Dear readers, please don’t put this kind of coconut milk in your cereal.

So the New York Times’s “Well” blogger Tara Parker-Pope and her daughter were inspired by Bill Clinton’s “vegan diet” to “go vegan”, and she wrote an article about it called “How to Go Vegan”. She doesn’t say why they are “going vegan”, which is more than a little strange. Based on the post, my best guess is they did it because they think Bill Clinton is cool and they want to be just like him.

Of course, Bill Clinton doesn’t actually follow a vegan diet (he admits as much), and I don’t think anyone’s ever claimed he avoids animal exploitation in non-dietary contexts.

To state that “going vegan” means simply following a vegan diet is to pretty much miss the point of veganism. Is Parker-Pope checking all her personal-care products to make sure they don’t contain animal ingredients? Is she getting bent out of shape by how hard it is to find lip balm without beeswax or lanolin? Is she agonizing over the flu vaccine being incubated in fertilized battery chicken eggs? Is she newly concerned with how to keep dry and warm all winter without leather, wool, or down? Doesn’t sound like it. But that’s what vegans do. And we do it for reasons other than celebrity worship, and for reasons beyond our own personal physical health. We do it for the sake of the animals we’re not exploiting.

So, OK, with all that out of the way, is this post a decent primer on switching to a vegan diet? Sort of.

On the positive side, there are some solid quotes from Susan Voisin of FatFree Vegan Kitchen and Chloe Coscarelli. Good for them. Parker-Pope should have just interviewed them and stopped at that. Cause the rest is often misleading, and at best just crappy journalism.

Her major sources include “numerous vegan chefs and diners” and “many vegans”. She rolls out head-scratchers like “vegan pancakes are made with a tablespoon of baking powder instead of eggs” (pretty much all plain pancakes have baking powder; you’re still gonna need an egg substitute). She seems to think canned coconut milk is another wacko vegans-only dairy-milk substitute along the lines of soy, nut, hemp, rice, or rice milk. Anyone who confuses canned coconut milk with a dairy-milk substitute shouldn’t be allowed to grocery shop for themselves, let alone breezily mention it in the New York Times.

There’s a defeatist sense throughout that vegan eating is somehow weird and special, requiring special substitutes and weird foods no non-vegan would eat. God forbid you eat nutritional yeast or soy milk if you’re not vegan! And god forbid you try to eat vegan without buying dairy substitutes! Most of what vegans eat is the same food everybody else eats, but Parker-Pope can’t see that forest for the specialty-shopping trees.

She also doesn’t mention any of the social aspects of switching to a vegan diet. If you shop and cook every meal for yourself, great. Most of us don’t. We share meals with friends and family; or even worse, coworkers, fellow churchgoers, PTA members, etc. She doesn’t talk about how to eat at highway reststops. She doesn’t talk about how to order at restaurants. She essentially limits “going vegan” to shopping at Whole Foods.

It’s a shame, all this. I love that the New York Times wants to publish a short friendly guide on “How to Go Vegan”. But I’m pretty disappointed that this is the best they could come up with.

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.

Pamela Anderson recently attended a Vivienne Westwood show in London—in a meat market. And she’s been criticized for modeling for Westwood because the designer uses leather (though thankfully she dropped the fur).

So does this make Pam a pariah? Or is attending vegan events only preaching to the choir, missing an opportunity to possibly educate and ignoring the fact that, like it or not, we’re all part of the larger world?

I work at a fashion magazine, and before that I worked for a foodie publication (I barely survived the barbecue issue). I also help take care of my 89-year-old father, which includes ordering his groceries. He’s unabashedly not vegan, and that’s never going to change. Does that make me a sellout too?

A proto of ribs with the rib-bones rubbed out, as highlighted by QuarryGirl.

My SuperVegan colleague Samantha Cohen is ready to forgive and move on, and whistleblower QuarryGirl is giving them a second chance, but VegNews‘s recent apology over the non-vegan photos kerfuffle just makes them look worse in my eyes.

The only problem the letter acknowledges is the one QuarryGirl made it impossible for them to ignore or deny–that they used photos of non-vegan food to illustrate vegan food in a vegan magazine. (Aside: This is the same QuarryGirl who won VegNews‘s Scandal Breaker of the Year award in 2009, for outing other folks lying about what was vegan. She deserves to win it again this year! But of course VegNews awards are for ad-hoc whatever-they-feel-like-promoting achievements, rather than consistent categories of achievement like the Nobels, Oscars, or Pulitzers.)

I’m glad to see that this second response uses apologetic language, and is signed by actual people (rather than the amorphous “VegNews Team” who signed their first response), publishers Joseph Connelly and Colleen Holland, managing editor Elizabeth Castoria, and art director Sutton Long. I’m also pleased by the active, positive commitment to “build and host a vegan photo bank to assure the availability of vegan stock images.” That’s awesome! If done well, this will be a great resource for photographers and all publishers (both print and online).

