Results tagged “vegan” from KPAO

Here's the post on the Peta blog.

It was fun. a bit warm, but then I had my CamelBak on in the costume to keep hydrated. The worst part was the costume is clearly designed for a shorter person. With my arms down, my eyes were above the carrot's eyes, so I could only see the ground in front of me. That's why I kept my arms up as much as I could, so I could see better with the costume hiked up. Next time, I'm going to add padding to the top of the costume, and I'll wear my skating helmet to reduce friction and make it easier to turn my head. Next time?! Maybe...

Humans are lazy. We tend towards paths of least resistance. And this is one of the main reasons why I believe more people aren't vegetarian or vegan. It's not really that hard, but it does require a little bit of effort. And that little bit of effort is a big deal for most people.

I came up with this thought experiment I call menu roulette. Take the list off all restaurants in the US and pick one at random. Then take the menu of that restaurant and pick an item off it at random. What are the odds that it is vegetarian? or vegan? 10%? 5%? I bet it's less than 1%.

As a product designer, one of the aphorisms I follow is make it easy to do the right thing, and difficult to do the wrong thing. Since eating meat and dairy is bad for your health, the animals, and the environment, it is pretty clearly the wrong thing to do. Yet our whole society is set up to encourage people to do the wrong thing.

So how can we change this? That is the hundred billion dollar question.

It's true. Eating meat and/or dairy is as bad for your health as smoking cigarettes or prolonged exposure to asbestos.

T. Colin Campbell wrote The China Study, which unequivocally shows the direct link between eating animal protein and a plethora of the most common diseases (all types of cancer, coronary heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis...).

He also gave the talk I've embedded here. He presents research data that show the direct correlation of casein (the protein in milk) and cancer. Even more damning is that based on the International Agency for Research on Cancer's own definition, casein should be classified as a carcinogen.

But it's not just casein. Looking at the correlation of animal fat intake to breast cancer rates around the world, there is once again an undeniable link between the two. His conclusion is clear. All animal proteins are unhealthy.

It is really sad that something so profound and essential to the health and well-being of everyone on the planet is something that gets little if any attention. Even the American Cancer Society is pathetic in this regard. Despite this evidence, they still list animal products and recipes on their web site that increase the risk of cancer.

I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. Meat and dairy are big business. They get massive subsidies to produce their carcinogenic products. They're also quite influential on everything from the USDA's nutrition guidelines to the national school lunch program. And of course these products will never go away. Despite all the evidence and warning labels on tobacco, a fifth of the US population still smokes.

But I am optimistic. I do think the evidence will win out eventually. It will probably be in a country other than the US, and it may take a decade or two. If I had the money, I would force the issue myself. I can't think of a better way to spend a billion dollars than to compete against the current school lunch program and give free, tasty, plant-based meals (and  accompanying information) to all the kids in all the schools nationwide.

And who knows, maybe someday we'll see something like this in the supermarket.

My wife read Kitchen Confidential by Tony Bourdain a few years back, and I vaguely remembered that she mentioned he had some snarky comment about vegetarians in it. When a friend was talking about the TV show with the same title, I decided to search the book on Amazon to see exactly what the quote was. It was much worse than I expected.

On the dust jacket, Tony straightforwardly mentions his "naked contempt for vegetarians, sauce-on-siders, the 'lactose-intolerant'...", and he isn't kidding. (By the way, I love how he puts lactose-intolerant' in quotes, as if it were some alleged condition with no scientific evidence to back it up.) Here's the paragraph from the book that is the real stand-out (bold is mine):

Vegetarians — and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans — are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body — these waterheads imagine — is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold. Oh, I'll accommodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them — for a "vegetarians plate" — if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.

Wow, really? "The enemy of everything good and decent"? That's pretty damn extreme. And as for his "accommodation"... I've had chefs at wedding banquets from Colorado to Michigan do a better job creating a vegetarian entree than him. It speaks volumes of his attitude towards his profession if the best vegetarian entree he can summon is to grill a few vegetable slices.

Tony, if you're truly interested in growing yourself as a chef — or even if you're simply interested in seeing how good vegan cooking can be — then you owe it to yourself to try a meal made by a top chef who considers the lack of animal products not a constraint, but a freedom. Have a meal at Candle 79 in New York. Try the black bean torte at Millennium in San Francisco. Have one of the fine chefs from VegAdvantage cater a meal for you. Or maybe try one of your own recipes that the have been veganized by the people you so despise

But you shouldn't pass judgement on vegetarians without at least trying the experience yourself. And if you're worried about the cost, then worry not. Dinner's on me.

Freedom is a funny thing. Even when one theoretically has freedom, there are inherent biases in the system that influence people to choose one path over another. In essence, this is what interface designers (like me) do when they present you with this UI:

or click me
It's pretty obvious which one the designer wants you to click.

The same is true for food. Yes, one could argue that we have the freedom to choose what we eat in this country. However, the system is set up with its own set of influences that push us down the path of least resistance.

It all starts with the Farm Bill. This monstrosity of the democratic process looks a hell of a lot more like socialism than any American politician would care to admit publicly. Yet it's the foundation from which our food choice are foisted upon us. For example, the corn subsidy, which is so outrageous that the vast majority of processed foods have some form of corn in them: corn syrup, corn-fed livestock, corn meal, cornstarch...

