In my pre-veg days, I just bought the cheapest soap on the shelf.  In college, I think it was Jergen’s soap that was 99 cents for three bars.  Eventually, though, I got tired of the chemicals, the animal tallow, and how the soap seemed to disappear way too quickly.

I became a soap nerd.

An interesting thing about running this site is the stuff I get to review.  I get cookbooks, food, and, now, soap, thanks to Howard from Howard’s Vegan Soap.  And I’m not ashamed to admit I look forward to trying new soap.

Howard’s comes in three varieties: cinnamon, liquorice/poppy seed, and basil/lavender.  All three contain natural, food-grade exfoliates.  The cinnamon one has the most intense feeling exfoliate, actual pieces of cinnamon stick ("great for rough, dry skin, eczema, or psoriasis").  The poppy seeds and dried basil act as milder exfoliates in the other two soaps.

The soaps all smelled wonderfully gentle, not overpowering and I’ve gotta say, the rough exfoliation that the cinnamon bar provided felt really good.  My naturally dry skin definitely benefited.

Howard’s site has a lot of great information about his soap-making process and why vegan soaps are better for your skin as well as the animals.  One thing I learned: soap companies will actually add chemicals to make their own product deteriorate faster.  Well that explains why I went through so many bars in college…

So, consider this a recommendation.  If you prefer buying from vegan businesses, you’ll want to add Howard’s Vegan Soap to your list.

You’ll also want to check out Howard’s new project: Vegan Jobs Online.  The site is aiming to become a central location to find vegan-owned businesses whether you’re a consumer or a vegan job-hunter (the only type of hunting permitted by The Rules of Veganism).  Though it’s still in its infancy, it’s off to a good start.  Keep an eye on it.

The latest online edition of Herbivore Magazine is now available. Check-check it out if you’re a subscriber (and if you’re not, you should be).

I have one piece in this issue, a piece of humor co-written with Josh Hooten titled “ BestiaPass: Wash away your vegan sins, it’s easy!.” The idea is like TerraPass for vegans. Say what? Here’s an excerpt:

Offense: Stepping on an ant.

Offset: Pour something sweet on the ground to attract more ants. This will accomplish two things: it will ease the surviving ants mourning and benefit the ant community at large as you’re providing nourishment and a safe place to grieve. Ideally you will do this somewhere other than where you killed the ant in the first place to avoid more senseless death at the hands… no… feet… of otherwise kindly souls… no… soles. Bonus points for using agave nectar so as to extend your circle of compassion to include diabetic ants. Extra bonus points if you hang around for at least a half hour redirecting any foot traffic that may be headed for your grieving pile of shitfaced-on-agave ant mound.

Other articles include “Meet Tally and Darcy,” a piece by Deb about two of the elder stateshorses at Poplar Spring, an article about Dutch AR group Wakker Dier, and a load of recipes.

As you may have noticed, I’ve replaced the Google Adsense ads over in the right sidebar with an ad for the Sustainable Energy in Motion bike tour.  If you’re a vegan biker, this looks like it would be wicked fun.

Adsense is gone for a while (no more Omaha Steaks ads!), though I’m toying around with the idea of reviving it in the RSS feeds, because it’s generally pretty unobtrusive there.  Feel free to tell me this idea sucks.

I’ve been meaning to plug the Invisible Voices blog for a while now.  It’s run by Deb, who I met for the first time this past weekend at Poplar Spring.  Deb does all sorts of activism, from leafleting to writing letters to writing some really well thought-out entries on her blog.  And, oh yeah, she’s an amazing photographer as well (check out a lot of her Poplar Spring and Peaceful Prairie photos on her blog).

It’s really amazing how many great vegan blogs (and blogs by vegans) have popped up over the last few years.  When I started the Veg Blog, there were no others that I could find.  Now there’s so much amazing stuff out there to read, no matter what stage of your vegetarian/vegan journey you’re at.

Rock on, Deb, and keep up the great work.

A short while ago I mentioned Veronica, a vegan artist with some interesting projects in the works. Veronica dropped me a note today and asked for me to get the word out: she needs some help collecting receipts for one of her new pieces:

The walls of a room will be completely covered with thousands of receipts so the viewers will find themselves surrounded. The food products that contain animal derived ingredients will be underlined. Shopping receipts are the proof (real, symbolic and legal) of what we consume, an activity that has a underestimated effect on non-human animals. Supply and demand. Daily actions and their repercussions.

