"Seagans"? Really?

The SFGate has a new blog as of today; it's called "Veganize It!" and it's written by Sabrina Modelle who proposes to spend her time veganizing recipes for readers. Modelle describes herself as having recently completed a 28-day vegan cleanse, in which she also omitted alcohol, caffeine and refined sugar.

By the beginning of March, I knew my eating habits would change drastically forever. Since I am a food writer, I adopted a six-day-a-week vegan/seagan diet with one day for research, cooking, recipe development for clients and dining at the latest and greatest. It works perfectly for me, and it feels like a nice balance for my health and the health of the planet.

Basically, instead of attempting to compartmentalize veganism according to different meals (à la Mark Bittman), Modelle does so according to different days of the week. Unsurprisingly, she also restricts her consideration of the term "vegan" to food and describes her reasons for doing whatever-it-is-that-she-is-doing as being based in concern for her own "health and the health of the planet". Somehow, non-human animals get lost in the discussion.

A so-called six-day-a-week vegan diet would be confusing enough to The SFGate's readers, since it conveys that one can be somehow logically and accurately qualify oneself as being any sort of vegan when one continues to eat -- or otherwise use -- animal products. However, Modelle's use of the word "seagan" piqued my interest (albeit in a sort of all-too-familiar stomach-churning way). A quick Google search confirmed the obvious, that "seagan" is supposed to be some sort of variation of "vegan" which includes the consumption of fishes and other sea creatures.

Before my Google search, however, I left a short comment in response to her article asking what exactly she means in describing herself as "vegan/seagan", just to get the straight dope. Her response? It confirmed my suspicions and contained an attempt, perhaps simply based on a lack of nutritional information, to justify her not even following a so-called vegan diet for those six days out of seven:

Hi Mylene,

Until recently, I was eating a six day a week vegan diet, but it became apparent that soy products were triggering my migraines. I also eat beans and seitan for protein, but many beans trigger my migraines as well. About two weeks ago, I added fish to my diet. The result being, I eat a vegan diet with some sustainable seafood for added protein a couple of times a week. Seagan is just a made up name that I’ve heard tossed around over the years during my bouts of vegetrarianism/veganism/pescatarianism/ethical omni life. I like six day a week seagan because I’m not pescatarian since I don’t eat eggs or dairy (except on my one day a week). Labels are so complicated, right?

Indeed, labels get awfully complicated. They particularly get complicated when someone attempts to co-opt one which denotes a lifestyle avoiding all animal consumption and tries to fragment it around part-time animal consumption, or the consumption of only certain animal species.

In good faith, I responded to her with the following explanation and suggestion:

I was curious, since you wrote "vegan/seagan" and vegans (by definition) avoid all forms of animal use or exploitation (i.e. food, clothing, entertainment, et al). Limiting the use of the word to food alone is problematic, but using the word "vegan" to describe a diet that involves the habitual consumption of one (or several) type(s) of animal species is certainly an incorrect use of the term. BTW, if the sole reason that you're consuming fishes and and other sea creatures is that you fear you're not getting enough protein (since you state that soy and some other legumes give you migraines), you should consider exploring other really good plant-based sources of protein like seitan, nuts/seeds (and their butters), quinoa, amaranth, oats and various other whole grain products.

Hopefully she'll consider those options instead of thinking that she needs to continue consuming animal flesh to obtain adequate dietary levels of protein. At the very least, however, I hope she'll agree that it makes sense for her to cease using the word "vegan" to describe any facet of her own personal consumption as it stands now, diet or otherwise. As any vegan who's interacted with friends, family, coworkers, food service workers (and so on) already knows, there's already more than enough confusion out there over whether vegans consume this or that animal product. Let's hope that Modelle opts to clarify things rather than muddle them further for the general public. And let's hope that she gives some serious thought to actually going vegan.

Either / Or?

It's exasperating the number of people who exert so much energy to try to justify a lesser degree of animal use as a fair and reasonable alternative to simply not using them at all. The increasingly undiscerning folks at Huffington Post recently let one such person, marketing consultant Val Brown and self-identified friend of Kathy Freston's, have her say about veganism and whether it's really all that warranted ("Is Half a Vegan Better Than None?").

As so many of these articles start out, Brown falls all over herself to try to establish her credibility as a warm-hearted lover of fluffy non-humans. She posts "cute animal videos on Facebook", she tells us, and she has a soft spot for her cat. If that doesn't convey her earnestness, Brown delivers a KO by waxing nostalgic over her more innocent days:

My favorite childhood journey was to the Catskill Game farm, where you fed little bottles of milk to the baby lambs, pigs and deer. The pigs and I both squealed with delight.

Of course, it's easy enough to love the animals we call "pets" or "companions" and who doesn't love a cute animal video to tug at our old heartstrings and entertain us? And of Brown's warm fuzzies over her squealing bottle-feeding visits, she fails to elaborate that the Catskill Game Farm was a zoo filled with exotic animals and that when the zoo closed down because of financial problems, just under a thousand animals ended up auctioned off in single day to the highest bidders -- many of them sold off to organizers of canned hunts. "Clearly, I am an animal nut," says Brown. Indeed...

So with her solid lover-of-cute-fuzzy-animals cred established, Brown slips into semi-confessional mode to display her inconsistency and absolute moral confusion to all by talking about her own set of limits and loves when it comes time to choosing which animals she will or won't use:

My love for animals led me stop eating meat and poultry 15 years ago, but I've never been able to make the leap to veganism, and I constantly feel guilty about it. Am I weak, cruel, vain? Perhaps. I love ice-cream, omelets, and salmon; shoes, belts and bags. I draw the line at buying leather coats, which is really just to save face -- I don't want what I'm wearing to scream "dead animal carcass." Leather shoes are smaller and less conspicuous.

One is left to wonder what sort of bandwagon she's on, since it seems clear that she almost seems proud or flippant in describing how she occasionally self-flagellates over her "love" and continued consumption of dairy, eggs, fish, leather.

