by Jason on March 3, 2003
I’m happy to announce that Twigs All Natural Breath Fresheners are the official breath fresheners of Vegan Porn. How did they accomplish this? They sent me some samples that didn’t suck. I’d should point out that VP still has openings for official beer, official big screen TV, and official briefcase full of money, so enter early, enter often. What are Twigs? They’re cloves. Cloves that you put in your mouth. Intensely flavoured cloves that you put in your mouth. The website says that they’re reminiscent of the flavoured toothpicks you had when you were a kid, but these ones don’t give you splinters and if you chomp into one like you did the toothpicks, you’ll blow your head off. No kidding. I really like Twigs, but seriously, don’t chew them. You won’t have to, because the flavouring permeates the whole clove, resulting in a refreshing and sustained burst of vegan friendly goodness. I like to have them in the afternoon for a little boost, and people seem to enjoy talking to me while I eat them. It’s quite possible that this is due to my refreshing breath, so if you want people to enjoy talking to you, why not give Twigs a try? Twigs are available in cinnamon, ginger, mint and licorice flavours, and if they’re not at your local health food store, you can get them online for about five bucks, which is a decent deal.
by Jason on October 24, 2002
My Internet connection is messed up (but maybe everyone’s is, I don’t know, I just saw the link on Slashdot, it’s not like I read the article), but here’s the article that best illustrates the problem with getting people to get the whole veggie thing. From said article: “After recently visiting Spiral Diner, a vegan restaurant, I approached the meat-heavy menu at The Chisholm Club with the kind of trepidation that’s born of an awareness of animal rights. I winced when I read the menu’s “Things You Don’t Rope” section (e.g., seafood and poultry) and was almost unable to order suckling pig, quail, foie gras, and steak. I’m happy to report that a crisis of conscience was stifled by desperate hunger.” Don’t even read the rest of the article. If you live in Texas you can check out Spiral Diner‘s site (yeah, they’ve got a link to me, so what?), but here’s the thing: it’s like you can tell people, show people, and possibly even force people to stop eating meat (like in Battle for the Planet of the Apes), but they don’t quite seem to get it in the end. Any thoughts or ideas that haven’t been tried yet?
Julie and Spaceman both wrote in to tell me about Time Magazine’s latest issue – there it is, right on the cover – “Should You Be a Vegetarian?” On Time magazine. No kidding! I wanted to wait until I’d had a chance to read the whole issue before I commented, and wouldn’t you know it, every word of the articles (and then some) is on the website. Oh well, souvenirs. All in all, vegetarianism comes across looking pretty good. I was going to tally up all the negative points, but Zed went and found a New York Post article that does that for me. Ah, responsible balanced journalism… The article’s by Brad Hunter, no less! He forgot to mention that Dr. Michelle Warren finds yellow skin “very unattractive“. The article spans 9 pages and starts off fairly pro-veggie, so if nothing else, we just won a bunch of points from the no-attention-span crowd.
by Jason on March 15, 2002
The Haab sent word of a diabolical experiment performed by a writer for the Washington Post – she decided to go vegan for a whole week. Now, she went cold, um, tofurkey, and she’s up front about the fact that it’d be like me writing an article about suddenly deciding to eat nothing but foods that start with the letter ‘R’, but it’s not necessarily an anti-vegan article, and it’s pretty amusing to read about solutions that I (and probably you) pretty much take for granted every day. I’d like to see a series of these – the next one could be by a soldier who tries to go a week without killing anyone – normal behaviour for me, but hilarity would no doubt ensue for a killing machine.
by Jason on December 5, 2001
I got this article in the mail about PETA sending 5000 packages of vegan jerky to US troops on some boat. The official PETA release says “dozens of boxes“, but either way, that’s a lot of fake jerky. This reminds me of a fun story from the Toronto Food Fair this past September. I was in the audience for a Breakfast Television show where TVA’s Mia Haab (she’s more popular than Robert Clothier!) was hyping the fair and some of the products for sale there. At the end of the segment, the host tried Stonewall’s Jerquee, and it didn’t go over too well – she asked if it was dog food! As the segment cut away, she spit it out. When I got to work, I found out that the segment hadn’t actually cut away, and one of the fair’s vendor’s products had been spit out on national television! Yay, what great PR fun! Anyway, on the last day of the fair, Velvet and I went to the booth that was selling the (actually really good) fake jerky to buy some. The two vendors were excited – “that was on TV!” “The host said it was dog food!” “She spit it out!” – like it was a good thing. We bought a box, and everyone was happy. So the point might be that one way or the other, the crew on that boat should have a happy time with their fake beef jerky, thanks to the semi-clad gang at PETA.
by Jason on November 6, 2001
We haven’t had a product review for a while, probably because most products are, well, boring. This is something that could change the vegan landscape, except not really. Read on… [click to continue…]
by Jason on June 13, 2001
I posted a story about Unibroue‘s GM-free label woes last week. I figured it was a good opportunity for some, er, research. Paul Arnott, master brewer for Unibroue, had this to say: “there are no animal or dairy products used in the production of our beers. As far as filtration goes we use a silica xerogel and PVPP (nylon) to help clarification of our beers and no isinglass is used. This of course only applies to our filtered beers (U, U2, Bolduc). Our speciality refermented beers are not filtered and contain living yeast which carbonate the beer naturally via the refermentation in the bottle. As far as other raw materials are concerned, we do not use honey and all other sources are GMO free cereals, sugar, hops and spices.” YEEHA! Buy some today, they’re awesome, and as high as 9.0% alcohol! Hmm, perhaps more research is needed.
I was going to finish up a bunch of VP code last night, but instead I watched Show Me Love, an unsolicited loaner from Mia that more than makes up for the Timecode fiasco (horrible horrible infinitely horrible). It’s a Swedish (English subtitled) love story about two young girls, and even if it didn’t involve lesbians, it beats Hollywood teen angst crap hands down. Anyway, one of the girls is a vegetarian, and they’re both lesbians, so that qualifies it for a VP post. It’s got something for everyone! Women – female leads, subtitles! Guys – lesbians! Ok, just kidding, actually it’s just a really good movie, the director just put in those plot points to get it mentioned on Vegan Porn. Check it out today.
