The Three Types of Animal-Rights Vegans (and summary of how I did with last New Year's resolutions)

People who go vegan due to animal rights concerns can fall under three categories. Of course, there are many different ways to classify vegans, since vegans are as diverse a group as anyone else. However, regarding the diet, there are three main types:

1) The "Oreo-Cookie Vegan". Oreo-Cookie Vegans don't particularly focus on their health. They eat regular food, as long as they believe that it is vegan (I call them "Oreo-Cookie Vegans" because apparently Oreo cookies are vegan, so many vegans-- typically the Oreo-Cookie Vegans-- eat them.) While these people don't necessarily have an environmentally-friendly or healthy diet, they stress that that's not the point, anyway-- it's because they disagree with animal farming and they care about animal rights. One thing I can admire about Oreo-Cookie Vegans is that you know they aren't just doing it as a fad diet (eating Oreos and Wonder Bread doesn't sound like a fad diet to me), which means that they really do care about animals-- which is great, but they also run the risk of ruining their health by eating a lot of empty calories and not enough nutrients.

Oh, and by the way: Even if you don't eat Oreo cookies, you still could be an Oreo-Cookie Vegan. I just call them Oreo-Cookie Vegans because it makes sense to me to call them that. Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia.

2) The Healthy Vegan. Yay-- this is where we all should be at. The Healthy Vegan, being under the category of those who go vegan due to animal rights concerns, does care about animals. This doesn't stop him or her from eating healthily, though. Healthy Vegans usually forgo the Oreo cookies and eat some healthier food instead, maybe a fruit salad or some occasional whole-wheat cookies. Healthy Vegans tend to try healthy recipes from vegan cookbooks, buy some of their food from health-food stores, and go out to vegan restaurants on occasion. Healthy Vegans remember that they went vegan so that they would stop eating animals and start supporting a compassionate lifestyle. Healthy Vegans don't "cheat", and they don't sneak a few cubes of cheese once in a while either, but if someone accidentally drops a cube of cheese onto their plate while leaning over the table, the Healthy Vegan just picks it out and puts it aside and eats their meal anyway. They make the right decisions and aren't obsessive.


Image Courtesy of http://mevegan.com/2010/08/the-everyday-vegan-2/. (Looks like a good website-- check it out.)

3) The Obsessive Vegan. The Obsessive Vegan is like an OCD version of the Healthy Vegan. "Oh yeah," they'll tell you, "I went vegan for animal rights, but I have to remain personally pure, too-- otherwise I can't call myself a vegan anymore!" The Obsessive Vegan probably wouldn't eat something if it said "Made with machines that also process dairy and eggs" on the label, because they'd be too worried that there would be a small amount milk or eggs in it. Obsessive Vegans might end up wrecking their health because they don't eat a great variety of foods. To be fair, I have to applaud the Obsessive Vegan on his or her devotion to veganism and animal rights, but clearly, he or she is misinterpreting the whole concept of veganism. The real idea of veganism is to help animals, but to the Obsessive Vegan, personal purity conquers all. I would suggest looking at it more rationally. Technically, every product we buy in our society is-- in some vague, distant way, or in a very direct way-- going to be linked to the suffering of animals. We can't control the vague, distant things-- like when mice get killed by tractors that harvest our grain-- but we can control the direct things, like when turkeys get slaughtered for meat consumption. Focus more on the direct things than on the less controllable ones, because that is what really will make a difference in the world.


Broccoli is good. I just put a picture of it here because it must be what the Obsessive Vegans, well, obsess over. Image Courtesy of http://www.topnews.in/broccoli-reduces-skin-cancer-risk-study-24453.