Brown goes on to weave her "friend" Kathy Freston's Oprah-hyped purported vegan cred into her article, mentioning how Freston recommends moving towards a "vegan diet" in increments to "improve your health, the environment, and of course, lessen animal suffering". Brown admits that that in 15 years of her supposedly -- and she adopts Kathy Freston's catch-word here -- "leaning in" towards veganism, she's mostly engaged in self-deception to excuse away her use of animals:

For years I blindly (and somewhat intentionally) operated under the incorrect assumption that in buying leather products I was simply utilizing the by-products of meat eaters. I now know that's not true. And while I do seek out 100% man-made shoes [...] if really taken by a pair of leather boots, I will buy them. For the most part, I buy non-leather handbags [...] and belts if they're decent looking. But again, if I fall in love with something leather, I seem unable to keep myself from buying it.

She admits that her possible impulse control disorder is all about vanity. She asserts that she's just plain ol' powerless to resist, regardless of the fact that she claims, herself, that most of the animals used to satisfy her leather fetish come "from nations where animals are notoriously badly treated" (a distinction here being akin to pointing out that someone was tortured on a plank rather than being tortured on a badly-inflated air mattress). Even making this meaningless distinction in her head, though, leaves her claiming that she just can't help herself. For Brown, the lure of a cute purse trumps the torture of a sentient creature -- however "notorious" she qualifies said torture to be.

Her confusion becomes even more apparent when she starts justifying her eating fish. She draws the line at boiling lobsters alive (who are not fish, but I digress) and at eating farmed fish (for health reasons, because of the "murky, chemical laden water" in which they're raised). The rest are on the menu for her since they're "harder to relate to than [cute] furry mammals, our brethren". (Obviously, Brown's brethren don't include animals whose skin is used to make her shoes and purses.) She then once again focuses on the treatment of animals typically raised for food by asserting that unlike farmed mammals, fish lead good lives -- up until they don't. Yet even then, she admits that she is aware that the manner in which those fish have their lives taken is heinous and she asserts that even knowing this is not enough to keep her from continuing to consume them.

Perhaps a day on a fishing boat watching nets full of fish squirm and jump and gasp for life might cure me of my fish habit, or seeing the unfortunate sea turtles, dolphins and other lovely aquatic creatures that get caught in the nets.

She basically discusses animals in terms of the degrees she perceives in their treatment, then admits that treatment is actually mostly irrelevant to her. She writes of her awareness of the meaninglessness of the expression "free range" in the egg and dairy industries. She describes how chicks are habitually ground alive and the conditions under which chickens are kept. She writes of the repeated impregnation of dairy cows, who live, in her own words "miserable lives" and whose offspring fare no better to keep up with the human consumer's demand for dairy.

So what's Brown's solution? Although she seems to have bought into and understood the arguments that groups like HSUS and PETA use when targeting areas in animal agriculture in need of so-called brand spanking new and improved regulations, or when they single out specific forms of animal use as worse than others, Brown merely muses about a less "cruel" manner in which to continue raising them for her use.

Maybe we're meant to use some animal by-products -- eggs and milk and wool [...] -- but to do it without cruelty could perhaps only be accomplished on a small farm. The size and needs of our society make it difficult to meet demand. But still, there are many ways it could be done more humanely, even with mass production, though the agriculture lobby is strong and resistant.

Brown herself asserts that when it comes to going vegan, she "stop[s] short". All of this talk of the cruel treatment of animals has merely left her admitting to repeated self-deception or in portraying herself as being otherwise too helpless to resist. It's left her musing about a world where "cruelty" could (purportedly) be taken out of the equation so that she could continue to buy her leather purses without feeling "guilty". This is what all of the information she's absorbed about the treatment of animals has left her wanting -- guiltless use. And it doesn't happen, she'll still continue using some animals and compartmentalizing her justifications as she goes along. For Brown, it's about her -- not about non-human animals. Referring to herself as too selfish and as just not having had that epiphany that would leave her considering going vegan, she calls out to (Kathy-vegan-catch-word) "veganists" and attempts to bond by getting them to share their stories and then asking them for absolution until she is able to "surrender [her own] selfishness", pleading: "[I]s half a vegan better than none?"

In Brown's world, either you use animals a little or a lot and they're either treated badly or treated "humanely". Hopefully she can let go of her self-cajoling long enough to realize that the real either/or involves the decision to either continue using them, or in weighing the rights and interests of all non-humans seriously enough to choose not to use them at all. And this is why when we talk to Val Browns, we really need to deliver a clear and unequivocal vegan message.

What This Vegan Eats

I'm wandering away from the soup photos this week...

Open-faced seitan sandwich with cheddar Daiya on pumpernickel toast, topped w/gravy made from leftover seitan basting liquid. Peas and sauerkraut. Comfort food extraordinaire!

Steamed broccoli w/oven-baked Gardein chunks and plum tomatoes.

Oven-baked sweet potato wedges (seasoned with chipotle powder) and Gardein strips.

Yes, sometimes vegans eat simple salads. This one had romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes and scallions and ended up topped off with ground flax and Italian dressing.

How Do You Protect a 'Thing'?

I wonder sometimes how many hours of my life I could give up just addressing some of the more problematic information and opinions Mark Bittman releases into the ether. His Opinionator blog post from late yesterday ("Who Protects the Animals?") is certainly no exception to much of the confusion he spreads about what we do or don't owe non-human animals. He has rejected veganism publicly and periodically asserts that veganism is a bad idea because it's supposedly all about eating processed fake meat. And regardless of this, he's co-opted the word "vegan" to describe a diet by which someone only eats animal flesh for dinner.

In his recent piece, Bittman writes about E6 Cattle Company in Texas which recently came under fire when undercover video taken by animal advocacy group Mercy for Animals revealed incidents of cruel behaviour by employees, including but not limited to bashing in the heads of live cows with pickaxes. Bittman goes on to describe other widely-reported cases involving animals raised for human consumption and describes as "horror stories". He expresses what seems to be indignation over the fact that "federal laws governing animal cruelty apply [only] to slaughterhouses" where animals spend their last few moments alive before they're "dispatched". On the actual farms or premises where animals are enslaved and raised, they are only "protected" by state laws, he criticizes. He calls this, along with lack of enforcement of any laws at all in place the "root of the problem".

Bittman asserts that this videotaping is necessary to ensure that animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption are treated "humanely". Furthermore, he writes that polls have shown that "almost everyone believes that even if it costs more, farm animals should be treated humanely". Bittman's concern is over the law that's being considered in Minnesota, Iowa and Florida, by which it would become illegal to engage in undercover videotaping on factory farms. Bittman insists that because of this, welfarist groups like HSUS and Mercy for Animals must not be hindered legally from "documenting the kind of behavior most of us abhor".

