By Jolia Sidona Allen on October 16, 2009

Navigating The World Wide Veg

I confess: I’m a die-hard surfer. No, not the big wave COWABUNGA kind. Although I live six blocks from the Pacific—I spend way more time surfing the web than I do at the beach. I’m a bona fide Internet junkie. What’s worse? I’m a vegan Internet junkie.

I stay awake into the wee hours of the night energized by my insatiable curiosity for all things veg, googling search terms like “vegan sources of alpha-linolenic acid” or “how to de-seed a pomegranate.” I read the menus of veg eateries in towns I never plan to visit. I scour for the perfect pair of vegan boots to complete my fall wardrobe. I eat up all the gossip on veg celebs. I drown myself in the latest and most critical medical literature. I admit: I once even took a virtual tour—via a You Tube video—of the inside of a vegan’s refrigerator.

And, my addiction doesn’t get put on hold in AM. As Associate Editor and Web Editor of Vegetarian Times magazine and Vegetariantimes.com, it’s part of my job to keep my finger on the pulse of the ever-evolving World Wide Veg (WWV) and to contribute to it—Vegetariantimes.com offers the world’s largest collection of nutritious and delicious vegetarian recipes!

It’s no newsflash that technology has does wonders to make the universe a smaller place. No matter how far apart we live, we are citizens of the same global veg village. That’s the real beauty of it: we’re in this together, connected by the information highway. The WWV makes it easy to connect with uncountable like-minded vegheads across the globe, sharing veg recipes, news, etc. It’s about being inspired and inspiring others, using technology as fuel to spread the good gospel on vegetarianism and healthy living like wildfire.

Because you are reading this blog right now, you’re probably already just as tangled up in the WWV as I am. We could all use a little help navigating the WWV. Below, please find my list of hot clicks. This list is by no means a “Best Of”; it’s just my suggestions of not-be-missed WWV destinations. Check ‘em out, and pretty please with an organic cherry on top leave comments sharing the gazillion and one I missed!

Vegan Radio is a bi-weekly vegan broadcast and podcast, available for download as MP3 files subscription through iTunes. This show will simultaneously keep you laughing out load and well-informed on all things veg, with news and commentary delivered by three of the most likeable vegan radio hosts imaginable plus a guest lineup including the most inspirational voices of veganism such as Raw Foods Goodess Ani Phyo, Vegan Triathlete Brendan Brazier, vegan body builder Robert Cheeke, and co-author of Skinny Bitch Rory Freedman.

@veganhelp on Twitter makes it easier than ever for vegans to help want-to-be vegans make the transition. This twitter “bot” simply reposts tweets from users it believes want to go vegan so others can respond to their inquiries. Example: “RT @TheVeganRD Need a cookbook recommendation for someone just starting to go vegan. She likes to cook, doesn’t always have time. Has a 3-year-old.” All you need to do to lend your advice to others is follow @veganhelp on Twitter and respond to tweets by clicking on the bit.ly link.

Obamafoodorama Want to have something interesting to add to the conversation at the next dinner party you go to? Obama Foodorama—“A Daily Diary of the Obama Foodscape, One Bipartison Byte at a Time”— covers all things red, white, and foodie, from a brief history of the White House cupcake habit to the groundbreaking White House kitchen garden.

Locavore iPhone App makes it a no-brainer to eat local and in season, making it easier than ever to stick to a 100 mile diet. Locavore automatically detects which state your in, tells you what foods are currently in season (i.e. papayas, eggplant, oranges), offer food pics, locates farms and farmers’ markets near you, and more. Available through the iphone App store.

Meatlessmonday.com is a global movement to cut back on meat consumption for both health and environmental reasons. The campaign has a long history in America; it was launched during WWI, resurrected during WWII, recreated in 2003 as a public health awareness program, and has gained world-wide momentum in the past year, with the help of supporters like Paul McCartney and his daughters Stella and Mary. Join the movement!

Vegetariantimes.com allows you to search over 12,000 tasty vegetarian recipes by ingredient; by specialty diets such as gluten-free, vegan, and low-cal; by ethnic cuisine, by holiday, by season, etc. You can even print your shopping list! The site also offers a free downloadable Vegetarian Starter Kit, Editor’s Picks of top stories, a super helpful Ingredient Substitution Guide, a must-read Editors Blog, and more. Plus, you can find VT on Facebook  and Twitter, posting mouthwatering recipes and foodie news updates.

Meetup.com A simple search for the word “vegan” on Meetup.com yields a whopping 755 groups; a search for “raw food” yields 656 groups! As the website’s name implies, these groups “meet up” with like-minded pepes around the globe. Meetup groups are as diverse as the cities and towns they meet up in, from the Vegan Outdoor and Adventure Group in Westminster, CO, to the Boynton Beach Raw Foodies in Boyton Beach, FL.

