The Vegan Option including Vegetarianism: The Story So Far

From Jonathan Swift’s talking horses to Star Trek’s Vulcans, from HG Wells to the Wachowskis, science fiction tackles the big questions about our relationship with other animals.

Join the experts who investigate where animal studies meets media theory. Discover the themes in famous books, film, and TV – as well as the cult sci-fi stories that examine food ethics, the boundaries of humanity, and alternative ways of living.

Discover what the experts really think of Planet of the Apes; what Soylent Green used to made from before they started using people; and hear everyone’s favourite Time Lord try to talk a monster out of eating humanity in our Doctor Who sketch.

Play or download (18.5MB MP3) (via iTunes)

Sherryl Vint edited the Animal Studies Issue of the Journal of Science Fiction Studies and has written Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal.

She is a professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, where she reads science fiction and popular culture. She previously lectured at Brock University in her native Canada, which is a centre of animal studies theory.

She calls herself a “vegetarian with vegan tendencies”; those tendencies include eating vegan apart from honey, alcohol filtered in non-vegan ways, and similar exceptions.

Robert McKay lectures in English literature at the University of Sheffield, England, specialising in animal studies and literature after 1945.

He is part of the UK’s Animal Studies group, and contributed an essay to the collection Killing Animals. The Introduction and Conclusion by Erica Fudge are available to download via Academia.edu. He is vegan.

Tara Lomax is a PhD candidate in screen studies at the University of Melbourne, and a vegan activist. She is currently working on a conference paper on animal issues in Twleve Monkeys.

Tara is vegan and a campaigner.

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Jonathan Swift, 1726

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley, 1818

Sherryl Vint mentions that the creature was made of human and non-human animal parts.

When petitioning Victor Frankenstein to create him a bride, the creature promised to take the vegan pledge:

If you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again: I will go to the vast wilds of South America. My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment. My companion will be of the same nature as myself, and will be content with the same fare. We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man, and will ripen our food. The picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and cruelty.

To be fair to to Victor Frankenstein (and to angry torch-wielding mobs everywhere) the creature had already killed at this point. Hat-tip to Philip Armstrong for the quotation.

Mary Shelly was almost certainly vegetarian (although I haven’t tracked down a citation that would give me absolute confidence). Her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, was an advocate of Rousseauist “back-to-nature” vegetarianism under the mentorship of her father. After Percy’s early death, she was best known for publishing his works, including pro-vegetarian poetry.

The Island of Dr Moreau, by HG Wells, 1896

Our hero Prendick returns home distrustful of other humans:

Then I look about me at my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,—none that have the calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as though the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation of the Islanders will be played over again on a larger scale.

The War of the Worlds, by HG Wells, 1898

I mentioned that – despite comparing the carnivorous Martians to humanity’s own habits – HG Wells mocked vegetarians. For example his 1908 novel Ann Veronica features parody vegetarians Mr & Mrs Goopes.

Sirius: a Fantasy of Love and Discord, by Olaf Stapledon, 1944

Beyond Lies The Wubb, short story by Philip K Dick, 1952

I ended up leaving this out of the show, even though it includes a conversation about food ethics very similar to our Dr Who skit.

To Serve Man, short story by Damon Knight, 1950

To Serve Man, Twilight Zone episode, screenplay by Rod Serling, 1962

The clip is taken from:

The Bells of Saint John, written by Steven Moffat, 2013

The Doctor himself turns vegetarian in 1985’s The Two Doctors. A 1986 comic has him lapse; but Paul Cornell’s 1995 novel Human Nature (adapted for TV in 2007) suggests that he’s still vegetarian in his subsequent, seventh, incarnation. Either way, he was not vegetarian on his return to TV in 2005.

