They promise “a vast comprehensive vegan resource” including recipes, worldwide restaurant and hotel guides, a marketplace, an excellent social network, plus all the informational resources you can shake a stick at. And they are not modest “How do we sum Bleat up? Well, Bleat isn’t just a vegan social network and it’s certainly far from just a vegan directory. Simply put, it’s a whole new way to get the absolute most from your vegan lifestyle.”

This level of boasting that sets a very high bar. Bleat is either going to be the site we’ve all been missing or a massive disappointment. I’m hoping for the former, but I carry deep within me the trauma of a internet littered with the twitching remnants of past attempts at vegan soup-to-nuts sites. (Including some past lives of SuperVegan, yes.)

The teaser site was also weirdly anonymous. No names, no sponsoring companies, just this big talk and video voiced by a guy who sounds like his next job is a toothpaste commercial. But via some gentle ribbing on Twitter, we heard back from Bleat founders Matthew Glover and Mike Dean, and they actually seem like open and communicative guys. I asked Mike a bunch of questions over e-mail and he replied right away. (Spoiler: on hearing more details, it doesn’t sound any less ambitious.)

Jason: Who are your founders? Who are your developers, designers, other Bleaters?

Mike: Bleat is a registered company, currently based in the UK. There are two Co-Founders, a guy called Matthew and myself. Matthew is a really successful business man, having grown numerous businesses from the ground up he wanted to put his business skills to best use, and was looking for a vegan/animal rights venture to get involved in. By coincidence we ended up meeting via a mutual contact. My background is that I’m a digital designer/developer/animator, having worked with a number of really big global clients, XBox, Disney etc I wanted to also put my skills to good use and about 18 months prior to meeting Matthew I had started the ground work for Bleat but didn’t really have the funds to make it happen.

So, our roles are that Matthew is the business brains, sales man, chief promoter and everything else on the business side and technically i am the creative director but i am leading a team of freelance developers that are building the site. I’ve designed the whole site and branding, with the help from a few contacts in the design industry.

There will be an about page once the site goes live so users can find out more about us and we don’t appear anonymous.

This can’t be cheap! Who are your funders? 

Mike: Matthew is funding the site fully until it is making enough money to run itself and pay for on going development. The lovely thing about Bleat is that the majority of all profits are going back into the vegan movement, be it in sponsorship, advocacy, donations or just helping out the best we can.

Jason: Will Bleat be a worldwide resource, or are you focussed on some specific regions/countries for launch?

Mike: Nope, the site is 100% global. Obviously between Matthew and I there is only so much of the country we can see, so it’s going to rely quite heavily on users uploading their little gems of local knowledge around the world, to make the site cover as much of this planet as possible. That being said, we have over 17,000 establishment entries already.

Jason: There’s at least one other site doing everything you say you’re going to do. While it’s a big internet with room for multiple players, you at Bleat must think you can do a better job. Where will you succeed that the competition’s failing?

Mike: The neat thing about Bleat is that it is the single point resource that is currently missing in the online vegan world. You’re right, there are loads of sites out there that do what we’re trying to do, sometimes even two/three of the things but nowhere that does all of them, in one place. Part of the goal with Bleat is to also bring the vegan world up to date, a lot of sites out there seem to be quite out dated in design and usability, so that’s something I’m proud to be bringing to Bleat. The site is going to be launched in Beta, it’s potentially never going to be ‘finished’, similarly to sites like Facebook, there is a never ending list of things we could do with the site, but the site is working very well from a basic functioning point of view, and is only going to get better.

Jason: Your intro video puts tremendous emphasis on the personal health benefits of veganism, with a secondary emphasis on environmental impact, and little to no mention of the interspecies ethical concerns that are the basis of veganism. What’s the thinking here? If it’s an intentional omission, is it because you think it will turn people off? Because you don’t believe in the ethical basis? Some other reason entirely? 

