Vegan Cooking...It's More Useful Than You Think!

The reaction I typically get when I mention that something I've cooked is vegan varies from some sort of groan to a grumbling complaint about how nasty it's going to taste. Which I will admit often leads me to lying and not telling anyone that the food they are tasting is vegan until after they've had it. 99% of the time, they can't tell.

As a disclaimer I am not vegan. I love my cheese and eggs. But I don't mind cooking vegan, and it's really not all that hard to do so. I've been asked why I should even bother learning to cook vegan if I'm not vegan myself. It's a good question, and I think the answer is more complex than most people would expect, because vegan cooking and knowledge can be applied in a much broader sense than being vegan alone.

So why vegan if you are not? Vegan is probably among the most extreme of diet choices since it rules out things that most cooks and bakers love like butter, eggs, refined sugar, and milk. But think about some of the other common food allergies and dietary restrictions many people have. Gluten-free, lactose-intolerant, kosher, diabetes, etc. All of these diets can be accommodated easily with a working knowledge of vegan cooking and substitutes.

For example, since vegan recipes have no milk or dairy, people who are lactose intolerant can eat vegan food. I had someone say she was lactose intolerant, loved frosting, but hated vegan frostings she had tried before. The vegan buttercream frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World impressed her. She can now use this frosting on her cakes and cupcakes without fear of being sick. The benefit of this over store bought vegan frosting is that this is made without the aid of chemicals that we can't pronounce or even really identify what it is.

Enough about baking, what about actual cooking? Can vegan substitutions be used in conjunction with non-vegan recipes? Why not! Vegan Substitutes can make great healthy choices in a meal, resulting in a better tasting, healthier meal all around. Need to make a rue? (For the non-cooks, a rue is usually butter and flour cooked together in a paste. A rue allows milk and cream to thicken into a sauce) Why use butter? Yes it's tasty, but Olive oil does the same thing as butter, is healthier, and is unnoticeable in the finished product. It will still thicken milk. Any milk. Including soy milk and skim milk. It just takes longer to thicken than heavy cream.

Another vegan favorite of mine is Polenta, or corn meal. Polenta can be bought in a box dry or in pre-shaped bricks, ready to be sliced and cooked. Polenta is really delicious with vegetables or pasta sauce, and is so hearty most meat-eaters won't be left with an empty spot in their stomachs. It is also readily available, reasonably priced, and not loaded with chemicals or preservatives.

While it is unquestionable that being vegan is hard, knowing vegan cooking can be helpful in accommodating food allergies and making healthy substitutions in preparing food at home, even if one isn't vegan all the time.

Allison NYLS SALDF

Animal Protection Laws (Complimentary Download)

So I thought I would bring it to the attention of the New York Law School community (or at least the 19 or so people that were kind enough to follow our new blog {thanks by the way}) that ALDF is offering a compilation of all the animal protection laws for the United States and Canada. This is a great resource to have, whether you have an interest in animal protection or not, as these laws protecting animals draw a lot of correlations to laws protecting humans and property. The great part about this, especially for law students, is that ALDF is offering this compilation as a complimentary download off of their website. You can also buy the CD version of it from their store for $8.99. I highly recommend taking advantage of free access to this resource. I posted a link below.

http://www.aldf.org/article.php?id=259

Newt's Nook

Last semester, the New York Law School SALDF held a vegan bake sale to help raise money for Newt's Nook, a winter shelter for pitbulls at the Animal Guardians sanctuary in Celina, TX. The story behind the shelter is kind of interesting. I thought this article from Pegasus News, a Dallas/Fort Worth, TX news source, summed it up nicely:

Newt’s Nook is open for business.

The heated, air-conditioned facility at the Animal Guardians sanctuary, named for former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, provides a safe, healthy environment for injured rescue dogs, particularly pit bulls, to recuperate until they are adopted.

“We’re thrilled to help such a worthy project,” said Dawn Rizos, owner of The Lodge gentlemen’s club in Dallas, who funded the shelter after Gingrich rejected her donation to his political organization. “I wish Newt were here to see these wonderful dogs and know that we’re giving them a chance for happier lives.”

