A-List Vegan

Not that it matters, but a lot of famous people are vegan.  For some reason when people who are in the public eye announce their vegan-ism, I feel like it helps legitimize the cause even more.  Since our society is so obsessed with celebrity, I guess this makes sense.  Whatever helps the cause and makes the masses more aware is ok with me.  One of my fav celebs who happens to be a vegan is Ellen DeGeneres. Animal rights has always been a very big platform of hers, and recently she dedicated a part of her web site to educating people about going vegan.  She is calling it appropriately, "Going Vegan With Ellen."  One of the pages has a list of all the A-List celebs who are taking the vegan route, and it's quite an impressive list.  Some of these vegan stars might surprise you: Famous Vegans. 

Save The Babies Too

This is a press release from Farm Sanctuary that I thought deserved a re-posting here. I feel like we are all very ignorant to what goes in to getting us our milk and cheese. Just because you don't eat meat doesn't mean that you're not contributing to the horrible and inhumane treatment of these animals. They deserve so much more from us.

Neglected Dairy Calves Find Haven at California Sanctuaries

Farm Sanctuary and Animal Place Rescue Sickly Calves from Dairy Industry

ORLAND, CA and Vacaville, CA – July 8, 2011 –Farm Sanctuary, which operates the largest rescue and refuge network for farm animals in North America with shelters on the east and west coast, and Animal Place, which operates two facilities — a 600-acre sanctuary in Grass Valley, CA and a 60-acre farmed animal adoption center in Vacaville — have taken in five sickly calves, discards of the dairy industry. All five calves arrived Friday, July 8th, to Animal Place’s Rescue Ranch facility in Vacaville. Three will head to Farm Sanctuary’s 300-acre refuge in Orland, while two will be transported to Animal Place’s 600-acre sanctuary in Grass Valley.

Todd Stosuy, Santa Cruz Animal Services Supervising Field Manager, was alerted by neighbors regarding the five calves. Upon arrival, he and an accompanying veterinarian found malnourished calves in a small dirt pen, skin and bones. Knowing the lives of the calves were at risk, Stosuy confiscated all five. The person who bought the calves at auction, released custody of them to avoid facing penalties.
Both Farm Sanctuary and Animal Place responded immediately to Stosuy’s plea for help, offering to take in the five calves, giving them a safe haven where they will be treated as individuals, not commodities.
“Throughout our 25 year history, Farm Sanctuary has rescued countless victims of the dairy industry and witnessing its callous disregard for animals never gets any easier,” says Leanne Cronquist, Farm Sanctuary’s California Shelter Director. “Calves are every bit as playful and sensitive as cats and dogs, and they deserve the same respect and consideration. We are excited to welcome these babies to our sanctuary, and hope people will think of them the next time they are at the grocery store and making a choice between cow’s milk or a healthier, non-dairy milk made from almonds, coconut or soy.”
“Male calves are treated like garbage by the dairy industry,” says Marji Beach, Animal Place Education Manager. “These are the unhappy cows the dairy industry doesn’t want you to see. Calves are stripped from their moms at birth and sent to auction, selling for a measly five bucks. We are grateful Todd Stosuy and Santa Cruz Animal Services treats cruelty to calves as seriously as cruelty to puppies.”
California is the largest producer of dairy products in the country, home to nearly two million cows. To produce milk, cows must give birth. Female calves replace their mothers who are sent to slaughter at a fraction of their lifespan. Day old male calves are sold at auction for either “cheap dairy beef” or “bob veal.” At both Farm Sanctuary and Animal Place and, these five calves will be some of the lucky few who will get to live their lives out in peace. 
Farm Sanctuary, the nation's leading farm animal protection organization, promotes legislative, policy, and individual lifestyle changes to help farm animals. Farm Sanctuary’s shelters in New York and California provide lifelong care for nearly 1,000 rescued farm animals.
Animal Placeis one of the largest sanctuaries and adoption centers catering to the needs of farmed animals in the country. Animal Place operate a 600-acre facility in Grass Valley, home to more than 200 rescued chickens, pigs, cattle, goats, sheep, rabbits and turkeys. Additionally, their facility Rescue Ranch on 60-acres in Vacaville is the only chicken rescue in the country that takes in hens from the egg industry slated for slaughter and places them into permanent homes. In less than a year, they have saved the lives of 2,000 hens. For more information, visit www.animalplace.org or call 530-477-1757.

It's 5-o-clock Somewhere!

I love a good Bloody Mary, and thankfully they are 100% VEGAN!  There are all kinds of ways to make a Bloody Marry, but here is my way!

Ingregients:
1.Tomato Juice (I like to use the low sodium V8)
2. VODKA!  (Since I live in MA, I like to use locally made Triple Eight Vodka)
3. Horseradish
4. Fresh ground pepper and sea salt to taste
5. Celery
6. Green olives if you like them!

