Animal Person

Happy Mother's Day!

Check out "On Motherhood and Pizza" at Animal Rights & AntiOppression, by yours truly, and have a Happy Mother's Day!

Operation Nix-the-Petting-Zoo, Part Deux

Coincidentally, last night was a board meeting for our homeowner's association, and though I wasn't on the agenda there's always time for homeowner comments about, say, the petting zoo and pony rides that are scheduled for the spring "BBQ" (here's part one of this story).

I printed pages of information about petting zoos from the Internet, mostly about health risks but also about animal treatment. Of course none of them come close to the most important reason for my objection: that we have no right to use animals for entertainment or other reasons that are not necessary.

I knew that if I talked about the Center for Disease Control's recommendations about washing stations or proximity to food (which is ironic, considering many of the nonhumans in the petting zoos are also considered "food"), I'd just get a rehearsed statement about the practices of the vendor being in full compliance. And there's not much from the health angle for pony rides. Most important, the event will require scores of dead animals to nosh on, so objecting to using animals for entertainment is a less-than-optimal approach.

The event will also have a bounce house and a handful of other activities for children. Basically, it's for children who eat animals and their parents. There's really nothing there for people like my husband and me; we're not the target market. And realistically, availability of a vegan burger isn't going to make me want to participate.

As for the creation of the picnic, there was no event committee. The board made the decisions based on what other communities have done (uneventfully and successfully, by their standards).

Here's what I learned and will do:

• Though I recently ended a complete nightmare of an experience on a couple of boards of directors and have sworn off them, I might have to get involved, perhaps at the committee level. At the very least, I can keep informed about the activities that are being chosen and always send a letter or comment at the meeting from the vegan perspective.
• I touched on all points, focusing on the petting zoo, and will investigate the vendor in case there are any complaints against them. But I should have presented a stronger use argument. When I uttered the words "not everyone in this 350 home community eats and wears animals or believes in using them for entertainment," all board members looked at me as if I was not speaking a language they understand and I think I lost them.
• I couldn't help but ask what kinds of animals were in the petting zoo, where they came from, where they are housed, and whether the kids would get the opportunity to pet the same kinds of animals they would be eating at the event. Is the point a before and after scenario? The reason they gave for the petting zoo and pony rides was that other communities have done them and seemed to like them. Clearly, not a lot of thought went into this decision and it wasn't by consensus of the community. That's what happens when people don't participate.
• Our clubhouse is a large house, complete with a kitchen made for entertaining and I'm going to survey the neighborhood for interest in a vegan cooking class.
• I'm going to send a letter to the board and request that it be added to the minutes, stating my position more clearly.

Did I accomplish anything? That depends. If my goal was to present a perspective the dominant culture isn't used to hearing about, maybe. From the looks on their faces, everything I said was a surprise to them. They should never play poker. If my goal was to nix any part of the event, no chance did I succeed. But at least I showed up and was one tiny voice for the voiceless.

Operation Nix-the-Petting-Zoo

After my long weekend up North I returned to a message from our neighborhood association announcing a picnic on April 11 on the Village Green. We paid a heap of extra money to live on the Village Green, so anything that happens there is basically happening in our front yard. Like a "BBQ, pony rides and a petting zoo!" Naturally, upon reading such words, my stomach turned and I immediately thought of making plans to be away from the house that day so I wouldn't have to see any of the festivities or try to negotiate walking the dogs around them.

When I started thinking about trying to get the association to cancel the pony rides and petting zoo (which are often part of one business as a quick Google search of "traveling petting zoo" will demonstrate), my several-year vegan husband said, "What's the use? It's not like these people care about animals. It's a barbeque for heaven's sake. Their kids are probably gonna be petting the animals they're eating and they might not even know it." Though I don't disagree, I guess my thinking was to at least take some business from the places that use living animals for profit because trying to affect the ones that have already killed the animals is not as urgent at that point, not to mention there's no way that would work. I might be able to nix the petting zoo, and maybe even the pony rides, but the "BBQ" will remain untouched. (Here's a factsheet about petting zoos, which at least in Florida have been a public health threat, to say nothing of the exploitation and suffering of the animals.)

I'm fairly confident that I don't know anyone who won't say that they don't approve of animal cruelty. Everyone claims to like animals and want the best for them and be against cruelty. Many will say they "love" animals. Meanwhile, most eat them, wear them and "love" the Kentucky Derby, yet don't approve of dog racing. It boggles the mind. Actually, it boggles my mind. But it shouldn't because it makes perfect sense. Their values are simply a reflection of the dominant culture, which they have either consciously or otherwise chosen not to challenge.

What would you do? Is it silly to go after the petting zoo when the event will likely require hundreds of pig, cow and chicken corpses?

I'm thinking leave town is the best answer.

On Honoring Living "Things"

William Horden's, "The Sacred Space of the Shared Heart" is exactly the type of piece I am talking about when I express frustration over "spiritual" people who kill nonhuman animals or who have them killed for a meal.

"My father once explained to me that he felt the profoundest guilt for having to kill other living things in order to survive, so much so that he never took more that he needed and he always apologized to the spirit of the animal or plant for cutting its life short. He always promised to use its life wisely and never waste it on trivial pursuits. In this way, he had come to hold sacred everything he encountered in life--and come to have a sense of his own sacredness. It took a while before I really began seeing everything the way he did, but now that is the view and those are the feelings that I carry with me all the time.