At this point, I would have been ready to jump in to add that the heinous video footage that gets passed around from time to time is not the exception to the rule and that the lives of all animals enslaved to be slaughtered for our consumption are horrible lives. But Bittman himself jumps in to admit as much, stating that the video footage we end up seeing merely serves to remind us of what goes on. Of course, he specifies that this is standard on factory farms, but it's not. The same things -- the branding, the dehorning, the forced impregnation and subsequent removal of offspring from their mothers so that they may be sent off to slaughter (or otherwise enslaved themselves for human use and eventual slaughter), et al. -- they occur wherever and whenever non-human animals are treated as future food for human consumption. It's not limited to factory farms. Bittman says that "some abuse is pretty much guaranteed" when the truth is that there is no way in which you can enslave an animal -- treat her like a thing with no interest in a life of her own -- then kill her, and not call it abuse.

Instead of calling for welfarist organisations to be allowed to engage in covert videotaping operations to spot-check for the worst forms of torture imposed on these animals we call "food", why is it so difficult for Bittman to consider suggesting that we don't, in fact, need to use them in the first place? Why is it so difficult for Bittman to consider that since "some abuse is pretty much guaranteed" that all of it could be prevented by educating people that it's wrong to treat sentient non-human animals as if they were things? Bittman inadvertently provides the answer to my questions by saying that "[t]here is, of course, the argument that domesticating animals in order to kill them is essentially immoral; those of us who eat meat choose not to believe this". He argues that allowing welfarist groups to continue videotaping animal agriculture operations would ensure that existing regulations concerning the levels of torture inflicted upon non-human animals would be better observed, while on the other hand, Mercy for Animals' Nathan Runkle elaborates that allowing them to continue videotaping "would allow the public to trust these operations rather than fear them".

And thus lies the absolute moral confusion inherent in speciesism. On the one hand, you have "almost everyone believ[ing] that even if it costs more, farm animals should be treated humanely". Yet the undeniable facts are that all animals raised for food suffer wretchedly on some level or another and that regardless of where they're enslaved or of how they're slaughtered, these animals are treated like things and deprived of being able to live out their own lives on their own terms. And while Bittman himself is willing to admit that the standard practice involved in raising and slaughtering almost 10 billion animals a year in the US alone undeniably involves tremendous suffering, he's not willing to view their enslavement and slaughter as "immoral". And rather than focus on educating the public about not using animals, welfarist organizations like Mercy for Animals work towards facilitating the public's ability to "trust these operations"-- to feel better about continuing to use non-human animals. So, indeed, who does protect the animals? Not Mark Bittman. Certainly not Mercy for Animals.

Please consider going vegan. If you're already vegan, talk to others about doing so. That's the only way to protect non-human animals. At the very, very least, we owe them that much.

What This Vegan Eats

A few delicious things I've made and devoured over the past week:

Dill tabbouleh on quinoa. It was my first time using dill to make tabbouleh and it ended up being a very interesting twist on an old favourite.

This concoction is a tomato-rice soup w/spinach, onions, mixed legumes, turnip, carrots & corn. I seasoned it with smoked paprika & tarragon, which left it with a rich, earthy taste, punctuated just right with a subtle tang.

I've been having fresh fruit with my meals a lot lately. This bowl of cantaloupe and wild blueberries accompanied a leafy salad and a piece of pumpernickel toast.

Sweet potato and red lentil soup, with various Indian seasonings (including fresh curry leaves) and topped with cilantro.

More fruit! I bought a whole pineapple for the first time in my life today. (No, really.) I've had it canned before, but had never gone at one myself. I've since learned that around half of pineapple's Vitamin C is destroyed in the canning process, along with almost all of its bromelain.

Vegan Pregnancies: The Portman Debacle

Since last week the internet has been buzzing with the news that actress and vegan shoe line owner Natalie Portman has admitted in a recent radio interview that she's resumed consuming animal products. I wrote about it not particularly caring which celebrity goes or stops being vegan this or that week. There's a constant churning, it seems, and the interpretations of "veganism" presented by the celebrities vary enough that any message that could get out to the public about what we really owe non-human animals almost always either gets mangled or lost.

The worst part is that each time a Natalie Portman decides to do an ethical about-face and cites lame or misinformed reasons to justify having done so, it actually sends a strong negative message out to the public about veganism -- or at the very least, it sends out an awfully confused one. And it's what it ends up triggering in its ensuing discussion that leaves me groaning a little. In Portman's case, for instance, every half-wit with access to a keyboard and an internet connection who is either antagonistic towards or dreadfully misinformed about veganism has been been rubbing his hands together in glee since the story broke (and I say "broke" although it wasn't exactly news, but just the first time Portman had gone in as much detail about her change in ethical stance).

Veganism Is teh Evil

The OC Register (which I was told is published in one of the more nutso right wing areas of California) jumped on the opportunity to write a piece that not only questioned the safety of veganism for pregnant women, but its safety for anyone and everyone ("Is veganism right for pregnant women?"). The article starts by mentioning Portman's decision to stop being vegan because of cravings, as well as a vague reference she'd made in her radio interview to pregnant women needing to watch their iron and B12 levels. The article then proceeds to twist those comments into a given that veganism is unhealthy for pregnant women and extends that assumption further: "If shunning animal products is bad for pregnant women and unborn children, is it good for any of us?" The article's writer then talks to an OB/GYN "who knows a lot about prenatal nutrition" and who is "definitely against the vegan diet". And what did token expert Dr. Felice Gersh have to say?

"What is necessary when a women is pregnant to develop her baby or when she’s nursing, is really a good clue for what she needs her whole lifetime," she said. "Some vegans live to be 100, but in general it’s not a good idea to be a vegan."

The reasons for this, according to Gersh, are that vegans don't get enough omega-3 fatty acids through their food and are "notoriously deficient" in B12 and zinc ("because they eat so many grains"). To his credit, the article's writer does point out that omega-3 supplements are readily available, although he doesn't address her comment concerning B12 or zinc (nor their purportedly notorious deficiency for vegans) except to add that vegans claim that they can get everything they need from food itself. Basically, the article started with the assumption that veganism is unhealthy for pregnant women and then tried to carry it further (albeit in a really sloppy and open-ended manner) to extrapolate that it's unhealthy for everyone, perhaps planting a seed in the minds of its readers. This is the sort of thing that celebrities announcing their renunciation of veganism and then mumbling a few sentences about health concerns can trigger.

