National Pistachio Day was February 26th and inspired me to make this Quinoa Pistachio Salad. I was meal prepping for a weekend dance intensive and this turned out to be the perfect meal! It was protein-packed, light, and helped me sustain my energy. Give it a try!
Ingredients:
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup quinoa
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup coarsely chopped mint leaves
1/2 cup dry-roasted pistachios, unsalted
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 scallion, thinly sliced
handful of grape tomatoes, halved
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
salt and ground black pepper to taste
Directions:
Bring the veggie broth to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Add quinoa, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender and the liquid has been absorbed, about 13 minutes. Stir in olive oil; fluff quinoa with a fork. Set aside to cool slightly.
Stir mint, pistachios, dried cranberries, scallion, grape tomatoes, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Season to taste with salt and ground black pepper. Enjoy!
This recipe reminds me of my best friend, Grace Kuhn. When she lived on the West Coast, I’d spend hours, days, and weeks loitering at her house, eating her food. This was my favorite thing she regularly cooked.
Grace is a lot fancier than I am and she’d use the tofu ricotta filling to stuff manicotti shells, but I don’t have time for all that. Instead, I follow this recipe she included in the Plant Based on a Budget Challenge meal plan for 2 people.
It’s really cheap to make, easy to put together, and provides great leftovers for the week. I highly recommend giving it a try!
Ingredients:
1 lb pasta
1 jar marinara
¼ cup oil for ricotta, plus 1 tbsp for sauteing
1 tsp lemon juice
1 package extra-firm tofu
1 ½ tbsp oregano
½ tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fresh or frozen spinach
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook pasta according to directions.
Crumble tofu in a large bowl with your hands to resemble feta. Mix in lemon juice and ¼ cup oil and stir to distribute evenly. Add garlic, salt, and oregano one by one, mixing after each is incorporated. Set aside.
Heat tablespoon of oil on medium heat. Add onion, spinach, and garlic and cook until onions are translucent, about 4-5 minutes. Add onions, garlic and spinach to tofu mixture. Mix well.
Pour enough marinara sauce to cover bottom of a 13 x 9 inch pan. Add cooked pasta and remaining sauce on top. Top pasta with tofu mixture, spreading evenly. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes.
Our Team Vegan matching drive started yesterday (Did you get our email? If not, sign up here!) and every donation to Vegan Outreach will be doubled!
A few generous donors have pledged to match donations up to $200,000! That’s $400,000 we could raise for animals–with your help.
What we raise during this Team Vegan drive will determine the work we can (or can’t) do this year. We depend on your donations to inspire more people to go vegan–people like Antonio.
Antonio received a booklet from VO’s Mexico Outreach Coordinator, Emmanuel Márquez, at Universidad de Guanajuato. Antionio told Emmanuel about how he ate vegetarian for a while but went back to eating animals. Emmanuel gave him a booklet and told him about the Spanish section of the VO website for recipes and nutrition info.
Now Antonio is going vegan!
We hear from people like Antonio all the time, and it’s because of folks like you whose donations make outreach possible.
Now, with our Team Vegan matching challenge, you can inspire twice as many people to go vegan, which means twice as many animals spared!
By Katia Rodriguez, Mexico Campaigns and Spanish Media Coordinator
What a great week!
Last month, when we were tabling at an event, we met a vegetarian teacher who expressed her interest on VO’s work. She invited us to the Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM) high school campuses and an affiliated high school to participate during Earth Week events. We were able to set up a table, leaflet around campus, and give presentations during UDEM’s Earth Week, where we shared with the students how we can help the planet with our food choices since factory farming is destroying our planet.
The students had three different presentations they could choose and our presentations were the first to be filled on every campus!
Below are some pictures of the presentations.
We set up a table where both students and teachers stopped by asking for advice on how to modify their eating habits, where to find vegan products, and how to get involved with VO. Whenever the table wasn’t busy, I walked around and distributed leaflets.
On two different occasions, volunteer Ana joined me and I learned something new that motivated me even more during the week: she went vegan more than 2 years ago after receiving VO’s ¿Por qué vegetariano? leaflet and now she is volunteering for VO! It was amazing to see the power of leafleting!