But let’s pick apart the other commitments:

“We assure you that we will never again use non-vegan photographs in VegNews” and “All stock images used in the magazine and website will be vegan. We will make sure so that you can be sure.” This is meaningless. What the hell is a “vegan photograph,” aside from one that isn’t on gelatin film? Does this mean all their photographers will be vegan and they will never run a picture of a non-vegan animal (human or otherwise) or animal product? Of course not. It means absolutely nothing.

“Recipes in VegNews will be represented only by custom vegan photography. Count on it.” Good. I think it’s safe to assume here that “vegan photography” means photographs of vegan food, kitchen tools, and serving apparatuses. But note that they’re still not saying you’ll get a picture of the dish the recipe is for!

And now for the most important issues:

This new letter does not acknowledge their ongoing efforts to cover up the situation. The deleted comments. The claims by former VegNews staffers that they were not, in fact, given a say in whether photos of non-vegan food were used to represent vegan food.

Nor does it address these other shortcomings of the initial response:

• pretending that using photos of non-vegan food to represent vegan food is a non-issue to a vegan readership
• stating that the use of such images is unavoidable from a practical perspective
• bragging about their high readership while simultaneously bemoaning their lack of money
• bragging about succeeding in an industry stacked against them while simultaneously blaming their screw-ups on a need to hew to the industry standard
• the editors’ and publishers’ failure to sign the letter by name, instead passing it off as a collective response

This new letter is a little bit of apology and a whole lot of half-assed avoidance. They’re still dodging acknowledgement, let alone responsibility, for their biggest ethical gaffes. The first response only served to dig a deeper hole than Quarrygirl had already tossed them in, and now they’ve completely squandered the moment in the spotlight the scandal afforded them (seriously, when next do you think VegNews will land mainstream attention from such sources as the New York Times, the Oregonian, the Washington Post, and NPR?).

Does it matter? I don’t know. I suspect that people who care about the issues I’ve highlighted here don’t read VegNews anyway. Like Erik Marcus (who recently resigned from their advisory board), I consider VegNews a fluffy lifestyle magazine which caters to the lowest-common denominator. And I stand by my comment last week that “VegNews is correctly gauging their readership in assuming that a shiny, well-styled picture is preferable to an accurate one.” Sure, over the years, an article or two has been interesting to me, and I appreciate that VegNews has been helpful and enjoyable to many vegans and aspiring vegans, but I’ve never been a regular reader. (Another aside: I’d read them more if they posted their content on the web; more importantly, this would both spread the word further and save paper and shipping … but at this rate I may as well wish for better content, too!)

So you could argue that what I think of VegNews is about as important as what I think of People or, heck, Field and Stream. It’s not a magazine written for me to read. But VegNews matters to all vegans, at least in the U.S., even those of us who don’t really read it. Their distribution, branding, and market-penetration is impressive and laudable, as are their production standards (just not what they sacrifice in service to those production standards). It’s because of the magazine’s role as the preeminent vegan press organ that so many vegans with their heads otherwise screwed on straight are ready to forgive and move on, or assert that nothing bad happened in the first place. When VegNews looks bad, we all look bad; we don’t want to look bad, so it’s tempting to act like VegNews is doing the right thing.

Sorry, but they’re not. I don’t want VegNews to shrivel up and die, nor am I hoping for any self-flagellation on their part. But I do find their attempt at apology inconsiderate and patronizing. They have yet to take full responsibility for their ethical and editorial errors, or to make a real commitment to not fucking up like this in the future. Ultimately, this is the responsibility of VegNews publishers Joseph Connelly and Colleen Holland (who I’ve met and enjoyed spending time with!). They can and should do better than this.

Update: Erik Marcus’s post-mortem went up right around the same time I put my post up. It’s well worth reading.

Update 2: Added the NPR link.

April 18, 2011

Dear VegNews Community,

We screwed up.

With regard to our use of symbolic imagery in VegNews, our readers got it right. We wholeheartedly apologize. We assure you that we will never again use non-vegan photographs in VegNews.

Here’s our commitment to you:

• Recipes in VegNews will be represented only by custom vegan photography.
Count on it.

• All stock images used in the magazine and website will be vegan. We will make sure so that you can be sure.

• VegNews will build and host a vegan photo bank to assure the availability of vegan stock images. Look for details in the coming days.

We thank everyone for the invaluable feedback on this critical issue. We exist only to serve you and the vegan cause, and are grateful that you care so passionately about our work.

The VegNews team is committed to restoring the trust we have earned for eleven years.

Together, let’s build a compassionate future.

With gratitude,
Joseph Connelly, Publisher
Colleen Holland, Associate Publisher
Sutton Long, Art Director
Elizabeth Castoria, Managing Editor

I grabbed this from VegNews, who may have gotten it from a stock photo site, and it might not be vegan. Just putting it all out there.

Guys. Didya hear? VegNews has been using stock photos of non-vegan food on their site and in their magazine as if they were vegan photos snapped by the mag’s staffers, QuarryGirl pointed out yesterday. Someone, start a riot! No, wait. Actually, before you cancel your subscription and torch their offices, let’s think about this.

