Living Vegan

Pork sausage prank

2012-01-07T11:31:00.000+08:00

Everyone wants their meat fresh in the supermarket, but everyone is appalled when they see the live animal killed for them for absolute freshness.

Some people say that eating meat is natural and that vegans and vegetarians try to use guilt to get others to give up meat. But if eating meat is natural, why in this video, will there be such a reaction to the point these people no longer want to buy the meat? No one is making them feel guilty here. The culprit behind eating meat is greed and it can be overcomed by compassion - as shown in this video.

There are more ways to change your perception of meat - you can make use of the guide here to lose your craving for meat. The video above emphasizes points 3 and 4 on my guide.

Make the full connection today and go vegan.

(This video also reminds of the meat faucet satire posted a long time ago...)

三花 San Hua - a documentary on cat and dog meat industry in China

2012-01-02T17:41:00.000+08:00

Below is a documentary (in chinese) about the cat and dog meat industry in China, and the struggles of cat and dog lovers trying to protect these animals when there is no proper lawful protection of them. One fur trader revealed that probably 80% of the meat from the fur trade goes into making ham sausages! At this rate, it could still be a long while before veganism grow over there.

Bather's cafe and restaurant

2011-12-24T19:24:00.000+08:00

Hidden in a quiet area (sunset way, clementi arcade) this western restaurant has a slow and relaxing ambiance. This isn't a vegan or vegetarian restaurant. Was there with my company yesterday for an 8 course Christmas dinner, and my vegan menu was prepare in advance. When dining in a non-veg place, you always have to cross your fingers they don't screw things up for you. But the chef knows this "vegan" stuff well so this isn't a worry. I was quite please with the food served.

1st course: Broccoli, cucumber and fruits with balsamic vinegar

This dish was ordinary.

2nd course: Salad with mushroom

The mushrooms were very very nice - I wished there were more.

3rd course: Ravioli in clear broth

This was considered unconventional to me since I was more familiar with chinese dumplings. The fillings were carrots and cucumber and the skin was very thin. Chinese dumplings usually have a thicker, non-see through skin. But I was impressed it cooked without breaking apart. Wonder if it was done by pouring hot broth onto it. (Next post I will put up some pictures on home made dumplings. After my first experience with making dumplings, and how easy and healthy it was, I was hooked. Next would be to buy a pasta maker to speed up the dumpling skin making process.)

4th course: Mushroom soup

This was good, if it would come with vegan cream I would expect it to be awesome.

5th course: Plain aglio with mushroom

This was quite nice, I had it with no garlic, but still the pasta was done nicely.

6th course: Mashed potato with jam

Love this. When it came, I thought: Fried dough fritter with chilli? This was the best, the fried exterior isn't too oily, and the potato retains it's mash nicely. The salty taste blends so well with the sweetness of the jam.

7th course: "Rosti"

The potato sticks were really nice.

8th course: Fruits

Obviously vegan :)

Wishing you an your family a wonderful Christmas and new year! Please go vegan for Christmas.

Teresa Hsu passes away

2011-12-14T22:06:00.003+08:00

This post was written in memory of Teresa Hsu - the 113 years old supercentenarian vegetarian lady in Singapore who has passed away on 7 december 2011. She is the founder of heart to heart services charity. Although I have only met this lady in person twice, she left me a very deep impression because of her selflessness. What she has been doing was all for others, not for herself. These kind of people... we are seriously short of on this planet. She is truly an inspiration for everyone.

Vegetarian carnivores: a cat and a lion

2011-12-12T23:09:00.000+08:00

These are some of the most amazing animals who exhibit much kindness despite being carnivores.

Some of you may have already heard of the cat Dante, who refuses to eat meat. He was found abandon and starving, yet refused to eat meat even at that point, but instead gobbled down some leftover vegetables, he continue to refuse meat after that and remains healthy. He does not bother himself with the other animals in the house - from hamsters to fish, but instead hunts bits of string. His owner trys to sneak in meat to him but if he spots it he will refuse. I wish his owner will just get him some vegan cat food if she's worried. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1169637/Meet-Dante-Britains-vegetarian-cat-refuses-eat-meat-fish.html

Now what about a lion? A big cat who refuses meat!

