Ask and ye shall receive! That’s a thing, right? Well the fine folks at Compassion Over Killing think so, and we want to help!

Wouldn’t it be incredible to affect change at the world’s largest restaurant chain AND have another vegan food option at the ready?

Subway (35,786 restaurants in 98 countries) has introduced a brand new vegan patty! Awesome?! Well, yes & no: it’s only available at some of its restaurants in Canada. And the veggie patty currently offered in the US contains egg. Let’s convince them to bring us USers the Vegan one! It will only take a few seconds of your internet play time, swear!

OPTION ONE (1) (I): go to WeLoveSubway.com and leave a comment. Here’s one if you just want to copy + paste:
I would really really really like the Vegan Vegged Out Patty to be available in the US, really!

OPTION TWO (2) (II): go to The Facebook and leave a comment. Here’s one for you, so easy!
Please please please bring the Vegan Vegged Out Patty to the US, please!

OPTION THREE (3) (III): Tweet a message at them. Here’s one pre-typed by me on your behalf:
@subwayfreshbuzz I want the Vegan #VeggedOutPatty in the US. Canada is far and I am a hungry vegan person! @SuperVegan @TryVeg

OPTION FOUR (4) (IV): Call Subway. This sounds extreme in the digital age, but trust me, it’s not. A nice human being will listen to you! Here’s the number 203-877-4281

OPTION FIVE (5) (V): Send an actual e-mail.
I can’t fill out the form for you, sorry. But it has pull downs. It’s real easy for a whiz like you!

Do 1, 1-5 or any combo thereof and you’ll be our favorite reader ever! C’mon let’s do this. I want to hit up Fatburger next and get them to switch from their Veggie Boca Burger to the Vegan one!!

I love Jorja Fox, now more than ever.

• One of my favorite people, Jenny Brown, is speaking at Jivamukti Café on Saturday, 11/12, from 7-9pm. In Peace Begins on Your Plate: Why Farm Animals Matter in Our Quest for Peace, the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary cofounder will talk about the way animals are raised for food and how we can be better advocates for our fellow critters.
• O Canada! Why do you get your very own vegan patty from Subway but we don’t? All in good time, I guess.
• Next Monday, 11/14, from 7-9pm, NY CLASS is hosting Happy Hour for the Horses at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street. Join super SuperVegan Patrick Kwan to learn more about the campaign to put the horse-drawn carriages out of business. Drinks specials include the “Horseless Carriage Cocktail” for $3.50, and 2-for-1 beer, wine and well drinks, plus snacks courtesy of Sweet Cheeks Vegan Bakery. Check out these and other events on our NYC Events Calendar.
• I don’t have any ink, but I have a lot of friends who’ll be happy to see there’s a new vegan tattoo balm out there.
• Meatless Every Days is better, but Meatless Mondays is a good start. Share this video with the omnis in your life and get them moving in the right direction.
• Jorja Fox stars in a new ad campaign for PETA, asking people to investigate how their food came to be. How cool is it that the actress’s veg epiphany happened in the greatest borough of all?

Ricki Heller wants you to have your cake and eat it too—just without a lot of the ingredients you generally think of when you think about dessert. I took some of the recipes from her cookbook, Sweet Freedom, out for a spin, then asked Ricki to fill me in on how it all began.

Roseann Marulli: Thanks so much for speaking with SuperVegan, Ricki. How did Sweet Freedom: Desserts You’ll Love Without Wheat, Eggs, Dairy or Refined Sugar come to be?

Ricki Heller: Sweet Freedom is an outgrowth of my baking company, Bake It Healthy, which grew out of my cooking classes. I’d been selling muffins, cookies, bars and cake slices in health food stores across Toronto for a few years when I realized I just didn’t have the physical stamina to keep the bakery going anymore. I was responsible for all aspects of the business, so between baking, wrapping and labeling, and delivering the goods, I was working 16-plus hours a day. When I decided to close the company, in 2007, many of my customers asked if I’d consider private catering because they didn’t want to give up their weekly muffins and cookies or custom birthday cakes. I did cater for about a year but then decided that the best way for people to continue enjoying the treats was to have the recipes themselves, so I began to convert them for the home cook—and Sweet Freedom was born!

