As most of us are aware, water is a precious and dwindling resource. Although 70% of the earth is covered in water, less than 1% of all the water on earth is fresh water that we can actually use. Water is critical to our existence, and it’s lack makes all conditions worse for everyone. As our population grows, we require even more water to survive.
The purpose of this post is not to talk about all the efficient ways you can cut back on your water use, which is also important and everyone can take steps to reduce their personal use. Awhile ago, we transitioned our grass yard to mostly drought-resistant plants, reducing the need for a sprinkler system as well as avoiding a brown dried lawn in front of our home. Another bonus if that trees and plants help absorb carbon. Lately, we have added some plants that require watering- but also give us something in return: food. Grow food not lawns.
Neighbor’s front yard is mostly full of fruit and vegetables. It looks amazing
This post is just a very simple, easy step we all can take to not waste our clean, fresh water without changing how you use water, and very little effort.
A few months ago we started keeping a 2 gallon container near the kitchen sink, into which we toss all the half-drunk glasses of water that would normally go down the drain, we also save the water that we use while waiting for the kitchen tap to get hot. It is amazing how much water we simply toss out. Or, maybe not so amazing when you think of the similar food waste conditions.
Put a pitcher by your sink, capture that clean water- use it to water your plants. You can have one in the bathroom as well. It will keep you from using (and paying for) more water, and reduces the waste involved in the treatment required to clean waste water.
Last weekend was really busy with the Vegan Beer & Food Festival, and the Old McDonald’s Open House on Saturday, then brunch with friends on Sunday. It was very fun and I love having a lot going on. However, the morning before the festival as I went to the bank for $ for the festival, two stores for items needed for the Open House, picked up 30 pounds (total) of cherries and apples from a “fruit and veggie” guy from Eastern WA, and our local CSA for leafy greens- all before 10:30am, it seemed a bit energetic.
Vegan Beer Fest started in LA, and this is their second time coming to Portland. They have music, vegan booths selling items, many food and drink booths (some from LA, some local).
Last year I had been very interested in going to the Vegan Beer Fest, but didn’t end up going for a few reasons:
1) I couldn’t find anyone interested in going with me. I think because of the word “Vegan”. Really? It’s BEER- vegan or not, these are local great beers.
2) Tickets were $45-65 to get in, and that includes drinks but not food.
3) I don’t really like beer.
4) I don’t really like hipsters- and that seemed to be the majority of the crowd based on photos.
So, you can see why spending $45 to go alone but be surrounded with hipsters and drink mostly kombucha didn’t really appeal to me.
This year, I scored a half-price ticket early on, but then was invited by a printer friend who I work with to go as a VIP. Going early was really nice, since there weren’t lines at any of the food and drink booths. Except one: Herbivorous Butcher, a brother/sister team from Minneapolis was there. It was the one food booth I was really set on trying, and we decided to go there first. They have been wildly successful, based on the press I have read making their homemade vegan meats and cheeses. They had two items they were selling: one was a couple of deep-fried chicken pieces in mashed potatoes with gravy, inside a waffle cone ($11). I also ordered their Korean beef jerky ($5). The owners were there, and they were actually very cute, nice hipsters.
My friend has been vegetarian for over 20 years, so she has actually forgotten what meat tastes like. I don’t think this seitan meat was exactly like meat, but it was delicious with the crispy, spicy breading and textures. We barely finished that, it was a lot of food. I saved the jerky for later.
After that, well, I won’t go into each beer, cider and kombucha we tasted for now- mostly because I lost my list. Oregonic Tonic stood out for me in the kombucha. I tasted a lot of delicious beers and ciders. There were many fruity options, which worked well for me. And the fact that the glass was only 3 oz, was really nice. We were given 20 beer coupons to get in (the kombucha and coffees are free), apparently I only had 9 beers and ciders, so my illustration is actually off by three drinks.
As for food, we split everything which really helped us be able to try more things. You can see everything we tried in the illustration.
