Today is Hug A Vegetarian Day. Tomorrow is World Vegetarian Day. Nov 1 is World Vegan Day. In the way of holidays, these are about as contrived as they get…but why not celebrate nevertheless? Bring a little bit of awareness like Alicia Silverstone and Olivia Wilde at the Toronto Film Festival.

Tomorrow starts the VeganMoFo. The Vegan Month of Food was originally started on Post Punk Kitchen, “The idea [being] to write as much as you can all month, about vegan food.”

A Life Vegetarian is included in the Google bundle of RSS feeds. I’ll be bringing you more recipes throughout the month, everything MoFo will be tagged and categorized appropriately for easy reference.

Whether you’re vegetarian or not, take the challege of going vegan for just a few extra meals. The VeganMoFo can help you out.

Cap ou pas cap?

Since some of my more recent emails have gone unanswered, I think I’ve probably been added to Urban Decay’s ”N list”: nuisance/no response list. No matter, I still heart Urban Decay…and I don’t think that’s a secret. I’m working to bring you all my backlog of company responses. This one is from May 2010. After the response I received from Smashbox Cosmetics, I realized that some companies may define ‘vegan’ or ‘vegetarian’ differently than myself and others, and it made me wonder what the Marley Footprint really meant to Urban Decay. So I asked…

TO URBAN DECAY:

From: Sarah
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 10:00 AM
To: UD Web CSR
Hello again,
I’ve appreciated your responses to my previous two questions, and was hoping you could answer another for me. I was recently going through responses from other companies about whether their products are vegan/vegetarian. One made me stop and consider if the companies responding or claiming “Vegan” all have the same definition. Since Urban Decay has the Marley Footprint on products to denote that they are vegan, I would like to know what exactly does being “vegan” and not having “animal-derived ingredients” in certain products mean to Urban Decay?

Thank you,
Sarah 

FROM URBAN DECAY:

Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 1:20 PM

Hello Sarah,
Thank you for your inquiry. Our Vegan Products are 100% Vegan. We do consider and recognize insects as animals. Therefore no insect ingredients are used in our Vegan Products. If you have any questions on a particular product please feel free to write back. Have a wonderful day.

Martha,
Urban Decay
Customer Service
onlineorders@urbandecay.com

So there you go. To UD, ‘vegan’ means, well, vegan.

At this past weekend’s D.C. VegFest, there were many treats. One of my personal highlights came late in the afternoon and I’m so happy I stuck around for it.

Just after 4pm, veg*n darling, Isa Chandra Moskowitz took the stage for a cooking demo/comedy show. Moskowitz is the well-known author/co-author of Vegan With A Vengeance, Veganomicon, and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.

A Brooklyn gal, Moskowitz commented on how she brings the cultural influences of NYC and her Jewish roots together in everything she does.

On this day, she showed the crowd how to make gumbo and pumpkin cheesecake and shared some tips. When there were some technical difficulties with her cooking set up, Moskowitz made the best of it and a few jokes: “I also tap dance.”

Some of her tips:

1)    Learn basic techniques, like how to make a roux.

2)    ‘Fresh is best pretty much whenever you can.’

3)    Plants really do their jobs if you let them and learn what they do.

4)    Don’t use a rubber spatula for hot dishes. (I found that out already when making Vegan Rice Krispy Treats…but it probably should have been a no brainer.)

5)    Garlic burns easily so put it in at the end, but if she put that in a cookbook, “I‘d get like 20 bad Amazon reviews.”

6)    Bring your spices back to life by toasting them a little.

7)    Soak your cashews to soften them.

8)    Cornstarch just helpd keep everything together.

9)    ‘A vitamix will destroy anything in its path,’ but you don’t have to have one to get things done…she doesn’t.

In addition to passing out gumbo and pumpkin cheesecake samples, Isa gave out preview copies of her new book with Terry Hope Romero: Vegan Pie in the Sky. Considering everything I’ve baked from this series has been amazing, I can’t wait to try my hand at the Chocolate Caramel Sea Salt Tart.

Over their lifetime and beyond, livestock are an energy intensive commodity. From feeding, through slaughter, to refrigeration, and in resultant human ailments such as heart disease, maintaining animals as a food source is an inefficient use of resources.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ you might reply, ‘but what does that really mean?’ At the D.C. VegFest on Saturday, Dawn Moncrieffe, founder of A Well-Fed World, took the stage and illustrated her point with a hot button topic: gas prices.

Currently, Americans consume more meat than any other country in the world. However, globalization has promoted a rise in meat consumption around the globe, those who want to live the American ideal. If imitation is the highest form of flattery, we should be blushing red….with alarm.

Not just the health crises that loom over the horizon, but the demand on gas should be a cause for concern. According to Moncrieffe, statistics warn of a doubling in meat production over the next 50 years. This doubling of production will result in even more energy being utilized in this industry alone.

“Can we handle the growth?” Probably not.

