vegan

Appetite for Reduction: 125 Fast and Filling Low-Fat Vegan Recipes

mandy — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

My library copy of Vegan with a Vengeance shouldn’t have been returned. Not in the state it was in after it lived in my kitchen for five renewed status cycles (the maximum number I was allowed before I had to return it to my local library). The book shouldn’t have been returned because it smelled like food. A cookbook, naturally, absorbs the effort of its teachings: oils and buttered thumb prints, dried arrow root smudges, and one small berry stain on two of the pages when I tried to turn them with fruit juice-stained fingers. Luckily, I don’t have to return Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s newest book, Appetite for Reduction, which is doomed to the same fate as its predecessor: lovingly used with pages that are turned with excitement, torn at its edges and bearing of all kinds of quirky marks, compliments of the daring cook.

Moskowitz discloses her personal health reasons that resulted in her decision to find more recipes that are lighter in caloric intake. She also stresses her reluctance to contribute to the war on bigger bodied women. So what does Moskowitz do? She writes a cookbook for vegan stomachs searching lowfat, delicious recipes. For those in the vegan community who are also health conscious, Moskowitz has delivered the goods on a plate too irresistible to deny.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz is the best friend we’re all looking for: she writes in a way we understand, a language that is easily understood and humorous. She is also the cook we want for our healthy lives and families. She gets it. She gets that we don’t want to give up taste and satisfaction for healthy living. With this book, she dismantles the notion that vegan eating and cooking is not either extreme of the rumor spectrum. Veganhood is not bland rabbit food, nor is it substituting large amount of full fat in place of flavor.

From funky hummus creative ideas to “OMG Oven-Baked Onion Rings,” from sides to satisfying full entrée ideas, Moskowitz turns your vegan kitchen upside down, shakes out the fat, and replaces it with novel and tasty ideas to keep your mind interested and your tongue happy you tried something new. For this, I raise my spatula to Moskowitz with a need and heartfelt thank you. Vegan or omnivore, you will find something to rave about and savor in Appetite for Reduction.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 15th 2011

Veganize This!: From Surf & Turf to Ice-Cream Pie--200 Animal-Free Recipes for People Who Love to Eat

mandy — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Jenn Shagrin

Da Capo

One of the struggles faced by many vegetarians, vegans, or any other person who has a restricted diet is that you can no longer eat the “comfort foods” you enjoyed earlier in your life. One of my favorite foods to eat when I was a child was beef stroganoff. I can still taste it when I think about the flavors, aromas, and even its delightfully sloppy appearance. Alas, I no longer eat red meat, so beef stroganoff is not a part of my culinary repertoire. And although I’ve made the low-rent version with mushrooms and cream sauce, the flavors and aromas that went along with this venture are just not as memorable.

Veganize This! author Jenn Shagrin gets this quandary, and thoroughly addresses it in her cookbook. A self-described “lazy vegan” who grew up enjoying Italian and Chinese food in a Jewish home in Youngstown, Ohio, Shagrin respects the importance that certain rich, classic recipes can hold in our lives. She succinctly describes the dilemma of eating according to your ethical perspective, while creating food that not only tastes amazing but appeases your nostalgic side as well. The goal of her compilation is to help people recreate recipes that were originally centered around meat, in a stellar vegan style.

Despite her self-description, Shagrin's recipes are anything but lazy. She has created concoctions that are ambitious, interesting, and sometimes a bit terrifying. In the mood for meat and potatoes? Try dijonaise-crusted "beef" tenderloin medallions with vegan béarnaise sauce over roasted eggplant and garlic smashed potatoes. Anyone up for chicken wings? Bourbon buffalo mole "chicken" wings with vegan bleu cheese-avocado oil aioli are sure to please.

The titles of the recipes aren't the only things that are long; the ingredients lists are extensive as well. No one ever said creating carnivorous dishes in a meatless fashion would be easy. However, due to time constraints and a lack of confidence, I made the vegan bacon as my test recipe.

Aside from having to purchase a few items I don’t keep stocked in my kitchen, such as liquid smoke and mirin, I possessed the vegan staples needed to make the bacon, such as soy sauce, tofu, and onion powder. After a few hours of marinating in the fridge, and then some baking in the oven, my "bacon" strips were done! Anyone who is a former omnivore knows that there is nothing under the sun that can rival real bacon; however, this version was meatier and more substantive than the frozen kind you can get at the grocery store, and infinitely cheaper to boot.

Most of the recipes in Veganize This! require ample time and preparation, and may require ingredients that are not at your local grocery. But I wholeheartedly recommend this book as a staple for anyone who promotes environmental, social, or animal welfare in their diet. Want to enjoy your Grandma’s best recipe, but you no longer eat beef? Veganize This! ensures you will not be disappointed.

