While this book boasts over 50 Vegan recipes (even some for non-human animals!), it is not really a cookbook. I had slightly hoped it would inspire me to start cooking more (I’m vegan and I really don’t cook because I do not have the time — I find myself buying pre-made dinners or eating out a lot, actually), but it didn’t really end up doing that. I am not compelled to start experimenting in my tiny apartment kitchen. I’m unmotivated to break from my low-effort veganism in that way. I also do not think reading about cooking is helpful to me learning how to better cook and work it into my life. What I have picked up is usually from videos or infographics. This book contains no pictures of its suggested food, honestly. Like I said, it’s not a cookbook.
However, I think this book has good cross-over appeal to non-vegans to help them understand and transition into a vegan lifestyle. It is a good introduction to veganism as a whole and it also reinforces some of the choices vegans are already making. It encourages people who care about social justice issues and feminism to put their actions where their mouths are. Activism is lived.
The book mentions many other books I’ve reviewed here on my blog (such as We Animals, Beasts of Burden, etc.) which almost made it feel like “the same old thing” for me. The book’s main thesis is that Veganism is more than just a healthy diet choice; that what we eat affects humans and has social justice implications, which is a fairly underrepresented argument in publishing. This argument is, I think, is very similar to the ones that the book Aphro-ism and others make, if not a little more focused on the environmentalism and praxis points. Something that bothered me about the book was that it did not seem to reference Aphro-ism or the authors Aph Ko or Syl Ko. I even double checked the index and they were not listed, while other referenced authors were. The fact that Carol J. Adams, who is the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, and Virginia Messina, a dietitian who runs a vegan website, are both white women did not really make it seem like the target audience for this book is very inclusive. I wish more voices had been represented for a book on this topic.
While I think white women need to hear some of the messages in the book, I think the cover and the title are a bit misleading — for example: the image of the fist seems to call forth the Black Panther fist. I’m not sure what to make of it. I think a lot of the book tour for the book involved non-white voices, but I haven’t been following it very closely.
The book is still very quotable and informative:
“Donald Trump actively exploited the fiction of self-sufficiency during the presidential campaign of 2016. Despite his birth into wealth, the assistance his father provided, the nameless staff that enabled his work, the tax benefits he leveraged, the ghostwriter of his book, Trump cultivated the idea that he succeeded on his own, as self-made man. He also benefited from generous subsidies from banks.
In Beasts of Burden, Sunaura Taylor points out that one result of this prizing of ‘independence’ is that disabled people’s lives are often seen as tragic. But, dependence is relative, according to British disability activist Michael Oliver. People with disabilities see independence as the ability to be in control of and make decisions about their own lives, rather than being able to dess, was, or cook without help.”
“When David Foster Wallace turns his attention from lobsters to farmed animals, he makes a noteworthy observation. ‘It is significant that “lobster,” “fish,” and “chicken” are our culture’s words for both the animal and the meat, whereas most mammals seem to require euphemisms like “beef” and “pork” that help us separate the meat we eat from the living creature the meat once was.’
There is evidence that people feel a small sense of unease –or no sense of unease at all — about eating birds and fishes. This might be one reason why meant-reducers often gravitate away from beef and pork. It feels like a logical place to start. Moving away from these foods is good for health and the environment. It’s good for cows and pigs, too. But if you are looking at the issue of how to reduce your meat intake from the perspective of compassion, it’s not the logical place to start at all. To make a change that has a significant impact on animal suffering, it makes far better sense to stop eating chickens and fishes.”
“Children have a natural affinity for animals. Instead of taking them to a petting zoo — an encounter that teaches that their experience is more important than the animals’ experience of captivity — give them an opportunity to see animals in settings that honor their inherent dignity. Farm animal sanctuaries are able to save only a small number of animals from today’s factor farms. But their essential work allows people to connect with individual cows, goats, pigs, turkeys, and chickens, giving visitors the opportunity to learn more about why the work to liberate animals from factory farms is so important. You can find a list of these sanctuaries at http://www.vegan.com/farm-sanctuaries.
