(The letters of the word "vegan" can be found in the word "evangelist.")
*
When I was in college I dated a girl from Queens. Let’s call her Sarah. Sarah was a few months younger than me and worked in an animal shelter. She liked playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, drinking hard cider, and herpetology. She thought that books were “stupid” and that your and you’re were the same word. She was nice.
After I broke up with her she decided to become a New York City Police Officer. Yes, there was some time that lapsed between our bust up and her decision to enter law enforcement but I still like to say that I drive women to use guns. This is also why I stay in touch with most of the ladies I have knocked boots with, I like to monitor their use of weapons. Needless to say, Sarah and I were still communicating, albeit on a strained level, when she entered the academy.
This is where I learned how cults are formed.
In order to become a police officer you are basically stripped down in a manner that likely resembles diluted Army training. The physical demands are insane. The verbal abuse is the kind that can singe the eyebrows off of your mother‘s face. Sleeping becomes as rare and precious of an experience as finding large bills on the street. Any sexy piercing that you once had that your ladyfriends enjoyed playing with are removed. They reduce you to a softened, malleable oversized embryo with the external features of your previous self and then they build you back up to their industry specific standards.
Sarah and I are no longer in touch.
What does this have to do with veganism? Everything. Over the past two days or so I’ve rounded a sharp corner. At first I believed this was due to hunger, which is sort of like the police academy for my digestive system. I’ve become so glycemically nutso that if you told me that aliens had landed and were shopping at Pioneer Place I would respond that someone should tell them that there is a sale going on at Claire‘s. Just feed me some yogurt. Please.
There are a few people who have become my sergeants in this training regimen, the leaders of this cult of animal free living, the Billy Grahams and Jimmy Swaggarts to my heathen, rotisserie chicken devouring soul. One of these individuals took on a nearly mafia don type of role yesterday, making phone calls and leading me into a conversation so rigorously intellectual and overwhelming that I walked away from it feeling like I had shattered a parietal bone.
Up until this point I have felt a bit like an average idiot who wandered into a Fundamentalist Church just because they thought that shoplifting is “kinda lame.” Well, I’ve been indoctrinated. A little. Praise and malaise share several letters.
This particular apostle talked a bit about the overlap between the straightedge movement and veganism. I was one of those scrappy preteens dying their hair with Manic Panic and sneaking off to go and see Vision of Disorder and Black Train Jack at the Wetlands. I drew big “X”s on my hands every day in the eighth grade. I was never, ever invited to parties, not just ‘cause I was the weird girl but because I was the weird girl who would start smashing full beer bottles in the driveway. (Also the Dave Matthews album that had been in the CD player was suddenly irreparably marred, only to be replaced by Sick of It All’s Scratch the Surface.) Over the course of one conversation the vegan movement stopped being about emo, PBR loving hipsters and started echoing back to something lost but still cherished by me. It was less artifice, more in-your-face. Could veganism really be old school badass?
Not allowing me to sit back and savor my nostalgia, this tattooed Joel Osteen busted out a quote:
If slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian.*
There is truth to this. I don’t like the idea of being removed from what I’m eating. I don’t like the idea of hurting things. I certainly couldn’t hunt, nor would I if it were the only way for me to have poultry or meat in my diet. I’ve gone fishing. I’ve thrown back a lot of old socks and some kelp. If it had been something that moved and gaped, well, maybe this little experiment of mine would have been initiated years ago, back when I had steel-toed Doc Martins and my cynicism hadn’t calcified into the bitter, nihilistic ball-turret that rests in the pit of my omnivorous stomach.
My enlightenment wasn’t just through rhetoric. I have found an answer to my question about whether or not any gum is vegan. The answer is Wrigley's. Juicy Fruit is vegan, as are Corn Flakes (thank God…vegan God) and Bac-Os.
The website that I was steered towards is put up by PETA and has several lists of foods I can and will continue to eat guilt-free.
http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/
The giddy, youthful joy I felt the first time I heard Gorilla Biscuits is alive and well. I can get passionate about this month and drop the snarkyness, at least a tiny bit. (Okay, I admit, I won’t drop it, but I’ll stop white-knuckling it.) I finally understand what bothers me about veganism, and it isn’t the vegans. It’s the same as it was in grade school, in high-school, at the first Vans Warped Tour. It’s why I hated MTV. It’s why I didn’t drink until college.
I hate poseurs.
I also hate groups, or rather, I hate the idea of blindly supporting a cause or subscribing to a way of life merely to be a part of a subculture or counterculture movement. All the same, it can rightly be argued that the straightedge kids I rolled with back in the day were just doing the same thing only in a more subverted (and fun) manner; there are only a very, very small number of them left that haven’t gone the way of the bong, the bar, and the broads. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t fuck is as high-maintenance as not munching on animal fragments. There’s a reason why trends come and trends go and my view of them hasn‘t changed. Like Ernie Parada sung, “I’d rather not be a part of your arsenal.”
* Quote said by Linda McCartney
Friday, April 4, 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Chasten My Casein: Day Two
I woke up to the most beautiful day of my residence in Portland thus far. Birds? Chirping. Sun? Actually shining. Roommates? All but The Vegan One sleeping. It was going to be a good morning.
