Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Green zone: the US soldiers fighting for vegan food
from The Guardian:
The US military doesn’t provide plant-based meals, often leaving vegan service members to rely on snacks – but some are seeing a rise in like-minded comrades
Thanks Eric!
The US military doesn’t provide plant-based meals, often leaving vegan service members to rely on snacks – but some are seeing a rise in like-minded comrades
John, a specialist in the US army, went vegan in 2018 while deployed in the Middle East after he started practicing Buddhism.
“I’m living in a world of violence by being in the military but trying to live the most peaceful lifestyle that I can,” John says. “Choosing not to be violent in my everyday life when I don’t have to be is something I wholeheartedly say falls in line with my religious beliefs and military values.”
The military will accommodate a kosher, halal and vegetarian diet for troops, but no meals ready to eat (MREs) – which deployed soldiers rely on for breakfast, lunch and dinner – are totally plant-based. Like other vegan soldiers, John often has to rely on snacks. He once spent a month eating just bread, crackers, peanut butter and canned vegetables.
“It was just a miserable time,” he says. “We were in the field and had one meal a day. I went four days straight eating exclusively green beans.” He was fatigued, an obvious problem for soldiers in combat. “You want soldiers to be at their most capable and their most mentally and physically prepared for any action,” he says.
John prefers not to use his real name because he is worried about further ostracizing himself.
He says he is often told he’s not a man if he doesn’t eat meat. “Someone told me that being vegan is against God and being vegan makes me weak,” he recalls of an exchange while standing in line for a physical. Because the man who said it outranked him, John didn’t argue.
“Part of being vegan in the military is learning that there are some conversations that aren’t even worth having with people,” he says with a sigh. “I get a lot of shit for it.”
While the number of vegans in the military has never been officially determined, John isn’t alone. Anecdotally, vegan service members I spoke with report a rise in like-minded comrades, one that reflects a larger social trend: in 2017, there were five times as many vegans in America as in 2014. Part of the problem in making the case for vegan MREs as well as more plant-based options in military dining facilities is that no hard data on the number of vegans soldiers exists. Both the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and the army public affairs office declined to comment on whether they have plans to evaluate how many service members either require or are interested in plant-based options.
The DLA, a federal agency that decides what goes in MREs, confirmed that currently no MREs are vegan but declined to explain why or say whether the military would consider changing this. “There may have been a vegetarian entree that was also vegan. To date, there has been no military service requirement for vegan MREs,” the DLA commented via email which also verified that four of the 24 MRE options are vegetarian.
A couple of weeks ago, a dining hall in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, became the first to offer a plant-based entree at every meal, thanks to the ongoing advocacy of one vegan soldier.
But at all other dining halls, service members have to put in requests for a plant-based option, though there’s no requirement for those requests to be fulfilled. Junior service members may not know it’s within their rights to make such a request in the first place. If they do know, they may not want to further differentiate themselves by making a special request, instead choosing to get by the occasional plant-based entree or sides of vegetables – though vegan service members say those are often cooked in butter – or the salad bar, if they’re lucky enough to have one.
“Two years ago, if you were to say the word ‘vegan’ to me, I would’ve told you to not bother talking to me about it,” Chief Petty Officer Thomas Shearin, a mechanic in the US Coast Guard stationed in Miami, says. “You weren’t going to recruit me. I didn’t climb to the top of the food chain to eat rabbit food.
“Growing up in Texas, if you ate tofu instead of barbecue chicken, you definitely didn’t grow up playing football,” Shearin says. Now, he no longer equates meat with masculinity and proudly makes his own seitan at home. Most significantly, and to his own surprise, his veganism has become about more than addressing his lack of energy, high blood pressure and fear of reaching the military’s maximum weight limit. In less than two years, he says it has also become an ethical stance for the environment and animals.
Shearin went vegan while stationed in Saudi Arabia, where he met Master Chief Petty Officer Eric Gibson, who has been vegan for more than five years – initially to appease his animal rights-minded wife before going “full vegan” to manage his health.
While both Shearin and Gibson say the transition has been doable for them in the Coast Guard, they note that their high rank and not being deployed helps. Unlike John, they don’t have to rely on MREs for food and rank high enough to feel comfortable asking dining facilities to provide a vegan option. They are more likely to be accommodated because of their rank.
Interestingly, the military already has prepackaged vegan meals; they’re just not for soldiers. A DLA spokesperson confirmed that while some meals distributed as humanitarian aid to civilians are not classified as vegan, “these meals contain no animal products or by-products, except that minimal amounts of dairy products are permitted.” Having vegan meals as humanitarian aid makes sense – plant-based food is more easily made halal, can be less perishable and may be less expensive.
Indeed, in California, where a new law gave incarcerated people the right to request plant-based meals, legislative analysis found that the vegan options might be cheaper than traditional prison food, saving the state money in the long term. Although the law is new, it means that California inmates, whether they identify as vegan or not, now have more access to plant-based food than US service members.
Financial incentives may be at play in the military as well. Gibson says he thinks a lot of the military’s decisions are linked to industries the government subsidizes, like dairy and meat. This is just one more hurdle, but it seems soldiers continue to look for plant-based alternatives. John says fellow service members now frequently tell him they met another vegan soldier that day – something he almost never heard four years ago.
Shearin has experienced this change too: “It seems like every unit that I go to and visit, I come across people that are vegan, or who want to go vegan and they’re just not sure how to do it.” He encourages them to try a one-month vegan challenge and tells them if he can go plant-based, anyone can.
“My view has changed,” Shearin says. “We have a responsibility to the planet we’re on right now. I tell people if they’re vegan three days a week, that’s three days a week that they’re helping the planet. I would call that a win for them and for me.”
Thanks Eric!
Friday, February 1, 2019
Beyoncé and Jay-Z offer tickets for life to vegan converts
from The Guardian:
The couple is giving a lucky fan free tickets to any Beyoncé and Jay-Z concert for life up, but there’s a catch: you have to pledge to eat plant-based meals
Beyoncé and Jay Z are offering fans the chance to win free concert tickets for life – in exchange for going vegan.
Beyoncé on Thursday asked fans on Instagram to commit to a certain number of vegan meals to enter the special contest – and one lucky winner will receive free concert tickets to any Beyoncé and/or Jay-Z show for life.
By Thursday evening the post had received more than 500,000 likes.
The Greenprint is an initiative of the Carter co-owned vegan nutrition service 22 Days Nutrition. Meat-free meals can help in the fight against climate change, and the Greenprint’s interactive website demonstrates the positive impact of going vegan, from absorbing harmful emissions, to cleaner water to the conservation of power.
After a brief slideshow, users are asked to pledge their contribution to the vegan meal proposal. According to her Instagram post, Beyoncé herself has pledged to participate in meatless Mondays and eat plant-based meals for breakfast. Other options include: all plants all the time, plant-based at work, and two plant-based meals a day.