Here’s what she needs:

I’m asking people to please collect receipts from supermarkets and other food stores and send them to me by postal mail. I already have hundreds but I need thousands!

• They must contain primarily food products.
• I need both vegan receipts and non-vegan ones.
• It doesn’t matter if they are wrinkled, dirty, badly printed, or what country they are from.
• Make a small pencil mark on the side of the products listed you know are not vegan.

If you’d like to help out, visit her site and drop her a line. You get some goodies if you participate, too.

If you haven’t checked them out recently, both Josh’s Editor Blog and the Herbivore Group Blog have kicked back into high gear after an extended silence.

I’m glad both blogs are rolling again… I love it when companies, particularly small ones, blog openly about stuff going on behind the scenes. Pictures of George the dog, shipments of new shirts as they come in, new design ideas, updates on the storefront… it’s all a great way to connect with readers and customers. It reminds people that Herbivore is not driven by nameless, faceless drones. Trust me, Josh has a face. I’ve seen it!

Issue 12 is on its ways to the printers. I can’t wait to see this issue up close and personal. It’s the “activism issue” and I was lucky enough to get the cover story inteview with Spearhead’s Michael Franti. Lots of other goodness in that issue as well. Now, get to clicking.

I’m having trouble keeping up with all the great vegan blogs that have popped up recently, and when you’ve got group blogs like the new one at Vegan Freaks and Lantern Books’ SuperVegan, it’s clear what I need to do: quit my job and spend 13 hours a day reading vegan blogs and visiting vegan forums.

There are two vegetarian pregnancy-themed blogs I’ve been meaning to point out:

• Knocked Up Vegan is the best weblog title I’ve heard in a while. Dating back to September of last year, the baby is due any time now. This blog’s strength comes from how personal it is, sometimes to the point I feel embarassed for reading it. Good luck, Miriam!
• Veggie Pregnancy has lots of great recipes and an ongoing compendium of facts important to those experiencing a vegetarian pregnancy. There is some non-vegan stuff in there, but not enough that vegans should turn away. Good stuff.

Any other blogs by pregnant vegetarians that I’m missing?

In a really frustrating turn of events, Erik Marcus‘ Erik’s Diner podcast has been hijacked. I had to re-read the description of what happened a couple of times to get it, but boy is it a doozy. The idiot that did this is right down there in the same social caste as spammers.

Bottom line: if you’ve subscribed to Erik’s podcast through Itunes, the most current episode won’t be his when you download it. You can go to vegan.com to get the real episode. Until Apple/Itunes straightens their directory up, you may want to unsubscribe from his feed on Itunes and sign up for Erik’s reminder e-mail list to be notified of new shows.

I best the podcast hijacker eats meat.

Don’t know how I missed it up to this point, but Sarah Kramer’s 2005 Book Tour Blog has been going for a few months. Of course, it’s a good read and she’s going to continue writing there even with her tour now completed (damn it! I missed her in B’more).

I got a copy of Sarah’s latest, La Dolce Vegan, to review. Huyen and I have made a bunch of stuff from it already and loved it all, so expect a glowing review to appear here soon.

Even though the blog has been around since July of last year, I didn’t come across Generation V until Veg Blog visitor Brandy pointed it out to me a week or two ago. Site proprietors Chris and Tammy have also just started a podcast worth checking out. Their most recent episode features audio from the PETA 25th anniversary gala that you’re not likely to find elsewhere.

The vegan blog community continues to grow!

A little something to warm the cockles of your heart, if your cockles do indeed need warming: Let’s Be Friends: Touching photos of unusual animal friendships. It’s a blog with pictures of cute animals of different species. How can you go wrong, really? Especially with pictures like this.

(via Modern Pooch)

Now here’s a neat idea for a blog: Vegan Lunch Box is a photoblog that features pictures of Jennifer’s son’s lunch box. The kid’s first day of school? He got sushi!

I dream of the day when I can pack my kid vegan sushi in his lunch box.

Last week I mentioned a few great vegan podcasts. However, it seems I missed a few. So, be sure to check out:

• VegCast
• Vegan Cooking School

… both of which just recently launched.

