Have Gone Vegan

Amazon books that are pissing me off right now

The problem with reading blog posts and linked articles on Twitter, YouTube and FB is that you can come across stuff that even as a fairly seasoned vegan you didn't anticipate. Who knew that the training of K9's involves such cruelty? Never occurred to me. Another blind spot on my part I suppose, although every institution engaged in animal use is complicit to some degree in keeping practices secret from the general public. But now that I know, I can't unknow, and the information on the site regardless of its actual accuracy haunts me. Because if this is how many police dogs ARE trained, how can we expect officers to care about other forms of animal cruelty?

Vegans becoming hunters. WTF? Hunting now promoted as a cool hip thing for women to do. The taking of life somehow seen as a badge of gender equality. Again, wtf? And all this nonsense about being "connected" to nature, "knowing" your food, and showing "respect" by becoming a DIY backyard slaughterer. It makes me think Sir James Paul McCartney had it all wrong -- glass walls won't make a damn difference.

So being already annoyed by a sign advertising an annual church-sponsored pig roast on my way to town earlier (guess the Would Jesus Eat Meat Today? booklet I sent them last year didn't have much impact), I then get thoroughly disgusted by some of the glowing but-make-me-puke reviews of the following dreck found on Amazon:

• Chicks with Guns
• Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time
• The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian's Hunt for Sustenance
• Everything but the Squeal: Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain and last, but probably the worst of all (although at least it got negative reviews as well)
• Putting Humans First: Why We Are Nature's Favorite

Bah! And having, um, some anger issues, snort, I resort to tweeting and emailing rude responses to dickwads of both sexes. Not effective I'm sure, and not what Colleen Patrick-Goudreau would stoop to, but like I said, anger issues. Sometimes I really DO understand wanting to hide your head in the sand. There are days when I just don't want to hear of another instance where humanity treats other sentient beings like complete crap. The best antidote for me at those times is to burrow my face in my feline's furry belly or indulge in a helping of Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul. Yeah, I know, singling out one cute species is probably speciesist, but don't you dare tell me that today cuz I'm not in the mood! ;)

top ten carnist phrases/excuses that drive me crazy

Speaking of crazy, is it true that Melanie Joy is now being considered a "new welfarist" by some abolitionists after having written An Introduction to Carnism? I haven't read it myself yet, but that would seem like a stretch. Even if the main focus of animal use in her book is on eating meat, surely it's recognized that while she's dealing with one form of speciesism, she's not denying there are others? Anyway, Top Ten, take it away!

Top Ten Carnist Phrases Or Excuses That Drive Me Crazy:

10. "I respect your personal choice, so you have to respect mine."

 9.  "But what would happen to all the animals otherwise?" 

 8.  "It's not natural because you have to supplement with vitamin B12."

 7.  "The proof is in our teeth."

 6.  "Our brains wouldn't have gotten so big without meat."

 5.  "God said we could."

 4.  "But plants have feelings too!"

 3.  "If lions can kill gazelles..."

 2.  "top of the food chain"

 1.  "circle of life"

Obviously there are more than ten annoying excuses and phrases and no doubt you have your own favourites (let us know in the comments!), but the above ten seem to rankle me the most. Or at least, the quickest. The last two in particular really bother me because they're lazy clichés that folk frequently spew out to justify their habits so that they don't have to spend any real time contemplating why they do what they do.

For a complete dismantling of the above lame phrases and excuses (plus many more) check out Vegan Poet's comprehensive responses to typical comments so that you'll always know how to reply to those still not vegan yet. I'd do it myself, but I'm lazy too. ;)

drum roll please!

Ahem, it's that time, dear readers, to announce the lucky recipient of my first vegan giveaway contest. So, let's stroll over to the random number generator site. Ready? Let's go!

Ta dah! The number is 6. And that corresponds to joy olivia. Woot! Congratulations, you'll be receiving Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's Vegan's Daily Companion.

I'll email and ship said book before you can even trip over these tongue-twisting words: I have won Have Gone Vegan's (also formerly known as So I'm Thinking of Going Vegan) first vegan giveaway contest! 

