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Archive for April, 2010

Jamie Oliver Gets Medieval On French Fries At High School (Video)

Written by Vegetarian Star on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 in Chefs, Children, Food & Drink, Videos.

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution isn’t converting the Americans to healthier foods like Jamie Oliver did in the UK.

Good old things like American French Fries are getting in the way.

During a recent episode, Jamie is appalled to learn his pasta stir fry with vegetables doesn’t count as a serving of vegetables according to the USDA (the golden standard by which we should all be eating from, of course) guidelines of 1 1/4 cup (even though veggies shrivel after losing their water when cooked) served at lunchtime and is therefore not reimbursable.

However, french fries do.

Jamie says he’s going to “get medieval” on the french fry line (hell, yeah), shuts it down and begins snatching fries off students plate.

Sadly, most of those 1 1/4 cups of fruit and vegetable probably get tossed in the garbage, while the pasta stir fry and other similar dishes eaten on a regular basis would probably be more beneficial to the kids as most studies indicate more nutrients are obtained when the vegetables are actually eaten.

It’s a tough world Jamie has to live in every Sunday evening, but he needs to make the most of what he has.

Cut the frying and serve “french bakes” (sounds less sexier, but still does the trick). Drizzle olive oil over the potato slices and season them with non salt spices like garlic and pepper.

To get really wild, bake sweet potato fries instead.

French bake stir fry, french bake medley, mixed Asian French bakes with dressing and french bake salad are all possibilities when the customers get bored.

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Kal Penn Won’t Smoke Marijuana At Your Burger Cookout

Written by Vegetarian Star on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 in Actors, Film & TV, Food & Drink.

15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards - Arrivals

If you invite Kal Penn over for dinner, don’t bother asking him to smoke marijuana afterwards.

Or eat burgers for dinner.

The Harold and Kumar star was known for getting stoned and eating White Castle burgers in the movie, and unfortunately Penn says this translates into some people thinking he’s like his character.

From The Insider:

“It’s sad for the people who offer me a joint because I don’t smoke weed in real life. I was also a vegetarian when we shot the first movie and that was about burgers. I don’t go out of my way to tell people I was a vegetarian or that I don’t smoke weed, because I don’t want them to be disappointed. If you want to keep the suspension of disbelief that’s OK, but then sometimes it’s weird.”

So there. The suspense is over.

Keep your burgers and your joints to yourself.

Penn recently left his job at the White House as Associate Director of Public Engagement to film the new Christmas themed Harold and Kumar movie.

During the Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle movie, Kal was given veggie burgers made to look real once he and co-star John Cho finally made it White Castle.

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Emily Barclay Wants You Educated About Pigs

Written by Vegetarian Star on Monday, April 5th, 2010 in Actresses, Animal Issues.

The 2009 Inside Film Awards - Arrivals

Emily Barclay would like you to know a few things about the animals that you eat the next time you sit down at the dinner table.

“I’m not against people who eat meat but I’d like them to know what happens in a factory farm where highly intelligent animals like pigs live horrific lives,” Barclay told Confidential.

Rolling Stone featured an article several years ago describing the conditions pigs lived at a Smithfield Foods farm, a leading producing of pork.

“Smithfield’s pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth.”

“Taken together, the immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs’ immune systems. They become susceptible to infection, and in such dense quarters microbes or parasites or fungi, once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population. Accordingly, factory pigs are infused with a huge range of antibiotics and vaccines, and are doused with insecticides. Without these compounds — oxytetracycline, draxxin, ceftiofur, tiamulin — diseases would likely kill them. Thus factory-farm pigs remain in a state of dying until they’re slaughtered.”

Is this a place where you would send your 3-year old to day care?

According to GoVeg,  pigs have the intelligence level beyond a child of the same age and are the smartest animals outside of primates.

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Michelle Obama White House Garden Yielded 1,000 Pounds Of Food

Written by Vegetarian Star on Monday, April 5th, 2010 in Food & Drink, Gardening, Politicians.

First Lady Michelle Obama hosts Spring Garden Planting in Washington

Michelle Obama‘s White House garden is expanding!

The garden will be enlarged from 1,100 to 1,500 square feet to accommodate four additional vegetables of bok choy, white cauliflower, artichokes and mustard greens.

Once again, Mrs. Obama invited local school children to help plant this year’s seeds.

According to Treehugger, last year the garden yielded 1,000 pounds of food that was eaten by White House Staff and at State dinners or donated to local homeless shelters.

Another accomplishment for the garden last year was employing the use of “hoop houses,” protective structures placed over the plants to protect them from the winter’s freeze, allowing 50 pounds of food to be harvested during the winter.