Roseann: You’re a registered holistic nutritionist. Why is it important that your desserts be healthy? Do you ever cheat with something “bad”?

Ricki: I got involved in holistic nutrition because of my own health issues, and I found that the only factor that really made a difference long-term was changing my diet. Back in 2008, when I began to slip up and revert to some of my previous eating habits—desserts with white flour and white sugar—I came down with systemic candida and had to return to a more stringent way of eating that I’d followed 10 years earlier. Now that I’ve been on a strict anti-candida diet for almost two years (it’s vegan, no gluten, no sweeteners except stevia, no mushrooms or other sources of mold, no sweet fruits, no alcohol or anything fermented—I could go on), I can honestly say that no, I don’t cheat. I think I’ve learned my lesson! I feel 100% better this way and am almost back to my old, healthy self. I’ve worked too hard to regain my health to mess it up by eating something sugary.

Roseann: Your dishes are free of additives, colorings, artificial ingredients, refined sugar, wheat and animal products. Why?

Ricki: As a holistic nutritionist, I learned that what we ingest can affect our health. It makes sense, that our cells are literally built from the substances we eat, drink and breathe—there really is nothing else that affects our physical being more. Given the many toxins in the world over which we have no control—the air outside, the many technologies that give off electromagnetic pollution, food packaging, and so on—I prefer to eliminate as many food-related toxins as I can. As someone who’s working to build a healthy immune system and a healthy body in general, I don’t want to fill my cells with artificial colorings, chemicals or refined ingredients, which contain almost no nutritional value—and sugar depresses the immune system! I originally cut out animal products as a way to decrease the toxic load on my system, but to be honest, I never really ate many animal products anyway. I consider myself someone who is naturally inclined toward a vegan diet, as vegan food is what appeals to me most, and by eating it, I feel most comfortable and energetic. I continue this way both for my own health and for the health of the animals.

My Mother’s Cheesecake is infused with lemon juice, lemon extract and lemon rind, and the crust is good enough to eat on its own. Even the skeptical omnis at our Thanksgiving meal gobbled it up!

Roseann: What was the biggest challenge you faced in baking without all that extra “stuff”? Did anything just not work and not make it into the book?

Ricki: The soy-free whipped cream was a huge challenge and probably the most-tested recipe in the book—over 50 tries! For the cookbook version, I simplified the original recipe that had appeared on my blog. The final cream is a wee bit heavier and less airy than the blog version, but it also has about 28 fewer steps! I also tried a meringue and failed miserably. That’s one texture that’s just very difficult to reproduce without white sugar.

Roseann: Was anything that succeeded a surprise?

Ricki: The gluten-free pastry cream was a bit of a surprise because it didn’t start out that way—I was attempting a baked pudding. But popping the mixture in a blender produced the most velvety, smooth, rich-tasting cream. It’s one of my favorite recipes now!

Roseann: You’ve had a pretty busy year! You received an Honorable Mention in the 2010 Cuisine Canada Culinary Book Awards, and your cookbook is one of the few listed on Ellen DeGeneres’ Books Ellen Reads page. Congrats! How did Ellen find out about your cookbook?

Ricki: Thanks so much! My blog readers and twitter followers are the most amazing people, and I’d say they’re mostly responsible. Back in April, I posted a blog entry about how much I wanted to be on Ellen’s show to bake for her and Portia, since they’re both vegan and refined-sugar-free, exactly the kinds of recipes in my book. I also tweeted during the day, and many of my twitter followers began to retweet the messages and email The Ellen DeGeneres Show, endorsing my book and recipes. Somehow Ellen found out about it and checked out my book. Next thing I knew, my book was on her page! It was an incredible surprise to see my cookbook listed next to Alicia Silverstone’s and Tal Ronnen’s. I’m still floating!

The Girl Scouts have nothing on Ricki! Her Classic Peanut Butter Cookies smell as good as they taste.

Roseann: That’s amazing! How is the book being received in general? Do you have any favorite stories?