These two and the other three podcasts are now listed in the new podcast section of the resource page.

One:: Erik Marcus is back from a two-month hiatus from his Erik’s Diner podcast. He’s moving to a weekly format, which I think will work out well for him. Also, be sure to buy Meat Market. A review is forthcoming (and would have been here by now if it wasn’t for that nasty hard drive crash I had last month).

Two: Our pals over at VeganFreaks now have their own podcast as well. I’m in the midst of reading their new book, Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World (official site). It’s like Living With Meat Eaters for my generation (whatever that means). It’s a good read so far. A long review, again, is forthcoming.

Three: An Animal-Friendly Life has just started podcasting, too. Haven’t listened to it yet, but will be checking them out this weekend, as I’ll be doing a lot of driving. There is no associated book that I’ll be reviewing, but I feel like I should say “forthcoming” anyway.

I have a podcast, too, but it has nothing to do with vegetarianism. I did a segment for Erik’s Diner once. That’s kind of close, right?

New Veg Blog reader Lindsey sent along a suggestion to check out VegGuide.org, a collaborative restaurant guide that covers vegetarian and vegetarian-friendly restaurants. I remember seeing VegGuide a while back when it was first getting started and being turned off by the interface. It was clunky and difficult to get around, which only hurts the final product no matter how good the content is. However, I’m glad to see they’ve redesigned and the changes are for the better. It’s well-worth checking out, as they have a good number of entries and it’s a much more pleasant experience that before.

Also worth noting is Lindsey’s own Veg Log, a vegan-themed blog she started as part of a class project. She’s examined a lot of the important issues one faces when becoming vegan and has a nice, comfortable writing style. I’m happy to see the proliferation of vegetarian-themed blogs in the last several years, because when I started doing this almost five years ago, there were no other blogs covering vegetarian topics (not that I found, at least).

Life without a home PC continues. Things should be back to normal by next week. So, a few random things to pass along in the mean time:

• I made Chocolate Swirl Bars last night. They were really easy and came out pretty well. I added 1/4 tsp. of peppermint extract for just a hint of mint.
• Vote for the Sexiest Vegetarian Alive. How did I not make the list? Do I not look sexy in this one-piece made out of kale?
• Another blog worth mentioning: Abundant, a veggie/sustainable agriculture blog with purdy food pictures

Posting around these parts is a bit light… two reasons: 1. computer at home died a horrible death, new one on the way in a bit, but that means no net at home (AAAARGH!)… and 2. busy as hell at work.

But, for now, go check out VeganFreaks.org, a new vegan blog by a coupla’ 30-year-old vegans. (Scary realization, I’ll be a 30-year-old vegan this year, too. Time to start looking for cemetery plots.)

Also: AnimalWritings.com. How have I missed this blog for the last year?

I’ve been hit up a few times in recent weeks for Girl Scout Cookie orders, which got me to thinking: are any of the cookies vegan? According to this site, which provides scans of the nutritional information from each type of cookie, only the Iced Berry Pinatas and Reduced Fat Lemon Pastry Cremes do not contain eggs or dairy.

Bummer, my two favorites contain milk (Tagalongs and Thin Mints). Oh well… may have to make my own.

I also came across this, too, which is worth reading—including the comments—for fans of Thin Mints. The blog it’s from, 101cookbooks.com looks like a worthwhile visit, too, since much (all?) of the material covered is vegetarian. Heidi has a new cookbook out titled Cook 1.0, which looks beautiful.

Say what you will about PETA (and I know most people have plenty to say about them), but they are simply amazing when it comes to using the web as a way to disseminate information. They have so many sites with individual designs and it’s really astounding. I’ve seen PETA’s job openings listing a few times and know they employ their own little “web team,” which is a luxury that most non-profits don’t have. But still, they continue to impress me with the breadth of their offerings.

One such offering is VegCooking.com, a site dedicated to recipes, product reviews, and restaurant information. Robin Robinson (of Vegan Planet and The Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes Cookbook fame) does an “Ask the Vegan Chef” column, there’s a “Chef’s Spotlight,” cookbook and product reviews, and plenty of recipes and features. Really good stuff.

I’m anxious to try out some of their simple holiday baking tips and recipes. That truffle recipe sounds really easy and I’ve got some Grand Marnier just waiting to be used.

