Planted Fall 2014

FREE » Fall 2014

premiere issue!

Planted Veg Living and Farm Animal Protection in Greater Lansing

Cow on The run Steer finds home at SASHA Farm

college outreach

John Oberg coming to MSU

Jill Fritz: ‘No’ votes still help wolves

mobile hot spot

Purple Carrot dishes up veg options

Award-winning Mac & Cheese recipe

Coming together Unified effort is key to area’s veg community PLUS: Where to find vegan food

plantedmagazine.com

Planted

Fall 2014

Contents

Planted Vol. 1 Contributors Philip Douglas Jill Fritz Scott Harris Kurt Kwiatkowski John Oberg SASHA Farm Dave Trumpie

5 Produced using 100 percent wind energy and a carbon neutral process. Our paper is FSC certified and contains 60 percent post-consumer waste while the eco-inks are vegetable oil-based with nearly zero emission of volatile organics.

7

14 Feature

8 Volunteer Spotlight

14 Shaping the future

Growing activity adds momentum to Greater Lansing veg movement Plus: Where to eat

in every issue MSU student

an activist on campus

8 Celebrating animals

Printed in the United States of America. Please recycle.

commentary 12 Jill Fritz

Dig In

Worldwide veg-friendly events a time to educate 10 In Brief Michigan walk benefits national farm sanctuary

5 Veg eats on wheels

food

State politics hurt wolves, put voters’ rights at risk 13 John Oberg Grassroots activism creates real change for animals 21 Scott Harris Clashing beliefs, empathy at heart of eating meat

11 “Cheesy” comfort food

Speak Up

Purple Carrot aims to please plant-based diners 7 On the Farm in every issue Runaway steer saved from slaughter

Spartan culinary team develops award-winning recipe | Make it at home

Copyright © 2014 by Karma Louise Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited.

Contact us Publisher: info@karmapublishing.com Editorial: info@plantedmagazine.com Advertising: ads@plantedmagazine.com

4 Q&A, Your Picks & more

Why you became vegan

take note: Adopt-a-Turkey Project kicks off in October Each year around Thanksgiving, Farm Sanctuary gives people the opportunity to sponsor one of its rescued turkeys with a $30 donation. The money raised goes toward farm animal rescue and care, and helps the organization advocate for turkeys and other farm animals. Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s largest farm animal rescue and protection organization, with sanctuaries in New York and California, started the Adopt-a-Turkey Project in1986. Visit farmsanctuary.com/giving/adopt-a-turkey.

Planted | 2

On the Cover Guests fill up their plates at the Greater Lansing Vegan Dinner Club’s August potluck. Photo by Dave Trumpie

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Speak Up

What you’re doing, thinking and eating

q&a

Q

your eats ITALIAN OKARA MEATBALLS Makes 16-20 vegan meatballs

Why did you become vegan?

/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten /4 cup oatmeal, ground to a fine powder 1 /4 teaspoon oregano 1 /4 teaspoon thyme 1 /4 teaspoon celery salt 1 /2 cup fresh okara (soy pulp), as much

1

1

A | “I became vegan because it is a healthy choice for me and my children. I am also extremely passionate about the care and well-being of our animal friends.”

— Charity Selick, 22, Haslett A | “In summer 2012, I was fortunate to see the documentary ‘Forks Over Knives’ and learned that eating a vegan diet can not only keep disease and cancer from starting, but also has the ability to stop any that have started. I have been fighting multiple sclerosis since 2008, so it was a no-brainer for me to change my eating habits. Now I let the food be my medicine. I’m healthier than ever and look forward to a bright and healthy long life.”

— Cindy Sweeley, 48, Haslett A | “I became vegetarian some 45-plus years ago. I continued to eat eggs and dairy products, but discontinued those when I learned how many hormones and other chemicals are put into chickens and cows. In addition, they are fed GMOs, which Europe is now refusing to import from us. Besides the fact that chickens are often raised in ridiculously small cages and have their beaks cut

off, I also learned that humans are the only beings who use milk when they are mature.

While I don’t proselytize, I honestly believe the world would be much better by being vegan.”

— Chris Brown, 68, Lansing A | “I became vegan for good three years ago after going to a screening of ‘Earthlings’ shown by the MSU Graduate Students for Animals. I had a sense that if I watched this film and saw the reality of where animal products came from, I would never be able to eat them again, and I was right. Since then, I have joined PETA and have seen many other films that convey the same message, such as Paul McCartney’s ‘Glass Walls.‘ “ — Cheryl Caesar, 55, Lansing A | “I became vegan when I realized that animals’ eyes were not so different from mine. I was able to finally see their pain and feel their fears, and I decided that I didn’t want to be the cause of all this suffering anymore. All animals deserve the freedom that I have, and all animals deserve to live their lives with dignity because they, more than humans, deserve that since they’re not the cause of our planet’s destruction and degradation.”

— Giusy Adragna, 31, Lansing

liquid squeezed out as possible 1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire sauce 1 tablespoon ketchup 2 teaspoons yeast extract spread 2 cloves fresh garlic, smashed 1 /2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

brindle

A | “I became vegan when I realized the amount of suffering animals endure just so humans can have something momentarily on our taste buds. I concluded that with all the delicious plant-based options available, I could no longer support an industry that is so cruel to sentient beings. Plus, the health benefits (lower risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes) are a really great bonus.”

— Kate Brindle, 34, East Lansing Our next Q&A question is: “What is the biggest misconception people have about your vegan diet, and how do you respond?” Submit answers in 100 words or less along with your full name, age and city to info@ plantedmagazine.com. Photos are welcome but not required. Greater Lansing residents only.

1. Mix the dry ingredients, gluten flour, spices and oatmeal powder in a medium bowl.

2. Make a paste out of all the remaining ingredients by placing all but the okara in a spice mill or blender. Remove and stir in okara until mixed.

3. Add the okara mix to the dry mix, and stir until all of the ingredients begin to mix. You may use your hands, but be sure not to over-knead the dough.

4. Form dough into small balls, and steam for 25-30 minutes. When you’re ready to eat the meatballs, fry them in a little oil or add them to your favorite pasta sauce.

— Submitted by Sawyer Harris, a sophomore at Mason High School

quotable “The degree of activism is largely a function of individuals who make things happen.”

— Laura Dilley (Cover story, Page 14)

Your picks Send us your favorite vegan and/or farm animal protection-related picks. Email info@plantedmagazine.com.

product: “Yes To Tomatoes line. I’ve suffered from serious acne, especially while in the military. After years of product hopping, I figured if nothing works, I’ll at least use something I feel ethically good about. In two weeks, I had clearer skin and a clearer conscience.”

— Melisa Coto, 29, Lansing

food item: “My favorite vegan food item is coconut milk — although I strongly feel consumers should buy only the kind that is BPA-free — because it is one of the most sinful vegan foods out there. You can add it to soups, curries and desserts for a rich creaminess that tastes even better than dairy.”

— Melissa Nott, 41, Lansing

Planted | 4

documentary: “ ‘Food, Inc.’ It was a real eye-opener. It exposed the brutality of the way animals are handled and the ethics behind the meat industry. I mean Tyson won’t even let their farmers talk about their procedures. Just the fishiness of the whole thing really put me off eating meat and made me think twice about it.

— Matthew Karhoff, 22, Haslett

Dig In

News, notes & more

dining out

Food truck caters to veg crowd Plant-based fare a top menu feature at Greater Lansing’s Purple Carrot

V

egans and vegetarians always have options at The Purple Carrot Food Truck. Thanks to a vegan friend of co-owner Nina Santucci, the popular farm-to-truck stand has served an ever-changing variety of plantbased fare since opening in spring 2011.

Santucci, who started both the truck and later a restaurant with husband Anthony Maiale, says her friend was always complaining there wasn’t any good vegan food in the area. She decided to solve that problem by offering animal-free dishes that don’t take a backseat to the truck’s other menu items. Two months after the truck launched, her friend moved to California, but the vegan approach stuck.

“When you go out to eat and say you’re vegan, your only response is like an oily plate of noodles with some steamed vegetables on it, and it’s always an afterthought,” Santucci says. “So it kind of started with her, to say there’s always at least going to be something here. And we wanted to make the vegan and vegetarian food not be an afterthought, but be just as good, just as thoughtful, as the food we’re making with meat in it.

