South Texas Vegan

Raw Vegan Holiday Dishes

2011-12-21T06:11:00.000-08:00

Great NY Times Recipes

2011-11-25T21:26:00.001-08:00

These vegan holiday entrees sure look good!

A Vegan's Remorse

2011-06-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

The food scene just got even worse in little ole Harlingen. Our favorite (and one of the very few we can eat at) restaurants, Jerusalem Cafe, has been shuttered for failure to pay rent. I'm not kidding when I say the place has some of the best Mediterranean food around, even for the big cities. Omar makes a strong hummus and baba ganuj, but what really brings home his vegetarian plate are his spiced roasted potatoes and zucchini and onions. He makes a great Israeli hot sauce. I also love his cardamon tea and, of course, Turkish coffee. I am indifferent to his falafel. It's not bad; it's just not exceptional. I hope the restaurant has not met its end. My fingers are crossed for Omar. It's really the small food businesses that make exceptional food, the places run by passionate chefs. Another Harlingen place that has been in peril is Taj Restaurant, only one of two Indian restaurants in the Rio Grande Valley. Taj is superb. It has been closed for months for "renovations." We keep calling and asking when they will open again, and it keeps getting pushed back. Man, the Valley has been going backwards. I would just die for a decent Chinese or Thai place around here. Stone Court Cafe, a Thai restaurant in Harlingen, has gone downhill quickly. They used to make a decent vegan pad Thai, but they changed the recipe. I can't taste any tamarind or lime juice or lemon grass. What's pad Thai without those ingredients at tasting levels? I'm hoping things start shaping up. Maybe I need to be more open minded and try more restaurants. Ugh, I see lots of disappointment on the horizon.

Back Blogging

2011-06-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

Has it really been years since I last posted? Wow. How time flies. I guess I just got out of the habit of posting regularly since I started graduate school. I am going into the second year of my PhD program in English literature this fall at Texas Tech, so I have been busy. During the school year, I have to be in Lubbock, which is really hard on the family. The good news is that after I finish my coursework, Texas Tech will allow me to finish my program here. I have so enjoyed being with my wife and son. Every day has simply been a complete joy. We remain committed to our ideals, and our son is a very healthy 10-month-old vegan (see picture). Unfortunately, since the last time I wrote, Naturally's on South Padre Island closed. I can't tell you how sad that makes me. I hope someone else will see the opportunity to create a health food cafe and store on the island. Vegan Freak Radio also stopped broadcasting. I hope Bob and Jenna take it up again once they get their law degrees. Recently, we started having our friend Alan over to our house on Wednesdays for a nice vegan meal. In the future, I will take pictures of our meals and write about what we ate. I have no pictures of today's meal, but we had my recent creation of egg-style sandwiches made with tofu, mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, and red onions. Yummy. Alan brought over some scrumptious sweet potato fries, and Anita made some tasty chocolate pudding pie.

Leopold the Lion King! Our Vegan Baby...

2010-10-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

Leo is already 10 weeks old!

The birth was actually a wonderful experience. Although I dearly wanted a water birth at the Weslaco Holy Family Birthing Center, I ended up developing preeclampsia at 39 weeks. So off to the hospital. I was induced beginning at 5 am. Was finally given Nubain (a mild painkiller) at 3:30ish and delivered Leo by 4:59 pm - no c-section, no episiotomy, no epidural. I was so freaking proud of myself! Leopold Doss was given a APGAR score of 9, weighed in at 7lbs and 6 oz and was 21 1/4 inches. Very healthy boy!

He has been breastfeeding nearly exclusively for his ten weeks so far. He weighed in at 11 lbs 10 oz at his 2 month exam! He smiles and coos a lot. We are so proud!

Once we get him on solids - I am sure we will have more vegan stories to tell.

My Dr. does not know I am vegan...

2010-04-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

Hello Folks,

I keep getting the question "What does your Dr. say about you being a vegan"...and pregnant? I don't know. I've never told him. I think we should regard Drs. as technicians, there to do a technical job and that's it. Why we think they have infinite knowledge about all things escapes me. My Dr. probably took one nutrition class in the 1960s. What is he likely to know about nutrition? He may spout off to me his own preconceived and uneducated comments, but I can get those anywhere, and for free. So no, my Dr. does not know, and I have no intentions of telling him. He spares me about 30 seconds per visit, and that is more than enough for me.

I am, however, obsessed with nutrition info and love to fantasize about making well-balanced vegan toddler meals once little "Leo" is on solids. I've been obsessed with nutrition for years now so I am already pretty well informed. But the thought of feeding a little one is just endless fun for me.

I am very committed to cloth diapering. I've already bought some supplies. We don't use paper towels at my house and I do not use disposable feminine products so why would I use disposable diapers? Not a chance. Everyone sounds dubious, but I am excited - probably overly so considering what I am so looking forward too!

Aside from that, the pregancy is going smoothly, no problems so far, although I sure do whine about the various symptoms I've got...numb fingers, out of breath, little weird pains in my abdomen. I am 26 weeks so far....happy to wait quite a few more!

I'm pregnant - and yes, still vegan....

2010-03-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

I will be 20 weeks pregnant in a couple of days, and this week, I had my first craving. I kept thinking I had cravings before, but now I get what a REAL craving is. All I want is fruit cups. With chile and lime if you've got it. I spent $80 on fruit this weekend and have been chopping 'em up. I went to the pulga (the flea market) in Brownsville, got a fruit cup - and I think that is what set it off. Yum! I went to Paletera today at 3:00 -- could not contain myself. I just HAD to go and knowing it is so close to my work - I think I'll be going back.

I keep googling "vegan pregnancy," trying to see some useful info or at least something interesting. SO many articles about celebrities giving up their vegan or vegetarian diets while pregnant. How? I don't get it. I was near some fried mozzarella cheese about 14 weeks in, and that made me ill. I have had very little nausea, unless I smell BBQ or that sickening raw meat smell at the grocery store. They made tripas (cow intestines) at work -- I was gagging worse than I have the whole pregnancy so far. (but if you know the smell of tripas, that is probably a view shared by many non-pregnant folks).

Actually - it's not that I don't get it. I get the whole pregnancy - I want it and I want it NOW syndrome. I am living it every two hours these days. I can see that those that see their veganism as a nice way to keep trim and be "pure" will not want to - not really be ABLE to, during a pregnancy. I just don't see veganism as a sacrifice. I did at first, but I quickly learned I can still be a glutton and be a vegan. Yum yum yum!

Thank goodness Andrew is such a good cook, and is still willing to cook - because I hate cooking now!

What's up with The New York Times' editorial pages?

2008-12-22T14:10:00.001-08:00

Did The New York Times' editorial pages really print false information? Look at this fake letter supposedly written by the mayor of Paris. Why is that not surprising? Look at what the Times' editorial pages said about vegans. The nation's best newspaper has tremendous journalistic standards in its news sections, but on its editorial pages, it seems to print whatever it can get its hands on.

'Tis the season, you know

2008-12-19T17:37:00.000-08:00

I probably shouldn't be disappointed, but I can't help it. My work put on a Christmas lunch for everyone, and I got my hopes up for a second. The bosses got pasta, pizza and salad. Guess who the salad without dressing was for? I may be a vegan, but I'm not a big fan of iceberg lettuce with red cabbage and tomatoes and no dressing. How boring. The sad thing is they know I'm a vegan, but I was not consulted. By experience, I knew that would happen, so I knew to bring a lunch. I could have guided them to getting a chesseless pizza from Papa Johns with all of the vegetable toppings. Now, that would have been more up my alley. Shucks. I did get a very nice gift from our administrative assistant: a vegetarian cookbook. Well, it wasn't all bad. I can't wait to make our Christmas tamales.

Should Vegans Boycott Olive Garden?

2008-12-12T08:38:00.000-08:00

For years, I had been going to Olive Garden with my family in a variety of cities. I knew that I could at least get whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce on it. And, my family was willing to go. So, it was a compromise that didn't make me upset. It never occurred to me that what I was eating might not be vegan at all. Here is what the Olive Garden website says:

Which menu selections are vegetarian?
A few of our menu items can be adjusted to accommodate a vegan or vegetarian diet, but none wholly meet the criteria. Depending on your personal philosophy, we can suggest the following items as meatless, but not necessarily vegetarian or vegan:

Minestrone soup (vegetable and mushroom base; no meat protein)
Garden Salad (without dressing)
Marinara Sauce (mushroom base; no meat protein)
Capellini Pomodoro
Eggplant Parmigiana
Fettuccine Alfredo

It is interesting to me that they say that vegetarians and vegans can be accommodated, but then it says none of their menu items "wholly meet the criteria." To me, that means, nothing is vegetarian or vegan. It makes me think of the food scientists in "Fast Food Nation" adding flavorings made of meat products. That's what McDonald's did when they stopped frying their French fries in beef tallow. To keep the same flavor, they simply added essence of beef fat into the fries. I wonder what sort of crazy experimentation Olive Garden is up to, but as far as I am concerned, they can keep their meals created in laboratories to themselves. They do not cook authentic Italian food, and I will never trust them again.

It wasn't the onions that made me want to cry

2008-08-20T21:07:00.000-07:00

Has it really been that long since I last made a post? I've fallen out of the habit of regularly posting. Well, I've been meaning to share these pictures I took back in April. Anita and I were really excited about finally getting to go to the Onion Festival in Weslaco. Unfortunately, the Onion Festival is not a celebration of the onion as much of it's just a typical festival. They had bands performing, arts and crafts tent and the non-vegan friendly food stands. When we had enough of the festival on that sweltering day, we had the misfortune of see this poor cow put up for display. The cow was being used to advertise milk. She was howling and miserable. People would come up to her oblivious to her suffering. This is systematic of our culture. We use animals for our benefit, but we refuse to see them, even when they are right under our noses. Unlike fellow humans, there is no minimum standard for treating an animal.

Sad about seitan

2008-04-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I've been slow about posting blog entries. I have several things I want to get off my chest soon (with pictures). I only have a week left in this semester, and maybe (perhaps I am being too hopeful) I will be able to get some of my mind back then. I just wanted to relay my birthday experience (from April 16, I'm slow). My wonderful wife made me sesame seitan for my birthday. It was so delicious. I've had similar dishes in the past, but now I'm learning I don't feel so well after having such a mega-dose of wheat gluten. After I eat it, I start getting a headache and feeling flushed. It's hard to explain, but I really don't want to experience that ever again. I know for certain it was the seitan because I ate two plates of leftovers, and the symptoms returned. The strange thing is I don't think I am overly sensitive to gluten in foods. I'm guessing it is just having such a concentrated amount in one dish. Well, at least my last seitan dish was a winner, and so much for snubbing my nose at others who balked at seitan. I understand how they feel now.

Spit out that mystery meat and get on over to the Great South Texas Meatout

2008-03-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Are you ready to treat your body right, be consistent in your moral values and help the environment? Then you might want to put down that barbacoa taco and head over to the third-annual Great South Texas Meatout at the Good News Mennonite Church in San Juan (on the corner of Raul Longoria and Eldora) on March 30 from 2-6 p.m.

The free Rio Grande-wide festival will feature vegetarian cooking workshops and demonstrations, with a wide selection of delicious meat-free dishes available for purchase from a cash bar. Samples of the classes include Growing a Salad on Your Front Porch, Vegan Nutrition, Easy Bake Recipes, Mexican Vegan Cuisine, among others.

Visitors will get to sample food from the classes, and for $5, visitors can purchase the Rio Grande Veggie Cookzine, a magazine complete with numerous original South Texas-inspired recipes.

The Great South Texas Meatout is sponsored by the Association for Vegan and Vegetarian Awareness (AVA) and the Cochehua Vegetarian Collective.

AVA (www.myspace.com/ava_utpa) is a student organization on the campus of the University of Texas-Pan American. Cochehua (www.myspace.com/cochehua) includes vegetarian (and non-vegetarian) members from Cameron and Hidalgo counties and conducts regular meetings in both counties.

For more information about the festival, please contact Sara Alvarado, AVA president at (956) 330-3721 or tataboxbp@gmail.com.

For more information about the Great American Meatout, visit www.meatout.org, and for a free download about the reasons and concerns of switching to a vegetarian diet, go the Web site for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine at www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk.

Bummed

2008-03-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

I do not like writing when I only have negative things to say, but I am really saddened by the announcement of the impending deah of Herbivore Magazine. I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall when they reduced the size of the publication to a tiny booklet and reduced the number of issues per year. The magazine was the one real true voice for vegans. The magazine made me feel less like a freak and more a part of a greater community of people who have similar beliefs. It was edgy and provocative. It cut straight to the heart of the issues more politically correct publications (i.e. Veg News, Vegetarian Times) wouldn't dare cover. Herbivore Magazine once bravely asked meat-eaters, "Why not eat your pets, too?" That isn't such an outrageous statement considering our bloody habits toward other creatures. I learned about people who promoted vegan issues I might never have learned about otherwise, including the singer, Michael Franti. The death of Herbivore Magazine comes on top of the recent closure of Satya, another publication that highlighted vegan issues. To make all of this bad news worse, members of our local vegetarian society recently expressed a desire to allow dairy and egg dishes at our local potlucks. They say that the rule of vegan dishes is discriminatory against vegetarians. Um, isn't vegan food vegetarian? Ugh. It's not like vegans can eat dairy and eggs. Which rule is more discriminatory? Anyway, I'm not posting again until I have something positive to say. RIP Herbivore Magazine.

Losing a great man

2008-02-22T06:54:00.000-08:00

Jim Koch sings to his daughter, Anita, the night before her marriage to me.

From left to right are Jim Koch, Anita, me and Sylvia Koch.

It has been a rough two weeks. I lost my father-in-law, Jim Koch, to heart disease on Feb. 13. He was just 68. I enjoyed his passion for left-wing politics and for life. One of the most touching experiences in my life was during the rehearsal dinner on June 22, 2001, for Anita and me. During the dinner, a mariachi band performed, and to the surprise of everyone, my future father-in-law got up and sang several songs in Spanish to his daughter. And you know what, he sang beautifully and powerfully. He cared deeply about his family and was always there when we needed him. He enjoyed being the caretaker for family history. He spoke three languages, English, Spanish and Portuguese. He was a retired public school teacher, an election judge and a political activist. During the last few years, he translated Brazilian poetry. Unfortunately, he had diabetes and was overweight. He liked his fast food. As vegans, Anita and I tried to encourage him to eat less meat. When he came over to our place, he enjoyed the vegan food we prepared. We also made food during the holidays and brought it to his house, such as tamales. At his home, he ate lots of hummus and some tofu. He switched from chorizo to soyrizo. Despite his positive changes, it wasn't enough. He needed to do so much more, namely avoiding fast food. His last heart exam had been 10 years ago. If he had gotten the exam every year, I believe they probably would have caught the build up in his arteries and could have provided him with some treatment. It simply was too late when he was taken to the emergency room. Heart disease, especially build up in the arteries, can easily be remedied with a good diet and exercise (read "The China Study"). I hope anyone who reads this will take better care of their heart and encourage their family members to do the same. We will miss you so much, Jim.

The not-so-smart car: Where veganism and environmentalism clash

2008-02-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

I was so excited that the Smart ForTwo car was coming to the United States this year after being available for years in Europe. It is the most fuel-efficient nonhybrid on the market. Only the Toyota Prius gets better highway mileage (45 mpg to 41 mpg, according to the EPA's 2008 standard). Unfortunately, the ForTwo comes standard with a leather steering wheel and leather gear-shift knob. I e-mailed the company about it, and here was their response: "Dear smart Enthusiast, Thank you for your interest in smart USA. Unfortunately at this time leather is the only option available for the steering wheel." It makes me so disgusted. I am trying to be a good environmentalist and want to do the right thing, but I will not buy a car that's dressed up with the skin of another animal. The idea that you can't even special order a non-leather steering wheel and gear-shift knob is just amazing. I'm so glad a company is making a small, reasonably priced and fuel-efficient car. Unfortunately, there's too much cruelty in its make-up for my green.

A fair shake is not too much to ask for

2008-01-29T07:01:00.000-08:00

I realize it's a dollar short and a day late and not even really a vegan issue, but I just put up a bug supporting Dennis Kucinich for president. He's already dropped out of the race, so it doesn't matter that much. I try not to be overly political on this blog, but I do want to make a point. Kucinich dropped out of the race because he couldn't get a fair shake in the coverage of the election. He was excluded from debates because TV networks said he wasn't doing well in the polls. He was excluded from stories about the presidential election because he wasn't performing well in the polls. The problem is that you can't fare well in the polls unless you are covered with equal vigor. Michael Bloomberg, who denied his interest, got more presidential campaign coverage than Kucinich, and he wasn't even running. Fred Thompson, who did worse than Kucinich in New Hampshire, got far more campaign coverage than Kucinich. Even in the debates that Kucinich was allowed to attend, he didn't get an equal amount of time or questions as the "leading" candidates. Candidates who have been anointed with the special media buzz get covered by the media. Hillary Clinton got plenty of mention because she is the wife of a former president. Guess where such a public figure starts off in the polls? At the top. As far as I'm concerned, we need campaign reforms that prohibit the reporting of political polls. People get so caught up in perceived leaders that they end up supporting one of them instead of a candidate they identify most with. If a person qualifies to be on the ballot, that should qualify them to be given equal coverage. The media should do stories on the issues rather than on the polls. Let people decide who to support based on where they stand on those issues. Who has the best health-care plan, for instance? I saw a story in The New York Times several months ago about the Democratic candidates' positions on health care. Guess who wasn't mentioned? Kucinich and Mike Gravel. Would it have been so hard for the Times to have put in a few more paragraphs about the other two candidates? Many of the stories that mentioned Kucinich came at the end and said, "Also running are long-shot candidates Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel." What position is the media in to determine who is a long shot and who isn't? Let the voters decide this without interference. Maybe words like "long shot" could be used after early primaries are over. By the way, the public owns the air waves. We should require all networks to run free ads from all of the presidential candidates and dictate that all be given equal coverage. Well, I've said my piece.

Veganism is a win-win for the environment and people's health

2008-01-28T06:50:00.000-08:00

I have not been good about keeping up with entries in this blog. I have committed myself to graduate school, and I have a full-time job. Thus, my spare mental energy and time are not there enough for me to keep up with the blog as often as I'd like. I'd like to say I'm resolved to be better about it, but I don't want to make any promises I may or may not keep. Having the blog has been wonderful. It has let me get issues off my chest and provide some education about vegetarian issues to others who live in the Rio Grande Valley. It is one more useful tool to help vegetarians connect with one another. I hope I've conveyed that eating a vegan diet is not difficult, and anyone can do it. Meat is expensive to buy, and it also exerts a tremendous toll physically and environmentally. Long since it printed a column on its opinion pages with blatantly false information about veganism, The New York Times finally printed something honest on Sunday about the cost of meat production called "Re-thinking the Meat-Guzzler" by Mark Bittman. Among his very interesting comments is this nugget: "If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals." The reality is that the planet cannot sustain the current levels of meat eating. It is destroying the environment both in terms of greenhouse gases and pollution to our waterways. It is destroying people's health, and it is making humans desensitized to enormous amounts of pain and suffering by the animals we slaughter.