Directions:
Get a fun glass and fill it with ice. Get a shot glass to measure out your vodka, (I'd say one to two shots is plenty!) and pour the vodka over the ice. Pour in the tomato juice to almost fill the glass, add a heaping spoonful of horseradish (more or less depending on your taste buds!), a good grind of freshly ground pepper, and a pinch of salt.  Use a long piece of celery as a garnish as well as a stirrer!  Make sure to give it a good mix before tasting! If you like olives, stick a bunch through your straw if you have one, or just throw them on in and get them out with a spoon later! 

Hint: you can always put in more of anything, but you can't take it out, so do a little at a time and taste along the way to make sure you get the mix exactly the way you like it!

If you are a Boston local, and you also love a good Bloody Mary, you should try going to the East Coast Grill in Inman Sq, Cambridge for Sunday brunch.  They have the coolest make your own Bloody Mary bar!  I highly recommend this place for any meal, but the Bloody Mary bar is fantastic!  They have everything you could ever imagine mixing into your Bloody Mary, and even some things you would never think of!! 

Happy Drinking!

Just Say No: A Lobster Tale

One of my best friends is getting married!   Her sister, myself and two of our other best friends are throwing her a bridal shower, and last night we met to discuss the menu.   Obviously most of the people at this shindig, including the bride herself, are NOT vegan!  Since I am not into forcing my beliefs on anyone, I quietly offered to make vegan spring rolls.  These are always a huge hit whether you are a vegan or not, so it is a small but important effort for my cause.  I am fine with the fact that there will be meat eaten at this party.  That is just a fact of life at this point. People love their meat, and can not imagine a world without it.  I am the crazy one in this scenario, and I own it proudly!  One day I won't seem so crazy.  BUT I digress...  

As we were figuring out the menu, one of the other items that came up as a must have food was a lobster salad.  Now let me say first that the reason I am writing this post is because I need to encourage myself to say "NO!" to the temptation to eat the lobster.  Yes I make my own rules, and I can do whatever I want, but what I want to do is never eat another living creature again.  Even if it is a creature that I have previously salivated over and longed for.  For me, lobster is that creature.  I have always loved lobster.  My Grammie used to buy them live and throw them into the boiling water with no problem at all.  I always had to be out of the room, because even then I knew that that something about it wasn't quite right.  But at that point, being out of the room while they died was enough for me, and I was able to enjoy them once they were dead and on my plate.  I tried not to think about the pain they went through to get there.  However, obviously now I am in a different place, and I can't just ignore it anymore.  As much as I love how they taste, and as easy as it would be to "just have a little" as one of my friends suggested to me last night, I can't in good conscious eat lobster anymore.  So here I am, writing my blog to encourage myself to stay strong.  


I did a little research and found out some really fascinating facts about lobsters.  Lobsters carry their young for nine months, and can live to be 100 years old!!  I also found an article written by author David Foster Wallace for Peta and in it he writes, "According to invertebrate zoologist Jaren G. Horsley, 'The lobster does not have an autonomic nervous system that puts it into a state of shock when it is harmed. It probably feels itself being cut. ... I think the lobster is in a great deal of pain from being cut open ... [and] feels all the pain until its nervous system is destroyed' during cooking. "  That thought is horrifying to me.  How can we feel good about eating a creature that is horribly tortured before it gets to our plate!?  All animals feel pain!  Why is this not a problem for more people?! You can read the full article by David Foster Wallace here: Lobster and Crab Article.


I also read that Rhode Island (and I would bet most New England as well) has put a limit on the amount of lobsters that can be caught by fishermen because their numbers are fast diminishing due to over fishing and disease.  Ever wonder why lobsters cost so much?  They are a finite resource, and we won't have them around forever at the rate we are going.  You can check out the article here: Lobster Regulations Article.


As much as I love the taste of lobster, it is not worth it for me anymore.  I can't just shrug it off, or pretend that I don't know what that poor thing had to go through to be on my plate. I can't make those justifications now that I know what I know. I am learning that how something tastes is not a good enough reason to eat it, especially if it is an animal who deserves to live, but has had to suffer instead.  The humane treatment of ALL creatures, even the funny looking ugly ones,  is what should really matter.   


Love,
Melissa

Eat Your Veggies!

It's been almost three months since I started on this vegan journey, and I am still going strong and feeling even more empowered than ever!  When I first started I felt a little bashful telling people that I was going vegan.  For whatever reason I just assumed that people would roll their eyes and not take me seriously, and I didn't want to make a scene.  Little by little I have come out of my vegan shell, and I now feel very confident telling people proudly that I am a vegan.  Most of the time I am greeted with questions and concerns, but not with rolling eyes or negative judgments, and if I do get a negative reaction, I am not afraid to face it.  Luckily and most importantly my friends and family have been nothing but supportive and encouraging, which has been so wonderful.

The one thing that I have been really surprised by is how little people actually know about what it means to be a vegan.  Then it occurs to me that most people don't really think about where their food comes from, and most people don't see a connection between what they choose to eat and how that might contribute to the suffering of an animal or the destruction of the environment. The factory food industry has obviously done it's job keeping us blinded!  This fact inspires me even more.  Ignorance is NOT bliss!  I still don't want to "yuck anyone's yum" but I am not as afraid to tell people (who ask) exactly why I am am a vegan...even if it might be a little uncomfortable to hear. Do I expect that my spiel will magically make people change their diets and life styles? Of course not!!!  But I do hope that it will open their eyes to something they might have been ignorant about before, and maybe cause them to think about where they buy their food and what they buy the next time they are out grocery shopping.