“We found there were a lot of other people who felt the same besides just her, and we got a really strong vegan and vegetarian following that made sense for us to continue to do it.”

Now in its fourth season, Purple Carrot is a fixture in the Greater Lansing food scene. The bright and colorful mobile dining destination — which sources locally grown ingredients for its cuisine — often sells out at its regular stops, including Spiral Dance Bar in Old Town, Hannah Office Center in East Lansing and the Meridian Township Farmers’ Market in Okemos.

Farmers’ markets are great for the truck, Santucci says, because customers there embrace the value of using Michigan

Lunch on wheels Customers order at Purple Carrot at the Meridian Township Farmers' Market in Okemos.

The tofu banh mi, left, is a popular vegan menu item.

Photo courtesy of Purple Carrot

foods: “It’s actually being grown by someone who’s cutting the greens by hand and seeding by hand, so it costs more than if I go to Meijer and get a big bag of lettuce mix. So the nice thing about farmers’ markets is those people who go there know what the products cost and what that means for our menu as well. It’s not like, $9 for a sandwich, oh my goodness.”

Santucci, an East Lansing native, and Maiale, weren’t initially sure their farmfresh concept would thrive in the area.

The couple lived and worked in the food industry in several progressive cit-

Planted | 5

ies, most recently Philadelphia, before returning to Santucci’s hometown to scope out potential spaces for their own restaurant. “I grew up here, but I hadn’t been here for about 10 years, and so the biggest thing I noticed coming back, it was a lot of chain restaurants,” she says.

“I had been living in larger cities where you get a more interesting food scene and a lot more independent businesses.

And so I kind of freaked out, like I don’t know if what we want to do is going to fly in this town.”

Around the same time, the Great Food Truck Race was in its first season on the Food Network channel. Santucci joked that the people on the show are going out on their truck and making a ton of money, and that she and Maiale could do that. »

Dig In carrot | Continued from Page 5 Santucci’s dad — who’s always looking for a deal, she says — bought a food truck on Craigslist within a week. “And I was like, oh, I guess we’re doing this,” she recalls.

The couple’s plan was to have the truck in Lansing for part of the summer and Traverse City — where Santucci’s family has a cherry farm — for the remainder of it. They wanted to see where their concept worked to determine the best location for their original goal, a brick-andmortar restaurant.

Once Purple Carrot launched, business took off. It never made it to Traverse City. “Pretty much when we opened the truck here, after about a week, it was crazy,” Santucci says. “And within about a month we would wake up, go out for a couple of hours and sell out. It was like a blessing and a curse. It was exciting to be busy, but it was like, gosh, we just sold all of our food, and we have to do this all over again.”

Vegan and vegetarians have supported the truck from the start. In its first year, Purple Carrot was voted America’s Favorite Vegetarian Food Truck by readers of Mobile Cuisine, an online trade magazine.

“I think a lot of the people who come and are vegan or vegetarian are really excited we even have vegan or vegetarian options, and that we consistently, every week, have at least one vegan option and one vegetarian option,” says Haslett resident Michelle Schimpke, who has worked on the truck since 2012. “We change the menu every week, so it’s not like they get the same thing every week or just a salad.

We mix it up.”

One of the truck’s popular vegan items — and Santucci’s favorite — is the tofu banh mi, a Vietnamese sandwich with marinated tofu, lentil-walnut pate, sriracha aioli, pickled vegetables and cilantro.

“That’s like a craveable sandwich,” Santucci says. “It’s got the sour flavors from the pickled vegetables, and you get the spicy, too. It’s awesome. The one thing I really like about that is a lot of people don’t like tofu, and it’s an easy way to convert people because it just tastes good.”

Other top plant-based favorites include beet falafel — made with Michigan white beans instead of chickpeas — and

tofu scramble breakfast enchiladas with house-made salsa and vegan queso.

Lansing vegans Lisa Ossian and Aryan Pedawia appreciate that Purple Carrot caters to their diet. Ossian, an ethical vegan for eight years, discovered the truck online while Googling for vegan restaurants in the area. The couple first ate there two years ago at a farmers’ market in East Lansing and have been regulars ever since.

“We can find some (vegan meals) if we modify things at most places we go, but here we don’t have to worry about contamination,” says Pedawia, an ethical vegan for about two and a half years.

so we’ll do a couple of stops in Lansing and places like that.”

Akin to the truck, the restaurant is also vegan- and vegetarian-friendly. But whereas the truck follows a mold — each day there is at least one vegan soup, one vegan sandwich and a salad that’s almost always vegetarian — the veg options at the restaurant are based more on seasonal foods. Summer, when the local produce is changing every week, is the best time for plant-based eaters to dine at Red Haven. Then, the menu is heavily vegetable-focused as opposed to in winter when more meat and dairy are available.

“More so for the restaurant, we choose the ingredients first, and the menu kind of folvegan lows, but we always have regulars options,” Santucci says.

Lisa Ossian and Aryan “For example, we have a Pedawia hold birthday cake on our destheir lunches sert menu. Every month at the Meridit’s a different flavor, and ian Township it’s always vegan. So it’s Farmers’ just something that if Market. The you come in, and you’re couple, both vegan, there’s always ethical vegans from Lansing, something you can get say they like for dessert.”

Purple Carrot’s Santucci and Maiale, tofu banh mi the executive chef, enjoy and tempeh experimenting with vegmeatball sub. an dishes. Maiale, she says, has “the crappiest palette, in a sense” — due ¬ on the move Find to his love of very AmerPurple Carrot’s next stop: “That’s something ican food — so it’s been fun thepurplecarrottruck.com we always have seeing what he comes up with to worry about at for the menus. His vegan and other places. You tell them no dairy, but vegetarian creations often transcend there’s a little bit of Parmesan on there. faux-meat replicas.

You don’t have to worry about that here.”

“A lot of times when you get vegetarThe success of the truck led to Red Ha- ian foods, it ends up being a substitute ven, the couple’s farm-to-table restaurant for meat,” she says. “I think a lot of peoin Okemos, which opened in fall 2012. ple who choose to eat that diet are not Although the truck and restaurant have looking for something that tastes like a a different following and atmosphere — hamburger. It’s very easy to be like, OK, Red Haven is more upscale, Purple CarI’m going to make a vegan chicken sandrot more family-friendly — the two com- wich that tastes like a chicken sandwich. plement each other well.

I think it’s kind of nice to maybe have For one, Santucci says, it’s easier to that at times, but to also have the ability operate a food truck with a restaurant to make food that is good just because kitchen in which to prepare the food. it’s good, not because it tastes like maybe Purple Carrot isn’t equipped for heavy what you wanted to have.” cooking so much of the food is prepared That theory might explain why some before it arrives at its destination. Sec- meat eaters enjoy the truck’s veg-friendond, the truck serves as a way to market ly options. As Santucci points out, good Red Haven and to expand the restau- food is good food, plant-based or not: “I rant’s customer base. “If we want to think it’s nice we’ve turned a lot of peopromote something,” she says, “I can ple onto vegetarian food who wouldn’t hand out a flier with each meal. Plus, normally go for it.” p we have the ability to get farther out, — By Planted staff

Planted | 6

On the farm Runaway steer twice escapes slaughter In mid-March, we got an interesting email from a man in Chicago about a runaway steer. The Chicago man, Duane Thamm, was watching his local news when a story flashed up about a steer who escaped a slaughterhouse in Casselton, N.D. The steer had a four-hour adventure wandering through people’s backyards until he was tranquilized and caught, then returned to his owner so he could again be sent to slaughter once the tranquilizer wore off.

This story of the steer breaking out to freedom, even if for only four hours, touched Thamm’s heart. Thamm felt he had to do something, so he jumped into action and tracked down the steer’s owner. Thamm got the owner to agree to give up the steer if he found a sanctuary where the steer could go.

That’s where SASHA Farm became involved. One of our first reactions was, “How have we not heard about this?” We’d rescued a few other slaughterhouse escapees in the past. As we read the email and then saw the news footage of the steer peeking around the corner of someone’s house while on the loose, we decided we had to help.

