Vegan Bits

Animal Rights National Conference 2009

Lane — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:30:19 +0000

This year the Animal Rights National Conference will be held right here in Los Angeles. (It was in Alexandria, VA last year.) The conference runs July 16 - 20, 2009 and will be held at the Westin LAX Hotel: 5400 West Century Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045.

Here is what you can expect:

100 sessions, including keynote plenaries, workshops, raps/discussions & reports
90 speakers representing 60 animal protection groups in seven countries
90 free exhibits with compassionate shopping & social justice organizations
Sessions on personal skills development, activism, organizing & outreach
Eyewitness report on the Sea Shepherd whale wars and CA Prop 2 campaign
Presentations & networking with leaders of other social justice movements
Celebrity, Activist, and Campaign Awards at Saturday Banquet
80 videos including premieres
Networking Receptions
Delicious vegan cuisine

The conference itself is not cheap, $160 for the full session, or $65 for one day. They do offer low income discounts. But if you don't qualify for one of those, there is still a reason to drop by if you can. From the Animal Rights National Conference website:

Visitors are encouraged to drop by Friday, Saturday and Sunday (9am-6pm) to enjoy our 90+ free exhibits, including compassionate shopping, delicious snacks & desserts, and amazing social justice organizations. One free session is also included, so bring your friends, stay for a meal, and make a day out of it!

If you are in the area and can swing by, this is defiitely a worthwhile event. Don't forget to pass this info along to any of your friends or family who may be interested in the topic.

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Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale 2009

Lane — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:53:38 +0000

Just a reminder, the World Wide Vegan Bake Sale is underway... The dates of the sale are June 20 - 28th. To see what events are occuring in your area, click here. And when they say worldwide, they mean worldwide. There are sales scheduled for Australian, New Zealand, Canada, England, Greece, and Nigeria! (As well as the United States.) We've had our heads down a bit, so sorry for the last minute notification. Hopefully you'll be able to attend if there's an event in your neighborhood.

If you live in Los Angeles, there are two events scheduled (there was one yesterday too).

Bake Sale #1
Date: Thursday June 25, 2009
Time: 10am – 2pm
Venue: Los Angeles City Hall Farmers Market
Address: 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
The market is located on the south lawn on First Street between Main and Spring Streets.

Proceeds: Los Angeles Conservation Corps, and part of the city's Los Angeles River Revitalization

Bake Sale #2
Dates: Sunday June 28, 2009 (There was also a sale here on 6/21)
Time: 11am – ?pm
Venue: Locali
Address: Hollywood, 5825 Franklin Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 466-1360

Web Site: Bake Me Up! LA

Proceeds: Animal Acres, Earthlings, and Little Big Dog Rescue

If you have the time, and can get to one of these events, you should consider heading out and supporting the effort to show the world how sweet it is to be vegan.

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Food, Inc. Review

Lane — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:24:42 +0000

Jane and I went to see Food, Inc. this weekend. It has a limited release, so if you are interested in seeing this film here is a list of its scheduled showings. (If you are in the Los Angeles area, it is playing at the NuArt in Santa Monica through Thursday, and will be at the Landmark in West LA starting the 19^th.)

Since we went vegan, we've been doing a lot of reading about food. Sometimes it feels like all we do is talk about food: the way we eat, what we eat, why we changed our diet, where we get our protein, etc. So much of the information presented in this film was familiar to us, but still, it was a worthwhile experience. And some of the things we learned were truly shocking to us. For instance, there are laws in place in 13 states which protect food manufacturers from people making "disparaging comments" about their food products. Manufacturers are allowed to sue under libel laws. Colorado takes things even further by making veggie libel a criminal rather than civil offense. Frightening! I guess I'm just a little naïve here, but I would expect my government to protect me against the big corporations.

Robert Kennar does a good job touching on most aspects of the food industry. For example, the movie starts out by pointing out that the average supermarket sells 47,000 items but this is truly an illusion of diversity since 90% of the items contain corn and/or soy products, and there are only a few companies at the top level that manage agri-business in the United States. One farmer comments that the farmer's decision making process has been outsourced to the corporate boardroom. It's all about the bottom line, as opposed to good stewardship of the earth or animals.

