compassion. also, carob.

Compassion is a word that gets thrown around lightly, but it's one I take quite seriously. I sat down the other day and posed one of those ridiculous hypothethicals to myself (If someone were forced to describe me in a single word, what would I want that word to be - in other words, what is the outwardly acting part of me that I most value), and my first instinct was to answer "compassionate".

I thought about this a lot, because the answer surprised me and frankly, I thought it was boring and maybe a little too woo-woo to admit to publicly. I wanted a more exciting answer. I expected me to say "intelligent" or "creative". Secretly, I longed to have picked "transgressive". But when I was honest with myself, I stuck to "compassionate". So what does this mean in terms of habits? Habits are what we do every day. They are our default actions, and I would argue that our habits (rather than our occasional acts of grandeur or madness) tell what kind of people we are.

First of all, a compassionate person habitually acts with compassion. Yup. In my books, intentions matter less than actions. Intentions matter, of course, but the point of an intention is to inform action (or inaction). To act with compassion, I have to know what compassion is, and how the intention of compassion manifests in action. So.... compassion is a sympathetic consciousness of another's suffering (part one) combined with a strong desire to alleviate it (part 2). The definition is paraphrased from my trusty OED, and the parts are my addition.

Part 1: A sympathetic consciousness of another's suffering. This means that to act with compassion, I first have to put myself in the other guy's shoes. Or the other guy's feet, if the other guy happens to be unshod. To experience the first part of compassion, we have to shut up and observe others and try to figure out their point of view rather than our point of view. That annoying person next to me on the plane who can't shut up is lonely, or maybe scared of flying, or maybe they're just trying to be nice to me. There they are. I'm annoyed. I don't have to stop being annoyed, I just have to acknowledge that and also look at it from their perspective. Or... there's a chicken somewhere who has their own agenda. Most likely, being someone's dinner is not part of that agenda, even if that someone is hungry and likes the taste of chicken. From the chicken's point of view, my dinner is not their concern, and most certainly not something that they're willing to die for.

Part 2: A strong desire to alleviate the suffering of another. To act with compassion, after putting myself in the other guy's feets, I have to think of possible courses of action, and choose the one that makes them suffer least or (even better) brings them joy. So, maybe I can spend a few minutes talking to the annoying person next to me on the plane, at least until we're through the turbulent takeoff and they're no longer clinging white-knuckled to the armrest, and then tell them politely that I'm *really* looking forward to my book rather than glaring at them and putting on my noise-cancelling headphones as the plane lurches left and right. For the chicken, one option is to kill them quickly, but actually a better one is not to kill them at all. Food-wise, being vegan is how I understand compassionate action. And compassion is more important than pleasure. Of course, it's also possible (and important) to be compassionate towards oneself, but there's a big different between compassionate towards yourself and being indulgent or entitled.

Cultivating compassionate habits means that the day-to-day of what I do should be based on the two things above. Too often I see the pattern of merely declaring oneself compassionate rather than a focus on compassionate action. Frankly, if we have a strong desire to alleviate the suffering of another but fail to do so given an easy opportunity, then the desire probably isn't all that strong. It's true that some situations are harder to figure out, but many are simple, and working on the hard stuff is no excuse for not doing the easy stuff. It may be unclear to me which approach is best with a student who is struggling (tough love or gentle nudging or asking if they've considered a different area of study altogether), but that wouldn't excuse me mocking someone with a learning disability.

So what does that mean in terms of concrete action? I try not to look away from suffering when it is right in front of me. I refuse to pretend that homeless people aren't there. I refuse to pretend that the meat in the supermarket wasn't a sentient, feeling being. But I'm not perfect. Right now, I secretly wish that whoever stole my bike wheels returned home to find that their car was gone. Sigh.

Now, in the spirit of this actually being a food blog: carob. Another place that compassion is hard is towards people who keep on pretending that carob is just like chocolate. They ruin carob, which is perfectly delish in it's own right. So, while I go and try to cultivate compassion towards those well-intentioned destroyers of desserts, I leave you with this super-yummy dessert that in no way resembles chocolate.


Carob brain-freeze enabler

4 frozen bananas, peeled and in pieces (keep them already peeled and chopped up in your freezer at all times in case of emergencies)
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
4 heaping tbs carob
1 tbs maple syrup
tiny itsy bitsy pinch of salt

up to 1/4 cup soy or almond milk OR 1/3 cup soy yogurt

Put everything in either a high powered blender (like a Vitamix) or a food processor. Add enough soy milk or yogurt to let it blend, but only enough to let it blend, or your brain freeze enabler will go from spoonable to slurpable, which might not be a bad thing.... Blend until smooth and about the consistency of soft-serve ice cream. Serve drizzled with a little more balsamic and a little more maple syrup. Serves 2-3 people, depending how reasonable you want to be about serving sizes.

am vegan, will travel, part 2

I've posted before about traveling while vegan, and a friend suggested I actually show my little red travel bag. Here is it, packed, with a paperback thrown in for scale (actually, the paperback is just as important as the food). This bag is for a week-long working trip in Germany. See how little space it takes up? During the trip, I'll be able to hit a grocery store at the beginning, where I will buy a big bag of carrots, a big bag of apples, and a whack of dried dates or figs, which I will keep at work. Then it's cafeteria food for lunches (no restos nearby where I work, and it's a small harbour town on the north shore of Germany) and I'll be staying with a colleague, who is always awesome about making sure I have vegan eats for breakfast and dinner, and who always has a decent supply of fresh fruit and veg hanging around. So, this bag assumes that I'm going to be able to get bread and fruit for breakfast, and have access to a salad bar at lunch (but that's it.. there are no vegan options on the menu at that cafeteria. sometimes that means there's only lettuce and bread at the lunch for me. sometimes I can make an awesome salad with chickpeas, piles of veg and even some seaweed. depends on the day). And ... I know that I'll get dinner at the end of the day. So this is an "emergency lunch" bag, designed to deal with the dreaded all-iceberg lettuce lunch in the middle of an 18 hour workday. I don't know about you, but I can't work on no energy. I get cranky. And stupid. So this little red bag saves me.

The bag has 6x instant miso soups (I almost always have one with my lunch when i'm living on salad bar lunches and it's cold outside), some small packs of roasted seasoned nori, bag of apricot kernals, bag of soya nuts, bag of roasted dried chickpeas (all of these make lettuce into a good instant meal), bag of rice crackers (who can resist?), 2 lara bars (useful if you have to totally replace a meal at some point), 2 red bean paste candies, some licorice, a really frikin' good bar of chocolate, bag of goji berries and raw cacao beans, a few teabags, candied ginger. I'll probably also pick up some tofu jerky and maybe some soymilk at the grocery store there when I have a chance. I used to also travel with chocolate covered coffee beans, but no scientific institution is ever short on coffee. ever. I'm always caffeinated to within an inch of my life on these trips.

Things I know I'll be able to get there (like in vending machines or at the small convenience store near the research institute) so I don't bother carrying them, but I would if I were going somewhere more remote: nuts, vege yeast pate to put on bread (sometimes I love the german obsession with yeast spreads!), coffee, endless awesomely good german bread, beer (yays!), more chocolate.