A Vegan Feast

2007-12-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is usually a time for increased stress. It is nice driving to San Antonio to visit family, but it isn't all that nice eating the vegan food we prepared around such a massive animal massacre. After six years of marriage, however, this was the first Thanksgiving that we had at our house. We cooked up our best Thanksgiving meal to date. I mostly made the cornbread stuffing and the potato salad, and Anita made the muffins, the sugar-glazed baked sweet potatoes and the cashew encrusted baked tofu. She also made the cornbread that I used for the stuffing. I really can't believe how well the potato salad came out. We looked through all of our cookbooks to see if we could find something that could be veganized. We used a recipe from an old cookbook put together by some Army wives (including my mother). Wouldn't you know it, after we made the potato salad the first time a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, we discovered the recipe had been written by my mother.

Enjoying some vegan eating in Austin's neighborhood

2007-10-15T06:35:00.000-07:00

This is the famous Protein 2000 dish: vegetable proteins made of soybeans in a slightly sweet brown sauce with broccoli, garlic and onions.

This is called Lucky 7. Here's how the menu described it: seven fried tofu balls made of celery, carrots, chestnut, vegetable protein, and breadcrumbs are cooked with broccoli, baby bok choy, cauliflower, carrots, napa cabbage, onion and garlic in a slightly sweet and spicy red sauce.

One of the difficult parts to living in the Rio Grande Valley is the shortage of restaurants that serve to vegans. There are simply slim pickings down here. Perhaps that's a good thing, considering I don't eat in restaurants as much anymore. I did this weekend though when I went to Austin and had lunch at Veggie Heaven next to the campus of the University of Texas with my friend, Dean. I forgot to take pictures of what we were eating until after we had already started chowing down. That's why they look a little a sloppy. The restaurant serves such a crazy variety of vegan dishes. So many are good, but I always find myself gravitating to Protein 2000. It is simply soul food. I love their fried spring rolls, steam buns and the brown rice with lentils, as well. Here's a link to Veggie Heaven's menu.

Only cruel-free dating, please

2007-09-27T18:06:00.000-07:00

The other day my wife asked if I would ever date anyone who wasn't a vegan. It's a ridiculous question, I know, because I wouldn't be happy being with anyone but her, but she wanted me to consider the hypothetical. As a vegan, would I consider a relationship with anyone not a vegan? I have a hard time thinking that I could have a successful relationship with anyone who isn't a vegan because she wouldn't share the same values as myself. Being vegan is a deep ethical committment, and it revolves around my love for life, the environment and my health. An anti-vegan in the midst would undermine my values. Is it much different than a lover of peace dating a known mass murderer? I think not. The differences between vegans and others are immense. I can't disown my family, and I would never consider it, but having a romantic relationship with someone who would conspire to stink up the house with burning flesh is quite revolting. Perhaps I would be condemning my life to one of loneliness, I don't know, but perhaps there would be more time to pen the great American novel. Anyway, the question was prompted by this online Newsweek article: "Love Me, Love My Tofu." It mentions one of our favorite vegan couples, Bob and Jenna Torres, who run the famous vegan podcast, Vegan Freak Radio.

Oh, gross

2007-09-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

Yet again, meateaters continue to gross the world out. Check out this Associated Press story:

MAIDEN, N.C. - A man who bought a smoker Tuesday at an auction of abandoned items might have thought twice had he looked inside first.
Maiden police said the man opened up the smoker and saw what he thought was a piece of driftwood wrapped in paper. When he unwrapped it, he found a human leg, cut off 2 to 3 inches above the knee.
The smoker had been sold at an auction of items left behind at a storage facility, so investigators contacted the mother and son who had rented the space where the smoker was found.

To read the rest, click here.

Naturally the place to eat on South Padre Island

2007-09-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

Tofu salad sandwich

Portabella with mango-chili sauce sandwich and sweet potato fries

For those who haven't heard, Naturally's Health Food Store and Cafe on South Padre Island recently got a lot better. Formally, it was in a much smaller location. Now, it is in what was once a fast food restaurant that became a fine-dining restaurant. Half of the store is the health food part and the other the cafe. The selection in the health food store, while still in a small area by grocery store standards, actually rivals Sun Harvest in McAllen in many ways. They have items that the McAllen store doesn't have. We found organic canned pineapples, organic molases and a brand of organic tofu that Sun Harvest doesn't carry. Anita and I went back again this past weekend so we could take a few photographs. In the restaurant, I got the seasoned tofu salad sandwich on rosemary sourdough rye bread. Anita got the chef's recent creation, a portabella with mango-chili sauce sandwich. Both were fantastic. Just be sure to ask to hold the cheese. Where else could you go out to eat and drink a kombucha and organic tea? Naturally's is definitely the place vegans in the Valley should make a point of going to.

Maybe veganism doesn't sell magazines

2007-09-11T07:06:00.000-07:00

It hasn't been a good year for vegans in the publishing world. We all know the damage done by The New York Times' printing of a column full of fabrications by Nina Planck. Herbivore, the magazine for hardcore vegans, decided to stop printing the magazine. Now, they print a tiny booklet and publish poorer quality stores on the Web. VegNews has been sliding downhill for quite a while in order, I guess, to pick up a larger audience. VegNews doesn't speak to veganism that much anymore; instead, they frame things in a much broader vegetarian sense. VegNews has gotten away from what attracted their core subscribers. These subscribers were reacting to Vegetarian Times basically throwing vegetarians onto the street to appeal to a wider audience (or to make more money). Satya also recently gave up publishing, as well. Now, there's a wide opening if some enterprising person wants to start up a magazine that caters to vegans. Maybe you won't get the widest audience in the world, but we would be loyal as long as you stayed true to your roots. Nothing is more frustrating in the publishing world than people so paranoid about stepping on people's toes. When VegNews and Herbivore were in their heyday, they had no problem printing edgy, even shocking, stories about the food industry and culture. Now, saying something negative is frowned on by publishers worried about selling even more magazines. I'm hoping someone with some decent vegan values sees the need for a new magazine for vegans. Perhaps the next guy won't be so willing to sell out.

Some ramblings

2007-09-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official, the fall semester is well underway. I haven't written in the blog in a while because I've been using every spare moment to read something for one of my classes. I'm just starting in my journey to earn a master's degree in English. Oh, the things I've forgotten. I earned my bachelor's degree in 1998 so I'm basically playing big-time catch-up. Being back in school is both exciting and terrifying at the same time. I was worried the other day at work because I had been asked to attend a lunch meeting that started at 11 a.m. No one would do anything for the oddball vegan, and I couldn't exactly eat lunch beforehand at 10 a.m. I was getting mentally ready to be hungry and miserable for a long period of time. The organizer of the lunch came to talk to me about what I'd be doing at the lunch and made the comment, "I know they won't be serving your preferred cuisine." I responded back (perhaps with a little too much vitriol) with, "I know; it'll be painful." Perhaps it was my bad attitude, but I got a call later that I wouldn't have to attend the lunch. Wahoo! Whining does work. Really, veganism is not simply a preference. This is the core of my ethical beliefs. A vegan is who I am, much like a Jew is Jewish. Really, would people make that sort of comment to a person who had a religious conviction? The lunch is pork and the organizer tells the Jew, "I know it's not your preferred cuisine," how would that person react? Would there be grounds for a discrimination complaint? Also on my mind has been this ridiculous argument by meat-eaters that plants have feelings, too, and vegans are wreaking more pain than meat-eaters. Ummm, no. Say the meat-eaters are correct and plants do have feelings, what is the weight of their argument? Not very good. Take cows, for instance. Of all the corn and soy beans that are fed to the cow, only about 20 percent of those calories are available in the animal's flesh. That means, instead of feeding those plants directly to humans, five times as much cropland have to be used to get the same amount of calories from the cow. In other words, you have five times as much plant suffering from the meat-eater, and you still have the suffering of the cow. Being a vegan would actually cause less plant suffering, believe it or not. Plus, we know the environmental destruction being caused by razing of rainforests to clear the way for land to grow crops for domesticated animals. We have far more farmland than we need right now to feed the world a vegan diet. The same can't be said for feeding the world an American-style meat-centric diet.

Wedding blues

2007-08-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

I actually was looking forward to the wedding on Saturday. My wife's cousin, Erica, had made a point of telling us there would be a vegan meal for us at her wedding reception. Erica and her beau got hitched in the fanciest of places, the country club at The Dominion in San Antonio, the place where country singer George Strait and former basketball great David Robinson and other famous people reside. Normally, when we go to a family event, we come prepared or get a bite to eat beforehand. That wasn't the case, however, when Erica's sister, Susan, got married in January. Susan knew full well we were vegans, so we came relaxed. The only thing we could find at that wedding was chips and salsa -- albeit good chips and salsa. Needless to say, that was a let down, but we let our guard down again this past weekend when we drove four and half hours to attend Erica's wedding. The wedding was beautiful, but what were they thinking to have a wedding outdoors in August in Texas? One of the bridesmaids got faint and had to leave. We had to hear the preacher talk about how a wife is in "servitude" to her husband, but the pastor goes on to say, "That doesn't mean they aren't equals." Huh? I don't care what the Bible says. Servitude means slavery. Supposedly John and Erica really care about animals -- he's a vet, she a nurse and they both are members of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Yet, they didn't see anything cruel about releasing turtles and butterflies during the wedding. I thought about those poor butterflies all cooped up and hungry when they flew to the nearest flowers after being released. How many in that box died, I wonder? Anyway, we made it to the reception, which was thankfully indoors. Everyone but us got a plate full of beef kabobs, asparagus, rice and some sort of sauce made out of the beef droppings. We got our plates after everyone else. It was grilled vegetables that were cooked on the grill that had been used for the kabobs. They didn't have any sauce on them. They were disgusting and not vegan. Afterward, we went to a Mediterranean place (Alex's Shish Kabab, 7500 Eckhert Road, No. 152, San Antonio, TX 78249, (210) 680-1826) close to my parents-in-laws' home. This wonderful chef made to-die-for pitas, hummus, fresh baba ganoush and dolmas. The chef had recently come to San Antonio after having had a successful restaurant in Seattle for two decades. We couldn't have been more fortunate.

Relief: Hurricane likely to miss Rio Grande Valley

2007-08-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

It looks like Hurricane Dean won't hit us in the deepest part of South Texas. It has been a lesson, though, to be better prepared. We need to be ready to board up our windows, sand bag the doors, pick up loose items in the yard, have several days worth of food and water supply, and if we need to evacuate to put our cats (all six) in cat carriers and collect the few most precious items (pictures, important documents) before we leave. Hopefully, if a hurricane ever strikes, there never is any serious flooding in our neighborhood because it would break my heart to lose the plants in our garden.

Dog dumping in South Texas

2007-08-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

Fellow Valley resident Noemi Martinez (She runs a kool Web site called Hermana Resist) brought a series animal abuse articles printed in The (McAllen) Monitor to my attention. It looks as though the city of Edcouch was picking up living stray dogs and then dumping their dead carcasses in ditches around Hidalgo County, apparently to save money, according to a city worker. I presume the dogs were being killed somehow, either by starvation or other methods. Either way, this is grossly despicable behavior. "It's revolting and disgusting," Noemi said. I think this shows how mean humans can be, but thank goodness at least one person had a conscience and shed some light on this tragic story and may prevent further abuses. I can't help but think how odd our culture is when it is OK to treat some animals (cows, chickens, pigs) in the torturous conditions of factory farms, but others, such as dogs, cats and horses, draw gasps from most in society when they are treated cruelly. The only reason why The Monitor pursued these stories is because it fit in that weird category where the line is drawn on animal cruelty. The problem is that the ethics of animal cruelty are not consistent, and so it obvious why some can't understand what the rules of decency are. It is equally strange to me why some think it is OK to eat cows, chickens and pigs and odd that someone would consider consuming a horse, dog or cat. We don't need to consume any animal to survive, and if had a culture of treating other animals with dignity and respect as fellow living creatures, we would never fall into the trap of what's ethical or not. Being cruel to any animal would not be ethical, and no one would confuse that. Here are the links to the stories from The Monitor on the dog abuses: No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4

Here is a little bit from the first story that Noemi sent me.

EDCOUCH — Nestled in a ditch less than two-tenths of a mile east of the city maintenance shop here rests a lumpy, gray, plastic garbage bag.
Inside it is the fly-ridden, decomposing carcass of what was a black, medium-sized dog.
Municipal workers here have been starving dogs to death and irresponsibly tossing their carcasses in ditches inside and around the city limits for months, as ordered by the city manager, according to former city worker Abel Escovedo and Mayor Jose Calin Guzman.
Along with other city maintenance workers, Escovedo said he was ordered by City Manager Ernesto Ayala Jr. to pick up stray dogs in town and keep them at the maintenance shop for a week.
"We've been dumping dogs," he said. "(Workers) went at least 10 times in the last two months."
After talking with The Monitor Wednesday afternoon, Guzman said he had heard from various city workers that "a lot of dead dogs" had been dumped outside the Edcouch city limits.
"That's enough to fire that guy or have him quit," Guzman said. "I'm so discontented by this."
Escovedo said he was told by his supervisor that the dogs were dumped to avoid the costs of turning them over to area animal shelters.
"I said, 'Isn't (dumping dogs) against the law?' but Ayala told me they didn't have no money for the city to drop them off at the dog pound," Escovedo said.

To read more, click here.

Dean is a comin'!

2007-08-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

Hello, I am Anita, Andrew's wife, here for a guest post. We are bracing for Hurricane Dean, which may or may not bare down on us on Thursday. I went to the grocery store today, to pick up some veggies for dinner, and one of my favorite voyeuristic things to do is to see what other folks have in their grocery carts. Of course, because of the pending storm, I saw lots of water bottles, chips, snacks, and "potted meats"....(Can there be a more revolting item than a potted meat?) And so much pre-seasoned pre-marinated HEB beef in plastic bags. Why so much meat? Just what to they intend to do with it? Are they going to have a BBQ during the storm? I think of raw animal flesh as one of the least convenient things to prepare during a storm. MMMMM, the thought of a well-stocked deep freeze chock-full of a side of a cow, in the aftermath of a hurricane, losing the protection of its electrical chill...now putrefying in the lovely humid heat of the Rio Grande Valley.

In Austin prior to Hurricane Rita, I remember being in another HEB with empty shelves where the sodas, water, bread and chips had been. I have no use for these things. This is my plan. We have "Windmill" water stored up in reusable bottles (no use in bringing home tons and tons of plastic bottles just for "one-use" water), we have organic corn chips, jars of salsa and canned beans and canned tomatoes with green chilies. We have avocados and watermelon and nectarines. I have some really tasty instant bean soups and oatmeal that require nothing more than boiling water. We have some instant humus mix and pitas. We have peanut butter, and walnuts and peanuts and almonds. We have "Hemp Bread". Hopefully we will be able to use our gas stove, and if not, we have a propane camping stove as a last resort. I think I'll do some baking on Wednesday and make up some cinnamon rolls and some more peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. I will miss Andrew's amazing tofu and buckwheat noodle stir fries with beets, carrots and cabbage or his tempeh jerk sandwiches with sprouts and pickles. But we certainly won't starve!

I haven't lived through a hurricane since I was a child, when we were living in McAllen and fled to Austin, only to run into a bunch of offshoots of tornadoes! But we are ready now, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst. Knowing the damage that cyclones cause around the world, I wish for the best for everyone possibly impacted by this storm. Have mercy on us Dean!

How can people be so cruel?

2007-08-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

I have to say, I'm a little flabbergasted by this alleged story of animal cruelty from Big Sandy, Texas. I know animal cruelty exists, but I always wonder how people can be so mean. Here are the first two paragraphs of the story, which appears in the Austin American-Statesman:

Two East Texas women face charges of animal cruelty after authorities found the remains of dozens of dogs in their trailer home, authorities said.
The dogs' bodies were stuffed into coolers, plastic bags and the freezer. Animal control officers also recovered nine living dogs.

The naughty fruit

2007-08-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

The avocado is a remarkable fruit and one I would find hard to live without. A perfectly ripe avocado is a culinary experience unto itself. Some of the best avocados I've ever had were here in the Rio Grande Valley. It's because we are closer to the best source for quality avocados, the central-southern parts of Mexico. When Anita and I crossed the international border on Saturday to Nuevo Progresso, we picked up several avocados. Because of customs laws that were meant to protect Californian and Hawaiian agricultural interests, whole avocados were long banned from being allowed to cross the border into the United States. Recently that ban was eased, and commercial interests can import them, but the ban still exists for the individual. They do permit avocados without their pits to come into the country. The vendor removes the pit, puts a chunk of a chili in its places and closes the avocado back up. These can stay good for a couple of days. The ones we got in Nuevo Progresso were simply amazing. We used them in tacos, guacamole and a hummus sandwich. By the way, the root of the word avocado comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs in Mexico. They named it ahaucatl because of its resemblance to testicles.

What do you want human?

2007-08-13T06:57:00.000-07:00

Cuteness queen Snowbell isn't quite sure yet what to think about this intrusion into her catnap.

A trip across the border to Nuevo Progresso

2007-08-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Anita and I ventured to Nuevo Progresso, just on the other side of the Rio Grande in Mexico. This was our first time visiting this popular tourist trap. The town would obviously not exist without American shoppers. The first thing I noticed over there was the numerous dentist and doctor offices on the main dusty drag just across the international bridge. I suppose people come across the border to have their teeth or body worked on. I don't know how comfortable I would be to do something like that, but if you can't afford something in the United States, at least there is a cheaper option. I really wonder if there is a difference in the quality of care. The main drag is littered with shops selling things from bootleg CDs to woven blankets to ceramic pottery to prints of Frida Kahlo paintings. There are street-side vendors selling food, including cabrito tacos (baby goat meat) and lonches (meat sandwich). For the vegan, there really are slim pickings. There was one guy roasting corn. Anita had an ear and really enjoyed it. There are places that sell chilled cut fruit in cups. When Mexicans buy it, it is common for them to sprinkle a hot chili pepper/lime/salt powder on it. You can buy cheap spices over there, and you can pick up some avocados (Vendors remove the pit and put a chili in the middle because you can't take a whole avocado across the border). Of course, there were lots of places selling alcohol. Tourists walked up and down the streets clinging to their beers. The voices of some tourists belting out choppy lyrics would drift out from karaoke bars. There were also a lot of beggars, waving cups or their hands, hoping for some donations. Nuevo Progresso is probably considered a prosperous city by Mexican standards, but even so, there's a lot of desperation. It really makes me sick watching Americans living it up, getting plastered in the open-air bars while a poor malnourished Mexican sits on the sidewalk a few feet away trying to draw the notice of any passerby.

The death of a vegetarian restaurant

2007-08-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

The closing of Nu Age Cafe, a mostly vegan fine dining restaurant in Austin, comes as a complete shock (See story in Austin American-Statesman). My wife and I were there when they opened their doors and saw with pride as they slowly picked up their clientele. We enjoyed one of our wedding anniversaries there. I absolutely loved their sesame seitan and the brown rice served in banana leaves. They had amazing deserts and an incredible assortment of fun drinks. Since moving from Austin, I have missed the vegetarian restaurants I used to frequent, and I must say Nu Age Cafe held a special place in my heart. The closing of Nu Age Cafe had nothing to do with the quality of the food. It was because of a death in the family. This news comes a few years since West Lynn Cafe in Austin closed. That was another fine dining vegetarian restaurant. It sold to Cosmic Cafe, a Dallas-based vegetarian Indian restaurant chain. That, too, closed. Losing a cherished vegetarian restaurant feels like a death in the family. It feels like I've had the breath sucked out of me. I can only hope a new vegetarian restaurant will soon emerge from this sad tale that will take me on a new adventure I won't ever want to leave from.

