Vegan Dessert Freakout

Posted on April 22, 2010 by jodie

So last Friday, there were vegan desserts in New Haven. Like, more vegan desserts than you can shake a stick at. Seriously. You’d have to shake the stick multiple times to shake it at all of the desserts!

This was at the Fuel Coffee Shop in the Wooster Square area of New Haven, and was a fundraiser for the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. Desserts were provided by Little Vegan Monsters, who are apparently New Haven-based. I think I might need them to be my new best friends.
This is the table when I first walked in:

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And the rows upon rows of glorious vegan cupcakes:

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It was really hard to get pictures in here, because it was so crowded, so I tried to take a little bit of video with my iPhone:
Of course, that’s hard too when you’re the shortest person in the room. But it gives you a good idea of what a happening place this was!
I took a couple more pictures of the front table as they changed over to different desserts over the course of the evening.

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In the bucket are cinnamon donut holes. Yes, yeasted vegan donut holes. It was on the list that there were supposed to be Boston Creme donuts as well. I waited two hours, but I never saw them put any out. I was so bummed, but still pretty happy with the cinnamon sugar ones.
One more change over:

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Pudding, even!
Let me just say, I am glad I had the foresight to bring a couple of containers with me. There was far too much to sample while there!
Here’s hoping there’s another one of these around here someday!
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People are important, too.

Posted on April 18, 2010 by jodie

It makes me angry when vegans throw disadvantaged populations under the bus for the furtherance of veganism. I won’t get into a debate about who is more important: people or animals, but I will point out ignorance and prejudice.


First mistake: not everyone you see looking for money on the interstate highway off-ramps are technically homeless; what they are doing is called panhandling. Panhandling does not equal homeless. Remember that episode of The Simpsons, where Homer pretends to be homeless to earn enough money to buy Marge some diamond earrings?

I really wanted to link to a video of Homer singing Mr.Bojangles, but I can’t find one online. At any rate, I digress.

Does everyone who is homeless have the same opportunities that you or I do?

No. I’m sorry, but growing up in a poor community with frequent gun violence, schools that think it’s pretty much normal for kids to test well below the expected grade levels, and not being able to play outside because you might get shot, mugged or raped does not make for an equal playing field, so just don’t even go there. I work with kids who live in such an environment, and you have no idea how much ignorant comments like that anger me at a completely visceral level.

As for not contributing “because I see the same group eating fried chicken under the overpass…” Get off your high horse about animal rights and offer them a bucket of fried tofu instead of blogging your distain about it. If they’re actually homeless and hungry, they’ll eat it. They’re eating fried chicken because it’s cheap and available. Odds are, there’s a KFC or a Popeye’s nearby. Odds also are that there isn’t an equally cheap place to buy vegan foods nearby. Don’t knock them because they don’t have access to filling vegan foods. Yeah, they could get a bucket of fries for probably even cheaper, but fries aren’t going to keep them from feeling hungry more than an hour from now. I don’t want them to eat chicken either, but don’t blame people from disadvantaged backgrounds for problems that are the fault of the system in which we live. They’re just trying to get by as best they can.

Yes, I know that there are bloggers out there from all kinds of backgrounds, including ones that include frequent witnessing to (or experience of) gun violence, poverty, physical abuse, sexual abuse, grossly underfunded educational systems and the like who have “made it.” That’s wonderful that you’re here in the blogosphere. There was something in your life- either your own resilience, a strong community, or someone in your life who made a difference or all of the above, that helped you to get to where you are today. Not everyone has that same opportunities, even when coming from the same background. Yes, there are people out there who make poor choices, and we each have the choice to ignore people that we see asking for money. There are many reasons to chose not to give money, but as a stand for animal rights is a really poor and pretty disgusting excuse. People who are actually hungry would love the Larabar that’s in your pocket. You don’t have to give money, but don’t ignore them in the name of “animal rights.” That’s the kind of thinking that gives vegans a bad name as self-righteous and self-indulgant bullies, and I don’t want to be associated with that kind of thinking or behavior.



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Vegan-versary!

Posted on April 12, 2010 by jodie

It actually took me a while to figure out what my actual anniversary of becoming vegan for good was, but I think today marks the day that 3 years ago, I finally made the transition from being vegetarian to being vegan- for good.

I’m still knee-deep in the midst of school, but I have started cooking actual food again, instead of just Amy’s burritos. I’ll have some pictures of some tasty-looking food in a few weeks!
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Oh no!

Posted on March 20, 2010 by jodie

I saw a big For Lease sign in the window of Ahimsa today, so I guess they won’t be reopening. Such a shame, but not surprising given how high rent the area is.

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Vitamin D, finally….

Posted on March 9, 2010 by jodie

I was very bad in going back to have my blood drawn to have my vitamin D level checked. I was supposed to go back in mid-December, but didn’t go until last week. The good news is, my levels are much improved. So vegans, it can absolutely work to do high-dose liquid vitamin-D2 supplementation for a low level and have it come up to normal. No need to take sheep secretions (or D2 that’s in a gelatin capsule)! My doctor did recommend that I continue with the daily type of supplement that I’m on, which for me is a total of about 2000 IU/day of D2 (my compliance is not as good as it should be, so I err on the side of taking a bit more than I might otherwise need to, since I don’t end up taking it every day). Here’s to preventing osteoperosis!