. . .

The big change, of course, was my realizing that I didn't feel any remorse for having to eat animals and plants to live.

On The Respectful Emperor

I've been having a difficult time blogging both here and at Animal Rights & AntiOppression lately because I feel like my thoughts are like "Groundhog Day." Not the day, the film, where Bill Murray experiences the same day over and over again.

There are few animal rights stories in the news. We are not people who are interested in discussing animal rights, as in, the right of sentient nonhumans to not be used by humans for potential profit, for sport or for lunch.

That leaves us with animal welfare, which I do think we are genuinely interested in, mostly because of the myriad videos, documentaries, books and websites that have made it tough to avoid over the past few years. People are talking. And acting. Of course, what they are talking about and how they are changing their behavior is very frustrating for someone who doesn't believe we should be using animals at all. Most of the talk and the action is about treating animals differently---better, allegedly--while not addressing what is of paramount importance to all living creatures: staying alive.

When I think about the language that has been used by people who kill animals or have someone else do it for them, a couple of years ago the "compassionate" trend began. Farmers were bragging about how much they "loved" the animals they would soon betray and slaughter, and many omnivores who had discovered how animals are treated wanted to assuage their consciences a bit by "at least" giving the animals a better life prior to their untimely slaughter. I wrote often about such farmer/authors and found their rationalizations quite creepy. (Here's "On THE COMPASSIONATE CARNIVORE" from September of 2008.)

In short order it was clear that The Compassionate Emperor had no clothes, however. You didn't have to think too deeply about that one before you reached its fatal flaws. It wasn't long before The Humane Emperor came on the scene, and is still around, telling folks that with a little mental acrobatics you can include forcible breeding, captivity, separation of family, killing of day-old chicks, and of course, untimely death in the definition of "humane." The Humane Myth debunks any definition of humane farming you can create though, and it would help animals enormously if we coached more people in the deconstructing of the notion of humane.

Maybe "humane" is already on its way out for the folks trying to convince themselves and others that humane killing isn't an oxymoron. Yesterday I saw what could be the next such attempt in The Atlantic's "Last Clucks: The Death of a Chicken," by Sara Lipka. Lipka introduced me to the idea of killing "respectfully." There's so much to deconstruct here, but after this lengthy intro I'm feeling the need to go in the opposite direction and just provide the highlights. And by highlights, I mean sentences that made me want to scream.

• "Our friend Miranda had her eye on Tina, the only bird distinctive enough to be named." That one left me speechless.
• "My boyfriend, Daniel, wanted to kill his hen, quietly and respectfully, and eat it." Wanted? His? Respectfully? It?
• "Our friend James caught our hen and put it in a hay-lined waxed-cardboard box. It calmed down and sat quietly in the box, on the floor of my car's backseat." Our. It.
• "the chicken waited with me, its head sticking through a gap in the top of the box. It was funny, maybe even cute." Its. It.
• "We took the chicken to Daniel's parents' house and left it in the box in the garage overnight." It. Okay, I can't keep doing this. There are more than 15 more "it"s.
• "Blood splattered on my pants and on Daniel's face, which made him, in a hooded sweatshirt, look like a murderer." He had indeed just murdered a chicken.
• "Feathers: animal. No feathers: food. I didn't feel sentimental anymore." That's an honest observation.
• "I'm still glad we did it. I confirmed my weird personal right to consume chicken." I find it sad that Lipka views the killing as some sort of right of passage that gives her permission to pay to have others kill other chickens and who knows what other animals when she in fact does not need to eat (or wear or otherwise use) them.
• "Our little chicken was very much on my mind as we ate her." What was on her mind, I wonder?

The stories we humans create for ourselves to justify--or even glorify--our behavior are fictions. If we really want to respect chickens, and if we really want to be "mindful" of them, we would remove them from the table and allow them to live their lives. That's respect.

--Photo from Flickr user gunp0wder

Roger Cohen Realizes Dogs=Pigs, Sort Of

"Dog Days in China" is a small piece with no gruesome slideshow. But it's also remarkable in that Roger Cohen, a 50-something man who writes for the New York Times, wonders:

But do pigs have any more or less of a soul than dogs? Are they any more or less sentient? Do they suffer any more or less in death? Are they any more or less part of the mysterious unity of life? I think not.

There is a rational, and for some people a spiritual, case for being a vegetarian: Killing animals is wrong. However I cannot see a rational argument for saying eating dogs or cats is barbaric while eating pork or beef is fine. If you eat meat you cannot logically find it morally or ethically repugnant to eat a particular meat (I’m setting cannibalism aside here.).

I repeat: If you eat meat (I'd say: products that come from animals), you cannot logically find it morally or ethically repugnant to eat a particular meat (i.e., product that comes from an animal).

The theory is sound. There's no way out.

But as Cohen experiences, humans don't live "in theory." The theory that the mind finds inescapably well-formulated is often overwhelmed and overturned by human emotions.

I must confess I’ve been having a hard time. My bout of anguish began a few weeks back on a wintry night in central China, in the restless megalopolis of Chongqing. I was cold, wet and seeking refuge.

His "anguish" leads him to a dog restaurant where he dines on dog. His "refuge" could easily taken the form of the Sichuan noodles he likes, sans dog. Or pig, or duck, or fish. "Dog was not easy for me," he writes. "The memory has proved hard to digest."

