Dunkin' Cruelty Vegtalk Interview

Erik Marcus at vegan.com interviewed Erica Meier of Compassion Over Killing (COK) the other day about COK's new campaign targeting Dunkin' Donuts. Take a listen here.

Ask Michael Kors why he uses fur!

Please take a moment of your time to submit questions for designer Michael Kors, asking him why he continues to use fur in his designs when he knows that fur requires animals to be tortured and barbarically killed. If this topic gets a lot of hits, the general ethical issues of fur will be in Time Magazine's "100 Questions for Michael Kors."

Here are some sample posts (feel free to copy/paste if you are busy):

“How can you call yourself an original designer when you steal fashion ideas from animals by using their fur?

“Why won’t you stop using fur, even when so many hyper-fashionable people, like Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Natalie Portman, and Tim Gunn have come out against it?”

“You recently dropped raccoon dog fur from your line—why not all fur? Why should raccoon dogs be spared, and not other sentient animals?”

“Why you such a bitch to animals boy?” haha

Dunkin' Donuts Cruelty: Quick Action for Animals

As some of you may be aware, Compassion Over Killing (COK) has launched a new campaign aimed at Dunkin' Donuts to persuade them to offer vegan menu items free of the cruelties involved in the egg and dairy industries. Their new website is up and they are urging activists and consumers alike to make their voices heard and take a minute or two to call, snail mail or email the company, urging them to offer cruelty free options.

As every single donut on their current menu contains milk and eggs, COK is also urging them to offer menu items for those with allergies and health concerns.

Here's the short e-mail I sent:

To whom it may concern,

I recently learned that your company does not offer any products suitable for people who avoid consuming animal products such as dairy and eggs, which appear in all your donut menu items. As you are likely well aware, the number of individuals who avoid the cruelties and negative health effects of animal products are growing. With numerous consumers opting for healthier foods and cruelty-free goods our retail market is shifting. As a result we ask that businesses represent our needs and allow consumers to continue their support of companies such as yours. Without dairy and egg-free options, consumers will be forced to purchase elsewhere.

I would ask that you increase the availability of items without animal products or create vegan meal items to reflect your consumers' growing concerns, opening yourselves up to a larger market. New animal-free products would be marketed as healthier options and allow your company to tap into the growing concerns of the population for health foods and improved eating habits.

I would like to thank you for your time and again stress the need for vegan menu items to be added to your repertoire, allowing consumers the chance to purchase cruelty-free items from your establishment.

Thank you

To visit the campaign's web site click here: Dunkin' Cruelty

Fowl Play

I recently got a chance to see Fowl Play, a great new film produced by Adam Durand and Mercy For Animals (MFA). It's an incredibly disturbing but equally inspiring documentary that is super well-done. Fowl Play is also pretty short (less than an hour), so it would be good for campus screenings with plenty of room for post-viewing discussion. The film takes a behind closed-doors look at the egg industry and tells the stories of rescued hens and their courageous rescuers while touching on broader farm animal and animal rights issues. Unfortunately, the DVD is not yet available, but it should be out soon. Don't miss it!

On a related note, Compassion Over Killing (COK) just launched a campaign to get Dunkin' Donuts to stop using dairy and eggs. Take 2 minutes to take action here.

My Trip to the Stockyard

I have just finished an internship at Farm Sanctuary in Upstate New York. Farm Sanctuary is the largest farm animal sanctuary, focusing on education, outreach, legislation, and animal rescue. I have learned so much at Farm Sanctuary, and recommend it so strongly for anyone interested in animal rights.

One part of the internship was a trip to a stockyard auction. I'd like to tell you about my experience.

The stockyard was in Bath and was very small. Steers, pigs, lambs, and goats in holding stalls waiting, bleating, bellowing, and snorting, to be auctioned off. They paced the dirty stalls where they could barely turn around. They tried to push their ways through the wooden planks to be free. They cried. They literally cried. But that wasn't the worst part.