Created by exercise physiologist Marco Borges, 22 Days Nutrition is based on the belief that habits are formed in 21 days, therefore a 22-day diet establishes a pattern that encourages people to stick to the plan.
The superstar couple originally got involved with 22 Days Nutrition in 2013, just before Jay-Z’s 44th birthday. The rapper blogged about the challenge, calling the timing of his start “serendipitous” and “spiritual”. DJ Khaled is also a fan of the service.
Jay-Z and Beyoncé officially partnered with the service in 2015. Beyoncé announced that she was once again participating in the 22-day challenge before her acclaimed Coachella performance in 2018.
The Greenprint contest closes 22 April at midnight and is open to US citizens over the age of 18.
Friday, December 28, 2018
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth
from The Guardian
Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of livestock - it provides just 18% of calories but takes up 83% of farmland
Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet, according to the scientists behind the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet.
The new research shows that without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% – an area equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined – and still feed the world. Loss of wild areas to agriculture is the leading cause of the current mass extinction of wildlife.
The new analysis shows that while meat and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses the vast majority – 83% – of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. Other recent research shows 86% of all land mammals are now livestock or humans. The scientists also found that even the very lowest impact meat and dairy products still cause much more environmental harm than the least sustainable vegetable and cereal growing.
The study, published in the journal Science, created a huge dataset based on almost 40,000 farms in 119 countries and covering 40 food products that represent 90% of all that is eaten. It assessed the full impact of these foods, from farm to fork, on land use, climate change emissions, freshwater use and water pollution (eutrophication) and air pollution (acidification).
“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.
“Agriculture is a sector that spans all the multitude of environmental problems,” he said. “Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy.”
The analysis also revealed a huge variability between different ways of producing the same food. For example, beef cattle raised on deforested land result in 12 times more greenhouse gases and use 50 times more land than those grazing rich natural pasture. But the comparison of beef with plant protein such as peas is stark, with even the lowest impact beef responsible for six times more greenhouse gases and 36 times more land.
The large variability in environmental impact from different farms does present an opportunity for reducing the harm, Poore said, without needing the global population to become vegan. If the most harmful half of meat and dairy production was replaced by plant-based food, this still delivers about two-thirds of the benefits of getting rid of all meat and dairy production.
Cutting the environmental impact of farming is not easy, Poore warned: “There are over 570m farms all of which need slightly different ways to reduce their impact. It is an [environmental] challenge like no other sector of the economy.” But he said at least $500bn is spent every year on agricultural subsidies, and probably much more: “There is a lot of money there to do something really good with.”
Labels that reveal the impact of products would be a good start, so consumers could choose the least damaging options, he said, but subsidies for sustainable and healthy foods and taxes on meat and dairy will probably also be necessary.
One surprise from the work was the large impact of freshwater fish farming, which provides two-thirds of such fish in Asia and 96% in Europe, and was thought to be relatively environmentally friendly. “You get all these fish depositing excreta and unconsumed feed down to the bottom of the pond, where there is barely any oxygen, making it the perfect environment for methane production,” a potent greenhouse gas, Poore said.
The research also found grass-fed beef, thought to be relatively low impact, was still responsible for much higher impacts than plant-based food. “Converting grass into [meat] is like converting coal to energy. It comes with an immense cost in emissions,” Poore said.
The new research has received strong praise from other food experts. Prof Gidon Eshel, at Bard College, US, said: “I was awestruck. It is really important, sound, ambitious, revealing and beautifully done.”
He said previous work on quantifying farming’s impacts, including his own, had taken a top-down approach using national level data, but the new work used a bottom-up approach, with farm-by-farm data. “It is very reassuring to see they yield essentially the same results. But the new work has very many important details that are profoundly revealing.”
Prof Tim Benton, at the University of Leeds, UK, said: “This is an immensely useful study. It brings together a huge amount of data and that makes its conclusions much more robust. The way we produce food, consume and waste food is unsustainable from a planetary perspective. Given the global obesity crisis, changing diets – eating less livestock produce and more vegetables and fruit – has the potential to make both us and the planet healthier.”
Dr Peter Alexander, at the University of Edinburgh, UK, was also impressed but noted: “There may be environmental benefits, eg for biodiversity, from sustainably managed grazing and increasing animal product consumption may improve nutrition for some of the poorest globally. My personal opinion is we should interpret these results not as the need to become vegan overnight, but rather to moderate our [meat] consumption.”
Poore said: “The reason I started this project was to understand if there were sustainable animal producers out there. But I have stopped consuming animal products over the last four years of this project. These impacts are not necessary to sustain our current way of life. The question is how much can we reduce them and the answer is a lot.”
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Former NFL lineman David Carter, who grew up in Los Angeles, has never regretted adopting a vegan lifestyle several years ago.
from The Los Angeles Times
He lost 40 pounds in six weeks by going vegan
David Carter, 30, was a defensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys when he made what he calls the "life-changing decision" to go vegan and eliminate meat, seafood and dairy from his diet.
He grew up in South Los Angeles, where his family owned a barbecue restaurant. He was a "straight-up meat eater, allergic to vegetables. I never thought about what I was eating." For dinner, he and a fellow player would typically hit the drive-through, splitting an order of eight double-doubles and four packs of fries. At 6-feet-5-inches, he weighed 305 pounds.
But after suffering painful tendinitis and being told he had high blood pressure, Carter, who now lives in New York, had enough. He recalled a daily regimen of painkillers and anti-inflammatories, and said he was drinking a milkshake and watching the food documentary "Forks Over Knives" when it triggered something in him. After he heard experts talk about dairy and animal products contributing to inflammation in the body, Carter hit the pause button.
"I went into the kitchen, poured the milkshake down the sink and then emptied out the refrigerator. My [then]-wife asked me, 'What are you doing?' I said, 'I'm going vegan. Right now. A hundred percent.' I did it in a day and I haven't gone back."
He added: "I realized I was causing my old-man illnesses. I was in my 20s and on all this medication. I was feeding these problems with the diet I was sustaining."
Carter was in Los Angeles over the NBA All-Star weekend to shoot a Levi's campaign — he began modeling after he retired from football — and is now a regular on the speaking circuit as a food activist. Sipping from a cup of black tea at a downtown hotel, he talked about the benefits of a vegan diet, the injustice of food deserts, and why few foods are better than beans.
Avoid the boredom trap
I already knew, going into [a vegan diet], that I needed to give myself a fighting chance. Sometimes people who try and switch to a plant-based diet get bored of foods quickly, and don't know what to eat. I basically vegan-ized my regular menu — pizza, tacos, hamburgers, taquitos… I made vegan versions of all of those.
