confessions of a vegan

the swine flu

2009-05-04T07:44:24Z

Due to the overwhelming news coverage and social chatter, I could not think of doing my blog entry on something other than the swine flu, or should I say H1N1 virus? Either way, everyone is talking about it. What's being talked about? How it's going to turn into a pandemic. How everyone is wearing those masks. Rumors are circulating left and right: Don't go on planes, run away from any mexicans you may see, kill all the pigs in Egypt, etc. But no one is really talking about where this flu came from, or how it could have been prevented.

Michael Greger wrote an article for the Humane Society (you can find it at http://www.hsus.org/farm/news/ournews/swine_flu_virus_origin_1998_042909.html) about how strains of this virus have been around for years. Keeping pigs in confined spaces and factory farms is not helping any. Pigs spread the illness just like humans, so having so many of them in a given area is just asking for trouble. In the article, I read “The fact that one of the first confirmed human cases of swine flu appeared in close proximity to the largest pig factory in Mexico, which slaughters nearly a million pigs a year (out of a country-wide total of 15 million), may not have been a coincidence.” I certainly did not know that until I saw that article. I only saw the article because a fellow animal activist emailed it to me. It’s not headlining CNN or yahoo.com.

No one is learning anything from this. It is just damage control. How are we going to prevent something like this from happening again if we don't take preventable measures?

Christianity and Veganism

2009-04-20T01:59:46Z

Christianity. Veganism. Two seemingly unrelated words. But pair a meat eating Christian with a vegan Christian and you can get a pretty heated debate going. That's what happened on Friday, except I was outnumbered 2 to 1. I had just met these two guys and we were just talking, doing the whole "getting to know you" phase. I found out they are both very into their religion, and one of their father's actually founded a church in Hastings.

I start talking about myself. "I am a Christian too, I can't wait until summer, I am a vegan, etc." Naturally, when the word vegan comes out of my mouth, the question "Why?!" is the only thing people can muster. So after calmly explaining that the way animals on factory farms are atrociously treated and that meat is not even necessary to eat, they bring out the "Jesus ate meat" defense. I don’t really read the Bible much, but I do know the “Feeding 5000” story, where Jesus ate fish. “Jesus ate meat, so why shouldn’t we?” was my friends’ arguments.

However, my beliefs give me two arguments. First, the reason I don’t read the Bible is that I do not believe it is 100% accurate. It has been through so many hands, how could someone not have messed with it? I strongly believe there were originally more women in the Bible, but through the years they were removed. So I think that the words of the Bible should be taken in skeptically, as there are many things that can be perceived differently by different people. Maybe Jesus didn’t eat the fish, maybe he did. That brings me to my second argument. The reason I am so strong in my beliefs is mainly from the horrible treatment of animals. Animals raised for food do not grow up in nature; they grow up on factory farms. They are not grown naturally; they are manipulated to grow unnaturally. Anything natural is taken away from them. They are not given space to run around and be animals. They are not given fresh air. Even fish grown in factory farms suffer. I highly doubt Jesus would condone that or consume those fish/other animals. Yet that is what the general public does- accepts the horrific, unnatural treatment of the animals as the way it has to be.

the "dark side"

2009-04-06T04:13:33Z

I read an article on Yahoo the other day called “The Dark Side of Vegetarianism.” You can read it here if you’d like: http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090401/hl_hsn/thedarksideofvegetarianism. I’ll sum it up. It was talking about how teenagers may use vegetarianism to mask eating disorders. In regards to teens 15-18, they found “about 21 percent of teens who had been vegetarians said they used unhealthy weight-control behaviors, compared with 10 percent of teens who had never been vegetarians.”

As someone who had an eating disorder at 15, I can relate somewhat. I, too, would normally eat only fruits and vegetables when given the chance. But vegetarianism is also what helped me develop healthy eating habits in the end. I have never liked meat. Beef especially sickened me when I had an eating disorder. To me, it just seemed like it was entirely fat.

I never ate meat at school; if I ate anything it would be fruit or dressingless salad. However, my family was big on “family meals”, so I had no choice but to choke down some disgusting hamburger they put in front of me. Vegetarian meals were not an option. I would make myself throw it up as soon as possible after dinner. I know how appalling this will sound, but one summer night my mother beat me to the bathroom, so I walked nearly a mile to my neighborhood Target and threw up in their bathroom.

