Seth Tibbott is one of the most persistent people in the natural foods industry. While many companies have sold to big conglomerates, Turtle Island Foods remains independently owned by a true original, complete with the ethics to match. You are going to love this man after you finish the interview. Be sure to check out the Giveaway Seth is generously offering to our Sweet Talk readers! Allison Rivers Samson: You and I first met when I started my business in 1997. You generously invited me to your factory, and I was duly impressed! Having been a fan of your tempeh and especially SuperBurgers, I was so excited to see all the fancy equipment in your production facility and have one of my first tastes of seeing manufacturing on a large scale. I imagine that by today’s comparison, that plant was tiny! You were so kind and shared fascinating stories of the early days of making tempeh and now Turtle Island has been around for over 30 years! What first inspired you to create your business? Did you ever imagine it would grow into what it is today?  Seth Tibbott: In 1980 I was a teacher naturalist working with some friends trying to start our own outdoor school. We were dirt poor, and I decided to start a tempeh business to help finance our dreams. I was also a “true vegetarian” (aka “vegan”) and was experimenting with various soy products because my mom kept bugging me about my protein. I had seen yogurt and granola make the move from products you pretty much had to make at home to products with major shelf presence in the supermarkets of the world. I thought tempeh would make the same move and that I could make money to both support myself in a simple way and help promote environmental dreams too. I never in my wildest dreams considered it would grow into such an iconic brand.

ARS: An iconic brand indeed! During the early years, you put a lot into your business and actually lived in a treehouse for some time! Will you share more about that experience? ST: For the first 15 years in business we were not profitable. I thought of quitting many times. I was only able to take home about $300 a month on average for all those years. In order to survive I had to live cheaply. So, I rented 4 trees from a neighbor of the tempeh shop in Husum, WA. Rent on the trees was $25 a month, and I built a 3 story 200 square feet house in the trees. It had a wood stove, running water, fridge, gas cookstove, telephone and a treehouse peehouse. Flying squirrels would often wake me up in the middle of the night landing on the cedar shingles. I lived there for 8 years, and it allowed me to live simply but with all my basic needs met. It was fun and humbling and allowed me to survive those financially lean years. ARS: Wow! What a unique experience. As you know, meat consumption has been on the decline in the U.S. (yay!) Owning a company that is largely responsible for offering the alternatives that allow people to take action on the health information they learn must feel very gratifying! What do you think is prompting this decline at this time, and how can we make it last? ST: I think meat consumption is declining as people slowly wake up to the facts that meat is bad for the body, bad for the environment and is horrible in its treatment of animals. As more and more information surfaces on how animals are treated in the factory farm system, it is harder and harder for people to ignore. It used to be that the most common reason people ate less meat was for personal health reasons. Now I think the treatment of animals is perhaps just as important to people. ARS: People are becoming more aware of the problems with genetically modified foods. You have always held a strong commitment to keeping all of your products gmo-free (as do I!). What challenges does your business face by making the commitment to avoid gmos? ST: Some manufacturers of the vegan flavors and extracts that we use are reluctant to divulge information that they feel is proprietary. Also, the cross contamination from gmos throughout the food chain makes it important to be vigilant even with organic ingredients. ARS: I remember when we were first protesting the introduction of GMOs back in 1998. It’s frightening how quickly they infiltrated our food supply and that there’s no real end in sight yet. For the past three years, you have been planning and building your new Tofurky production plant, which is the second LEED (Leadership in Environmental Engineering and Design) Platinum Certified food plant in the US. How exciting! Give us the juicy details on your upcoming Grand Opening celebration. ST: From September 6-8, 2013 we will be holding a series of events to celebrate the grand opening of our new LEED Platinum Tofurky production plant.  A full schedule and registration form is available at www.tofurky.com/tofurkyfest. Highlights include:Friday: golf tournament, rafting, nature hikes, tours of the Columbia Gorge, night cocktail party and historical talk on the Lewis and Clark Expedition Saturday: plant tours; bocce tournament on the green roof of new plant; Tofurky Fest with free tofurky hot dogs, a dessert bar with Allison’s Gourmet brownies and So Delicious vegan ice creams, vegan food and craft booths, non profit tabling, music and beer; cooking classes with Miyoko Schinner and other top vegan chefs (like you, Allison!); disc golf tournament, banquet with speakers, dancing with the Tofurkys. Sunday: 5K Tofurky trot We are certainly celebrating 32 years of business as a company but also spotlighting the Vegan Community and how far we all have come! Hotel discounts and camping info are included on website.  For more info contact Info@tofurky.com. Come celebrate with us!