Ricki: I’ve been really gratified by all the fantastic reviews the book has received so far, and I’m thrilled that so many people like it. It always delights me to receive an email from someone who made one of the recipes and enjoyed it. My favorite story remains one I’ve told before, about a mom who made a birthday cake for her eight-year-old daughter’s birthday. The young girl couldn’t eat wheat, eggs, dairy or refined sugar, so my stuff was perfect; there’s a great agave-based frosting recipe in the book that works beautifully for decorating, piping, etc. This family had eaten my frosted cupcakes before, so I knew they already liked my stuff. After the party, the mom called to tell me that the cake had been a hit with all the kids and their moms. Then she went on to say that it had also been the first time in her daughter’s life, in eight years of parties, that her daughter had been able to share in her own birthday cake with everyone else at the party. I still get a bit teary thinking about that, because I was so touched to be able to give that kind of gift to that little girl. It makes me incredibly happy to know that people who’ve felt deprived of their favorite sweets for a long time can once again enjoy them through my recipes.

Roseann: What are the most popular ones? Which is your favorite?

Ricki: Anything chocolate seems to be pretty popular! The Ultra Fudgy Brownies and Butterscotch Blondies With Dried Cranberries and Chocolate Chips are a big hit, as are the gluten-free, grain-free Coconut Macaroons. The most popular muffin was always the Sweet Harvest, which has hidden carrot, zucchini and spinach and offers up a full serving of vegetables in every muffin. My own favorite chocolate-based recipe is the Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies; and my favorite non-chocolate one is the Spiced Pumpkin-Millet Pudding.

Roseann: I made your Classic Peanut Butter Cookies, My Mother’s Cheesecake and Chocolate Caramels, and when I started taking pictures, I realized I’d chosen three beige dishes! Regardless, they all looked and tasted great. I brought the cheesecake to an omnivore’s house for Thanksgiving, and everyone LOVED it!

Ricki: My Mother’s Cheesecake is probably one of my favorites, though I like the Chai Cheesecake, too.

Roseann: And the Peanut Butter Cookies are amazing—my husband won’t let me share them with anyone else! As far as the caramels go, though, I fell into the overcooking trap you mentioned, so it became hard like brittle instead of chewy. It was still spot-on taste-wise, though! And I drizzled some chocolate on top just because. How long did it take for you to get it right? Is the secret using a candy thermometer, or is there another trick of which I’m obviously not aware?

Ricki: Sorry about the brittle! It took quite a few tries to get the texture just right without a candy thermometer—honestly, the trick is just to make it enough times that you recognize the right texture. As I recall—this was two years ago now—it also depends on the burner, since “low” or “medium” on one stovetop isn’t the same as on another, as well as on the pot; the mixture in a smaller, deeper pot will cook more slowly than one in a larger, wider one, and timing is everything with that recipe. All this to say that if you don’t have a candy thermometer, your best bet might be to undercook them a bit and, if necessary, make caramel cups instead of firm caramels. That’s what a friend of mine did. She had the opposite outcome—her filling was too soft, so she made the cups. When I wrote the book, I really wanted anyone to be able to make the recipes, even without special equipment. But if I do a second edition, I think I’ll just say to use a thermometer.

I overcooked the Chocolate Caramels and ended up with something resembling brittle instead. But break off a piece and let it melt on your tongue, and it’s caramel yumminess all the way!

Roseann: Why did you include some raw desserts? Do you eat raw often?

Ricki: I do try to include raw foods at least 50% of the time in my daily diet, and I love raw cuisine. Since some of my favorite desserts happen to be raw, I thought I’d include them. They’re also great for people on a cleanse or a gentle detox who still want to indulge in something sweet.

Roseann: What’s next for you?

Ricki: My recipes always reflect where I am in my own life, so my current creations are all based on the anti-candida diet. I’m working on a cookbook with recipes that are all low-glycemic, gluten-free and sweetened with stevia, yacon syrup, coconut sugar or agave nectar. I’ve really enjoyed learning about gluten-free flours and gluten-free baking and can’t wait to share some of the desserts I’ve created with them. This time I’ll also be including some savory recipes—even I have to eat something other than dessert once in a while!

Roseann: Best of luck with the new book, Ricki! And thanks again for chatting with us.

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2010.

