Eating gluten is part of a compassionate and an environmentally conscious diet. Vegan and gluten free shouldn’t be associated with one another.
If you’re among the very small percent of Americans that have celiac disease or you’re gluten intolerant you should avoid gluten. There is some evidence that diets high in gluten may cause weight gain so if you have weight issues maybe you should reduce your gluten intake? Most everything is bad for you in excess and will cause weight gain. Beware that many gluten free products have less healthy substitutes.
I find it disappointing when people promote vegan and gluten free diets hand in hand. For most people going vegan is a great challenge – why make it more difficult by connecting gluten free and veganism? In terms of health it would be better to promote going high-fructose corn syrup free, go tobacco free, go crack free!
People go vegan because they’re smart and they were able to think for themselves but I believe by going gluten free they’re just following a trend. Think for yourself.
Shredded organic tofu braised with chipotle chilis, roasted poblanos and a blend of aromatic spices!
Black beans, Sofritas, and Fajita Vegetables
On February 12 2013 Chipotle began test marketing Sofritas at seven San Francisco and Bay Area locations.
If you live anywhere near the locations below please support this option as often as possible. I’m ordering Sofritas four to five times a week as long as it’s being test marketed.
Sofritas in tacos
San Francisco:
525 Market Street
121 Fourth Street
126 New Montgomery Street
Bay Area:
2019 Chess Drive San Mateo
251 East 3rd Avenue San Mateo
180 El Camino Real Palo Alto
135 El Camino Real Millbrae
Don’t live in San Francisco? Well you should move here. We’re the capital of the environmental movement, the gay rights movement and have one of the biggest vegan populations.
If you live in San Francisco please contact Chipotle in support of Sofritas and if you don’t please ask them to offer it in your area.
I am extremely pleased about the shopping bag fee laws – I wish bags were $1.00 rather than .10 but it’s a start. I’ve seen that the ordinance has made a big difference – since it became law most people either don’t take a bag or they use their own. Occasionally someone gets upset when they’re informed about the law and that’s very entertaining. Attention Republicans San Francisco is not the city for you – try Texas.
Get organized, stop being lazy and selfish and bring your own bag you sack of ….
To report businesses in San Francisco that are violating the law, by not charging for bags, click here.
I am proud to be an extremist but I wish I wasn’t an extremist. I wish compassion wasn’t extreme.
But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . . .” So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? -Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Second Amendment needs to be repealed – it’s not relevant to our society today or to the weapons that we now have. All killing should be illegal.
Everyone dies … but death is so sad. Vegan died yesterday (July 08 2012). If you’re not familiar with her story please read Vegan The Feral Kitten first. I miss her. I’ll always miss her. I met Vegan on the streets of Oakland on January 10 2011 and she came home with me on January 19 2011. She was a very happy girl and she had a great life – although it was a very short one. She loved to play catch.
She was a very easy purr. In the early days all I had to do was look at her and she would purr. One of my favorite things was when I would wake her up by touching her she would look at me with a quiet meow like she was saying ‘oh hello’ and she would roll over and stretch out toward me and liked me to rub her belly. She also liked to stretch out toward me and gently touch her paws to my face.
February 27 2012
May 31 2012
June 03 2012
I took her to the vet five weeks ago and she got better briefly but went downhill again quickly. She was somewhat uncomfortable for the last month of her life but didn’t suffer until her last day.
Just before I took her to the emergency vet
Just before running her to the emergency vet
The vet recommended euthanasia but also gave me a treatment plan option. I didn’t think keeping her warm, giving her oxygen and fluids was going to cause her any more suffering – she was a fighter so I had to give her a chance. Before they got very far they told me she was dying and brought me to her. I pet her and talked to her and I sobbed as her heart slowly stopped beating and she gasped and took her last breaths. I hope she heard me and knew I was with her.
We got engaged in St. Louis on the fourth of July 2007.
I asked Amber to marry me under the Gateway Arch
We got married in Las Vegas on April 30 2008.
How I Became An Animal Advocate
by Amber Moore
As a kid, I grew up very sensitive to pain. Every time I fell down, got a scratch or a cut, it was a HUGE deal. Of course, even if it wasn’t bleeding, I needed a bandage to make it “feel better”. I was a typical kid that just loved to run around outside in the summer, and have fun.
Each year in the fall, my family would go to the cider mill where they also had a small petting farm. I think I enjoyed the animals more than anyone else did. One day we were driving back from the petting farm, and my mom asked if I wanted to help her prepare dinner. When we got home, she grabbed the ground hamburger out of the fridge, and put it into the frying pan. I asked what all of the red liquid in with the food was, and she told me it was blood. At that moment, it clicked with me. You only see blood when you get hurt. I asked whose blood it was, and that’s when she explained to me that it was from a cow. I couldn’t believe that we were eating the same animal I just bonded with at the farm. I told my mom I didn’t want to help anymore, and decided I didn’t want dinner either. I tried for a couple years to be vegetarian, but when you are only 6 years old, parents have control over the food and budget. My parents weren’t open to the idea either. They thought it was a phase I would grow out of. However, every time I ate it, I felt bad.
