• Chicken Producers to Test Flocks For Bird Flu
  (tags: avianflu news health chicken)
• The Boondocks - Caesar does soy
  First Huey eschews turkey at Thanksgiving and now this… is Aaron McGruder vegan or something?
  (tags: comic humor soy)

I’ve got seven books in the queue to be reviewed. This is the first of those seven, with the rest of them following in the coming weeks. This one’s long overdue.

An abbreviated version of this review will be appearing in an upcoming issue of Clamor Magazine.

Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World
[ Purchase - use code punkrocks111 for 20% off! ]
Bob Torres and Jenna Torres
Foreword by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Tofu Hound Press, 2005

There have been a couple of “Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World”-type books written in the last few years (Erin Pavlina’s Raising Vegan Children in a Non-Vegan World and Carol J. Adams’ Living Among Meat Eaters come to mind), but our friends Bob and Jenna’s Vegan Freak takes a fresh look at the challenge of living an animal-friendly life (apologies to Eric) in a world that makes it hard to do so.

Vegan Freak sets itself apart right from the start, letting us know that the “health nut” and “the hippie” aren’t the intended audience for this book. Rather, the focus is on ethical vegans looking to recharge their batteries and lacto-ovo vegetarians who are looking for that last nudge. They also let you know that you’ll be seeing the word “fuck” a few times in their book, something you probably won’t come across in the more family-friendly books. Reading Vegan Freak on a lunchbreak at work is like sitting across from your favorite swearing friends at a restaurant: they’re hilarious to be around and you love every minute, but you hope your first grade teacher doesn’t walk in and hear them talking like that.

The first chapter, “Vegan and Freaky,” takes a look at how the authors came to veganism and what it really means to be vegan. They advocate the “cold tofu” approach—going right to veganism for three weeks rather than slowly transitioning. It’s an interesting idea, one that’s worked well for a number of people. That said, I don’t think it would have worked for me. My gradual transition wasn’t about not being able to give up cheese, but was slow because I didn’t have all the facts yet. During my transitional phase, one that was admittedly too long, I was educating myself about the dairy and egg industries as well as learning to cook without both. Once I was fully informed, however, the phasing out of dairy and eggs was a fast process. So the “cold tofu” approach will probably work best for those lacto-ovos whose favorite line to vegans is, “I know I should be vegan, but…”

In the first chapter, Bob and Jenna also discuss their own pathways to veganism and take on the vegan police.

Chapter two, titled “In Which We Get All AR On You,” takes a high-level view at the ethical arguments for veganism. While most of the material in this chapter won’t be news to those who have memorized Diet for a New America and Meat Market, it’s thorough while also being concise. A nice, thick recommended reading list is included.

With all the reasons to go vegan laid out, next up comes the most difficult part of going vegan. It has nothing to do with nutrition or finding suitable substitutions for cheese. Nope… the worst part is having to deal with other people, particularly if you’re the quiet, non-confrontational type. Chapter three, “Hell is Other People,” deals with exactly this issue. The recommendation: don’t be aggressive, but don’t be meek. This includes when dealing with anti-vegan vegetarians (because milk doesn’t kill the cow!) and perhaps the worst group of all: the vocal ex-vegan. The personal antecdotes stand out, particularly the rant on Bob’s Uncle Bill (listen to podcast 22 for a rundown on Bob and Jenna’s Christmas 2005 run-in with the unapologetic meat-eating uncle).

Chapter four covers what to eat, both at home and in restaurants. This is a great chapter to show your parents (unless there’s a lot of cursing in it, which I can’t remember if there is) so they can see exactly what a vegan is and what types of things are off-limits. One omission I was surprised at, though, was in the paragraph about eating out in Italian restaurants. While they mention that you should ask about what’s in the sauces, they don’t mention that a lot of freshly prepared pasta contains eggs. A lot of restaurants will stick with dry pasta which is less likely to contain animal products, but it’s still worth asking the first time you eat somewhere if their pasta contains eggs.

The fifth chapter focuses on what to wear. This includes not only alternatives to leather and wool, but what you wear when you’re playing like Marvin Gaye and getting it on (vegan condoms) and what you wear on your skin (making sure your tattoos are vegan). While many vegan books cover the issue of wool, leather, and even silk, not many touch upon tattoos, condoms, and sex toys. Bravo.

I would liked to have seen some discussion of the environmental issues surrounding the production of pleather, a petroleum-based leather alternative suggested in the book, but I think it’s outside the scope of what they aimed to cover. Perhaps they’ll discuss it as a topic on their blog or something.

The book closes out with a basic, but important wish: Go Vegan, Stay Vegan. Bob and Jenna realize that it’s not just about transitioning to veganism, but living a vegan life for the long-term. Vegan Freak will help you do just that.

As with any good non-fiction book, the learning doesn’t stop when you finish the last page. You’re not left out to dry here: Vegan Freak has an accompanying website, blog, podcast, and forum as well as a great resource appendix I think they’ll even come to your house and talk you down from a cheese-induced high if you ask them to.