The franchise begins with Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel. Tara Lomax and Sherryl Vint specifically discussed …

Planet of the Apes, screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, 1968

Escape from the Planet of the Apes, screenplay by Paul Dehn, 1971

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, screenplay by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, 2011

Rise of the Planet of the Apes has attracted praise and caution from animal activists. I mentioned:

Make Room! Make Room!, novel by Harry Harrison, 1966

Soylent Green, screenplay by Stanley R Greenberg,1973

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K Dick, 1968

Bladerunner, screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peeples, 1982

The clips are from:

The Slaver Weapon, by Larry Niven, 1973

Yes, I did begin this show with yet more carnivorous cats. Is that not a perfect segue from the last show?

Lonely Among Us, by D.C. Fontana and Michael Halperin, 1987

There are a range of commentaries on the franchise’s treatment of animals:

Uplift, series of novels by David Brin, 1980-1998

The Matrix, screenplay by Lana and Andy Wachowski, 1999

Tara Lomax mentioned that the themes of the Matrix have been adopted by The Grace Communications Foundation in their series of satires The Meatrix. GCF argues makes an environmental and welfare case for non-intensive animal farming.

Animals, by Don LePan, 2000

Under Pressure, role-playing game sourcebook, written by David Morgan-Mar, Kenneth Peters, and Constantine Thomas, 2003

This near-future hard science fiction setting is notable for two reasons. Firstly, it posited a European Union that had banned land animal farming. And secondly, I contributed a few paragraphs – undersea “pan-sentient” activists who kidnapped fish-farm executives and forced them to relive the braintaped last moments of dying tuna.

Even naming this book in this context would spoil a major turn of the plot – a spoiler that was impossible to completely avoid in the show. The curious can follow this link, and find out about the film adaption via the studio and IMDB.

Wess’har, series of novels by Karen Traviss, 2004-8

The skit was written by myself with Sally Beaumont; and performed by Sally Beaumont.

The skit references the Doctor’s acquaintanceship with Vegan miners working on Peladon, Leonardo Da Vinci (and his vegetarianism), and (in the extended version) convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation.

Sally Beaumont is an actor, playwright, and voiceover artist. She has played Ada Lovelace in a BBC documentary and sold Chewbacca a hair dryer in a TV commercial.

I am obviously very very grateful to her. Thanks :).

(No, Time Lords do not always retain the same gender across incarnations. Thank you for asking.)

Discussions of science fiction of interest at:

… go to Robb Masters for the music and voiceover, Catherine Laurence for voiceover, the guests, and to Sally Beaumont.

Many academics took the time to help me with my research, but for whatever reason did not end up interviewed on the show. These include Nik Taylor, John Miller, Claire Molloy, Susan McHugh, and Philip Armstrong.

Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, The Matrix, The Meatrix, and Bladerunner are copyright their respective owners. No challenge is made or implied. Short clips are used under fair dealing for the purposes of media criticism.

The Dr Who skit used freeware sounds “Connecting to Earth” by Philip Bock,  “Giga Core” by Cosmic Dreamer, “Crowd Talking” by SoundJay. It also used Tardis, Sonic Screwdriver and Sting sound effects that are copyright BBC, and used without permission. I am grateful to the BBC’s tolerant attitude to unauthorised work, make no challenge to the BBC’s copyright, and will remove those sound effects if the BBC requests.

As I recognise that some of these corporations could, in principle, get out their lawyers and contest my fair use, and because I am using BBC intellectual property without permission, I cannot make this show available under a Creative Commons licence.

The post Science Fiction and Animals: from Jonathan Swift and HG Wells to Star Trek and Doctor Who; with Sherryl Vint, Robert McKay, and Tara Lomax first appeared on The Vegan Option.

Last show’s investigation of whether cats can be vegan leaves us with an ethical quandary. What should vegans feed cats? Erin and I reflect on listener’s comments. The three expert veterinarians examine the moral issues. And I ask Eric Weisman, CEO of major US vegan cat food brand Evolution, some tough questions. (30 min) Play or download (18MB MP3) (via iTunes)

There is more information about Lorelei Wakefield, Andrew Knight, and Jean Hofve on the episode page for the last episode, “Cats: Can They Be Vegan?”. Since then, Lorelei Wakefield’s site, vegetariancats.com, has returned, and there’s lots of information there. She is also conducting a new study, with a focus on the urinary tract issues we discussed in the last show, and is asking cat owners to complete her survey and share medical records.

