The Bitter Truth About Chocolate
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, chocolate consumption will become synonymous with how we define love. But for many people involved in the chocolate industry, cocoa beans represent anything but, as unfair wages, mistreatment, and child slave labor–rampant in the cacao industry–are the antithesis of love or sweetness. As this article from our friends at Treehugger illuminates, the issues surrounding the cacao bean trade are as intense as ever, as are the reasons to demand and support Fair-Trade chocolate products not just on Valentine’s Day, but any time you bite into chocolate.
The Bitter Truth About Chocolate by Tex Dworkin, Treehugger
[This is a guest post by Tex Dworkin of the Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store -Ed.] This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Hershey’s kiss, and yet a celebration is hardly in order. Why? Because with each bite, we are reminded that most chocolate sold in the U.S. comes from cocoa farms where farmers work in unsafe conditions, receive below poverty wages, many of them children under 14 years old who are forced to work and denied education.
With another Valentine’s Day approaching, happy couples will wine and dine, showering each other with flowers, jewelry, and chocolate. Unfortunately, knowing where most chocolate comes from makes it hard to swallow!
It’s 2007, and people are finally starting to question where the products they buy are made and whether the workers who made them were treated fairly. Sweatshop-free apparel is becoming hip, and Fair Trade coffee is at least a blip on the map. Yet chocolate is still being made with cocoa beans harvested by children in Africa working in unsafe conditions, while the average consumer has no idea this is going on. The truth behind chocolate is not-so-sweet. The Ivory Coast is the world’s largest cocoa producer, providing 43% of the world’s cocoa. And yet, in 2001 the U.S. State Department reported child slavery on many cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast. A 2002 report from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture about cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast and other African countries estimated there were 284,000 children working on cocoa farms in hazardous conditions. U.S. chocolate manufacturers have claimed they are not responsible for the conditions on cocoa plantations since they don’t own them.
Read the rest of the article on Treehugger.
UK Will Publish Meat Plant Audits
Like the great friend to animals Linda McCartney once said, if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. Food Safety News reports that the UK gets us a little bit closer as the country has announced it will begin to publish its meat plant audits. With food-borne illnesses related to contaminated animal products continuing to rise (and increasingly resistant to conventional antibiotics), and as more and more citizens are seeking to adopt healthier lifestyles, this news can only serve to support the transition away from animal-based diets and further towards the healthy and delicious vegan lifestyle.
UK Will Publish Meat Plant Audits by Dan Flynn | Jan 30, 2012
British meat-packing plants deemed to be a “cause for concern” will be named publicly under a policy adopted this month by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which is responsible for inspecting food processing in the UK. The decision to publish audit reports on the agency website is designed to eliminate the public mystery surrounding audits of British processing plants. But the move promptly drew criticism from food processors, according to Meat Trade News Daily, a British trade publication. The publication quoted unnamed industry sources complaining that the audit documents are “impenetrable and misleading.” They responded to an agency announcement that it would begin regular publication of audit reports from inspections of meat plants in England, Scotland and Wales, all as part of a new commitment to public “transparency.”
In making its announcement, the FSA published 200 audit reports dating back to November 1 last year, and promised to publish more by the end of the month. About 1,200 FSA-approved slaughterhouses and other meat processors operate in Great Britain, and 60 more in Northern Ireland. The agency’s aim is to publish audits from around the UK, but only after reviewing the documents to make them understandable to interested people from outside the industry. Processors with poor audit scores will be considered a “cause for concern,” the FSA said in its announcement. “These establishments must put in place improvements to ensure required standards are met,” the agency said.
Read the entire article on Food Safety News.