(No Really... Veganism Is teh Evil)

Another anti-vegan opportunist to take off running with Portman's radio interview was Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer and ethicist (of sorts) whose focus is on "human exceptionalism". Gary L. Francione debated Smith around a year ago on the Michael Medved radio show. Smith sees humans are more morally important than non-humans and periodically takes issue with the abolitionist approach to animal rights on his blog. In response to the whole Portman affair ( "Natalie Portman Puts Unborn Baby First by Abandoning Veganism"), Smith had this to say:

Vegans like to say that it is a perfectly healthy diet–more healthy than the biologically natural omnivorous human diet. While it can certainly be indulged healthily–if carefully managed with supplements, etc.–unlike our natural diet, it is potentially hazardous for pregnant women.

He then lapses into fear mongering by referring to the recent case in France where two flaky parents decided to ignore the recommendation of their doctor to seek further medical and nutritional counsel concerning their baby, opting to rely on things like cabbage poultices instead. As UWM Post writer Sarah Hanneken pointed out in a recent article ("Vegan parents in the media"), bad parenting is bad parenting and it's unfortunate that sensationalism-seeking mainstream media would rather jump on the word 'veganism' and vilify vegans to more easily sell a story than to actually present all of the facts. It's no surprise that someone as antagonistic to animal rights as Smith, then, would try to link a story such as this one to Portman's announcement, as if it could lend credence to his suggestion that veganism may be hazardous to pregnant women:

Good for her. She listened to what her body needed during gestation. Her baby matters more than “the animals.” Parents should not put their children at physical risk over ideology or belief.

So on the one hand, we have something like Natalie Portman's renunciation of veganism leading to the anti-vegans' spewing of more anti-vegan misinformation. Because of course, a celebrity's half-hearted reference to a vague possibility of nutritional deficiencies for pregnant vegan women who don't stay on top of how they're fuelling their bodies, combined with a story about a couple of flaky neglectful parents -- who happened to be vegan -- whose neglect led to the death of their child pretty much cement it that vegans opting to stay vegan through a pregnancy and to raise vegan babies (like Kenya, Anna and Woz and many more women I know) are putting "their [future] children at physical risk over ideology or belief". Riiiiiight.

On Not Really Ditching Veganism

Then there's the problem with "not-really-vegan" vegans hooking on to the news story to absolve themselves of deciding to become less than "not-really-vegan". For instance, on some baby blog today, a pregnant woman called Elisabeth Lambert who self-identified as vegan latched on to the news about Portman's having ditched veganism ("I'm pregnant, vegan, and all I want is a Junior Burger"):

So when Natalie Portman announced last week that her vegan diet had given way to the cravings she was experiencing as a result of her pregnancy, I breathed a sigh of relief. If Ms. Portman, Oscar-winning actress with millions in her bank account to spend on chefs, dieticians, nutritionists and health professionals, couldn’t keep up a vegan diet during pregnancy, then how was a mere mortal like myself expected to? And really, as long as your pregnancy is progressing well, and both you and your baby are healthy, that’s all that matters.

So you've got a pregnant woman who calls herself vegan attempting to absolve herself of having given in to a craving to eat a hamburger because the oh-so-famous Natalie Portman ditched veganism during her own pregnancy? (Why do I hear my mother's voice in my head asking me if I'd jump off a bridge if all of my friends did so?) Thankfully, before she reaches this conclusion, Lambert makes it crystal clear that her "veganism" was restricted to the consumption of food and that her "reasons for adopting a vegan diet were health-related, and not due to any ethical or moral stances". So when she writes:

The saltiness, the texture, the bun, the sauce…and the meat. Oh the glorious meatiness of the meat. That meat pattie [sic] was the best thing I’d eaten in forever, so much so, I let myself go into a burger stupor, knocking back burger after burger.

I'm a little less inclined to be shocked. Here was a woman who had merely avoided eating animal products up until that point, and very explicitly for her own personal health reasons. Rather than being some sort of ethical vegan confessional, she merely attempts to hop on the Portman story's bandwagon by admitting that instead of perhaps using animal products on her hair or to clean her counter, or to entertain herself, that she put some in her belly. "Meh," I think to myself. "Just another example of a non-vegan's seeking attention by co-opting the term 'vegan' and grabbing a headline to get her five minutes. The true disappointment with this article, however, comes at the end when Lambert asserts that there is a lack of information concerning veganism and pregnancies, which is just plain wrong. There is information to be had in everything from books on vegan nutrition to fact-sheets and guidelines by experts on various vegan websites, as well as on mainstream medical websites. Someone obviously forgot to use teh Google.

When the Vegans Who Think Unequivocally Promoting Veganism Is teh Evil Get Involved

Perhaps one of the worst things that ends up happening when some celebrity in the public eye gravitates from supporting veganism to reverting to using animals is when some animal advocates end up shaming other animal advocates for taking issue with it on any level, presenting what's too often valid criticism as making veganism seem too hard. Sara Best (self-described "mom to two little omnivores and married to one dedicated carnivore") over at This Dish is Veg, for instance, wrote a piece ("Let's all take a breath and give Natalie Portman a break") in which she refers to vegans who'd engaged in discussing Portman's public about-face as having "erupted in a cacophony of chirping" and as "howling in response". With the same derision, Best denounces the criticism raised by vegans of pseudo-vegan Kathy Freston's attempts to water down veganism with her catch-word "veganish" and of vegans' clarifying that Bill Clinton's eating fish meant that he wasn't the vegan mainstream media was widely reporting him to be.

All this judgment flying around the purity of someone’s food choices scares regular people. [...] That soccer mom or that truck driver who heard about the benefits of a plant-based diet and thought about maybe trying it out, might just stick with the KFC if they think they might be attacked should they announce their intention to be vegan but be unable to stick to it a hundred per cent of the time. [...] It’s easier to just not try.

