May 2010
31 posts
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“If one more person tells me how they ‘used to be vegetarian but then their...”
– Cat
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Vegan Dogs Are Better Lovers
In Obligate Carnivore, Jed Gillen makes the case that if you’re vegan, your pets should be too. There’s just one flaw in his argument — vegan shirts make no sense on dogs. Some evidence from Cafe Press:
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Vegansexuals Vs. Omnisexuals
Earlier this year, Vegans of Color asked their readers if they would be willing to date meat eaters:
Is veganism important to you in selecting a partner? Over the past eight years, I have had a strict vegan-only policy. I tried to date someone who was not vegan about 10 years ago and it just didn’t work because I kept wanting him to change.
The majority of commenters agreed that they would...
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Interview With an Ex-Vegetarian: Amy Madden
Can anybody be vegan if they care enough, live in an industrialized country with supplements and substitutions, and do everything they can think of to stay healthy? Many vegans would say “yes,” but what about star-crossed veg*ans? Should people with allergies to vegan staples like gluten, soy and nuts get a pass for guilt-free animal product consumption? Does an inability to...
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Vegan Quote of the Day
Cordelia: I have been on this [low-fat vegan] diet now for two weeks and it seems everything I eat except oats makes me bloated. I have followed this diet to the letter and am very concerned about my stomach. It is enormous, it is twice the size it always is and I can’t seem to get relief. I have had two fever blisters in three days and I have never had fever blisters in my life. It is 11pm...
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Where Do Vegetarians Come In?
Freedave: If you don’t want to eat meat then don’t. I don’t give a fuck one way or the other. Just don’t presume to tell me why I should live my life the way you want me to. Someone raised a cow, slaughtered it, ground it up and offered to sell me a burger. I accepted the deal and enjoyed it. Where do you come in?
Henry: I come in saying that it’s morally wrong.
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Meat: It's Like Eating a Corpse... Or a Shoe
Is meat food? To you and me, perhaps so. But for many vegans it isn’t, and not just in the sense that they’re against it. They have cast animal products so far out of their realm of possibilities that they cease to see them as potentially edible material.
This is different than finding animal products repulsive, though the two often go together. In this case, though, the disgust is...
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“I have been a vegetarian most of my life and a vegan for over 10 years. I eat no...”
– Sesameseed
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Vegan Leaders: Rip Esselstyn
“Getting Americans to understand that eating meat or flesh in all its forms, whether it is red meat, chicken *OR FISH*, eating dairy, which is really just liquid flesh, all these things contain all the building blocks that are promoting Western disease.”
— Rip Esselstyn (asterisks, caps, bold, underline and italics mine)
Rip Esselstyn is the son of Caldwell Esselstyn, a...
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With Latest Red Meat Study, Everybody Wins
You know your study is nuanced when it makes both paleo diet advocate John Durant and vegan punit Erik Marcus happy.
The Harvard School of Medical Health contrived a study on red meat and heart disease and concluded that processed red meats like hot dogs and deli slices increased the risk of heart disease and diabetes, whereas less processed red meats like suckling pig and pig on a spit did not.
...
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“Throw away those fear shackles, get off the fence and take a no-risk chance....”
– Soul Veggie
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Scott Jurek Scores Second in 24-Hour Run →
Ex-vegan marathoner Scott Jurek just set a new US record for the 24-hour Run World Championship. Jurek trained as a vegan, but gave up his ideals for the competition (some insects flew into Jurek’s mouth during the run). What a proud moment for ex-vegans!
Hey, I had to spin it somehow.
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No Mercy For Backyard Chicken Advocate →
Melissa McEwen pointed me to this post by a backyard chicken advocate who participated in a discussion on eggs with two vegans (Matt Rice from Mercy for Animals and Jenny Brown from Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary) and learned that her chickens are abused slaves and veganism is the only possible answer. Before the panel discussion, she had naively assumed that her stance against factory...
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“Lawrence Kushi said that the general principle behind the macrobiotic diet is...”
