By Alex Bury, VO Organizational Development Consultant

This is an urgent public service announcement from the FDA—Food and Deliciousness Administration. Do not, under any circumstances, buy P.B. Popps by Earth Balance.

Consumers who have purchased P.B. Popps have been known to exhibit signs of eating an entire bag at one sitting, buying bags for all their friends, and crying softly when they realize their bag is empty.

I was born and raised in Alaska. I went vegan 21 years ago, while living in Anchorage, and it was a big deal to have a single Tofurky Roast FedExed up for the holidays.

After I moved “outside”—Alaska speak for the Lower 48—I would travel home to the snow once or twice a year with suitcases stuffed full of all the cool new vegan products from California. How things have changed! Now I go to Alaska with extra room in my suitcase!

Every time I go back I find not only the newest vegan goodies—Miyoko’s cheese, Gardein, Beyond Meat, Ben and Jerry’s vegan coffee ice cream—but several other things I hadn’t yet tried in California.

This last trip I found Earth Balance P.B. Popps. My friend and I had stopped at the store to grab hiking snacks and the bag looked intriguing. I got other things as well just in case the popcorn stuff was too sweet or too whatever.

We opened it in the car and if I could go back in time I would take that unopened bag and throw it out the window. I’m surprised we made it hiking. This stuff is delicious! Remember Cracker Jack snacks? OK, now think of Cracker Jacks but better—not as cloyingly sweet, the popcorn more melt-in-your mouth, and, I swear, healthier!

A few perks of this dangerously good snack—

● 3 grams of protein

● Ingredients like peanuts, oats, flax, and popped corn

● 0 trans fat

My warning stands. Don’t buy this stuff, or buy it and just give up in advance. Get a book or crank up Netflix, grab a fresh bag of P.B. Popps, and we’ll hear from you later if you ever recover. You’re welcome.

By Lisa Rimmert, VO Director of Development

Each year The Pollination Project—an organization we at VO are big fans of—seeks nominations for vegan activists who work behind the scenes to create a more compassionate world.

The awards are named after the late Lisa Shapiro, an inspiring activist from Boulder, CO.

Lisa would be proud of this year’s winners! Out of all the nominations this year, eleven heroes were chosen—one couple and ten individuals, including our friends Aneeha Patwardhan and Patti Breitman!

Aneeha Patwardhan is an activist who VO’s Director of Outreach Vic Sjodin had the pleasure of meeting while in India. Here’s an excerpt from Vic’s tribute:

I love Aneeha’s endless passion and urgency for animal rights, and for sharing the beauty of veganism with others. She began her work after she came across a Vegan Outreach Facebook post that showed a young man who had gone vegan after getting a booklet. In typical fashion, she immediately ordered booklets of her own, which she and a friend then handed out during a march for animals in Pune, India. She has since helped organize leafleting and video outreach to the public nearly every weekend with local activists.

Read more about Aneeha here.

Patti Breitman is the founder of the Marin Vegetarian Education Group, co-founder of Dharma Voices for Animals, and co-author of the books Never Too Late to Go Vegan: The Over-50 Guide to Adopting and Thriving on a Plant-Based Diet, How to Eat like a Vegetarian Even If You Never Want to Be One, and more. Not only that, but Patti is also a friend and supporter of Vegan Outreach!

Read more about Patti here.

Congratulations to Aneeha, Patti, and the other wonderful Unsung Vegan Heroes!

By Lori Stultz, VO Rocky Mountain Outreach Coordinator

Whether you’re already vegan or you’re making a conscious effort to leave animal products off your plate, we all know the struggle of removing cheese from our diet once we’ve decided to help animals.

Personally, I’ve witnessed quite a few people in my life leave meat and eggs behind, but continue to consume cheese. Most of my friends and family members claim it’s impossible, and, guess what, I get it.

Cheese is such a common food product in our culture, and we’re introduced to it very early in life—who doesn’t remember eating string cheese for a snack and grilled cheese for lunch?