I am very happy that I finally made the decision to be vegan, and that it has been this easy and fulfilling.  Veganism is impacting my life in many ways, and hopefully rubbing off in little ways on the people around me.  Eat your veggies!

Love,
Melissa

Spring for Bright Green Spinach and Zucchini Soup!

Spring is upon us!  What a better way to celebrate the happy new growth of Spring than with a bright green soup!  I found this recipe from this great site called 101 Cookbooks.  It's a site that focuses on whole, healthy food recipes, and has a big selection of vegan friendly dishes as well.  I had a hard time deciding which recipe to try first, but this one caught my eye so I went with it!!  While it is a soup, it has really fresh, light flavors, so it doesn't feel heavy or wintery.  It might even be good served cold too!

Spinach and Zucchini Soup

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, chopped*

2 medium onions, roughly chopped

big pinch of salt

2 1/2 cups potatoes (2 medium) cut into 1/2-inch cubes

2 1/2 cups zucchini (2 medium), loosely chopped

4 cups vegetable stock

4 cups fresh spinach leaves, loosely packed

1 cup cilantro, loosely chopped

one lemon

In a large, thick-bottomed pot over medium heat, add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and onions and saute for a few minutes along with a pinch of salt- just until they soften up a bit.  Stir in the potatoes and zucchini.  Add the stock.  Bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are soft throughout, roughly 10-15 minutes.

Stir in the spinach, and wait for it to wilt, just ten seconds or so.  Now stir in the cilantro.  Pure with a hand blender (or if you don't have one, ladle batches into a blender and blend a bit at a time) until smooth.  

Whisk in a big squeeze of lemon juice.  Now taste, and add more salt if needed.  Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and serve!

*I am really terrible at following directions exactly (I'm of the -rules are made to be broken-mind set), so I mostly just eyeballed the amounts. I left out the garlic, I didn't measure anything, and it still turned out great! Moral of the story is don't be afraid to substitute or leave things out if you don't like them!  If you have someone who wants dairy, you can add a dollop of yogurt or sour cream at the end.  Also, This recipe makes A LOT of soup, so if you don't want left overs, just cut everything in half. 

 

YUM!  Even  my boyfriend Phil who hates anything healthy (especially if it's green) liked this soup!  Give it a try and let me know how you like it!

Happy Spring!

Love,

Melissa

A Change Will Do You Good

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other....  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Believe it or not, all it takes is one person to make a change.  It's easy to make excuses, "what difference can one person make?" But one person CAN make a difference!!  The average person consumes 31 animals per year!!  That's just ONE PERSON!  Imagine if just that one person stopped eating meat for an entire year. Think about how many animals that one person would save!   It is impossible to ignore the pain and suffering that our food choices have on other animals, our environment, and on our health.  But ok, if you don't have a bleeding heart for the ethical treatment of animals, what about having a heart for the ethical treatment of YOURSELF!  Heart disease is the LEADING cause of death in the United States.  The link between our mass consumption of all things animal and increased rates of heart disease is UNDENIABLE!  Our country is overweight and unhealthy, and our consumption of meat and cheese has never been higher.  The connection is clear, and I think the answer is too.  We have the opportunity to fix a lot of problems with one change.  Cutting down our consumption of meat and dairy will improve our health AND help save our environment at the same time.  This is the logical next step in our evolution as a society.

Let me put it to you this way: can you imagine not recycling?   There was a time not so long ago when recycling was just not a priority.  However, we realized that if we didn't make a change and start to "reduce, reuse and recycle" we would eventually be living in a world of trash.  Even though this is still a work in progress as most things are, now a days people go to extremes to make sure they recycle, and we can hardly remember a time when we didn't. Our world is better for it, and I doubt anyone would argue with that.  Well, now we have a new challenge and a need to make another change.  Factory farming is destroying our world. Factory farming alone is responsible for an insane amount of destruction to our environment, and the statistics are staggering.

It seems like a no brainer to me.  Simply cutting back on your consumption of meat and dairy will have positive effects on your health and your environment,  and it will save countless numbers of helpless animals from unnecessary torture.  I am not asking you to cut meat and dairy out altogether, though I can now say that I don't think it's as hard as most people think it is.  I believe that you can make a difference by simply cutting back on your consumption of animal products, and by making sure that the meat and dairy you do eat is from responsible, organic local farms!!

I urge you to educate yourself, and consider the possibility that you don't have to eat meat and dairy at every meal.  Consider that maybe your health and your environment are more important than eating that cheese burger.  This is bigger that what tastes good. We can't continue to consume the way we do.  Even a little change will go a long way.

Check out these links for some more facts on some of the things I have touched on here:
Global Warming
The UN urges us to lower meat consumption!
Environmental Effects
Harm to Animals
Your Health
Slaughter Statistics from 2000

You can make a difference!

Love,
Melissa