She's back: Niiiiina

2007-08-08T06:54:00.000-07:00

Clearly, The New York Times wasn't shamed by the slanderous "Death by Veganism" column it printed a couple of months ago. You remember: Veganism is unnatural and dangerous, while humans are made of fish oil. The New York Times never did provide corrections for all of the errors in the column. Now, the Times is going back to the author of the column, Nina Planck, in a story today about raw milk. This woman who belittled vegan mothers for what they feed their children, feeds raw milk to her 9-month-old child. She's basically playing Russian roulette with her child's health. Planck said it is unnatural to feed a growing child a vegan diet, but I guess she doesn't think it is unusual to suck on the tit of another animal and consume the milk meant for its own baby. Here is what the article says in part:

Nina Planck, the author of “Real Food: What to Eat and Why,” defied the F.D.A.’s warning and drank raw milk while she was pregnant. She not only continues to drink it while nursing her 9-month-old son, Julian, but also allows him the occasional sip. She has an arrangement with a couple of farmers to deliver it to New York City.
“We drink raw milk because we trust the traditional food chain more than the industrial one,” said Ms. Planck, who knows a number of farmers from her days as director of the New York City Greenmarkets and through her boyfriend, Rob Kaufelt, the owner of Murray’s Cheese in Greenwich Village.
“We’re willing to spend more money the higher up the food chain we go,” she said. “We’re not alone, either. You cannot categorize the people who are drinking raw milk. They are people from the blue states and red states, farmers and yuppies and Birkenstock wearers.”
Food scientists can hardly believe that so many consumers have turned their back on one of the most successful public health endeavors of the 20th century. In 1938, for example, milk caused 25 percent of all outbreaks of food- and water-related sickness.
With the advent of universal pasteurization, that number fell to 1 percent by 1993, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group in Washington.

Now, I don't wish anything but the best for young Julian, but wouldn't it just be the grandest of ironies if Planck's child became sick or died because of what she fed him?

Taking cruelty to a new level

2007-08-07T06:50:00.000-07:00

I should've expected to be shocked when I tuned into "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern" on the Travel Channel. Any part of a dead animal is pretty bizarre to me. I'm always amazed how meat-eaters can be grossed out about eating a different part of the same animal that they crave. Now, that's bizarre. The cow's tongue is gross, but the cow's butt flesh is yummy? Anyway, Zimmern sunk to a new low yesterday while dining at a New York sushi joint. He had a lobster carved up and served to him alive while he ate the living animal's flesh out of its body. Imagine being kept alive while someone dined on your legs. Don't we as humans have at least some basic sense of morals? Killing is wrong, but what Zimmern did reached an all-time karmic low.

Mmmm, chocolate

2007-08-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I had a strong craving for a cake. I used my "Sinfully Vegan" cookbook by Lois Dieterly to make Chocolate Covered Golden Cake. It was and still is quite delicious. I did make a few changes to the recipe. One, I find white flour to be an abomination, so I used whole wheat pastry flour instead. I also find artificially solidified oils to be something you shouldn't put in your body. Instead of margarine, I used canola oil. It looks like all Dieterly wants you to use as a sweetener throughout the book is maple syrup. She must live on a maple syrup farm because where I live, it is very expensive. Her cake recipe called for a cup and a half of maple syrup. Instead, I used half a cup of maple syrup and half a cup of Succant. For the whipped chocolate frosting, I only used about half of what I made. I put the other half in the refrigerator. In hindsight, the cake I made was very dense and could have been split in two with a layer of frosting between the layers. My wife's description of the cake was that it taste like "a muffin with chocolate pudding on top." I need to think of ways to lighten up the batter without having to resort to white flour. Any ideas?

Oh so good

2007-08-06T06:15:00.000-07:00

One of the advantages of living in South Texas is the ability to grow a wide variety of my own tropical food plants. I aspire to be a permaculturalist. Like being a vegan, a permaculturalist makes her ecological footprint lighter by being more responsible for her actions. I have a hard time accepting someones commitment to being an environmentalist if she doesn't seriously consider being a vegan. The same goes for permaculture. Why have a lawn when you can cultivate a relationship with native plants and food plants? In these pictures, you see a variety of mango I'm growing called 'Carrie.' This is from my first crop. 'Carrie' is a delicious mango with such an explosion of flavor that can't be found in a grocery store. I had the ability to wait until the last possible second before harvesting this mango when it literally fell into my hand after simply touching it. In addition to two mango trees, my wife, Anita, and I are growing a wide selection of fruit trees, including two figs, two oranges, three key limes, one satsuma, one Meyer lemon, one regular lemon, one tangerine, four papayas, one longan, one starfruit, one guava, one avocado, one custard apple and one jujube. We also have two pomegranate bushes, and we are working on starting a vegetable garden. We have some vegetable plants growing in our flower beds. We grow herbs, as well, including rosemary, basil, oregano, epizote and sage. Everywhere else, native plants and roses are trying to help me kill the grass. Growing your own food reduces your need to buy oil-laden crops from the grocery store, and you can enjoy the healthful properties of crops that haven't been coated with pesticides. You can also take joy in returning your home's soil back to health. Think of growing food crops as a bank account. When peak oil crashes, your investments will pay off big time. I just love watching the magic of nature doing her work. I also think of my garden as a native seed bank that, with the help of birds, can help restore areas destroyed by development.

Can a vegan thrive on a remote Pacific island?

2007-08-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

In my blog entry yesterday when I pondered the thought if a vegan could thrive on a remote Pacific island, I really had no intimate knowledge to back up my guesses. I forgot about a wonderful book that I own by the famous Norwegian scientist-explorer, Thor Heyerdahl, called “Fatu-Hiva: Back to Nature.” In 1936, Heyerdahl and his wife, Liv, spent their honeymoon living on the deserted side of the Polynesian island of Fatu-Hiva for a year. Much of Heyerdahl’s work involved whether the Polynesians had contact with the people of South America or if much of the plant crops made their way to the islands without human intervention. Obviously, the Polynesians and the South Americans were much more advanced than white conquerors ever gave them credit for. But I’m digressing. Heyerdahl was not a vegan. He ate fish and pigs and probably many other animals. He also ate a wide variety of plants growing wild on the island, including sweet potatoes (the white variety), bananas, plantains, pineapples, breadfruit, mangoes, husk tomatoes, taro, coconuts, oranges, limes, lemons, sugarcane, lemongrass and papayas. Also growing on the island was hibiscus, wild cotton and bamboo. You can eat bamboo shoots and use its wood for a building material. You can clearly see, a vegan could survive on Heyerdahl’s island. The only thing she would have to worry about is vitamin B-12. As I discussed earlier, you can take the step of composting your own manure ─ since your body’s bacteria make B-12 in your large intestine ─ and using the finished compost to contaminate some of your vegetables with B-12. Here is some material from the book that I thought was fascinating:

As predicted by Teriieroo, the precious fei, or mountain plantain, which on Tahiti grew only in almost inaccessible cliffs, grew all around our cabin on Fatu-Hiva. It became our favorite, staple diet. Inedible when raw, it was roasted on embers and eaten dipped in the creamy white sauce of grated and squeezed coconut kernel. This coconut sauce was our only oil and served a multitude of purposes, culinary, as well as cosmetic. Production was simple: We grated the nut with a serrated piece of shell and squeezed the crumbs by twisting yellow-green meat of the fei, sweeter than fried banana, had a special flavor of excellent quality, of which we never tired. Besides the fei, the forest offered us seven different kinds of real bananas, from a tiny, round variety, resembling a yellow egg with strawberry flavor, to the large horse-banana, almost as long as an arm, which had to be cooked and then tasted like baked apple.
It was unusual to come across ripe bananas hanging the plant. When we reached for one, it was like grabbing a finger on an empty glove: It was already hollowed out by small fruit rats and consumed with the help of lizards and tiny, yellow banana flies. But there was plenty for all of us. We simply collected the clusters when they were just about ready to turn yellow, and hung them unsheltered in the breadfruit tree next to our window, where the sun would ripen them in a day or two and under our control. Their taste was unmatched by commercial bananas, which have to be picked weeks too early so as to survive the long transportation.
We had learned not to climb the slippery stem of the banana plant to reach its cluster of fruit. With a hard stroke of the machete, the entire stem cut like an onion and we rushed to grab the cluster of bananas before it was smashed against the ground as the whole plant feel. This seemingly vandalistic procedure as due to the fact that neither a fei nor a banana yields fruit twice. On Fatu-Hiva, the green stump remaining above the root began pushing up a new plant immediately, and so fast that the growth could be seen daily. The juicy inner ring of the onionlike cut began to rise above the others and slowly pulled up the next ring and the next. In a fortnight, the old stump resembled a flowerpot holding a green pole as tall as a man, which now opened up to unfold a green banner, the first, huge leaf. The new plant crept up just slowly enough to seem to have its speed cautiously adjusted not to scare us, not to wake us up to the fact that in the forest there is no borderline between what we consider natural and what we would have considered magic if it happened with a speed that would catch our eye. Within a year, a big, new plant had silently replaced the old one and stood there motionless and mute, ready to offer a new cluster of tasty bananas to hungry passersby.
The coconut was almost equally important to our daily fare. Most of the coconut palms near our hut were so incredibly tall and they swayed so much that I could not manage to get to the top, but there were always plenty of ripe nuts, covered with husk, to be found on the ground. Some of them had fallen down weeks before, and a baby palm was fumbling in the opposite direction, trying to get a foothold and pierce the ground. In these overmature nuts, most of the hard kernel and dissolved in the milk and begun to form a spongy, white ball looking like a brain, edible, but with a sugary taste unlike the nut itself. Even the “marrow” of the stem on a young palm was edible, like a giant piece of crisp celery.
Most of the food plants kept up a non-stop production and yielded fruits and nuts all the year round. The spiny orange trees carried sweet-smelling white flowers and green and ripe, golden fruit side by side on the same branches, and so did lemon trees and lime. Most of the old breadfruit trees were so big that I could not encircle the smooth trunk in order to climb it if the lower branches did not happen to be within reach. The impressive foliage resembled oversize oak leaves, and, scattered throughout the cooked branches, hung green, globular fruits as large as a baby’s head. The tough, gnarled rind cracked when toasted black on embers, and loosened, when cooked, from the delicious white meat within. It was a starchy and filling dish, tasting like a cross between fresh toast and new potatoes. This fibrous meat could be torn apart with the finger like bread., it could be sliced and fried crisp in a coconut oil on a flat slab, and it could be buried in the ground for months or yeas and eaten as a pounded porridge when completely fermented.
The most important wild tuber we came across in the forest was the taro, the closest we came to potatoes. It had once been cultivated in irrigated swamps, but as the planters disappeared, it now grew wild in the swampy soil below the spring. A huge, heart-shaped leaf stood like a parasol above each individual taro root, and in between grew some other wild leaves of the same shape, but so big that we used them as umbrellas in the rain, and as body-sized “fig leaves” if native visitors should ever surprise us in the pool.
There was still more to harvest in the surrounding forest. Large, pear-shaped papayas. Small but extra-flavorsome mangoes. Wild pineapples. Tiny, red husk tomatoes. Pandanus, with its compound of nutlike kernels. The nobly, blue-green tapo-tapo. And a single large tree with a gorgeous fruit looking and tasting like a red strawberry but as large as a cauliflower.
For drinks, we had mineral water from the cool spring, orange juice, lemon squash sweetened with squeezed sugarcane, and the milk of green coconuts harvested with a struggle from the lower palms higher up the hill. In Tahiti, Liv had learned from Faufau to prepare as a hot beverage a very tasty tea from the withered leaves of orange trees. We often planned to gather and roast the red berries of a few coffee pants that grew in the thickets right behind our cabin, but got too fond of our orange tree.

I thought this was interesting, too, about the making of poipoi, “the staple diet in most of Polynesia,” before they attempted to live off the land:

Nowhere else was poipoi made as strong as in the Marquesas group. Breadfruit in large quantities was buried in deep pits in the ground and covered with large leaves. It was left to rot for a year, and sometimes much longer. When thoroughly rotten, the sticky dough was dug up and beaten with a polished stone pounder. Bits of fresh breadfruit also were sometimes pounded into this sour pasted, which was eaten raw. Marquesan poipoi stinks so intensely that a normal nose can sniff a dinner party a mile away in the jungle. The islanders frequently told us that they were so accustomed to this sour dough from early childhood that they could not digest a sturdy meal without it.
There it was, in the communal bowl before our noses. Like the rest of the group around it, we just had to dig our three longest fingers into the sticky mess and comfort ourselves with the discovery that it was better fitted to the palate than to the nose. The darkness helped us. We ate less than our movements suggested as we dug in the dark bowl.

Veganism in a good light

2007-08-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

The New York Times published a nice piece on Monday about the vegan diet book, "Skinny Bitch," by Rory Freedman and Kim Barmouin. The book is such an interesting way to introduce people to veganism. It doesn't scare people away from it by using the word vegan on the title page. My wife has a copy of the book at her workplace, and one co-worker said she'd like to read it. I'm sure if it said vegan something or the other on the title page the reaction would have been different.

In defense of veganism

2007-08-02T06:33:00.000-07:00

The magazine, Energy Times, which is distributed in health food stores, recently took up the debate about vegan diets in an article called "Omnivore vs. Vegan." They allowed for a back and forth debate between a representative for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and a hack for the Westin Price Foundation. It was interesting. I'm will to bet the lady from the Westin Price Foundation would infuriate any vegan. She says stuff like this: "Science strongly supports the health benefits of vegetables, but the evidence for vegan diets is inconsistent and contradictory at best." I think the health benefits of a vegan diet are indeed well established, and there are numerous large studies that show the benefits of a vegan diet. For this lady, who has a doctoral degree in nutrition to simply lie like that, to me, is grounds for her to have her Ph.D. revoked. That is using her degree in a deceiving way. That's not to say you can't eat poorly on a vegan diet and suffer health consequences because of that. In the day and age of processed foods, any vegan can fall into the convenience foods trap. The wacko Westin Price lady also says: "Sadly, veganism won’t even help our planet. Only 11 percent of the land can be farmed, a percentage that cannot be increased without deforestation, irrigation, chemical fertilizers and other destructive ecological practices." We all know this isn't true. First of all, organic growing methods are successful at feeding people, and they only sustainable way we can keep it up for the long term. Chemical fertilizers destroy the soil. Once the soil is destroyed, then you can't grow any crops on that property. Organics protects the pollinators and builds the soil. The Westin Price lady insinuates in her comment that cattle and other livestock freely roam all of that other land, and humans benefit from that. The vast majority of cattle, pigs and chickens are raised in factory farms, not on fields of grass that supposedly can't support the growing of crops. The calories the livestock consume are from crops that are unnatural to them -- mostly corn and soy. The corn has to be processed in a special way and the cattle have be given special enzymes and antibiotics before the cows can even digest the stuff. If they subsist on the corn too long, they will get sick and die, but they are sent off to the slaughterhouse before that time. Don't forget that it takes more crops to feed livestock before they are fed to humans. Much of the calories are lost in the process of growing crops for livestock. That need to feed livestock is one of the big contributors to the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest. There are way more than enough crops being grown today. Even if no one ever ate livestock ever again, there would be enough. One of the biggest environmental challenges of our day is the waste being produced by concentrated animal feed lots. They cause massive destruction to local waterways that humans rely on for drinking water. Lastly, the author of this article, Patrick Dougherty, is clearly biased. Look at his introduction to the article: "Imagine a vegan is shipwrecked on a remote tropical island. Suddenly, the luxury of choosing foods that suit vegan beliefs is replaced with the necessity of finding any food that is available. While seaweed, edible roots and the occasional coconut might offer temporary plant-based sustenance, a starving vegan would eventually also turn to fishing, hunting for wild boars, collecting eggs and scavenging for grubs. Holding aloft a wriggling, freshly speared fish, which ordinarily might trigger revulsion in a vegan, would now bring gratification for protein, healthy essential fatty acids, food energy and a full belly." That's ridiculous that any one in this age of overpopulation would be abandoned on a remote tropical island. Even so, the vegan wouldn't have to go to the lengths the author describes, which to me sounds like he's copying "Lord of the Flies." In the "Lord of the Flies," the killing of the boar represents the loss of the children's humanity. They turn into savages. The only nutrient that the vegan would need to worry about is B-12. B-12 stores last for a long time. Provided that some fruits and vegetables weren't washed, the contamination could be there. Your own large intestine makes B-12. You could designate a place to make compost out of your waste. Once you have finished compost, you could used that to contaminate your vegetables with B-12. I imagine the island that I'm on, since it supports many birds and boars, has plenty of plant products for me, too, such as taro, cassava, sapote or citrus (depending on what part of the Pacific you are stranded on), bananas, maybe Suriname cherry, hibiscus flowers, of course coconut, other palm fruits, a crazy amount of greens (including those of the cassava), custard apples and many other plants. Provided we were able to produce fire, I think vegans could live quite comfortably on a remote tropical island that supported boars.

Hoping the best for tiger involved in attack

2007-07-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

Yet another animal is probably in harms way after a tiger at the San Antonio Zoo attacked its keepers this weekend, sending him to the hospital. The keeper will recover. It is typical human reaction to kill animals who attack humans, but we forget: It is the animal's nature to kill other creatures. Only time will tell in this case, but I'm willing to bet zookeepers will kill the tiger. I hope I'm wrong. Zoos are disgusting human creations and are nothing more than animal prisons. The San Antonio Zoo is especially bad with tiny enclosures for the animals. If I had my way, I would abolish all zoos. Instead, I would seek animal conservation areas with breading areas, if needed. Zoos as conservation tools are simply excuses to keep tearing up the animals' habitats. I don't need to see an animal in an enclosure to appreciate its majesty. Hopefully, Berani the tiger will not be executed.

Road Trip to San Antone

2007-07-16T18:16:00.000-07:00

Queensryche

Queensryche

Vermicelli noodles with mixed vegetables, fried tofu and a spicy peanut butter sauce

Brown rice with mixed vegetables, fried tofu and a Teriyaki sauce

This past weekend I made a rare visit to San Antonio to see mine and my wife's favorite band, Queensryche, perform. It was totally kool, except for the brief fight that broke out among two fans and the guy smoking pot near us. The music, though, was amazing. This band sounds as good live as they do on their albums. That's saying a lot. We also went to see Michael Moore's "Sicko" documentary. It was excellent. I've wanted universal health care in the United States. It seems we can never get any traction on the issue, but maybe just maybe Moore can help generate some interest in the subject among voters. The documentary was incredibly heart wrenching. It makes you want to live in a country where the people care enough about each other to take care of them medically. I grew up in the military, and I was provided plenty of free, quality health care. I served in the Army, and I got some more good care when I was in the service. Since I've been out, I haven't had a decent doctor's visit once. I've been out of the military for 11 years. The bottom line is we need to get rid of the middle man in this medical game, the insurance companies, who merely take their cut and hand the rest of the money you or the company you work for to the doctors. We also need to take out the outrageous profits doctors and pharmaceutical companies make. There is hope, but there's also Canada if all else fails. Sigh. Anyway, I went to one of my favorite restaurants, Fire Bowl Cafe in the Quarry Market. I had the horror of realizing the dish I had ordered several times before had fish in the sauce. I was such an idiot because the menu clearly marked the vegetarian sauces. I had the Szechuan garlic sauce, which I'm sure had fish in it. I presumed it was vegetarian because I was familiar with making Szechuan garlic sauce, and I had never heard of fish being added to the sauce. Ugh. Anyway, the Thai spring rolls at the restaurant are amazing. This visit, my wife got the vermicelli noodles with mixed vegetables, fried tofu and a spicy peanut butter sauce. I had brown rice with mixed vegetables, fried tofu and a Teriyaki sauce. Both were very sweet and not very spicy. We fixed that with some chili sauce and more soy sauce. Mmmm.

