Vegan in Seattle: Oh, The Options!

The Seattle P-I has a great story on the astounding number of options for vegans who live in Seattle. Reporter Kimberly Chou does a gangbuster job. The piece, unlike many others, doesn't devolve into a debate on vegan "health issues", or pepper the reader with silly doubts ("where DO vegans get their protein from, anyway?!"). The focus is on the businesses that make being vegan in Seattle not only easy, but fun.

Kudos to Chou for highlighting Market Street Shoes, where just last week I procured a pair of Blackspots. Other personal faves in the article are Sidecar for Pig's Peace and Sureshot Cafe. I'm happy to hear that Sureshot's vegan-enabled bakery (90% of the coffee house's pastries are vegan) will be selling to other coffee shops soon. Several shops in the area already sell vegan products from Julia's and Mighty-O Donuts. But no one in the area can beat Sureshot's vegan scones. Mmmmmm...

"Low Carb" Diet Study Really a Vegetarian Lifestyle?

Atkins-type folks will hold up the latest study led by Iris Shai of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev as justification for continuing to devour defenseless animals.

Not so fast, Oh Meaty Ones.

First off, this was a limited comparison between three types of diets: low-fat, low-carb, and Mediterranean. In other words, the study can't say low-carb is best for lowering weight and cholesterol; it can only say that low-carb is the best of the three diets studied.

Second, look at the diets themselves:

The research was done in a controlled environment — an isolated nuclear research facility in Israel. The 322 participants got their main meal of the day, lunch, at a central cafeteria.

"The workers can't easily just go out to lunch at a nearby Subway or McDonald's," said Dr. Meir Stampfer, the study's senior author and a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In the cafeteria, the appropriate foods for each diet were identified with colored dots, using red for low-fat, green for Mediterranean and blue for low-carb.

As for breakfast and dinner, the dieters were counseled on how to stick to their eating plans and were asked to fill out questionnaires on what they ate, Stampfer said.

The low-fat diet — no more than 30 percent of calories from fat — restricted calories and cholesterol and focused on low-fat grains, vegetables and fruits as options. The Mediterranean diet had similar calorie, fat and cholesterol restrictions, emphasizing poultry, fish, olive oil and nuts.

The low-carb diet set limits for carbohydrates, but none for calories or fat. It urged dieters to choose vegetarian sources of fat and protein. [Emphasis added]

"So not a lot of butter and eggs and cream," said Madelyn Fernstrom, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center weight management expert who reviewed the study but was not involved in it.

The article goes on to say that "[t]he study is not the first to offer a favorable comparison of an Atkins-like diet." But that's not a typical Atkins diet. On Atkins, you're not discouraged from eating butter and eggs. A 3-egg cheese omelette cooked in a quarter-stick of butter is a valid option during the Induction phase of the Atkins diet. (Don't believe me? Check for yourself.) Strictly speaking, what researchers encouraged their low-carbers to eat was more a flexitarian version of The Zone. Dr. Dean Ornish lathers scorn on this "Veggie Atkins" in his own response to the study.

Personally, I doubt much of the anti-Atkins ranting. I do believe that carbs - refined carbs, not healthy whole grains - play a major role in modern American obesity. Let's call a spade a spade, though. If this study proves anything, it's the wisdom of eating fruits, veggies, and whole grains - and steering clear of animal products whenever possible.

If you can be healthy without eating meat, then why shouldn't you?

(Footnote: For those wondering, "Where do you get your protein from when you're a vegan?", see Kathy Freston's decisive article.)

Hey, Vegans - Stop Eating Crap!

Bodybuilding is a "sport" for which I have little if any affection. That said, Willamette Week has a praise-worthy write-up on Robert Cheeke, the guy behind VeganBodybuilding.com. WW gave Cheeke's diet a 10-point inspection. They went so far as to calculate how much his bodybuilding diet cost compared to an omnivorous diet. (Cheeke's diet is about 25% pricier - which doesn't mean much for the average vegan, who will consume far fewer calories than a vegan athlete.)