Written by: Rachel Muzika Scheib, April 4th 2011

Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook: Crazy Delicious Recipes That are Good to the Earth and Great for Your Bod

beth — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Kim Barnouin

Running Press

Assuming you’ve never heard of Skinny Bitch and its burgeoning franchise, here’s a quick primer. A diet book, marketed as a tough love, no-nonsense takedown of women who whine about their diets and think there is nothing they can do to change their bodies, ambushes its readers with a surprise crash course on the evils of eating animal products, meant to shock women into choosing a vegan diet.

Now, original co-author Kim Barnouin presents Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook: Crazy Delicious Recipes That are Good to the Earth and Great for Your Bod. On the cover, awash in bright, earthy colors, the author leans happily over a huge spread of actual food, smiling, positively un-bitchy, and ready to dig in with us. In short, nothing resembling the original franchise, to its benefit. I’m sure the brand drives sales and creates buzz but this cookbook seemed a welcome departure from the cold-hearted bullying and fat-shaming of the first. Why persist with a title that doesn’t seem to reflect the values of the book? I get it, though—Smart and Sassy Person Who Cares About Where Her Food Comes From and What Goes in Her Body Who is Also Vegan and Might be Thin Because of These Factors just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Let’s get to the good stuff, the fake meat and organic sweet potatoes! I’ll be the first to declare cooking vegan to be tricky. Not hard, and certainly not impossible, but for the average person in the average town with the average grocery store and average amount of free time… tricky. Especially for someone just getting her sea legs on the Good Ship Vegan, clarity of instruction, organization, helpful tips, and accessible ingredients are key. Pretty pictures help, too. Many recipes were illustrated with gorgeous full-page color photos, visually enticing and definitely influential in my test kitchen menu planning process. Most of the ingredients were fairly easy to locate at my neighborhood grocery store, but for the wilier ingredient outlaws, dropping extra dough at Whole Foods was the only option.

A rundown of the recipes we chose to make reveals mixed results. The Pasta, Navy Bean, and Spinach Soup was truly nourishing and delicious and I hope someone makes it for me the next time I’m sick in bed. On the flip side, the Cream of Cauliflower Soup was watery and lacking flavor, and as a meal, left me running to the cupboard for a snack an hour later. Following the instructions to the letter on the Masoor Daal (Split Red Lentils) produced a solid block of dried out lentils at the bottom of the pan, but so deliciously spiced was the block that we carved out chunks to eat with Cholay and Aaloo (Chickpeas and Potatoes). The Curried Chickpea cakes were the hands-down favorite for flavor, texture, and surprising ease of assembly. The Lentil Tacos with Fresh Salsa were a bland let-down (who knew tacos could taste bad?), but the Lentil Seitan Sloppy Joes were a yummy hit, a breeze to put together, and a fun, meatless take on a childhood favorite. Finally came the “big one,” my personal Moby Dick, the Asian Macaroni and Cheese, which took over an hour to prepare before it even hit the oven, and left us with anticlimactic plates of white on white cauliflower, tofu, and elbow macaroni, tepidly “Asian”-flavor, and markedly lacking “cheesiness.”

That was our recipe round up, and if you’re reading this then chances are you want to know if you should buy this cookbook. While I’ll be keeping a handful of recipes in rotation, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it with out a boatload of caveats, exceptions, and disclaimers. The recipes on the whole just didn’t yield results that felt worth the time, effort, or cost of extraneous ingredients, particularly those brand names that are suspiciously endorsed throughout the book.

A vegan diet and way of living doesn’t need a gimmick to make it appealing, and it doesn’t need to be dumbed-down, glammed-up, and packaged as an easily digestible weight loss tool. Ultimately, it’s too hard to gauge what the real goal of this cookbook is, and what our goals should be in reading it and eating by it; should we want to be skinny above all, or want to save the environment, or be healthy, or make food we enjoy preparing and eating the most? There are better vegan cookbooks on the market, and there are better weight-loss cookbooks, and I’d love to chat about how to find them and hear your own recommendations. In attempting to keep multiple balls in the air, Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook spreads itself too thin. It is possible to “have it all,” but you don’t need this cookbook to get there.

Written by: Kelly Moritz, March 2nd 2011

The 30 Minute Vegan's Taste of the East: 150 Asian-Inspired Recipes—from Soba Noodles to Summer Rolls

tina — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Mark Reinfeld, Jennifer Murray

Da Capo Press

The 30 Minute Vegan's Taste of the East is a compilation of recipes from India, Thailand, China, and Japan. There’s an additional section on Asian Fusion, featuring recipes from Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Tibet, and Nepal, as well as little known recipes from Iran and Afghanistan. Basically, this cookbook allows you to make vegan versions of your favorite Asian dishes in less time than it would take a delivery person to arrive.