Let me start by saying that if you get their newsletter, read their magazine, or visit their website, you have to know that these are stock photos. Case in point, yesterday’s newsletter recipe for Vegan Peanut Sauce with Spinach & Tomatoes includes this photo of peanuts next to a jar of peanut butter that is so obviously not the recipe. (Side-ish note: I’ve always been a little frustrated by their recipe photos for this reason: I have no clue what this thing is supposed to look like when it’s done because they sent me this ridiculously untelling stock photo.)

And if you know they’re using stock photos and you gave it any thought, you’d probably conclude that these can’t all be vegan stock photos. I mean, when was the last time you bumped into a vegan stock photo site? If you have, please tell me, because I might like to use it.

Then, you little detective, you, maybe you flip through your other magazines because, hey, VegNews can’t be the only publication that uses stock photos, and there, more stock photos. As Erik Marcus points out on Vegan.com, pretty much every magazine uses stock photos here and there as a matter of practicality.

Thing is, VegNews doesn’t say, anywhere, ever, that they’re using stock photos, and yet we have to assume they wanted us to think this was vegan food, in some cases, that they photographed. Which makes you feel a little deceived, doesn’t it? It wasn’t just one time, either; as bloggers I think we’ve all made the mistake of forgetting to credit someone’s Flickr photo, YouTube video, or whatever, and then one of your co-bloggers gently reminds you and you fix it and you try not to do it again. But VN has done this repeatedly. And as QuarryGirl commenter kristin, who says she was a short-time copy editor at VN, notes, she brought the meaty photo problem to their attention when she worked there, and they ignored it.

So you have two problems: that VN used stock photos in a misleading way, and that said photos depict non-vegan products. And then a third, worse problem: they seem to be covering it up. If they were fine with letting their readers know that many, many of their images come from the internet and not a staffer’s camera, they’d credit the source of each image they used. And now, as commenters on their website are pointing out that their magazine photos are actually of dead animals, VN is, uh, deleting their comments. And THEN they issue this response, which doesn’t address that whole lying and deception thing. Why?

It’s too nice outside for me to sit around guessing, so let’s just move forward. What should we expect from VegNews today? I think VN needs to:

• Make a statement on their front page about their use of stock photos: What was their policy on image use and content up to now?
• Tell us, why are they deleting comments?
• Promise to credit all images they use on their site in the future and clearly explain their policy going forward.
• Use only real, first-hand photos for recipes. Recipes should come alongside a photo of the process or finished food, not a stock photo.
• And while they’re getting their act together, why not also put out a call for photographers? I’m sure some aspiring vegan food photographer would love to snap shots for them on a regular basis, am I right, you guys? Somebody?

But I don’t think we can expect them to take their site down and remove every stock photo they’ve used, as Marcus suggests, nor should we give back our VegNews awards or unsubscribe from their magazine, as QuarryGirl has done (unless we bought the magazine strictly for its awesomely generic photography).

Like many of you guys, I’ve been enjoying VN for years, and, actually, least of all for the recipes. I find many of the stories fascinating, love the vegan jobs section, get pumped for awards season, learn about vegan products I hadn’t known of, and am glad there’s a vegan magazine out there.

Let’s help our cause and our friends at VegNews by assuming they mean no harm and will change, or at least make transparent, their policies on photography. And let’s direct them to some awesome vegan photographers — I know you’re out there!

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.

I am partial to playing dress up in real life. Looking good makes me feel good. Dan Mims is all about looking good, feeling good and keeping things on the cruelty-free tip. I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with Dan that didn’t dip into fashion; it seems only natural for me to talk shop with the dapper vegan dude on his new venture The Ethical Man.

Who is Dan Mims and what is The Ethical Man?
On a fundamental level, I don’t know who I am and suspect I never will. As a result, I don’t spend any time thinking about it. I’m much more comfortable thinking about what I am — an anti-capitalist entrepreneur; a classically trained renegade philosopher; a sensitive, musically responsive pounder of drums; an analytical romantic. I also know what I want to be: good. Really, morally good. Not in-my-own-head good, or the-Bible-says-so good, or the-electorate-thinks-I’m-good; genuinely good. And I want that assessment to stand up to the harsh scrutiny of properly applied formal logic and evidential considerations.

The Ethical Man is a store and a blog for men. It helps men be and look their best by offering well-styled vegan items and thoughtful personal presentation tips in a single place. This saves a man time and improves his personal life, and I really do care about that. But, ultimately — this is what I really really care about — it improves the world. The world doesn’t just need good men; it needs influential good men, and like it or not, the way a man presents himself has a profound effect on his ability to influence others. By convincing vegan or vegan-friendly men to embrace or refine their personal style and giving them the tools and advice they need to do it, The Ethical Man is creating social power for good men. To me, that’s the most important upshot of the project.