In addition to farm sanctuaries, there are safe havens for wild animals. If you can’t get to one of these places in person, there are ways to bring the experience right to your home. Visit the lions and bears of the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado through their video series at http://www.wildanimalsanctuary.org or help schoolchildren take a virtual field trip to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee through their distance learning program on http://www.elephantsanctuary.org.
Through the voices of vegans of color, Veganism in an Oppressive World will revolutionize the way you see our movement. A must read for new vegans and seasoned nonhuman animal activists alike, this community-led effort provides in-depth, first-hand accounts and analyses of what is needed to broaden the scope of veganism beyond its current status as a fringe or “single-issue” movement while ensuring that justice for nonhumans remains its central focus.
Even Vegans Die empowers vegans and their loved ones to make the best decisions regarding their own health, their advocacy for animals, and their legacy. By addressing issues of disease shaming and body shaming, the authors present a manifesto for building a more compassionate, diverse, and effective vegan community. Even Vegans Die celebrates the benefits of a plant-based diet while acknowledging that even vegans can get sick. You will learn how to make the health care decisions that are right for you, how to ensure your efforts to help animals will not end after you die, and how to provide compassionate care for yourself and for others in the face of serious illness. The book offers practical, thoughtful, and sensitive advice on creating a will, mourning, and caregiving. Without shying away from the reality of death, Even Vegans Die offers a message that remains uplifting and hopeful for all animal advocates, and all those who care about them.
Protest Kitchen is an empowering guide to the food and lifestyle choices anyone can make for positive change in the face of the profound challenges of our time.
“The dystopian novel is alive and well in the blisteringly effective Game of the Gods. Jay Schiffman breathes life into a moribund genre and ends up crafting a sly, shrewd and stunning take on a darkly depraved future that is every bit the equal of The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and the Divergentseries. Schiffman’s striking vision serves up a cloud-riddled tomorrow featuring just enough silver linings to provide hope to an otherwise bleak landscape. A must read for fans of classics like Judge Dredd and Doc Savage.” –Jon Land, USA Today bestselling author of the Caitlin Strong series
What do you get when you cram a disabled vet, a burned-out wife, two dogs and a cat into a 350 square foot house on wheels? A last-ditch attempt to save our dying marriage. PTSD from my three years in combat was destroying our marriage, we couldn’t work hard enough to break free from living paycheck-to-paycheck and banks wouldn’t even consider granting us a home loan. We were working opposite shifts, so we never saw each other, and we just fought when we did. We may as well have been roommates with rings as we were ships passing in the night. That wasn’t the life we dreamed of having together. So, rather than becoming another divorce statistic, we decided on a plan that was quite-possibly the most INSANE thing we could have come up with. Sell everything, buy an RV, quit our jobs and try a nomadic life on the road. What’s the worst that could happen? People told us we were crazy to throw away our careers. They said we’d divorce for sure living in such a small space together. Instead, we became a team who learned to communicate again while growing closer together and defying the odds. We placed all of our eggs in an RV basket to save our marriage and we’re now living a story we’ll never forget. As we continue to share our journey through YouTube and social media, we wanted to give people an inside look at how we got here through my first passion, writing. Little did we know when we started down this path, but the adventures, craziness and occasional insanity we continue to endure would unite us on this incredible quest and inspire many others to start their own #RVLife. #RVLife details our journey. From deciding we wanted to radically alter our lives, to finding an RV we could buy, to the hard lessons we learned and the amazing experiences we had along the way. #RVLife will teach you about life on the road in an RV, it will teach you about making hard decisions to choose marriage over a career, it will teach you that taking a leap of faith can pay off and it will show you what you can accomplish when you refuse to give up. Enjoy! Hebard’s Travels Free. Your. Life.
This was an interesting and easy read. The book is an inside look into what happens with our bodies after we die from an industry professional. She recounts from memory various scenarios she has experienced in her work and how she processed those at the time. It certainly doesn’t sound like an easy job, but these matters take a level of poise not many are born with (and I’m sure can wear you down without self-care). But her insight into the work is fascinating.
