Perhaps this could be the compromise to get things rolling?

Eons ago, we tracked the career of Takeru Kobayashi, a competitive eater from Japan who held various records for most hot dogs eaten in a certain amount of time.  In fact, it was pretty much the only thing we’d put in the “diet and fitness” category here, mostly because that was very very funny.

But today, the laughter stopped.

No, just kidding, it’s still going, and it’s vegan: Kobayashi was at an event last weekend in Toronto, of all places (hint: that’s VP’s home base) to promote some new Donkey Kong game, and he performed his eating magic for the crowd – by eating bananas.

16 bananas in 1 minute, actually, which is pretty impressive, especially for this fact: they’re not hot dogs.

Granted, it’d be hard to rationalize hot dog eating to promote a video game about a big gorilla, but I’ve decided to be overly optimistic about this: could this be the secret to opening the world of competitive eating to all?

Bananas just make so much more sense than hot dogs, for competitive eaters and “regular folks” alike.  They’re safer, people can tell you what they’re made of, and for some of these competitors, it might be the only fiber they get in a week – which would make the post-competition phase almost as much of a spectator sport as the main event, frankly.  No, not watching them poo.  Watching them digest, that’s all.  That’s all.

Incidentally, this would be the second vegan-friendly competitive eating event to be held in Toronto.  The first is the annual (there’ve been 2 or 3) spicy dosa eating contest, which I don’t go to see because that little voice in my head that makes me do unwise things also really loves dosas.  I hereby proclaim Toronto to be the vegan competitive eating capital of the world, and if you object, please submit your complaints on edible stationery.

I swear, this is what Google gave me when I searched for Potato Insertion. I DON'T NEED TO KNOW WHY.

When people used to ask me how I got enough protein as a vegan, I would tell them something like “dude, I could eat nothing but [insert some vegetable here, no, here in this sentence not some other dirty place you fool] and get enough protein,” which is true for a lot of vegetables (if inserted in the mouth hole) but the response was usually “yeah, but that’s a lot of [whatever vegetable you previously inserted].”

Maybe it’ll work better for a non-vegan.

Meet Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the Washington State Potato Commission, which is like a dairy council in that they promote the use of a specific agricultural product for the benefit of the farmers in their organization, but since it’s potatoes instead of milk we can probably be in the same room without a fist fight or, well, let’s just keep using the phrase “vegetable insertion” until it’s funny.

Chris is on a mission.  For 60 days, which started a little while back, he’s eating nothing but potatoes.  And maybe some spices.  For his height and weight, that works out to about 20 potatoes a day to maintain his caloric needs.

According to Chris, this is actual more protein than the FDA says you need.  Other nutrients, not so much (from his nutrient chart he’s low on calcium, vitamins A and E, zinc and some other stuff,) but he’ll probably be fine since this is basically a stunt unless he goes completely insane midway through and eats nothing but potatoes for the rest of his life.

One time I ordered 4 plain baked potatoes from a food court stall, though for the life of me I can’t remember why (I’m sure there were other options available.)  I don’t think I finished the 3rd one, so good luck Chris, and thanks for proving that vegans aren’t the craziest people in the food world.

Following up on last week’s adventures in deep frying, I’m somewhat mesmerized by this video of Paula Deen making deep-fried cheesecake:

In case you can’t bear to watch, it’s cheesecake wrapped in a wonton wrapper and then deep fried. Oh, but she adds chocolate to the inside. Oh, and then she dips it in powdered sugar. Oh, and then she adds a scoop of whipped cream the size of an orange, which, in case this has made you forget things from nature already, is a fruit. Oh, and something’s messed with Paula’s concept of nutrition, because then she adds “the vegetable,” which is what I’m calling the money shot.

We watched this and couldn’t help, well, exclaiming, at each step deeper into absurdity.  I’ve just ruined the experience for you by spelling out what happens, but I think this is one of those things that you can’t prepare yourself for and it’ll hit parts of your brain that you just can’t protect.

As an aside, “avoid fried foods” always confused me – I grew up thinking that a fried food was something that was heated in a frying pan, independent of any use of oil, and the only alternative was baking or boiling (or raw,) and all these so-called healthy cookbooks were trying to kill me.  Is “fried” mixed with “deep fried” in a regional manner the same way “pop,” “soda,” and “coke” are mixed up in some parts?