Trying to obtain a vegan version of a menu item is difficult in most restaurants, especially if you frequented the restaurant in your pre-vegan life. I’ve had a restaurant owner swear that a particular dish could be made meatless, but once the food arrived it was clear that I received the standard dish. As a result, I began looking around for a cookbook that would have vegan versions of what I wanted to order in a restaurant. A lot of the cookbooks I found had the recipes, but both ingredient lists and cooking times were too long to be practical on a daily basis.

This cookbook solves both problems; it provides recipes you want in versions that can be made in thirty minutes or less and the ingredient lists provide item descriptions and any alternate names the items may go by. The book provides substitutions for those who do not have access to fresh ingredients, and a list of resources for those who prefer to shop for ingredients online.

The book is divided into sections by country and recipes are listed in menu order (soup through dessert), making it simple to pick and choose your meal plan. Recipes also include serving suggestions in the form of complementary dishes. All directions are easy to follow and recipe variations are provided to show how each dish can be prepared differently or with different ingredients. Recipes that take longer than thirty minutes are marked with a clock at the top of the page. Pages marked with a heart at the top are recipes for raw food items or items with raw variations.

Sidebars, Chef’s Tips and Tricks, and The Asian Pantry provide preparation tips and shortcuts, along with information on ingredients specific to the recipe’s country of origin. Appendixes include an informative preparation tutorial, a glossary, and a thorough listing of vegan resources for online shopping, education, and related topics of eastern spirituality and culture.

If you gave up a dish when you became vegan and never thought you’d see it again, have a look at this book; you’re likely to find it here. If you don’t see it immediately, read a few recipes in the area and you might find it under a different name. I found my long lost Tom Yum Gai under the name Galangal Lemongrass Soup. Once you find your lost beloved, try a new recipe to go with it. You’ll be glad you did!

Written by: Melissa Ruiz, December 18th 2010

Vegan Baking Classics: Delicious, Easy-to-Make Traditional Favorites

mandy — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Kelly Rudnicki

Surrey Books

Kelly Rudnicki describes herself as a “busy mother of five young children,” the oldest of whom was “diagnosed with life-threatening food allergies to dairy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, and legumes.” Incorporating material from her blog, Rudnicki’s first book, The Food Allergy Mama’s Baking Book, began as Vegan Baking Classics. Although the title of the book situates it in vegan media culture, I found Rudnicki’s writing style, interests, and recipe descriptions more typical of parenting and food allergy books.

Rudnicki lacks the edgy, almost punk style of some of the best vegan cookbook authors, like Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Terry Hope Romero, or the Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard powerhouse duo. Moskowitz and Romero’s Post-Punk Kitchen public access television show and website define the ways in which veganism is a playful way to be an anarchist in the kitchen without hurting anyone. And Moskowitz’s *Vegan with a Vengeance includes an anecdote about feminist potlucks, heightening what I see as a unifying tenant of many cookbooks: a sense that food is part of a larger set of political concomitants.

That is not to disparage Rudnicki. Her desire to feed her son the doughnuts, muffins, cakes, and cookies she remembers from her childhood offers a powerful testament to her mothering. She expresses her own activist interests in the book when she suggests that she wants doctors to find a cure for the allergens that plague her son. Rudnicki is concerned about health, and she offers tips for lowering the fat in baked goods, such as replacing some of the oils with apple sauce.

The recipes in Vegan Baking Classics are just that—classics. They are comfort foods made in a form consumable for vegans, people with food allergies, and anyone who wants to eat a variety of pastries, cookies, cakes, pies, and other delicious sweet treats.

The notes that accompany the recipes tend to be repetitive and, therefore, a little boring. At times, they even make the end result sound unappealing. As someone who eats my fair share of energy bars, I found the description of Rudnicki's Cranberry-Chocolate Drop Cookies, which she says remind her of her “favorite nutrition bars,” a bit off-putting. I have sometimes wished my energy bars tasted more like cookies, but I rarely wish a cookie tasted more like an energy bar.

Overall, Vegan Baking Classics offers a range of delectable and fun recipes that can satisfy a wide range of people whose teeth tend toward the sweet kind. Following Rudnicki’s hints and tips makes baking without dairy, eggs, and common allergens accessible, and every recipe is worth trying… even if her writing isn't as fun to read as the best punk rock vegan cooks out there.