I had always considered myself an environmentalist and an animal lover. (I was the guy who would capture and release insects to protect them from blood-thirsty classmates and all that.) Growing up, we took care of a dog and a cat who obviously had personalities and interests of their own. But then we would eat 7 or 8 pounds of cow for dinner. I just didn’t make any of the connections. When I was growing up, even in fairly liberal Connecticut, nobody around me talked about veganism. Nobody. Not even in a negative way. When my twin brother went vegetarian in college, that was the first time that a plant-based lifestyle wasn’t just a thoughtless, passing reference in my life — like on The Simpsons or something. My brother’s initiative forced me to confront my own behavior, and pretty soon I realized that going vegan was inevitable. After going vegetarian for about a year, I forced myself to watch several videos of factory farming, and that’s what did it. Vegan for life. And little did I expect what would happen — I felt physically and mentally better, I ate more healthfully, and my palate expanded enormously to all kinds of foods I hadn’t known about. The vast majority of real, unprocessed food across the world is vegan — so when people say they’re a “foodie” in order to justify eating animal body parts and fluids, that’s just self-deception. I don’t know anyone who loves food more than the vegan community. In any case, saying the switch to veganism was “life-changing” doesn’t begin to describe it, especially not for the animals that have been spared.

What kinds of things are you looking to carry at the Ethical Man store? Other than the obvious (vegan) is there a specific criteria?
Our curatorial process is guided by a few principles. Of course, everything has to be vegan. Beyond that, we’re really looking for items that are either extremely stylish or extremely functional. And there’s a special place in our hearts for items that achieve both. Examples include a belt with edge that also works with a classic suit, or a wallet that’s thin enough not to bulge out unattractively. In general, we gravitate to items that at least partially retain classic design elements — items that look great now but have longevity too. At the same time, we have a soft spot for detail items that tastefully push boundaries — for example, the meaningful and quietly provocative printed bow ties we offer.

One of the things I want people to know is that The Ethical Man store doesn’t operate like a typical store in at least two key ways, which are probably two sides of the same coin. First, our inventory is and will always be relatively small and carefully curated. I love style, but I don’t necessarily enjoy shopping. I think most men (at least) would agree that it’s a waste of time to sift through hundreds of items in search of a few gems that might not even be there. Faced with that prospect, we often give up, or we settle for something that isn’t really all that great. But TEM only features gems. In practice, this entails that our offering list is going to be pretty small — the cream of the crop. And I think we’re unique in that regard. TEM was founded in part as a response to the fact that nobody was offering a concise, curated shopping experience for vegan and vegan-friendly men, which is what most men really want, I think. Second, TEM doesn’t feature inventory simply because we think it will sell well. We select our items because we think they’re amazing. Being featured in our store is a genuine endorsement of the item itself, which is also why we take the time to write thorough descriptions and explanations. We truly love what we’re selling, and we’re hopeful that that’s enough to convince people that they’ll love it too. No hard or annoying sales pitch. Just shared passion. We’re not in this primarily to make money, that’s for sure.

Speaking of which, we also assess items to make sure they’re worth the price we’d be asking. Offering value to customers is really important to us, and we would never abuse that trust. At the same time, if something is expensive and we’re selling it anyway, that should signal to everyone that the item is that incredible.

It all sums up into an angular, fitted look with plenty of interesting details. Boldly buttoned-up, you might say.

Quick Fire Questions:

Your ideal outfit
Boxer briefs by Uniqlo; charcoal/beige/cream horizontal striped socks by TopMan; midnight blue T-001 tapered jeans by Uniqlo; brown belt by Truth; cream/maroon checkered dress shirt by Biltornade; maroon skinny tie by Jaan J. (available at TEM); navy blue cardigan by American Apparel; a pair of brown prototype men’s shoes from olsenHaus; a faux leather strap watch by Swiss Army; and The Pea medium-length pea coat by Vaute Couture (available at TEM). All vegan, naturally.

Your favorite piece of clothing
Not a fair question! It’s a toss-up, but I do particularly like a cotton baby blue cardigan I got a couple years ago from Uniqlo. It somehow manages to be both disarming and manly.

Best Vegan shoe?
I think more than anything else, vegan men’s shoes is a problem area. Ironically, aside from shoes bought at Payless, most of the shoes I’ve tried have fallen apart on me. I think they’re getting better, though. I know olsenHaus is considering a men’s line, and I trust Elizabeth [Olsen] to make good stuff. Right now, in terms of what’s available on the market, NoHarm is probably the best. I really like their slip-on ankle boot. But their stuff is expensive, and at this point I’ve only tried things on — never owned. So I don’t know how they wear over time. (FYI, one of the keys to making your shoes last is to have several active pairs at a time. That way you aren’t wearing any single pair day in, day out. Since wear-and-tear compounds exponentially the more frequently you wear a pair of shoes, having at least three pairs to circulate in and out extends the life of each by quite a bit.)

Favorite vegan hair product, soap, deodorant, lotion and toothpaste.
Hair Product: David Babaii for Wildaid Sculpting Clay. Soap: St. Ives “Energizing Citrus” body wash and Method “Sweet Water” hand soap. Deoderant: Tom’s of Maine “Crystal Confidence.” Lotion: N/A. Toothpaste: Tom’s of Maine “Natural” toothpaste.

