Losing a great man

Jim Koch sings to his daughter, Anita, the night before her marriage to me.


From left to right are Jim Koch, Anita, me and Sylvia Koch.

It has been a rough two weeks. I lost my father-in-law, Jim Koch, to heart disease on Feb. 13. He was just 68. I enjoyed his passion for left-wing politics and for life. One of the most touching experiences in my life was during the rehearsal dinner on June 22, 2001, for Anita and me. During the dinner, a mariachi band performed, and to the surprise of everyone, my future father-in-law got up and sang several songs in Spanish to his daughter. And you know what, he sang beautifully and powerfully. He cared deeply about his family and was always there when we needed him. He enjoyed being the caretaker for family history. He spoke three languages, English, Spanish and Portuguese. He was a retired public school teacher, an election judge and a political activist. During the last few years, he translated Brazilian poetry. Unfortunately, he had diabetes and was overweight. He liked his fast food. As vegans, Anita and I tried to encourage him to eat less meat. When he came over to our place, he enjoyed the vegan food we prepared. We also made food during the holidays and brought it to his house, such as tamales. At his home, he ate lots of hummus and some tofu. He switched from chorizo to soyrizo. Despite his positive changes, it wasn't enough. He needed to do so much more, namely avoiding fast food. His last heart exam had been 10 years ago. If he had gotten the exam every year, I believe they probably would have caught the build up in his arteries and could have provided him with some treatment. It simply was too late when he was taken to the emergency room. Heart disease, especially build up in the arteries, can easily be remedied with a good diet and exercise (read "The China Study"). I hope anyone who reads this will take better care of their heart and encourage their family members to do the same. We will miss you so much, Jim.

The not-so-smart car: Where veganism and environmentalism clash

I was so excited that the Smart ForTwo car was coming to the United States this year after being available for years in Europe. It is the most fuel-efficient nonhybrid on the market. Only the Toyota Prius gets better highway mileage (45 mpg to 41 mpg, according to the EPA's 2008 standard). Unfortunately, the ForTwo comes standard with a leather steering wheel and leather gear-shift knob. I e-mailed the company about it, and here was their response: "Dear smart Enthusiast, Thank you for your interest in smart USA. Unfortunately at this time leather is the only option available for the steering wheel." It makes me so disgusted. I am trying to be a good environmentalist and want to do the right thing, but I will not buy a car that's dressed up with the skin of another animal. The idea that you can't even special order a non-leather steering wheel and gear-shift knob is just amazing. I'm so glad a company is making a small, reasonably priced and fuel-efficient car. Unfortunately, there's too much cruelty in its make-up for my green.

A fair shake is not too much to ask for

I realize it's a dollar short and a day late and not even really a vegan issue, but I just put up a bug supporting Dennis Kucinich for president. He's already dropped out of the race, so it doesn't matter that much. I try not to be overly political on this blog, but I do want to make a point. Kucinich dropped out of the race because he couldn't get a fair shake in the coverage of the election. He was excluded from debates because TV networks said he wasn't doing well in the polls. He was excluded from stories about the presidential election because he wasn't performing well in the polls. The problem is that you can't fare well in the polls unless you are covered with equal vigor. Michael Bloomberg, who denied his interest, got more presidential campaign coverage than Kucinich, and he wasn't even running. Fred Thompson, who did worse than Kucinich in New Hampshire, got far more campaign coverage than Kucinich. Even in the debates that Kucinich was allowed to attend, he didn't get an equal amount of time or questions as the "leading" candidates. Candidates who have been anointed with the special media buzz get covered by the media. Hillary Clinton got plenty of mention because she is the wife of a former president. Guess where such a public figure starts off in the polls? At the top. As far as I'm concerned, we need campaign reforms that prohibit the reporting of political polls. People get so caught up in perceived leaders that they end up supporting one of them instead of a candidate they identify most with. If a person qualifies to be on the ballot, that should qualify them to be given equal coverage. The media should do stories on the issues rather than on the polls. Let people decide who to support based on where they stand on those issues. Who has the best health-care plan, for instance? I saw a story in The New York Times several months ago about the Democratic candidates' positions on health care. Guess who wasn't mentioned? Kucinich and Mike Gravel. Would it have been so hard for the Times to have put in a few more paragraphs about the other two candidates? Many of the stories that mentioned Kucinich came at the end and said, "Also running are long-shot candidates Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel." What position is the media in to determine who is a long shot and who isn't? Let the voters decide this without interference. Maybe words like "long shot" could be used after early primaries are over. By the way, the public owns the air waves. We should require all networks to run free ads from all of the presidential candidates and dictate that all be given equal coverage. Well, I've said my piece.