That might look obsessive, but I like to be able to concentrate on my work when I'm working, not to worry about if I'm going to be hungry (and therefore cranky and not at my best in terms of concentration) if we have to work late and order pizza, which may or may not arrive without the cheese, no matter how nicely we ask (this is where the lara bars come in handy). Also, it takes the pressure off my hosts if they know that I have some "vegan food" with me. Some of it is also stuff to share (the chocolate, the rice crackers). I also bring a small thermos with me so that I can make my own coffee with soy milk before getting on long train rides, or don't have to use disposable cups. It's also nice for making soup.

Of course, the most important thing in this whole post is the book. There's nothing worse than being on a plane and having nothting to read. That and the nice chocolates and the duty free whiskey one picks up for one's hosts.

And I know I've said this before, but the best way to get people to accomodate you is to a) be gracious and b) be specific. ALWAYS thank people for setting up vegan food for you, even if you're eating pb sandwiches and pickles every day. If you whine about it, you're a loser, and a bad guest, and frankly, an ungrateful spoiled brat. And ALWAYS give people specific examples of easy-to-find things you can eat, rather than only focusing solely on what you don't eat. Do say what you don't eat, but make sure to provide positive information as well. Most omnivores seem to think that "vegan food" is a special subcategory of edibles that they can only find at great expense in specialized stores, which can make providing "vegan food" very stressful for your hosts, when really, it doesn't have to be a big deal at all. For example, it's a good idea to point out that dried pasta, all fresh fruit and veg, and peanut butter are vegan. So is pitta bread and canned beans. Point this out specifically. Name the foods. Don't make people hunt down hard-to-find ingredients ("gee, I really like sea vegetable tempeh and konnyaku with vegan worcestershire sauce and just a touch of fresh grated horseradish, do you think you could drive 50kms to find it for me?"), but do give them a specific list of easy-to-find, inexpensive stuff that you will happily eat ("If it's no trouble, could you pick up some apples, bananas, carrots, peanut butter and pitta bread for me? If you don't have time, can we swing by a grocery store together when I arrive?"), and make sure to thank them if they do it. Now is *not* the time to be picky about the variety of the apples or the shape of the pasta, okay? Be a good guest, make it easy, and remember, it's often not about the food. Trips like this are about seeing people, or getting work done. Keep things in perspective, and enjoy the pb&j and black coffee. Most importantly, enjoy the people.

Also, randomly: Plumbuns! Spicy cornbread filled with plums and some sort of cream cheezy concoction. I'm still working on this one, but will put a recipe up when it gets perfected.

beets!

I love beets. I love the way they taste, and I love how beautifully red-purple they make whatever you add them to. So, I give you: Beet-ish dahl-ish soup. About half a cup of red lentils, 3 grated beets, a chopped onion, 4 cloves of garlic, turmeric, a few little chopped up spuds. Boil that up. Then add a whack of grated ginger, some grated garlic, salt, black pepper and lemon juice.

This is easy to make so long as you can keep yourself from accidentally dying the entire kitchen bright purple. I set it a-simmering after my run, and it was pretty much done by the time I had finished showering and getting into my jammies. I wanted something just simple tonight. I've been in London for the week at a conference, and have been fed really oily, rich food. Note: there is such a thing as too many dishes that have been "drizzled with olive oil", no matter how good that olive oil is.

And now, a rant from Ms.Manners to all the omnivores out there who eat lunch (or dinner, or whatever) with a vegan: your snide comments are not clever, nor are they new. I've heard pretty much all of them before. Also, I don't want to hear about your friend/coworker/second cousin who used to be vegan but now isn't. And shockingly, I don't want you to explain in gory detail to me how you butcher your own chickens, or catch and kill fish, especially while I'm eating. Basically, me being vegan does not give you permission to be rude to me. Get that through your brain. If I sat down to lunch with you and launched into mocking your food, followed by a diatribe about how I know omnis who are malnourished (and I do) or who have such horrible eating habits that they are heading straight for a lifetime of diabetes (yup, I see some of my friends doing that as well), and pointed out how this was connected to *your* food, it would be unthinkably rude. It would also be rude of me to detail how slaughterhouses and dairys get that food to your plate. So please, do me the same favour as I'm doing you: Shut up and eat your lunch.

One more thing. Please don't tell me that this will all change *when* I get pregnant, since "my body will tell me it needs meat". That statement is beyond offensive on so many levels. One, you assume that just because I am in possession of a working uterus that I intend to have children. WRONG. Sexist and wrong(and even the assumption that i'm in possession of a working uterus is a bit presumptuous). Second, you assume that vegan pregnancy is impossible. WRONG. Uninformed and wrong. Third, you assume that people eating whatever they want means that they're eating what their body needs. Uh, probably WRONG given the obesity epidemic in most countries where people are rich enough to eat whatever they want. So, on that one, we'll give you blatant denial of available evidence ad wrong.

Sheesh people. Fucking be a bit considerate.

dancing off the anger to: Joan Jett, bad reputation.

Leek pies and potluck survival tips

So here we go, kicking off Ducky's Modern Medieval. See an earlier post for how I'm doing this. As for the why... it's just a different method of cooking and new (old) spice combos. I love the mix of sweet and savory, and how most of the recipes I've seen lend themselves well to the Scottish winter of root vegetables and homey, heady food. It's also fun to see how many of the foods look familiar (this one just looks like a quiche), but uses flavour combos that aren't terribly common in european cooking anymore, though I did find myself thinking of persian food while the smells of this baking filled my kitchen.

I brought this to a (work) potluck, where I was pleasantly surprised that some people brought vegan food. But that was a bonus, and over the past few years, I've learned not to expect that. I go to (non vegan) potlucks to see my friends or socialize with my colleagues, not for the food. Keeping that in mind:

Vegan potluck strategies (for an omni potluck):
1. Bring something super extra duper yummy. Now is NOT the time for your low-fat, quick or "love it or hate it" foods. Like it or not, you are probably going to be "the vegan". And thus your food is "the vegan food". See this as an opportunity to show people that we don't live on twigs and apples alone.
2. Put some of your food aside for yourself BEFORE leaving. Yes, as in a separate tupperware container that you leave in your backpack, purse, tote bag...whatever. That way, you know you'll have something to eat even if no one other than you brings anything vegan, and if everyone swarms the dish you bring and wants to taste "the vegan food", you won't be stressed about having to spend the entire time hungry or sugar-buzzed or regretfully drunk in a room of work colleagues etc. Plus, you want to be generous with the vegan food, because you are "the vegan". Sorry if you didn't apply for the ambassador posistion; it comes with the territory.
3. Bring a main dish. Why? Because you need dinner. If you are a cupcake warrier, just make sure you bring a dinner-ish thing for yourself, like some hummous and veg and bread. Or a sandwich, or whatever.
4. Bring a dessert too. Since you've cooked a fancy main, just pick up a nice dark chocolate bar or something. If you are a cupcake warrier...grrrrrrrrr! Amaze them!
5. Chill. If you're at an omni potluck, you're clearly not there for the food. You're there to socialize. Focus on that. If it all goes horribly wrong food-wise, eat the bag of nuts that you cleverly stashed in your bag beforehand, dig into that chocoalte bar, drink abusively, and enjoy time with your friends and/or colleagues. It won't kill you to skip dinner for one night. If you *really* are miserable, leave politely.

...and we don't need advice for a vegan potluck, now do we? Except for don't eat too much earlier in the day. Maybe go for run. And wear elastic-waist trousers...

Enough about my winner "how to survive an omni potluck" strategies.

