A Vegan Feast

Thanksgiving is usually a time for increased stress. It is nice driving to San Antonio to visit family, but it isn't all that nice eating the vegan food we prepared around such a massive animal massacre. After six years of marriage, however, this was the first Thanksgiving that we had at our house. We cooked up our best Thanksgiving meal to date. I mostly made the cornbread stuffing and the potato salad, and Anita made the muffins, the sugar-glazed baked sweet potatoes and the cashew encrusted baked tofu. She also made the cornbread that I used for the stuffing. I really can't believe how well the potato salad came out. We looked through all of our cookbooks to see if we could find something that could be veganized. We used a recipe from an old cookbook put together by some Army wives (including my mother). Wouldn't you know it, after we made the potato salad the first time a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, we discovered the recipe had been written by my mother.

Not ashamed to be a vegan

For better or worse, vegans are given a bad wrap. Herbivore in its 13th issue printed an article by an animal rights activist saying the vegans he knows are confrontational and even elitist. I have never known a vegan like that. Most I have known are quiet about their veganism, afraid to experience the negative reaction to the word "vegan." Well, if the animal rights activist didn't like the confrontational vegans, I think the quiet vegans (probably including myself at times) should accept themselves for who they are. Quiet vegans should calmly proclaim themselves to be a vegan when appropriate. They shouldn't sneer the word "vegan." They shouldn't express themselves apologetically either. They should say, "I'm a vegan," matter-of-factly. To the vegan, it should be a normal circumstance to say it, and to the person hearing it, it shouldn't sound unusual. A born-again Christian would have no problem expressing her beliefs to others. Vegans should be proud of their decision to remove themselves from the industry of animal cruelty, to be kinder to the planet's environment and to minimize the personal risks of numerous diseases. It is wonderful to be a vegan, and we don't and shouldn't have to apologize to anyone for making the choice to be one.

Vegan Principles and Cats

I once had a good friend question my commitment to veganism because I had, and still have, six cats. He told me that just having cats would cause massive bird deaths in the neighborhood, and the food I would be purchasing would contribute to more animal suffering. Perhaps he had some points, but before I get into my cats, I would point out that the same argument could be made in befriending the typical human, who causes massive animal suffering. First of all, all of our cats, who are all females, were rescued. Two, Prissy and Calypso, came from a horrible looking pregnant cat in our neighborhood who came to us for help. The poor cats' mother, who we called Zingara (Gypsy in Italian), had exposed ribs, patches of missing fur and a dull color to the fur. After a week of feeding that long-haired cat, she looked healthy as could be. The she had a litter of five kittens. We kept two, and the three others ended up in good homes, all spayed and neutered, thank you very much. Zingara unfortunately left one evening, and we never saw her again. We looked for her and put up signs to no avail. Our next cat, Chelsea, came from the local kill shelter. Some evil person took this cute tortoise shell kitten to the kill shelter and gave her bad marks, saying she was a wild cat who caused lots of destruction. Whoever did this also chopped off her nails until they were bloody stumps. We adopted Chelsea because we knew no one else would. She is our most affectionate cat. Her nails, and that of our other cats, are all healthy and unclipped. Our next came to me when I was visiting a friend's house. This poor kitten was so hungry I felt I had to go to the store to get some food to feed her. She knew a good thing when she saw it and was insistent that I take her with me. This tuxedo cat, we called Calzetta (Socks in Italian. Get it? Chelsea Clinton had a cat named Socks.) When we took her to the vet to get looked at, she had all sorts of issues, from fleas to tape worms to ear mites. Our last two kittens came from a local wild cat who decided to give birth in our bushes. We suspect the mother of these kittens was related to Zingara. We called the two Tinker Bell and Snow Bell (I'm holding her in the picture). They have the sweetest meows. As for our vegan principles, all of our cats stay indoors, so no wild birds are killed. Unfortunately, we do not buy vegan cat food, even though we could order it through the mail. I understand cats need to be closely monitored when on that diet because of being natural carnivores. The vegan food costs three times as much as we currently pay for, and we buy among the most expensive cat foods in the pet supply store. We get Science Diet Nature's Best food because it is full of whole grains and doesn't have any of those horrible meat byproducts. There is a vegan reason to buy that cat food, as well. The first two ingredients are brewers rice and corn gluten meal, not animal products. So fewer animals are slaughtered to feed these cats, and interestingly enough, our cats eat less of it than other cat foods, and they seem healthier. Also, a gross point, but their litter boxes smell less with this food. So, it is tough in a way to have cat friends and be vegan, but we alleviated a lot of suffering when we adopted them and try to keep their impact to a minimum. They are our meat-eating friends, but we forgive them for it.