Written by: Emily Bowles, December 12th 2010

Ripe from Around Here

barbara — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By jae steele

Arsenal Pulp Press

I'm an avid vegan cookbook collector, and Ripe From Around Here is more than a vegan cookbook. jae steele, a holistic nutritionist from Toronto, offers a neat little package of sustainability, mindfulness, and the politics of food in addition to vegan gourmet recipes in the end. She really does pack it in—the first five chapters alone touch on local eating, container gardening, mindfulness, canning, natural housecleaning, worm composting (vermicomposting), and a four season overview of how to be healthy through the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine. I really enjoyed reading the paragraphs on how to eat an apple mindfully, and what to holistically focus on during each of the four seasons to promote overall well-being.

But what about the recipes? Yay! The rest of the chapters are a vegan journey, taking us through how to make your own oat milks, nut milks, and rice milks (how much more local can you get?) to West African Groundnut Stew. My mother-in-law and I tried the Tomato Chard Bake the first few days I had the book, and were definitely pleased. A little warning though... the bake took an hour to prepare. This is not fast food, folks. If you have three hungry children waiting for dinner, you have to be strategic about making these kinds of entrees.

You can definitely tell that steele is a nutrition counselor too, because many of her recipes call for spelt and oat flours, coconut oils, and other ingredients you might not immediately have lying around or can pick up at your local corner store. Some of the ingredients will be more expensive. Convenience and price are two big factors for myself and most struggling people I know. I've come to a personal revelation though that perhaps as people in the U.S., maybe we should be spending more money on the food we eat. Michael Pollan, of Omnivore's Dilemma fame, mentioned once that our portions of income on food has declined but our spending on health care has increased. Food is health care.

Ripe From Around Here comes right on time, adding to the zeitgeist of getting back to the basics, eating more locally (and with real food!), and supporting a growing sustainability movement. It can be challenging sometimes to find the time and money, but after finding ways to work it, sitting down to your own homemade Grandmother Palmer's Baked Beans (baked for over four hours!) will be worth it. Mine are just starting to simmer and they smell delicious.

Written by: Maleka Fruean, November 7th 2010

Ripe From Around Here

andrea — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By jae steele

Arsenal Pulp Press

When jae steele’s Ripe From Around Here arrived, it joined a pile of vegan library books on my kitchen table. I needed inspiration and fresh ideas, and hoped one of the books would help. steele’s book was the star. These are the recipes that will become everyday favorites, and the ones that omnivores will devour, blissfully unaware that no animal products are present.

The first part of Ripe From Around Here lays out steele’s philosophical interests and approach to food. As a holistic nutritionist, steele hopes readers will slow down and eat healthful foods. She presents helpful health information without sounding preachy or heavy-handed. I especially appreciated her emphasis on mindful eating—the importance of taking time to notice our food with all of our senses. The section on seasonal influences, inspired by traditional Chinese medicine, has interesting and practical ideas. steele lays out the numerous food choices available to North American consumers—organic, local—and offers advice on the various benefits.

The recipes are flexible enough to work for cooks who find it challenging to prepare any dinner at all, as well as those who aspire to do things as much from scratch as possible. These dishes are not just for the virtuous; plenty of dessert is included too. Some of the recipes put a tasty twist on dishes I already make, such as root and barley soup and Mexican stuffed bell peppers. Others, created more for special occasions, I look forward to hungrily. Blueberry lavender ice cream, made with coconut milk, tops this list, followed closely by rosemary mushroom gravy. The tomato chard bake and herbed garden biscuits are sure to become staples in my house.

steele strikes me as a very practical idealist. She does not expect diet purity from readers, but offers up options so that we can make informed choices. For example, many of the recipes call for spelt flour and sunflower oil; steele cites why these are her preferred options, but also knows readers will substitute to suit individual preferences.

As her title hints, steele encourages the use of local ingredients. She also recognizes (as a resident of Toronto) that many delectable ingredients would have to be omitted, and sorely missed, if one sticks to a strictly local diet plan. The key, I think, is to appreciate a lemon as a gift from a warmer climate, and to not take it for granted. Thoughtful, reflective eating can help our health and our local economies.

I actively seek out vegan recipes for their flavors as well as healthfulness. I love the creative use of produce and the variety of grains found in innovative vegan kitchens. Ripe From Around Here provides plenty of tasty options to explore, and steele’s blog offers additional recipes and kitchen ideas. Overall, steele presents food as an opportunity for joy and pleasure.

Written by: Lisa Rand, November 3rd 2010

Viva Vegan!: 200 Authentic and Fabulous Recipes for Latin Food Lovers

mandy — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:08:39 +0000

By Terry Hope Romero

Lifelong Books

Let’s just get this out of the way—Terry Hope Romero is the best gift a vegan chef could ever hope for. While I am just a vegetarian, I often find myself flirting with the idea of going vegan. Thanks to Viva Vegan!, though, I can now successfully have a vegan Mexican dinner night.

