Maybe this is why everyone says it’s so expensive to go vegan:

(via Consumerist)

Children’s books about animals can either be really awesome or really depressing. The ones that teach children about animals’ personalities and their individual likes and dislikes are great. The books that make fun of them or end up making light of things like eating eggs or bacon are pretty evil.

And there’s a new breed of books coming out that are explicitly vegan-friendly, like Maya Gottfried’s Our Farm: By the Animals of Farm Sanctuary. Maya’s fun (but not overly cutesy) poems are a perfect match for the paintings and sketches by Robert Rahway Zakanitch. The animals featured are all actual residents (past or present) of Farm Sanctuary.

Rather than go into any further detail myself, I thought I’d get some help from Rasine to review this book. Here’s the audio (with some sections edited out for brevity and clarity):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

You heard her. Go buy a copy! (And become a fan of Izzy and Morty on Facebook, since they came up in our discussion.)

If you have any friends or family that still eat meat, you may want to share with them this award winning set of photos from inside an Italian slaughterhouse (WARNING: extremely graphic and disturbing photos). The first photo is shocking, a butcher shot from the neck down holding a decapitated cow’s head by the horns.

But the second photo is the one that really struck me. It’s a photo of three lambs looking in a doorway at three skinned sheep hanging from by their legs. It reminded me a lot of the Corridor of Death video that Gary Francione pointed to last year. The image of animals witnessing what will be their ultimate fate is a sobering one. Put yourself in their place and imagine the terror and despair. And now imagine that happening every second of every day, whether the animals come from a factory farm or whether they come from a “humane” meat operation.

Keep fighting the fight. For them.

I’ve been a big fan of this song ever since it came out a few years ago (and a fan of the producer and vocalist for years before that). Sure, it perpetuates the myth of pigs being “unclean,” but still, you’ve gotta admit this is one of the catchiest vegetarian anthems in recent memory:

Have you seen the piece that aired on World News Tonight and Nightline last night? Let’s talk about it a bit.

Just to get it out of the way: yes, the story has the expected issue of focusing on abuse rather than use, but I’m going to focus on the positive effect a piece like this could have. Here’s why I think that, obvious problems aside, the airing of this piece will be positive in the long run:

1. It aired on a mainstream news program (actually, programs)

This piece aired on ABC during prime time on World News Tonight and later in the evening on Nightline. The former is a news broadcast my dad watches (he’s not one for overtly political leaning newscasts in either direction). That’s mainstream. And they’re showing footage from Mercy for Animals. That’s pretty impressive. Sure, it’s happened before, but when this sort of footage gets in front of a mainstream audience, the idea of veganism seems a little more normal to these same people.

2. A dairy farmer dug his own hole

Did you catch the dairy farmer they interviewed? He started off by giving the standard “it’s in our best interest to treat them well” line and shortly thereafter was stumbling all over himself defending tail docking and horn clipping as “standard industry practice” (which it is) and saying, “Of course I wish we didn’t have to do it…” It was enough to make you feel sorry for the guy. Almost. Except for the whole exploiting animals for personal gain thing.

I don’t think too many people can get behind docking cow’s tails or cutting their horns. (Except for those who convince themselves it’s not a standard practice.)

3. The artificial insemination footage

It was only about two or three seconds long and it only aired on the Nightline version of the story, but I think the very brief shot they showed of a farmhand elbow deep, artificially inseminating a dairy cow could be the most important piece of footage. I think the majority of people still kid themselves with visions of happy bovines humping in meadows of green grass. I’m also pretty sure the sentiment that “well, the cows have to be milked” is still prevalent. This very short piece of footage, though, is like a slap in the face: no, these dairy cows are not naturally pregnant and happily giving their milk to us. We’re raping them, confining them, and then stealing the milk meant for their offspring, all so we can have our next hit of cheese.

I’m hoping that short bit of video replays in people’s minds when they sit down with a glass of milk or a bowl of ice cream.

And, yes, there are some problems…

While the majority of the piece focuses on these cruel practices that are going on every second of every day, there’s just enough of the welfare message that I can certainly imagine someone coming away with the idea that, “Hey, that’s awful, but at least they’re starting to phase out those practices. Now I can feel OK about consuming milk.” And that’s the big downside of championing welfare legislation as a victory: a marginal welfare improvement becomes marketing fodder for the dairy industry.

