This article just infuriates me.

In Iowa, where the 20 million hogs easily outnumber the 3 million people, the rotten-egg-and-ammonia smell of hog waste often wafts into homes, landing like a punch to the chest.

“Once, we couldn’t go outside for a week,” said Karen Forbes, who lives near a hog feedlot outside Lorimor. “It burned your eyes. You couldn’t breathe. You had to take a deep breath and run for your garage. It was horrid.”

Karen Forbes lives “near” the feedlot.  Can you imagine how bad it is on the feedlot?  While I do feel bad for these people who have to breathe this everyday, does anyone ever stop to think that pigs can’t possibly enjoy living in these conditions either?  I guess nobody but me cares.

So, what are they going to do about it?  Spend $1.7 million to further “study” hog odors.

Hog odors have been a perennial issue at the state Legislature, where lawmakers argue over the need to protect quality of life without ruining Iowa’s $12-billion-a-year pork industry.

How about this solution?  It’s free and it isn’t hard at all.  STOP EATING THE PIGS AND THEY’LL STOP STINKING UP THE AIR!  And runoff from these farms will stop polluting water sources. With people starving all over the world, people losing their jobs and homes here, etc. etc. can’t you think of better ways to spend $1.7 million than to keep studying a study that has already been studied and still not remedied?  Stupid.

Yet more evidence that our government has no concern for our health whatsoever.  The U.S. is one of only a few countries that allows beef and dairy cows to be treated with growth hormones which, aside from probably being harmful to your health, means our “tainted” beef can’t be exported.  Other countries recognize the dangers of treating “food” with hormones, but ours thinks it’s okay.  Unless you buy organic or a package specifically marked as not coming from cows treated with BGH, you can be sure that you’re getting a nice dose of hormones and who-knows-what-else with every steak, every yogurt (yes, Yopait!) and every slice of cheese you eat.  Gross!

Now, not even corn is safe.  In addition to putting or spraying weird things on food, our government is content with letting companies manipulate the genes of crops.  And even though genetically modified corn is banned in most of the world, our government doesn’t have a problem letting us eat it.  Recent research concludes:

1) A new long term study by the Austrian government confirms previous findings that consumption of GM (genetically modified) corn, for as little as 20 weeks, can damage the reproductive system, lower fertility rates and increase illness and death rates in offspring.
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2) Researchers in Mexico reported in December that some popular varieties of GM corn negatively affect the learning response of bees. Scientists say this may be an indicator of the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, a recent catastrophic and mysterious die-off of as much as 30% of the world’s honey bee population in the past couple of years.
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3) In Italy, scientists published a study that put the biotech industry in a public relations tailspin. In the study, laboratory tests showed a direct connection between consumption of GM corn and a damaged immune system.
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See, the only person looking out for you is YOU. This stuff is scary. GM products aren’t even safety tested. Need an explanation for why people get cancer like crazy? Well, it probably has something to do with these weird things in our food supply. Not to worry, if you don’t want to eat this stuff, here are some tips for avoiding genetically modified produce (keep in mind that food made with GM ingredients doesn’t have to be labeled as such):

1) Look for products that voluntarily label themselves as GMO or GE-free.

2) Buy Organic:  Products certified as “Organic” are not allowed to contain genetically modified ingredients.

3) Avoid non-organic products that contain the most common genetically engineered ingredients: corn (corn syrup, corn meal, corn oil, etc.), fructose, dextrose, glucose, modified food starch, ingredients including the word “soy” (soy flour, soy lecithin, etc.), vegetable oil, vegetable protein, canola oil (also called rapeseed oil), cottonseed oil, and sugar from sugar beets.

It really is important to buy organic everything these days, if you care as much as I do about what you put into your body.  AND, you can’t just stop there– you can bet your life that farm animals are being fed GM corn, soy, etc.  Best just to avoid meat altogether, if you ask me.  For more info, check out this great site.

I had a thought and I couldn’t help but rant about it. I know, I know– it’s been ages since I blogged about food. That’s coming soon, I promise. I actually have lots of food stuff to blog about too, I just need more time.