We spent a week and a half negotiating with the farmer who owned the steer. He would let the steer come to SASHA Farm, but not without a price. He wanted money for the steer, because to him, the steer was his property he was giving up. SASHA Farm does not pay for

MEET FARGO Fargo will live out his life at SASHA Farm in the company of other rescued animals.

Photo submitted

by SASHA Farm

animals so Thamm’s sister, Brenda Kocim, also an animal rights advocate, gave the farmer money.

Kocim and Thamm did not want to see Fargo go back to slaughter after he’d come this far, so we made arrangements to go to North Dakota to get the steer. It was a 13-hour drive one way, but we had to do it.

SASHA Farm co-founder Monte Jackson made the trip nonstop to

about sasha farm — SASHA Farm in Manchester is the Midwest's largest farm animal sanctuary. The nonprofit organization provides shelter, food, veterinary care, affection and security to more than 200 farm animals, each with their own story to tell. Visit sashafarm.org or call (734) 428-9617.

Planted | 7

pick up the steer.

The steer arrived at SASHA Farm and was greeted by our volunteers and friends. We named him Fargo because that’s where he came from.

Fargo will live out his life at SASHA Farm free from harm with the company of our other cows. At SASHA Farm, Fargo is a “someone” and not a “something.”

— Submitted by SASHA Farm

upcoming Events: Fall in Love with SASHA — Sept. 28 Farm Tour Days — Oct. 19 Annual Benefit Banquet — Nov. 7 Volunteer Orientation — Monthly

Dig In

Volunteer Spotlight MSU student on going veg, helping animals When did you learn about the plight of farm animals used for food?

The first realization I had was in my senior year of high school when I was around 18 years old. I had toyed with the idea of becoming vegetarian for a couple of months — and it had occurred to me throughout my high school career — but since I wasn’t the one who did the cooking in the household and really had no idea how to prepare strictly vegetarian meals, I never actually tried a vegetarian lifestyle.

For some reason, in March 2012, I began looking into it a little bit more. I was struck by the video “Glass Walls” narrated by Paul McCartney, who said that if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan or vegetarian. McCartney tells a story about a fishing trip he took years before becoming vegetarian. He said his moment of realization was as he was reeling in a fish and thought, as it was fighting for breath, that the fish’s life was “as important to him as mine is to me.”

That quote really stuck with me. I looked through more on Meat.org, which featured the “Glass Walls” video, and the next day I became vegetarian. I couldn’t bear the thought that some of the most intelligent animals on the planet were being treated so unethically.

What made you decide to become involved in animal advocacy?

My initial interest in anything to do with animals actually had nothing to do with factory farming or the ethics of eating meat. It was reading “The Lost Dogs,” a story about the rescue and rehabilitation of the dogs involved in Michael Vick’s fighting ring in 2007.

This story got me interested in animal rescue, and I began volunteering with a pit bull-specific rescue in Rochester, N.Y. (where I am from), called Pitty Love Rescue. I handled dogs at

awareness Q&A with Alexis Hinson

meet alexis Alexis Hinson is a student at Michigan State University where she is majoring in psychology and double minoring in cognitive science, and environmental studies and sustainability. She is president of Protecting Animal Welfare, a student organization that educates the public about animal welfare issues, and welfare manager of the Student Organic Farm Pastured Pig Project, which brings gestating sows out of confinement to give birth on MSU’s Student Organic Farm. She also volunteers at Ingham County Animal Shelter and hopes to earn a master’s degree in animal behavior.

adoption events and trained foster dogs on the weekends through positive reinforcement. This was in December 2011. I also adopted two rescue cats that month who completely stole my heart. They helped me to see how helpless animals really are when it comes to neglect. It brings me to tears thinking my two boys, Moo and Taz — some of the most personality-filled cats you will ever meet — could have been put down due to a lack of shelter space.

In March 2012, I became more interested in the plight of animals in factory farms. At Michigan State University, I was able to expand my animal welfare interests to working with and learning about farm animals through the Student Organic Farm Pastured Pig Project and by beginning the undergraduate group Protecting Animal Welfare, or PAW. In what ways do you volunteer your time to help animals?

I am an advocate and educator of MSU’s Pastured Pig Project. Each year, we bring two gilts (first-time moms) out of confinement and onto the Student Organic Farm, on the southern edge of MSU’s campus. Per organic certification regulations, »

Planted | 8

World celebrations a chance to educate Oct. 1 kicks off two months of animal-friendly celebrations, making it an opportune time to spread the word in local communities about veg living and animal rights.

Here are a few dates to observe: World Vegetarian Day, Oct. 1, is the annual start to World Vegetarian Awareness Month. It was founded by the North American Vegetarian Society in 1977 and endorsed by the International Vegetarian Union in 1978. Visit worldvegetarianday.org.

World Day for Farmed Animals, Oct. 2, was launched by Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) in 1983 to expose the suffering of animals used for food. The day honors the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. Visit dayforanimals.org.

World Animal Day, Oct. 4, originated in 1931 at a convention of ecologists in Florence, Italy, who wanted to highlight the plight of endangered species. Oct. 4 was the chosen day because it is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

Visit worldanimalday.org.uk.

World Vegan Day, Nov. 1, is the annual start to World Vegan Month. It was established in 1994

by British animal activist and vegan Louise Wallis, then president of the Vegan Society, to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Kingdom organization. Visit vegansociety.com.

There are a number of ways to locally honor these global occasions:  Host an event, such as a vegan potluck or film screening.  Leaflet or set up an information table at a high-traffic public place.

Booklets and other literature are available from many major animal protection and pro-veg organizations.  Write a letter to the editor or place an ad in a local publication.  Encourage restaurants and stores to highlight veg-friendly items.  Give an educational presentation to a local group.  Share the occasion online and in-person with friends and family.

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Made with

Dig In Spotlight | Continued from Page 8 they must be on our organic land for the last third of their gestation. A pig gestation is three months, three weeks and three days. We usually bring out our pigs a month and a half before parturition (giving birth). It’s one of the most beautiful things to see our gilts begin rooting in the soil within moments of stepping off the trailer.

These animals have never been outdoors, never seen sunlight or dirt. Pigs are such curious animals, and it is incredibly joyous and rewarding to see them carrying out their natural behaviors of rooting, nest building and socializing with one another within minutes of being on our farm.

They then give birth in deep straw bedding. The farrowing process is an important learning experience for vet students, future farmers and animal welfare advocates like myself who are present for the farrowing and see ourselves working with animals in the future. The piglets nurse for about a month and a half before we begin to rotate them through our organic pastures.

The best part is, while the land provides incredible, natural enrichment for the pigs, these animals also root up the soil and perennial weeds, as well as fertilize the fields in the process.

In the meantime, doing this gives students, Community Supported Agriculture members and anyone else who is interested, the opportunity to interact with these animals and observe natural pig behavior. I am currently doing a study on pigs that looks at nursing patterns and behaviors, as well as social

contact between sows on pasture.

In addition to this, I began PAW in 2013. PAW is an undergraduate group dedicated to promoting animal welfare and awareness on campus as well as volunteering with animals. We volunteer at Ingham County Animal Shelter walking dogs, socializing cats and handling animals at adoption events. We also hold movie screenings on campus each semester; we’ve shown the documentaries “Earthlings” and “Black Fish.”

“Pigs are such curious animals, and it is incredibly joyous and rewarding to see them carrying out their natural behaviors of rooting, nest building and socializing with one another within minutes of being on our farm.”

Why do you, a vegetarian, support a project that encourages eating animals?

I support a project that works toward raising animals ethically and provides an alternative narrative to the current way industrial agriculture functions. I think if you’re going to eat meat, it is your responsibility to be sure the meat is raised in a humane way. It is important for consumers to know where their meat comes from, how it is raised and all of the effort that goes into it. One of my favorite quotes by a hero of mine, Temple Grandin, sums

this up very well. Grandin said, “I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we’ve got to do it right. We’ve got to give those animals a decent life, and we’ve got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.” While I don’t eat meat, I think that is a solid quote that really helps represent what our Pastured Pig Project stands for. I support a welfare-based livestock system and small-scale organic farmers who are working to bring farming back to its roots.

What is your advice to others who want to work to benefit animals?

