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.

And maybe those particular chickens are happy. And if they are, good for them. I hope that in addition to being protected from hawks and coyotes as Ellen worries about, they are also well cared for into their old age, just as a family cat or dog would be.

Maybe these chickens don’t dwell on the fact that their brothers, uncles, nephews, and other male relatives were virtually all killed at birth for being “useless”. Maybe they don’t dwell on the fact that many of their mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces, and other female relatives will die from lack of adequate health care, or due to dangerous housing or transport. Maybe they don’t mind that they were bred, raised, sold, and shipped as a commodity. And maybe they don’t care that humans collect and eat their equivalent to menstrual waste. (I’m just talking about rich peoples’ backyard chickens here; not even getting into the horrors that befall their factory-farmed cousins.)

And it seems a safe bet that Ellen’s neighbors’ chickens, happy or not, don’t know what veganism is. But Ellen should know better. If you don’t care how the word “vegan” is used, how it is defined, or what it connotes, then you can probably skip this post. (But then I also wonder why you’re reading a site called SuperVegan?) It’s entirely probable that Ellen is still, in balance, a positive force for lessening animal exploitation. But she’s emphatically not practicing veganism here, and doesn’t seem to be practicing critical thinking or informed common sense either. Her words here are dangerous: if viewers think she’s saying all this as a vegan, we’re running a very real risk of serious dilution of the meaning of the word.

I’m not quibbling edge-case semantics here. There are gray areas to veganism. There might even be gray areas to “vegan” people eating eggs, if, say they’re providing sanctuary for some rescued layers (though I still would never call that vegan). This doesn’t fall into any those gray areas. Is Ellen uncaring or just ignorant?

Ellen has attached herself to veganism and has acted as a spokesperson. In this role, I wish she’d either set a better example or step aside. A celebrity who eats animal products but works towards reforming factory farming can still be a force for good, and maybe that’s Ellen’s role. But an Ellen who doesn’t eat any eggs, and can explain why on national television, well, that would be even better!

In a post from “Going Vegan With Ellen” (a site I criticized when it launched, which has now been killed but had its content folded in with her main site), Ellen says

I personally chose to go vegan because I educated myself on animal cruelty. Suddenly, I realized that what was on my plate were living things, with feelings. And I just couldn’t disconnect myself from it any longer. I read books like “Diet for a New America” and saw documentaries like “Earthlings” and “Meet your Meat,” and it became an easy choice for me.

Maybe she just needs some more reading material, to realize that “happy” chickens almost always come from unhappy backgrounds, and that advocating for backyard chicken-keeping on TV is advocating for suffering, exploitation, and murder, even if it’s not of those particular birds.

Hat tip to Sarah E. Brown, who blogged about this on both Vegansaurus and her own site, for bringing this to our attention.

The blessedly tiny image of the “Possumtron” possum-dropping device on the comic-sans heavy official page for Clay Logan’s Corner Store Possum Drop.

Continuing our dump on North Carolina day here at SuperVegan, we’re pleased that, to quote the AP, “possums can’t be dropped any more in illuminated balls on New Year’s Eve in Brasstown, North Carolina.“

PETA had sued the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, which issues the permit for the event, saying it’s illegal and cruel.

“Citizens are prohibited from capturing and using wild animals for pets or amusement,” Judge Fred Morrison wrote in his ruling. The commission “had no authority to issue any permit to Logan for the unlawful public display of a native wild animal” at the drop, Morrison wrote.

Thanks for this one, PETA!

And lest you think this is some olde-timey tradition, naw, Clay’s Corner has only been doing this since the 1990s. Apparently the inspiration was a suggestion that “since the possum is Brasstown’s mascot of sorts, the town should have a live animal drop similar to the dropping of the ball in Times Square”. Of course. Totally makes sense. Why, it’s even a “non-alcoholic family event … We bring the possum to start the event and then the blessing and then we bring out the queens of the last ten years and show them off…and the church singing of songs and then the drop.” Sounds just like what goes down at Times Square every year.

(I learned via Wikipedia that they do an event in Tallapoosa, Georgia also called a Possum Drop, but as that event’s website loudly states, “We Do Not Use A Live Opossum. It Is Stuffed.” I’m not sure if that means a fake possum or a taxidermied one, and, well, maybe I don’t really want to know.)