Modified from Amber Day Tart
(modern omni recipe on www.godecookery.com)

My veganized version, which is by now only loosely based on the original: 3 leeks, chopped in rounds and boiled in water and white wine until all the liquid has evaporated and the leeks have lost the will to live, a few raisins, about 1/3 tps each of sage, cloves, nutmeg, generous pinch of saffron. Tofu bit (replacing eggs, and cheese etc): mashed silken tofu, sweet white miso, chickpea flour, salt, white wine vinegar, mustard. Baked in a pie shell made of pizza dough (flour, yeast, salt olive oil, water). Mix leek bit (no water left) with tofu mash. Add 2 big bunches of chopped parsely. Place in prebaked pie shells (Bake the pizza dough at high-ish heat until it is not-quite-done. say half the time you would usually bake it for. The point here is to just make sure it has a crust so you don't make it all soggy when you add the filling). Top with walnut chunks. Re-bake on lower heat (180C/350F) until set. Huzzah!

ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

173. Tart in ymbre day. Take and perboile oynouns & erbis & presse out þe water & hewe hem smale. Take grene chese [brede AB] & bray it in a morter, and temper it vp with ayren. Do þerto butter, saffroun & salt, & raisons corauns, & a litel sugur with powdour douce, & bake it in a trap, & serue it forth.

- Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

modern medieval music: dead can dance

why ethical vegetarianism isn't

(alternate title: How to alienate your vegetarian readers and spark a bunch or really really defensive comments on your blog)


Sometimes I've been asked why I call vegetarians "omnivores", as if I don't make a distinction between a life that includes eating meat, and one that does not. The short answer is that I actually *don't* see a difference ethically. Aesthetically, yes. There is a huge aesthetic difference between vegetarian food and meat-including food, though this need not be the case, especially in cuisines where meat is used in small amounts, basically as a seasoning, much like vegetables are in the standard western diet. Being vegetarian is like not eating wheat or something. It may have a large impact on the taste of your dinners and your choice of entrees at restaurants. In that sense it is different than a standard omnivorous diet. But ethically? Nope. No difference at all. Either way, you're killing animals. Whether you do it sooner or do it later and then make someone else eat the evidence makes no difference to how dead they are.

The frustrating bit is that I know several people who are vegetarian for ethical reasons. I was. And the fact that this is even possible speaks to the frightening level of misinformation about animal use and treatment, as well as to the strength of denial and degree of cognitive dissonance that people live with.

1. Milk and eggs are no less cruel than meat. Leather is no less cruel than meat. We all know this if we do even a tiny token amount of poking around on teh Internetz on sites that are not directly funded by the dairy and egg industries. Dairy cows are killed when they don't produce milk anymore. No mammal should produce that much milk anyway (mammals lactate only to feed their young, so dairy cows have to be repeatedly impregnated). Half of all calves are male, and since males don't produce milk, they are used for meat (veal). Same goes for chickens. Show me the "happy chicken retirement home" for the spent egg layers and the "foster care" where all the male chicks are reared with adequate space and food and opportunities to act like actual birds despite being useless in terms of egg laying (hint: slaughterhouse and garbage bin, respectively).

Leather is not a byproduct of the meat industry. It is important in of itself, and is part of the reason that we slaughter animals. "Meat" is only part of the money value of an animal body. The demand for leather and other "byproducts" is just as important as that for meat. Plus, what could be better advertisement for endorsing killing than wearing a dead skin out in public?

2. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that milk and eggs are actually worse than steak. If someone was going to kill me horribly, I'd rather they just do it, rather than rape me repeatedly and force me to bear several children first, which would then be taken away from me and either killed or sold into the same horrific "life" that I was leading. I would find it laughable (though I can't picture myself laughing under those circumstances) that people who only benefited from the part of my "life" that preceeded killing me were considered "kinder" or "more ethical" than those who also benefited directly from my death. Of course, I'd rather not be owned and killed at all, horribly or otherwise, which brings us to...

2.5. Empathy. If you thought that point 2. was a bit over the top, stop and ask yourself why. Our idea that it is wrong to kill (assuming you think that it is) is based on empathy. We understand that a cow wants to live. All I did there was to follow that empathy through rather than cutting it off where it would have been convenient to do so if I had a leather fetish or a deep and meaningful love of cheese pizza. It requires doublethink to say that killing is wrong but a little torture is okay. It requires turning off empathy when it interferes with our selfish wants or with our image of "who I want to be". If one wants to be caring, then the way to do that is to look at our actions and see if they actually reflect that, changing them when they do not. Realizing that I am doing something wrong doesn't make me uncaring. We all fuck up, and we all sometimes make decisions based on incomplete or untrue information, peer pressure or habit. However, realizing that I am doing something wrong and subsequently doing nothing to change it makes me uncaring. It also makes me a hypocrite.

Ethical vegetarianism goes about this whole "I am a caring person" business ass-backwards and says that instead, we first define ourselves as caring, and since we are caring, our actions are de facto caring because they are motivated by this, no matter what the actual consequences of these actions are (also known as "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"). So yes, I think that ethical vegetarianism is uncaring. It can be so because the actual person is uncaring or in denial, or because of wrong or incomplete information, peer pressure etc. But the reason doesn't change the action itself.

And actually, it's not about us. It's about whether or not one species is soooo important that it gets to own others. Even the gentlest, kindest farm where the cows are cuddled constantly, allowed to frolic through the cow-friendly fields and given handjobs every day is still us owning them. If you can't see why this is wrong, think about the recent property status of women. I'm sure that some women were happy in marriages where they were the legal property of their husbands. I'm sure that many of these men were nice and kind and let the women do pretty much what they wanted. But that ultimately doesn't matter, because women shouldn't be property, no matter how nicely you treat them. The fact that you can make the best of a terribly, terribly wrong situation does not make the situation itself right. We, and cows, exist for our own sake. Okay, that's a whole other post on abolitionism vs welfarism, and we may get there eventually, but not today.

3. Free range is just greenwash to make us feel better. You cannot purchase a clear conscience, no matter what the glossy green recycled paper adds with a Prius in the background tell you. You still kill animals. If you don't look too hard, you can pretend like it's a slightly less horrible way to treat them, and then indulge in killing without guilt. However, happy meat is about people feeling good, not animals feeling good. And again, there's still that nasty killing. When you look at what "free range" actually means, it isn't usually all that wonderful in terms of treatment. For chickens, free range just means theoretical access to the outdoors. So to put this in perspective.... if we put several hundred children into a small classroom with no room to sit or move and then opened a small window at one end that they could theoretically get out of, that would be "cage free". And free range stuff can be more profitable for the meat and dairy industries than conventional farming because they can charge higher prices that more than compensate for any extra cost incurred. This supports the meat and dairy industries, which don't care about the health of animals (or of people, really), but are industries like any other, with the primary goal of turning a profit by telling you what you want to hear.