ARS: I can’t wait! Tofurky was the product that really propelled Turtle Island Foods to the next level. Is this the favorite of your creations?  ST: Tofurky has been a lot of fun to market.  It marked a major change in our marketing which up to that point had been pretty plain. Tofurky was able to make people smile, and we animals love to smile (and laugh too). You forget a lot of things, but you remember what made you smile. It was the perfect representation of who I was at heart. That said, I still love tempeh and the fermentation process involved.

ARS: Your tempeh is my very favorite of the varieties sold in stores and as an occasional treat, I enjoy hickory smoked Tofurky slices to satisfy a hankering for smoky saltiness! You’ve been a supporter of Allison’s Gourmet since our early days. Do you have a favorite product?  ST: Brownies!!!!!!!!!

And now for the GIVEAWAY! The prize: a Tofurky lunchbox with a Tofurky t-shirt and 4 VIP coupons for Tofurky products! Here’s the question: What is the #1 reason you are eating less (or no) meat? Is it for:   A. Personal health B. Environmental reasons C. Treatment of animals Please post answers below, on our blog!

It seems fitting that the Vida Vegan Conference be held in Portland, Oregon, a city often esteemed by many as the “Vegan Mecca” of the United States. If you’re lucky enough to be attending this amazing conference (Allison will be there… introduce yourself, she’d love to meet you!), be sure to make time to stop by some of Portland’s finest vegan gems! From Food Fight! grocery store to Herbivore Clothing and even vegan real estate brokers that will sponsor an animal for you with purchase of a house, Portland is brimming with vegan finds! And I haven’t even mentioned the food yet.

Here’s just a portion of all the vegan food spots Portland has to offer:

Back to Eden Bakery
2217 NE Alberta St (503)477-5052
Vegan bakery serving soft serve ice cream!

Blossoming Lotus
1713 NE 15th Ave (503)228-0048
We’ve heard their Sunday brunch is amazing.

Bye and Bye
1011 NE Alberta St (503)281-0537
An all vegan bar.

Homegrown Smoker Natural BBQ
SW 4th & College
Deep-friend oreos, mac n’ cheese and other vegan comfort foods.

Native Foods
7237 SW Bridgeport Rd (Tigard) (503)968-9999
A vegan restaurant chain that has been expanding rapidly across the country!

Portobello Vegan Trattoria
1125 SE Division St (503)754-5993
All vegan Italian food.

SweetPea Baking Co.
1205 SE Stark St (503)477-5916
All vegan bakery and coffee shop. Original gangsta and our neighbors in the Mini Mall. Get down here and eat something.

Check out VegGuide for a more complete list.

 Live in Portland? Please leave a comment below letting us know what your favorite restaurant or dish is!

Print Recipe

Sugar-Free Coconut Almond Granola Bars

By Allison Rivers Samson

Makes 12 bars

Dry Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups regular rolled oats
1 cup chopped almonds
3/4 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
1/2 cup oat bran
1/4 cup raw, shelled pumpkin seeds

Add-ins:
1/4 cup flax meal
3/4 cup chopped dried fruit (cranberries, currants, apricots, or any fruit you like)

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup coconut sugar
2 tablespoons coconut butter
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a 9×9 inch pan with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, toss together dry ingredients. Spread into the pan and toast 10-15 minutes or until it just starts to be fragrant. Remove from oven, stir in flax meal and fruit and set aside.

2. Into a medium saucepan, combine wet ingredients and warm over medium heat, stirring until coconut sugar is dissolved. Add dry ingredients and add-ins to saucepan and mix completely.