My best piece of advice is to keep an open mind and to try to see the good in every situation. I came to MSU very weary of joining the Pastured Pig Project because I didn’t want to be involved in a project that supports the consumption of meat. It wasn’t until I toured a factory farm that I realized the incredible importance of our work at the Student Organic Farm and with the Pastured Pig Project, and our responsibility to show students and consumers alternative methods of agriculture.

At the same time, though, there has to be communication between both sides. There is an understandable, yet impeding divide, between intensive and extensive farming that separates the two into different worlds. And yes, it could go on this way, but doing so is only going to create a more divided pathway, when in reality, we could accomplish a lot more if there was communication between disciplines. No system is absolutely perfect, and we can learn from one another.

in brief Farm animal walk Oct. 5 Farm Sanctuary’s 2014 Walk for Farm Animals in Grand Rapids is from 2-4:30 p.m. Oct. 5 at 6th Street Bridge Park, 627 Monroe Ave. The 2.9-mile, roughly onehour walk starts at 2 p.m. and is followed by a celebration that includes music, vegan food and guest speaker Jill Fritz, Michigan State Director of the Humane Society of the United States. Early registration through Oct. 4 is $15; event-day registration is $25.

Children younger than age 18 walk for free. Event proceeds benefit Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s largest farm animal rescue and protection organization. Visit walkforfarmanimals.org.

SASHA benefit Nov. 7 Enjoy a vegan dinner and hear stories about rescued farm animals during SASHA Farm’s annual Benefit Banquet.

The fundraiser, which also includes an auction and cash bar, is from 6-9:30 p.m.

Nov. 7 at The Meeting House, 499 S. Main St., in Plymouth. Tickets are $100 and must be purchased by Nov. 3. Email banquet@sashafarm.org or call (248) 842-5447. SASHA Farm is the Midwest’s largest farm animal sanctuary.

Monthly potlucks in E. lansing Meet other vegans, vegetarians and veg-curious people at the Greater Lansing Vegan Dinner Club’s monthly potlucks from 6-8 p.m. the first Sunday of

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each month at the Clerical Technical Union of Michigan State University, 2990 E. Lansing Lake Road, in East Lansing.

Each adult is asked to bring a vegan dish that serves eight and a recipe card for entry into a drawing to win a “Forks Over Knives” DVD. Dinnerware and serving spoons are provided. Contact coordinators Rhea Linn at vegmichigangreaterlansing@yahoo.com or Marian Erickson at marian.erickson@yahoo.com.

NOTE: The October potluck is Oct. 11.

VegFest 2015 date set VegMichigan’s annual VegFest Vegan Tastefest and Expo is April 19 at Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.

Food

Crowd-pleasing comfort Michigan State wins silver for vegan recipe Student input was the catalyst for Michigan State University’s Award-Winning Vegan Mac and Cheese.

The school’s culinary team won silver for the dish in the best vegan recipe category in the National Association of College & University Food Services’ 2014 Nutrition Awards. The awards recognize universities with a strong vegetarian program that incorporates healthy vegan recipes in its menus.

“The recipe came about a couple of years ago actually, when a couple of students asked me to start experimenting with nutritional yeast,” says Kurt Kwiatkowski, corporate chef for MSU Culinary Services. “We had run it a couple of times and then pulled it for such a low response to the dish.

“Fast forward a couple of years when we were looking at vegan recipes, this popped back up and it was time to look at it again, adjust and improve the recipe by a lot. It has been run a couple of times and seems to be enjoyed.”

Award-Winning Vegan Mac and Cheese Makes 10 servings 16-ounce box of pasta (elbow or cavatappi) 1 tablespoon oil 3/4 cup carrot (about 1 whole carrot), diced 3/4 cup celery (about 2 stalks), diced 2 cups red onions (about 2 onions), diced 1 tablespoon garlic, minced 11/2 cups potatoes (about 2 potatoes), peeled and diced 3 tablespoons chardonnay wine 21/4 cups water 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk 11/2 teaspoons vegetable bouillon 1/2 cup roasted red peppers, diced 1/2 cup unsalted cashews 1/4 cup nutritional yeast 11/3 tablespoons sriracha sauce 11/2 teaspoons oil 11/2 teaspoons lemon juice 1 teaspoon ground turmeric 11/2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon pepper 4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced 1/2 cup Roma tomatoes (about 1 tomato), diced 11/4 cups panko 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped 1. Cook pasta according to the package directions. Set aside.

2. Heat oil in a small kettle or large sauce pan. Add diced carrots, celery and red onion, and sauté for 10 minutes.

3. Add garlic, and sauté for two minutes.

4. Add potatoes, white wine, water, coconut milk and bouillon. Simmer until potatoes are tender and bouillon is dissolved.

5. To make the sauce, combine the above ingredients (excluding the pasta) with the roasted red peppers, cashews, nutritional yeast, sriracha, oil, lemon juice, turmeric, salt and pepper, and heat through. Remove from heat, and purée all ingredients with a blender or food processor until smooth.

6. Toss cooked pasta with the sauce, mixing to evenly coat. Reserve warm.

7. Heat some additional oil in a sauté pan or flattop. Add and sauté mushrooms for three minutes. Add and sauté tomatoes for two minutes. Stir vegetables into the pasta mixture and evenly mix.

8. Place the pasta mixture into a sprayed pan or dish. Top with panko.

9. Bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes or until panko is golden brown, and the pasta mixture is heated through.

10. Garnish with parsley.

— Submitted by Chef Kurt Kwiatkowski

Healthy choice MSU’s veggiepacked mac and cheese joins the school’s growing menu of vegan food options.

Photo courtesy of MSU Culinary Services

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Commentary/legislation

Jill Fritz Michigan wolves in the crosshairs In October 2012, not long general election ballot. after wolves in the Great Lakes Michiganders were confident the voters region had been removed from would reject that legislation allowing our federal Endangered Species Act state’s wolves to be hunted for trophies. But protection and placed under state the thing is, some legislators knew that, too. So management, legislation was only weeks after the ballot petition signatures introduced to add the wolf to the list of game had been turned in, they introduced a second species — ultimately leading to Michigan’s bill allowing the unelected Natural Resources first wolf hunting season.

Commission to designate game species — Wolf experts, hunters, conservation circumventing a citizen vote on the issue and and humane organizations, and Michigan allowing the wolf hunt to move forward. Legisresidents from across the state immediately lators trotted out baseless stories about wolves objected to a hunting season threatening Upper Peninsula on the state’s small and fragile residents, but opposing testimony In the 2006 population of wolves. Several from wolf scientists, conservation Michigan general and humane groups, and Native pointed out that Michigan already allows for lethal control of American tribes about the true election, more problem wolves, and the state’s nature of wolves was once again people voted Department of Natural Recontemptuously dismissed or to overturn a sources provides guard animals ignored, and the bill became law law that placed and materials to deter predators on May 8, 2013. from livestock. Up to this point, Less than two weeks later, the mourning doves wolf attacks on livestock were signatures submitted by Keep under the gun extremely rare, and when it did Michigan Wolves Protected for a than voted for happen, farmers were compenreferendum on the first bill desigthe governor of sated for the market value of nating the wolf as a game species the state. their animals and could obtain were certified by the Secretary of a permit to kill other wolves on State, and the law designating the their property. Native Ameriwolf as a game species was put on can tribes submitted resolutions urging the hold until the November 2014 general eleclegislature not to open a hunting season on tion. But, as expected, the NRC soon exercised “Ma’ingan” — their brother the wolf. its new power and held a vote to redesignate Despite all of this, the bill was rushed the wolf as a game species and to establish through the legislature’s lame-duck session Michigan’s first wolf hunting season. Interand became law on Dec. 27, 2012. estingly, while phrases like “scientific wildlife But Michigan voters have a rare oppormanagement” and “let the experts decide” were tunity to correct such mistakes made by the thrown around, ultimately the only member legislature by enacting a “veto referendum” of the commission with an advanced degree in vote. If enough petition signatures are natural resources management provided the collected on an issue within 90 days of the sole “no” votes on both issues. Nonetheless, the adjournment of the last legislative session, wolf hunt was back on. that newly enacted law can be put on hold Keep Michigan Wolves Protected had no until residents can vote on it in the next choice but to announce it would conduct a general election. This tool was previously referendum on that second law, too, and in used in 2006 to protect the gentle mournspring 2014, submitted nearly 230,000 more ing dove from hunting; in that election voter signatures to | Continued on Page 22 year, more citizens voted to overturn that law placing the bird of peace under the gun Jill Fritz joined the Humane Society of the United than voted for the governor of the state.