Breakfast is important to me. I’d say that it falls somewhere between dry socks and breathing on my personally assigned level of importance. Without breakfast I have been known to overuse sayings such as, "I will cut a bitch," and to literally cry if I'm prevented from my morning consumption. My fervor for cereal with skim milk washed down with two cups of coffee and a helluva lot of Splenda (on everything) has been labeled OCD or batshit crazy by nearly everyone who has had the misfortune of seeing me in the morning, my mother included. If you value your genitalia you will not drink, move, or otherwise fuck with my skim milk. Or, as of this month, my Vitasoy milk. Same goes for my CoffeeMate.
One of the weird things that goes on in my head is the way that small things excite me. This seemingly asinine enthusiasm for minutiae has only been increased with my sobriety. Buying a new bottle of shampoo is enough to bring me to the edge of smug laughter. Non-fat French vanilla flavored CoffeeMate has been a perpetual bottle of bliss since my discovery of it on Long Island a mere year and a half ago. CoffeeMate is the elevation of breakfast. I am serious. It’s also the elevation of the workday, when I have one.
It even has the nerve to challenge the mother of all mothers to a battle. Nestlé says, “CoffeeMate. Dozens of Ways to Enjoy Coffee. Let’s see milk do that!” It threatens. It’s brash and not made with anything remotely natural. It’s commonly associated with women named Linda who have acrylic tips, drive Miatas, and chew gum during their shift at the salon.
I adore it. I practically bleed it. It’s like marshmallow’s tears. Or better.
Why I decided that today, my second vegan morning, where everything feels right, especially refraining from killing things for food or fun, to check the goddamn ingredients list on my heaven-sent non-dairy creamer is beyond me. I had asked this question to the blue bottle before.
Is it vegan?
It says non-dairy. That, prior to yesterday, was enough.
CoffeeMate, the non-dairy creamer, contains casein. What is casein, you ask. My response would ,as it is to most things, “Wikipedia that shit.”
“Casein (from Latin caseus "cheese") is the predominant phosphoprotein (aS1, aS2, ß) that account for nearly 80% of proteins in milk and cheese.”
Or, as it says on the bottle, a milk derivative.
I repeat, the non-dairy creamer. Has. A. Milk-derivative. In it.
Not vegan. Not even close.
Why is it in there? To improve the consistency of the stuff. Basically it’s like an emulsifier, from what I gleaned through several internet searches that were eventually derailed by porn. (You can take the meat out of the meat and potatoes but I am still an All ‘Merican, red-blooded gal.) Casein is something added to other stuff to solve any textural woes.
But it’s not just a hellion of breakfast destruction, oh no. Not only is it used in non-dairy products such as veggie slices and cheese singles, in part ‘cause it gets all good ‘n melty, but casein is used to make adhesives, protective coatings, and plastic products (“such as for knife handles and knitting needles”) while also being a post-workout supplement for bodybuilders. Yes, hipster, your knitting needles might be working in direct opposition to your veganism. Now go and knit your ennui a sweater.
Needless to say, I did not throw out the CoffeeMate. Rather, it’s resting for a month on our refrigerator door. Considering that it doesn’t expire until May 8th (yes, of this year, it’s artificial but it ain’t Cher) I figure I can lust after it every morning as I reach for the soy milk.
I did not check the ingredients list on my Corn Flakes. Don’t tell me. Until tomorrow I just don’t want to know.
Postscript
List of Things I Suddenly Miss Since I Went Vegan (Yesterday)
Yoplait
CoffeeMate (duh)
Eggs
Pine State Biscuits. Yes, I only had them once. No, I never missed them before, even though their awesomeness cannot be denied. For whatever reason, though, I have wanted a warm biscuit in the worst way since yesterday morning. Considering I live down the block from the joint it is going to be a long, dreary month exercising breakfast restraint.
(Pine State Biscuits, 3640 SE Belmont Street.)
Breakfast is important to me. I’d say that it falls somewhere between dry socks and breathing on my personally assigned level of importance. Without breakfast I have been known to overuse sayings such as, "I will cut a bitch," and to literally cry if I'm prevented from my morning consumption. My fervor for cereal with skim milk washed down with two cups of coffee and a helluva lot of Splenda (on everything) has been labeled OCD or batshit crazy by nearly everyone who has had the misfortune of seeing me in the morning, my mother included. If you value your genitalia you will not drink, move, or otherwise fuck with my skim milk. Or, as of this month, my Vitasoy milk. Same goes for my CoffeeMate.
One of the weird things that goes on in my head is the way that small things excite me. This seemingly asinine enthusiasm for minutiae has only been increased with my sobriety. Buying a new bottle of shampoo is enough to bring me to the edge of smug laughter. Non-fat French vanilla flavored CoffeeMate has been a perpetual bottle of bliss since my discovery of it on Long Island a mere year and a half ago. CoffeeMate is the elevation of breakfast. I am serious. It’s also the elevation of the workday, when I have one.
It even has the nerve to challenge the mother of all mothers to a battle. Nestlé says, “CoffeeMate. Dozens of Ways to Enjoy Coffee. Let’s see milk do that!” It threatens. It’s brash and not made with anything remotely natural. It’s commonly associated with women named Linda who have acrylic tips, drive Miatas, and chew gum during their shift at the salon.