3. Into the prepared pan, evenly spread the granola bar mixture. Place another sheet of parchment on top of the mixture and press down firmly and evenly. Remove the top sheet of parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes.

4. Cool completely and lift the parchment paper and baked granola bars from the pan. Cut into 12 pieces and store in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

 

Recipe created by Allison Rivers Samson, Maven of Mmmm…
at www.AllisonsGourmet.com

Check out more of Allison’s recipes on our website, here. If you make any we’d love to see some pics, so feel free to post them to our Facebook or Twitter pages!

It’s hard to believe it’s already here, but Mother’s Day is this weekend!

Do you have a gift picked out yet for Mom? It’s hard to find a mom who doesn’t love chocolates, and this is also the last week to order Allison’s Gourmet organic, vegan Mother’s Day chocolates for on-time delivery by Sunday!

Order today to guarantee that we’ll be able to ship your fudge, caramels or other treats in time without incurring added costs for expedited shipping!

This year we brought back last year’s favorite perennial flavors, Chocolate Rose Caramels and Salted Lavender Caramels, and we’ve paired them with buttery vegan toffee in a new Mother’s Day Gift Set available now.

Or, choose from our classic fudge flavors, brownies, caramels, toffee, and more!

From all of us at Allison’s Gourmet, we wish you a wonderful Mother’s Day!

Gena Hamshaw, a plant-passionate writer, certified clinical nutritionist and aspiring doctor behind Choosing Raw, shares her vegan and raw vegan recipes while pursuing a pre-med post-bacc at Georgetown University. Through her writing and stellar photography skills, Gena offers a fun, down-to-earth approach to healthy eating. Having overcome a personal history of disordered eating, Gena finds inspiration in her own journey and health revolution—and wants to share it with others to help them on their own paths.

Allison Rivers Samson: Tell me about your journey to veganism and how raw foods came into that. How did going vegan help you move from dietary restrictions to choosing healthy, compassionate and nourishing foods?

Gena Hamshaw: Well, veganism first occurred to me when a GI doctor suggested I experiment with eliminating dairy from my diet. I suffered from a really terrible case of IBS, and though I had never been tested for lactose intolerance, he thought it might be helpful. The difference was dramatic, and I resolved nearly right away to cut dairy out of my diet for good. I had already eschewed red meat (I’d essentially stopped eating it as a child), didn’t care for eggs, and ate very little poultry or fish, so from there, it was only a small step to veganism. I had read enough to make me curious, so I decided to try it. It was the best decision I’ve ever made. Later on, I became more engaged with animal rights issues, and today, compassion (rather than health) is the cornerstone of my lifestyle.

The longer story is that I also come from an eating disorder history—nearly thirteen years of anorexia mixed with subclinical disordered behavior. Until I became vegan, I always regarded food as something to be loathed and feared. When I invested my food choices with a respect and awareness for other living beings, I was able to shift the way I thought about eating. It became an avenue to do good—for myself, for animals, for the planet—rather than a means of controlling my body.

ARS: Would you say that you eat raw most of the time? Half the time? What do you love most about eating high raw?

GH: At the start of my raw foods journey, I ate very high raw, maybe 90%. I loved it, but over time, it became a little redundant and limiting. I also started to grow weary of some of the health extremism in raw food circles—the idea that all illness, regardless of its nature, stems from food choices, or the vilification of cooked foods, or misconceptions surrounding the idea of “detox.” Today, I’m more like 60-70% raw, depending on my mood, but I don’t really keep track anymore. It might be 40% one day, simply because that’s what I’m in the mood for.

What I love most about raw food is not the idea that it’s inherently better for me than eating cooked foods, but rather, its aesthetic. I love the textures and tastes and flavors of raw recipes. I love their brightness and simplicity. When I first got into raw foods, I was still really new to cooking, and I had gotten bored of a somewhat monotonous rotation of beans and rice and steamed broccoli. Raw foodism opened me up to new kinds of produce, to bright and fresh vegetable dishes, and it helped me to connect with food more closely than I had before. To this day, I prefer a lot of my vegetables raw, though I prepare them in many different ways in order to get variety.