Fridays with Friends: Real Food Daily’s Ann Gentry
Ann Gentry is a vegan restaurateur pioneer. She opened her first Real Food Daily, an LA institution, in 1993, long before the masses were catching on that a vegan lifestyle is healthy, compassionate, sustainable and delicious. Ann’s work directly contributed to the exposure vegan food has received in recent years. Serving Hollywood’s celebrities scrumptiously wholesome meals got the word spreading like wildfire. I had the honor and pleasure of sitting down with Ann to learn more about her journey and what she’s up to these days…
Allison’s Gourmet: When I first considered going to cooking school in 1996, I heard about a woman who had a daily home-delivery food service, catering to folks (especially stars) who followed a hardcore macrobiotic diet. I even had one of your flyers from before you started the restaurant! A few years later, I enjoyed my first meal at Real Food Daily. Will you correct any erroneous memories I may have and tell us how Real Food Daily came about?
Ann Gentry: That’s about right. In the late 1980’s, I started a home delivery cooking business serving organic vegan meals because at that time there were not many, if any, gourmet whole/real food restaurants in LA. I know, hard to believe, right? This was pre-Whole Foods Market and there were a few places to eat plant-based cuisine but they were kind of hippie-ish and the food may have been healthy for you but didn’t always taste or look satisfying.I opened the first Real Food Daily in 1993 as a direct result of having no place to go out to eat the kind of food I was cooking at home.
Allison’s Gourmet: Wow, you are a true pioneer in the realm of delicious vegan restaurants! Were you always a fan of cooking or did that come when you turned to a macrobiotic/vegan diet?
Ann Gentry: I grew up in a household of some mighty fine Southern cooks. Good thing I didn’t keep eating that way, as I’d be as big as a house by now and probably facing some serious health problems, too. Once I was introduced to vegetarian cuisine, then macrobiotic cooking, I put down my Dr. Pepper and took a real interest in learning how to cook for myself.
Allison’s Gourmet: Amazing how those lights just turn on, huh? When I finally had the honor of meeting you when Anna and Frances Moore-Lappé did a book signing at your fun and funky West Hollywood location, I was struck by your unexpected and charming Southern accent. How do you weave your Southern roots into your macrobiotic/vegan menu?
Ann Gentry: It is just a natural connection to use my Southern heritage in both cooking and hospitality when it comes to my restaurants. I never try to mimic the exact creation of a certain dish, I just let the essence of the recipe guide me. For example, creating the Salisbury Seitan came out of my love for eating Salisbury steak at independent Southern diners and cafeterias.
Allison’s Gourmet: Lucky you. I only had them in TV dinners. No wonder yours are so much better. Did you set out to create a gustatory haven for stars or did that just happen?
Ann Gentry: When you have a great business in Los Angeles, everyone flocks to it. Hollywood keeps coming because these folks, just like everyone else who is a beloved RFD guest, wants to eat food which is deliciously clean and pure. All kinds of people following a variety of strict dietary guidelines—whether for ethical, health, or religious reasons—find themselves with a lot to choose at RFD. We have earned the trust of people who are seeking out a plant-based diet whether full or part time. When folks leave RFD, they feel a satisfaction from eating fresh organically grown plant based foods. People respond well to this, sometimes without even knowing why. I know why – because RFD is committed to serving balanced, nutritional whole foods cuisine using high quality produce and ingredients most of which are grown organically and this affects people on many levels.
Allison’s Gourmet: Your latest book, Vegan Family Meals: Real Food for Everyone is geared towards cooking vegan at home; what’s your favorite piece of advice for healthy home cooking for people on the go? And do you have any advice for people making the transition into veganism?
Ann Gentry: A plant-based diet with a seasonally rotating palette of fresh, colorful produce ripe for use encourages creativity in the kitchen. If you prepare the best local and seasonal ingredients with a variety of cooking methods, you’ll have more interesting and diverse tastes, textures, and colors on your plate. Any quality home cooking takes a little time. As a busy working mother, I too am juggling the day-to-day challenges. In Vegan Family Meals I talk about how it’s nice to have the American-style four or five dishes at every meal, but it’s not necessary. Balance your nutrition intake across the week, and don’t get hung up on making every meal a feast. Instead, focus on preparing a few recipes that will keep your cooking simple and your time in the kitchen enjoyable. If you are making the transition to a plant-based cuisine, know it takes time to change and embrace a new way of eating. Take it easy and be kind to yourself.