Thanks to everyone for participating. Aw, I wanted you ALL to win, but my wallet's not THAT full. It was fun though, so maybe I'll do it again sometime. :)

Valentine's Day vegan book giveaway

Yep, don't blink, you read that right. And because today is supposed to celebrate cheesy soppy over the top schmaltzy commercialized sentiment love and generosity, I've decided that the best way to show appreciation for my readers is to hold my very first vegan book giveaway. Plus, it'll be fun, and who doesn't like fun in February?

One of the most loving vegans I know of is Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, and I continually marvel at her ability to show understanding and compassion toward folk who would possibly receive sarcasm and snark if they were on my receiving end, instead of hers. I'm quite sure her strategy is more effective than mine is, and she's a definite vegan hero. So I'm pleased to offer her Vegan's Daily Companion in my giveaway. But, in case you already have the book, and to make this giveaway doubly fun, I will let you choose between her book and the nutritionally wise and easy to read Vegan for Life. Already have both books? Then pass it along as a gift. Woot!

How exactly is this contest going to work? Good question. Leave a comment indicating which book you would prefer, and on February 21 (a week from today) I will pick a winner lucky and-the-book-goes-to recipient using a random number generator. So remember, let me know in the next seven days* which book you would like to receive via Amazon (one comment per person), and always ALWAYS follow your vegan heart.

Three things in human life is important. The first is to be kind.
The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. -- HENRY JAMES

Speaking of kind, I somehow missed the kind of vegan I want to be back in November, but it's excellent reading for Valentine's Day as well. So go read. Now. 

* deadline for entry is Monday, February 20, 2012, 11:59pm

Psst! Checking to see who won? Then click on the drum roll post pronto.

vegan lit for little ones

Because, after all, A person's a person, no matter how small. -- Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears A Who!

Have to admit I never gave much thought to vegan kid lit until Harry lamented the lack of vegan nursery rhymes in response to my last post. The only children's book I had actually heard of before was Ruby Roth's That's Why We Don't Eat Animals, but luckily, Bea provided a great Vegetarian-friendly Kids Book List. Thanks Bea! And this prompted me to do some rooting around on my own. So here's a few other booklists to peruse in order to help our pint-sized vegan heroes of tomorrow:

• 10 Great Books for Vegan Kids
• Vegetarian & Vegan Friendly Books for Kids
• Top 5 Books for Kids
• Vegbooks -- Reviews of Kids Books and Movies

If there are any specific books that you would like to recommend (To Market, To Market, for example, looks fabulous!), please let us know in the comments.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not. -- Dr. Seuss,
The Lorax

p.s. I was actually, and quite tragically, Seuss-deprived as a child (didn't even know any English until I was nearly eight), but I figure it's never too late... ;)

wanna be a veganpreneur?

Excellent! I hope many of you do because we sorely need vegan goods and services. And as a consumer wanting to spend my measly dollars in humanitarian sentientarian ways, here's a small sampling of what I personally would like to see more of:

• vegan-themed calendars (both wall and engagement planners) -- because how many did I come across scouring Amazon back in December? Nada. Tsk, tsk.
• vegan books that aren't cookbooks -- because not every vegan is infatuated with food. At least, I'm not.
• vegan books discussing the politics of food, however, are always welcome
• vegan anthologies -- because it would be cool to have collections of authors discussing their vegan journey or other aspects of the vegan experience
• vegan documentaries -- because they rule!
• vegan humour -- more jokes, comics, standup comedians and funny books, please
• vegan art
• vegan plays and musicals -- why not?
• vegan apps 
• vegan directories
• vegan databases, studies and surveys
• vegan classes and courses
• vegan job boards -- there's one or two, but we need more
• vegan career counsellors, and
• vegan life coaches -- with special emphasis on stress and anger management, snort

So, step up to the plate all my vegan entrepreneurial friends and let's fill in the gaps! :)

happy summer solstice!

And happy summer reading.

Whether on vacation, long weekends, or on breaks between all the other activities that keep vegans busy, I hope you'll get the chance to indulge (no, that makes it sound like a luxury) crack open a bunch of new favourite books over the summer months. I'm still finishing a few I started and because one of my quirks is to save until last what I like best, Nick Cooney's Change of Heart will have to wait a bit. (Pssst, I may feature this book as a giveaway sometime--I think it's that useful!--so keep your eyes peeled.)