Have you been itching for some good vegan-related talk radio? Head on over to Vegan.com, where our friend Erik Marcus has recently started up a new program called “Erik’s Diner.” It’s available in MP3 format (”Podcasting” seems to be the term du jour for Internet-only broadcasting, though this incarnation seems to be tied to RSS feeds) and each episode runs in the neighborhood of 20 minutes. Erik covers a variety of topics from the food industry to recipes to health and has already featured an interview with the likes of Peter Singer. I’ve been listening to it on my Nomad going to and from work.

One interesting thing I learned from one of their early episodes is that some natural health food stores offer various nut butters in bulk: peanut, almond, and cashew, for instance. But what’s even more interesting is that some offer what’s called “mystery butter,” which is essentially a mixture of two types of nut butter that comes from the batches in-between making “pure” nut butters. The mystery butter is cheaper than any of the other butters because without it, it would end up being discarded anyway as residue or “leftovers” from the regular batches. Interesting stuff and certainly nothing I’d ever heard of before.

So, check out Erik’s Diner and while you’re at it, pick up a copy of Erik’s new book, Meat Market. I’ll be reviewing here shortly, but take my word for it for now: it’s a mighty fine read.

Veg Blog reader Micha Hershman has just started a new blog titled Relish! - Enthusiastically eating in and around Ann Arbor. It’s about… well, if you need me to explain, you might want to check your B-12 levels.

Even though the blog isn’t veggie-specific, it’s got a very heavy vegetarian slant,” says Micha. I believe him.

He’s gotten off to a good start, particularly with a really handy find: Organizing Your Refrigerator and Freezer. A handful of simple tips about where to store different types of food in your fridge to best extend their shelf life. The one I always forget (but have, thankfully, guess right about) is listed: vegetables in the “high humidity” drawer and fruit in the “low humidity” drawer.

I ended up cutting and pasting all the info into a Word doc and then trimming it down to one page to put on my fridge. Want a copy? Here’s a PDF.

The husband-wife team of Josh Hooten and Michelle Schwegmann run the Herbivore Clothing Company, which sells non-lame vegan gear (think “Praise Seitan“) and has been publishing the “vegetarian culture” magazine Herbivore for just over a year.

I had a chance to speak with Josh about Herbivore and being vegan in a very non-vegan world. He told me to go away.

Actually, it went something like this:

Let’s start with your “Vegetarian history” (when you became/why you became “one of those people”).

I went vegetarian about 7 years ago and vegan 5 years ago. Prior to that I had a very serious case of denial. I had veggie friends who were excellent role models but for some reason I held on to the stereotypes I had developed about vegetarians and was very stubborn. Despite the fact that some of my best friends were anything but the stereotype, I just wouldn’t let it go. Then one day my old roommate rescued a goose from a busy intersection near our house and somehow that lead to an epiphany for me about her seeing this goose wandering around, scared, and confused, in traffic (with a fishing hook through it’s wing) and how I would have stopped traffic to help too. But then I’d eat a chicken without thinking twice about helping it out of it’s own confusing and frightening situation. So I decided to stop eating meat. Then a couple years later I was reading Diet for a New America and was shocked at how I thought I had this great compassion for animals by not eating their flesh but didn’t think twice about milk and eggs and so forth. During the reading of that book I truly felt like it would have been less cruel to eat beef than eggs, but I wasn’t going to eat beef, so I couldn’t keep eating eggs. Same with milk, etc. It was a very big moment in my life, I remember where I was and what I was wearing when I decided to go vegan. And I REALLY didn’t want to go vegan. I didn’t want to be inconvenienced by learning all this new stuff and having to start cooking for myself and so forth. But when I read the truth, I knew what I had to do. I really didn’t feel like I had a choice.

I assume you went through all the typical family-and-friends issues when you went vegan. Any good stories about being “The Vegan” (as one of your recent issues refers to it)?

I have a few friends and family stories, some of which I can now look back and laugh at but most are kind of a punch in the heart. Meaning, it doesn’t feel good to not get support from the people who you’re closest to. Which, oddly, always seems to be the group that is most resistant for the people I know. Why is it always family who show you their ass when you make big changes like going vegetarian?

