by Jason on November 16, 2010
No news story today to riff on; this one’s all me, like, freestyling and all that. Mostly because I already found the photo I wanted to use to go with this post (you’ll know it when you see it) and pairing photos with random internet news stories is harder than pairing whiskey with ’80s cartoons, although both get easier after 2 or 3 attempts. I’m looking at you, Thundercats.
Today I’m thinking about Daiya, the infamous vegan cheese substitute.
Except it’s not a cheese product, legally; I read somewhere that one of the delays in getting it introduced in Canada (where’s it’s actually made) was that they weren’t allowed to call it cheese on the packaging, because, you know, customers would get confused more than that time they read the ingredients on non-dairy coffee whitener (which contains dairy, oddly enough.)
No, Daiya has to call itself “a revolutionary new vegan non-dairy product that shreds, melts, stretches and tastes delicious.”
COME ON.
Like that isn’t going to confuse consumers? Seriously, are they talking about a cheese substitute or are they describing me to a T? What? I shred!
But if you read back over everything I’ve written, then you’ll realize that this line on inquiry will never get us to the image I want to use, so let’s move on.
No, the problem with Daiya is that omnivores just don’t understand. Even if they’re parents.
No, not the image I wanted to use, but a good opportunity
Every vegan I know is like, “oh em gee, have you put Daiya on [insert product, sometimes a food here] yet? SO GOOD!” and that’d be OK if it was just inside the vegan clubhouse, but with Facebook and Twitter and that site you’re using that I’m not cool enough to know about, there are a lot of omnivores out there who are like, “uh, cheese isn’t new.”
Seriously, there are a lot of omnivores out there who think we’ve just discovered cheese, which isn’t what’s happened at all, but they just don’t get it. You can tell them that it’s cheese without killing, but that leads to a long-winded explanation about how animals are killed in the course of dairy production, and the sucky lives of those left to do the work, and by the time you’ve come up with 4 sentences they’re already thinking of their 38th joke about it. Let’s not make the same mistakes as Mr. Gore, mmmkay?
No, we need naming and logistics that more clearly explain why we’re so stoked to have a cheese-like product that melts and shreds. Something that consumers will understand in an instant. So here it is: wanna know how Daiya can convert 87% of the cheese-eaters? From a naming perspective, I believe that “pus-free” needs to feature prominently. There are 13% of cheese-eaters who are in it for the pus, but the rest can probably see the value in this new discovery.
And that leads me to the image that inspired this whole outburst:
Dude, we invented pus-free cheese! Can I get a high five? Don't leave me hanging or I'll totally eat your face!
Anyway.
Oh, and if I had picked a news article, it probably would have been about this cat nursing a puppy, so feel free to start your own porn blog and write about that.
by Jason on November 12, 2010
I love international stories with non-English websites. It lets me put the imagination in translation. Translimagination, if you prefer. Dot com.
There is a dairy in Sweden called Skånemejerier, and despite what I just promised you, they have an English version of their website, but it is much sparser and doesn’t cover what I want to talk about today, which is their new system that lets consumers track their milk back to the local farmer who produced the milk. And yes, there’s an app for that:
So first off, I think they stole this idea from a beer company, but I spent 20 minutes looking for a link about that and all I got for my efforts was damned thirsty.
Secondly, does Hansson mean “son of Hans”? Because that’s his first name, and that just makes me want to share how I once met someone named Scott Escott, and parents can be nasty, can’t they?
Thirdly, and yes, it’s time to get to the point here, or at least as much of a point as one can find on Vegan Porn; I think there’s a long way to go when the farmer gets all the credit. Even on their site (the English version,) they say that “Milk is our most important raw material.”
That’s right folks, hard-to-spell dairy has figured out how to make milk without cows. Vegans rejoice!
Or not. My Swedish skills are somewhat lacking, but I think there just isn’t any credit being given where it’s actually due, at least not yet. Here’s the future I envision:
After all the mad cow, hoof and mouth, and other disease scares, there’s been a lot of talk about investing in new tracking systems so we’ll know the precise history of each and every animal on the planet, or at least the big ones like cows. This is a long way off, in my opinion, but let’s assume it happens.