Victory!

Today, after a long struggle, the European Union has finally voted to ban all seal products. This is a huge victory for the seals, and hopefully it will go a long way to ending the massacre of any more Canadian baby seals.

Even before it passed, it seems the threat of the ban already devastated the baby seal hunting industry. In 2006, seal pelts sold for $105, while this year they sold for $14 each.

The result being, Canada had a quota of 280,000 seals this year, but the sealers ultimately only bothered to slaughter 59,500. Longtime seal hunter and seal hunt advocate Jack Troake stated, “We just couldn’t seal for those prices. The prices were too low.”

Canada’s government tried many things, including sending Inuit seal hunters to the European Parliament to plead Canada’s case for them, before the EU finally voted in favor of the ban. Canada’s great effort against the ban and the dramatic drop in seal pelt prices both indicate that the seal hunt will no longer be worth it post EU ban. Hopefully the permanent end of the hunt is now imminent.

Canada’s seal hunt is the largest annual slaughter of marine mammals in the world

On Tuesday, March 3rd, a Canadian senator made the unorthodox move of proposing an end to the annual Canadian baby seal hunt. The proposal has been getting less than an enthusiastic response in the Canadian government, but it’s the first step towards ending the largest annual slaughter of marine mammals in the world, and you can show your support for this move.

Canadian senator Mac Harb proposed to end the annual commercial seal hunt, which results in the deaths of over 200,000 seals in Canada annually (over a quarter of a million seals in 2008), although no one in the Canadian senate voted to second his proposal.

Despite a lack of local support, Harb’s proposal is indicative of the entire world’s growing disgust of the baby seal pelt industry. For instance, a day before Harb’s proposal, the European Union’s parliament (internal market and consumer protection committee) voted to support the ban of all seal products. Not only that, but even Russia has now banned its own baby seal hunt, as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated that the “bloody industry” should have been banned long ago.

Once again, the Canadian proposal has lacked support in Canada’s government. But you can show your own support for the bill. To send letters of support, the e-mail address for Senator Mac Harb is harbsealbill@sen.parl.gc.ca, and his postal address (free postage since it’s to the House) is:

Senator Mac Harb: House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A6

For more information on the Canadian seal hunt, the marine conservation group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has a helpful page on hunt facts.

Cartoon by Nick Milliner. This Nugget’s Canadian brethern will now be gassed to death rather than electrocuted. Hooray!

• SuperVegan’s 2nd birthday party is tonight!! Come on out to ‘sNice Brooklyn, 315 5th Avenue at 3rd Street in Park Slope, 6:30pm-10pm. Complimentary cake and keg (feel free to bring supplementary alcohol, too), plus an all-vegan menu of other goodies (that you’ll have to pay for) from ‘sNice.
• I know you all think Vegan Treats cakes are great (unless you’re one of those who ate too much and ODed), so maybe you’d like to read this profile of VT and proprietor Danielle Konya. Also, check out our best attempt at an up-to-date list of NYC restaurants that carry Vegan Treats.
• PETA has annoyed KFC Canda enough that the fried-chicken giant is actually making some changes! Says KFC Canada president Steve Langford, “(PETA) can be unpleasant to deal with, and from a business point of view, it’s nice to put that behind you.” General welfare upgrades will happen to how they (mis)treat their chickens, and they’ll be introducing some kind of vegan faux-chicken to the menu. Sounds nasty to me, but I guess if I’m on a lonely highway in the wilds of Canada, I’d be glad to have it.
• I was going to write a whole blog post about Polyglot Vegetarian’s phenomenal article on historical Branded Meat Substitutes, but I simply haven’t had time to read the damn thing yet. If you’re into the history of veg food, or simply into history, go read it. And you must check out the included poem from 1904, “To a Health-Food Girl.” Hail to thee, Granola Maid!