About a year and a half after I got help for my eating disorder, I decided I really wanted to be a vegetarian. Given the fact that they finally knew about my past eating habits, my parents were skeptical. So, I did a lot of research and literally gave them a presentation on how I would still eat well, without meat. Although it was a pain to do all that research and practically sell them on MY vegetarianism, it just showed their concern for my health. I think that's where some parents go wrong. They never have meals together so their kids are either: a) eating nothing but mcdonald's with their friends every night, or b) not eating at all, but their parents don't know because they assume their child gets food elsewhere. Granted, that's not every family that doesn't eat together, but I'm just saying that although I hated eating dinner with my family, they were more aware of what I was doing, and I wasn't able to hide my eating disorder for very long.

power to influence the public

2009-03-21T06:35:17Z

Power to influence the public- you and I have a little. Who has more? Celebrities. The public adores them, looks up to them, obsesses over them, whatever. But some are not doing as much as they could be.

If you do a Google search for a “list of famous vegans,” you will get many websites that have long lists of vegan celebs. Although they are not all verified, it’s still a long list of possible vegans. My question is: why aren’t more vegan celebs doing something? Taking action, volunteering, doing campaigns? They have power over the public and they know it, so I think they should take action if they have made the choice to become vegan. As of right now, it’s not the most common/acceptable thing to do. Even in Hollywood, I would assume it could get awkward sometimes at certain A-list restaurants. That could be a possible deterrent for them. I suppose it depends on the person.

There are some celebs that have used their powers for good. But then comes my other question: why don’t we hear more about these things they are doing? For example, Moby has an all-vegetarian café in New York called Teany. I suppose part of the reason I’ve never heard of it is because I don’t live in New York (sob, I wish I did!) but still, I’ve never heard anyone mention Moby is a vegan, his wife is vegetarian and they opened a vegetarian café together. Alec Baldwin and Alicia Silverstone have done really good work with PETA. Alec narrates the amazing video "Meet Your Meat", and Alicia does a lot of "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" stuff, but aside from a few advertisements that have made it into mainstream magazines, most of the time not many people are exposed to the work they do. When named, some celebrities' names register automatically with their cause. Angelina Jolie: “oh yeah, she’s the one that adopted all those kids!” Oprah: “she’s the one who opened the school for girls in South Africa!” When many people hear the names Alec Baldwin and Alicia Silverstone, their first thought isn’t likely to be, “they’ve done some wonderful work with PETA.”

In my dreams, I am a vegan-promoting A-list celebrity who uses my 20 million dollars from every movie I make to create even more animal sanctuaries for saved factory-farmed animals! Ha, can you even imagine how much hate mail I would get from all the meat eaters out there? Guess I’ll never know…but I can dream!

P.S. Thanks r., for your suggestion of trying Galactic Pizza. It is an amazing place! I was there twice last weekend! :)

faux restaurant critic

2009-03-02T01:31:03Z

Today I am going to pretend to be a restaurant critic. I'll be talking about a few vegan-friendly restaurants I have been to in Minneapolis. I will tell my personal experience with that particular restaurant, and then assign them a grade based on my opinion on the following attributes: variety of vegan food, quality of vegan food, and overall atmosphere/service.

First up is Pizza Luce. They have three locations: Downtown Minneapolis, Uptown, and Franklin Ave. They serve pizza (obviously) as well as appetizers, hoagies, pasta, and desserts. There are many vegan options and they are clearly listed on the menu. As far as pizza goes, they have two types of "cheese"- soy cheese and rinotta (made from nuts). They also have tofu, mock duck, phony pepperoni, and veggie sausage as meat substitutes. I have never had a bad experience at Pizza Luce. The restaurant staff is very friendly and the restaurant itself is very bright and clean. When my boyfriend Joey and I went on Friday, we had a soy cheese pizza with veggie sausage, green peppers, banana peppers, and mushrooms. We also had a vegan peanut butter chocolate bar for dessert. Pizza Luce is one of the few places I know that has vegan desserts.
Grade: A. Pizza Luce has quite a few quality vegan options. Not only do they have options for pizza, but you can have vegan garlic cheese bread for an appetizer, vegan hoagies or vegan pasta. The atmosphere is upbeat and you are sure to have a good time!