There’s also a push for transparency in farming practices, or at least transparency of the kind that they think they won’t get in trouble for (I hear the hidden webcam in an Israeli chicken barn is problematic for some,) and at some point I could see this animal lineage information being made available to the public. Maybe not to everybody, but it just takes one person to open it up.
Then we get to this: you’ll be able to key in a code for the milk, and instead of seeing Hans Hansson of the Hansford Hanssons, you’ll see a cow that’s from the farm. And you’ll see how many male calves were sold off as veal. And how old they were when they were killed. And you’ll see a list of cruelty-free milk substitutes and GPS directions for where to buy them, because you’d best believe this app isn’t going to be written by the farmers.
And that won’t change very much in the world, but I’ll feel a silly sense of contentment when the story goes live.
by Jason on August 19, 2010
Someday I'll be able to link 'recall' with 'it's not a tumor'
The veganiverse is all a-fluffered* with talk of the massive egg recall, which now appears to affect 380 million eggs. I don’t know how many might still be out there, since the US Food Safety and Inspection Service recommends people eat eggs within three to five weeks of purchase, and the issue occurred in May.
In other words, if you’re still holding onto an egg from the start of the outbreak, recall or no recall, I’m not sure anyone wants it back.
To be fair, the outbreak started then, but has presumably continued for some time, so there’s probably value in a recall beyond poking the producer with the ol’ “law stick.” But that’s not really what I want to talk about today anyway.
There are many ways to replace an egg in cooking, and yet eggs continue to be sold in very large quantities, so as deep thinking activists of the Institution for Innovation in Innovative Innovation, we (meaning I, because you can’t spell innovation without I, but there are two Is, so you can help too) sat down and thought about what people must be using those eggs for.
Obviously, it’s protest.
There was a time when a whole lot of people spent the weekend protesting something (I think it was the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia) where the US embassy in Toronto was egged beyond belief. I’m not kidding, the walls went from smooth concrete to stucco, and the designer protesters in the crowd injected paint into some of the eggs, so it really was quite striking.
And that’s when it hit me. Not an egg (ewww,) but an idea:
The Vegg.
Some kind of biodegradable shell (from corn, perhaps) with a gooey centre that could be used in place of an actual egg in protests, because while we don’t condone violence, it seems absurd for an animal rights protester to use actual eggs to complain about the treatment of chickens, for example. Not that that’s ever happened, but as I mentioned in yesterday’s porncast, I haven’t been sleeping much.
Anyway, this device doesn’t exist, and I’ve since moved on from the concept, but part of me, the really insane part, wonders if this egg recall could have been avoided if I’d only gotten off my butt and innovated innovatively.
In other related news, here’s the money quote from the original article that sparked this whole post:
With all the various studies linking animal product consumption to just about every disease out there, when do you think someone in charge will notice that people are getting sick from those too? I eagerly await the announcement of all animal foods produced since, well, ever.
* (I don’t think that means what I want it to mean)
by Jason on March 25, 2010
Last week we talked about Canadian dairy cows on Twitter. That was SO March 18. Here’s the future: Russian dairy cows have televisions. Big screen LCD TVs. That’s the word on the street, if my laptop is on the street anyway, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the internet, it’s that it makes every story more credible. In this case, the theory is that happy cows produce more milk, so the farmer has a video loop running of the countryside around the Swiss Alps.
Let’s think about this for a moment. I know, it hurts to think about these things, so take a moment and get yourself a frosty beverage. I won’t tell your boss. First of all, the cows don’t really seem to look up much. If this is going to work at all, you’d probably have to put the TVs a lot lower. Of course, then they’d get pooped on a lot more. Next, if I’m working in an office, you know what a screen saver of a vacaion-y scene makes me do? Count down to vacation time. It doesn’t make me produce more milk. Oh, and I GET VACATION TIME.
I don’t know if this will make the cows think the farmer’s a nice guy. It kind of makes him look like a dick, really. As anyone who’s worked in the restaurant trade can tell you, don’t piss off the server. I have a theory that mastitis is actually just a revenge mechanism. Anyway, if the cows ever get organized and revolt, see if Russia isn’t one of the first hot spots.
Also, because it amuses me greatly to offer this, if you would like the same television that dairy cows use
in your living room, purchasing one through this link will result in a sizeable commission being paid to us to further our efforts to drink the pain away.