My only regret is not being physically able to eat more- especially missing dessert. We left after only 3 hours, if we stayed longer, we could have eaten a lot more. There is only so much one can eat and drink in a few hours!
It was definitely worth going this year, especially being invited as a business vendor. And shout out to CCL Label, who does very high-quality digital labels at their local Oregon press. Otherwise, I still think I might go, but only with half-price tickets because of my small drinking capacity, and definitely with some friends to share the food.
Earlier this year I wrote about the angry vegan, a fairly well-known stereotype.
There are also angry “carnivores”. These are the people who have to make comments on vegan-friendly pages, just to provoke a reaction. They make jokes about vegans and mock them. And when I say mock, I don’t mean gently ribbing- I mean really horrible, awful comments with hashtags like:
To me, the need to retaliate or provoke indicates that a nerve has been touched, and the reason they are angry is because deep down they feel guilty or ashamed. If they were completely fine with what they were doing, they would just ignore vegans. Those who eat meat already have things exactly as it suits them- they can eat anything they want, at any restaurant. It has been accepted by society to be “normal” and it is legal.
In a way, it is like when heterosexual people are up in arms over gay marriage. Does it affect them getting married? How does it really impact their lives?
They will claim it is a moral or religious issue, ignoring the fact that they are really saying that there are some humans that cannot have equal rights.
There are a wide variety of people within the vegan and plant-based communities. Vegans may have started their journey for health reasons, environmental issues or because of the abject cruelty for animals. There are some awful vegans, for sure, but that applies to any group and religions. Some people become angry once they realize how lobbyists, advertising and corporations are hiding truths from the public. It is pretty natural to want to build awareness, after all, most people weren’t aware from childhood. In addition to false and hidden information, we are fighting against ingrained historical and cultural systems. They may have at one time served their place, but we are facing uncharted territory, a world with billions more people and dwindling resources.
I don’t know any people personally (thank goodness) who do NOT believe that their pet cat or dog doesn’t have a personality, and can feel pain and fear. Vegans just extend that concept towards a wider variety of animals.
I don’t feel angry about the little jokes, and won’t normally rise to take the bait of trolls. What the jokers don’t understand is that everyone has heard the joke about a million times, and it is pretty old. Post a photo of a cute piglet, cue these responses: “Mmm, bacon” “PETA: People eating tasty animals” “How do you know the vegan in the room? Don’t worry they’ll tell you”, “Plants have feelings too”, “If you love animals so much, why are you eating their food?” “Animals will go extinct if we don’t eat them”, “Animals will take over the world if we don’t eat them”.
(Those last two, cannot both be true obviously, and can sometimes be an actual question for people. As long as vegans can respectfully discuss this, an explanation on supply and demand breeding can occur.)
The backlash of the hard core meat lovers is real, it is big, and happening now. This article does a great job of going in-depth.
Global Source:Harvesting the Biosphere: The Human Impact by Vaclav Smil https://bit.ly/1PAhMBJ
As for me, I will keep drawing and doing what I can. I plan to focus on helping people with recipes, ideas, and awareness. Remaining positive more than preachy. And, unfortunately for the haters, we won’t shut up and go away. Because the animals, future generations, the oceans, the rain forests aren’t able to speak. We have to.
Things are changing quickly and there are encouraging articles every day about the shift towards more plant-based options, eating less meat, and awareness of the effects of our diet on health, climate change and animals.
The dairy industry may be the first place we see the effects of these changes. In our city’s local grocery stores there are so many alternatives non-dairy milks offered. Soy, almond, coconut, rice, cashew, hemp, pistachio, all these new options are on the shelves as an option to cow’s milk. Part of the rise of these milks may be that there are many lactose-intolerant people, in addition to vegans. But, in general, more people are aware of some of the negative aspects of dairy on their health. And can it also be that people are caring more about the treatment of animals?
Milk tends to be a product that mostly children drink by the glassful. Adults use it in cereal, recipes or in their coffee, but rarely drink it on it’s own. I believe that makes it easier to be replaced than cheese.
