Gourmet and Healthy Holiday Recipes – This list of vegan recipes with photos is mouth-watering. The post description says, “Don’t just suffer through another Thanksgiving only eating only the side veggies! A healthy, vegetarian Thanksgiving as easy as reading the recipes below, putting on an apron (with heels if you feel naughty) and getting going! Or just forward this blog to Mom, she knows what to do.”

A Vegan Thanksgiving Celebration – Written by an omni, it’s still chalked full of vegan goodness. Sadly, there aren’t photos.

Thanksgiving Dinner (a little early) – One vegan holiday dinner and description. Plus links to recipes and more info.

Martha Stewart offers two vegetarian Thanksgiving menus: Hearty Vegetarian Thanksgiving Menu and Fresh and Festive Vegetarian Thanksgiving Menu. Though the menus are not entirely vegan, they could easily be made vegan with a few substitutions. Substitute olive oil or Earth Balance for butter and soy milk or rice milk for cow’s milk. Sub agave nectar or maple syrup for honey. Use vegan cream cheese instead of nonvegan, etc.

What are some of your favorite vegan Thanksgiving foods or recipes?

When I first thumbed through Horizons: New Vegan Cuisine, the new cookbook by the creators of Philadelphia’s premiere vegan restaurant, I had a sense of uncompromising cooking. The introductory section on vegan cooking includes admonitions like this one:

To get the perfect end result, follow the cookbook’s guidelines about which herbs to use when and don’t ever substitute fresh for dried or vice versa! [emphasis in original]

Similarly, the paragraph on soy sauce insists that you get the good stuff, leave the cheap stuff at the grocery store. There are recipes for spice mixes and vegetable stock and an interesting section on vinegar:

I have always thought that vinegar should be sold in small 1-ounce bottles for a very high price. Then people would use it sparingly and with restraint – the way it should be used. Buy quality vinegar in small bottles and spend some money. It doesn’t go bad and will reward you in ways you never thought a vinegar could.

You might get the impression that your pantry needs a do-over if you are going to use this book. But that’s not actually true.

Horizons makes elegant vegan fare easy.

Every recipe in this full-color smallish cookbook starts on a new page. Easy to leaf through to find the one you are looking for. Many of the recipes are illustrated with photographs of the actual dish, a real bonus for when you have no idea what a dish should look like.

The instructions are not long and complicated. I suspect these are versions for the home cook who wants to create something delicious to eat and lovely to look at but who did not go to culinary school. Yet the recipes bring us into many cuisines from all over the world, simply and elegantly. And anyway, according to the authors, “no dish comes out the same twice” so don’t get worked up about following directions exactly.

The introduction explains the reason for the restaurant:

…So that we can have a place to celebrate food and a place to prove to the carnivores that we are not crazy.

What this means, Rich goes on to explain, is

…that you can still be a gastronome, a foodie, passionate about cooking and eating,and all the while, not eating animal meat- yet still being truly satisfied.

The book, therefore, features specific protein sources: tofu, seitan, tempeh, beans. These foods are usually central to a meal, providing that familiar look and density meat-eaters are used to. Many of the dishes are also rich, containing olive or truffle oils (there is even a truffled hummus). It isn’t too much, the dishes are not overloaded with fats, but it’s clear this is one reason the meals are considered “satisfying”.

Another reason is the wide variety of seasonings. Even the simplest side dishes will have a special touch, a unique flavor, that keeps one eating. The foodie has got to love it.

The recipes are generous in serving size. Be aware that when the recipe says it serves 4 – 6 it may well serve twice that many.

Rich Landau wants to help you. He offers an introductory cooking section, in which he explains some basic cooking techniques. He explains spices and provides recipes for “Latin spice” and “island spice” mixes. Directions are clear and thorough, except that in a few cases I would have appreciated a good time estimate for preparing a whole dish and in other cases I wasn’t sure by the description how big the vegetable pieces should be. Minor.

The range of recipes runs from earthy, simple dishes like Brazilian Black Bean Soup to mixed culture dishes like Tortilla Pizza with Smoked Tofu to a section on how to host a veggie barbecue to beautiful stunners like Bittersweet Chocolate Tart.  You can impress your family and friends and you can provide familiar comfort food (with a twist) to your family with this cookbook by your side.

“We have done everything humanly possible to save Oreo’s life; yet, as a result of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Mr. Henderson, or for other reasons we may never know, she has come to a place where she can no longer be around people or other animals. We make this decision—and others like it– with a heavy heart and a complete understanding that had she been treated with love and respect, Oreo’s fate would be much different.” – The official ASPCA statement about Oreo’s death

I appreciate the ASPCA’s emphasis on how Oreo’s abuser is far more to blame for her death than any other individual or organization, but I think the APSCA made the wrong choice. Here’s why the ASPCA’s decision to kill Oreo bothers me…

We cannot predict the future. So we shouldn’t act like we can.

