Hopefully you’re having a happy and compassionate Thanksgiving! We don’t mean to get ahead of ourselves, but we wanted to get you started with some great holiday gift ideas for that vegan on your list! The Vegetarian Site has it all. Since 2000, The Vegetarian Site, a fully vegan website, has been offering food, books, gifts, supplements, accessories and more to vegans around the world.

Gift certificates are always a great option, especially for vegans don’t have easy access to some of their favorite foods locally. Countless shelf stable mixes for ethnic foods, cookies, brownies and other desserts, as well as spices, meal bars, protein powders, meat and dairy alternatives can all be found on the site. With a “Dollar Menu“, an extensive sale section and one cent samples, it’s easy to get more bang for your buck.

Additionally, this year The Vegetarian Site has four new personalized Holiday Gift Bag options. Each medium gift bag is filled with sweet or savory vegan treats. Try the Sweet Stuff, Vegan Meaty, Vegan Bakery, or Gluten-Free Vegan Bakery option. The folks at The Vegetarian Site will happily include a personalized message from you and ship it directly to the recipient.

Your purchases in November from The Vegetarian Site will support Vegan Outreach. Thank you and enjoy your shopping!

Review by Josie Moody, Office Manager

Project Animal Farm by Sonia Faruqi is not an easy read, but it is an important one. It is painfully and necessarily graphic. There’s no way to sugarcoat the subject matter, and that’s why it is so powerful.

Project Animal Farm is a project Faruqi set about unintentionally after she lost her position as an Investment Banker during the American recession. After lots of reading during her time off, she decided to put her free time to good use by volunteering on an organic dairy farm in Canada. After reaching out to dozens of farms, only one agreed to take her on as a volunteer, and, as they say, the rest is history.

Rudely awakened from her fantasy of what life on a modern farm would be like, Faruqi is disturbed by the mistreatment of the animals at these operations and the apathy of the humans who work there. She then uses her connections and experience at the dairy farm to investigate if this is an isolated incident, or a widespread practice.

Unfortunately she finds the same horrors at the chicken, pork, turkey and veal operations she subsequently visits. By the books end, she has explored agribusiness in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. I have read books, visited websites and seen footage that exposes what happens on factory farms over the past four years, and was distressed to learn of more torturous practices she uncovers in this book that I had been previously unaware of.

Writes Faruqi, “I found that the pattern of factory farming everywhere follows the trajectory of the United States. Chickens and egg-laying hens are confined and commoditized first, followed by pigs, then by cows. It’s as if the industry starts with animals it considers least sentient first, then works its way up the ladder.”

At the end of the book she concludes,“The agriculture industry claims to be strong and healthy, but upon inspection one finds that he is not a vigorous young man bursting with life, but a paranoid and senile old man who lives in terror that any encounter with outsiders will spell his death.”

If you’re interested in reading it, you can buy it here: http://amzn.to/1Ygu5IU

By Josie Moody, Office Manager

Today we are fortunate to interview Jang Lee, who founded the animal rights punk band Resist and Exist in December 1990, and who still tours today. We were reintroduced to the band after they traveled from their Los Angeles base to Oakland, California and Reno, Nevada on a mini-tour along with English band Conflict. In addition to their instruments and vegan food, they also packed Vegan Outreach literature to distribute along the way! Jang took a break from singing just long enough to share his experience, hope and activism with us.

How long have you been vegan, and what made you decide to go vegan? What about the other members of your band?

I have been vegan ever since the late 1980s. I started off becoming a pseudo-vegetarian in late 1985, because at that point I had learned what it meant to respect animals in all forms. Yet, I would say in 1986 I became a strict veggie because prior to that my aunt and dad thought I was going to die and a couple of times I had eaten meat because they would hide little chunks of meat in my food.  My pen pal Todd from “Pollution Circus” wrote me a 4 to 5 page letter on why I should stop eating eggs and cheese, and he sent educational Xeroxed brochures that inspired and helped me. Other members of Resist and Exist, including Jen, Jimmy, Chris and Roman are all vegetarians. Our drummer Roman just became a veggie and has been going strong for 10 months now.

Your band has been around a long time, and you sing about oppression on various levels. What positive changes have you seen in the animal rights world, and what is your biggest frustration? Have your views and methods of communicating about veganism changed over the years?