I’m a little embarrassed to admit this publicly, but I did not realize until about 4 years ago that cows had to be forcibly impregnated every year or two, and that their male calves were taken away from them and killed early on as veal or slaughtered for beef, while the females became dairy cows as well separated from their mothers. I don’t know that I ever even gave it any thought, or just imagined that cows could just keep producing milk indefinitely on their own. While I am not a country girl, I understand that there may be some exceptions and better treatment on some farms, but not for the large farms.
The dairy crisis is a complex situation of which I can only skim the surface, with China stockpiling milk from New Zealand adding to the situation. It is terrible for farmers and cows, with a 6 week waiting list for cows that are being sold for slaughter due to farms going bankrupt.
In Australia right now, there are protests taking place because the smaller dairy farmers are being undercut by cheaper factory farm milk. They are asking consumers to drink more milk and also pay the extra dollar to make up for the price slashing. While I think the factory farms are the larger issue in this case, it is time for the meat and dairy industry to prepare for changes in the market and not depend on consumer’s good will. I don’t see this situation improving for them.
In the midst of this personal and financial turmoil, Animal Rights protestors were also at the protest in Australia cradling dead calves, I felt a bit conflicted. How horrible to have dead animals as a spectacle at this event. But, when you think about how the dairy farmers are protesting against the government for undercutting their profits, the cow is viewed simply as a product. Now we are forced to view them as victims also.
Then I thought about how it is awful to see these dead animals in public, yet we are okay with viewing cow’s bodies cut up without skin. How strange is that? We don’t want to view them as animals, we only want to see them as products.
This catastrophe for dairy farmers is not likely to improve soon, this is the way of the future, and the writing is on the wall.
We have no option but to bear the economic consequences in order to fix our system. And that applies to the meat industry as well. There is no price that we cannot pay that is worse than our future resources if we don’t adapt. In order to sustain a growing population, the trend away from animal products will continue.
How many times do we hear and say that we can’t afford to buy organic, healthy, sustainable, or whatever food? You can buy large, cheap quantities of food usually for less money than their healthier counterparts.
I’d like to challenge that idea by looking at it in this way- you can buy the better, smaller, more delicious version of food that you want if you eat less of it, and don’t waste it.
It is ridiculous how much food is wasted in our homes, not to mention the almost 30% before it even gets to our grocery stores because it is not cosmetically perfect. We sometimes forget we even have it, or don’t use it in time and it gets tossed out. That money for the cheap stuff you throw out, could have been put towards that more expensive food you wanted. I am not even talking about the environmental and poverty aspects in this particular post, which are huge factors.
I’m getting to a grassroots level of what we as consumers can do to change the world. We can vote with our money for the healthiest foods for ourselves, the animals and the environment.
There are costs to everything we consume, I’m just saying we can do A LOT better.
For our family, I have made it a personal challenge to see what creative way I can use what I have on hand in order to extend the time between grocery store visits. By having a lot of rice, beans, lentils, pasta, canned veg and non-perishables in the pantry, my vegetables can be used in all sorts of ways. Stir fry, roasted, soups, curries, and more.
Sometimes it looks like our refrigerator is very bare- and with two big kids with huge appetites, that is hard to avoid! However, if your refrigerator is so full that you cannot locate your leftovers, or even see what is in the back, you will end up wasting food.
I’m lucky enough to be able to go to the grocery store and replenish my supply easily, so I don’t feel like I need to stockpile perishable items.
The best way to use everything, is to follow a meal plan, so you know what you need exactly and you know how you will use it. I used MealMentor. Or, get really ambitious and plan for the whole month and freeze things.
If you aren’t into planning or like to be creative, try making it a game- play Top Chef: make it a culinary challenge to produce a meal from random ingredients. Hint: the key is having condiments and spices. If I have lemon and garlic, I can usually come up with something!
Just for fun, I took a photo of my refrigerator contents (shown above). It looked really bare with milk and some of the condiments on the side, so I added the bowl of fruit that usually sits on the table, and took the vegetables out of the drawers, a bit staged. I usually don’t have two loaves of fresh bread, but have one in the freezer.
