http://www.supervegan.com/ SuperVegan.com has the best guide to New York City restaurants and a comprehensive vegan link directory. Our vegan blog is updated regularly with the latest news and commentary. en-us Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:33:24 -0500 Copyright 2007 SuperVegan http://www.supervegan.com/images/minicon.gif http://www.supervegan.com/ 16 16 SuperVeganCommentshttp://feedburner.google.comSubscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with Pageflakes
[Read SV Interview: The Dudes of Daiya - Andre Kroecher and Greg Blake| More from wangshumei] ]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:37:21 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
Of course, no one would be forced to kill their neonate, but only if they wanted to, and I can't say it'd effect me personally one bit if some couple wanted to kill their newborn or even donate it science, just ike a woman getting an abortion doesn't.

[Read Singer gives the okay to kill disabled babies.] ]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:38:52 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
It's my impression that the vast majority of the groceries that LI FNB redistributes are donated overstock and/or recently past due items that the grocery stores can't keep on their shelves.

[Read L.I. Food Not Bombs Gets SuperSized with 2,000 lbs. of Vegan Whipped Cream| More from debya] ]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:36:22 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
They'll do our dumpster diving for us? Now that's service!

But the Soyatoo was explicitly donated rather than trash-picked, right?

[Read L.I. Food Not Bombs Gets SuperSized with 2,000 lbs. of Vegan Whipped Cream| More from Jason Das] ]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:01:11 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read L.I. Food Not Bombs Gets SuperSized with 2,000 lbs. of Vegan Whipped Cream] ]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:04:03 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments) http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31005&id=1634587804

[Read Veggie Conquest III: Yes We Cran!| More from Roseann Marulli] ]]> Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:42:14 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read Veggie Conquest III: Yes We Cran!| More from Jason Das] ]]> Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:04:11 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read Farewell, Madras Café| More from Jason Das] ]]> Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:47:51 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
Now the dosas are VEGAN right????

Just asking because I did see a woman walk in with groceries for the place and swore I saw a dozen eggs. I didn't know what else eggs would be in but I wanted to confirm with you all that they are vegan dosas??

I thought everything was vegan unless marked with D or something??

Love the place..............

[Read Farewell, Madras Café| More from bandogirl] ]]> Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:44:39 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
The New Yorker had a good book review on "Eating Animals" which ended with "Vegetarianism asks people to give up real and irreplaceable pleasures. And to his credit Foer isn't afraid to ask."

But all pleasures are real and irreplaceable to some extent and subjective and replaceable to another. And our tastes do shift. I used to love eating meat, it was a complete pleasure for me to suck on saucy ribs and pull the fragments of flesh off the bones, but even typing that now makes me gag. Its easy to replace your pleasures, if you are willing to do so.

And besides, there are plenty of things we all crave we can't have. Why is a craving so special? Its a short-term physical or emotional pull that may feel strong in the instance, but it passes. No one says that you should give into your craving to buy something you can't afford, so why is meat any different? You have to balance the short term craving against long term commitments. Those long term commitments are what makes us who we are. I am organized as a vegan. It is what gives my life its structure. I have vegan friends, I read vegan literature, I go to vegan restaurants, I eat amazing vegan food, I make every decision in function of it - where to shop, what to wear or carry or drive. And its because I am committed to something and that is a compassionate world that works for every being in it. How can that not trump a slice of cheese?

Our whole consumerist culture is about "spend to satisfy your cravings." And so we think that cravings mean something. They don't. We have no understanding of "need" versus "want." Another problem with cravings is because they aren't really real - they are quickly satisfied and the next thing pops up. So you bought those shiny red boots. Two days later, they are in your closet and the next pair of boots beckons. And so you are focused so hard on what you don't have that you don't bother to see all that you do. And you only ever see yourself. Even when you look at others its always through the prism of yourself and your needs.