Two books on top of my must-read-this-summer list are Green is the New Red by Will Potter and Vegan for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet from our favourite nutritionists Jack Norris and Virginia Messina. But there's also a couple of other books (okay, a whole pile but I can only read/buy so many at a time) that I think would be super interesting. For a Canadian perspective I can't wait to get my hands on John Sorenson's About Canada: Animal Rights in part because most vegan books are American, but also because John teaches at Brock University which is close enough that I'm even entertaining fantasies of going back to school! On my own personal Amazon list I've got three books that look at animal rights from a gender perspective, including (despite the two kinda odd reviews) Women and the animal rights movement, Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice (you gotta check out the cover!), and Sistah Vegan: Food, Identity, Health, and Society: Black Female Vegans Speak. Hmmm, that'll be a hard pick. Also a couple of books that directly compare animal exploitation to slavery and the Holocaust, but the list is so long that it'll keep me anticipating for years ahead no doubt.

But enough about what I want to read. Yes, make sure to take advantage of the weather (remember how long winter was?), get away if you possibly can (whether in Canada or elsewhere), spend extra time with beloved furry, finny or feathery ones, and enjoy your vegan reading this summer!

words of encouragement

One of the books I'm reading right now is The Longest Struggle by Norm Phelps as I think the adage of "to know where you're going you have to know where you've been" is so true. And because reading about the long history of humans treating other sentient beings badly (which is an understatement if ever there was one) was depressing even if informative, I snuck a peek at the conclusion to see if he would at least be able to end on a cheerier note. Well, encouraging is probably a better adjective, so here are his last two paragraphs:

For more than 2,500 years--since the days of Lord Mahavira, the Buddha, the later Prophets, and Pythagoras--men and women of compassion and goodwill have sustained the struggle for a world in which no sensitive being is imprisoned, enslaved, tortured, or killed simply because it suited humankind to do so. And the end of that struggle is not yet in sight. Today, we still face the same twofold challenge that has existed since the Axial Age: first and foremost, to bring closer the day when all sentient beings will live securely in a world without cruelty; and in the meantime, to relieve as much suffering as we are able.

Our strategy, therefore, must be to accomplish the possible while inspiring those who will come after us to achieve the impossible. We must dream the impossible dream and broadcast that dream so that every year, every decade, every generation, there are more and more of us who share it. All the while, we must never retreat from doing what we can. To abandon either the dream or the work is to abandon the animals, because it is this union of the impossible dream with the possible work that will bring success. Nothing else will. At some time that we cannot yet see, the dream and the work will merge, brought into reality by generations of dedicated dreamers and workers, and the animals will be freed forever from what George Orwell's philospher pig called by its true name: "the tyranny of human beings." p. 310

Amen, brother! If, like me, the negative reaction of those who don't get it yet and the seemingly monumental task ahead of us sometimes discourages you, I think these are good words to keep in mind. Other books if you're interested in exploring vegan and animal rights history while trying to keep your eyes on the better future ahead include: A Vegan History: 1944-2010 by Erik Marcus (Kindle Edition) and For the Prevention of Cruelty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States by Diane L. Beers.

is the V word too scary?

And no, I don't mean The "V" Word, which is a lovely blog full of tempting recipes that one day its author will turn into a delightful cookbook. Right, Rhea? ;) 

I mean the word vegan of course. I've thought about it before, but it really struck me yesterday as I watched the segments of the Dr. Oz show discussing The China Study and The Engine 2 Diet without once referring to veganism. Not surprising I guess since the show is more about diet and health, but I wondered if only using the phrase plant-based diet was deliberate. And in a sense because they were only talking about veganism in terms of the diet aspect and not about the other essential parts, plant-based diet was probably appropriate, but still. To be vegan IS to follow a plant-based diet, so it was a little odd not to hear about the philosophy behind the food choices. Mind you, the Dr. Oz show tends to be hyperkinetic with shorts bursts of rapid-fire information so no topic gets more than a superficial treatment in the time allotted.