For the ladies: Is Dan Mims single?
Single and looking for a great woman

First Large Photo (after jump) by Jennifer Simmons
Small header photo and 3rd Photo by Jasmine Wilson

There are plenty of wrong-headed, lazy, and misinformative guides to veganism on the web. And for most, the best thing to do is ignore them. But when a major media player produces one, it’s worth calling them out on it. Hundreds (thousands?) of people are showering positive attention on this week’s “The Men’s Journal Guide to Going Vegan.” But y’know what? It’s pretty terrible.

The primary offense is that it treats veganism as a purely dietary concern. There’s absolutely no mention of giving up animal products in clothing and household goods. It’s not like this is a minor thing. Giving up leather is harder than giving up meat for most people. And there’s zero discussion of ethics. Without a firm ethical basis, why the hell would anyone go vegan?

But then it’s flat-out wrong about many of the dietary issues. Here’s some, just for fun:

“Eggs and milk are also common ingredients in pastas and bread. Nearly all commercial baked goods have an ingredient that’s not vegan, so it’s usually best to steer clear.” Uh, what? Of course you have to read ingredients, but it’s not at all hard to find vegan baked goods and pasta.

“Hemp or rice milk: better than soymilk, which is heavily processed.” Huh? I mean, you’d have to go brand-by-brand, but plenty of hemp milk is more processed than some soy milk. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with “processing.” What does this have to do with going vegan, anyway?

“Almond butter: This is your peanut butter substitute.” WTF?! Peanuts are vegan, folks. Trust me on this one.

“Chia seeds: This new vegan fad food is the offspring of those claymate Chia Pet sproutings.” Well, you heard it there first, I guess. The rest of us are still talking about Daiya.

The tagline brags “all you need to know at the grocery store and in the kitchen,” but they seem to forget all about eating restaurant food, which is the really challenging thing.

They describe vegetables and fruit as “your new meat, not in terms of protein, but in terms of the real centerpiece of your daily meals and snacks. So go to town.” It seems like vegan to them may mean someone who eats a lot of fresh produce? Another choice sentence: “Your entire body will feel lighter, as the meat built up in your gut is literally forced out by the deluge of fiber from all the vegetables.” Now, I love fresh vegetables, and maybe you do too, but I know of more than a few french-fry-and-cupcake vegans out there, not to mention plenty of rice-and-beans vegans.

The target reader seems to be someone who lives strictly on bacon and never lets a vegetable pass their lips. Looking at the rest of Men’s Journal‘s Food & Drink features, maybe that’s not so far off. Indeed, the magazine is not doing anything to back up anyone’s conversion to veganism–”you go right ahead and try that vegan food heathnut thing for three weeks,” they seem to be saying, “we’ll have a fresh batch of pork and steak recipes waiting for you when you’re done.” Jerks.

And hey, finally a New York Times feature that represents veganism in better-than-usual (one-to-one) proportion to typical omni food! Add in cupcake wars, and we are totally getting a mainstream-media PR makeover this week!

Mariann Sullivan and Jasmin Singer of Our Hen House. Photography by Lauren Krohn.

I recently sat down with Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan, partners in both life and in animal advocacy, to talk all about their nonprofit Our Hen House. We discussed the nature of their collaboration and their use of multimedia to bring animal rights into the mainstream.

(And be sure to mark your calendar for their official Launch Party, October 1st at NYC’s MooShoes. The celebration features free food and drink, and too many special guests and giveaways to list here–check out the full details.)

Robyn: Tell me about Our Hen House.

Jasmin: Our Hen House is a central clearinghouse for all kinds of ideas and opportunities for people to get involved in animal activism.

Mariann: It started with the idea that change for animals in any serious way isn’t going to come just from leadership organizations. The work of those organizations is hugely important, but if we are going to build a mass movement, it’s up to every single individual to do whatever they can to help change the world. So with Our Hen House, we’re just trying to come up with ways that people can make those changes and report on examples of people who are out there doing it. Not just going vegan, which is of course crucially important, but also in things they can to do encourage others to change, to change institutions…

Jasmin: One example is our series,”Art of the Animal”, which features all different kinds of artists – photographers, visual artists, painters, jewelry makers, whatever. People who are using their art to speak up for animals.

Mariann: And aside from “Art of the Animal”, we have a bunch of different categories. “Class Act” is for students and educators who want to encourage their schools to have courses in animal studies, minors in animal studies, at some point, majors in animal studies, and also includes suggestions for people in academia, like interesting calls for papers. “Money Squawks” is about ways to help animals while making some money. If we’re going to start feeding people plants instead of animals, we have to change the way the world does business. “Legal Eagles” is where we try to come up with ideas for lawyers to make change. “Oink Moo Woof” covers ways to get the word out, whether through being “Media Mavens”, or through “Grazing in the Grassroots”.

Jasmin: Also through “Reading the Animal”, where we do book reviews. The incredibly versatile Kyle Knies will be doing reviews for Our Hen House – mostly books and films, but also the occasional food item. One of our most important features is our weekly podcast, where we talk to entrepreneurs, activists, social justice pioneers, etc., all of whom are making change for animals. And I have a video page where I post videos featuring those people. To sum up, we’re a multimedia, virtual place for animal advocacy. We’re currently a New York non-profit, and we’re awaiting our 501(c)(3) status.