[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?] ]]> Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:24:35 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
one - he was famous before this book, and it's not his vegetarianism that is getting him attention. so it's not really fair to compare his notoriety to less well known vegan writers as if he's exploiting vegetarianism.

two - a lot of people struggle with their food choices. there are a lot of reasons people eat what they eat -before- they start considering ethics. a lot of us have to work through those things before we can go all the way. seeing that you can struggle, lapse and still eventually -be- vegan (which he seems to be implying is his goal), is important for people at large. i know too many folks who broke down and ate something and decided to just give up on the whole thing.

and the last thing i want to mention is, so far as i can tell, this book is totally unreadable. i guess there is a certain literary audience for it, but it's certainly not going to be terribly influential.

[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?| More from al oof] ]]> Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:46:11 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read Farewell, Madras Café| More from Sam C] ]]> Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:33:14 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
beanmail said
"Ultimately, the problem with all the media buzz about someone like JSF is that it makes omnivores feel better about themselves just for "knowing" this information, rather than doing anything about it. Next week they'll be trying out Michael Pollan's holiday lamb recipe."

Yes.

As for Foer's transitioning. My gut reaction is that if he's still trying to get his shit straight, perhaps he shouldn't have written a book on the subject. He could be vegan tomorrow or maybe swing to humane meat if he becomes one of those "veganism is too hard so I eat grass fed-beef" types. So pardon me if I'm not ready to throw in with Foer, he's just not saying the sort of things that makes me think that he's has the makings of a long term vegan especially when he's not even vegan yet.

He's a smart guy and has done plenty of recent research (mostly on factory farming), but I'm bracing myself for when he says something stupid, we all do, but he's representing all vegetarians in a public way, so it matters. He lacks long term experience as a vegan (though, arguably his naivet� is probably an asset, but it can work against vegans very quickly).

He's delivering the same age old confusing message of "it's the cruelty, not the use" that on the surface seems reasonable, but is the antithesis of the vegan position. It may be politically comfortable, and perhaps a few people will go vegan, but it still keeps this vegan idea as fringe.

I'm not hating on Foer, I purchased his book and I appreciate his approach, love the Michael Pollan retorts, loved that he touched on linked oppressions (important!), loved the world table metaphor he presented at the end of the book and many other ways of his phrasing the issues. I agree that the exposure he's getting is a good, but it's important to remember that his book isn't advocating veganism. I'd go so far as to say that he makes going vegetarian seem difficult and restrictive and that doesn't bode well for us vegans. Once again, he's a vegetarian author that holds up a symbolic "out," by offering small farm produced animal foods as okay. He goes back and forth on this, but overall, he gives humane meat a thumbs up. We even meet a vegetarian cattle rancher who raises animals to be slaughtered, but it's okay since it's the right way to exploit animals.

randomkindness said
"my god, some vegans are the worst nightmare of veganism. i rather have "half assed" people who have an impact than "the right kind of vegans" who just put people of with their purity and self-righteousness. when will we learn?"

Last I checked this was SuperVegan not SuperVegetarain or SuperSmallFarms so sorry if I dare comment on the scope of veganism in regards to an authors work.

joshivore said
"we're going to have a hard time growing this community if people we agree almost entirely with and are reaching countless people are called "posers" and are just not good enough for us."

But I don't agree almost entirely and since a major point I disagree on, is a big one. Everybody (vegan and non-vegan) thinks factory farming is horrible and stupid. All those people certainly don't grow the vegan community, political allies sure, but that's about it. Foer (or anyone else) is more than welcome into this vegan community (whatever it is exactly) but he needs to, you know, be vegan. He certainly isn't eligible for Vegan of The Year, he's not even eligible for Vegan Rookie of the Year, since he's in a different league called Vegetarianism.

Personally, while it's nice to shoot the shit on the Internet with other vegans I don't need a community for me to do what I've decided is the obvious thing to do, like Foer seems to have done, but then again hasn't quite done. I live in the same city he does, the diet part of being vegan just isn't hard, it's hardly worth mentioning it's so easy. Certainly some young vegans in vegan hostile areas could use Internet community support, but Foer is a very educated thirty-something year old living in Park "Vegan Pizza" Slope that has all the facts, he doesn't need any hand-holding.

veglib said
"But it's also bothersome that T. Colin Campbell, who IS vegan, has spent his entire career experimenting on animals. He's no animal rights advocate either."

