• Chili and cornbread muffins
• Apple Pie Muffins
• Vegan vichyssoise
• Danish braid with German Chocolate Filling
• Jicama Con Limon Y Chile
• Cumin-Grilled Tofu with Papaya Salsa

Vegan News:

• “[C]ommercially raised meats and dairy products carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria” (more)
• “Cosmo’s [vegan shoppe] will pay half (!) of the shipping charges on any order with standard USPS Priority or UPS Ground shipping.” if you order before July 31st. (link)
• Gary Francione and friends made an animal rights pamphlet. I like the idea, but the end result is… a little… text-heavy. It’s a little more theory and a little less pamphlet, which can be good or bad depending on the audience.  Check it out yourself >>
• “ANIMAL-RIGHTS groups are angry the Queensland Government is spending up to $50,000 to promote an event they say is “blatantly cruel”.” (link)
• “Beltex Corporation, doing business as Frontier Meats, a Fort Worth, Texas, establishment, is recalling approximately 2,850 pounds of fresh cattle heads which may contain specified risk materials (SRMs), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced today. SRMs are tissues that are known to contain the infective agent in cattle infected with BSE” For those of you who don’t know, BSE is Mad Cow Disease. (link)
• “Members of the Fashion District BID hope the episode will spotlight the rampant pet sales. The weekend of June 20, LAPD officers working with the BID’s Clean and Safe Team confiscated 37 turtles, eight birds, six rabbits and two reptiles. [...] L.A. is such a clearinghouse and hub for illegally imported and transported wildlife.” Sadly, these things only seem to get media attention when drama and violence is involved. In this case, there was violence. A group of women attacked some of the animal vendors in what police say is a “battery.” (link) I assume some legal action will be taken against the women, however, The Vegan Ideal makes a good point: “In a society built on white supremacy and capitalism, people of color, especially those who work on the street, make easy targets. Molyneux notes that if the [women] had harassed a rich white man, say one who owns a meat packing plant that exploits both workers and nonhuman animals, the [women] might end up in jail. However, by targeting people of color working on the street the same [women have] all the support of the institutional racism and classism, including the LAPD.” (via Vegans of Color). (I think there are even more interesting layers to this puzzle of oppression and violence given that the violence is coming from women, not rich, white, hetero men.)

Vegan Theory/ Pro-Veganism:

• From CounterPunch: “A pro-animal agenda will improve human health and safety, increase property values, and balance and protect an ecosystem that is meant to protect us from floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters. [...] We need a president who understands that when we invest in sustainable and compassionate animal policies we all live healthier and more secure lives. [...] let’s demonstrate that the United States really is the most compassionate nation on earth. [...] By treating vulnerable animals with reverence and mercy we will not only save their lives, but also many of our own.”
• Mary Martin writes, “When people use the I-wouldn’t-even-do-that-to-an-animal line, it scares me. It tells me that they draw some kind of line in the sand between torture that’s okay and torture that’s so terrible that even animals don’t deserve it. But what is it about sentient nonhumans that makes them somehow inherently deserving of at least some level of mistreatment? Nothing.”
• Gregory Dicum wrote:
  

  “After I became a vegan, a suite of changes came over me: I became lighter, finding a new stable weight, I felt better, my bodily systems worked more smoothly, and this: Simply because I had stopped being complicit in their slaughter, I came to see animals in a different way. I no longer had a need to rationalize at every meal, and I gradually came to see the essential truths of the ethical arguments for veganism: of course animals feel pain. How could they not? Of course they want to live, and to enjoy life. Anyone who’s lived with a pet knows as much. But there’s a difference between knowing and feeling, and no longer having to defend my psyche against my actions meant that I came to feel the reality of the animal experience.”

  I’ve noticed this transformation happen to other people as well. They go vegan for health reasons, environmental, or to lose weight, but once they’re vegan they develop animal rights sensibilities. They allow themselves to adopt the ethical perspective because they are no longer in denial. This is one reason why veganism ought to be “the moral baseline” or “the starting point” for true animals rights theory. Dicum’s article encourages veganism from various perspectives and concludes with:

  “choosing veg is wildly optimistic: it is making ourselves into who we want to be, and proclaiming that conscious change on a global scale is something we humans just might be able to pull off. And that would be nothing less than an act of intentional evolution.
  Think it can be done? It starts the next time you sit down at the dinner table.”