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Lodge and Animal Guardians staffers teamed up for a dedication ceremony, hanging a large “Newt’s Nook” sign on the building and welcoming dogs to the new facility. The sign, created by Lodge bartender Bryan Calloway, features a caricature of a smiling Gingrich and a friendly, content pit bull.

“We were going to throw a bigger party,” Rizos explained, “but we decided to devote the resources to this great cause instead.”

She announced that The Lodge would donate an additional $100 to Animal Guardians for every dog adopted through Valentine’s Day 2010, and give each adopter a gift certificate to The Lodge or Stratos Global Greek Taverna, a popular Dallas restaurant.

The idea for the shelter stemmed from an Entrepreneur of the Year Award that Gingrich bestowed on Rizos, then rescinded. In September Gingrich’s organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, invited Rizos to receive the honor from him at a private dinner in Washington on October 7. A week before the dinner, the organization said there had been a mix-up and told Rizos not to attend.

The Lodge, the country’s best-known and most-honored gentlemen’s club, helps hundreds of people support their families and further their educations, while setting industry standards for beauty, elegance and integrity.

“So we weren’t surprised to get the award, and we were disappointed to suddenly be rejected,” Rizos said. “But instead of holding a grudge, we decided to make something positive out of his bad manners.”

When Gingrich returned the $5,000 donation that was required to attend the dinner, Rizos redirected the money to Animal Guardians, a home for rescue dogs 40 miles north of downtown Dallas.

“I can’t tell you how much this new building means to us,” said Animal Guardians Director Annette Lambert, who cares for more than 100 dogs at the sanctuary. “Dawn didn’t deserve to be treated like that, but this will do so much for these loving dogs until we find them good homes.”

Source: The Lodge

Thanks Newt!!

Justices Void Law Banning Videos of Animal Cruelty

WASHINGTON — In a major and muscular First Amendment ruling, the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a federal law that made it a crime to create or sell dogfight videos and other depictions of animal cruelty. The Full Article (NYTIMES.com)

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Allison Gill, NYLS SALDF Secretary

This is a terrible blow to the laws that help prevent cruelty to animals. This law basically placed a criminal statute on those selling or trafficking videos of dogfighting or other cruelty to animal videos. It was struck down under the first amendment, saying that the law was too broad, and would also allow for the prosecution of those who do not do anything illegal in making the film, such as hunting.

The government's arguments that this is akin to child pornography laws was rejected because Child Pornography laws are a 'special case' because the underlying market is 'intrinsically related to the abuse.' This has got to be one of the most absurd conclusions, as the videos are intrinsically related. For what purpose could a dog fighting or other animal cruelty video be used? I'm having a hard time coming up with any legitimate reasons that don't further abuse. The law also included several exceptions for religious, political, scientific, news, and other legitimate purposes that are protected by the first amendment, so the overly broad context is equally puzzling.

While it left open the possibility for congress to create a new, narrower law that would pass muster, it also allows for these videos to be legal for at least a little while. The problem is that these videos are now legal in the mean time, and animals are left worse off.

Moral Superiority

Some Summer Reading

With the summer coming up and many of us getting our first opportunity in a long time to read something that isn't published by Thomson, Aspen, or West, I thought it might be a good time to list some recommendations to anyone interested in learning more about animal law, animal rights, or animals in general. Whether you are passionate about the cause, skeptical, or just curious, each of these works are excellent, highly acclaimed, and only a starting point into the topic. Enjoy, and if you happen to read any and have something you want to say, feel free to comment!

BOOKS:

Rattling the Cage (Towards Legal Rights for Animals) by Steven M. Wise

On the topic of animal law, this is about the finest (and arguably only) primer on the topic. Steven Wise is both a practicing lawyer and a Harvard professor who has spent much of his legal career defending the rights of everything from chimpanzees and dogs to goats and dolphins. Wise uses a variety of arguments to support his position that the legal rights of animals are not only worth protecting, but that it is an utter insult and contradiction to the modern values of society not to protect them. Wise strings the mistakes of the past to the stubborness of the present and shows how the same bigoted notions that rationalized slavery, segretation, and women's sufferage, are the same ones that have support the belief that non-human animals possess nothing more than an instrumental value in our modern society. Its a disturbing but eye-opening book. I read it before I went to law school and didn't understand a lot of the legal theory in it, but definitely intend to reread it this summer. Highly recommended.