Now, if you are a vegetarian, chances are you’re familiar with things like seitan and tempeh. If you’re not, no need to worry. Romero begins the book with an extremely helpful section called “The Vegan Latin Pantry,” which itemizes traditional foods necessary for the Latin kitchen and lists vital foods for vegans. The book is helpfully formatted with short paragraphs and text boxes to make the pages more visually interesting—let’s just say that the “These Are a Few of My Favorite Beans” text box has staved off any boredom I was experiencing from my standby black beans and rice lunch.

The 200 recipes in this book are sorted into an impressive fourteen categories, ranging from salsas to tamales. One benefit of having such a range of recipes is that there truly is something for every skill level and every kitchen. Personally, I don’t have a steamer basket or a large lasagna dish, so the tamales weren’t up my alley, but I found plenty of soups, stews, and condiments to try. There aren’t just guacamole and salsa recipes here—Cashew Crema and Chocolate-Chile Mole Sauce make for a delicious condiment section.

In addition to her creativity with condiments, I’ve got to give it to Romero on her commitment to home cooking. An alarming amount of cookbooks seem comfortable recommending that their readers use tons of ingredients that are bought from grocery store shelves, like bread, cakes, and other items that can be made from scratch. While Romero has a few recipes like that, she doesn’t say to head to a specialty store to pick up seitan; she explains how to make your own for chorizo seitan sausages. As someone who’s spent way too much money on seitan in the past, I’m grateful to have an easy recipe to follow that’ll save me money and produce a great dish.

Some of the recipes can be intimidating (I still haven’t tried to conquer making empanada dough), but all of them are well-explained without a hint of condescension. If you’re starving, don’t make the mistake I did by looking at the sixteen pages of full-color pictures. I understand the magic of Photoshop, but digitally-altered or not, that is some fine-looking cuisine. Ultimately, Viva Vegan! is a fun cookbook to read through and experiment with. Romero does a fantastic job of proving that while vegans may have dietary restrictions, there are still plenty of delicious, creative foods to be made and devoured.

Written by: Alyssa Vincent, September 4th 2010

Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World

admin — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Bob Torres, Jenna Torres

PM Press

Wherever one falls on the meat-eater to vegan continuum, you need to make the Torres duo your truth-speaking, profanity-spewing, tough-loving pals. They will move you closer to ethical veganism. For the already-vegan, Bob and Jenna offer the rationale and the moral support to stay that way. For four years, these wacky Ph.D.s have provided social commentary and intellectual critique to and for vegans through their podcast, blog, online forum and publications. In so doing, they've created the Vegan Freak ethos: a celebration of the way vegans stand out in a society that normalizes brutality and exploitation.

Two years ago my younger brother lent me the first version of Vegan Freak, a colloquial and genuinely caring guide to going vegan—covering everything from basic animal rights theory to getting along with non-vegans to where and how to find vegan products. I'd gone vegan as a teenager, emotionally devastated by exposés of modern industrial agriculture. But with the onset of my adulthood, Whole Foods markets were popping up like dandelions, and no less than Peter Singer had given the seal of approval to "humanely" raised animal products. The ideology of mainstream animal advocates looked hopelessly confused, applauding vegan diets and marketing cage-free eggs in the same breath, and my own veganism needed a shot of re-commitment. Vegan Freak offered that. In its pages I found a consistent, insistent morality and a practical guide to living it.

Now, the new edition appears and, as promised, it's been rewritten from the ground up. A thicker book both in page count and ideas, Version 2.0 reflects the clarity and maturity the authors have developed through years of vegan outreach. It still covers surviving holiday dinners and finding vegan alternatives for the leather fetishist in your life. Bad puns, tangential rants, and non sequitur chapter titles preserve the fun of the original. But new sections address recent trends in the vegan world: environmental veganism, veganism-as-body-image complex (or the Skinny Bitch effect), Oprah's vegan cleanse—all are sliced with a scalpel of abolitionist rationale.

For Bob and Jenna, there's no bad reason to go vegan, per se. Just inadequate reasons. Their goals—to help others go and stay vegan, to build a social movement recognizing animal rights—inform all their advice and criticism. Empathy bleeds through every sentence, but the Torreses treat their audience as responsible adults. They are not going to let us off the hook for failing to check if a soup is made with chicken stock or if our running shoes are all man-made materials. They are not content with vegetarians; cheese addicts get their own special page to bookmark and turn to whenever the craving strikes. Really, Bob and Jenna are sure we can make it through the traumatic dinner party with nothing but iceberg lettuce, and when we think about it, we are, too.