Several years ago – I don’t remember how long but if you’re from Toronto then the venue is a clue – I was at an Aida’s Falafel and ordered a falafel platter instead of a sandwich. It included deep fried eggplant and deep fried cauliflower, and  I recall thinking that this was the pinnacle of boiling oil technology.  But I was not well travelled then, and the internet of the day could fit on my current MacBook’s hard drive.

Things have changed.

The American spectacle known as the State Fair contains a number of, for lack of a better word, delicacies which really highlight the innovation in the deep-fried-o-sphere.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s a test: without looking at today’s link, go through this list of things that have been deep fried and sold, and tell me which one I made up.  200 Porny Points to the first correct guess:

Whole potato potato chips, Twinkies, Froot Loops, cookie dough, oreo cookies, Pepsi, peanut butter cups, Snickers, Mars Bars, Milky Ways, and butter.

Seriously, no cheating now! And when my “can’t possibly happen” item becomes reality in, like, 30 minutes, yes, I will claim royalties.  They won’t be used to fund cardiac wards, though: my yacht fund is running low and I have an urge to flee the mainland.

Moving on, if you’ve read any news at all this century, you’ll have seen the phrase “reduced dependence on foreign oil,” and some fair vendors are opting to do their part by developing non-deep fried artery-augmentation technology.  I’m talking cream puffs, doughnut burgers (yes, a burger with a Krispy Kreme bun) and chocolate covered bacon.

Despite the non-veganosity of many of the items under review, I think there’s a case of mainstream extremism here.  It’s not great for the animals, but it’s a garnish, if anything, on an industry that’s already killing billions.  Contrast that against “adventure food” like monkey brains and whatnot, and you’ll see a scale that makes a doughnut burger a novelty amidst a sea of other novelties, and within the context of the standard North American diet it’s just a different colour of crap instead of a new level of cruelty.

The key differentiator? If you’re already trying to think of ways to veganize something, it’s “mainstream extreme” and not simply disgusting.  I thought I was going to be innovative by suggesting chocolate-covered tempeh, but it exists already, for example.  The catch is that every one of these items are intended as once a year items, but we’ve got more than a thousand vendors, each trying to get you to try their junk food just once a year, and we end up with a culture that gets a treat with every meal.

Not disturbed enough? Here’s a snipped from the world’s most dangerous Google Images search to wrap things up:

(Thanks to Kathleen for the link!)

There’s a school of thought in journalism that an article isn’t “working” unless it divides an audience along strong polar opposites, and I’m convinced that ridiculous food posts can have this effect, often inside the same person.  With food posts, I try to evoke, on the one hand: “oh, that’s disgusting, why would anyone do that?” and on the other: “quick, check the ingredients, it might be vegan!”

There’s another concept in journalism called burying the lede, which I am clearly doing here.  Oh, if only your browser had some kind of scroll bar that would let you skip past my ramblings to get to the actual link!  Be warned: if the accompanying photo didn’t clue you in, today’s story may induce labour among non-pregnant people.

Our final tenet of journalism for the day is that Vegan Porn decidedly isn’t. Journalism, that is. But I couldn’t find any good axioms about bowel surgery, so I went with something writing-related.

Anyway, back to the mix of revolt and relish: I think it’s just that a lot of you don’t have a vegan grocery store in your neighbourhood (cue Simpsons reference: “haven’t you been to space? You should go!”) and simply don’t realize the vast quantity of crap that’s available to vegans because it’s rarely assembled in one place.  There are people in this world who’ve gone vegan simply because they thought it’d help them abstain from cheezie poofs or whatever their animal-derived addiction is.  These people are soon living in a town called Woe, for junk food is everywhere.

And so we go now to our link of the day: The 10 Craziest Food Abominations of All Time, which was sent to me by Brian, who previously pegged VP as the perfect place to talk about violence at McDonald’s.  Some of the desserts could probably be veganized, and some of you will no doubt try.

Oh, and it turns out I spoke about some of this stuff back in ‘ought eight:

We could rant about the new KFC “meat for buns” sandwich, but that would be whining, and as you’re about to see, it’s nothing compared to the ingenuity, if I can call it that, of individuals or any number of small diners: behold 50 heart disease inducing hamburgers.