If you're wondering which vegan I am, I'll have you know that I've been all three at different times in my life. Right now I'm sort of transitioning from the Obsessive Vegan to the Healthy Vegan, and I hope to stay at the Healthy Vegan stage for as long as I can. As I've said before, that's the best place to be!
You might not fit into any of the categories listed above, and that's okay. You can identify as whichever kind of vegan you think you're closest to, or you could just call yourself a "vegan".
If you have not gone vegan yet, I strongly urge you to stop consuming animal products immediately. Lives are at stake. If you want to learn more about veganism, please visit The Vegan Society's website at http://www.vegansociety.com/.
I know I talk a lot about veganism on this blog-- especially recently!-- but it is a big part of animal rights, and also a big part of one's everyday life, if you think that food is a big part of everyday life.

BY THE WAY, I wrote out some New Year's resolutions for my two blogs-- Hug a Tree Today, Seriously, and The Animal Rights Action Site. For Hug a Tree, I wanted to reach 1000 page views by the end of the year. I did reach that goal, but I also reached a quite incredible number for this blog. My goal was 500 total pageviews by the end of the year, and at the time of this writing, I have reached 3,876 pageviews for this site! WOW! Thanks everyone. Come back again in the new year.

WINNER of the Great International Vegan Soup Competition!

Recipe #3, you take the prize!I love the garlicky flavour of this soup and the hearty chunks of vegetables and butternut squash. Highly reccommended for anyone looking for a tasty soup recipe! It did take a long time to make, however. Still, I said I was judging on taste, didn't I? Besides, I cooked the lentils from scratch, which the recipe didn't call for.
Here is the recipe again, just to exalt it on a throne a little bit:

 

Lentil Butternut Squash Soup

Submitted by Margo, near Ottawa, Canada

(All measurements are approximate)



In a fairly large pot, stir fry, in olive oil, one onion chopped up and one cup washed lentils. Stir fry till slightly browned.

Add (all chopped up): 2-4 cloves garlic, 2-3 celery stalks, 3 carrots, about 1 cup butternut squash, or other squash will do as well, about 5 cups water, Salt to taste, pepper to taste, dried or fresh parsley...about 1/4 cup, and 1 can of stewed tomatoes.

Bring to boil, turn down heat and simmer for at least 1 hour. Stir once in a while while cooking. Taste to make sure lentils and veggies are cooked.

 

For those curious as to what I'm talking about (for some of you might be hearing of this contest for the first time), you can read my previous posts on the contest (in this order ) at the following links:

• Rules and Introduction: http://theanimalrightsactionsite.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-great-international-vegan-soup.html
• Contestant Recipes: http://theanimalrightsactionsite.blogspot.ca/2012/12/contestant-recipes-for-great.html

Since less than five people entered, there will be no prize-- apart from the happy celebration that comes from winning the contest! Congratulations!

Vegan and Non-Vegan Microingredients

So I've finally taken that picture of Christofer Drew off the sidebar. It's about time, admittedly!
This week I'm finally getting around to writing my post about microingredients and hidden ingredients, which are both a concern for vegans. Here's a quick description of the two terms. When I say...

1. microingredients, I mean those obscure-sounding ingredients listed at the bottom of the ingredients label of a food product (such as calcium chloride, sulfites, etc.)
2. hidden ingredients, I mean the ingredients used in processing a product (which may or may not be in the final product) that (gasp) aren't listed on the label at all (yes, it does happen!).

Which of these should you care about, and how can you figure out whether or not your food really is vegan, then? This is the question that I hope to answer in this post.

Microingredients
When it comes to microingredients, I recommend being as diligently vegan as possible. If you don't know where an ingredient comes from, for example, look it up! I am by no means an Internet worshipper, but I have got to admit that the Internet is a great tool for this. You can use Vegan Peace's Ingredients List as a resource, which is a great website that lists a great deal of ingredients and states where they come from, as well as whether they are suitable for vegans. I have found this an incredibly helpful website over the years.

