The California Milk Processor Board wrote to the mayor of Biggs, California suggesting that he change the name of the town to “Got Milk?” Turns out the idea was proposed to about 20 small towns overall.
A celebration of the 10-year long campaign? Maybe, but it sounds like desperate straw-grabbing to me.
Boy will get award for saving pups
A nine-year-old boy will be recognized as a hero next week in his Santa Cruz community after saving two small puppies’ lives. He spotted the puppies in the back seat of a car with the windows barely cracked on a 90 degree August day. The boy grabbed his Super Soaker and shot water into the car, cooling the pups off until police and animal control could come and rescue the dogs. Both puppies have since been adopted.
I recently subscribed to the excellent Satya Magazine, a New York-based publication that focuses on “vegetarianism, envrionmentalism, animal advocacy, and social justice.” I won’t go into too much detail about the magazine now (I’ll save that for another entry), but I found a mention of a restaurant in New York City that sounds like absolute heaven: the Veg-City Diner.
This may be the first all-vegetarian diner (and very vegan friendly) diner ever. And it’s not just a typical vegetarian resturant wrapped in a Silver Diner shell, but an actual New York City diner that was taken over and still serves “diner food.” I wondered not long ago why no one had created a good faux Philly Cheesesteak yet… well, they have and you can get it at the diner. Check out their menu: “Suna Melt” (a faux tuna melt, obviously), meat loaf, Phony Island Corn Dog, Virginia Baked Sham, vegan pancakes, milkshakes (with soy milkshakes as an option)… sounds incredible! While many of the foods aren’t vegan-safe, the menu is well-marked and apparently the waitstaff is knowledgable about the food they serve.
You can see a May 2001 review of the diner by Satya Magazine. Given my obsession with diners, there’s no doubt this will be my first stop during my next trip to NYC.
I’ve pretty much eliminated butter from my diet (aside from the occasional store-bought cookie). There are two main products I use in place of butter on bread, bagels, or when cooking/baking, and they both serve their purpose quite well.
The first, I’ve mentioned before: Spectrum Naturals’ Essential Omega Spread. Consistency-wise, it does well on toast and it doesn’t taste all that bad. It does have kind of an odd fishy smell to it (though the Omega-3s come from flax seed oil), but it doesn’t take long before you forget the smell’s even there. It can’t be used for cooking, but it’s mighty fine on a morning bagel.
The second I’d heard a lot about, but only recently tried: Earth Balance spread. This stuff is amazingly like butter, but with none of the trans-fat. It’s by no means health food (it does have a bit of sat fat), but it’s still a great choice if you’re looking to avoid butter. It tastes great, melts perfectly on toast and bagels, and can be used in baking and cooking with good results. And it’s not terribly expensive, either. I haven’t tried any of their Smart Balance line, yet.
Ever wonder what happens to the millions of pounds of meat that are recalled? Slate Answers: among other things, it’s set aside for “rendering into nonhuman protein sources— i.e., dog and livestock food.”
If you’re interested in reading more about Listeria, the food-borne bacteria that can be found in meat or on vegetables, see About-Listeria.com and the USDA’s site.
Another interesting fact about this most recent recall: according to Vegan.com, this particular recall “amounts to over two million birds slaughtered and thrown away.”
“Pilgrim’s Pride/Wampler is recalling 27.4 million pounds of cooked sandwich meat after warnings of possible contamination from the listeria bacteria—the largest meat recall in U.S. history.”
Seems like there have been an awful lot of multi-million pound recalls of meat in the past five years. Perhaps this is why food safety is finally becoming an election issue for representatives of major political parties. Of course, I’m skeptical that the meat industry will ever really be held accountable while our representatives are still accepting large donations from the industry it seeks to regulate.
The recipe section is now powered by Movable Type (meaning that now you can comment!). In addition, there’s a new recipe posted for an adapted verson of Paella (pay-EE-yuh). You’ll love it.
The Washington Post has a couple of articles with regards to new federal organic guidelines:
The Veg Blog has made the move from Blogger to Movable Type. Let me tell you: it was quite a process.
Importing the entries from Blogger to Movable Type wasn’t a big deal. Even importing the entries from dotcomments to Movable Type was pretty easy. What was a time suck was titling and categorizing 340 separate entries!
But, phase one (the most complex phase) of the transition is complete. Commenting is enabled and Trackback will be enabled from this post forward. What’s to come? I’m going to MT-ize the “Features” and “Recipes” sections, which will make life easier on me and allow you all to comment on specific features and recipes.
Posting should pick up signficantly in the coming weeks. Thanks for sticking around and continuing to support the Veg Blog for the past two years!
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