Kudos to Cheeke, who sounds more grounded than his meat-eating counterparts in the world of bodybuilding. The omivore bodybuilders interviewed for the article are getting the lion's share of their 200+ grams of faily protein from animal sources. One guy brags that he gulps down 60 eggs every week. Egads.

Anyway: the comments sport a single anti-vegan comment, talking trash about how vegan diets are "high in refined carbohydrates and refined sugars." I imagine this person knows a few vegans who eat largely packaged food, and is basing his or her conclusions based on this limited pool.

Notice to meat-eaters: the numbers are clear - we're in better shape than you are.

Notice to vegans: stop eating crap! I know most of you don't. It's you remaining handful who fuel nonsense observations like this. Yes, I'm lecturing you. Deal with it. If you publicly call yourself a vegan, then you're not a solitary eater: you're a representative of all vegans. Masticate accordingly. That is all.

When It's Finally Time to Go Vegan

A wonderful question from the Vegan Forum, with many intriguing answers:

Why weren't you vegan before you were vegan?

I first felt a compunction to go vegan about nine years ago. Having spent most of my life as a fussy eater (broccoli? Bllleech!), I couldn't hack it. It was "too hard," too alien. I was also extremely consumerist in those days, and found the lack of "pre-fab" vegan solutions depressing. I wanted to have fun, and not worry like some religious ascetic whether what I crammed down my gullet was kosher or not.

The protein myth was another obstruction. I'd fallen under the sway of The Zone about 11 years ago in a bid to shed pounds. My weight has yo-yo'd ever since I was a kid. At my heaviest, I've tipped the scales at 250 lbs. Thanks to Barry Sears et. al., I convinced myself that the only way I could stay slim was to gorge on animal flesh.

Nearly a decade passed, during which my weight never dipped below 190 lbs. Then this year, I read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which was a revelation. I learned more about the environmental degradation brought about by "producing" meat. I decided to eat meat only from organically fed, free range, humanely treated animals. I cut down meat to one meal a week, and increase my consumption of whole grains, fruits, vegetables and nuts. My body responded well. I didn't bloat up to the size of an endangered whale, like the pro-protein mythologists claimed I would.

One day, I found myself thinking: if I can live without killing animals, then that's how I should live. Many animals have no choice in whether or not they eat other living beings; I don't have that luxury. I reached a tipping point where I could no longer justify the slaughter of living creatures for the benefit of my taste buds.

I went vegetarian in February. In May, while my wife was out of the country on business, I abandoned all animal products. Once I acclimated myself to soy milk, abandoning dairy and eggs was no sweat.

The odd thing is, I don't miss meat, eggs or dairy. Not at all. I don't have any days where I salivate over cheeseburger mirages. I remain physically active, which allows me to eat until I'm well and full. I eat good food - delicious whole wheat bread I make myself, vegan pancakes, oatmeal and fruit, zesty Thai and Indian dishes, hearty pastas, "meaty" Mexican salads, sumptuous cakes and desserts. I have so much variety in my diet that I never feel deprived. To the contrary: I feel liberated. I weigh in at 160 lbs., and can slip into a size 30 jean for the first time since my teens. My energy is over the top; I feel light on my feet. And I sit down to every meal secure in the knowledge that I've adopted the least impact, most humane diet on the planet.

I had to overcome a lot of misinformation and personal limitations before I went vegan. When it was time, it was time.

When Vegan Isn't Vegan at All

I just discovered by way of the Vegan Forum something called "Chill Veganism":

Chill Vegan’s [sic] are Vegetarians who aspire to be full fledged Vegans, but who don’t get bent out of shape if they fall short of the Strict Vegan code.

Now, I'm all for not being a child about promoting veganism. But if you "fall short of the Strict Vegan code," you're not a vegan. You're an ovo-lacto vegetarian. Words have meaning.