And in case there’s any doubt that this is the message that people are getting, one need look no further than the comment section on the web version of the story (or a blog entry from before the story aired). Skip past all of the “gee, thanks for only showing one side of the story!” comments and you get to ones like this:

“I pledge to drink water and hope everyone that reads this will do the same. We can live without milk, until the humane society can get this straightened out.”

It’s a shame, because if that quote ended after “We can live without milk,” it’d be perfectly fine. But I’m sorry to say: if you wait for the Humane Society to “straighten it out,” there’s a problem. Everyone has to stop waiting for someone else to fix the problem. You can help fix the problem right now, this instant. Stop drinking milk, stop eating cheese, stop eating ice cream, stop consuming dairy. There’s no magic welfare wand that can be waved that will make it all OK. I hope that soon people will start coming away from stories like this thinking, “That’s terrible and I’m not going to be a part of it” rather than “That’s terrible and, boy oh boy, someone should do something about it!”

(If you haven’t seen the story, here’s the shorter version that aired on World News Tonight. A longer version appeared on Nightline, but doesn’t appear to be archived online.)

Three mini-reviews for you this time around, to start making up (again) for lost time. If you just want to enter the contest, jump right to it.

In Search of the Lost Taste

I’ve been a fan of Microcosm Publishing for a number of years. Though I was a latecomer to the DIY wonder that are zines, I’ve been able to make up for lost time by ordering hand-drawn comics, zine anthologies, and, most importantly, cookzines (and though I’m sure they exist, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a non-vegan cookzine). Though I’m a regular Microcosm customer, they’ve also sent along a number of items to review and I’ve been pretty poor about keeping up.

The latest item they sent along was a copy of Joshua Ploeg’s In Search of the Lost Taste. Ploeg is a traveling vegan personal chef that wrote the entertaining A Chef’s Tale travel zine based on his time on the road as a traveling chef. If you’ve read A Chef’s Tale you’ll be ready for the unique approach Ploeg takes in In Search of the Lost Taste.

A combination cookbook and surreal tale of a tomato and aliens, Ploeg’s latest is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Ploeg takes pride in combining seemingly incompatible ingredients and creating something amazine out of them. Where else have you seen recipes like:

• Bamboo, Radish, Leek Hearts & Fried Gluten in Spicy Coconut Milk Sauce
• Cherry Wontons with Plum-Brandy Sauce and Yam-Mango Ice Cream
• Orange and Vanilla Tart with Mint & Pineapple Glaze
• or, Beet Pancakes with Creamy Dill Sauce & Wild Mushroom-Walnut Spread

While the book is aimed at the more adventurous eaters (I wouldn’t, for example, choose one of these recipes to serve to your grandmother-who-only-eats-beef as her first introduction to vegan food), you won’t find yourself thinking, “Oh man… another ‘Basic Hummus’ recipe?!!”

Thusfar, we’ve only tried one recipe (Potato-Cucumber Salad with Onions & Sweet-Sour Parsley Vinaigrette, which, by the way, makes a metric asston of food). It was very tasty and leaves me anxious to explore some of Ploeg’s more avant-garde recipes. (And the illustrations are great, too.)

Want a copy? You’ve got two choices:

1. Tweet the following phrase: “Hey, @thevegblog, I want to win a copy of ‘In Search of Lost Taste’! #losttaste” On Tuesday January 26th at 9am eastern, I’ll pick a winner. I’ll ship anywhere in the world. Maybe even to the moon.
2. Pick up a copy at Microcosm or AK Press for well under $10.

“Peace To All Creatures” Zine

The world can never have enough vegan-themed zines, so I was happy to see another one hitting the shelves last year titled “Peace to All Creatures.” Designwise, it’s quite nice, with an attractive color cover, nice photography (including a shot by yours truly in the second issue), and articles split into three categories: animals, veg diet & health, and social & green issues. The zine is edited by Pippi Howard from Colorado and Jessi VanPelt from Orlando (yes, seriously, it’s a zine that’s not produced in Portland!) and all of the writers in the first issue are women. There’s a little something for everyone here, from an article on vegan diets for dogs to a piece about pet snails and a feature about green art studios.