ARS: You’ve worn a lot of hats: book editor, nutrition counselor and now medical student. What type of medicine do you intend to practice? Has your raw vegan lifestyle inspired your move towards the medical field?

GH: Absolutely! My choice to return to medical school (if I get accepted—I’m only pre-med right now) has everything to do with my lifestyle. Going vegan, and then exploring raw foods, showed me how profoundly food impacts our well-being. So much suffering can be prevented through eating a wholesome and nourishing diet.

At the same time, the origins of disease can’t be reduced to food choices alone. Food is a big part of the answer, but it’s not the whole answer. Once upon a time, especially in my early raw food days, I believed that healthy eating is a surefire solution to all disease, and conversely, that poor eating habits are the cause of all disease. My education has shown me that it’s much more complex than this. I went back to school because I wanted the scientific education and clinical tools necessary to understand disease as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon with many causes.

I hope to specialize in GI medicine. I’ve suffered from digestive illness myself, as do so many of my readers, and it’s what interests me the most. That said, I’m open—anything might capture me when I’m (fingers crossed) doing rotations!

ARS: We met for the first time at a memorable VegNews staff dinner at Portobello during the first Vida Vegan Conference. There was a lot of ooohhing, ahhhing and mmming going on as we savored our delectable dishes and the photos you took of our meal were as gorgeous as everything tasted. Are your exceptional photography skills something you already possessed or was it your love of food that initiated your desire to practice the art of photography?

GH: Oh goodness, thanks! I’m the most amateur of amateur photographers. I don’t really know anything; I’ve just learned by doing. I still don’t do a lot of things (shoot in RAW, edit in Photoshop) that I should. The photos all come from my tremendous love of food, and not the other way around, but I’d love to improve my photography. One day!

ARS: Your website offers an impressive selection of cooked and raw desserts including your recipe for my favorite cookie flavor, Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Do you have a favorite sweet treat?

GH: Dark chocolate. No ifs, ands, or buts.

ARS: What’s your favorite raw vegan recipe to impress omnivores who think you live on lettuce? And what’s a typical daily menu for you?

GH: I love making my black bean and sweet potato enchiladas for people who are really skeptical. If my guest is open to raw foods (a lot of folks aren’t quite ready to eat something cold), then I’ll usually make my cashew alfredo recipe. It’s a crowd pleaser, and I love it, too!

My days tend to vary based on my class schedule and work demands. Breakfast can be a bowl of oats or quinoa with banana and almond butter, or it might be a smoothie or a chia pudding. Lunch is nearly always something salad-like. Favorite toppings and accompaniments are legumes, homemade raw flax crackers, nuts and seeds, or tempeh. Dinner is anyone’s guess! Sometimes it’s a new raw food entrée—I always love experimenting with these. Sometimes it’s a bowl of quinoa with beans and hempseeds and assorted veggies. Sometimes it’s a baked yam with coconut butter and lots of greens. Sometimes it’s a raw kale salad, stuffed with toppings. I always snack throughout the day—green juice, trail mix, raw bars, fruit—and dark chocolate is my dessert of choice. Every day begins with organic, fair trade coffee.

ARS: Got a favorite Allison’s Gourmet sweet, or one you’d most love to try?

GH: I’ve tasted your brownies, and they are to die for. I’d love to try some of the confections. The caramels and toffee in particular are calling my name!

I’m sure we can make that happen, Gena! Thank you so much for the fabulous opportunity to chat. =)

Now, I’d love to hear from you… do you incorporate raw foods into your diet? If so, what are your favorites and does the percentage vary with the seasons?

We can’t wait to share our elegant vegan gifts with the strong, kind and spirited women in your life, whether they’re mothers, aunts, sisters, or friends.

Mother’s Day falls on Sunday, May 12th this year, which means this is the perfect time to order. Sweet gifts ordered today through this weekend will be shipped for delivery later next week, just in time for your special mom’s day plans.