I became interested in animal rights when I was 16 years old in 1985.  At that time I could not find any cruelty free stuff. The only non-animal tested products were by Beauty Without Cruelty by mail order and it was expensive. It was near impossible for me to go to health food stores because they were few and far away, and I didn’t have a car, nor did my friends. My aunt and I had to shop at Korean grocery stores to get tofu or soy milk.  In the 80s places that carried veggie stuff were not available, but now that has vastly changed, because now you can easily access these products at most grocery stores. At that time I could never imagine there would be options like this. Now, what is more radical is that now there is Vegan hip-hop, VPOC (vegan people of color) on social media, vegan athletes, and more. Things are becoming more radical and barriers are being broken.  In the old days it seemed that not eating meat was exclusive to Buddhist monks, Hindus, and hippies.  I am really glad that not eating meat is becoming mainstream.  To answer your other question,  I don’t get that frustrated anymore because I believe in positive energy and I practice meditation and yoga. I know how to deal with a lot of pressure and stress generally now.  And I try to stay away from drama and negative people.

This is a difficult question to answer because I have been to all the states in America except Alaska and Florida and have eaten at many different places. I have stopped by many vegetarian/vegan restaurants and health food stores along the way.  I have to admit that nothing seems to beat Flore in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Any of their sandwiches and raw vegan cheesecakes are delicious, but I recommend to not eat too much because just two doors down is a freshly squeezed juice bar called Nature Well .

In the past, Resist and Exist has been on many punk rock tours and we’ve played over 400 shows.  When we are on the road Jen and I always pack stuff in advance, including bananas, apples, oranges, raw nuts, spinach, bell peppers, avocados, and all sorts of our favorite vegetables, fruits or other snacks. I usually just eat these raw.  Jen often brings organic bars.  This is so essential for any veggie band traveling.  Always having a cooler with healthy foods and snacks for back up is a must, in case there are no veggie places to eat in certain areas.

Why is Vegan Outreach one of the organizations that you support, and whose literature you pass at your shows?

Actually, Vegan Outreach supported the band first.  I used to contact Vegan Outreach for help every time I  organized any event.  When Nikki of Vegan Outreach used to live in Los Angeles she would have Vegan Outreach set up a table at Anarcho Punk Fest, and she would speak between bands. If I am not mistaken, the last tabling she did for us was at Rock Against Gentrification in L.A. before she moved. If you happen to be a promoter or a member of a band reading this, I think it would be a good idea to always have speakers in between live bands to make the show more educational.  Personally, I don’t want to see people go home empty handed after any show.

What’s the origin behind the name of Resist and Exist?

That slogan comes from an old vegetarian peace punk band called Anti-Sect from England.  They were heavily into animal rights and in 1982 they had a song called “Resist and Exist.” A man named Dig used to write an England Anarcho Punk scene report to a magazine called “Maximum Rock N Roll” in the 80s, and he would always close it with the words “resist and exist”.  The phrase stuck in my mind, and it was a powerful radical slogan.  We used it as a band name because we are inspired by the 80s Anarcho Punk scene, and would like to keep running with that torch.

What are other social justice movements you are passionate about? Do you see parallels between those and animal rights?

My friends and I became involved in Anarcho/Peace Punk music and thought in the 80s. At that time The Anti-Apartheid movement, protesting against nuclear weapons, Women’s Liberation, supporting Native American Indians in Big Mountain,  Animal Rights, and saving the earth were all apart of the ideology in the music and scene.  Everything is connected.  We went to all sorts of different forms of protests, benefit shows, and supported different causes.  Simply, no one is free when others are oppressed.

Is there anything else you’d like to add? For example, advice for people who are thinking about going vegan, or a message you’d like to convey to our readers?

Yes, when I have time I organize benefits and free small festivals with workshops and speakers covering a spectrum of issues. You can check out some of my past work on my web site, www.diyzine.com. If you are just becoming vegan, try different types of vegan foods like Indian, Ethiopian, Middle Eastern, and from everywhere. Don’t always eat the same things because it gets boring.

Take a cooking class, or make your own food at home. It is way more rewarding and more fun, because you can experience different flavors and cultures and  be around a support group or vegan friends.  Throw a vegan potluck party and vegan picnics, and network with other folks, make new friends you can share that experience with. When you get together with a bunch of people who have a positive energy and healthy lifestyle and are conscious, it is always something that creates a spark for new ideas and a better life.

