Jane is an addict. There I've said it. She's not in denial of her habit, and they do say that admitting you have a problem is the first step down the road to a cure. But I'm not sure that she's seeking a cure! So what is she addicted to? SnackSalad's Snappea Crisps.

The package is $1.49 at our local Trader Joe's. They also sell them at Whole Foods. Every week we buy two packages. At 3.3 ounces, the packages aren't huge. Supposedly they're 3.3 servings for the entire bag. Jane has been known to devour an entire bag in one sitting. At 500 calories for the whole bag, she's not beating herself up. Of course, that's not to say that either one of us would advocate eating an entire bag in one sitting, I'm just saying you won't have blown your entire day's allotment of calories if you do. And if you're eating a 2,000 calorie per day diet, you're still way under the suggested 45 grams of fat (there are 26.4grams of fat in the bag). Now, they're certainly not as good for you as eating an apple, but they aren't quite as bad as potato chips. So, if you're jonesing for a new vice... we highly recommend them. If you're trying to eat well, you should probably go for that apple instead!

Note to our readers: The Caesar variety is made with milk, so if you're going to try these (and are looking for a vegan snack), make sure to get the "Original" flavor, and don't blame us when your craving your next fix!

So, tonight on our local news program, they did a short blurb on eating locally to save the environment. In itself, this really shouldn't bother me. However, I find myself wondering, why, if the local news is so interested in saving the planet (yes, I'm making an assumption here)... why then didn't they suggest eating vegan, or at the very least for people to cut down on their meat consumption?

It's been well documented that you can make much more of a positive impact by eating vegan, than by buying local produce. We wrote about it in our post, Eating Vegan Trumps Eating Locally, where we cite the New Scientists article Food Miles Don't Feed Climate Change, Meat Does:

To drive his point home, Weber calculated that a completely local diet would reduce a household's greenhouse emissions by an amount equivalent to driving a car 1600 km fewer per year. He assumed the car travels 10.6 km per litre of petrol (25 mpg). Switching from red meat to veggies just one day per week would spare 1860 km of driving.

The New York Times ran an article by Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, entitled Rethinking The Meat Guzzler, in which he states:

"If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals."

Then there's Livestock’s Long Shadow, the UN report which states:

The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential of CO2. Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport.

The University of Chicago published a study in 2006, stating that Vegan Diets Healthier For Planet/People Than Meat Diets:

“We say that however close you can be to a vegan diet and further from the mean American diet, the better you are for the planet. It doesn’t have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan. If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you’ve already made a substantial difference.”

I could go on, there's plenty of material out there. So why isn't the news media screaming for us to cut down on our meat consumption? (Can we say lobbies? or Powerful Corporate advertisers?) Come on people, this is the obvious solution to a very large problem, the facts are staring us all right in the face. Oh, that's right, the earth is flat, and there be dragons here!

One of the things that I discovered after starting to read vegan literature is that "free range" doesn't mean what I thought it did. Before going vegan, I used to buy eggs marked "free range" or "cage free" -- and I felt pretty good about that. In my mind, I was eating what was basically a waste product (an unfertilized egg), produced by a chicken that was living a pretty good life. As conventional wisdom holds, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Many people believe that egg production is less abusive to chickens than other factory farming processes, and therefore a vegetarian diet is an acceptable way to boycott animal cruelty. Well, here's some more food for vegetarian thought:

• In the U.S. there are no laws or government standards regulating the use of free-range, free roaming, or free-walking on egg cartons.
• Free-range simply means the birds are uncaged. This does not necessarily mean the birds have access to the outdoors. There is no industry standard defining how free-range hens are to be housed.
• Many egg farmers sell their eggs as free range merely because their cages are two or three inches above average size, or because there is a window in the shed where the hens are kept.
• It is common for free range hens to be debeaked, the practice of severing the tip of the sensitive beak, without anesthesia. This is done to reduce stress-pecking and fighting due to overcrowding.
• it is common for free range hens to be "force molted," a standard commercial practice in which food is withheld from hens for up to two weeks to induce egg production.
• Egg-laying chickens don't grow fast enough to be raised profitably for meat, so the male chicks are killed upon hatching. Typically they are ground up or suffocated.
• "Spent" hens (those which no longer produce enough eggs) are thrown into small crates and trucked to the slaughterhouse without any protection from the elements, often traveling hundreds of miles without food or water. They often suffer from broken wings and legs, and many die from the stress of the journey.
• And finally, their legs are snapped into shackles, their throats are cut, and they are immersed in scalding hot water to remove their feathers. Chickens and other birds are exempt from the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, so most are still conscious when their throats are cut open, or are still alive when they reach the feather-removal tanks and wind up being scalded to death.