Wee bit o' hope dashed

2007-07-13T06:45:00.001-07:00

I couldn't believe it when I heard a rumor that Guinness changed its ways and became a vegan beer. I checked on the Internet, and sure enough, there were some Web sites out there claiming that Guinness stopped using isinglass, a fish product, to clarify it. One of the Web sites said Guinness started using a centrifuge instead. I checked on the Guinness Web site, and it said they used a centrifuge twice to clarify the beer. "Wow," I thought, "maybe the rumor is true." I was still dubious, though, and I e-mailed the company. Here was their response: "In reference to your inquiry, isinglass, a fish product, is used during the clarification process as a magnet to get rid of excess yeast. To the strict Vegan, this would be an animal product and unsuitable." Oh well, I guess I can't have a Guinness. Beck's Dark is really good and vegan, and they'll get my money as long as Guinness refuses to remove an unnecessary product from its brewing process. Speaking of dark vegan beers, does anyone have any favorites that they'd like to share? I'm always looking for another good brew.

The weight of an argument

2007-07-12T06:35:00.000-07:00

Have you heard the recent criticism of Michael Moore and his new documentary, "Sicko" (which I plan on seeing this weekend)? Some are saying that the documentary's conclusions that universal health care is needed are not valid because Michael Moore is fat. That's perhaps one of the most illogical arguments I've heard in a while. Moore's weight has nothing to do with his reasoning. How many doctors live unhealthy lifestyles? I'm sure it's more than those who live healthy ones. Does that disqualify them from giving sound medical advice? I don't think so. What about trainers of world champion boxers? Some of them are short and fat, but Mike Tyson would never have been world champion had he not be taught how to box by one of these trainers. Would it be better for doctors and Michael Moore to be thin and vegans? Absolutely. (Oh my, I'm sounding like Donald Rumsfeld.) Certainly, a person's ability to reason never has anything to with weight of that individual.

We may be veagns, but we aren't pushovers

2007-07-09T06:41:00.000-07:00

Would there be such a thing as guilt if there were no relatives? Probably, but there would be a lot less of it. I think my wife and I are looked down upon by our relatives because we refuse to allow any meat to come into our house. Our refrigerator, and our stove have never met meat before, and we would like to keep it that way. It's not that that we are against feeding our relatives. We enjoy cooking for them. We are happy to feed anyone who stops by, but we are a vegan household. Anita and I were musing about one of our parents getting sick and having to take care of one of them, and we kept thinking about how we keep our parent from bringing meat into our house. If there is any place you should have as a sanctuary, it should be your home. On a side note, on that recent family reunion in which we had to endure a massive barbecue, my wife's brother actually had the nerve to ask us to fetch him some barbecue because he wouldn't be attending the reunion. Are we assholes for refusing? Are we too sensitive because we can't stand the smell of meat? We may be vegans, but we aren't doormats.

Go vegan, or you might eat human

2007-07-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

I was walking down the frozen food section at the grocery store during lunch today, glancing at the products. "Wow, a new Indian dish that's vegan," I thought. I don't usually buy these highly processed foods, but that's good information to know in case I ever want to. Then, I saw a product I used to like when I was a vegetarian (before becoming vegan). Michael Angelo's frozen eggplant lasagna. Absolutely awful for you, but every time I see that brand, it makes me shake my head. Michael Angelo's is a good reason for anyone to go vegan. In 2003, they had an employee cleaning meat processing equipment at their factory Round Rock, Texas, get sucked into a machine and ground out the other side. OSHA fined the company for not making appropriate safety precautions. I'm not sure if they ever took care of the man's wife. I doubt it. As I was standing in the frozen food aisle earlier today, I wondered if the Michael Angelo's factory still uses that piece of machinery that killed the man. I bet they still do, but I don't know it for sure. It reminds me of the labels that frustrate me all of the time that say "May contain dairy." I really don't like buying even those products. Should Michael Angelo's be required to say, "May contain human," if they still use that deadly piece of equipment? I wonder how many new vegans that would generate?

Hating Rachael Ray's way

2007-06-28T06:33:00.000-07:00

I had to laugh when I saw fellow vegan blog, The Veg Blog, post reasons to hate Rachael Ray. Among the reasons my wife hates Rachael Ray is that she is always saying "delish" and "yummo." Do you have any reasons to hate Rachael Ray?

The anti-vegan whines some more

2007-06-26T19:01:00.000-07:00

I’m getting tired of keeping this up (see string of blog entries below), but here is one more response by Andy C. on the Chicago Tribune Web site:

“I'm choking on all of the self-righteousness here. zak and Andrew seem to think that ALL vegans know exactly where their food comes from and that it ALL is locally grown. They also seem to think that everyone can afford to eat like this. They also seem to think that ALL meat eaters are horrible people.
Others here know for a FACT that a vegan lifestyle is the healthiest lifestyle that there is, when even doctors can't agree on the subject. They do some internet research or read a book and they think that they are experts on the subject.
Sorry folks. Humans are born omnivores and no amount of self-righteousness is gong to change that. A balanced diet that includes vegetables, grains, fruit, and meat is the healthiest lifestyle that there is, and there is a mountain of evidence out there that proves it.”

My response: Andy C., I am not suggesting that all vegans pay attention to the local food movement. I'm saying that I pay attention to that. Doctors have no room to speak on the subject of nutrition. They are not qualified or trained to do that. Nutrition scientists are, however. T. Colin Campbell, who authored "The China Study," does just that. His conclusion based on the massive and highly respected study in China: A vegan diet is the most healthy one. I'm not an expert on human physiology and have not read much on the subject, so I can't speak whether we are meant to be omnivores. I suspect we are born omnivores, but considering our lack of canines, I doubt we were meant to eat large mammals. More likely, we are meant to eat small insects. Considering our long intestines, I doubt we were meant to eat carrion, either. I don't have to eat meat products, and that's just fine with me.

Responding to the anti-vegan's response

2007-06-26T18:48:00.000-07:00

I must be getting to the anti-vegans. Andy C. on the Chicago Tribune Web site comes back for more: (see string of entries below)

“Andrew, I simply don't believe that you can't see the difference between eating a dog and eating a cow in the context of our society. Any reasonable person can. You are simply attempting to throw gasoline on a fire. Besides, why should it matter to you that I eat cows and not dogs? Perhaps I find the thought of eating dogs offensive, or perhaps I just don't like the taste. It is irrelevant to the argument.”

My response: Andy C., my point is that there would be far fewer meat-eaters if they had a more intimate relationship with their food. Eating dogs and horses fell out of practice, probably because we established relationships with them. I would just like to see meat-eaters try to raise their animal, then slit its throat, cut out its guts and throw it on the grill for the next meal. Most meat-eaters who walk down the grocery aisle have no idea where that food came from. They think it's a slab of meat that magically appeared. Do you have the guts to cut out the heart of your next meal?

Another anti-vegan speaks up

2007-06-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

Another anti-vegan responded to my comment on the Chicago Tribune Web site:

“I think it is wrong to say that just because one eats meat he is eating unhealthily. Most dietitians agree that one can eat lean meats and that this is a healthy addition to the diet should one choose to eat meat.
Mike's suggestion that meat eaters should be willing to eat a dog or horse because they eat other meats shows how ridiculous his argument is. Cattle, poultry, pigs, and most fish available in supermarkets are raised specifically for nutrition. I happen to eat meat, and I also happen to eat free-range organic meat so that I know the animals were treated humanely during their lives.
I'll close with the old standby- a cow can run away while a carrot can't. :)”

Here’s how I respond: MQB, how exactly is my comment ridiculous? Horses and dogs have been traditionally eaten for meat, just like cattle, pigs, poultry and fish. Some people happen to be squeamish about eating horses and dogs. Why? If you eat meat, you shouldn't cringe. The comment that is ridiculous is the one that you said, that they are raised specifically with nutrition in mind. The fish in the ocean were designed by humans for nutrition? Cows, pigs and chickens are bred to make certain body parts bigger, such as the chicken breast. The most inhumane thing you can do is kill something. You can't say the man raised his son humanely and then killed him. The act of killing ends the humane relationship.

The anti-vegan speaks

2007-06-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

An anti-vegan responded to my comment on the Chicago Tribune Web site. This is from Andy C.:

“Do you mean from the farmlands who's fertilizer is polluting our water? Or from the land where rain forests have been razed? These activities kill countless animals and harm our planet. How about from third-world countries where children are forced into hard labor to harvest the food? Do you know exactly where your veggies come from?
Some people need to get off of their high horses.”

This is my reply: Andy C., I know exactly where my food is coming from. I get my vegetables from a local community supported agricultural farm that uses no pesticides. I only buy organic food, and I try to only buy local food. The fact is that the rain forests are being cut down to grow crops to feed animals, mostly cattle. Most of the animals grown for food are fed crops that we grow. The calories lost in feeding it to humans is tremendous. If everyone went vegan, we would need far less farm land.

How do you respond to the anti-vegans?

2007-06-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

Anti-vegans are always looking for ways to display their ignorance. Take this guy, Mike, who posted a comment to the story, "Vegan mom could lose quintuplets," which was published in the Chicago Tribune:

"One thing is clear - keeping an infant or toddler healthy on a vegan diet is a bigger-than-average challenge. It requires above-average intelligence and extraordinary attention to detail, and even then the risk of malnutrition and retardation are significantly higher for Vegan babies than in the general population of meat-eating Westerners.
This is not like Celiac/Sprue and other food allergies, Julie. No one chooses those. Veganism is an uneccessary lifestyle choice that poses some serious risks to developing children. Not unlike the lifestyle choice related to refusing medical care for sick children pursued by certain religious zealots."

Here is my response to this guy's comment:
Veganism is certainly not an unhealthy lifestyle choice. Meat-eating is, though. Vegans can eat unhealthily, but meat-eaters run the risk of diseases of affluence, such as cancer and heart disease. Veganism removes the potential of dairy to promote cancer (see "The China Study"). Veganism does not require some special degree or intelligence to follow it in a healthy way. Simply eating enough calories means you'll likely be getting enough protein (again, see "The China Study"). Vegans can be comfortable with where their food comes from. I don't know many meat-eaters who will kill their meal or watch it getting killed. What is up with meat-eaters being grossed out about eating certain body parts of an animal or even certain animals? If meat-eaters are so comfortable with their philosophy in eating, they would be comfortable with eating their pet dog or horse. Why do these animals get special exemptions to the human palate and cows don't?
What would you say to a guy like that?

A vegan road trip

2007-06-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of Spiral Diner, an incredible vegan restaurant in Fort Worth.

This is the McNut Burger that my friend, Doc, ate. This is how the menu describes it: "A tasty and healthy patty made from a blend of Sunflower Seed, Carrot, Brown Rice and Spices topped with Lettuce, Tomato, Red Onion, Vegan Mayo, Ketchup and Mustard on a toasted Organic Bun."

This is what I ate, the Jamaican Jerk BBQ San'ich. Oh my, it was so freaking good. These Spiral Diner folks are geniuses, I tell you. Here is how the menu describes the jerk sandwich: "Our most famous sandwich. Multi-Grain Tempeh marinated in our Homemade Jerk Sauce, grilled & topped with a ring of Grilled Pineapple, Lettuce, Red Onion, Pickles & Vegan Mayo served on grilled Organic Multi-Grain Bread."

Here is what my wife had, Ramsey's Perfect Protein Platter. It was good, but even she was clamoring for more of the jerk sandwich. I don't blame her. Here is how the protein platter is described: "Black Beans and Quinoa cooked together with our famous homemade salsa, a perfect blend of spices and topped off with Avocado and Tahini. Healthy and delicious."

Saturday was my sixth wedding anniversary with my hip vegan wife, Anita. I bought her tickets to the True Colors Tour 2007 in Dallas. The concert was in support of the Human Rights Campaign, which is pushing for equal rights for the gay community. It featured Cindi Lauper, Debbi Harry, Erasure and Rosie O'Donnell. The best act by far was Erasure. Getting to the concert was a major long drive for us since we live in the Rio Grande Valley, more than eight hours away. But, we made a really cool weekend of it. We got to go to the Spiral Diner in Fort Worth with my good friend, Doc, who I haven't seen much of lately, especially since moving to the Valley. He lives in Krum, about 30 minutes north of Fort Worth. Anyway, I've wanted to go to the Spiral Diner since they opened. It didn't let any of us down. Doc, who is not a vegan, even mentioned that he could give up meat if he ate meals like that regularly. I hope he has the courage to give it a try. He is right. Anyone can stay a vegan if they keep a tasty diet.

The Times public editor speaks -- finally

2007-06-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

The New York Times' public editor, Clark Hoyt, finally touched on the "Death by Veganism" column in a column of his own, but unfortunately it falls far short of his responsibilities as the newspaper's ombudsman. His main problem with the Times editors allowing the "Death by Veganism" piece to be printed is that they didn't allow for another point of view that was supportive of veganism. Here is how Hoyt addresses the scientific points in what Nina Planck wrote:
"Rachelle Leesen, a clinical nutritionist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told me that Planck’s article 'was extremely inflammatory and full of misinformation.' She and her colleague Brenda Waber pointed me to a 2003 paper by the American Dietetic Association, the nation’s largest organization for food and nutrition professionals. After reviewing the current science, the A.D.A., together with the Dietitians of Canada, declared, 'Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence.'
Planck said she was aware of the A.D.A.’s position but regarded it as 'pandering' to a politically active vegan community.
I won’t rehash the scientific dispute in a case in which Planck has her experts and the A.D.A. paper cited more than 250 studies, but I think The Times owes its readers the other side, published on the op-ed page, not just in five letters to the editor that briefly took issue with her."
I'm getting so tired of this issue, but Planck does not quote a single expert in her writing. She has no attribution whatsoever. I can't understand why Hoyt can make an offhand comment about the consensus of the scientific community and compare it to Planck having her unnamed experts as reasoning why he didn't want write about the validity of what Planck wrote.
Hoyt does say the column is on shaky ground. I agree. I don't have a problem with some nut job like Planck writing anti-vegan columns, but I do have a problem with The New York Times not holding the column to high standards of journalism and at least provide some sort of attribution to what she wrote.
Hoyt's job is to critique the quality of the journalism in the Times, but he failed to recognize bad journalism and instead waxed about providing another point of view. I'm appreciative that Hoyt tried to tackle the issue of Planck's column, but he obviously wasn't hired to his current position because of his power of critique. I'm sure the management of the Times prefers it that way.

Vegans and barbecues don't mix

2007-06-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

Did I ever say my wife has a big family? More than 1,500 people showed up this past weekend to a reunion for one branch of her family. It was quite interesting. I learned so much about her roots and where she comes from. A big part of the reunion is a gigantic barbecue (This is South Texas after all.), and it was the most attended event. One part of the family owns a ranch, and they converted some cattle sorting area into a barbecue pit and seating area. I was quite upset at all of the smoke and dead flesh smell permeating the air, but lest my vegan sensibilities get to me, I didn't have it as bad as some others. There were some cattle pens outside of this covered sorting area with cows, bulls and calves still in them. These gentle creatures, who just wanted some green blades of grass to munch on, had to endure the smells of their kind roasting. Are we so cruel as humans that we have to make animals in our care endure the sight and smell of their relatives getting cooked? Don't meat-eaters have a decent bone left in them? One of my wife's relatives actually came up to us and said she was uncomfortable with the manure smell near the barbecue area. She said it made her think too much about where her food came from. I doubt anyone else had that thought considering how gleeful the rest of them were chomping on the slow-cooked animal flesh. When I got home late Saturday night, I was so exhausted after such a long day. I really didn't want to take a shower, but this meat smoke from the barbecue just stuck to my clothes and my skin. After I had washed off, I realized it still smelled bad. Oh yeah, I realized, I had to wash my hair, too.

Another good news report on vegetarianism

2007-06-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

Note: The Dallas Morning News published a nice article on why people go vegetarian called "Vegetarianism: Who switches, why and how." To my surprise, there were no nasty meat-eater comments. I think I went to graduate school with the author. About the environmental issue, though, an important point wasn't brought up. The rain forests of South America are being torn down to grow crops for cattle feed. Because calories are lost in the production of animal flesh, growing crops to feed them to feed us will always be less efficient than feeding humans plants directly.

By Lisa Martin

As a teenager in the Czech Republic, Barbara Dillard feared that a nasty bout of hepatitis would end her dreams of becoming a professional ballerina. Traditional medicine may have saved her life at age 17, but she despaired that the constant fatigue and accompanying weakness might end her aspirations. Out of desperation and after much research, she decided to try vegetarianism.
"My doctors were amazed at my recovery," says Mrs. Dillard, a Dallasite since the late 1990s. "But it wasn't easy to be a vegetarian. I even had to learn to make my own soy milk." That's because such products were not readily available at the time in the Eastern European country.
She went on to spend four years as a member of the National Theatre ballet company in the Czech Republic before moving stateside, where she is a stay-at-home mom.
Dr. Manisha Chandalia, an endocrinologist and metabolism specialist at UT Southwestern Medical Center, also brought a tradition of vegetarianism with her to Dallas.
"I don't have strong religious reasons for being a vegetarian, but growing up in India, nobody in my family was very keen on meat," she explains. "Here, it's more difficult for me to be a vegetarian. It's easy to become sloppy and end up with a carb intake that's too high."
Dr. Chandalia describes herself as an ovo-lacto vegetarian: someone who eats no meat, poultry or fish but whose diet includes dairy products and eggs.
Mrs. Dillard, on the other hand, is a vegan: She will not consume animal products, which means checking food labels for ingredients such as lard and gelatin.

Behind the decision

The reasons people turn to vegetarianism tend to fall into three broad categories: health, the environment, and animal rights or ethical considerations. Religious reasons also may lead a person to abstain from eating certain types of meat, such as pork or beef.
Reactions from the uninitiated to a vegetarian's dietary choice can range to fascination or abject horror.
"My family still doesn't understand how or why I'm a vegetarian," says Barbara Bush, president of the Black Vegetarian Society of Texas. "But when my father passed away, one of my aunts who's a big meat eater went out of her way to research and prepare a vegan meal. I was so touched by this gesture of support."
Ms. Bush says her co-workers often are fascinated by her choice.
"Whenever we're together at a banquet, I get a special meal, and people are always enthralled," she says with a laugh. "I try to be discreet, and I'm not a missionary out to convert people, but they always ask questions."
The inquiries often center on protein: Is she eating enough? How can she and other vegetarians survive, let alone thrive?
"If you have a crummy diet and give up meat, it's likely that you'll still have a crummy diet," says Jo Ann Carson, a professor of clinical nutrition at UT Southwestern and a registered dietitian who earned a doctorate in nutrition.
"But most serious vegetarians and vegans go out of their way to have a healthy diet and not to eat doughnuts all day long."