Erin can be found at Tumblr (currently), ErinRed.com (under construction), and @ErinRed on Twitter. She mentions a discussion about the ethical dilemma of vegan cats with Prof Gary Francione in a February 2012 episode of Red Radio, and quotes Hamlet.

Lisa Freeman was the senior member of a team that tested:

(Technically, I should be calling it the Gray study, as she is the primary author.) In our brief conversation, Dr Freeman strongly backed the veterinary consensus, saying there was no safe way to feed a cat vegan. The study is: Christina M. Gray, Rance K. Sellon, Lisa M. Freeman (2004), Nutritional Adequacy of Two Vegan Diets for Cats. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 225:11, 1670-175

Eric Weisman is the Chief Executive of Evolution Diet, manufacturers of vegan foods for cats, dogs, and ferrets, in St. Paul, Minnesota USA. He also posts at WeismanNutrition.com.

Eric Weisman gained his licence in 1979, but in 1982, he was reprimanded and put on probation for one year; and again in 1986 and 1987. The complaints process ended in a 1997 Order in which Mr Weisman agreed that he’d committed a number of practices, including:

Advertisements in connection with Respondent’s [Mr Weisman’s] pet food business which identify Respondent only as “Dr. Eric Weisman” and from which a reader could reasonably infer that Respondent is a veterinarian instead of a chiropractor.

He accepted a penalty of 300 hours of community service, a $15,000 fine, and some ethics courses. In 1999, the board found he had paid the penalty in time or money; and in 2002 the board revoked his licence for breaches of the 1997 order [PDF] , including:

Engaged in advertising that is false or misleading

The memo that the board attached to the order said that:

The advertisements admittedly issued by the Respondent also include claims that his treatment programs for animal and human disease have “good long-term results in most cases.” During his January 9, 2001, conference with the Panel, the Respondent stated that he defines a “good long-term result” as an instance in which an animal using his products and/or treatment programs survived longer than was originally predicted by a veterinarian. Because the Respondent’s definition of “long-term is contrary to its common dictionary definition,” his claims about “good long-term results” also are false and misleading. The Respondent has disseminated advertisements in which he claims his research or the research conducted by his pet food company proves dogs and cats can  live 20-25 healthy years and thereby implies that the use of his products lengthens the life expectancies of animals. He admitted, however, that he does not have a dog that has lived 25 years, he did not conduct any actual research other than calling about 30 veterinarians, and he was not referencing animals that had used his products, the Respondent admitted  during his conference with the Complaint Panel that this claim is “just an assumption” on his part because he distributes the food throughout the United States. This claim is false or misleading because the Respondent has no actual data or information to support this representation. His claims about animals’ life expectancies, therefore, are false or misleading.

Thus, “overselling”. The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the revocation the following year. Those documents, again, are:

The Minnesota Board of Veterinary Medicine sued Weisman in 2002; the parties settled the case in 2003 by agreeing an injunction [PDF]. This banned him from, in part:

Engaging in any conduct that constitutes the practice of veterinary medicine … … making any claim that Defendant’s pet food or other products for animals will treat, prevent, or otherwise affect a disease or condition … unless Defendant has first obtained written authorization from the Food and Drug Administration … Directly or indirectly representing or implying, in connection with the sale of pet food or any other product or service, that he or any business in which he has an ownership interest has conducted “research,” including, but not limited to, “clinical trials,” “human studies,” “case studies” or “literary research,” that supports claims about the efficacy of the pet food, product or service. Directly or indirectly representing or implying that that (sic) any animal’s life will improve through the use of Defendant’s pet food or other products …

In 2011, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office brought 58 charges of practicing medicine – on humans and other animals – against Weisman [PDF]. But in February 2012 all of these were dismissed bar three charges of contempt of court [PDF]  – to which Weisman plead guilty. Local media covered the case:

He has also been criticised by blogger SkeptVet. Ida Fong on Animal Voices podcast and Dan Robinson who runs the Vegan Cat Institute website both offer strong anecdotal criticism; whereas the majority of Amazon reviews offer positive anecdotes.