When it comes to the legislation (which may or may not mean anything for dogs and cats), Cohen sides with the people who recognize that cats and dogs are no different from chickens and geese. He writes, "I’m not happy that I ate dog. But I’m happy China eats dog."

This is a good news/bad news story. It's great that someone realizes that there is no real difference between dogs and cows. However, remember that he understands that emotion ("the heart") is what ultimately governs what most of us do, and certainly what he does, so he won't be eating any more dogs.

And, presumably, he will continue to eat other animals. And that's the bad news.

Stay tuned tomorrow as I question setting aside cannibalism.

On "Cheating" and Cookbook Authors

There was nothing surprising about Oprah's most recent show about food. It was full of Michael Pollan, Food Inc., the way we treat animals, and the way we turn food into food facsimiles with unusually long shelf lives. Recommendations included: know the people who produced your food, get out of the supermarket (go to a farmer's market), and cook at home more (especially junk food, as if you had to make your own french fries you'd eat a lot fewer of them). Nothing wrong with any of that.

You wouldn't expect Pollan or Oprah to deliver a vegan or animal rights message and they didn't. Fine.

Alicia Silverstone was on the show as a spokesperson for the health benefits and other benefits of veganism. She had one perfect opportunity to present herself as pro-animal rights when Oprah (laughingly) asked: But what if the cows and the chickens are treated really, really nicely . . . (would you eat them)?

Alicia (laughing): Well, I'd have to see the cows and the chickens.

First of all, I don't see what's so funny. But I get that this is entertainment and the mood was light. And people often giggle when speaking of things that make them feel uncomfortable. It's true that there was a tiny opening for a real message, and we'd all like to think that in a similar position, we'd be able to articulate one. Silverstone let the moment pass her by.

The more controversial moment was when Oprah asked Silverstone if she ever cheats and Silverstone admitted to eating some cheese. Why is that an issue? First of all, she's not evil because she eats some cheese. That's not the point. And I won't say she's not a "real vegan," as I'm not the vegan police. (Also, her response seemed  like the eating of cheese was sort of an accident anyway--she didn't order something with cheese.)

This moment was significant because if you "cheat," it is presumed that it's either very difficult or very unappealing to be a vegan. There's so much sacrifice or bad analogs or whatever that lead you to crave and succumb to "the real thing." It's largely about willpower, cheating tells me, and once in a while it's too much to expect yourself to not want to eat (fill-in-the-blank) while you're on the diet known as veganism. And that's not a message I want to send the millions of people who watch Oprah.

In addition, talk of cheating creates a space for omnivores to pounce, "A-ha! I knew she couldn't do it! Even the great vegan cookbook author/actress can't go without cheese!" And a similar pouncing has come from some vegans. It was all just an unfortunate moment in an unscripted interview.

I enjoyed every recipe I tried from Silverstone's The Kind Diet and though I might not be a fan of the way she does her activism (PeTA, etc...), a book by a vegan that helps other people go vegan (she recommends taking baby steps and calls it "flirting," which I suppose could be viewed as an innocuous, fun way of easing into veganism) can't be a liability for vegans or veganism. Or can it? I'd imagine that the more resources available to the mainstream about going vegan and cooking/preparing vegan food, the better the odds that more people will go vegan.

I am aware that many vegans won't buy Silverstone's book because they don't agree with her on some important issues. 

What do you think? Are there vegan cookbooks you won't purchase or vegan food bloggers you don't support because you don't agree with them on issues other than veganism?

On the Banning of Eating Cats and Dogs in China

I've been blogging here less partly because I've been blogging at Animal Rights & AntiOppression (check out my latest post "On Corporate Personhood and Animal Rights" and the better-than-the-post comments) but also because I've been feeling like a broken record and I don't want to bore anyone.

It seems like the answer to most questions/responses to most issues is one of these:

• Speciesism.
• It's just another excuse people have concocted because they like the taste of cow/pig/chicken/fish flesh.
• It's not difficult once you get the hang of it--it's just different at first.
• We can care about animals and people at the same time; they're not mutually exclusive.
• If you don't have to enslave, rape, dominate, or kill someone (or have someone else do it for you), why would you? Why choose enslavement, rape, domination and slaughter?
• Just because you did something for years doesn't mean it has some magical inherent value and you should continue to do it today and tomorrow.

Sometimes an article has a couple of the above, as in the case of "Chinese Legal Experts Call for a Ban on Eating Cats and Dogs."

Let's deconstruct:

• Legal experts in China are proposing a ban on the eating of dogs and cats.
• Many people support this, particularly affluent types, who have become dog and cat people and now own them as "pets." This is what I hear: The wealthier people become, the more likely they are to want to own others for their pleasure.
• The reasoning is fascinating: "We are proposing that all dog and cat eating should be banned because it is causing many social problems." So the ban isn't being suggested because eating cats and dogs is wrong, but because it's creating conflict. No one will propose a ban on eating chickens because there's no conflict there.
• Here's an interesting combination of great sentiment and horrible sentiment that involves two responses from the above list: "Online critics said it was hypocritical to protect only dogs and cats, and that the government should focus on human welfare before protecting animals." Yes, it is hypocritical (speciesism), but who said that we either protect humans or animals? Where do people get that idea?
• Let's just say the ban was meaningful. Notice how the story ends: "The focus has now been narrowed to prevention of animal abuse, which is defined as inflicting unnecessary pain and brutality." So we went from a ban to a vague statement about the prevention of abuse that clearly doesn't consider slaughter abusive. And I'm sure it will be claimed that what is done to the dogs and cats is necessary and isn't brutal. Or if it's brutal it is necessary. I think we all know where this is going. It sounds like it might not even help cats and dogs in a meaningful way.