The results are motivation enough
Within six weeks, I had lost 40 pounds. My stamina increased tremendously; I could bench-press 100 pounds more than I could previously. My recovery time was less and I was sleeping better. But not only was the quality of my life increasing, I didn't need to take painkillers to get through the day. The tendinitis disappeared almost instantly. But I didn't want to lose too much weight because my job as a defensive lineman is to not be moved. I am the wall on that field. I had to eat 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day. I did it by doing protein shakes with fruit, vegetables, a can of cannellini beans, flax, four bananas, dates. That's 1,000 calories right there, and I would do that a couple of times a day. Now that I'm not playing, I don't count calories anymore but have maintained my weight at 265 pounds.
Hemp seeds are your friend
I put it in everything -- in my shakes, sprinkled on a salad, or on their own. They have all these amino acids and help repair the body's DNA.
Get educated
I was giving a presentation and someone stood up and said, 'It's all good that you're plant-based. But I live in an area where we don't have access to healthy food.' That hit me so hard. I grew up in a food desert. I know what it's like when the only thing you can get to eat is at the liquor store or down the street at a fast food place. That prompted me to change my presentations dramatically and delve into food deserts.
Eating healthy doesn't have to be expensive
For people on a budget, I tell them it doesn't have to be organic. I got a lot of tips from Toni Okamoto, who has a blog called Plant Based on a Budget. She shows how you can eat well for $25 a week. Beans and rice are my staple. And I put lentils in everything -- burritos, burgers. You can buy a bag of lentils for a dollar. You do what you can. I was at a team dinner at a steakhouse and everyone was eating lobster rolls and 84-ounce steaks and I had a plate of string beans and a salad because that's all the restaurant had and I didn't want to mess up the vibe.
The hotel room workout
I try and hit the gym once a day, or sometimes I'll do a yoga class. But if I'm traveling and can't get to the gym, I'll do 500 push-ups in my room, 50 at a time, just knock them out. It's all I need.
Fighting the dollar menu temptation
It's not always easy. People were saying to me, 'You're a football player. You're tough and strong and need to eat meat.' But what's the point if you're dying at 50? Is it worth it?
"But... what do you eat?"
It's a question vegans get asked all the time. David Carter happily indulged when we asked the same. The answer? Lots of Mexican food, and more. Here's what a typical day of eating looks like for him:
Breakfast
Oatmeal or a seven-grain hot cereal, with hemp seeds sprinkled on top, and fruit
Lunch
Lentil tacos made with corn tortillas, tomatoes, onion, avocado, cilantro and cashew cheese
Dinner
Vegan nachos made with black rice, black beans, cashew cheese, onions, cilantro and guacamole
If he's still hungry?
Carter turns to fruit smoothies between meals.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Here's Why You Should Turn Your Business Vegan In 2018
from Forbes.com
No longer relegated to the fringes of society where for so long it was mocked for being ‘weird’ or ‘extreme’, veganism is going mainstream. Finally recognized for its positive impact on sustainability and animal welfare without the need to sacrifice taste or style, vegan living is starting to become the norm.
The continued proliferation of vegan and plant-based business stories and developments that have occurred during the past year demonstrate that this movement is just getting started in making its mark – and entrepreneurs are leading the way.
Here are some of the key reasons you should consider veganizing your business in 2018:
The numbers speak for themselves
Sales of plant-based food in the US went up by 8.1% during the past year, topping $3.1 billion, according to research carried out by Nielsen for the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) and the Good Food Institute.
Plant-based dairy alternatives are expected to represent 40% of the combined total of dairy and dairy alternative beverages within three years, up from just 25% in 2016, according to research firm Packaged Facts. The company predicts new types of dairy-free milks to find wider audiences in 2018, including barley, hemp, pea, flax and quinoa.
Vegan cheese has taken off in a big way, with the global market estimated to be worth just under $4 billion by 2024, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 7.6% from 2016 to 2024, according to a report by research firm Bharat Book.
The humble pea is revolutionizing the plant-based sector as global revenues of pea protein are estimated to be worth $104 million by 2026, according to Future Market Insights.
While plant-based milk sales grew 3.1%, cow’s milk sales declined 5% and are projected to drop another 11% through 2020, according to Mintel. Market Watch reports that Dean Foods, the largest supplier of dairy milk in the US, recently posted a third-quarter net income of just $1.4 million, down from $14.5 million in the same period a year ago. This downward trend is not confined only to the US: Australia’s largest supplier of dairy products, Murray Goulburn, announced a 22% drop in milk sales in the past financial year. Meanwhile Elmhurst, one of the longest-running dairies on the US east coast, decided in 2017, after 92 years, to cut its losses and switch to producing solely plant-based milks.
The egg industry is starting to feel the pinch too. Shares in Cal-Maine Foods, an egg producer since 1969 in Jackson, Mississippi in the US, saw its shares drop 7% in July this year, after the company reported its first annual loss in more than 10 years. CEO Adolphus Baker blamed the growth in popularity of egg alternatives.
Finally, the global meat substitutes market is expected to garner a revenue of $5.2 billion by 2020, registering a compound annual growth rate of 8.4% during the forecast period 2015-2020, according to Allied Market Research.
These key developments and players are signs that this market will continue to grow
Competition is heating up in the race to produce plant-based burgers that look, feel and taste like their animal-based counterparts, even to the point of ‘bleeding’ red juice. American startups Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat continue to lead the way. The Impossible Burger is currently served at more than 150 eateries in the US, while the Beyond Burger, whose investors include Bill Gates, Leonardo DeCaprio, Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, and meat company Tyson Foods, is available in more than 5,000 grocery stores across the US as well as on menus at selected restaurants such as the Veggie Grill Chain. In December 2017, Beyond Meat released its Beyond Sausage which it claims mimics the taste and texture of pork, but with less fat and sodium and higher protein than traditional sausages. On the other side of the pond, three companies in the UK, two of which are backed by Gates, are working on bringing their vegan burgers to market. British startup Moving Mountains claims it will be the first to get its B12 Burger into stores there.
Hampton Creek continues to innovate with its plant-based versions of egg products, including mayonnaise and its newest release Just Scramble, a vegan egg made from mung beans which the company says saves at least 65% more fresh water than conventional egg products and emits 24% fewer greenhouse gases.
Vegan cheese brand Kite Hill secured $18 million investment from General Mills and is on a mission to have its products sold in the dairy cases in more supermarkets across the US
Miyoko’s Kitchen has rebranded to simply Miyoko’s, named after its founder, vegan cheese pioneer Miyoko Schinner. The company recently opened its new, larger premises in Petaluma, California after receiving $6 million from JMK Consumer Growth Partners, and will be ramping up its production in 2018.
According to CB Insights, at least seven of the 15 most well-funded food and beverage startups are plant-based.
‘Vegan butcher’ was named a top new job trend for 2017 by Time Money.