This lioness wouldn't even drink milk mixed with one drop of blood, not to say turning its head away from meat. It was also gentle to other animals (that are usually food for lions), and little chicks hid in her fur for protection. Here's her story
Some animals are more human than humans. Please don't eat them!

Veg food in shah alam, malaysia

2011-12-02T18:28:00.000+08:00

Shah alam is about 25km from Kuala lumpur in Malaysia, and there are also quite a few vegetarian restaurants in that area - provided you can find them! I went with a group of veg friends and we were driven around by a local friend they know, so it wasn't much of a problem veggie hunting. I am unable to get the actual directions to the veg places shown here. However, these places are located near the Buddhist association of Shah alam.

Qi Lai Zhai vegetarian eatery More of a coffee shop setting, the menu is packed with dishes that are served with mock meat.

As usual I go for soup noodles, one of my favorite type of meal. The dish was so-so, like the normal veg stall kind of soup noodles served in Singapore.

This stir-fried noodles was recommended by a local diner. Better than the soup noodles, but still about the same as the normal stir fry noodles.

The place also sell lots of vegetarian dried goods and snacks, and at a much better price compared to Singapore as always!

Jack vegetarian is a vegetarian stall located in a coffee shop. You can's see the vegetarian stall if you drive by as it is facing inside. Not a lot of dishes available, and when we went, there were no curry noodles! Sob... If you go malaysia, always eat their curry noodles. In my grandmother's village, the people often eat curry noodles.

I went for the dry noodles - another dish you should try. But the dry noodles here isn't really fantastic.

Others gave the prawn noodles a go...

Low budget vegetarian e-guide

2011-11-29T08:59:00.000+08:00

Things are getting more and more expensive these days, this free e-guide will teach you how to live a veg diet on a low budget, there are some dishes that are non-vegan, but can be easily substituted with vegan stuff. Extremely useful tips on how to cut cost. Here for the book Here for the website Enjoy your cost savings!

Vegan calisthenics

2011-11-27T07:56:00.001+08:00

Saw this this pretty amazing video on you tube on 3 vegan guys doing calisthenics.

Their website also features what vegan foods to eat for training and the training techniques - great for anyone who are looking to be fitter and healthier.

Vegetarian marathon

2011-11-20T17:35:00.000+08:00

Nope, this isn't a run for vegetarians. It's not an eating contest either.

All you have to do is to form a team of 2, pay $20 as a team. Find a day between 25th November and 4th December, call up 90390066 or 98740778 to reserve seats for dinner at #01-06 Fortune Centre.

You will be served 10 vegetarian dishes and answer questions related to the dishes. That's all. If you're lucky, you'll qualify for the second round between 10 and 11 Dec, and perhaps you may win prizes stated on the poster.

E-book: Do we have a choice?

2011-11-13T20:05:00.000+08:00

"Do we have a choice" e-book is written by a flexitarian Dr Chan Kah Yein, and this book is geared towards people who would like to eat less meat.

If you plan to go vegan, set it as your ultimate goal. Don't set a flexitarian diet as your goal first and leave the decision to go vegan or not later. Because chances are, you will feel satisfied with eating less meat, thus not move on to stage 2: eating no meat. Don't worry too much about inconveniences, these things are flexible and as long as you are determined enough you will find a way around them. Life and death of animals are not flexible, unless we give up meat up totally.

I don't really agree with all the author's views, because I encourage people to go into a full-fledge vegetarian diet on the very least, gradually or not. However, for those who have sworn by a meatarian diet their whole lives, this would be something useful for them.

The book has some interesting true stories on chapter 5. I thought I will share one of them here.

The Aged Loyal Cow
This is a story from my colleague, Jas. Jas grew up in Sarawak. Her parents were dairy farmers. They kept cows to provide milk for the family and also to generate income. Their cows lived a long life and, even when they could not provide anymore milk, Jas’ parents continued looking after them until they passed on.

One day, many years after having served the family, one cow developed a bad infection on her front hoof. Apparently, such an infection is very hard to heal and would cause great pain. Many farmers would sell these cows to the butcher rather than nurse them.