Mike: Great question! This is something we have considered, the absolute main aim with Bleat is to save the lives of more animals, hands down, 100%. We see this being done by creating somewhere that long term vegans can go to get what they need but also just people who are interested in finding out more can go to hopefully make a transition. We’re trying to make veganism more mainstream by making it easy for people to adopt and maintain a vegan lifestyle, then once that is reached, the lead on is that they will start being involved in more campaign/activism work, spreading the word and also creating less of a demand for animal based products.

You’re right in a way, we’re trying to appeal to the masses and through some research we have done, people already know that animals are suffering, they hear it all the time from ‘preachy vegans’ – what we’re trying to do is promote a really positive message through the site, by showing them the benefits to themselves, which in turn will help animals.

Saying that we are going to be running campaigns of our own in the future that specifically target ‘interspecies ethical concerns’.

There is so much I could talk about for this question, I hope all of that makes sense!

Jason: It does! Thanks so much. Best of luck to you guys,  and I’m much looking forward to checking out the site on May 1.

Did you know that animal rights groups became the “number one domestic terrorism threat” in this country?

I didn’t, until I read an interview with journalist and author Will Potter on the Animal Legal Defense Fund website.

Potter, “is an award-winning independent journalist based in Washington, D.C., who focuses on ‘eco-terrorism,’ the animal rights and environmental movements, and civil liberties post-9/11. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Huffington Post, and the Vermont Law Review.” After getting arrested for leafletting, threatened by the FBI, and then testifying before Congress, he became “obsessed” with finding out how this terrifying reality came to be.

Drawing comparisons to the “Red Scare” era, Potter’s book, Green Is The New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege is, “a thrilling memoir that contextualizes the federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA).” AETA, he explains, was created to expand on the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), which was deemed “inadequate in going after radical groups.”

The article also goes on to discuss the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which might be even more scary; “a secretive organization that allows corporations to literally write bills that have been introduced around the country—with lawmakers having no idea that they were actually drafted by corporations themselves”, and provides a link to Potter’s Congressional testimony. I need a hug!

Drool at these! Photo via Refinery29

Check out Refinery29′s awesomely illustrated feature Vegan Cookie DIYs So Good We Almost Didn’t Share ‘Em.

With recipes for Almond Raspberry Thumbprints, Old-School Peanut Butter Cookies, and Lemon-Lime Sugar Cookies we are drooling all over our keyboards!

Did you know that it’s The Vegan Month Of Food a.k.a. VeganMoFo? If you are a vegan food blogger yourself, or a regular reader of same, you almost certainly do. But for the rest of you, we wanted to drop a note to let you know you’re missing out.

We did MoFo ourselves in 2009, 2010, and 2011, but we’re totally taking a nap this year.

Pull yourself together, readers, and stop weeping over SuperVegan’s non-participation this year. The vegan food blogosphere is doing an incredible job, even without us, with 598 bloggers participating from 24 countries around the world. That’s well over 18,000 posts if they all write every day.

The mothership blog at veganmofo.com has been publishing tons of great posts themselves (often rounding up the best of all the participants) and, here’s where I know you’ll cheer right up, lots of GIVEAWAYS! You’ve already missed all kinds of great food, and books about food. Go win the rest of ‘em.

We applaud the good people of MoFo and the fine work they are doing. We promise we’ll be back in the vita-mix next year, so in the meantime, go eat lots of delicious things!

But instead, I’m going to talk to you about something equally awesome: Ryan Gosling. No, not just Ryan Gosling, but Vegan Ryan Gosling. It’s a blog. A whole blog for Ryan Gosling saying things in the “Girl,…” meme that vegans will completely love. I caught this because Vegansaurus posted about it this morning and it’s so, so amazing (and so are they!). Watch what you can do with this:

YES, YES, RYAN, I TOTALLY AGREE! I HATE CAROB AND NOOCH. WE ARE SOULMATES! Now, turn on “Time of My Life” and catch me [possible spoiler if you haven't seen Crazy, Stupid, Love!] in your big, strong arms as I run to you!