Have you ever tasted French Onion Soup? What are your memories associated with it? Before going vegan, I had never tried it. Something about all those onions just put me off as a kid. Now, I love it!

While the temperature may be creeping up, this French Onion Soup is never out of season. Relying heavily on the ever-important ingredient, TIME, to perfectly caramelize the onions makes all the difference with this recipe. Seriously, don’t rush it–your taste buds will thank you!

Print Recipe

French Onion Soup

By Allison Rivers Samson

Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unflavored coconut oil
4 cups quartered and thinly sliced yellow onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon garlic, minced
4 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup tamari
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons vegan Worcestershire sauce
1/8 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon arrowroot
1 loaf French bread
2/3 cup meltable shredded vegan mozzarella
4 sprigs Italian parsley

Directions:
1. In a large stockpot over medium heat, add oil and a layer of onions, and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Repeat layering onions and salt until all the onions are in the pan, and allow to sweat for 15 minutes. Continue to cook for another 90 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions have turned a dark, rich brown. You might be tempted to rush this step. Don’t—it’s critical.

2. Increase the heat to medium-high and pour wine over onions, stirring as it reduces to a syrupy consistency. Add thyme, bay leaves, and garlic. Add broth and bring to a boil.

3. In a small bowl, combine tamari, vinegar, Worcestershire, mustard, and arrowroot and then stir into the onions. Reduce heat to low-medium, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

4. When ready to serve, cut bread into large rounds that just fit inside your soup bowls. Sprinkle vegan cheese onto each slice of bread and place on a sheet pan under a broiler to melt. Ladle soup into bowls and top with cheese-topped bread. Garnish with a sprig of parsley.

 

Recipe created by Allison Rivers Samson, Maven of Mmmm… 
at www.AllisonsGourmet.com. 
Originally printed in her award-winning column, ‘Veganize It!’ in VegNews Magazine.

The first step is to get all those onions chopped!

Perfectly caramelized onions are key to bringing out the deep flavors of the soup.

Almost ready.

The finished product topped with French bread and melted vegan cheese. Serve and enjoy!

Special gratitude to Melanie Daponte of Vegan Flavorista for her gorgeous photos.

Now we’d like to hear from you! Have you ever had French Onion Soup? If so, what’s your favorite part about it? If not, why not?

Being vegan is one of the most important celebrations of Mother’s Day for me. By choosing this lifestyle, I avoid consuming milk and veal, both heart-breaking products of the dairy industry. Many people are surprised to learn that you can’t have one without the other.

Living compassionately prevents the suffering of millions of mothers from the agony of having their babies torn away from them when they’re just hours or days old just so that I can drink their milk or eat their babies’ flesh.

Kim Sturla with my daughter Olivia, and Suzie, the sweetest pig ever! From Animal Place

Once I became a mother, I noticed being more deeply affected by the exceptional cruelty inherent in the dairy industry. It abuses mothers and their offspring in horrific and often unrecognized ways.

Cows are strong, maternal creatures who form lasting bonds with their herd-mates and especially their babies. Mother cows cry, scream and have even been known to charge through barbed wire fences when their babies are taken from them, often to be killed for veal, if they are male or to be exploited for dairy, the same as their mothers if they are female.

As a mother who nursed her daughter, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have my daughter ripped away from me just after birth and to have machines sucking out my milk to give to someone other than my daughter, for whom my milk was custom-made.

The pain must feel absolutely unbearable. Imagine they go through that over and over again throughout their lives.

Cows aren’t the only mothers who suffer in factory farming.

Sows are bred repeatedly and often housed in gestation crates so small they cannot turn around or even take a step in any direction, and their babies, too, are taken away from them shortly after birth and will be killed for meat only 6 months later.

Female chickens have had their reproductive systems completely hijacked by the egg industry which has bred them to make far more eggs than their bodies would naturally, depleting their bones of calcium and giving rise to a whole host of painful health problems.