I remember going on a camping trip many years later, and we stopped at McDonald’s. My dad went inside to grab food, while the rest of the family waited in the car. Our car was facing a parking lot full of livestock trucks. I could see the cows looking out in fear. When my dad came back with the food, I bit into my hamburger, but it tasted different to me. I couldn’t get the image of the sad cows out of my head. At that moment, I decided I couldn’t eat it anymore. I was 15 years old, and I was going to be vegetarian, and nobody was going to stop me.
I realized that it was going to be harder to convince my parents if I was doing this alone, so I sat down with my 12-year-old sister, and explained why it was sad that we were eating meat. She decided to jump on the bandwagon with me, and became vegetarian. Eventually, my Mom got tired of making a vegetarian dish and a meat dish for each meal, so she started just making the vegetarian dishes because everyone could eat them.
Rosemary & Bear March 2008
Years later, I moved away, and met Ryan. Ryan ate meat, and had leather car seats. He also was huge on buying expensive leather shoes. I always expressed to him how it bothered me, and referred to his shoes, and seats as “dead cow” instead of calling it leather. Ryan would eat vegetarian meals when I cooked dinner, and he realized how easy it is. I still had my rescued rabbits at the time (Rosemary and Bear), and one day Ryan was browsing online and ran into an article about great rabbit recipes. I think that’s when it clicked for him. Eating rabbits is the same as eating cows, pigs, and chickens. He decided to go vegetarian on Earth Day 2008 which was a week before our wedding.
April 2008 on our way to Las Vegas to get married – a few days after Ryan went vegetarian
A year and a half later, Ryan was doing research and decided that we should just go all the way with it, and become vegan. We were already drinking soy milk, and getting rid of a lot of dairy in our diets. The big thing that made us realize that we needed to go vegan, was MFA’s video about the way baby male chickens are ground up alive.
Since being vegan, Ryan has lost weight, his blood pressure was high, and now it is normal, and I have more energy. Looking back on my journey, I don’t know what I would have done without the support of non-profits like PETA and Mercy for Animals. Having these resources is what people need to help them live a better lifestyle.
Amber always cooked veggie tacos and veggie burgers for me and they were good. She kept talking to me about vegetarianism and of course she always had the better answers and points. We had been together for nearly a year when I surprised her and announced I was going to try to go vegetarian. I felt like I no longer had a reason not to. After I had been vegetarian for about a month, and realized how easy it was, I thought that everyone should be living this way. I began to do research and I became an animal rights activist.
In 2009 we moved to Virginia to intern at PETA. Amber got a job with PETA and I worked for two SPCA’s and went on to work for In Defense of Animals and V-dog.
Today is our 4th wedding anniversary … but … Amber left our marriage in March 2011. Our divorce will be final on May 08 2012.
Amber got me to go vegetarian and a year and a half later I got her to go vegan. She challenged me and made me a better man. Hopefully I was able to do the same for her.
It was four years ago today, on Earth Day 2008, that I decided to go vegetarian. I’d like to say I did it for the environment but I was like most people – I recycled and used products that were environmentally friendly but I wasn’t aware of the impact of my food choices. I learned all of that later after discovering how easy it was to be vegetarian. I originally went vegetarian for the animals, for my fiancee at the time, and because I no longer had a good reason not to.
I wish I could say I went vegan on Earth Day 2009 but I didn’t go vegan until September 01 2009 after watching Mercy For Animals Undercover Investigation at Hy-Line Hatchery.
Being vegan is the single most significant thing you can do for the planet (not to mention the animals and your health). Once vegan you look for more ways to reduce your negative impact.
My Earth Day 2012 resolution is to park my car and take public transportation, or walk, 95% of the time. San Francisco is the birthplace of Earth Day and the greenest city in the US. San Francisco banned plastic grocery bags and almost half of all residents bike, walk or take public transportation on a daily basis.
Ready to ride: Giants backpack with extra shopping bags, iPhone 4S, credit card holder cover with Clipper Card / Muni Pass
In operation since 1912 the San Francisco Muni (SFMTA) is one of the oldest transit systems in the world. It’s the seventh largest in the US and serves more than 200 million customers a year. The Muni fleet is very unique and includes: historic streetcars, biodiesel and electric hybrid buses and electric trolley coaches, light rail vehicles, paratransit cabs and vans and of course cable cars. Cable cars were invented in San Francisco in 1873 to handle the steep hills. I ride electric buses, streetcars and cable cars on a regular basis. On the rare occasions that I leave San Francisco to go to another part of the Bay Area I take BART or the ferry.