I don't even know where to start with this statement. First of all, the word "purity" almost only ever seems to get hauled out when someone is attempting to undermine anybody's holding veganism as a moral baseline when it comes to animal advocacy. It's used to shame those who refuse to condone "some" animal use as praiseworthy. But when Best emphasizes "food choices" and uses "plant-based diet" interchangeably with "vegan", it becomes clear that her interpretation of veganism does indeed allow for "some" animal use (i.e. that of animals not used for food), so it's no surprise that she would begin on this note.

Best goes on to tell advocates to keep their eye on the big picture, which she says is to reduce suffering for the non-human animals, animal industry workers and the very planet itself. (Funny that I thought that this big picture for most vegans actually involves an end to all non-human animal use -- not just a reduction in the suffering of some.) She points out that Portman didn't tell people to "load the kids into the minivan and hit McDonald’s for dinner" but that she's just admitted that she, herself, has gone back to consuming this or that animal part -- to treating animals as things that exist to satisfy her celebrity cravings. Best applauds Portman by saying that she's "still a vegetarian" and that "she still promotes conscious eating". But how the hell do either of these things matter? Whether you're eating animal flesh or eggs or dairy products, it's all the same to the animals enslaved for our use in the end. And as for this promoting "conscious eating" garbage, how on earth is it more ethical to use animals if you are actually aware -- "conscious" -- of what such use entails? One should hope that awareness would actually lead one to cease using animals and to not condone their use, rather than attempting to absolve oneself by claiming "I know where my food comes from".

Best claims that "what you choose to eat speaks volumes about what kinds of actions and policies you support and encourage". Well, Sara Best, what Portman chooses to eat speaks volumes about what kinds of actions and policies she supports and encourages. And your defending her and accusing vegans who've expressed concern over this and seems to speak volumes about what This Dish Is Veg supports and encourages -- and that doesn't seem to include not using animals or treating them like things. Instead of trying to silence valid criticism by conflating it with "attacking" and instead of accusing vegans of expecting those in the public eye who renounce veganism of expecting those celebrities to be "perfect vegans", how about recognizing that those vegans in question are actually worried about the fallout? How about recognizing that pregnant vegans aren't looking forward to having friends, family and even medical caregivers take off running with the ensuing media stories painting veganism as dangerous or portraying pregnant vegans as jeopardizing their future offspring? How about recognizing that shirking off the question of whether or not it's right to treat another sentient creature as a thing shouldn't be excused because of something as ludicrous as a food craving? Instead of accusing vegans discussing their concerns as "attacking" Portman, why not look at what really constitutes the big picture? How about not letting mainstream media -- as well as other animal advocates -- present veganism as involving any degree of deliberate unnecessary animal use?

The whole Portman debacle merely serves to drill home that as animal advocates and activists engaged in vegan education, we shouldn't focus on celebrities hopping on bandwagons. That being said, we really realistically need to make ourselves aware of the problems and additional work which may ensue when they hop off.

What Vegans Eat, Part II

I've written it often enough here: I love to make soup. As long as I have some basic herbs and spices stowed away, maybe a handful of dried beans or grains and a few odds and ends in the crisper, I can come up with something tasty and nutritious. The flexibility involved is nuts once you get the hang of figuring out complementary tastes and textures, and recipes for old favourites are often very forgiving.

I always get a little excited when I see some of my favourite food bloggers posting new ideas for recipes, since it gives me the opportunity to expand my own experimentation with a bit more confidence. I noticed a whole bunch over the past month when I did some looking around last week and decided to post them here separately, since there were so many of them to share:

Things to Do With Tomatoes

Renae from i eat food posted a recipe for a seafood-less Old Bay Soup which, even with its lengthy list of ingredients, sounds incredibly simple to make. I've never used Old Bay before and may give it a short starting with her recipe.

Liz at Food Snobbery Is My Hobbery ended up succumbing to a craving to whip up a Midnight Minestrone (see her photo at right) that sounds exactly like the sort of quick-fix soup I'd whip up close to the wee hours, as well.

Vegan Epicurean featured a variation on another old tomato-based favourite -- Creamy Mushroom and Tomato Soup. I've really not experimented much with cashews, although I see them come up often in recipes for things like fake cheeses as well as in various creamy dishes. I should really play around with them, since one of the people for whom I end up cooking most has a bit of a soy intolerance; it would be nice to explore alternatives to soy-based products.

Speaking of Creamy Dishes

Meg at The Snarky Chickpea shared a recipe for Potato-y Soup for One a few weeks back, which was an adaptation of one she'd found on a friend's blog. Having recently started trying Daiya, myself, I'm curious now about using it with potatoes and particularly in potato soup. I agree with her that cheddar Daiya might be a more interesting addition to this.

Allyson at Manifest Vegan posted something I tried making this past weekend and adored -- Carrot Cilantro Soup (see her photo to the right). It's so simple to make and its flavour is so different from the usual standbys I prepare. This will definitely be one to haul out to try on dinner guests in the future if I can just figure out what to include in the meal to round it all out.

What Vegans Eat, Part I

It's been a while since I've checked out my favourite food blogs to see what folks have been preparing and sharing. I've been busy with work and school (I love that I can say that I'm busy with school again!) so web-gawking time has mostly been spent socializing or volunteering here and there. Plus, to be honest, I've had so little free time and tempting myself to try out new recipes would invariably have just left me with even less free time, which would have left me cranky (and the cats deserve better than a cranky can opener). A couple of hours to spare last night, however, left me digging up a few things I may try out over the weekend.

Salads!

Angela at Oh She Glows posted an adapted recipe for Cilantro Lime Spelt Berry Salad yesterday (see her photo to the right) and that post ended up being a high-protein salad pay dirt. She provided links in it for the following salads she's been posting over the past while:

Carrot Raisin Spelt Berry w/Cumin and Cilantro, Cinnamon Sweet Potato Chickpea, High Protein Lentil, Roasted Sweet Potato and Black Bean, Buckwheat Taboulleh, as well as her Back on Track Wheatberry and Bean.