4. As a certain little wrinkled jedi master has pointed out: There is no try. In kindergarten, there is a gold star for effort, but that's because in kindergarten, the point is to learn how to make an effort. However, the reason we learn to make an effort is not merely to expend energy and accumulate gold stars, but to actually *accomplish something*. I shit you not. That's the point. And in some cases, such as ethical vegetarianism "trying to be more vegan" is code for "I want credit for being ethical but do not actually want to bother being ethical. Give me a gold star." Vegetarians who tell me that they "try" to be vegan or are "moving towards" being vegan (often for years... sheesh... how slowly do you move?!!) make my head spin. If you think you are acting immorally, than fucking change what you're doing! Do you really expect me to respect someone who has just flat-out TOLD me that they're unable to act in accordance with their own morals on something this simple? Being vegan is easy if you are not dependent on parents or such and can afford access to the internet or a library. There are books and websites. There are a kazillion blogs. There are vegans who would be bloody delighted to help you and cook for you and cheer you on. Hell, I would not only help with cooking and finding vegan replacements for household stuff and some clothes (and the all important sex toys etc.), but I would do little dances of encouragement complete with cheerleader skirt and pompoms! So no, I don't think trying or "moving towards" is enough. If you think it's okay to kill animals, then say so. If you don't, then act like it. Would you respect someone who told you that they were "moving towards" being okay with homosexuals, but "occasionally" indulged in a few rounds of gay-bashing or homophobic slurs when it was just too hard to hold back or when they would feel left out because everyone around them was doing it? Or someone who was only racist on thanksgiving because of tradition?

Just to be clear, I respect ethical vegetarians as people (just as I respect Republicans or those who drive SUVs), but that doesn't mean that I agree with or will pretend to ignore their inability to act in line with their own stated morals. Just because something is legal and done by the majority of people, that does not make it morally okay. You can respect someone without condoning their behavior.

Much as I disagree with meat eaters, I find that I can handle them better than ethical vegetarians. At least there is some level of consistency in saying "I have no problem with killing" and then acting accordingly. While I find it terrifying that most people don't have a problem with killing, and that we have stunted our ability to empathize so fully that this is "normal", at least it is consistent. You can disagree with consistent. You can argue with consistent. You can at least see where consistent comes from and where it's going. Whereas when somebody tells me that they're an ethical vegetarian, all I can think is "that's an oxymoron". Either you lack information or you lack balls. I have enough for both of us, so tell me what you need, and if I can help, I will.

am vegan, will travel, will blog for peanuts (or peanut sauce).

I travel a fair amount. And when I travel, people invariably say "Gee, it must be hard to travel as a vegan." The last person who said this to me looked at me with pity as I danced gleefully in the rain atop a munro in the Scottish highlands during a lunch break. Yup, I'm sure my giggling, dancing chocolate-eating self was the very picture of hardship and deprivation. I handed out apples, nuts and chocolate to the two people who had come without a lunch. I made friends and had lots of fun. I've never had any problems traveling "as a vegan". It just takes some minimum amount of preparation. Like, really minimum, and then you can be happy and ungrumpy and show people how very easy vegan is. Here's what I do:

1. TAKE FOOD. I have a little red bag that is my "travel food" bag. In it are: individual instant miso soups with little packages of seaweed taped to them, a small pack of crispbreads (6), mixed nuts, dried fruit, roasted dried chickpeas, a small tin of vegan spread such as tartex and a small bar of ridiculously good chocolate. Sometimes some tofu jerky as well, depending on how long the trip is and how far from civilization I'm going to be. This is pretty much always packed, so I just grab it when I"m off on a trip. The key here is that even if there is nearly nothing for me to eat on the train/plane/research station, I can make at least 3 full meals for myself. Also, I can make a feast out of a plate of plain iceberg lettuce by adding nuts, and have something to spread on plain bread/baked potatoes/pasta. I take this when I go on work trips that last a few days where I may get somewhere late and then not have any time to do shopping while I'm there and where there isn't likely to be any real choice of restaurants (ie- I have to rely on cafeterias). Basically, I find that you can always get simple salads and plain starches, so I bring along stuff to dress these things up. If you are going on a plane, put this in your checked baggage so it doesn't get confiscated. Just bring a sandwich and apple or something on the actual plane.

2. TELL PEOPLE YOU ARE VEGAN WELL IN ADVANCE. Be very clear. I always send an email saying "By the way, I am vegan. This means that I don't eat any animal products such as meat, fish, eggs, dairy, or honey. Please let me know if you will be unable to accomodate this so that I can bring extra food along with me." Generally, people have been very good about arranging to go to restaurants with vegan options and/or providing vegan food for me at work. However, most omnis won't know what to feed you, and with the best of intentions, may just give you a salad. This is fine, but I find that I often don't get *enough* food, which is where the little red bag from 1. comes in handy.

Also, it helps to give concrete ideas of what you DO eat. If you have some idea of what is easily available where you're going, don't be shy about giving suggestions. For example, on a recent trip, I had the bright idea to point out that baked potatoes and beans were vegan, which saved me from a week of uninterrupted iceberg lettuce and nut salads. Working in Italy (where I usually have no time to shop during the work, and we eat at restos/cafeterias twice a day), I bring some food, but pointed out to my hosts that pasta and pizza crust are both vegan, which they didn't think of. They were stressed over finding a "special" restaurant for me, which is unneccesary. I was there to work, not for a free tour of veg*n restaurants (though there is the most adorable vegan bakery in Florence. OH YUM). I'd much rather they stressed out about lab space and such. People often confuse vegan with gluten-free, wheat-free, etc. diets. The more specific you can be with your suggestions, the more likely you are to get something other than iceberg lettuce. The less people have to worry about feeding you, the more you can get on with the point of your visit (unless you're on a food-based visit...).

3. SHOP WHEN YOU GET THERE. You need fresh vegetables. Stop at the first grocery store you see and buy stuff that doesn't need refrigerating: carrots, brocolli and apples are my staples. Also, most supermarkets (or even tiny markets here in the UK) sell bags of precut, prewashed mixed veg. You can keep these in your hotel room/dorm/backpack for several days and they'll be fine. Farmer's markets etc. are also fun if you can find them. Do not buy bananas. They squish.

4. BRING IMPLEMENTS. Bring a pocketknife, a spoon and a corkscrew. I find that a reusable container also comes in handy in case you want to make sandwiches or something. You will also impress people with your boyscout-like readyness.

5. SHARE. If you're going to a place where you're going to be eating with people, bring extra dessert (chocolate in my case). Don't go out into the world and give people the impression that vegans are all a bunch of deprived martyrs who have to pass on dessert while everybody else eats cake. Also, I find that if you're generous with others, they will be generous with you. If you're whiney and demanding, people won't particularly care about feeding you. If you're happy and generous, you may find that they end up doing all sorts of things that are suddenly "no trouble" to make your life easier.

6.OFFER TO COOK. If you're staying in someone's home, offer to make them dinner. Ask what they like, and make a vegan version of it.

7. SAY THANK YOU. This is the MOST IMPORTANT TRAVEL TIP. Whenever somebody makes sure that you have vegan food, thank them, no matter what the food was. This includes restaurant staff who have modified menu items for you, colleagues who have phoned ahead to restaurants, field station students who have left the cheese off the communal pasta dinner, or the organizer who brought you a pb&j sandwich from their home at the last minute when they realized that the cafeteria didn't have anything vegan. Even if it's iceberg lettuce.

Other minor things are: learn how to identify "eggs, dairy etc." in whatever language you need to. Learn how to explain what you will and will not eat. It is often more helpful to say "I don't eat any animal product...including...(insert list here)", than to say "I"m vegan". Most people don't konw what vegan means, or don't get it, in that they won't give you big chunks of meat, but often think "a little egg" is okay. Generally speaking, I prefer to shop in the produce aisle or go to the market for fresh veg and bread etc. than to eat out.

