From the monthly archives:

January 2008

Vegan University: Why I Don’t Like to Travel

by Jason on January 31, 2008

Hey, is it Vegan University o’clock? I think it is… And I’m right! A+!

In this installment, Laura reflects on why she doesn’t like to travel. Or maybe she does. Or maybe just not to Ottawa. Or maybe she does. Read it to find out the lessons learned.

I don’t want to give away the ending, but I’ve definitely found that if I don’t ask for something, I won’t get it. Sometimes you’ll luck out and find a chef that understands veganism, and in those cases he or she might consider it a personal challenge, but if you’re not getting that vibe, speak up! Also, plan for the worst – I was once stuck on a flight to the other side of the world and there was no food whatsoever for me. Even the peanuts had honey on them! Some simple worst case scenario planning would have saved me from having to rely entirely on free beer the whole way over there. Yeah yeah, it wasn’t as great as it first sounds.

Anyway, this is Laura’s column, not mine, so travel one whole page away and see what you think.

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All you need to know about vegan Bacon Salt. Wait, Bacon Salt?

by Jason on January 31, 2008

There’s always a rumour going around that “bacon bits” are actually vegan because it’s cheaper and safer to make them out of soy. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but I do know that there’s a related product making the rounds called Bacon Salt, which is pretty much what it sound like – salt that tastes like bacon. That might not gross everyone here out, but the concept of using the salts in mixed drinks (bacontini, anyone?) seems a little weird.

In what I’m sure is going to be a continuing trend, while the company didn’t plan on touting the fact that their product is vegetarian and kosher, thinking those were just coincidences, it turns out that these are great marketing points. Ah, but are the salts vegan friendly?

I knew this was going to be a hot story, so I went into full-on investigative journalist mode. I rounded up sources, gathered electronic listening devices, paid off some snitches, hired private investigators, you know, the works. OK, I sent one lousy email. Anyway, it turns out that the Hickory flavour of bacon salt is vegan friendly.

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NY Times weighs in on that other inconvenient truth

January 31, 2008

Is 2008 finally going to be the year where the meat-environment link gets exposed? Rose sent along a story from the New York Times that suggests it might be. By the way, if you haven’t heard of the New York Times, they’re kind of a big deal, and they’re not generally known for [...]

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Corralejas make traditional bullfights look organized and civil

January 29, 2008

If Spanish bullfights piss you off, don’t go to Columbia. They’ve got something called a corraleja, which is like a Spanish bullfight, except there are hundreds of participants. And they have no training. And a lot of them are really really drunk.
On the bright side, the odds for the bull are somewhat [...]

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Oh noes the turtle slime burns

January 28, 2008

It would appear that parents all over the USA are learning the lesson that turtles can spread salmonella to humans. In what’s being described as the largest outbreak of its kind, over 100 people, mostly children, have been sickened from contact with turtles since August. Los Angeles County’s public health director is giving [...]

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Quick Taste: Stop mocking the pancake covered sausage

January 25, 2008

Jimmy Dean has a sausage on a stick that people buy. It’s covered with a pancake. A chocolate-chip pancake. Before we go out of our way to mock it, ask yourself this: if an ingredient scan showed it was vegan, would you be all over it? Is that something worth thinking [...]

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I’ve had it with it

January 25, 2008

When a companion animal gets displaced, here’s a quick way to tell who the real caretaker is: it’s the person who uses pronouns instead of “it.”
10 month old Gracie Mae the cat managed to stow away in Seth Levy’s luggage on a trip to Fort Worth. The luggage, as tends to happen sometime, was [...]

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Chinese zoos spark outrage

January 25, 2008

I want so very badly for this story about Chinese zoo practices to be a throwback to “oooh the mysteries of the Orient” and not based on actual fact, but there are too many ridiculously horrible examples of mistreatment for all of them to be false.
It’s demoralizing to address them one by one, especially on [...]

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Quick Taste: Why do Starbucks Vegan Brownies have to look so poopy?

January 24, 2008

I’m stoked that the vegan brownies (that are labelled vegan!) are back on the counter, even though I don’t eat chocolate and shouldn’t be drinking as much coffee, let alone from Starbucks, but still, why do they have to look so bad?
Click here to watch.

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This week’s best response, in the media, to a veg-themed news event

January 24, 2008

Activists take note: This is how you do it. Somebody prestigious says something about reducing meat consumption (in this case the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change, you know, the other half of Al Gore’s Nobel Prize). You put together an op-ed and get it published in Canada’s second largest (but more widely [...]

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