Go Vegan in 21 Days?

Check out this article.  Very interesting.  And then check out the 21 Day Kick Start web site.

The Farmer's Garden

Here is an interesting site called The Farmer's Garden that allows people who grow their own vegetables and fruits to find buyers and for people looking for produce to find sellers.  It is a very interesting idea and I look forward to seeing how it grows (well, pun sort of intended).  Here is a description from their site that gives information about who they are and what they do:

This site was developed so that everyone can become a locavore and have access to local, sustainably grown, fresh produce. It is also a great way to meet and support members of your community. Many backyard gardeners grow varieties of fruits, vegetables, berries, etc. not found in your local supermarket. Try new types of seasonal produce and you'll be glad you did. Some gardeners may be willing to provide you with a delicious recipe for preparing the bounty of their harvest.

So sign up (it's free) and check it out.

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Greenwala Blog | Greenwala: The Green Social Network

Hey check this out.  It's a really cool site.  Join up and start talking green.  Of course it's not all vegan or vegetarian, but for the green-conscious vegan (is that redundant?) there some good stuff here.

Greenwala Blog | Greenwala: The Green Social Network

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So Who's Having Tofurkey Today?

I am wondering how many you are eating a Tofurkey.  Also, I wonder if on Thanksgiving you create your own twist on the traditional fare. Then again if any of you have to put up with the family tradional Thanksgiving and pick those veg dishes that are vegan (no butter, etc.) 

I've never had a tofurkey.  It just doesn't appeal to me.  But I think I'd like to try it just once because even though something doesn't seem to appeal to me, unless I try I don't know for sure.  And being ever curious, and obsessive-compulsive, it would drive me crazy not to have ever tried it.

Sometimes I get creative and make my own food and bring that to my parents' house.  One year I made an all-indian meal for  myself that consisted of channa dal masala, a spinach dish (don't recall what it was) and a nice batch of the ever fragrant basmati rice.

Vegan News Network

I signed up for membership at a site called SocialMedian.  What's cool about this is that you can create your own News Network using keywords and news feeds.  So I thought it would be cool to build a Vegan News Network and invite people to join in.  The news being aggregated from the networks looks really good.  So check it out.  Just go to Vegan News Network and let me know what you think.

Planet Green and Veganism

Perhaps my rants are becoming arduous, but I like to critique things and find out how something, say a television show or a network, relates or could relate to veganism.

On Planet Green I've noticed that very few programs talk about veganism or even vegetarianism.  So I wonder why, given the fact the veganism, which to me is synonymous with being green, is not given more attention on Planet Green.  Of course vegans may choose to not eat non-gmo and/or organic foods.  But the fact that vegans consume in anyway no products based on the remains of dead animals, their contribution to the environment is positive and thus green.  By not eating or wearing dead animals they are lowering the demand, even if only by a teeny tiny percent, for such products and I believe they are improving the overall carbon footprint.

Now, there are those who argue that if the demand for vegan foods increases while the demand of animal flesh decreases, we'll have to creat more farms, which means clear cutting large areas to make room for the increased demand of crops for food.  But I think that what people are forgetting (or perhaps they don't know) is that the demand for biofuels is really what is increasing the demand for crops of plants specific to making biofuels and is a larger factor in having to clear cut new areas to grow these crops.  I believe that if other alternatives are found, the need for biofuels would decrease and the land that we currently have can be used to create food crops and so diminishing the need for clear cutting.

This is my take on things. What do you think about such issues?

The Meaning of Strict

Today I was listening to Emril Lagasse's Emril Green, a green cooking show on Planet Green.  Because it's simply background noise as I sit here typing, communing and working, I miss a lot of what's happening.  But in the episode I was listening to I heard the words strict vegetarian.  I was intrigued because I was curious to know what the hell Emril was going to make for this "strict vegetarian."  As it turns out, although she and her mother consider her to be a strict vegetarian, she's not.  She eats seafood.   So to be pricise, then, she's a pesco-vegetarian.  So my question is this.  What is the meaning of strict vegetarian?

Yes, this is a blog about veganism.  So my contention is that she is not a strict vegetarian or for that matter a vegetarian.  But then I thought about vegetarianism as a concept.  Although there is debate, especially from vegans, about the kinds of vegetarianism--vegans would say that there is only one--I decided to examine these definitions.



The following is a list of the commonly known types of vegetarianism:

1. Vegetarian
2. Pesco-Vegetarian (or pescetarian)
3. Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian and these variants:
1. Ovo Vegetarian
2. Lacto Vegetarian
4. Strict Vegetarian
5. Vegan

Now we could state that there is no difference between a strict vegetarian and a vegan, but I make the distinction by describing a strict vegetarian as someone who consumes nothing whatsoever from an animal, and by consume I mean eat and drink.  This does not preclude wearing (or using in some other way than eating and drinking) things made from animals.  I don't actually know anyone in this category or if this is even a category of vegetarianism.

And of course we know that a vegan is a strict vegetarian is one that eschews anything made from animals, whether it be for health reasons and/or moral reasons.  Of course one could argue that a vegan for health reasons only is not a vegan, but rather simply a strict vegetarian.

So the point of all of this is that when one is describing herself as a vegetarian, she should qualify this so that we can be clear and then decide for ourselves whether her assertion is true or false given whatever meaning of vegetarian you choose.

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