Kennar takes you through a tour of what farming means today in America. And here we were feeling all good about ourselves for being vegan. What this movie says Monsanto does to the soy farmers makes me want to give up tofu entirely. Monsanto, the manufacturers of Round-Up, have modified and patented "Round-Up" ready soybeans. As of 2006 90% of the soybeans produced in the US carry that gene. Monsanto aggressively protects their patent going so far as to prosecute farmer's who's crops have been cross-pollinated by neighboring farms. The people who were interviewed claim to have been persecuted by Monsanto, these include "seed cleaners" - Seed cleaners allow farmers to clean and store the seed from their fields to be replanted. The reason is that, according to patent laws, Monsanto owns the seeds since they own the genetically modified gene. Yikes! If you're interested in learning more about Monsanto, check out this video: The World According to Monsanto. (Here's a link if you'd like to buy The World According to Monsanto.)

The CEO of Stonyfield Farm, Gary Hirshberg, talks about how many of the eco-conscious companies are now owned by mega conglomerates. Tom's toothpaste is now owned by Colgate. Stonyfield is now owned by Groupe-Danone (that's Dannon to you and me). He also defends Stonyfield's decision to sell their organic yogurt to Wal Mart by pointing out that the positive pesticide impact can be measured in tons rather than pounds. So while many people decry Wal Mart as the evil empire, Hirshberg points to the environmental impact, and the fact that this allows more people access to organic foods at a lower price.

Although we don't expect this movie to be as successful as Super Size Me," Morgan Spurlock's McDonald's expose, we hope it will get some additional exposure. This message really needs to get out to the general population.

The movie doesn't touch on veganism at all, which was kind of surprising to me. I guess they were concerned their movie might be played in one of the 13 states with veggie libel laws. There is some exposure to CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). However, the "natural" farmer's method of slaughtering chickens didn't appear all that humane to me or Jane.

We give the movie two thumbs up. See it if you have any interest in food.

For Further Information:

You can read more on the Veggie Libel Laws here:
If you'd like to read more about Monsanto, Vanity Fair had a great article in February, 2008, called Monsanto's Harvest of Fear.

And there are plenty of interesting videos on YouTube.

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In Requiem

Lane — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:00:15 +0000

On Tuesday, we put down our special girl. She was with me for just under 16 years. While many of our friends comment on how special and friendly our boy cat is, she was more selective. We were her tribe and she always wanted to be with us. She would greet us when we got home. She would walk us to bed every night and stay with us until we fell asleep. She always sat with us. She talked to us constantly. We absolutely knew she loved us.

She was very headstrong; whatever we were doing, it always had to be her idea. Toward the end of her life we had to give her antibiotics. (She had cancer and the tumor was rotting her face.) Jane would give her her pill and then give her water to drink. After which Jane would reward her with some food. One morning they did the pill, water, food routine and then went to sit down. Ten minutes after drinking and eating our girlie sat by the door, looked at Jane, and went pah-tooie, and spat out the pill. When we told the vet, she commented "Clever kittie!" This is just one example of our girlie's personality, and part of what made her so special. She is greatly missed.

At this point, the thought of food, or writing about food, is not something either of us feels up to. We will be back... we just need a little time.

Life is short... show the ones you love how much you love them.

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Vegan Recipe in Bon Appetit Magazine

Lane — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:14:16 +0000

For Christmas this year, Jane received a subscription to bon appetit magazine. She received the gift because the giver knew that she was always cooking and looking at recipes. Unfortunately, the giver did not pay particular attention to the kind of recipes that Jane was looking at, but it's the thought that counts, eh?

So every month, before passing it along to a friend who does appreciate this kind of cooking, Jane's been looking through bon appetit for ideas. Clearly, the magazine is not geared towards vegans, but there are some interesting spice combinations and some hints of ideas of things that could be veganized. There is even the occasional article that we'll read. But overall, the magazine is definitely slanted towards omnivores. So you can imagine our shock, when Jane found a clearly marked vegan recipe in the June issue. It's on page 40 and the recipe is for "Grilled Veggie and Tofu Stack with Balsamic and Mint." And right above the recipe, highlighted in green, it reads "vegan main dish." You could have just knocked me over with a feather! It even sounds good!

They also promote the recipe by indicating that it "isn't just vegan -- the main course is also high in fiber and low in calories and cholesterol. Of course, the recipe immediately following is for grilled lamb chops. But still... bon appetit featured a vegan recipe.