RIP, m’lady.

Without any ado, Quarrygirl.com, a much appreciated vegan blog out of Los Angeles, shuttered last week. Redirecting to her twitter feed, which she is tweeting from regularly, the unidentified vegan blogstress seems to have had an epiphany whilst attending a Morissey concert to the effect of, “enough is enough.” After four years, her term is apparently over.

We at SuperVegan would like to thank Quarrygirl and her contributing writers for what was (and still is, in its archived form) a tremendous resource for vegan eating. Operation Pancake?! I mean, c’mon! That was ah-mazing! Blogging is hard hard work, and often goes unrecognized, so thanks thanks thanks for all of yours! We hope you enjoy your early retirement and wish you the best of luck with whatever you get yourself into next, a lifetime of delicious vegan food to feast on, and maybe a pony? I dunno, something nice.

In the meantime, gentle readers, if you’d like us at SuperVegan to pick up where QG left off, create a LA Restaurant Guide, or something else only you have thought of, please let us know! Leave a comment, it’s easy, and we really like hearing from you!

Vegan bloggers, UNITE! And get ready to tippity type away with joy this weekend, August 26-28, at the first annual and *sold out* Vida Vegan Conference! A vegan blogging buffet where workshops, panels, speakers, and special events are up for grabs, and I am going to absolutely engorge myself! Figuratively. But also literally! Because it’s in Portland, and I’ve never been there, which means I have to taste the whole city. Lick the sidewalks and such. Mmmm.

In addition to the above mentioned conference-y stuff, there will be goings-on a-plenty: a sneak preview of Vegucated Thursday night followed by a post-screening Q&A with director and creator Marisa Miller Wolfson; a VegNews-sponsored cupcake reception Friday; and the Galarama, a fancy shmancy party and silent auction to benefit Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, on Saturday. (The Galarama is open to the public, so bring your friends! Con attendees’ admission is included with Con tickets; everyone else can still buy tickets here.) For a full schedule, check the con’s fantabulous agenda.

Oh, and hey, is that my name on the list of speakers? Why yes it is! Jason Das and I are attending as speakers on the Travel, Group & Community Blogging, and Dating & Mating panels with a bunch of other super cool vegans. We will try our very best to bring you first-hand accounts from the Con, but if we don’t, we know you’ll look at that schedule and understand.

Vida Vegan’s organizers told me how y’all at home can catch a glimpse of the conference (and watch your loving SuperVegans!), and shared a few other helpful tips for conference-goers and admirers alike.

SuperVegan: How can people at home follow the conference?

Vida Vegan Con: LiveStream, Vida Vegan Blog, Facebook, and Twitter. And we’ve heard rumors of some our attendees liveblogging. We’ll be sure to point you in their direction.

SV: I want to attend every single session, but my clones are busy this weekend. Will the classes and lectures be recorded for us to view when we get home?

VVC: As a first-year conference, we won’t be able to stream and record every single class offered, but we’ll happily link to all recordings posted by attendees. And check our Livestream for select classes – some total, some partial.

SV: Is there one item every attendee should pack? I’ve never been to Portland — or a blogging conference!

VVC: Look for a blog post up on our site soon! Of course, for a vegan blogger’s convention in Portland, there are a few necessary things–a camera (don’t forget your charger!), layers (rain knows no boundaries here, though it is supposed to be nice), and an extra bag to take home all your swag.

SV: There’s a wonderful list of donors supplying auction items for the Galarama Saturday night. Can you give us a taste of what we’ll be bidding on?

VVC: So many generous folks are coming forward to help support Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary–more stuff shows up every day! We’ve got a Shiraleah Amelie satchel from Alternative Outfitters, some handcrafted items from Kittee Berns, Panda With Cookie, and Late to the Revolution–plus gift certificates, books, wine, and a ticket to Vida Vegan Con 2013!