Veganism is a win-win for the environment and people's health

I have not been good about keeping up with entries in this blog. I have committed myself to graduate school, and I have a full-time job. Thus, my spare mental energy and time are not there enough for me to keep up with the blog as often as I'd like. I'd like to say I'm resolved to be better about it, but I don't want to make any promises I may or may not keep. Having the blog has been wonderful. It has let me get issues off my chest and provide some education about vegetarian issues to others who live in the Rio Grande Valley. It is one more useful tool to help vegetarians connect with one another. I hope I've conveyed that eating a vegan diet is not difficult, and anyone can do it. Meat is expensive to buy, and it also exerts a tremendous toll physically and environmentally. Long since it printed a column on its opinion pages with blatantly false information about veganism, The New York Times finally printed something honest on Sunday about the cost of meat production called "Re-thinking the Meat-Guzzler" by Mark Bittman. Among his very interesting comments is this nugget: "If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals." The reality is that the planet cannot sustain the current levels of meat eating. It is destroying the environment both in terms of greenhouse gases and pollution to our waterways. It is destroying people's health, and it is making humans desensitized to enormous amounts of pain and suffering by the animals we slaughter.

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.

Enjoying some vegan eating in Austin's neighborhood

This is the famous Protein 2000 dish: vegetable proteins made of soybeans in a slightly sweet brown sauce with broccoli, garlic and onions.


This is called Lucky 7. Here's how the menu described it: seven fried tofu balls made of celery, carrots, chestnut, vegetable protein, and breadcrumbs are cooked with broccoli, baby bok choy, cauliflower, carrots, napa cabbage, onion and garlic in a slightly sweet and spicy red sauce.

One of the difficult parts to living in the Rio Grande Valley is the shortage of restaurants that serve to vegans. There are simply slim pickings down here. Perhaps that's a good thing, considering I don't eat in restaurants as much anymore. I did this weekend though when I went to Austin and had lunch at Veggie Heaven next to the campus of the University of Texas with my friend, Dean. I forgot to take pictures of what we were eating until after we had already started chowing down. That's why they look a little a sloppy. The restaurant serves such a crazy variety of vegan dishes. So many are good, but I always find myself gravitating to Protein 2000. It is simply soul food. I love their fried spring rolls, steam buns and the brown rice with lentils, as well. Here's a link to Veggie Heaven's menu.

Only cruel-free dating, please

The other day my wife asked if I would ever date anyone who wasn't a vegan. It's a ridiculous question, I know, because I wouldn't be happy being with anyone but her, but she wanted me to consider the hypothetical. As a vegan, would I consider a relationship with anyone not a vegan? I have a hard time thinking that I could have a successful relationship with anyone who isn't a vegan because she wouldn't share the same values as myself. Being vegan is a deep ethical committment, and it revolves around my love for life, the environment and my health. An anti-vegan in the midst would undermine my values. Is it much different than a lover of peace dating a known mass murderer? I think not. The differences between vegans and others are immense. I can't disown my family, and I would never consider it, but having a romantic relationship with someone who would conspire to stink up the house with burning flesh is quite revolting. Perhaps I would be condemning my life to one of loneliness, I don't know, but perhaps there would be more time to pen the great American novel. Anyway, the question was prompted by this online Newsweek article: "Love Me, Love My Tofu." It mentions one of our favorite vegan couples, Bob and Jenna Torres, who run the famous vegan podcast, Vegan Freak Radio.