I have a secret to spill:

GoVeggie! or as I like to call it, Go Veggie Exclamation Point (GVEP), formerly known as Galaxy Nutritional Foods (which never had astronomical imagery as part of its branding, nor was it made on the moon), a switch I wrote about earlier, are the makers of the new vegan cheese products available at Trader Joe’s (a store that is so very good to us). Their new and improved shreds are their shreds, and their new and improved cream cheese is their Not Your Average Tub Of Cream Cheese (which I think should be called Above Average Cream Cheese). How did I find this out? I never kiss and tell! Wait. Yes, I do: some good ol’ fashioned sleuthin’ and um, this blog post.

To celebrate all the cheesy goodness, GVEP threw a rager last night that was hosted, and when I say hosted, I mean “Hi, how are you, thanks so much for coming, I’m Heather, let me feed your face!” HOSTED by the effervescent energy balls (but pretty), the Spork Sisters, Jenny and Heather. There were people; like Rory Freedman, who has given up cursing (oh, the irony for a Skinny Bitch!) and has a new book called Beg: A Radical New Way Of Regarding Animals coming out on April 23rd. Television’s Jason Wrobel who is waiting to hear if the pilot episode of his Cooking Channel show How To Live To 100 did well enough to get picked-up and in the interim told us all about the importance of Vitamin K2 (which sounds like Scrubbing Bubbles for your heart). And my friend The Insufferable Vegan and I both masquerading as QuarryGirl.

There was Sporktastic food:

Cream Cheese and Olive Tapenade Layered Dip, Mini Mediterranean Pita Pizza Bites, Saffron Scented Arancini with Mushrooms

There was drink:

Courtesy Frey Wines– America’s First Organic Winery

And there was a cooking demo, where I learned pepper is now just called ‘pep’ and a Vita-Mix is a ‘Vity’:

Heather & Jenny make basil oil!

And best of all, for one lucky SuperVegan reader (that could be you!) there’s a copy of Spork-Fed, the cookbook any vegan who wants to make Strawberry Cream Cheese-Stuffed French Toast must own, the cookbook I personally had signed by both sisters just for you, PLUS a coupon for one free GVEP product!

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment (make sure to leave an e-mail address!) telling us about the best or worst vegan cheese dish you’ve ever eaten, by Monday at noon, PT. Good luck!

Did you know we have a NYC Vegan events calendar here on SuperVegan? Well, we do. Here’s a list of some exciting happenings coming up this week.

• See US Premier of “Cages of Shame”, a film documenting Animals Asia’s rescue of 10 bears from a bile farm in China. Q & A to follow. (Sat 4/14, 6-8pm. Rubin Museum of Art, 150 W. 17th Street, West Village.)
• Stretch your compassion at Yoga for Bears, a yoga class, lunch, and fundraiser for Animals Asia. (Sun 4/14, 12-3:30. Jivamukti Yoga School NYC, 841 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Union Square.)
• Visit Vegan Shop Up to buy ethical edibles and other goodies from local artisans. (Sun 4/15, 12-5pm. Pine Box Rock Shop, 12 Grattan St., Bushwick, Brooklyn.)
• Drop in on Vegan Book Swap 3.0 to snatch up some vegan cookbooks or AR reads and support Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. (Mon 4/16, 6:30-8:30pm. Sustainable NYC, 139 Ave A, East Village)
• Be heard at 2012 NYS Humane Lobby Day. Chartered buses and carpools make it easy for you to get your rear to Albany and encourage your elected representatives to put animals on the agenda. (Wed 4/18, 11am-4pm. Empire State Plaza Convention Center, Albany, NY)

Vegucated Screening
Wednesday, February 22 at 6:15 p.m.
Whole Foods Tribeca, 270 Greenwich Street, NYC

• Not that you need an excuse to shop, but Mooshoes is celebrating its 10th anniversary this Saturday, Dec. 3, with a 15% discount on all in-store purchases, plus beverages and snacks from Blossom du Jour and Dun-Well Doughnuts.
• Veg Blog has released the third installment of its vegan business profile series, this time featuring cookbook publisher Heritage Press.
• On Wednesday, Dec. 7, head over to Pianos on the Lower East Side for some Freerange Nonfiction and listen while Hannah Tinti, Alison Espach and Alison Smith read from their animal-related books. The event’s $8 cover will directly benefit Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. For more information on this and other happenings in New York City, check out our Events Calendar.
• Speaking of farmed animals, Mercy for Animals has uncovered yet more abuse, this time by Sparboe Egg Farms, the supplier of McDonald’s eggs.
• In other atrocities, the USDA released its 2010 Dairy Checkoff Report, and the results are, well, atrocious: In 2009, $108 million was spent promoting milk, while $283 million was used to push dairy products like cheese. Is this really how we want our tax money spent?
• On a lighter note: Sending out holiday cards? Be sure to order a book of PETA’s stamps featuring veggie celebs, now through January. The stamps, which can be purchased online, are available as of today and feature famous faces such as Woody Harrelson, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Barker and Morrissey, plus historical notables including da Vinci, Tolstoy and Pythagoras. Celebs aren’t always the most consistent carrot eaters, but they do help expose the mainstream to the cause.
• Maybe PETA will consider dedicating a stamp to five-year veghead Jessica Chastain. She’s not the only vegan to make people think the chicken she was chomping was “real.”
• For the young compassionate people in your life: The Vegetarian Resource Group is giving away two $5,000 college scholarships to vegetarian high schoolers graduating in the spring of 2012. If you know a senior who lives and promotes the veg lifestyle, make sure he or she applies by Feb. 20.
• The Clash’s Paul Simonon was arrested earlier this year while working undercover as a vegetarian cook for Greenpeace. He might not have been a vegan pirate cook fighting whalers, but protesting against Artic oil offenders gets a thumbs-up too.
• Jane Brody wrote about vegans’ favorite vitamin in The New York Times: Vitamin B12 Deficiency Can Cause Symptoms That Mimic Aging.
• Arms dealer Viktor Bout, the closest thing to a real-life James Bond villain, is demanding vegan meals in jail.
• Last, I’m sad to say that Marti Kheel has died. I had the privilege of hearing the ecofeminist and the author of Nature Ethics speak a few years ago, and her message was inspiring. RIP, Marti.