States in 2006 as the Minnesota/Wisconsin State With that in mind, Keep Michigan Wolves Director and is now the Michigan Senior State DiProtected was formed to overturn the law rector. Before returning to her native Midwest, Jill designating the wolf as a game species, and was a producer, director and editor at San Diego in just 67 days, thousands of volunteers public radio affiliate KPBS, winning 10 first-place collected roughly 255,000 voter signatures journalism awards for her work. She was also presto place that issue on the November 2014 ident of San Diego Animal Advocates.

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By the

numbers

2012

Year wolves in the Great Lakes region were removed from federal Endangered Species Act protection. The species was first put on the list in 1973 when six wolves remained in Michigan.

255,000

Approximate number of petition signatures collected in 2013 to oppose a wolf hunt and put the issue on the 2014 ballot.

230,000

Approximate number of petition signatures collected in 2014 to oppose a wolf hunt and put the issue on the 2014 ballot.

0

Number of reported wolf attacks on humans in Michigan.

22

Number of wolves killed during Michigan’s first wolf hunt, from Nov. 15, 2013 to Dec. 31, 2013.

— keepwolvesprotected.com

stay updated

 Follow the fight for wolves at keepwolvesprotected.com.  See the Nov. 4 ballot at michigan.gov/vote.

Commentary/advocacy

John Oberg Maximize your impact with Vegan Outreach We love animals. We love all animals — not just cats, dogs and rabbits but also pigs, cows and chickens. This doesn’t make us any different from the majority of society. Polls consistently show that Americans believe that farm animals deserve protection and that these creatures don’t deserve harm.

What does separate us a bit from most Americans, however, is that we have changed our behavior in a way that truly reflects these values. As vegetarians and vegans, we choose to extend our circle of compassion to our plates, not just to the words that come out of our mouths.

For those interested in making this world a more animal-friendly place, there’s good news. More Americans, every day, are choosing to leave animals off their plates. Veg options are becoming more prominent everywhere from the grocery store to the fast-food restaurant. From the school cafeteria to the annual work picnic. From vegan Sofritas (braised, shredded tofu) at Chipotle restaurants to plant-based Field Roast frankfurters at the new San Francisco 49ers football stadium, veg food is becoming more prominent not just by the year, but more like the month.

This isn’t happening by accident. It’s happening because the long-held veil of

oberg’s leafleting tips  Find a spot with good foot traffic and stand there, particularly in the middle of the walkway as you can reach more people that way. My favorite spots at MSU are the foot bridge between Wells Hall and the Computer Center, and at either side of the Farm Lane bridge.  Have one quick, short line. Mine is “Help animals” or “Info to help animals.” When you say it, make a statement, not a question. Your goal isn’t to stop them; your goal is to hand them a booklet, then move on to the next student.  Smile, and when you extend your arm, extend it fully.  Don’t concentrate on people who decline a booklet; be excited about those who accept one.

secrecy that animal agriculture has held over the treatment of farm animals is being lifted up higher and higher.

Communication now flows faster than ever, and people’s food choices are reflecting this growing awareness. Given the knowledge of what’s really going on behind the closed doors of factory farms and slaughterhouses around the country, many are choosing to eat cruelty-free at a faster rate than ever.

Each year, there are billions of farm

animals raised and slaughtered to be eaten. They have virtually no protections under the law and face lives of cruel confinement, mutilation and suffering. One painful example of this cruelty is the fact that hatcheries discard baby male chicks simply because they’re useless to the egg industry. One common method of “chick culling” is dropping the unwanted male chicks into a giant grinder while they’re fully conscious. It’s a disturbing practice that happens to millions of chicks every year.

That’s where you come in. By choosing to eat plant-based food, you’re setting an example to others. You’re a symbol of compassion and empathy, and your purchasing power makes a huge difference.

You vote with your dollar, and when you choose to boycott animal products, you’re making a real difference in animals’ lives.

But there’s more. | Continued on Page 22 John Oberg, a Detroit native, is the director of communications for Vegan Outreach. He runs VO’s social media presence, and plays a key role in developing the look and content of its booklets and merchandise as well as its strategy. John has also leafleted extensively throughout North America and to date has given out more than 370,000 booklets since getting involved with activism in 2009.

campus activism

Students, others welcome to join Oberg at MSU Vegan Outreach’s John Oberg will return this fall to Michigan State University for another round of grassroots activism. Oberg has leafleted at the campus twice: once in November 2013 when he and fellow activist Phil Letten distributed 2,562 pamphlets and again in April 2013 when he handed out 1,775.

“The reception was great — even for a school with a large agricultural program, I faced little resistance to the

message,” Oberg says of past visits to MSU. “The vast majority of individuals either politely accepted or politely declined a booklet. No rude comments were made, no voices were raised, and many students were happily reached.”

Students and others — both firsttime and experienced leafleters — are welcome to join Oberg while he’s on campus. Oberg’s advice to hesitant leafleters is to just get out there and do it.

“Push yourself out of your comfort

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zone — that’s where all the magic happens,” he says. After you hand out your first booklet you’ll realize how easy it is and feel rather empowered knowing you can open so many hearts and minds in such a minimal amount of time. You’ll likely be happily surprised to see that students really do care about animals.”

Those who want to leaflet with Oberg may email him at johno@veganoutreach.org.

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Building a

Movement Activists lay groundwork for strong veg community

A

fter several years as vegans in the Lansing area, Marian Erickson and Rhea Linn grew tired of feeling alone. Erickson, discouraged by a lack of animal-free restaurant options, teamed up with Scott Harris, another seasoned vegan, to launch a monthly potluck. “I started it because I wanted to be around people like me,” she says of the dinner group, which began meeting in 2010.

Linn, meanwhile, reached out to established veg communities in Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids. She made a lot of connections but ultimately decided to help grow the movement locally. Linn worked with VegMichigan, the state’s largest pro-veg nonprofit organization, to become its Greater Lansing area coordinator, and in fall 2013, she contacted Erickson. “I approached her in hopes of joining our efforts,” she says. “Thankfully, she was excited to partner up, and we have been working together ever since.”

With its VegMichigan sponsorship, the Greater Lansing Vegan Dinner Club is attracting new faces and has the resources to expand its activism. The club boasts more than 200 members in its online Meetup group, and Linn and Erickson say about 15-25 people

Photos by Dave Trumpie

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come to a typical potluck. “We have more regular people who come back now,” says Erickson, who recalls that early potlucks consisted mostly of her and Harris’ friends and family.

Plans for the club — which recently added restaurant night to its repertoire and held a well-attended film screening of “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret” — include cooking demos and leafleting. “VegMichigan does a lot of activities, and I want to bring that to Greater Lansing,” Linn says. “I want it to be fun for people to learn about being vegan and know they can do it and why, not just suffer by themselves trying to figure it out.”

Rhea Linn, left, prepares her dish for the Greater Lansing Vegan Dinner Club’s August potluck. The group meets monthly in East Lansing.

Movement The group’s growing ambition might add some momentum to Greater Lansing’s veg scene. “The degree of activism is largely a function of individuals who make things happen,” says longtime animal rights activist and vegan Laura Dilley, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of communicative sciences and disorders at Michigan State University. “If you have a few people who are interested in working for an organization or working toward a common goal, then a small number of people can get a lot done.” Jamie Qualls, who served on VegMichigan’s board of directors in metro Detroit before moving to East Lansing to pursue a medical degree, learned the best way to encourage involvement is to have a group spearhead a movement. “Then, if there were more places to go and things to do, it would make it a little easier for the group to build a veg community,” she says. “In the Detroit area, VegMichigan is responsible for much of the community involvement, with VegFest, the monthly dinner club, events, presentations, potlucks, etc. This could easily be implemented in the Lansing area as well. Maybe with a few small events, it could grow like VegMichigan did.”

Qualls came to MSU in 2012 to attend the school’s College of Osteopathic Medicine and obtain a master’s degree in public health and is now back in Detroit completing her dual degrees at one of MSU’s satellite campuses. She became active in metro Detroit’s veg community after transitioning to a vegan diet for ethical reasons in 2006.