For those of you who’ve not yet eliminated cheese from your diet, or for those of you who are helping family members and friends remove cheese from their diets, you’re going to want to keep reading because we’ve got a pretty special announcement.

Michelle Cehn, Vegan Outreach’s Social Media Manager and founder of World of Vegan, has teamed up with Allison Rivers Samson, an award-winning vegan chef, cookbook author, and wellness coach, and they’ve designed an awesome program to help cheese lovers ditch it for good!

From the creators—

The Dairy Detox is packed with friendly and engaging daily videos, a collection of delicious dairy-free recipes, a private online community, and all the resources needed to take anyone from beginner-to-pro in just 12 days.

Our goal is to inspire wellness and compassion. We’re taking an approach we’ve never seen done before by speaking specifically to one issue that we think is the lynchpin to vegan living: dairy. We want to bring people into the vegan funnel by addressing the most difficult obstacle—cheese.

Registration is open now for our first session on November 1. After the first session, The Dairy Detox will be offered on the 1st of every month.

Pretty cool, right? Now get yourself on over to The Daily Detox website for more details about the program along with registration information.

With the wide variety of vegan blogs out there, Vegan Outreach is truly humbled to be ranked in the Top 10 of Feedspot’s Vegan Blog Top 100 List.

We’re happy that our blog can be a resource for anyone looking to reduce the number of animals killed for food. We do our best to make sure our readers are never short on uplifting stories, recent vegan-related news, fun interviews, and, of course, yummy recipes.

Feedspot ranks vegan blogs based on Google reputation and Google search ranking, influence and popularity on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, quality and consistency of posts, and Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review.

Thank you and happy reading!

By Lisa Rimmert, VO Director of Development

I’m from St. Louis, MO, and there’s something you should know about it that you might not.

It may be in the middle of farm country, but it’s home to many wonderful people who care about farmed animals!

I visit the Gateway City a few times a year, but my most recent trip, the weekend of September 25, was quite special. I picked up VO Campaigns Manager Taylor Radig, and we left Denver, CO to drive twelve hours east for a much-anticipated fundraising event in St. Louis.

We’d been planning the event for a while, and we were a little nervous. We know fundraising events work on the coasts, but would St. Louis come through?

The answer was a resounding yes! We met and enjoyed the company of dozens of compassionate animal advocates. Together, they donated more than $8,000 to make more outreach happen.

In other words, St. Louis rocks!

This fundraiser was the brainchild of wonderful VO donor and St. Louis celebrity, Amy Dubman. Amy and her brother Brook own Carol House Furniture, and they use the business in many ways to help animals.

They advocate for animals in their furniture commercials, they helped open a low-cost spay and neuter clinic, and now, they threw an incredible party and matched the donations given by attendees! A huge thank you, Brook and Amy!

Attendees enjoyed a delicious menu, complete with vegan meats from MATCH Meats, a St. Louis-based company. I told you St. Louis rocks!

At the event, we had the pleasure of honoring VO President Steve Ann Chambers and hearing from her about her coming to work at VO. She told a story about deciding at age seven to become a lawyer for animals—that’s pretty incredible if you ask me!

We also heard from Taylor as she talked about her experiences as an undercover investigator on farms, as well as her exciting campaigns work for VO—partnering with eateries to provide vegan options.

I spoke at the event too, but I resisted the urge to take a selfie (you’re welcome). I shared with attendees how lucky I feel to work with people like Taylor and Steve Ann, and how proud I am to help Amy facilitate this event in our hometown with such compassionate and generous people.

Thank you for making my heart soar, St. Louis. This blog post goes out to all of our donors in remote areas and in the middle of the country. Thank you!

By Jamila Alfred, VO Maryland/DC Events and Outreach Coordinator

A few weeks ago I met up with the tremendously talented triplets of 3 Twisted Vegans (3TV)—who make the most delicious vegan comfort food in Washington, DC.

As relatively new businesswomen, triplets Rhoni, Rhone’t, and Rhoneika Jacobs feature their sensational all-vegan menu as a pop-­up restaurant at EatsPlace, near the Georgia Ave-Petworth Metro Station in DC.