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?

Tell me where you got those delicious vegan doughnuts!

I don’t watch much TV, but there’s always been a special place in my heart for shows that combine comedy and horror/fantasy. They take you places you’ve never gone before, and they’re a great escape from the monotony of daily life. I’ve also always loved cop shows; I like to understand why people do what they do and how they do it. Add to that a pro-veggie message, and I’m hooked. Which makes the new show Grimm a triple threat: horror-comedy, police procedural and veg-friendly vehicle all in one.

From the guys behind Angel and Buffy, Grimm is about Nick, a homicide detective in Portland—the first clue that this show is going to be pro plants—who’s just discovered that he’s a descendant of the Brothers Grimm. This means Nick can see the real monsters who live among us, and it’s his job to take them out before they get to him, and to us. Thankfully, in the midst of all these very bad creatures doing very bad things, there’s Eddie Monroe, a reformed Blutbad, or Big Bad Wolf, for whom children are no longer on the menu. Not only is Eddie laying off the kiddies, he’s gone completely meatless: He’s a vegetarian.

As if that weren’t enough, during episode 2, Nick’s fiancée comes home with a box of doughnuts—Voodoo Doughnuts, to be exact. Okay, I know, not all of Voodoo’s doughnuts are vegan, but I have a feeling that nod was meant for us. And I hope there’s going to be more of that as the show gains steam: Given how openly the creators discuss Eddie’s vegetarianism, I don’t think that’s just wishful thinking. And there are definitely more Portland-centric veggie plugs to be made.

That said, next time Nick shows up at Eddie’s door asking for help and Eddie invites him in for breakfast, I hope Nick asks for a bagel with vegan cream cheese. A girl can dream, can’t she?

Grimm is on NBC Friday nights at 9pm.

-In case Halloveegan isn’t enough to fill your Saturday plate, there’s also an all you can eat Vegan buffet! The brunch, presented by Pop-Up Vegan Brunch Cafe, celebrates Dia de los Muertos and ten percent of all sales will be donated to Animal Media Rescue & Education (ARME). Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Here’s the menu.

-Another day, another celeb opens a restaurant … not quite! The Hollywood Reporter reports that Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi (and Chrissie Hynde and Steve Bing) are opening a Vegan restaurant on Ventura Boulevard in the SFV, menu courtesy none other than Tal Ronnen. Guess we won’t have to drive to Vegas to eat Gardein anymore! Designer to the stars, Waldo Fernandez, will “create the space.”
UPDATE: According to EaterLA, the restaurant will open in January and serve Mediterranean foods.

-Vegans make for more TeeVee fodder. Anyone see this week’s episode of South Park? Can I call a Clam on this one, Guys? Pun intended.

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

• A screening of Forks Over Knives convinced Ozzy Osbourne to go vegan in an effort to stay healthy. Maybe he can take cooking classes with this guy.
• Same thing happened to Russell Brand after seeing the film. Meanwhile, over at Smith, students were in an uproar over rumors that the school was going completely vegetarian and locavore. Like that’s a bad thing?
• Famous veggie Paul McCartney released his first vegetarian cookbook this week, The Meat-Free Monday Cookbook. And on the other side of the Channel, the French government has said Non! to vegetarian meals in schools. What the foudre?
• Chrissie Hynde’s Akron restaurant, VegiTerranean, might be closing, but the singer is set to open up a new vegan eatery in LA with Ellen and Portia.
• Don’t throw meatballs at vegan actress Lea Michele if you don’t want to get kicked off the set of Glee. Well, unless they’re these.
• I don’t know about you, but I don’t get out to Jersey much. Which is why I’m thrilled the Cinnamon Snail Truck is heading to Manhattan and Brooklyn starting in mid-November.

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

Chef AJ wants you to stop eating junk! The chef and cooking instructor battled her own body, and the food she was putting in it, until illness finally forced her to take her health into her own hands. In addition to teaching Los Angelenos how to prepare healthy food, she puts out weekly recipe videos with Julieanna Hever, called The Chef and the Dietitian. Chef AJ took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to give me the skinny on her cookbook, Unprocessed.