But first, my rant about shoes. So, I got a pair of Crocs for Christmas and I was thrilled because I’ve been wanting them for a while now. The ones I got fit, but I would like to try the next size up just to be sure that the ones I have actually fit right. Too often, I decide a shoe fits too soon only to realize after wearing it for a while that it really isn’t that comfortable. I’ve been to 3 Macy’s (the store where my mom bought them) and they have been sold out of nearly every Croc. My backup plan was to maybe exchange them for a pair of boots, but every single boot they have– with the exception of a few ugly, 80s looking ones– are leather.

This caused me to have a brilliant thought. Why doesn’t someone come up with a line of vegan footwear? Yes, it has been done. Natalie Portman launched a vegan footwear line recently. I’m sure there are many styles to choose from on online shopping sites. I mean, why doesn’t someone come up with a vegan footwear line and actually put it in a store so that people can try them on and decide how they like them? I, for one, am not fond of purchasing shoes online. AND, how about if you charge LESS than what the leather alternative costs?

Natalie Portman’s shoe line, for example, charged something like $400 for ONE PAIR of boots. Yikes! It’s no wonder it didn’t do very well. If non-leather boots, pumps, etc. were featured in a store next to leather ones and were just as cute, but the same price or less, it stands to reason that people may actually be drawn to the vegan shoes. More people in vegan shoes means less people wearing dead animals. Brilliant!

Now, why hasn’t someone done this already? Maybe it has been done, but I just can’t find them? I don’t know. I’ve never been to a major department store and been able to find a big selection of non-leather shoes. Even finding non-leather ballet shoes for my Emma is a chore. What’s the deal?!

Feel like doing something super easy that will really help a good cause?  I thought so!  Here’s what you have to do (from The Veggie Guy’s blog):

I’m participating in a contest to donate to the Alagille Syndrome Alliance, a non-profit that supports research for a cure for this disease. Basically, I’ve submitted a post to a new social bookmarking site, and the post that gets the most 5-star votes wins a cash prize.

So if you’d like to help, it would be greatly appreciated. Here’s the link to my post – all you need to do is go to the site, register (just make up a username and password – no email address required), and then visit the post and rate it 5 stars. The rating bar is above the image in my post.

My goal is to get 500 5-star votes by next Tuesday (Dec. 9) at midnight EST, when the contest ends. If you can pass this along to anyone who might be willing to vote, it would be a great help.

Pimping of this post is also much appreciated!

Seriously, it takes about 30 seconds to register and vote.  If you have a blog of your own, please consider posting these links so that all of your loyal readers can vote too.

Crowds gathered near public buildings in cities large and small, including Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Fargo, to vent their frustrations, celebrate gay relationships and renew calls for change.

My eyes stuttered when I got to Fargo.  As in North Dakota?  Well, I’m sure there are gay people there too.  This is exactly what needs to happen– a nationwide movement for marriage rights.  Read the full story here.

I like Melissa Etheridge’s tactic:

“I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.”

Yeah, it’s another non-food related post/rant/rambling on a blog about veganism, but these issues are important too.  Prof. Francione says it best:

We live in a society permeated by racism, sexism, heterosexism, and speciesism. These attitudes all share in common exclusion of some group from membership in the moral community based on irrelevant characteristics (race, sex, sexual orientation, species). If we are ever to make progress as a civilization, we have to reject all of these forms of discrimination. All discrimination is a form of violence.

I’m pretty much a TV-aholic.  It’s mindless.  It’s entertaining.  It’s what I like to do after a long day of tending to the kiddo.

I was flipping through the channels on Friday night and came across Whale Wars on Animal Planet.  I think it’s a pretty new show.  It was SO interesting, informative and entertaining that I had to tell you all about it.  It’s basically about a group of people on a boat in the Antarctic on a mission to stop Japanese whalers.  I had no idea that (1) people would actually want to eat whale meat, (2) that it would be considered a delicacy and (3) that they’ll poach whales and disguise it as “research.”  Sick!

This is crazy!

Can you imagine a harpoon being shot through your body and then being pulled back by the rope attached to the harpoon all the while you are struggling to break free? That’s crazy. This goes to show that all living beings have a will to live. If it’s disturbing to watch this video of the whale being harpooned, watch some videos of slaughterhouses and factory farms– then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

In the meantime, check out Whale Wars.

