The Veg Blog

I’ve noticed that since I’ve become vegetarian, I am appreciating more and more things that I’ve “hated” my whole life. Like mushrooms—as recently as two weeks ago, the taste of mushrooms (all kinds) disgusted me. I’d try one and then pick the rest off of whatever I was eating. Then, out of nowhere, I had a portabella ‘shroom and I really liked it. I went back and tried another type of mushroom and liked that, too. Considering my lifelong distaste for mushrooms, I’m surprised the change-over happened so suddenly.

Other things I enjoy now that I didn’t before: eggplant and squash/zucchini. The real test will be if I start liking sweet potatoes or raw broccoli.

National Organic Standards Released

This is good to see: national organic standards. Funny quote of the article: “The food industry has been concerned that national standards could lead consumers to think that organic products are safer or healthier than conventional foods.” Um—how is having food that’s genetically engineered or has pesticides sprayed all over it as healthy as organically grown produce? It’s not.

Now if we can just get the government to reward organic farmers, there will be more incentive for them to grow their crops that way (it’s very expensive for them to do so now).

Thanks to Robert for passing this along.

Vegan Iceman had a taste for wild goat

This is an interesting article discussing how “Oetzi the Iceman” (a 5,300 year old cadaver) was not a vegan during his lifetime, but had a taste for wild goat.

Last night I made a mighty fine soy-based pizza (perhaps classified vegan, I’m not sure)…

• Oragnic soy cheese
• Muir Glen organic Italian herb tomato sauce
• Yves’ soy pepperoni
• A dash of organic, first cold pressed olive oil
• (the weak link) Giant brand crust

It was my first shot at a homemade pizza with no dairy… the end result was really quite good. And all the ingredients came from Giant—not a specialty store!

And, in fairness, here is a pro-biotech site.

The Campaign to Label Genertically Engineered Foods is a worthwhile visit, as is this related news item about John Hagelin’s testimony to the EPA about the dangers of genetically modified food.

I’m no scientist, but I’d rather not have people toying around with vegetables and fruits… if something goes wrong, it’s likely to cause irreversible damage since once a mutant gene spreads, it’s near impossible to stop.

A good example is the recent Taco Bell incident and this related Cheetos story. Greenpeace recently stopped a ship in protest.

CNN has a new collection of articles and info on Mad Cow Disease.

A hip-hop anthem exists for vegans/raw foodists (though as an ovo-lacto vegetarian, I can still dig it): Dead Prez’s oustanding “Be Healthy” from their album titled Let’s Be Free. You can read the lyrics, but note that there are a few transcription errors (“myatal stew”?! try “ital stew”—using actual words is helpful).

According to VegSource, the United Way of Los Angeles is taking shots at vegetarian/environmental charities. While their Free the Asparagus campaign video was stupid, it wasn’t really offensive. The group also took out a half-page “Save the Asparagus” ad that said “Each day, they face an enemy more deadly than insects, rodents, or drought: vegetarians.” Again—stupid, uncreative, and poorly targeted… but offensive? I didn’t think so.