We gave a total of eight presentations where we reached more than 400 students! I wasn’t sure what to expect, since it was our first time visiting this institution. I couldn’t believe how receptive, positive, interactive, and interested students were while I was speaking.
During this time, some students were taking notes, visiting our website, and taking pictures of the presentation. Every single student received a leaflet and I saw most of them reading it from start to finish. I was happy to have three vegans and two vegetarians in the audience. At least three students reached out to me at every campus after the presentations to tell me they want to go vegetarian or vegan and would love to receive more information.
David Carter was a highlight during the conference—I use him as an example when mentioning that vegans can be healthy and that there are successful vegan athletes. Some students googled David and they were showing his picture around the room and they couldn’t believe he was vegan! They loved the fact that he is an NFL player that helps animals.
It was an incredible week with lots of positive responses and great news for animals. I feel very motivated and I can’t wait to go back!
Beginning May 1st–and through June 30th–dozens of animal activists from all over the world will team up to raise much-needed funds for Vegan Outreach. This team-driven fundraising drive, called Team Vegan, is what fuels VO’s Fall outreach! It’s very important, and your participation is what determines its success.
Many have already joined, but we need your help too, to make this the biggest Team Vegan ever! Here are the top ten reasons you should sign up now:
1. Donations will be doubled. A few incredibly generous philanthropists have agreed to match donations dollar-for-dollar up to $200,000. That’s $400,000 we can raise for animals–our biggest Team Vegan drive in history!
2. Our work depends on you. The money raised during Team Vegan will fuel our Fall outreach–and we have ambitious plans! We need your help to make them happen.
3. Farmed animals depend on us. VO’s work for farmed animals requires two things: the hard work of our Outreach Coordinators, and the donations that make their work possible. The money you raise will inspire and help people go vegan, sparing countless animals from a lifetime of misery.
4. You can win prizes! Each of the top five volunteer fundraisers will receive a $100 gift card to Vegan Essentials, Pangea, or The Vegetarian Site. And folks who raise at least $500 by June 30 will receive a Team Vegan jersey or cap!
5. You could start off with $100! A very generous donor has agreed to “seed the pots” of Team Vegan fundraisers who sign up and have a picture uploaded and a blurb written by May 20th.
6. It’s great motivation to be fit! While you certainly don’t have to, many Team Vegan members choose an activity to go along with their fundraising efforts. You could run a race, swim a lap for every dollar you raise, or plan a leafleting trip by bike! The options are endless and can give you that needed push to get moving! After all, it’s for the animals.
7. You’ll be representing VO. Since 1993, Vegan Outreach has been inspiring people to go vegan and then helping them do it! We reach thousands of young people every week with accurate and persuasive information about the vegan lifestyle.
8. You’ll be part of an incredible team. Work alongside (and compete with!) the likes of VO President Jack Norris and VO Motivational Speaker and Diversity Specialist David Carter! You’ll be helping them–and dozens of other activists–make a positive impact for animals.
9. It’s easy! Each week, you’ll receive an email from me–Lisa–with tidbits of inspiration, tips about effective fundraising, and some fun surprises!
10. It’s inspiring! You will be surprised and delighted by the generosity of your friends and family, I promise you! They’ll give because they want to support you, and what a great way to do so. More donations = more outreach = less suffering!
Clearly, signing up for Team Vegan is a win for everyone involved. Email me at [email protected] with questions, or sign up now to help reduce animal suffering with your own Team Vegan fundraising page!
Do you know about The Vegetarian Site? It’s a great website run by wonderful people who care about animals. They have tons of vegan products, including books, vegan food, and even hiking boots. It’s an especially helpful resource for folks who don’t have access to many vegan products locally.
It’s always a great time to buy from The Vegetarian Site, but April is the best time to shop. This month,10% of your sale will go to Vegan Outreach–to inspire people to go vegan and help them stick with it!
Get what you need at The Vegetarian Site today, and feel great knowing you’re reducing animal suffering while you shop!
Buy vegan goods. Inspire new vegans. What could be better?!