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Stewardship

Lane — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:23:42 +0000

Jane and I are struggling a bit. One of our kitties, our favorite, has terminal cancer. The vet has prescribed pain killers, along with some other fun things. And we've been instructed to pay careful attention to her level of comfort and when it appears she is suffering, we should euthanize her.

On a logical basis, I know this is the right thing to do. It is our responsibility to our pets to care for them as best we can. Personally, I would want someone to help me end it when the pain became unbearable. The only difference here is that I expect I would be able to communicate my desires when the time came. The thing that scares us both is that we won't really know when it is the "right time." So we are going to have to make the decision to kill a being. And realistically, it will likely be too early, or too late.

We got the pain killers today. We knew our kitty had been ailing. She has a mass growing on her face, and when she finished her first round of anti-biotics she started smelling really foul, as if she was rotting. (Which btw, is what the vet said is happening with her tumor.) Occasionally she would pass on her food and Jane would spend significant time coaxing her to eat. But our kitty still wanted to hang with us, and she would purr when we petted her. We had no idea she was in pain. After her first dose of pain killer, she was much more playful and her purring was louder. So is she stoned, or had she been suffering and we missed it all?

We love this cat. I mean, really love this cat. She is our child. Our other kitty is great, but he is a pet. This cat has a real personality. Neither of us is happy with the idea of putting her down. She's almost 16. She's had a better life than many people on this earth. But how do you actually make the decision to kill another being? Even if it is the compassionate thing to do?

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Vegan Grilling

Lane — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:30:40 +0000

Yesterday was Memorial Day, the unofficial start to summer here in the US. We hope you all had a good holiday weekend (if you had the day off). One of the joys of summer is the ability to grill your food. Of course, living in southern California we can pretty much grill year round, but we tend to grill a lot more over the summer than we do in the winter.

If you're looking for some vegan recipes to try out on your grill, Amy over at VegCooking (PETAs cooking blog), has a whole bunch of great recipes. Our favorite is the Grilled Peaches ala Mode. Generally, we skip the ice cream and use plums instead of peaches. But this is yum!

And just in case your family or friends give you a little grief over the idea of vegan grilling, you may want to tell them about the five worst foods to grill. Happy Summer!

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Vegan Chicken Broth

Lane — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:25:09 +0000

It's All Veg Broth!

Hi Everyone,

It's Jane writing tonight. As the "executive chef" here at the Vegan Bits household I need to clear up a little mistake Lane made in last night's post, the review of Temepeh-Tations. (And can I tell you we've gotten quite a few concerned email messages about our status as vegans...) I/We don't use chicken stock, and here's a photo to show you all what's in our pantry, at least as far as broth is concerned. We've got Trader Joe's Savory Vegetable Broth Concentrate, Trader Joe's Vegetable Broth, and VEGETARIAN Chicken Broth (powdered). It almost looks like an ad for Trader Joe's, eh? I actually used some of the boxed broth in last night's dinner. Hope that clears things up.

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Tempeh Product Review

Lane — Tue, 19 May 2009 04:45:11 +0000

Lightlife Tempeh-Tations

Jane has never been a huge fan of tempeh. We've tried it a number of times. I like it, but we both much prefer seitan. Recently, Lightlife came out with a new Tempeh product, Tempeh-tations. It comes in three varieties: Zesty Lemon, Classic BBQ, and Ginger Teriyaki.

Last night we tried the Ginger Teriyaki. The package is 6 ounces and makes two servings - 160 calories each. Jane sauteed up a bunch of vegetables and made some brown rice to go along with it. She also added some chicken vegetable stock to the sautee pot to make a little sauce, otherwise it would have been a tad dry.

The verdict: I thought it was delicious. Jane thought it was better than other tempeh she'd tried and would have it again, but still had a hint of bitterness. What she loved most about this product is its ease of preparation. It's another option for a quick and easy dinner, and I will happily consume it.

Next time we'll try the BBQ I think.

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Vegan Activism

Lane — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:34:43 +0000

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has a petition going on Facebook that is worth signing (or at least taking a look at)! They are trying to get Congress to include more vegetables, fruits, vegetarian foods, and healthful nondairy beverages in school lunches. Congress is currently revising the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, which helps determine what foods are served in school lunches.

You can view more information about the petition and sign here. Or you can sign on their Facebook page.

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