One such opportunist-butcher came to know about this cow with the infected hoof and offered Jas’ parents a fair price to purchase the cow. Jas’ parents, despite being in need of the money, flatly refused to sell the cow. They told the butcher, “This cow has served my family and provided milk for my children for so many years. How can we sell her now that she is old and injured?”

After the butcher went away, the cow walked towards Jas’ parents.

She held up her injured hoof.

And she cried.

I would like to believe these were tears of gratitude.

The cow lived on until she finally passed on peacefully at a ripe old age.

You can download the e-book free from here

Reuniting the vegan population

2011-11-07T19:54:00.000+08:00

Division of the vegan population
As time goes on, it seems that the vegan population is getting divided - mainly into 2 groups. One that go by the being as vegan as possible and not to worry about trace, imperceptible animal products and one more towards abolitionist style.

Until recently, I have been seeing some articles mentioned Vegan Outreach or PETA bashing veganism. I was pretty surprise as these were some of the groups which articles supported my switch to veganism and I believed, had helped many people switch to a vegan diet.

These are the some of the arguments that both groups of vegans present.
More towards as vegan as possible 1
More towards as vegan as possible 2
More towards as vegan as possible 3
More towards abolitionist 1
More towards abolitionist 2
More towards abolitionist 3

If you are a vegan where do you stand?

My own experiences
I once went to a dessert stall with my friends and wanted to order a bowl of dessert. Not knowing what is in the dessert, I started to ask the waitress about the ingredients used. Her tone was like I was trying to steal their recipe or something! I learnt a lot from this experience and other similar experiences. You can ask them about one or two main ingredients like eggs, milk, honey etc. but if you start to question more deeply - is there xxxx in the gravy? what is your mock meat made of, does it contain xxxx. A few more questions you can be sure to get the look.

I once told a vegan lady that her preserved olives were soaked in a preservative medium consisting "lactose", which may not be vegan, and she said I am a vegan police. I laugh it off, even though I will not buy that product myself. She still calls herself a vegan, and I didn't myself bothered with that. Why? Because if you have been a vegan for some time, you will know that the place to draw the line may not always be clear.

Grey areas
Things are not always black and white, many things are grey. And even within grey, there are many shades of grey. Where do you draw the line?

For example, if you have everything vegan in your house, except for your pleather shoes made with animal glue, will you still be a vegan? What about everything being vegan except for a bottle of non-vegan shampoo? As to food, what about eating dishes which you thought was vegan but actually contain traces of animal product?

My personal take on this is that being vegan is not about forcing yourself to be 100% perfect when you are in a situation which does not allow you to. Doing so will remove "vegans" by the batches. For example, if you are going to live in Singapore and insist on getting non-bone char derived sugar, you can say that it is impossible unless you buy your own sugar and avoid eating out. Most of our food are imported, it is insane to go questioning every single vegetarian outlet and ask them to trace their sugar sources, they will not be bothered with you. If because of this, you avoid eating out, and every other vegan do the same thing, the vegetarian food outlets will also lose their business and in the end, it will only prevent more people from wanting to go vegetarian and vegan.

I am in support of the spirit of abolitionist veganism. Yet at the same time, I do not disagree with some of Vegan Outreach's approach, because this approach of promoting vegetarianism first can help people who are not ready to plunge directly into veganism. From my own experience, just telling the people I know about what I have to avoid - meat, eggs, dairy, gelatin etc. are already making them think this is near impossible. So to promote the abolitionist approach will not work for these people, whom I classify as having a more easy-going nature. For those people who have a stronger, indomitable nature, the abolitionist approach may appeal to them more.

Conclusion
Being vegan is about doing the best within our own ability, and "best" is a different shade of grey for everyone. We all have the same ultimate goal and that is white and everyone will have different methods to reach that white square. Throw away all those fighting, and classifying who's right and who's wrong. Give your heart some peace.

Rescue a chicken

2011-10-25T22:04:00.000+08:00

Now you can "rescue" chickens online with this vegan friendly game. Instead of shooting angry birds attacking and destroying poor pigs, these rescue game are kinder for your heart. You have to remove hay to guide the chicks into their nest.