During that time, she attended conferences where she met Neal Barnard, T. Colin Campbell and other leading plant-based nutrition physicians whose work inspired her to abandon her career in marketing to follow both her passion for helping people prevent chronic disease and lifelong dream of becoming a doctor.

Her impression of Greater Lansing is that it doesn’t compare yet to what she’s experienced in metro Detroit. She had a hard time finding places to eat and never came across an actual veg community. “Being a college-town area, I was surprised to see there are relatively few vegan- and vegetarian-friendly businesses in the area,” Qualls says. “I think part of the reason for the slower transition is because the area surrounding Lansing is much more rural than metro Detroit. A lot of people there take pride in the MSU agriculture program. It seemed like everywhere I drove, I saw bumper stickers that said ‘Eat Spartan Beef.’ ” When Dilley moved to the area in 2009 to teach at MSU, she came across a few individuals who were involved in animal

Members of the Greater Lansing Vegan Dinner Club share food and conversation. An assortment of books and cookbooks, at left, comprise the group’s community library.

rights and vegetarianism but not an organized group. “There was a small active community that was somewhat fragmented,” she recalls. Dilley — who earned her doctorate in speech and hearing bioscience and technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University — relocated from Toledo, where she started a meetup group for vegans and

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vegetarians and was a faculty adviser and founding member of the Bowling Green State University vegetarian group. Before that, she worked with the nonprofit animal rights organization Mercy for Animals in Columbus, Ohio, and as a college student, served as president of her school’s vegetarian club and volunteered with the Boston Vegetarian Society.

At MSU, Dilley sees a lot of student and faculty support for animal rights and vegetarianism, but says there is room for improvement in terms of group development. In 2010, Dilley helped found the student-run Vegan and Vegetarian Club at MSU and is its faculty adviser. The group

“If you have a few people who are interested in working for an organization or working toward a common goal, then a small number of people can get a lot done.”

— laura dilley

exists now as a Facebook community and is not as active as it used to be. “The Facebook group has hovered around 60 (members) since it formed as a campus group,” she says, “but the number of vegetarians at Michigan State is much larger and reaching the campus community in the best way has been a challenge.” In the past, the group hosted movie screenings, held cooking nights, leafleted on campus and sponsored a visit from “Eating Animals” author

Jonathan Safran Foer. The interest to do more is there, says Dilley, but leadership is lacking: “I think there’s an equal or even larger amount of interest, and there just needs to be people who come forward to foster that interest at Michigan State.”

Cricket Lott, who runs the Lansing Raw Food Potluck Group she started in 1998, makes an active effort to keep her members engaged and to generate new interest. Her group, which has more than 250 online

Meetup followers, gets together monthly to eat, share raw vegan recipes and hear various speakers. “I think keeping the speakers relevant, continuously inviting new people and encouraging others to invite to the potluck has kept it going,” she says. “There are some people who have been coming for a long time, but others come and go, and new people take their place.”

Lott switched to a raw food diet in 1997 when a family member was diagnosed with cancer. She learned about the benefits of raw food through books and a weeklong stay at the Creative Health Institute in Union City.

Seeking recipes to support her newfound lifestyle, she gathered a few people around her dining room table to swap and share raw food dishes. “We started inviting other

Vegan dinner club: What, when and where?

The Greater Lansing Vegan Dinner Club meets from 6-8 p.m. the first Sunday of each month at the Clerical Technical Union of Michigan State University, a space group founder Marian Erickson acquired rent-free by way of her friendship with the union’s

president. Attendees are asked to bring a vegan dish that serves eight and a recipe for entry into a drawing to win a “Fork Over Knives” DVD. Recipes are posted on the group’s online Meetup site. During the event, people eat, mingle, peruse vegan

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literature provided by VegMichigan and borrow books from the group’s community library. Sometimes, a short educational film is shown. For potluck guidelines and other information, visit meetup.com/ vegmichigan-greater-lansing.

Movement people, and it grew too large for my table, so we moved to the church where we still meet,” she says. “Then we started having a speaker and wearing name tags, and at our peak we would have 70 to 80 people. Typically now we have 30 to 50.”

Linn and Erickson also do a lot of legwork to attract a wider audience to the Greater Lansing Vegan Dinner Club, including distributing fliers around the area, spreading the word by mouth, advertising in the Lansing State Journal and City Pulse, and posting events on VegMichigan’s online calendar. “This has resulted in new, younger people joining us,” Linn says. “They are interested in learning about a plant-based diet and like the support and camaraderie that is available at our monthly event.”

The dinner club, which meets monthly in East Lansing, draws a variety of people, “from all walks of life, for varying reasons,” Linn says. “Many are concerned about their personal health, while others are concerned about the planet and the animals.”

The club also introduces cruelty-free eating to non-vegans, including those who regularly attend the potlucks to support their veg friends and learn more about veganism and those who are transitioning from a vegetarian to a vegan diet. “As they learn about the impact their food choices make on the planet, people and animals, the more they want to eliminate animal foods from their diet,” she says.

George Garcia, who lives in the Bridgeport/Birch Run area, found out about the Lansing potluck from friend Connie Hudak and started attending about seven months ago. A vegan for more than four decades, Garcia attends various potlucks around the state, including in Saginaw and metro Detroit. “I enjoy the potlucks because it brings me into contact with other vegan-minded people,” he says. “I have always said, veganism is a lifestyle. What I find is that every potluck I have attended brings a different

energy. I enjoy the Lansing event because it creates a good mix of people, and the food is very good as well. It is held in a clean and safe area, and most of all, Rhea does a really nice job of scheduling and informing us about the event, and is a wonderful host.”

The group has come a long way since its early days, with the potlucks recently branching out to other activities. “When I

“Ten years ago, people didn’t know what veganism was. Today, there is common awareness of veganism and a willingness to support people’s life choices.”

— Rhea Linn

started it, we just sort of got together and had food,” Erickson recalls. “It’s not like there was a movement or anything. We didn’t do anything else.” This past summer, the group had its first restaurant night at P.F. Chang’s in Lansing and held a screening of “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret” at Celebration! Cinema Lansing & IMAX,

the latter of which drew more than 100 people. The events were due in part to a poll Linn and Erickson took of the group, asking members what activities interest them.

In addition to more restaurant nights and film showings, Linn — who recently tabled at the Michigan Pride Festival in Old Town — hopes to get the group on board with leafleting. Similar to VegMichigan in Ann Arbor, she also wants to host cooking demos at Whole Foods, which is expected to open an East Lansing location in 2015. The best way to involve the community in veganism, says Linn, is to make it fun: “People want to enjoy themselves as they learn something new. Veganism is not about deprivation, but rather active participation in the celebration of life. I want to bring a variety of community activities to the area that focus on fun and friendship. People love to cook, eat and learn. Add laughter to that, and you have a great combination.”

A vegan for 24 years, Linn is optimistic about the local veg movement. “I’ve lived in the Lansing area my entire life and have seen a huge shift in the awareness of people and their food choices,” she says. “Ten years ago, people didn’t know what veganism was.

Today, there is common awareness of veganism and a willingness to support people’s life choices.”

Some of that awareness has seeped into the restaurant industry. Linn and her husband switched to a plant-based diet in 1990 after reading “Diet for a New America” by John Robbins, and her children, ages 14 and 17, have been vegan since birth. At that time, dining out was difficult. “We would ask for something without cheese and try to explain. Oh, the shock. It was just like, ‘You want what? You can’t have that,’ ” she says. “As time has gone on, I don’t like to come out and say I’m vegan to a waitress.