Absolute Decadence

I've been spending most of the past few months focused on getting into better shape so that I can jump back into long-distance trail cycling this summer. Part of that has involved things like running "needless" errands just for an excuse to get on the bike for an extra half hour. Part of it has also involved spending a lot more time being mindful of how I fuel my body, opting for lighter fare and reaching for the bag of baby carrots rather than the bag of potato chips at the grocery store. Every once in a while, though, a little bit of indulging is fun. That being said, my eyes still widened in awe a little as I contemplated making some of the recent decadent offerings I spied, even if some of them were still quite healthy :

Kelly Garbato shared a recipe of hers a few weeks ago that made my jaw drop. (No, really. It did.) It was for Cheesy Vegan Tater Tot Pizza and to kick it up a notch, she posted the results of her partner Shane's further tinkering with the recipe and came up with a second version, which she refers to as Cheesy Vegan Tater Tot Garbage Plate Pizza. She recommended a bib when eating the second version, and I don't think she was kidding.

Ordinarily, when I think of queso dip, I think of fat; after all, the stuff is usually prepared with gobs of cheese. However, Meg over at The Snarky Chickpea shared a recipe around a week ago for a Vegan Queso Dip that looked absolutely delicious and she used almond milk and nutritional yeast to make up its "cheesy" component.

Allyson at Manifest Vegan left more than a few vegan friends and acquaintances of mine drooling after I tweeted her recipe for Besan Fries a few weeks ago (see her photo to the right). At first glance, seeing seasoned deep-fried flour left me thinking these babies would be oil-drenched. I mostly oven-roast or sauté -- deep-frying is something with which I haven't had much experience in over a decade. A couple of vegan friends assured me that the high temperature of the oil would seal the surface of each besan fry, leaving it crispy.

Manifest Vegan was the source of another oh-my-gawd-this-looks-fabulous treat: Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Tartlets.

(Check back over the next few days for Part II of this post, which will at the very least focus in part on sharing links to all of the wonderful soup and stew recipes which have been posted by vegan food bloggers over the past month!)

Point of View

Point of View

Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless,
Christmas dinner's dark and blue,
When you stop and try to see it
From the turkey's point of view.

Sunday dinner isn't funny
Easter feasts are just bad luck,
When you see it from the viewpoint
Of the chicken or the duck.

Oh, how I once loved tuna salad,
Pork and lobsters, lamb chops, too,
Till I stopped and looked at dinner
From the dinner's point of view.

-- Shel Silverstein (1930-1999)

Veganism in the Media

In completely unsurprising news, another popular PETA-beloved vegan celeb has recently outed herself as having abandoned veganism. In an interview this morning with Atlanta-based Q100's "The Bert Show", actress Natalie Portman admitted that she resumed consuming eggs and dairy at the start of her pregnancy, citing nutritional concerns and convenience as her reasons for doing so:

"I actually went back to being vegetarian when I became pregnant, just because I felt like I wanted that stuff."

[...]

"I know there are people who do stay vegan," she added, "but I think you have to just be careful, watch your iron levels and your B12 levels and supplement those if there are things you might be low in in your diet."

[...]

"If you're not eating eggs, then you can't have cookies or cake from regular bakeries, which can become a problem when that's all you want to eat," she laughed.

(ETA: Portman was apparently described by Vogue magazine in an interview in December as a "vegetarian at home and a vegan when out", so although the media has been all over this story this morning, it's not exactly breaking news. It seems to be the first time she's gone into detail about it though, as well as the first time that she's blamed it on her pregnancy.

A lot of vegans get really excited when a celebrity starts self-identifying as vegan publicly, saying that it's "good exposure" for veganism. Unfortunately, what ends up happening is that every single word concerning veganism that spills out of a celeb's mouth is assumed by the public to be accurate (even when it isn't) and then when the celeb invariably hops off the bandwagon (and depending on the reasons given), the general public sees veganism as too hard, unhealthy, temporary, et al. This story is all over the news this morning and now we're going to have people thinking that vegan pregnancies are risky and that food cravings trump ethics.)

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In a post last October, I wrote about a previous piece by The UWM Post's Sarah Hanneken in which she had attempted to correct various assumptions made about vegans. I came across another solid article by her this morning ("Vegan parents in the media"). In it, she criticizes mainstream media for choosing to malign veganism instead of sticking to the facts and of doing so to pander to the general public's hunger for sensationalism. She writes that

mainstream news media has become nothing more than a subset of the entertainment industry. They have mastered the art of storytelling – drawing in their subscribers with dramatic tales, complete with heroes, villains and urban mythology.

Using two news stories involving trials in which vegan parents were found responsible for the deaths of their offspring, she elucidates how bad parenting is simply bad parenting, pointing out how the media focused on a catchword rather than provide further significant details to accurately contextualize what occurred. It's definitely worth a read!

What This Vegan Eats

Even without using a cookbook or trying to concoct anything elaborate, it's so easy to slap together simple, tasty and nourishing plant-based meals. Here are a few things things I prepared over the past few days using whatever I had on hand.

A "whatever's in the fridge stir-fry with celery, green beans, re-hydrated organic TVP chunks, udon noodles, corn and scallions, tossed together with tamari, ginger and some sesame oil.

Vegetable soup with diced tomatoes, spinach, onions, broken noodles, celery, kidney beans, fava beans, black-eyed peas, green beans, corn, carrots and peas. I seasoned it with sambar masala. I really have to take a crack at making actual sambar sometime soon.

Lima bean soup with frozen vegetables thrown in (I was lazy) and seasoned with rosemary, crushed garlic and dill weed.

Relationships Revisited

How We Sometimes Question

The topic of where to set boundaries when it comes to romantic entanglements is one that cycles in and out of discussion more often than most for vegans. The question which invariably introduces it is something along the lines of "Would you date or otherwise get involved with a non-vegan?" and the responses to it--and the tangents that fire off from it--vary considerably. We ask each other about the non-vegans we (either have or might) let into our lives. Sometimes the discussion concerns those who have gone vegan while in the midst of a relationship with a non-vegan and who perhaps end up feeling a weight when this person doesn't "get it" and remains non-vegan. On the other hand, some of us ask each other--ask ourselves--whether we should or even could become involved with a non-vegan.

How We Sometimes Respond

For a sampling of how widely opinions differ and for a good handful of shared anecdotes, have a look at the comments left in response to a post I'd written around the topic a year and a half ago. They range from stories shared by vegans who are either dating or married to non-vegans, to assertions from others who are not that they would rather spend the rest of their lives alone than become involved with a non-vegan. Some felt hopeful that patience in educating another would bring him/her around and others insisted that not making it explicitly and repeatedly clear to one's partner (or potential partner) that his/her non-veganism is unacceptable is tantamount to condoning non-veganism in general on a wider scale.