Earth, animal concerns

Although health concerns initially motivated Terry Jensen of Euless to go vegan in the mid-1990s, she quickly embraced the environmental benefits of the practice.
"Food is one of the biggest users of energy and one of the greatest contributors to global warming," she says. "Not only are the greenhouse gases emitted from the animals' waste causing problems with the environment, but you also have issues of transportation of the food and the energy that consumes."
Adds Margaret Morin, co-president of the Vegetarian Network of Dallas and a former registered nurse: "The number one thing you can do to support the environment is to go vegan." For this longtime Dallasite, however, another issue motivated her decision 15 years ago to become a vegetarian: empathy for animals.
"Farmed animals are objectified as cogs in the wheel of production and forced to eke out a miserable and lonely existence until they die, usually in terror, just so humans can eat their flesh," she says. "This is incontrovertibly wrong."

Missing ice cream

For her friend, Rusty Posch of Irving, a dispatcher for Southwest Airlines and a vegan who gave up animal products almost nine years ago, the only thing he truly misses about his former lifestyle is ice cream.
"Tofutti is OK, but the rice-based ice creams don't taste as good to me," admits this longtime volunteer with the Irving Animal Shelter.
Like many vegetarians and vegans, he went cold turkey on meat. Others, including Ms. Bush, preferred to taper off, first giving up beef and pork, then chicken, then fish and finally all animal products. The choice is purely individual, one born of myriad factors ranging from convenience to cravings.
"The one advice I've given people who are tempted by fast food at work is to bring meals from home," he says. "Someone who brings in fried chicken or something, well the smell might get to you, especially in the beginning."

Lisa Martin is an Arlington freelance writer. The New York Times also contributed to this article.

RESTAURANTS
Many restaurants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area offer vegetarian entrees, but the following offer all-vegetarian menus.
•Cosmic Cafe, 2912 Oak Lawn Ave., Dallas; 214-521-6157, www.cosmiccafedallas.com. Menu includes black-bean burgers, falafel, spinach enchiladas, mandala pizza.
•Kalachandji's, 5430 Gurley Ave., Dallas; 214-821-1048, www.kalachandjis.com. Menu includes bean soup, vegetable curry and rice puddings.
•Spiral Diner & Bakery, 1314 W. Magnolia, Fort Worth; 817-332-8834, www.spiraldiner.com (A second Spiral Diner is being planned for Oak Cliff.) Vegan menu includes organic fruit smoothies, hot hummus wrap, red coconut curry noodles.
•Veggie Garden, 516 W. Arapaho Road, Richardson; 972-479-0888, www.theveggiegarden.com. Menu includes eggless egg roll, kung pao soy beef, soy shrimp fried rice.

DEFINITIONS
Vegetarian (also known as ovo-lacto vegetarian): Eats no meat, poultry or fish; does consume dairy products and eggs.
Vegan: Eats no animal products. This can even include honey, because it is made by living creatures.
Pescovegetarian or pescetarian: Will eat fish in addition to dairy and eggs, but abstains from consuming meat and poultry.
Flexitarian: A relatively new term to describe someone who is primarily vegetarian but who may, for pragmatic reasons, occasionally eat animal flesh.

A healthy vegan diet no crime

2007-06-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Note: After all of this recent insanity concerning vegan diets, a few reasonable voices have been railing back, trying to take the passion out of the logic about the health of a vegan diet and replacing it with some genuine science. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (not The New York Times, unfortunately) published the following story on June 11, 2007, by Amy Joy Lanou, a senior nutrition scientist for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and an assistant professor of health and wellness at the University of North Carolina-Asheville.

By AMY JOY LANOU

It was a horrific crime. Last month in Atlanta, two parents were convicted of intentionally starving their six-week-old child to death. As part of their defense, the parents of Crown Shakur claimed that they are vegan, meaning that they do not consume meat, dairy, or other animal products. Their conviction has brought international attention to vegan childrearing.
As a nutritionist who testified as an expert witness for the prosecution in this trial, I want to clear up some disturbing misunderstandings about this case. Vegan diets are not only safe for babies; they're healthier than ones based on animal products.
Crown was not killed by a vegan diet. As the autopsy report stated, Crown died of complications of starvation. His parents fed him the wrong food for an infant — soymilk and apple juice. But the real problem was that he was not given enough food of any sort.
The other reason Crown died was that his parents did not seek medical care or even advice from a relative when it was clearly warranted. Parents have a legal and moral responsibility to protect their children and keep them well-fed. And doctors and nutritionists agree that the best food for infants is mother's breast milk. The only viable alternative for the first six months of life is infant formula. Many nutrition experts recommend soy-based formulas. Interestingly, the breast milk of vegan mothers has been shown to contain significantly lower levels of environmental contaminants, such as pesticides, dioxins, and bovine growth hormone, than the breast milk of meat-eating mothers.
First weaning foods, which should generally be introduced around six months of life, are nearly always foods from plant sources — mashed cooked vegetables, mashed fruit, or rice-cereal thinned with breast milk or formula if need be.
A few months later, more protein-dense foods can be offered. Good choices include mashed beans, lentils and peas. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, cow's milk is not recommended at all during the first year or so of life. Its consumption increases the risk of diabetes.
According to the American Dietetics Association, there is no need to introduce any meats, eggs, or dairy products into an infant, toddler, or child's diet. Well-planned vegan and vegetarian diets not only provide all the nutrients necessary to support growth, they also promote good health in childhood and start disease prevention early.
That all sounds pretty darn responsible to me.

Who knew? The Times did listen

2007-06-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

Note: This is a response by the executive editor of The New York Times to my letter posted before this entry.

Dear Mr. Keese,

As you've probably observed from the Letters column, you are not the only reader who had profound issues with that Op-ed. However, because it is an Op-ed, it is completely outside my bailiwick. I edit The New York Times except the Editorial and Op-ed pages. Where those pages are concerned, I'm just a reader. I've passed your message along to Andrew Rosenthal, who edits those pages. Given the voluminous response I gather arrived in response to the vegan piece, you may or may not get an individual response -- but you will not be ignored.

Regards,
Bill Keller,
executive editor of The New York Times

Will The New York Times ever listen?

2007-06-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

Note: This is a letter I wrote to The New York Times executive editor and publisher regarding the publishing of "Death by Veganism." If you don't succeed at first, try, try again. I'm trying. They just aren't listening.

Dear Bill Keller and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.:

I have written The New York Times a number of times over the last month and have not gotten anywhere. I have serious concerns over the Times publishing the column “Death by Veganism” on May 21, 2007, on its Op-Ed page. I’m not just some hack who hates the Times and is looking to start trouble. I have been a professional journalist for more than eight years, most recently as city editor for The Brownsville Herald in Texas. I love your newspaper. It is without a doubt the finest paper in the land. The issue I have with the column written by Nina Planck is that it is patently false. It spreads offensive falsehoods about vegans and tries to pass them off as true. I’m concerned that the Times doesn’t have any journalistic standards in considering what should be published on the Op-Ed page. Even authors of opinion pieces need to substantiate claims they make. Planck basically claimed in her column that science proves that a vegan diet is detrimental to the health of infants and toddlers. The consensus of the scientific community says otherwise. The American Dietetic Association states: “Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life-cycle including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence.” Planck didn’t bother to quote any doctors or nutrition scientists, nor did she mention any scientific studies on the matter. Planck does not hold a nutrition degree. Why is it that she is allowed to make declarative statements on a subject that she is not an expert on? When my reporters try to present information that isn’t sourced, I ask them why I should trust what they wrote. There is obviously a great value in getting a large number of viewpoints printed in the Times. These viewpoints, however, should not be allowed to contain false information. If an author wrote that President Bush invaded Sudan, it would be a falsehood, and it would be the duty of Times editors to either delete that information or reject the entire article. This was the case with what Planck wrote and is precisely why it hurts the Times’ credibility. I have a selfish concern here, as well. As a member of the greater vegan community, I am worried that because the Times printed Planck’s statements (even on its Op-Ed page) that a great number of people will take what she said as being true. Look at what the blogs are saying about vegans now. They quote the Times on why being a vegan is so bad. This single column basically negates years of outreach that vegans have done to dispel fears and misperceptions about a vegan diet. In previous letters, I and a great number of people asked the Times to correct the incorrect statements in Planck’s column. No serious corrections were printed expect one about Indian vegetarians not normally eating eggs. I also offered an Op-Ed reaction to Planck’s column. That, too, wasn’t printed. I attached to this e-mail the letter I wrote about what should be corrected, the Op-Ed offering I made and a letter I wrote to the Op-Ed editor. Please consider what I have said. I’m not asking for any recognition of any kind. I’m just asking the Times to do the right thing, and that would probably amount to retracting Planck’s column and training the editors to demand more attribution. Thank you for taking time to read my letter and taking my concerns into consideration.

Sincerely,
Andrew Keese
Harlingen, Texas

Be careful; vegan's a bad word

2007-06-14T06:34:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought that meat-eaters think "vegan" is a bad word? I often think it's the equivalent to the word "shit" to them. A few years ago, my wife decided to do some vegan outreach by baking some tasty treats. She thought at least meat-eaters would come to the realization that vegans can eat good food. One day, she brings these incredible cupcakes to work and makes the announcement that they were for everyone to eat. Each co-worker asked her, "Are they vegan?" "Yes," Anita announced with some pride. Not one co-worker tried a cupcake. Not a nibble, not a lick. They just sat there. They were the "vegan" cupcakes. Perhaps they thought they had asked, "Are they shit?" Maybe that would be a good excuse for their repulsion. Anita's co-workers would always bring food to work, and they loved to eat. It's not like they had a repulsion to food. Then, she tried a different tact. She brought the food to work and just set it down were food is normally put. It worked. Now, her co-workers would wander the offices asking, "Who baked these cookies? They are incredible." It's the ultimate vengeance when the meat-eaters realize the vegan made them food, and they liked it. What's the world coming to? It's obvious that meat-eaters don't hate vegan food; they just hate the word "vegan." What gets me is that meat-eaters eat plenty of plant food. Yet, they always ask, "Is it vegan?" as if there is something in it that they find repulsive. It's not the same as a vegan asking if there are any animal ingredients in something. Vegans don't eat meat, thank you.

Talk about an insult

2007-06-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

Gourmet magazine editor Julia Langbein demonstrates how to be a real asshole. I wouldn't normally use this word, but she really shows how not to be a friend in her blog entry titled "Sins of Flesh." She talks about how her vegan friend is such a good sport about her meat eating and that he never complains. Langbein just shoves it in his face over and over. She doesn't hesitate to offer him meat and even suggests he's a weakling. Here is a sample from the blog entry: "As one of my four friends, he comes to my many meat-centric dinner parties. When I unwrapped my gorgeous 9-lb bone-in leg of lamb for Easter lunch and discovered the leg joint was intact, he watched me dance it across the counter, puppeteering raw meat high-kicks and singing 'Luck Be a Lady.'" The vegan did eventually get upset, and what did Langbein do as a peace offering? She sent him a cheesecake. With friends like her, who needs enemies?

An appeal to The New York Times Op-Ed editor

2007-06-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

Note: This is a letter I sent to New York Times Op-Ed Editor David Shipley regarding his comments to Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt (see post below) regarding the printing of the Op-Ed "Death by Veganism."

Dear Mr. Shipley,

I can't tell you how disappointed I have been in The New York Times' publishing of Nina Planck's "Death by Veganism" column on May 21, 2007, and the Times' reaction to complaints about the piece. I am also deeply troubled by your comments to Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt, who brought some reader concerns about the column to your attention. You replied that the science is sound that infants need animal protein. What science exactly? You were merely speaking out of your rear end without actually having looked anything up. The only thing infants need is mother's milk. Anything other than that is inferior, animal or plant. Beside that point, let's trust the actual nutrition experts to comment on nutrition science. The American Dietetic Association states "Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life-cycle including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence." That is the consensus of the scientific community. Surely, the Times' Op-Ed page has some journalistic standards? Nina Planck did not cite one single source in her column. She did not quote a doctor or a nutrition scientist, nor did she refer to a scientific study. Planck also does not hold a nutrition degree. Why is someone being allowed to make declarative statements about a subject on the opinion page and being allowed to pass them off as being true? Does the Times bother to do any fact-checking? The Times has already published one correction on the column that Indian vegetarians don't normally eat eggs. That's a good start, but there are numerous items that need correction in the column. How about the absurd comment by Planck that babies are made of fish oil? I sent in an e-mail previously outlining all of the items that need correction. I also offered an Op-Ed reaction to Planck's piece. I attached both the Op-Ed offering and the letter concerning what items I believe deserve to be corrected. It would be helpful if the Times just retracted the column. As I wrote to Clark Hoyt, the Times wouldn’t just print anything on its Op-Ed page. Why would it allow the unsubstantiated remarks by Planck be printed? It’s equivalent to printing an Op-Ed piece detailing the superiority of the Aryan brain. After all, there is some Nazi science backing up the subject. Your reply to this e-mail would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Andrew Keese (a loyal New York Times subscriber)
Harlingen, Texas

New York Times attempts to justify shaky "Death by Vegan" column

2007-06-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I respond to an e-mail sent by The New York Times' public editor leter to Matthew Bate (pasted below).

Dear Matthew Bate,

Thank you for writing about the Nina Planck essay, “Death by Veganism,” published Monday (May 21, 2007) on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. I don’t know that Ms. Planck’s comments are “inaccurate,” I do know that they are debatable. I asked David Shipley, the editor of the Op-Ed page, for his thoughts. He said, “I think Nina Planck is on firm ground in her Op-Ed. Her reading of the science is that it is indeed the case that children (and all of us) need animal-derived nutrients, and she’s able to summon studies backing up her assertion – just as the vegans are able to summon up studies showing that you can indeed survive on plants alone.” My own view, which I expressed to Shipley, is that, given how important and fraught with emotion the subject of children’s nutrition is, the Times owed its readers an Op-Ed by another contributor debating Planck. Because there is science to support another view, it should have been aired at the same time, or very close to the same time. David Shipley’s view is that, “Op-Ed readers understand that they are reading an argument and that there is almost always another side to the argument.” I’d feel better if the Times had actually presented that other side in this particular instance.

Sincerely,
Clark Hoyt
Public Editor

Dear Mr. Hoyt,

Regarding your letter to Mr. Bate, the point is Nina Planck in her "Death by Veganism" column did not back up any of her information with any studies that veganism is bad, not one single one. If you look at Nina Planck's own Web site justifying the information in her column, she says she got all of her information from a single family practitioner. She did not say she looked at any studies. She does not make simple opinionated arguments in her column. She makes declarative statements about veganism. The reality is that the consensus of the scientific community is that a vegan diet is healthy. It does not back up Planck's position. If a person is going to make allegations and assertions in his or her writing, it needs to have some citation. She provides none in the column. On her Web site, Planck says she had many sources, but the only one she lists is the family practitioner. She does not mention any sources in her column, not one. Planck does not have a nutrition degree of any kind, so we can not trust the declarative statements she makes about nutrition. We also know that medical doctors get little if any nutrition training in medical school. This family doctor, who was unnamed on Planck's Web site, could talk about tests he has performed and demonstrated the results of those, but he can not actually talk about nutrition. He does, however, make a serious accusation on her Web site: "I have seen cases of severe anemia and protein deficiency in vegan infants resulting in hospitalization and blood transfusion." Now, if this is true, it speaks poorly of those particular vegan parents, but because one doctor may have seen something that he is assuming has to do with veganism doesn't mean he can extrapolate that to make assumptions about all vegans. Why isn't this doctor (I hope he is basing his information on actual tests he performed.) documenting these cases and presenting his findings in a peer reviewed journal if he is so concerned about what veganism can mean for all vegan infants? I'm guessing he doesn't have the evidence to back him up. There is plenty of information out there about raising vegan children and plenty of documented evidence that infants can be raised in a healthy manner on a vegan diet, but any person (including meat-eaters) who gets pregnant needs to become informed about the child's nutrition needs. Doubt that the consensus among the scientific community that a vegan diet is healthy at all stages of life, then look at what the American Dietetic Association states: "Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life-cycle including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence." The New York Times has every right to use its opinion pages to show a wide variety of opinions, but even the opinion pages should have some journalistic standards. By printing Planck’s column, the Times diminished its credibility. If I wrote an opinion piece about how black people are genetically inferior to white people, I would be way out of line. Planck was way out of line in her column. I do hope you can address this matter in one of your future columns.

Sincerely,
Andrew Keese (a loyal New York Times reader)
Harlingen, Texas

Times corrects "Death by Veganism" -- sort of

2007-06-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

Remember Nina Planck and her "Death By Veganism" op-ed in The New York Times? Well, the Times on Friday finally printed a correction, but it didn't go far enough: "An Op-Ed article on May 21, about veganism, mischaracterized an aspect of traditional vegetarian Indian diets. Generally, these diets are lacto-vegetarian; they do not include eggs." Duh. That was the least offense that Planck made. She mischaracterized veganism through and through. I'm still waiting on the Times to make a more thorough correction.

An animal rights victory

2007-06-08T18:33:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, there are little victories for animal rights. This one was in the Austin American-Statesman on Friday: "Leaving tethered or chained dogs outside alone will no longer be allowed in Austin. The City Council on Thursday approved the ordinance by a 7-0 vote. The new law also requires that any outdoor enclosure used as the primary living area for a dog have at least 150 square feet of space for each dog, age 6 months or older. City officials have acknowledged that the law might disproportionately affect lower-income residents. Critics have said dogs are often chained because fencing is expensive. Low-income families will get help complying with the new law; each address or family could get up to $250 in assistance. The law will become effective Oct. 1. Enforcement will start with warnings, said David Lurie, director of the city's Health and Human Services Department."
I can't tell you how many times I've seen a poor animal chained up in the neighborhood where I live. One man down the street keeps his dog chained up to a tree in the front yard. Why have a pet if you are going to be so cruel? I wish we could get a law in Harlingen like the one Austin passed. Bravo to the progressive folks in Austin.

Skinny vegans? Yeah, right

2007-06-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

I guess I haven't been that good of a friend, but I haven't talked that much to one of my best friends in years. It's the distance thing. He lives in the Dallas area, eight or so hours from here. I certainly have never talked that much about being vegan to him. Maybe I was afraid to because I wasn't that knowledgeable about what being a vegan really was about. I don't know. In our conversation yesterday, he brought up a point that is a common misconception about vegans. He said I must be losing weight because I'm a vegan. I'm working hard on getting healthier these days, but my weight has nothing to do with being a vegan. I still consume too many calories. I didn't cut out the hamburgers and replace them with nothing. I found other things to eat. Some vegans are skinny, and some are fat. That's just how it is. Vegans fall into the same traps of over consumption as meat-eaters. It's true we probably consume less saturated fat, more fiber and less protein, but that doesn't mean we don't eat too much. I recently gave up drinking alcohol regularly, I started doing aerobic exercises for 30 minutes each morning, and I try really hard not to buy soy ice cream too much. I also try not to eat out too much, as well. That's not that hard of a thing to do when you live in such an unfriendly place for vegans as we do. Those things will help me lose weight. I've noticed I'm starting to look a little slimmer lately. My double chin is whittling down, as are my love handles. My beer belly is still there. I still weigh way too much, but like I say, "I didn't put on these pounds quickly, so why should I expect to lose them that fast?" Yo-yo diets are not the answer. It's about making lifestyle changes. You should work at make permanent changes so the weight stays off. At least, that's what I'm hoping for. Being vegan is one thing that will help with so many health problems, but it's not the be-all answer. Vegans still have to work for their health.