I adore it. I practically bleed it. It’s like marshmallow’s tears. Or better.
Why I decided that today, my second vegan morning, where everything feels right, especially refraining from killing things for food or fun, to check the goddamn ingredients list on my heaven-sent non-dairy creamer is beyond me. I had asked this question to the blue bottle before.
Is it vegan?
It says non-dairy. That, prior to yesterday, was enough.
CoffeeMate, the non-dairy creamer, contains casein. What is casein, you ask. My response would ,as it is to most things, “Wikipedia that shit.”
“Casein (from Latin caseus "cheese") is the predominant phosphoprotein (aS1, aS2, ß) that account for nearly 80% of proteins in milk and cheese.”
Or, as it says on the bottle, a milk derivative.
I repeat, the non-dairy creamer. Has. A. Milk-derivative. In it.
Not vegan. Not even close.
Why is it in there? To improve the consistency of the stuff. Basically it’s like an emulsifier, from what I gleaned through several internet searches that were eventually derailed by porn. (You can take the meat out of the meat and potatoes but I am still an All ‘Merican, red-blooded gal.) Casein is something added to other stuff to solve any textural woes.
But it’s not just a hellion of breakfast destruction, oh no. Not only is it used in non-dairy products such as veggie slices and cheese singles, in part ‘cause it gets all good ‘n melty, but casein is used to make adhesives, protective coatings, and plastic products (“such as for knife handles and knitting needles”) while also being a post-workout supplement for bodybuilders. Yes, hipster, your knitting needles might be working in direct opposition to your veganism. Now go and knit your ennui a sweater.
Needless to say, I did not throw out the CoffeeMate. Rather, it’s resting for a month on our refrigerator door. Considering that it doesn’t expire until May 8th (yes, of this year, it’s artificial but it ain’t Cher) I figure I can lust after it every morning as I reach for the soy milk.
I did not check the ingredients list on my Corn Flakes. Don’t tell me. Until tomorrow I just don’t want to know.
Postscript
List of Things I Suddenly Miss Since I Went Vegan (Yesterday)
Yoplait
CoffeeMate (duh)
Eggs
Pine State Biscuits. Yes, I only had them once. No, I never missed them before, even though their awesomeness cannot be denied. For whatever reason, though, I have wanted a warm biscuit in the worst way since yesterday morning. Considering I live down the block from the joint it is going to be a long, dreary month exercising breakfast restraint.
(Pine State Biscuits, 3640 SE Belmont Street.)
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Cheaters Never Win, Winners Never Eat: Day One
Ingredients: Sugar, Corn Syrup, Gelatin, Potassium Sorbate, Blue #1, Carnauba Wax. Gluten Free.
An open kiss on the mouth goes to the first person who was able to identify what my last non-vegan food item was.
The answer?
Yup. At 12:15 this morning (sorry, I was late, busy savoring other pleasures of the flesh, heh heh) I opened up a pack of marshmallow Peeps. Blue bunny Peeps, to be exact, costing a whopping twelve cents from Fred Meyer. That list of ingredients may resemble the ingestion potential of an unlit candle but it also contains gelatin, decidedly not vegan.
I looked up why after suddenly being struck with the blind hope that I could survive for a month on pharmacy Easter candy clearance specials. Turns out that gelatin is made from taking the connective skin, cartilage, and bone of animals and bringing it all up to a robust simmer. Delicious for stews and also, obviously, candy. Think of that the next time you pop a Peep in your piehole. You are actually eating parts of a chicken. Or cow. Or pig.
Circle of Life. Or, I guess, rectangular cardboard packaging shrink wrapped in plastic of life.
"Going vegan in Portland is kind of like cheating," a wise man once said. How true. For day one of this odyssey I decided to forgo any actual cooking in my stove-free kitchen (don't ask, we have a hot plate, it's cool) and enjoy a late breakfast, aka brunch, at a local vegan diner, while for dinner I went to my favorite NoPo vegan eatery for a bowl of tofu, spicy collard greens, and brown rice. The first twenty-four of this adventure has been a plantastic breeze.
Do I feel any different? No. Was I any more hungry than usual? Decidedly no. In fact, breakfast left me feeling like I was lugging around some extra junk in my trunk, and by junk I mean hemp, tapestries, hand-thrown pottery, and patchouli incense, not an actual deer chucked in the flatbed of my proverbial 4X4 Chevy. It turns out that vegan bread does what non-vegan bread does: make me feel fat and sleepy. A new mystery came out of my early meal, however, and that is the question of what the fuck is in vegan sausage? It is damn tasty. Not in a way that would make me mistake it for actual sausage, but delicious nonetheless.
The irony here is that I loathe actual links. So go figure, being vegan actually broadened my culinary horizon. Take that, “restrictive” “diet.”
Dinner, as always, was like an orgasm for my tongue. Highest props I can give go to the Bye and Bye. In truth it's one of the original reasons why I moved to this town, and likely it will be one of the things that keeps me here, regardless of whether or not I can make it through this month without slipping and digesting something that blinked.