We’ll just say, can we have it with no cheese, and do you know if that’s made with lard or is that authentic Mexican? And now they’ll

(Some) other area groups of interest › The Vegan and Vegetarian Club at MSU is a student club that currently exists as a Facebook community. In the past, the group held cooking demos and film screenings. For information, find the group on Facebook or contact faculty adviser Laura Dilley at ldilley@msu.edu. › The Lansing Raw Food Potluck Group meets the first Monday of the month at First Christian Church, 1001 Chester Road, in Lansing. The potlucks feature raw vegan dishes and presentations on health-related topics. For information, contact organizer

Cricket Lott at cricketlott@gmail.com or visit the group’s Meetup page at meetup. com/lansing-raw-foods. › MSU Graduate Students for Animals works to encourage positive human-animal relationships by spreading awareness and volunteering within the community. For information, visit animalstudies.msu.edu/GSA. › Protecting Animal Welfare, formerly called Students Promoting Animal Rights, is an undergraduate group at MSU that promotes animal welfare. The group volunteers at the Ingham County Animal Shelter and has held

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film screenings of documentaries such as “Earthlings” on campus. For information, contact group president Alexis Hinson at hinsonal@msu.edu. › The Student Animal Legal Defense Fund at MSU is a law group that aims to advance the interest of animals through the legal system. The group is a chapter of the national Animal Legal Defense Fund, which was founded in 1979 by attorneys active in shaping the emerging field of animal law.

For information, contact president Chelsea Murto at riderche@msu.edu.

Restaurants appeal to vegan customers

just go, are you vegan? So, they recognize it. They never knew the word before. They called it vay-gan. Now that’s changed.” Linn also finds restaurants are increasingly interested in appealing to vegans. “When you go to restaurants, instead of being the bothersome customer, they want to know what you want,” she says. “They want to cater to you and make sure you’re happy.”

Lott experiences a similar open-mindedness to her raw vegan diet. “I love to travel and find no matter where I go, people are willing to modify a menu item to suit my eating taste,” she says. “I have lived in Lansing my whole life and used to think of it as a meat-and-potatoes kind of community, but I think that is changing all the time. Many more options are available.”

Since starting her potluck, Lott has noticed an increasing number of both vegans and veg options in Greater Lansing. “More and more restaurants feature vegan options so that has to be driven by customer demand,” she says.

Marian Erickson, left, and Rhea Linn speak to members of the Greater Lansing Vegan Dinner Club about upcoming events.

For Erickson, eating out is better but still challenging because she finds most places have limited options, and the ones they do have aren’t always that exciting. “You go out with your friends, and you’re the only one cross-examining the waitress,” says Erickson, who gave up meat more than two decades ago while dating a vegetarian and eventually became an avid follower of Dr. John McDougall’s low-fat, whole foods, plant-based diet. “You just think, here I am trying to eat healthy, and it’s frustrating.

So I’m kind of the troublemaker.” But, she adds, “I do notice that more restaurants are willing to change their menus for me now.”

A shift in mindset is also apparent at MSU. “They have been increasingly very responsive to feedback, so the lines of communication with dining services at Michigan State and other universities are open to dietary choices like never before,” Dilley says. “The dining staff are using words like vegan in an informed way now where that may not have been the case five or six years ago.”

MSU’s growing number of meatless and egg- and dairy-free options are a reflection of its constituency. “We serve more than

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More restaurants are adding animal-free dishes to their menus, and Greater Lansing is no exception to this veg-friendly trend. Here’s a brief (not all-inclusive) list of plant-based dining options in Lansing. › Farm-to-table When vegan Jamie Qualls lived in East Lansing while attending Michigan State University, she noted an abundance of locavore-themed eateries. Her favorite was Soup Spoon Café in Lansing, which offers a vegan soup daily and at least one vegan option at each meal. “I ate there a lot,” she recalls. “They have an awesome breakfast called A Very Vegan Start.”

Other locavore choices include The Purple Carrot Food Truck, which has at least one vegan soup and sandwich on its menu every day, and Red Haven in Okemos, which always offers a vegan birthday cake for dessert (See Page 5); Fork in the Road in Lansing; and Gracie’s Place in Williamston. › Ethnic Restaurants Several ethnic restaurants offer an array of veg dishes by default. Ramkumar Srinivasan, manager of Persis Indian Grill in Okemos, says his lunch buffet offers 18 selections, 14 of which are meat-free, and that much of the traditional fare, such as chana masala and aloo gobi, are vegan.

Longtime Lansing vegan Rhea Linn says she and her husband, who is also vegan, enjoy Maru Sushi & Grill in Okemos and Eastwood. “They know us and come out to show they’ve highlighted vegan items on a special menu for us.”

Other options include Woody’s Oasis and Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine in East Lansing, Aladdin’s Middle Eastern Restaurant and P.F. Chang’s in Lansing, and Ozzy’s Kabob in Okemos. › Quick bites The Better Health Market and Café in Lansing has a vegan black bean burger and vegan Reuben, and a variety of vegan smoothies, sides and baked goods.

Other places for quick bites include Foods For Living in East Lansing, which has a grab-and-go deli section with a variety of plant-based choices, and Noodles and Co., with locations in Okemos and East Lansing, which has a vegan menu that includes salads and customizable noodle dishes. › Pizza Without Wheat (WOW) in Okemos serves up the area’s only vegan pizza and “motz” breadsticks made with Asiago dairy-free Daiya cheese. › Other The Avenue Cafe in Lansing offers a vegan version of its fiesta burger, a red bean burger, vegan chili and other occasional specials.

Movement

30,000 meals each day to a campus that is the seventh largest in the nation, not to mention faculty and staff,” says Gina Keilen, registered dietitian for MSU Culinary Services. “With this comes a wide variety of dietary needs and preferences, allergies and religious restrictions that we work with on a daily basis. As a culture, many people are looking to adopt a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. And if not on a daily basis, they may want to eat that way for some or most of their meals. We look to satisfy as many people as we can with our offerings. It’s a constant effort to try and reach this population.”

The school features the vegetarian-specific venues Veg Out and Garden in some of its dining halls, and Keilen says many of its other venues have a build-your-own mentality where diners can pick out the ingredients that go into their dish. Along with this, she says, the school’s chefs work hard to provide non-meat alternatives —such as stir fry options with tofu and tempeh — and each dinA vegan smorgasbord is enjoyed by potluck members. Each adult guest is asked to bring a dish that serves eight.

try new recipes Experiment with recipes that have been made and shared by Greater Lansing vegans and raw foodists at area potlucks. › For vegan recipes, visit meetup.com/vegmichigan-greater-lansing/files. › For raw vegan recipes, visit livinghiho.com/recipes.

ing hall offers a hot vegan or vegetarian entrée at every meal, in addition to vegan and gluten-free frozen dinners, Silk milk dispensers, and non-dairy coolers where guests can find vegan yogurts and other dairyfree milk choices. The school’s convenience stores also maintain a selection of vegan and vegetarian options.

MSU often looks to its diners for input to improve its veg menu. The school’s culinary team recently won an award for its vegan mac and cheese (See Page 11), a dish initially created at the request of students who wanted dining services to experiment

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with nutritional yeast.

“We try to work with the various groups on campus and get their feedback,” says Kurt Kwiatkowski, corporate chef for MSU Culinary Services. “Last year, we explored walking around vegan samples of a dish to our guests to get their feedback. They loved that we were trying new things and looking to incorporate more options. They also appreciate the accommodations that are made for them.”

In the same way an increased demand for vegan options has opened doors at MSU and in the restaurant industry, the Greater Lansing Vegan Dinner Club’s expanding resumé of activism may inspire a thriving veg movement in the community.

Says Dilley: “It just takes one individual or a handful of people to build a community in any given location. So if anyone out there has the interest and desire to make a difference for animals or other people in terms of fostering vegetarianism, then all they have to do is get involved, and they’ll immediately find support.” p — By Planted staff. Philip Douglas contributed to this story.

Commentary/the vegan view

Scott Harris Getting inside the minds of meat eaters People who do not eat animals are vegetarian.

People who are vegetarians and do not eat anything animals create are vegan.

If someone doesn’t eat any animal or anything made by that animal regardless of whether they are doing so for their health or for the health of the animal, they are equally vegan. The cow does not care why she is not being eaten.

From my experiences, I believe there are two reasons why people continue to consume animals and their byproducts: a lack of empathy and cognitive dissonance.

Those of us who choose not to eat animals because we see faces, individuals, creatures that while different are not lesser, are vegan because we possess an empathy towards species — both the same and different.

According to Edith Stein, a German phenomenologist, empathy can be facilitated. It also can be interrupted and blocked, but it cannot be forced to occur.

What makes empathy unique, according to Stein, is that it happens to us; it is indirectly given to us “non-primordially.”