Chef AJ, health-wise, you’ve had more than your fair share of challenges: You were overweight, then anorexic, then obese; you developed adult onset asthma; your spine was crushed in an accident and you were paralyzed and in a body cast for a year; you contracted a life-threatening lung and liver infection on your honeymoon; you suffered from panic disorder and agoraphobia and didn’t leave the house for over a year; you had several miscarriages, and the first pregnancy resulted in complications that required surgery; and you had several large, bleeding colon polyps. You were a hot mess! But you turned it all around by changing your diet. How difficult was it to go from having 32 oz. Coke Slurpees with eight pumps of vanilla for breakfast and 48 oz. Big Gulp Dr. Peppers for lunch to eating unprocessed, whole, plant-based foods?

While it was difficult initially, I’m quite sure that if I’d let the polyps progress into full-blown cancer, it would have been far more difficult. Also, I had help. I went to the Optimum Health Institute [in San Diego], where I was able to detox without having the pressure of being at work at the same time. So while I did go through some withdrawal, I was in an environment where I was actively learning about what foods caused disease and being nourished with the foods that could reverse the disease.

How did you find the Optimum Health Institute?

I had a magazine of discount vacations, and it was the cheapest place I could find to go ($875 for a whole week). I had no idea it was a healing center and that I would have to put wheatgrass up my butt!!

Sounds like fun!

You say you’d rather see people eat 90% vegan and 90% unprocessed than 100% vegan and 10% unprocessed. Living in New York, it’s easy to be a junk food vegan; there are so many restaurants, bakeries and other goodies at our fingertips. What do you think poses the biggest challenge for people, eating plant-based or eating unprocessed?

Let me first clarify that I’m also an ethical vegan and would prefer that people not even eat 10% of their calories from animal products. But from purely a health standpoint, one would be better off doing that if the other 90% of their diet was truly unprocessed. The problem with many vegans is that they’re just as addicted to processed foods in general, and sugar, oil and salt specifically, as carnivores are. I think it’s easier for people to eat plant-based than unprocessed. There are many foods that are vegan, and even organic, that aren’t health-promoting, like agave, coconut oil and all of the fake vegan meats and cheeses. Eating these fake and processed foods may earn you a place in animal heaven, but it doesn’t make you bulletproof against Western lifestyle diseases. I cannot tell you how many vegans I know who have cancer and diabetes from eating a VegJUNKtarian diet. Sure, these foods may be okay as transition foods and an occasional treat, but some vegans never transition and just eat crap!

Chef AJ’s Hail to the Kale Salad features a nutty dressing that makes even the most salad-averse gobble their greens. I used sunflower butter and seeds instead of almonds, and it was delish!

Your aunt’s mother Memé studied at the Cordon Bleu and made gourmet, whole-food meals for you while you lived with that part of your family; my mother shoved me in front of the TV with chicken TV dinners every night. For me, food wasn’t a joy; it had to be fast and convenient and filling, and that’s where my interest stopped. Do you think you would have made it to the other side if you hadn’t had experienced Memé’s cooking?

If I hadn’t experienced eating real food as a child, I would probably be like so many other people I know who eat only processed foods and animal products: fat, sick and nearly dead (which, by the way, is the name of a wonderful movie!).

You talk about addictions to hyper-palatable foods: sugar, fat and salt. Why are these foods so hard to kick if they’re so bad for us?

To really answer that question scientifically would take me an hour. (I actually do a presentation called “How to Avoid The Evil Trinity,” where I cover this in-depth.) But one can gain all of the understanding on why processed food, vegan or not, is addictive by reading the books The Pleasure Trap and The End of Overeating. In a nutshell, sugar, fat and salt work together to make food damn near irresistible. The perfect combination of sugar, fat and salt addicts most people’s brain chemistry, and the more sugar, fat and salt one eats, the more one craves. In addition, the more highly concentrated the calories, the more dopamine—a feel-good brain chemical—is released. People are stressed and looking for that hit of dopamine, which they get from eating processed food. Most people are just like rats pressing the bar for their next fix of something sweet, fatty or salty. They’re so addicted that even the thought of giving up these foods causes discomfort. If you look at some of the research done with rats, when given a choice of cocaine or sugar, 94% of the rats chose sugar!!! And once they were addicted and the sugar was withdrawn and healthy rat chow was given, all of the rats chose to starve themselves to death rather than eat the healthy food when they couldn’t get sugar. Does this sound like anyone you know?

I’ll take the Fifth on that one.

In your book, you say that Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life helped turn you around. What in particular did you take away from the book?

That our thoughts and words are powerful, and that what we think about we bring about—if we want to create health, we have to think healthy thoughts—and that there’s a “probable mental thought pattern” associated with all diseases.

Your father died from coronary artery disease, your mom suffered from dementia and heart failure, your grandmother died of colon cancer, your mom and other grandmother had bowel obstructions, and your uncle had 80% of his colon removed. But for many people, like you, a road map of what’s probably going to kill them often isn’t enough to convince them to make life-saving changes. You yourself had polyps that were so advanced they couldn’t be removed. If you hadn’t been so afraid of drugs and surgery, would you have made the changes you did, changes that ultimately sent your polyps packing, and within just six months?