Rescue a chicken 1 http://www.physicsgames.net/game/Rescue_a_Chicken.html
Rescue a chicken 2 http://www.physicsgames.net/game/Rescue_a_Chicken_2.php

Lee Kuan Yew is all for veggie thursdays

2011-10-17T09:05:00.000+08:00

Let hear what Mr Lee has got to say on veggie thursdays... For more information on veggie thursdays in Singapore please visit http://www.veggiethursday.sg/

Thai style veg jelly fish

2011-10-15T08:59:00.001+08:00

This recipe by 8 treasures veg restaurant uses veg jelly fish made from seaweed strips and is use as a cold appetizer before food.

250g shredded seaweed strips
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon chilli sauce
1 tablespoon sour plum sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon black sesame seeds
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 lime leaves (cut into fine strips)

Method Rinse and soak seaweed strips in warm water for 3 mins
Discard water
Cut seaweed strips into smaller pieces
Put lime leaves and sesame seeds aside, combine all other ingredients with seaweed strips in a large bowl, mix well
Stir in sesame seed and lime leaves
Marinate at least 3 hours in the refrigerator, do not freeze
Serve chilled on top of shredded Japanese cucumber for that extra crunch!

You can get your veg shredded seaweed strips from Vegetarian world foods trading
Blk 264 Serangoon Interchange #01-207 Serangoon Central Singapore 550263 vegetarianworldfoodstrading.com

World vegetarian day celebration

2011-10-02T10:41:00.000+08:00

Happy belated world vegetarian day! Yesterday, I celebrated world vegetarian day with a free vegan buffet, cupcake decoration and vegan ice cream @ 8 treasures veg restaurant.

Buffet was provided by 8 treasures and came with cold side dishes as well as main dishes.
Main dishes: Veg curry mutton, lily bulb and bamboo fungus with broccoli, fragrant veg "honey" lime chicken, sweet and sour veg fish, veg peking duck with crispy lettuce wrap, beancurd with monkey head mushrooms, olive fried rice. The food in general was much lighter in taste than what I remember eating from this restaurant. The curry, fragrant veg "honey" lime chicken and sweet sour veg fish tops the list of buffet food served.

Shark finless soup, pretty nice. In this soup you get the "real" mock fin. Some cheaper versions use cellophane noodles in replacement of the mock fin which is not as nice.

Cold dish: Rojak before mixing. I like this, nice and refreshing.

Cold dish 2: Green salad with sesame dressing. This was so-so. The dressing reminds me of the Japanese yam dressing at Zen japanese vegetarian restaurant.

The thai style jelly fish made from seaweed strips were gone before I get to sample hah... I heard it was very nice! But they gave the recipe and where to get this seaweed strip which I will share in the next post.

We got to see a cupcake baking demo by Halimah and decorate our own cupcakes. I simply LOVE decorating the cupcakes. It feels so therapeutic - could imagine after a long day of computer work, just sitting there decorating cupcakes without the need to tax your brain further. How wonderful!

You can get information for her baking classes from her facebook

Brown rice ice cream from brownice. This vegan ice cream surprised me by its rich creamy texture, instead of the usual icy crystal taste. The difference is that it doesn't melt as readily as the usual milk ice cream, and that you can tell it's not made from milk from the taste. They use organic brown rice I heard. Anyway go try it out. I was informed they are at the basement at Central.

What's even more wonderful is that you get a free goodie bag in the end. I love goodie bags :)

They hold this 100% free event every year on world vegetarian day 1st October. So keep a look out for it. If I get any news about the registration for this event next year, I'll post it up.

Toddler drinks milk from cow

2011-09-25T18:13:00.000+08:00

You probably have seen this in the news - but maybe not in video. This little boy shares the same milk source as a calf - from a mother cow.

I thought this looked quite natural since his (human) mum isn't around to feed him. People may find it strange, but the milk we are drinking also came from there! Why didn't anyone find it strange? If it was an adult, drinking from the cow, then that would be really weird.

And look at the cow. She is so patient even though another species is drinking her milk. Simply amazing. I don't even know if humans are that patient if it was someone else's human child drinking from them. For the cow, perhaps she can be patient with one child. If there are millions of kids as well as adult humans demanding milk from her day in day out with no rest - which is what's happening nowadays - it will be a kind of torture.