(Via Angela, via EcoRazzi, via Gizmodo, via English Russia, which has tons of photos, by the way)
stlrick sent in news of yet another beef recall, this time due to e. coli contamination, which is a scientific sounding phrase that makes the 7 people who got sick (including 3 who were hospitalized) feel a little better than being told “you ate cow poop.” This isn’t to say that vegans are immune to this kind of mishap – on the very same day that this story came in, Magic Stones advised us of a tahini recall due to salmonella. The difference is that the tahini recall didn’t mean the absolutely meaningless deaths of whatever 117,500 pounds of cow works out to, and in theory, if animal product production were to drop, contamination problems like “you got salmonella in my tahini” would be relegated to the “stupid things that used to happen/worst Reeses advertising sequel ever” file.
by Jason on April 27, 2007
selfmadegirl sent in a breakdown of the ingredients in Cool Whip – apparently you’ll find similar ingredients in hemorrhoid cream (sorbitan monostearate) and condom lube (polysorbate 60). These stories are fun to read, because people are usually a bit curious about the weird ingredients that they can’t find in aisle 6 of the grocery store, but you’ll never see wording like “sodium caseinate is derived from food that’s normally reserved for a calf, except the calf has been separated from his mother and is being raised for veal.” We never see an ingredients analysis of, say, a hambuger, that says “ground beef is made by taking the flesh of slaughtered cows and mixing it together, so a hundred different animals’ remains could potentially be found in a single burger.” There are things we pretend we want to know, like how condom lube makes for a popular dessert treat, and there are things that are just better left unsaid for the majority of the population.
When I was a kid they told me that knowing was half the battle. Now that I’m older I hear that it’s all about admitting you have a problem. The one constant factor is that whole “taking action” step, which must be a bit of a doozy if people can’t break their condom lube habit, let alone a craving for pig innards.
by Jason on April 23, 2007
Food safety time: while we’re often criticizing the USDA’s inspection program, queervegan sent in an article on the deficiencies in the FDA’s programs. OK, this might seem confusing, so here’s the 2 second, 40,000 foot view (which, incidentally, is a heck of an acceleration, sorry for not warning you first): the FDA’s initials stand for Food and Drug Administration, and among other things, they monitor for food safety. Well, some food safety. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) takes care of most animal products, which, I suppose, furthers my case that animal products aren’t food, but whatever.
So the FDA is the one that has to worry about the bad spinach batches and whatnot, and it turns out they knew about some of these potential problems well in advance but didn’t get around to them in time to stop deadly outbreaks from happening. As an exception to my earlier comments on the USDA/FDA split, the FDA looks after pork, and there are some problems coming up now where hog feed is being laced with the same stuff that’s been causing the pet food recalls. In all, the FDA is responsible for keeping 60 to 80 thousand facilities in line, and in the meantime, their budget is decreasing.
The thing of it is, I can’t find a spin for this story that’s either pro- or anti-vegan. It just is, and it seems to be getting worse. Short of growing 100% of your own food, there doesn’t seem to be a lot you can do to reduce your exposure to contaminated problems if you live in the USA. As this is depressing as all hell, someone should get a cat picture into the comments ASAP.
by Jason on April 9, 2007
For years, the USDA has not only carried out an abysmal mad cow disease testing program (with far less than 1% of cows tested), but they’ve held a monopoly on the procedure by blocking any other company from carrying out independent tests. As Magic Stones reports, the US courts have ruled that this is the stupidest thing ever, and if the feds don’t appeal by June 1, slaughterhouses will finally be allowed to conduct their own mad cow testing. This is more important than ever with last year’s announcement that USDA testing would decrease by 90%, and it’s probably a good thing for consumers who eat dead cows. Of course, removing the government from the equation could lead to abuse of the new system – I’ve no idea if companies will be required to report their findings or if there’ll be any external audits to monitor company claims.
by Jason on March 29, 2007
There’s already an active discussion going on in the forums regarding Burger King’s recent announcement that they’ll be adopting a few new policies regarding animal slaughter, but as I received 3.2 zillion submissions on the topic yesterday, the front page would look weird without a comment.