Now, I haven't heard from Chris, who lives in Beijing, regarding this issue. He often has insight into why something might be different in action than what I think in theory when it comes to China. But my initial reaction is that this is like Americans giving up "red meat." All they do thereafter is replace cows with chickens and pigs and fish.

What do you think?

On Talking With Veterinarians About Vegan Food

We have a request, and it's an issue I've written about a handful of times but never had this particular question answered by readers: How do you talk with your vet--who is against feeding your dog vegan food--about your choice to do so? What do you say?

I'm fortunate to have a regular (non-specialist) vet who has no problem at all with a vegan diet for dogs. I've never discussed that Emily the kitty eats one meal of Ami vegan kibble on most days (and one of canned, animal-based food). She is doing fine with that. No change in anything about her, though I do think she's a bit perkier.

Violet the diabetic greyhound does very well as a vegan as her recent blood work demonstrated. Charles the lame greyhound doesn't process grains well at all. He never has. He fares best (as evidenced by poop, energy, licking, scratching, and severity of limping) on food with no grains whatsoever and very high animal protein--almost carnivore level.

Home cooking for Violet was difficult because her carb/protein/fat ratios need to be consistent in order for her blood sugar to be predictable. I had to make exactly the same meal for her every day, so I moved to using Natural Balance Vegetarian kibble (note that the canned version is not vegan due to the animal source of Vitamin D3). I did try other vegan dog foods, but I like the ingredients in Natural Balance best. There are plenty of vegan treats on the market, but my hounds prefer bananas, strawberries, blueberries or broccoli.

Because Violet and Charles are chock full of medical issues, they have a handful of specialists. There's the acupuncturist/chiropractor, opthamologist, orthopedist, neurologist, physical therapist and the trainer. None of those approve of a vegan diet and all it took was one conversation, and me hearing that "they have to eat meat" from people who believe people "have to eat meat" to know that the issue wasn't ever going to be resolved.

My regular vet is a curious guy who doesn't think he knows everything and when something happens that he hasn't encountered (e.g., Charles had a corn on his pad), he's happy for me to bring him some research and for us to tackle the issue together (we did this with the corn and removed it together--and no charge, by the way). If he didn't know about feeding dogs vegan food, I might have brought him some of these articles and I would have referred him to Vegan Dogs: Compassionate Nutrition or to VegetarianDogs.com.

I'd question whether the vet needs to know what my dogs are eating or is in a position to judge as long as they are healthy. I recently told my osteopath that I'm a vegan and got all kinds of grief. Then she saw my fantastic blood work and vitals and didn't say another word.

Meanwhile, my husband, who has been vegan for less than 2 years (straight from omni), takes supplements sporadically, and had very low B12. I take fewer supplements and my B12 was high. The message here, like the message with the dogs, is that everyone is different and we don't respond uniformly to the same food or supplements. The ideal scenario is to establish a baseline, whether it's your blood work or your dog's, or other observables such as behavior, scratching, poop, breath, energy level, and then make the change (supplements, food, whatever) and retest in three months and six months to see the direction and progress. For all we know, my husband was B12 deficient as an omnivore. His levels are fine now, but if we didn't check them (and those of the creatures), we wouldn't have figured all of this out.

Back to the questions: Do you arm yourself with research and go to the vet to educate him/her? Do you not say anything at all or lie when they ask you what the animal eats? (My vet asks every time I go.) Do you politely say that you've done the research and are convinced that a vegan diet is perfectly appropriate for most dogs and has the added bonus of not putting you in a position where you're supporting the needless slaughter of other animals?

Which One Cookbook Do You Recommend?

A gaggle of people have asked me this question recently. They all have some sort of holiday list, money is tight, and if they could buy just one cookbook to help them in their conversion to veganism from their current omnivorous state, what should it be and why.

The why part is important, as some cookbooks are a bit junk food vegan-ish. And some people want that; they don't necessarily want to change their current calories or fat or sugar or gluten or cooking process. They want to eat what they used to eat, just sans animals. Others, such as raw vegan books, are likely to be quite alien. Then again some people are curious about raw food or agree that it's the only way to go and want to jump in.

Unfortunately, though I can find out more about the askers of this question, they are in a bit of a time crunch because people are buying gifts for them in the next couple of days. If I knew more, I could ask you a more specific question.

With all that said, which cookbook do you recommend to someone who is going to get only one, and why do you recommend it? My hope is that there will be enough suggestions that the askers will find themselves in the suggestions, and put the appropriate book on their list.

If there are any cons about the book you recommend, please let me know.

Thanks!

All-Purpose Salad-ish Dressing

In my efforts to veganize my friends and family, I've found several things almost everyone wants and that kick start their process. One is vegan dessert. But when I look at my Facebook "Scrumptious Vegan Fare" album, it looks like all I eat is dessert.

And pizza with Daiya vegan cheese.

In fact, an old friend asked for recipes with veggies and I realized I didn't have any photos of veggies! So here's a recipe with veggies that also includes something many omnis enjoy: Vegenaise.