For dinner tonight, at home: roasted veg with peanut sauce. For the peanut sauce: Take 2 heaping tbs each of grated (ground, pureed, superfinely chopped...whatever) garlic and ginger. Fry up in a smidge of sesame oil and a larger-than smidge of peanut oil. Add about 2c water and 1/4c soy sauce, some sugar and chilis. Bring to a boil. Add 1/4c or more peanut butter (I use crunchy natural...no ingredients other than roasted peanuts). Simmer until thick. Turn off the heat and add lime juice (from 1 lime) and a drizzle of sesame oil. Taste and adjust salt/sugar/chilis. Smother veg. Top with toasted crushed sesame seeds. So easy to make. Eat. We had this on roasted spuds, carrots, kale, celery and tofu.

I wanna be a chocolate god post 5: how to get on my truffle list

Ooooh. Raspberry dark chocolate and cardamom white chocolate truffles. Layers of goodness. Here you see an army of the white chocolate centers (vegan white chocolate, cocoa butter, freshly ground green cardamom, powdered soy milk), and then the finished truffles, with the dark layer made using the method described here. I made the centers, let them harden overnight (they're not melty, they're crumbly), and then wrapped them in prepared dark chocolate/raspberry stuff. Please read this about chocolate.

Now for the long, long rant. I cook a lot. I bake a lot. I make truffles. There are people who I love to give treats to, and those who rarely get any. Why? 

How to get me to give you truffles:

(or cake, or cookies, or entire dinners)

1. Say please and thank you. They really are magic words. People like giving gifts to those who appreciate them. There is little pleasure in (and therefore little motivation to)  giving to those who are dismissive or rude. 

2. A gift is not an act of charity or obligation. It is an expression of love, friendship, goodwill.. etc. Acknowledge it. You are being given something that, by definition, you have done nothing to deserve. How wonderful! Acting like you are simply getting your due makes you look like a selfish, spoiled, entitled asshat.

3. Unless constructive criticism is solicited, don't offer it. If someone is perfecting a recipe, or wants to know if there is anything that would make you like it more, they'll probably ask. Otherwise, you're being critical and mean. 

4. Say something nice, and ONLY something nice. "Thank you", for example. Don't use backhanded compliments like "Wow, this is much less repulsive than I thought it would be." If you categorically hate a certain ingredient, politely turn the gift down, or accept it ("thank you") and put it aside to deal with later. If you willingly bite into something you know you hate, and you find out (oh the shock!) that you still don't like it, it's your problem. At that point, you just have to suck it up. 

Oh, and just in case it's not obvious, comments like "this is good for a vegan cookie" or "wow, this tastes like real cake" are backhanded compliments, are rude, and will put you in my "no presents" book forever. 

5. Be generally nice. I'm more likely to take the time to set some yummy aside for you if the thought of your sweet little mug fills me with joy instead of anger. Just to revise, being nice is not just the absence of being mean. Being nice goes beyond the contractual relationship that we have (colleague, flatmate, whatever). Some things that are nice: washing out someone elses coffee cup when you're doing dishes anyway, turning off your cell phone during dinner, not putting in your ipod earphones when someone else in in midsentence. Saying hi, bye, please, thanks (ie, not treating people like furniture). Being sensitive to other people's comfort (So, inviting me out to dinner, and then eating steak in front of me is NOT NICE, because it means that I can't enjoy my food. In fact, it means that I'll probably be focusing mainly on not gagging. If you can't envision eating in a restaurant without eating steak, then don't invite me. We'll do coffee instead, or just go for a walk, okay?).  Basically, being nice is actively noticing someone is there, and doing little things to make their life better at no real cost to you. I don't give truffles to people who treat me like furniture, or who clearly expend the minimal civil amount of time and thought on me. Like I said, gifts are not charities. I do give out stuff as charity, but that's a whole different pot of beans that we can get into another time. 

6. If said truffles are part of a dinner/afternoon tea, be a gracious guest. Show appreciation. (Basically, do 1-5). Barring genuine mistakes, it is unacceptable to arrive with a gift or contribution that the host is ethically opposed to. For example, it is rude to bring non-vegan wine to a dinner party that I am hosting, even if I am the only vegan there. 

7. Don't be a martyr. You are not doing someone a favour by accepting their gift. They are doing you one by offering it. Graciously accepting a gift is a skill, so learn it. If you ask me to make you something (even "just so you can try it") and then go on at length about how very open minded you are to deign to accept my vegan truffles/ice cream/cake/sushi, you will never get them again, even if you follow that up with groans of pleasure, profuse thanks, and by nominating me for Grand Poobah of the Cooking Universe. Similarly, if it takes a little extra time or effort to locate "something vegan" to feed me or bring to dinner, don't whine about it. If coming to my dinner parties is such a horrible chore, choose not to come. If you choose to come, be a gracious guest, not a martyr. Gracious guests get invited back often and fed goodies. They are a joy. 

Basically, unless you are in a restaurant, people are not your personal chefs and are in no way obliged to make you anything, ever (though I'd hate to live in a world where people only did what they were obliged to do). If they do, it's because they're giving you a gift. Act accordingly, and you shall get more gifts (everyone wins, because nothing is more fun that giving gifts to those who are good at accepting them). Act like they're your personal household staff, and you will soon find that if you want truffles, you'll have to pay for them. 

stupid human tricks and grumpy hummous

This is a great article. It's George Monbiot covering a Channel 4 "documentary" about how climate change might not reeeeeeeeeeeally be our fault. Uh... I think his statement about watching a preview of a film called The Age of Stupid is particularly astute, even if it's the kind of accusation that people will rile against (as they slurp their $5 mocha in a disposable cup on the way to their air-conditioned car to drive 6 blocks):

The most powerful story of all, endlessly narrated by the hired hands of the fossil fuel industry, just as it was once told by the sugar slavers, is that we are both all-important and utterly insignificant. We are too important to be denied any of the delights we crave, but too insignificant to exert any impact on planetary processes. We fill the whole frame of the story when it suits us and shrink to a dot when that scale is more convenient. We are capable of occupying both niches simultaneously.

This is pretty much how I see people's carnism. I often hear from omnivores "oh, I like cheese too much to ever be vegan", or "I like leather too much to not use it". Yup. In other words "I am so important that I kill needlessly for my palate and kinks". This is often coupled with a denial of the atrocities committed by the animal-industrial complex... "oh, I only buy free-range/organic meat" or "I don't eat that much meat/dairy/eggs/insert random animal product here". If you ask, it's pretty rare that omnis who consume these "ethical" animal products have actually gone through any trouble to find out how the animals are treated, choosing instead to believe whatever the propaganda mill of the company that stands to make a profit from said products tells them. Because a company would never lie to you in order to make money, would they?

People are good at denial and ego. Yay us.

And those of us who "like meat too much to go vegan"... apparently people can't actually tell the difference between meat and vegetarian (vegan?) sausage anyway. So give up the lame excuses, okay?