No, I probably would have just had them surgically removed and gone on eating my disease-promoting diet. I have friends who’ve had cancer for the second time, and they still won’t change their diet. Doctors are given almost no training in nutrition in medical school, and people believe that diet has nothing to do with whether or not we get a disease. That is why books like The China Study and movies like Forks Over Knives are so great; they’re bringing this information to the masses. The information has been around a very long time. Even Hippocrates said, “Let food be thy medicine.”

The pineapple juice sweetness of AJ’s Sweet and Sour Tempeh is balanced by the coolness and crunch of the green peppers.

You recommend eating a diet that’s organic, raw and plant-based, and free of sugar, oil and salt. But that’s not easy when you’re on the go. How can busy people with stressful jobs working long hours eat well?

Well, here’s the thing: You have to make it a priority. And in my opinion, your health should be your number-one priority. Everyone has enough time to tweet and check their Facebook account and play Angry Birds; people always make time for what they truly value. So first you need to make it a priority. Then there are things you can do, like putting all of the ingredients in your blender for your green smoothie the night before or putting everything in the crock pot before going to work. But remember, if you’re stressed, you’re looking for that hit of dopamine you get from eating crap. You’re not going to get it from eating fruit and veggies.

You said something that really caught my attention, being the sugar addict that I am: Sugar inhibits the absorption of other nutrients. How so?

Again, I’m not a scientist, so I can’t explain the exact mechanism. But if you read Suicide by Sugar or Sugar Blues, these experts can tell you exactly how it works. Sugar, like oil and alcohol, is at best empty calories: It provides zero fiber and zero nutrients. And many experts will tell you that it feeds cancer. Disease can exist only if the body is in an acidic state or in a state of inflammation. And sugar, like all processed foods, is acidifying and causes inflammation in the body. It really is more like a drug than a food.

You quote Jack LaLanne as saying: “You wouldn’t wake up your dog in the morning and give him a cup of coffee, a doughnut and a cigarette, so why would you do that to yourself?” I’ve never been a smoker, but I could definitely go for the coffee and the doughnut. What do you have to get yourself going in the morning?

Because I’ve been sugar-, caffeine- and chocolate-free for so long, I no longer need stimulation—I wake up every morning and literally jump out of bed with boundless energy that lasts all day. I also need very little sleep. Most people have to medicate themselves with coffee in the morning to wake up and alcohol at night to calm down; I get all the energy I need from my green smoothies in the morning. And it’s sustained energy, not like the crash and burn you get from sugar and caffeine.

You say you eat lots of bananas and white potatoes, but from what I understand, they’re both high on the glycemic index, and highly caloric. Why are they staples for you?

I rarely eat potatoes; I prefer sweet potatoes. I like bananas because they’re great in smoothies, but really I eat all fruits and veggies. How can you say bananas are caloric at 300 calories a pound? And potatoes have 400 calories a pound. Sugar has 1, 800 calories a pound and oil 4,000 calories a pound!!! And we don’t just eat foods based on the glycemic index alone; the glycemic load is more important. If the glycemic index were a health indicator, then we should all be eating Häagen-Dazs ice cream instead of carrots because it’s lower on the glycemic index. And why not down a bottle of low-glycemic agave, which is the worst crap in the world—even worse than sugar!!!

AJ’s Hockey Pucks—dates, cashew butter (I’m allergic to almonds), cocoa powder, vanilla extract, dates—are rich, creamy and delicious, yet healthy. My consistency might be a little off—we had to eat ours with utensils—but there was nothing wrong with the flavor!

What do you think about eating a completely raw diet?

Unless one is eating and chewing fruits and veggies all day, a raw diet is difficult to maintain unless one starts eating processed raw crap like olive oil, coconut oil, agave or too many nuts and seeds. I think people should eat high raw, as many raw fruits and veggies as they possibly can, but there’s nothing wrong with eating some cooked foods, like lightly steamed veggies, beans, legumes and whole grains. There are micronutrients in some foods that actually become more bioavailable when cooked.

Most of your recipes can be prepped in minutes and cooked in less than 30—that’s music to my ears! I made your Hail to the Kale Salad, Sweet and Sour Tempeh, and Hockey Pucks, all of which thrilled everyone in my house, including my two vegan chef housemates! The biggest shocker was that my husband couldn’t eat the tempeh fast enough, and he typically hates tempeh. So in my eyes, you’re a genius! One question: Why no serving sizes in the book? It made me a little batty.

Actually, almost all of my recipes have seven or fewer easy-to-find ingredients and can be prepared in less than 30 minutes. I chose not to include serving sizes because I don’t know how much someone else eats. The beauty of an unprocessed, SOS-free diet is that unless you’re gorging on nuts and seeds, you can pretty much eat all you want; you can eat to satiation and satisfaction. Eat when hungry, stop when full. No weighing, measuring or calorie counting necessary! So how much is that for you? I don’t know. How can I dictate how much someone else can or should eat? It all depends on their activity level and how hungry they are!!!