First of all, I’ll be checking the news in March of next year to see if there’s some kind of co-ordinated effort to introduce animal care policies all around the same time again – if you’ve been paying attention, Burger King, the University of Guelph, and Wolfgang Puck all made announcements that they were adopting new purchasing policies in the past week or so. There’s been a lot of debate over whether or not these changes will help or harm progress in the longer term, or even if “progress” can be measured in anything other than “the animal dies or does not die,” and we don’t need to revisit that here. Instead, here’s my ranking of the three announcements.
First, I’m still stoked about the University of Guelph announcement. This came directly from the consumers of the product, and I doubt these consumers were considering “stop serving eggs” as an option. To be sure, the current “green everything” movement probably influenced the decision, and just like various enviro-marketing ploys, the change to non-battery caged eggs is largely a feel good move with little realistic thought to how the birds are treated from this point forward. Still, we’ve now got one of the top agricultural schools saying that a particular farming practice is inhumane, and the alternatives cost farmers more, and the only other realistic option at the school at this time was for people to keep eating battery eggs. TO me, the situation is as good as it’s going to get in the near term, and we need to stop arguing over how much better it could have theoretically gone in some fantasy world and carry the momentum forward beyond the confines of a smallish Ontario town.
Next, the Wolfgang Puck decision to drop foie gras is an important endorsement. When it comes to introducing the very concept of animal rights, the foodie market is probably one of the toughest to crack. Fancy pants chefs tend to be all about the pleasure of the palate with no regard to anything else – if it tastes good, it’s good, health, environmental and animal issues be damned. I worry that the foie gras bans are going to be repealed, as people (especially people with the money to dine at fancy restaurants) don’t like to be bluntly told what to do. Wolfgang Puck’s decision opens the door for further discussion with a group that was previously next to unreachable.
Finally, there’s Burger King. They’ve announced that a small token portion of their products will be sourced from farmers who are a bit less cruel than their core suppliers are. Furthermore, it looks like these are the changes that they promised they’d implement 6 years ago. Oh, and remember the BK Veggie? There was some controversy at the time because the bun had a bit of dairy in it, but some argued that the continued presence of a vegetarian burger option at a major chain was worth a small cut in personal vegan purity. Then BK went and added egg to the patty. This isn’t a company that cares about any market sector other than the lowest common denominator, and I’d rather debate the most ardent foodie than someone who goes even five minutes out of their way to go to a Burger King – at least the foodie is probably aware of what animal came from what dish (seriously, how many people in the average BK line could tell you that a Whopper came from a cow without thinking for more than 5 seconds?) Will BK actually enact their promises this time? Who knows? Will they maintain their standards in the face of the slightest supplier glitch? Take a look at McDonald’s trans fat troubles for a glimpse at the credibility of the fast food industry when faced with bottom line realities.
In other words, BK’s announcement is a blatant call for attention without sincerity or credibility. Until they’ve managed to actually deliver on a promise, regardless of how insignificant, and keep that promise for 5 years or more, it’s just a distraction that’s drawing us all away from more important work.
by Jason on March 26, 2007
Happy Monday morning! Are you ready for some good news? I know I like to start my week with good news. How about this: WickedRutabaga reports that the University of Guelph has adopted a free-run egg policy in heir cafeteria! How cool is that? The school is mostly known for their agricultural programs, and the change came into effect after polling more than 300 students, who indicated that they’d be willing to pay the higher prices (50 percent higher, but we’re talking about the cost of scrambled eggs, not new cars).
Now check this out – remember how I said that Guelph has a decent agriculture program? They were actually ranked seventh in the world as a university with impact on agricultural sciences. This university just said “Basically our research showed that battery cages are a pretty inhumane system.” That’s right, one of the top agri-food research institutions in the world just called battery cages inhumane, and they even went so far as to do something about it. How hot is that?
Lobbyists, of course, are less than pleased. It seems Guelph has taken choice away from the consumers. Oh, and those cages? They’re there for the chicken’s protection, according to Harry Pelissero, a third-generation egg producer and general manager of Egg Farmers of Ontario. Harry, we’re all worried about your well being and are totally willing to pitch in for new accommodations for you. Don’t worry about us, I have the feeling your new safe home won’t cost us much at all.