Robyn: So, that’s your basic mission, to be the multimedia, virtual place for animal advocacy, and inspiring people to get involved.

Jasmin: Yeah. I would say Our Hen House is a place to find a way to change the world for animals, which is our tag line and also our mission. We’re really trying to shine a light on opportunities that already exist, so that people can inspire and empower themselves.

Mariann: The real audience we hope to speak to are people who already care, people who are already on-board. We are trying to reach those who want this change to happen, who care what’s happening to animals, who are horrified and looking for some ideas.

Robyn: How did you come about this, did you have a light bulb moment where it all dawned on you or did you come to the idea more slowly?

Jasmin: Henry Spira came to me in a dream…just kidding. Mariann wanted to have a blog focused on for-profit opportunities within animal activism. And I wanted to have a podcast; I always wanted to be a pundit. And [turns to Mariann] what happened?

Mariann: We brought those ideas together and it just almost instantly became so much bigger than we originally thought. It just built itself.
Our Hen House

Jasmin: We knew nothing about tech stuff at all, and I was like “I’m going to figure this out”, and we figured it out. And we put up a website. I enjoy it, and once you get into it, it’s fun. At the time, I was the campaigns manager for Farm Sanctuary, and I was thinking about leaving to pursue my own thing. Our Hen House just started to find a life of its own…and all that happened in approximately two days [laughs].

Robyn: So, it was a little bit of both, light bulb and incubating for a while…

Jasmin: Yeah, in spite of what I just said, I think it was a long time in the making in a lot of ways. We always wanted to do more with the Internet; we always wanted to do more with multimedia. There is a tremendous amount of potential for activists in virtual-land.

Robyn: [To Jasmin] And you’re doing this full-time. Can you talk a little more about that?

Jasmin: When I give workshops I always tell people they need to know what they’re good at; they need to know what their talents are. My time at Farm Sanctuary was very fulfilling, and an unbelievable experience. I learned a significant amount and got to meet tremendous people, but I was growing in the direction of an edgier voice, and I really wanted to explore that and be über-creative. And I really wanted to call the shots! I can be a bossy bitch sometimes, Mariann certainly knows that [laughs], so I just decided I wanted to do my own thing and explore how I could creatively advocate for animals.

Robyn: Talk about your collaboration.

Mariann: We complement each other well. I am not an out-front person, and Jasmin very much is. I’m nice…she’s a bitch…

Jasmin: [Gasps] Oh my God! [Laughter]

Mariann: [Smiling] You just said that you were! I’m more of a big picture person, and Jasmin is more detail-oriented. I could never have figured out all that tech stuff – I would have thrown the computer out of the window. But I’ve had some of the overall ideas of how to set it up. It’s pretty scary – it would be really easy to wreck a relationship by working together. You could be fighting all the time, but it’s actually worked pretty well.

Jasmin: And it’s probably taken both of us out of our comfort zones a little bit. Mariann has become more out-there, in ways she has never been before. For years she’s been the idea person behind so many organizations and campaigns, and now, with our podcast, we sit here in our living room and talk to each other and record it and it goes out there into the ether…and poof, all these people are listening to it. But it doesn’t feel like we’re out there that much because it’s all virtual.

Robyn: Speaking some more about getting inspired, who are your animal rights heroes or heroines?

Jasmin: I’m lucky enough to get to know so many people who are creating change in their community, change that is not easy to come by, and so I really think my heroes are the activists I get to meet on a constant basis. So I have different idols and mentors each minute. And, of course, Mariann is a huge inspiration to me in many ways. It’s really an awesome experience to be able to throw out a problem, and Mariann will magically have the solution. It’s a bitch to fight with her though. [Laughter]

Mariann: For me, I think it’s all the eccentrics, the ones who have been doing this for so long and were simply ignored, like cat ladies. So many of them really, really cared, and they were disdained by society for caring and taking care of animals. So a lot of them are my heroes.

Robyn: You’ve talked about the movement going mainstream. Could you describe what you view as the major influences bringing things mainstream?

Jasmin: Ellen!

Mariann: Yeah, I think that’s changed things in an enormous way. Ellen. She’s just so completely vegan, activist, totally on-board, and there she is, one of the most popular talk show hosts in America. All of a sudden the word vegan is just everywhere, everyone knows what it means, everyone thinks it’s kind of cool, it’s sell-able and I think a lot of that has to do with Ellen.

Jasmin: And Jonathan Safran Foer recently. He’s really done a lot over the past year.

Mariann: Yeah, Eating Animals really took us to another level. I don’t think we are mainstream, but I think we’re a lot closer. I think Food, Inc., too, even though it wasn’t really an animal rights movie. I think it really just brought so much attention to the abuses of factory farming. Of course, as Ellen said, compared to Earthlings, Food, Inc. is a Disney movie, which is true but, still, it’s a lot more horrifying than people thought. So I think those three things have had a big impact in the past year.