When we got there, they were about to auction off the veal calves. They were all kept in a very small pen. They were still wobbly--one could barely walk. Their wet umbilical cords still hung from their bellies. They cried and cried, like babies. Anxious, confused, stepping on each other, bellowing so so loudly. The worst part was bending over the stall to pet them, to try to offer them a small bit of comfort before they were either slaughtered or chained to veal crate later that day. When they saw fingers, they desperately began to suckle them. One followed me around, suckling desperately on my entire hand. Whether they were hungry or not is not the point--though very sad if they were--but they were seeking their mother's udder. Comfort. Affection. Far too young to be away from her.

Children beat the calves with canes. The older ones taught the younger ones (some so small they probably could not yet read) how to beat them to make them move. Baby cows flinched with fear and pain. They were smacked into the auction room, pushed around by a man to show the customers how well they can move. They would be sold and beat into another small pen. This went on for eternity.

Some calves were to be slaughtered that day for what is called "bob veal." This is low-quality veal that is not pale in flesh, but is very cheap to buy and produce. Other calves were to be chained to veal crates for 6 weeks, fed a liquid diet deficient in iron and protein to create pale, tender, anemic flesh, so desired by veal connoisseurs. These calves are weak with atrophied muscles, 6 weeks in the dark, alone, unable to even stand. Starving. Dying before being murdered. Babies.

This was a very small stockyard with small-town friendly farmers and Amish people. This is the BEST it's going to get. My heart won't even allow me to imagine what bigger, factory farmed veal operations looked like.

I'm having trouble shaking the feeling of baby cows suckling on my hand. Images of babies hitting babies with canes. Hearing the crying calves. Smelling the awful stench. Please don't drink milk.

Summer Salad Ideas

Mark Bittman recently published an article in the New York Times with summer salad ideas entitled 101 Simple Salads for the Season. Don't get too excited, all 101 recipes are not animal-friendly, but the first 36 are vegan as the subheading suggests. I will admit, I haven't tried any of these recipes out myself, but I was told they are top-notch. If you're looking for a creative vegan dish to bring to a potluck or summer BBQ, any of these recipes would make a great addition.

Big problems

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof discusses our moral obligations with regard to world poverty and muses on what leads people to turn the other way. He draws from the work of philosopher Peter Singer, who many of you may know from his writings about animal ethics.

Kristof points out that people are less likely to help when a problem is framed as very large and less specific. He cites the title of an upcoming essay by psychologist Paul Slovic: "The more who die, the less we care." Kristof writes that "humanitarian appeals emphasize the scale of the challenges — 25,000 children will die today! — in ways that are as likely to numb us as to galvanize us."

This should ring a bell for animal rights advocates. We all know that the numbers are staggering -- ten billion animals slaughtered every year in the United States alone, and many more when including fish. Perhaps we would do well to avoid overemphasizing the sheer scale of the problem. Instead, we could focus on how our individual choices are linked to animal cruelty while including positive arguments as well.

Cheesy Vegan Macaroni Casserole

Here's a top-notch casserole recipe I learned from a friend. Although I call for mushrooms and broccoli here, you can really go with any veggies (cauliflower, onion, spinach, and kale are some ideas). If you're not familiar, nutritional yeast is an inactive, golden-hued form of yeast, rich in protein and B vitamins. This recipe capitalizes on the yeast's distinctive, cheese-like flavor (which also makes it good in pesto and on popcorn). Nutritional yeast is typically sold in bulk at natural food stores or in well-stocked supermarkets.