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

Here’s the intro video for the project:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

Keepin’ it real with Food Fight! Vegan Grocery

Get yourself to the new and improved Food Fight! Vegan Grocery website STAT! Our favorite brick-and-mortar vegan convenience store recently relaunched its online store with a greater selection of the products you once could only buy in its Portland storefront. The site boasts a slew of new features, such as “kosher,” “gluten-free” and “organic” search options, user-generated ratings and wish lists that you should populate and share with your family and friends in the days leading up to the winter holidays.

Here’s a shortlist (in no particular order) of the Food Fight! Vegan Grocery items available online that we’re loving as of late:

1. Butler Soy Curls
2. Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter
3. Tartex Organic Pâté
4. Shikai Biker Soap
5. Food Fight! Chico Bag

Food Fight! Vegan Grocery is open 24/7 at www.foodfightgrocery.com and from 10:00am to 8:00pm every day at 1217 SE Stark St., Portland, OR 97214.

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

There’s more daily deal services than you can shake a stick at these days (Groupon, Living Social, Scoutmob, KGB Deals, Tippr, BuyWithMe, etc.). It’s not uncommon for them to offer deals for vegan-friendly restaurants or “green” businesses. And while they push a lot of crap, I’ve been happy to snap up Groupons for cheaper food at Maoz Vegetarian, Terri, Pure Food and Wine, Cocoa V, and Foodswings over the last year or so.

Anyway, there’s a new kid on the block, MindBodyGreen. For now, they’re NYC only, but they’re planning to launch in other cities. To quote them, “MindBodyGreen New York brings its members great deals on the best healthy and green experiences in New York. If we like the yoga classes at a studio, the organic products at a spa, or the eco-chic clothing at a boutique, our members will too! Living healthier and greener just got easier – and at a great price.”

If that sounds good to you, go sign up. You can tell their heart is in the right place because their graphic design is terrible. If you’re just a cheap food-eating person like me, you might want to join, too–two of the deals they’ve got up right now are for Gustorganics and Vegan Divas cookies.

Of course, remember your three “R”s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I’m pretty sure most of what you’ll get via MindBodyGreen won’t help you with any of these. But maybe it will help you spend less money on greener things than you would otherwise spend it on.

Pick Panels Not Noses!

Remember when you learned about new music through those little booklets called “zines”? You read a short paragraph review of a record, took a gamble on it by sending your well-concealed cash to the distro, and a few weeks later the United States Postal Service delivered the record to your door? Well, South By Southwest (SXSW) has been around since those halcyon days, too, but it doesn’t mope around and wax nostalgic about the golden years prior to the Internet Revolution. Nowadays, it still organizes a bazillion live shows, as well as a film festival and a surprisingly diverse interactive portion that plays host to a slew of panels, such as those featuring bloggers who want to talk about blogging to other bloggers! Futuristic stuff!

Our pal Stephanie of The Lazy Smurf’s Guide to Life has envisioned a panel for vegans to call their very own at the next SXSW in March 2011. Here’s the official description of “Internet Activism Vegan Bloggers Take Over the World“:

A surge of vegan bloggers has been using the internet to make change in the way people think about animals through new forms of activism. VeganMoFo (the vegan month of food) and worldwide Vegan Bakesales to raise money for causes and promote veganism are just some of the ways that we are breaking out of the stereotypes of the past and creating a revolution. Learn creative ways to promote your message and engage your community on & off the web and more about food activism and using your culinary skills to promote compassion.

SXSW panels are decided by crowd-sourcing, so please vote if you want to see SXSW get more vegan-friendly next year! Voting was originally scheduled to close last night, but it’s been extended through this weekend, so cast your vegan vote by 11:59 CST Sunday, August 29th, and your vote shall be counted!

Oh, and note! As of this writing, more than 950 Terri Groupons have been purchased. Wowza!