• Friday on Oprah: Taking a cue from HSUS, Lisa Ling uses a hidden camera to investigate the cruelty of puppy mills. (When did Ling become the reporter of all things freegan and animal-related?)
• The San Francisco Art Institute has taken down an exhibit that featured videos of six animals being bludgeoned to death. Unfortunately, it did so before the public forum was held because of death threats to its staffers. Go hypocrisy!
• The Canadian seal hunt began earlier this week.
• The Rotterdam Zoo is making all of its animals go veg, for health reasons. Even the carnivores…?
• Meanwhile, in Germany, apparently ”zoo” is synonymous with “factory farm.”
• In another giant step for I don’t know what, scientists are hoping to train fish to “catch” themselves. Because why do the harvesting, too, when you can confine your actions to killing and consuming? (At least then maybe there’d be no call for shows like this.)
• And because I can’t handle any more depressing stuff today: Enter your film, poem, needlepoint, etc., in NAVS’ 19th Annual Art for Animals Classic. If your piece wins, it will grace National Anti-Vivisection Society materials (plus you’ll get some cash). Click here for the PDF entry form and rules, or call 800-888-NAVS (6287). The deadline is May 2.

Courtesy of Coquette Faux Furriers, a five-year-old operation hailing from Victoria, Canada “with the desire of creating affordable cruelty-free glamour accessories.” Accessories like this White Mink stole (“features little faux legs in addition to the tail”).

Please comment below if this mink stole–or perhaps the polar bear skin rug (“head can be used as a pillow!”)–appeal to you. This is very important journalistic research.

The curtains have been raised, and Jason “Herman Thrust” Doucette’s Vegan Porn has been reborn as Taste Better Dot Com (it’s good to know his mind’s still in the gutter). Go check it out and see what he’s wrought.

Those cryptic pre-release videos I mentioned yesterday are on the new site, in case you haven’t seen them yet. In fact, it looks like virtually the entire “blog” section of Vegan Porn has been rolled into the Tastes Better archive.

The new site is much better looking, and Jason’s got some ambitious multimedia plans. Really all that’s missing is the nattering of the now-orphaned Vegan Porn community. If you miss that, go read their whining in the comments here.

Doucette says “aboat” like a proper Canadian.

So for the past couple days, Jason “Herman Thrust” Doucette, proprietor of Vegan Porn, has been posting cryptic talking-head videos of himself. He’s cooking up some extremely fundamental changes, and rather than typing about it, he’s (for lack of a better word) vloggoing it.

Basically, Vegan Porn is no more, but it will be replaced by something new and different. All we know about that something is that it won’t have the word “vegan” in the title, and it won’t involve a forum. Jason makes a big point of encouraging folks to set up their own blogs and forums instead. Of course, any and all Vegan Porn refugees are most welcome here on SuperVegan (our forum’s a little lonely these days).

Fuller details of the new site should be revealed some time today (Thursday). It’s too early to say if I’ll miss and mourn Vegan Porn. I’m sure whatever Jason’s cooking up is gonna be awesome, cause he never fails to do good work. (And he really doesn’t look like he’s been getting much sleep, which is always a sign of high productivity.) As long as the new site still features Jason writing about veg and animal issues, I’m happy.

It ain’t their fault!

• Protagonist Doug went veg on beloved sitcom King of Queens, but it didn’t last long. Discuss with the hardcore fans (including a vegan or two) over at the Sony Pictures forums.
• The New York Times profiles happy veal and the “vegetarians” who eat it with a clear conscience. This is right up there with Rinella and his publisher.
• Slave lab(rad)ors Lucky and Flo find themselves on a hit list after sniffing out $3 million worth of pirated materials in Malaysia.
• “Canadian coastguards were last night battling to rescue hundreds of seal hunters trapped in thick ice off the country’s Newfoundland east coast.” Yeah, you read that right.
• And just plain weird[er]: stalkers and con-men at Liz Lovely [ed. note: article removed for further investigation! oooh]. Everything seems to be okay in the aftermath–s’long as they didn’t get their grubby hands on the cookies…

Animal-friendly online retailer Downbound‘s Adam Wilson has launched a new site, 1 Month Challenge, where he and fellow vegan Kimberly Carroll (host of this TV show I haven’t heard of) try to lose weight and build muscle in a one-month challenge. Their results will be posted May 5. As Ryan discusses over at Veg Blog, just ’cause you’re vegan doesn’t mean you’re healthy: vegans can have high cholesterol, too. So watch those crispy nuggets, kids, but don’t worry about the trans fats–those go straight to your arteries, not your thighs.