… go to Robb Masters for the music, to all the interviewees, and Erin Red. The illustration is a cat in Peru by Ilke Ender on Flickr, used under a CC-BY licence.

This is not veterinary advice. It is a radio show with vets.

The post Cats: Ethics. With Erin Red, Evolution Diet’s Eric Weisman, and vets Lorelei Wakefield, Andrew Knight, and Jean Hofve first appeared on The Vegan Option.

Three experienced veterinarians with experience of vegan cats say whether and why they think cats can thrive on a vegan diet.

Jean Hofve argues – out of bitter experience – that cats need meat.

Andrew Knight advocates a vegan diet for cats – if you do it right.

Only Lorelei Wakefield has published a peer-reviewed study to try to discover who is right.

(23 min) Play or download (15MB MP3) (via iTunes)

Lorelei Wakefield’s study site – vegetariancats.com – is currently down, but you can access vegetariancats.com via web.archive.org. That peer-reviewed paper is:

She does housecalls in NYC, and her site is ComfortsOfHomeVet.com.

Lorelei is vegan. Her own cat, Noel, used to be vegan but is now on a meat-based prescription food.

In between extreme ironing , vegan campaigning, and writing a cost/benefit analysis of Animal Experiments, Andrew Knight also runs VegePets.info, which offers advice for people considering vegetarian diets for dogs and cats.

Jean Hofve is a retired veterinarian with an interest in nutrition and alternative veterinary medicine.

She writes at Little Big Cat .com, including about vegetarian cats.

Erin offers listeners to Red Radio “vegan banter with a bite” – strong vegan opinions and supportive commentary, as well as guests, compassionate clips, and rants.

She’s Canadian transplanted to Brooklyn, where she co-founded “The Seed: a vegan experience”, and practices muay Thai.

Erin can be found at Tumblr (currently), ErinRed.com (under construction), and@ErinRed on Twitter.

She discussed the ethical dilemma of vegan cats with Prof Gary Francione in a February 2012 episode of Red Radio.

Mazzy is a female tortoiseshell rescue cat, and she’s on my lap as I’m typing this.

She’s also had struvite crystals (when on a meat-based diet) so she’s also on a meat-based prescription diet.

David Dzanis wrote in the Veterinarian Newsletter in 1999, concluding of both dogs and cats:

… while both species can eat and utilize some plant-source ingredients (dogs more than cats), they simply are not intended to eat only plants as are other animals such as cattle and sheep.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals say:

When it comes to felines, it really is best to provide a diet that includes meat.

I’m going to pass this on to other websites, but we mentioned that the challenges for vegan cats are:

That US National Research Council released dietary guidelines for Cats and Dogs in 2003 (before Lorelei Wakefield’s study) saying that cats:

should not be fed a vegetarian diet because it could result in harmful deficiencies of certain amino acids, fatty acids, and vitamins

The show specifically discussed how cats need Taurine and B12; and the dangers of urinary struvite crystals.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau addressed the issue in her 2007 podcast episode, What do Vegetarians Feed their Dogs and Cats? – and, as I mentioned, feeds her cats meat.

US writer and activist Jo Stepaniak blogged about how she feeds her cats meat after they did not thrive on a vegan diet.

Vegan vet Armaiti May advises having a vet monitor your cat’s urine pH, rather than doing it yourself.

Animal Voices (Toronto) covered this topic in 2006 with a round table discussion, involving two local activists whose cats fell seriously ill on a vegan diet, as well as Eric Wiseman of Evolution pet food.

… go to Robb Masters for the music, the three veterinarians for our interviewees, and of course Erin Red.

