Alright, my surprise came a little late… SURPRISE!
I made a cooking show video for Obama, in hopes that by some strange coincidence he sees it and learns how to make his favorite food veg-friendly.
Here’s the recipe I used.
I admit, I got fooled by the Obama-turned-vegan April Fool’s Day joke.
I got so excited I made some special plans for thursday’s blog, although I think I’m going to do it anyway so check back for a surprise.
Here’s a note for the presidential candidate himself, why not?
You’re all about change, so why not live smarter, healthier and more environmentally friendly, and teach the citizens of the United States a thing or two? Here’s 21 Reasons To Go Vegetarian.
What I’m really excited for is the release of Food Matters, an online movie that focuses on homeopathic healing, I’m hoping it will touch on veganism and vegetarianism too.
The idea behind the title is that old cliche, “you are what you eat.”
So what do you want to be?
Abused, full of antibiotics and causing cancer?
According to The Cancer Project, “Large studies in England and Germany showed that vegetarians were about 40 percent less likely to develop cancer compared to meat eaters.
The Washington Post, “Younger women who regularly eat red meat appear to face an increased risk for a common form of breast cancer, according to a large, well-known Harvard study of women’s health.”
The Australian says “The most voracious meat eaters among us are endangering their health in a way that has surprised even health experts: they are more likely to get lung cancer.”
BBC News, “Eating lots of red meat is linked with DNA damage which raises the risk of bowel cancer, researchers suggest.”
All I’m asking for is this… Make an informed choice. Don’t just eat whatever is on the McDonald’s menu.
I’m a little behind so let’s catch up.
The New York Times printed a interesting article on veganism and using sexuality to promote it.
I think my favorite part was the line: “I don’t want to be a piece of meat. I’m not going to eat a piece of meat.”
The article went on to comment on the use of these sexy ads to bring men to veganism and vegetarianism (as I did in my previous V is for Vegansexual blogs). If heart health, sympathy for animals, and environmental facts aren’t enough to get your man off the patty, check this out:
A study on The Effect of Meat Consumption On Body Odor Attractiveness was conducted at Charles University, Prague, on 17 male odor donors and rated by 32 female students. The results were that “odors of donors on the nonmeat diet were judged as more pleasant, more attractive, and less intense.”
So boys are out there buying extra strength deodorant and expensive colognes and then making themselves stink by turning around and eating a hamburger? That’s just counterproductive.
Then, if they should be so lucky as to find a girl with a weak sense of smell who likes him regardless of his meal time choices… By the time they are over 40, one study says, more than half of them will be suffering from erectile dysfunction.
According to the Erectile Dysfunction Institute, up to 90 percent of all cases of impotence are physical, not caused by anxiety but by high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, prostate cancers or inflammations, and hormonal imbalances. All of which have been proven to be cured by a low-fat vegan diet.
So regardless of half naked herbivores and scantily clad celebrities, if men want to get it on til the break of dawn and into their 40s, break the meat-eating habit.
Also, check out this video on vegan aphrodisiacs, if it doesn’t get you excited, it made me laugh.
I feel that I haven’t been true to this blog. My entries are not nearly as corny as the title suggests, so here’s an Easter video corny enough to make up for it. It’s silly, but it makes a good point. Just another item to add to the list of “things I didn’t think about pre-veg.”
Eggs don’t just appear in the grocery store packaged by the dozen, and it’s certainly not like the roosts in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Those birds might be bored, having their whims catered to by small orange-skinned men, but at least they aren’t crammed in cages that are so small they can’t even stand upright, nor are they having their beaks burned off so they won’t peck themselves to death.
This weekend marks the end of Lent and, therefore, the end of my vegan Lenten commitment. I can’t say I followed it perfectly, but I can say it was a sacrifice and that I learned a lot about myself and the world that I live in. My religious commitment may be over, but I’m still going to work on it. I’m still going to push myself to think about my actions and how they affect the world around me.
This might be a bit distasteful, but think about this the next time you paint Easter eggs:
Imagine if it wasn’t a chicken’s egg. See this strange custom from another point of view. What if one day a year we extracted unfertilized human eggs, sucked out their insides and dipped them in paint to entertain our children and display around our houses? What if we sold plastic versions of these eggs and awarded children who found them with candy made from breast milk? And even weirder, imagine if we burned, beat, cut, confined and tortured the women that we took these eggs and milk from?
Do we really celebrate this day, the day that Jesus died for man’s salvation, with these customs that support hurting other creatures? I thought we were done with animal sacrifices?
Just some food for thought.
I’ve heard there are vegan chocolate eggs around, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for them, and I hope you will too.