Even people who disagree about whether there are “fates worse than death” can agree that we cannot predict the future with certainty. We can make reasonable guesses about the future, but we can’t know for certain if a shelter animal is better off being euthanized than being “warehoused.” Even if there are fates worse than death, we can’t always be certain that offering a painless death is truly mercy unless the animal is currently in pain.

The ASPCA “played God” by acting like they knew for certain what Oreo’s future looked like. They chose a course of action based on their limited vantage point. From their view, Oreo’s only options were isolation or death.

The reason so many animal advocates are angry about Oreo’s death is that they see hope where the ASPCA did not.

From the perspective of people who embrace a “no-kill philosophy,” there is hope for the future. Shelters can reduce or eliminate their kill rates. Healthy, adoptable animals don’t need to die. Even aggressive dogs like Oreo have a chance at rehabilitation.

In the world of foster-care for children, it’s said that a child needs twice as long to recover from neglect or abuse as the time the child spent being abused or neglected. Might it be similar with dogs? Might Oreo have required more than a few months to recover from her injuries?

It’s possible, some even argue that it’s likely, Oreo was not destined to isolation. After a year or two at a no-kill shelter with affection and boundaries, who knows what she might have been like?

Shelter killing is an expression of pessimism.

The animal movement is already fraught with so much sadness and grief that we’re desperate for hope. Burn-out in the movement is common. Stagnation and wheel-spinning is even more common. We need extraordinary stories of survival, heroic rescue efforts, and a “never give up” mentality in order to move forward. We need hope and optimism.

But shelter killing is giving up. It’s pessimistic and depressing, stemming from a viewpoint that has no hope in humanity’s ability for redemption. It’s giving up on animals and giving up on people at the same time.

The animal movement requires hope and optimism.

Killing animals will never produce hope and optimism. When animal organizations like the ASPCA, PETA, and the HSUS defend killing animals, it sucks the life out of our movement. Literally.

But the past is in the past. People can change. Animal shelters can change. Animal organizations can change. There is hope. The organizations and people who currently defend shelter killing may one day sing another tune. We shouldn’t lose our hope in their ability to adapt and change.

Let’s not let our hope and optimism die with the animals killed in shelters.

Let’s keep our hope alive by proving that shelter animals have a chance in our homes and our hearts. If you have the room, time, and money, please adopt a shelter animal. If you don’t have the room, the time, or the money, please encourage your friends and family to adopt a shelter animal. Visit Petfinder or AdoptAPet to find a shelter animal near you.

One of the first things I learned was that goldfish bowls are unsuitable environments for goldfish. Goldfish are pretty “messy” fish who dirty their water quickly. They need some form of filtration. Moreover, goldfish can grow up to about a foot and live as long as 20-40 years! But when they’re kept in a tiny bowl, goldfish ‘only grow as big as the bowl.’ That is, they develop curvature of the spine and the goldfish die from the deformity. Think: foot binding.

So I bought a large 30 gallon tank with filtration for my little goldfish, whom I named Othello. I learned all about water chemistry and how to keep the tank safe for him. Goldfish need clean, aerated water. If the tank’s filter breaks or isn’t set up correctly, fish in the tank can literally suffocate to death. I cleaned the tank once a month with my Python fish tank cleaner and while I cleaned, Othello would swim by my hands and let me “pet” him.

Goldfish eat all kinds of things and, like pigs and dogs, often don’t know when to stop. They can gorge themselves until they’re sick. So fish-care requires small, regular feedings. Othello knew when it was dinner time because he’d come up to meet me at the surface. But when other people came up to the tank to admire his beauty, he ignored them.

I really think Othello knew me. I think he trusted me. But regardless of his mental state, he literally relied on me for his entire survival. I was his care-giver, his only care-giver. His life was in my hands.

Then my boyfriend and I broke up and I moved out. Othello was about the size of my hand by then and of course he came with me. I carefully moved him and all his tank equipment to my new apartment. But I made a mistake when I was setting it back up. I turned the filter speed down. The next morning I awoke to find Othello dead. He suffocated.

—

Last Thursday night someone – probably an angry former farm worker – turned off the airflow to one of Iowa’s pig barns. Because modern pig barns have similarities to fishtanks, the lack of fresh air caused nearly 4000 pigs to suffocate in the fumes from their own waste.

Farm workers know what these fumes are like. And what they can do. From the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology. 2006; 1: 10:

Swine barn workers suffer from higher incidences of impaired air flow and lung inflammation, which is attributed to high intensity and interrupted exposures to pig barn air. The air in these barns contains gases, dust, microbes and endotoxin with endotoxin being the major suspect as the cause of lung dysfunction.

From one news story about the pigs’ deaths:

“It was a pretty terrible thing to see,” Deputy Jim Landau said. “We looked in and there they were. Snout to snout.”

Another story claims: “The loss is expected to be more than $200,000″ as if the monetary value of these animals is all that matters.