(The Bye and Bye: 1011 NE Alberta Street, corner of 10th)
The only difference I can say that I notice is that being a vegan is a lot like learning a new language, it requires asking seemingly stupid questions, irritating your unlearned friends, and quickly developing a noticeable chip on your shoulder. I felt pretty elite as I scanned the ingredients list to my cranberry flavored Emergen-C. Now I just need to Google whether or not tapioca maltodextrin and cysteine hydrochloride are vegan. Considering they sound like something I would put in my car in order to winterize it my guess would be no.
Potential for being a Peep professional? http://jerkethic.tumblr.com/
An open kiss on the mouth goes to the first person who was able to identify what my last non-vegan food item was.
The answer?
Yup. At 12:15 this morning (sorry, I was late, busy savoring other pleasures of the flesh, heh heh) I opened up a pack of marshmallow Peeps. Blue bunny Peeps, to be exact, costing a whopping twelve cents from Fred Meyer. That list of ingredients may resemble the ingestion potential of an unlit candle but it also contains gelatin, decidedly not vegan.
I looked up why after suddenly being struck with the blind hope that I could survive for a month on pharmacy Easter candy clearance specials. Turns out that gelatin is made from taking the connective skin, cartilage, and bone of animals and bringing it all up to a robust simmer. Delicious for stews and also, obviously, candy. Think of that the next time you pop a Peep in your piehole. You are actually eating parts of a chicken. Or cow. Or pig.
Circle of Life. Or, I guess, rectangular cardboard packaging shrink wrapped in plastic of life.
"Going vegan in Portland is kind of like cheating," a wise man once said. How true. For day one of this odyssey I decided to forgo any actual cooking in my stove-free kitchen (don't ask, we have a hot plate, it's cool) and enjoy a late breakfast, aka brunch, at a local vegan diner, while for dinner I went to my favorite NoPo vegan eatery for a bowl of tofu, spicy collard greens, and brown rice. The first twenty-four of this adventure has been a plantastic breeze.
Do I feel any different? No. Was I any more hungry than usual? Decidedly no. In fact, breakfast left me feeling like I was lugging around some extra junk in my trunk, and by junk I mean hemp, tapestries, hand-thrown pottery, and patchouli incense, not an actual deer chucked in the flatbed of my proverbial 4X4 Chevy. It turns out that vegan bread does what non-vegan bread does: make me feel fat and sleepy. A new mystery came out of my early meal, however, and that is the question of what the fuck is in vegan sausage? It is damn tasty. Not in a way that would make me mistake it for actual sausage, but delicious nonetheless.
The irony here is that I loathe actual links. So go figure, being vegan actually broadened my culinary horizon. Take that, “restrictive” “diet.”
Dinner, as always, was like an orgasm for my tongue. Highest props I can give go to the Bye and Bye. In truth it's one of the original reasons why I moved to this town, and likely it will be one of the things that keeps me here, regardless of whether or not I can make it through this month without slipping and digesting something that blinked.
(The Bye and Bye: 1011 NE Alberta Street, corner of 10th)
The only difference I can say that I notice is that being a vegan is a lot like learning a new language, it requires asking seemingly stupid questions, irritating your unlearned friends, and quickly developing a noticeable chip on your shoulder. I felt pretty elite as I scanned the ingredients list to my cranberry flavored Emergen-C. Now I just need to Google whether or not tapioca maltodextrin and cysteine hydrochloride are vegan. Considering they sound like something I would put in my car in order to winterize it my guess would be no.
Potential for being a Peep professional? http://jerkethic.tumblr.com/
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Visiting Teenagers Say Thanks for the Rolls But We Really Just Came for the Beer
"So you're vegan now? Huh. You should try these cupcakes. They're amazing. And free of everything," my friend Dani said via instant message.
"Really? Where?"
"This store Babycakes. They're here in New York. But they ship overnight."
"And they're fat free?"
"Um. No. But gluten free, sugar free, and vegan."
If anyone would like to both foot the bill and split a cupcake here is the website of Babycakes: www.babycakesnyc.com
I would like a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting, with Cupcake Insurance. Yes. Cupcake insurance. So what if I don't have health or dental, my vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free dessert will get to me, air travel be damned! Actually, cupcake insurance is just a cool way of saying that they have little plastic boxes to preserve your cupcake and prevent it from getting more busted up than a high-school house party. As much as I've shit-talked veganism in the past I must say that right now I could totally go for a slice of vegan banana chocolate chip loaf. I have yet to get the funding (see previous post about sudden loss of job leading to sudden loss of income) for a cupcake costing no less than $33.01 or a $62.39 loaf. Shipping, unfortunately, is the pimp to the cupcake ho. But maybe there's a sugar mama or sugar daddy out there who wants to foot the bill for some sweets? And by sugar I of course mean agave sweetened.
*
Again I perused the bookstore for veganlightenment, this time I was hoping to pilfer some all-plant recipes from a cookbook or something that would both jive with my new diet and new skinny wallet. Instead I saw a book entitled Why Vegan. Yes, this is what I was looking for all along, an answer to just that question.
