Sad cows, cute veggies and hope for the future

We have a new cook joining our circle --- Marc Wortsman, a member of the Green Island Sangha in Merrick, New York. Welcome, Marc!

I hope you will enjoy the Fresh Peach Tart I brought to our summer potluck a few weeks back. It's probably not too late to find good peaches and try this before the summer is over:
Fresh Peach Tart

Last Monday my husband and I were in Salem, OR, to experience the eclipse in the path of totality. What a rare experience to be there on a sunny, 80-degree day and have the landscape go dark, a chill in the air, stars coming out and streetlights turning on -- and then see a black sun surrounded by a brilliant ring of light. As the light and warmth returned, I understood why so many earlier cultures worshiped the sun!

On our way back to Portland, we took the back roads at a slow pace (eclipse traffic was heavy) and got to see the countryside up close. This meant we had a distressingly prolonged view of a sad cow with a distended udder, and her sisters in the background, standing in muck in pens --- and then a sign telling us this was an Organic Valley Dairy Farm. It was eye-opening for me. Though I stopped eating meat long ago, I continued with dairy for years, buying Organic Valley products, blithely assuming that the organic label insured the animals were well treated. I just now looked at the Organic Valley website and of course saw happy people in a vibrant meadow keeping company with a healthy cow, with the word Love featured in the company slogan. The cows I saw yesterday were certainly not loved. If I weren't already on the vegan path, seeing those cows would do it for me. I came home with renewed awareness of the importance of what we are all doing as we question our food habits and try new ways.

Looking at Organic Valley's misleading advertising reminded me of an article Sigrid recently posted on our PlantPure page. The article's author pointed out that animal products are typically sold using ads showing cute, happy animals. She suggested we may get more people interested in plant-based food if we give the plants appealing personalities --- so she puts faces on them! It's an interesting idea: https://medium.com/@happykitchen/the-one-thing-vegans-are-not-doing-and-...

While we are eating those cute veggies, we can contemplate all the animals who benefit when we choose to go plant-based. Someone has calculated the consequences of a vegan diet for the animals and the earth each day. Marge in California told me about this calculator --- it's fun and motivating! Just enter the years or months you have been eating this way and see what a difference you are making:
http://thevegancalculator.com/#calculator

I hope you will take a look at our PlantPurePod page --- we have 37 people registered now. Besides Sigrid's article, there are posts about vegan burgers and sausage, the movie Walk With Me, non-leather handbags, Linda's Raw Corn Chowder, and various other topics. Please feel free to register and join the conversation:
https://www.plantpurepods.com/podsdirect/mindful-cooking/?ac=99523/#

This morning I finally listened to the podcast Linda in Portland suggested last week, and now can add my hearty endorsement. It's a 25-minute radio interview with Sailesh Rao, founder of Climate Healers ( http://www.climatehealers.org/ ). He has so much hope for the future, it's worth hearing just to pick up his positive spirit! Here is the interview: http://kboo.org/audio

Happy cooking,

Eve