But I still wonder if they intentionally avoided using the word and if so whether that was wise. As an ethical vegan (although I don't really like that terminology either) I have no problem with labeling who I am and what I eat as vegan, but if the main goal is to reduce suffering and eliminate use, then does it matter what words are used? If the phrase plant-based diet is easier to digest, so to speak, then is my preference of the word vegan important? If people find it easier to adopt and say they're on a plant-based diet than to label themselves vegan, and if a real reduction of animal use occurs, should we focus more on results than labels? Because in a sense I'd rather that 100 people actually adopt a "plant-based diet" than 10 people to identify as vegan. In the end, I guess I wonder which strategy is more effective: getting more people to greatly reduce consumption or getting fewer to eliminate it completely. 

I don't know. What do you think?

vegan mail delivery part 1

Woohoo! Received Nick Cooney's Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us About Spreading Social Change in the mail Friday and after only one chapter I already think it'll be invaluable. Not only is it interesting reading (although I'm biased towards the social sciences), but I feel it will help us to become more effective activists. I like how the title is Change of Heart as opposed to Change of Mind because while facts, logic and reasoning are certainly part of the activist's arsenal, facts by themselves are not enough. Compassion is more a matter of the heart, and hearts have to be opened before information can settle in. 

Chapter One is called Looking Inward and it deals partly with the relationship between self-identity and activism. Cooney reminds us that because we're so strongly and emotionally invested in our cause, we tend to believe that our own advocacy methods are the right ones and that any criticism of them can feel like criticism of us. That in turn can make it hard to abandon them if it's shown they're flawed.

He also suggests that negative aspects of self-identity (like ego, jealousy and insecurity) need to be kept in reign if we want to be effective, and asks the following:

Are we as activists willing to keep our anger and passion in check so that we're directing them rather than they directing us? Are we willing to put those we hope to help ahead of our desires for self-expression, for standing up for ourselves, and for loudly proclaiming what we believe regardless of how others will respond? Are we willing to go beyond the comfortable boundaries of our current self-identity in order to be as effective as possible? (p.15)

All good questions.  (And it makes me wonder what HE thinks of the VegNews scandal, snort. My own take on it is expressed in a comment I left at The Discerning Brute, but check out the excellent post Vegan Feminist Agitator has written on the matter.)

So I'm looking forward to the next chapters, and if any of you are interested I may share bits in the future that resonate with me. Or, if you don't want to wait, you can read a complete interview posted by Vegan Outreach to get a sense of what's in store.

Better yet, buy the book! :)

Ninety-Five

It wasn't planned, but by coincidence this happens to be my 95th post, so I think it highly appropriate to be reviewing one of my favourite animal rights books today: Ninety-Five: Meeting America's Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs. 

As the subtitle of the book says, Ninety-Five is about meeting America's farmed animals in stories and photographs, and what photographs and stories they are! The photos are gorgeous, and besides being a visual feast for the eye, they are illuminating for folk like me who have never seen most animal species in real life. And that, I think, is one of the saddest facts: people who regularly dine on chickens, cows and turkeys (Thanksgiving is celebrated here in Canada next weekend) are probably more familiar with what the animals they're eating used to look like from the packaging, than from what they've seen in real life. Justice, on the front cover for example, is beautiful, and I was quite amazed to see tufts of hair on his back, and that's how far removed I am from the reality of real animals. 

I loved reading the stories of all these rescued animals and when I brought this book over to show my parents (at ages 83 and 94, these two are unfortunately not prepared to give up their meat-eating ways) I kind of had to laugh (even though it was sad) when what struck them the most was that all the featured nonhuman animals had names. For them the primary purpose of these beings is to be eaten, so naming them seemed foreign. But that's exactly what I love about this book: it gives names and faces to those that we are used to--and here is where I get stuck with language because really, the most appropriate word to use is dehumanizing. One of the ways we distance ourselves from other species is by using the terms humans and animals, but even human animals and nonhuman animals still puts the human animal as the norm and treats nonhuman animals as deviations from that. 

But what I'm really trying to say here is that we're so used to objectifying other species and stripping them of their sentient features, that this book is a contrast and a welcome relief. It does the opposite and reintroduces us to who our fellow creatures are, which is so important when trying to convince others that veganism is the way to go. After all, what good is focusing on the horrors of factory farming and other animal use/abuse when most of us don't even know who the victims are? I'm not saying those other books aren't valuable in their own right, but I think this one does a great job of showing who we're actually slaughtering and makes us more aware that the meat (another distancing term  I hate) we're eating had a name and a face. 