Well. I didn't find it. Instead I found some really dodgy British vegan rhetoric, some of which I could almost subscribe to, and a recipe for something called "Mince With Bubble And Squeak," which sounds both like a command and a live sex show containing acts even my perverted, no longer carnivorous mind can't even imagine. All in all, it was worth reading. I did laugh out loud and nearly wet myself as I sat hunched over my tiny notebook and Kath Clements' compendium of creature-free consumption. I must have looked like a crazy homeless girl. A vegan, crazy homeless girl.
Here are some of Clements' greatest hits:
In regard to a vegan entree:
"Serve with chips, tomatoes and white bread rolls to visiting teenagers."
Fresh Fruit Sorbet
"A nice dessert if the meal did not include a large salad."
Pancakes
"Serve with sugar, syrup, oranges, lemons. Other ideas for toppings will emerge with greater family involvement in pancake technology."
Cupcake technology apparently has adapted at a quicker rate. Don't know if this is due to greater family involvement or just the fact that New York City is the most progressive place on Earth. Yes, that's a pretty heavy statement, but so is calling vegans "pioneers." Pioneers killed tons of things and exploited, you know, the original inhabitants of this country. Perhaps I was just paying too much attention to the definition of vegans as the anti-killers. Unless you're a plant. Then you are totally fucked and vegans are some raccoon cap wearing, musket bearing, broccoli slaying motherfuckers.
Now although I don't necessarily agree with statements such as going vegan will make me regard meat and milk as "horrifying and pathetic substances," I can support ending "the cycle of exploitation" and an education of what I put into my body that will lead me to keep the "moral integrity" of my food choices "untainted." Basically it's a highfalutin way of saying that it's an atrocity to kill masses of animals for food in a country where so much is based on both consumerism and waste hidden under a heavy layer of ignorance. Fair enough. Now pass the cupcakes.
"Really? Where?"
"This store Babycakes. They're here in New York. But they ship overnight."
"And they're fat free?"
"Um. No. But gluten free, sugar free, and vegan."
If anyone would like to both foot the bill and split a cupcake here is the website of Babycakes: www.babycakesnyc.com
I would like a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting, with Cupcake Insurance. Yes. Cupcake insurance. So what if I don't have health or dental, my vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free dessert will get to me, air travel be damned! Actually, cupcake insurance is just a cool way of saying that they have little plastic boxes to preserve your cupcake and prevent it from getting more busted up than a high-school house party. As much as I've shit-talked veganism in the past I must say that right now I could totally go for a slice of vegan banana chocolate chip loaf. I have yet to get the funding (see previous post about sudden loss of job leading to sudden loss of income) for a cupcake costing no less than $33.01 or a $62.39 loaf. Shipping, unfortunately, is the pimp to the cupcake ho. But maybe there's a sugar mama or sugar daddy out there who wants to foot the bill for some sweets? And by sugar I of course mean agave sweetened.
*
Again I perused the bookstore for veganlightenment, this time I was hoping to pilfer some all-plant recipes from a cookbook or something that would both jive with my new diet and new skinny wallet. Instead I saw a book entitled Why Vegan. Yes, this is what I was looking for all along, an answer to just that question.
Well. I didn't find it. Instead I found some really dodgy British vegan rhetoric, some of which I could almost subscribe to, and a recipe for something called "Mince With Bubble And Squeak," which sounds both like a command and a live sex show containing acts even my perverted, no longer carnivorous mind can't even imagine. All in all, it was worth reading. I did laugh out loud and nearly wet myself as I sat hunched over my tiny notebook and Kath Clements' compendium of creature-free consumption. I must have looked like a crazy homeless girl. A vegan, crazy homeless girl.
Here are some of Clements' greatest hits:
In regard to a vegan entree:
"Serve with chips, tomatoes and white bread rolls to visiting teenagers."
Fresh Fruit Sorbet
"A nice dessert if the meal did not include a large salad."
Pancakes
"Serve with sugar, syrup, oranges, lemons. Other ideas for toppings will emerge with greater family involvement in pancake technology."
Cupcake technology apparently has adapted at a quicker rate. Don't know if this is due to greater family involvement or just the fact that New York City is the most progressive place on Earth. Yes, that's a pretty heavy statement, but so is calling vegans "pioneers." Pioneers killed tons of things and exploited, you know, the original inhabitants of this country. Perhaps I was just paying too much attention to the definition of vegans as the anti-killers. Unless you're a plant. Then you are totally fucked and vegans are some raccoon cap wearing, musket bearing, broccoli slaying motherfuckers.
Now although I don't necessarily agree with statements such as going vegan will make me regard meat and milk as "horrifying and pathetic substances," I can support ending "the cycle of exploitation" and an education of what I put into my body that will lead me to keep the "moral integrity" of my food choices "untainted." Basically it's a highfalutin way of saying that it's an atrocity to kill masses of animals for food in a country where so much is based on both consumerism and waste hidden under a heavy layer of ignorance. Fair enough. Now pass the cupcakes.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Premature Evisceration
By 6PM last evening my stomach had entered a state of pain somewhere between death and North Dakota. The gas that followed was enough to startle our three legged dog, and probably increased my rent by at least a few Jacksons. My roommates no longer regard me as a female, I think I have been accepted to several local frat houses, and an entirely new, industrial strength model of a nose plug had to be crafted for the 97214 area code.