I never liked animal-based mayonnaise or Miracle Whip. But I do enjoy vegenaise. Meanwhile, my omnivorous friends and family tell me it tastes just like mayonnaise and that's why they like it. Go figure.

I mix Vegenaise with:

• Whatever mustard I have lying around
• Sweet relish
• Dill, or not
• Pepper, or not
• Red Star nutritional yeast

I use equal parts of vegenaise, mustard and relish, but I've seen several recipes where vegenaise is the main ingredient. It all depends on what you like, and I've made this dressing a dozen times, never the same way, and it's great every time.

The salad part is usually:

• Carrots
• Celery
• Zucchini
• Yellow Squash
• Cucumber
• Red onion
• Green leaf or romaine lettuce
• Black olives
• Whatever else is lying around that's good in a salad.

If I want to give the salad chunks of something other than veggies, and add more protein, I toss in mashed garbanzo beans, chopped Gardein, tofu, seitan or tempeh. Not necessary, but fun.

Whether over a bed of lettuce or in a pita or a sprouted grain wrap, it's perfect for lunch or dinner, low fat (as long as you don't heap in the vegenaise, and they do have a low-fat version), high fiber, great protein and very filling.

Here's lunch from today. The orange tinge is due to my love of nutritional yeast. I used one can of garbanzos and one tablespoon each of vegenaise, mustard and relish, and probably 4 tablespoons of nutritional yeast. This is one quarter of the total bowl of vegan goodness.

Delectable!

A Win-Lose Proposition for Farmers and Consumers

From the website of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture:

Washington, DC - The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) this week released a proposal to address the critical economic situation of American dairy, pork, and poultry producers, while simultaneously providing much-needed nutritional assistance to Americans facing hunger due to job loss and other economic hardships.

People whose careers involve creating, fattening, transporting and slaughtering sentient nonhumans whose parts and secretions will then be used as food are having some financial difficulties.

Along with the rest of the country.

To "help these industries survive this economic downturn and gain a solid footing for the future,"  NASDA is proposing a "bold solution: a plan to take extra inventories off the market to reduce supply, all while providing vital nutritious, protein-rich foods to those who are unable to afford them, which is in more demand now than ever before."

Translation? First let's deconstruct:

• The recession has caused a decrease in demand for animal products. I say stop right there, as Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman and Jonathan Safron Foer could be behind the decrease. We don't really know. We do know that a feature of a recession is that all sectors are affected in the same direction, and I don't see anyone proposing a bold solution for writers or editors.
• What if consumers have genuinely been paying attention and have realized that animal products aren't that healthy, are an environmental disaster (the way most are produced) and not sustainable and are a blatant, direct signs of the largest and longest injustice in human history? What if Meatless Mondays and all of the messages about decreasing consumption of animal products have made a difference and consumers have spoken? What if this has nothing to do with the recession or less than one might think (nothing's a tough sell)? Why the rescue plan? The market has spoken; this is supposed to be capitalism, not corporate socialism.

But all of that aside, the bold solution is: Americans who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) would be the targeted consumers of the surplus (in addition to military food assistance programs in places like Afghanistan).

"By removing these excess products off the market, and placing them into food assistance programs, we will quickly stabilize the prices for these products, allowing the producers to break-even, or perhaps even make a profit on their farms.  Simultaneously, our fellow citizens struggling to put food on their table will find themselves with more opportunities for healthy, protein-rich meals.”

So people with lower incomes, who already have higher incidences of obesity and diabetes and already don't eat as well as people with higher incomes, will be the intended consumers of exactly the type of foods they don't need to be eating. And that's being done as a favor of sorts, a gift to them by the benevolent NASDA.

Perhaps just as ironic is the mission of the NASDA, which includes "protection of animal and plant health, stewardship of our environment, and promoting the vitality of our rural communities."

Preparing for the Onslaught

My husband has two friends (a male/female couple) who are transitioning from vegetarian to vegan and I also have two friends (both women) who are transitioning from omnivore and all are dreading Thanksgiving. The conversations with family and friends have already begun about "Turkey Day." And of course if you correct someone and say "Dead Turkey Day," you're "buzzkill," or imposing your beliefs or being judgmental.

Here's today's question: When a group of omnivores begins the inevitable round of jokes about veganism and even about slaughter ("I love turkeys--with sweet potatoes," or my cousin this week on Facebook, "I love the cow, therefore I eat her cheese," or something equally insensitive and ignorant), what do you do?

I've had family members ask me to refrain from "proselytizing" to not "spoil the day" for everyone and to "give it a rest" and let everyone eat in peace. Everyone clearly doesn't include the turkey and the other animals on the table. I haven't had a Thanksgiving with family members in years.

But what do you say to those friends at a table of say, 10, who deliver every cliche as if they're the first ones on the planet to think of them. I note the size because many people find it easier to have a serious conversation one-on-one, but in a larger group the dynamic is different. You can't play to everyone in a large group (unless it's homogeneous), so many people don't try.

I have a terrible habit that I developed as a child of stopping a conversation or argument with the worst possible thing I can say. To me, it's efficient and effective because I don't like long, drawn out fights. I'd rather make my point and end things. So I might say, "I fail to find humor in the enslavement, rape, torture and slaughter of anyone. Not humans, not animals." And though my response might initially be met with silence, I usually get a question or two ("What? Rape?"). I doubt anyone has gone vegan due to my response at dinner parties, but I do know that I don't get mocked as often as I used to (except by family members . . . lovely). Now I'm called "hardcore," though.