I keep this book on my desk as a daily visual reminder of why I'm vegan, and wish I could donate a copy to every library and every school because it's just that good.

Oh, nearly forgot, the title Ninety-Five refers to the estimated average number of animals said to be spared annually by one person's vegan diet. And because I'm actually not that good at writing book reviews, here is a much better one. (Thankfully I wrote mine before finding his otherwise this might have been a one-line post, snort.)

am I the only vegan who DOESN'T like cupcakes? ;)

I know; I almost feel like a traitor just for saying it! Snort. And it's not as if I hate them per se, but they just don't do anything for me. They don't make me squeal with delight, don't make me go ooh and aah, and they don't (unlike a certain cookbook would like) take over my world in any way. Now before you go thinking I'm the grumpiest vegan ever, I've never really liked regular-sized cakes either. The icing, especially, is usually too sweet for my taste.

And that, at the risk of you viewing me as ultra grumpy, brings me to the commonly held assumption that a vegan diet is healthier. Well it can be, but not always. All those cupcakes and other admittedly yummy vegan desserts can be high in both sugar and fat. I myself gained weight after turning vegan in part because I felt I deserved more treats. Using a generous amount of olive oil when sautéing onion and garlic didn't help either. In some ways, I find eating healthy even more of a challenge these days because I've never liked vegetables much, am not keen on most faux products, and find that beans will only take you so far!

Now another perfectly reasonable explanation for my cupcake aversion could be that I'm not only grumpy but also lazy, and not having easy access to vegan sweets in a small town means that I would have to bake them myself. And baking is NOT something I'm good at, or enjoy. Or maybe my appetite is so large that those little cakes are too darn small for me?

So, do you like cupcakes? Is it unveganly not to? Should there be a support group for cupcake-challenged vegans like me? ;)

don't have a cow

To be honest I never gave this phrase much thought before, but its meaning of "don't get so worked up" is actually kind of funny when applied to animal rights, because that's exactly what we should be doing in my opinion. If enough people DO get worked up, then perhaps real change will eventually take place. And these days when I say don't have a cow, I tend to mean it literally, as in, don't eat 'em! So I'm wondering if vegans can somehow reclaim or sloganize this phrase, snort.

The cow in the photo above by the way is not just some stock image, but a real cow living in Germany that a friend of mine (hi Krissa!) has gotten to know. And she will attest to the fact that this lovely creature is very friendly and will run up to greet her. Sadly though we continue to deny that the emotional and social lives of farm animals are just as real and complex as that of their perhaps cuter or cuddlier counterparts, and maybe in part that explains why some people still feel they have the right to eat these non-human animals. Consuming cows just doesn't get most non-vegan folk as worked up (okay, I SO want to make a joke here, but I'll spare you) as the eating of dogs and cats, but I think that particular indignation (and now I feel like joking about indigestion!) can still be used as a starting point. People love companion animals, and if we can get them to see that eating them is not fundamentally any different from eating farmed animals, then that's one possible way of leading them to veganism.

Incidentally, when I Googled the title of this post, I found an interview with Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (of When Elephants Weep fame) that's definitely worthwhile reading.

why did the tofu cross the road?

To prove he wasn't chicken.

Ha ha! Alright, maybe that was kinda lame, but it DID make me laugh. And this one's not bad either:

Q: Did you hear about the vegan devil worshipper?
A: He sold his soul to seitan!

Snort. These two vegan nuggets live at the Happy Cow website, but that made me Google vegan humour to see what else is online. Well! First, I was happy to see 519,000 results, and that Happy Cow was on top. And I laughed when I saw my own humble little blog at the bottom of page 1, but laughed even harder when I saw the following book title: Friend or Faux: A Guide to Fussy Vegans, Crazy Cat Ladies, Creepy Clingers, Undercover Sluts, and Other Girls Who Will Quietly Destroy Your Life. Now I'm not gonna link to it, but the fact that I laughed out loud (in a decidedly, um, unladylike manner) just proves that vegans DO have a sense of humour, and that "vegan humour" is NOT an oxymoron. Right? Although, if you spell humour humor, you get 2,150,000 Google results, so does that mean that Canadian or British vegans are three-quarters less likely to enjoy a good guffaw? I doubt that. I bet we just like our humour a tad drier. :)

Darn! Apparently there was a segment on CBC radio exploring vegan humour (appropriately called Why Did The Vegan Cross The Road), but that was back in 2008, so the clip won't play anymore. Hmmm, let's see what else I can find. Okay, here's a page of veggie jokes that are kinda lame as well, but it's a start. And this list of reasons for not going vegan is more interesting than funny per se, but it counts, no? Oh dear, maybe I can find some funny-bone-friendly vegan books instead. Yay, I found one! And it's gotten great reviews, so you'll definitely want to check out The Vegan Monologues.