On top of that, they are crammed into cages so small they cannot turn around or stretch their wings, and when their egg production slows they are starved for up to two weeks to force their bodies into creating more eggs. For the true stories of chickens rescued from starvation and abandonment at a Turlock, California egg farm, click here.

Bring compassion to your Mother’s Day and Go Vegan to support mothers and babies of all species. Happy Mother’s Day on behalf of mothers everywhere.

Now, I’d like to hear from you! How do you celebrate Mother’s Day?

On this day 43 years ago, 20 million Americans participated in rallies, demonstrations and events to promote the idea that we need to take action to preserve the environment in which we all live. Thousands of colleges and universities from coast-to-coast held protests against pollution, oil spills, pesticides, habitat loss and other environmentally destructive activities.

The first Earth Day was a rare achievement for the environmental movement–and is considered by some to mark the beginning of the movement itself. The day found support from all sides of the political spectrum from Democrats to Republicans,  rich and poor, and blue collar and white collar workers.

Following Earth Day in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency formed, and the Clean Air, Clean Water act passed.

Today, 43 years later, Earth Day still reminds us to reexamine our treatment of this planet we all call home.

While we can all make small changes in our lives such as recycling and consuming less, one of the most effective changes we can make in our own lives to protect the environment is to go vegan.

Nine billion land animals are raised and killed for food each year in the U.S. Nine BILLION. And animal agriculture requires massive amounts of resources–land, food, water and energy.

Recent studies have warned of the harmful effects animal products have on the environment. A United Nations report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, calls meat “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.”

Water use is one of these serious environmental problems. According to an article by the World Watch Institute, “The standard diet of a person in the United States requires 4,200 gallons of water per day (for animals’ drinking water, irrigation of crops, processing, washing, cooking, etc.). A person on a vegan diet requires only 300 gallons a day.”

Global meat and dairy consumption are unfortunately expected to double within the next 50 years. With the world’s growing population, it will become increasingly difficult to provide clean water and food for everyone, especially considering the inefficient distribution of resources caused by factory farming.

As a result of this expectation, the world’s leading scientists are urging people to eat less meat. Scientists!

So this Earth Day, if you’re looking to make a significant difference for the planet, give vegan eating a try. You might be surprised by how you won’t be “giving up” anything, rather, you’ll be exploring tastes and flavors you might have never knew existed! Here are some of Allison’s vegan recipes omnis love to get you started.

How lucky we all are in the animal movement to have someone like Lee Hall on our side! Lee has been active in animal advocacy for nearly 30 years. Lee’s dedication and wisdom bring a unique perspective to the movement, often bringing into the discussion ideas about tailoring animal rights or welfare to fit with the respective animal—an idea that reminds us all that we need to respect all individuals who are working to make the world a kinder place for animals to live in.  Lee currently serves as Vice President of Legal Affairs for Friends of Animals, an international animal advocacy organization that focuses on ending animal exploitation and cruelty.

Allison Rivers Samson: Lee, you are a dynamo for animal rights! For our readers who haven’t read your books, will you share a brief overview of where you stand on the basic animal rights issues?

Lee Hall: After being part of the movement for most of my life, and even teaching animal law, it occurred to me that the way we talk about animal rights lacks an important detail: it doesn’t fit all animals.

Some animals can’t have rights, and we need to know this. We’re not going to liberate the cows. They need us to do one thing: look after their welfare.

For years, animal-rights people poo-poohed the idea of animal welfare, saying you can’t do both. For one advocate to call another advocate a welfarist was the supreme insult. I hope my work is changing this, as many animals are dependent on us and what do we do for them if not provide for their welfare? This is different from supporting industries—grocers, “local” ranchers—that usurp the word welfare. It’s our word. Let’s take it back. Rescuers are very much involved in animal welfare, and there’s no shame in that.

Animal rights can only be discussed with a straight face about the animals we haven’t made dependent on us. It applies to free-living animals. Freedom is its core.

So we care about all animals: but we acknowledge that the work we do is quite different for animal rights and animal welfare. This might sound like an academic exercise, but it’s a matter of respect for one another and our work.

