Archive for August, 2007
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The pigs were “worth about $75 each.” Sigh. (via Kelly)
From the WTF?!!! Files:
This week I picked up some O’Soy yogurt, as I occasionally do. But I was stunned when my wife pointed this out on the label:
It reads: “Contains milk (our active live cultures are milk-based).”
Perhaps it was naive of me to assume that soy yogurt would be, you know, non-dairy. But I guess you can’t trust a company who makes the bulk of their money from selling milk. Needless to say, there’s no way I’ll be buying any of their products going forward and they’ll definitely be receiving a call at 1-800-PRO-COWS (happy milk!) tomorrow. Might I encourage you to do the same to register your displeasure? And spread the word?
This is either a new thing or something they just decided to start divulging, as I definitely don’t recall seeing this on the label before.
I’m getting to the point where I feel like I can only trust vegan companies. Maybe Chicago Soy Dairy will start making yogurt?
(Before I go any further, yes, that title is dripping with sarcasm.)
Today I attended a work-sponsored lunch at a nearby resort/conference center. While there was plenty of non-vegan stuff served as part of the buffet, there was enough food there for me to easily fill a plate and feel satisfied. Sure, it was mainly from the “salad” food group, but it was fine.
During lunch, the topic of liverwurst somehow came up at my table. One co-worker asked me, “Would you ever eat it?” I responded, “Now? Hell no.” Another co-worker asked me, “Why?” and I attempted a slight bit of humor in my reply, “Because I don’t eat meat, and that’s a pretty big barrier to trying out liverwurst.” What followed felt like it came from the Totally Not Vegan sketchbook:
Co-worker: Do you eat fish?
Me: Nope. No meat.
Co-worker: (slight look of surprise)
Me: No dairy or eggs, either.
Co-worker: (utterly shocked, shaking head) I couldn’t live like that.
At that point, I stood up and said, “Yes, yes… it is true. I have chosen to deprive myself of all that we as Americans hold dear! I’ve taken it upon myself to sacrifice all my wants and desires for animal flesh and secretions for the betterment of the world! Oh! Woe is me, for I am wasting away in a state of constant hunger and deprivation! How will I ever survive?” And I followed that with a dramatic bow.
Of course that last paragraph was a total lie, but really, isn’t that what we all feel like saying when you get a line like that? You say “I couldn’t live like that!” to someone who’s living in squalor with cat feces piled on top of decade-old newspapers. You don’t say it to someone who simply chooses not to consume animal products (including cat feces piled on top of decade-old newspapers).
Veganism isn’t about deprivation. It’s not about sacrifice. It’s about doing what you know to be right and living your life in a way that is ethically consistent with your beliefs. Period. I can honestly say I’ve never felt deprived. Why? Because I’m not trying to lose weight here, I’m just trying to do what’s right.
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A boy who “hated snakes” stomped and killed a 10-foot-long python at a Cincinnati petting zoo.
Yesterday, Josh wrote to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Big Mac while recounting his own fast food experiences:
I used to have a job giving tours at the computer museum in Boston. There was a McDonalds downstairs right between us and where the Boston Tea Party ship (and annoying reenactments) were.
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I used to eat at that McDonalds once a week or so. I was still a year away from going vegetarian at that point, but even then I knew McDonalds was a terrible place to get food. I’d be walking around monitoring one of the galleries or giving a tour thinking about where I was going to eat and invariably my brain would say “McDonalds!” Most days I’d give that cartoon bubble thought above my head the smackdown, but once a week or so I’d give in. I even felt sick before I got there and I knew I’d be dragging ass the rest of the day with all that grease and fat in my stomach. (I would add “death” to that list of things in my stomach, but at the time those thoughts were still in the murky unknown part of my brain trying to reach the surface.)
The one thing I always tell people after they find out that I’m vegan and say, “I could never do that!” is that I would regularly eat two (yes, two) Big Macs for dinner when I was in high school. Back then my metabolism was insane and I never topped 115 pounds. I wasn’t exactly a football player. I was barely a member of the bowling team.