To their credit, the authors do not pretend to know what they don't. They frequently refer readers to other sources. The number of times they recommend Googling vegan product X will get tiresome if you read the book in one sitting. But for anyone attempting to make any kind of change, Vegan Freak is applicable and inspirational. The three-week, cold-tofu approach to personal lifestyle change worked for me when I decided to begin exercising regularly. And their thoughts about "impoverished veganism"—veganism that is only about what we consume and how we spend our money—encourages the already-vegan to think beyond personal choices. Most seriously, I credit my present involvement in any kind of activism, vegan-focused or not, to Bob and Jenna's inspiring, grassroots-y influence.

Written by: Charlotte Malerich, May 31st 2010

Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism

admin — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Melanie Joy

Conari Press

I will say it, here and now: I eat meat. Now that I have announced that, I fear that Melanie Joy will fly through my window to tell me how the meat industry recapitulates Nazism. Okay, I don’t really. But you catch my drift: this woman is serious.

As a person with very close vegetarian friends, and who has also purchased, prepared, eaten, and enjoyed seitan, quorn, and tofu, I would say that I have a decent understanding of vegetarianism without actually practicing it. I am not convinced, however, that Joy’s book offers much that is new to the vegetarian rhetoric.

The title led me to expect a book that delved into humankind’s history with animal relationships, that would try to scratch the surface of when and why certain animals took on specific functions in our lives and others didn’t. But rather than that, this book is focused on the psychology that “allows” humans to be comfortable with meat eating. To talk about this topic, Joy has made up a word for meat-eaters: carnists. She defines carnism as “the belief system that enables us to eat some animals and not others.” Throughout the work, Joy examines how the carnist mindset and the meat industry work together to keep animals as a dinner item despite various displeasing realities connected with the practice. While doing this, Joy describes the inhumane conditions at slaughterhouses and factory farms, and the effect that the meat industry has on the Earth.

And I don’t dispute any of that. I believed it the first time I read it, in books such as Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, which Joy quotes and references an obscene number of times in her 150-page book. So much of the book is gleaned from other works that it reads very much like a college thesis paper; I suspect it once was.

Despite her legitimate arguments regarding the disgusting and hidden reality of factory farms, Joy doesn’t take into account people who raise their own animals in perfectly humane conditions or who hunt legally, or people who have any number of health issues that make a vegetarian diet anywhere from impractical to dangerous. The meat debate is a huge topic that goes far beyond the dualism of carnism and vegetarianism, and Joy doesn’t come close to covering all the bases here.

As I implied before, this book also has an irritating tendency to mention Nazis a lot. While I understand the connection Joy’s trying to make on a cerebral level, something about describing meat eating—not cruel factory farm conditions or inhumane slaughterhouses, but just eating meat—as being akin to being a member or supporter of the Gestapo is just distasteful to me.

I do applaud Joy on her willingness to acknowledge the suffering of slaughterhouse workers and others whose employment in the meat industry is dangerous and taxing. Many times, when it comes to arguments against the meat industry, I feel as if workers are under attack for earning a paycheck and given no sympathy whatsoever for the dangerous work they do. This author doesn’t suggest that the fate of the human animal is less important than other animals, and I appreciate that.

Written by: Kelly Palka Gallagher, March 28th 2010

That's Why We Don't Eat Animals: A Book About Vegans, Vegetarians, and All Living Things

admin — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Ruby Roth

North Atlantic Books

If you are planning on raising a vegetarian child who will be well-prepared to explain his or her beliefs to inquiring peers, teachers, and friends’ parents, That's Why We Don't Eat Animals is a great start.

Did you know that turkeys blush? Or that newborn quail start walking the moment they are hatched from their eggs? I didn’t, but any child who reads That's Why We Don't Eat Animals will know. Facts like these work to emphasize the connections between living things in a way that small children in the book's targeted audience (about age 4 and up, in my estimation) will understand and appreciate.

The book shows animals in their natural habitats, and explains the difference in the quality of life an animal will experience if it is running free versus living in cramped quarters on factory farms. The book also illustrates the effect that factory farming has on various biomes and the health of the Earth overall. The animals are charmingly drawn in a caricaturist, almost geometric style, and their environments are depicted with bright or dark colors, depending on their living conditions. The vocabulary is simple and straightforward, doesn’t get too dark or complicated for children, and avoids a preachy, overbearing tone in favor of a sensitive, informative one.

In another review I’ve written this month on a book promoting the vegetarian lifestyle, I’m not nearly as praiseful. The books share primarily the same messages—that eating animals is morally shady and bad for the environment—but the book for adults tends to alienate and divide, as if putting meat-eaters and vegetarians on opposing sides of a war, while the children’s book emphasizes the connectedness of living things. Whether or not the children ingest the other moral and environmental messages of the book, that one message trumps all.