The same goes for the meat and dairy (livestock) subsidies. They get massively subsidized water rights, which is one of the primary reasons no drop of the Colorado river reaches the ocean anymore. They also get to externalize costs such as the huge pollution caused by their animals: land, water, and yes even air (Cows excrete massive amounts of greenhouse gas. Literally.).

And all this means that the government and the corporations are the ones who are ultimately deciding what you eat. By making all of these things cheap and prolific via subsidies, it makes them the path of least comestible resistance for a public that views food indiscriminately. Whatever is nearest, or cheapest, or yummiest, or marketed best, or placed at eye level on the end cap of the middle aisle of the super-convenience store, that is what is bought and eaten, likely out of its wrapper while the consumer talks on a cell phone driving 80 down the freeway in a H2 Hummer.

OK, so I'm ranting a bit here. But think about this: choose any random restaurant, then choose any random dish on the menu. Or choose any random supermarket, then choose a random product off  its shelves. What are the odds that its healthful? What are the odds that it is unprocessed (or minimally processed)? What are the odds that it has fewer than 5 ingredients in it? What are the odds that it has no meat, dairy, or corn in it?

I'll give you a hint: It's the same as making love when the temperature is just barely above freezing.

Fucking close to zero.

According to the Canadian Press:

[KFC customers]...will also be able to order a vegan "chicken" item, according to the deal...

I wonder if it will be based on Gardein, the soy "meat" created in Canada.

You know, if they offered it, I'd actually go eat at their restaurant. I just went to Johnny Rockets for the first time ever a couple of weeks ago, since they have a vegan burger called the Streamliner. It was really good; I recommend it.

Click here to suggest that KFC offer vegan chicken in the USA!

Great video my Mark Bittman--food writer for the NY Times--on the environmental and health problems with eating meat (and processed junk food). And he's not even a vegetarian nor an animal rights guy; he says so right up front.

Yet another study on how factory farming is horrible for the environment.

[Factory farms] often pose unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and the animals themselves while shifting rural America's economic power from farmers to livestock processors.

This—coupled with the UN report from a year ago—makes a very compelling case on why you must be a vegan if you care at all about the environment. I'm sorry to say that recycling your bottles and driving a hybrid just doesn't cut it anymore.

Since it's Earth Day, I need get out the message that should be the #1 item on any list of things you can do to help the earth, and that is eat less meat. It's funny that people aren't quite ready to accept this as truth; not even Al Gore has acknowledged his own hypocrisy by continuing to eat meat while preaching how we all must make significant changes to stop global warming.

I'm the first to admit this isn't a binary issue. I didn't say "stop eating meat". I just want people to acknowledge that there is a significant environmental impact (water, air, land...) from raising livestock for food. Just like no one is going to stop driving altogether because car emissions cause air pollution, similarly I don't expect people to stop eating meat altogether. But awareness and admission is step one, and I don't even think we're there yet as a society. Maybe when Gen Y takes over; they are coming.

I just had linguine with my home-made marinara sauce tonight for dinner, and it's one of my favorite dishes of all time. The recipe is actually from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, but modified to be vegan, and with a lot of detailed technique on how to put it together, learned from many iterations.

software:

• 3 28 oz. cans of whole peeled plum tomatoes, unsalted (I get mine from Trader Joe’s. If you want to save some time, get diced tomatoes instead.)
• 3 tbsp vegan margarine (I recommend Earth Balance)
• 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion
• kosher salt
• linguine (or the pasta of your choice)
• optional: nutritional yeast and fresh herbs such as basil and oregano

hardware:

• can opener
• knife
• medium bowl
• large sauce pan
• large sauté pan
• stock pot with cover
• splatter guard for the sauté pan

Place the margarine and olive oil into the sauce pan over low heat. Cut the onion in half along the equator, remove the outer skin, and place both halves in the oil.

Open up all 3 cans of tomatoes near the sink with the bowl. Remove each tomato one by one, open it up with your fingers and scrape the seeds out into the sink. Place the tomato meats into the bowl. When you're done, pour the remaining tomato juice from the cans (and the juice from the bottom of the tomato meats bowl) into the sauté pan. Place over medium-high heat and cover with the splatter guard. Put the tomato meats in the sauce pan, stir to combine with the onions and fat, and turn it up to medium-low.

You now have two pans cooking. The meats are cooking with the fat and onions on a low simmer, and the tomato juice is reducing to a thick sauce on a low boil. Stir both occasionally.

When the juice has reduced to a thick sauce, lower the heat to medium-low and pour the contents of the sauce pan into the sauté pan. Stir to combine, then re-cover with the splatter guard.

Fill the stock pot ¾ full with water, add salt to taste (I use ~1 tsp), cover and place over high heat. When the water boils, add the pasta and cook until al dente.

Meanwhile, continue to stir the tomato sauce as it thickens. It's done when a spoon scraped across the bottom of the pan leaves an exposed  gap that does not immediately fill back in with sauce. It takes about an hour from start to finish. Salt to taste. Remove the onion pieces and throw them away; They are only there to provide flavor.

Garnish with nutritional yeast and minced fresh herbs.