Here's hoping for a vegan cooking show

2007-06-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

I guess you can say I have a sick fascination with cooking shows. I'm a vegan, and it pains me to see meat being prepared, but I hold out hope that the chefs on TV will do something that I can do in my own cooking. I was a huge fan of the Japanese version of "Iron Chef." The chefs always did exotic things, and their preparation wasn't as meat heavy as the Americans. The secret ingredient was often some unusual fruit or vegetable, which is a delight to a vegan. The producers of the American "Iron Chef" apparently feel that viewers only want them to use meat and eggs. I can't tell you how many times I've seen beef or pork. They can't do the same ingredient over and over, you say? Aw, they start with the generic "pork," then they move on to "bacon" and then, say "pork chops." I half expect "Iron Chef" to have consecutive episodes of "left pork nostril" this week and "right pork nostril" next week. Alton Brown, off course, will say there's a subtle difference in flavor and texture behind each challenging ingredient. When it comes to the fruits and vegetables, they just get the lump job. "Citrus" was one of the episodes. There're so many varieties of citrus that they should not be treated as one episode. It's not like different cuts of flesh from the same animal. With citrus, you have the typical lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit. You also have the more exotic pummelo, Buddha's hand and Thai lemon. In the Japanese version of "Iron Chef," I would watch as the master of sauces would always add miso to his creations. I started experimenting with miso, and now I have an array of sauces on my own. Another issue I have with cooking shows is the lack of variety. How many different shows are we going to see the main personalities in on the Food Network? Whey can't they have a short weekly vegetarian and vegan cooking shows? I'm sure they could find room to squeeze one in late at night instead of the fourth rerun that week of the same Rachel Ray show. I know they probably think anything that would cater to vegetarians or vegans would be too radical. My counter to that is: Don't meat-eaters also eat things that are not meat and dairy? Why would a vegan show offend them? It's not the same as a vegan being disgusted with seeing an animal's flesh being manipulated. Meat-eaters might not want their spinach, but it shouldn't disgust them to see it prepared on television. I know meat-eaters would love to watch Isa Chandra and the Post Punk Kitchen. They rock. Why can't the Food Network even have a Mexican, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, French or other ethnic cooking shows? Why is it only Italian or Southern on the Food Network? Why can't they even have reruns of the old Japanese version of "Iron Chef?" I have this sick fascination of watching these celebrity chefs (I'm actually bouncing back and forth to the channel with my remote control. I can't stand to watch meat being prepared, so I switch to another channel for a while.) and hoping I might get something out of it. I never do except a head of hot steam. The Food Network needs to be more mindful of its programming, or even the meat-eaters will abandon them. Meanwhile, I'm hoping for a better ingredient on the next episode of "Iron Chef." Of course, I should probably expect cow udder. It wouldn't surprise me.

A taste so sweet

2007-05-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

One thing I love as summer approaches is the availability of Texas peaches, especially the ones from the Hill Country. This past weekend, my wife and I drove to Uvalde and managed to get a couple of bags of peaches. They didn't last. They were so sweet, and the flavor and fragrance of these peaches bring you to an almost culinary orgasm. Since being a vegan, I've eaten more in season than ever before. Like most fruits and vegetables, I'll only eat the Texas peaches when they are available locally. Come December, I'm not going to the grocery store and buying an abomination of a peach from some other country, or even California, if I can help it. Peaches that have traveled far are mealy and nearly flavorless. A peach that has been allowed to ripen longer on the tree emits enticing fragrances from several feet away. One picked too early can not develop the adequate amount of flavor or sweetness. A good peach won't last long. It degrades quickly and is soft to the touch. That's what makes them difficult to transport to faraway places. I've got my own peach tree in the ground. Hopefully when it starts to produce, I'd be happy if its peaches were half as flavorful as the Texas peaches available in the stores and roadside fruit stands right now.

Back to normal

2007-05-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

As you can tell from my blog, I've spent a week hyperventilating about the tragic injustice to journalism that The New York Times perpetuated when it printed the recent slurs about veganism by Nina Planck. I could easily slip back into ranting because it upsets me so much, but I know I have to move on. Over the Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I drove to Uvalde, which is about six to seven hours from here. My parents own some property there along the Nueces River. I hadn't been there since the mid-80s, and we couldn't find it despite the directions we got. We called the person my mother bought the property from to help. He is in his 80s now. Despite his help, we couldn't locate the property. It was getting dark, so I asked him if he could drive out there to show us where it was in the morning. He said he would have his son show us, and we bid good night. We checked into a hotel since we couldn't camp on the property. Right after I had check in, the nice old man called and invited us to stay over at his place for the night. I told him about the hotel and declined and thanked him. It occurred to me that if we had taken the old man up on his offer to sleep over, we would have had one of those uncomfortable vegan moments. He probably would have offered us some food at one point. How rude it would have felt to decline after he was so generous. We would have declined any food, of course, but it would have been really uncomfortable. These old-time Texans can be insistent and can take insult when their niceties are rebuffed. Anyway, the property was truly gorgeous. My parents hadn't been there in 14 years, and the neglect did wanders for this land. I'll write more on that in my other blog.

Biased op-ed writer tries to justify work

2007-05-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

Vegan hater Nina Planck, author of the completely unsourced, undocumented op-ed "Death by Veganism" that somehow slipped by the editors of The New York Times, is now trying to justify her complete bypassing of journalistic standards in the work. On her Web site, she says she does have a source for her work, anecdotal information from a single family practitioner. She says she had many sources, but the only one she lists is the family practitioner. First of all, we all know that Planck does not have a nutrition degree of any kind, so we can not trust the declarative statements she makes about nutrition. We also know that medical doctors get little if any nutrition training in medical school. This family doctor, who was unnamed, could talk about tests he has performed and demonstrated the results of those, but he can not actually talk about nutrition. He does, however, make a serious accusation: "I have seen cases of severe anemia and protein deficiency in vegan infants resulting in hospitalization and blood transfusion." Now, if this is true, it speaks poorly of those particular vegan parents, but because one doctor may have seen something that he is assuming has to do with veganism doesn't mean he can extrapolate that to make assumptions about all vegans. Why isn't this doctor (I hope he is basing his information on actual tests he performed.) documenting these cases and presenting his findings in a peer reviewed journal if he is so concerned about what veganism can mean for all vegan infants? I'm guessing he doesn't have the evidence to back him up. There is plenty of information out there about raising vegan children and plenty of documented evidence that infants can be raised in a healthy manner on a vegan diet, but any person (including meat-eaters) who gets pregnant needs to become informed about the child's nutrition needs. I'd say a vegan has the advantage over the average person because she has read up on nutrition for herself and is always checking out labels in grocery stores. Anyone who wants to find out more about vegan parenting can visit Veg Source, which has actual nutritionists commenting on veganism using actual scientific studies. I'd trust them any day over a lady who says children are made of "fish oil." Need I say more?

The New York Times shows poor judgment in printing of "Death by Veganism"

2007-05-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This is a letter I wrote early this morning to the New York Times' public editor concerning Monday's "Death by Veganism" column:

Dear Mr. Clark Hoyt:

Like many in the community I consider myself a part of, I was shocked and dismayed at the completely factless op-ed piece called "Death by Veganism" written by Nina Planck and printed on Monday, May 21, 2007. The column, because it appeared in such a highly respected and well-read newspaper, trashed vegans so thoroughly that it did more damage than all of the positive efforts vegans have made through the years to educate other people about what veganism is all about. I understand the column was printed on the opinion page, but I have issue with the Times allowing columns containing such gross factual errors to appear in print. Nina Planck is not a nutritionist and she does not cite any sources either from either nutritionists or dietitians or from actual studies on veganism in her column. Yet, over and over, she makes unsubstantiated statements about the deleterious health effects of veganism. She crosses the line from opinion to simply fantasy, and she hurt a lot of people in what she did, including myself. The Times failed to fact-check, failed to write a prompt correction or retraction, failed to print an op-ed rebuttal (I offered one on Monday, the day the column appeared in the Times, and I attached it to this e-mail as a Microsoft Word document) and failed to print letters to the editor in a timely fashion. I have been a newspaper journalist for eight years, including a supervisor of reporters, and I understand the value of printing opinions in the newspaper and getting different viewpoints, but the newspaper must hold the columnists to the same standard as reporters in the printing of facts. Columnists should be allowed to express their opinions, but they should not be allowed to change what is factual. Imagine if one of the Times' columnists said President Bush had invaded Australia. It wouldn't be factual and shouldn't be printed. That is different than weighing in on something that is factual, like the war in Iraq. The consensus of the scientific community is that a vegan diet is healthy. Both the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in June 2003 and the Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research in its summer 2003 issue both printed the following statement: “Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life-cycle including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence.” Dr. John McDougall, a highly respected physician and nutrition expert, illustrates very well many of the incorrect points Planck made in his column. I pasted Dr. McDougall's piece from http://www.drmcdougall.com/response_to_ny_times.htm:

Nina Planck writes: “You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.”

The scientific truth is: Babies at 6 weeks of age require human breast milk and any other diet means malnutrition. Imagine if the exact opposite approach killed an infant with a formula made of pulverized beef and cow’s milk, would this have received similar worldwide press? I believe the case would have been properly considered child neglect (intentional or not) and have gone unnoticed except for those intimately involved. “People love to hear good news about their bad habits” so the tragedy of the death of an infant caused by misguided parents who fed their infant apple juice and soy milk for the first 6 weeks of life has been used to justify eating meat and drinking cow’s milk.

Nina Planck writes: Protein deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies. Nutritionists used to speak of proteins as “first class” (from meat, fish, eggs and milk) and “second class” (from plants), but today this is considered denigrating to vegetarians.

The scientific truth is: Confusion about our protein needs came from studies of the nutritional needs of animals. Mendel and Osborne in 1913 reported rats grew better on animal, than on vegetable, sources of protein. A direct consequence of their studies resulted in meat, eggs, and dairy foods being classified as superior, or “Class A” protein sources and vegetable proteins designated as inferior, or “Class B” proteins. Seems no one considered that rats are not people. One obvious difference in their nutritional needs is rat milk is 11 times more concentrated in protein than is human breast milk. The extra protein supports this animal’s rapid growth to adult size in 5 months; while humans take 17 years to fully mature. The world’s authority on human protein needs, Prof. Joseph Millward, wrote the following: “Contrary to general opinion, the distinction between diet ary protein sources in terms of the nutritional superiority of animal over plant proteins is much more difficult to demonstrate and less relevant in human nutrition.” (References in my April 2007 newsletter.)

Nina Planck writes: The fact remains, though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals and tubers, because they contain all the essential amino acids needed for life in the right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which are inferior in quantity and quality — even soy.

The scientific truth is: Proteins function as structural materials which build the scaffoldings that maintain cell shapes, enzymes which catalyze biochemical reactions, and hormones which signal messages between cells—to name only a few of their vital roles. Since plants are made up of structurally sound cells with enzymes and hormones, they are by nature rich sources of proteins. In fact, so rich are plants that they can meet the protein needs of the earth’s largest animals: elephants, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and cows. You would be correct to deduce that the protein needs of relatively small humans can easily be met by plants. (References in my April 2007 newsletter.)

Nina Planck writes: Yet even a breast-fed baby is at risk. Studies show that vegan breast milk lacks enough docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, the omega-3 fat found in fatty fish.

The scientific truth is: Only plants can synthesize essential fats. Any DHA found in animals had its origin from a plant (as alpha linolenic acid). The human body has no difficulty converting plant-derived omega-3 fat, alpha linolenic acid, into DHA or other n-3 fatty acids, supplying our needs even during gestation and infancy.

Reference: Langdon JH. Has an aquatic diet been necessary for hominin brain evolution and functional development? Br J Nutr. 2006 Jul;96(1):7-17.

Mothers who eat the Western diet pass dangerous loads of environmental contaminants through their breast milk to their infants. Meat, dairy and fish in her diet are the source of 80% to 90% of these toxic chemicals. The cleanest and healthiest milk is made by mothers eating a starch-based vegan diet.

Nina Planck writes: A vegan diet is equally dangerous for weaned babies and toddlers, who need plenty of protein and calcium.

The scientific truth is: Infants should be exclusively breast fed until age 6 months and then partially breast fed until approximately 2 years of age. Starches, fruits, and vegetables should be added after the age of 6 months. The addition of cow’s milk causes problems as common as constipation and as devastating as type-1 diabetes. (See my May 2003 newsletter on Marketing Milk and Disease.) Adding meat to an infant’s diet is one of the main reasons all children raised on the Western diet have the beginnings of atherosclerosis by the age of 2 years.

Nina Planck writes: “An adult who was well-nourished in utero and in infancy may choose to get by on a vegan diet, but babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol and fish oil.”

The scientific truth is: Babies are ideally built from mother’s breast milk initially and then from whole foods. Hopefully, parents will realize that the healthiest diet for the entire family (after weaning) is based on starches with the addition of fruits and vegetables. (Vitamin B12 is added to the diet of pregnant or nursing mothers and after 3 years of following a plant-based diet strictly.)

Nina Planck has been allowed by the New York Times to exploit the tragedy of a family and to spread commonly held, but scientifically incorrect, information on human nutrition. The author and the newspaper should be held accountable. Hopefully, the end result will be that people desiring the truth will take the trouble to look at the evidence. If this were to be the case, then this New York Times article could be the beginning of long overdue changes in the ways people eat. Write and tell everyone you know that the New York Times has done a sloppy job, and damage to the public, by allowing harmful lies to be spread—especially when you consider that Planck’s message promotes a diet known to cause obesity, type-2 diabetes, heart disease, and major cancers.

The fact is, Mr. Hoyt, that Nina Planck has not only hurt vegans and what we stand for, but she has hurt the credibility of a newspaper I respect very much. I hope you can address some of these issues I made and the fact-checking that Dr. McDougall made. How should the opinion editor know when to reject a column submission? Editors on the opinion desk need to be more alert. I appreciate your time and hope you can help with these matters.

Sincerely,

Andrew Keese,

Harlingen, Texas

Response to The New York Times' trashing of vegans

2007-05-22T06:33:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I offered this as an op-ed submission to The New York Times yesterday afternoon. As much as I love and cherish the Times, I was greatly disappointed about an op-ed they ran on veganism, and now it looks like they are sinking to new lows by not allowing a timely response to the outright lies they printed.

Heart-wrenching cases of children starving to death come up every once in a while.
Reasons why parents starve their children are hard to understand, but rarely does the diet of the parents get reported unless they themselves are starving, or they are vegans.
Meat-eaters’ disgust for all things vegan was clearly illustrated in the op-ed piece, “Death by Veganism,” written by Nina Planck and printed in The New York Times on Monday, May 21, 2007.
Frankly, I found Planck’s work disgusting, irresponsible and certainly ignorant.
She was basically reacting to the trial earlier this month of a couple who starved their child and who were sentenced to life in prison for it. Unfortunately, it’s easy to see why Planck would rant against veganism.
News coverage of the parents’ trial was laced with bias. Headlines for the story about the parents’ sentencing screamed “vegan couple” all across the United States, and the text of the story was periodically peppered with “vegan couple,” as well.
We are forgetting one thing here though: The couple’s 6-week-old child died of starvation, not veganism, and the testimony reflected that.
Were a child to be starved to death by a meat-eating couple (It does happen), I’m willing to bet the headline would not start with “meat-eating couple.”
The 6-week-old child who died was fed primarily a diet of apple juice and soy milk. What does that have to do with veganism besides not containing any meat?
I’m not aware of any vegans who support malnourishment.
If the couple only fed the child pulverized steaks and water, I’m certain it wouldn’t take long for the child to die of starvation.
Whether you are a vegan or a meat-eater, you need to eat a balanced diet for optimum health.
Vegan diets for both children and adults are healthy. Don’t take my word on this. It is both the position of the American Dietetic Association and the Dietitians of Canada and countless nutritionists throughout the world.
Both the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in June 2003 and the Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research in its summer 2003 issue both printed the following statement: “Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life-cycle including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence.”
This is the consensus of American and Canadian experts in nutrition.
How many nutrition degrees does Planck have? I’m guessing none from looking at her official Web site. She is not an expert in the science of food, and for her not to cite scientific sources or even actual nutritionists in her trashing of veganism is simply loony.
For the prestigious New York Times to print such trash is equally irresponsible. Printing opinion is fine, but Planck attempted to pass off expert advice when she had none to offer. Our nation’s paper of record should hold high standards for its columnists and not let them get away with complete fallacies.
Planck pretends that it is politically incorrect to criticize vegans and alludes to that being the reason why vegans are being allowed to have children with no one standing up to them about their diet.
Let me ask you, when haven’t vegans been criticized? Vegans get ostracized because of what they don’t eat by their families, their friends, by the people they work with and by the community at large.
Speaking from personal experience, it’s not fashionable to be vegan, and it’s not fun being an outcast.
Considering the well-documented positive impact that veganism has on people’s health and on the environment and its advantage in not contributing to our society’s outrageous exploitation of animals, both my wife and I find it morally unacceptable to be anything other than a vegan.
If we ever decided to have a child, we would raise it vegan, and I wouldn’t for a second be any more worried about its health than any other parent.

Veganism and Mexican tradition

2007-05-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

Many people in South Texas, once they find out what a vegan is, are likely to say that veganism isn't compatible with the Mexican culture. Look at the food. Some of the main meat dishes include menudo, barbacoa, carnitas, cabrito, tripas, fajitas, carne asada and chorizo. There's also chicharrones, queso fresco, migas, frijoles charros, tamales, chili rellano, nopales, arroz mexicano, quesadilla, refried beans, pepitas and many more. Some of the Mexican classics, such as menudo and tripas, came from less-than-desirable cuts of meat. My friend, who was raised by a Mexican immigrant who was a butcher, said poor families utilized what they could afford. The less-than-desirable cuts of meat were the cheapest. The higher quality cuts of meat where reserved for holidays and other special occasions. So, things like cow stomach and intestines were being made palatable by enterprising cooks. To me, Mexican food is not about the obscure cuts of meat you may get. It centers itself around its spices. It's the limes, the chilies, oregano, epozote, cumin and even chocolate. The exact flavor of menudo can be achieved by using the same spices normally used to season it. The tripe provides an unpleasant odor that turns off many people. Leaving it out would only make many happy. Fajitas can be made by frying strips of tofu and seasoning it the same way you would the meat. My father-in-law had some difficulty coming to terms that there was no meat in the fajitas I made because the flavor he associated with fajitas was the spices, not the meat. Lard, chicken stock and pork fat are examples of products that extract the most out of slaughtered animals. These can overwhelm the flavor of what they are cooked with. Frijoles charros, or cowboy beans, are made with leftover scraps of fatty pork. Something as nutritious and tasty as beans is turned into something that is far from being healthy. In my opinion, if you like beans, don't eat frijoles charros. It's really a pork dish. It would be easy for chefs making tamales to leave out pork filling and lard. I use extra amounts of lime in the masa, and my wife makes bean fillings with lots of Mexican spices. Not only are they more healthy for you, meat-eaters are even grabbing for seconds. Arroz mexicano, or Mexican rice, doesn't need chicken stock added to it. Vegetable stock is more than an adequate replacement for the chicken stock. Mexico has a wonderful tradition of food, and much of it isn't meat, such as corn, chili peppers, pumpkin seeds, tortillas, masa, citrus, avocados, potatoes, tomatoes, salsas, many moles, mangoes, plantains and tomatillas. The flavors and richness of Mexican food are only enhanced, not brought down, when you leave out the animal ingredients, which can take over the flavor of a meal. The Rio Grande Valley and much of Mexico is suffering from many diseases connected to the consumption of meat, such as diabetes. Giving up the meat doesn't mean a sacrifice of Mexican traditions, but what it does mean is a longer, healthier life.