  Read his article here >>

Anti-Vegan & Anti-Animal Propaganda:

• A Big Food front group called Center for Consumer Freedom attacked PETA and the HSUS. Basically, they argue that animal advocacy isn’t worthwhile (particularly when it hits Big Food’s bottom line) and they think PETA and the HSUS should be rescuing more animals, but only pets, not farm animals. Big Food knows that attacks on PETA are generalized by the public and become attacks on the entire animal rights movement and all vegans. Here’s why Big Food is interested in making a public stink about PETA and the HSUS: humane farming laws. Big Food doesn’t want pro-animal groups to have the kind of cash Big Food has because then they’ll lobby for significant legal change on behalf of farm animals. I think of PETA and the HSUS sort of like my family. If anyone’s going to say nasty things about them, it’s going to be me. (link)

“We’re the people who are willing to change our lives to decrease our ecological footprint. The people to whom everyone else turn for green advice. The people who are the moral arbiters of product consumption and who give the green yay or nay to your products and practices.

We have a name. We’re “Greenfluencers,” according to the new Porter Novelli report. We may represent just a sliver of your market, the report says, but we guide the green conscience of your entire market.”

He’s right. When it comes to green stuff, ‘greenfluencers’ are the people to please.

And when it comes to veg stuff, vegans are the people to please. Vegans are the core of the vegetarian, vegetarian-friendly, vegan-wannabe, and pro-veg market segment. What we say influences the entire pro-veg population, which includes “enviros.”

When we say, “Look for the vegan label” food manufacturers listen and many add a vegan label or even better, a vegan certification. When we say, “Starbucks should offer vegan food options,” Starbucks listens. They offer vegan food in a few locations. Hopefully soon they’ll offer vegan food in more locations. When we say, “Try this delicious cupcake,” we take over the world.

The VRG’s assessment of The Market for Vegetarian Foods states:

“Although vegans represent a fraction of the population, the marketing of foods made without any animal products can include rather than exclude this segment to increase the potential market. Vegans are heavy users of products that meet their needs. They can be loyal, enthusiastic customers who generate word-of-mouth recommendations not only to other vegans, but also to the full spectrum of vegetarian eaters.”

When you advocate veganism in your blogs and personal conversations, your influence is greater than you might imagine. The vegan sphere of influence is grand. Your vegan voice is loud and strong. Let it be heard.

You might not notice right away how powerful you are. You might think it’s better to be quiet and not rock the boat. But it’s YOUR voice. You get to decide how to use it. You can use it loudly in animal rights protests or you can use it loudly to recommend a fantastic vegan restaurant. You can use it loudly to demand action from the legislature or you can use it loudly to blog about easy vegan recipes. It’s up to you. It’s your vegan voice. Use it!

A pro-vegan article in the Washington Post called “Vegan and You Don’t Even Know It” says:

“I’ve compiled a bunch of vegan recipes from the Mighty Appetite vault to illustrate a point– particularly for my omnivorous friends afraid to dip their toes into the meatless pool — that vegan isn’t just nutritious, baby, it’s delicious. I’m not suggesting that we do all-veeg all the time, but what’s the harm in having a stable of vegan recipes that are packed with so much flavor you might not even miss the meat?”

The article lists these seven vegan recipes:

1. Blueberry sorbet
2. Eggplant curry
3. Gazpacho
4. Hummus
5. Zuke-a-mole
6. Red lentils
7. Szechuan-style green beans

While the “I’m not suggesting veganism full-time” is not exactly the position I take here at the Soapbox, I certainly appreciate the sentiment that part-time veganism is better than all meat all the time: meat-eaters should eat less meat.

Even just being vegan part-time is a step in the right direction. It’s good for your health, it’s good for the planet, it’s good for animals, it’s good for your pocketbook, and it’s good tasting, too.