T. Colin Campbell doesn't typically describe himself as a vegan and makes a point to (correctly) use the phrase whole-foods plant-based diet when describing what he's all about. He's always understood that a plant-based diet and veganism are not synonyms. The animal testing he did was done before he reached his decision to stop consuming animal foods the same way vegans ate meat for years before getting hip to the idea so I'm not sure it's worth picking on that. It's important to remember that while he may eat like a vegan, he may or may not think like one, I'm not so sure that he would be conflicted with using animals in experiments today if he thought the research was worthwhile. However, I've heard in a more candid interview that Campbell has become receptive to vegan ideas over the years, so it's hard to know for sure. Assuming he's not vegan, but just eating a plant-based diet, if he were to be persuaded by some data that meat or milk or eggs or fish or some animal food was indeed beneficial for health, he wouldn't advocate against consuming it, and as a nutritionist and a scientist that just trying to deliver straight advice as he sees it, I wouldn't hold that against him.

I don't consider health advocates of plant-based diets as vegans because we know that nutritional science is complex and is constantly in flux. (Yes, yes, they save animals just the same, I get it.) There's not that much evidence to suggest that veganism is the most optimal diet EVAR, and there's decent evidence to suggest that being vegan is fine and if done appropriately holds certain benefits but there's evidence that animal products once and a while aren't a big deal as far as health is concerned and may even be beneficial as well. It's this reason that Dean Ornish is okay with fish and eggs, going by health data alone fish seems more beneficial than not in helping to reverse heart disease, but Neal Barnard, who is vegan, doesn't go there.

veglib said
"Look, it took me 50 years to commit to being a vegan, after many transitory experiments in veggie living."

It's not your fault. It takes that long because straight forward vegan positions are hard to come by. It's all health and woo, cruelty and suffering, and the very fashionable save the planet jive that never eliminates sources of pollution, only reduces it, so I'm not sure why anyone would expect someone to stop eating meat entirely. All good stuff to build upon, but it's a very rare event when mainstream media has a serious discussion about the unquestioned exploitation of animals.

champurrado said
"So abstaining from animal products alone does not mean that I am not still implicated in the suffering of animals and the destruction of the environment."

Which is why I'm not all rah rah about vegan arguments for health, environment, and suffering. It's all bound up in degree not in the moral questioning of animal exploitation. Song birds dying from pesticide use is an everybody issue, not an exclusive vegan issue. Sure vegans probably care more, but you don't need to be vegan to think that poisoning wildlife with pesticides if you can avoid not doing so is something that should be addressed. Catching or raising songbirds to be sold as pet stores or to use their feathers for hats or whatever is something that takes a vegan mindset to question.

Oh, and by the way, I'm not "abstaining" from animal products since "to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or practice" (Merriam Webster) is not what my veganism is.

champurrado said
"We as vegans may see them and only notice their compromises (and justifiably, wish they would be even more extreme),"

Yeah, because veganism is "extreme." See, this is the kind of language that is really annoying, and it's even more annoying from vegetarians and "100% vegans." I don't want vegans to be "extreme" or even "100% vegan," I'd prefer to hear about questioning the culturally accepted exploitation of animals. Foer doesn't go there. Pollan objects to the idea. Mark Vegan-Plus Bittman thinks not eating meat twice a day is a good idea so long as you don't bring up that ethics mumbo-jumbo. Kathy Freston is too new agey for me to figure what her motivation is. Health? Reducing toxins? Aligning her chakras? Cleansing her spirit? What does her gluten-free diet have to do with veganism exactly? (I haven't read her book , so perhaps I'm being unfair). That's great that they are out there doing their thing (and the list of people I left off is long), but they don't represent a vegan position. A serious vegan conversation is still alien in the mainstream.

Is it great that Foer is out there? Sure. Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan? Of course it does. As a citizen of the United States and the planet Earth, I'm glad that people are being confronted about factory farming in Eating Animals, but as a vegan, I feel that a vegan perspective isn't being represented, not thoroughly anyway. There are more than enough public figures and media sources like documentaries and such beating factory farming and small farms to death, it would be great to have some major media players (that I could be agree almost entirely with) out there advocating veganism.