3 cups elbow macaroni
1/2 cup margarine or soy butter
1/2 cup flour
3 1/2 cups boiling water
2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons dill
1 teaspoon cheyenne, turmeric, or paprika
2 Tablespoons cup olive oil
1 cup Nutritional Yeast
1 broccoli floret chopped
1 cup shitake mushrooms chopped

Preheat oven to 425°. Cook the noodles. While cooking, melt the margarine in a saucepan over low heat. Mix the flour in with a whisk and stir until smooth and bubbly. Add water, soy sauce, salt, and other spices. Let sauce cook until thick, then stir in oil and nutritional yeast and remove from heat. Drain the noodles and empty them into the casserole dish. Mix in about 2/3 of the sauce with the pasta. Layer the vegetables on top of the pasta. Pour remaining sauce atop veggies. Sprinkle with some more dill. Bake for about 25 minutes or until vegetables are soft and crispy and sauce is browned. Eat.

The Winsome Vegan: some thoughts on faith, animal rights, and living with carnivores

I wrote this post on my own blog in 2007.

Even when I ate meat, I was never what you'd consider to be a "foodie." As I've written before, in my pre-vegan bachelor days, I could subsist for days, even weeks, on food-related products purchased at the local 7-11. Being vegan does force me to be more thoughtful about what I'm eating, but it's a thoughtfulness born more of necessity rather than pleasure. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy my food, I do. But I've never had much interest in contemplating exciting new meals. Cooking shows -- at least the sort where you are shown how to make something -- are stunningly dull. I do like fashion, and care much more about clothing than food. Hence, I do enjoy "Project Runway." But I can't explain why I'm so fond of "Top Chef" and the positively sadistic "Hell's Kitchen". Perhaps I just like watching people who are passionate about what they do struggling to perform under intense pressure. I know I'm at my best under pressure, and perhaps it's empathy born of experience in other areas of life that makes the competitors on these shows so interesting to me. Lord knows, it's not the food that they're actually making. And this brings me back to veganism. In the last four or five months that I have been much more strictly and actively vegan, I've been acutely conscious of my own dangerous tendency towards self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is the pit into which many adult converts tend to fall, and those of us who have "prodigal son" narratives (in my case involving a decade and a half worth of drugs, alcohol, multiple divorces and a lot of very unhealthy sexual acting-out) are all the more likely to become tiresomely prudish as we move to amend our way of life.

Of course, in our zeal to promote the new "clean livin'" we've just discovered, we end up alienating everyone around us. I know I've slipped into the role of the prig many times, and as I grow in Christ, I'm all the more determined to not let that censoriousness characterize my thinking or my words about other people's behavior. At the same time, when it comes to veganism and animal rights, it's hard. As someone who does believe that all sentient beings -- not just humans -- do have inalienable rights to life and dignity, it's often difficult to find a way to live in loving community with those who find that view preposterous and silly. Watching "Hell's Kitchen" last night, I saw one group of chefs preparing "bacon-wrapped rabbit" as a special dish. Looking at the strips of bacon wrapped around the little chunks of rabbit, I thought about the animals from which those morsels came. I thought about the hogs I've been around and the rabbits I've played with. (Lest you think I'm a purely urban vegan, I've spent a lot of time in my life on ranches and farms. I grew up around 4-H and FFA and have been to countless livestock shows and auctions. I'm not an urban sentimentalist totally ignorant of the realities of farm life.) I thought about the capacity of pigs to nurture and to protect, and the clear and obvious ability of rabbits to experience fear and pain and pleasure. And in order to continue watching the show, I had to shut down that part of me that wanted to scream "How dare you!" at the aspiring chefs. I have vegan acquaintances who won't go to family holidays where meat is served. I know some vegans who have severed all of their close ties with those who continue to eat animal products. They find it too painful to sit at family meals while those whom they love consume the flesh of creatures equally deserving of protection and care. I'm far too committed to my friends and family, far too interested in far too many different types of people to ever cut myself off from someone over their dietary choices.