As a vegan, it makes sense to promote part-time veganism. Obviously, we vegans should promote full-time veganism first, but promoting part-time veganism is better than promoting the humane myth. Cage-free, free-range, certified humane, and other similar labels for animal products don’t mean much and animals still suffer terribly because of their status as commodities. Promoting part-time veganism is also likely better than promoting lacto-ovo vegetarianism because non-vegan vegetarianism is often still fully dependent on animal products. Many vegetarians eat eggs or dairy at every meal and never eat vegan meals. Part-time vegans are also probably more likely to go full-time vegan than their full-time animal-eating counterparts.

As a vegan, I have another selfish reason for encouraging meat-eaters to eat less meat: I want more vegan options in restaurants so it’s easier for me to go out to eat. Interestingly, I’m not alone:

“Over one-third [of consumers] would order soy products in restaurants (namely, a soy veggie burger or soymilk), if they could find soy on their restaurant’s menu.” (source)

and

“a National Restaurant Association poll found that one in five diners looks for vegetarian meals when eating out, and one in three orders a vegetarian entrée if it is on the menu.” (source)

(Photo: blueberry sorbet by Kim O’Donnel)

He says, “Chickens are friends, not food”

Robin Robertson’s new cookbook, Vegan Fire and Spice, is garnering rave reviews from all over. And with good reason. The dishes are easy to make, use commonly-available fresh ingredients, and offer a splendid array of tastes.

Many of us who have been vegetarian or vegan for a while reach a point when we want to do more than order Indian take-out. We want to make Indian take-out. Not to mention African, Caribbean, South American, and more. We want to shake up our own kitchens by bringing in different techniques and flavors. This book promises to give us the means. The book is a reworking of Robertson’s Some Like it Hot, with all recipes veganized and 25 additional recipes added. It is also the first to be published by Robertson’s new enterprise, Vegan Heritage Press. I recently tested several of the recipes from different parts of the book and all were successful. Some made it to a coveted place on my sure-to-make-again list because they are simply too good.

The cookbook is divided into sections, each section a geographical region that is known for spicy and hot dishes. When you open to that section there is a list of recipes, categorized by “appetizers”, “soups”, and so on. The recipes, then, are not listed in their entirety in one place. The index is complete, however, so if you are looking for a specific recipe and don’t remember where it comes from you will find it there. It makes sense to look within a region for a menu of dishes rather than take a chance on mixing cultures, picking one from Italy and another from China, for example. For this reason I find the arrangement agreeable.

Each recipe is on its own page. No sharing. I prefer this standard, as it’s easier to find the recipe and to follow it.

There are no pictures, other than on the cover. I love pictures but I appreciate the economies of leaving them out. It adds to the adventure, too.

The recipes are easy to make. I admit to being an occasionally ambitious cook, happy at times to create complex dishes that take specialized skills. Most of the time, though, I prefer to put together meals quickly and easily and know they will turn out right even when some parts go wrong or I have to substitute some ingredients. Forgivable recipes, I call them, that’s what I look for.

From my experiments with Fire and Spice, I believe that’s what we have here: forgivable recipes. When I made the Senegalese soup (p. 119) the first time I got distracted and burned the mix of onions and celery. I didn’t want to start over so I scraped out the less-burned parts and dumped them in another pan and continued on. I suspect the soup would have been better if I’d had the full contingent of onion and celery and none of it was burned but it was nonetheless delicious. When I made the vegetable pakoras I didn’t chop the cauliflower enough, and I made the mistake of throwing in the cauliflower before I had the flour and water mixed. But I soldiered on and although the pakoras were not beautiful they were tasty indeed. Way too tasty, considering I made a full batch and there was only the one of me in the house.

Some of the mistakes I made came about because the recipes are not always as specific as they could be. One recipe calls for two Granny Smith Apples, another for a head of cauliflower, another for one or two yams or sweet potatoes. Not all of these recipes specify the size of these vegetables or an alternative measure, like weight or number of cups. In my experience some vegetables and fruits can vary dramatically in size. Sometimes the directions lack a little: the pakora recipe says to mix enough water into the flour mix to “make a batter”. But how thick?

And sometimes the timing is off. When I made the Chickpea and Green Bean Curry (p. 158) I had to make my dinner guest wait because it took much longer for the green beans to cook than estimated. My beans were fresh and cut according to directions and I think they were typical of what you would find in a grocery vegetable section, so I’d suspect my experience would be typical. Most of the time I did find the time estimates within the recipes to be accurate, however. What I would have appreciated, though, would have been estimates of time to make the entire dish.