– Convergence of Plant-Rich and Plant-Only Diets
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Ex-Vegan Marathoner Runs Better With Meat →
A commenter, Cynthia, pointed me to this entry from Devon Crosby-Helms:
I started reading a book called The Butcher and The Vegetarian and had a realization. The author was talking about her symptoms of fatigue and inability to lose weight no matter what she did. She was a life-long vegetarian and the solution: Eat Meat. …
I realized then that I needed to start eating meat again. I...
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"Diet and Exercise to the Extremes" →
“Vegan Before 6 p.m.” advocate Mark Bittman profiles athlete Scott Jurek who is vegan before, after and even during 6 p.m.
How do vegan athletes do it? I couldn’t even make it as a vegan bystander!
From what I gather, it’s rare for someone to become vegan because they want to be an athlete. For the most part nobody says, “I really want to bulk up. Damn, now I have...
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Interview With an Ex-Vegan: Jessica Pelkey
What happens when you are the first of your vegan friends to betray the cause? Will your friends accept and love you despite your return to selfish eating? Or might there be a little judgment of your ethical failure?
I was lucky in a sense. I was one of the last holdouts in my group of vegan friends, so by the time I finally put myself before the animals, my friends were more likely to be happy...
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"What Vegans Can Learn From Traditional Foods" →
“In many ways, the practices advocated by traditional foods enthusiasts and organizations like the Weston A Price Foundation and the Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation might prove even more important for vegetarians and vegans who rely on grains and legumes for much of their foods.”
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“While I philosophically prefer independent restaurants to chains, I think...”
– Vegan.com
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Let Them Eat Red Meat →
Monica Reinagel of NutritionData.com argues that there is no proven connection between all red meat and cancer.
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“A team of British doctors gave a health questionnaire to 40 vegan women and 40...”
– The Gadsden Times, 1985
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My Friend the Vegan →
The story of a non-vegan couple suffering the wrath of a pushy vegan house guest. Flexitarians will like this bit of dialog:
“Your extreme position is not as moral as you’d like to believe. I think it’s the semi-vegetarian, the person who eats dairy, fish, and occasional meats, who is morally superior to the strict vegan for several reasons. One, he can convert more people to eat less meat...
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“Tyson echoed what dozens of ‘happy meat’ farmers have been claiming...”
– My Face is On Fire
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Which Milk Replacement is Best? →
Everyone’s favorite nutrition diva Monica Reinagel has addressed a key question for vegans: should they drink soy milk, rice milk, hemp milk, oat milk or almond milk?
When I was vegan, I had trouble choosing. For a while I went with the default of unsweetened soy milk, until I decided to cut back on my unfermented soy. I switched over to rice milk, which tasted sweet and delicious without...
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“I’m one of those vegans who confirm the stereotype, the ‘in your...”
– Anna
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A Clockwork Vegan
On Sunday, Melissa McEwen at Hunt.Gather.Love offered advice to someone whose vegetarian girlfriend wants to eat meat but is afraid she doesn’t like the taste anymore. (Coincidentally, Richard Nikoley at Free The Animal did a post on the same subject.) The man who emailed Melissa also contacted me, saying “I’ve never not eaten meat, so the idea of not having a taste for it is just...
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“Why does it seem that the number one thing to do when discussing the vegan...”
– Your Daily Vegan
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Interview With an Ex-Vegan: Rhys Southan →
letthemeatmeat: “I’m not sure how much philosophy is behind my inconsistent attempts to reduce animal suffering while still eating them. Maybe I could say that instead of the vegan idea of ‘least harm,’ my philosophy is ‘somewhat less harm.’ Yet I’m looking forward to eating live octopus while visiting New York.”
That’s from my...
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“We have treated fishes as a mass term ‘fish’ and we don’t view them as...”
– Carol J. Adams
April 2010
39 posts
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"Aphanizomenon Flos-aquae: A Source of B12?" →
It’s kind of cruel that vegan food so overtly withholds such a vital nutrient. The glaring lack of B12 in fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and beans nags vegans who would prefer to believe their diet is perfect in every way. So even though it’s easy to take a B12 pill or eat processed foods that are supplemented with it, vegans are always on the prowl for a natural veggie-based...