Given that non-glossy vegan magazines are slim pickings these days, it’s nice to see a well-written, well-designed zine like “Peace to All Creatures.” Sure, there are a thousand vegan blogs out there today, but it’s really nice to have something like this to leave out on your coffee table for visitors to flip through. Well done, Pippi and Jessi!

You can buy the first two issues on Etsy. And of course, there’s a Facebook page as well.

Vegan Fire & Spice: 200 Sultry and Savory Global Recipes

I’ll come clean right now and tell you I can’t deal with hot and spicy food very well. Plus, with a three-year-old, our food tends to be on the milder side. With that in mind, I wasn’t expecting to be able to make much out of Vegan Fire & Spice. It’s certainly not because I’m not a fan of Robin Robertson’s books — the pot pie from Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes is one of my favorites and I really enjoyed Quick-Fix Vegetarian. As it turns out, we just cut back a bit and have enjoyed everything we’ve made from here thusfar (plus, Robinson notes that “spicy doesn’t have to mean hot,” so not all of the recipes are made to singe your palate).

Each recipe is marked with a number of peppers, to help give an indication of how much you can expect your mouth to burn. The book is divided into five sections (The Americas, Mediterranean Europe, Middle East/Africa, India, and Asia), each with several subsections. As with all of Robinson’s books, each recipe is given context with a short write-up and there’s an informative introduction.

Thusfar, we’ve made with success: Vietnamese Noodles with Tempeh and Peanuts (big yum!), Baked Mahogany Tempeh, the very easy and tasty Ginger Broccoli, and South African Green beans.

While this book seems to have not received as much attention as her others (including her most recent, 1,000 Vegan Recipes (!!!)), every time I pick it up, I find another recipe I want to try. It’s a good one, even if you’re a hot and spicy wimp like me.

(Edited to provide an alternate source for Joshua Ploeg’s book.)

Today, Stephanie Ernst announced that she was stepping down from her role at Change.org where she headed up the Animal Rights section of the site. During her 1+ years at Change.org, her blog became one of my favorite daily AR reads. I think I sent links to her articles to family and friends more often than any other blog. Her posts were thoughtful, compassionate, and gave me a glimpse of the best our movement has to offer.

Thankfully, Stephanie’s not leaving us hanging. Instead, she’s moving over to work on a new group blog, Animal Rights & AntiOppression at challengeoppression.com. She’s blogging alongside Deb Durant from Invisible Voices, Mary Martin from Animal Person, Kelly Garbato from Easy Vegan, and Marji Beach from the Animal Place Sanctuary blog.

I’m super excited about this new project of theirs — one that I didn’t know anything about until Stephanie’s announcement today (well done keeping the secret!) — and I think it will prove to be one of the must-read blogs of 2010. What’s funny is that I had long thought to myself that Deb, Stephanie, Mary, and Kelly should start a group blog together, but never mentioned it to any of them. So, hey, I’m glad y’all read my mind like that.

The blog’s mission statement is simple and clear: “Challenging oppression and injustice, against nonhuman animals, humans, and earth — one vegan, environmentalist, feminist, social-justice-loving, all-around-progressive post at a time… That’s right, trolling conservatives. It doesn’t get more liberal than this. Brace yourselves.”

It’s enough to make Glenn Beck throw up in his mouth a little.

(This is a guest post by my good friend Katherine. Her post shows that we still have a long way to go in changing how the world thinks about animals.)

Our oldest child, Emma Kate, is in kindergarten this year. Today we were invited to the “Kindergarten Pow-Wow.” I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew they had been practicing songs and parents had been asked to provide food for the children to eat. The children filed into the cafeteria, took their seats on the floor, and began to sing a variety of Thanksgiving-related songs. The first offering was a sweet melody about being thankful for stars and trees, but it wasn’t long before the subject matter turned to turkeys. Even though Emma Kate attended preschool for several years, these turkey songs had not made it onto my radar. I’ve been a vegetarian for a little over two and a half years, and as the songs progressed, I became more and more uncomfortable. Here are the words to one of the songs they sang:

(to the tune of Frere Jacque)

Mr. Turkey, Mr. Turkey
Run away, run away
If you are not careful
You will be a mouthful
Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving Day

All of a sudden I was struck by how utterly one-sided the Thanksgiving curriculum must have been, and on a larger scale, how our children are indoctrinated to eat meat and dissociate from it by making fun of the animals. As if poor Mr. Turkey has a choice! In fact, the lyrics to this song go beyond teasing the turkey to blaming him for his own plight.