Vegan Health

Here I am a vegan fighting misconceptions about us, and now I have my own shattered. Listening to Vegan Freak Radio (66: The Vegan Health Show) yesterday blew my freaking mind. Bob Torres, a vegan and co-author with wife Jenna of "Vegan Freak," a book about being a vegan in an unvegan world, revealed that he recently found out he was a diabetic. This is a vegan who is the ideal body weight and eats fairly well, but he still was diabetic. He says the doctor actually told him to eat a low-carbohydrate diet. That's something no vegan wants to hear or can even cope with. The doctor said two tests of his fasting glucose was high, and his cholesterol was at 201, and his triglycerides were 197. The American Heart Association considers total cholesterol above 240 mg/dl to be high and between 200 and 239 mg/dl to be borderline high. According to the American Heart Association, normal triglycerides should be at 150 mg/dl. The American Diabetes Association says a normal fasting glucose is less than 100 mg/dl, but between 100-125 is pre-diabetes, and 126 mg/dl and higher is diabetes. Well, Torres gets educated about his disease and what he can do to be more healthy. He consults with a dietician, and he reads the book, "Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs," that reports on how a low-fat vegan diet can reverse diabetes. He and his wife stop drinking alcohol regularly, adding refined sugars to foods, and they cut way back on the amount of oils they were adding to their foods. They also start exercising everyday, no excuses. The way Torres puts it on his radio show is that his life depended on him exercising every day, so he had to make time to do it, even if it meant less time doing something else. In a month, Torres went back to the doctor and was retested. She tells him that he reversed his diabetes. What ever he was doing, he should keep doing it. In the five years I've been a vegan, I presumed that the mere fact I was vegan meant that I was healthy. Vegans should have low cholesterol because we don't consume cholesterol. Well, things like saturated fat and even white flour can raise cholesterol. So, maybe we were fooling ourselves some. Being a vegan doesn't prevent someone from being overweight, either. I'm 5'10" and weigh 225 pounds. I'm actually considered obese by our country's health standards, even though I don't really look like it. I had already been overweight before I became a vegetarian and then a vegan, but that doesn't make being overweight any more healthy. Interestingly enough, this is the sixth-straight week I've been exercising on my exercise bike at least five times per week for 30 minutes. About the same time we started exercising more, my wife and I decided to ax alcohol except on special occasions, such as a birthday or anniversary. We did the alcohol thing because of all of the empty calories you get on top of everything else you eat. So, we are making an effort to be more healthy. We certainly have a long way to go, but like I always say, you don't get overweight in one night, so you can lose it all in one night either. I think we need to slash the amount of sweets and fatty foods we are consuming and cut down on the oils we add when cooking. Of course, we already don't eat any white rice, white flour, white sugar or highly processed foods. So, that's a good start. Oh, Anita did get tested before we started exercising regularly. Her total cholesterol was 186, her HDL was 50, LDL 111, triglycerides 60, glucose 87 and thyroid-stimulating hormone 1.25. Basically what that means is she is not diabetic, and most of her numbers were in the ideal category, but her LDL levels were a little high. Torres pointed out on his radio show that a health expert said total cholesterol below 150 is where heart attacks and other heart diseases are unheard of. I would like to get my levels checked, as well, but since I just recently changed jobs, I can not use my health insurance until I've been employed for at least 90 days. Hopefully, I'll keep up with the exercising and the better diet at home, and I'll have some good numbers. We'll see. But with a gut check just now, I know it's still there, so I know I have plenty of room to get healthier.

