May 9, 2008 If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Here’s some wonderful news about $4/gallon gasoline: it’s pushing mass transit ridership to historic levels. Funny how, when gas is no longer cheap, self-interest can go hand-in-hand with socially responsible behavior. Link.
May 9, 2008 This week’s Mercy For Animals California egg farm investigation continues to pay off big time. Trader Joe’s just announced it will no longer carry eggs from Gemperle, the factory farm at the center of this investigation.
That’s all well and good, but here’s what I find interesting. Despite upgrading its house brand of eggs to cage-free more than two years ago, Trader Joe’s has continued to sell battery eggs under the rationale of fostering consumer choice. And as of right now, today’s announcement merely means that Trader Joe’s is shifting its egg purchases from one factory farm to another. Yippee.
Let’s contrast Trader Joe’s to one of its closest competitors, Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods can’t be found in the news today, being tied to Gemperle eggs. And why is this? Because Whole Foods doesn’t sell any eggs from battery hens. Given that Trader Joe’s purchasing standards weren’t high enough to prevent them from purchasing eggs from a farm with rampant animal cruelty, now would be an opportune time for the chain to match the egg purchasing standards of Whole Foods Market.
When a company’s purchasing policies are insufficient to avoid scandal, it’s time to upgrade the policies. Link.
May 9, 2008 Well, I suppose there are all sorts of nits you could pick about animal agriculture. But you have to credit America’s beef industry for carving out a worldwide reputation that’s second to none. In a just-completed survey, a full 75 percent of Koreans regard America’s beef as unsafe. Which is just too bad, because the miracle of free-trade bullying is going to force them to import the stuff anyway.
It’s amazing when you think about it. If 75 percent of Americans thought, for instance, that Hyundai cars were unsafe the company would lose its shirt if they tried to sell in the USA. But somehow, America’s ranchers can still make a profit shipping beef to a country that doesn’t want the stuff, and whose citizens overwhelmingly consider it unsafe. Link.
May 9, 2008 It looks like Burger King hired an undercover agency with a shady history to infiltrate a Florida student group. What’s more, the New York Times piece breaking the story is written by none other than Fast Food Nation
May 9, 2008 The New York Times has a great short piece on the post-salmon economy of towns on the Pacific Coast. It’s the Lorax
May 9, 2008 Interesting — here’s what you get when you cross an Italian pizza with an Indian roti.
May 8, 2008 Tuesday, on Wayne Pacelle’s blog, he ripped into the U.S. Sportsman’s Alliance. It would be hard to find scummier behavior than what this group is capable of — when HSUS won the help of Meijer’s Department Stores to donate up to $5000 to a fund protecting companion animals who have been abandoned as a result of the home foreclosure crisis, the USSA somehow convinced Meijer’s to pull back from their pledge.
So Wayne appealed to his readers to not let the USSA get away with this, and they’ve responded. So far, over $25,000 has been raised — transforming the USSA’s despicable behavior into a huge win for abandoned animals. Link.
May 8, 2008 So over on Digg I saw this post about a horrible new parasite, the sort of parasite that might make one reminisce fondly over tape worms. It’s this awful thing called screw worms, that, well, let’s just say if you have any sense at all you won’t click this link. I mean it; just don’t.
Because really when you read about parasites, the ones that feature burrowing maggots have to rank at the bottom of the list.
Anyway, what does this have to do with veganism? Well, when you cover the topic full-time, you start getting this sixth sense of when livestock are probably the root cause of a given horrific headline. So I clicked through, and yeah, sure enough, the main vector of this atheism-inducing parasite is indeed livestock. Link.
May 8, 2008 Nice little article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, with seemingly no vegetarian agenda, that encourages grilling portobello mushrooms instead of beef for your next burger. A recipe is included, which sadly includes feta cheese — but it’s of course simple to swap the cheese out for a vegan topping. Link.
May 8, 2008 Since most people firmly believe that pancakes are one of those things that absolutely require eggs, it always makes me happy to see photos of vegan pancakes that have obviously turned out perfectly.
Dr. Joel Fuhrman's two volume guide to quickly and dramatically improving your diet. If you haven't yet caught his interview on VegTalk this week, listen here.
All text and podcasts, except where noted otherwise, copyright 2008 Vegan.com.
Cleaker 2.1 Theme created by Adam Walker Cleaveland with Widget support added by ckwebb.com.
Cleaker theme used under paid license by Vegan.com. Theme rights reserved by creator under: 
Creative Commons
Vegan.com uses and recommends: Dreamhost, WordPress, MarsEdit, GarageBand, and Pixelmator.