Second is Triple Rock Social Club, on the West Bank. They are two buildings combined. One is their venue side where they hold concerts, the other is a bar where you can find vegan bar food. The vegan options are clearly listed on their menu. Examples include mashed potatoes, mac n' cheese, and sloppy joe's. On the weekends they also serve vegan breakfast options, like pancakes and french toast. The mac n' cheese is what keeps me coming back- it is so warm and delicious. However, I do have a little problem with Triple Rock. Their policy is if there is a band playing on the venue side, even if the concert is all ages, you have to be over 21 to get into the bar side where they serve food. Even if the concert is at 5 p.m. Not knowing this rule, Joey and I went there on Valentine's Day, where we were told that we couldn't go in and eat because there was an all ages show going on next door. That really doesn't make sense to me. Also, because it is a bar, you can sometimes get waited on by someone that is a little peeved because you're not boozin' it up.
Grade: B. Really good vegan food at really good prices. Their lame policy regarding concerts and bar food and their occasionally rude servers bring their grade down to a B.

Lastly, I will talk about the Hard Times Cafe, also located on the West Bank. I have never technically eaten their food, because as soon as I walked in I was so appalled that I just left. I went there with very high expectations as many of my vegan friends had told me good things about it. It is a collectively run vegetarian restaurant with many vegan options as well. Muffins, pancakes, and tofu scramble are just a few of the foods my friends told me I had to try. Not knowing what this place would be like, I took my boyfriend and two of our omnivore friends. When we got there, we were all a little taken about by the look of the place and the people working there. The place was incredibly dingy on the inside, and it really made me scared to think about how the kitchen might look. The girl at the front counter was incredibly judgmental and rude (or just crabby, who knows). The ordering there is different (you order first and pay and then sit and they bring the food to you), but we didn't know that since we had never been there. We asked the girl and she literally snapped at us the instructions I just listed. So after seeing the grungy look of the restaurant and the rude way we were treated, my friends and I left. I was very disappointed that one of the few 100% vegetarian restaurants around was so awful. I have yet to give it a second chance.
Grade: D. The atmosphere was awful as was the service. But as a vegetarian restaurant they have an abundance of vegan food that I have yet to try. I'm hoping that their food is better than the girl who gave me such a terrible first impression of the Hard Times Cafe.

Those are just a few of the veg-friendly restaurants in Minneapolis. I am slowly spanning my wings and trying more and more restaurants and new foods. Exploration- it's what college is all about!

ignorance in duluth..ignorance everywhere

2009-02-15T20:05:30Z

My best friend from high school, Dana, goes to UMD. On friday, she came home to the cities and we were hanging out with a few of our friends. She told me about this paper she was going to write. I forget what class it was for, but the main idea of the paper was that the writer asks a question and then writes a paper answering that question. Her question, motivated by curiosity of my newfound passion and lifestyle, is "is being vegan healthy?" When she announced her topic in class, the girl next to her turned to her and said, "It's not, I promise. They don't get enough protein."
When she told me this, we were also with our friend Chloe, who is vegetarian. Chloe started laughing and I immediately started throwing facts about vegans and protein at her. It's such a ignorant misconception that somebody came up with and everyone blindly followed without doing any research of their own. I, too, was taught by my parents that chicken (which we ate 5 or 6 times a week) was "super healthy protein", and when I first came to my parents about becoming vegetarian, they scrutinized me about protein.

My dad could be the poster child for an American who is obsessed with protein and gets more protein than he needs. He is almost 50 and still trying to live his childhood dream of looking like a body builder. A year and a half ago he ruptured his Achilles' tendon because his calf muscle was too big and massive for the poor tendon to support, and it snapped. He had multiple surgeries and a year of physical therapy. But now that he is back on his feet he is back at the gym and is working out constantly. I don't know how much protein he consumes, but I'm sure it's too much. He will drink 2+ glasses of milk a day, two or three meals a day will be meat, and back when I was living at home I would have to make him a huge bowl of ice cream or a big plate of chips and cheese for a late night snack. My younger sister now has that pleasure. He also puts protein powder in his ice cream and milk. He usually has a protein bar at work as well.