The urge to bang my head on the wall is so strong, I can't even post a bad food picture. Here, have a pictureless hummous recipe:

For pomegranate hummous: Blend a whack (2 cups) of cooked chickpeas with about 2 tbs of pomegranate molasses, 1.5-2 heads of roasted garlic, salt, a few tbs of nutritional yeast, a tbs or so of tahini, a whole lemon worth of juice, and 1-2 tsps of dry-roasted ground cumin. If it's too stiff, use water or olive oil to make it the consistency you want. I use water. This goes really really well with red peppers. In fact, I may have eaten an entire red pepper, using this hummous as dip, while I wrote today's rant.

mmmmmmmm....miso

Just. Yum. Miso soup: roasted eggplant, leek, konnyaku noodles, multicoloured seaweed, soy sauce, miso, fresh grated ginger. Sometimes the key is knowing when not to make things more complicated.

A short rant: Compassion. I've heard many people use the word compassion lately, often about food, almost invariably about the choice to consume animals. The definition of compassion seems to boil down to recognizing the suffering of another and then wanting to do something to stop it. So the practice of compassion is kindness or mercy motivated by a desire that somebody else not suffer. One can extend this to include voluntarily not using power when using it causes somebody else to suffer. So, compassion can describe a particular motivation for not hurting others. I don't think it is particularly compassionate to refrain from clocking people on the street even though you may have the physical power to do so, as there are social (and legal) deterrents in place that would make you pay a cost for using that power. You don't need any sort of personal (sympathetic) motivation to hold back: society has provided one for you. However, there is no cost to using our power to kill animals or cause them to suffer. It is perfectly legal to cause them a great deal of suffering, and even to kill them. We have societal support (and encouragement) for causing this suffering. However, it seems to me that when people claim that it is possible to consume animals and be compassionate towards them at the same time, they bloody well need to consult a dictionary, and look up two words: compassionate and consistent.

This rant was fueled by miso, and brought to you by the letter C.

spring has sprung

There are most definitely leaf buds on the trees out there. Daylight savings time has arrived, and just as importantly, so has the wild garlic. Pesto pressie for M: Wild garlic, white beans, miso paste, lemon, salt, cashews. Easy, vampire-resistant, and spring-like. I could dress it up and add more stuff, but why fuck with perfection?

This pesto did, however, get me thinking about veganizing familiar foods. In this case, adding miso and white beans to make the pesto creamy and give it that cheese-ish taste. I guess the other option would just be tons of nuts and oil, but that's really oily, and as Spanky will confirm (and occasionally bemoan) that I'm not the biggest fan of oily food. Not that anyone would be fooled into thinking that there was animal cheese in my pesto (thank goodness!), but it does have that sharp/salty/fermenty category of taste going on. And this is the point where a rude omnivore would say "it doesn't taste right". Really? I think it tastes exactly right. And by "right" I mean "yummy". If I were as rude as the kind of person who would say that while sitting at somebody else's dinner table I'd reply "oh, you mean it doesn't taste like death?" Ahem. Perhaps sadly, I am not quite that rude. After consulting Ms. Manners, I've decided that instead of provoking the dreaded "defensive omnivore" conversation, those people just aren't getting any more foodish presents.

Food is a bit of a touchy subject with a lot of people. It's full of memories and associations and expectations. You might associate homemade pesto with your mom. I associate homemade wild garlic pesto with the Munich Viktualienmarkt and with a few Sunday hikes with some friends around Cologne, gathering as much wild garlic as we could stuff into our backpacks. It reminds me of buying the stuff by the shopping bagful at the Jean-Talon market in Montreal, washing it in the bathtub, and making batch after batch of pesto to give to friends when I was a student and this was a great (and super cheap) gift. What I'm getting at here is that I have memories of this stuff, and I want the taste of it to bring them back and keep them sharp. And it doesn't taste the same as a non-vegan version. But that doesn't mean that vegan food doesn't taste "right" or that the new version is a failed imitation of an old version. If I had (or if we had, as a society) lifetimes of memories associated with vegan food, and social occasions built around vegan meals, then no one would claim that it "didn't taste right". It would taste just like they remembered it. I've had enough vegan springs, holidays and birthday cakes now that the vegan versions ARE how I remember it: yummy.

there's a line?

I haven't always been roomates with Spanky. I once had this roomie, who will will call the Bellybutton Worshiper, or BbW for short. I used to cook for BbW, who used to make little noises when she ate my food. These noises were not unlike the noises that one makes during sex. One day, a friend of ours said "BbW blurs the line between food and sex." to which BbW replied "There's a line?". And the more years I have of cooking and eating (and having sex), the more I think that BbW is right. Food is about senses. Not just taste, but smell and touch. And feeding people is associated so strongly with caring for them, and wanting to give them pleasure, and wanting to watch them enjoy using their senses. Sometimes food is beautiful, refined, and careful. Sometimes it's messy and wanton. Sometimes it's rich, like my truffle oil chocolate truffles. Sometimes it's fresh like collard rolls with chili sauce. And then there are the household pervertables. But I digress. The point is, I love food. I love making it and eating it and feeding it to others. I love using all my senses to cook and eat. I love making a mess. I love the way people's faces light up when you present them with good food made just for them, and I love it when my dinner guests take a bite of something, sigh, roll their eyes and look oh-so-pleased with the world. And I think that has a lot with me being vegan. Not with why I went vegan, but rather, with why I find it easy and just generally wonderful to actually be vegan on a dinner-to-dinner basis. I love food and pleasure far too much to associate them with death or torture or exploitation or guilt... Though sometimes, like tonight, masochism is fun. Very very spicy soup (ginger, garlic and onions grated up together, quite a few chilies, lime zest, lime juice, soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, aniseed, black pepper, mushroom broth, teeming hoards of mushrooms, spinach, coriander and tomatoes, and my first attempt at homemade soba noodles...which need some work) in my new exciting bowls, which feel wonderful in my hands.

music: the girl from ipanema came walking. but i danced.

bitching about Skinny Bitch pakaging

I know I've been told to love Skinny Bitch. After all, it seems to be making more vegans, which is what matters, right? Welllllllll.....

Why am I throwing this out into the blogosphere instead of just shutting up? Because books, tv programmes, ads, websites etc. like this anger me. They obviously prey on women's body insecurities and blatantly reinforce the message that we get every day that we should (want to) be skinny as hell and jealous of any other woman who "succeeds" better than we do at attaining this ideal. Just because the book is cute and the tone is flippant, that doesn't change the message. It only candy coats it. Just because something is cute, smiley, has the word "bitch" in the title, and is written by women, it doesn't mean that it's not serving up a big fat load of sexist crap.

Sadly, I can't comment too extensively on the actual content of the book, because I refuse to support projects that reinforce the idea that women should change their entire world view to be skinny, so I'm not going to buy it. I mean, there is nothing I wold like to see more than a world of vegans. But go vegan because you have a moral compass and perhaps some basic reasoning skills, not because you are insecure about your ass. From the book previews that I've been able to see on Amazon, the animal rights info in Skinny Bitch is actually fairly accurate, and there is a strong message of ethical veganism in there somewhere. Too bad it's in such a regrettable package.

In addition to the problematic body image message, this kind of bait-and-switch marketing reinforces the idea that women are so disinterested in (or incapable of considering) the actual issues around animal rights, consumerism and power relationships that they have to be coerced into doing the right thing by appealing to their shallow, vain, insecure side. And speaking of the right thing, the basis of ethical veganism that the power imbalance between people and other animals is out of control. However, when a book uses instead of questions womens obsession with weight loss, and reinforces the arbitrary and largely unattainable version of beauty touted by mainstream advertizing, it only reinforces the power imbalance known as sexism, which isn't any less evil than speciesism. It's just a different flavour of evil.

vulcan ears, human rant, and the cross-species problem of time.