Allison’s Gourmet: Those are great suggestions, Ann. What’s your favorite vegetable and how do you like to prepare it? How about your favorite super simple vegan meal/recipe that keep you supercharged through your day?
Ann Gentry: I’m blessed; I love all vegetables. Right now, I love to roast cauliflower as it has such a simple satisfying texture and mild flavor. I start my day making the first recipe from Vegan Family Meals, Acai Berry Granola Bowl. I even have my 8 1/2 old son loving this breakfast. It is filled with super foods, nuts and seeds and is filling and satisfying.
Allison’s Gourmet: And that’s no minor feat! Congratulations. Finally, what’s your favorite Allison’s Gourmet product?
Ann Gentry: Someone sent me your gourmet brownies that are laced with a hint of orange. I loved that they were not overly sweet, as I didn’t taste the hit of sugary sweetness most brownies have. Yours were just the right amount of chocolate and sweet and they were divine.
Thank you, Ann, that’s high praise indeed coming from you!
Sugar High: The Dark History and Nasty Methods Used to Feed Our Sweet Tooth
We love sweets here at Allison’s Gourmet, but the difference between using all natural sugars and the processed refined genetically modified stuff most common in junk foods and sodas is profound. We never compromise on how we sweeten our brownies, fair-trade chocolate, vegan cookies, and other confections, and you shouldn’t either as this week’s highlighted story illuminates the issues with refined sugar from how it’s sourced to its effects on your health.
Sugar High: The Dark History and Nasty Methods Used to Feed Our Sweet Tooth by Jill Richardson
Sugar is now 20 percent of the American diet, but it’s not just our health that suffers from its pervasiveness.
Americans think an awful lot about sucrose — table sugar — but only in certain ways. We crave it and dream up novel ways to combine it with other ingredients to produce delectable foods; and we worry that we eat too much of it and that it is making us unhealthy or fat. But how often do Americans think about where sugar actually comes from or the people who produce it? As a tropical crop, sugarcane cannot grow in most U.S. states. Most of us do not smell the foul odors coming from sugar refineries, look out over vast expanses of nothing but sugarcane, or speak to those who perform the hard labor required to grow and harvest sugarcane.
Of course, sugar can be made from beets, a temperate crop, and more than half of sugar produced in the United States is. But globally, most of the story of sugar, past and present, centers around sugarcane, not beets, and as biofuels become more common, it is sugarcane that is cultivated for ethanol. What’s more, some conscious eaters avoid beet sugar as most of it is now made from genetically modified sugar beets.
While I do not fool myself that sugar is “healthy,” if I am going to satisfy my sweet tooth, I prefer cane sugar, maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey over the other choices: beet sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners. Of the bunch, most Americans can find only honey and perhaps maple syrup sustainably and locally produced, but cane sugar is often the most versatile product for baking.
As a major consumer of cane sugar, I was disturbed to learn the realities of cane sugar production when I visited a sugarcane-producing area in Bolivia.
Sugarcane grew as far as the eye could see on the degraded soils of the deforested industrial agricultural area in Bolivia’s lowlands. At one point, the van I was riding in got stuck in a traffic jam of enormous trucks, each full of sugarcane, delivering their loads to a refinery. The area around the refinery smelled terrible, and the locals told us the smell came from oxidizing ponds that hold the refinery’s wastewater. When the refineries are washed out, typically once a year, the wastewater is dumped into local waterways, resulting in fish kills. This spurred me to learn more about how sugar is made, both in the U.S. and around the world, and how it impacts the land and the people who produce it. Sadly, the story of sugar is also the story of the African slave trade. Today, sugar production still uses exploitative labor practices and can cause serious environmental problems.
Read the entire article on Alternet.org
Fridays with Friends: Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, the Compassionate Cook
While I have known Colleen Patrick-Goudreau for several years, I had never had the pleasure of hearing her speak until this summer when I was lucky enough see her in action both at Vida Vegan Con in Portland and at an Animal Place event here in Grass Valley, CA. I was electrified by her grace, presence and message of joyful veganism.