In the cinematic world, food and sex have been intimate for a long time. There’s the memorable scene from 9 1/2 weeks, the whipped cream bikini from Varsity Blues or more recently, the John Tucker Must Die line, “Being a vegan teen activist is usually code for ‘easy.’”
It seems the relationship between veganism and sexuality gets closer every day.
PETA amped up its sexy ads again, pushing the envelope a little more with its nude Mother’s Day protests:
And its “running of the nudes” anti-bullfighting campaign.
Last time, I complained about these advertisements that cling to the longest running when-all-else-fails ad campaign: sex sells.
It sells everything: movies, lifestyles, and now… saves the environment?
F—ForForest.com (FFF) is a porn site from environmentalists, for environmentalists. Saving the planet one homemade video at a time and proving people really do care about the rain forest. Remember that site the next time you’re shaking coconuts from the love tree.
I have been a vegetarian for three months and vegan-ish for three weeks. It’s time for a checkup.
In my 40 days and 40 nights blog, I quoted PETA Europe who said that vegan women, on average, weigh about 10 pounds less than women who eat meat. As a test, I have been avoiding the gym since the beginning of Lent. I went once, on Valentine’s Day, to boost my mood.
The results are in and I am 10 pounds lighter, sweat-free.
Weight loss wasn’t my number one reason for the change, but it certainly helps. Even if I’m the only one who can see or feel the difference. It’s just one more motive to keep my hands off the cheese. I wasn’t even that strict!
Time for another step. Stay on the vegan wagon, remember daily vitamins and add in gym time.
Also, I want to reiterate my original reason for becoming vegetarian. Although weight loss can be good for your health, the bigger health issue here is heart disease. According to the American Heart Association, coronary heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States. They also say a vegetarian diet has been proven to “lower risk of obesity, coronary heart disease (which causes heart attack), high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and some forms of cancer. “
GoVeg.com directly blames the SAD (Standard American Diet) for heart disease in the U.S.:
This link between animal products and heart disease is now very well documented. It’s no surprise that half of all Americans develop heart disease, because the typical U.S. diet puts almost everyone at risk. – Dean Ornish, M.D.
You want to lose weight, avoid a heart attack and save some animals?
Go veg.
I’ve never been more happy to be a vegetarian than when I heard about the California beef recall, the biggest beef recall in United States history. As I’ve said previously, I didn’t become a vegetarian for animal rights reason, but the more I research, the more I discover what atrocities I’ve unknowingly been a part of. I really appreciate the people who see these things first hand and bring them to the attention of the public. The Humane Society video made my stomach churn. Who could do that to another living creature?
I might have taken advantage of this recent situation a little, though. Who knew I could be a manipulative vegetarian? One of my co-workers had a cup from In-N-Out Burger, one of the fast food chains that had been a distributor of the possibly tainted beef, and I proceeded to inform her of what she might have just ingested. Needless to say, she freaked out, despite the fact that most of the meat has already been eaten by schoolchildren.
Do we even think about what we’re eating anymore? Apparently, a fourth of Americans eat fast food everyday, and most working Americans eat their lunch in 15 to 30 minutes instead of their full hour lunch break. So we’re shoveling unknown substances down our throats, and then it’s time to get back to work? That sounds healthy. Next time let’s change out the water cooler for arsenic and see if anyone notices.
I’m personally obsessed with Trader Joe’s vegan chocolate chip cookies. They are probably the BEST cookies I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve been forcing my friends to try them whenever they come to my apartment. Their first question always is, “Well if they’re vegan, what’s in them?” That’s when I bring up my favorite thing about veganism: 99 percent of the time when I look at the back of any vegan package, the ingredients list is in plain English. I don’t need to hire someone with a Ph.D. to explain to me what it is I’m putting in my mouth. Can you say that about your Big Mac?
I’m a pretty honest and open person, so I’ll admit it. My first week as a vegan wasn’t totally vegan.
I slipped a couple times while spending the weekend at my parent’s house, starving on a college campus that is not very vegan-friendly, and just plain stupidity. Of course, there’s milk in milk chocolate!
I definitely underestimated how difficult it would really be to make such a drastic life change. Especially before such a depressing holiday that usually leads me to indulge in tons of milk chocolate and gallons of ice cream.
I’m proud of myself, though. I’m making a change. Instead of drowning myself in sorrow and self-loathing, I went to the gym and used endorphins to boost my mood in lieu of comfort food.
Valentine’s day is commonly associated with relationships, flowers, romance and sexual intimacy. Even though the ‘v’ in V-day doesn’t refer to vegan, I find the recent connection between veganism and sexuality to be quite interesting.