His mother should have stayed to nurse her baby. It is natural for human babies to want to drink milk (from a human), the cow was probably his last choice.

Vegetarian wedding lunch

2011-09-11T14:00:00.002+08:00

I had waited so long for someone to invite me to their full-fledged vegan wedding! My wish was finally fulfilled yesterday and what an experience! Imagine you don't have to wait for the waitress to serve you your own vegetarian version of whatever the non-vegetarians at the table are eating. You just get to dive into the main dish and enjoy it with the other vegetarian friends in the same table!

My friend held his wedding at the Regent Hotel and it was a 7-course vegan lunch, which didn't leave me over-stuffed with food as compared to some other wedding dinners I went to.

The 1st dish was the Cold Combination Platter
(Shredded Mango, Rock Melon, Honeydew with Sesame Seeds and Chinese Croissant). Basically fruits served with small pieces of dough fritters and fried enoki mushrooms. This dish was sweet and yummy :)

Then came the Double-boiled Bamboo Pith Soup with Three Treasures. I love bamboo pith soups, and this one was nicely done.

Next up is the Stir-fried sliced vegetarian goose with button mushrooms and seasonal vegetables. This was the only dish with mock soy meat - and the soy meat reminds you of vegetarian bak kwa - just that it was a different seasoning. The vegetables were done nicely.

Braised shred vegetarian abalone with black mushrooms and seasonal vegetables. The mushroom used as the mock abalone was the best. The others were rather average.

Stir-fried Kong Bao monkey head mushrooms and cashew nuts in Sichuan style. This was rather average a bit too spicy, it would be better if they used more monkey head mushrooms.

Vegetarian fried rice wrapped in lotus leaf. This was ok, but I prefer a deeper flavour - more oil more salt and more unhealthy.

Warm yam paste with gingko nuts and coconut milk. This was the best! Yummy!

Acres blamed for "cyber harassing"

2011-09-08T12:16:00.004+08:00

Acres has been blamed for cyber harassing Resorts world sentosa's Facebook wall about the 25 dolphins that will be sent to RWS marine life park attraction.

News here: http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC110906-0000326/ACRES-accused-of-cyber-attack

But seriously, I don't think RWS will do anything despite all these calls to halt the enslavement of dolphins. Who's going to pay back the money they spent to buy the dolphins? Who's going to pay back the money and effort spent on developing the enclosures? Who will be willing to forgo all the forecasted profits that the dolphins will bring? Their bottom line is not about whether animal rights activists are going to be happy with them, it's about money. They are not going to care if a few animal rights activists are not going to visit their shows when they are attracting locals and tourists by the hoards. Unless EVERYBODY boycotts their dolphin shows in the future, which is unlikely to happen. Although I don't think there will be solid results of change, I think ACRES and the dolphin supporters has been doing well so far in raising awareness of this issue.

Making yet another marine life park when there are already so many marine life parks in the world is a mistake. If there is no marine life park here people who want to look at marine life at artificial habitats can simply go other places to see or watch them on TV. Why can't we choose something that is innovative and more animal and enviromentally friendly (or at least neutral) instead of copying existing detrimental marine life parks that are already available? We don't need to promote enslavement to help the economy.

I went to Hong Kong last time and visted their marine life park which talks about conserving the environment and serves meat and seafood everywhere. Goodness. What kind of rubbish conservation is that? If you want to conserve marine life then don't eat seafood, don't eat fish oil. Then the food web will naturally go back to balance. You can't conserve anything by building a marine park and breeding a few animals, it's not even a solution.

RWS facebook page yesterday.... now the number of likes has rocketed to 41 and comments have reached 73.

Loving Hut (Parklane mall)

2011-09-04T13:02:00.002+08:00

I had dinner with my family last month at Loving Hut parklane mall. The food was very nice, and are all vegan.

There aren't a lot of people, and many of those who were there are the disciples of the Ching Hai group. Ambience was quiet, aside from the TV playing their channel in the background.

We ordered the otah, the teochew mee pok and the lemon grass curry. All were nice.

The curry was thick, spicy and with a strong curry flavour - all the characteristics of curry I was looking for.

The otah was good and spicy, but it contains some onion or garlic which I didn't really like.