When you put it like that it makes sense! Though when cooking for other people, serving sizes are helpful— (FYI, readers: The Tempeh and Kale dishes yielded about four servings each, and we ended up with 16 Hockey Pucks.)

What’s your Unprocessed 30-Day Challenge?

It’s a program I run in LA, where I live. Participants come to my home five Sunday nights in a row for meals and support. They pledge to eat unprocessed for 30 days, and they get daily e-mail support and weekly phone support. In this program, people have lost weight, lowered their cholesterol to within normal limits, gone off their statins and diabetes medications, refined their palates and lost tremendous amounts of weight. The “winner” of the challenge gets a front-row ticket to the annual event I produce called Healthy Taste of LA. This year, Dr. T. Colin Campbell is our keynote.

Support and competition—a little something to motivate everyone! Thanks for the chat, AJ, and for the healthy, delicious recipes!

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

Gettin’ Vegucated!

What are you doing Thursday night? Attending the glittering U.S. premiere of the new documentary VegUcated, right?

Vegucated is a feature-length documentary that follows three meat- and cheese-loving New Yorkers who agree to adopt a vegan diet for six weeks. After years of filming and working on this project, filmmaker Marisa Miller Wolfson is launching the film right here in her home town of New York with special guests and scrumptious food.

Says Marisa, “I promise more laughs than tears to people coming out to the premiere, and we’ll have some of the best eats that NYC chefs have to offer. Without the support of the awesome NYC veg community, we would have no film. I hope people come out to celebrate and see what they helped bring into the world!”

There’s a red carpet reception at 6:45 for folks with special tickets, film at 8, and after party till 11 with cast and crew. Tickets range from $15-$150. Details and ticket levels here.

When: Thursday, Oct. 13th
What: Red carpet reception at 6:45; film at 8:00; after party till 11:00
Where: SVA Theatre, 333 W. 23rd Street, btn 8 & 9 Aves
How much? $15-$150
More info.

Go Marisa! Congratulations. Let’s get Vegucated, New York!

“The Whale” is a wonderful documentary screening at Cinema Village now until September 29th. The directors, Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit, are attending question and answer sessions after screenings.

Amiably narrated by actor Ryan Reynolds, “The Whale” tells the story of Luna, a young orca who found himself abandoned in the remote coastal waters of British Columbia. In need of family, this intrepid two year-old killer whale adopted the people of a tiny town in Nootka Sound. He was pretty aggressive at first. To get attention, Luna would dance upside-down with his tail flapping in the air, he’d bump against the side of boats then present his nose for petting, eye-balling friends with open curiosity.

Mostly, the locals fell in love and warmly responded to Luna’s demands. People would seek him out to offer pets and adoration, and the occasional throw-the-floatie-thingy-while-Luna-tosses-it-back game. But the consequences of loving Luna soon stirred up conflict over what people felt was best for him. He’s a wild animal. Is human contact really good him? Should he stay isolated in the cove or be reunited with his family? To stop further socialization, the fish and wildlife service created a squad to patrol the cove and inform Luna’s would-be friends that if they touched him, they could be fined $100,000. Then, fish and wildlife came up with a scheme to (supposedly) return Luna to his family. The Native people launched a campaign to keep Luna in Nootka Sound. People took sides.

Who knew a little whale could stir up so much trouble in a sleepy fishing and logging town?

But Luna had his own ideas of what was best for him. When ignored, he made his needs known. Find out what happened when a lost little boy adopted a small town in this moving, funny story. You’ll be glad you did.

Cinema Village, 22 E. 12 St, corner of University Pl., 212-924-3364. Tickets are $11 and can be purchased online. Showtimes and tickets. Rated G. Film’s website: www.thewhalemovie.com.

Note for kids and sensitive souls: there are zero images of animal suffering or bloody violence in this film.

He wrote to tell us about his new website, NutritionFacts.org. Already preloaded with 288 videos excised from his Latest in Clinical Nutrition DVD series, starting on Monday, August 22nd, he’ll be adding a new video every day for at least one year. And he’s not taking weekends off. (Keep in mind that he’s doing this on top of his day job as Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at HSUS.)

Here’s the intro video for the project:

In addition to starting from a pro-animal baseline, Dr. Greger is unfailingly pro-science and pro-evidence–links to the original research cited accompany each video. He’ll undoubtably piss off many folks who are more faith-based in matters of medicine and nutrition, and I’m A-OK with that. I totally love it when Dr. Greger dispenses such truisms as “never believe anything you read in health food stores” (in a video about the harmfulness of kombucha) and dismisses homeopathy as useless. His “snake oil” category is totally great.

Now, Dr Greger also has lots of positive things to say, and it’s great when they’re about things I already like–say peanut butter or vinegar.

Putting well-indexed information on the internet is one of the best, most responsible things anyone can do in our day and age. This site sure beats the old format of hiding all this material away in DVDs. And whether you love tagclouds or hate ‘em, there’s no question that NutritionFacts.org’s is awe-inspiring. There’s a lot of stuff here, and there will be lots more.

