On the left, you will see that there is now a Veg Blog button that you can use on your site. It’s an 88×31 GIF and I just ask that you put the graphic on your own site before linking it up.

Thanks to Patrick at the Dark for taking the time to design the button and send it along.

Apparently there’s a market for vegan bondage equipment. Who woulda’ thunk it? (VegSource)

Marla Rose from Vegan Street wrote in to mention a page she has up on her site detailing the corporate buyout of vegetarian companies. Among the more disturbing (aside from the previously mentioned LightLife buyout by ConAgra): Boca is owned by Kraft (which is owned by Phillip Morris). I had no idea.

Not listed on the page, but mentioned the e-mail I received: a personal favorite, Seeds of Change is owned by M&M/Mars.

Being a conscientious consumer is getting harder and harder…

Last night we tried a recipe for Tabbouleh with Tofu, Raisins, and Pine Nuts from The Tofu for Health Cookbook by Wendy Sweetser. While the book isn’t fully vegetarian (somewhat surprisingly), this particular dish turned out to be a wonderfully fresh tasting vegan version of the middle eastern bulgur-based staple.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup bulgur wheat
• 7 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 1 small cucumber, peeled and diced
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 4 tablespoons raisins
• 8 scallions, finely chopped
• 4 tablespoons of chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh mint (or 2 teaspoons dried)
• 9 oz. firm tofu, cubed
• Salt and pepper

Preparation (slightly modified)

1. Put the bulgur in a large bowl and soak with just enough water to cover it for 30 minutes.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a small skillet and flash-fry the pine nuts until just golden (it only takes a minute or so!). Drain the nuts on a plate lined with paper towels.
3. Mix the rest of the olive oil with the lemon juice and garlic.
4. Drain the bulgur in a strainer, shaking out as much of the excess water as possible. Combine in a bowl with the cucumber, tomatoes, raisins, scallions, parsley, mint, and tofu.
5. Pour in the oil/lemon/garlic dressing and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Sprinkle with the pine nuts and grated lemon rind just before serving.

This is one of those rare dishes that comes out looking as good as the picture in the book, and it tastes the part, too.

Huntingdon Life Sciences, “one of the world’s foremost product development companies,” gets a lot of pressure from animal rights groups for their testing of consumer products like detergents and adhesives on all sorts of animals (including cats, dogs, and rabbits). Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty is one of those groups, a particularly aggressive one, at that. The animal rights groups have angered Huntingdon enough that not only do they take shots at animal rights activists on their web site, they have an absurd “no linking” policy on their front page (”All forms of ‘linking’ to this web site (or parts thereof) is strictly forbidden without the express written permission of Huntingdon Life Sciences Limited.”).

Talk about an organization that just doesn’t “get it,” in more ways than one.

(via Dontlink.com)

Somehow, this bothersome piece of news slipped under my radar: ConAgra acquires vegeterian foods maker Lightlife Foods.

Lightlife is the makers of veggie favorites Gimmie Lean and Smart Dogs. ConAgra, on the other hand, is the company that recalled 19 million pounds of ground beef after several weeks and almost all of the infected meat had been consumed.

While a few may see this as a giant beef processors “seeing the light,” I see it as a frightening sell out by a company who has provided a quality line of meat substitutes. I can only hope that other small manufacturers of vegetarian products don’t follow Lightlife’s lead.

Oh well… just another company for me to avoid supporting.

(thanks to Nava Atlas for passing this news along…)

Man shoots monkey that was nursing its baby.

Monkey dies, man’s arrested, but the baby won’t let go of the mother.

Police take dead monkey and baby to the police station.

Thirty monkeys swarm the station. A couple of them sneak in and take the baby. Wow.

(via Vegan Porn)

Jason R., a Vegan.com reader, passed along a great story from my former neck-of-the-woods: En route to healthy living aboard his trusty bicycle.

70-year-old Bill Cotton is an avid bicyclist that recently rode 340 miles in 40 hours, all in one trip. Cotton coverted to an almost entirely vegan diet about four years ago and rides about 100 miles a week. “My barbecue ribs are the best in the world, but I don’t cook them anymore” … “Instead, he satisfies his palate with cheesecake and bread pudding made from tofu.”

Surely, an inspiring story of someone who eats well and takes care of himself, even in old age.

Rebecca Blood, a prominent blogger and author/editor of several recent books about blogs, frequently covers vegetarian/environmental issues on her site. One story from the last few days is especially worth passing on:

The not-so-sweet success of organic farming takes a look at some issues that make organic much less sustainable than the idealism behind it. What I got from this article: 1.) Organic farming on a global scale is something that needs some examination. Enacting such programs often makes heavy use of nonrenewable resources, which goes against the ideal of organic farming and sustainable agriculture. 2.) Organic may be good, but locally grown organic is best. Community Supported Agrictulture programs are looking better and better to me. 3.) When the federal government gets too involved with anything, the original ideals and motivations often get lost in the shuffle of beaurocracy.

I took a little time to check out more about CSA and I really like the idea. My college friend Pat paricipates in a program like this further south in Virginia and he’s spoken well of it. But I didn’t think such programs existed near where I live. Surely I would have heard about them, right?

Wrong. With a quick search online, I found a number of different programs nearby that even include an option to have the food delivered to your hometown for a small fee. The price for membership isn’t too extravagent, either, with around $300 getting you basic membership for a season. Read more about the CSA Movement and think about how a program like this could work into your life.