• 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.

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.)

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?

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!

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.

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?

The once-viable-star-turned-over-acting-bad-haircut-having-financially-irresponsible savant might just take the cake for saddest, weirdest, smack my face and shake my head diet ever.

“I actually choose the way I eat according to the way animals have sex. I think fish are very dignified with sex. So are birds. But pigs, not so much. So I don’t eat pig meat or things like that. I eat fish and fowl”

A vegan diet is not only practical, but it’s ethical and environmentally-conscious too. Nic Cage’s diet? Stupid, weird and sad – just like his acting (see below).

A nice-looking wild oyster bed on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina. (Photo by Joe Brent on Flickr). By contrast, many commercial beds are just acre after acre of metal cages.

There’s a lot of noise on the internet today about Christopher Cox’s “Consider the Oyster” which carries the slug/page title “It’s OK for vegans to eat oysters” and the subhead “Why even strict vegans should feel comfortable eating oysters by the boatload.”

Cox’s basic thesis is that oysters don’t feel pain and that commercial oyster production/harvesting is far more ecologically friendly than most other industrial food production. He goes out of his way to say that oysters are sustainable for food use in a way that clams and mussels are not. He gets a qualified endorsement from Peter Singer. One can certainly argue with these things, but he’s basically done his homework. Except for seeming to have no clue what it means to be vegan.

When I became a vegan, I didn’t draw an X through everything marked “Animalia” on the tree of life. And when I pick out my dinner, I don’t ask myself: What do I have to do to remain a vegan? I ask myself: What is the right choice in this situation? Eating ethically is not a purity pissing contest, and the more vegans or vegetarians pretend that it is, the more their diets start to resemble mere fashion—and thus risk being dismissed as such. Emerson wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

The only way for me to read this is that Cox doesn’t know what “vegan” means. He never became a vegan, and needn’t worry himself over remaining a vegan. Because of our very consistency (foolish or not) there’s no gray area for vegans when it comes to eating animals. Cox is trying to be ethical about his consumerism, and that’s great. I just don’t understand how the hell anyone thinks the way he’s going about it can be described as any form of veganism. It isn’t.

Vegans do not knowingly/willingly/actively consume or purchase any part or bodily product of an animal that was taken from a living animal or for which an animal was killed. (I know that’s a lot to pack into a sentence, but there it is. End of story.) You can argue that this isn’t the most constructive approach to ethical consumerism, as Peter Singer does. But Peter Singer does not claim to be vegan, nor does he endorse the point of view that eating oysters can ever be vegan.

Cox makes some worthy arguments. I’m sure eating local oysters is (in an immediate, direct sense) more environmentally friendly than, say, eating vegan fake meat shipped from a factory halfway around the world. But that’s neither here nor there in regards to veganism.

He relates how his editor told him “I won’t lie—you’ll be attacked viciously for being a vegan, and attacked equally viciously for not being a strict enough vegan.” Both of her concerns are beside the point. As to the first, of course meat-trolls will jump at any mention of veganism on the web. As to the second, it’s not that he’s not a strict-enough vegan. It’s that he’s not even remotely vegan, by any definition. If you want to argue about strict-enough-veganism, discuss the ethics of riding on a leather seat or accepting animal-based medicine in the emergency room. Not eating fucking meat.

To Cox’s credit, he does say: “Because I eat oysters, I shouldn’t call myself a vegan. I’m not even a vegetarian. I am a pescetarian, or a flexitarian, or maybe there’s an even more awkward word to describe my diet.” Great! So then why did he and/or his editors plaster “vegan” all over the top of the piece and e-mail us (and presumably other vegan publications) with “thought you might enjoy an essay we published today on why it’s ethically OK for even strict vegans to eat oysters.”

I’d fully understand Cox saying he’s vegan in various situations as a shorthand to getting a better meal or whatever. (For years before I was vegetarian, I knew saying I was one would often get me fresher, more palatable food in institutional settings and airplanes.) But that’s a different from stating it in the lede of an essay in a very prominent web magazine. Slate is either being stupid or cynically trying to rile people up. Or, I worry, both.