On a weekend in late March, about 100 attendees gathered for the inaugural Intersectional Justice Conference on idyllic Whidbey Island, WA–a conference for which Vegan Outreach was a key sponsor.
Vegan Outreach’s Organizational Development Consultant, Alex Bury, drove up from California to my home in Oregon and together we set off to Washington. Before reaching the conference, we had an important mission: to pick up Paige Carter and David Carter at the Seattle airport.
I’d been hearing about David and Paige for months and was excited to meet them. They’re as impressive as you might imagine—focused and insightful activists, while also easygoing and funny.
David Carter, Lauren Sprang, Paige Carter, Alex Bury
As we rode the ferry to Whidbey island, I didn’t know what was in store for us that weekend, or that I would leave more inspired than I have been since I went vegan nearly 17 years ago.
Paige Carter, David Carter, Lauren Sprang
When we arrived, we drove through the darkening woods to the beautiful Whidbey Institute (below).
While the Whidbey Institute wasn’t the most accessible location, the speakers who made it there are leaving an indelible mark on the field of social justice. And although Alex had told me about many of the speakers going in, I wasn’t prepared to be so impacted, intellectually and emotionally!
The conference gave space for voices that have been suppressed–people who aren’t publicized as the face of veganism–including people of color, feminists, and LGBTQ activists.
The questions raised by vegan social justice activists include, “What does racial profiling have to do with factory farming?” And, “What does equal pay for women have to do with LGBTQ rights?”
Such questions encompass a myriad of oppressions including speciesism, classism, racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, sizeism, anti-semitism, heterosexism, etc. If you can understand the common source of oppression, can you address that source to liberate not only animals, but human communities?
Speakers Aph Ko and Dr. A. Breeze Harper each gave powerful speeches. Both spoke about racism and veganism, including how the southern diet, with its high intake of fried food, was incorporated into black communities as a result of the history of slavery. This diet damages human health and also promotes animal agriculture.
pattrice jones illustrated the example of cow’s milk in free and reduced cost lunches. People of color are more likely to receive free or reduced cost lunches and to be lactose intolerant. Again, this practice affects human health–and likely academic performance–and also promotes animal agriculture.
However the speakers emphasized that it’s not how these issues are similar, but their common source that’s most relevant: the societal institutions that reinforce these oppressions. These aren’t necessarily new ideas—it’s just the first time I’m hearing them.
A. Breeze Harper, Aph Ko, pattrice jones, Brenda Sanders
One thing I learned is that supporting vegan intersectional activists doesn’t mean finding a place for them in the existing animal rights movement. They’re thriving in the spaces that they’ve created. While people in mainstream animal rights organizations may want to work toward diversifying their workplaces, it’s equally, if not more important to stand witness to diverse voices in social justice and either support and promote them, or, to be blunt, let them be. There is no educating that “experienced” animal rights activists need to do. These activists know how to do their work–they’re doing it!
Author of the Sexual Politics of Meat. Heart-opening work of loving and responding with care to this fragile world and its inhabitants has shaped me as a writer and activist.
A collective of vegan businesses in the Baltimore area that has developed a line of delicious, healthy foods that offer an affordable alternative to animal products.
Offering refuge to animals who have escaped or been rescued from the meat, dairy and egg industries or other injurious circumstances, such as cockfighting and zoos.
A hunger relief and animal protection organization chipping away at two of the world’s most immense, unnecessary, and unconscionable forms of suffering. A Well Fed World was a key sponsor of the conference.
Socks are $16 per pair, plus shipping. Proceeds will benefit VO’s work to inspire, help, and retain new vegans.
These are hand-printed at a family-owned, US-based company, using fair labor practices. 85% polyester, 10% nylon, 5% lycra, all synthetic. Packaging made from recycled paper.
For ten weeks this semester, Kimberly Moffatt and I represented Vegan Outreach on a nationwide leafleting and speaking tour of India. The tour generated a lot of excitement and made a significant impact.