Why Call It "Meat"?

I've become more relaxed in my approach to "faux meats." I credit Cyber-Dogs, which makes some tasty fake dog concoctions.

Since then I've developed a love for Trader Joe's Meatless Meat Balls, a delicious concoction made from TVP; the meatballs tossed together with whole wheat penne and roasted garlic marinara makes a wonderful, high-protein and high-fiber meal. And while I'm not head over heels in love with Tofurkey's "Kielbasa" yet, I don't find them un-tasty.

For me, part of the problem with these meat substitutes is that they're marketed as meat substitutes. They set the psychological expectation that they will taste like meat, when in reality even the most delicious "faux meat" is a far cry from the real thing. Why not market these products as what they are: meat alternatives that provide the protein of meat, but have their own unique texture and taste?

Department of Bad Headlines

Dad convicted for feeding kids vegan diet

You have to hit the end of the story for some semblance of fact:

Prosecutors said the diet the Parkers devised was not a good one. The children gained weight after being placed in foster care even though they were still on a vegan diet.

In other words, the vegan diet wasn't to blame. Dad had the kids on a fad diet that happened to be vegan. So why target veganism with this headline?

A Shout-Out to Vegan Athletes

Jen Christensen at Illinois' WHOI wrote up this favorable ditty about veganism and vegan athletes. It's great to see such blurbs - however small - busting the myth of the "ill and pasty" vegan.

The athletes she highlights are:

Carl Lewis, an Olympic track star; Brendan Brazier, a professional triathlete (Ironman), Martina Navratilova, a world champion tennis player and Tony Gonzalez, tight-end for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Don't forget marathoner Scott Jurek, who won the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon on Tofu Power.

I've been at the best weight and in the best shape of my life since going vegan. Vegan eating combined with daily bike rides has me slipping in to a size 30, which I haven't done for years (leading my gay friend Michael to dagger-eye me and spit "Bitch!" - but hey, all progress comes at a cost). When I tell people I'm vegan, the universal first reaction is, "I could never do that!" They assume it's a bane. In truth, it's been nothing but a boon.

Finding a Spot on The Vegetarian/Vegan Continuum (Hint: AVOID THE FAKE CHEESE)

British foodie Jay Rayner went vegan for a week, and wrote up the "experience" for the Observer (reprinted here in The Guardian).

Rayner's a dedicated carnivore, convinced that nature had molded us to kill and consume flesh - and hey, who is he to buck evolution? His experiment wasn't what you'd call "noble". His motives included a "magazine commission", and a desire to lend his knocks against veganism more pedigree. That may explain why, five days into his "week-long" foray, he ran back into the arms of his bleeding animal carcasses.

But Mr. Rayner put the Observer's money where his mouth is. Two thumbs up. And he eked out a couple of interesting insights. First, there's a learning curve to going vegan. As Rayner found out, it's easy to fail to include enough oils and nuts and nut butters in your diet to substitute for the animal fat you've excised. That means not only less energy, but less of the essential fatty acids your body needs to remain healthy.


Rayner also has the misfortune of being European. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But as my wife found out during her two-week sprint at Cannes, even being vegetarian across the Atlantic can break a person. Europeans love their traditional food cultures, and are distrustful of any fad that would displace them. Perhap's that's one reason why we Americans - conscious as we are that our "heritage" is a Frankenstein pastische - are so susceptible to fad diets. The upshot is that Rayner found it a challenge to be impulsively vegan while out and about - much harder than it is here in Seattle, where even most Starbucks carry at least a token vegan pastry.

