Vegetarian Star

Author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan has written an article for the June 2010 edition of the New York Review of Books chronicling various food movements in history.

“Among the many threads of advocacy that can be lumped together under that rubric we can include school lunch reform; the campaign for animal rights and welfare; the campaign against genetically modified crops; the rise of organic and locally produced food; efforts to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes; “food sovereignty” (the principle that nations should be allowed to decide their agricultural policies rather than submit to free trade regimes); farm bill reform; food safety regulation; farmland preservation; student organizing around food issues on campus; efforts to promote urban agriculture and ensure that communities have access to healthy food; initiatives to create gardens and cooking classes in schools; farm worker rights; nutrition labeling; feedlot pollution; and the various efforts to regulate food ingredients and marketing, especially to kids.”

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"Sweet Freedom" Ricki Heller

Ellen DeGeneres recently featured Ricki Heller‘s book, Sweet Freedom: Desserts You’ll Love Without Wheat, Eggs, Dairy or Refined Sugar, on her website.

When she’s not teaching or working as a part time cooking instructor and chef, this PhD in Modern American Literature blogs at dietdessertsndogs.

Although some might believe a vegan diet is exclusive, Heller believes its the only way of eating that can include the most people. Here’s what she’s has to say:

“Vegan food is more inclusive than non-vegan food. An omnivore can certainly join in on a vegan meal, but the opposite isn’t true. So presenting vegan recipes means presenting recipes anyone can enjoy.”

Desserts are the perfect example of vegan never leaving anyone out.

When was the last time you saw someone turn down a cupcake?

Some examples of Heller’s non dessert recipes, including veggie patties and kale and avocado salad, can be found here.

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"The Black Cat" Martha Grimes

Detective fiction author Martha Grimes has released a new book in the Richard Jury series, “The Black Cat.”

Grimes went vegetarian in 1975 after watching the CBS documentary “The Guns of Autumn,” and has been known to incorporate animal rights themes into her works, according to a 10 Things To Know About Martha Grimes article.

Both her books “Biting the Moon” and “Dakota,” featured animal activists stories, and two thirds of royalties from “Biting the Moon” were donated to animal rights groups and she frequently does appearances for such organizations.

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Gene Stone

Gene Stone, an accomplished writer and businessman who’s trophies include Esquire editor and co-founder of vegan ice cream shop Stogo, allowed Supervegan into a glimpse of what life was like collaborating with Rip Esselstyn and writing The Engine 2 Diet, a book about a fire fighter who helped his station extinguish cholesterol and extra pounds by putting out meat.

Stone didn’t expect to have much in common with the Texan vegan, except for the fact they both shunned meat.

“I didn’t expect he would be liberal (politically),” Stone said. “I also didn’t expect we would have similar senses of humor and really enjoy hanging out with each other as much as we do. I’ve become very good friends with several other members of his family as well. In the summer, I go up to the Esselstyn family farm near Hudson and spend a weekend in vegan paradise, where two dozen or so Esselstyns gather and there’s nothing but incredible plant-based food everywhere, all the time.”

Getting along great with Esselstyn wasn’t the only surprise Stone experienced during his ghostwriting project for The Engine 2 Diet.

Originally, Stone became vegan to write the book, but found it impossible to go back to eggs, cheese and other dairy after it’s completion.

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Animal Factory by David Kirby

It’s amazing the impact a little education can have on your decisions.

After spending three years researching animal agriculture for his book, Animal Factory, David Kirby eats a lot less meat, as he explained to the Washington Post.

“Before I started working on the book, I would go to the supermarket and buy meat. I was completely ignorant about where my food came from. I knew that it wasn’t Farmer Joe down the road. But I never put together the idea that if it weren’t from there, it wouldn’t be from a real farm somewhere. I pictured mechanization. But I didn’t picture what was really going on.”

Read the entire interview with Kirby at the Washington Post.

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Credit David Shankbone on Wikimedia Commons

So you love the taste of a well done steak or a ham and cheese sandwich.

You don’t give a flying saucer about animals and their pain and suffering.

Why should you make an effort to eat less meat, especially factory farmed meat?

Well, you don’t really want everyone in the office (not even the co-workers you don’t like) to come down with Swine Flu next year, do you?

Jonathan Safran Foer, author of his book on factory farming, Eating Animals, has interviewed with Vegetarian Times in the May/June 2010 issue where he gives this argument for those who aren’t interested one bit in “animal” welfare and rights.

“We known where the flu came from: it came from factory farms in North Carolina. The link between flu pandemics and animal agriculture is not an opinion. It’s a well documented fact by scientific organizations that have no interest whatsoever in promoting vegetarianism.”

Swine flu, of which cases were seen in humans over the past few years, has traditionally been confined to outbreaks among pigs.

Like other viruses, it sometimes develops an affinity for a different host.

According to Wired, in 1998, scientists found a strain of swine flu in U.S. factory farms that spread quickly, and experts warned then it could one day evolve the ability to infect humans, resulting in a pandemic.

Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production and a critic of factory farms, called these environments, “super-incubators for viruses.”

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John Joseph, punk rocker and author of Evolution of a Cro Magnon and his latest book, Meat is for Pussies, recently sat down for a video interview on physical and spiritual health, food and his book set for release this month.

Diet may go a long way towards your spiritual health, and Joseph insists that if you’re still consuming cheeseburgers to reward yourself after a yoga workout, you might succeed in the arm balance but you’ll never achieve real peace.

“You see people going to raw foods restaurants with leather jackets and fur and all kinds of crap. It becomes another form of vanity. If you’re doing yoga and you’re doing all this stuff and you’re going and eating meat, it’s like trying to light a fire but you’re throwing water on it. You’re never going to progress in your spiritual practice when you’re consuming animals that have been tortured and butchered. It’s just not possible.”

Watch the interview for more.

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"Eating Animals" Jonathan Safran Foer

You always aced any literature test in high school by reading the Cliffs Notes.

That was, until your Honors English teacher decided to write test questions that specifically couldn’t be answered from the yellow book.

Some people!

If you haven’t read Jonathan Safran Foer‘s book about animals and factory farms, Eating Animals, perhaps you’d like to at least look over 10 main arguments he makes in his book for not consuming animals.

The summarized arguments on issues such as pollution, infected animals and human rights of employees may give you the push to give up eating animals entirely or provide arguments to people who ask why you choose vegetarianism.

Factory farmed animals contribute to antibiotic resistance:
“In the United States, about 3 million pounds of antibiotics are given to humans each year, but a whopping 17.8 million pounds are fed to livestock—at least that is what the industry claims. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has shown that the industry underreported its antibiotic use by at least 40 percent…. Study after study has shown that antimicrobial resistance follows quickly on the heels of the introduction of new drugs on factory farms.” (p 140)

Cruel treatment of animals before they’re even slaughtered:
“Animals are bled, skinned, and dismembered while conscious. It happens all the time, and the industry and the government know it. Several plants cited for bleeding or skinning or dismembering live animals have defended their actions as common in the industry and asked, perhaps rightly, why they were being singled out.” (p 230)

Need to study more before the big “test?”

Visit Sojourners for the other eight key points discussed in Foer’s book.

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