We're each responsible for establishing and maintaining our own personal boundaries when it comes to our interaction with others. And the truth is that it can often be hard to deal with the overwhelming prevalence of speciesism around us--a speciesism which underlies the actions of the majority of those around us, whether acquaintances, coworkers, family members or even our closest friends. I admit that it can sometimes be hard on the head to interact with others around me who still believe that non-human animals are somehow ours to use regardless of their sentience; the rest that's involved in being vegan is so easy in comparison.

Differences and Similiarities, Oh My!

It makes me sad to watch loved ones, particularly those with whom I've discussed veganism, continue to consume animal products altogether quite nonchalantly. The thing is, though, that for most of my life I was one one of those people who didn't give a second thought to using animals. Even after first becoming conscious of some of the horrors inherent in the raising and slaughter of animals, I didn't immediately go vegan. It took time to wear away at the compartmentalization in which I'd been engaging for so many years--the same sort of compartmentalization that facilitates the perpetuation of speciesism and entrenches it in the lives of so many. That I can admit this to myself leaves me able to better understand why many of those who are closest to me continue to use animals, even though they're well aware of exactly why I don't anymore.

Speciesism is a form of discrimination, not unlike racism, sexism or heterosexism. However, speciesism fits like a second skin as almost all of us are taught from the moment we're born that non-human animals are different and that this somehow justifies our commodification of them. Over 95% of us take off running with this and spend most of our lives consuming accordingly. Our parents taught us that it's perfectly normal to treat and use some animals as if they were things; they, in turn, were taught the same by their own parents. We all come by it honestly and then spend our entire lives having it reinforced by sociocultural norms and the advertising campaigns of those who profit from providing us with the parts and secretions of non-humans. This doesn't excuse it, nor does it somehow make it any more "right" that it exists or that the overwhelming majority of humans haven't even thought to question it too closely. But it does put it into perspective and it does help explain the compartmentalization that continues with those around us. In many ways, it also emphasizes the tremendous amount of work that needs to be done right now to educate non-vegans about why it's wrong to use non-human animals.

Choices

As I stated previously, I think that it's up to each and every one of us to establish our own boundaries when it comes to our interaction with others. Some who've gone vegan choose to maintain an emotional distance from non-vegans; some don't. We all have to eke out our lives forming meaningful bonds with others around us and we each have to know our own limitations in terms of what would enable or hinder forming those meaningful bonds. No two lives are alike and the complexity of the mesh of relationships we weave or into which we're drawn as we exist covers so much ground.

When it comes to the choices I make when I let others into my life, I can't help but factor in that for almost 90% of my life I wasn't a vegan. And even after having been presented with the facts by some, it took me years to transition from being a lacto-vegetarian to finally committing myself to veganism. I think that there are so many traits in another person that constitute what goes into the plus column when we're learning to know who or what that person is that I would find it hard to dismiss a person based on his not already having reached the same conclusions about certain things that took me so long to reach, myself. This certainly doesn't mean that I would choose to overlook another's use of non-human animals; over the years, I've grown more comfortable discussing veganism with people in my life in a pretty straightforward way and the subject would surely not be side-stepped. Basically, I think that it takes time to suss other people out to see what it is that makes them who they are (and even of whether what that is could expand to embrace veganism). All things being equal, I would definitely prefer to let someone into my life who'd already reached that point of clarity that led to my own going vegan, but those opportunities are less than scarce.

It's worrisome to me how some advocates who assert their own chosen refusal to involve themselves romantically with non-vegans occasionally end up communicating (whether inadvertently or not) to those vegans who do, that in doing so, they're perhaps not serious enough about veganism. When vegans sometimes say to me that involving oneself with a non-vegan is no different than involving oneself with a racist, sexist or heterosexist, I have to wonder if that bright point of clarity that triggered their own decision to go vegan left them a little blind to their own journey towards veganism and to the fact that speciesism is something that doesn't even occur on a conscious level for most people. That animals are ours to use seems as much of a no-brainer to most as air being ours to breathe. Sometimes we're oblivious until we have the obvious pointed out to us. I know that I was.

I understand that some vegans would rather never allow themselves to become emotionally attached to a person who is non-vegan or who doesn't become vegan shortly after having been presented with the facts about the brutality and injustice inherent in animal use. I obviously respect that. It seems like a rational way to ensure consistency and harmony in one's life. I hope, however, that we never get to the point where those who hold on to hope are made to feel ashamed for recognizing a little bit of themselves in others and for opting to attempt to educate and guide--whatever the emotional risks. I hope that as vegans we can continue to offer each other support and encouragement, regardless of the decisions we each make concerning whom to let in and whom to love.

Veganism in the Media

I bookmarked an article from the Kansas City Star a few weeks ago. I had been attracted by its title ("The vegan way: Correcting myths about a growing trend"), but wasn't surprised to find myself wincing a few paragraphs in. I'm all for correcting myths about veganism, but it seems to me that whenever non-vegans in mainstream media take it upon themselves to do this, they invariably reinforce the same tired stereotypes and create further confusion. The article, unsurprisingly, focuses entirely on food. Most of it is in interview format, using a token vegan (a 21-year-old called Julie Wynn who's been vegan a little over a year) and a token "expert" (registered dietitian Denise Shmitz). So which myths about veganism get corrected? Funny you should wonder...

Myth #1: Vegans View Animal Use as Unethical
Myth #2: Vegans Don't Deliberately Consume Animal Products
Myth #3: Veganism Isn't Hard

When asked why she became vegan, Wynn cites concerns over eating processed food and the unnaturalness of the "stress [...] livestock goes through". When asked how veganism has changed her life, all she can muster is to say that she no longer feels heavy and bloated after she eats. Apparently, though, this amazing life-changing effect of having "gone vegan" isn't enough motivation for Wynn to actually be vegan:

"It’s hard, and I’m not perfect. There are still times I will have something that is baked into something, or I’ll have a little cheese over the holidays."

When questioned further about what she most wants to tell people about becoming a vegan (whatever her interpretation of the word may be), Wynn seizes a brilliant opportunity to educate the public and coughs up the following gem:

"The true fight of veganism dates back to the 1800s. It’s about the natural way of getting our food, and treating our animals well. Because if they are treated well, then the meat we receive will be the natural meat we are supposed to eat."