Well, I'm not going to lie. I'm a little disappointed with the results thus far, so I guess that means that you and I are going to have to prove to the rest of the non-vegan world that vegans are by no means grim, angry, bitter, sour, or humour-challenged. At least, not all of the time. ;)

made my own jam!

I'd been meaning to do this for a while ever since my neighbour gave me some of his. So I found a recipe for sugar-free berry jumble jam in The Garden of Vegan cookbook (click on link in Amazon widget if you want more info on the book), and it was super easy. I decided to use a 600 gram bag (equals about 3 cups) of mixed frozen berries instead of fresh, and 1/2 cup of frozen apple juice concentrate. Couldn't be bothered putting it in a blender, so just used my potato masher to squish the berries a bit more. Cooked them for about 10-15 minutes, added the frozen apple juice concentrate, brought it to a boil until it reached a consistency I liked, poured it into a warm glass jar with an air-tight lid, let it stand overnight, and voila! Tasted really good, although I have to admit that buying store-bought jam IS cheaper. But hey, not half as much fun and making my own jam really impressed my mom. :))

Will take and upload a photo when I can, although it might take a while what with moving and all. Hope to be back soon, and hope to post more regularly then too.

vegan cooking

As you can imagine, cooking has changed somewhat since I became vegan. Although to be honest, throwing a frozen Stouffer's meal into the oven can hardly be said to constitute cooking. And that's the thing; I'm actually doing real cooking these days and quite enjoying the process. I'm making lots of soups, which I've always loved, but these days making them from scratch instead of an envelope. And while that may sound time-consuming, it actually isn't. Everything begins with sauteed onion and garlic in olive oil, and then I just add whatever I have on hand; red lentils or green peas as a base, any vegetable I have lying around such as tomato, yams or cauliflower, and then rice, noodles or canned beans. Every soup turns out differently as well, so I never get bored eating the same dish.

Baked potatoes I've always liked, but I often mash them now with garlic and onion; oven roast dishes I still make but minus the roast; and spaghetti, rice with Indonesian spices and bean dishes continue to be staples. A vegan pizza I made recently was excellent (I'll post the pic sometime), so apart from eggs, I can't say that I really miss my former way of eating. I'm even baking again which I hadn't done in years! So no, I would say that turning vegan has put me back in touch with real food again, and has even reawakened a love for something that I had all but abandoned. Oh, I also got a few vegan cookbooks that I love (they're in the Amazon widget if you want to check them out), and I imagine that they'll be adding to my repertoire. Hey, I might even turn into a real cook one day! :)

turkey talk

Of course it's hard not to talk about turkey today given that it's Thanksgiving in the United States (in Canada we celebrate it a month earlier), and obviously any blog devoted to animal rights is probably not in favour of killing these birds, but to be honest I never gave much thought to turkeys at all before I became vegan. In fact, I never gave any thought to how any animal eventually arrived on my plate and I suspect most other people don't either. But the whole process of how we treat animals before and during slaughter will be the subject of future posts as today I'm just going to throw out a few turkey tidbits (from Ingrid Newkirk's Making Kind Choices) at you. Did you know that wild turkeys:

• can blush? (they change skin colour to reflect changes in their feelings)
• can be personable and friendly?
• can run 25 miles per hour and fly up to 55 miles per hour over short distances?
• have a 270-degree field of vision and excellent hearing?
• tense up when afraid and get stressed when slaughtered? (um, wouldn't you?)

Okay, I've changed my mind. Came across Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-a-Turkey Project, and they have information on what factory farming for turkeys is really like. So if you're going to eat turkey this Thanksgiving then at least be aware of what they have to go through. Better yet, save a life and have a cruelty-free feast instead!

crockpot cookery

crockpot cookery, originally uploaded by Tulip Girl (is back!).