Plant-based fast food is on the increase. As well as McDonald’s rolling out a vegan burger in its stores in Sweden and Finland, vegan chains Veggie Grill, Plant Power Fast Food and by Chloe. opened more locations throughout 2017 and are set to do the same in 2018.
The ‘grab and go’ market in the UK saw café chain Pret a Manger make its pop-up, plant-based Veggie Pret store in central London permanent, open a second location in east London and announce a third one for 2018. British department store chain Marks & Spencer introduced two vegan sandwiches, and iconic US plant-based meat brand Tofurky launched its range of four vegan sandwiches in the UK.
Daily Harvest, a New York-based subscription service specializing in frozen, plant-based, one-step-prep foods, secured $43 million investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners and VMG Partners who join existing celebrity investors Gwyneth Paltrow and Serena Williams.
Plant-based was noted by Organic Authority as the biggest trend at trade show Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, California this year, while the UK held its first ever vegan trade show VegFestUK Trade at Olympia in London
Even animal agriculture industries are taking notice
Plant-based meat substitutes is one of the “six greatest ag challenges for 2018,” according to Chuck Jolley, the president of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame.
Germany’s agricultural minister Christian Schmidt called for a ban this year on the labeling of plant-based proteins as vegan ‘meat’. Schmidt has a problem with products with names such as ‘vegetarian schnitzel’ and ‘curry sausage’, arguing that they are “completely misleading and unsettle consumers”.
In the US the Dairy Pride Act, a bill introduced by Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont earlier this year, calls on the FDA to stop plant-based dairy alternatives from being labeled as ‘milk’.
Rather than resist the inevitable, smart animal agriculture businesses are getting in on the plant-based revolution by buying or investing in plant-based brands. Tyson Foods, the top US meat producer, increased its investment in Beyond Meat this year, after initially having taken a 5% stake. Canada’s largest meat distributor Maple Leaf Foods bought popular plant-based brands Field Roast and Lightlife Foods. Nestle acquired Sweet Earth Foods (which was founded by a former Burger King board chairman). Dean Foods struck an investment and distribution deal with plant-based milk and yoghurt startup Good Karma. Japanese pharmaceutical company Otsuka bought plant-based cheese brand Daiya. Danone, a multinational food company with a focus on dairy, completed its purchase of plant-based pioneer WhiteWave (becoming DanoneWave), and Saputo, Canada’s largest dairy processor, is on the lookout for an opportunity to buy a plant-based milk company.
In Denmark Naturli Foods created a plant-based minced meat which has been taken on by the country’s largest retailer Dansk Supermarked Group. The product, which translates as ‘Minced Veggie’, will be sold in the supermarket chain’s 600 stores in the new year. Meanwhile, Dutch meat company Zwanenberg Food Group, which has been in business since 1929, is shifting half its focus on to plant-based proteins with the aim of 50% of its turnover to come from non-meat products such as vegetarian snacks, soups and sauces.
International finance group Rabobank said that recent growth in plant-based and clean meat should serve as a “wake-up call to the animal protein sector” and encouraged the meat industry to invest in alternative proteins. Rabobank also estimates that within five years alternative protein could represent a third of protein demand in the EU.
Campbell Soup Company left the Grocery Manufacturers Association and joined the Plant-Based Foods Association and Walmart encouraged its suppliers to create more plant-based products.
Responding to these developments, Bruce Friedrich, executive director at the Good Food Institute, said: “The growth of the plant-based sector in 2017 exceeded even my optimistic projections. The news from the meat industry itself was especially encouraging and 2018 is sure to continue the accelerating growth of plant-based meat.”
But wait, it’s not just all about food
While the plant-based food sector is experiencing tremendous growth, interest in animal-free products is being piqued in other sectors too. Vegan fashion is cited as a major trend for 2018 in The Future 100 Report by global research firm J. Walter Thompson Intelligence. We’ve seen the creation of alternatives to leather made from pineapple waste, apple peels, mushrooms, kombucha and wine as well as the first biofabricated leather brand and vegan silk.
Luxury car manufacturers are responding to the demand for cruelty-free materials, with Tesla reported to have removed animal-based leather as an option for its seats and Bentley exploring alternative materials to leather to cater for high-wealth ethical consumers.
Joshua Katcher, instructor of fashion at Parsons The New School and founder of men’s fashionwear store Brave Gentleman in New York, is most excited about biofabrication. “This coming year 2018 will definitely be about celebrating visionary solutions to some of the fashion industry’s most calamitous impacts: animal skins and hairs,” he said. “I also think we’ll see a lot of innovation around mycelium (fungus) textiles from companies like Mycoworks and entirely new ways of making synthetics from recycled and biodegradable materials like 10XBeta’s recycled C02 polyurethane-leather and Mango Materials’ biopolyester made from bacteria.”
Beauty brands are removing animal products from their formulations and even condom makers are recognizing this growing market and making their products vegan. The Green Condom Club in Switzerland, Hanx, a luxury brand created by a female gynecologist in the UK, and Australian brand Hero Condoms, all launched this year
Next-level high-tech products include 3D printed vegan cheese, candies and pizza crusts.
It’s a brave new business world, one in which growing numbers of consumers will continue to demand sustainable and ethical products. If you’re about to start a business, it’s worth making your products vegan-friendly from the start. If you already have a business, consider veganizing it by removing any animal-based ingredients or components (this includes bee products, wool and silk). Going a step further by gaining certified vegan status from the Vegan Society (UK) or Vegan Action (US) will help to set your brand apart from those that merely pay lip service to ethics.
The plant-based revolution is here to stay. Make sure you don’t get left behind.
Katrina Fox is the founder of VeganBusinessMedia.com, author of Vegan Ventures: Start and Grow an Ethical Business and host of the Vegan Business Talk podcast.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
MUST WATCH: If Milk Commercials Were Honest
If you still drink Cows Milk or have a good sense of humor
Milk, dairy, cheese and lactose commercials are great and all but no one's ever actually looked into how much our consumption of mammal udder juice contributes to growing up big and strong, but we just roll with it anyway.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
THE SECRET (BUT HEALTHY!) DIET POWERING KYRIE AND THE NBA
from the Bleacher Report:
Chicken wings are vanishing from the locker room. Superstars are slimming down—and speeding up. If 'skinny ball' has arrived, could the performance-enhancer sparking a revolution be...veganism?
Chicken wings are vanishing from the locker room. Superstars are slimming down—and speeding up. If 'skinny ball' has arrived, could the performance-enhancer sparking a revolution be...veganism?
The M-V-P chants shower Kyrie Irving as he toes the line for two free throws. The point guard is putting the finishing touches on a 35-point masterpiece against the Atlanta Hawks, and the crowd bellows with praise from every corner of the arena.
This kind of hero worship is commonplace for the star of the home team having a good night. Except this is an away game for Kyrie. The Celtics are playing in ATL, not Boston.