And when the confused-sounding reporter points out that vegans don't eat meat, Wynn clarifies (?) her statement by adding: "Well, that’s why. That’s what we’re fighting for." And then when asked if she would consider going back to eating meat, she weighs the possibility and leaves room for indeed doing so, responding that she is "going to cut everything out until it changes".

Myth #4: Eating Vegan Is as Affordable as Not Eating Vegan

Wynn clears up this myth by asserting at one point (after stressing her absolute love of takeout pizza) that one of the things that is difficult for her about being vegan is that it's "expensive". I guess that all those lentils she mentions she eats must be strictly black market.

Myth #5: Veganism Isn't Just a Personal Choice
Myth #6: Vegans Aren't Hateful Creatures Who Despise All Non-Vegans
Myth #7: Vegan Education Isn't Proselytizing

When asked the loaded question "Do you think that people who are not vegans are cruel or immoral", Wynn reassures the reporter that she "would never pass judgment" on others, like those nasty vegans who spend their days scowling at everyone while wagging their fingers at them: "I don’t like the vegans who assume people are bad just because they haven’t cut out meat and dairy." Wynn goes on to say that she wants to teach "by example" and would gladly share knowledge with others, if approached for it. The (I am assuming non-vegan) dietitian Shmitz weighs in about good vegans keeping their opinions about the morality of using animals to themselves by informing us that:

"Humans have been hunters and gatherers from the beginning of time. … If people think it’s unethical to eat meat, that’s their right. But it’s important for people not to impose their own views on others."

Who would have guessed that dietitians are also experts in ethics? Amazing!!111

Myth #8: Honey Isn't Vegan

The token expert in the article also helps to clear up the common misconception that honey isn't vegan:

Honey is one of those things that some vegans choose not to eat. That surprised me when I first saw that. I guess it’s because bees are involved.

I can guess, too. In fact, I'm guessing that she's never read any information on why it is that honey isn't vegan.

So there you have it! In one fell swoop, the Kansas City Star corrected these nasty pervasive myths and misconceptions about going vegan that have been plaguing us since the 1800s. I, for one, am so very relieved!

Aren't you?

Choices

I had a conversation with someone a few days ago (let's call him Joe) that slipped into a discussion about hunting. He was a friend of a friend's and as a few of us sat over coffee, someone brought up a story about an uncle's annual obsession with tracking down and killing deer. I noticed a change in his facial expression as he listened: his nose wrinkled just ever so perceptibly and a slight frown manifested itself as he crossed his arms. I asked Joe if he was against hunting and he said "no". A little surprised after having watched his facial expression and body language seem to indicate otherwise, I asked him if he hunted, himself. He told me that he hadn't in almost thirty years and that the last time he'd gone he'd been a teenager accompanying his grandfather. He told me that he's since had no interest in owning or using firearms of any sort and that even though many friends had invited him over the years to join them on hunting trips that he's declined. He told me that the story our table-mate had shared had disgusted him because "people who get off on killing are sick" and that he could never take pleasure in doing that. I paused, then told him that I was a bit befuddled over his fairly obvious reaction to our table-mate's hunting story and assertions of his own apparent disapproval of hunting, and yet of how he'd replied that he wasn't against hunting.

I had already been identified by our mutual friend as vegan, since my ordering soy for my coffee instead of the dairy default seemed to have warranted an explanation. I clarified my own stance for Joe briefly, stating that there's really no justification to treat a non-human animal as a thing existing for our use or pleasure, whether it involves hunting or other uses. "Wow. That's really judgmental of you. It's the height of arrogance for you to think that just because you feel a certain way about something that you have any right to extend that to others' behaviours or actions," he replied. "We all have freedom of choice and neither you nor I have a right to interfere with anyone else's freedom of choice just because we disagree with what they're doing."

Uh huh.

I pointed out to Joe that we all, each and every one of us, engage in extending our own ethical beliefs--even our less important simple likes and dislikes--to the people around us every day in every other aspect of our lives. "I don't," he insisted. "You animal rights types may try to do it, but you have no right to impose your will on everyone else."

So I asked him if he thought it was wrong to physically strike young children across the face. "Of course!" he replied indignantly. I asked him what he would do if he were walking down the street and saw an adult strike a three-year-old hard across the face--whether he'd do or say anything. "I'd give that person a talking to and try hard not to give him a taste of his own medicine," he insisted. I asked, gingerly, if he did not think that this would count as his extending guidelines he'd set for his own behaviour (i.e. to not strike young children across the face since he believes that doing so is wrong) to the actions of others. "That's different! It's hitting a kid," he explained. I asked, then, how he'd react if he saw a man walking a dog on a leash and then turning to kick the dog really hard. "Well, I'd say something there, too. It's not right to hurt animals like that." I asked him, then, why he thought that extending his own view of hunting to others amounted to merely interfering with their freedom of choice and as his imposing his will on others, when over and above causing physical harm to another, it involved taking that other's very life.

"Wow. You're really militant," Joe replied (with an emotional knee-jerk non-response). "You're obviously carrying a lot of hate towards other people if you're this aggressive about promoting your animal rights agenda." Our mutual friend and our other table-mate had long since stopped their own discussion to listen to us, and our mutual friend laughed, saying "Ha ha! She got you, Joe!" upon noting Joe's agitation over having gotten tripped up.

The thing is that it hadn't been an attempt at a "gotcha" moment. A conversation had evolved after I'd expressed curiosity about what had seemed like a contradiction and had tried to tease that contradiction out a bit so that we could both examine it. I regretted that others had overheard the discussion and had then poked fun at him, since my intent had not been to ridicule. I found it unfortunate that though Joe and I both recognized some of the same basic actions as inherently wrong that the fact that I did so as a vegan who felt no qualms about voicing that they weren't just wrong things for me to do--but that they were wrong in and of themselves--left Joe choosing to label me judgmental. The truth is that although he's kept it to himself, he's been doing a fair amount of judging of others who hunt, as well. Hopefully, taking it out of his bubble and placing it within a larger context will bring him around to understanding this and to his giving the whole matter of all animal use further thought. The choice, after all, is his.