Is anyone proactive? Does anyone walk into a room or sit at a table and request a moratorium on jokes about what we do to animals? I imagine people I know then calling me "paranoid" or "defensive." How could I even think they'd do something so insensitive? I don't know, maybe 20 years of experience.

It certainly is odd that people who are concerned for justice in some areas are respected, yet in others they are mocked.

Finally, it unfortunately must be said that people mock what they don't understand. And they also lash out with humor in defense of their own practices. Meanwhile, they don't want to be reminded of either of those facts.

Interesting predicament for us: how to be most sensitive to them while they're being completely insensitive to us.

On Changing Tastes

Our guest this weekend, Jackie, is transitioning to veganism. Her hurdle, you might not be surprised to learn, is cheese made from the milk of cows. She eats cow cheese daily.

Wrongheadedly, I was excited to make her nachos-her favorite snack-with Daiya cheddar cheese. I was completely confident that she'd instantly get over her desire for cow cheese. But my effort backfired and was met with either a "yuck" or an "ew" - I'm trying my best to wipe the disappointing moment from memory.

The texture apparently is "slimy" (which is true, mid-cook, which it wasn't when she tried it. Prior to that it isn't slimy, and after that it does congeal almost like cow cheese) and she says it doesn't taste like the cheese she eats daily.

In retrospect, and after Tweeting a bunch about it and getting some great thoughts from fellow tweeters/twitterers, going the route of replacing someone's favorite food with a vegan alternative designed to replicate it might not be a great idea. Instead, I probably should have made some food with nutritional yeast and other unlike-cow-cheese-and-having-a-completely-different-taste combos. Or just stayed away from the topic of cheese. That way, Jackie wouldn't be comparing what she was eating to what she ate 24 hour hours prior.

Later in the afternoon in the Twittosphere someone asked who likes nutritional yeast and I responded that at first I disliked it immensely, and now I have a shaker full of it (with ground walnuts and sea salt) in my refrigerator and I use it daily (it's cheaper than buying Parma, which I'm knocking off). This led me to research taste and taste buds a bit and unsurprisingly discover that they change with time.

I started thinking about what I used to think was tasty, and what repulsed me. Avocados, for instance, made me gag as a child, as did any type of olive. And I now have a dozen recipes, raw and not, that feature avocados, and I'm not above eating half an avocado smeared on a slice or two of Ezekiel toast for breakfast. And I thought about tofu, many vegetables, seaweed, and even grains that are staples of my diet now but I didn't enjoy them when I first stopped eating animals.

My tastes (and taste buds) have changed and now I look forward to the food I eat and can't imagine eating any other way. Food is enjoyable and makes me feel good. Meals aren't events I have to recover from or take a nap after. But they look and taste very different from my meals of 25 years ago.

There's no substitute for the time it takes to acquire the taste for foods you don't like or are just so different from what you're used to that you don't know what to do with them (mentally), which was the case for me with nutritional yeast. This isn't to say I consciously approach veganism as acquiring tastes--I hadn't thought about most of this until yesterday. But time certainly has worked in favor of my vegan diet, and I now know that not liking the taste of something the first time you try it doesn't mean you won't like it the second or third or twentieth time. Then again, after nearly 43 years I still can't stomach raw tomatoes and I do try them every couple of months.

Fortunately, this weekend we also made roasted vegetable baked ziti and not only did Jackie enjoy it for dinner, but she ate the leftovers for breakfast. And we made a cheesy, beany, guacamole dip from Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet, in addition to Silverstone's chocolate peanut butter cups (above), and no one (not even the omni who popped in for a visit) complained about the taste or texture of either.

Yes, those are black olives in the guacamole dip. I bought them at the olive bar at Whole Foods (in other words, they weren't canned and sliced and pitted) and I thought they tasted great.

And yes, I put chopped tomatoes on only half of it. Some taste preferences may never change.

New Factual Table for Vegans

Check out this new table by Factual that helps you instantly locate vegan restaurants in the US, and includes mapquest links as well as links to reviews. Would you use it? What do you think about the idea and how it is executed? (I am not involved in any way other than I was asked to post it for feedback.)

On PF Changs and Vegan Authors

The PF Chang update, in case you haven't seen the response from the restaurant, is thus, once you incorporate the actual experiences of vegans who have gone through something similar with the restaurant: If you don't eat non-vegan sugar, there aren't many options. If you don't consider the sugar a major transgression, you have many choices. Everyone has their line in the sand. Also, ask to speak with the chef (my information, even about most of the tofu not being vegan, came from the chef via the server, by the way).

The slightly-larger question is every other restaurant. I feel bad that I picked on PF Chang's, as the Italian restaurant I frequent most likely uses sugar in its marinara, even if just a bit. And I doubt they use beet sugar, date sugar or agave nectar.

And the much-larger question is the idea of animal ingredients versus non-animal ingredients that were processed using animal ingredients, and that of course expands, ad infinitum, into every area of our lives (e.g., municipal water).