As automobile use rose in the 1940′s and 1950′s most cities dismantled streetcar systems in favor of gas buses but San Francisco kept its electric infrastructure. In the 1980′s and 1990′s Muni started acquiring abandoned historic streetcars from all over the world to be restored for modern day commuter use. Currently operating in SF are streetcars from: San Francisco, Louisville, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Mexico City, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto and Milan with many others currently being restored.
1051 is from Philadelphia but has been painted in SF Muni colors and was used in the Harvey Milk film "Milk"
San Francisco has some incredible goals for 2020: zero waste, 100% green power and Muni plans to be 100 percent emission-free! Of course there is still room for some other quick improvements.
The internet has been killing the phone book for many years and the release of the iPhone in 2007 was the coup de grâce. By 2009 most people had the internet and a large number of people had iPhones or some other “smartphone”. Starting in 2009 phone books should have only been available by request and possibly for a small fee. San Francisco is always rated the first or second greenest city in the US and one of the top 10 greenest in the world. San Francisco is also the birthplace of Earth Day. Nearby Berkeley and Oakland are also among the top 10 greenest cities in the US. Few people want and use phone books in 2012 but even in San Francisco phone books are still being printed and delivered to every residence with multiple copies being provided to businesses. If an apartment building has forty units they deliver forty phone books and only two or three people will take one. The remaining phone books sit in entryways and lobbies, sometimes for months, or they litter the sidewalks and streets.
April 08 2012 San Francisco – I gathered these phone books and free newspapers from six small apartment buildings in this half block area – the phone books were delivered weeks ago
San Francisco please stop this environmental waste and lead the way and make it illegal to distribute handbills / door hangers, phone books, free newspapers and free magazines. Make them only available by request and subscription.
The healthiest blueberries are raw organic or frozen organic.
Organically grown blueberries have significantly higher concentrations of total phenol antioxidants and total anthocyanin antioxidants than conventionally grown blueberries, as well as significantly higher total antioxidant capacity.
Benefits of blueberries:
Very high in antioxidants that are essential to optimizing health by helping to combat the free radicals that can damage cellular structures as well as DNA
Improve memory
Slow down or postpone the onset of other cognitive problems frequently associated with aging
Cacao is a healing superfood,” exclaimed Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, in response to this study. “But its effects go far beyond merely balancing blood pressure. Raw cacao protects the liver, brain and heart. It stabilizes mood, helps detoxify the blood and in a very real way brightens your day.” Adams emphasizes that only raw, unprocessed cacao offers the best benefits, and that consumers should avoid purchasing processed chocolate products made with refined sugar or milk fat.
Dark chocolate — but not milk chocolate or dark chocolate eaten with milk — is a potent antioxidant, report Mauro Serafini, PhD, of Italy’s National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research in Rome, and colleagues. Their report appears in the Aug. 28 issue of Nature. Antioxidants gobble up free radicals, destructive molecules that are implicated in heart disease and other ailments. “Our findings indicate that milk may interfere with the absorption of antioxidants from chocolate … and may therefore negate the potential health benefits that can be derived from eating moderate amounts of dark chocolate.” Translation: Say “Dark, please,” when ordering at the chocolate counter. Don’t even think of washing it down with milk. And if health is your excuse for eating chocolate, remember the word “moderate” as you nibble. -webmd.com
The eggs people eat are unfertilized. An unfertilized egg is also known as a period. Is there anything more disgusting you could eat than an egg? Eggs are very high in cholesterol. According to a recent Q & A by the Mayo Clinic it’s okay to eat one egg per day as long as you avoid other sources of cholesterol for that day i.e. meat and dairy.
Is it ethical to eat eggs and products that contain eggs? Many people know that chickens are crammed into tiny cages, are horribly abused, and are denied everything that comes naturally to them. Certainly it’s okay to eat organic, cage free and free range eggs? We know where the egg comes from but where do the chickens come from? The chickens come from hatcheries. Unfortunately half of the chicks hatched are male. Male chicks are worthless because they can’t lay eggs and they don’t grow fast enough to be profitably raised for meat. These worthless male chicks are thrown into large garbage bags, alive, which are then tied up so they slowly suffocate. Some hatcheries throw them into grinding machines where they are ground up alive (see video below). At one hatchery in Iowa 150,000 male chicks are killed each day, not long after birth, all so you can have high cholesterol. Over 21 million male chicks are killed a year at this one facility.
Male chicks tied up in garbage bags to suffocate to death
On September 01 2009 I watched the new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation at Hy-Line Hatchery. That’s the day I went vegan.
How can any human being support this cruelty? If you eat eggs, or any product that contains eggs, you are every bit as guilty as the farm workers that ruthlessly kill the male chicks and abuse and kill the hens for their eggs. Please choose a compassionate vegan diet.