Presidential Campaign

I can't tell you how frustrated this early Democratic presidential primary season has been for me. I support a candidate, Dennis Kucinich, who I believe to have the strongest credentials and the best ideas, but he hardly gets a mention in the mainstream media. Already, the media is deciding for itself who are the frontrunners. They've already anointed Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama and have given John Edwards an outside chance. I can tell you as a former newspaper journalist, every organization I've worked for, we've tried to be as fair and objective as possible in every local election we've had. No candidate in a mayoral election would get more stories than the others. Each candidate would be given equal amount of room to display his or her ideas. Of course, we would also do background checks on each candidate to check for bones in their closets. The idea, however sterile it might sound, was to present each candidate and their proposals and let the voters choose who was the best of the bunch. In this presidential race, we are being told who's the best by the mere lopsided coverage. Clinton and Obama might be decent candidates, but let's hear what they and the other candidates are really about. So far, the news coverage we have gotten has just been a childish popularity contest, not a battle of ideas. I can tell you I would put Kucinich's proposals on health care against any other candidate's. Bill Richardson, however, has got some pretty nifty ideas how to direct the United States' foreign policy. My point is, let the media coverage be about what the candidates are saying they want to do, not about what the latest poll is saying or the latest fundraiser. The problem with polls is the results influence who people are going to support. No one wants to support a loser, but the first polls are only the results of who the media is playing up in the news. Whoever has had the most favorable news coverage is usually the one with the best poll. Let's put these polls to the side and talk about what's most important. We've learned the hard way, that excellent presidents are only as strong as their ideas and vision. Please let the public hear the candidates out.

Land of Manteca

Deep South Texas in the McAllen, Harlingen and Brownsville area is where two cultures meet. This is the center of Hispanic culture in a state increasingly Hispanic. More than 90 percent of the people who live in this Rio Grande Valley identify themselves as Hispanic. Besides Mexico, there are numerous immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Cuba. As a gateway to the United States, there are even a sizeable number of Chinese immigrants who pass through. I'm a vegan Anglo (This is what white European immigrants and their following generations are called here. I'm of Polish, German, Dutch, Czech and English heritage.), and I moved from the Austin area about a year and a half ago. I've had to adjust to not having things as convenient to me. No longer do I get to choose from numerous vegetarian restaurants, such as Veggie Heaven, West Lynn Cafe (which I'm sad to say closed to be replaced by another vegetarian restaurant called Cosmic Cafe), Casa de Luz, two Mr. Natural's, Nu Age Cafe, Mother's (which I heard recently burned down) and numerous other vegan friendly places. We also had a great selection of grocery stores in Austin, including two Whole Foods, Wheatsville, two Central Markets and two Sun Harvests. Here, we have no vegetarian restaurants and one good grocery store, a Sun Harvest, in McAllen, which is about 35 minutes from where I live in Harlingen. Some Asian restaurants in the Valley have items for vegetarians. Mexican food, obviously, is very important here. You would think a vegan could go to a restaurant and get say beans, tortillas and vegan taco fillings. It isn't that simple, however. It is common for pork to be added to the beans and for manteca (which looks like Crisco and is made from beef fat) to be added to nearly all flour tortillas. Most corn tortillas, however, are made without manteca, but I wouldn't be surprised if they put it in some of them. We are cooking more than ever at home and even got involved in probably the first community supported agriculture farm in the Valley. The other pluses from living here are the fresh avocados, which taste way better, tree ripened naval oranges and other citrus and the nation's first crop of sweet onions. There's a small group of vegans and vegetarians living here who are slowly but surely spreading the word about what it means to eat a meatless diet. There's probably no place more important than here with one of the highest rates of diabetes in the nation, but I'll save that for another post.