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Oprah »

Archive for the ‘Oprah’ category

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class="post-861 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-advocacy category-animal-rights category-controversy category-diet category-earth-balance category-factory-farms category-kathy-freston category-meat-eaters category-michael-pollan category-oprah category-people category-slaughterhouse category-television category-tv category-veganist tag-oprah tag-television tag-tv tag-vegan">

Oprah Goes Vegan(ish)…Again

February 2nd, 2011

So the time rolls around again and I hear the talk of the upcoming event, Oprah is doing another show on veganism. The Twitter is aflutter and people just can’t rock their socks loud enough to get the word out. Now listen people, Oprah isn’t going vegan. Don’t get so excited to think that the Queen of Materialism is about to put a Vita-Mix and a lifetime supply of Earth Balance under the seat of everyone in her audience and spew forth the news that she will shed her life of all animal meat edibles. No, I’m so sorry to say that won’t happen, nor did it. These are just some quick thoughts on the show that I have.

Yes I watched the show, reluctantly and only to prove to myself that I was right. All I saw was a TV show skimp over an issue while sugar coating everything, “Oh, yes it isn’t easy.”, “We’re only doing it for one week but we’ll make it with these food replacements.”, “No, they don’t taste good.” Enough! First, if you want to show the virtues of a vegan diet, and diet was all you touched as veganism is so much more, if you want to show how great a vegan diet can be get off the processed fake meat replacements!

When a woman pushed the point of having eggs as long as they are from “happy hens”, Oprah’s guest Kathy Freston, a self-proclaimed “veganist” said yes, sure. Now, I’m all for allowing whomever to eat whatever they choose but if you’re calling yourself a “veganist” the least you could do is serve up so well-intentioned facts on why one shouldn’t eat those eggs. Opportunity missed. At the end of the show Freston goes through Whole Foods promoting every processed and prepackaged food she can get her hands on. Apparently, she doesn’t care about how delicious and nutritious fresh veggies are and how absolutely easy the are to prepare. I’ll go out on a limb and say Kathy Freston is as fake a vegan as the fake meats she pushed.

Michael Pollan, who only serves to cuddle the guilt-ridden meat eater and pat them on the back all the while telling them thier corpse ingestion is not the greatest thing but a little bit two or three times a week is OK, seemingly tells the audience that eat all the meat you want as long as it’s from Cargill as they have the cleanest factory farms and slaughter-machines in the nation.

As far as taking people into a slaughterhouse and showing what happens to the cow pre-steak that’s great. I think everyone should see that but that entire segment seemed to show reasons why it was OK to eat meat. Is Oprah scared of the meat industry now after her run ins a few years back? Michael Pollan did nothing but say what a great job Cargill does and stroke the executive sitting next to him.

There are vegans that think this was great publicity and getting the vegan word to the masses. It was the wrong message. This did nothing for veganism as the vegan message was toned down through the course of the show from full vegan diet to eating meat to 2-3 times a week, to vegan-ish (whatever that is) and finally just settling on Meatless Mondays. This was not a show on veganism as much as it was a show on a diet leaning toward plant-based. Veganism is about so much more than food, don’t count on Oprah to ever understand that.

In the end the episode did more to show reasons why your SHOULD eat meat than reasons to adopt a vegan diet, not to mention the vegan lifestyle it didn’t even touch on.  From allowing, and agreeing, that Cargill puts out a good product, animals get a dignified death and vegan food doesn’t taste good as shown by staffers in line at the Harpo cafeteria eating processed junk the loud message was “meat is OK”.

Did you watch the show? What are your thoughts? Were you a meat eater that has been transformed by this? Are you a vegan who thinks there is potential in what Oprah does for veganism? Let me know, agree or disagree I would love to hear from you.

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class="post-184 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-chinese-five-spice category-oprah category-recipes tag-chinese-five-spice tag-oprah tag-recipes">

Oprah, Slate and Five Spice

May 22nd, 2008

For the past few days there has been talk of Oprah Winfrey going vegan for 21 days on the advice of author and advisor Kathy Freston and her book Quantum Wellness which excludes sugar, gluten, alcohol, meat, chicken, fish, eggs and cheese for a “21 Day Cleanse”.     Oprah is very influential over people, especially 40-60 year old women.   This could be good or bad, Oprah could end this at 21 days and make this the new Oprah fad diet.  She will choose the book by Freston as her book club book.  This will kick of the phase of every 40-something housewife thinking veganism is cool without looking at the longterm benefits only to stop at the 21 day mark.   Maybe I am wrong and Oprah will come to the end point only to realize how good this is for her and continue.   Either way it is good that veganism is getting the attention it needs.   Tofu will start flying off the shelves once Oprah gets started.  I have seen more than once the past day or so someone stating “Oprah goes Vegan!”, if you take vegan to mean absolutely no animal products then they are not making a true statement.  Oprah is still wearing leather.  She is wearing silk.   Nowhere has she stated she has gone vegan, just a vegan diet.  So those people should say “Oprah Eats Vegan!”, not that she consumes a vegan but, well, you understand and I am being picky.  So, to put it the proper way, “Oprah has decided to eat vegan for three weeks.”  Does this mean vegan chefs will appear for the next three weeks on Oprah?  Vegan guests?

Oprah’s blog has a link to recipes for “The 21-day Cleanse”.  One recipe, Artichoke and Oyster Mushroom Rockefeller, has alcohol listed as an ingredient.  Oversight?

Hopefully, Oprah will be able to educate people about the advantages of a vegan diet.  And maybe she’ll be able to stick with it beyond 21 days.

Also making the rounds for the last week is an article at Slate written by a vegetarian .  The writer talks of going vegetarian at 18 and announcing it to the cringes of friends and family.   While the article can be entertaining he has one glaring point that I am in disagreement with.  When mentioning bacon and whether he craves bacon he says:

“We’re not insane. We know meat tastes good; it’s why there’s a freezer case at your supermarket full of woefully inadequate meat substitutes.”

No, I don’t think or know meat tastes good, and I am not insane.  Don’t speak for all of us.  That is the most asinine  statement I have heard in some time.   If he thinks the substitutes are inadequate then why is he bothering with them?  Also, he needs to look a little harder as there are some great items that he apparently hasn’t found.  There are some good points in the rest of his little essay but that one rubs me wrong.

On the cooking front I haven’t made anything groundbreaking.  I did make stir-fry last night using whole wheat spaghetti in place of udon noodles.  It works quite well.   Just cook the spaghetti until still tough and uncooked in the middle, not quite al dente, drain and fry along with your veggies in sesame oil and the seasoning you prefer.  I used Chinese Five Spice sauce of which I bought about five jars of on my last trip to Trader Joe’s.   Five spice is overall my favorite Chinese sauce and I have made it myself but the Trader Joe’s version works well.   If you do decide to make your own you will need star anise, Szechuan peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves and fennel.  Some variations alternate fennel for ginger.  The basic recipe I use:

2 Star Anise

1 TSP Cinnamon

1 TSP Fennel

2 TSP Szechuan Peppercorns

1 TSP Cloves

Heat the Szechuan peppercorns in a dry pan for about 3 minutes over medium-high heat until you can smell the aroma.  Place all of the spices in a grinder and grind to a fine powder.  This makes enough for one use usually.   You can make in bulk and store tightly covered.  To make a sauce from the spice mixture add 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce or tamari, 2 tablespoons orange juice and 1/2 cup of water in a pan along with the spice mixture and heat until the sugar is dissolved and the sauce thickens a bit.

Now off you go to Whole Foods for some Szechuan peppercorns and be sure to watch out for Oprah fans in the tofu aisle.

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