It’s fair enough for Cox to say is that veganism can become disconnected from the reasons some people become vegans. But if a person starts eating eggs from backyard chickens, or knowingly consuming a modicum of butter, or eats vegan for only part of the day, they aren’t vegan, let alone strict ones.

Deciding to be vegan means you prioritize the avoidance of animal products over other concerns. That’s not what Cox is doing. Whether or not he considers himself vegan (I honestly can’t tell), his claiming so prominently that his oyster-eating has anything to do with veganism just muddies the waters in a way that works against the causes he means to advocate.

Figure B: The only thing vegans are good for is techno
Translation: I have a tendency to blurt out things that no one gets or finds funny.

Figure C: Vegans can eat my ass
Translation: I have a tendency to hi-five while wearing my hat backwards.

Figure D: Carnivores on Tilt. Herbivores on Wilt.
Translation: I love to use irrelevant uber-hip language like “that’s so Avatar!”

This is just a smattering of what’s out there. As it stands, most anti-vegan shirts are poorly conceived, insecurity-filled ill-witticisms of little to no value. They don’t convey a deep-rooted message or attempt to question a long-held institution – they aren’t even funny. Frankly, they serve no real purpose and probably never will because they are championing the status quo.

Maybe it is just a shirt and it doesn’t require deep thought. But as with any shirt, regardless of the message: in the end you’re the asshole wearing it.

That pie better be vegan or you’re gonna look dumb

On Saturday, Lierre Keith, author of the polarizing book, The Vegetarian Myth was struck with a cayenne pepper-laced pie while speaking at the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair. It would be easy to dismiss the physical attack as little more than a publicity stunt (I mean, it’s only a coincidence that her Amazon sales rank shot from #4500 on Saturday to #644, where it is now). It would also be easy to criticize her attackers for their lack of judgment; after all, it is assault and such an act does little to quell the message – instead, it helps to publicize it.

Such narratives would be easy to convey; y’know what would be hard? (It being St. Patrick’s Day and all) To write a limerick about the whole ordeal, that would be hard. So, here it goes:

There once was a vegan who changed her case
And wrote a book that put her ideas in place
To her the cause was all a myth
Something vegans couldn’t get with
So, some decided to pie her in the face

Good thing SuperVegan tackles all the hard issues.

Lyrics After the Jump!

Hey vegan girl with your laundry list of issues
Keep on crying
Now, here’s a box of tissues
Some vegan dudes might be a mess
But last time I checked
This vegan boy was the best

My hairs always done up to the nines
So ever stylish
Well, I’m looking fine
Some vegan dudes might be a mess
Last time I checked this vegan dude was the best

You’ll never catch me with Patchouli oil
Hemp sweater
Or being one with the soil
Some vegan dudes might be a mess
But last time I checked this vegan boy was the best

I might not be the one
To take to your AR function
Or have me throwing paint
on those ladies uptown
Well, I’m cruelty-free
And I’m being me
Not your regular cup of tea

And Frankly I don’t give a fuck about yoga…

(Kazoo Solo)

Last time I checked this vegan boy was the best…

Murry, 10, is up for adoption at NYACC.

• The Humane Society of the United States will sell organic vegan vegetarian dog food, called Humane Choice. Let’s hope they kick Purina’s ass to next Tuesday! Also, cat food next, pls!
• The Superbowl happened; the underdog won; and Roberto Martin and Tal Ronnen prepared for Ellen yummy vegan nachos, pot pie, stew, and more. Rah, rah, rah!
• Olympic ice skater Johnny Weir is going to don fake fur rather than real fur over his manitard because some muddling vegans tried to take the focus off his triple axel for a second to talk about his anally-electrocuted outfit, and he just CANNOT BE DISTRACTED FROM WHAT’S IMPORTANT. Weir gets what’s wrong with fur, he told the AP, “but it’s not something that’s the number-one priority in my life. There are humans dying every day. … Look at what just happened in Haiti.” LOOK OVER THERE! LOOK OVER THERE!
• You know things are bad when people are giving up their orange tabbies. Animal Care & Control of New York City is apparently full of them. If you have room for a furry one at home, maybe consider these guys?
• How about this: a slice of your debit transaction fees could support animals instead of banks. In Defense of Animals launched a debit card that will direct a portion of transaction fees to IDA, which they will use to fund “our chimpanzee sanctuary in Cameroon, Africa; our veterinary clinics and ambulance service for the thousands of street animals of Mumbai, India; and for our investigative and sanctuary work in rural Mississippi,” IDA founder and President Elliot M. Katz said. For use wherever Mastercard is accepted. No details yet on how to get one, but I’ll update if I find out.
• Food Fight! Vegan Grocery needs our $$ to help cover their taxes. They’re offering a 5-percent discount with code “FUTAXES10″ (heh) good through Monday, 2/15. Time to stock up on chocolates and Ricemellow, MMMMHMMM.
• New iPhone app from the vegan boozemeisters at Barnivore. Search for “vegan is easy” in the iTunes store. Update (2/15): Per Jason Doucette’s comment below, the app was not made by Barnivore, but it uses data from Barnivore.