The interview with Andrew Knight is from back in 2010, hence some rookie mic handling noise.

This is not veterinary advice. It is a radio show with vets.

Next show: Cats, the ethical quandary, and the criminal vegan pet food CEO

The post Cats: Can they be vegan? With vets Lorelei Wakefield, Andrew Knight, and Jean Hofve; and special guest Erin Red first appeared on The Vegan Option.

If you’re like most of our listeners, you get The Vegan Option show via the podcast feed – an automatic index of shows that’s read by iTunes, Stitcher and other “podcatchers”. (If you haven’t heard any of the shows – what are you waiting for? Use the “Listen” menu at the top, pick a show that piques your interest, and press play. That’s the other way of hearing episodes.)

The shows usually focus on topics rather than individual interviewees – talking to a range of people to get a full picture. This can mean that only a few minutes out of an hour-long interview gets into the show. (This isn’t unusual for public radio documentaries.)

Some full interviews are posted on the website – such as our conversations with Peter Singer and Gary Francione for the episode “Peace on Earth”. But should they go in the podcast feed as well? Diana asked on the Facebook page and “yes” not only won the vote, but for some people it was the only way to get the extended interviews.

So from now on, rough edits of extended interviews will go in the podcast feed as well as the website. This starts with Diana’s full conversation with Dr Julia Minson, part of the “Judgemental!” show:

http://archive.org/download/JudgementJuliaMinsonInterview/Judgemental_JuliaMinsonInterview_Feed.mp3

(24 mins) (download or play MP3 file 16MB)

If you want to only hear the edited shows – particularly if you are catching up with the archive – it’s easy to skip the extended interviews. They’ll still be there if you want to come back to them.

More changes are coming, once the next show (about the dilemmas that vegans with cats face) is ready.

The post Extended interviews on iTunes, starting with Dr Julia Minson first appeared on The Vegan Option.

In 2009, I travelled through South East Asia from equatorial island to the far north of Thailand, discovering the vegetarian threads running through the region. Hear Diana and I banter about my trials and triumphs on everything from missing passports to cheeky elephants.

http://archive.org/download/TheVeganOptionSoutheastAsia/theVeganOption_SoutheastAsia.mp3 (25 min) Play or download (MP3 26MB) (other formats) (via iTunes)

I talked with:

These links are mostly to reviews on Happy Cow – whose founder Eric Brent was on our episode about Digital Vegans.

Taste from Heaven raises money for the Elephant Nature Park, where I volunteered. I talked about washing Elephants in the show: here are some of my holiday snaps. Click on the thumbnails for the full picture.

Before The Vegan Option, I produced some five minute podcasts under a pseudonym, and released them at Verdant Reports .org. They include three five minute clips about my journey through SE Asia.

(Verdant Reports didn’t really catch on. Perhaps because they didn’t have Diana to keep me in check, and perhaps because the name is both obscure and difficult to spell out in your web browser.)

Those reports use the same interviews but are more focussed on travel advice, so you might find them useful if you’re planning to go to the region.

20% of chefs surveyed by the Time Out New York Kitchen Report admitted to putting animals in the ostensibly vegetarian option (in a graphic that’s since been removed from the page).

Diana mentioned the Supreme Master restaurants (which we in London know as “Loving Hut”).

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau was part of our last episode, Judgemental!, advising us on how not to be, well, judgemental. She podcast her visit to the UK (although, sadly, she did not visit us in London):

Jasmin Singer and Dr Mariann Sullivan of Our Hen House drove across the United States to get to Marianne’s new job in Portland. During their “Great American Road Trip”, they continued to podcast every week:

Our thanks go to Robb Masters and the Elephant Nature Park mahouts for the music, and our interviewees including Lisa Green, Izzy, and Dr Peter Flügel of SOAS, University of London.

Thanks also to Kip Dorrell of Messy Vegetarian Cook, who took the picture of Taste from Heaven’s Choo Chee Curry at the top of the page during her own trip to Thailand’s Kin Jay national vegetarian festival.

