Neither Jane nor I drink coffee, so we never considered this issue. But are you a vegan if you drink coffee? Technically, the answer is yes, there are no animal products involved in the growth or production of coffee, it comes from a bean... However, as we learned at the Healthy Living Blog, if you're not drinking shade-grown coffee, you may be contributing to a reduction of migratory bird populations. While drinking coffee without the "bird-friendly seal" certainly doesn't mean you're an omnivore, it does stand to reason that we, as vegans, would look for this seal of approval.

(Modern) coffee production to more closely parallel the big business agriculture model that has become so common worldwide. This resulted in a turn away from traditional coffee growing methods. Much of the coffee in Latin America started to be produced on farms where the coffee was either grown under an unnatural canopy of only a few species of mature trees or pretty much right out in the open.

This new approach to coffee growing allowed more sun to reach the coffee plant, but turned out to adversely affect the migratory bird population that winters in Latin America. These migratory birds depend on the varied natural forest ecosystem and it's insect population to survive. Growing coffee this way also introduced the use of chemical fertilizes, pesticides, and disease controlling agents. In addition, the increased sun and fertilizer created a nice environment for weed growth, so the use of herbicides became necessary.

Source : Healthy Living Blog

Simply buying shade grown coffee doesn't guarantee that you're doing the right thing either. Often farms have been repopulated with only one or two varieties of tree, which don't rival the diversity of the natural forests where coffee was originally planted.

The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has "bird friendly" criteria which, if met, result in certain coffees earning a seal of approval. According to their website, they are currently active in the following countries:Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela. Ethiopia is pending. So, make sure to look for the bird friendly logo (above right) when purchasing your coffee. If not truly vegan, it feels like the "vegan" thing to do.

A few weeks ago, we received a t-shirt in the mail. Sandra Blum of FeelGoodTees.com asked us to review her shirt. She sent us a ladies large. Obviously, that was for Jane who was delighted with the graphic on the shirt.  It's a really nice way to get the message across.

We wrote Sandra back that we would write an honest review (good or bad), and that it would take a few weeks since Jane wanted to run it through the wash a few times to see how it held up.

The t-shirt we received is a "Long Sleeve Baby Rib Vegan Tee." This means it's one of those form fitting tees. (It's stretch cotton, whatever that means.) Jane typically wears t-shirts that are a little looser, and she usually likes an xl. So this is not a style that she'd wear, at least not without something over the top. In addition we both found the shirt to run a bit small. It got even smaller when Jane ran it through the wash. The instructions clearly say "tumble dry low" and Jane admits to not reading the label, which would account for the significant shrinkage we experienced.

So, after washing it and running it through the drier three times (cold wash / "normal" dry) we found no difference in color (it was still as black as the day we received it). Nor was there any disturbance to the graphic. To give you an idea of how much it shrank, this image is of a large t-shirt laying on top of a ladies xl t-shirt (non-form fitting). The t-shirt is designed to stretch, so it's not as small as it looks, but definitely get a larger size than you normally would. Especially if you're a bit relaxed in your laundering as we tend to be.

Overall, the shirt feels very good. Ms Blum has the t-shirts manufactured here in Los Angeles, and according to the website, they are sweatshop free (employees are paid fair wages). Ms Blum also donates a portion of her sales to animal sanctuaries and animal rights organizations.

"When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion." -- Abraham Lincoln

For me, it's what being a vegetarian is all about. I feel good because I do good by making a difference and not just unconsciously do what everybody else does. -- Sandra Blum

FeelGoodTees.com also offers t-shirts for men and kids, and babies.

My mother was recently visiting with a friend. They got around to talking about their kids and she mentioned that Jane and I have been vegan for awhile, and that we've been blogging about our vegan experiences. My mom, who is not vegan by the way (hi mom!), explained veganism to her friend and discussed the cruelty perpetrated on the animals we, as a society, eat. (Go mom!) My mom expressed that it made her sad, to which her friend replied, "I don't care, I like meat." Wow. I know others have talked about experiencing this, but so far, the worst I've heard is, "I don't want to know, I still want to eat meat...."

If the environmental reasons aren't enough, here's a little something I've been reading about which should get those people who like meat to reconsider, at least the beef eaters.