Proof of this indoctrination came when the singing portion of the program ended. As the children ate their pow-wow meal (which was interestingly vegan except for the Rice Krispie treats), a slide show played with slides containing “recipes” for a Thanksgiving dish provided verbatim by the children. This was a cute idea, but many of the children chose turkey for their recipe, and more than I would have expected mentioned killing the turkey as the first step. I was surprised to see that at 5 years old, quite a few of these kids had no qualms about taking a life for their Thanksgiving dinner.

Emma Kate considers herself a vegetarian, but she’ll be the first to tell you that she loves bacon (and I don’t mean tempeh bacon). Since I stopped eating meat, I have been honest with her about the origins of her food, but have told her that what she eats is up to her (her 18 month old brother, however, is being raised vegetarian – and dad is a carnivore – we’re a bit of a mixed up family). At the beginning of tonight’s dinner, after hearing Emma Kate belt out the Mr. Turkey song once more, I asked her what she thought about the song. She answered that it was about a turkey, and I probed a little further. Once she could see what I was thinking, she jumped pretty quickly into agreeing with whatever I said. She tends to do this whenever vegetarianism is discussed, so it’s hard to figure out her truest thoughts. However, at the end of our discussion, I was saying that I thought the turkey wanted to stay alive, and that it sometimes hurts to die, and she said, “Yeah, the turkey has to suffer.” Who knows what will come of this? Part of me is rooting for her to go to school tomorrow and inform the teacher or a classmate that she feels sorry for the turkeys. Part of me hopes she mulls it over, makes some connections and eventually decides to forgo bacon. I hope at the very least, she will be able to think a bit more critically of similar songs in the future.

Unfortuately, based on what I saw today, I doubt there were similar conversations around the dinner tables of Emma Kate’s schoolmates tonight. I now understand that if I want my children to be exposed to different points of view, I need to make these conversations a priority. I’m glad to have this awareness for my own family, and the greater awareness of how many opportunities for change remain for our culture, but at the same time, the task seems larger and more difficult than I previously believed. If you think of this scenario going on in thousands of elementary schools across the country this week, that’s a lot of reinforcement of meat-eating as the norm.

Thanksgiving can be a rough time, particularly for new vegans that still celebrate with meat-eating family. It’s not easy sometimes to handle the chides that come with eating differently from everyone else at the table. And, especially the first time, it can be hard to resist the comfort food we remember from our childhood. There’s been a lot written about how to do a vegan Thanksgiving, but hey, there can always be a little more, right?

So, here are some ways to help get you through the holiday season stuffed and happy.

Get to cooking!

Whether you’re spending a quiet Thanksgiving at home or braving an evening of stupid questions and taunts from 20 family members, there are some great resources online to help you get cooking and make sure that you not only have something to eat, but something to wow the rest of the family as well.

I got a peek at Nava Atlas’ significantly updated version of A Bountiful Vegan Thanksgiving e-book and it’s mighty impressive. It features 65 recipes in all, including Nava’s own as well as contributions from all your favorite veg cookbook authors and bloggers (among them: Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Dreena Burton, Jill Nussinow, and Bryanna Clark Grogan). The e-book sells for $8.95 and all profits go to “humanitarian charities concerned with hunger, microfinancing for women in developing countries, and the alleviation of human trafficking.”

Then, over at Vegan.com, there’s a guest post from Robin Robertson (author of many cookbooks, including the new and massive 1,000 Vegan Recipes). A full Thanksgiving menu is presented. The Triple Cranberry Relish and Ginger-Dusted Pumpkin Cheezecake sound mighty good. (Last year’s guest post is also still available.)

Go to a real Thanksgiving…

And by that, I mean a celebration that doesn’t involve killing turkeys. Why not hang out with some turkeys instead? Sanctuaries around the country have vegan Thanksgiving get-togethers. The one at Poplar Spring is my favorite event of the year — imagine a vegan potluck with 300 people bringing dishes. Hot damn.

Below is a sampling of sanctuaries and their Thanksgiving events.