This kind of intestinal distress is new to me. I am the girl who grew up thinking that the seven second rule was the seven minute rule, that mold only meant that whatever it covered was just evidently jealous of peaches and kiwis, and that "refrigerate after opening" was optional at best. I could drink one third of my body weight in distilled spirits and not feel so much as a tickle in my gut unless it was coming from someone else's body part touching it. Vomiting, shitting, farting are all gerunds that, luckily, I don't use very often unless sarcastically critiquing a film starring Jessica Alba. There had to be a reason why my intestines felt like they were being used by some knitting hipster as yarn.
Then it dawned on me. I have already gone vegan. Early.
The last time I consumed anything that barked, breathed, spit, or pissed was...search me. Part of the benefit of being fired has been a sudden refusal to eat anything that I don't have in my pantry, meaning that the only possibly non-vegan item of consumption would have been whole-wheat bread. Other than that it's been all dried fruit, apple butter, cereal gruel made with water, Amy's brand (vegan) soup and Diet Pepsi. Basically I'm learning that if there were an apocalypse I would be a PETA poster child as the world burned. Think I Am Legend only with more soy and fewer CGI zombies.
Still, this conclusion didn't solve the fiery sharp subtraction problem taking place behind my bellybutton. But at least I knew why. Next question, is Pepto-Bismol vegan?
And why the hell am I doing this again?
While cramping I came to believe that I have to delve deeper into the reasoning as to why a human being would willingly volunteer for this variety of torture that vacillates between explosive, painful flatulence and dramatic drops in blood-sugar that create a nearly homicidal need to tear through Fred Meyer, mouth stretched wide. For assistance I have begun asking my vegan chums to answer a few burning questions. Pun fucking intended. Stay tuned.
This kind of intestinal distress is new to me. I am the girl who grew up thinking that the seven second rule was the seven minute rule, that mold only meant that whatever it covered was just evidently jealous of peaches and kiwis, and that "refrigerate after opening" was optional at best. I could drink one third of my body weight in distilled spirits and not feel so much as a tickle in my gut unless it was coming from someone else's body part touching it. Vomiting, shitting, farting are all gerunds that, luckily, I don't use very often unless sarcastically critiquing a film starring Jessica Alba. There had to be a reason why my intestines felt like they were being used by some knitting hipster as yarn.
Then it dawned on me. I have already gone vegan. Early.
The last time I consumed anything that barked, breathed, spit, or pissed was...search me. Part of the benefit of being fired has been a sudden refusal to eat anything that I don't have in my pantry, meaning that the only possibly non-vegan item of consumption would have been whole-wheat bread. Other than that it's been all dried fruit, apple butter, cereal gruel made with water, Amy's brand (vegan) soup and Diet Pepsi. Basically I'm learning that if there were an apocalypse I would be a PETA poster child as the world burned. Think I Am Legend only with more soy and fewer CGI zombies.
Still, this conclusion didn't solve the fiery sharp subtraction problem taking place behind my bellybutton. But at least I knew why. Next question, is Pepto-Bismol vegan?
And why the hell am I doing this again?
While cramping I came to believe that I have to delve deeper into the reasoning as to why a human being would willingly volunteer for this variety of torture that vacillates between explosive, painful flatulence and dramatic drops in blood-sugar that create a nearly homicidal need to tear through Fred Meyer, mouth stretched wide. For assistance I have begun asking my vegan chums to answer a few burning questions. Pun fucking intended. Stay tuned.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
"There's a hunger inside me..."
After a brief absence due to an unplanned vacation from work known as sudden unemployment on account of being fired, I return to my foray into being a vegan. This is a little bit more dire and uncomfortable now being that I have no fucking clue if I will be able to eat - anything - by the end of April. Allow me to take a moment to whore myself and say, if you are looking for someone to write or edit anything for you for a nominal fee I’m your girl. Give me work, which will in turn pay for vegan food, which will in turn allow me to continue blogging. Jesus Christ, that is the most pathetic sentence I think I’ve ever written.
In the past few feverish days a dialog has followed me. It has gone as follows:
“Whatchya eating?” (Usually this is said to someone eating something that I’m hoping they will share with me because, as previously noted, I am now out of work and poor.)
Cute girl at coffee shop with labret piercing: “Cosmic sandwich. Meat free. Not so good.” She pushes away her plate in disgust.
Kid with bike: “Dunno. But it’s vegan.” He opens his mouth, showing me a pasty mass of brown goop on his tongue. Delightful.
Roommate: “Vegan muffin. Tastes like shit.” (He proceeded to throw it in the trash where I had to restrain myself from diving after it. It landed in a pile of old coffee grinds, over a banana peel, next to a drained six pack of PBR. We‘re not at that level of hunger. Yet.)
I would like to point out, as my mother did when I was little, that there are people starving...The rest of her sentence went “in Africa,” while mine goes something like, “on Yamhill Street, grey house, the one with the organ on the lawn.” I can imagine at the homeless shelter across the street from where I was fired, they’re handing out sandwiches and one unshowered, impoverished straggler asks, “Is it vegan?”
If you’d like to see my struggle to get work in addition to my struggle to go vegan check out Jerk Ethic. It’s like watching the baby seals, pandas, and whales win. http://jerkethic.tumblr.com/
I’m off to eat a can of meat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free soup. It’s organic, too.