Second, "vegan" substitutes for meat and dairy fare can be abominable. Rayner:

I also have a special hatred for the kind of cookery such an eating regime tends to produce. I don't hate meat and dairy-free cookery per se. I love the southern Indian vegetarian culinary tradition which is mostly vegan - all those crisp puri filled with nuts and sweet chutneys; all those spiky curries and rotis and dhals. I also like much of the Japanese vegetarian repertoire which just happens to be dairy and egg-free. What I don't like are pretend meat dishes: the veggie burgers and sausages, the pretend lasagnes and moussaka, where ingredients go to die. I simply demand that a dish be good because it is meat-free, not in spite of the fact.

One concoction that garners Rayner's disdain is "cheese" made from "tortured" cashews. I've had the stuff on veggie hots from Seattle's Cyber Dogs; I'll second Rayner on this one. I'm not going to scamper aboard the mock-meat hate-train, though. Veggie "burgers" are great by me; I make my own using black beans, following a recipe from Veganomicon. There's nothing "fake meat" about that burger; the only "burger" quality it mocks is shape. Seitan breaded and deep fried makes a great mock-meat substitute. And I'm addicted to the mock links that Cyber Dogs dishes up.

But the cheese? Oh my God no. Save me from vegan cheese. That is one mock food that will never become part of my animal-free vocabulary. And yes, I've had some "mock-meat" at veggie and vegan restaurants that made me reconsider the entire enterprise.

It's a shame that, at the end of this spectacle, Rayner doesn't commit to reducing his meat consumption, even though he knows what havoc our carnivorus ways are wreaking on our pale blue dot. Still, Rayner's story reaffirms two principles I tell people who are considering a vegan diet.

First, do it because you're motivated to. Do it because you're compelled by the thought of suffering animals and of the environmental impact of animal slaughter - not because you'll feel it'll make you a "good person." Those are two different motivations. The former is about acting out your values; the latter, projecting a persona. It's the moralizers, who turn a simple question such as "would you like some cream with your coffee?" into an hour-long dissertation on the evils of Confined Animal Feeding Operations, who give other vegans a bad name. (True believers give any good idea a bad name.)

Second, take it slowly. Rayner's experiment is the equivalent of going cold turkey on coffee and cigarettes simultaneously. I know few folks who could survive that unscathed.

There's no crime in easing your way into a life of less meat. Start by vowing to get all of your meat from local producers, who can attest that their animals are raised humanely. (Well, you know, up until their throats are slit. You get my drift...) Then, eliminate meat from one, maybe two meals a day, a couple days a week. Move toward making this an everyday occurrence. When you feel you're ready, cut out meat altogether. Stay vegetarian for a while. If you reach a point where you feel like your values compel you to cut out dairy and other animal products as well, approach it the same way: minimize consumption until dropping those items from your diet feels natural.

If at any point along that process one point on the continuum feels "right" by you (e.g., you're good being ovo-lacto vegetarian, but veganism holds no enchantment), then stop where you are. Let it evolve. I wasn't ready to go vegan, for instance, until I'd discovered that I'd developed a taste for soy milk. I'd found the stuff revolting for years - a mixture of cultural prejudice and natural distaste. Once I'd acclimated to it, I was ready to sail "beyond vegetarian."

Try as I might, I can't sustain any militancy with my veganism. (And I've tried.) I was a carnivore for 35 years; to shoot fire and brimstone on the subject this late in life reeks of hypocrisy. I know that people can reasonably have differing views on animal welfare. Perhaps age and the scourge of surviving numerous intellectual spasms has robbed me of my revolutionary zeal, but I feel more inclined to extol moderation than to evangelize my newfound faith. Such missions always end up being more about the preacher than the message.

I'll push for the end of CAFO-style operations and for humane methods of slaughter; I won't insist that the world go vegan. That's not my place. It's also counterproductive: With food celebs like Alton Brown hopping aboard the sustainability bandwagon, it seems there's more to be gained at the moment from encouraging incrementalism than from screaming "MEAT IS MURDER!!!".

That said, I likely won't be having dinner at Rayner's pad anytime soon. His vegan neighbors sound like good folk, though. I wonder if they wouldn't mind a Yankee crashing on their couch for a week or so. I've always wanted to bum around England...