Allison’s Gourmet: Tell me about your journey to becoming a “Joyful Vegan.”
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau: I grew up eating every kind of animal – anything that walked, swam, or flew. My father owned ice cream stores and would bring home tubs of ice cream to fill our separate ice cream freezer. At the same time, I – like most children – had a deep sense of compassion for animals, suffered when they suffered, and intervened when I was able. My parents and other adults supported this compassion, but they also taught me to compartmentalize. I was taught that some animals were worthy of my compassion (the stray dogs and cats or wildlife I helped) and some animals were “here for us” and thus deserving of our compassion only to a point. And these were the same animals all over my wallpaper, my pajamas, my childhood books and games, and my favorite TV shows and movies: lambs, calves, pigs, ducks, geese, turkeys, and chickens.
I could have gone about my whole life staying desensitized, but luckily I read John Robbins’ Diet for a New America when I was 19, which started me on a path to learn everything I could about the exploitation of animals for human consumption. I stopped eating land animals immediately, and several years and several books later, I stopped eating (or wearing) anything that came from an animal. I just did not want to contribute to violence towards animals – violence I would never participate in directly.
So, when I became vegan (12 years ago now), it was a very natural and joyful decision that has had many unexpected gifts.
Even though there is great pain in being aware of the suffering of non-human animals, there is also great joy at being fully awake and not being part of that violence.
AG: You are an impassioned voice calling us to awaken for the animals and our human souls. Would you share with us your evolution from a background in English to teaching vegan cooking classes to publishing your touching “Food for Thought” podcast and now arriving as a prolific author and inspiring speaker?
CP-G: You’re sweet. Thank you for saying that. When I left graduate school back in New Jersey I was not vegan, but I had already read Diet for a New America, and seeds had been planted. So, even though I didn’t know what it was going to look like, I knew I was going to follow a path working to help animals and empower people to not eat animals. I knew that my contribution would be through what my skills and interests were – namely writing and speaking (I taught Freshman English when I was a graduate student and was finding my voice as a lecturer). So, I just started by doing and by trying to find my voice. I began educating people by tabling, by doing Street TV (showing slaughter videos and handing out Why Vegan brochures), and then by teaching cooking classes (because everyone said “what do I eat?”). When I realized I was on to something with the classes, I wanted them to reach more people, so I produced a cooking DVD. Tapping into the power of media, I started producing my podcast, Vegetarian Food for Thought (it’s all vegan!). 
From there, my first publisher found me and offered me a contract to write The Joy of Vegan Baking, and it’s all gone on from there with The Vegan Table, Color Me Vegan, Vegan’s Daily Companion, and The 30-Day Vegan Challenge. The journey has been exhilarating and incredibly gratifying, and I’m so grateful to wake up each morning dedicating my life to exactly what I feel is the most important work in the world: teaching people how to manifest their compassion in their every day lives. It’s pretty amazing.
Come back next week for a Giveaway of two of Colleen’s books!
AG: What is your greatest reward in teaching people about compassionate living?
CP-G: I believe we’re all here to be teachers to one another; we’re all here to lift each other up to become the fully evolved people we can be. I believe that people want to be the most compassionate they can be, and I believe it’s already inside of them. I’m not teaching/telling them anything they don’t know; I’m just pointing them to what’s already in their hearts. I help them recognize it, and when they do, they wake up, and I get to see that moment. It’s heart-warming, gratifying, and powerful for me with each person I see experience this. The details may be different, but their stories are pretty much all the same: “I cared about animals when I was a child; I was taught to squelch that compassion in order to eat the animals my parents fed me; then X happened, and I’ve become re-awakened to my compassion.”Each story of awakening I hear just gives me strength and resolve to continue doing this work, because it’s not just a matter of teaching someone how to sauté onions or bake vegan brownies;
it’s a matter of shifting the paradigms to become the compassionate people we really are. (I’m adding new “love letters” to the website all the time, if you want to read some).
AG: Congratulations on your recently launched gorgeous new website! Can you tell us about your Compassionate Cooks Club, Daily Dose of Compassion and/or anything else you’d like to share about your new site?