I've been reading Thanking the Monkey and on page 192 Karen Dawn writes

How rampant is mad cow disease? We don't know. A study at Yale found that of forty-six patients clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer's, six were proven to have Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) at autopsy. (Ms. Dawn cites Guy McKahann et al., Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders 1989 - pages 100-109.) Other studies have shown that mad cow prions can cause a disease with a molecular signature indistinguishable from sporadic CJD. Therefore there is no way to determine if the many deaths from CJD misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's are actually linked to mad cow disease. (Ms. Dawn cites Michael Greger, MD, "Could Mad Cow Disease Already Be Kliling Thousands of Americans Every Year?" CommonDreams.org, January 7, 2004.) So we cannot know how widespread mad cow disease is in the United States, or whether humans are infected. It seems that the government is in no rush to help us find out.

Yikes! Then there's always this blurb from the National Institutes of Health page on CJD.

The appearance of the new variant of CJD (nv-CJD or v-CJD) in several younger than average people in Great Britain and France has led to concern that BSE may be transmitted to humans through consumption of contaminated beef. Although laboratory tests have shown a strong similarity between the prions causing BSE and v-CJD, there is no direct proof to support this theory.

Source: National Institute of Neurological Disorders (NIH)

The more I read, the happier I am that I'm vegan.

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, one of the things you've heard me complaining about is that we haven't found a cow's milk replacement that Jane or I have been happy to eat with cereal. For all other purposes, we're rather happy with the homemade almond milk, and we're huge fans of Silk Light Chocolate Milk. But a palatable milk for cereal has remained elusive. A number of you have suggested your favorites, and we've tried most of them. But taste is subjective, and we hadn't really found anything we cared for, until about three weeks ago. And the winner is... WestSoy Non-Fat Plain. Now we've been vegan for a year, so we're not sure if we've simply forgotten what cow's milk tasted like or if this is a passable facsimile, but it tastes almost exactly as we remember non-fat cow's milk to taste, and it's good in cereal.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the casein/morphine connection, and the addictive nature of milk and cheese and Elaine suggested WestSoy non-fat plain soy milk (comment #7). Woo hoo! Thank you, Elaine. With that suggestion you've given us a very viable option for cereal. I don't know if you've been able to feel the love, but we've been walking around our house thanking you out loud!

Unfortunately, the salmonella outbreak that first reared it's ugly head in April, is still going strong. And it almost feels like we trying to figure out who gave us this horrible, lingering, head-cold.

Federal health officials said they might never find the cause (of the salmonella outbreak) —and that tomatoes might not be the culprit after all.

Though fresh tomatoes have a "strong association" with many of the cases and remain a top suspect, health officials have not confirmed that the fruit carried the rare Salmonella Saintpaul strain.

Source: Chicago Tribune (thanks Bea)

Officials investigating the salmonella outbreak now are looking at jalapeño peppers as a leading suspect for spreading the bacteria that has sickened hundreds across the U.S. over the past three months.

New surveys with patients who only became sick recently, as well as some earlier victims, show that many ate jalapeño peppers along with tomatoes, one official said.

The CDC has said their food detectives settled on tomatoes shortly after the outbreak because a disproportionately high number of victims -- eight in 10 -- ate them. But the number of salmonella cases didn't decline, even after a warning issued by the FDA on June 3 prompted a sharp drop in tomato consumption. The number of reported cases had grown to 922 as of Wednesday, from 40 on June 2, 2008.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

While tomatoes are still being investigated, they are no longer considered one of the primary culprits in this salmonella outbreak after all. We've been hearing hints of this for the last few weeks, but still there is no definitive answer where the blame lies. The CDC is now looking at jalapeno peppers as a potential culprit, and other foods commonly eaten with tomatoes.

Officials have acknowledged the slow pace (of the investigation), while facing growing pressure to identify the source of contamination conclusively -- something the Food and Drug Administration has warned may be impossible.

The CDC is focusing on 29 "clusters" of illnesses, Mr. Nowak (a CDC spokesperson) said. A cluster is created when two or more people become sick within a 10-day period after eating at the same restaurant. Most of the restaurants serve Mexican food, and most of them are not chains, Mr. Nowak said.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

So, people are continuing to fall ill across the country and we may never know what caused this salmonella outbreak. I wonder if the anti-vegan blogs out there are writing posts entitled "yet another reason not to eat produce?"