Jasmin: And the Internet! If you Google “vegan” or “animal rights activism”, there are millions of items in the search results. I mean look at the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale article that got on to the front webpage of CNN for days because people clicked on it and commented on it and shared it with their friends. That’s part of the power of grassroots.

Mariann: Yeah, the stars are starting to align and there are a lot more opportunities than there have been before, which is why it’s so important for people to start getting more active. And, as we know, what’s going on with animals is totally out of tune with what people think is ok, and once you get those two factors to collide, I think enormous change is possible.

Robyn: What’s your personal favorite form of activism?

Jasmin: It was always writing, because I think there’s a lot of power within the written word but more and more lately it’s…

Mariann: Punditry.

Jasmin: [Laughs] Filmmaking, short little films. I think little videos have a lot of creative possibilities, and the potential to become viral.

Mariann: I would also have to say writing. The writing that I’ve done has been mostly very legal and it’s not of interest to everybody, but I think it helped me reach some people. And it’s really helped me focus my own thoughts and helped me develop as an activist. The only trouble is that I loathe doing it. As someone once said, “I hate writing but I love having written.”

Robyn: How do you unwind?

Jasmin: [Laugher] We unwind for maybe two hours at a time if we have tickets to a show or movie or something. But the whole rest of the day, it’s “We have to do this…We have to do that.” But that being said, and now you’re about to know our secrets, we start off every morning by watching cartoons. This morning we just finished Scooby Doo because we’ve gone through all of the SpongeBob episodes on Netflix.

Mariann: Yeah, SpongeBob is a great loss. We don’t have this down yet and there’s still a tremendous amount of start-up work to do, so I hope some of that will die down. For the moment, we don’t have nearly enough downtime.

I only write articles about the Jersey Shore; they’re so HOT right now!

Oh what horrific fingernails-against-a-chalkboard-type-tomfoolery you’ll find hiding behind salacious headlines. Whether it’s the assertion that “Soy Makes You Gay” or that “Oysters are Vegan” – sometimes an article is little more than a headline.

Case in Point: Salon’s Life Stories piece entitled “I Was Tricked Into Eating Meat (and I liked it)”

The story is simple: Vegetarian girl meets boy. Boy eats meat. Boy tricks girl into eating foie fras. Girl has “orgasm in her mouth”.

Obviously deeper issues are at play here. The story is less about “being tricked into eating meat” than it is about control, body image and personal convictions. Way to go Salon!

Seriously though, who gets “tricked” into eating meat?

I don’t like eggs. I don’t miss them. I don’t think about them. I don’t lay them. Perhaps the only time they enter my brain is when I visit my local bodega and the wafting smell of a frying egg send me on a trip to gag city – other than that they’re out of sight and out of mind. (Or, y’know, that Jason Mraz thing)

But one (vegan or otherwise) can’t help but be struck by what’s going on with the latest egg recall. The issues surrounding this recall are deeply woven and highlight the abject failure of the industry as a whole. It’s scary stuff.

The Daily Beast has an informative (quick) post about both the recall and reasons why egg suckers would be wise to remain concerned. I suggest you forward it to the eggheads in your life.

You know what really gets me? That someone at sometime in history saw the egg fall out of a chicken’s butt and thought it would make a great meal…

Two vegan ice cream parlors call the East Village home. Lula’s Sweet Apothecary and Stogo. The vegans I know are split down the center as to who puts out the superior product. I have actually never been to Stogo; I’m a Lula’s loyalist through and through.

Rebecca Marx of the Village Voice put the two in a head to head battle to determine just who rules the East Village Vegan Ice Cream Scene. I encourage you to read the piece; it’s both in-depth and informative!

For those of you who can’t be bothered with reading a few paragraphs of text or (like me) have blog-brain, here’s the results:

[S]togo has its strong points — that bananas foster really is a thing of beauty — icy texture, slightly misleading flavor descriptions, and a cone moratorium left us cold. So although Lula’s Drumstick was a bit disappointing, the texture and flavors of its ice cream, as well as its generous portions and the choice to order a cone, allowed Lula’s to take victory in this battle.

Score one for the Lula’s loyalists!

Sometimes I’m a very composed vegan, open-minded and willing to explore the merits of opposing arguments. The vegan who has come to be content with the fact that there just might be more than one right answer; the world is complex after all.

Other times though, I drink straight from a bottle of Haterade.

I must be parched today, because when I stumbled upon this piece in Time Magazine about Weekday Vegetarians I threw back the Haterade like my jaw had hinges.

I can certainly appreciate the idea of vowing to eat less meat for a myriad of honest justifiable reasons that absolutely make sense for you (the environment and the animals), but stay away from calling yourself vegetarian, because frankly you’re not only diluting the brand, you’re making things confusing.

I’m all for Meatless Mondays. I love that Mario Batali is penning a vegetarian cookbook. I couldn’t be happier that Graham Hill from TreeHugger is only eating meat on the weekends. What I’m not happy about is the re-appropriation of long-held ideals.

