vegansaurus!

Top 10 links of the week!: A harlem shuffle through the dance floor of veganism!  »

Scary rooster Puff has it in for kitty Blacko! This is kind of sad. 

Grist’s Protein Angst series is still killing it! My new favorite: Never mind the meat—worry about eating enough plants. This is what I’m always thinking! Like, dude, I get enough protein, do you get enough veggies?! There is so much concern over our nutrients but I’d bet meat-mouths are not hitting all the nutritional points!

A whole town in India relocated to make room for tigers! That’s nice. 

McDonald’s thinks trying their food is less risky than petting stray pitbulls. People are not pleased. But I’m glad our standards are now risky and less risky. Obviously they are implying you may get bit by a dog; generally I want my food to be on an entirely different scale than getting bit by a dog—not just less “risky.”

From Ecouterre, fur trapping season ends with record high of non-target animal deaths. That means exactly what you think it means.

Choosing Raw has another great post on PCRM and fat-shaming (though we discourage the use of “overweight” as it maintains there is a specific weight you should be). Gena stresses the need to focus on using “honest language, honest facts, and honest statistics.” Here here!

Australia is up in arms over recent footage documenting inhumane conditions in a Sydney slaughterhouse. You can see the video on the linked page. It’s pretty rugged. The one good thing though is it seems like Australia actually does stuff when footage like this surfaces. The slaughterhouse in question was immediately closed (I don’t know if it was permanently closed but still, swift action).

An NYT editorial calls for humane national standards in egg production!

You know we’ve been discussion palm oil lately, well Grist is here to help you break free of the palm oil grasp!

From HuffPo, you may have already heard about this but if not: Westminster severed ties with Pedigree because they didn’t want to see images of puppies behind bars during commercial breaks. Stay classy, Westminster!

From Ecorazzi, Ian Somerhalder (see below) is getting an award from the Humane Society! I have an award for him too! IN MY PANTS. Sorry guys, I can’t help it, he’s the hotness times god damn. 

McDonald’s stopped using ammonia treated pink goo, confirms they had been using it in the past  »

When we posted this picture in 2010, there was basically a riot in the comments! Some people just refused to believe this is real. Meave told you it was, but some didn’t listen. Well now McDonald’s has confirmed it: until last August, they were feeding people ammonia treated mechanically separated meat (MSM). A statement from McDonald’s:

For a number of years prior to 2011, to assist with supply, McDonald’s USA used some lean beef trimmings treated with ammonia in our burgers. We were among other food retailers who used this safe product.

So there you have it. Meave and Laura were not lying to you. “Lean beef trimmings treated with ammonia,” I’m lovin’ it! Glad to hear they got rid of it but still, VOM. Can’t believe it took them this long. Look at that stuff! LOOK AT IT. Anyway, I’m sure they’ve replaced it with a really high-quality product. That sounds like McDonald’s, always looking out for people.

Ryan Gosling speaks out for animals, a billion undergarments drop  »

Ryan Gosling, hero to every person with eyes, is speaking out for abused chickens! Whatta man, whatta man, whatta mighty fine man GOOD LORD.

Gosling co-wrote a letter to McDonald’s, asking them to use cage-free eggs. 

According to Mercy for Animals, the appeal comes after hidden-camera video, shot at Sparboe facilities in three states revealed hens crammed in tiny wire cages, dead hens left to rot in cages with birds still laying eggs for McDonald’s Egg McMuffins, and workers burning off the beaks of baby birds without painkillers. Yum! Watch the undercover video here:

[Can’t see the video? Watch it on Vegansaurus.com!]

Ugh, egg farms are the grossest. Seriously, this kind of abuse isn’t just happening at Sparboe facilities, it’s happening any place animals are treated as commodities. I see those poor chickens and I imagine my dog in that situation and I just want to murder everything.

So, thank you, Ryan Gosling, and assorted other celebrities I don’t give a shit about because your faces are like garbage compared to his, for speaking out.  I already wanted to go all Kathy Bates in Misery on him and now the odds of that happening are about 2-1. G’damn!

And finally, some Feminist Ryan Gosling to both tantalize and amuse:

Paul Shapiro Presents: Animal News You Can Use! (Thanksgiving Edition!)  »

It’s time for the next installment of Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! This time, it’s THANKSGIVING-STYLE, boooy! Take it away, Paul! I’m thinking we might need an adorable graphic for this? Anyone want to make us one? In return, I will give you a gigantic Thanksgiving high-five! What a feeling!

Well, if you’ve been living under a rock, you may not have heard about Mercy For Animals’ potent new investigation at Sparboe Foods, one of the sole egg producers in the country lobbying against the federal effort to ban barren battery cages. In the wake of the investigation, both McDonald’s and Target dropped Sparboe as a supplier.