Anyway, I had one friend who would get uptight about a column I wrote for a website and how, in my column, I “couldn’t go a week without mentioning veganism, can you?” I told him it made me sad none of my friends supported my decision, or gave me any credit that I might be on to something and maybe they should look into it. Anyway, I told him I wasn’t going to listen to his shit anymore unless he learned about this thing that had changed my life. I told him to read Diet For a New America, and once he did, he could criticize me all he wanted because he’d finally know what he was talking about. He went vegan before finishing the book. His eyes opened up just like mine had.

Shortly thereafter he’d call me on a regular basis to tell me all the messed up things he was seeing that before never would have occurred to him. Like how his mom had triple bypass heart surgery and on the way home from the hospital his family stopped for dinner at a steakhouse to celebrate the successful surgery.

How’d you decide to start the Herbivore Clothing Company?

For the first 3 years I was one of those “I don’t want to talk about my diet, it’s a personal choice” kind of vegans. I didn’t know any other vegans, so I didn’t have any backup. At first this was because I wasn’t very good at talking about it, I was new to it, and couldn’t recite facts, which I thought would be important. Then one day I decided that was dumb. I had important information that should be shared (regardless of whether or not I could remember how many baby chicks are ground up per year in the United States, or why hunting isn’t an effective means of wildlife population control), especially with people I cared about who I often found saying the same dumb, ignorant things I used to say about vegetarianism. And I was proud that I was vegan, so why wouldn’t I talk about it in the right context? So, like any good American would, I turned to consumerism to speak my beliefs for me and I went shopping for an animal rights message shirt. But I’m a bit of a design snob and couldn’t find anything that I liked or that would express my views in the style I would prefer. So I decided to make a shirt, then thought, there must be other people out there in my shoes. Why don’t I make a few dozen of this shirt? Why don’t I make several designs, a few dozen of each?

I’m a graphic designer by trade, so I knew I could handle that part ok. And I’d just recently learned how to make a really sloppy website, so I knew I could handle that too. I had a friend who owned a screenprinting company how knew where I could get really nice quality, sweatshop free t-shirts and he would let me trade design work for printing with him. So why not? That was a couple of years ago and it’s been going well.

And how did that eventually translate into becoming magazine publishers?

We started the magazine for the same reason we started the clothing biz, just substitute “wear” with “read” and “clothing company” with “magazine.” Example: “As fashion conscious, urban vegans who were convinced of our own cleverness and humor despite any evidence of this, we felt we didn’t have anything vegan oriented to wear. So we started a clothing business.” OR: “As fashion conscious, urban vegans who are convinced of our own cleverness and humor despite any evidence of this, we felt we didn’t have anything vegan oriented to read. So we started a magazine.”

I really wanted there to be a magazine that was about celebrating our culture as much as it was about the issues behind it. We couldn’t find one that was covering the stuff we wanted to know about, so we made one.

And we wanted to show the humorous side of the vegetarian community too. Veggies are so often cast as humorless, rhetoric spewing grumps and that is just not my experience. So many of our friends are fun loving knuckleheads how are passionate about the issues but still love to laugh and have fun and celebrate their lives.

What are your current distribution channels?

We handle the subscriptions through our site, and our newsstand distribution is handled by Big Top Newsstand Services, which is the distribution arm of the Independent Press Association. We’re really excited about working with them as their mission is to support independent publishing and keep that voice alive in a world where ever fewer media outlets exist. If we hadn’t gotten picked up by Big Top, we would have had some hard thinking to do about distribution and whose pockets we would have been lining by trying to go with another distributor. Big Top gets us into a lot of indy bookstores and co-ops as well as bigger corporate chains. I think this is indespensible because as little as I like corporate chains, how many pro-animal rights voices exist on that bookshelf? Little to none, so we feel really proud that we don’t have to curtail any editorial content and can still get an expose on chicken factory farming onto a Barnes and Noble newsstand. Other magazines will write about those topics, but not usually from a pro-activist standpoint, which we think is a really vital voice.

A few months ago, I was staying at a hotel outside of Chicago and I was wearing my “Praise Seitan” shirt. We were heading out to the Chicago Diner, but before we did, I had to go through the “recreation area” (where there’s a pool, game area, etc.) to get to the front desk. I forgot that I was wearing that shirt and got a lot of scared looks from kids who were old enough to read but not old enough to know about wheat gluten and such things. On my way back from the front desk, I had to cross my arms to avoid scaring any more little kids. Have you had any strange reactions like that to any of your clothing line/stickers/pins?