Most people don’t even know these intensive pig farms exist. Most people have no idea that their pork, ham, or bacon comes from cruel factory farms. Most people have no idea of the damage that these farms do to the environment, animals, and people.

What if these farms were more like fish tanks? What if they had glass walls?

The U.S. Department of Labor is suing Henry’s Turkey Service for allegedly paying its mentally retarded workers $65 per month to work in an eastern Iowa processing plant.

A little background info on the worker’s rights violations that took place at a turkey slaughterhouse:

The men were employees of Henry’s Turkey Service, a Texas labor broker that provided the men with food and lodging in return for most of the wages they earned while working in the West Liberty Foods plant in Muscatine County.

The bunkhouse was shut down by the state fire marshal shortly after the Des Moines Register asked state regulators why the 21 mentally retarded laborers were living in what appeared to be an unlicensed care facility or group home. State health investigators concluded that the men were dependent on others for their daily care and weren’t capable of living on their own. [...]

The department alleges that Henry’s Turkey Service paid the men only $65 per month “regardless of the number of hours worked,” which resulted in the men receiving less than the minimum wage. Some of the men worked more than 40 hours per week in the processing plant, but were not compensated for their work, the lawsuit alleges.

The company also failed to keep accurate and complete records of the men’s work hours and wages, the department alleges.

Read more >>
Go here for more background info >>

As Jonathan Safran Foer wrote in his book, Eating Animals:

“Undercover investigations have consistently revealed that farm workers, laboring under what Human Rights Watch describes as ’systematic human rights violations’ have often let their frustrations loose on farmed animals or simply succumbed to the demands of supervisors to keep slaughter lines moving at all costs and without second thoughts. [...] The responsibility lies with the mentality of the meat industry that treats both animals and ‘human capital’ like machines.”

Or as I have said:
Two kinds of people kill animals for a living: the ones who want to and the ones who don’t.

—
Hat tip: Bea

I invite you to
read her blog post >>

Some of my off-the-cuff thoughts, in no specific order:

• Animal agriculture is not compassionate, nonviolent, or just.
• Breeding, mutilating, confining, fattening, and killing animals is violent.
• Eating animals is an expression of violence.
• Veganism is more compassionate, nonviolent, and just than the alternative.
• But veganism alone will not create world peace.

What do you think?

Part-way through Martin ventures from  the concepts of compassion, nonviolence, and justice towards another concept: efficacy. She writes:

“the most significant vehicle for the liberation of nonhuman animals, just like the liberation of human animals, probably isn’t going to be a petition. Or vegan pumpkin pie.”

I’m not sure that’s true. I mean, it’s certainly true for the particular animals who are rescued or released, but I’m not sure that it’s really fair to discount culinary activism or politics. Or other forms of activism, either.

Personally, I think leafleting is HUGE. If I had to choose one method of activism that I feel most comfortable supporting and encouraging others to do, it’s leafleting. I support leafleting because it’s super-duper easy AND it’s effective.

Other than open rescue or undercover investigations, I think leafleting is the most worthwhile form of animal activism there is. Leafleting is a proven method that’s been used for various causes throughout history. It’s simple and easy with low barriers to entry – just get your hands on some leaflets and pass them out. It’s unlikely to get you arrested and therefore has broad activist appeal and long-term engagement.

But ultimately it’s about the individual activist. If you’re good at something and enjoy doing it (like drawing or cooking or writing) then it makes sense to use those talents and interests to guide your activism.

What do you think?

Swedish scientists have discovered that long life and good health have nothing to do with a man’s education and everything to do with his wife’s. Men married to smart women live longer — simple.

However, before you ring up your girlfriend to tell her that the man who left her for a bimbo will drop dead of brain atrophy, this is not a victory for women’s intelligence in general. It would be nice if our stimulating observations about FlashForward and the Tory agenda were keeping our men alert and full of life. Unfortunately, it’s simply our skill at processing advice about healthy lifestyles, and passing it on. All it boils down to is that “educated” married women have long since banned their men from eating pork pies at every other meal.

Emphasis added.

But come on now, you don’t need a smart wife to tell you to stop eating pigs. Just do it! Go vegan and reap the benefits of a healthier lifestyle with or without the matrimony.

To enter the contest, just leave a comment here.
Tell us why you want the book.

We will randomly choose a winner, email them for their address, and mail the book to them.

Submissions are open until Thanksgiving Day 2009.

The book we’re giving away is a copy of Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The post script:

• The giveaway is currently only open to residents of the US and Canada. This is simply because of shipping costs.
• If you already own this book or if you’ve won a book from Vegan Soapbox in the past, please don’t enter the contest. But please DO tell your friends, family, coworkers, fans, and whoever else you want about this giveaway!
• Do you have a vegan blog or website? A book giveaway is a great, relatively inexpensive way to spread the word and spread the love.

• 3 resources for vegan newbies
• A long list of veg resources
• Vegan and vegetarian email newsletters
• The Soapbox’s vegan FAQ

Knowledge is power. Read as much as you can.