And I haven't even talked about the rampant salmonella.

It's like what your parents always said, there's no such thing as a free (range) lunch.

If you're in the Los Angeles area and looking for something to do tomorrow, why don't you consider visiting the WorldFest in Woodley Park in Encino. According to their website, "WorldFest is a solar-powered celebration of music, the environment, animals, and humanity. We're helping people learn what they can do for the Earth and its inhabitants."

The festival is Saturday, May 10th, 2008 from 10AM - 6:30PM at Woodley Park in Encino, CA (Map).
Admission: $7 / Seniors $5 / Kids under 12 - Free! / Pets Welcome

One of guest speakers will be Gene Baur, author of Farm Sanctuary, another will be Rory Freedman, co-author of the hugely popular Skinny Bitch, there will also be representatives from the Humane Society and other animal and environmental protection groups. Looking through the activities scheduled, it certainly seems like there will be something there for everyone --from music, to meditation, to lectures on composting and "vegan green," and talks on health and nutrition, and animal welfare.

– We’re getting ready to close down our petition to Oprah, asking her to do a piece on factory farming. If you haven’t already signed, please consider doing so. We can all work together to make a difference.

I've mentioned this a few times in the past, and some of you don't agree with me, but it seems to me that veganism is becoming more mainstream. Or, more accurately, vegan food options are becoming more readily available. A few months ago we wrote about Vegan Brownies at Starbuck's, and Vegan Sandwiches at 7-Eleven. Today's foray out into the web brings us news of Vegan Burgers at Johnny Rockets.

That's right, the international chain, Johnny Rockets, offers a vegan option -- their Streamliner Burger which consists of a hamburger bun, mustard, Boca Burger (soy patty), lettuce, tomato, onions, pickle, and secret seasoning. And it looks like they take "vegan" seriously, unlike other places we've been where vegan can mean almost anything! (Fish sauce in the dipping sauce for vegan spring rolls, egg product in buns, casein in the "vegan" cheese...) From the Johnny Rockets website:

A Note for our Vegetarian Guests
At Johnny Rockets we strive to meet the needs of all of our guests. The Boca Burger patty that we use in our Streamliner is their Original V35 and is manufactured as a vegan product. Our spec hamburger buns should not contain any dairy nor other animal-derived ingredients. Our American fries also should not contain ingredients which are of animal origin and are always cooked in 100% vegetable oil. Beef tallow, or flavorings derived from animal sources, are never intentionally added during the manufacturing or cooking process. However you should be aware that, due to the proximity of the manufacturing equipment to sources of animal protein or oil from animal sources there is the slight, though extremely unlikely, possibility that traces of these unwanted products may be accidentally transferred to our American fries during their production. For this reason, and this reason only, we feel compelled to list beef tallow as a possible (however extremely unlikely) ingredient.

Please be aware that we designate a special area of the grill on which to cook only the Boca Burger and we do everything in our power to keep the area free from other materials. We also have special color-coded turners and tongs which help to keep cross-contamination to a minimum. However due to the limited space and tight kitchen layout at Johnny Rockets we cannot guarantee that there will not be unintentional contact with some small amount of material from an item which is of animal in nature.

Anyway, if you'd like to try one on them, here's a link to the coupon over at VegCooking.com, a PETA blog. The coupon is valid with the purchase of a Streamliner or any sandwich, starter, and drink -- and only at participating locations (but I couldn't find which locations sell the Streamliner online, so check with your local store first). It's good through the end of May. We'll be heading there soon, if for no other reason than to support the idea of a vegan option at a burger joint! Woo hoo! Progress! Now, if they'd just offer a vegan shake to go with that vegan burger and fries!

– We’re getting ready to close down our petition to Oprah, asking her to do a piece on factory farming. If you haven’t already signed, please consider doing so. We can all work together to make a difference.