Well, there you have it — the week that was. Did we miss anything? Let us know!

Correction (2/16): HSUS’s new dog food contains supplements that they say might come from animal sources. Drat.

The bigger problem is that the user accounts which allow readers to comment on blog posts and leave restaurant reviews relied on the forum software.

We are in the process of implementing a new account/login system, but in the meantime users will not be able to log in to leave reviews or comments.

Readers can (and should!) still leave blog comments without logging in, but you’ll have to enter your name each time.

We’re reasonably certain that usernames and passwords will remain the same, and that no user-related data will be lost. Also, we’re fairly sure that the attacker did not access any passwords.

We apologize for the inconvenience and are working hard on getting the new login system working as soon as we can!

Even dedicated meat-eaters are finally realizing that lobsters and crabs feel pain, and that even if their perceptions of pain and suffering aren’t quite the same as those of mammals (read: ours), it may not be OK to boil them alive for the eaters’ gustatory pleasure. What’s being done with these realizations, unfortunately, reads more like bad sci-fi than like any genuine acquisition of humane awareness.

A new “solution” to the problem of these animals experiencing pain and stress has been found, one that is supposed to allow seafood lovers to be nice to their lobsters and eat them too. Enter the CrustaStun, the hot new contraption on the “humane” meat market.

British inventor/entrepreneur Simon Buckhaven believes that crustaceans feel pain, and indeed, upon opening the home page of the CrustaStun website, the following text rolls out: “Crustaceans are sentient animals. Butchering or boiling alive causes them pain and stress.” He thinks it’s much better to shock them to death instead. That’s right folks–the CrustaStun is an electric chair for lobsters, crabs, and the like. Buckhaven has taken advantage of the fact that salt water can carry an electrical charge to give these creatures a shocking watery grave rather than a boiling one. Makes perfect sense, right?

One wonders whether, with his oh-so-deep concern for all things crustacean, it occurred to Buckhaven that his device does nothing to address the stress and discomfort caused by methods of trapping and/or farming and transportation of shellfish, or the crowded tanks in which the animals are kept until ready to be consumed. But hey, why worry about little details like that? Clearly a short, less painful death makes up for a long miserable life. Did he stop to consider that his invention might make concerned consumers feel better about eating these animals, thereby actually increasing demand for crustaceans, directly raising the number of animals who live torturous lives only to become expensive “gourmet” platters? Well, we know for sure one thing that he did think of: “The animals do not get stressed during the process and, as a result, the meat tastes better.” Touching.

The first time I ate at Swingers I likened it to Kate’s Joint, my beloved East Village diner, which may not be widely believed to be beloving worthy anymore. I was so happy! Not entirely vegetarian but surprisingly vegan friendly (surprise due in part to the cow portraits as wall art), Swingers has two locations (one in West Hollywood and one in Santa Monica) with near identical pop punk decor, sort of like when you get neighboring hotel rooms and they’re mirror images of each other. Did I mention the waitresses wear goth catholic school girl uniforms?