I’m not much of a video guy myself–I’d prefer to read these as text, with relevant charts and figures included. But I know that a lot of folks do like videos, so, OK. For what it’s worth, most of the videos posted thus far seem to consist of Dr Greger narrating over images of the documents cited. So it seems pretty safe to listen without watching.

The site is totally noncommercial, funded by the Jesse & Julie Rasch Foundation, a Canadian “venture philanthropy” organization I’d never heard of before.

Dr Greger says he’ll “take research requests, respond to comments, and answer any questions anyone has.” My topic request? Cleanses. I’d love to hear his take on whether regimens like the Master Cleanse healthy, harmless, or harmful.

Anyways, go check out NutritionFacts.org. It’s awesome!

Sure, go with her if you must, but I can think of so many better ways…

Ellen DeGeneres (the brand, if not the woman) recently launched a Going Vegan with Ellen site, to acclaim from such varied vegan media outlets as Vegan.com and VegNews. Those folks may like it, but I don’t!

The site probably will help some people be vegan (or closer to vegan), and may in the ultimate balance save some animals. But it’s still a squandered opportunity when you think how much of an effect it could have if it wasn’t so terrible. Ellen’s got a big audience. Imagine how much better the world could be if she gave them a great website instead of this mess.

First problem, it seems to equate “going vegan” with adopting a vegan diet. If you can find any mention of non-dietary aspects of veganism on there, please let me know. You know–leather, ingredients in non-food products, avoiding products tested on animals (like, ahem, Cover Girl), etc.

And it’s a godawful website. The visual design is clunky and unbalanced. The interface is atrocious, breaking what little content the site has is into numerous pieces, requiring dozens of clicks to see information that would make more sense on one page. But, hey, clicks are what you sell ads against!

They manage to cram in some really intrusive ads, too, via tactics like putting them in place of slides in slideshows. And to crown all other sins, they use Tynt, the copy/paste jerks, and Kontera, the useless mouseover popup jerks. And I have a special prize for anyone who can find me someone who likes the fucking Meebo Bar as an end-user. Any visitor with the slightest bit of self respect will run away screaming before they get to any meaningful content.

It doesn’t seem like much of a site for fans of Ellen, either. I couldn’t find any content by Ellen, quoting Ellen, or directly relating to Ellen’s own experiences as a vegan. The Getting Started page would be a great place to hear from Ellen about how she got started on her vegan diet, or at least a few peppy quotes. Instead, we’re mired in a longish and vague chunk of text offering such expertly copyedited advice as “Go to your grocery store and load up on granola (read the labels to make sure they’re vegan) granola…” Sigh.

If Ellen’s goal is to make the maximum number of people go vegan, or even adopt a vegan diet, this site is a poor effort for someone with her resources. She would have done better to just make one page with links to already existing quality vegan websites. I wouldn’t pick on an individual or a mom & pop site for the design issues, but AOL and/or Time Warner know exactly what they’re doing. And I think they’re jerks for it. And good luck finding the infernal thing via Ellen’s main site.

Also, this is the most useless recipe ever. (And I promise I’m not just saying that because it’s attributed to Kathy Freston.)

If you did watch it, you’re in very good, anonymous company; after seeing the video, an MFA supporter is matching donations to the org up to $2,500 at Vegan Drinks this Thursday, April 28. Which is so great, because who doesn’t love MFA? I mean, really, is there anyone? Because I will find them, and peel their eyes open and force them to watch this video because it is what’s UP.

Oh, and disclaimer before I post the video: I found it super disturbing. To be totally up-front, actually, I could only stand about 25 seconds, so I’m posting it below, but BE WARNED, this will make you wonder why, why, why there isn’t a cow on her hind legs stabbing farmers with a pitchfork and yelling, YOU LIKE THAT, YOU SICK SON OF BITCH? THAT’S WHAT YOU DID TO MY BABY, and recording that, and posting it on YouTube to put the fear of death in all their twisted farmer friends.

But do watch. If nothing else, it’ll make you want to empty your wallet at Vegan Drinks, leaving yourself only enough moola to buy Matt Rice, MFA’s Director of Operations, and Eddie Garza, their New York Campaign Coordinator, a very tall beer.

Actual image from Glenn Beck’s website.

I always like reading about vegan celebrities. Don’t judge. I mean, they have so much influence on people and they can promote veganism, which is just kind of awesome. Who doesn’t like a cool vegan celebrity? Alec Baldwin, Moby, Steve-O, Glenn Beck… Wait. What!? I know that’s what you’re thinking. But yeah, apparently Glenn Beck is one of us now.

I’ll admit, it was tough for me to watch the video Vegetarian Star posted of Beck talking about his veganism, but I wanted to know what he had to say. I mean, maybe I’m wrong about him. Maybe he’s actually a compassionate human being with political views just a tad different than mine. Well, I watched and I listened and I can say this: he’s not. He bitches about drinking wheatgrass and that it’s “not awful, it’s apocalyptic.” “I’m eating crap I don’t even know…” “Last night I had spaghetti and meatballs and there’s no meat! […] How are you getting a meatball?” He’s going vegan, gluten-free and sugar-free for health reasons. Yeah, it’s tough. But I’m sure he has people who cook for him, and they probably make it really tasty for him. Stop bitching, Glenn! Get over it.