Hidden Ingredients
Hidden ingredients can be found in flour and sugar among other things.
Flour may be sometimes treated with a "treatment agent" called L-Cysteine, which can come from animal feathers and human hair. This may or may not be true; it's hard to tell. You can learn more about L-Cysteine in a forum at http://www.veganforum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-3402.html. (Read the fourth post down to find the part on L-Cysteine-- apparently it isn't listed in the ingredients list because it isn't actually present in the finished product.) Now, you might decide that this is not a big deal, and eat flour anyway. After all, it is hard to avoid flour in your foods, and I don't know whether or not "flour" includes all the kinds of flour, including gluten-free ones. However, I find it repulsive that people might be putting derivatives from feathers in my food. Because of this, I don't eat flour. (This is the reason why The Great International Vegan Soup Competition is a soup contest, as opposed to a sandwich contest.) If you feel uncomfortable with eating possible animal products but you don't want to stop eating flour and bread, contact the bread and/or flour company to ask them. Also keep in mind that enriched flour may contain nutrients that are animal-derived.
Sugar sometimes is refined using animal bone char. In Canada, the sugar companies Redpath and Lantic do not do this, however. (My mom contacted the company and asked them.) I suggest avoiding other brands of sugar until you get a chance to contact the company. Again, though, when it comes to this sort of thing, there is more of an ambiguous grey area where you can decide what's important and what isn't. For interest's sake, I do avoid sugar that may be processed with animal products.
Don't become too obsessive over hidden ingredients. True, some company may use a bunch of weird chemicals and ingredients behind the scenes and then not tell you. This could, indeed, be happening with more products than just flour and sugar, but you can't stop eating for the sake of complete personal purity. Veganism is a lifestyle, not a death-style.

My best advice is to read the ingredients label, look up ingredients if you don't know what they are, and contact the company for flour and sugar. This isn't supposed to be extremely hard. If you go out to a vegan restaurant and they tell you it's vegan, you should just beleive them, and the same goes for when you buy a food that says that its vegan on the label.

Speaking of food, The Great International Vegan Soup Competition soups are being made in my kitchen over the week! I've already made one, and it was delicious, but I won't tell you which one it was... yet. I've got to make them all first, and then rate them.

Come back soon for the winners of the contest!

CONTESTANT RECIPES for the Great International Vegan Soup Competition

This week I've got the Contestant Recipes for the Great International Vegan Soup Competition to show you. Entries are now closed, but there were three entries all together. I haven't chosen a winner yet, but I will do so when I have the time to make all these soups! If any of you out there would like to vote, please comment on this post or e-mail rabbit-cat[at]vegemail[dot]com with your selection.
Last week, I promised to talk about something very, very tiny... but I'll have to do that sometime soon, instead, because these recipes take up enough (delicious) space as it is.

And so... here are the contestants, folks...
(You'd better try out these recipes yourselves, okay?)

Recipe #1: Pumpkin Soup

 

Submitted by Carol-Anne (not the author of this blog), near Ottawa, Canada

Ingredients:

Medium size pumpkin about 10 inch radius.

1 tsp tumeric

1 tsp medium curry powder

1/4 tsp mild cayenne

2 tbsp coconut oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup chopped chives

1/2 cup rice yogurt

4 cups vegetable stock

 

Method:

Cut top out of the pumpkin and remove seeds (save the seeds and roast them separately)

Roast the pumpkin at 350 degrees Fahrenheit

until tender.

Allow pumpkin to cool enough to handle.

Using a large blender, pour in all ingredients except chives and rice yogurt, and blend until smooth, pour into a large pot and heat until boiling reduce heat to low, allow to stand on low stirring occasionally for 30 minutes..

Ladle soup into bowls, add a tablespoon of rice yogurt in the center of the bowl of soup and garnish with chives.

Recipe #2: Auntie Lu’s Vegan Cream of Zucchini Soup

Submitted by Lucinda, near Ottawa, Canada

You will need a frying pan, a kettle, a measuring cup, a glass or ceramic bowl, a whisk (or fork if you do not have a whisk), a blender and a large sauce pan.

