New Rotation for Brownie and Fudge Flavors
If you’re a monthly club member you may soon notice that we’ve rearranged the order of our baked goods and fudge flavors a bit, eliminating a couple of less popular flavors in favor of offering the most beloved flavors of our vegan brownies and fudge more often in our rotation. 
It’s not a huge change, and many people probably won’t even notice (that’s the advantage of having a monthly club membership, you get the goodies without having to think about it). But, for those of you who do pay attention to our monthly flavors, this new rotation means that Amaretto Almond Brownies are now appearing in March, followed by Double Chocolate Brownies in April and Mexican Chocolate in May. 
What a line-up! The cookie flavored haven’t changed, and the only difference in the vegan fudge roster for the next few months is in May, when our classically smooth and creamy Original fudge takes the place of Peppermint Velvet, which has moved down to December to take center stage at all your holiday parties.
If you’d like to receive delicious flavors at a 15% discount each month plus get a 15% discount on all other orders you place while you’re a monthly club member, sign up now! And, the discount applies whether you get a membership for yourself or give it as a gift. Monthly Clubs make great corporate food gifts for your best clients, favorite colleagues or that new boss you really want to impress. Give a gift that shares compassion and new flavors of enjoyment every month.
Happy Leap Year!
Emergency – Starving Hens Need You
Our dear friends at Animal Place have helped to rescue nearly 5,000 hens found neglected in California by an egg farmer. There were more than 50,000 on their way to dying from starvation. Now, many of these birds need permanent homes and caretakers to help make sure they never again have to endure the type of suffering and mistreatment they experienced at the egg farm. Please read on about the story and how you can help support these lovely creatures. Thank you.
Most of our staff are still in the field, caring for thousands of hens saved from this week’s largest California rescue of farmed animals.
We are in desperate need of both donations and volunteers – these hens require around the clock care and it will be ongoing for the next several months.
If you wish to donate to help care for the largest rescue we have ever undertaken, please do so below.
And, if you would like to volunteer, please contact Marji Beach, Education Manager: marji@animalplace.org or 530-798-5114. Email is the best contact right now. Please let us know your full name, contact number or email, and the specific dates and times in the next two weeks you can help.
February 25, 2012 -
Luck and dedication were on the side of more than 4,000 hens who barely survived two weeks of starvation at the hands of an egg farmer. Two hours after news agencies broke the story that 50,000 hens were starving to death on a central California egg farm, Animal Place staff were on their way. This would turn out to be the largest rescue operation we have ever undertaken.
We knew our supporters would expect nothing short of immediate action…and, more importantly, we knew thousands of lives hung in the balance.
Late on Wednesday evening (February 22), two of our staff, along with Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary in Stockton, arrived at the farm to help. More than 20,000 hens had already died and the rest were slowly being gassed by state and county officials, all without once reaching out to rescuers for help.
“The stench of death was overpowering,” says David Phinney, animal care coordinator at our Vacaville facility, “I’ll never forget the noises from the sheds. The only sounds we could hear were the birds still alive pecking in their metal troughs, searching for food.”
Read more about how you can help these hens by clicking here.
More New Easter Chocolates
Earlier this week I introduced you to “Speckles,”our new vegan Easter bunny which is so cute we just can’t get over it! But that’s not the only new product springing out of our kitchen this season. There’s another new member of our chocolate family that I’m excited to introduce to you: Springtime Salted Almond Bark.
Inspired by the almond trees that bloom early in this part of California and are one of the earliest signs of Spring, this dark chocolate bark is laden with toasted almonds and adorned with just the right amount of pink Himalayan salt. It’s so good, it just might change your life.
The reason I’m telling you about all these Easter items now, right on the heels of Valentine’s Day, is because Easter is arriving early this year, on April 8th, (that’s in just six weeks!)
which means that now is the time to start thinking about ordering your Easter chocolates. Our bunnies and flavored solid eggs are available individually or as a set, and you can get all of our new Easter treats together with a half-dozen gourmet cookies and green “grass” in our extra special Vegan Easter & Springtime Gift Basket.
Easter items will be available to ship starting in mid-March. Make this Spring delightfully decadent for all the people you love. Using our delayed delivery date option you can order your Easter goodies and vegan gift baskets now, while choosing a delivery date to fit your Springtime plans.
New Easter Bunnies are Hoppin’ In!