According to the Vegetarian Resource Group (at the page http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.htm), we need .36 grams of protein for every pound of body weight. Since plant proteins are digested differently than animal protein, vegans should probably have .45 grams for every pound of body weight. So my dad, with his animal protein diet, needs about 75 or 76 grams of protein a day (since he is 210 lbs), which I am positive he exceeds, given that that I've seen him eat Big 100 protein bars, which according to http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/met/food.html, have 27 grams of protein. Meanwhile, I need about 49 grams of protein a day which, even living in the dorms with the crappy selection of vegan food I am given in the dining halls, I can achieve with minimal effort. I'll write it out so I can send it to Dana, and she can write a truthful paper about vegans!

I got all my numbers from the Vegetarian Resource Group page mentioned earlier.
Breakfast:
Not going to lie, I eat sugary kid cereal. But I usually eat two servings since I love the stuff. So that's at least 4 grams of protein, plus 7 grams from my soymilk.
Lunch:
Usually I will have whole wheat bread (2 slices is 5 grams protein) or a bagel (9 grams protein) with peanut butter. Peanut butter is my weakness. Even with the whole salmonella scandal, I'm still going through a jar in about a week. Just for lunch I'll have 4 Tbsp, which is 16 grams of protein.
Dinner:
Typically I'll have whatever lovely pasta dish UDS cooks up vegan for me, most likely it will be spaghetti and red sauce, which is 8 grams of protein. I will also have a salad with firm tofu (my absolute favorite food!). 4 ounces of firm tofu is 11 grams of protein, so I probably get 5-8 grams depending on how much tofu I put on my salad. I also have another glass of soymilk at dinner, which is another 7 grams of protein.

I'll spare you the math. Taking the minimal amounts of everything I just listed (toast instead of bagel, less tofu), I get 52 grams of protein. As you recall, I needed 49 grams to meet RDA's standards. Did I go out of my way to get my protein? Goodness no. That's also just the higher protein foods. Spinach (normally in my salad) also includes protein, as do the nuts I snack on during the day, etc. So just by stating the higher protein foods I typically eat, I meet my minimum needs with no extra effort.

I wish there was a quicker way to say all that information, so the next time an ignorant comment is made about veganism and protein, I could prove it wrong. Maybe I'll print out this blog entry and tell Dana to shove it in her meat-eating classmate's face. Or maybe I'll email it to my dad. Ha. Maybe not. Unfortunately, nothing I, or any doctor, will ever say will change that man's mind.

lying to your children

2009-01-31T05:08:35Z

I am employed by the University's YMCA. I work in an after school program at Richard Green Central Park in South Minneapolis twice a week with a group of first graders. Last Wednesday, they were coloring in a "educational" packet about farms. I realized why, although I love working with children, I could never be an educator. The one page that upset me the most was the one about cows and milk. I was deceived my whole life thinking milk was healthy and that I should drink it. Why not, the cows make milk regardless right? So we might as well drink it. First off, milk isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. According to PETA's website milksucks.com, 1 to 7 drops of pus can be found in a glass of milk, which is likely due to the growth hormones the cows are fed. Ew!
53% of Mexican-Americans and 90% of African-American adults are lactose intolerant, according to wrongdiagnosis.com. Those are the ethnicities that the majority of the kids I work with are. Why would we want to start them on a habit that over half of them will have problems with later in life?
The milk cows make are not for us, it is for their calves. Would now be a good time to mention that those little calves never get that milk that nature intended them to have? The calves are stripped away very soon after birth; the females are grown to become dairy cows and repeat the awful cycle, and male calves get sold as veal. MilkSucks.com states, "A cow can live 20-25 years, but a typical factory-farmed cow is “used up�? in four years. Then it’s off to the slaughterhouse." How is that okay? They are kept in confined areas, not fed what they should be eating, and are made to produce way more milk than they should, just so we can drink pus and fat with our cereal?
"Back in the day", I'm sure there were family farms whose cows were taken care of and treated like cows, not used simply as objects of production. Cows now are kept in tiny cages and constantly artificially inseminated so they will keep having calves and producing milk. Growth hormones and unnatural milking schedules hurt the cows' udders and make them painful and heavy enough that they touch the ground, which causes infections and overuse of antibiotics. That is not natural, that is wrong. Was that the picture that the kids were coloring? No. They were coloring a happy cow in a field. These days, that is fiction. The kids all said how much they liked the cow. It broke my heart to think that not enough people are aware that the cows they love are not grazing grass in a sunny California field like they have been taught their whole lives.