While on tour, in each city Kimberly and I gave seminars on veganism, leafleting, and utilitarian advocacy for local animal activists of all stripes. Tour events also included leafleting multiple colleges and giving many speeches titled “The Unexamined Meal” to deeply engaged student audiences, whose attendance was often in the hundreds and sometimes even topped a thousand.
Our question and answer sessions often went long with many intelligent questions. After the talks, many students expressed that they would no longer be “non-veg” or drink bovine secretions.
Our ultimate goal was to use this tour to set up a permanent dedicated activist presence for farmed animals in India, which was accomplished with the hiring and training of Pooja Rathor as Vegan Outreach’s first India Outreach Coordinator.
We worked closely with the local group Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisation‘s (FIAPO) Campaign Coordinator Shweta Sood and her extensive volunteer network. By the time our tour concluded–after only 10 weeks–we had reached over 133,000 people, mostly students, with the case for veganism.
The student interest was massive and hard to overstate with dozens coming back to talk and ask questions every day. Groups of 10-30 people regularly would form around us as we gave condensed, 10-minute speeches.
Readership rates in most places was sky high, and it didn’t take long for us to start meeting students later in the day who told us they were moved by the booklet and would never eat animal products again.
Many also asked for more booklets to show friends.
In nearly every city, activists who do direct animal rescue, such as Priyanka and Amit in Surat, decided to go vegan and many pledged to leaflet more. At the end of the tour, volunteer Tina let us know that she has been dairy-free for 10 weeks since hearing us give a seminar the first day of the tour in New Delhi.
We would like to extend our sincerest thanks to every person in the Vegan Outreach family of members for making this animal saving extravaganza possible. We would especially like to thank Dan Phillips, who had the acuity to see that this was a region in need of our knowledge and experience, where we could play a big role helping to pave change. We’d also like to thank FIAPO, Shweta, and the countless volunteers who joined us leafleting and shared their warmth, enthusiasm, and early mornings with us.
We would also like to thank VO board member Yvonne LeGrice, her husband David Hertel, and President Jack Norris for driving down to Los Angeles from Davis to welcome us home after our 22-hour return flight. What an amazing surprise–it was the perfect end to a great trip!
And lastly thank you to “Billy the Bull” in Varanasi who helped funnel foot traffic to Kimberly, helping us get the message out, and to the macaques in Jaipur for showing their support!
Here’s a 45-second clip of Kim leafleting in India:
And here’s a 4-minute interview with me:
Special thanks to: Verhaen from the New Delhi Nature Society for your above and beyond help in Delhi and scheduling many talks; our adopted mother in India, Delhi volunteer leader Madhu Roy; Varda of FIAPO for all of your help with booklet design and pulling the tour together; Arpan of FIAPO for your insights and letting us stay with your family; Prashant and Puneet for joining us on tour and for booking transport; Sonal and family in Lucknow for coming to our aid and breaking taboo to take us in and to ace volunteer Abhishek; Joe Gonzalez and Sauraub for your help in Varanasi; Rucha in Jaipur; Team RAKSHA; Erika And Claire Abrams; Ashutosh and team and Animal Aid Unlimited in Udaipur; Gautam in Ahmedabad; Ari Nessel for giving us connections and the idea to visit the inspiring Gandhi Ashram; Subru and Mercy For Animals for all of the shipments, providing ammo and joining us; the unbelievable Team PRAYAS and Darshan in Surat, Aneeha, Darshana, Team Pune and so many others in many other cities.
The time for summer bar-b-ques and potlucks is rapidly approaching, so I wanted to get you well equipped with tasty and easy-to-make recipes! This is one of my favorites! It’s a light pasta salad that’s bursting with flavor and high in protein. Your friends and family are guaranteed to love it as much as I do!
Ingredients:
16 oz bag of pasta
1/4 c olive oil
1 small red onion
2 cloves garlic
15 oz can chickpeas
6 oz jar artichoke quarters
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper, to taste
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Directions:
Boil pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside. In a large pan add olive oil, diced onions, minced
garlic and sauté until onions are translucent. Add chickpeas (drained), artichoke quarters, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and let simmer over medium heat for five minutes. Add drained pasta and mix well. Garnish with cherry tomatoes.