In the past few feverish days a dialog has followed me. It has gone as follows:
“Whatchya eating?” (Usually this is said to someone eating something that I’m hoping they will share with me because, as previously noted, I am now out of work and poor.)
Cute girl at coffee shop with labret piercing: “Cosmic sandwich. Meat free. Not so good.” She pushes away her plate in disgust.
Kid with bike: “Dunno. But it’s vegan.” He opens his mouth, showing me a pasty mass of brown goop on his tongue. Delightful.
Roommate: “Vegan muffin. Tastes like shit.” (He proceeded to throw it in the trash where I had to restrain myself from diving after it. It landed in a pile of old coffee grinds, over a banana peel, next to a drained six pack of PBR. We‘re not at that level of hunger. Yet.)
I would like to point out, as my mother did when I was little, that there are people starving...The rest of her sentence went “in Africa,” while mine goes something like, “on Yamhill Street, grey house, the one with the organ on the lawn.” I can imagine at the homeless shelter across the street from where I was fired, they’re handing out sandwiches and one unshowered, impoverished straggler asks, “Is it vegan?”
If you’d like to see my struggle to get work in addition to my struggle to go vegan check out Jerk Ethic. It’s like watching the baby seals, pandas, and whales win. http://jerkethic.tumblr.com/
I’m off to eat a can of meat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free soup. It’s organic, too.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Half-Girl, Half-Jerk, All-Plant!
In Powells' on Hawthorne I go to the Diet and Nutrition section to find a book to help me along my pre-quest. I immediately search the shelf that's at my sight-line. This is because the vast majority of vegans I've encountered have been pocket-sized men and women who resemble unshowered Keebler elves and also 'cause, hey, anything above my head doesn't really matter.
Within a few minutes I'm craning my neck so far back I could be trying out for a Fire in the Sky sequel. There are no books on becoming a vegan. I see more frightening alternatives such as The Detox Diet (if this is a whole tome pertaining to that time I ate nothing but Ritz crackers for a week and refused to leave my Brooklyn apartment due to "the fucking shaking" I will buy it simply out of principle) and the Great Food, Great Sex: The Three Food Factors for Sexual Fitness (insert protein shake joke here) but not a single book on the wonders of veganism. I at least expected a ratty chapbook printed with beet juice ink on recycled toilet paper.
To be fair, I was looking for the very 'Merican just-gimme-an-answer series known as "for Dummies" and found only Dieting for Dummies, Carb Consciousness for Dummies, and the ever tempting Atkins Diet for Dummies but nothing on planning your meals in accordance with photosynthesis and crop rotation. Either there is a whole section I overlooked in the stacks or this shit is so difficult that books just fly off of the shelves. I suddenly imagine that those who subscribe to a plant-based diet actually rival the intellect of aerospace engineers. This, of course, is a shocking consideration, namely because it would mean that I would be wrong.
Finally I found one, lone paperback. VEGAN - The New Ethics of Eating by Erik Marcus (1998 - McBooks Press). A yellow icon labeled "URGENT" is on the cover. It reads "What we eat has devastating effects. Heal our planet and your body" Okay. The planet coming first on that list sort of irks me but whatevs, Marcus has given me at least part of what I'm looking for by providing a handy definition inside of the front cover: "Vegan (most commonly pronounced "VEE-gun") A person who does not eat animal products, including meat, fish, seafood, eggs and dairy products; All-plant."
All-plant.
To be fair - I didn't actually read the book, though it has pictures, which is always a plus. And I didn't buy the book. It was $11.50. That's far more expensive than the latest copy of Bust magazine and a biscuit. But I did sit and leaf through it in the hope of figuring some stuff out.
In V-NEE the author names the animals that were en route to becoming breakfast links or burgers and he tells their horror stories, much like I do with the bugs crawling on my ceiling that are just too terrifying to kill. Chester the pig and Agnes the calf are no longer sleeping on concrete floors, in cells smaller than Emmanuel Lewis' left Reebok. They have passed on and passed through and now are resting peacefully in a sewer system somewhere. It's cloying, it's manipulative, and for a reader with a heart, unlike me, it works to make them identify with their food on a level that perhaps they weren't prepared to before. It's hard to chow down on your chicken parm when you're thinking about Daisy the hen and how she was "always intuitively affectionate towards humans."
There are chapters titled "The Killing Business" and "The Perfect Food Isn't." Obviously Erik hasn't gone out for ribs recently. Perfection exists, friend. Like many things worth devouring it requires patience and many, many napkins.
Now as much as I try to maintain my arrogant air of cynicism and incorrigibility I can't deny that the animal tales and statistics, such as the fact that the Federal Government killed 124,292 prairie dogs in 1988 and that cheddar cheese gets 73 percent of its calories from fat, are upsetting and make me give pause. However, I am not a big fan of cheese nor do I eat prairie dog. In short, I wanted Marcus or somebody, preferably the cartoon gentleman on the cover of the "for Dummies" series or the enlightened authors of the Idiot's Guides, to break it down for me. What do I have to do, where do I have to go, and will I die are some of my most (incense) burning questions.