As I was transitioning to vegetarianism, I had a set number of days a month where I’d have only meatless meals. During those days, I always ended up going to Subway for lunch on my “vegetarian days.” I honestly had no idea where else to go for a quick veggie meal in those days.
After going veggie, I kept up with the occasional visit to Subway and even had a few BK Veggies when I was on the road during those first few years.
Today, though, I can honestly say I eat at a fast food restaurant maybe once a year. And that would be a place like Subway during the most dire of situations (a 10pm, middle of nowhere, nothing else open, forgot to pack a Clif Bar, and have to to go the bathroom-type deal). It’s kind of funny to look at the completely different mindsets of High School Ryan and Vegan Ryan even though I still feel like I’m pretty much the same person at my core. I guess it’s like how your body regenerates all its cells every nine years — you’re technically a whole new person, yet you still feel like the same big collection of bio-junk you were back then.
Anyway, I’m glad to be done with fast food restaurants. No more dealing with the funny smell that envelopes you after you’ve been in a Subway. Or the employees not remembering to leave the mayo off of your BK Veggie (back when the burger itself was actually vegan, of course). Or the sticky floors in McDonald’s bathrooms (actually, I still deal with that since that’s the sole reason I’ll go into a McDonald’s).
But there are so many people for whom fast food is still a way of life. It seems so foreign to me now, but I remind myself that it’s just as foreign for others think about life without fast food. It’s a tough gap to bridge without devoting some time and real effort, especially since there are no vegan fast food chains to help ease the transition.
Let’s hear from some long-time vegans: when was the last time you ate at a typical fast food joint? Did you used to be a fast food junkie?
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A very thorough investigation by VRG into what various egg certifications do and don’t mean. Not a single one addresses the killing of male chicks (and no, AWI, more humane euthanasia doesn’t count).
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[via Nene]
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Josh’s thoughts on the TAFA debacle (this is public, not subscribers-only).
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Someone needs to start exvegetarian.org so we can start tracking these twits who equate their having been vegetarian with being “neurotic.”
I really enjoy Paleo-Future, a blog that showcases “yesterday’s tomorrows,” visions from the past of the future (our present). One recent post highlighted a 1969 piece from the Jamaica Daily Gleaner envisioning what food would be like in the Year 2000:
Milk that never saw a cow, fruit that never grew on a tree or in the ground, and steak bearing no relation to a bullock — in other words, fabricated food. It sounds a little distasteful and perhaps unbelievable but, according to eminent scientists studying food science it is inevitable and will be soon on our tables.
Take the steak for instance. Soya beans can be woven to resemble a bullock’s muscle, the fat presents no problem nor do vitamins, colouring is simple and flavour can be injected to order. The stuff can be even made to suit the taste buds of an institutional canteen or those who like to see blood.
The development is not a new one - vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists have been eating this type of meat for the past forty years - but it is developing rapidly in recent years, and could hang a large question mark over the future of beef herds. Here in Jamaica it might solve the problem we have of having to import so much beef though I doubt if a patty would ever taste the same again.
This reminds me a bit of a discussion Gary told me he had with one of the “humane meat” presenters after the presentation at TAFA. Gary pressed the farmer, “Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a world where we could have the taste and texture of meat without killing animals to do it?” That’s the vibe I get from this 1969 piece (aside from the last sentence and the “for those who like to see blood” part).
Of course, we do live in a world where you can get the taste and texture of most animal products without the suffering of animals. Buddhists have been mocking up meats for thousands of years, even earlier than the Seventh Day Adventists mentioned in the above article.
So, perhaps this the challenge we need to press meat-eaters with. Start by presenting how great a world it would be if we could have the things we like about meat (taste, texture, nutrition) without killing living beings. Few would be able to disagree with the concept. Why, then, aren’t more of us moving towards meat analogs? That’s a challenge that might really make people think.
Pass the wheat gluten-shaped bullock’s muscle, please.
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Cute t-shirt. I’d like to see this in kids size.
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A t-shirt made for Isa?
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A nice take on the “cage free” thing from Taste Better. Make sure you click through to the NY Times image of the “cage free” facility.
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