Don't worry, these are vegan. No actual vulcans were de-eared in the making of this dinner. It's just that while I was making the pasta shapes, they kept on coming out pointy and making me think of Spock. Chocolate orichietti (leftover pasta dough from the ravioli in an earlier post) on simmered, multicoloured yumminess (parsnip, onion, garlic, basil, marmite, splash of white wine, kidney beans, spinach). Simmer the veg in very little liquid on low-ish heat. This makes the parsnip all sweet and intense. The whole mess is sprinkled lovingly with pumpkin seeds and sea salt.

Now for the rant: no time.

A lame-ass justification that I often hear from omnivores as they scarf their lunches is that being vegan would take too much time. I feel compelled to rant about this. As a matter of courtesy, the rant will be followed with actual things that I do to make time to be vegan, because I don't actually spend all my time cooking and eating. I have a job, I have hobbies, and friends even. And no personal cook or anything! Shocking! All that and vegan too!

First off, let's just think about the following statement: I do not have time to live ethically. Because that's what "I don't have time to be vegan" is saying. So, I'm only going to say this once: IF SOMETHING IS IMPORTANT, YOU DAMN WELL MAKE TIME. Yes, I just shouted that, because it's so important that it warrants shouting. I think living as ethically as possible is important. It takes time. Finding that time takes a certain amount of organization and planning, but failing to find that time is simply not an option, because acting unethically is, well, unethical.

Here's an analogous situation. Imagine, for a moment that you are a man. And heterosexual. And have a girlfriend/wife. Now, you (and probably she) also have a job, hobbies and friends. This means that you don't really have time to do the housework or cook or do groceries. In that case, are you justified in saying "She should do it all for me. It's sad, really, that I have to exploit women in order to have enough time to go about my incredibly important life, but since my own personal life is soooooo much more important than hers, she'll just have to suck it up. Oh well. Too bad. She'll just have to give up her hobbies, job, or friends." ? I think we can all agree that the answer here is that you find time to split the work, even if it means that it cuts into your hobbies a wee little bit, or means you have to rearrange your schedule a bit, or that you have to learn to plan better. The life of a man isn't worth more than the life of a woman (well, in theory... the practice of this is a whole other rant). While this may be painfully obvious to many of us, the idea that we have the right to exploit others because we are too important to make time to wipe our own asses is a fairly prevalent one. Fear not, gentle reader: it is possible (indeed, easy) to find real time to wipe our own metaphorical asses!

Ahem. With veganism, I think it's much the same. My disorganization, or my desire to chill out/read a novel/work more etc. does not justify me killing (or outsourcing the killing of) someone else, even if that someone else is a cow. My scheduling conflicts and desire to write a novel while running a lab while maintaining a relationship are not the cow's problems, and certainly not her fault. So why should she be punished for it? In much the same way that I don't think that I would be justified in kidnapping a child and making it into my indentured servant so that I can have more time to do... whatever, I don't think that I would be justified in using animals for my own convenience (or taste). My convenience and taste are not more important than anothers right to exist. Or, as a high school history teacher was fond of saying: your rights end where somebody else's begin. Just because I have the physical or legal power to control or kill someone (like with a child, or a cow), it doesn't make controlling or killing them right.

So, what do I do about it? Well, first off, I admit that cooking food takes time. I make sure that if I'm going to have a busy week that I get lots of stuff pre-cooked on the weekend. I make big batches of lentils or beans. For lunch, I eat a lot of humongous salads (with beans) and bread or baked potato. This takes about 10 minutes to make in the morning, and I can nuke a spud while I eat breakfast. It would honestly take me about the same amount of time to wait in line at the cafeteria at work. If I'm traveling or trying to get settled somewhere, I admit that I'm going to have to eat whatever I can find that's vegan and somewhat good for me, and make sure that I have the money to do that. See some helpful travel tips in Vegan Freak. Basically, I plan in advance. I use happy cow a lot.

To keep shopping time down, I get a vegetable box delivered every week, and make grocery lists of non veg box items as I run out of them, and if I find myself missing an ingredient, I usually just deal with that, rather than running out to the store. But to be honest, I love veg. shopping, and have been known to spend vast amounts of time chatting with the veg. store dude, or the owners of stalls at the farmer's market. But I only go to the supermarket two times a month or so. With a list.

Most cookbooks have time saving tips, and almost every vegan cookbook that I've recently laid hands on has an "easy" or "fast" section (check out pretty much anything by Sarah Kramer, or Dino Sarma's book). These cookbooks are full of great suggestions if you're a novice cook and don't have the foggiest idea of how to go about cooking dinner on weeknights.

Also, I see cooking as something that I do to unwind, to spend time by myself or with friends, to do something creative, and to have fun with my senses. In other words, cooking is only a waste of time if you decide that it is. Frankly, I don't see the point of living a life that I don't enjoy, and it seems to me that the obvious places to look for pleasure are in the things that I get to do every day, like eating quiet breakfasts, the bike ride to work, work itself, coffee with colleagues, running in city parks, chatting with the veg. shop owner, showering with nice soap, and cooking. All of these are things that I "have to" do, either for work, food, or excercise. They make up a lot of my life. Why the heck would I spend that much of my life wasting time?

Being vegan does take more planning than the alternative of exploiting animals and the environment. It also takes a little more time. But really, we're talking about a few hours a week when you're learning, and a few extra minutes a day once you get into the swing of things. I think that the marginal extra time and effort are a laughable "sacrifice" to make in order to avoid stealing lives and resources that don't belong to us in the first place.

climate change, meat, and "personal choice"

Last week Rajendra Pachauri, who is the head of the UN scientific panel on climate change said something rather radical out loud at a press conference in Paris. He asked people to "please eat less meat". You see, it's old news that livestock production creates lots of greenhouse gasses. And I'm not talking cow farts here. Livestock needs land, feed, water and transportation. Lots of it. So greenhouse gas emissions from livestock total more, in fact, than all forms of transport combined. And guess what? We've known this for a long time, yet it is rare to hear any sort of public debate about whether or not people ought to eat animal products daily, and whether or not participating in something that contributes to environmental destruction on a global scale can really be considered a personal choice.

I find it fascinating that there is broad social support for smoking bans pretty much anywhere. After all, smoking is a personal choice, no? I mean, it pollutes the air in restaurants and annoys the people around you, but is it really so different than the personal choice to eat a steak that requires cutting down rain forest, using underpaid labour, and then has to make an international journey to end up on your plate? In both cases, you are taking an environment that is meant to be a shared one, and needlessly polluting or destroying it because it makes you feel good. Oh yeah, and there's the bit about killing a sentient being for no reason other than taste and convenience. One can make the argument that smoking is also harmful to the person doing it. Well, diet-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart conditions are on the rise, and the last time I checked, those were bad for your health too. I'm sorry, but in what way is that kind of behaviour a personal choice? Shouldn't a personal choice be something that primarily affects the person making it and doesn't gratuitously hurt others?