Some people will use this as a bookmark to stay on a healthy, plant-based diet and avoid the heart disease risk that the mere viewing of these pictures could cause.  Others will find themselves yearning a little, whether they want to admit it or not.  For those in the second group, I think you’ll find that the vegan food world has got more than enough junk food in it to make just about any weird creation possible without the need for animal suffering.

And let’s be honest, the people in category one probably don’t read Vegan Porn.  That’s not a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just a thing, and I’m guessing that the majority of you are torn between your initial revulsion and a tiny bit of lust.  I happen to live in a place where there are three locations, all within a five minute walk, where I can get all the ingredients I need to make a vegan version of these things. There are reasons I don’t own a deep fryer, and one big one has to do with the concept that possession is nine tenths of Bad Life Choices.

So why aren’t there more businesses focused on vegan suicide food, anyway?  I suspect that the majority of “vegan product” companies are after a bigger chunk of the pie, so some nominal level of health claims need to be on the packaging, even if it’s “doesn’t contain lard,” but is there a sense of responsibility beneath all that that just won’t let a company that makes non-meat food release something that you’d find on a takeout shelf at 7-11?

What’s the most disgustingly guilty product in your area that happens to be vegan? Let me know in the comments!

OK, yesterday we examined the link between veganism and cybercrime (conclusion: no link!), but it turns out that was just setting the stage for today, where we look at the just-released national rankings for penis size and compare them with restaurant listings, just like yesterday:

(And by the way, this is my JOB.  How did your day at work go today?)

OK, at first the linkage looks bleak. In fact, it seems like there might be a bigger link to cybercrime and penis size than anything to do with veganism, BUT THEN I REALIZED SOMETHING!

There are way more vegan women out there than men.  Based on Facebook signups for VP, TasteBetter, and SpawnBetter, the ratio is around four or five women for every man. Women – and maybe I should put spoiler alert here, I don’t know – don’t have penises.  Generally. This clearly skews the stats and provides additional possibilities.

I hereby open source this line of inquiry, which is geeky talk for “I don’t want to work any harder on this and if you don’t like the depth of my conclusions it’s your own fault for not joining in.”  Figure out what all this means in the comments!

Also, I pinky swear that I will not look at any city rankings of any kind for at least 48 hours.  I just couldn’t resist when I saw today’s link, is all.

So I have this friend.  He sometimes reads this site, so I want to be clear that his isn’t a passive aggressive note, but he’s integral to the story.

This past Christmas I got him this poop calendar*.  A page a day about poop.  It was a joke gift, mostly, but it’s entertaining and informative, and it was appreciated.

…and about a month later we got together and he’d saved all the pages for me.  In the age of the internet, there are all kinds of poop journalling techniques that I could have been handed, so I’m grateful that it was just this.  And I learned a few things.  Like this:

I know it’s fuzzy, so here’s the quote: “Eating meat makes your poop smell worse than it would if you maintained a vegetarian diet. Meat protein is rich in sulfides, so its consumption results in smellier farts and poop.”

Isn’t it amazing how page a day calendars make everything seem so much more authoritative?  Anyway, I hereby submit to the vegan dictionary the following: when encountering a strong odour from omnivore poop or farts, we shall call it a “Jan Seven.”

* yeah, that’s an affiliate link, which means I get a cut if you buy a rapidly obsoleting calendar, but that link’s not there because it’s good business. I just think it’ll make for fun conversations with my tax people, is all.

Apologies if the vegan connection in the following story is about as tenuous and semi-sterotypical as the connection between veganism and, say, granola, but I thought this was worth noting: Christian parents in Western Canada are upset about a new anti-obesity program in some schools where children are being taught yoga, which, according to some, is a religion, possibly because in some poses you have to put your hands together in a prayer-like position. The chair of the local school board is stressing that the exercises are for the purpose of stretching, and are not considered a spiritual practice. Wow, I can’t imagine what parent-teacher night must be like. Link.

Having trouble understanding portion sizes? Dave Noisy sent in a series of photos showing what 200 calories of various foods looks like. Some of them were a lot more than I expected, and some were a lot less, but a diet of 2000 calories a day would mean that you could pick out 10 of those pictures every day. I know a runner who eats more than 7000 calories a day, which is 35 pictures of food! Very cool stuff: Link.