As many vegans are aware, Pam Anderson provides a celebrity voice for PETA. She attends rallys and is very vocal about her support of the organization. Well now Pam and PETA are asking for your help to stop severe cruelty to the chickens that are raised and slaughtered on behalf of KFC. According to PETA, KFC engages in extreme animal cruelty, by doing things such as placing chickens in boiling hot water while still alive, killing them by throwing them against walls, and crippling them in a fashion that the animals are unable to walk while still alive. Pam has created a video that provides more detailed information on the amount of cruelty that is being suffered by these animals and invokes a call to action to stop KFC from engaging in such practices.

To join Pam Anderson and PETA in their fight to provide more humane conditions for the KFC chickens please click on the link below and e-mail the video to as many of your friends as you can.

KentuckyFriedCruelty.com
You can also sign up at this link to assist in the campaign against KFC.

I feel the need to sound off a little today. I am a frustrated vegan in a nonvegan, not particularly vegan friendly world. I find solace in vegan forums where understanding abounds, but otherwise I can’t even seem to get my own family to understand. My parent’s always tell me, “well, I don’t know what you can eat on your ‘diet’.” As if being vegan is a diet. I tell them veganism is not a diet it is a way of living, but they don’t get it. They just think I’m being weird because I don’t eat meat. When we have family gatherings I get the look of pity, “oh, what is Cindy going to eat.” I tell them don’t worry about me I’ll bring my own. My food always gets eaten up and I am the only one without leftovers. Oh, the irony. When we go out, I hear “oh, I guess Cindy can just eat a salad.” Oh, yes, I want to pay somebody to make me a drab, nonorganic salad in which I have to bring my own salad dressing to ensure no animal products.

Going out to eat is a whole other problem. Thank goodness, I like to cook. But there are times when cooking is not reasonable. I live in a small community where there is a steak house on every corner, but try to find a vegan friendly restaurant. I frequently have to resolve myself to eating vegetarian when we go out and I just try to push aside any cheese or other dairy. Not exactly the best scenario. Even when I buy a sandwich or nachos I get strange looks from the order takers when I tell them “no animal products, please.”

But I am not giving up. I try out new recipes everyday. I am an adventerous cook with my spices and my veggies. My resolve is strong, and I get continued strength from a wonderful online community. The vegan community is one of the most supportive communities that I know of. I also get strength from reading John Robbins book The Food Revolution. I feel like I should have stock in it as much as I tell others about it. It is a truly enlightening book, one which openned my eyes up to the enormous amount of suffering experienced by animals in factory farms.

I was looking through my copy of Vegetarian Times the other day, happily looking for new vegan recipes to try out, when a blurb entitled Kitchen TV caught my eye. I love cooking shows and have been a fan of the Food Network, though I always have to modify all of their recipes to make them vegan, I have learned a lot about cooking techniques by watching the shows on this network. I always thought it would be nice if they would feature a vegetarian or vegan chef. Well, recently they had the opportunity to bring a vegetarian chef onto the network, but decided that they were not down with her completely vegetarian philosophy, wanting her to include chicken and fish recipes on her show. Vegetarian cook, Toni Fiore, turned them down, opting to stick with her convictions, and take her show, Delicious TV to PBS instead, where she will be allowed to keep all of her recipes vegetarian. I applaud Fiore for her gumption and find myself sadly disappointed with the Food Network for being ignorant of one’s dedication to a vegetarian lifestyle. I implore you to write to the Food Network and tell them that there is a market for vegetarian cooking shows and let them know of your disappointment regarding lack of consideration for others values and beliefs. You can send comments to the editors at: Food Network

A note to the Food Network, not everyone is in favor of dead carcasses, some of us have respect for animals and nature.

I am almost sorry to post this article. It is very difficult to read. But those of you who love animals please read click on the link: The Phoenix New Times I was horrified when I read through it. But it is a testament to the amount of animal cruelty that is occurring in the world. I could not believe the callousness of the people in this article. It made me sick to my stomache. Please write to PETA about the cruelty that is occurring in Phoenix. It is important that this chef and those who partake in what he makes are stopped.