• Colorado – Peaceful Prairie’s Living at Thanksgiving (sold out)
• Maryland – Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary’s Thanksgiving for the Turkeys (November 21)
• Maryland – Thanksgiving Vigil for Turkeys (November 20, leafleting event)
• Montana – New Dawn Montana monthly potluck (every second Saturday)
• New York/California – Thanksgiving Celebration FOR the Turkeys (November 21)
• New York – Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary ThanksLiving 2009 (passed – catch it next year!)
• New York – Safe Haven Farm Sanctuary’s Celebration for the Turkeys (November 22)
• New York City – Thanksgiving Celebration FOR the Turkeys (November 22)
• Oregon – Lighthouse Farm Sacntuary’s Gentle Thanksgiving (November 21)
• Utah – Ching Farm Vegan Thanksgiving Dinner (passed – catch it next year!)

Vegetarian and Vegan organizations also tend to do Thanksgiving meals on or around Thanksgiving, so check in with your local groups to see if there’s any thing to get involved in.

Read Things

This is a good time of year to dig into More than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality by UPC’s Karen Davis (here’s a Google Books version). The level of detail is impressive — you’ll learn something. Trust me.

Feel free to share your favorite vegan Thanksgiving events, recipes, or books.

A little over a month ago, Rasine (who’s three now) and Huyen were at a birthday party. Rasine was offered a snack or a piece of cake by her friend’s mother and, before accepting, asked the hostess, “Is this vegan?”

Huyen was surprised and I was equally taken aback by it when she told me about it afterwards. This was the first time that Rasine had it taken upon herself to ask about food, showing an understanding about her food that we, honestly, didn’t think she had quite yet. To top it off, when she found out it wasn’t vegan, she didn’t cry or complain. She just said, “OK!” and moved on.

And, amazingly, it’s continued like that.

I underestimated where Rasine was at with regards to understanding about why we eat the way we do. Turns out, she’s able to clearly and concisely state that we don’t eat animals because we like them and don’t want to hurt them. And if there’s a food she wants that isn’t vegan, she’s fine with it.

A funny moment came when we were helping to clean up after Poplar Spring’s open house last month. One of the other volunteers was cutting a cake from Sticky Fingers and offered Rasine a piece. Rasine dutifully asked, “Is that vegan?” Robin, the volunteer, almost fell over from shock.

The topper came, though, when we visited my sister’s house a few weeks ago. They’d fixed bacon for breakfast and Rasine asked if she could have some. I took her aside and quietly told her, “We’re not going to eat that because it’s not vegan.” She said, “OK,” and we got our food ready.

A few minutes later when everyone sat down for breakfast, as everyone else took a bite of bacon, Rasine decided it was good time to announce, “We don’t eat that because it’s not vegan and it hurts animals.” My sister was a gracious host and didn’t throw us out, instead responding, “Yes, dear… we know…” We all had a good laugh at our vocal little activist speaking her mind.

We’ve been told by her teachers that she’s been doing some vegangelizing at school, too, telling everyone about veganism and how she likes animals.

I write about all this not to say, “Aww… look how cute my daughter is!” (well, OK, maybe it’s a little bit of that, too), but to show that it’s really easy to underestimate kids’ understanding of what they’re eating. We think they need to be shielded from the reality and told cute stories about how chickens happily give their eggs for us to eat. This just isn’t the case. Now, I’m not suggesting you break out Earthlings at your kid’s fourth birthday party, but there are ways we can be gently honest about the food that people eat and why we, as vegans, don’t choose to eat the same foods. We also need to stress that just because some family members eat meat, that doesn’t make them bad people. There may be a few of those awkward moments where your child blurts something out that might shock a family member or friend, but hey — everyone does it at some point.

It’s also easy to fall into that trap of thinking raising your kids vegan is somehow depriving them of the “experience” of eating meat or having a piece of birthday cake with eggs in it. But it’s not. Just like most of us probably don’t feel deprived for not being able to strangle a hobo, kids who grow up vegan aren’t going necessarily feel like they’re missing out. As parents, we have to make sure we focus on what we do eat and why and to always offer alternatives. That might mean coming prepared with cupcakes to a birthday party or offering a trade of her favorite vegan candy for non-vegan candy she collected during Halloween.

I fully expect that at some point, Rasine will rebel and want something that’s not vegan. I’m under no illusions that it’s always going to be this easy with her. But, for now, her inquisitive nature and her enthusiasm about veganism remind me that we’re not depriving her. We’re nurturing her natural compassion and she’s teaching us that kids shouldn’t be underestimated.