Even though this is a vegetarian book, the author has included vegan substitutes.

time to make blog public

And provide an update of sorts. Have chucked the leather sandals (one of the soles had worn out anyway), so the only non-vegan item I still wear is my knapsack. In a way I feel about it as I do the pictures of meat and other animal products on my Flickr site: it's a representation of my former non-vegan life that I'm not yet ready to discard. I've had my knapsack for over five years and liked it precisely because it was leather. Leather meant that it would last forever, age beautifully, and be waterproof. Once or twice I've had food spill inside that might have wrecked other bags, but because it was leather I simply cleaned it up and moved along. I'm reluctant to part with it not because it cost a lot of money (it was only $10 at a flea market), but it has history (I use it almost every day) and I value its beauty and functionality. While I have made a commitment to not purchase any new items that are of animal origin, and may one day be ready to pass this bag along to someone else (I do recognize and appreciate the sacrifice that was made), I'm not quite there yet.

I think what I may do instead is take a cue from what authors Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer say on page 19 in their introduction to their cookbook (highly recommended by the way) How it all Vegan!:

Becoming vegan doesn't mean you are suddenly the vegan police, so don't judge others or try to catch them doing something un-vegan. Pay attention to your own life. What kind of vegan do you want to be? Will you subscribe only to the belief that our animal friends shouldn't be eaten? Will you remove all things from your life that contain animal products? Will you reduce, reuse, and recycle everything you can so that this planet is a clean, healthy place for animals and people? We both wear leather shoes. That's because we're not just pro-animal, we're also pro-Earth. It's our belief that nothing should be wasted. We will never buy new leather products again, but will continue to use the ones we bought before we went vegan. Sarah has had the same leather belt for over eight years, and it will probably last another eight. She wants to use up her possessions rather than litter the garbage dump with discarded leather so that she can buy an animal-friendly replacement. When the time comes for a new belt, she'll opt for the vegan one. That's our personal choice. Our decision to make. What's yours?

Yes, I think I agree with them. Plus, my knapsack could also lead to an interesting discussion should people ask why I still use leather if I'm a vegan. And I do refer to myself as vegan these days, even though there are those who feel that the term vegetarian would be more accurate.

So there you have it. I think I'm finally ready to launch this baby, and will be posting weekly rather than monthly. Stay tuned for photos of food, food, and more food!

transitioning to veganism

Wow, things have really changed since I wrote this over 5 years ago! So if this is your first time visiting, please ignore and jump right to the main page. :)

Well, since I don't really know where to begin, I think I'll just jump right in. I set up this blog almost two months ago and in that time have successfully been following a vegan diet, although I still have a few non-vegan items (i.e. leather knapsack and sandals) in use. Technically therefore I would be considered a total or strict vegetarian rather than a vegan per se, but I like the term "transitioning to veganism" (found in Joanne Stepaniak's Being Vegan) better as that more accurately describes where I'm at.

You may have noticed the short definition of vegan that I provided at right, but here is a more complete definition provided by The Vegan Society (est. in 1944) in England:

Veganism denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude--as far as possible and practical--all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals, and the environment.

I think what appeals to me about veganism is the fact that it isn't just some diet (although what may most strongly stand out in some people's minds are the things that vegans won't eat), but a way of life based on a philosophy and purposeful principles. And while there may be different motivations for people embracing veganism (namely health, environment and ethical concerns), the path and end result (avoiding animal products) are the same.

In this blog I hope to chart my journey as I become a full-fledged vegan, and outline the "what, why, and how" of what I'm doing in case it's of any interest to others. I also want this blog to focus on the more fun aspect of veganism--food! Yep, I'll be reporting and posting pictures of what I'm cooking and eating, both successes and failures. I'm also starting a related companion blog on animal rights because even though I've adopted veganism as a way of life for myself, I don't think you have to be vegan per se to be concerned about animal welfare. In that blog I'll be exploring where I stand when it comes to animal rights (there are so many different issues and outlooks!), and I invite you to join me there as well. For those of you who know me primarily through Think Outside The Piggy Bank, thank you for visiting and please do come again.