Living Without Meat

Oprah is wrapping up her first week eating only vegan food, and continuing to blog about her experiences. Here’s an interesting excerpt from her Friday entry:

“Tom [Cruise]’s chef prepared ribs and chicken for lunch. I had salad and corn on the cob with no butter and a kale salad, which was also offered. There were also home made chocolate brownies with marshmallow filling made by Tom’s mom, which I also turned down. I feel like I let Tom’s mom down …”

For some reason, I thought that Oprah would not experience the same things that average Jane vegans see everyday. Being Oprah, and having the world know that you are eating only vegan food for at least 21 days apparently doesn’t mean people won’t still offer you anything but.

You cannot tell me that Tom Cruise’s (I’m not on a first-name basis with him like Ms. Winfrey is) chef didn’t know. Furthermore, he served two meats? At one meal? That’s not a buffet, nor a large family dinner, nor a church gathering. Ribs and chicken for lunch?

What is wrong with people?

But it’s not just an odd meal because a vegan eater was present, it’s unhealthy regardless.

The New American Plate, a revised way to fill your plate by the American Institute for Cancer Research, suggests no more than one-fourth of your plate be filled with animal flesh. (The other three-quarters are recommended to be two servings of different vegetables, and one of a starch.)

If you were to put one small rack of ribs and one small chicken breast on a plate, one-half of your plate would easily be overcome with meat. People do not need this much protein, fat, cholesterol, blood, flesh, bones …

The snapshot shown here is of the New American Plate brochure; click on it to see a PDF version of the insides.

Blech! I am more and more disgusted with big business foodstuffs with every label I read. For instance, I could find but one brand of bread this weekend at ACME that didn’t feature high fructose corn syrup. Every whole wheat, multi-grain, or plain loaf had this nasty, falsified sugar in its first few ingredients.

Another place that high fructose corn syrup runs rampant? Sparkling waters. So why not make your own?

Jeffrey Morgenthaler - a wine and spirits, bartending writer - provided a doable step-by-step of “How to Make Your Own Tonic Water.”

As for bread, sprouted loaves were the only one that I found to be sugary chemical free. But don’t be wimp - try making your own bread, too. My friend Kelly has started making it regularly, and she’s got three kids under 6 and co-runs her own law firm. So if she can find the time …

Today, May 23, Ellen Degeneres is having Skinny Bitch co-authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin on her show to talk about the new cookbook Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. I look forward to … catching clips online because I forgot to set my VCR to tape it. Hopefully, Rory dresses a little better than she did while attending the Farm Sanctuary Gala.

Next week, on Wednesday May 28, Kathy Freston, author of Quantum Wellness and the nutritionalist that has Oprah on a 21-day vegan cleanse, will be visiting Ellen’s show.

Hmm … is Ellen the next to go vegan?

“I haven’t eaten meat for about fifteen years,” says Gwyneth Paltrow about her new diet, that turns away from her previous macrobiotic one.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s a vegetarian?

“I eat fish, a little bit of dairy – not much milk – but I love cheese. We’ll make chocolate chip cookies and eat them, but sugar makes me feel pretty bad. I have coffee and wine. I’ve got lots of lovely vices.”

Oh. Nevermind. She’s just one of those annoying people who seem to think that fish don’t count as animals.

It’s not just rare, it’s probably the first time ever that the two media networks that I keep up with - animal issues and fashion - are in agreement.

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 is currently up for discussion - commonly referred to as the Farm Bill, or the $300 billion Farm Bill. It was passed in the House yesterday and received more than two-thirds pro votes, which is what they will need to maintain the bill if President Bush were to veto it.

Now, I’m not up on legal or farm speak, but both fashionistas and animal/vegan advocates are showng support for this act that sets to defend farmers and the environment.

For the fashion side: Women’s Wear Daily says that this “could potentially help retailers and apparel brands save millions of dollars.”

For the veggie side: There are food safety and labeling issues addressed, with country of origin becoming a mandatory label. Nutritional programs would get more funding and support. There would be tax deductions for farmers using renewable energy sources. There are positive implications for organic food, rural preservation, and general conservation of resources, too.

To read more, the House Committee on Agriculture has put together a one-page factsheet about the bill as a whole. Plus, there is a page dedicated to the bill where you can read a factsheet on each section, follow the legislative proceedings, and read statements from involved people.

I am not the type of vegan who starts lecturing people about their choices. Although I will gladly discuss my diet with anyone (unless I’m on the potty. Good grief why do people insist on talking to me while I pee? My bladder is shy, okay?), I won’t point at someone’s hamburger and tell them what was done to the cow and what that cow is now going to do to their body.

But, if you point at my food first all bets are off.

Enter my fave comeback to people questioning the health, nutrition, and even the taste of my plate full.

Boy: Ewww broccoli is so gross.

Me: (Silent restraint)

Boy: Do you even have any protein on that plate?

Me: Start talking about my food and I will start talking about yours.

Boy: It’s just that that doesn’t even look good.