We’re serious about chocolate around here, and we’re always looking forward to and planning our next new flavor or product. We want to “wow” you and we want every bite, every moment, every sensation of eating our chocolate to be ecstatic.
For the past 6 months, we’ve been thinking about vegan chocolate bunnies. And let me tell you, we gave A LOT of thought to these cute little critters! 
After making many test bunnies and having many, many test-biting sessions, we’ve decided that, where Easter candy is concerned, less is more. Not less flavor or less lusciousness, but less gnawing on giant hard chunks of solid chocolate. We realized that dark chocolate is much harder than milk chocolate, making the act of biting into a big thick dark chocolate bunny feel barbarous and even painful, a far cry from the Easter joy we remember from childhood. So, after over a year of researching bunny molds and months of testing and biting countless vegan chocolate bunnies, we present to you “Speckles,” our better-than-ever vegan Easter bunny. Adorable, aren’t they?
With your pleasure in mind, we’ve created our bunnies as solid halves with flat backs (see photo at right) to save you from the barbaric, so-thick-it’s-impossible-to-bite-through ubiquitous solid 3D bunny shape. We’ve also embedded ‘em with rice crisps for a fun texture and added some extra fragrant vanilla. And finally, to really take these bunnies to the next level, we’re making both “Speckles” and our flavored solid eggs with Allison’s new top-secret creation we’re calling “milk-ish” chocolate that is creamier and lighter-colored than the solid dark chocolate you may be used to. This chocolate, while still made with our signature organic, fair-trade and dairy-free ingredients, is a touch softer and easier to bite through, creating a much more pleasurable chocolate-eating experience.
See how we’re always thinking of you? 
Order now with a delayed delivery date. Easter items will be available to ship starting in mid-March.
Never mind the meat — worry about eating enough plants
Sparing the needless torture and slaughter of our sentient animal friends is absolutely the most important reason for choosing a vegan diet. And we all know it can be a very tough process for some to make the transition. But this fascinating article by our friends at Grist explores the undeniably important benefit of eating more plants–whether you’re a meat-eater or not. We think it’s a good reminder of how important it is to be the healthiest we can with a well-balanced plant-based diet, while also fueling our arsenal for those inevitable confrontations with the rigid meat-eaters who insist that steak is nutritionally superior to salad.
Never mind the meat — worry about eating enough plants by Andy Bellatti, Grist
Most people erroneously think proper nutrition is mainly about vitamins and minerals, but there is a whole other world within the plant kingdom: phytonutrients.
By and large, the most environmentally friendly dietary decision one can make is to eat less animal protein (see deforestation, water pollution, and greenhouse-gas emissions, etc). But for many, the notion of eschewing — or significantly cutting back on — meat, eggs, and dairy brings up nutritional concerns. As I see it, not only are those concerns usually unfounded, they should pale in comparison to the question of getting enough plant-based foods.
Let’s begin with protein. Here’s something most people don’t know: Barring oils and some fruits, there is protein in almost every food. Yes, that includes broccoli, spinach, and potatoes. Most people are surprised to learn that a cup of cooked oatmeal offers as much protein as an egg, and an almond butter sandwich on whole grain bread provides 15 grams of protein (around a quarter of a day’s recommendation for a 160-pound male). To determine your protein requirement, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2, and then multiply that number by 0.8. You can, of course, surpass that figure.
You’ll hear lots of talk about “complete” versus “incomplete” proteins, but I consider that concept irrelevant and outdated. It goes something like this: Complete proteins contain all essential amino acids (“essential” meaning our bodies don’t produce them, so we need to get them from food); incomplete ones have very low amounts of — or lack — an essential amino acid. Meat, poultry, and fish are complete proteins. While there are some plant-based complete proteins like amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa, and soy, the vast majority is “incomplete.”
Incomplete proteins are only a concern if someone eats exclusively from one food group (i.e. nothing but potatoes, or nothing but bread) for extended periods of time. Luckily, eating from more than one food group is not only possible, it’s what most of us crave. You would be hard pressed to find someone who won’t naturally, throughout the course of the day, consume food from more than one food group. Even if you subsist on nothing but peanut butter sandwiches for a week you are getting all the essential amino acids (legumes and grains are two different food groups, and it just so happens that the essential amino acids that are low in bread are high in legumes, and vice versa).
Read the entire article on Grist.