When empathy occurs, we find ourselves experiencing it, rather than directly causing it to happen. This is the characteristic that makes the act of empathy unteachable. Instead, promoting attitudes and behaviors such as self-awareness, nonjudgmental positive regard for others, good listening skills and self-confidence are suggested as important in the development of clinicians who will demonstrate an empathic willingness.

What is far more frustrating is knowing very good, kind and empathetic people who are (rightfully) appalled by abuse inflicted upon cats and dogs but who have no problem professing their love of bacon or cheese. How can they so easily differentiate between the suffering of a puppy and the suffering of a calf?

According to cognitive dissonance theory, there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. In the case of a discrepancy between attitudes and

The art of persuasion Want to convince someone to ditch meat and switch to a plant-based diet?

Longtime vegan and animal rights activist Scott Harris offers his tips:  If someone lacks empathy, point out the health aspects of veganism.  Don’t make people feel guilty.  Even though you have “right” on your side, don’t alienate people by being combative or sanctimonious.  Represent the vegan community by being kind and engaging.  Bring up veganism with people more than once — they might not be ready to embrace it now, but they might be later.  If someone says something cruel about animals, speak up.  Prepare for conversations and have responses ready for meat eaters’ excuses.

behavior, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behavior.

Few, if any of us, have been lifelong vegans. Even after we had our epiphany of “by eating meat, we are responsible for the suffering and death of our fellow creatures,” most of us didn’t go from omnivore (there is no such thing as a human carnivore) to vegan right away. Even though it was very painful for us to accept the notion that we were still hurting sentient beings, the other notion that we were already responsible for so much suffering was too painful to accept. Somehow, we rationalized, there must have been a compelling reason for eating animals. So, as often as not, we continued to eat meat and cheese and eggs until the new guilt outweighed the old guilt, and we changed our behaviors.

Now here’s our challenge: How can we persuade others who are not vegan to stop eating animals and their byproducts? Well, like most questions, the honest answer is, it depends.

If someone truly lacks empathy — and yes, sadly, there are some people who would drink the blood of children if they felt it might make their hair thicker — then perhaps selling them on the health aspects of the diet would be the approach of choice. Hit the key points: the hormones in milk; mad cow disease; heart

Planted | 21

disease; hypertension; diabetes; stroke; and some cancers. If it’s a self-absorbed macho fellow, talk about estrogen.

If someone has been endowed with empathy, the process is more complicated, but the chances for success are much greater. Although it’s counterintuitive, making someone feel guilty almost never works.

As a rule, there are three different groups of people who we come into contact with: People who already agree with you; people who will never agree with you; and people who might be persuaded by a compelling argument.

So let’s eliminate the obvious and focus on those who are in the market for a new paradigm.

If we have any hope of convincing someone that meat is the end product of a gruesome process that necessitates suffering and killing, we have to remember a few important things: You cannot simultaneously convince someone to consider your point of view while you are alienating them.

While you might have absolute “right” on your side, if you are combative, cliché, ridiculous, sanctimonious or condescending, you’ve quite likely lost.

You might be the “face” of veganism to your coworker, neighbor, fellow congregant, book club member or softball team. If the only impression they have of you is that you are peculiar or mean, essentially all vegans become peculiar or mean. As unfair as it seems — especially if it isn’t in our nature — we have to try twice as hard to be kind, engaging people who draw other people into conversation.

Timing is everything. Someone might not have been ready to consider veganism in the past (like maybe we were earlier), but maybe something in their world or mind has changed since last you chatted with them. | Continued on Page 22 Scott Harris is a single parent of two awesome vegan kids and cohabitates with eight cats. Besides being an animal rights activist, he owns an independent bookstore and insurance agency, both in Lansing.

Scott enjoys baseball, classic rock, clever banter and laughing at his own jokes.

Contact him at harriss@voyager.net.

It is crucial that Michigan citizens vote “no” on Proposals 1 and 2 in November to protect our state’s wolves from future hunts. fritz | Continued from page 12 place that law on the ballot, alongside the first referendum.

In November 2013, as Michigan’s first wolf hunting season approached, the web of misinformation, skewed statistics and tall tales behind it began to unravel. An MLive.com investigative series was released, in short discrediting every reason given for the need for a wolf hunt.

The series revealed that during a radio interview, a Michigan DNR staffer had fabricated a story of wolves staring at Upper Peninsula residents through their doors and showing no fear; that legislators had circulated — and even wrote into the language of Senate and House resolutions — a false tale of three wolves being killed outside a day care center while children were playing; and that most wolf-livestock conflicts occurred on one Upper Peninsula farm, whose owner baited wolves with rotting carcasses and who ultimately pleaded no contest to charges of neglecting his own animals.

In light of these revelations, Michiganders implored the governor to cancel the hunt and begin to restore some integrity to his office and that of the state’s wildlife management agency, but to no avail. On Nov. 15, 2013, Michigan’s first wolf hunt began, and ultimately, 22 wolves were gunned down for no good reason.

Knowing that Keep Michigan Wolves Protected was conducting a referendum on the second law allowing the NRC to designate game species, a pro-wolf hunting group calling itself Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management collected signatures for its own effort to ensure that wolf hunting would continue. To achieve

Harris | Continued from Page 21 Speak up. If you are in a situation where someone says something inane or cruel about killing animals, say something. You have no idea how many people already agree with you and are waiting or hoping for someone to champion our cause. If you have no idea what to say, tilt your head slightly and ask them, “Really?”

Prepare for your conversations and anticipate the responses. People we encounter will often seek permission from us to

Photo by Gary Kramer/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

this, they recycled language from the law passed in May 2013 — allowing the NRC to designate game species — through the citizen initiative process and handed it back to the legislature in August 2014 for swift passage. However, that initiative legislation will not go into effect until spring 2015, and wildlife advocates will sue to have it overturned as patently unconstitutional.

In the meantime, since both laws allowing wolves to be designated as game species are currently on hold until their referendums can be voted on in the November 2014 election, a wolf hunt will not occur in 2014. But it is crucial that Michigan citizens vote “no” on both referendums in November in order to secure that protection for our state’s wolves. Your help is needed for this important campaign.

keep eating animal products. They set us up so that it seems that our only response is, “Hey, that’s OK.” Afterward we feel crummy knowing that we’ve done the exact opposite of what we intended to do out of not wanting to be unpleasant. We’ve all been there, but we need not ever return there. Again, if prepared, we can easily parry their excuses with sensible responses.

Wait a moment, is that a teaser for a future column? Yes. What are your favorite responses to meat eaters’ excuses and rationalizations? Let me know: harriss@voyager.net.

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OBERG | Continued from Page 13 You can go beyond your own personal veganism. By becoming involved in and supporting grassroots activism, you can easily create an exponential amount of change for animals. By spending even just an hour or two doing this, you can double or triple or even quadruple the impact you’ll make your entire life by just simply being vegetarian.

Vegan Outreach is a national nonprofit organization focused on reducing as much animal suffering as possible.

We work to raise awareness about the plight of today’s farm animals by distributing full-color pamphlets to the public. Collectively, about two million Vegan Outreach pamphlets are distributed annually. We do this primarily at college campuses but also at concerts and various other public venues. We focus on reaching the youth because young people are more receptive to the message and are at a time in their lives where they’re more willing and able to eat more vegetarian food. They’re often living on their own and purchasing their own groceries, already questioning the status quo, and have many years ahead of them to use their purchasing power to the animals’ advantage.

And the great thing about this work is how accessible it is. You can do it.

There are outreach opportunities all over the United States, including in Greater Lansing. Recently, our work has even expanded beyond our borders, and we’re now operating in Australia, all across Canada, and will have a strong presence in Mexico starting in 2015. This semester, I’ll be doing this outreach at Michigan State University and would love your help. With your arms and smile, many more individuals will be reached — individuals who otherwise wouldn’t have thought about the plight of farm animals on that day. If you’d like to join me, send an email to johno@veganoutreach. org. If you’re unable to join, you can always order booklets on your own at veganoutreach.org. Furthermore, you may also choose to donate to Vegan Outreach and assure that more young people are reached, thus saving many animals just like those baby male chicks on the conveyor belt on their way to a brutal end to life cut so short.

In a world where animals suffer on an unbelievable scale, each one of us can do what we can. And by focusing our energy on doing simple, effective work like that of Vegan Outreach, we can do so much good for animals who need us to be their voice.

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