Ingredients:

·         4  tablespoons olive oil

·         4 cups diced zucchini

·         1 large onion, chopped (about 1 cup)

·         4 cups vegetable broth (you can buy non-GMO, organic vegetable broth cubes that you dissolve in boiling water)

·         2 cup plain, unsweetened soy milk (if possible, use non-GMO organic soy milk)

·         Sea salt to taste and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper just before serving

·         1 cup chopped packed fresh parsley or ½ cup chopped packed fresh basil (or half and half if you want)

Preparation:

Stir fry the zucchini and onion in the olive oil on medium heat until the onion is soft and transparent and the zucchini is soft but not mushy.  Take it off the burner.

Boil water and pour 4 cups into a large bowl.  Then crumble the vegetable broth cube(s) (as per the instructions) into the boiling water and whisk it until it is not lumpy.  

Blend (a bit at a time) the zucchini mixture, broth and fresh parsley or basil (reserving about ¼ cup of the parsley/basil to use as garnish) together in a blender until smooth and then pour it into a large saucepan.  It is important to make sure that you blend it a bit at a time so that it doesn’t overflow when you turn the blender on (the blender should only be about half full) and, for each batch of vegies and broth, start the blender on low gradually increasing the speed.  Once you have the entire mixture blended, and in the large sauce pan, gradually stir in the soy milk and a little sea salt to taste (about ½ teaspoon).  Heat the soup gradually over medium to medium-high heat while stirring (to prevent it from burning or sticking to the bottom of the sauce pan) and serve with a sprinkling of cayenne and use the rest of the parsley/basil to garnish each serving.

If you don’t want the soup to be completely smooth and creamy, but want it to have some pieces of vegetable, you can reserve about a cup of the cooked zucchini and onion to add to the soup after adding the soy milk.  Serve with crackers and/or fresh bread with vegan margarine.

ENJOY!

Lentil Butternut Squash Soup

Submitted by Margo, near Ottawa, Canada

(All measurements are approximate)


In a fairly large pot, stir fry, in olive oil, one onion chopped up and one cup washed lentils. Stir fry till slightly browned.
Add (all chopped up): 2-4 cloves garlic, 2-3 celery stalks, 3 carrots, about 1 cup butternut squash, or other squash will do as well, about 5 cups water, Salt to taste, pepper to taste, dried or fresh parsley...about 1/4 cup, and 1 can of stewed tomatoes.
Bring to boil, turn down heat and simmer for at least 1 hour. Stir once in a while while cooking. Taste to make sure lentils and veggies are cooked.

 That's all for this week, folks. Come back next weeks for further awesome-ness. (Hint: the very, very tiny thing starts with an "m" and ends with a "t". And no, it's not meat!)

C.

Vegan on Christmas

Christmas is one of those times when vegans have got to try extra hard to avoid eating animal products and otherwise harming animals. Still, it's extremely important that you don't slack off! (The X-mas turkey won't forgive you for eating it, even if it is on Christmas.)
Last year, I talked about being compassionate to companion animals, buying animal-friendly gifts, eating vegan turkey, and being eco-friendly on Christmas. These are great topics, but that's just the tip of the iceburg, so this year I get to elaborate. (Yay!)

Vegan Christmas Foods
What's on your X-mas grocery list this year? If you're not the one doing the shopping, I suggest talking to the person who is. Often, people will buy things like turkey or ham, eggnog, and milk chocolate. You can avoid these things, however, by buying Tofurkey, making vegan eggnog, and getting vegan treats. Here is a picture of a vegan treat plate from VeganBits.com:

Click on the picture or here to see which vegan treats were purchased to make this delicious-looking plate!
If you have kids, you can get them vegan chocolate advent calendars from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B009H89QQK/lucysveganhous0d.
Vegan Christmas is getting easier every year, folks!