The mee pok was interesting. They use their special type of mock vegetarian ball that is made of vegetable bits instead of the usual chilli bits and stuff.

One thing that I really like to bring to attention is the brown rice - their brown rice is nicely done with a tinge of spice/herbs - and reminds you of biryani rice.

Benefits of a plant based diet

2011-08-21T10:14:00.004+08:00

This website - nutritionfacts.org has lots of interesting short videos based on scientific publications about the benefits of a plant based diet - how a plant based diet can slow cancer growth, slow aging, avoid brain parasites, etc. If you are interest in facts and figures or just overall health in general this site can help.

Slowing cancer growth on a plant based diet

Do you know fish and processed meat ages our DNA?

Something disgusting about milk

Brain parasites in meat

Veg posts needed for "my city cuisine"

2011-08-15T14:28:00.003+08:00

My city cuisine is a free-resource, wiki project with the goal of helping travelers discover local foods from all over the world, raise cultural awareness and preserve traditions in a world that's constantly changing.

They are currently looking for contributors and you can add on the types of vegetarian and vegan food in your area to the site

Website: http://www.mycitycuisine.org/wiki/Main_Page

Fish is not vegetarian

2011-08-13T20:12:00.002+08:00

A picture for the weekend...

Original Sin

2011-08-10T21:30:00.006+08:00

The only vegetarian restaurant in Singapore serving Mediterranean food. The price is steep but the food is good and different from the usual veg food in Singapore. Pretty good ambience with both indoor and alfresco dining options.

Mezze platter - I would really recommend this dish. You can ask them to prepare it vegan for you. although it's a vegetarian restaurant, a large number of dishes use cheese so look out! There will signs on the menu that show whether a dish can be prepared vegan. Service staff are familiar with the vegan term.

Vegan apple strudel - Pretty good one, again recommended if you are ordering dessert.

Some of the dishes including the mezze platter cannot be prepared without onions and garlics, again it will be indicated on the menu. They also have more familiar items like spaghetti and pizza on the menu that can be prepared vegan, but the vegan pizza doesn't use vegan cheese.

The place is at 43 Jalan Merah Saga, Chip Bee gardens.

Why are some vegans so angry?

2011-08-07T11:39:00.001+08:00

One thing about being a vegan is that you may improve the compassion towards animals yet be an angry person. Sounds a little paradoxical. But yes, there are some angry vegans, including myself. Hey! We are suppose to help contribute to a more peaceful world by reducing the hate in the world with less killing of animals, but now we are adding on to it instead. Why did it turn out this way?

Why are we angry? Angry because the world continues to use animals without end, people trying to put you down because of your diet, people who treat animals cruelly, people who simply shrug their shoulders and chomp into their burgers even when informed about vegetarian benefits... we can even be angry with people who try to encourage us to eat meat out of concern of our health.

So we make justifications to prove our point to let them understand, sometimes to the point that people start to find us judgmental, condescending, inflexible, preachy and hold an all-knowing and "I am morally superior" attitude. It could be that sometimes they are right about us, but sometimes, they aren't. In both situations, no way they are going to go veg if they see us that way.

Some people put this angry energy into action - through certain forms of activism, it could be legal, it could be illegal. But hate is not going to go far even though it may seem to help at first. Eventually even supporters become tired and angry, and they just want some peace.

There are ways to work on this, to transform that anger and yet continue to do activism / promote veganism. One thing I've learned is not to hold any expectations or insist that things or people HAVE to be in a certain manner. Don't hold on to the "Vegan is right, meat is wrong" mindset so tightly. Even though we believe veganism is the ideal way of living, others may not. And we can't change them, only they can change themselves. If we cling to this mindset too tightly, we become very tense. Then just a single remark that seems to put veganism as not so ideal or someone who doesn't fall into this ideal will be the breaking point.

Let it go, let it be. Let nature takes its course. When the time is right, they will give up animal products on their own accord. Meanwhile we do what we can to "promote our medicine" by being a living example, doing activism, etc. and share with people when they want to know more.

Raw Man and Green Girl 2

2011-08-05T20:22:00.002+08:00

Raw man and green girl meet frankenfood

Episode 1 here