I doubt that Beck even considered veganism when he called out celebrity environmentalists such as Al Gore and George Clooney for eating meat back in 2007. “I mean, I like to eat a nice pink-in-the-middle filet stuffed with ham, topped with chicken while wearing a full leather bodysuit!” Yeah, doesn’t sound too compassionate to me.

Anyway, this got me thinking. Aren’t vegans supposed to be all cool and liberal and progressive? I know all of my vegan friends are. But I guess I was wrong. Glenn Beck is actually in good company.

Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes magazine and Republican came out as “(almost) vegan” in HuffPo about a year ago.

Matthew Scully has written countless speeches for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Sarah Palin. But he’s also written Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. And he’s vegan. How does that work? How can someone be vegan but at the same time be anti-abortion and pro-war? I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Billionnaire vegan Las Vegan casino devleoper Steven Wynn may be a registered Democrat, but he’s loudly criticized the Obama administration for its managing of the federal stimulus and health care.

I bet most of us have been asked “why do you care about animals more than about humans?” Well, I can only speak for myself here, but I care about humans just as much as I care about other animals. The difference for me, though, is that other animals don’t have a voice. And that’s is why I go to protests: to speak for the animals and to give them a voice. And I’ll go to pro-choice protests and anti-war protests, too. It all goes hand in hand. It’s not about choosing animals over humans; it’s about compassion for other beings, humans and animals equally.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about anyone who switches over to a vegan diet. But this won’t change how I feel about Glenn Beck. How about you?

Not only do we get to ogle James Franco, we get to watch lab apes smash their vivisectionist captors. Good times. (I hope they get the computer animated apes looking a little more plausible, though … I find the CGI in this preview pretty unimpressive.)

Twitter’s Biz Stone seems like a good guy, and I have certainly heard nice things about Farm Sanctuary’s Gene Bauer, but when your other selling points are sharing recipes in 140 characters or less, shots of raw kale and dry black lentils, “veganist” Kathy Freston (I guess I’m glad she came up with a word for being pro-vegan but too lazy to be vegan), and glitter art … well, the glitter art starts to sound like pretty darn great television.

And who wants to wager on the likelihood that non-food related aspects of veganism will be discussed? I expect to hear a lot about weight-loss and nothing about leather.

Well, all you old-fashioned people who pay for TV channels, it’s your turn to laugh at us post-cable kids! Animal Planet has ordered 12 episodes of Sweet Avenger a “docusoap” (as The Hollywood Reporter puts it) featuring the fabulous wizard behind Vegan Treats, Danielle Konya.

There’s a pretty nice quote in the afore-linked Reporter piece:

“Animal Planet made a big brand statement with Whale Wars,” said Marjorie Kaplan, president and general manager of Animal Planet. “Now with Sweet Avenger, muscular conservation has a deliciously different new face.”

Right on! Veganism on mainstream TV is too often represented by bland apologetic almost-vegans, crazy people, or boring people. Danielle is none of these. Congrats to Danielle and to Animal Planet. I hope the show is great and is a success.

Also I wish Vegan Treats would open a storefront in NYC already.

Do these delightful treats have what it takes to win Cupcake Wars? (Photo credit: Sticky Fingers Bakery)

If you have the Food Network in your favorites list, as so many of us guilty vegans do, tune in tonight at 9PM EST to see Jenny Webb and Doron Petersan of D.C.’s all-vegan Sticky Fingers Bakery competing against three other non-vegan bakeries in a icing-topped pastry battle to the death on Cupcake Wars! According to the Cupcake Wars website, “Each week on Cupcake Wars, four of the country’s top cupcake bakers face off in three elimination challenges until only one decorator remains. The sweet prize: $10,000 and the opportunity to showcase their cupcakes at the winning gig.”

Vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli took home the prize for her appearance on Cupcake Wars last year and has since been featured on Fran Drescher’s daytime talk show as well as in the New York Times. You can watch a promotional video for her episode on her website to get yourself pumped up for tonight’s competition. Will Sticky Fingers take home another crown for the vegan contingent?

If you’re in the D.C. area, Breadsoda is having a viewing party from 8-10pm tonight (it’s probably too late to hop on the Fung Wah bus from NYC by now) with drink and food specials. You can also follow @stickyfingersdc on Twitter for the opportunity to win prizes during tonight’s broadcast. It’s vegan dessert madness, I tell you! And I, for one, will not be complaining when the cupcake revolution takes hold.

On Feb. 8, I went to the Tribeca Grand for the first screening of Chow Down, a documentary that shows the turnaround that two men with heart disease achieved by switching to a plant-based diet. (By turnaround I mean that they didn’t die.) If you’re looking for an outreach tool that comes from a health perspective, this is it. Doctors like Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., Neal Barnard and Joel Fuhrman, as well as T. Colin Campbell, lay the facts out on the table, including the discovery that nutrition controls the expression of certain genes, including those that govern disease. The movie also addresses the government’s complicity in Americans’ nutrition-poor diet and the hold big-money interests like the meat and dairy industries have over what we’re told we should eat.