There is obviously a movement towards eating less meat; I can see that clear as day (and I’m all smiles about it). I just don’t like the flippant disregard and dilution of those movements that were here when soymilk was a powder and Seitan was God’s sworn enemy.

Simply put: Get your own words – this one is taken.

A recent New York Times, regarding the possible dilemmas that may arise with an all-vegan wedding got me thinking, and I’ve decided to make a pledge.

When I get married, I promise to serve every type of food that has ever existed since the beginning of time to assuage any of the hurt feelings that could arise if I decide to have an all-vegan menu; I’d hate for someone to have to give up meat for one meal. After all, the Vikings in attendance might be upset if I didn’t think of their feelings and serve the food they’re accustomed to.

I’m quite sure the people that know me really well (y’know, those who would presumably be at my wedding) have come to learn that I’m just Mr. Vacillator when it comes to my ideals. All those all-vegan-all-the-time events I’ve had in the past have just been part of my “quirks”. Rest assured omnivorous friends; you won’t be left out – it’ll be all about you.

Thank you New York Times for choking a non-issue until it turns violet. This is the kind of stuff that makes me wanna dance with somebody; to feel the heat with somebody.

(*Uh. Maybe. Y’know. Vegans)

A Typical Vegan Meal

Dear Omnivorous Friend,

I appreciate that you care about me enough to send me links to articles that debase my chosen path in life. Perhaps you feel it validates your carnivorous tendencies to take certain compartmentalized inconsistencies with some vegans and spray paint them gold for the world to see. Or, more telling, and quite possibly more to the point, you feel guilty for your personal choices and this makes you feel better about your choices.

I realize that the headline for that LA Times article you stumbled upon this weekend clearly says “Vegan Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Healthy” but the portrayal isn’t indicative of every vegan everywhere. We don’t all live on potato chips and Taco Bell.

Most vegans I know are equipped with the tools to make their diet work for them. But, just in case, I’ve taken the liberty of cc’ing every uninformed vegan in the whole world and putting them on notice: Know your diet! You’re more likely to stay a vegan if you do it right! And, yes, you can still eat potato chips!

Frankly, knowing more about health and proper nourishment is good for everybody!

As it stands now, asking most people about nutrition is like asking a newborn baby about Justin Bieber. The answer involves a lot of crying and sh*tting. So. Like. Know your diet dude!

Regards,

Rudy Relic

The screenings will take place on Monday, July 26, 2010 at 7 and 9:15pm at Anthology Film Archives, which is located at 32 Second Avenue in Manhattan. The screenings will be hosted by Russell Simmons.

More details here.

Our taste in music is far superior than yours

Ranking stuff always puts people on the defensive; it causes an instant white-knuckle reaction to whatever you’re ranking because people are often invested in that which you are dissecting and putting up for grading. I’m not usually shaken, but this morning was different.

I just saw PETA’s list of Most Veg-Friendly Cities and I cried. I cried and then I vomited in my mouth a little. Not because of the list mind you, but because I have acid reflux.

I cried because New York City is ranked 9th on a list of 10. That means that we’re almost the last kid to be picked for the team; we’re basically getting that piece of the cake that doesn’t have a decorative flower on it.

I suppose the 52 Vegan and 92 Vegetarian options in this city mean little; perhaps now they’ll all close their doors and shutter their windows and leave us forever. A distant memory, like that time Ken pantsed Dominique at recess and all the girls laughed because he had a birthmark on his butt.

But. Like. Whatever. I’m making my own list and I’m putting New York City number one because, we’re more “veg-friendly” than you on any day of the week Albuquerque, New Mexico. And, like, vegans in New York City know how to do cool dances like the Roger Rabbit and the Running Man.

Besides, it’s easy to create a ranked list of things without revealing the criteria or method at which the list was compiled. It’s best to just, like, say we’re the best and you suck and that we’re more vegan than you because the sky is blue and you can’t dance, so there.

I made this money, you didn’t, right Ted?

Go read the whole article “Children Of All Ages Delighted By Enslavement Of Topsy The Elephant” and check out Circuses.com for more serious follow-up reading.

Topsy also delighted the audience after the trainer repeatedly thrust a hooked rod into his skin, causing the miserable animal to lift one leg and his trunk to simulate waving.

“Aww…” said the assembled circus-goers, who were taken by the cuteness of the barbaric spectacle.

Branden Helger, 9, said Topsy was his favorite performer at Ringling Bros. because the elephant knew how to do neat tricks like pretending to limp. The third-grader also excitedly pointed out the “cool necklace” clamped on the animal’s foot.

Topsy and the other elephant performers, who are separated from each other at all times, preventing the socialization that’s so crucial to their well-being, received a standing ovation from the crowd when they marched into the center ring, nervously rocking back and forth.

“Look, they’re dancing,” said 5-year-old Jonah Meeks, mistaking the elephants’ constant swaying for something that wasn’t a maladaptive behavior caused by serious psychological trauma. “I can dance like an elephant, too. Look at me!”