The post South East Asia: Finding Vegan Food in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia first appeared on The Vegan Option.

Those judgemental vegans. A charge you’ve probably heard (or perhaps even uttered).

But what is “judgement”? How does it really affect the relationships between vegans and others? What can scientists say about it? And how do vegan activists react to the charge?

Dr Julia Minson explains the science.

Marla Rose explains exactly how Bacon Loving Hipsters Can Kiss Her Vegan Ass.

And Colleen Patrick-Goudreau discusses the psychology and experience of “judgemental vegans”.

http://archive.org/download/TheVeganOptionJudgemental/theVeganOption_judgementalB.mp3

(30 min) Play or download (29 MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

The compassionate cook is a leading vegan advocate across several media, including podcasts (VegNews favourite podcast 2011). Another podcast host – Erin Grayson of Red Radio – has a tattoo that asks what Colleen would do.

Just in case you haven’t heard of her, she’s the author of several vegan cookbooks, the producer of the 30 Day Vegan Challenge online course, and a speaker who is famous for espousing veganism in a spiritual and non-judgemental way.

She relates Julia Minson’s research to her experience as an advocate, and discusses how she tries not to be judgemental – even at barbecues.

Marla Rose practices a range of advocacy.

Her Vegan Feminist Agitator blog and Bacon Loving Hipsters Can Kiss My Vegan Ass Facebook group offer vegans laughs; she’s written a book about a 15 year old vegan superhero with empathy superpowers; and when we called her home was in the midst of preparations for the outreach event Chicago Veganmania.

Diana asks her if her humour is, perhaps, judgemental: and Marla describes how she resented the smug vegan who convinced her to drop animal products.

Julia Minson is a postdoctoral fellow in social psychology at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

She researches how attitudes change and “moral minorities”, a term which aptly defines vegans. She’s also a vegetarian.

Julia talks with Diana about her research into attitudes to vegetarians, and how insulting vegetarians might make you more likely to adopt their views.

Diana also discussed “Anti-social punishment” with Colleen. This is the phenomenon of punishing people for being too nice. (The more usual kind of punishment, such as jailing bank robbers, is “pro-social”.)

References:

Our thanks go to Robb Masters for the music; and a hat tip to Our Hen House for originally mentioning Julia’s study in their own podcast.

During our chat with Colleen, we played her Dr Minson’s interview and summarised Marla’s; and then I edited it together. The guests don’t sound like they’re on VoIP because this month all our guests sent us recordings of their side of the conversation. Thanks!

The post Judgemental: with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Dr Julia Minson, and Marla Rose first appeared on The Vegan Option.

As the athletes celebrate their victories and defeats, and the Spice Girls rock the closing ceremony, we look back over the Olympics and update you on the vegan stories behind the games.

This show:

http://archive.org/download/TheVeganOptionOlympics-ClosingUpdate/londonolympics_3_food.mp3 (15 min) Play or download (14MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

In the first Olympic show, Diana suggested athletes you might want to cheer on the basis of their vegan sponsors rather than their flag:

Rudy owns and runs Vx (pronounced “V Cross”).

My local vegan anarchist cafe is Pogocafe; and we mentioned Ms Cupcake.

I shall blog about this soon. First Choice Animals went public in an article “Meet the Real Stars of the Olympic Opening Ceremony” in the UK Independent.

Update 19/8/12: I have blogged about the experiences of vegan spectators, as they reported on social media and to us.

The short version is to take your own food, but check the rules first.

Our thanks go to Robb Masters for the music, to Rudi for his time, and to everyone else I chased for answers and information.

The post London Olympics: Closing Update with Vx, Animals in the Opening Ceremony, and Vegan Food first appeared on The Vegan Option.

Kara Lang  holds the record as the youngest woman ever to score a goal in international soccer – but her passions also include vegan cupcakes.