Irving is that good. He looks like a Harlem Globetrotter and Houdini all in one, darting and dazzling through Atlanta double-teams from start to finish. Down the stretch, he's masterful. When the Hawks go up 100-99 with 3:07 remaining, Irving single-handedly outscores them the rest of the way to help ice the game for his new team. He walks off the floor, untying his Nikes and handing them to a throng of adoring fans.
It's around this time that LeBron James grabs his phone and sets the basketball world ablaze.
After the M-V-P chants for Irving, James feels compelled to type "Mood…" into his Instagram and posts that meme of Arthur the Aardvark's clenched fist. Whether it was LeBron's intent to nod to Kyrie or not, the post makes it clear: Irving is right there, on top of the basketball world circa November 2017.
It might be too early to talk about Irving's MVP candidacy, but there's something different about Kyrie right now. His already skinny frame is noticeably trimmer—gaunt, almost. But he's outlasting everybody—not just the Hawks.
In late-game situations while other players are gassed, Irving has looked bouncier than ever. So far this season, in clutch situations (games within five in the final five minutes), his numbers are unfathomable. In 24 minutes of action, he's tallied 41 points on 57 percent shooting while handing out seven assists with no turnovers. Yes, that's 41 points in what amounts to one half of basketball.
This development has caught the eye of some basketball people and health fanatics around the NBA. Why? After a preseason game on ESPN, Irving announced something intriguing to Chauncey Billups and the NBA Countdown crew, who noticed how much...thinner he looked:
"Been on more of a plant-based diet, getting away from the animals and all that," Irving told the broadcast team. "I had to get away from that. So my energy is up; my body feels amazing."
So, is it possible that the secret to Irving's hot start is...that he's gone vegan? B/R Mag asked him just that.
"I think we can credit that in the win column," Irving told me after the Hawks game, rocking a gray sweatshirt inside a slim-tailored navy suit. "We lost the first two games, won the last nine games. I haven't changed any diet. I don't plan on changing anything in my diet. It's working out great so far."
Indeed, the Celtics are now an NBA-best 13-2, ripping off 13 straight wins without the injured Gordon Hayward, thanks in part to Irving's heroics.
"He's had great energy all year," Boston coach Brad Stevens says of Irving. "The nutrition side is huge."
The only other player with more clutch points than Irving this season? That would be Damian Lillard, who—you don't say!—went vegan this offseason, too, dropping almost 10 pounds in the process.
"I wanted to eat cleaner," Lillard told The Oregonian this offseason. "Also I want to play lighter this year and be easier on my joints and feet. I'm getting older, you know what I mean?"
Irving and Lillard aren't the only ones. Wilson Chandler, Al Jefferson, Garrett Temple, Enes Kanter, JaVale McGee and Jahlil Okafor have all made the switch to a vegan or vegetarian diet in the past year or so. For the uninitiated, vegans don't eat animals or animal-derived products like eggs or milk. A vegetarian can order the omelette with cheese; a vegan goes for the oatmeal with soy milk.
The rise of plant-based diets in the NBA follows a worldwide uptick in meat-free meals. According to research firm GlobalData's report, 6 percent of U.S. consumers identify as vegan, up from just 1 percent in 2014. In the United Kingdom, veganism rose by 350 percent from 2006 to 2016, largely from the country's younger demographics.
And now some of the NBA's very best have ditched meat. So, is veganism the NBA's new performance-enhancing diet? Is this even a thing? Or is it just an empty-calorie fad aligned with the league's shifting stars and skinny point guards?
Harvard stat gurus have discovered a trend in the NBA. The study, published November 1 by the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective in a blog post titled "Maybe We Should Call It Skinny-Ball," found that there has been a subtle shift in the league: Teams are getting faster…and lighter.
It's a recent phenomenon. The weight of the league (adjusted for minutes played) rose by seven pounds per player from 2000 to 2013, but has fallen three pounds on average per player over the last four years.
While small ball has become a leaguewide buzzword, there is no evidence that the NBA is actually getting shorter. But skinnier? Now we're talking. And the link is stronger for the faster teams.
"This may seem like an incredibly obvious result," the Harvard analytics group concluded, "but it highlights another efficiency that NBA teams have gravitated toward in the last five years. Teams are slimming down and using their athletic advantages to run the heavier teams off the floor."
This result, however, might be surprising once you look at the bigger picture. The league is richer than ever by a count of billions, but the players aren't responding to the surge of cash by getting fat and lazy. They're going the opposite direction, cutting weight and getting faster.
The change has been seismic. According to Basketball Reference tracking, the league-average pace (estimated number of possessions per game) is higher than it's been since 1989. It's more of an up-and-down game built on speed and quick decisions. It's true, however, that teams are generally faster in the opening month before season-long fatigue kicks in. So far, the median team pace is 101 possessions per game. Looking at pace just in November, that's still six possessions faster than it was 10 years ago, and 11 possessions faster than it was in 1996-97.
In fact, the league's fastest team in 1996-97 would be the slowest in today's NBA—by a wide margin:
Fastest team in 1996-97 (76ers): 95.34 possessions per 48 minutes
Slowest team in 2017-18 (Grizzlies): 97.76 possessions per 48 minutes
Get this: The average NBA team covers about 3,000 feet of extra ground per game than it did just four years ago, per player-tracking metrics on NBA.com. Or about a half-mile every night. Why?
Call it Warriors copycatting. Quick pace and even quicker threes. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban explains this meteoric rise in pace succinctly: "Because it works."
And few players represent this speedy shift more than Irving. This season, his average speed has jumped by 0.30 mph, or 26 feet of extra ground per minute on the floor. Among players averaging 30 minutes per game this season, it's the second-highest acceleration year-over-year.
For Kyrie, most of that increased speed has come on the defensive end of the floor. And that activity has led to results. Long perceived as a poor defender, Irving now ranks top five in both steals and deflections this season. And the Celtics are the league's top defense by a mile.
David Griffin was Irving's general manager for three years in Cleveland and the vice president of basketball operations when the team drafted Irving No. 1 overall in 2011. Griffin isn't surprised at all by Irving's commitment to vegan food or his energized defensive contributions.
"Kyrie is one of the most—what's the word? 'Stubborn' isn't the right word. He's really convicted," Griffin tells B/R Mag. "If Kyrie decides he's going to do something, it's going to get done. He's really one of those guys who I think has the ability to do anything he puts his mind to."
Irving would get 10 assists before halftime just to prove he could do it—and then go right back into scoring mode. When the Cavs won the 2016 NBA Finals, Irving averaged 2.1 steals and blocked as many shots in the final five games as any Warriors player (five).
"Kyrie is absolutely capable of being a menace defensively," Griffin says. "He can be completely unscreenable if he wants to be."