ARS: I appreciate that expanded perspective. Your latest book, On Their Own Terms, differentiates between wild and purpose-bred animals, arguing that we need to protect the right of self-ownership for free-living animals and care ethically for domesticated ones. In your perfect world, would domesticated animals and companion animals eventually cease to exist?

LH: Certainly we wouldn’t be purpose-breeding farm animals. And are cats, dogs, rabbits, fish and birds, hamsters and snakes really our “companions”? We rob the planet’s free animals of their survival skills when we selectively breed them to live with us. We ourselves take “animal rights” away when we promote and defend breeds (and yes, this includes pit bull terriers). This has been a taboo subject in advocacy for way too long.

ARS: How did you come to veganism and animal advocacy? Tell me about your journey.

LH: Thirty years ago this year, I picked up a leaflet placed on my seat at a rock concert. The holidays were approaching, and the leaflet explained how turkeys and geese were about to lose their lives for the festive tradition, how puppies would appear under trees like toys and often be discarded in the months to follow, how the fur industry profited from the occasion, and many other things I must have always known but never noticed.

Who would come to a concert and put these leaflets on every seat?  I had to know. And so I found a lifetime friend: Robin Lane, the first person to explain to me what vegan means.

I was a young person, without any material assets. Maybe that’s why I could listen.

When I had no other available means of activism, I could bring a vegan meal to my co-workers. None turned up their noses at biscuits and chili, or fresh samosas with mint-coriander chutney! Our freight and baggage department became known as a place where harassment was absent and people treated each other kindly. I’m not sure if that was because we were sharing food, or because the food was vegan. In any case, little by little, others started to read recipes and make dishes to share.

Years later I’d have an opportunity to contribute to a vegan cookbook: Dining With Friends: The Art of North American Vegan Cuisine, from Friends of Animals.

ARS: It does seem that youth coupled with lack of material assets can sometimes allow the possibility for a greater ability to hear the animal rights message. You encourage animal activists to consider the effects that all human actions have on animals, both domestic and free-living. What are some human actions that affect animals in ways that might be surprising to some people? 

LH: The people of Philadelphia Advocates for the Deer have explained how the ordinary decision to put a fence up can be terrible for deer. Those fancy spiked fences lead to the most terrible injuries when they can’t jump over them. Property owners might think twice about whether they need a fence.

ARS: Veganism is central to your animal advocacy work and not just because the meat and dairy industries exploit and kill animals. What role do you see veganism playing in the larger animal rights struggle?

LH: The animals trapped in those industries matter and their situation is unconscionable. But we short-change ourselves when we argue that monitoring or improving those industries will lead to animal rights.

We’re given a certain time on the planet. Let’s think big. Where is the movement that gets us ready to be part of the bio-community rather than in charge of it? We are that movement. Everything from the climate to the extinction rate is telling us the time has come to talk about this larger challenge.

ARS: Indeed, what is our purpose if not to better our impact on the planet and with each other? You and I first “met” online through a mutual friend and then I had the pleasure of meeting you in person at Vegetarian Summerfest in 2012. You greatly inspired me and I was so excited and honored to learn that you are a fan of Allison’s Gourmet. =) Do you have a favorite AG goodie? And how do our values fit with yours?

LH: I like your gift boxes of cookies and brownies, with wonderful ingredients: organic pumpkin in the Pumpkin Cookies, organic blackstrap molasses in your Gingerbread Spice Cookies…for elegant gifts, when lovely packaging is expected. How great to give sweets that won’t compromise anyone’s health or values! Every time a recipient sees “fair trade” on a label, we encourage social justice and kindness. If I can pay extra for that I will.

I appreciate your attention to recycling, to your clients’ health, and to vegan principles. Really, those are all vegan principles. Well done!

ARS: Lee, thank you so much for holding a greater vision on behalf of animals, which includes humans. It is true that we are all connected in the Web of Life and that what we do to another, we do to ourselves.

Now, I’d like to hear from YOU… I know that you do something every day to contribute to a better world. Please share in the comments below what those are so we can all inspire one other!