MFA’s investigation resulted in massive news coverage, including a powerful 20/20 segment along with much other ABC News content (including a couple minutes of me hanging out with chickens talking about battery cages). Amusingly, a spokesman for the egg company claimed the video was “staged,” only to have the company later publicly correct him, asserting they have no evidence of that.

The NPR affiliate in DC sat down with me for lunch to talk about veg eating and Meatless Monday. You can listen to the six-minute segment here.

Finally, the headline says it all: “Talking Turkey: 9 out of 10 retail turkey samples contaminated with fecal bacteria.”

Have a nice holiday… :-)

P.S. No, the above video of me with chickens isn’t the video of the week. This cow playing with a ball is.

Neil Hamburger is KILLING IT on Twitter!  »

I didn’t think it was possible to love Neil Hamburger more than I already did and YET. BAM:

and then BAM:

and finally this amazing Burger King triple slam of OMG YES:
So fucking good.

Lyfe Kitchen: Tal Ronnen, Art Smith, and a couple of dudes who used to work for McDonald’s want you to eat their healthy food  »

Guess what, vegans and the people who love them: restaurateurs really do want your money! Seriously! They are starting a chain of restaurants called Lyfe Kitchen, which will serve “healthy” omnivorous and vegan dishes. Art Smith, Oprah’s totally not-vegan chef who was once on Top Chef: Masters, has of late eschewed his creamy-buttery-cheesy cuisine for less artery-clogging death food at his own restaurant, and is in charge of the omnivorous part of the menu, and Tal “Mr. Gardein” Ronnen will be developing the vegan section. Plans are to open the first Lyfe Kitchen in Palo Alto, Calif. this summer.

This sounds kind of great, right? Except it also sounds a little, um, nutty. The chain will be marketed to “women age 18 to 49, hoping they’ll like the food enough to bring back friends and families. While she’s enjoying a grain salad, there’s a beefy burger for her husband. While he’s munching away, he might try a bite of hers, and even like it.” Wait, what? Yeah, who wants to puke after reading that? Three sentences packed full of gnarly stereotypes, but stereotypes sell! And this isn’t a “vegan” restaurant: “The menu so far avoids modifiers like ‘vegan,’ ‘gluten-free’ and ‘dairy-free,’” despite offering such options. Because “vegan” is “scary” and “gluten-free” is for “crazies” and Lyfe Kitchen isn’t for scary crazies, it’s for Middle American Families and the Moms Who Run Them.

So definitely this is a positive idea coming to fruition, right? We shall see—you know your Vegansaurus will be checking this place out once it opens. What do you all think: is marketing to McDonald’s Moms the right way to sell a chain of semi-vegan restaurants? I mean, in Tal we trust, but as for the rest of the business partners and the model, who knows.

Vegan baked goods taking over: Babycakes opens in Disney World!  »

YOU GUYS! There is a Babycakes in Disney World! Can you imagine? Vegan, gluten-free, refined-sugar-free baked goods at DISNEY WORLD? News like this is what keeps us going when the bestselling cookbooks are all about dismembering animals at home. Vegan diets are the future, and our first victory will be over baked goods.

OK mrs. philosophical, but how did Babycakes even get to Orlando? Well! Disney at large, in an effort to be healthier, ended their contracts with McDonald’s. Just dumped them! And then invited, “among many, many, many others” Babycakes to be part of a healthier Disney project. Erin McKenna, being a clever and enterprising lady, agreed, and two years later, we have Babycakes Disney World!

Remember when all the promotional Disney movie toys came in Happy Meals? I remember specifically really wanting a cheap plastic Ariel toy and getting a really terrible Prince Eric toy instead. He came in a boat that did not float, and his hands were molded all poorly so he didn’t really have defined fingers. Also his skin was gray. I really hated that thing. Those days are over now, right? Or will McDonald’s continue its reign of terror even after Disney has divested itself of all that evil?

Or maybe, be quiet and be happy now, Babycakes is in Disney World!!

[photo by Brianna]

Whoops, PCRM’s not perfect  »

Good old Deceiver. Usually they totally stick it to the hypocrites, and we can all roll our eyes and giggle and wonder about the stupidity of the world.

But just like the rest of us humans, sometimes they take it a bit far. Implying that PCRM President Neal Barnard is hypocritical for having worked at McDonald’s, because PCRM has a new anti-McDonald’s ad campaign doesn’t actually make sense. It’s certainly not “ironic.”

No one’s led a blameless life—even Jesus of The Bible had his inexplicably rude moments, remember? And we’re all allowed to change our minds. Rarely do you find a committed vegan who was born and raised that way. Most of us had to learn, and for some of us that took exposure to a lot of gross stuff first—perhaps working at a McDonald’s.

As Laura says, it’s like, remember how you used to believe in Santa Claus, and sleep with men who undervalued you? You live, you learn!

[disclaimer: our Laura was at one time a contract employee for PCRM, and Vegansaurus continues to advocate for the Healthy School Lunch Program as proposed and lobbied for by PCRM. That said, come on.]