Getting your Relatives to Understand your Awesome Vegan-ness
Unfortunately, sometimes vegans have to cope with annoying questions and complaints about our diet on Christmas. We also have to deal with the unpleasantness of people eating meat while we have an otherwise-nice conversation with them. I cover these issues here in another blog post.

How to Recieve Non-Vegan Gifts When You ARE a Vegan
Has Aunt Sally ever tried to give you a nice warm pair of wool mittens, or Cousin Bob gifted you a bag of bacon strips? Sometimes it does happen, and you have to be prepared. First, make sure your relatives know that you will be remaining vegan this Christmas (sometimes they need reminding), and that yes, meat (including poultry) and wool and honey and eggs and milk aren't vegan. And fish isn't vegan (another thing they need to be reminded of, especially if they think veganism is a fad diet). Let them know that your vegan lifestyle is very strict and that you won't make a few "exceptions" to make people happy. (But please, be less blunt about it than that.)
If someone gives you a non-vegan gift and asks you, "Is this okay? Is it vegan?", tell them the truth. This could prevent further mishaps next year. If they offer to take it back, let them.
If you recieve a non-vegan gift and the person doesn't know it isn't vegan, you might want to tell them. If it's too awkward to tell them in the moment (ie. you're at a huge family party and everyone is watching you open your gift), tell them later, but only if you think they'd understand.
However, if someone gives you a non-vegan gift and they really don't understand that they shouldn't, and you don't think they can ever understand, just smile and thank them and move on. You can always donate it to the Salvation Army or something.
Lastly, if someone gives you a non-vegan gift with a wink and says, "I know you're vegan, so I thought I'd treat you to something you wouldn't allow yourself normally", seriously tell them what your lifestyle choice means to you. It's about saving animals (and maybe also the environment). You don't "cheat" like when you're on a diet for your health (or appearance, as many modern diets are focused on).

Lastly, remember that the holidays are about spending time celebrating with family and friends. It is an unfortunate fact of modern life that most Christmas celebrations in developed countries place a high degree of importance on gifts and food. Your celebrations don't have to be like that, though. You can have gifts and food as an aside to the real importance of Christmas, which is joy, love, peace and hope. Not devotion to the consumer cult.
Adios for now! Next week I think I'll talk about something very, very tiny...

Filler Post

Dear friends, please allow me to write a filler post this week. I am a few thousand words behind on my novel, and today may be my only plausible catch-up day! (And I only have the morning at home, anyway.)
Please come back next week for a delightful treat (it has to do with the winter holidays and Christmas!).
Thank you!

Let's Send Down Sales Down!

Sorry for the bad pun.
Down (the under-feathers of birds) is sometimes an ingredient in pillows, comforters, jackets and coats, and more. Although it may seem harmless, it actually isn't. Birds used for down are not treated well and are repeatedly plucked. Read what Ari Solomon has to say about the down industry for Huffington Post:

Ari Solomon, president and co-creator of vegan candle line

"...if you're taking feathers off a bird, there are two ways to do it: you can rip them off while the bird is still alive, or you can rip them off after the bird is dead. The feather industry considers feathers from live birds better quality, hence they're more valuable. So geese and ducks get "live-plucked" 3 to 4 times a year. This happens from the time they are 10 weeks until they're 4 years old. Then they're sent to slaughter for their flesh. Ducks and geese in the wild have a lifespan of 12-15 years."
The birds are plucked without anesthetics and many are also raised as fois gras (more on that some other time)!
Down is a poor choice for the consumer's sake because it doesn't stay warm when wet and it is expensive. My point: there is no reason why you need to buy down. There are plenty of warm winter coats and cozy comforters that use synthetic materials.
All you have to do to avoid buying down is to read labels. Check to make sure that there is no down in it and instead look for ones that contain polyester fill or another alternative.
Have a good week!

Photo courtesy of United Poultry Concerns (www.upc-online.org)