Now retired from football, she took time out from her busy schedule as part of Canadian station CTV’s Olympic team to talk to me about her story, touring, and the vegan mentor she improbably found in her own national squad.

http://archive.org/download/TheVeganOptionOlympics-KaraLangVeganOlympian/londonolympics_karalang.mp3 (10min) Play or download (9.5 MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

You can find Kara Lang at:

Sportsnet.ca interviewed her about her retirement from football.

Lara mentioned fellow Canadian Ms Cupcake and vegan shop Vx.

Amy was that vegan mentor. You can find her at:

Our thanks go to Robb Masters for the music, and to Kara Lang for her time. Where we recorded turned out to be under a busy flight path, so there’s a bit of non-Olympic background noise.

The post London Olympics: interview with Kara Lang, vegan Olympian, Canada soccer team first appeared on The Vegan Option.

Athletes from across the world are coming to East London – where we produce the show – but what are the vegan perspectives on the Olympic games?

This show:

http://archive.org/download/TheVeganOptionOlympics/london_olympics_1.mp3(24 min) Play or download (20MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

Venus Williams and Serena Williams represent the US at Tennis.

Venus has Sjögrens syndrome. You can see her discuss her raw vegan diet on CBS (Jul 10);  she called herself a chegan (“cheating vegan”) in a press conferences, reports Tennis Panorama.

Some vegans say that her sister, Serena, with whom she won the Wimbledon Ladies Doubles title, is also vegan; Celeb Buzz quotes her as saying that she won’t eat chicken at home with Venus.

The publicist told me that:

Serena’s diet is more “Raw” then “Vegan” although it is quite close.

We mentioned:

Pam Boteler, American canoeist, is raw vegan – but only men’s sprint canoe is an Olympic sport

James Southwood is one of the world’s leading Savateurs – French kickboxers – as well as being a former marketing officer for the UK Vegan Society. Paris was a close second for hosting the 2012 games, and would likely have added Savate as at least a demonstration event, as it did in 1924.

An already-Olympian we didn’t mention is Kara Lang, Canada, Football/Soccer – who competed in Beijing (2008) but was prevented from competing this year by an injury.  She’s in London as a journalist.

Diana suggested athletes you might want to cheer on the basis of their vegan sponsors rather than their flag:

Sandra Hood has spoken for the UK Vegan Society on diet issues, and wrote Feeding Your Vegan Infant with Confidence. The Olympic Torch Relay page on Sandra Hood has more information about her work on diabetes.

We discussed the Chinese volleyball team, whose complaints have been mentioned by NPR’s The Salt (who mentioned they were on the road without access to untainted meat) and The Guardian (who reported that they were only avoiding pork, whilst eating fish and “protein powder”).

I did not mention that the additive Clenbuterol is also unlawful. In 2009, over 70 people in China fell ill after eating Pork contaminated with Clenbuterol.

My local vegan anarchist cafe is Pogocafe; Diana cited the Olympian Economics episode of Freakanomics Radio.

You can read more about that story at:

The calculation of 20,000 chickens being eaten was based on the quantity of poultry mentioned in the LOCOG Factpack, assumptions that this was from birds of the same weights and proportions as 2010 UK production of carcasses and that 85% of a carcass is, ethics notwithstanding, edible.

We recorded the show on Friday afternoon and uploaded it (without show notes) as the opening ceremony was beginning.

I visted Frys Distribution, who import from family business Frys Vegetarian in South Africa. Because some will want to know, of the voices you heard, Lisa is vegan, Pat is almost, and Kevin is omnie.

Local radio in Durban, South Africa also interviewed manufacturer Tammy Fry.

Our thanks go to Robb Masters for the music, to Sandra Hood and to Fry’s and Pogocafe for their time.

The post London Olympics first appeared on The Vegan Option.

What is the secret of making cheese without dairy that stretches and melts?

Is there a cheese addiction?

What’s the past, present, and future of vegan cheese?