See here, here and here for my earlier posts on Vitamin D, in case you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about. 🙂

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more mac & cheese, because I clearly like it.

Posted on February 21, 2010 by jodie

Okay, last post from blogging hibernation.

I just tried Amy’s Vegan Rice Mac & Cheese. It was good, no question. It was not as good as I remember their original mac & cheese, but I think that had more to do with the rice pasta rather than the sauce. It’s quite rich and not something I would want to eat everyday, but I’d have it again. Here’s the kicker though:
It has more fat, more calories, more sodium and less protein than any of Amy’s other mac & cheeses. In fact, save for the sodium, even Stouffer’s Mac & Cheese beats it out in terms of nutrition (and the sodium difference between the two is only 90mg, with Amy’s at 730 and Stouffer’s at 820).
This is a treat. Have it with a salad and it’s a meal in a pinch, but as much as I like having the convenience of a good vegan mac & cheese I can pick up at the grocery store, it scares me about the future of vegan health.
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Thoughts on a trip to the store

Posted on February 21, 2010 by jodie

Taking a break from the not-blogging for a moment…

When the Whole Foods in Milford, CT first opened this fall, I was kind of disappointed. Sure, it’s a Whole Foods, and has nice produce and many of the basic vegan products a little cheaper than some of the small natural foods stores, but it really wasn’t worth the trip to Milford, unless I was going to the area for something else anyways. Like um, Trader Joe’s, which is awesome at what it does. And my mom sends me gift certificates to TJs for pretty much every holiday, so, free food!

The last two times I’ve been to WF though (in conjunction with bringing a pair of pants to Banana Republic for alterations and picking them up- I was in the parking lot anyways, so I might as well shop there), I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Their vegan offerings have increased dramatically. They now have just about every major vegan processed product out there, which is awesome for those times when you’re busy and don’t have a lot of time to cook- and I’m grateful for that.

Then I realized that it’s kind of sad, too. One of the things that’s pretty awesome about being a vegan is that for years, I’ve had to cook real food for myself for the most part. These days, I don’t have to eat very differently from the Standard American Diet- we have it all in vegan form, now. So I’m left to wonder, is this good or bad? Don’t get me wrong, most vegan processed food is healthier than its non-vegan counterparts, and I’m glad that those vegan offerings are out there for everyone (heck, I saw an older couple looking through the cold-bakery case, and picking out a vegan carrot cake- and I don’t think they even realized it was vegan, and I’m sure they won’t know by taste, and that’s awesome), but while it might be great for the cause, it can make us pretty lazy, too.

Before I started changing my eating habits in the ways that led me to be a vegetarian, then a vegan, I was a lot more overweight that I am now, my skin looked awful, and I had a host of other issues to go along with all that. Last semester was horribly stressful, and I started gaining weight again, in part to the majorly processed foods diet I was eating and a lot of poor choices. At any rate, I’ve been working at that for a bit now, and I’m starting to eschew some of those processed foods again.

I did pick up a couple of the new Amy’s vegan Mac & Cheese frozen meals and a Twilight bar. Most of my purchases ended up coming from the produce department, though I am feeling guilty for buying grapes in February. Then I went over to Trader Joe’s and picked up a bunch of tofu, tempeh and chickpeas (I could have gotten all those at Whole Foods, of course, but I had a TJ’s gift certificate). True, those are also processed foods, but I need to be making a lot more effort to get my diet to focus on fresh foods and lightly processed ones. But for an occasional treat, trying out Amy’s vegan Mac & Cheese is still a-okay.

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Posted on January 21, 2010 by jodie

I’m so sorry for the total lack of posts. This blog will probably remain dormant until late spring or so, when I’m done with school. I may take pictures on and off on the rare days when I make something different and photogenic, but I’ll be saving them up. See you in the spring!

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Vote for Vegan Cupcake Day in New Haven!

Posted on January 5, 2010 by jodie

Food-Driven: Tue: Deliveries only. Wed to Fri schedule

Follow the link and vote for vegan cupcake day!
I’ve never actually been to the cupcake truck because whenever I’ve seen it out and about I’m usually in a hurry to get to class, but I would definitely seek it out if I knew that there would be delicious vegan cupcakes on a particular day!
(Personally, I voted for everyday… but I’ll take any day it’s in the downtown or med school area).
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Really good but inexact…

Posted on December 18, 2009 by jodie

Raw snack: slice an onion (red or a sweet one). Marinate overnight in Bragg’s or nama shoyu (or soy sauce if you don’t care about being raw). Dehydrate. This is where I get really inexact, as I don’t have a dehydrator, so I don’t know real time or temp- I just shove them in my gas oven in the off position, where it’s a consistent 100F. I left them in for a whole 36 hours- overnight wasn’t nearly long enough, and then I forgot about them until the next day. I really like them like this (they’re still pliable, I’m thinking you might want a slightly higher temp, shorter time though in a dehydrator). Store in the fridge.

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