Animal Liberation by Peter Singer

Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation" is considered by many to be the founding philosophical statement on the idea of animal rights. If you want to start anywhere on the topic, this is a good a place as any. Here is where terms like speciesism were born. Singer takes an utilitarian approach to rationalizing a more ethical treatment of animals, an approach very reminiscent to the first week of criminal law class. The great part about "Animal Liberation" is that it never becomes condescending. It is simply a strong argument that demands an equal rebuttal. If you are for or against animal rights, "Animal Liberation" is a must read before you take too far a stept in either direction.

Oh, and as a side note, if you would like to read an interesting (and I say no more than interesting) rebuttal to "Animal Liberation" you can read Judge Posner's debate against Singer in Star Magazine.

Redemption by Nathan Winograd

Though a much more narrow and biased topic than anything I would recommend at the outset of learning about animal rights, I think it is a relevant and wonderful argument for no-kill shelters in America. The author, Nathan Winograd, is a former lawyer who stopped practicing law to try and revamp the animal shelter system in America. He has had great success in several cities (particularly San Diego, which now has the most successful adoption rate and no-kill system in the country). While much of the material is controverted, I think what really shines through is Winograd's philosophy that the reason that so many animals die in shelters is because of the shelters themselves. We often want to blame people in general for not caring enough about animals, but it is the shelters that need to really change if people are going to come to understand and care more for the lives of abandoned animals in their neighborhoods. If nothing else, is a great story about what one person (a lawyer for that matter) was willing to do to save the lives of as many animals as he could.

Making a Killing by Bob Torres

Bob Torres is a notorious animal rights advocate, and an expert on the subject. He holds a PhD in Developmental Sociology from Cornell, is a professor of animal rights and anarchy at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, hosts the Vegan Freak radio show (free to listen, highly recommend it) with his equally brilliant wife Jenna, has cool tattoos, interviewed most of the people on this list so far, and is an all around pretty great guy. When he was younger, he worked in slaughter houses and saw first hand all the cruel practices that are business standards in the meat industry. This book is great because it takes a very different approach to exploring the need for animal rights. Using "social marxist anarchist" theory, Torres explores the various facets of animal exploitation in our society and pushes the argument through socioeconomic logic, even though Torres' real passion for defending animals is because he loves them. In the books five chapters, Torres stresses how ethical treatment of animals will make society function more economically and ultimately how the wrong we are doing to non-human animals is destroying both the world and ourselves. There is a particularly great chapter about the "so-called" animal right group PETA, aptly called "You Cannot Buy The Revolution," and the light Torres sheds on PETA (in my opinion one of the biggest scams in history) will have you cancelling your monthly donations and feeling like you've bought the biggest lie ever sold. Its an unsettling work, but not without optimism.

If you enjoy this book, I also recomment Bob and Jenna's primer on being vegan "Hello, My Name is Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World." Its short, cute, funny, and has great resources in it about exploring veganism. The two of them are sometimes a little too biased for me, but they are undeniably brilliant and know more about animal rights and veganism then just about anyone else out there making themselves heard.

As I said before, there is a universe of books, editorials, and essays on the topic of animal law and animal rights, but I think this is a good place to start. I'll try to update regularly when I think of something else. Until then. Start reading!

Useful Links & Resources

Animal Legal Defense Fund

http://www.aldf.org/

Resources for Law Students & SALDF chapters

http://www.aldf.org/section.php?id=100

Bar Association Animal Law Sections and Committees

http://www.aldf.org/article.php?id=277

Humane Society of the United States

http://www.humanesociety.org/

ASPCA

http://www.aspca.org/

Defenders of Wildlife

http://www.defenders.org/

Compassion over Killing

http://www.cok.net/

Equal Justice Alliance

http://www.equaljusticealliance.org/

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