Not as much as my friend Chad from Food Fight Vegan Grocery who makes buttons that say “I Love Hunting Accidents.” What a cold hearted bastard.

That’s almost as cold as Jeb in issue 3 who said what he learned from Atkins was to be careful when walking on ice.

I just got a note the other day from someone saying we were doing a good job except the Praise Seitan shirt wasn’t to her liking. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Thanks? Piss off? Relax? I didn’t know what to say. I got a note from a very serious Christian once who was really upset about the shirt. She said she was a vegetarian and a Christian and she didn’t appreciate the pentagram (made out of forks) and so forth. She said I should stop making them and that it wasn’t funny. I told her, with all due respect to her faith, she should spend her time lecturing her meat eating Christian friends about compassion, rather than lecturing a vegan about Christianity. Oh boy, she didn’t like that. I don’t know what to tell people who get upset by that shirt. My feeling is, if they get upset by that shirt, they were going to get upset by something that day and the Praise Seitan shirt just happened to come along.

That brings up an interesting point: a lot of very religious people still eat meat and, as pointed out in the current issue, it’s actually a main part of many religious holidays and ceremonies. I’m particularly bothered when I see a church having a celebration and they’re doing a pig roast. They wouldn’t consider wheeling out a dead body from a funeral to put in the middle of the celebration, so why would they wheel out a dead pig on a spit?

What do you think causes this seemingly paradoxical behavior in otherwise religious and spiritual people?

Tradition. That’s all I can think of. My experience has been that very pro-meat people don’t ever have any solid back up for their stance, they only have tradition or vague statements like “It’s natural, we’ve done it forever.” Completely ignoring the fact that there is NOTHING natural about hacked up chicken parts in plastic wrap at a grocery store. If they were out there with a spear running down their food, they’d have a leg to stand on but grocery stores aren’t much like the forest, so that argument topples right over. And most of them I’ve heard do with a little inspection.

One thing “traditionalists” fail to grasp is that we’ve also been hating and killing each other over the color of our skin forever too, but that doesn’t make it right. We’ve been hating and killing each other over our religious beliefs forever, but that doesn’t make it right. Having a selective view of history to prove your point doesn’t make for much of a debate.

As for religious and spiritual people who eat meat, I have no idea how you can preach compassion and peace and eat meat. It baffles me every time I think about it. Even if their God did intend for us to eat the animals he/she put here, surely he/she wouldn’t enable them to suffer, then let us torture them with factory farming practices. No idea how otherwise sensitive people keep the blinders on.

What’s the reaction been from those within the vegetarian/animal rights community to your clothing and magazine?

As far as the Praise Seitan shirt goes, it’s far and away our best seller. A lot of responses have been along the lines of “finally I can fly the vegetarian flag with a sense of humor!” As for the company in general, people seem to dig it. It’s very validating to start two companies based on the hunch that there are a lot of other people out there like us and have it work out. It’s validating and scary. What else about them is like us? Do they all also swear like sailors and make up drunken dances called “Gorilla versus the Escalator”? Do they have an attacking type manuever called “The Butt Saw”?

Also, we were nominated by Utne Magazine in their Independent Press Awards in the Best New Title category, which was a real honor. So getting recognized outside the community is also very cool.

That said, I have to point out that just like everywhere else there is competition and underhanded stuff going on in the community, from a business standpoint and other areas. I have no time for this bullshit. We’re all here trying to save lives, getting competitive about business stuff undercuts the supposed goal.

What business lessons have you learned from your short time running Herbivore? What’s been your biggest obstacle?

Running vegetarian companies will never get you on “Cribs.” The biggest obstacle is not being able to afford to launch all the new products and projects we want and not having enough hours in the day to get everything done. But that’s actually a good thing. Keeps us motivated.

I imagine that most of the money that comes in goes right back into the business. Has it been a challenge to “pay the bills” at home?

Most of the money does go back into the company. But we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to pay most of those bills on time, as well as sponsor a cow at Farm Sanctuary for the past two years (his name is Boris), as well as lend what support we can to various AR groups including Student Animal Rights Alliance, PETA, the SHAC 7 legal defense fund, Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary, and a few others. Our feeling is that there’s no use in starting a company if you’re not going to support the community that is supporting you.