This weekend’s going to rock your veggie world, if you’re into that sorta thing! Veggie Prom is tonight, followed by a post-prom potluck picnic at Central Park. Finally, the Veggie Pride Parade rounds out the weekend Sunday starting at 11 a.m. in the Meatpacking district.

Hungry after all the parading, yes? Z Pizza‘s got vegan slices this weekend, starting today! That means no more staring in their window wishing you had friends to go in on a pie with you, and no aging pizza in your fridge. (But leftover pizza is the best, no joke!)

Jonathan Horowitz’s art exhibit at a former meat locker in the Village called “Go Vegan!” looks brilliant. Have you been? What’d ya think?

At least two carriage horses have crashed in the last two weeks, Gothamist reports. It’s been just a month since the City Council approved changes to the carriage horse industry that support more humane treatment of the horses, but the new legislation does nothing to protect horses from injury due to crashes. Hey, it looks like you can’t make carriage-hauling safe or humane for horses unless you eliminate it entirely. News. Flash.

The LA Times blog’s “L.A. Unleashed” column has a snappy animal round-up of its own: Labradoodle breeder’s regrets, gray whale in Israel, and researchers hurt mice to see the looks on their faces. Guh.

The Humane Society of the United States gives us a peek into Richard Berman’s absurdly shady lobbying tactics and how they threaten animals. You wanna read this!

Remember when Compassion Over Killing encouraged us to enter Dunkin’ Donuts’s “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut Contest,” and asked us to share our vegan creations with them? They’ve picked their favorite 12 contestants’ dreamed-up sweets and will make one of those dreams come true! Vote for your favorite by next Friday, May 21 (and you’ll be entered to win one of 10 prizes, too). Vegan Treats will produce the winning doughnut, which will be announced in June. I will take a box of each!

The restaurant news you/I’ve been waiting for: Teany reopened this week, after many many missed teanychinos.

Aaaand, ‘sNice Soho opened at 150 Sullivan St. between Prince and Houston streets.

Vegan food truck The Cinnamon Snail will leave its usual parking spot in Jersey to find a temporary home in Hell’s Kitchen Sunday 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at W. 39th Street and 9th Avenue. Amazing vegan doughnuts, people!

Passout Records in Williamsburg will reopen this summer as a 24-hour vegetarian burger joint. And bring on the vegan shakes, please!

And finally, I encourage you to date Julie! As one astute commentator notes, she is pretty.

Happy weekend!

Babeland’s Jaguar Harness is now vegan, according to Shewired. No leather necessary for super good times!

The insanely timely hilarious geniuses at Vegansaurus gave us a recipe for a vegan version of KFC’s heart-clogging, rotting body parts, media darling sandwich, the Double Down. Oh my god, Rudy, get your deep fryer.

As of this week, Mondays are vegetarian days in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors declared in a resolution Tuesday. Yaaaayyyy! Whatever it means in practice, we like the theory and hope it means more delicious veggies for all.

Since life isn’t all fried seitan and Meatless Mondays, and because you need something to show your friend who doesn’t understand that egg farming causes suffering, we give you the Humane Society of the United States’s latest undercover investigation, released Wednesday. Warning: you might puke.

In restaurant news, Souen on 13th Street will close for several months starting next week to renovate, so if you like your hippie food served in a hippie restaurant, go eat there right now, hippie.

‘sNice Soho will open NEXT WEEK so get in a sandwich-y, coffee-y mood with me!

Oh, and in other ‘sNice news! Two of their employees were stabbed last month (shocking and horrible, i know!), so ‘sNice in the West Village is having a benefit to support them on Sunday, April 11, 6-9 p.m. $10 at the door. There will be vegan pigs in a blanket! And me! I will be there!

Enough about restaurants. Registration for the Let Live conference in Portland is open. June 25-27 at Portland State University. Speakers will include Gene Baur, Josh Hooten, Andy Stephanian, Isa Moskowitz, Jasmin Singer, and others TBA.

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.