“The goldfish simply stay away from the surface and all is well.”

• Veg-friendly online dating as covered by Columbia J-School. Definitely not being discussed over at Vegan Porn–I wonder why.
• More than 3,000 pigs died when a Canadian hog farm caught fire last Saturday.
• Lewes, England farmers are protesting Mayor Merlin Milner, who recently snubbed the traditional menu for Lewes’ “Town and Country” dinner (steak and kidney pudding), opting instead for a vegetarian meal.
• I don’t want my food fried in tasty trans fats in this deep fryer–it’s also an aquarium.
• An Arizona woman was found guilty of child abuse and could face up to 51 years in prison for starving her kids on a “vegan” diet of ground carrots.
• Brooklyn’s own Red Bamboo wins Time Out‘s reader award for Best Vegetarian Restaurant, beating out HanGawi, Mana, Vegetarian Dim Sum House and SuperVegan reader favorite Wild Ginger.
• And this week’s Vegan Job Watch: Organic Avenue seeks shop assistant, Counter seeks part-time server and mystery “established downtown vegan restaurant” seeks part-time office manager.

Jimmy Buffet: No more fishburgers in paradise

As if the annual, unstoppable carnage that is the Canadian seal hunt weren’t depressing enough, the poor baby seals now have to contend with global warming. The good news is that the first stage of the hunt, in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, is likely to be scrapped. The bad news is that the reason for the scrapping is that the ice floes the pups are usually born on are breaking up, floating away and melting, and the mothers are being forced to give birth in the water. The pups are drowning by the hundreds of thousands because they cannot swim in the first few weeks of life and need the ice for survival.

The rest of the hunt will proceed as scheduled, despite the efforts of Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and Susan Collins (R-ME), and the tireless efforts of boycotters of Canada and boycotters of Canadian seafood.

In the 10 days since Canada-based Menu Foods began recalling dog and cat food, over 471 cases of pet kidney failure have been officially reported, and 104 of those pets have died. (Internet reporting has the tally at nearly 2,000). The most recent list of recalled foods (dated 3/26) has 53 brands on it but does not include Science Diet, which is also reported to have been affected. None of the vegan dog foods I wrote about are on the list, nor are any vegan cat foods. According to Menu, as of yesterday, all of the recalled foods are “cuts and gravy” style products (not kibble or loaf-style), and customers should return them to the retailer for a refund. Customers should keep all receipts, including vet bills for any illness traced to a Menu food. Menu will “take responsibility,” and has enlisted a “professional firm” to manage the situation.

The offending substance is a poison that has been found in the wheat gluten that acts as a thickener for the gravy in “cuts and gravy” foods. Menu has recently switched to a supplier in China for its wheat gluten. According to PETA, Menu had reports of illness related to its food as early as February 20, and immediately began toxicity tests on healthy dogs and cats (read: forced them to eat the tainted food), despite the existence of humane alternatives. Presumably, the results of the toxicity tests (read: ill or dead dogs and cats) demonstrated the need for a recall.

For all the latest updates and opinions on this scandal, visit Poop City.

Win a free copy of La Dolce Vegan!

To mark the launch of their new “Books for Cooks” section (it’s totally passé to call them cookbooks nowadays), Victoria, BC based web-bookstore AbeBooks has posted an interview with hometown girl Sarah Kramer, author of How It All Vegan, In the Garden of Vegan and La Dolce Vegan. In the interview, she mentions that her fave New York restaurants are HanGawi and Red Bamboo.

AbeBooks is best known as a place to buy used books, and maybe they’re trying to change that image a bit. But not entirely: check out this great page of the most expensive cookbooks they’ve ever sold, starting with a 1746 edition of La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise sold for $1751.43 (even in Canadian dollars, that’s a lot!). I say your money is better spent on a one of Sarah’s books, or a second-hand copy of the amazing and amazingly still out-of-print Simply Heavenly! The Monastery Vegetarian Cookbook.

Make your way up to Canada Friday for the 22nd Annual Vegetarian Food Fair. “North America’s largest vegetarian festival” runs through Sunday, and admission is free!