- The fairly new term “vegansexual,” a vegan who refuses to have sex with a nonvegan because his or her body has ingested meat.
- The PETA ads that use women’s bodies as advertisement for anti-fur and meat-free lifestyles.
- And now, Portland, Ore., has the first vegan strip club.
I feel like these last two advertisements are aimed directly at men as a way to try and convince them that they can still feel manly without a 20 oz. steak… as long as they can stare at naked women.
Maybe it’s my feminism coming out, but aren’t there other ways of advertising a meatless diet to men? Women have been using their bodies to change male minds since Ancient Greece… can’t we be a little more creative?
No. No. Go ahead.
Ignore the fact that there would be no world hunger if everyone was vegetarian. Ignore the fact that meat clogs your arteries and causes heart disease. Ignore the fact that animals don’t have to die for you to satisfy your hunger.
Let’s just throw some naked ladies in the ad, that’s all we need. Let’s just throw some naked women on stage, and the men won’t notice that we’re not serving chicken wings or cheese pizza.
Come on. Let’s put our minds together and come up with something better than that.
I know I need to explain more thoroughly why I decided to turn vegetarian, but I’ll do that in my next blog.
I have had the flu all week, so unfortunately I missed out on Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras celebrations, but it did give me plenty of time to think about what I’m giving up for Lent (the 40 days proceeding Easter, a period of prayer and fasting). It’s a common Western Christian tradition to give up eating meat on Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) and on every Friday during Lent. Since I’m already vegetarian, I have loftier goals.
I currently call myself “almost vegan” or “99 percent vegan,” but I’m going to use these next six weeks as preparation because I’m going to have a 100 percent plant-based diet by Easter. Hopefully.
My inspiration came from PETA Europe’s blog about Ash Wednesday, especially the part where it says vegan women weigh 4.7 kg less than the meat-eating variety, on average. Which converts to about 10.36 lbs. Sounds good to me.
Okay, so I like cheese, but really I think the hardest part about turning vegan is I have absolutely no idea where the line is drawn. I know vegans don’t eat meat, dairy or eggs, but I’ve also heard of vegans who don’t eat whey, honey or even sugar. Then there’s the whole subject of not wearing certain clothes or buying certain brands. I just don’t know enough to go that far.
My mother and I were on the Atkins diet for well over a year. Quite often I would eat eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’m so sick of eggs, giving those up will definitely not be a problem. I don’t eat most dairy products anyhow, so 40 days without cheese, not a problem.
We’ll see how long I last, and more important, we’ll see if I lose that 10 pounds.
I was raised on hamburgers, pork chops, huli huli chicken and my mom’s amazing beef stroganoff.
I’ve been a meat-eater for 19 years.
Then three months ago, that all changed.
I watched a documentary with my mom on what meat does to our arteries, what livestock does to our planet, and what we do to those animals in return.
I’ve never really been the person who thought of hamburger as meat or cried when she found out what was in hot dogs, but actually seeing it puts it in a very different perspective.
I know every time I saw the name PETA I rolled my eyes and ignored the message… they’re just a bunch of crazy hippies, right? But they have a similar video that really gets to me.
I’ve been lactose-intolerant since I was very little and I hate eggs, so it’s not a very big leap to veganism, but the hardest part for me is fish and cheese.
I like soymilk, and tofutti makes dairy replacements that are bomb.com
But deprive me of my cheese pizza, quesadillas and sushi???
Ugh.
I’m working my way there… through learning the love of cooking and recipes that make my mouth water, even though they’re meat-free.
Dinner tonight comes from: 
:
Pasta Primavera (Prep time: 10 minutes, makes two servings)
1/2 pound uncooked whole wheat spaghetti
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 medium carrot, thinly sliced
1 medium zucchini, sliced
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/8 teaspoon oregano
1/2 medium tomato, chopped
2 tablespoons water
2 to 4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (optional)
Grated soy “Parmesan” cheese
Salt & pepper
1. Bring a covered pot of water to a rapid boil, stir in the pasta, and cover until the water returns to a boil. Uncover the pot and cook the pasta until al dente; begin checking for doneness after 5 minutes.
2. While the pasta cooks, heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and carrot; saute’ until the onion is soft, about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini, basil, and oregano; saute’, stirring occasionally until the vegetables begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the tomato and 2 table spoons of water; cover and cook for 3 minutes or until the vegetables are just tender. Uncover, stir, and remove from the heat.
3. When the pasta is al dente, drain it. Serve the pasta topped with the vegetable mixture. Sprinkle each serving with a splash of fresh lemon juice, if desired, and grated soy cheese. Salt and pepper to taste.