Written by: Kelly Palka Gallagher, March 27th 2010

Soap Sampler & Solid Body Lotion

admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Soap Lady Oregon

I discovered Soap Lady Oregon products at—of all places—a chocolate festival in Portland, Oregon. While the products obviously aren't edible, they smelled better—and had healthier ingredients—than many of the food products that my partner and I sampled at the event.

I believe you can vote with your pocketbook, and it was nice to know that the company uses all-natural, vegan and cruelty-free ingredients. Their mission is actually to provide non-toxic products with no preservatives, and they go one step further by listing all of their ingredients on the company's website. This is especially handy if you have any known allergies or have particularly sensitive skin.

In addition, there's the satisfaction of supporting a women-owned small business. Still not enough reasons to try their soap? There's the absolutely soothing experience of using the products themselves.

At just $6, the soap sampler gift box features four travel-sized, yummy-smelling soaps: rose, spice, tea tree, and calendula lavender. Despite their small size, each soap lasted several days in my shower, which is no small feat considering that my partner has a woodworking hobby and I have a workout fetish. The scents were spicy and natural but not overpowering or perfume-y, and they were, for lack of a better word, soft. I can't wait to try some of the sweeter scents, like sweet vanilla and peppermint swirl. A full-size, five ounce bar is $4.50.

At $2.50, the solid body lotion was even more of a steal. Just a tiny bit of this citrus-scented lotion goes a long way, and it will last awhile, even if you work in a job that requires frequent hand washing (or are a compulsive hand washer like me.)

If you're looking for some TLC and inexpensive luxury, this is the place to find it.

Written by: M.L. Madison, March 7th 2010

Winter Wonderfuls: Dark Chocolate Crunchy Peanut Butter Snowmen

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Sjaaks Organic Chocolates

I finished the last Dark Chocolate Crunchy Peanut Butter Snowman on the wintriest day in Atlanta. Anyone who is familiar with the city and its weather knows that snow covered roofs, cars, trees, and streets meant a snow day for hundreds of thousands of adults and kids alike. So it was one of those rare and perfect days to stay in and enjoy a chocolate-y treat!

Originally, I was a bit perplexed to find a box of nine little, white, individually wrapped, peanut butter snowmen waiting to be consumed. Crunchy peanut butter chocolate didn’t strike me as festive, and the snowmen looked like they were in costume for Halloween, but the box's homemade graphic appeal and the ease with which the snowmen could be shared won me over.

More importantly, and always exciting when it comes to edible indulgences, is that Sjaak’s chocolates are certified organic and fair trade. They also have a great selection of vegan products that would make anyone’s mouth water. It’s worth visiting Sjaak’s website, not only for its visual delight but also for its history and socially responsible mission.

As for the chocolate itself, I had mixed feelings. While the crunchy peanut butter filling delivered on the crunchiness, it wasn’t as flavorful as I’d hoped. It was also kind of slim because of the thick chocolate coating. Then again, the chocolate was the real winner, with a somewhat fudge-y, smooth taste and feel.

While the Winter Wonderfuls wouldn’t be at the top of my holiday wish list, they were a great introduction to Sjaak’s Organic Chocolates. Anyone who has a taste for organic, vegan-friendly chocolate should exploring the rest of their products. (They even have dark chocolate lavender truffles!)

Written by: Irene Wazgowska, February 1st 2010

Another Dinner is Possible: Recipes and Food For Thought

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Mike and Isy

AK Press

My interest in vegetables is quite young; around a year and half. Since this new found vegetarian interest, I’ve been looking out for recipes which are quick and involve simple ingredients so that I don’t have to run around super-market looking for all those hard to pronounce spices.

At first glance, I must confess that I was disappointed with Mike and Isy’s Another Dinner Is Possible. This spiral bound, black and white printed pages, with articles on food fights and how peak oil affects our food culture, was offbeat to the conventional cookbook where one would find glossy pages with colorful pictures of dishes which tempt you to eat off from the pages. But as I browsed through it, I was enticed by “encyclopedia” of recipes—simple and quick. Exactly what I was looking for.

Another Dinner is Possible is not just a cook book. It’s the style of living for Mike and Isy who volunteer with the Anarchist Teapot Mobile Kitchen, which has cooked for various events including the Earth First Summit gatherings. They cook organic GM-free food and also run a vegan Crowley café. Any surplus money from sales of this book will be donated to Brighton Anarchist Black Cross Prisoner Support.