And if you brought together the leading vegan cheeses from Europe and the Americas – like Redwoods Cheezly, Vegusto, and Daiya – that aren’t meant to be available in the same country, let alone the same pizza – who would win?

http://archive.org/download/TheVeganOptionVeganCheese/TheVeganOption-VeganCheese.mp3 (28 min) Play or download (26 MB MP3) (other formats) (via iTunes)

Spoiler warning: the results of the taste test are below the fold.

Neal Barnard summarises the case for regarding cheese as a narcotic 2003 article in PCRM Good Medicine Magazine, Breaking the Food Seduction:

At first, the researchers theorized that it must have come from the cows’ diets. After all, morphine used in hospitals comes from poppies and is also produced naturally by a few other plants that the cows might have been eating. But it turns out that cows actually produce it within their bodies, just as poppies do. Traces of morphine, along with codeine and other opiates, are apparently produced in cows’ livers and can end up in their milk.

But that was only the beginning, as other researchers soon found. Cow’s milk—or the milk of any other species, for that matter—contains a protein called casein that breaks apart during digestion to release a whole host of opiates called casomorphins. A cup of cow’s milk contains about six grams of casein. Skim milk contains a bit more, and casein is concentrated in the production of cheese.

Traces seem unlikely to have a psychoactive affect, so we did not mention morphine or codeine in the show.

Casomorphins, on the other hand, are real and unambiguous; Diana examined the literature, discussed them in the show, and will also blog about them shortly.

I followed a recipe for vegan cheese taken from a 1985 update of “What’s Cooking” by Eva Batt (1973), and you can see Diana posing with the 1980s vegan cheese. The recipe – soy flour, soy margarine, and yeast extract – represents the era more than it does Eva.

Eva Batt played a leading role in British veganism in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, including the “Open Door” film mentioned in our Born Vegan show and, of course, cookbooks.

I sent interview requests to half a dozen companies, including Daiya and Redwoods, and was glad to speak with Mark, the Director of Vegusto UK, to hear his views on where the analogue food movement is going. Though it didn’t get a mention in the show, he’s vegan.

Dr Jonathan Gordon consults at Glasgow Consulting in Rhode Island, USA.

You might also enjoy “Cracking the Code: Making Vegan Cheese taste Cheesier” on NPR’s Food Blog, The Salt.

We chose Redwoods Super Melting Cheezly (from the English Midlands, owned by Heather Mills) as the best UK melting vegan cheese, and Daiya Mozzarella style shreds as Diana’s favourite in the US.

London Vegan boutique Vx had recently recommended the new Vegusto No-Moo Melty, so we added that too.

This took place in May 2011; so this show was over a year in the making.

Diana made two pizzas on storebought crust- tomato mushroom and spinach pesto, and I added the cheese in three concentric circles. From inside to outside, I put Redwoods Cheezly, Vegusto, and Daiya on one pizza and reversing the order on the other pizza. It’s important to be fair. All ten guests scored the pizzas out of 10. Let no-one tell me I don’t know how to party.

The average scores for the whole group were: Daiya 3.2, Redwoods 3.9, and Vegusto 4.1. The four vegans ranked them the same, but with higher scores (5.3; 6.0; and 6.3).

Use vegan cheese as a seasoning rather than a bulk ingredient, particularly with those who eat dairy cheese. Don’t forget flavour. It’s steadily getting better – this unknown cheese from Switzerland is actually reasonably good, and the Daiya Jack Style Wedge went down well with Diana’s mother and her husband.

Diana mentioned Gwendolyn Mather’s third prize with a vegan Daiya/Tofutti sandwich in the Grilled Cheese Invitational; Gwendolyn blogged about this for Compassion over Killing.

Our thanks go to Robb Masters (who coincidentally reviewed vegan cheese for the London Vegan Campaigns vegan pledge) for the music, to our friends at the garden party for tolerating the taste test, and to Mark Galvin and Jonathan Gordon for talking with me.

And to the people who make vegan cheese. I still like it.

The post Vegan Cheese: Casein, Casomorphins, and the Daiya Redwoods Vegusto Taste Test first appeared on The Vegan Option.