I imagine that by the time you start a business based around vegetarianism, you’ve learned pretty much everything there is to learn about food, slaughterhouses, and corporate greed. Have you had any “vegetarian epiphanies”—things you didn’t know before going into this business?

Well, one thing you just have to accept is that you’re going to be spending a lot of money with companies who aren’t vegetarian and aren’t down for your cause. Meaning I’m paying someone to print my magazine and they are taking my money and buying meat with it I’m pretty sure. It’d be nice if that wasn’t the case, but you do what you can. Or for clothing, the person who manufactures our blank shirts, I’m sure their whole company isn’t vegetarian. But it’s a good company who don’t subcontract with sweatshops like a lot of garment industry types, and they are rolling out organic cotton options thanks to their customers inquiring with them about it. So you have to hope your choices balance out. If I didn’t start the magazine, that printer or shirt maker wouldn’t have my money to go buy meat with. But, on the other hand, I got a note from a vegetarian woman today who’s husband eats meat. She said he flips through Herbivore and is becoming more compassionate as time goes on (not only because of the magazine) and she thinks he’ll quit meat soon. Or a person who we run ads for said he had been vegan for years and then started eating dairy. He got Herbivore and went back to being vegan, refreshed and excited about it again. So there’s always a trade off and if we didn’t think we were doing more good than harm, we’d quit.

I wouldn’t call them epiphanies, but being vegan and not terribly excited by capitalism, I question all our decisions and try to make the ones that are most in line with our beliefs. Sometimes we’re wrong and sometimes we can’t figure out why one way would be better than the other, but we do question them all.

Gardenburger or Boca Burger (assuming they were never bought by Kraft)?

Gardenburger. Portland Represent! Even though they just moved to Idaho! (or was it Iowa?)

Not sure. I think they’re both actually the same state.

I re-discovered The Post-Punk Kitchen site the other day. The PPK is a Brooklyn, NY-based vegan cooking show with a decidedly non-traditional approach. I had visited their site shortly before their first episode aired and went back again yesterday in search of some good dessert recipes and vegan baking tips. I was happy to see that the site has grown and the show has aired two episodes on public access television. In addition, they have a DVD available with both shows, whose purchase directly supports the airing of more episodes.

In any event, the Chocolate Orange Cupcakes were awesome. Very rich with a nice hint of orange. Next time around, I might even take one reviewer’s suggestion and add a little more Grand Marnier for a stronger orange flavor. One other modification I made to the recipe: I used 3/4 cup of sugar for the frosting because using only 1/2 cup resulted in a slightly too-buttery flavor. Give it a shot, though, and also try out the Chocolate Bomb Pudding Cake, specifically recommended to me by Isa, one of the site’s punktastic proprietors.

This week is National Vegetarian Week, an annual event sponsored by the Vegetarian Society, an organization established in 1847. Take some time to look through their site and introduce the idea of vegetarian eating to a friend this week.

Our friends over at The Green Cutting Board will be debuting a new web radio talk show titled “The Naked Vegetarian.” The first show airs on Monday at noon eastern time at InstantFM.com. Give it a listen over lunch.

Here’s a random find: The Veggie Blog from the Czech Republic.

Now to find a good translation app so I can read it!

VegetarianTeen.com has an interview with Gregory Smith, the 13-year-old founder of the International Youth Advocates. Smith’s amazing story starts at age two when he decided to become vegetarian, goes through his high school graduation at age ten, and his back-to-back Nobel Peace Prize nominations at ages 12 and 13. He’s set to graduate college this year and has a grand vision of how children can be the ones to bring peace about in a world full of tension and hate. It’s great to see someone so young and so incredibly intelligent devoting his time and energy towards a goal that would takes a child’s enthusiasm to reach.

(via VP)

Looking for recipes? You’ll want to check out Vegan-Food.Net, which sports a large collection of vegan recipes from a variety of sources (mainly the alt.food.vegan newsgroup). This site is proof positive that you can easily eat a different vegan meal every day of the year and never repeat recipes. Also nice is the ability to comment on any recipe and search by ingredient.

Dig in.