The editing was a little choppy in places—for example, there were supposed to be three participants, but the third, a woman, dropped out, and no other explanation was given except that she just couldn’t do it right then. But overall the movie delivered its message with simplicity, humor and truth.

Because it doesn’t address the cruelty issue, it was followed by a screening of Glass Walls, narrated by Paul McCartney. It was at this point that a lot of people left the room, while the rest of us covered our eyes and tried to plug up our ears. Make no mistake: This seven-minute film pulls no punches and is extremely explicit about what happens to the animals we use for food. I’d recommend this as an outreach tool, but most vegans aren’t able to sit through it, so I can’t imagine any guilty omnivores sticking it out.

The panel afterward included vegan (and one nonvegan) authors, activists and foodies: Gene Baur, Victoria Moran, Bart Potenza, Simone Reyes, Michael Parrish Dudell, Alex Jamieson and Annemarie Colbin. Responses to audience questions ranged from impassioned to no-holds-barred. Gene responded to one query in a very diplomatic yet matter-of-fact way: When he was asked that age-old question—What about humane meat and eggs?—he told it like it is: At the end of the day, no matter how much respect the farmer says he has for his animals, he slaughters them, it’s a violent and tragic end, and he does it simply because he makes money from it. The end.

The only cringe-worthy moments of the evening (well, aside from the screening of Glass Walls) were provided by Colbin, who seemed to be pushing to include meat in our diet and actually uttered the confounding statement I thought only ignorant omnis sometimes pulled out of their back pocket: Plants have a consciousness too, so if you care about them, being vegan isn’t the answer. What all of these people forget is that the majority of the grain we grow is used to feed the animals we slaughter for meat, rather than feeding the many, many hungry people in this country.

For the panel following the Feb. 19 screening, two new speakers have been added: Julie Grayer and Gage Johnston, the producers and directors of the film. And if it’s organized like last time, there will be drink tickets available for the cocktail hour in the lobby bar following the Q&A, at which point you can ask any questions and make any comments there wasn’t enough time for during the panel.

If you’d like to attend the screening, RSVP here—but do it quickly, because it’s a small screening room, and the last showing had a waiting list four times over. If you can’t get in this time, you can always subscribe to the mailing list. And if you do go, let us know what you think in the comments!

Are you a married veggie with carnivorous in-laws? Do you butt heads over family dinners and holidays? Then a production company in NYC is looking for you!

A new docu-series is coming to cable, and the producers are seeking veg*n couples whose in-laws drive them nuts: “We are looking for dynamic, animated and outgoing couples who want to strengthen their relationship with their in-laws and learn about each other’s quirks and differences.”

If your family dynamic is dysfunctional enough to be interesting, not only might you be the next big reality-TV star, you’ll get $7,000 for your trouble. It’s a win-win!

For more information or to throw your plant-based hat in the ring, call Pamela Hartman at 212-564-2607 x2391, or email the casting company.

Good luck, and let us know when to watch for your debut!

Are you a great cook? Can you conceptualize a fantastic evening, from lighting to table setting to music? If so, Bravo wants you! The network is searching for contestants for Rocco’s Dinner Party, where chefs, self-taught or otherwise, will plan and execute an entire evening for chef Rocco DiSpirito and his friends.

A competitive food show isn’t exactly new news, but I like the dinner party angle. And during each episode, four chefs will complete tasks like creating a signature appetizer and a full menu, and by the end two will duke it out for the cash prize.

Filming takes place in NYC in January and February, so get your application in now! And let us know how far along you get. This is a chance to show a huge audience that being vegan doesn’t mean the end of good food, fun or frolic. So get out there and win this thing!

Time was, if you were a foodie and wanted to see food being prepared by someone other than yourself, you’d have to go online or wait for a live version of a TV show to take place at a venue near you. Because if Food Network stars even heard the word “vegan,” they’d run from you. But supposedly, tomorrow night at 9pm, there will finally be something on the Cooking Channel for the rest of us: The Veg Edge.

Now, I say supposedly because when’s the last time a vegan cooking show actually aired on a food-centric channel? Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but the show’s link isn’t working, and that makes me a little nervous. That said, the episode description intrigues: “The Veg Edge journeys the country unearthing a new breed of vegetarians. From a punk rock vegan in L.A. to vegetable-loving firemen deep in the heart of Texas to a kickboxing chef who serves up meatless Mondays at his high-end NYC restaurant.” And some of the recipes sound amazing—Chocolate Mousse Served in Edible Chocolate Dessert Cups With Raspberry Sauce, anyone?—while others come from decidedly familiar sources. Speaking of which, anyone know who the other featured vegheads will be?

If you forget to set your DVR—or if for some reason the show doesn’t air…—there’s something new online, too. Howard Stern sidekick Robin Quivers just launched her own vegan cooking show, Vegucating Robin, where chef Gavan Murphy teaches her how to incorporate variety into her diet.

But back to the Edge: Now that one vegan show has slipped through the Cooking Channel cracks, will an avalanche of them follow, or is this a one-shot deal? A vegan can hope!