With my family, we've reached a clear understanding. When we come home for family holidays (such as at Easter this year), we'll bring our own food. No one will beg us to try "just one little bite" of ham or omelette. In turn, we won't begin to hector our loved ones with the usual lines: "Do you have any idea how that was made? Would you be willing to eat it if you saw how that animal was slaughtered?" My wife and I not only sit next to meat-eaters, we even help in preparing dishes filled with animal product (as at the Fourth of July, where I spent over an hour cranking out ice cream I would never taste). We've made a conscious decision to strike a balance between our desire for loving, harmonious relationship with our families and our own commitment to no longer consume animals in any form. It's not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes, the meat eaters around me feel as if they're being silently rebuked. As they slice their steaks and I spoon in my quinoa and broccoli, they look uncomfortable. I make a conscious effort not to stare at their food, I don't make disgusted expressions, I don't use passive-aggressive tactics to communicate disapproval. Nevertheless, I see some folks getting antsy. Often, they'll ask if I'm "okay" with what they're eating; I'm always careful to be reassuring.

At the same time, my veganism is not a value-neutral lifestyle choice. Being a feminist and being anti-racist isn't morally equivalent with being a misogynist bigot. Those of us who fight for justice for women and ethnic minorities want to change hearts and minds and behaviors; we want men to stop abusing women, we want full inclusion for people of color in every aspect of public life. Most of us draw a distinction between someone who says "having toast with peanut butter in the morning is better than having cornflakes, and you can't judge me for that view" and someone who says "raping women is something I prefer to not raping them, and you can't judge me." The latter involves tremendous harm to living beings whose lives have innate value, and so we feel comfortable and right in judging it. So if I believe that pigs and rabbits and cows have a similar innate value to that of a human being, am I not contradicting myself if I reassure my meat-eating friends that they're "okay with me" when I would never offer that same reassurance to a rapist or a racist? Yes, I do want a world where we've minimized the suffering of sentient creatures. I do want a world where we are all surviving and thriving on a plant-based diet, and I am eager to play a role in helping to create the economic systems and the policies that can make veganism as affordable and pleasurable and easy as carniverousness. The cost to the earth (in terms of water and protein, for example) to "factory farm" cows, pigs, sheep, and poultry is colossal and likely unsustainable. The cost in physical suffering is unspeakable, and I do wish those who eat meat would, at the least, imagine the face of the creature whose thighs or hindquarters they are eating. There can be no virtue in deliberate, willfull denial.

At the same time, I'm aware we live in a world trapped in the famous tension between the Already and the Not Yet. I am Already aware, at least I trust I am, of what it is God is calling me to be. I am Already convinced that I am called, and indeed, we all are called, to eat and drink and drive and make love and buy morally. I am Already convinced that to follow Christ is to live a life of courage and radical compassion; I am Already convinced that to live as an authentic feminist is to see that the exploitation of other living creatures for my pleasure is fundamentally unethical. I am Not Yet at the place where I can live this life perfectly, without the occasional small compromises that expose me and others to the charge of hypocrisy. I am Not Yet at the place where I can make the case for Christian feminist veganism without coming across, at least to many, as a charlatan or a fraud or a deluded prude swept up in religious enthusiasm. So I'll keep on keepin' on; that means being cheerful about an undressed salad at an elegant restaurant while those around me nosh on chateaubriand. That means being unapologetic about animal rights while being warm, engaging, and non-judgmental with those who are unwilling to consider my position to be practical or desirable. And it means I'm gonna work on another book proposal one of these days. Working title: "The Winsome Vegan: How to Live Cruelty-Free and Love those Who Don't".

Some Musings on Veganism, “Finikiness,” and Indulging in Omnivory

In the kitchen of my shared apartment in Leipzig, I was forced to behold a disgusting sight and smell. A tomato, a half-eaten container of blueberry yogurt, more yogurt in a glass dish, and a few unopened snacks had been sitting on the countertop for the last four days, apparently left there by a flatmate who had gone on vacation. The tomato and yogurt had of course become moldy and attracted numerous fruit flies, so I grudgingly threw them in the dumpster outside. The remaining question was what to do with the unopened (and therefore unspoiled) items: berry-flavored applesauce, vanilla pudding with whipped topping, and another container of yogurt. I knew that the owner had probably forgotten their existence entirely and might never eat them—after all, they were put there at the same time as all the foul-smelling, spoiled food which was left out so carelessly. Therefore, there seemed to be only two possible courses of action: put them in the refrigerator and hope that the owner would find them eventually, or eat them myself. I did the former with the applesauce and unopened yogurt, which didn’t look that interesting. But the vanilla pudding looked like the ultimate creamy perfection, so I couldn’t resist indulging.