CP-G: Thank you! The website redesign for The Compassionate Cook has been a LONG time coming! Now that it’s updated, it enables me to more easily change and add more content, blog more (even though I don’t consider myself a blogger), and enable people to comment and participate directly on the website. The Compassionate Cooks Club is not new, but the new account-based membership is. I’m so blessed that people value the work I do and want to support it, but I want to be able to give them something back while creating a community. Club members get to see videos, recipes, and content created just for them; depending on the level, they also get signed books, and some can contact me directly in a consulting kind of relationship to get personal advice and guidance. Of course there is and always will be a ton of free resources on my website, but members just get a little more. I’m really excited about the Daily Dose of Compassion. It’s my new (free) email service whereby subscribers receive an inspiring quote from me everyday in their inbox. I’d been wanting to do this for awhile, especially when I heard from so many people who disciplined themselves to read only 1 page a day out of my book, Vegan’s Daily Companion, so it’s just another way to empower people to live compassionately without apology.
AG: What are some of the whole-food staple ingredients you keep on hand in your kitchen? Do you have a favorite recipe you make often?
CP-G: Favorite recipe – definitely my kale salad. A staple in my home, particularly because of my kale gardens! Rub olive oil on leaves to coat them, sprinkle on some salt and nutritional yeast, and toss with anything and everything, depending on the season. Sometimes it’s toasted pecans and diced apple. Sometimes it’s pumpkin seeds, red onion slices, and avocado. It just depends. I’m a very simple eater and keep a lot of veggies in my fridge and grains/beans in my pantry as staples. I love whipping up new recipes just based on whatever I have in my kitchen. Some recipes are available for free on my website.
AG: If you and I were collaborating in the kitchen, what would be your fantasy creation?
CP-G: Anything with coconut oil, chocolate, and bread. Does that inspire anything in your incredibly creative mind?? 
AG: Hmmm… how about soft, doughy bread made with coconut oil and a dash of cinnamon, dipped in chocolate, fondue-style?
You have accomplished so much already. Knowing you as I do, I imagine there’s more to come. What’s the next frontier for Colleen Patrick-Goudreau?
CP-G: Right now, I’m caught between Scylla and Charybdis because I have so much I want to do, but I also have a burning desire to find some balance in my life. So, aside from trying to slow down a little, the most immediate next project to come to fruition will be the interactive 30-Day Vegan Challenge online program. I’m focusing on letting my books breathe a bit (no books for awhile), returning again to a regular podcast schedule (it slowed down a bit in 2011 because I had three books come out one after the other), and on launching the 30-Day online program. So much to do, and I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to do it.
Thanks Colleen, it’s always a pleasure to catch up with you. Now I need to go get my chocolate melting for that fantasy creation! For more about Colleen, her books, speaking engagements and podcasts, find her on Facebook and Twitter.
P.S. Remember to come back next week for a Giveaway of two of Colleen’s books!
We Need to Talk About Ronald
It’s virtually impossible to talk about eating healthy in this country without inevitably drifting to the topic of McDonald’s and its ubiquitous stronghold on America. And despite the company’s move to buy cage-free eggs and other clunky (yet seemingly admirable) steps in the right direction, the chain is still largely responsible for the obesity epidemic plaguing our country and the countless and senseless murders of billions of animals each year. This is a great article on the chain’s creepy clown mascot: Ronald McDonald. He’s not just a character, but an outdated tool still used to manipulate and brainwash consumers, particularly those barely able to talk yet. It’s a fascinating look at the marketing machine behind the chain, and provides important information for vegans and health foodies alike in just how big of a task it will be in disassembling Fast Food America.
We Need to Talk About Ronald, by Greg Beato, The Smart Set
In 2011, investors showed a greater appetite for McDonald’s than any other company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Over the last two years, the fast food giant’s stock has nearly doubled. As shares hit $100.82 during the last week of December, a new all-time high, executives at McDonald’s corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois were no doubt toasting one another with extra-large triple-thick shakes. The one possible holdout? A 49-year-old former company superstar who has seen his once-pivotal role in the chain’s fortunes shrink like the waistline of a Biggest Loser contestant.