With his new team in Boston, Irving attributes this energetic output to his nutritional inputs. Call it energy enlightenment.
"It works," Irving tells B/R Mag. "I mean, I'm not eating a whole bunch of animals anymore. Once you become awake, you don't see that stuff anymore."
John Salley opens our conversation about veganism talking about dead basketball players. The four-time NBA champion wastes no time getting to the point, rattling off a stat about how many former players recently died early. The names are piling up. And Salley believes healthier diets could have helped prevent tragedy.
Sean Rooks, 46. Fab Melo, 26. Moses Malone, 60. Darryl Dawkins, 58. Jerome Kersey, 52. Anthony Mason, 48. Jack Haley, 51. Christian Welp, 51. Joe C. Meriweather, 59. Robert Traylor, 34. Devin Gray, 41. Armen Gilliam, 47. Orlando Woolridge, 52. Pat Cummings, 55.
"The oldest being Moses, 60 years old."
And that is just since 2011.
Salley brings this up because he's a vegan who is worried about the health of NBA athletes and their lifestyle. He applauds the league and the union for initiating last year what he calls a "life-saving" heart-screening program for former NBA players. Salley is one of the most vocal leaders in pro-vegan lifestyle. In 2015, Salley penned a letter to Michelle Obama, challenging her to go vegan.
"Vegan eating is not just a slam dunk for human health; it's also the most effective way to combat climate change," Salley wrote, citing a 2010 report from the United Nations, which has since been removed from the UN's website.
When Salley was 27 years old, a doctor told him if he ate animal fat, it was going to block his arteries. "And us being so tall, it's not good to have it blocked all the way down these long legs," says Salley, who is 6'11".
That's when Salley started doing his homework and soon went vegetarian to try to avoid artery-clogging food.
"It makes all the sense in the world why the elephant is an herbivore," Salley says. "Elephants, gorillas, giraffes are herbivores. Huge bodies, they can't process animal flesh.''
Salley insists that many African-American eating habits remain the result of slavery-era circumstances.
"They used to make us eat chitterlings—the intestines of the pig—because we weren't allowed to eat the bacon," he says. "We ate pigs' feet because they cut them off after they walked in their own shit and they didn't want to eat the thing. And we would grab them, wash them and pickle them because we had nothing else.
"Only because it was what we were forced to do, it became natural. And that's where we run into this huge problem."
Salley is talking on the phone from the set of his latest film, Detox Your Life, when he brings up another health movie, Netflix's What the Health. The pro-vegan documentary takes on the big-food industry, claiming that meat, fish, poultry and dairy are together making us obese, giving us cancer and essentially injecting toxins into our bodies.
"If you ever see that movie and you still eat meat," Salley says, "then you're just stupid."
This past summer, Sacramento Kings guard Garrett Temple found out about the Netflix doc through his buddies' group chat. They were picking a spot to go eat wings, but his best friend opted out.
"Nah, I don't mess with those no more," Temple's buddy texted.
Why, Temple messaged back.
"You watched that documentary? I'm trying not to eat meat no more," his buddy replied.
Temple has always watched his diet. But give up chicken? That seemed extreme to a guy who already prided himself on his nutritional knowledge.
Now 31, Temple gave up red meat and pork five years ago thanks to—of all people—Ray Allen, the future Hall of Famer. Temple signed a training-camp contract with the star-studded Heat in 2012 and latched on to Allen, a fellow guard who, like Temple, was working his way into shape and Erik Spoelstra's playbook.
"The guy was 37 but looked 27," Temple says of Allen. "How does he stay in shape?"
Allen told him to stay away from the bacon and the beef. Temple hasn't touched the stuff since.
Temple didn't make the Heat's roster, but Allen's advice during that training camp stuck with him. Temple focused on leaner meats like chicken, turkey and fish. That is, until July 24, when he tweeted out in shock: "Watched the documentary "WHAT THE HEALTH" on Netflix. So eye opening!!!! Must watch."
Temple began diving in.
"Holy shit, can all this be really true?" he thought to himself.
Temple responded to a reply from a fan: "If we can't trust doctors to tell us the truth, who can we trust?"
What the Health may have been a wake-up call for NBA athletes like Temple. But the film generated an avalanche of critical reviews from doctors and nutritionists, who questioned the accuracy of some of its claims.
I got on the phone with former three-sport collegiate athlete Marie Spano, who is the sports nutritionist for the Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Falcons.
"The movie itself," she says, "there was so many ways that the science is misconstrued."
Still, Spano says she has seen a surge of athletes inquiring about the benefits of plant-based diets, which she sees as a net positive. In the last two years, veganism has "really picked up steam" with her athletes because of documentaries like What the Health and Food, Inc. More recently, she visited with the Braves' minor league system and got bombarded with questions from up and down the organization.
"They were all talking about it," Spano says. "That's when it hit me: Oh, my gosh, this is really a big thing."
Kip Andersen, the director of the What The Health documentary, says his friends joke that the NBA will soon be called the NVA, the National Vegan Association, because "that's how many players are going vegan or vegetarian."
Andersen stands by the claims of the film and directs critics to his website, whatthehealth.com, which provides scientific sources for all 137 of his facts stated in the film.
Denver Nuggets forward Wilson Chandler, who hasn't eaten animals for two years as part of his vegan lifestyle, says he made the switch to help save his NBA career after a string of injuries. He owes that change to former NBA player and fellow Detroit native Chris Douglas-Roberts, who is also vegan.
Chandler has a regimented meal schedule and preps food constantly, eating personally prepared meals six hours, three hours and one hour before every game. He even eats organic Honey Stinger waffle cookies at halftime to keep his energy and calories up.
"For athletes, it's tough," Chandler tells B/R Mag. "It's not a plant-based world."
Chandler drinks tart cherry juice every night before bed thanks to a nutritional tip from Orreco, a sports performance company that also serves the Dallas Mavericks.
Spano, the Hawks' nutritionist, recommends tart cherry juice for her players complaining of inflammation and general wear-and-tear. But she says going vegan may also be indirectly helping players because of what they're not eating. Many of her athletes preached the gospel of paleo, Whole30 and other trending diets, but were really just cutting out junk food.
"Well, you stopped drinking beer and eating Cheetos," Spano says. "Let's be real here."
Spano did read about Irving and Lillard's veganism, but she doubts that larger NBA players will be able to get rid of animal products entirely throughout an 82-game season.
"I've never known or seen anyone who's 250 pounds or higher that's on a vegan diet and can withstand a season like this," Spano says. "It could be possible, but it would have to be very well-planned."
Louise Burke, the head of nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport, believes a vegan diet can provide all the nutritional needs of the typical NBA player. But the hectic NBA schedule may be prohibitive to keeping it up.
"The average basketball player is going to find it hard to choose from a training table organized for their omnivore teammates," Burke says. "They will also find it difficult to eat on the road, find restaurants and takeaways at small-town locations in the wee hours of the morning when they have finished a game, and meet requirements for nutrients that are harder to find in a vegan diet."