As the title suggests, this post is not about food, despite this being a food blog.  I can’t help myself.  I am in ABSOLUTE SHOCK that our next President is African American.  Shocked in a good way, that is.  Wow!

Here in California, we had some other things going on that I’ve been keeping my eye on.  The first is Prop 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act.  While I don’t have strong feelings on this one way or the other, I was really hoping that it wouldn’t pass.  I was all for it at first, but the more I read about it, the more I have problems with it.

The law states that a farmer cannot tether or confine an animal for all or the majority of a day– that’s it.  The law covers any pig during pregnancy, egg-laying hen, or calf raised for veal.  Correct me if I’m wrong (and I may be, I don’t know), but do we really have a pork industry here in California?  By industry, I mean factory farm.  I don’t think we do, so the part that protects the pigs doesn’t really apply and, if it did, it only protects pregnant sows.  We do have the egg farms here and, because we have dairy farms and cows don’t spontaneously lactate, we have the veal industry.  So, egg-laying hens will now be able to spread both wings fully, without touching the cage or another hen.  And a veal calf will still be allowed to be tethered, but not for all or the majority of the day.  A person who violates will be fined $1,000 or put in jail for 180 days.  Great!  What a victory for animal rights.

My problems with this law are that it doesn’t protect any food animal during transport or during slaughter and that it will only slightly protect a select few of the billions of animals killed for food every year.  Hens will still have their beaks cut off.  Calves will still be separated from their mothers, and will still be castrated without anesthesia.  Wait– the biggest problem:  it won’t become effective until January 1, 2015!  Hello, we’re just going into 2009.  Read the law for yourself– it’s only 3 pages long.  It’s probably not as great as you were lead to believe it was.  Didn’t the Yes on Prop 2 commercials make you feel warm and fuzzy inside?!

Yes, it gets people thinking about where their food comes from and how the animals are treated, but now a person may feel less guilty about eating meat because Prop 2 has passed.  If you care enough about animals to have voted yes, I hope you realize that you can do more for the animals by (1) NOT EATING THEM and (2) by not consuming anything that they produce.  It’s really not that hard.

Now, let’s move on to Props 4 and 8, which are pretty even at this point, but 8 looks like it will pass while 4 looks like it will not.  Prop 8 will change the state Constitution to ban same sex marriages.  Prop 4 will require parental notification and a waiting period for any minor who wishes to terminate a pregnancy.  I voted NO on both for the same reasoning:  why do I need to be involved in someone else’s decision making?  The answer is that I don’t.  It’s not my business what people want to do with their lives; their decision to marry or have an abortion have no effect on me whatsoever.  I just don’t understand people’s obsession with interfering in other peoples’ lives and why, in the case of 8, they would want to write discrimination into our state’s Constitution.  I suppose they also think that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.  It’s absurd and I can’t believe that 8 is actually passing!

That’s it on this, I promise.  Food to come later.

Comments and discussion are welcome, by the way.

I posted recently about how much it disturbs me that Starbucks charges and extra 40 cents for soy milk.  To me, a drink price should be all-inclusive: tea/espresso, syrup and milk, no matter what you order.  Example: if I order a mocha, the price should be one price for the espresso, chocolate and milk regardless of whether I want cow’s milk or soy milk.  The soy milk option should be just that, an option, not something that one has to pay an additional 40 cents for.  It’s been bugging me for a while, so I decided to send Starbucks an email about it.

Why does this bother me so much??  Here is the response I got (probably automated).

Thank you for contacting Starbucks Coffee Company. I appreciate your comments regarding the pricing of soy milk at our retail locations.

Starbucks is committed to offering viable options for all of our valued customers; for this reason each of our retail locations is able to offer soy milk. Due to the higher cost of purchasing, stocking, and preparing this product, we do charge an additional fee for the substitution of soy milk.

Starbucks greatly values customer feedback, so we have shared your concerns about this decision with specialists in our Retail Operations department for their attention.