Sample tons of yummy veg food and visit dozens of exhibitors, from the International Fund for Animal Welfare to Turtle Island Foods to Vegan Porn.

There will be cooking demonstrations, like Fran Costigan’s “Vegan Cupcake Extravaganza,” and a host of speakers. Among them, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study, will present “Debunking the ‘Science’ of Nutrition,” and Harold Brown will talk about “Peaceable Kingdom Within: A Farmer’s Journey in Compassion.”

If you want to do more than just eat your way through the weekend, contact the Toronto Vegetarian Association and find out how you can volunteer.

Save the crabs!

When the Prince Rupert SPCA in British Columbia decided to hold a fundraising event of boiling live crabs to raise funds for the care and housing of animals in shelters, they shouldn’t have been surprised to be met with opposition.

Paul Watson, President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, got wind of the event and mobilized supporters to send emails and make calls in protest, successfully shutting down the feast.

As far out as this idea may sound to any of us, one person didn’t want to take any chances of the event taking place despite calls and emails from activists, and called in a bomb threat, which may have given this event the deciding publicity factor.

Some La Jolla residents want the seals who’ve been basking on their San Diego beach to go bask somewhere else. They even took the matter to court, citing that the smell, feces, and general seal activities are driving families away. As a result, the city was ordered to dredge the area in order to make it less welcoming to the seals, who’ve been flocking to the area since the early ’90s.

But dredging could drive the seals—many of which are pregnant—away for good, so the city agreed to rope off a certain section of the beach during pupping season. But that’s not enough, according to the Save-Our-Seals Coalition, which is working to appeal the dredging ruling, especially since there have been reports of tussles between people and the seals: “San Diego is full of other beaches for humans, and Casa Beach is the only harbor seal rookery in Southern California.”

Help save the seals’ space by writing to California lawmakers and attorneys, sponsoring a seal, and if you live in the area, volunteering with the “Rake-a-Line Program.”

Meanwhile, the Canadian seal hunt ended in June, with a death toll of about 336,000 pups, most of which were no more than 12 days old. Make this the last seal hunt we ever have to write about by signing HSUS’s petition to stop the next hunt before it starts, boycotting Canadian seafood, writing to fashion insiders to ask them to stop using seal skin and fur in their designs, and more.

In a brilliant move, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided to decrease the number of cows being tested for BSE by about 90%. This after new cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy were discovered here this year and last.

Currently, only about 1% of the cattle that are killed each year so that our fellow Americans can nosh on cheeseburgers are tested. That’s about 1,000 tests a day. Once the reduction is in place—and only 10% of the cattle being raised for food are being tested—that number will come down to 110. But why worry? According to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, “Because of progressive steps taken by the U.S. government over the past 15 years, all U.S. beef is safe from BSE.”

By contrast, the Consumers Union says that the “USDA is playing Russian roulette with public health.” Maybe that’s because the U.S. continues to import cows from Canada, where the seventh case of BSE has been discovered. (The poor cow was young, pregnant, and a downer.) And maybe because once cows have been slaughtered and their flesh sold, the remains are used in feed—for pigs and chickens.

Downers were banned from human consumption in the U.S. after the first case of mad cow was discovered, in December 2003. Cows that are sick or injured could have BSE, so the reduction in testing, coupled with the fact that new secretary of agriculture Mike Johanns is also considering allowing some downed cattle back into the human food supply, is bad news for everyone.

Even more outrageous, the government wants to prohibit Creekstone Farms from voluntarily testing its cows for BSE. You’d think the fact that Japan is ready to reopen its doors to U.S. beef (lifting a 2003 ban that resulted from the first mad cow discovery) would make the USDA rethink its recent brainstorms.

Tell the USDA not to reduce the number of cows being tested for BSE and not to allow downed cattle back into the food supply. If they’re going to continue to slaughter animals just because people like the way they taste, they should protect downed cows from further injury and pain, and they can make at least a meager attempt to protect public health.

A study has just reported that polar bears in northern Alaska are turning to cannibalism because a decline in ice has left them unable to reach their normal sources of food. This is just the latest consequence of global warming on the massive animals.