We’re a world reliant on gas. As the resources dwindle, yet the demand for gas increases, the prices will rise. As the prices go up, certain people will not be able to afford fuel for their cars, so they’ll turn to mass transportation. As the demand grows for train and bus service, these systems will become congested and prices will go up. Some will not be able to afford even mass transportation. Over time, those who can’t pay will be left in the cold.

If you’ve ever complained about the price of gas over a nice steak, close your mouth and chew on that. If you’re going to make the decision to eat meat, savor it…cause it is going to cost you more than what’s on the bill.

Squandering precious energy resources is creating a strain on our system. Our choices have far reaching consequences past our plates. While the organization encourages the ideal, a full vegan diet, every little bit helps.

Read more about A Well-Fed World.

The last time I had Ethiopian food was at Kaffa Crossing in Philadelphia. Now, shopping in Westerly Natural Market, I was reminded how good it is. Westerly will be carrying containers of the vegan Taste of Ethiopia in their prepared foods case. The company’s owner, at left, was on hand tonight passing out samples. The market is currently sold out, but if you live, work, or play in the Midtown West area of NYC, check back for more and taste for yourself.

Not in NYC? Find an Ethiopian restaurant near you or try these recipes at home:

• Spicy Tomato Lentil Stew (Post Punk Kitchen)
• Green Beans and Potatoes (Fat Free Vegan)
• Injera (Chef In You)

The odds were in favor of the 2011 D.C. VegFest, held this past Saturday at George Washington University. Those dreading the onset of fall and dropping temperatures, a prelude to winter, were actually treated to a balmy afternoon.

Organized by Compassion Over Killing and the Vegetarian Society of D.C., this free outdoor festival featured well-known speakers presenting on topics such as cooking, health, environmental issues and animal cruelty.

Umbrellas stayed closed as veg*ns and passersby alike made the rounds to the tents of dozens of food vendors and non-profit organizations. To fully explore all the VegFest had to offer, took some time. If you’re in it for the food, there was plenty.

Samples weren’t as abundant as at the NYC Vegetarian Food Festival last April, but this festival scores major points for being so much more accessible to the general public. Passersby didn’t just ask what the crowds were for, they were easily able to experience everything for themselves.

The sugar flowed as homegrown Sticky Fingers Sweets & Eats and PA-based Vegan Treats piled the goods high. Vegan Treats owner Danielle Konya had her signature Peanut Butter Bomb, as well as an array of single cakes, cannolis, and cookies. Sticky Fingers’ Doron Petersan, Cupcake Wars winner, was grilling up some vegan stromboli.

Check back for more, including:

• Cooking Gumbo with Isa Chandra Moskowitz
• Economics with A Well Fed World
• A talk with Vaute Couture’s Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart
• Vegan Lip Balm
• Veg*n Athletes
• …and more.

Coming back via train from the D.C. VegFest and I wanted to post a big thanks to Compassion Over Killing and all those who made this event. From Sticky Fingers‘ vegan stromboli to chatting with good + kind lip balm maker, Heather, and her family, I had such a great time snapping pics and getting to know some really amazing people. More to come in the following days.

Waiting to depart from Philly to the D.C VegFest, my father (not a veg*n) made a pit stop at the Golden Arches. “You want at least a coffee?” he asked as we parked. “Um, no. MickeyDs got plenty of our money and all I got was to be a fat child.” Actually, I did get something: a large collection of McDonald’s toys. Walking in to sit down with him, staunch there was nothing in the joint I could want, my eyes went right to the display of toys: “Oh, I want a Smurf toy!’ I mentally smacked my hand. They sure do know how to hook you.

QUERY:

http://www.nugonutrition.com/about/contact-us/

09/16/2011 1:40pm
I saw your bars in the store and that some of them are labeled as “vegan”. When I looked at the ingredients, I noticed that they contain sugar. Is the sugar in your vegan bars particularly, but more general as well, processed free of animal by-products, like bone char filters? Additionally, when labeling a product vegan and if you were to ever label something vegetarian, how does your company define these two words? Thank you.

REPLY:
9/16/2011 4:09pm
Sarah,
All of our vegan products are truly vegan. The sugars all come from agave syrup and tapioca syrup except for our sugars in the chocolate (the chocolate is also vegan) and are not processed with animal by-products. Most of our vegan products are also certified OU Pareve by the orthodox union. This is the strictest certification in the food process which includes shutting the line down for days to clean all piece and equipment at 212 degrees and making sure each ingredient is pareve (having no dairy or meat by-products).

We do not label anything vegetarian.

Healthy Regards,
Alyssa Nard
NuGo Nutrition
412-828-4115
anard@nugonutrition.com

Reprinted with permission.

Blackbird Pizzeria is always a favorite, just for doin’ what they do. And I snapped up a huge Vegan Treats whoopie pie!

Essene market is another fave of mine. Veggies have so many options there, including an entirely veg*n salad bar. I picked up Strawberry Kanten made of organic apple juice, agar, and strawberries; it looks weird, but it’s pretty tasty.

Other veg-friendly options dotting South Street include:

• Moaz Vegetarian
• Loving Hut
• Whole Foods
• Govinda’s Gourmet to Go
• Sweet Freedom Bakery