Vegan or vegetarian pro athletes may struggle with compensating for the amino acids that are found in animal proteins, but not in plant-based proteins. One essential amino acid for activating muscle-building proteins—leucine—is rich in beef, eggs and poultry. For the vegan NBA athlete losing muscle, she has a tip:
"Even adding eggs and dairy to make it vegetarian would go considerably far to helping meet requirements for energy, high-quality protein, calcium, iron, vitamin B-12 and others," Burke says.
Temple and Chandler both point to quicker recovery and more restful sleep as the biggest gains since they gave up animals for meals. Temple often gets ribbed by Kings teammates for his diet, but it helps that teammate Skal Labissiere is vegetarian.
"I love chicken wings, so I have those cravings every now and then," Temple says with a laugh. "It's a staple in the NBA locker room, at least once a week—somebody gets wings after a road game. They clown on me just for trying to be healthy."
Temple is posting career-high marks in scoring, three-point shooting and player efficiency rating this season. He's not planning to go back to eating animals any time soon.
"It's just my energy level," Temple says. "I feel great. I honestly don't do it for the animals. I do it for my body. I just feel good. I feel real good."
Standing in front of a Saran-wrap-covered wok full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in Atlanta's visitors locker room, Irving insists that the What the Health documentary wasn't what caused him to change his diet.
"Nah," Irving says. "I started becoming more in touch with myself. I did my own research."
Irving isn't the only Celtic who's committed to staying away from animal flesh. In the other corner of the locker room stands Jaylen Brown, who hasn't eaten red meat or pork for his entire life. In college at Berkeley, Brown went full-on vegetarian, but he's found it harder to stick to it "outside of Cali." The 21-year-old plans to go vegan by his 25th birthday.
"That's my goal," Brown says. "I just want to do it. I just think it's a healthier lifestyle. Maybe it can give me a competitive edge on the basketball floor. I think that's the next step."
As he's saying this, Al Horford shouts a protest in his ear.
"An-i-mal protein! An-i-mal protein!" Horford booms.
Brown turns to Horford, a native of the Dominican Republic.
"No, gracias," Brown replies.
A competitive edge from plant-based diets? Kyrie's a believer. He notes that his 35-point effort in ATL came on the second night of a back-to-back, a circumstance that had habitually plagued him in his career. For instance, last season Irving shot just 32 percent from three-point range on zero days' rest compared to 42 percent in all other games.
Irving gathers his stuff and walks out of the locker room with some meatless tacos in a white takeout box. He remarks that his favorite vegan spot in Boston so far is the salad chain Sweetgreen, but he's on the lookout for more. No more team dinners taking down steak.
"Steak? Nah, I don't eat that," Irving says as a parting shot. "It doesn't come from anything natural, so why would I eat it?"
As he walks down the Philips Arena tunnel, some taco sauce from the takeout box in Kyrie's hand drips onto his pristine white sneakers. He smiles, grabs a paper napkin, wipes it off and tosses it in the trash. Clean.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Russian activist fined over vegan propaganda
from The Calvert Journal
A Moscow court has fined 22-year-old Russian activist Rostislav Chebotarev 15,000 rubles ($250) for promulgating vegan propaganda during a May Day rally.
The Tverskoy District Court found Mr Chebotarev guilty of violating the rules for participating in rallies and demonstrations, after he wielded a banner at a Moscow march on International Workers’ Day reading: “No exploitation is necessary — become a vegan”.
According to the court ruling, Mr Chebotarev propagandised “vegetarianism and non-traditional relations”, thus violating the rules of the procession.
Source: Afisha (in Russian)
Sunday, July 2, 2017
No, you can’t drink cow’s milk with a clear conscience
from Ecorazzi:
The NZ Farmer side of Stuff wants to clear your conscience so you can go on drinking cow’s milk. Careful, it could make you choke on your almond milk.
Jon Morgan took to penning an opinion piece that reads like a 1950’s ad for milk, without the flashy use of logic or facts to distract people into thinking there’s any value in it. Morgan begins by shunning the “eyewash spouted by the anti-farming brigade,” a favourable comparison as better vision is exactly what those again cow’s milk are after. I wouldn’t call myself anti-farmer though, I’d just prefer all farmers switch over to making a living off of, oh I dunno, asparagus and not living beings.
Morgan loses all credibility immediately by loosely assuring readers milk isn’t bad for you and that all the substitutes on the market are in another “league.” That grade school style low-blow doesn’t amount to much without anything to back it up, since repeating “complete protein source” and sticking your fingers in your ears when someone tries to bring up fecal coliforms, calcium-leaching, or increased risks of fatal cancer doesn’t count as facts. Again, it’s like we’ve time travelled to back before we had a world wide web full of information and are relying on the upright fist of a bully to teach us all we need to know.
Naturally, the next defence is the importance of dairy on the economy. He claims no one in their right mind (not so hidden ‘crazy vegans’ reference) would want to see the 5-6 percent that dairy contributes to the economy (another unsupported statistic) drop, and then claims dairy is a “wealth creation system that sees anyone prepared to study and work hard become a millionaire in their 30s, even earlier in some cases.” It’s so good to know some choice individuals, thanks to bank subsidies and a very dairy-happy Government, can get rich at the expense of cows, the planet, and the health of their customers. It’s amazing we don’t see more tractors with gold rims.
But uh oh, even Morgan can’t ignore the obvious environmental and ethical problems with dairy farming. He has a simple solution though; ride the wave of controversy out because it’s bound to die down. He advises farmers avoid PR disasters by reducing their cows in an effort to decrease waste and/or participate in “bobby calf adoption schemes” to, well, pretend they’re saving some cows. By decreasing the amount of dead calves and preserving a small patch of grass, surely all the vegan advocates will shut their mouths, and only open them again to suck back a refreshing glass of milk. We’ve officially slipped into Morgan’s deepest fantasies.
The blatant undertones of right-leaning propaganda in this piece could only be topped by a conclusion that screamed “also, don’t you guys think soy milk and liberals are so gross?” But with Fonterra’s support of NZ Farmer and their glorious pieces of sensationalism, name calling could have been a step too far, maybe.
If someone like Jon Morgan can recognize that there are “flies in milk,” it’s time for everyone to take the appropriate action against it’s continuing production by going vegan. Cows need the wide open eyes of those who are no longer able to turn off their conscience long enough to choke back the corrupt secretions being marketed to us. Sorry Morgan, challenging people to digest the misinformation and bullying of the dairy industry is a thing of the past. The world does not need cow’s milk as you suggest, it needs vegans.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
READ:
Veganism in a World Full of Harm
from Ecorazzi:
I move in circles with people who care about social justice issues and who also care about animals. While such people are often open to being vegan, they frequently object to veganism for three reasons, even when they understand and agree to the moral principles underpinning it.