Despite the ethical and environmental reasons not to consume animal products, most environmental groups and private individuals who are concerned about equality and environmental issues are loathe to suggest that people should consume less meat or, heaven forbid, stop using animal products altogether. Even when one totally ignores the possible health benefits of a vegan diet consisting of something other than fries and sugar, there are compelling reasons to reduce or eliminate animal products from our lives. I sometimes imagine being an old woman and having to say to a teenager "Dude, sorry we left you a trashed planet, but you understand that my love of ice cream and my right to drive the suv to the store to buy it is infinitely more important to me than you and your future, right?". Put that way, no one would say that the ice cream is more important. Sadly, our actions say otherwise.

We know that the animal killing industry is bad for the planet, bad for the underpaid workers, and bad for our health. And we know that we don't need it in order to survive. So why oh why won't anyone talk about it? People seem determined to keep up our willful ignorance about how our "personal choices" are going to eventually "fuck up the planet that we rely on for such luxuries as air, water and food", and our public figures are pandering to our childish insistence of living in a fantasy where our choices about what and how much we consume are ethically neutral. Some days I meet people who give me hope that people will change, but when I see someone with a Nobel prize suggesting the western world to cut meat consumption to only 5 times a week, and the western world balking at this incredible "sacrifice", I want to crawl under my bed and cry.

rant track: the chairman dances.

more reading about animal products and the environment

la confession

When I tell omnivorous people I'm vegan, they all have the same response. I call it The Confession. There is a high chance that the first sentence is "I don't eat that much meat". This is usually followed by a fairly in-depth explanation of what they've eaten over the past few days, which invariably involves lots of animal products, all of which are somehow "exceptions". A note to those of you without dictionaries: when you do something habitually, it is not an exception. If you have milk in your coffee every single day, butter your bread and eat the special at the cafeteria, then consuming animal products is not an exception in your life. As much as it grosses me out to hear the details of who my beloved omni friends are eating this week, the unsolicited information isn't why I think of this as The Confession. It's the way that the information is given and justified, with turned-up sentence ends full of question marks and a vaguely guilty look, as if they somehow want me to say it's okay (which I won't). At the very best, I will summon all of my diplomatic skills and remind myself that friendships are valuable, and say nothing. More commonly, I ask them to stop, because it really does disgust me to hear it, much like most omnivores would be disgusted to hear a firsthand account of cannabalism. I also ask them to stop because it makes me sad to know that someone I love is doing something I find so very wrong when they could do otherwise.

However, I do have a pressing question, which I've never actually asked in response to The Confession, because I don't know that I could reliably dodge a projectile at close range. But now that I'm alone in the kitchen, I can ask it: If you don't think you're doing anything wrong, then why are you going to such great lengths to a) convince me that you rarely do it and b) justify it? I don't spontaneously ask omnivores what they eat or why, even though people often ask me to why I'm vegan, or ask me to justify refusing to eat/wear/do something not vegan. I try to remember to say that I'll explain my decision, but I don't feel the need to justify it. We don't justify behavior when we think that behavior is okay, and we certainly don't try to convince others that we're behaving otherwise, even if that behavior challenges a social norm. Imagine it. Can you picture someone blushing and muttering "Oh, I rarely volunteer. Except yesterday. And last week. But that was exceptional." or "I try not to tell little girls that they are equal to boys. I know, well, except for last week when my daughter asked about being a fireman. Oh, and there was that incident with the doll purchase, but other than every night before she goes to bed, I try not to challenge the dominant idea that she's just not as important as a boy." ? If I feel the need to justify or hide something in my life, either to myself or to others, it gets me thinking: what about this is making me uncomfortable? Sometimes it's that I'm doing something wrong. Sometimes I'm passively allowing some sort of screwy dynamic, or selling out to make others happy. Usually, if I find myself justifying something, it's a good indication that things have to change. So don't confess your omnivorous activities to me. I won't tell you it's okay, and I won't buy any of your excuses. Instead, howabout if I give you yummy food and silly dances that I don't need to justify. But I do like to share.

above is quick-ish post-running food. i almost couldn't wait long enough to take a picture before eating. it was a perfect clear cold night and the streetlamps were doing wonderful gothic novel things to the trees. i was a little afraid of vampires. it was a wonderful run. afterwards i made this: chickpea pancake (chickpea flour, barley flour, salt, nutritional yeast, baking soda, water) attacking, or possibly lovingly hugging a mess of veg (aubergine, and onion cooked in veg stock, a dab of red wine, basil, oregano and capers. at the last minute i added some spinach and leftover garlic-roasted tomatoes from the squash cocoa nib soup that i am still dreaming about). if you use japanse eggplant and have leftover tomatoes like i did, the whole thing only takes about 10 minutes, which is good, because i was thinking about gnawing on one of the kitchen chairs.

run/cook/dance/rant track: shriekback (big night music) and the clash (london calling).

the post about veganism

Oh yes, I'm vegan. Vegan, for those of you who haven't yet come over to the dark side, means I don't use animals. Don't eat 'em, don't wear 'em, don't smear their byproducts on my face in the hopes of warding off premature wrinkles. I'm a biologist, and I don't do research that uses animals. You might ask why I would do such a thing (or you might not, in which case I wonder why you're even reading this post). And I might answer that it's because I don't think animals are here for us to use. I don't think one should be able to own another sentient being, and we don't need to use them for anything, really, since alternatives almost always exist. It's needlessly violent, exploitative, and cruel, not to mention gross.  And frankly, even though animal exploitation permeates our culture, something being common and socially acceptable is not the same thing as something being right. I can't think of anything that I need so badly that I can justify killing for it, and I certainly don't think anyone deserves to die just because we've decided that they taste good or that their skin is a good way to cover up ours. 

Being vegan for me is part of a larger framework. The kind of thought process that one has to go through for speciesism (ie- thinking we have the right to lord over the beasts) is the same as the thought process that goes into sexism, racism and heterosexism (this list could go on ad nauseum). All of these things have in common that you first create two groups, usually "us" and "them".  Some feature unique to "us" is then picked. Like, say, being human, or white, or straight. This feature, which is just a fairly random feature, then gets picked as the feature that defines superiority. Hmmmmmmm...notice how this is completely arbitrary. The group with the arbitrary superior feature then gets to fuck everyone else over. See "The Sneetches" by Dr. Suess. Yup. The concept is so easy that it can be pretty fully explained in a children's book using fluffy yellow imaginary star-obsessed beasties.  

I just realized that this post had a lot of things I don't use, and then got ranty. Now, I loves me a good rant, but I don't really feel at all deprived by my veganism. Depraved...occasionally, but that's a different story. I'm pretty indulgent, I love food, and I'm (gasp!) happy. I can't actually think of anything that I don't have that would improve my life if it showed up. Huh. And I really really enjoy what I do have... good friends and family, good food, a stealth bike, I job that I love doing, and a few tricks up my sleeve. Sometimes I miss out on chocolate cake at work, but I usually have a treat tucked away in my desk for just such moments, and knowing that I'm not the kind of person who will sell out on their morals for a piece of chocolate cake is, well, peaceful. Not only do I have the peace of mind of knowing that I'm not contracting out death for my own amusement or convenience, but I get the perverse pleasure of giving a little kick in the shins to the world that would make us all into consumers who measure themselves by how much of the stuff placed before us we can buy. Because I don't want most of it. So there.  I  feel good in my skin, and I don't want to wear anyone else's, either literally or metaphorically. So yeah, I rarely think of what I miss out on by being vegan, but I often realize how very much I've gained.  Wow. Sappy but true. Excuse me while I go unsap with my friend Bataille.