Polar bears use ice floes to reach ringed seals and other sources of food and to travel. But with the rise in temperatures caused by fuel emissions, ice is diminishing and ice seasons are becoming shorter, causing the bears to swim longer distances or to return to land in search of food. They’re also having fewer cubs, and the ones that do survive aren’t growing as large as they once did.

As early as 1999, scientists in Canada reported that bears were coming into towns to look for food. Many of them appeared to be starving. While this was linked to global warming, in 2001, President Bush refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which requires a reduction in emissions, making the U.S. the only member of the G-8 to refuse to ratify the agreement.

So the decline continued. In 2004, four dead bears were seen floating in Alaska. Prior to then, drowning had been so rare that it had never been documented in studies.

A report that same year predicted the extinction of polar bears by the end of the century if global warming was not stopped. In response, in December 2005, NRDC, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Greenpeace sued the U.S. government in an effort to force them to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The outcome of the suit is still uncertain.

What is certain is that if global warming is allowed to continue, the polar bears—and eventually, the rest of us—will not survive. So do something to help save these majestic bears. Sign a petition. Make a donation. Join a virtual march. And for those of you who haven’t done so already, go vegan—or at least vegetarian—and persuade the people around you to do the same.

The bears are counting on us.

Mangia!

If you’re gluten-free and vegan like I am, you probably went through a period when you only ate food that you prepared yourself. After all, so many yummy veg*n foods are made from seitan, or they’re battered in a gluten-containing grain (like—yum!—the Buffalo Unchicken Wings at Kate’s Joint). And how many times have omnivorous friends suggested eating Italian because there are so many veg*n options? Brown bagging it for lunch is one thing, but dinner, too? It’s not fair!

Well, Italian chefs have come to the rescue—in Italy, at least. More than a third of the top restaurants in Italy now offer gluten-free options—even bread! Several have entire menus dedicated to gluten-free dining. Grazie mille, ragazzi!

Closer to home, Jeff MacLean is opening Splitt, which is likely the first entirely gluten-free restaurant in North America, in Calgary, Canada. While not specifically Italian, it surely bears mentioning.

I’d love to say the same for Risotteria, a restaurant in the West Village offering gluten-free pizza, bread sticks and beer (as well as “normal” fare), but there’s nothing on the menu for the vegans among us.

But it’s a start. If you’re in Canada or Italy, buon appetito!

Teenagers don’t like to stand out. But for young adults with potentially life-threatening food allergies, being forthright about their condition can be a matter of life and death.

At this year’s Food and Allergy Anaphylaxis Network conference, during Food Allergy Awareness Week, teens are learning how to talk about their allergies and take precautions at home, at school, even on dates. This following news that a Canadian girl with a peanut allergy died after being kissed by her boyfriend, who’d eaten peanut butter.

It’s not just romantic kisses that are being put on notice. Jaida, a two-year-old girl whose father kissed her after eating peanut butter, suffered anaphylaxis and had to be rushed to the hospital. Luckily, she survived.

For more information on children and teens living with food allergies, check out the Food Allergy News Web sites.

Brigitte Bardot and friend

Since the annual Canadian seal hunt began on March 25, approximately 28,049 young seals have been killed in the name of protecting the Canadian fishing industry. Despite the efforts of Morrissey, Pamela Anderson, Heather and Paul McCartney and other celebrities to use their fame to rally attention around the issue there are no signs of it ending soon. In fact, bulk retailer Costco has given in to the cries of the Canadian fishing industry…er I mean, “its customers”…and re-stocked its shelves with Canadian seal oil capsules.

In a world where money talks (and is used to justify killing baby animals), you’d think the recent offer of $16 million to end the hunt made by Cathy Kangas, founder and head of the vegan and cruelty-free cosmetics company PRAI Beauty, would be the monkey wrench seals need, but so far they’re not biting.

“The short answer is no. We’re not interested in the offer and would prefer she put the money in another worthwhile cause,” a spokesman for Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn told the AFP news agency.

While the money would replace some sealers’ incomes, it would not come to the overall value of the industry, he said.

Why can’t those Canadians just stick to maple syrup (PDF)?