Animal advocates will cherish you...

An open letter, crossposted from Vegansoapbox.com.

I could not agree more....

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Dear Friends and Family,

As you plan your Thanksgiving dinners I urge you to pardon a turkey this year.

Each year nearly 300 million turkeys killed in the U.S. Most of these turkeys spend their entire lives crammed together in cages or sheds. They live, breed, and die according to our wholly unnecessary desire to consume dead turkey flesh for a holiday meal. These turkeys suffer heart attacks, broken limbs, lameness, and death from their genetically-induced accelerated growth rate before they even reach the slaughterhouse.

See for yourself in this video:

The ones who do get to the slaughterhouse are often cruelly tortured on their way to death, as uncovered by investigators:
http://www.goveg.com/feat/butterball/butterball.asp

If you won’t avoid turkey for the animals, do it for your health or the environment. Gentle Thanksgiving offers ten reasons to have a turkey-free holiday meal:

10. Your body will appreciate a holiday from saturated fat, cholesterol, and hormones.
9. You won’t sweat the environment and food resources devastation guilt trip.
8. You won’t spend a sleepless night wondering how the turkey lived and died.
7. Animal advocates will cherish you.
6. You won’t have to call the Poultry Hotline to keep your family alive.
5. Fruits and vegetables don’t have to carry government warning labels.
4. Commercial turkeys are too obese to breed. Won’t happen to you.
3. Your kids can tell their friends about their cool “tofurky.”
2. You are what you eat. Who wants to be a “butterball”?
1. You won’t fall asleep during the football game.

Have a truly happy turkey day by not eating turkeys. Happy for you and happy for turkeys. Give everyone something to be thankful for.

Here are some vegan Thanksgiving recipe ideas, either for you or for the vegetarian or vegan sharing your holiday with you:

http://vegkitchen.com/recipes/vegetarian-thanksgiving.htm
http://vegweb.com/index.php?board=304.0
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/specialoccasionrecipe1/qt/thanksrecipes.htm
http://www.vegparadise.com/cookingwith411.html
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/thanksgiving_recipes.asp
http://www.ivu.org/recipes/holiday/

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Oh, and in case that's not quite doing it for you, check out this link as reported in today's New York Times....



Someone wise once said of their vegan Thanksgiving dinner:

It is better to show grace than to say it.

Stay Vegan, friends.

A small, secret wince...

Given my focus on food, plus my previous 30-odd years as an omni, it will not surprise you to learn that I am not exactly the most svelte vegan in the world. A chunky vegan is closer. And downright voluptuous (in places) is probably most accurate. However, I am trying to change this both by being conscious of what goes onto my plate and by working out at my local Curves. Although I am extremely proud of my choice to turn away from animals and ther secretions, I always have a small, secret wince when I tell new people that I'm vegan because I know that I don't physically represent a great advert for the health benefits. And I do so want this to change.

So while I was sweating it out around the circuit tonight, I decided to take the 'Nothing to Lose' pledge, the newest scheme Curves has come out with. During the holidays, members pledge to basically maintain the status quo - you don't have to lose weight, but you shouldn't gain either. OK, I thought, that'll be helpful - it'll encourage me to keep to my thrice-weekly schedule and to not go crazy over the next 5 weeks or so eating everything in sight.

But it was with no small amount of sadness and disappointment that I then noticed the 'Closed for Thanksgiving' sign displayed at the reception desk. It sported a clip art image of a roasted turkey, surrounded by all of the fatty trimmings with banners proclaiming 'Happy Turkey Day' arcing above it.

And I couldn't help but think that a real opportunity had been lost here. Wouldn't it have been less fattening and healthier all around to have promoted a meat-free Thanksgiving celebration? Was this not the perfect way of showing members how a vegetable-based dinner stacks up - calorie-wise - against a cruelty-free alternative and perhaps a mean to turning people on to reducing or eliminating animals from their diets. Apparently, for all the healthy eating hype, Tradition trumps Dietary Good Sense every time.

And on a separate but related theme: yesterday marked the first time this year that we were offered the grocery store discount coupon for the Butterball turkey. I gaped at the clerk in amazement, she might as well have offered to roast my dog for me. My Beloved handled it better than I, simply pressing the coupon back into her hand and saying gently 'We don't need that'. But when confronted by this sort of thing, I feel like I always go to pieces. Having seen some of the undercover investigations in Butterball processing plants, words can't describe the anger and sadness that descends on me when a teenager at a checkout glibly offers me a discount on the bodies of those tormented birds.

It's been a difficult day.

Stay vegan friends.

Humphrey's First Birthday Cake - Not Before Time!

And now for something completely different!

Fans of this blog (yes, I know you are legion!) are accustomed to my ramblings about food I'm preparing for My Beloved and I, potlucks, various friends' dinners etc etc. But here is a first!

Deep breath!

The promised vegan doggie birthday cake!!!

I have adapted a recipe found in The Everything Cooking for Dogs - a nice little publication, but one which is not overtly animal-friendly if you don't happen to be canine, calling as it does for ground up turkeys and chickens' eggs. Not to worry, I thought, this can be veganized! And so I went to work....

Step 1:





Pour yourself a nice glass of wine! It's Sunday afternoon (in this case) and you are baking a cake for your canine companion - you deserve a nice glass of something!!

Step 2:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and then assemble the ingredients. You will need the following:

1 cup canned beets
2 bananas
1 cup canola oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup carrots, shredded
1/4 cup of soy crumbles (cooked)
1/4 cup non-dairy milk

In this recipe, the bananas replace the 4 eggs you would have used and the soy crumbles replace the ground up turkey flesh of the original recipe. Think of it this way: no cholesterol for your beloved pooch and no-one - not man or beast - gets hurt in the creation of that special little gift for your beloved four-legged friend.  

Step 3:

In a food processor, blitz the beets thus:




Then add the oil and bananas and blitz until smooth, thus:




The mixture is now thick and creamy, mainly due to the mashing of the bananas.

Step 4:

In a large bowl, sift the flour and baking powder together and form a well in the center.



Pour in the pink beet mix and stir until combined.




Step 5:

Stir in the grated carrots and the cooked soy crumbles. If you are unsure about the soy crumbles, this is what I used:




And it looked like this:







Step 6: 

The mixture is likely to be very thick, so now is the moment to thin it down a little with a scant 1/4 cup of non-dairy milk. I used soymilk, but ricemilk is equally good!

Step 7:

Lightly oil 2 8-inch pans and coat with flour and divide the mix between the pans.



Bake for approx. 30 minutes, or until a toothpicks comes out clean.


Turn out onto a cooling rack and leave until completely cool.





To finish the job, I creamed together some vegan cream cheese, a little powdered sugar, some additional grated carrots and a hint of non-dairy milk, sandwiching the cakes together like this:




And here is the almost finished result:



A close-up of that yummy beety-fake sausage-y mix...




I must say, it was a particularly odd thing to bake insofar as the kitchen smelled disturbingly like roasting pork. I have no idea to what I can attribute this happening - no pigs were involved directly or indirectly in the creation of this celebration. My Beloved was dog-proofing our last floor-level cupboard when he noticed it, and dragged me in to confirm he was not, in fact, completely losing his marbles. No, I verified, that really smells like pork crackling...

So if anyone out there in Blogland can explain this phenomenon to me, I would be especially grateful!

Humphrey and his brother Darwin are currently eating their dinner, after which they'll have a slice of cake. I'll document that as it happens, but for now...

Stay vegan, Friends!