Me: You know what doesn’t look good to me? The dead chicken on your plate that had to go through un-Godly lengths of torture just to get tossed into a deep fryer so that you could get fatter.

Boy: … okay.

Point Sally. Bring it.

When Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me came out in 2004, and gained instant fame with it’s coveted win at the Sundance Film Festival, I thought: it’s a cool idea to film your demise while eating nothing but McDonald’s food for one month, but I don’t need to watch it because I don’t eat fast food.

Boy was I wrong! This movie was phenomenal!

To begin, I had no idea that his girlfriend was a vegan chef. Having been eating her healthy, delicious cooking for so long, it’s no wonder Morgan tosses his fries when trying to eat his first super-sized meal.

But here’s where the shamelessness comes into play. If my review of this movie gets the most “I Like this Review” clicks on the social/movie site Jaman, then I win $1,000 from Whole Foods!

So if you have a second, won’t you please head over to Jaman - an online, social, movie-interest community - and check out my review of Super Size Me? My username is “SallyAndersen” and my review is all about sex. Seriously.

I’m a little late to the game with appreciating the New York Times Bestseller Skinny Bitch, but I love it! During my morning commute today I learned about the evil sugar substitute aspartame (I take public transportation; I was not reading while driving!).

I love the comical, straight-forward way that Skinny Bitch is written - you should definitely check out the book. But for now, here are just the facts, incorporated from the vegan-in-disguise bestseller and my own additional research.

What is aspartame?

* It’s a chemical compound that is 180 times as sweet as sugar, but has no calories or “sugar rush.”

* It was accidentally discovered by a chemist who was working on an ulcer drug.

* Equal and NutraSweet are aspartame. Also, many products such as diet sodas contain it.

Why is aspartame bad?

* Once ingested, it turns to formaldehyde, a neurotoxin, that in turn preserves your fat.

* It’s method of being approved by the FDA was highly suspicious and controversial.

* There are over 92 known side effects, including headaches, weight gain, brain tumors, brain lesions, seizures, depression, and lymphoma.

* The FDA originally denied it eight times. After offering jobs to opposing parties, the aspartame team finally (sort of) won.

* There are aspartame victim support groups.

* The company has been blatantly misleading with consumers, advertising that it is “natural” when it is not.

* It alters your body’s natural PH balance.

* Although promoted as a great alternative for Diabetics, the health risks associated with it outweigh the benefits for people with Diabetes.

* Several lawsuits have been filed claiming that aspartame is poisoning the public.

What are the alternatives?

* Equally as bad alternatives include: refined sugar (hidden animal product alert: refined sugars are often processed with charred animal bones), Splenda, Sweet & Low, and high fructose corn syrup.

* Better alternatives are: Stevia, evaporated cane juice, raw sugar, beet sugar, date sugar, maple syrup, molasses (hidden animal product alert: syrups and molasses that are not 100 percent pure may contain lard), barley malt syrup … the list goes on and on.

I could probably live off of homemade trail mix. Every time I make a batch, it includes something different but is always replete with only ingredients that I selected.

If getting to personalize your own trail mix isn’t enough reason to create it yourself rather than buying pre-blended, sodium-filled packages … then this realization might help:

While perusing the ingredients labels of several on-sale trail mix blends at Target the other day, I came across these non-vegetarian items:

The newest way to lower your blood pressure and become a healthier you, according to several American organizations including the National Institutes of Health, is to follow Maria Heller’s book-and-diet plan known as the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet plan.

Reporting success with weight loss as well, the DASH plan lays out meals under a new food pyramid that includes more plant-based nutrition.

… hmm …. to me, this sounds like my diet plan six months before going vegetarian: slowly backing away from eating meat; increasing veggie and fruit consumption; finding new and better ways to fill your belly, and get plenty of protein.

Check out the Top 10 DASH Diet Tips. You’ll find not one mention of meat. Plus, replace the word “skim” with “soy” and you’ve got one healthy vegan diet, my friends!

Top 10 DASH Diet Tips

1. Use grocery store salad bars for lots of cut up fresh vegetables.

2. Frozen vegetables make it easy to add 2 or more servings of veggies to your meal.

3. Double up on veggies. A serving is 1/2 cup, so a full cup makes 2 servings.

4. Berry-licious is having fresh berries on your cereal.

5. Nonfat fruit yogurt, artificially sweetened, makes a wonderful snack or quick breakfast.

6. All nuts are heart healthy. Making yours salt-free boosts their DASH benefits.

7. Some convenience foods make your DASH diet great. Look for bagged ready-to-eat cut up veggies, like baby carrots, broccoli sprigs, lettuce, cabbage slaw, broccoli slaw, cauliflower tops, etc.

8. Make your plate colorful. Add 1 - 2 cooked vegetables and a side salad with more than just greens.

9. Make your coffee a latte with 8 ounces of skim milk.

10. Smoothies made with skim milk, fresh fruit, and no added sugar make a fast way to maximize the DASH potential of your diet.