You can download our songs for free on reverbnation.com. Our EPs and albums are out of print.
Our web site is www.diyzine.com where you can click on the “Resist and Exist” logo.

As part of our ongoing How Do You Vegan? blog series, this week Vegan Outreach’s newest Outreach Coordinator, Lori Stultz, conducts an interview with her grandfather Joe Stultz, who went vegan last year at age 90! Read on to learn about Joe, who proves you are never too old to try something new!

Describe your lifestyle a little so we can get to know you better.

I am a 91 year-old, healthy, happy vegan. I live by myself in an apartment complex designed specifically for retired individuals like myself. I have low-vision (I am what they call “legally blind”) due to a degenerative eye disease called Macular Degeneration. Despite the difficulties my low-vision creates, I live independently and maintain a social and active lifestyle.

How long have you been vegan?

About one year.

What made you decide to go vegan?

Last summer my granddaughter, Lori, sent me CDs and DVDs that had information on the widespread animal abuses that take place today. These were abuses I was not aware of, I quickly decided that I did not want to take part in those torturous acts.

It was very easy for me to transition into a vegan diet because preparation of meat-free meals was simple for me. Having low vision, I need the easy meals that I can I fix for myself. In adopting a vegan diet I did not have to deal with the grease or muck that comes with preparing and consuming animal products. Dicing potatoes, opening up cans of beans and bags of frozen vegetables, and throwing it all together in a crock pot requires little to no clean-up, and that was a huge selling point for me!

What were the easiest and hardest parts of going vegan?

The easiest part of going vegan was the meal preparation. It has gotten to the point where I just don’t have to think about my meals anymore! Knowing that I was making an impact for animals also made going vegan very easy.

The hardest part about being vegan is when I got out to restaurants with a big group of friends and they all order pizza and hamburgers. Fortunately for me, I have a friend who chooses to abstain from alcohol, so when we go out to eat, she and I like to remind each other of the importance of our choices; we are simply saying “no” to foods and drinks that are not in line with our values.

Why do you want to contribute to this series?

The short answer, I chose to contribute because my granddaughter asked me. I take a great deal of joy in it, though, because outside of discussing veganism with Lori I am not presented with many opportunities to talk about why I eat what I eat. I like to tell my friends about my vegan lifestyle, but most of the time they do not ask many questions.

What does a normal week of eating look like for you?

Because of my low vision, my meals are quite simple. In the morning, I like to eat a couple pieces of whole wheat toast with a glass of soy milk or bowl of Cheerios with soy milk (I enjoy having a bowl of cheerios for lunch sometimes, too).

For lunch, I like to have a couple slices of whole wheat bread with vegan cheese slices in the middle. I will eat that alongside a big glass of soy milk. And, on occasion, I will heat up a veggie burger or a veggie hot dog, but, quite frankly, my hunger is satisfied just as well with a vegan cheese sandwich!

For my evening meal, I dice up potatoes and dump a few cans of beans and frozen vegetables into my crock pot. I do this earlier in the day and let it sit for a few hours until the potatoes are cooked and I am hungry for dinner. I pour myself a glass of soy milk and enjoy eating a hearty helping of healthy carbs, protein, and veggies!

What tips can you give to a person who identifies with your lifestyle to make eating vegan easy, fun, affordable?

The crock pot is a useful tool to make various types of protein/carb/veggie combinations. The different meal combinations you can put together using canned and frozen food are inexpensive and easily accessible. And, I personally think it is fun because there is very little clean-up and/or preparation needed to make good, healthy meals.

What is your favorite thing about being vegan?

For starters, my favorite part of adhering to a vegan diet are all the health benefits I have experienced since making the transition. I lowered my overall cholesterol levels from 300 mg/dL to 160 mg/dL. I am no longer on the blood pressure medication I was taking when I was consuming meat and dairy, and the inflammation in my joints, which was causing a notable amount of pain at night time, lessened significantly. Overall, I do not have to worry about my health as much I see my friends worrying about theirs.

Another one of my favorite things about being vegan is that it is inexpensive. Since I have gone vegan, I am not buying as much food because the meals I am making are keeping me feeling fuller longer. Overall, I am eating less quantities of food then what I was eating when I was consuming meat and animal by-products.

I also like knowing that I am a part of a very important and necessary movement that is growing and is going to improve the world on so many levels.