Face it, we'd like to avoid all products with animals in them but we can't even do that realistically, and to expect ourselves to also avoid non-animal products that have been processed with animal products is a bit much. Now, if you happen to know that non-vegan ingredients or processing took place, and you can easily avoid it, great! If not, don't flog yourself over it. Removing the flesh and secretions of sentient nonhumans from your diet, and removing their skin and hair from your clothing, and buying household products that don't have animal ingredients and weren't tested on animals, and refusing to participate in entertainment that involves animals, are the major issues. You are preventing untold exploitation and suffering by tackling them.

As for vegan authors, in response to Deb's query about bloggers, here are a couple of things to think about:

• Book deals get canceled for all kinds of reasons, and sometimes they have nothing to do with the author or the book. Sometimes the person who championed the book goes elsewhere. Sometimes the publisher decides to switch gears. Sometimes it's about money. Sometimes there's word that some celebrity is about to write a similar book, thereby eclipsing any potential audience you ever had. Sometimes the publisher's attorney says the book is too risky for some reason.

Of course, everyone takes it personally when their Yes turns into a No, and I can say that I have had clients who were so devastated by this that they stopped writing. But that's a borderline silly reaction, as things happen that we have no control over and if you got one Yes you can get another. Publishing is a numbers game.

• If a publisher is purchasing your words and you are already making the same ones available for free on your blog, why should they buy them? Books based on blogs have to have a significant amount of new information/posts/concepts in them.
• Many book deals are made after an article or two is published, and in fact agents will tell you that writing for magazines is a great way to build your platform and credibility. However, you can't simply say that the content of your book is all of the articles you've written. Again, a book must have a significant amount of original content to be salable.

If enough people care, I can write about self-publishing, which used to be a dirty word but isn't so much anymore. Let me know.

On Vegan Devastation at PF Chang's

From VegCooking, courtesy of PeTA:

The vegan-friendly attitude of P.F. Chang's is largely due to the number of requests that management receives for meatless cuisine. Vegan dishes are among the bestsellers. One manager told PETA Eats that most people prefer the vegetarian lettuce wraps over those with chicken. Wok-seared tofu, red onions, and water chestnuts with hints of mint and lime and served with cool lettuce leaves are a combination that few can turn down.

Balderdash, I tell you!

Oh, the humanity! There I was, going to lunch with newbie vegan, Cristy, who is terrified of restaurants since going vegan.

M: Oh, but you don't have to worry at PF Chang's! Not only do they have vegan entrees, but they will substitute tofu for any meat in any dish, so you can eat just about anything on the menu!

C: What a relief. It would be great to go to a place and not feel like a freak and have them understand and also have plenty of stuff for my (non-vegan) husband.

The server (S) comes over and I brag to the server about Cristy's newfound veganism and what a relief it is to go to a place that has so many options.

S: There's only one thing on our menu that's vegan. Vegans are people who don't eat any animal products, and that includes foods that have been processed with sugar that is made with bone char. All of our sauces have sugar with bone char as does all of our tofu except the silken tofu. Our soy sauce has sugar with bone char, so even that wouldn't be acceptable to a vegan.

M: (long, long pause) So the spring rolls, the vegetarian lettuce wraps and the Ma Pa Tofu I've been eating for years are not vegan?

S: No. But you can get the Buddha's Feast, without the sauce, and with steamed silken tofu instead of the five-spice tofu. That's the only thing that's suitable for vegans. Everything else has chicken stock, oyster sauce or non-vegan sugar.

Now, of course, we have confirmed Cristy's fears--that she will likely be eating animals and not know it. The server clearly knew what she was talking about, but all of that only came out because of what I said. Meanwhile, PF Chang's (http://twitter.com/PFChangs) got a steady stream of tweets from yours truly yesterday. Here's their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pfchangs and here's the "Contact Us" form that's easy to fill out and submit. It's probably more powerful if you were just there and have something to say about your "Dining Experience" (they ask which franchise and at what time you visited).

And it might not be so great if you draft your comment while angry, and end up with:

I was shocked and dismayed to learn that your menu is not vegan friendly. I have been dining at PF Chang's for years under the impression that your Ma Pa Tofu, spring rolls, and vegetarian lettuce wraps were all vegan. And in fact several websites that serve the vegan community mention how friendly you are to vegans.

I understand that the most prominent ingredient that is not vegan in your sauces and tofu is sugar made with bone char. Surely there is another source of sugar and tofu that would make your restaurant a place vegans would frequent again. But until then, unfortunately, the vegans that I am in contact with through my blog and through twitter and other venues online and not, will be dining elsewhere.

Reminds me of how my mother used to say: Write a letter to the person you're upset with, but don't mail it until the next day.

My favorite PF Chang's feature was that it was a chain. I could go to Princeton and there it was. Asheville? Check (it's a newer one). Northern Virginia? Check. Long Island? Check. No need for happycow.net, and friendly to non-vegans.

But I was misinformed.

I'm over it already. I'm good like that--devastated for an hour or two, then pretty much neutral about anything. It's the Buddhist in me, I guess.

But if it's important to you, give PF Chang's a holler and let them know how you feel.

Gluten-Free Coconut Almond Cookies

By popular request, here's the recipe I tweaked from one on the back of a flour package. Veganized it, almonded it up a bit, and then made half the batter with dark chocolate chips and half with raw almond slivers.