It may not look like much for a family of four, but I can see what I have, and am going to make sure I use it all.
Please share your ideas, meal planning, or fridge photos! #wasteless
After hearing the Animal Rights Conference would be on the West Coast in July, I thought about going. Then, I thought about how I am vegan not only for the animals, but also for the environment and people. What would the sessions be like? I wasn’t sure if I fit the mold of activist that attends these types of things. I am way more concerned about big issues being addressed first, than every single smaller issue if that makes sense. I see the connection between how we think of animals in general as needing to shift, but worry that we lose people if we talk more about horseback riding than factory farming and ocean depletion. I asked a fellow pragmatic vegan advocate, and he told me it was not too radical. And, then met Seth Tibbott, Tofurky founder who encouraged me to go.
So, after missing the early bird deadline I bought my airline ticket and will be headed back to LA in July… even though I swore I’d never return to the vicinity after last year’s heat wave in October.
I don’t know what to expect yet, but I am excited to be meeting with people I’ve met online coming from Europe to attend, as well as all the other people committed to making sure animals have a voice.
Animal Rights is an interesting topic, definitely from a philosophical standpoint. I know most people agree we should not torture and abuse animals, even though we have designated some animals as being exempt from this. Is it based on cuteness, intelligence, endangered status or just cultural taste preferences? If you are interested in this topic, Melanie Joy has written an exceptional book, “Why we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows” or you can watch her TED talk here.
It is a huge shift to actually rethink how we were taught by our society and culture to consider animals as our property and to use however we wish. But, we have had changes in history on how we’ve thought of slaves, women, Jewish people, and other groups. You may not consider this an equal comparison, but similar rationalizations have been used.
I am constantly listening to other perspectives from small dairy farmers to relatives, take a moment and think about if there is some truth to the idea of speciesism. If you love and care about an animal- a dog or cat perhaps… why are other animals not deserving of protection? I used to tell my child (and myself), that it was okay to eat animals because we bred them for that purpose. Why is that okay to breed them only to live a very short, miserable life? See lifespan.
And like the golden rule found in most religions, “do unto others as you would have done unto you”. What if the roles were reversed? Weird, right?
If these ideas are not something you want to consider, the environmental aspect still covers us all. The animals are linked to us, and keeping the Earth habitable for as long as possible is in all of our best interests.
I had been thinking about a trip to Arizona for over a year, as my grandmother is getting close to 90 and refuses to travel, and I have other relatives in the area who I really wanted to visit.
After finally booking a flight, I realized that I haven’t been in that particular situation with people outside my parents and sister, where I would be staying in someone’s home, but having special diet requirements. Do you say, “please don’t worry about accommodating my vegan lifestyle”– therefore implying that they possibly should be worried? Believe me, it is not enjoyable to feel like you are creating any type of difficulty for anyone.
My aunt said it would be no problem, and she was going to try out new recipes. I later found out she even tried being vegetarian for one week.
We arrived and found she had purchased Costco-sized vegan treats like hummus, pita chips, sweet potato fries, chocolate covered dried mango, dried nuts and fruit, and rice ramen. She also made me my own kale/white bean soup to take to my grandma’s the next day. So much for not being any extra work! She went out of her way to make sure I had delicious vegetable pastas and grilled vegetables to eat at every meal, and it was much appreciated.
I tried finding a vegan restaurant in the area for one meal we ate out, but there really weren’t many options in the retirement suburbs outside of Phoenix. There were veg-friendly options like Chipotle or ethnic restaurants, just not the plethora we have in Portland.
My grandmother lives in a retirement home and is quite content to eat just two meals a day at the restaurant in her building. Her refrigerator is stocked with some light beer, and her freezer with ice cream, and that is about it. She says she hates all vegetables, and doesn’t understand or want to know what veganism is about.