Just for my own curiosity, I’m going to figure out the cost difference between cow’s milk and soy milk.  I buy a quart of soy milk for about $1.50.  Four quarts equals one gallon, so a gallon of soy milk costs approximately $6.  A gallon of milk is about $4.  Okay, so soy milk is slightly more expensive to purchase, provided that Starbucks pays what we pay and doesn’t get a bulk discount (which I highly doubt).

I can’t imagine that it costs Starbucks anything to “stock” and “prepare” soy milk.  They come in aseptic containers.  It takes approximately a millisecond to put one on a shelf or to grab one off a shelf and open it.

Since I don’t drink coffee anymore, the only thing I get at Starbucks is an iced/hot tea or a chai.  The chai is what kills me.  A grande (medium) is $3.50.  Add on the soy milk and it costs $3.90.  The brand of chai mix that they use is sold at the store for about that price… and you get an entire quart of it!  So, you see, the markup is extreme.  When I’m already paying that much for a drink, throw me a bone and pick up the tab for the soy milk.

Or ham… or pork chops… or spam?

A worker slammed these piglets' heads against the floor and left them to die in a bin.

Enough to support this?  When you buy pork products (Hormel products)  you pretty much say that this treatment of pigs is acceptable:

“‘I hate them. These (expletives) deserve to be hurt. Hurt, I say!,’” the employee yells as he hits a sow with a metal rod. “Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! … Take out your frustrations on ‘em.” He encourages the investigator to pretend that one of the pigs scared off a voluptuous and willing 17- or 18-year-old girl, and then beat the pig for it.”

“At one point in the video, workers are shown slamming piglets on the ground, a practice designed to instantly kill those baby pigs that aren’t healthy enough. But on the video, the piglets are not killed instantly, and in a bloodied pile, some piglets can be seen wiggling vainly. The video also shows piglets being castrated, and having their tails cut off, without anesthesia.”

And, hello!, this is the norm for any factory farmed animal, not just pigs.  Every time you eat take a bite of that burger, or bacon, I hope this article comes to mind.  And, I came across this article totally randomly.  I logged out of my yahoo mail account and saw it as I scanned the headlines.  Sick!

Or, better yet, check out the video of this story on PETA’s website.  Are you still willing to eat animals knowing the torture they endure?  STOP TURNING A BLIND EYE… IGNORANCE OF THIS IS NOT BLISS.

Here are some of the “highlights”:

A supervisor shoved a cane into a sow’s vagina, struck her on the back about 17 times, and then struck another sow.

Multiple pigs were beaten with metal gate rods, and lacerations were found on more than 30 sows – which is probably evidence of more abuse.

A worker hit a young pig in the face four times with the edge of a herding board, and investigators witnessed dozens of similar incidents involving this worker and 11 other workers.

Two men – including a supervisor – were witnessed jabbing clothespins into pigs’ eyes and faces. A supervisor also poked two animals in the eyes with his fingers.

A supervisor kicked a young pig in the face, abdomen, and genitals to make her move and told PETA’s investigator, “You gotta beat on the bitch. Make her cry.”

A worker who weighed an estimated 315 lbs. punched a sow on the back three times and said that he sat on a sow’s head.

An employee sprayed blue paint into the nostrils and face of a sow for over 30 seconds.

Nice, isn’t it.  Bring on the bacon!

The moral of the story here is that you should (1) discontinue all use of Hormel products and (2) sign the petition at the end of the story.

In my last post, I talked about wanting to order some fun food picks and molds from this site, Ichiban Kan.  Imagine my surprise when I happened to come across an Ichiban Kan store about 10 minutes from my house!  What luck!  And I can’t believe I’ve lived her as long as I have and have never found it before.  I really must get out more.

I LOVE THIS STORE!  They had all sorts of cool stuff from dishes, to weird toys, to snacks, to cosmetics.  I ended up buying several packages of picks and little forks, a heart mold for rice or whatever, another rice mold, a heart cookie cutter, a star cookie cutter, and Emma picked out a banana bento box.  It’s really cute.  All of this for under $24.  Can you believe that?!

One thing that annoyed me:  they had brochures at the front giving away tickets to Ringling Bros.  I think it was some information on how one could win free tickets.  You all know how I feel about the circus and this rubbed me the wrong way.  The circus is horrible.  Other than that, this store was awesome!