Not sure what to make your beloved mother for mother’s day brunch. I have a recipe that will let her know how much you love her (and it happens to be just the recipe I have requested be made for me).

Banana Oatmeal Pancakes

1 cup oats
1 cup flour
1 tbsp allspice
2 bananas
¼ cup brown rice syrup
¼ cup maple syrup
4 tbsp canola butter
In a medium bowl mash bananas and add brown rice syrup and maple syrup. Mix dry ingredients in another bowl. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix well. Heat canola butter in a stainless steel skillet and pour pancake mixture into the pan in 1-inch diameter pancakes. Brown on one side, flip, and brown the other side. Serve with maple syrup.

Top this off with a champagne spritzer

Champagne Spritzers

6 ounces of dry champagne
2 ounces of your favorite fruit juice (recommended mango juice, pineapple juice, citrus juice)

Mix in a wine glass and serve.

Or if she’s not into alcoholic beverages try serving her Thai Iced Tea.

Thai Iced Tea

4-5 Chai Tea Bags
8 cups water
2 cups Vanilla Hazelnut Milk
2 teaspoons vanilla ½ cup agave syrup
Ice

Put water in a saucepan, add tea bags and bring to a boil. Let sit for about 10 minutes and remove tea bags. Add honey allowing it to dissolve and cool tea to at least room temperature. Mix milk and vanilla. In 12 ounce cups add two or three ice cubes, 8 ounces tea, and two ounces of milk and serve cold.

For those of you who still have not gotten your mother something special check out the links below to get her that special gift. These are not your everday mother’s day gifts, these are gifts that will promote her health and spirit and show her that you truly love her.

As I surf through the forums and read other blogs, I see several of you making reference to Smart Balanceä buttery spread. This is a product that my family and I use all the time. I just wanted to provide a word of warning about this product. I usually buy the small tubs of this spread. You know the package that has two small tubs in one. I have read the ingredients carefully to confirm healthy oils, and no animal products. So the other day when I was in the store I saw the larger tub of spread. It had just as much product in it as the two small tubs, but cost less. So I bought it. I had been using it for a couple of weeks, when I wanted to check the package again regarding the specific types of oils being used in the spread. As I was reading the ingredient list I was shocked to find that it had whey listed on it. I know that I had confirmed that Smart Balanceä did not have whey. So I went to the grocery store to buy some new butter spread. I looked at the ingredients list again. The small tubs of Smart Balance ä do not have whey in them, but the larger tubs of Smart Balanceä do. Just a word of warning to those of you who purchase this product, make sure that you check the ingredient’s list every time you purchase the product to ensure it is free of animal products.

I am a rather new vegan, though I have been vegetarian in the past, a really bad vegetarian at that. My journey towards veganism really began for health reasons. I was diagnosed with endometriosis last year, which is basically a tumor that increases and decreases in size with my menstrual cycle. Anyway, it is pretty painful and it sucks. It is considered to be an autoimmune disorder and the current treatment for it is male hormones. I refuse to take male hormones because of the side effects so my husband and I began searching the web for alternative treatments. We found that diet was consistently an alternative treatment. One of the biggest recommendations is to eliminate beef and pork. I haven’t eaten pork since 1992, but did consume beef occasionally. After reading about the effects of beef on female hormones I eliminated it all together.

At that point I was eating chicken about once a week, but basically followed a plant-based diet. In December of 2005 I read The Food Revolution by John Robbins. I was so repulsed by what I read, not only the health implications but the horrific ways in which the animals are treated prior to being slaughtered, that since reading the book I no longer consume any animal products. I am appauled by the propaganda of both the meat and dairy industries. Now I have discovered a new passion, vegan cooking. I love making up new recipes or figuring out how to modify recipes that contain meat. This is part of the reason that I have started this blog. I feel such a passion regarding veganism and vegan cooking that I want to share my passions and views with literally the whole world. I want the opportunity to discuss personal and political issues regarding veganism and just sound off. Isn’t that what the internet is all about, anyway?

-Cindy