Oprah's Vegan Challenge

[viscousmemories]

Beginning February 1, Oprah and 378 members of her Harpo staff will spend one week taking “The Vegan Challenge” where they will cut out all animal products as part of a segment for The Oprah Show.

When the show airs, Oprah will feature special guests Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and eco-author Kathy Freston, in addition to journalist Lisa Ling taking the audience on a journey through a beef processing plant.

Oprah And Her Staff Take "Vegan Challenge" | ecorazzi.com :: the latest in green gossip

My DVR is set to record this one.

[Ensign Steve]

Is she trying to piss off Big Beef again?

[livius drusus]

Yay, a field trip to Bovine University!

[Sonoma Bear]

Is kd lang appearing on Oprah that week?

[Demimonde]

OMG, more beef defamation!

I must alert our Big Beef Overlords.

[Sophia]

For me vegan might be doable if I can have lots of peppers and other hot and spicy stuff.

PS: "Sovereign" thought veganism was for pussies. He was also an asshole. Coincidence? prolly not.

[ZEZOZE]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

Is she trying to piss off Big Beef again?

i've mellowed out.

[heptagon]

Originally Posted by Sophia

For me vegan might be doable if I can have lots of peppers and other hot and spicy stuff.

PS: "Sovereign" thought veganism was for pussies. He was also an asshole. Coincidence? prolly not.

Interesting! Ask me for culinary advice. I've been vegetarian teetering on vegan most of my life.

[viscousmemories]

I recorded this and watched it today. It was an interesting episode. Michael Pollan was great and the "Veganist" woman was good too. I was impressed that Cargill let them film in a slaughterhouse and that a spokesperson also participated in the show. It was pretty graphic, too. They showed everything from pen to packaging except the actual bolting of the animal. Of course it was something of a whitewash too, e.g. nobody mentioned that sometimes the animals aren't successfully stunned before they're de-hooved and skinned. Still, a good step toward raising awareness. I recognized Temple Grandin's influence in the system design even before the Cargill spokesperson mentioned that Grandin had designed it.

True to his form, Michael Pollan was careful not to jump on the vegan bandwagon. He even joked about interrupting the "dietary revival" at one point to then subtly suggest that encouraging conscientious meat eating is a more effective strategy than encouraging people to drop meat altogether. He basically argued that increased demand for meat from better sources is more likely to compel industry-wide improvements in how animals are raised and killed than merely reduced demand for meat products. In my book that's a pretty strong pro argument for meat eating. Of course the danger in that view (as pointed out by Jonathan Safran Foer in Eating Animals and demonstrated by yours truly in the past year) is that it's a slippery slope from eating only "good" meat to eating fast food meat.

Anyway it was an interesting show all in all - hopefully it'll raise some awareness among the general population and encourage change.

[livius drusus]

Thank you for the report. There was no way I was going to watch the slaughterhouse stuff.

[Qingdai]

I'm consistently impressed with Michael Pollens writing and when I've heard him talk.
The level of careful consideration and thoughtfulness is certainly refreshing.

Cargill is one of the larger food production companies. I'm not entirely surprised they participated,as they also probably make vegan products, so they have much to gain in participating in dialogues about and with vegans.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Was raw veganism discussed? That's something I've encountered through the internet, but not IRL. I'd be interested in knowing what they actually do eat.

[Sophia]

Originally Posted by Anastasia Beaverhausen

Was raw veganism discussed? That's something I've encountered through the internet, but not IRL. I'd be interested in knowing what they actually do eat.

"A raw vegan tomato sauce with olives, celery, spinach and walnuts on courgette."

[Sophia]

Originally Posted by heptagon

Interesting! Ask me for culinary advice. I've been vegetarian teetering on vegan most of my life.

I will, actually. Most likely we'll talk on IM again before you are able to reply here on FF, but do you know any great spicy veg dishes? Thai, trad Hunan, Mexican, etc., etc.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by Anastasia Beaverhausen

Was raw veganism discussed? That's something I've encountered through the internet, but not IRL. I'd be interested in knowing what they actually do eat.

There's a popular raw restaurant here in SF that I've been to a couple times. Lots of crackers and nut products. They make a nut based "milkshake" that is pretty damn good as long as you don't assume it's going to be a milkshake. The same can be said for most of their food, it can be pretty good as long as you aren't expecting the everyday item like Pizza when you order "Pizza". It is impressive how much they can make with such harsh restrictions.

Raw food is a roughage bomb and will often send those used to a meat, dairy and sugar diet running for the bathroom.

[Sophia]

Originally Posted by Ari

Raw food is a roughage bomb and will often send those used to a meat, dairy and sugar diet running for the bathroom.

Might be useful to most mainly as a 'natural' remedy for constipation.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Anastasia Beaverhausen

Was raw veganism discussed?

You mean like "superfoods"? Not on this show, but I started to watch a documentary yesterday called FoodMatters that was heavily slanted toward the belief that cooking food destroys its nutritional value and for "superfoods". My bullshit meter was ringing non-stop though, especially when I noticed that every "expert" they interviewed had titles like "Holistic Dentist" and "Worldwide food expert". I turned it off about 20 minutes in.

[Ymir's blood]

"Holistic Dentist" sounds more like Holocaust Dentist.

Huggins is among a small number of dentists who maintain that facial pain, heart disease, arthritis, and various other health problems are caused by "cavitations," within the jaw bones, that are not detectable on x-ray examination or treatable with antibiotics. Advocates now call this condition "neuralgia-inducing cavitational osteonecrosis (NICO" and claim they can cure the patient by locating and scraping out the affected tissues. They may also remove all root-canal-treated teeth, most of the vital teeth close to the area where they say a problem exists, and even parts of the jawbone. Worse yet, the surgery may result in severe infections and a lifetime of pain

[viscousmemories]

[Qingdai]

Yes the raw food vegans are scary. The first one I read about in the 1980s was saying that since other animals don't menstruate, humans shouldn't either, and that was a sign of a bad diet. So not menstruating should be normal.
There was so much bad to unpack in that one statement, I couldn't take the rest of it seriously. It also frequently advocates some seriously unbalanced diets.

The raw vegan food I've had has been more like Ari's had, it'd be an healthy addition to a diet.

[Ymir's blood]

That is seriously mind bogglingly stupid.




You can menstruate as much as you like and I won't think you abnormal.

[Qingdai]

I'd never think you'd be afraid of abnormal, Ymir.

[Ymir's blood]

I am rather afraid of women who've stopped menstruating.

[Qingdai]

Well yes.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

I am rather afraid of women who've stopped menstruating.