Vegan Outreach is an outstanding resource with some of the most convicing arguments for veganism, presented in a non-judgemental, non-confrontational way. I recently subscribed to their e-mail newsletter Vegan Spam, which I look forward to every week. It provides some great tools for activists or those just looking for for information… the Vegan Starter Pack is especially useful.

Definitely one of those sites that will suck away a lot of your time away… and that’s a good thing.

Veg Blog regular Johanna has launched a new recipe site worth taking a look at, Swooning Veg*nism. The site features recipes that are far from run-of-the-mill vegetarian recipes (”thereby smashing the ‘tofu & iceberg lettuce’ image that the omnivoric world persists in having of us,” she says) from a variety of sources.

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

A few days ago, Katherine pointed out Haught Cuisine to me and I was mighty impressed. It’s an attractive, well-written blog of vegetarian and vegan recipes that I will certainly make part of my daily rounds. And to top it off, it’s written by Veg Blog regular Christiane.

There need to be more vegetarian-focused blogs… some variety. I was starting to feel lonely. :)

A new vegan-centric blog started up last month titled what the hell _does_ a vegan eat anyway?. Though reading a person’s menus may seem a bit tired, the author seems to eat some mighty tasty food! This would definitely be a worthwhile read for new vegetarians looking for new meal ideas. (via Katherine)

“I have never been so glad to be vegan in my life.”

Scott, a friend from college who is vegan, recently posted this entry in his blog about his experience driving behind a truck of chickens being transported to the slaughterhouse. You can imagine that as a vegan, just being behind the truck of chickens must have been difficult… now imagine that the chickens start falling out of the truck.

After reading a comment from Veg Blog reader JeanNINE, I clicked through to her weight loss blog, which led me to her personal site. It’s a good read, but especially worth checking out is her decision to become vegetarian. It reminds me a lot of myself: I had considered vegetarianism off-and-on since I was young, but never gave it a shot until I was 25. It inspired me to compile a short essay on why and how I became vegetarian. At the end, I’d also like you to submit your story for a future feature on the site.

A couple of sites worth checking out: Vegan for Life, a thorough starting point for vegan information and Vegan Porn, “News and Information for Vegans Who Get It.” Think of the latter as Slashdot for Vegans, if you will.

VegTV has a one-hour streaming program available. I watched the first 10 minutes, and while it had some good information, it was unbelievably cheesy and amateur. Kind of a shame really.

Perhaps what put me over the top was referring to soy as a “miracle food.” Yes—soy is pretty damn healthy and versatile, but the notion of a “miracle food” is absurd (as is “supergrain,” something I’ve seen quinoa referred to as). Overstating the benefits or versatility of soy (or any other product) will really do nothing more than to make vegetarianism look like a fad diet.

Super Smoothies over on Suite101.com serves as a good intro to smoothie making. Fortunately, smoothies are something that are relatively easy to make, but it still helps to have a set of basic instructions to help ensure you get a good taste and good consistency no matter the ingredients.

As of late, I’ve taken a liking to smoothies for breakfast as I drive into work.

Taking a break from writing his new book, Erik Marcus, author of Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating, wrote up a nice column for his site titled “Hoping for Rain.” In it he discusses the finding that Twinlab vitamins contain gelatin, even though they don’t say so on the ingredients, which is rightfully angering vegans who have trusted Twinlab’s B-12 supplements.

He also talks about a recent discovery of his own that the generally vegan Soy Delicious ice cream (my personal favorite line of soy ice cream) now has a product with “organic egg powder.” Why a company that makes soy ice cream (generally marketed towards vegans) would include eggs all of a sudden is kind of strange.

He also goes on to discuss a friend of his that is trying out “veganic farming.” That is, organic farming that doesn’t support the killing/slaughter industries at all (meaning no bloodmeal fertilizer, fish parts, or manure) and ends the article on a feel-good note.

Erik’s one of the community’s best writers and this article is a perfect example why.

Worth checking out: Sarah’s Vegetarian Page. Sarah’s been vegetarian for almost 11 years, starting when she was 12. She discusses her reasons and issues she’s encountered in the process. There are also a handful of links at the bottom of the page. (by way of Cat)

Vegan Genius

A well-written introduction to Veganism by Biz Stone, Genius.

Vegetarian Phrases in Other Languages, just to make sure you don’t get served beef in Malaysia. Looks like we’ll have to get them phrases in Vietnamese, though. (via Dan)