Vegetarianstar.com Extra! Extra! Read all about Alicia Silverstone’s book launch party for her new book, The Kind Diet, or the release of Kosher Vegetarian, starring Natalie Portman. Vegetarianstar.com is a star-studded blog that reads like a newspaper, dishing out a healthy portion of celebrity vegetarian gossip and news. Eat it up!

Veganbodybuilding.com The athletes featured here showcase plant protein’s power to build muscle and fuel endurance athletes. Got a burning question? Veganbodybuilding.com’s Forums discuss everything from Martial Arts to Vegan Dating. Plus, where else can you order a grass green headband embroidered with VEGAN in bold all-caps or a sunshine yellow TEAM VEGAN tank top?

And, of course, Crazy, Sexy, Life!!!

P.S. Please leave your comments sharing your fave WWV destinations below!

Read More    

By Jolia Sidona Allen on July 27, 2009

Born into the Garden of Eating

It’s Meatless Monday again! Today we have blog posse member, Jolia Sidona Allen, sharing her life-long journey as a vegetarian with us. PETA states in their Vegetarianism and the Environment Factsheet that “According to scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, seven football fields’ worth of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals and the crops that feed them.” By going meatless on Mondays you are helping to lessen jaw-dropping statistics like this!

Hello! I’m Jolia, life-long vegetarian, long-time vegan, and Associate Editor and Web Editor of Vegetarian Times magazine, a.k.a. “Vegetarian Times Foodie Fatale.”

When I tell people about my job—a dream job come true for someone who loves legumes as much as she loves language—I usually get the same question: “Are you a vegetarian?” I often respond with a simple “Yes,” but the next question is usually “How long have you been a vegetarian?” And so, time and time again, I find myself divulging the longer, more engaging explanation, a story that goes all the way back to the womb.

Here it goes: I was born and raised as a vegetarian. In other words, I have never eaten a single morsel of any sentient being. From my tiny, pinky toenail to the tip of my nose, from my wisdom teeth to my belly button, every cell in my body has been replicated a billion, billion times over from solely vegetarian sources. My parents become vegetarians before I was born and are healthy, happy vegans today. While I could have strayed from my vegetarian path at any point, I have never been so inclined. My life-long vegetarianism is a gift for which I have always been grateful, a gift that has, in recent years, grown to define not only my diet, but also my career path.

Are you surprised to meet a first-generation vegetarian? People usually are. I can’t see your faces, but when people learn this about me their eyes light up and become kaleidoscopes of curiosity. I’m not sure why it’s so shocking—in India, vegetarianism dates back thousands of years. But in America, even in the veg-friendly city of Los Angeles where I live, meeting a first-generation vegetarian is as about as rare as witnessing a lunar eclipse or the arrival of locusts.

“You’ve never even had a hamburger?” I often hear. Nope. I’ve never had a hamburger, or a hot dog, or a Philly cheese steak, and nor have I ever really wanted to. In my mind, animals are not food. It’s as plain and simple as not wanting to eat your stapler or your cat.

Once, when I was an English professor, I casually divulged my veganism as a side note during a class discussion about literature. To my surprise, my students’ hands went up like a wave at a homecoming game, and they bombarded me with questions. Their thirst for this topic far surpassed their interest in the correct way to use a semi-colon or for the details of Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond. One student even stayed after class to confess his addiction to Coco-Cola; he was hungry, starving even, for knowledge that would help him transform his relationship with food.

Why do I harp on this element of curiosity? Because no matter how successful I am vegifying my own world and spreading the word on vegetarianism, I am constantly reminded that vegetarianism is not yet the norm in America. Raising veg children in a non-veg world, like anything else worth doing, isn’t easy. It’s a brave journey like that of the salmons’ struggle to swim upstream against the current. Most school cafeterias still don’t serve veggie burgers, most overnight camps don’t provide vegan marshmallows around the campfire, and most parents still serve hot dogs at birthday parties.

But the world is changing. It is getting easier and easier to maintain a plant-based diet. In fact, it’s hipper than ever to go veg! As for first-generation vegetarians, there are more and more of us born everyday. Vegetarian resources are plentiful. I highly recommend Disease-Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. And, right now on Vegetarian Times Editors’ Blog, VT’s Market Editor, Gabrielle Harradine, a.k.a. “The Preg Veg” is blogging about her healthy, green, and vegetarian pregnancy.

So no matter where you are on your personal food journey, whether you are an omnivore, a flexitarian, a pescatarian, a vegetarian, a vegan, a raw or even a nude foodist, whether you are a parent or not—I hope you will be inspired to give yourself and a child in your life a taste of vegetarianism, whether it’s for every meal or even just one meal. I am living proof that’s it’s okay to live an entire life without eating a single hamburger. In fact, it’s downright delicious. To repeat Mahatma Gandhi’s mantra, an adage you must have heard as many times as I have, but one that never loses its profound meaning: You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

If you could give a child a gift—the best gift in the universe—what would it be? A bicycle? An i-pod? A violin? There is only one gift that I can think of that is priceless: health. While there are no certainties in this world, I believe that our forks are the best weapon we have to protect our own health and the health of our planet.

Read More