1 cup sugar (hey, it's a holiday weekend)
1/2 cup Coconut Butter (or Earth Balance, I suppose)
1/3 cup Coconut Milk (as in milk from the carton, not the canned product. Used Regular Unsweetened. I suppose Vanilla Unsweetened Almond Milk would be just fine, too.)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup White Rice Flour
1/3 cup Coconut Flour
2 Tbsp Potato Starch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup raw, sliced almonds
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together butter and sugar. Add vanilla and almond extracts and coconut milk. Separately, mix dry ingredients (except almonds and chips). Add dry to wet. Cut batter in half (or not) and mix almonds into one half and chocolate chips into the other (or not). Bake in lightly greased mini-muffin pan for 10-12 minutes according to the original recipe, but it took 15 minutes for my oven to produce perfection.

Enjoy!

On Compassionate Carnivores and Betrayal

Stephanie's post about "The Compassionate Hypocrite" on Saturday reminded me of what Catherine Friend and other "compassionate carnivores" are doing in addition to twisting the definition of compassionate beyond recognition. Their claim is that what has become the customary way to take sentient nonhumans from babyhood to untimely death is not humane. It's cruel. There's no "compassion" in the process. It's impersonal and hideously ugly and the animals suffer greatly.

No argument here.

However, the solution they have created, which harkens back to before industrialized agriculture, is simply to still raise animals for their flesh and secretions, and for profit, but to do it the old-fashioned way. No factory farms, no large-scale operations where animals are crammed together under a roof, never to see the light of day. No hormones, no "feed" that is unnatural for them and/or genetically modified.

I'd say no argument here if this were some kind of sanctuary situation, and the animals were in need of a loving home for the rest of their lives. But the entire purpose, which cannot be glossed over with any amount of creepy love letters, is that Friend and her ilk are being kind to the animals because they believe animals who are less stressed are tastier, and because, just like the CAFO owners, they will profit from their efforts (and perhaps more, as they charge a premium).

Yes, I do think it's better to have lived a comfortable life and then be slaughtered than to have been tortured the entire time and then be slaughtered.

But looking at it that way is allowing Friend and others to distract you from a far more important issue: none of this is necessary or justified. No one needs to eat sentient beings, so it's not as if these "farmers" are providing a valuable service to humanity. And regardless of how you treat someone when they're live and regardless of how you kill them, if you don't need to kill them and you're doing so merely to please your palate, how do you justify what you're doing? You can't (at least not in a meaningful way).

Getting people to move their focus from the final chapter of the story of the animals--and I don't mean how they died, but that they died--allows you to appear to be the good guy. It allows you to swoop in with an alternative to the disgraceful human behavior that is factory farming and provide a kindler, gentler way to partake of the flesh of others. And if those whom you're addressing are willing to drink the KoolAid you're serving, plenty of profit awaits.

But the real good guy is the one who, like Cheri and Jim and Howard and Harold says (and this is my paraphrasing of everyone): Yes, I have profited from the lives and deaths of sentient nonhumans. And now I regret that because I realize there is simply no way to raise an animal with the intent to kill that animal and call it anything but betrayal. I wouldn't do it to a dog, and I shouldn't do it to a chicken/sheep/cow/pig. It's just not right.

Betrayal, according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

1. A treacherous giving up to an enemy. (Here, that enemy being Death.)

2. A violation of trust or confidence, an abandonment of something committed to one's charge.

Interesting definitions of betray include:

2. a. To be or prove false to (a trust or him who trusts one); to be disloyal to; to disappoint the hopes or expectations of.

4. a. To lead astray or into error, as a false guide; to mislead, seduce, deceive (the trustful).

There is no question about the motive here: seduce the sheep into believing you care so that they are easier to deal with and easier to lead to slaughter. At least CAFO owners don't use that kind of deceit--of their customers, the animals and themselves.

On the Eating of Seafood

"We are fighting a war against fish, and we are . . . winning."

The End of the Line opens (limited release) next week. That brief trailer could be a gift in the disguise of paradoxical message about how we can still kill and eat fish, yet not be at war with them. I guess war is defined by death count.

It might be a gift because those pescetarian holdouts we all know who are convinced that for some strange reason eating animals from the sea is not as bad as eating those who live on land, might be convinced that their decision is a bit misguided.

As a way of taking the situation into your own hands and not being a part of the problem, the film's site offers you this widget:

Now, I haven't seen the film, but here's the message: There's something rotten in the state of the fishing industry. We are overfishing, over-trawling, and mutilating and slaughtering bycatch by the millions of tons (17-39 million tons/year, not including marine mammals, sea bids and some invertebrates). Oh, and this is a war we've declared and we're winning.

To then present a widget that helps you eat seafood is strange. That tells me that we're still at war, as we are going to continue to kill fish because we can and we want to. That tells me that, yeah, it's bad that our behavior can actually lead to "the end of seafood by 2048" (and notice how they don't say the end of fish), but that's because it'll lead to the end of somebody we want to eat, and we can't have that!

What about that most obvious of solutions, that requires no cognitive dissonance at all. What about the way to end the war we've waged and save the fish and the oceans is to stop the war! Stop eating fish and other sea dwellers and this problem goes away (and yes, I am over-simplifying). If you don't want to be complicit in the war, don't be complicit in the war.

You don't need a widget to do the right thing.

Go vegan.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Call for 20-year fishing ban in a third of oceans (guardian.co.uk)
• An Inconvenient Truth for Fish (telegraph.co.uk)
• World Oceans Day: Imagine a World Without Fish (greenskeptic.blogspot.com)