melodramatically emphasizing the disappointment and distress her father purportedly experienced when her friend did so ("[h]is heart was broken") and whining that her friend would "rather starve than eat horrid, lowly camping food".

It's obvious that (so very easily) preventable miscommunication occurred before the camping trip. Ehrlich apparently knew that her friend was vegan, but seemed (and still seems) to fail to grasp what this entails. All parental woes and awkwardness (and one would hope, Ehrlich's own indignant public shaming of her friend) could have been averted with a simple discussion beforehand to confirm her friend's needs and whether or not her friend should bring her own food for the trip. This simple discussion could have been initiated by either party involved, host or guest. Ehrlich complains: "The girl could have brought her own food if she didn’t want to torture my family and I with her snobbish remarks regarding our eating habits". By this point, it's too late.

With this comes a valuable lesson for Ehrlich's friend--one that every vegan eventually comes 'round to learning: Life is so much simpler for everyone involved if you are proactive and cover all bases to look after yourself in social situations that involve eating food or consuming (or using) other items that may be non-vegan. Combine this with clear communication beforehand and you end up with a win-win situation where you're not left with a grumbling stomach and your hosts are not left confused or offended. Heck, if you bring a little extra, you also have an opportunity to show people how easy to find or prepare, and how delicious vegan food can be. The point is that it always helps to plan ahead and planning ahead can be an easy and effective way to leave others with a positive impression of veganism.

I'll play devil's advocate and wonder if, given Ehrlich's accusations, her friend actually may have said anything worthy of being judged so harshly. Ehrlich only indicates in her piece that her friend remarked that some foods have hidden animal ingredients, so we're left to speculate that Ehrlich merely made an incredibly defensive leap that in refusing to eat animal ingredients, her friend was somehow judging her and her family for doing so. Given Ehrlich's hostility and aversion to mincing words, it's highly doubtful that she would have overlooked the opportunity to quote her friend if there had been offensive words to quote. The intensity of her defensive hostility is obvious when she continues, writing:

Unfortunately, I think that’s what she enjoyed most about it. She sat high up on that throne of “I’m-better-than-you-because-I-love-animals-more.” [...] So, who’s better than who? I don’t eat red meat, so I must be better than you. Well, I don’t eat ANY meat, so I’m better. Well, I don’t eat any meat OR dairy. So?! I don’t eat any meat OR dairy OR anything that’s not organic OR anything with preservatives. I ONLY EAT RAW VEGETABLES. SO THERE. I WIN.

After a token bit admitting that after watching Foer on Colbert she agrees that not eating animal flesh is healthier, she snarks about factory farming and then takes a parting shot at her friend and at all those who take the interests of nonhuman animals seriously enough not to consume them, chastising us for being rude:

[W]hen the time comes to enjoy something cultural, or if a family cooks a meal for you, it’s offensive and snobbish to deny the offer. Basically, nobody is going to shoot you on site for eating an egg or maybe a piece of chicken every now and again.

You're right, April. Nobody is going to shoot us on site for eating an egg, but that's obviously beside the point. It's a real shame that you, on the other hand, would choose to personalize our ethical choices by going off on an ignorant and judgmental tear for not, in fact, eating that egg. Lest we hurt your feelings, or something. "Good job."

(Edited to add: It's worth noting that you can leave comments or responses to the original article at the Daily Titan. Many have already done so.)

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!