I wandered into their pop-­up location with a mouthful of questions and ended up with a mouthful of fries!

As soon as my order of the Rudeboy burger, sweet potato fries, and peanut butter Oreo milkshake hit my table, I went to town with no traces of food left. It’s just so hard to explain how tasty this meal was! The tastes were nostalgic, the textures were spot on, and the homemade sauces were absolutely delicious!

If the food itself wasn’t enough, the sisters were an absolute delight! Despite only being in the early 20s, they were as wise and strong as elders. The more we talked, the more evident it became that these three sisters were beyond passionate about their work.

I’m excited to introduce you to this vegan trio—let’s get to it!

Jamila Alfred: Where did you grow up?

Rhoni Jacobs: We grew up right here in Washington, DC—maybe 2 or 3 minutes away.

Jamila: What’s your collective vegan story?

Rhoneika Jacobs: We went vegan pretty much overnight. Rhoni woke up one morning and said, “Let’s just go vegan!” We had never heard of it or been around people who were vegan. We usually go grocery shopping every Sunday, and she told us on Friday that she wanted us to go vegan, so we had no choice but to get vegan food.

We kind of argued about it for a while because the first thought I had was, “I’m going to be hungry!” We literally just did it overnight. At the grocery store that Sunday, we shopped all vegan and we continued up to now.

Jamila: What is 3TV and how did it come to be?

Rhone’t Jacobs: We would say that 3TV is good food that happens to be vegan. And we put the word “vegans” in our name—even when people didn’t think it was a good idea—because we don’t want people to be afraid of vegan food.

When people think of vegan food they equate it to like a salad, rice, or something small. We’re not small people, so we don’t eat light. We want people’s minds to be changed about how they see vegan food—it could be comfort food, it could be fast food, it could be fatty food. It doesn’t have to be this little salad. We don’t like stuff like that. Everybody needs comfort food!

Jamila: What makes you different from other vegan vendors?

Rhoni: Our food tastes better because we season it like we did in the past. If you can’t cook non-­vegan food, then you can’t cook vegan food. We brought all of our experience with cooking non-­vegan food to vegan food.

Jamila: Did you come across any cooking challenges after you became vegan?

Rhoneika: We’re Jamaican and we thought we’d have a hard time cooking vegan Jamaican food because of certain foods like curried goat, oxtail, beef patties, and stuff like that. Our grandmother is the best cook ever and we wanted to have our food embody the authentic Jamaican flavors she created. Honestly, if you tasted our food, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between our grandmother’s and ours.

Jamila: What’s your favorite music to play while cooking?

Rhone’t: We all agree that it’s rap music! I think it gives you this motivational feeling, but it depends on who you listen to. I listen to Meek Mill, and it’s something that gets you motivated at the gym. Same with cooking—it puts you in the mood to cook. You listen to people you’re relatable to, and he always talks about starting from the bottom or starting from nowhere.

That’s how we feel about Nicki Minaj, too—we love her!

Jamila: Thank you, Rhoni, Rhone’t, and Rhoneika for taking the time to talk to us about your new business!

It’s obvious that these intelligent sisters will surely go far!

Take my advice and drop by EatsPlace in DC on Saturdays from 5:00 pm – ­9:30 pm to get the twisted experience!

By Lori Stultz, VO Rocky Mountain Outreach Coordinator

If you like vegan cheese, brace yourself.

Vegan Outreach’s Social Media Manager, Michelle Cehn, and VO’s former Food and Lifestyle Coordinator, Toni Okamoto, are about to take us inside Miyoko Schinner’s vegan cheese factory where her delicious vegan cheeses and buttery spread are made.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with Miyoko, or haven’t had the opportunity to try her products, I suggest you check out the video! It’ll certainly leave you smiling!

After you’ve watched the video, head on over to the Miyoko’s Kitchen website and order yourself some delicious vegan cheese! You won’t be sorry you did!

And a big shout out to Miyoko for her ongoing support, and for opening up her factory doors to give us a glimpse.