Minor gripes. Most of the recipes do list ingredients by weight or cups and most of the directions are clear and unmistakable in intent.

The recipes call for fresh vegetables and fruits most of the time. Occasionally they require canned diced tomatoes or canned beans, but most of the ingredients are fresh, as they would be in their native countries. This means you do need to do a little preparation. The good news is that most of this preparation can be done ahead of time, as it would be in a restaurant if you were the sous chef (according to Wikipedia the more correct term may be commis chef, one who prepares vegetables unaided). The better news is that this is basic prep, nothing fancy, nothing beyond you.

Should you be new to kitchen equipment or preparation, though, there is a helpful section at the beginning of the book that tells you all you will need to know. There is also a section on the nature of spices, chiles, and other “exotic” ingredients. I inserted the quotation marks because seitan is about as exotic as they get here, meaning you should be able to find most of the ingredients, or reasonable substitutions, in any well-stocked grocery store, and the few remaining can be obtained at a natural foods store or even online.

Using fresh ingredients means the dishes will taste as good as they should. It’s worth using the freshest you can find because you’ll notice the difference.

Even though I see this book as the guide to an adventure the seasoned vegan is going to want to take, a brand new vegan cook can confidently prepare these delicious dishes and be proud.

Baby swans:

This image comes from dipfan

• Corn on the Cob: remove the ears, wash the corn, slather the corn with vegan margarine or oil, shake some creole spices over it, wrap in foil, and put on the BBQ til done.
• Baked Potato: wash a potato, cut out the eyes, poke a few holes in it, add a bit of oil or margarine, wrap in foil and bake on the BBQ.
• Veggies: You can grill many veggies straight on the BBQ. Just wash, cut into strips, marinade in BBQ sauce (or whatever sauce you like), and grill. Some veggies that work well: mushrooms, asparagus, eggplant, squash,
• Veggie Burgers and Veggie Dogs: Just follow the directions on the package.

And here are some more sources for vegan BBQ recipes:

• VegCooking Summer Grilling
• Things to Do with Barbecue Sauce
• Kabobs and more
• Throw a Vegan-friendly BBQ

To find more recipes, try the recipe search >>

Okay, let’s begin with the obvious questions of fact. We can then move into the correlated philosophical question.

Other authors have expounded on this issue of fact therefore we need only repeat some of their arguments:

Peter Singer and Gary Francione argue that sentience is a means to an end. That end is life. Pain, for example, has its obvious evolutionary advantages: Painful stimuli is experienced as harmful; in response, sentient beings move away from the source of pain as a means to preserve life. The capacity to experience pain and mobility then, are products of evolution. As Singer argues, why would trees for example, have evolved to experience pain - sentience - if they did not also evolve the ability to flee the source of pain? To argue that necessarily stationary objects have evolved to subjectively feel a burn is dubious at best.

This move’s into a second response: When grass is cut, do the blades of grass show some external sign that they are suffering? Do they avoid the grass clippers? Is their coloration altered? Does a blade of grass indicate any external signs that it is aware of the lawn mowing experience? Clearly, no.

Finally, as Francione argues, plants and rocks have no indicia of sentience. They do not have a central nervous system; they don’t have an epicenter where stimuli fires and messages are exchanged (a brain); they don’t produce chemicals suggestive of sentience; etc.; etc.

When viewed as a whole then, the evidence must lead you to the assumption that plants are not sentient. Likewise, it would be un-parsimonious, given this same evidentiary structure, to claim that most nonhumans don’t subjectively experience their lives like most humans - that they are not internalizing their lived experiences as you and I do.

When presented with this perfectly cogent argument the response is as predictable as it is poorly reasoned: “Okay, I understand all that, but you still don’t know that plants suffer, nor do you know that nonhumans do.” Subtext - neither plants nor nonhumans speak human language therefore you can never know.

Unfortunately for the proponent of this damaged argument, herein lies the rub: Neither you nor I, nor anybody else knows that any other individual, human and nonhuman alike, feels the way you do - experiences the things you do - suffers the way you do - can be happy like you. We don’t know because we cannot know; we assume.