The first objection is to the fact that we live in an unjust world, in which animals are harmed frequently and indirectly. Those who try to diminish the moral imperative of veganism on these grounds overlook the fact that our lives and our actions also cause indirect harm to other humans. We would never use the existence of indirect harm as a justification to harm other humans or to abrogate their rights avoidably and directly whenever it suited us.
Our behaviour towards others is undergirded by certain moral principles that compel us to refrain from causing unnecessary harm to those others. This is why we don’t steal from people, even though it would be to our material advantage to do so. This is why we don’t allow arguments to escalate into physical confrontations, even when it may benefit us physiologically (by releasing nervous energy) to do so. This is why we don’t shove people out of our way when we want to get to the front of a long checkout queue, even though it could save us time to do so.
Further, we bring nonhuman animals into the world with the express purpose of exploiting and killing them. When we become vegan, we acknowledge that there is no good reason for us to do so, and that we are personally going to abstain from those rights violations because they run counter to the principles on which we have based our lives. When we go vegan, we are refusing to act against the precepts of justice, fairness, and nonviolence that we perceive to be central to good moral behavior. When we stop using animals, we are acting in a way that demonstrates that we respect the rights of others not to be treated as things that exist for us to use.
Just as we would never use the existence of indirect harm as a justification for directly and deliberately harming humans, so too must we apply this moral congruity to nonhumans. If we truly uphold the principles to which we claim to subscribe, we can and must refuse to participate in that system that directly exploits nonhuman beings by treating them solely as a means to our ends; this refusal is veganism (for more on the topic of incidental harm, see here and here).
The second objection I hear to the moral imperative of veganism is that there are so many other issues to tackle. While this is true, we can address those issues while wearing synthetic shoes, eating plants, and not attending animal shows. Veganism is not an obstacle to us participating in other forms of pro-justice work; in fact, for many (including me), it is a gateway to other areas of social justice. Veganism doesn’t require anyone to sacrifice their human rights work in order to pursue animal advocacy; it merely requires that at the very minimum one stops eating, wearing and otherwise using animals. As Francione and Charlton write in Eat Like You Care, “How does eating, for example, tofu instead of steak impede your ability to fight for human rights causes? It doesn’t. If anything, a healthy vegan diet will give you more energy to pursue those causes.”
The third objection is not particular to veganism, but is also heard among those who are reluctant to get involved in social justice issues because they are not sure that they can have any impact: “what difference can one person make?” As a matter of justice, this is a nonsensical question. We would never continue to participate in rights violations in the human context because we thought that our opting out wouldn’t make a difference to those whose rights are being violated if we stopped. If we acknowledge the wrongness of our actions, and we persist in those actions, then we are acting against our own consciences and principles, and this is not something we can ever justify to ourselves, as hard as we might try.
Putting aside the fact that animal agriculture exists only because there is a demand for it, and that everyone who refuses to participate in that system is helping to drive down demand, we have to take responsibility for our own behaviour and should use our own consciences as a touchstone for morality. In a world full of harm, be just, be fair, and be respectful of the rights of all beings—human and nonhuman; otherwise, you’re choosing to say “I knew, and I did nothing.”
Friday, March 24, 2017
Angelica Kitchen
over 40 years in business closing doors, April 7th.
Angelica's has been a staple in the vegan world for as long as I can remember, and I have always enjoyed this place. The original ORGANIC VEGAN restaurant known the world over. I've met people there who have become best friends, countless business meals, when there was no other place like it, to it becoming imitated ruthlessly. Leslie (the owner) did a great thing for the world and set an example ethically on how the food business can be run. Kudos.
I will go a few more times before they close. For some reason tonight my Dragon Bowl seemed a little better than ever. I'm already missing the place...
A surprise to all, even the current staff, until the opening yesterday.
The Sign was just put out this afternoon.
The takeout where so many cool folks have worked, and countless times I have eaten at the counter, met new friends, and freaks I hope never to run into again. I gotta admit I always had some pitty for the staff having to deal with all the OG picky health nuts, WAAAAAY worse than me ;-)
get their COOK BOOK HERE.
I will go a few more times before they close. For some reason tonight my Dragon Bowl seemed a little better than ever. I'm already missing the place...
A surprise to all, even the current staff, until the opening yesterday.
The Sign was just put out this afternoon.
The takeout where so many cool folks have worked, and countless times I have eaten at the counter, met new friends, and freaks I hope never to run into again. I gotta admit I always had some pitty for the staff having to deal with all the OG picky health nuts, WAAAAAY worse than me ;-)
get their COOK BOOK HERE.
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Eating Our Way To Extinction Trailer IDGG
The Plant-Based Lifestyle movement is perhaps the largest, and fastest growing movement in the world. Many of those involved are incredibly pro-active when it comes to inspiring positive social change to all around them. As people who take an active role in the betterment of our world, we need tools to educate and inspire others in the most effective way.
There are several recognised documentary films that cover the different individual aspects of the movement, and more often than not, when you hear the reason someone decided to go vegan, it was because they watched one of these titles.
We all know how much of a challenge it is to get someone to sit down and watch just one of these films, let alone three or four. So EATING OUR WAY TO EXTINCTION is the ultimate Plant-Based Lifestyle feature documentary that covers all the most important aspects of the movement:
go here to help fund:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/eating-our-way-to-extinction-food-vegan#/
Celebrities, leaders and famous athletes all over the world are making the switch, and the growing interest in a plant based lifestyle is hitting the mainstream media almost every day. The film will aim to leave audiences feeling moved and inspired; that by making the shift to a plant based diet, they are joining millions of people all over the planet in a global movement that is beginning to change the world.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Eating Our Way To Extinction Trailer IDGG
The Plant-Based Lifestyle movement is perhaps the largest, and fastest growing movement in the world. Many of those involved are incredibly pro-active when it comes to inspiring positive social change to all around them. As people who take an active role in the betterment of our world, we need tools to educate and inspire others in the most effective way.
There are several recognised documentary films that cover the different individual aspects of the movement, and more often than not, when you hear the reason someone decided to go vegan, it was because they watched one of these titles.
We all know how much of a challenge it is to get someone to sit down and watch just one of these films, let alone three or four. So EATING OUR WAY TO EXTINCTION is the ultimate Plant-Based Lifestyle feature documentary that covers all the most important aspects of the movement:
go here to help fund:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/eating-our-way-to-extinction-food-vegan#/
Celebrities, leaders and famous athletes all over the world are making the switch, and the growing interest in a plant based lifestyle is hitting the mainstream media almost every day. The film will aim to leave audiences feeling moved and inspired; that by making the shift to a plant based diet, they are joining millions of people all over the planet in a global movement that is beginning to change the world.
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