Giving veganism a bad name

2007-05-16T06:30:00.000-07:00

Veganism has once again been given a black eye. The media continues to sensationalize the word "vegan" and to use it out of context. We've all probably heard by now about the couple sentenced to life in prison for starving their 6-week-old child to death in Georgia. The primary food the child received was apple juice and soy milk. Is the story not sensational enough that a couple starved their child to death? Oh no. The word "vegan" is mentioned over and over. The headline for The Associated Press story dated May 10 was: "Vegan couple sentenced in baby's starvation death." The lead sentence of the story was: "A vegan couple were sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for the death of their malnourished 6-week-old baby boy, who was fed a diet consisting largely of soy milk and apple juice." If it was a case of a meat-eating family starving their child to death, I'm guessing there would be no mention that they were "meat-eaters." The crime is starving a child to death and doing harm to another human. Veganism has nothing to do with the crime. The truth is the media was excited to put "vegan" in a bad light. The first word used in the headline and the second in the lead sentence was "vegan." You should have seen cable news drool over "vegan" and twist and distort the story. Being a vegan can be as healthy or more so than any other diet, and I take offence with the media saying special care must be taken for people on vegan diets. This is nonsense. Anyone who eats needs to eat a varied diet or runs the risk of developing certain diseases. If all you eat is steak, you will die. If all you eat is apples, you die. As a journalist myself, I'm telling the rest of my irresponsible profession to bite me.

A Vegan Nightmare

2007-05-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

It must be the beginning of barbecuing season. On Mother's Day yesterday, at least two of my immediate neighbors had their grills out torturing this poor vegan and his wife. The fathers must have been doing the cooking for their wives. I tried working in the garden, but I kept gagging on the smells. I've never understood this country's obsession with grilling. I'm really not complaining about people cooking meat as much as I am about them using grills. The smoke goes everywhere, and if you are in the wrong spot, you get a mouth full of second-hand smoke. I would have loved to have opened the windows in my house like I do on most evenings, but I couldn't unless I wanted a house full of smoke. As far as I'm concerned, this practice of grilling needs to be banned, unless they can figure out a way not to intrude upon others. I have just as much a right to be in my garden as my neighbors have in being in theirs, but when they grill, I have to flee. In essence, they are taking my property rights and holding on to them until they finish their feasting on another animal's carcass. Thanks.

What I eat

2007-05-11T06:30:00.001-07:00

Here's a pasta dish that I ate for lunch yesterday at work. It was leftovers of a meal Anita made. It had a simple sherry-type sauce with basil and oregano, and it had olives, tomatoes from our garden, zucchini, kale, capers and onions with a whole wheat fettuccine. I loved it.

You're a vegan. What do you eat?

2007-05-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

We've all heard this question before. Meat-eaters don't realize that most vegans eat a more varied diet when they give up meat. It is eating meat and eggs and cheese and milk that is the restrictive diet. These are the ingredients that American meat-eaters feel they need in just about every meal. How does that open up a person to trying new foods? Perhaps, the meat-eater gets a little curious with sauces and side dishes, but that is nothing like the transformation that a vegan undergoes when removing herself from the exploitation and waste of animal agriculture. She has to learn how to eat all over again. It takes some time to learn what's out there and which products to avoid, but once that happens, a whole new adventure in eating opens up. My wife and I do not turn our noses up at foods we never had before. We venture right in with an open mind. We try to keep to the spirit of the Japanese saying about gaining months to our lives for every new food we try. We don't eat many processed foods and don't go out to eat very often. We cook a lot and use whole ingredients. We make a range of foods from Italian to Mexican to Thai to Japanese. There are a handful of staple dishes that we have. I usually make a stir fry with vegetables we get from the CSA. The dish varies according to what we are getting. Right now, it is beets, carrots, collard greens, onions and a few radishes. I'll make one of two sauces, a peanut butter-garlic miso or a ginger miso, and we'll eat it with either buckwheat soba noodles or brown rice. I usually pan fry some cubed tofu to go with it. I like making Pad Thai, and I'll occasionally make a marinara sauce from scratch. Reduced tomatoes with garlic, salt and pepper with olive oil on whole wheat noodles is simply fantastic. I also like making cabbage and sweet potato tacos with onions in a corn tortilla. "Yummo," as the most hated Rachel Ray would say. I like to make burritos with whole wheat tortillas and pinto beans, onions, garlic, spices and potatoes or bits of other leftover vegetables like zucchini or jicama. Anita likes to make our Friday night treat of sweet potato and potato French fries baked in the oven with some olive oil. It's great. She makes at least two great cold pastas, one Italian style, the other of an Asian bent. She uses lots of raw ingredients, and those ingredients actually get mellowed by the vinegars she uses. She makes an interesting taco salad that she invented that has an thousand island type of dressing. She makes several great Indian dishes that are quite spicy, and she'll make some wonderful weekend breakfasts of French toast (made with garbanzo bean flour) or buckwheat flour pancakes. The list goes on and on. When we feel like we've gotten in a rut, we'll get some inspiration and make a new dish or we'll pop out a cookbook and find something that we never had before. When I was a meat-eater, I was content in my limited diet, and I know other meat-eaters are the same way. Don't ask me what I eat. Look at your own plate before criticising mine.

Plant kingdom showing off

2007-05-10T18:30:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd share this beautiful image of a manfreda blooming in my garden. I told you I was a plant nut.

Go vegan and exercise. I did.

2007-05-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

There are so many reasons to go vegan, from animal ethics to concern about the environment to the sheer disgust of eating the flesh of another animal. I suppose the reason I counted on least was for the health benefit. Yes, I had heard that not eating red meat was supposed to be good for me. Since being vegan, I learned about many long-term benefits to expect, but when I became a vegan about five years ago, the effect on my body was immediate. I just felt better. I would no longer get acid reflux like I did when I ate meat. I haven't had a cold since I've been vegan. I felt germs attack my body as people coughed and wheezed around me, but nothing ever stuck. Interestingly enough, I started regularly exercising on a stationary bike about nine weeks ago. I knew my body would start feeling better, which it has, but I didn't expect the exercise to have an impact on my mind. I have felt more focused since exercising, and my mind feels like my body did when I became vegan, just better. We really are creatures designed to eat plant-based diets and move around a lot. I've got a body full of evidence to prove it.

To silence a voice

2007-05-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

Every night and morning this time of year, the song of the white-wing doves fills the air. "Oooh, oooh, oooh." I'm sure I'm not doing their sounds much justice. Ole Petey Mesquitey from Tuscon, Ariz., on his radio show says they sound like, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?" That is really close. It really is beautiful. It makes you feel like nature has come into your house. It reminds us humans that we are a part of the animal kingdom no matter how much we try to deny it. I feel like this when the red wing blackbirds perch in our backyard tree or the cicadas, too. In North Carolina, I remember when the song of the frogs would almost overwhelm me. I've heard the Atwater prairie chicken, now critically endangered but once numbered in the millions, would literally take over the prairie with their loud booms. How I would love to hear their call. Now, our supposedly "conservative" leaders in this country are forging ahead with their bigoted security wall with Mexico. I have serious problems with Michael Chertoff waiving the Endangered Species Act and other environmental protections in the name of throwing up a border wall as quickly as possible. Conserving should be a conservative value. The wall, really two fences and a road that can handle speeds of up to 50 mph, will take up an enormous amount of land with a 150-foot-wide easement needed. Since I presume, they are not going to be following the contour of the Rio Grande, they really are taking more than 150 feet. They are also taking whatever is behind the wall along the riverbanks. In the Rio Grande Valley, farming has been king for hundreds of years, and with modern development, less than 5 percent of wild lands remain here. A lot of them are hugging the Rio Grande. That includes Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, Texas Nature Conservancy's Southmost Preserve and the Sabal Palms Audubon Center. These are tiny places, and the government wants to rip a wall through them without for a second considering the impact it will have. So many of our rare plants will be lost, and so much critically needed habitat will be lost. Why? Simply because we rushing to build this security wall. There are ways to make a security wall less harmful to wildlife. Small openings that humans can't get through, for instance, would be helpful. If we took our time building this wall of hate (You know that is what it is. We are friends with Mexico.), we could mitigate the loss of habitat by expanding these preserves and transplanting many of the plant species. We could build a wall to the rear of the preserves and have a border checkpoint opening during the day allowing people through to visit the parks. Then, nothing would be destroyed but farm land, and the government could reach their cherished goal of banning Mexicans. Meat-eaters in this county revel in their ignorance every time they shove another mouthful of meat into their mouths. The same goes for this border wall. It is plain ignorance to rush ahead with something like this. What is the rush? Are Mexicans going to somehow do something to us in the interim? Please. Remember the rush to go to war with Iraq? A little patience would have been a virtue there. Building walls does not bring peace. Only taking them down does. Remember, Republicans what Ronald Reagan said at the Berlin Wall, "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" This was a shout for peace, and as much as I hated Reagan, he deserved credit for his stance. We should be working on opening the border, not making it tighter. Look at Europe. It is achieving greater peace than ever by taking down the borders between Germany, France, Poland and the rest of the countries there. Once, Poland was the Mexico to Germany. Now, the Germans appreciate the Polish so much more because they don't look at them over a closed border anymore. Our country wants world trade, but our leaders want to live in a box. Go figure. Our obsession with a border wall is threatening some of the last precious wild space where I live. It is not right that the government is acting so rashly. Will we not be satisfied until all of nature has been obliterated? Which animals' voices will we silence next?

Some ramblings

2007-05-07T06:30:00.000-07:00

Being vegan can make you feel isolated and alone. You are in a world, at least a country, that is overwhelmingly full of mostly ignorant meat-eaters. Local vegetarian societies really help like-minded individuals find each other. We had a Cochehua Vegetarian Collective vegan potluck on Saturday in San Benito, and everyone brought such delicious food. Ruby made some to-die-for Spanish rice made with garbanzo beans of all things. They really worked well with the rice. Of course, Hortencia and Nathan were gracious enough to open up their home to the potluck. They even provided a piñata to get everyone in a lighter spirit. Not everyone at the potluck was a vegan, and at least one person was not even a vegetarian. Hopefully, the potluck showed them that vegan food is tasty and not restrictive at all. Of course, another thing that helps us feel part of a community is the Internet (or Internets as our most ineloquent president puts it). The Web makes the world a much smaller place and can puts vegan from all over in touch with each other. If you live in a really bad place, you could even order some food items from the Internet. I usually get unfiltered olive oil in 1 gallon containers from Greece, but that has more to do with me being an obnoxious foodie, rather than a vegan. The olive oil is simply good beyond my ability to describe it. It pains me as an environmentalist ordering something from such a far off place, but I haven't found anything close by that satisfies the palate as of yet. There is the Bella Vista Ranch in Central Texas, but it is young and has not yet found its terrior. Blogs are wonderful because you can actually read what other people are experiencing, such as myself and the others I have listed here. One of the best things, I have found, are these veggie podcasts. Among the best is Vegan Freak Radio. They air listener voice comments and read their e-mails. It is great. I really don't feel all that alone as a vegan. When the nasty meat-eaters surround me and make feel small, I can feel peace that a lovely vegan awaits me back at home.

Cruelty on the job

2007-05-04T06:40:00.000-07:00

At work, I don't understand why people eat meals at their desks. Meals in the office are simply rude, and for me, I find the smell of meat especially offensive. I don't even like the smell of meat when I'm prepared for it, such as when I go to a restaurant with friend or family member, but at least I know I have to be ready for it. In the office, however, I'm always aware that the smells coming from the food I'm eating might distract and bother people who are trying to get work done. I expect other people to treat me with the same kind of respect. I eat my lunch in the break room. I eat my breakfast at home or sometimes in my car on the way to work. I do, however, occasionally have an apple or another piece of fruit at my desk, but if I can't eat the apple without the crunch bothering people around me, I won't eat it. Fruit at the desk certainly isn't the same as a heated meal giving off its various cooked smells -- in the case of meat, giving off the repugnant odor of heated flesh. I'm expected to sit at my desk and do my job to the best of my ability, but I shouldn't have to endure someone ripping into the mutilated carcass of a cruelly raised animal while I'm trying to get some work done.

Say what?

2007-05-03T18:30:00.000-07:00

What do you call a person who eats meat? A vegetarian, according to the June/July issue of Plenty magazine. The article, "Vegetarian with benefits," starts off with: "Not so long ago, fish-eating vegans and bacon-loving vegetarians would have found it difficult to explain their preferences to potential dinner-party hosts -- let alone maintain their street cred with other ecophile foodies. These days, though, it's common to meet people whose dietary regimens fall outside traditional categories like vegetarian, vegan and omnivore." Before I comment on these statements, let me applaud anyone who reduces the amount of meat she eats. I think that's wonderful. But, you should probably go vegan because it's the best way to live as ethically, healthfully and environmentally friendly as possible. What about definitions? Do we care so little about what words mean? If you eat meat and plant products, you are an omnivore. If you don't eat any meat, including fish, but still consume dairy products and/or eggs, you are a vegetarian. If you forego all animal products, you are a vegan. It is that simple. Please don't mess with the meaning of words. You are only hurting the cause of vegetarianism by misusing "vegan" and "vegetarian." There is already so much misinformation out there about us. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked if I eat fish. A fish is an animal with flesh. I don't eat it. How would you like it if people started calling themselves doctors even though they haven't graduated from an approved medical school? What if they offered their medical services to you? It'd make you darn right nervous if you knew the truth, I'm guessing. You trust someone to use the definition of the word "doctor" properly. Words have meanings. These meanings are not flexible. If the meaning does not match, find a word that fits it. And if you are going to call yourself a vegan, please to not order the porter steak.

A compassionate moment

2007-05-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

If you've never seen a painted bunting song bird, you don't know what you are missing. They are certainly one of the most beautiful birds you'll ever see, at least the most colorful. The secretary for the building where I work was shocked when she heard a loud thud on the window beside her desk yesterday. A painted bunting flew right into the window, knocking itself out. The administrative assistant, most definitely a meat-eater, gently picked up the bird and put it in an empty, but very large, pot to keep any wild cats from coming to attack it. She then called university staff to see if anyone would come take care of the bird. Of course, their answer was, "Call the zoo." The others in the building came to look at the bird to give their view on the bird's health. When I got there, the bird was coming to, and by the time another employee went down the stairs to see the little creature, he had recovered and flew away. I was impressed with how everyone reacted to this animal getting wounded. The point of my story is that meat-eaters can show great compassion when confronted with animal suffering when they personally see what a creature is enduring. They can't see the suffering animals are enduring each and every day in our agricultural system. They don't want to be told where their meat comes from. They want to ignore it. If you told me (as a vegan) about the origin of my food at the dinner table, I would be fascinated by the tale of the farmer's labors. If you told a meat-eater about the source of her food at the dinner table, you would like get kicked out of the house and told to never come back. I have no problem going into the garden to pick a tomato or yanking up an onion for my dinner. I'm certain a large number of meat-eaters would have problem snapping a chicken's neck and plucking its feathers or cutting a cow's throat and disemboweling it. I'm tired of the ignorance I see around me. I wish people would open their minds a little and expose themselves to a little more information. If you don't want to be told about the origin of your food at the dinner table, don't you think there's something wrong with the food that you are about to shove into your mouth?

A sugar rush

2007-05-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

I'm trying my best to eat more healthily. We don't use refined grains when we cook. We gave up alcohol except for birthdays or anniversaries. We subscribe to a CSA and eat all the wonderful organic produce they grow. When cooking, we add less oil or sugar than recipes call for. We don't use white sugar, preferring sucanat, an unrefined form of sugarcane. Despite all of these healthy habits, I still find myself poking my head in cabinets, looking for sweets. It's not that I don't enjoy what I eat. I think my wife and I make some fantastic meals. I just think somehow I haven't dropped that lifelong addiction to sweets. True, sweets in moderation are not a bad thing. It's just that I've never figured out this moderation thing. When I drank alcohol regularly, I didn't think anything about downing three beers a night. Of course, I realized it was a bad thing, that it was pickling my liver and adding countless calories to my diet. I just didn't know how to break myself of the cycle. It wasn't until I came up with the no alcohol unless it was a birthday or anniversary rule that the cycle was broken. Even on one of those days, my wife and I only share one bottle of wine and no more. It has been working really well, and I certainly don't miss the regular beers. Ah, but sweets. What may have been to the advantage of humans of yesteryear to figure out what's edible and what's poisonous, the sweet tooth has been the bane of modern humankind, especially this human. It's about time I stop throwing prepackaged sweets into my shopping cart and give a fond farewell to the beloved stoopwafle. Perhaps if I gave up the convenience sweets, it would go a long way to curing me of the 500-plus calorie "snacks." I hope so.

Veganism at work

2007-04-30T18:30:00.000-07:00

I'm willing to bet that I'm not the only vegan who cringes when another co-worker says, "Let's go to lunch," or the boss says, "We're all staying late. Don't worry, I'm ordering food." Oh, I usually manage, but I'm likely not happy about it. Unless it is a vegetarian restaurant, not likely, or a vegan friendly restaurant, also unlikely, pickings are slim. I had only been at The Brownsville Herald for a couple of months when we had a meeting of all of the city editors from Valley Freedom Communications. In all, there were eight of us, and no one had a clue I was a vegan, and I'm picking at this miserable excuse for guacamole. "Is that all you are going to eat?" one of the other city editors asked me. "Oh, this is great," I said, trying to avoid additional inquiry into my eating habits but thinking to myself how miserable the food was. In situations like these, you can't help but think about what you'll be able to eat that night when you would get home for dinner. A meal with co-workers usually equals a missed meal or one sorely lacking. Also while I was at The Herald, it was an election night tradition to have the editor order pizza for everyone. I trained the editor to get me cheeseless, meatless pizza. It wasn't until recently, since I left the job, have I come to the realization that the pizza I was consuming wasn't vegan at all. Having experience making pizza at home, it never occurred to me that someone would put dairy into the dough, but Pizza Hut does. They use whey. I can't tell you how pissed I was when I found out. You normally can't check a restaurant's ingredients while you are there. You can inquire about it, but usually you get back a bunch of uninformed nonsense from the servers. I had actually checked with Pizza Hut, and a straining server brought me the huge box of sauce they use, and showed me that it was vegan. I didn't ask for the dough, too, dreading the server having to lug another huge industrial-sized container again. Besides, I was confident that the dough would be OK. Most pizza crusts are water, flour, yeast and salt, sometimes with a small amount of oil. That's it, but one day I was surfing the Internet and found out that you could check the ingredients in the menu for many of the chain restaurants. Needless to say, Pizza Hut was not OK. I did, however, find out that Papa John's and Little Caesar's had vegan crusts. Of course, before I even had a chance to get acquainted, on the first day I started working at the University of Texas at Brownsville in February, they took me to the country club for a meal. I had a baked potato and danced around the "Is that all you are going to eat comments." I fantasize that I will one day remark: "What else do you want me to eat? You took me to this meat-loving restaurant, but I don't eat any meat. Thanks."