With more than 250 recipes, this book is divided into chapters on soups, main courses, side dishes, salads, sauces, snacks, sweets, bread, and preserving. This includes a variety of vegetable burgers and recipes for international cuisines. For instance, a chapter is dedicated for Korean dishes with notes on Korean cooking and ingredients. It was interesting to know that Korean food has such versatile vegetarian options. There is also a chapter explaining procedures of brewing beers, wines, and ciders at home.

This is a no-frill book, recipes are easy to cook with minimum ingredients, the directions are straight forward, measurements are exact, and yet flexible enough to tweak in your favorite ingredients. Since most of the recipes do not ask for elaborate cooking, the taste of vegetables and its texture is retained, which I consider to be justice to the dish and to our stomach. Recipes in this book are intended to serve six unlike four in most of the cook book so as to emphasize on the more economical way of cooking.

In short, Another Dinner Is Possible is cooking simplified. Towards the end of the book, there are articles on seasonal foods, how to reduce food wastage, tips on cooking for 100 plus people. Yes, it is a practical cookbook by practical people who are not dazzled by global capitalism and connect with the food they cook and eat. I have tried a few recipes from the book like fridge cake, potato stir fry, Borscht, and found it excellent. If you love to cook good food, this book is a keeper. It will be the cookbook I will be using over and over.

Review by Sunitha Jayan

Written by: Sunitha Jayan, January 25th 2010

Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: 100 Dairy-Free Recipes for Everyone's Favorite Treats

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Terry Hope Romero

Da Capo Press

Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar is a tasty new book by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. It looks so good I’m tempted to eat it, Cookie Monster-style, but then I wouldn’t be able to follow the recipes. I felt the same way about the authors’ earlier book, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World when we received it as a wedding present. I was pretty sure their cookies would be as amazingly delicious as their cupcakes had been, and I was right.

Now, a short side note here, for transparency: As far as my cooking expertise goes, I can make salad, and I can make sandwiches. (I’m particularly good at slicing sandwiches into triangles.) Whenever I try anything more complex, I tend to either get carried away with details (gingerbread mansion of December 2003 rings a bell) or simply wander away and let pots boil over or toasters go up in flames. (Yes, I consider making toast cooking...) So when it came time to try out these cookie recipes, I asked my wife Sarah Thomasin, baker to the stars (well, the stars of the zine-writing, Ladyfest gigging, performance poet scene, anyway) to do the honors.

This book has a great introductory chapter that even I understood, with basics like the difference between regular and all-purpose flour (which I’d always wondered about) plus more specific stuff (like the tools they use to make those cool star-shaped cookies at the bakery). A list of vegan ingredients and where to find them is helpful, and there’s a handy food substitutions section for people who haven’t got the time, money, or inclination to get the specialty stuff. The recipes themselves are very clearly explained and illustrated in full color with what I can only call… cookie porn.

Feminist? Much mainstream media urges women to be skinny at any cost, so it’s pleasing to see a book on the shelves that role-models cooking and eating for pleasure (albeit sensibly, with healthy options throughout the book, and warnings about hydrogenated oils and trans-fats).

Now, to the cookies. Sarah jumped right in to the Fancy Cookies section at the back, and made Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows. Her version didn’t look like the cute, fluffy Cinderella’s-glass-slipper style cushion in the book, but wow did they taste like a fairytale with a chocolate outer layer and a mouthful of melted, sweetened peanut butter inside. While visiting New York for the holidays, we took the cookies to my sister’s boyfriend’s house on Christmas Eve, and another batch to my cousins’ for Christmas Day. For the uninitiated, New York Italian Christmas dessert spreads are heart-stoppingly indulgent, and these friends and relatives were, um, not vegan, so this is major deep-end road-testing here. The verdict? Awesome and fought-over by hardcore carnivores who held them on a par with the coveted home-made struffoli.

One success behind us, we tried an easier recipe: Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles. (Okay, we’ll admit it—we wanted to make these because the word snickerdoodle sounded like a silly innuendo.) The cookies were fantastic, and they looked exactly like the ones in the picture on Moskowitz’s and Romero’s website and in their book. They were easy to make and included the palate-friendly contrasting flavors of chocolate and chilli. We took some as holiday gifts later on in our trip, and, again, our non-vegan friends were shocked there weren’t any animals in there. Even a friend's older brother, a former marine-turned-butcher, has been turned onto these vegan delights.

So the taste tests were deemed a success. We can’t wait to try Moskowitz’s and Romero’s other recipes, like their take on the traditional NYC Black and White Cookies and the Ooh La Las (vegan sandwich cookies). I’m not vegan, but I don’t eat milk products, so this book is excellent for me. The cookies were much better than store-bought vegan cookies, and tasted better, too. I totally recommend it.

Written by: Chella Quint, January 21st 2010