Sadly, there is no Unturkey Club. Or Buffalo Wingless burgers. I don’t think I’ve ever had a less edible veggie burger than the one at Swingers. But I’m getting ahead of my complaining… I have been to Swingers lots of times for lots of reasons: it was very close to where I was picketing during the writers strike and they gave us free foods (rumor on the street had it that the generosity was due to Drew Carey, a fan of writers, being a part owner), it’s one of the few places in LA that’s open almost 24-hours, non-vegans always suggest it as a compromise and it seems like a fair one. But here’s what I’ve finally come to realize–explosive diarrhea is not a compromise I am willing to make anymore. I’ve tried their vegan pancakes (with and without chocolate chips), I’ve had their vegan sloppy joe, I’ve eaten their vegan nachos, their tofu chilaquiles, the vegan cobb salad, the vegan cheesecakes they used to carry and every single time, without fail, I spent the next morning paying a non-monetary price of the bathroom kind.

I’m not sure what they’re doing over there. Is it the water? It tastes like it could be the water. We are close to Mexico, and this is starting to feel like a third-world country (we’re paying our government employees in IOUs whaa?), but that’s ridiculous. Even when I abstained from drinking their undrinkable tap water the results were the same. Is the vegan cheese not really vegan after all? (Maybe Operation Pancake needs to do some sleuthin’…) Possible, but a li’l casein wouldn’t make me that ill. I have an on-the-stronger-side stomach (not quite carbon steel, stainless maybe. And here’s the thing: I have talked to other vegans and they have said The. Same. Thing.

So let this be a warning to you, dear SV readers. Learn from my repeated suffering. I gave them many too many chances, thinking like an abuse victim that this time would be different. This time they wouldn’t hurt me. THEY ALWAYS HURT ME. From the inside so you don’t see it, and where it’s easy to forget. But just like that lady from the Modern Love column in the NYTimes last weekend, I will no longer take part in this suffering. There is better vegan food out there for me in Los Angeles. Maybe not after 10pm, but still…

(photo credit: foodfightgrocery.com)

So, I’m browsing books on Amazon.com when The Vegetarian Myth catches my eye. I immediately begin to wonder how someone filled an entire book discrediting the fallacy that a plant-based diet is devoid of sufficient protein. To my dismay, this isn’t what this book is about at all.

Instead, it seems that the author, Lierre Keith, who claims to have been a vegan for twenty years and is now suffering the consequences, wants to warn other vegans, vegetarians, and the sixteen-year-old girls she claims PETA preys upon against the same dangerous path.

Keith largely blames her veganism for her degenerative joint disease, hypoglycemia, irregular menstruation, exhaustion, ever-present cold, gastro-paresis, depression, and anxiety. She even goes so far as to prematurely blame soy should she ever contract cancer. She further warns of the increased susceptibility vegans/vegetarians supposedly have of suffering fibromyalgia, Alzheimer’s, fertility problems, endometriosis, anorexia, heart disease, and mental and neurological disease. But not to worry: she has a doctor that works with her and other “recovering vegans.”

To add insult to misinformation, all of the communication she relates having had with vegans depicts them as childish, uninformed, ignorant, inarticulate, unhealthy people. And she hopes to capitalize on our cult mentality by swaying us towards hers:

After a few meals of real food and the flood of well-being they release in you … you’ll have to start telling–confessing–to your friends. And some of them will hate you. Remember this: you can get new friends. You can’t get a new body … There are also people who will be relieved. Your mother, for instance … you can tell your mom she was right.

She goes so far as to tell readers that vegans should consider rice grains, almonds, and soybeans “plant babies” in an effort to get those who generally oppose killing to consider why these deaths don’t matter.

Of her own return to the carnivorous lifestyle, she says,

The first bite of meat after my twenty year hiatus marks the end of my youth, the moment when I assumed the responsibilities of adulthood … for someone to live, someone has to die … All they ask is that I take my place, a predator … until I am prey.

Ultimately, the myth she speaks of is based entirely in vegetarians’ ignorance. She blames the vegetarians’ soy, wheat, and corn fields for desecrating the natural landscape and suggests that by abandoning them we can “let the world come back to life.” However, she doesn’t mention that these countless acres of soy, wheat, and corn don’t sustain a vast population of insatiable vegans and vegetarians, but rather the innumerable factory farmed animals that fulfill greed and carnivorous appetites.