This instance is part of an unfortunate pattern that’s been plaguing me for the past few months: I see an animal-based food, decide that eating it won’t affect the demand much because it’s a small amount and/or I didn’t buy it myself, and my willpower breaks; or I order something at a restaurant which may or may not be vegan, but am too lazy to ask, and it ends up being non-vegan. Thankfully, the pudding incident is the worst of the sins I’ve engaged in, other than a time when I started nibbling some fancy cheese someone had brought to a picnic and ended up eating an amount half the size of a tennis ball. I also admit that part of my lazyness with asking about ingredients at restaurants has to do with being in Germany for the summer, where I don’t speak the language fluently. Yet still I worry that if I don’t bring these habits under control, they will escalate until I find myself knowingly purchasing animal products on my own.

Fortunately, the animal agriculture industry is at least partially right when it condemns small welfare improvements as the beginning of a “slippery slope” toward the banning of animal agriculture, but unfortunately it works the other way too: as soon as a vegan starts eating small amounts of animal products, they’ve put themselves on a dangerous path toward losing their veganism entirely. While I don’t think this will happen to me anytime soon (banning myself from buying animal products, even if I eat things that other people buy, seems straightforward enough), even this prohibition has its gray areas. For example, am I purchasing animal products if I buy a lunch at an all-you-can-eat buffet that contains both vegan and non-vegan items, and then put some non-vegan things on my plate at the last minute?

Calling oneself a vegan, while not being very strict, can also have its public relations problems. Anyone who’s a freegan or a not-so-strict vegan is undoubtedly familiar with the awkward situation that arises when you taste small amounts of animal products in front of people who know you’re vegan. Someone says, “But I thought you were a vegan!” and you’re forced to give a response like, “Well, I’m not always that strict” or “I’m just having a small taste, so it's not really feeding into the demand.” While this may make some almost-ready-to-be-vegans lose some of their fear of commitment, it can make others perceive you as weak-willed, and we don’t want to give omnivores that satisfaction. Not to mention that over time, our small forays into omnivory add up, so it’s not quite true that they have no affect on supply and demand—it’s just a very small effect compared to that of full-fledged omnivores.

Then again, being too strict a vegan can have its drawbacks too. The more “finicky” you are, the more people are going to perceive you as “unreasonable,” and this does not help the public’s perception of an already “fringe” lifestyle. I once made this mistake when I ordered some pasta at an Italian restaurant which wasn’t described on the menu as containing cheese, but it ended up having some sprinkled on top. This was in addition to a salad I had gotten, which automatically came with some milk-based dressing that wasn’t mentioned on the menu. I don’t remember whether the waitress was within earshot, but I do remember expressing my displeasure, and some others at the table immediately accused me of being “ungreatful” for what the cook must have meant as a nice garnish. While I still think my complaint was justified, no one else perceived it that way, so unfortunately I think my cause was hindered rather than helped. This was especially true since the damage, in terms of animal products used, could no longer be undone.

So for all you fellow vegans out there, my advice is this: try to keep your small indulgences in meat, eggs, and dairy to a minimum, but don't make so big a deal about it that the legitimacy of your position is undermined. If you ever get the sense that you’re at the beginning of a “slippery slope” toward non-veganism, that means it’s time to reaffirm where your boundaries are, before it’s too late. But meanwhile, don’t be so dogmatic you turn into a fussy person whom no one wants to emulate.