Sons born to women who ate a lot of beef during their pregnancy have a 25 percent below-normal sperm count and three times the normal risk of fertility problems
Is that evolution at work to save the cows? Now what about the chickens, pigs, ducks, goats, rabbits …
It’s not uncommon to be the only vegan in your family. And it’s typical that it’s our family that causes us the most stress on being vegan, unless they live far away. After all, food is the center of nearly every family event that I’ve ever attended.
Much as I would look askance at raw mashed potatoes made from cauliflower, my non-vegan Chinese parents may look at roasted yams and kabocha. But I wouldn’t judge them too harshly. I’ve actually had dinner with a local vegan who picked out broccoli florets and strips of bell pepper from a vegan macaroni and cheese dish.
So for this family outing, I decided to take my family to Manzanita in Emeryville (like most people, I used to think this restaurant is in Oakland but it’s actually Emeryville, right on the border), instead of our usual vegan lunch at Golden Lotus (we all enjoy the faux meats). Manzanita is macrobiotic food, and in many ways the total opposite of the Vietnamese fare at Golden Lotus — no faux meats, simple foods, low sodium, and it all tastes so healthy.
While we were there, we noticed another man, who seemed like he could have been around my age, who brought his family to Manzanita too. His parents (who looked like senior citizens, like mine) looked at the food, served buffet style, and the Mom flatly refused to eat there, and walked out, saying she’d sit in the car while they dined.
My parents were a bit skeptical, but they willingly agreed to try it, and did try all the different dishes (about 9 different items). But, I think I was the only one who really enjoyed it. By 3 to 1, vote was the food was overpriced for its organic simplicity. But I like simple fare; for example, I like broccoli plain or am equally content to eat cooked Yukon Gold potatoes with a dash of salt.
Anyways, we all agreed that next time we’d go back to Golden Lotus. Their fu young is a very tasty dish, for vegans and non-vegans.
Oh! The coolest part of the trip was the drive back. It was gridlock going southbound across the Bay Bridge – looked like the newest parking lot in SF. Because we made a wrong turn somewhere, GPS eventually figured out where we were and directed us to travel on Adeline to Peralta to Mandela Parkway, where we were able to enter directly onto 80 and approached the bridge on the lanes to the right, which turned out to be exclusive to Fast Trak. So, we didn’t stop at all, and were surprised and then gleeful to speed directly to the tollbooths while we imagined others were sitting in their cars frustrated and fuming by the congestion, and spewing exhaust into the air.
Okay, still no real updates here. I’ve moved my main Star Wars site over to it’s new domain. BothanJedi.com
Some people have a real style when it comes to being an advocate. They can talk to perfect strangers, make appropriately zippy and persuasive responses, and really make it look easy.
What do I mean by fearless? It’s when people are not bound by the norms of appropriate behaviour or what society says is “conventional”. They have the inner strength and resolve to share their convictions, and they do it well and they do it happily. Being vegan is definitely the first step to being fearless, to make lifestyle choices that you know are morally right yet can be socially taboo (yes, even in progressive places like the San Francisco Bay Area).
Fearless advocacy is the next step. Walk the talk. Take our convictions of being vegan and become proud advocates. Yes, I’m an advocate and I’ll leaflet and table and talk to people. But I haven’t reached that state of being totally fearless. I would not feel comfortable walking through a packed throng of thousands of flesh-eaters holding a sign that says “MEAT IS MURDER” with a graphic picture of a bloody cow skull or running up to a total stranger wearing a fur coat and telling her nicely who died so she could be clothed in their skins.
But I’ve taken the first step and the second … I’ve also stuck to my resolutions and been doing more leafleting. Since the end of January through now, I’ve been leafleting on 7 different occasions (ranging from 30 to 60 minutes each) and personally distributed over 1200 booklets Why Vegan, Even if You Like Meat, and Vegetarian Starter Kits.
the Vegan R/evolution: Perform a death-defying act!
Good news: in the Crocker Galleria mall in San Francisco, there is one restaurant that has a separate menu that is vegan, with about 20 items on it. This is substantially more than any of its competitors in the food court, such as 360 Burritos, Chili-Up, SF Soup Company, Chinese food, pizza, etc.
Bad news: This very same restaurant was entirely vegan, but recently closed to remodel its structure and its menu by adding a second menu of “seafood” (i.e. sea animals).
Medicine Eat Station has a flyer on its front counter. It basically says most of its customers were not vegan, and said they would eat even more at Medicine if they could eat sea animals.
So, the bottom line, money talks. Although, I should be practical in my retrospection: would it have been better for Medicine to close entirely, and a new restaurant move-in? What are the odds that the new restaurant would have been vegan, vegetarian, or substantially v-friendly? Probably not. So, in the long-run, it is better that a restaurant with substantial vegan food is successful, because there are already way too many restaurants without any vegan food. The best, in my opinion, would have been a successful all vegan restaurant.
But, as I’ve always said, to be successful, a veg*n restaurant needs to appeal to more than just the veg*n crowd to be successful. It needs cross-over support from the meat-eaters.
That said, will I go out of my way to eat at Medicine? When it was all-vegan, I enjoyed some bountiful and expensive meals. Now that it’s a mixed place, well, my preference has always been to support entirely vegetarian restaurants. Although, there is an advocacy perspective to dining vegan at mixed restaurants (see my blog post from last summer about this.)
I was recently in the area for an all day work meeting and they had thoughtfully provided lunch that came neatly packaged in boxes or clear plastic trays. Un-thoughtfully, however, the box label of “Ham Sandwich”, “Turkey Sandwich” screamed at my vegan sensibilities “Beware! Animals suffered and died to create these products”. The individual trays of salads (mostly iceberg lettuce with boiled eggs or strips of chicken) did not look any more appetizing with labels that said “Chicken” or whatever. Yeah, I admit, I’m not a salad person, so even if it said “Vegan Salad with Vegan Dressing”, I still would not have thought it an adequate lunch. (When I make a salad, it’s green and red lettuce, some baby spinach, a few slices of avocado, handful of walnuts, a few slices of mandarin orange, some green onions, handful of chickpeas, and if I have it, some fresh tomato. Anyways, I digress..)
So, very close by was the Crocker Galleria. And I knew Medicine had re-opened. And I’ve also heard Kearny Street Pies has vegan choices. But I only had 30 minutes, I knew where Medicine was, and I’ll confess to being curious.
Well, let’s just say, I satisfied my curiosity and I will not make a special trip to return again. And, if I were stuck in a similar situation, I might even opt for the vegan split pea soup at the SF Soup Company instead. Was it that bad? Well, it wasn’t that great, and it was expensive for a lunch – $9 for a small bowl of lukewarm rice with bite-sized pieces of cauliflower, sliced carrots, limp snow peas and a few pieces of tofu with some unappealing curry-colored sauce.
I know that every restaurant has dishes that are better than others, and maybe I just picked the wrong dish. But I’ll be honest and say that I’m not in any hurry to spend any of my hard-earned money exploring the menu and avoiding the sea animals.