In 2012, Ronald McDonald is essentially a clown without a country. McDonald’s is in the midst of an ambitious, multi-billion-dollar global makeover; its middle-aged mascot has no place in it. In an April 2011 investor’s call, McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner announced that the company was planning to reimage 2,200 outlets around the world that year. Five months later, in September 2011, McDonald’s revealed it was committing $1 billion to Canada alone, with a goal of upgrading all 1,100 of its restaurants there by the end of 2012. In France, it has enlisted the help of Parisian designer Patrick Norguet to give its most forward-looking outlets the futuristic appearance of a 1960s airport.
The ultimate goal of all this transformation is tastefulness. Under the stewardship of fast food visionary Ray Kroc, McDonald’s existed as a utilitarian factory for food preparation and eating. Cheeseburgers were manufactured in quick and tidy fashion behind the counter and consumed in quick and tidy fashion in a fluorescent, condiment-hued dining area that had all the charm and homey touches of a prison cafeteria. Tables were made of fiberglass. Chairs were bolted to the floor. Durability and easy maintenance took precedence over ambiance. “We made sure that no McDonald’s became a hangout,” Kroc told Time in 1973. “We didn’t allow cigarette machines, newspaper racks, not even a payphone.”
Now, however, Starbucks has replaced Sing Sing as the model to which McDonald’s aspires. “People eat with their eyes first,” explained McDonald’s president and COO Don Thompson in an October 2010 Fast Company feature. “If you have a restaurant that is appealing, contemporary, and relevant both from the street and interior, the food tastes better.”
Fridays with Friends: Dynise Balcavage, the Urban Vegan
Dynise Balcavage, aka the Urban Vegan, believes that vegan cooking should be held to the highest standards and should always be superbly decadent and healthy. I couldn’t agree more!
Allison’s Gourmet: When/how did you become vegan?
Dynise Balcavage: I went vegan “cold tofurkey” in 2006.
AG: Nice. Did you enjoy cooking before you transitioned into a more compassionate lifestyle?
DB: I’ve been cooking since age 7 and have always loved puttering around the kitchen; I associate cooking with fond memories of the women in my family. I actually grew up in a house with an old-fashioned coal stove, so there was always a pot of soup simmering or a plate of something yummy warming on its shelf. We used to stand around the stove to keep warm. My older sister, Debbie, taught me to bake– and to lick the beaters and spatula (which is safer now that I’m vegan).
I’ve always enjoyed experimenting in the kitchen, as a result of my innate curiosity, travels and restlessness. Although I now own close to 200 cookbooks, most of which are omni books, I read them more for inspiration and ideas. I rarely follow recipes. Even with my own cookbooks, I think recipes should be a conduit to creativity, and not a set of rules to be followed blindly. I like recipes that have flexibility, so I try to structure my recipes so they are improv-friendly.
AG: “Improv-friendly.” I like that. You are known as The Urban Vegan, which is also the title of your first cookbook. Is there a difference between an Urban Vegan and one who is suburban or rural?
DB: I’m sure there is, but being an urban vegan, I’m spoiled. I live in Philadelphia, a large herbivore-friendly city, and am just a short ride from NYC, perhaps the world’s most vegan-friendly city, so it’s easy to find vegan-friendly restaurants, plant-based foods and like-minded people in my own backyard. I’m sure being a suburban or rural vegan is more challenging.
AG: Ah, I see what you mean. Being a rural vegan, I can attest that herbivore-friendly restaurants are too few and their ability to impress is even less frequent. Luckily our home kitchen is a good stand-in. I do admit there are times I’d love to get good take-out though! What’s the biggest challenge in creating exciting vegan meals for urbanites?
DB: Now, it’s continually upping the “wow” factor. Vegan used to be a fringe term; now it’s a bona-fide cuisine. I try to continually keep my recipes fresh and exciting, a little healthy and a little hedonistic.