PETA Gets Canadian KFC to Reform

After waging a long PR war using its "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" campaign, PETA and KFC have agreed to a truce. PETA will end its campaign; in exchange, KFC Canada will commit to buying chickens only from wholesalers who gas them (considered the most humane method of slaughter), and will sport a vegan "chicken" option on their menu.

While KFC would never be my first choice of vegan eats, I live in Seattle, where I have access to a wide range of meat-free options. Hopefully this will make it easier for folks across Canada outside of major metropolitan areas to dip their toe in the vegetarian and vegan waters.

PETA is now urging Yum Brands, the owners of KFC America and UK, to follow their Canadian counterparts' lead. Learn how you can help.

Paul Roberts Speaks in Seattle on "The End of Food"

I vowed that, once I got back to Seattle, I would take greater advantage of this city's intellectual offerings. Less drinking, more thinking. I made good on that promise last night by going to hear Paul Roberts speak at Seattle Town Hall about his new book, The End of Food.

Today's Solutions Becoming Tomorrow's Problems?

From the reviews I'd read, Roberts' book sounded like little more than a re-capitulation of The Omnivore's Dilemma. Whether consciously or not, Roberts laid out immediately how his work differed. His curiosity lay, he said, in researching how our current food system grew from the seeds of seemingly fortunate accidents. He cited some fishermen in the 1940s who noticed that the fish they were catching were getting bigger every year. Given that they were fishing downstream from a pharmaceuticals company, this concerned them. They alerted the company, who assigned biologist Thomas Jukes to ferret out the solution. It turns out the company had been dumping the mash used in making Tetracycline - an antibiotic - into the river. Jukes correctly hypothesized that the antibiotics were killing gut bacteria in the fish, which freed up calories that were normally diverted to immune system functions. Tada - bigger fish.

The rest is history: Jukes' discovery led to slaughter operations across the country feeding Tetracycline feed to their livestock to create cheap supplies of large meat.

At the time, Roberts emphasizes, this was a good thing. It was shortly after WWII; there was a meat shortage in the US, and hunger worldwide. These weren't "bad people"; these were good people making what seemed like good decisions that ended up having unintended consequences. (On the other hand, Jukes was known for his anti-environmentalist and libertarian streak, having defended the use of DDT in the 60s. Jukes defended the use of antibiotics in feed at late as 1980, crying that if it were truly a harmful practice the market would eventually sort it out. Like many of his ilk, Jukes couldn't accept that the market does a shitty job of accounting for secondary consequences.)

Roberts used this story to pronounce two insights: (1) yesterday's solutions have become today's problems; and (2) we mustn't let today's solutions become tomorrow's problems.

Corn Ethanol and Slaughterhouses

Roberts gave two examples of how today's solutions are becoming tomorrow's problems. The first was "biofuels" - by which he meant not all biofuels, but specifically corn ethanol. When the government began paying a $1.50 subsidy on bushels of corn to divert more of that resource into ethanol production, it contributed to today's crop price problems. Roberts refuses to believe that our quadrupling of corn ethanol production has had minimal effect on crop prices.

I lean toward believing Roberts. I'm more convinced by Michael Grunwald's article in Time, where he points out that "[t]he grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves." We need to switch rapidly to alternative modes of transport and to denser urban populations - not find new paths to "cheap gas". (Note: Grunwald says we've quadrupled our production of ethanol. I swear that Roberts said "quadrupled". Not sure who's right. It's a staggering increase either way.)

The second example brought Roberts back to antibiotics. Companies are now feeding less antibiotics to the captives in their CAFOs. This means the animals are smaller - i.e., are "yielding" less. (And yes, I find it disturbing to talk about another living creature in terms of its "yield".) But the machines that dice 'em and slice 'em are expecting larger animals. The result: more fecal contamination in our meat.