The right to know

2007-04-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

Like other vegans, I'm particularly sensitive to the ingredients of foods I pick up in grocery stores. There seems to be a whittling away of what we are allowed to know about. The almond industry recently announced that it would start irradiating raw almonds, but the information of what kind of treatments the nut underwent would not necessarily be revealed to the consumer. Despite the valiant efforts of vegan Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland, Ohio, we still are not allowed the information about which fruits and vegetables have been genetically modified. With these abominations, I'm concerned about the ultimate health impact it will have on the general population, the potential environmental damage it can cause and, since animal genes are often inserted into plants, it's another source for animal abuse, never mind the testing that's probably done on animals. Can you imagine the nightmare that could be caused if some gene of a major allergen were inserted into another plant and then blindly tested on the general public? It might do nothing, but it might just cause a lot of harm. Needless to say, I DON'T want to support this industry. I want to have the right to avoid it. I do buy mostly organic produce, which is supposed to be GMO-free, but there are times when I reluctantly end up buying conventional produce when I can't find an alternative. Roadside vegetable stands usually aren't certified organic, and I probably don't have anything to worry about, but I do wonder. GMO crops also have the potential to corrupt organic crops because of pollen drift. On the happy meat front, the Bush administration actually tried to weaken the dolphin-free tuna label, but an appeals court turned away their efforts. True, the deaths of both dolphins and tunas are horrible no matter how you put it, but it just reveals the extent that these maniacs in charge of our government will go to enrich their buddies at everyone else's expense. Some rich fish killer probably complained to a Bush lackey that the law cost him money and was inconvenient. The Bushies also fought tooth and nail to prevent the labeling of cow flesh to indicate where it came from. Maybe they are trying to protect producers from retribution when the next major disease outbreak strikes. Perhaps, they don't want consumers to be allowed to know what is being produced locally or not? Who knows their twisted reasoning for these things. Anyway, I'd like to see more voters become interested in the transparency of our food system. It really is an important issue, regardless of how you choose to eat. It's one thing to choose between organic or conventional; it's another when you aren't even sure what the choices are.

Not ashamed to be a vegan

2007-04-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

For better or worse, vegans are given a bad wrap. Herbivore in its 13th issue printed an article by an animal rights activist saying the vegans he knows are confrontational and even elitist. I have never known a vegan like that. Most I have known are quiet about their veganism, afraid to experience the negative reaction to the word "vegan." Well, if the animal rights activist didn't like the confrontational vegans, I think the quiet vegans (probably including myself at times) should accept themselves for who they are. Quiet vegans should calmly proclaim themselves to be a vegan when appropriate. They shouldn't sneer the word "vegan." They shouldn't express themselves apologetically either. They should say, "I'm a vegan," matter-of-factly. To the vegan, it should be a normal circumstance to say it, and to the person hearing it, it shouldn't sound unusual. A born-again Christian would have no problem expressing her beliefs to others. Vegans should be proud of their decision to remove themselves from the industry of animal cruelty, to be kinder to the planet's environment and to minimize the personal risks of numerous diseases. It is wonderful to be a vegan, and we don't and shouldn't have to apologize to anyone for making the choice to be one.

Thoughtless, unthinking creatures?

2007-04-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we added a glass shelf in the bathroom and were able to get some items off the countertop. Normally, our cat, Snowbell, runs into the bathroom when we are there and jumps onto the countertop to get our attention. It's her spot, really. This morning, she runs into the bathroom and stops where she would normally jump up. She's got this confused look on her face, and she stretches her neck to look at what's on the countertop. She looks nervous. What's going on, she seems to be thinking. Finally, at my encouragement, she jumps up. She goes over to the glass shelf and takes a good look at it. She sniffs it. I guess it's all right, she seems to be telling me. She then relaxes and is back to her normal shelf. These are the moments when I think about the cruel machine churning out animals for human consumption. The prevailing attitude in our meat-eater culture is that animals are unfeeling and unthinking creatures. Get to know one. I bet you'd change your mind.

A health-food craze?

2007-04-23T18:30:00.000-07:00

It's amusing how a study can come out about a healthy quality in a food and all of a sudden it's a health food. Over the last few years, we've heard about the wonderful qualities of beer, wine, coffee and chocolate. Since I love all of those items, I didn't mind being told about their health-giving qualities. I think I used those studies to rationalize the consumption of more of these products. "It's good for you," I'd say and I'd overhear others say. Well, I think we let the healthful qualities about these products outweigh our concerns about their negative traits. Beer, wine and chocolate are supposed to be good for the heart. What about what all of those extra calories and the pounds you are gaining because of too many of these products? Isn't being obese bad for the heart? And, chocolate (I only eat the kinds that have 75 percent or greater cocoa content.), is full of saturated fat, and when you get too much of that, you get elevated levels of cholesterol, which can lead to heart problems. Coffee is supposed to somehow help with diabetes. I know a few people who have diabetes and drink coffee religiously. As a side note, I used to get mouth sores all of the time, and I started to suspect coffee had something to do with it. I stopped drinking coffee for a while, and the sores went away. I started drinking it again after a while, and the sores came back. Of course, I quit for good. Now, I only drink green or white tea for caffeine, and I no longer have any problems with mouth sores. Who are we fooling? Having something that is decadent is OK rarely, but making a regular habit of it will only lead to other problems. Moderation is something we could all do more of. Don't forget, variety is the spice of life.

Cruelty Fest

2007-04-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Well, it's time for our city's annual animal exploitation festival, called RioFest. Dogs, snakes, lizards and turtles were prodded and poked and forced to perform for their human taskmasters. Dogs were made to show off their "hunting skills." Somehow, the fellow forcing the animals to his bidding says in the local newspaper about his show: "It's for the love of animals." Say what? Training dogs to either kill other animals or lead their human taskmasters to the bloody deed is certainly not animal love. In another case of animal exploitation, an exhibitor allows people to hold his 100-pound alligator snapping turtle, so they could take pictures with it. Says the lady who jumped at the chance to hold it: "I’ve collected and hunted a lot of snapping turtles," but she later adds that she "just always loved animals and nature." My idea of love is not killing and kidnapping.

Vegan Principles and Cats

2007-04-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

I once had a good friend question my commitment to veganism because I had, and still have, six cats. He told me that just having cats would cause massive bird deaths in the neighborhood, and the food I would be purchasing would contribute to more animal suffering. Perhaps he had some points, but before I get into my cats, I would point out that the same argument could be made in befriending the typical human, who causes massive animal suffering. First of all, all of our cats, who are all females, were rescued. Two, Prissy and Calypso, came from a horrible looking pregnant cat in our neighborhood who came to us for help. The poor cats' mother, who we called Zingara (Gypsy in Italian), had exposed ribs, patches of missing fur and a dull color to the fur. After a week of feeding that long-haired cat, she looked healthy as could be. The she had a litter of five kittens. We kept two, and the three others ended up in good homes, all spayed and neutered, thank you very much. Zingara unfortunately left one evening, and we never saw her again. We looked for her and put up signs to no avail. Our next cat, Chelsea, came from the local kill shelter. Some evil person took this cute tortoise shell kitten to the kill shelter and gave her bad marks, saying she was a wild cat who caused lots of destruction. Whoever did this also chopped off her nails until they were bloody stumps. We adopted Chelsea because we knew no one else would. She is our most affectionate cat. Her nails, and that of our other cats, are all healthy and unclipped. Our next came to me when I was visiting a friend's house. This poor kitten was so hungry I felt I had to go to the store to get some food to feed her. She knew a good thing when she saw it and was insistent that I take her with me. This tuxedo cat, we called Calzetta (Socks in Italian. Get it? Chelsea Clinton had a cat named Socks.) When we took her to the vet to get looked at, she had all sorts of issues, from fleas to tape worms to ear mites. Our last two kittens came from a local wild cat who decided to give birth in our bushes. We suspect the mother of these kittens was related to Zingara. We called the two Tinker Bell and Snow Bell (I'm holding her in the picture). They have the sweetest meows. As for our vegan principles, all of our cats stay indoors, so no wild birds are killed. Unfortunately, we do not buy vegan cat food, even though we could order it through the mail. I understand cats need to be closely monitored when on that diet because of being natural carnivores. The vegan food costs three times as much as we currently pay for, and we buy among the most expensive cat foods in the pet supply store. We get Science Diet Nature's Best food because it is full of whole grains and doesn't have any of those horrible meat byproducts. There is a vegan reason to buy that cat food, as well. The first two ingredients are brewers rice and corn gluten meal, not animal products. So fewer animals are slaughtered to feed these cats, and interestingly enough, our cats eat less of it than other cat foods, and they seem healthier. Also, a gross point, but their litter boxes smell less with this food. So, it is tough in a way to have cat friends and be vegan, but we alleviated a lot of suffering when we adopted them and try to keep their impact to a minimum. They are our meat-eating friends, but we forgive them for it.

Just Innocent Comments?

2007-04-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Lime radio with Dr. Weil, and a woman with osteoporosis calls in to ask if the doctor had any suggestions. She said she followed a mostly vegan diet with very rarely a dairy product. Dr. Wiel says, I'm paraphrasing here, "I don't know how ethical you are but ..." He then goes on to suggest that she get a good source of complex omega-3 fatty acids, preferably in the form of fish oil supplements and to take vitamin d3 supplements (which are usually from animal products!). He also told her to see an exercise therapist for some weight-bearing exercises. Meat-eaters continue to ignore the weight of science in how healthy a vegan diet can be and how harmful animal protein is. I probably would have been a vegan a lot sooner had I not been fooled by all the fear mongering by people who are not even qualified to speak on nutrition. Look at the labels of those nutrition books that were written by Dr. So-and-So. How many of them have degrees in nutrition? Dr. Weil certainly doesn't. Medical school is not an adequate training ground for nutritionists. In fact, most medical schools barely touch on the subject of nutrition. So, why then, do so many people trust the likes of Dr. Atkins? It's simply because he has a Dr. before his name and the medical degree, and that's all. Doctors need to admit when they are not an expert on something and refer it to the person who can give the advice. You know nutritionists published studies in peer-reviewed journals about trans-fatty acids in the 1970s and early 1980s about how harmful they were, but it wasn't until the information came out 20 years later in the New England Journal of Medicine did anyone believe it. Now that's hokey. There are many plant foods that are high in omega-3 fatty acids. Granted, most are not in their complex forms, but the body makes complex chains of omega-3 out of the more simple forms we give it. The sun is the best source of vitamin d. Don't take my word for it, see what nutritionists have to say about it, but please don't go looking to doctors for advice on what to eat. Educate yourself. Here is a good article about calcium from the Vegetarian Resource Group. Here's a discussion about vegans and osteoporosis by Jack Norris, a guy with a nutrition degree, and it isn't very flattering to vegans, unfortunately. Here's a discussion about bone health by Norris. The book, "Becoming Vegan," by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina has a good discussion about bone nutrition. Both Davis and Melina have nutrition degrees. The book, "The Vegetarian Way: Total Health for You and Your Family," by Virginia and Mark Messina is also excellent and provides an overview of the studies done on bone health. Mark has a doctorate degree in nutrition, a pretty good qualification, and Virginia also has a degree in nutrition.

Vegan Health

2007-04-18T06:40:00.000-07:00

Here I am a vegan fighting misconceptions about us, and now I have my own shattered. Listening to Vegan Freak Radio (66: The Vegan Health Show) yesterday blew my freaking mind. Bob Torres, a vegan and co-author with wife Jenna of "Vegan Freak," a book about being a vegan in an unvegan world, revealed that he recently found out he was a diabetic. This is a vegan who is the ideal body weight and eats fairly well, but he still was diabetic. He says the doctor actually told him to eat a low-carbohydrate diet. That's something no vegan wants to hear or can even cope with. The doctor said two tests of his fasting glucose was high, and his cholesterol was at 201, and his triglycerides were 197. The American Heart Association considers total cholesterol above 240 mg/dl to be high and between 200 and 239 mg/dl to be borderline high. According to the American Heart Association, normal triglycerides should be at 150 mg/dl. The American Diabetes Association says a normal fasting glucose is less than 100 mg/dl, but between 100-125 is pre-diabetes, and 126 mg/dl and higher is diabetes. Well, Torres gets educated about his disease and what he can do to be more healthy. He consults with a dietician, and he reads the book, "Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs," that reports on how a low-fat vegan diet can reverse diabetes. He and his wife stop drinking alcohol regularly, adding refined sugars to foods, and they cut way back on the amount of oils they were adding to their foods. They also start exercising everyday, no excuses. The way Torres puts it on his radio show is that his life depended on him exercising every day, so he had to make time to do it, even if it meant less time doing something else. In a month, Torres went back to the doctor and was retested. She tells him that he reversed his diabetes. What ever he was doing, he should keep doing it. In the five years I've been a vegan, I presumed that the mere fact I was vegan meant that I was healthy. Vegans should have low cholesterol because we don't consume cholesterol. Well, things like saturated fat and even white flour can raise cholesterol. So, maybe we were fooling ourselves some. Being a vegan doesn't prevent someone from being overweight, either. I'm 5'10" and weigh 225 pounds. I'm actually considered obese by our country's health standards, even though I don't really look like it. I had already been overweight before I became a vegetarian and then a vegan, but that doesn't make being overweight any more healthy. Interestingly enough, this is the sixth-straight week I've been exercising on my exercise bike at least five times per week for 30 minutes. About the same time we started exercising more, my wife and I decided to ax alcohol except on special occasions, such as a birthday or anniversary. We did the alcohol thing because of all of the empty calories you get on top of everything else you eat. So, we are making an effort to be more healthy. We certainly have a long way to go, but like I always say, you don't get overweight in one night, so you can lose it all in one night either. I think we need to slash the amount of sweets and fatty foods we are consuming and cut down on the oils we add when cooking. Of course, we already don't eat any white rice, white flour, white sugar or highly processed foods. So, that's a good start. Oh, Anita did get tested before we started exercising regularly. Her total cholesterol was 186, her HDL was 50, LDL 111, triglycerides 60, glucose 87 and thyroid-stimulating hormone 1.25. Basically what that means is she is not diabetic, and most of her numbers were in the ideal category, but her LDL levels were a little high. Torres pointed out on his radio show that a health expert said total cholesterol below 150 is where heart attacks and other heart diseases are unheard of. I would like to get my levels checked, as well, but since I just recently changed jobs, I can not use my health insurance until I've been employed for at least 90 days. Hopefully, I'll keep up with the exercising and the better diet at home, and I'll have some good numbers. We'll see. But with a gut check just now, I know it's still there, so I know I have plenty of room to get healthier.

My Vegan Birthday

2007-04-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

My darling wife made me feel so special yesterday. It was my 34th birthday, and boy did I get a delicious vegan feast. My wife actually took off early from work to prepare the food. Anita made steamed spring rolls with a spicy peanut sauce as an appetizer, and for the main meal, she made a Szechuan-style stir fry with snow peas, bamboo shoots, broccoli, mung bean sprouts, shitake mushrooms, carrots, onions, fried tofu with brown rice. I was full, but I managed to eat two kinds of whole wheat brownies, one sweeter without frosting and the other with frosting. She bought me some neat books, including "A Vegan Taste of Thailand" by Linda Majzlik, "Buddha's Table: Thai Feasting Vegetarian Style" by Chat Mingkwan, "The True History of Chocolate" by Sophie and Michael Coe and a book by liberal radio host Ed Schultz. You can probably tell that I'm obsessed with Thai cooking. Thailand truly has an amazing variety of cuisine. What gets me is the number of sauces they have. You simply could never get bored with what they offer. The chocolate book also has an interesting story. You learn about the plant and how it was used in the Americas and what the white conquerors did with it. More than the incredible story of chocolate, the fact that the book was published at all was a testament to love. Sophie Coe wrote the wonderful book called "America's First Cuisines," which examined the foods that came out of the Americas, including tomatoes, chili peppers, bananas, potatoes, pineapples, pinto and black beans, of course chocolate and many others. Her husband, a famous archaeologist and anthropologist, wrote numerous books on the Mayans. Sophie Coe became terminally ill with cancer as she began to write the chocolate book. She died only three chapters into it, but her husband took the research she did and finished the writing. What a sweet love story.

Presidential Campaign

2007-04-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you how frustrated this early Democratic presidential primary season has been for me. I support a candidate, Dennis Kucinich, who I believe to have the strongest credentials and the best ideas, but he hardly gets a mention in the mainstream media. Already, the media is deciding for itself who are the frontrunners. They've already anointed Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama and have given John Edwards an outside chance. I can tell you as a former newspaper journalist, every organization I've worked for, we've tried to be as fair and objective as possible in every local election we've had. No candidate in a mayoral election would get more stories than the others. Each candidate would be given equal amount of room to display his or her ideas. Of course, we would also do background checks on each candidate to check for bones in their closets. The idea, however sterile it might sound, was to present each candidate and their proposals and let the voters choose who was the best of the bunch. In this presidential race, we are being told who's the best by the mere lopsided coverage. Clinton and Obama might be decent candidates, but let's hear what they and the other candidates are really about. So far, the news coverage we have gotten has just been a childish popularity contest, not a battle of ideas. I can tell you I would put Kucinich's proposals on health care against any other candidate's. Bill Richardson, however, has got some pretty nifty ideas how to direct the United States' foreign policy. My point is, let the media coverage be about what the candidates are saying they want to do, not about what the latest poll is saying or the latest fundraiser. The problem with polls is the results influence who people are going to support. No one wants to support a loser, but the first polls are only the results of who the media is playing up in the news. Whoever has had the most favorable news coverage is usually the one with the best poll. Let's put these polls to the side and talk about what's most important. We've learned the hard way, that excellent presidents are only as strong as their ideas and vision. Please let the public hear the candidates out.

Land of Manteca

2007-04-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

Deep South Texas in the McAllen, Harlingen and Brownsville area is where two cultures meet. This is the center of Hispanic culture in a state increasingly Hispanic. More than 90 percent of the people who live in this Rio Grande Valley identify themselves as Hispanic. Besides Mexico, there are numerous immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Cuba. As a gateway to the United States, there are even a sizeable number of Chinese immigrants who pass through. I'm a vegan Anglo (This is what white European immigrants and their following generations are called here. I'm of Polish, German, Dutch, Czech and English heritage.), and I moved from the Austin area about a year and a half ago. I've had to adjust to not having things as convenient to me. No longer do I get to choose from numerous vegetarian restaurants, such as Veggie Heaven, West Lynn Cafe (which I'm sad to say closed to be replaced by another vegetarian restaurant called Cosmic Cafe), Casa de Luz, two Mr. Natural's, Nu Age Cafe, Mother's (which I heard recently burned down) and numerous other vegan friendly places. We also had a great selection of grocery stores in Austin, including two Whole Foods, Wheatsville, two Central Markets and two Sun Harvests. Here, we have no vegetarian restaurants and one good grocery store, a Sun Harvest, in McAllen, which is about 35 minutes from where I live in Harlingen. Some Asian restaurants in the Valley have items for vegetarians. Mexican food, obviously, is very important here. You would think a vegan could go to a restaurant and get say beans, tortillas and vegan taco fillings. It isn't that simple, however. It is common for pork to be added to the beans and for manteca (which looks like Crisco and is made from beef fat) to be added to nearly all flour tortillas. Most corn tortillas, however, are made without manteca, but I wouldn't be surprised if they put it in some of them. We are cooking more than ever at home and even got involved in probably the first community supported agriculture farm in the Valley. The other pluses from living here are the fresh avocados, which taste way better, tree ripened naval oranges and other citrus and the nation's first crop of sweet onions. There's a small group of vegans and vegetarians living here who are slowly but surely spreading the word about what it means to eat a meatless diet. There's probably no place more important than here with one of the highest rates of diabetes in the nation, but I'll save that for another post.