From the moment individuals began thinking about what ought to guide our interactions with others - is there a limit to what I can do to you? - ethical theorists, theology, philosophers, and moralists necessarily make one foundational assumption: Other people feel.

Think about it:

It’s a part of our condition that we sometimes lie - what if I’m being deceptive when I say this hurts?

Perhaps others are mere “automata,” living machines: we make audible noises when damaged, like stricking a cord in a clock; however, the experience is not felt?

Maybe every other person in this world is simply a well designed robot - cleverly programmed to mimic your responses to specific external stimuli?

We just cannot know in the same way the person advancing the argument that we don’t know that plants are not suffering seems to suggest is necessary. The best we can do is gather the relevant evidence (e.g., evolutionary history, common physiology, how a being reacts to something that I would experience as painful), and assume.

Of course, some assumptions are sound - founded on evidence - while others are not; they are based on faith, which is belief without evidence. It’s curious that those who would press me on this issue ask for this kind of knowledge while they unknowingly rely on assumptions when having a discourse about how we ought to treat each other.

The double standard is palpable, but it’s prudent and I understand. As Francione argues, it’s most likely the result of some discomfort with their own diet, which means this is a conversation we vegans and vegetarians will have hundreds if not thousands of times. Therefore we must provide good reasons why this inane counter-argument is so deeply flawed. That’s okay with me because we have reason on our side.

I often leave it at this: If I were holding a baby pig in one hand and an apple in the other, and you were to see me throw both against a brick wall as hard as I could, is there some moral and empirical difference between what I’ve done to the pig and what I’ve done to the apple? Hypotheticals such as this have been articulated by many different people and they’re all equally persuasive because the answer is both a priori and a posteriori so obvious: Of course there’s a difference - the baby pig suffers the pain and distress of the experience, while the apple just is.

Of course we could also discuss how veganism is the morally correct choice even if plants suffer because of the inefficiency and wastefulness inherent in funneling plant protein through nonhumans so as to produce animal protein. If plants feel pain, we ought to consume them directly as opposed to wasting them through food production: sending 15-25 pounds of plant protein through a nonhuman to get 1 edible pound of animal protein in return is a lot of unnecessary suffering given that we could simply eat all those plants directly.

Crossposted @ That Vegan Girl

The video isn’t so much about Oliver’s shock and awe publicity stunts. The video isn’t so much about factory farming and baby male chicks. The video isn’t much about “humane” killing. The video is more about the audience response:

No one got up to stop him. No one walked out of the room in protest. No one screamed, “Stop!” Everyone just sat there.

The other day, six people were sitting in the back section of Cosi on the Upper West Side. All six were working on laptops and sipping coffee, tea, or lemonade. Drip, drip, drip. The ceiling started to leak. Drip, drop, plop. It started coming down pretty hard. All six people looked at the water, but only one person stood up. He said, “I’ll go tell the manager.” The rest of the people didn’t say anything. They just sat there. No one got napkins to help collect the water and keep it from getting on their laptops. No one fetched a bucket to collect the water. No one moved their tables further away from the puddle. Everyone just sat there.

A close friend of mine drove her car along Sahara Road in Las Vegas. About two blocks ahead of her there was a traffic pile-up. It was slow-going getting up to the cause of the pile-up. Once she drove up to it she noticed someone’s barbecue had fallen off the back of their truck and was now blocking the right-hand lane. So did she act like everyone else and just drive around it? No, she stopped her car, when it was safe she got out, and she pulled the BBQ off the road. It took her all of three minutes. She cleared up a major traffic congestion with a very simple action.

When something goes wrong, the vast majority of the human race won’t do anything but just sit there. The majority will accept needless animal cruelty, leaky roofs, and BBQs in the road as if nothing’s wrong. They’ll simply say, “It’s not my problem” and they won’t do a damn thing to fix it. They might even rationalize their inaction by citing inconvenience, for example they might say, “Veganism is too hard” or “But everyone else eats meat, dairy, and eggs.”

Vegans tend to be a bit more pro-active. Vegans, even the shy, meek ones, know they have some power to change the world. Vegans, don’t just sit there. Vegans do something.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead

Vegans WILL change the world.