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“Food Network Magazine” Features Vegan Marshmallows

Written by Vegetarian Star on Monday, April 5th, 2010 in Business, Food & Drink.

Food Network Magazine

Food Network Magazine

Sweet and Sara and its vegan marshmallows are featured in the April 2010 issue of Food Network Magazine.

It’s about time vegan bakers help offset some of Paul Deen‘s usual recipe of the month of butter dipped battered ham and beef stack wrapped in bacon and drizzled with melted lard patties.

The company headquartered in Long Island City in New York is the home of vegan treats such as marshmallows without gelatin, vegan S’mores and other vegan desserts.

Sweet and Sara has been featured on the Food Network series “Unwrapped” and has also had one of its products named “Snack of the Day” on Rachael Ray‘s website.

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Deirdre Imus Haiti Kids-Love-Kids Bags With Organic Treats

Written by Vegetarian Star on Monday, April 5th, 2010 in Children, Food & Drink.

2nd Annual NOFA-NY Luncheon - New York City

Deirdre Imus has collaborated with Operation Goody Bag Founder, Jane Cosco, to send healthy, non-toxic goody bags to children affected by the devastating earthquakes in Haiti earlier this year.

Kids-Love-Kids program has already sent 700 bags to Haiti and another shipment of 5,000 will be sent in April.

Cosco has been sending bags to troops for quite some time, but the vegetarian and environmentally conscious Imus wanted to step it up a notch and ensure the children were getting the best treats.

“We put organic lollipops, organic, gluten-free Yummy Bears, organic gum, organic granola bars, teddy bears, coloring books in French and English and non-toxic crayons inside the bags, which cost only $4 to produce,” Imus said.

“What’s so great about the program is that its easy and it doesn’t cost a lot of money to do. For $4 you can send a goody bag to a child in Haiti. The idea for Kids-Love-Kids is that this is a little thing we can do to let the children there know, ‘We care about you and we’re not forgetting you.’ It’s like getting a hug from one child to another.”

You can help by making a donation to the Kids-For-Kids program.

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Alicia Silverstone Gives Solutions In Natural Solutions Magazine

Written by Vegetarian Star on Monday, April 5th, 2010 in Actresses, Food & Drink.

Broadway Opening Of RED - Arrivals And Curtain Call

Alicia Silverstone recently interviewed with Natural Solutions magazine for its April 2010 issue.

As expected, the conversation was filled with the topics Alicia is known best for–health, environment and veganism.

A few highlights:

It Is Easy To Be Vegan:
Everyone has to make time to find food, and it doesn’t add any extra time to find vegan food. It’s about prioritizing your life and figuring out what is important to you. I don’t care about new clothes, new cars, or fancy jewelry. I don’t go out and spend money on alcohol. Most people spend a lot of money on stuff: coffee, cigarettes, medication, or liquor. But when you stop spending money on stuff and start spending money on living well, it’s amazing what can happen to you.

On Her New York City Food Orgy:
In New York, I’ve been on a food orgy, walking around trying all the great restaurants, stores, and vendors. I can get a warm bagel with vegan cream cheese on almost every corner. The vegan cheese plate and vegan mint ice cream sundae at Pure Food and Wine [a raw-foods, vegan restaurant in Gramercy Park]? Oh my God, it’s so good. And there are falafels everywhere—I love falafels.

Read the entire interview with Alicia at naturalsolutionsmag.

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Mariel Hemingway Cage Free Blisscuits

Written by Vegetarian Star on Monday, April 5th, 2010 in Actresses, Authors, Food & Drink.

7th Annual Malibu Wine Classic

Mariel Hemingway was recently out promoting her latest book, Mariel’s Kitchen — Simple Ingredients for a Delicious and Satisfying Life, which contains several vegetarian friendly recipes.

A few years ago in 2003, Mariel created Blisscuits, a healthier cookie filled with omega-3 fatty acids and free of refined sugar, hydrogenated oil and gluten.

In addition, Blisscuits use egg whites sourced from suppliers that use cage free hens.

Blisscuits were created for her ex-husband after he was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma.

“(So, I told him) Give me a couple months, let’s work on this together, your food,” Mariel told the Bothell Reporter.

“And he had to change the way he lived his life, so he had to start eating differently and looking at his life differently — so it was food, it was exercise, it was learning how to meditate, it was having a different perspective.”

Mariel’s ex-husband has been cancer free for 11 years.

The granddaughter of the famous writer Ernest is into seasonal foods and her current favorite food of the season is the artichoke.

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