So Why Not Go Vegetarian, Mr. Roberts?

The current system was devised to be "scalable." But that's a laugh, says Roberts. He points to the 2007 beef recall by Topps Foods. Because a single batch of e. coli-contaminated beef got into our food supply, this massive distributor had to go out of business. Forget environmental sustainability, says Roberts - that's not even economically sustainable!

Unfortunately, like Michael Pollan and others, Roberts makes a great implicit case for going vegetarian or vegan - but is unwilling to make it explicitly. He did call on us to reduce our meat consumption, eliminating meat from our diet at least three days out of the week. Three cheers for that. But during the Q&A session, he derided the idea of using the currenty food crisis to promote one's own "ideology."

This was the same speaker who, 20 minutes before, had his audience audibly groaning as he described how Tyson and other large chicken distributors used the process of "mechanical separation" to turn chickens into a slurry, which was then shaped into patties and nuggets. The thought of turning living beings into Soylent White was obviously distasteful, both to him and his audience. So why defend it? Why not go for The Full Monty? Roberts was fully aware that "manufacturing" (ugh) a pound of beef requires 20 lbs. of grain - what he called "an enormous storehouse of calories locked away" inside of animals. If ceasing to eat meat three days a week is good, then ceasing to eat meat seven days a week is better, no? In the absence of an assertive defense of meat-eating, Roberts' refusal to endorse vegetarianism for those ready to make that leap rang hollow.

Conclusion

As for solutions, Roberts didn't have much of anything new to add. But who does? The real solutions lay in action, not in speaking or writing.

One interesting observation he did have was that we needed to find ways to make farming fun again. Farmers love to farm; they quit not because they hate it, but because agribusiness has rendered farming both dull and unprofitable. He lauded Farmer's Markets as being one of the only means that urban kids can have to meet real farmers, and learn more about how their food is made and where it comes from.

Roberts begged us all to learn to cook for ourselves - a recommendation I can't second strongly enough. He scoffed at the idea that we don't have time to cook. How can that be true, he said, when the average American watches TV four hours a day - some of which consists of watching cooking shows?! If you want time to cook, he scoffed, it's easy: spend less time watching other people do it.

I'm ashamed to say that, despite having lived in this city previously for eight years, this was my first time at a Town Hall event. It won't be my last. Although he was something of a rapid-fire speaker, Roberts was still fun to listen to - a knowledgeable author who could rattle off interesting facts and insights effortlessly. It's heartening to see folks like him fighting the good fight.

Please Forget Your Dairy

In a lazy article entitled "Don't Forget Your Dairy," Chris Sparling of That's Fit echoes a study "demonstrating" that women who eat more dairy have lower systolic blood pressure:

Harvard researchers found that women who consume little or no dairy as part of their daily diet are 11 percent more likely to develop high blood pressure than those who ate at least two daily servings. So, if you're still hellbent on taking your coffee black, try to include a half cup of low-fat cottage cheese or a cup of yogurt to your diet at least twice a day.

Mr. Sperling neglected to include this minor qualifier from the original article:

What they didn't find was whether calcium in dairy is the key ingredient to lower blood pressure. The results were independent of how much calcium was consumed. They note in their report that other research has shown calcium supplementation has had little to no effect on blood pressure.

Instead, the researchers say potassium and magnesium may be partly responsible for their study results.

So, too, may be the diets of those who ate the least dairy. The study showed those participants ate more butter, hot dogs, burgers, and eggs, which might account in part for their overall higher blood pressure. [Emphasis mine]

So the study's real implication is that we should eat less animal products, not more. How that got twisted into "eat more dairy" is beyond my ken. I'd be curious to see if anyone ever completed a follow-up study that controlled for animal fat. How do these milk drinkers, for example, stock up against vegetarians and vegans?

The National Dairy Council was trumpeting the study back in 2006. Shocking, but true.

And yes, as a vegan, I will be forgetting my dairy.