Besides grandma, I felt like there were some good open discussions with others. I left with a better understanding of what challenges people face who are considering making a change. Listening more than talking is really important. Finding common ground, and figuring out practical concerns are key. Most people who did have an interest in talking about it, actually are open to the idea.
They understand that there are environmental concerns and animals treated inhumanely. It just seems very difficult to switch up everything they know about cooking and planning meals. For example, that cooked vegetables are harder to freeze or keep as leftovers than meat. People struggle with trying to make food that their families will eat that is not too difficult, expensive and tastes good. It has to be a lot easier.
I’m pretty convinced we could reach a better place in the world if the vegans would really listen to what the omnivores are saying, and vice versa. Although it can be hard to go against the flow, we can’t make changes and have conversations unless we do stand for a big change.
Beyond the great learning experience for me, and hopefully planting positive seeds, I still don’t know what advice to offer in this type of situation. Have an awesome aunt who will cater to you? I’m just lucky in that area. What are your ideas on how to make that work? How to make sure people aren’t stressed in advance? Comment with ideas for your best meals to make in this situation.
A couple of weekends ago, my daughter and I went on a group field trip with other Portland-area vegan families to volunteer at Green Acres Farm Sanctuary out in Silverton.
We had been to Out to Pasture a couple of times, and really enjoyed seeing the animals living their lives without interference or expectation. I can’t describe it really, it just feels different. I think this video gives you a good sense of the environment, and photos say it better than words.
It is what I imagine heaven would be like. That may sound crazy, but you can feel the peace of the animals, and the beauty of the surroundings.
The people who run these farm sanctuary organizations are so compassionate and rely on volunteers and donations to keep them going. I hope you’ll consider spending time and/or money to support rescued animals.
Our job was to clean out one of the sheep sheds. Not too bad, and very satisfying to spend an hour or so shoveling out old straw and manure, adding clean straw and giving them fresh water. Kids pitching in and using wheelbarrows and rakes is good for them!
It was a fun experience to go with other families, and we ended up staying quite awhile afterwards meeting each other, sharing food, recipe ideas, and similar experiences. I hadn’t realized before that was missing from my life. I am just used to being the odd one out. Very nice to balance that with people who understand a different perspective too.
Did I mention in addition to all the more common farm animals, they have a hinny?
And baby animals?
Not to mention, they happened to have about 9 wiggly puppies at that time!
Check out their website for the next work party and to read about the animals! We look forward to our next visit.
I celebrate Earth Day every day in some way, and it feels great. The more people join forces together, will make it even easier. From saving water to battling climate change, making your diet “greener” is something everyone can do! Click on the graphic below to learn 7 ways your food choices can help the planet for people and animals.
I want to be a friendly resource for those who may not have considered a plant-based lifestyle.
There are so many logical and strong arguments to change; from huge environmental impact, to animal cruelty, to health reasons, that we simply cannot continue our current path as our population grows and lifestyles of Western consumption spread. It is not illogical, just unpopular. I believe we just need to make it as easy as possible for people to adopt.
The frustrating part is that although I believe in my message and passion, I haven’t grown my readership past my own personal friends- or just slightly beyond that. I am extremely grateful to these people, but those who know me, probably won’t tell me the hard truth. I want to talk to non-vegans, from “carnivore” to vegetarians, so that is pretty much 99% of the people out there- I need to know what will make them interested in this subject. I’m not here to preach to the choir of those who already agree!
At first I hoped to simply raise awareness in a fun way by using art: illustrating veg food on instagram and the blog, making info graphics that would make the data easier to visualize.
Then I tried posting about articles that I felt consumers would want to know– like how some chicken is shipped to China. Or, environmental issues.
I added resources on HOW to make changes, to make small steps, or have a trial period.
Still not gaining more interest, I just posted my own personal lifestyle posts about our family, hoping to just be somewhat interesting enough to engage.
And now, I am feeling that the bigger obstacle is just the newness of people learning how to eat and cook without animal products. To that end, I think recipes and meal planning are the most important hurdles.
I want to use my time wisely… how can I best help you?