AG: People may be surprised to know that there are indeed opportunities for edible hedonistic pleasures within a vegan menu. Your second cookbook, Celebrate Vegan: 200 Life-Affirming Recipes for Occasions Big and Small is out now, can you expand more on how you create celebrations to remember?
DB: Every day should be a celebration of some sort. And of course, every celebration begins with memorable foods. Dining can become so dull if you’re eating the same thing day after day, though–and so can noshing on the same old holiday foods year after year. My book is a bit unlike other holiday cookbooks in that I include recipes for some quirky holidays, like Festivus, Guy Fawkes Day and “Girls’ Night In,” instead of just the traditional biggies.
But at the same time, it’s fun to mix, match and cross-polinate your holiday menus. Old traditions are important, but it’s also essential to keep on creating new traditions. Why not make Tsimmes, a traditional Jewish side, for Christmas, for example? Or a King Cake for a child’s birthday party instead of just waiting for Mardi Gras? It’s certainly got the wow factor. Don’t be afraid to venture beyond, whatever “beyond” represents to you.
AG: You have a theme of encouraging people to reach beyond, both in your approach to food and in your literary escapades. Do you have any advice for people making the transition into veganism?
DB: Go at your own pace and be easy on yourself. Just like every recipe is customizable, so is every transition to veganism. What’s right for someone else might not work for you–so do it unapologetically your way.
AG: Well-said. What are some of your favorite simple vegan meals/recipes that keep you supercharged through your day?
DB: I’m a smoothie nut, even in the winter, and I’ve just gotten into the habit of tossing baby spinach into my shakes. 
I am also an unabashed pasta freak. I coat my pasta with sauce made with seasonal veggies, olive oil and an obscene amount of garlic–it always works and it’s always easy. When I am too tired or busy to cook, I have been known to order vegan take-out or pick up a slice of vegan pizza.
AG: Do you have a favorite Allison’s Gourmet product?
DB: I adore the caramels, especially the salted chocolate ones, and also I’m a huge fan of the peppermint creme patties. But I would eat anything from Allison’s Gourmet.
Thanks Dynise, this rural vegan loves keeping up on your urban vegan adventures. For more of the Urban Vegan, follow Dynise on Twitter.
2011 in Review: Surprise Sellers
The holidays are by far our busiest time of year. And, as much as we’d like to say that we’ve been doing this for so long that we have everything completely figured out, each year is a little different. As our product lines and people’s tastes change, we’re always a little surprised by which items are our best-sellers each year, especially in the holiday season. 
In the lead-up to the holidays this year we introduced our new line of Artisan Chocolates, as well as re-formulated vegan peanut butter cups, peppermint bark and peppermint creme patties which we had been working on for most of 2011. And, as a bit of an afterthought, we also added a Salted Confections Gift Set to our offerings to showcase our newest salted caramels and salted chocolate brittle. While all of these new products did very well and received rave reviews from excited recipients all over the country, the surprise top seller in the latter part of 2011 was the Salted Confections Gift Set. We’re so glad to discover that there are legions of dessert lovers out there with palates as salty as ours!
Of course, after 15 years in business, not everything is a surprise. 
The other popular sweets over the holidays were vegan toffee, especially the chocolate-covered variety, and hot cocoa, both the classic and peppermint drinking chocolate varieties. Given their classic nature we weren’t at all shocked by their doing so well.
As I and my staff catch our collective breath before unveiling a new chocolate pleasure for Valentine’s Day in just a few short weeks, I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks for allowing us the privilege of providing your compassionately decadent gifts for the holidays and throughout the year. It is my pleasure to delight and serve you. And I know everyone at AG shares my gratitude for you. Here’s to a fabulous year-ahead!
Larry Hagman Goes Vegan to Fight Cancer
If you grew up in the 1980s, chances are your television viewing time was shared between “I Dream of Jeannie” reruns and new episodes of “Dallas.” Enough to make anyone fall in love with the irresistible Larry Hagman…but now there’s one more reason: The 80 year old has gone vegan as he battles cancer, the Times of India reports, joining the ranks of a number of awesome celebrities and proving that it’s never too late to make the move to a healthier life for you and the animals!