Although she summarily denounces the veg lifestyle on many merits, the purpose of the book is actually to outline her own personal brand of environmentalism and her recipe to save the world. But because she gets so wrapped up in discrediting vegetarians, her message is lost: it serves only to perpetuate and validate misinformation, as exemplified in the some of the corresponding customer reviews:

“…yes, my adult-onset diabetes is likely directly related to my decades of vegetarian eating, with its necessary high carbohydrate content.”

“Vegans do have a reputation for being rather difficult and high-strung…”

“I have a [vegan] friend who says he thought about killing himself four times a day at one point in his life; I was lucky if I merely placated [sic] taking my life four times an hour…I decided by eating meat once, I had nothing to lose. And just as Keith describes in her book, my brain felt absolutely overwhelmed by this experience—and free from thoughts of death…(Incidentally, I grew an inch at the age of 23 after starting to eat meat).”

So we see what happens when you use the word “vegetarian” in the title of your environmental treatise merely to sell books: vegetarians are not duped into buying it, and non-vegetarians that do are simply looking for an excuse to continue being unhealthy; they have no interest in saving the world.

I got a copy of The Vegan Cook’s Bible for my birthday, and it left me perplexed.

TVCB was written by Pat Crocker, an herbalist who’s neither vegan nor vegetarian, to provide plant-based options for veg*ns as well as people who want to eat less meat. Rather than use analogs, Crocker chose to “embrace the divineness of the ingredients I had to work with,” which means the stars of the recipes are vegetables and “whole” foods. From what I’ve tasted, Crocker has succeeded. I made the Roasted Garlic and Artichoke Spread, Maple-Glazed Cabbage Greens With Pecans, Sweet and Sour Tempeh and Eggplant Stir-Fry (I loathe eggplant, so I used zucchini and green beans instead), Chickpeas and Potatoes in Cashew Cream, Red Lentil and Buckwheat Waffles, and the Berry Chia Smoothie, all of which were delicious.

An informative directory of whole foods takes up the first third of the book; the entry for each vegetable, fruit, grain, etc., includes buying and storing information, culinary uses and a list of the recipes that call for that particular ingredient. There’s also a chart on what and how to substitute for white sugar, which is incredibly helpful if, like me, you’re trying to kick the stuff. (Among Crocker’s suggestions is honey, which isn’t vegan, but that’s easily replaced with agave.)

But while I enjoyed the dishes I tried, I take real issue with the book’s title. First off, there’s the honey mention; while some vegans do eat it, it has no place in an authoritative tome on vegan eating. There are no seitan recipes here (and oddly enough, seitan is listed as a whole food, despite the fact that it’s so highly processed). There are also a limited number of tofu and tempeh recipes. A bible is a complete work from which all else stems, and you can’t claim completeness from a vegan standpoint by eschewing seitan and using tempeh and tofu to such limited degree. There’s also no breakfast section, and the desserts didn’t go to the heights of decadence that they could have.

My biggest problem with the book, though, is the Healthy Body Systems section. It looks at everything from the immune to the musculoskeletal to the cardiovascular system, including the diseases that can afflict them and the best foods for combating or preventing those diseases. And in every single one, as well as in the overall guideline to Healthy Living, Crocker recommends fish. Not only that, fish is the #1 food in the Cardiovascular section. Mind you, there’s no fish in any of the recipes, but there’s no place for even a mention of fish in a vegan cookbook, much less a vegan “bible,” unless you’re talking about a substitute.

When I asked Crocker about this, she told me, “the fact that vegans don’t eat fish does not change the fact that fish is an excellent source of, for example, omega3 fatty acids.” But as we all know, flax and other nuts and seeds, as well as marine sources like algae, provide the same benefits without the health risks associated with eating fish and without causing environmental damage, not to mention the pesky little problem of pain and death for the fish themselves. At the very least, if Crocker felt so strongly about the issue, she could have listed the best “plant-based” foods for each system and left it at that. But there is absolutely no excuse for recommending fish, and doing it multiple times, in a book with the words “vegan” and “bible” in the title.

That said, the recipes I tried were delicious. So if you’re veg and want to incorporate more whole foods into your diet, I’d be happy to lend you my copy. But I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who’s thinking about going veg, because the fish tales will just confuse them.