Week 3

Wow. I've always known that vegan food, when prepared correctly, can be the most delicious cuisine there is. This week's meals were just a fine example of that. We had taco salad, iced tea, and raw peaches and cream pie (amaaazing). On Wednesday we shared an entire raw meal consisting of tossed raw spaghetti with three sauces (all fantastic), with crackers, melon milk, and lemon meringue pie (holy moly soo good). I seriously cannot get over how awesome these desserts have been. I can't wait for what's in store for the final class (I'm sure it's something outstanding!). I was joking around with someone yesterday during class and I said, "If I could live here and eat Nina's food all the time, I would be the happiest person ever"...but seriously haha. Anyway, this week we spoke about the animal welfare and social justice. Both of these issues are interesting because we realize that whether it's the animals or the workers, the factory farming meat/dairy industry are ruthless and are sincerely and solely profit-driven. That's a pattern that I've noticed from the four tiers we've spoken about so far; these industries could absolutely not care less about how their practices are negatively impacting our health, the planets health, animal welfare, or their employees. I not only want to adopt a vegan diet to reduce these various impacts but also because I don't want to support a conglomerate that continues these behaviors with no remorse because it's what keeps their pockets filled with polluted money. It isn't right that 30% of our non-land ice is used by the meat/dairy industry, millions of people are still starving and injured slaughter house employees are denied treatment. But none of that matters to the industry that literally has their hands, money, and power controlling (or at least heavily influencing) so much of what informs America and ensures that none of these negative impacts will be public...and if the news of their dirty business leaks, they are sure to debunk those immediately with a nice, fluffy, vague statements. I don't get mad about many things, but learning about this really does frustrate me; I don't understand how enough money can motivate even the government to deny what the people are clearly asking for. There was a great point made in the last class that the only way that organic food (and hopefully the local/sustainable movement) will be favored over conventional factory farming is by making it profitable (unfortunately). However, I know that I haven't been around for long but even in my short life it seems like organic produce and foods have become more accepted and prevalent which hopefully is an indicator that with enough public education and government pressure, organic food will establish itself as the norm and some of those government subsidies can be applied to organic food and not producers such as Smithfields. It's awful that this industry is able to get away with so much and at this point I feel completely responsible for trying to change that. Like we discussed in class, the best way that I'm able to do that is write to my Congressman and to continue to purchase organic/local/vegan over other options. One thing that frustrates me though is that even "voting with your dollar" has set-backs. For instance, because I am a resident on campus I'm required to purchase a meal plan although if I had the choice I wouldn't support what Sodexo provides us but there's no way to get around that other than trying to alter what Sodexo serves us (which I am) or move off campus (which I will be doing my Junior year). But anyway, this is a side track but yesterday I was on happycow.net (where they provide lists of vegan/vegan-friendly restaurants) to see if there are new vegan options near where I live and google redirected me to meetup.com where there's a NH vegan/animal rights group that meets up once a month at a new location in NH to talk about being vegan and awesome haha :) I instantly joined it and I am so excited for the June get-together! I started doing so more research and it looks like NH has actually improved in the availability in vegan options (a local pizza shop now does vegan calzones and pizza) and a local bar/night restaurant serves a vegan banana&strawberry vegan chocolate cake! I'm excited to see what else is now being offered that's not advertised online and it'd be cool for everyone else to check out what's available near your home towns. If you want to stay engaged with veganism maybe try out some of the places near you over the summer. :)