Larry Hagman Goes Vegan to Fight Cancer
Veteran actor Larry Hagman has turned totally vegan in a bid to overcome cancer and has shed 25 pounds after changing his diet.
The ‘Dallas’ legend revealed in October last year he is receiving treatment for the illness and he overhauled his lifestyle following the diagnosis.
Now, he is convinced his new diet is helping him beat the disease.
“I’m feeling great and I’m back on track,” Contactmusic quoted him as telling Britain’s Mail On Sunday.
“I’ve finished treatment and the doctors are thrilled with my progress. My outcome looks very positive.
“It’s my firm intention to whop cancer into submission and I truly believe I’ve given myself the best start possible by radically overhauling my diet and by staying true to my motto, which is: Don’t worry, be happy, feel good.
“The first thing I did when I was diagnosed was to turn vegan. Now I live on fresh vegetable drinks which taste like c**p but which I firmly believe have helped me get through this thing.
Dead Cow Walking: The Case Against Born-Again Carnivorism
2012 is a prophesied time, a year some forward thinkers believe will be a great time of human transformation and a willful evolution of our consciousness. Nowhere could our species use a novel approach more than in our relationship with animals. As Marc Bekoff explains in this powerful article, all creatures–be that a grasshopper or elephant–have a unique relationship with the planet, and deserve our respect and stewardship.
Dead Cow Walking: The Case Against Born-Again Carnivorism by Marc Bekoff, The Atlantic
Pigs, chickens, and other animals raised for food are sentient beings with rich emotional lives. They feel everything from joy to grief.
“Eating Animals,” by Nicolette Hahn Niman, a livestock rancher, with help from deer hunter Tovar Cerulli and butcher Joshua Applestone, caught my eye because, at first, I thought this essay was authored by Jonathan Safran Foer, who wrote a best-selling book with the same title. While Niman and her friends do rightly argue against consuming factory-farmed animals — who live utterly horrible lives from the time that they’re born to the time that they’re transported to slaughterhouses and barbarically killed — these three born-again carnivores, all former vegetarians or vegans, now proudly eat animals and think that it’s just fine to do so. They gloss over the fact that even if the animals they eat are “humanely” raised and slaughtered, an arguable claim, they’re still taking a life. These animals are merely a means to an end: a tasty meal.
The defensive and apologetic tone of this essay also caught my eye, as did the conveniently utilitarian framework of the argument. The animals they eat were raised simply to become meals because Niman and others choose to eat meat. I like to say that whom we choose to eat is a moral question, and just because these three now choose to eat animals doesn’t mean that other people should make the same choice. Note that I wrote “whom” we eat, not “what.” Cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals raised for food are sentient beings who have rich emotional lives. They can feel everything from sheer joy to deep grief. They can also suffer enduring pain and misery, and they don’t deserve to have the good and happy lives provided by Niman and others ended early just so that their flesh can wind up on what really is a platter of death.
Cows, for example, are very intelligent. They worry over what they don’t understand and have been shown to experience “eureka” moments when they solve a puzzle, such as when they figure out how to open a particularly difficult gate. Cows communicate by staring, and it’s likely that we don’t fully understand their very subtle forms of communication. They also form close and enduring relationships with family members and friends and don’t like to have their families and social networks disrupted. Chickens are also emotional beings, and detailed scientific research has shown that they empathize with the pain of other chickens.
Raising happy animals just so that they can be killed is really an egregious double cross. The “raise them, love them, and then kill them” line of reasoning doesn’t have a meaningful ring of compassion. And this isn’t mercy killing (euthanasia) performed because these animals need to be put out of their pain. No, these healthy and happy animals are slaughtered, and if you dare to look into their eyes, you know that they’re suffering. If you wouldn’t treat a dog like this, then you shouldn’t treat a cow, a pig, or any other animal in this way.
Read the entire article on The Atlantic.