Yesterday I ate two (2) sandwiches consisting of roast turkey flavored soy "meat" I found in the food substitute aisle and they produced the sort of searing pain that made me believe that this years running of the bulls was taking place down my large intestine or that Jerry Garcia was posthumously sparking up using my duodenum as a lighter.
This morning I ate Gorilla Munch (also found in the food substitute aisle at Fred Meyer) with vanilla soymilk. Soymilk - at least the vanilla flavored variety - is like that girl in high-school who was slightly overweight and may have had acne or an overbite or a body odor issue but she was, by far, the girl with the best sense of humor and a jewel of a personality. I finished my 'Munch and was left with a half a cup of grey, watery liquid that I would have thought was dirty dishwater if I hadn't poured it out of its environmentally friendly spout. It looked like some tween puked up a White Russian but it tasted like a little bit of heaven. Go figure. Some of this pregame is far easier than I imagined, the rest requires Alka-Seltzer and an immutable will.
Within a few minutes I'm craning my neck so far back I could be trying out for a Fire in the Sky sequel. There are no books on becoming a vegan. I see more frightening alternatives such as The Detox Diet (if this is a whole tome pertaining to that time I ate nothing but Ritz crackers for a week and refused to leave my Brooklyn apartment due to "the fucking shaking" I will buy it simply out of principle) and the Great Food, Great Sex: The Three Food Factors for Sexual Fitness (insert protein shake joke here) but not a single book on the wonders of veganism. I at least expected a ratty chapbook printed with beet juice ink on recycled toilet paper.
To be fair, I was looking for the very 'Merican just-gimme-an-answer series known as "for Dummies" and found only Dieting for Dummies, Carb Consciousness for Dummies, and the ever tempting Atkins Diet for Dummies but nothing on planning your meals in accordance with photosynthesis and crop rotation. Either there is a whole section I overlooked in the stacks or this shit is so difficult that books just fly off of the shelves. I suddenly imagine that those who subscribe to a plant-based diet actually rival the intellect of aerospace engineers. This, of course, is a shocking consideration, namely because it would mean that I would be wrong.
Finally I found one, lone paperback. VEGAN - The New Ethics of Eating by Erik Marcus (1998 - McBooks Press). A yellow icon labeled "URGENT" is on the cover. It reads "What we eat has devastating effects. Heal our planet and your body" Okay. The planet coming first on that list sort of irks me but whatevs, Marcus has given me at least part of what I'm looking for by providing a handy definition inside of the front cover: "Vegan (most commonly pronounced "VEE-gun") A person who does not eat animal products, including meat, fish, seafood, eggs and dairy products; All-plant."
All-plant.
To be fair - I didn't actually read the book, though it has pictures, which is always a plus. And I didn't buy the book. It was $11.50. That's far more expensive than the latest copy of Bust magazine and a biscuit. But I did sit and leaf through it in the hope of figuring some stuff out.
In V-NEE the author names the animals that were en route to becoming breakfast links or burgers and he tells their horror stories, much like I do with the bugs crawling on my ceiling that are just too terrifying to kill. Chester the pig and Agnes the calf are no longer sleeping on concrete floors, in cells smaller than Emmanuel Lewis' left Reebok. They have passed on and passed through and now are resting peacefully in a sewer system somewhere. It's cloying, it's manipulative, and for a reader with a heart, unlike me, it works to make them identify with their food on a level that perhaps they weren't prepared to before. It's hard to chow down on your chicken parm when you're thinking about Daisy the hen and how she was "always intuitively affectionate towards humans."
There are chapters titled "The Killing Business" and "The Perfect Food Isn't." Obviously Erik hasn't gone out for ribs recently. Perfection exists, friend. Like many things worth devouring it requires patience and many, many napkins.
Now as much as I try to maintain my arrogant air of cynicism and incorrigibility I can't deny that the animal tales and statistics, such as the fact that the Federal Government killed 124,292 prairie dogs in 1988 and that cheddar cheese gets 73 percent of its calories from fat, are upsetting and make me give pause. However, I am not a big fan of cheese nor do I eat prairie dog. In short, I wanted Marcus or somebody, preferably the cartoon gentleman on the cover of the "for Dummies" series or the enlightened authors of the Idiot's Guides, to break it down for me. What do I have to do, where do I have to go, and will I die are some of my most (incense) burning questions.
Yesterday I ate two (2) sandwiches consisting of roast turkey flavored soy "meat" I found in the food substitute aisle and they produced the sort of searing pain that made me believe that this years running of the bulls was taking place down my large intestine or that Jerry Garcia was posthumously sparking up using my duodenum as a lighter.
This morning I ate Gorilla Munch (also found in the food substitute aisle at Fred Meyer) with vanilla soymilk. Soymilk - at least the vanilla flavored variety - is like that girl in high-school who was slightly overweight and may have had acne or an overbite or a body odor issue but she was, by far, the girl with the best sense of humor and a jewel of a personality. I finished my 'Munch and was left with a half a cup of grey, watery liquid that I would have thought was dirty dishwater if I hadn't poured it out of its environmentally friendly spout. It looked like some tween puked up a White Russian but it tasted like a little bit of heaven. Go figure. Some of this pregame is far easier than I imagined, the rest requires Alka-Seltzer and an immutable will.
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