To learn more about the DASH Diet, including purchasing info, click on the picture above.

Let’s play a game. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to determine what the items on this list have in common:

* Chicken feathers
* Dried blood
* Ground fish
* Roasted soybeans
* Sodium bicarbonate
* Selenium
* Yeast
* Magnesium oxide
* Supplements of zinc methionine, niacin, anionic salts
* Tallow (rendered fat)
* Pork
* 200 lbs. of water

Any guesses as to what these items have to do with one another?

Drum roll …

This not just a simple list, it’s a menu! Yum! These are the daily intakes of American dairy cows. Not one blade of grass is included, and some of these items come directly from their deceased relatives. Sounds yummy, doesn’t it?

And don’t forget … you are what your food ate.

What’s in your milk?

Statistics not only make things easier to understand, but are also just plain fun sometimes. Here are a few vegetable fun notes.

* Cartoons influence us! Post Popeye’s comic strip debut in 1931 spinach consumption in the U.S. went up nearly 33 percent.

* Baby carrots are primarily a new product found in the U.S. It may seem wasteful to buy them, knowing that they are only regular carrots trimmed down to finger food size. However, California farmer Mike Yurosek came up with the idea as a way to use the over 400 tons of crop he tossed each year because of slight rotting or imperfections.

* In order to make one glass of OJ, 50 glasses of water are needed. This includes water to grow the oranges.

* The potato was once considered a dessert. It came served on a napkin with a sprinkle of salt.

* In 1893, the Supreme Court ruled that a tomato was to be classified as a vegetable, even though its fruit-like botany. The issue hit courts because veggies and fruits were taxed differently.

* The most cultivated crop in America is corn. An ear of corn consists of 80 percent water.

Some of these points are from a new fave Web site of mine - Amusing Facts; others I hunted down through encyclopedias and such.

Here is an entertaining, recent conversation between myself and two men working at a local bar. I am friends with both, so my sass was not received and met with spit in my salad.

Me: I’m hungry.

Supervisor: I’m sure we could rustle you up something to eat.

Me: Hmm … do you cook your french fries in the same oil as the chicken fingers?

Supervisor: Yea.

Me: Okay, well, actually you know there are health codes against doing that, right?

Supervisor: Really?

Me: Yup. Not for me, per se, more so for allergies and whatnot.

Cook (walking in mid-way into convo): Oh, it’s vegetable oil that we fry the stuff in.

Me: But you put the fries in the same vegetable oil as the chicken?

Cook: Right, it’s vegetable oil.

Me (using my hands): Okay … follow me. This is the oil. Chicken in; fries in. Yes? No longer vegetable oil.

Cook: Yea, but the chicken is breaded so the meat doesn’t touch the oil.

Me: Nice try.

Cook: I suppose we could heat up some oil on the stove for you and make you a batch of french fries.

Supervisor: Yea, that sounds good!

Me: Thanks, but I’ll just go with a house salad. Hold the cheese, please. And I do appreciate your offer.

Cook: What kind of dressing - ranch, Caesar …? Are you sure you don’t want the fries?

Me (forehead hits bar): …

Next door to Chicago’s Funky Buddha Lounge, you can now find an eco-friendly, uber-organic nightclub run by the same owner, 32-year-old Mark Klemen (seen pouring a drink in pic). This trendy, health-conscious bar - dubbed Butterfly Social Club - was recently spotlighted in the New York Times, bringing the green movement into the media light with it.

You can find most everything that you would want in a nightclub at the Butterfly: a DJ, great dance music, a fun vibe, and random appearances by celebrities. But you can also find things that you would never expect: fresh-squeezed juice, superfood infusions, coconut juice and agave nectar in place of high fructose corn syrup, no smoking, and mostly non-alcoholic drink orders.

If you are in or near Chicago, definitely give Butterfly a visit at 722 West Grand Avenue, and order up the signature drink: the Jungle Cacao, $6 (organic chocolate, maca root, goji berries, Amazonian herbs and agave nectar, with or without alcohol).

I’m jealous; I want a place like this near me!

Here are a few brief headlining articles that work their magic as PR for animals, vegetarianism, and healthy goodness in general.

Enjoy! (Links are in the bold text)

* CNN Living provides a great look at both sides of the declawing debate, speaking to PETA, Humane Society, and a pet owner who recently declawed her cats.

* CNN Money was in on the game, too, with an announcement of a new soy milk product put out by Canada’s best-selling soy brand, So Good.

* Michigan , Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio faces a 2,000+-pound chicken recall, reports All Headline News. Meijer Inc. recalled their Discovery Cuisine Red Curry Chicken and Jasmine Rice after the U.S.D.A. reported suspecting listeria (a harmful bacteria) in the product.

* redOrbit takes from a BBC News report and studies at University of Minnesota to conclude that eating breakfast every day gives you a slimming edge over your peers. But my mom already knew this.

* Yahoo! News covers medical studies about, and one mother’s direct experience with, the ability for diet to impact - both positively and negatively - hyperactivity and ADHD.