There’s more support now than ever for new and transitioning vegans. 2005 saw the release of more vegan-themed books and cookbooks than any recent year that i can remember and of those, Vegan Freak is one of the essential reads, particularly for young vegans. Vegan Freak reminds us that being different is OK… and it’s OK to be a freak. Thank goodness.

It seems that Yahoo! now has a separate news category for Animal Rights and Welfare. Even more stuff here. Even though the news feed isn’t updated very frequently and seems to focus a lot on stories about “animal rights extremists,” it’s still kind of nice… but where’s the RSS feed? (via greeniv.com)

• Elephants’ hair tells story
  “GPS tracking technology could help endangered species.”
  (tags: elephants gps technology news)
• Singed and sore, a cat lives up to his new name
  A kitten clings to the bottom of an SUV for 60 miles while driven down the NJ Turnpike. Wow. Story includes requisite “nine lives” reference. (via Mom)
  (tags: news amazing cat kitten)
• Top Vegan Food Recipes - FoodieView Recipe Search Engine
  A new (I think) recipe search engine. I’m not a big fan of the interface and abundance of ads, but at least they have a vegan category.
  (tags: recipes vegan food cooking searchengine)
• Woman marries dolphin
  Um… er… ? (via BoingBoing)
  (tags: news freakingweird)
• No iPod for Christmas, just mystery meat
  Gross. (via BoingBoing)
  (tags: news freakingweird surpriseitsmeat!)

2006 Food Forecast

The good news:

More allergy information will be included on labels, which is not only good for people with severe food allergies, but for vegans since dairy and eggs are common allergens. The best parts:

• “If there are any egg, peanut, nut, fish, shellfish, wheat or soy in a product, the label will have to say so.”
• ” Goodbye to non-descriptive words such as “artificial” or “natural” flavors, colors or additives. Labels with those ingredients also will have to specify which allergens they contain.” Whether this means that any animal-derived products in the natural flavoring will need to be labeled is not clear.
• “If “casein” is included, “milk” would be listed after it.”

Also good: trans-fat will appear on labels. As a result of having to add this to the label, many food companies have cut back significantly or eliminated trans-fat from their products.

The bad news:

There’s still no universally accepted “Vegan” symbol on food packages. This may actually be a good thing, because really there hasn’t been enough discussion on the issue. For instance, if something is produced on equipment that is also used for dairy, should it be labeled vegan? If a product is made by a company that also makes meat products, is that product vegan? There are some tricky issues.

Also bad/stupid: well, I’ll let the article do the talking:

[F]ood forecasters are predicting some provocative trends, including such possibilities as Christian-raised chicken…

Trend expert Faith Popcorn, keynote speaker at the Future of Food conference last month in Washington, and the person who predicted the “cocooning” craze of the 1990s, sees faith-friendly food showing up in the marketplace, an outgrowth of what her company calls “clanning,” or the desire to belong to groups with common ideas.

Tyson Foods, which makes chicken, beef and pork products, already has begun offering free downloadable prayer booklets on its Web site. The booklets provide mealtime prayers in a variety of faiths.

Before I comment, I love the fact that the food trend expert’s name is “Faith Popcorn.” I would have killed to be born with that name.

I hadn’t heard of the idea of “Christian-raised chicken” before, and predictably, it strikes me as pretty stupid. If you’re that concerned about how your religious beliefs coincide with how your food is raised, shouldn’t you consider just, you know, not eating meat? I suspect that this kind of falls into the same category as halal meats, but without the long-standing tradition.

And does anyone else find it hilarious — and at the same time, deeply troubling — that Tyson Foods is producing prayer booklets?

Feel free to suggest prayers in the comments that Tyson could include on their web site.

Happy 2006! Any veg-related resolutions you care to share?

The holidays were a lot of fun around our house, with family visiting and plenty of food a-cookin’. Let me see if I can remember everything we (we being me, my wife, or any member of my family that visited) made… fresh Vietnamese spring rolls (a staple), veggie pho, chocolate chip cookies, butter Earth Balance cookies, coconut pancakes, pumpkin waffles, stuffed butternut squash, vegan pierogi (SO perfect), samosas, lemon-pineapple bars, pumpkin cookies, coconut-lime cookies… the list goes on. Pictures forthcoming.

Aside from the minor conflicts mentioned earlier, the food all went over well. My dad even made a special batch of his Christmas cookies vegan and my in-laws were very flexible about eating (mostly) vegan while visiting us.

I even shot a video that I’m planning on editing down and posting here. How exciting will that be?! Not very, let me tell you!

Here’s to hoping for a wonderful year for all of you. And if you’ve resolved to go vegan this year, let me know how I can help.

• A push for animal-friendly roads
  “In road ecology, transportation engineers and biologists cooperate on projects so fewer animals are struck by cars.” Good stuff. (via An Animal-Friendly Life)
  (tags: driving safety news)