[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?| More from Peace Loving Vegan Police] ]]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:53:48 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
I enjoyed the presentations of the speakers upstairs. It isn't the fault of the BVS, but it seems like there are rude/clueless types at every vegan nutrition talk I go to.

Examples.

One man walked in to the room in the middle of a Chinese woman's talk, walked right in front of her in the front of the room and then sat down.

In that same talk some guy kept sticking his arm up to take pictures of some power point slides, while interfering with the view of the people sitting behind him.

As one fellow audience member put it "there is always someone wanting to vent their spleen" at the nutrition talks. These people have no formal credentials, but they argue with the lecturer as if they are a visiting professor.

Um, I came to hear the guy/gal with the degree, who wrote the book, who *knows* something -- not you. Oy!

[Read The Boston Vegetarian Food Festival: My Top 10 Observations| More from beforewisdom] ]]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:01:17 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read SV Interview: The Dudes of Daiya - Andre Kroecher and Greg Blake| More from beanmail] ]]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:52:31 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
"This cheese is on order, as a region the North East is bringing it into all 21 of our stores. It should be here just after Thanksgiving, you'll find it in Prepared Foods."

Hooray!!!!

[Read SV Interview: The Dudes of Daiya - Andre Kroecher and Greg Blake| More from LivinVeg] ]]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:28:01 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
No disrespect man, but it seems like every time I go to a site by someone who is into the lowfat vegan diet thing that person is significantly overweight.

I tried the low fat thing back in the 90s when it first came out. I got good results, but when I cut my fat too low to be perfect I began having cravings even when my stomach was full.

I put on weight.

I found that just a few more grams of that evil fat helped eat fewer calories and lose weight.

[Read Vegan Hits it Big-Time! Chef Tal Ronnen Set to Take Over the World] ]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:28:38 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
I had to laugh at your post. I've seen that dude pull that shtick on several vegan/vegetarian forums, blogs and lists. Apparently, he never got the memo that not everyone thinks of his opinion as a gift and that they are entitled to have their sites to their own liking.

[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?] ]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:21:39 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read SV Interview: The Dudes of Daiya - Andre Kroecher and Greg Blake| More from Jim VeganAlstine] ]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:06:42 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read Picture This: Best Broccoli Ever!] ]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:41:09 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?| More from tofu_hunter] ]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:50:25 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?| More from Cat Clyne] ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:44:38 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?] ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:00:33 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?| More from beforewisdom] ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:04:12 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
[Read SV Interview: The Dudes of Daiya - Andre Kroecher and Greg Blake| More from redmondott] ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:48:09 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
he is also , aside from NOT being a vegan, a zionist.

his contributions to israel have directly/indirectly led to the deaths of Palestinian men/women and children. crimes against humanity still trump crimes against animals.

yet he doesn't comment on this.

[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?] ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:33:30 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
Amber, you are wrong. The population of the Earth is not 6.5 billion people. It is 6.9 billion, as in almost 7 billion. Wow, that happened fast:

http://www.populationconnection.org

According to the United Nations, the global population could be as high as 11 billion in 2050 or as low as 8 billion, if the right programs are put in place now.

[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?| More from beforewisdom] ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:31:02 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
The perfect is the enemy of the good ?

I'm glad that in reading these comments I am seeing calls to restrain passing a harsh judgment on Foer.

[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?| More from beforewisdom] ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:25:14 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)
His book getting as much popularity as it is by the mainstream is a significant improvement over that same mainstream limelight going to Pollan and Schlosser.

Those two well informed authors go right up to the edge of the issue of meat and stop short of it. That sends a bad message to the public.

Foer wrote a book similar to their books and is getting a similar audience. He is bringing meat consumption up and is still open to veganism.

A huge improvement. Lets not string him up just yet.

[Read Does it matter that Jonathan Safran Foer isn't vegan?| More from beforewisdom] ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:13:23 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments) Best.
Vegan.
Mac-n-cheese EVER.
So very good. Did Andre or Greg mention expanding beyond cheddar and Italian as far as the 2010 products go?

[Read SV Interview: The Dudes of Daiya - Andre Kroecher and Greg Blake| More from ravenandcrow] ]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:55:02 EST info@supervegan.com (SuperVegan Blog Comments)