oprah's big vegan flop

WELL. I'm glad so many of you had a good laugh at my expense after yesterday's post. (Though I must admit, it was hard to keep a straight face when she asked if it was my poop. Just to be clear, it wasn't.) 

Yesterday I had nothing in particular planned for dinner and was thinking about making breakfast for dinner, but that didn't sound too exciting. During Pita's nap I pulled out my most favorite cookbook (yes, you know the one. I won't keep naming it). Lo and behold, I came across a quick and easy recipe that I had all the ingredients for.

This title cracks me up. It's so ambiguous.

It only took a few minutes to chop things up, throw everything in the pot at once, and get cooking. Fastest soup I've ever made, and it was really good. Check out the nutrition information. Fantastic.

Perfect for a snowy day!

Now, about that Oprah episode. Where to begin? This qualifies as a major rant, you guys. Enjoy!

Yesterday's Oprah episode was a highly anticipated, highly publicized one all about veganism. Specifically, Oprah and almost 300 of her staffers ate a vegan diet for a week. Michael Pollan and Kathy Freston were guests on the show.

The show started off on a sour note for me. Oprah called this vegan challenge "a radical experiment" in her very first sentence. Great. I know a vegan diet would be a radical change for many people, but let's not start the show by marginalizing veganism and making it sound like something freakish.

Michael Pollan did a good job of summarizing the big picture of the relationship between the typical American diet and our epidemic of obesity and lifestyle-related chronic disease. He had a great statement related to why some meat eaters become defensive and feel offended simply by the presence of a vegan: a vegan diet is a moral and ethical challenge to the American way of life, and a challenge to our traditions (not exactly what he said- I paraphrased and added my own interpretation). Other than that, I don't think Pollan added much to the conversation. If anything he made it confusing for viewers because though the show was about going vegan, he kept talking about how he doesn't think people should be completely vegan. There were some mixed messages there, between Pollan and Kathy Freston. Speaking of Freston, I must admit I'm interested in reading her book but on Oprah's show she presented as a big (well, skinny and bony, really) ball of vegan fluff. She said nothing of substance, and that was very disappointing.

The most interesting scene of the show was when Freston took an Oprah staffer shopping at Whole Foods. Okay, big problem there. Whole Foods is outrageously expensive. It's not an accessible grocery store for most Americans, and it's not necessary to shop at Whole Foods to get vegan groceries. Moving on... It would have been nice if Freston had showcased the building blocks of a healthy vegan diet, rather than providing product placement opportunities for overpriced, over-processed imitation foods. The camera shows her taking the Oprah staffer through the store, showing her various fake meats, cheeses, non-dairy milks, mayonnaise, and butter. A healthy and delicious vegan diet is based on grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, oils, nuts, and seeds- not on rubbery fake chicken. My diet contains almost none of those imitation foods. To add insult to injury, the cameras then show the Oprah staffer serving a dinner of fake meat to her family (a recipe she admitted she messed up) and the family saying that it was disgusting. Great. Talk about a huge opportunity missed. 

The atmosphere of the Oprah episode made a vegan diet seem like a trendy fad diet kind of thing, which it is not. The vegan diet was portrayed as being very difficult to take on, and as something that most people don't stick with. The context of the one week "challenge" really fed into that, setting people up for failure. It's unrealistic that people with no concept of what a vegan diet should be about would be able to switch cold turkey, rid themselves of cravings for animal foods, learn vegan recipes they love, and establish a strong vegan eating routine in just one week. The concept of the vegan challenge was to introduce a large number people to a healthier way of eating (and that's great), but it wasn't done very well.

The Oprah episode also barely touched on the environmental issues and made no mention of the political and sociological issues related to industrial meat production; that is a shame. For example, Oprah mentioned a USDA estimate that 10 billion animals are consumed in the United States each year. How many billion (trillion?) pounds of corn and soybeans do you think are grown solely for the purpose of getting those animals as big and fat as they can be? How many hungry people could be fed if those corn and soybeans (or the resources used to produce them) were for direct human consumption, and not for the fattening of animals that only the most wealthy of us can afford to eat? We don't have a shortage of food in this world. We have a shortage of knowledge and compassion for each other; a devastating shortage of equal access to food. The next time someone tells you that people are starving because there's a food shortage, I want you to punch that person in the face, sit them down, and educate them about why they're wrong. I won't even get into the fact that these animals' bodies aren't meant to digest corn, and that they suffer all kinds of health problems because of the massive amounts of corn forced into them. Animals are meant to be treated like animals. They're meant to be raised in small numbers on small farms. They're not meant to be mass-produced and mass-fed in factories. We humans are not meant to eat the massive quantities of meat that we consume in the US. Oprah has such a large soapbox, and could have educated a lot of people. Even non-vegetarians (like Pollan) should have an understanding of how our food choices can be part of the problem, or can support a better way of doing things (albeit in a small way- the biggest problem is big business).

It's great that veganism is developing a more mainstream following and that high profile people are putting the vegan diet in the spotlight. However, it must be done the right way. This was not the right way, and I fear that many viewers could have come away with the wrong impressions or with no clear impression at all.

If you watched the Oprah episode and came away confused about what a vegan diet is all about, please wipe the show from your mind and remember these things:

• A well-balanced vegan diet provides many health benefits. The research on this is irrefutable.
• A vegan diet (like any diet) should be done the right way, with a wide variety of healthy foods, an understanding of how to get the right nutrients, and keeping processed foods to a minimum (I sure hope Gardein and Veganaise enjoyed their prime advertising spots on Oprah's show). 
• A vegan diet does not consist solely of falsified versions of animal-based recipes. 
• Vegan dishes can be gross if they're not done right. So can non-vegetarian dishes. Vegan foods can also be absolutely delicious. I hope I demonstrate that in my posts. 
• A vegan diet can be just as satisfying as a meat and cheese-filled diet. 
• Veganism is not a fad. It's just a healthy way of living. 
• Veganism is not a freakish, hippy, fringe-of-society lifestyle. It's just a healthy way of living, and plenty of regular old people (like me) are vegan.
• It takes time for a vegan diet to become second nature. It takes a major shift of mental gears. 
• It's a process that takes time: more than a week. It takes time for your body to acclimate to a new diet, time to educate yourself about the best way to eat vegan, and time to develop new tastes and eating habits.
• There are a lot of reasons to become vegan, or to be a part-time vegan, vegetarian, or more conscientious meat eater like Pollan is. It's not just about health and animal rights, though those are important. It's about the environment, human needs, politics, business, and a desire for a return to safer, smaller scale, ethical, local, sustainable food production.
• If you'd rather not support some of the bad things going on in big agri-business, feedlots, and slaughter houses- for both animals and people- you might want to: become vegetarian or vegan, buy more organic food, buy locally produced meat, or find meat and dairy from farms where animals and the environment are respected. 

If you've read this far, I'm impressed! Now go forth and learn even more about this stuff, and email me if you want some book recommendations. Oprah's audience may be confused, but my small smattering of readers will be the most knowledgeable group possible, gosh darn it!