Friday Foodies: Chickpea Burgers and Lazy Caprese

Good morning!

This week was Canada day week, and Wednesday night VOMD and I did our civic  duty and went out to see the fireworks. As I noted before I am really not that much of a Canada day fan, and fireworks are honestly just not a good idea. Yes, they usually go up over lakes and rivers so that fires are less likely, but c'mon  man, what goes up always comes down. So, what the hell are we doing shooting balls of flaming garbage into the air and  into our lakes? Not to mention the mixture of toxic chemicals that actually goes into the making of fireworks (you know , the stuff that makes them all colourful and exciting!?)...

And then there is the noise... Hamilton is split into two sections, the North and the South. The south end is on what locals call "the mountain", essentially the Niagara Escarpment extends along the length of Hamilton, so there's a huge cliff separating the North and South. The fireworks take place in the North over the lake, but  because of the way  the city is located on the escarpment, the sound of the fireworks echoed twice as much as it  would in a city without a giant rock face in the middle of  it. This is literal hell for all the animals in the area. Animal ears, including ...duh, dog's ears, are considerably more sensitive than the human ears and fireworks can permanently affect their sense of hearing, and companion animals fleeing from the sound of fireworks often get lost, and are brought into shelters, their paws bleeding from running through backyards and down city streets away from the noise. And apparently, after fireworks, wildlife rehabilitators experience an increase in orphaned birds, squirrels, and other small mammals because their parents flee the sound and sometimes are so disoriented that they cannot find their way back to their nests.

And all of that for ....this. Just this. Sparkles in the sky. Across Canada, almost every city and town had their own display of sparkles in the sky, threatening the lives of animals, f*cking with the environment...just to indulge our selfish, childish desire to see explosions.

But that's enough of that.

Last week I shared my yummy alternative to meat and potatoes and this week I thought I would share my recipe for one of my favourite, super simple burgers.  Lately VOMD and I have been eating so many burger and sandwich based dinners. In part, this is to beat the heat (although this recipe still uses the oven) and in part its just because  it doesn't feel like summer unless you're eating burgers.

Here they are: Simple vegan Chickpea  Burgers with Lazy Tofu Caprese Salad (I say lazy, because its just not as pretty as your standard caprese)

VOMD  is super weird and doesn't like Ketchup (even awesome sugar free organic Ketchup) so we use Sriracha a LOT (in case you're wondering about the red stuff on there).

Here's how you make the burgers

Simple Chickpea Burgers

Ingredients (makes 6 burgers)

2 Cans of chickpeas, drained and  rinsed (you can use dried,  just make sure you cook them until they are really soft. You will need about 3 cups of drained chickpeas, whatever you choose to use)

1 handful of fresh her of your choice (I used basil this time, to go with my basil caprese, but parsley will make it seem more like a falafel burger, if that is what you're craving)

1 large onion, peeled and cut into chunks

1/2 cup oat flour (just throw some steel cut oats in the food processor until its floury)

1 teaspoon of cumin (optional,  but its sooooo good)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put your herbs in the food  processor and pulse for a couple seconds until they are all chopped up into tiny pieces. Then add your chickpeas, onion, and cumin. Pulse again until your chickpeas and onions are all chopped up,  but you don't want to go for too long. You  will want your chickpeas to be chunky, not creamy, and the onions should be well chopped,  but still in large enough pieces that you can taste them!

Scoop this mixture into a mixing bowl and give it a taste. Add salt and pepper if needed. Then sprinkle flour on  top  of mixture and kneed with your hands until combined. It  should be kind of sticky and a little doughy (similar to a light cookie dough). Line a pan with Parchment Paper and roll your dough into six  balls. Flatten into patties about 1 inch thick and place on pan. Bake for about 35 minutes, flipping half way. They should be golden brown when finished. They will be a little crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. If you want them firmer, turn your heat down a little lower and cook for longer. The longer you cook them, the firmer they will be.

Serve on a bun with your usual toppings! The leftover burgers went into VOMD's lunch for work, with home made hummus and garlic sriracha mayo. But I warn you, these are waaayyyy better FRESH. (For Garlic Sriracha  Mayo, mix  about 1/2 cup of vegan mayonaise with 3 or four cloves of fresh crushed garlic and about 2 tbsp of sriracha sauce. It will keep in  the fridge for about a week, so it is the perfect take-take-for lunch condiment)

Tofu Caprese Salad

Ingredients (makes enough for two as a side)

1/2 a large cucumber, sliced  into rounds

1 large tomato, sliced

1 cup of cubed firm tofu

1 small lemon, juiced

1 clove  or garlic, crushed (or more if you want it to be hotter!)

1 handful basil, chopped in the food processor, OR a couple dashes of dry organic basil (if you use this option, reconstitute in the dressing for about an hour before serving)

A splash of olive oil

In a bowl, mix together lemon juice, garlic, basil and a splash of olive oil. If using dry basil,  let sit for about an hour. Add tofu to mixture and mix to coat. Let sit until some of the juice is absorbed into tofu. Place your sliced tomatoes and cucumber on the plates, and pour tofu  mixture  on top.  If you want you can drizzle a little more olive oil on top, or add some more lemon juice if you want it to be more zesty. Then, consume!

Happy Friday!

-J

Happy Birthday Momma!

I've hinted at it before, but today I want to talk to you a little bit about why I have the best mom in the world. Almost everything I like about myself I get from my mom. I get my love for animals from my mom, my love of hard work and getting my hands dirty (she always has a vegetable garden!), my desire to live a simple life, and my ability to find the joy in every day.

No matter what happens, she can always find something to smile about, even if its just a silly joke, or a neat bird fluttering outside the window. She  is the strongest woman person that I have ever known.  Her laugh is boisterous and infectious; she is just the right amount of weird; and any time I am feeling down, she is there for me, no matter  the distance or time of day (She once drove more than an hour to see me when I was having a really bad night at 12:30 in the morning).

I struggled a lot in my youth with mental health and identity issues and no matter what the problem was my mom always listened, was always kind, supportive, and  helpful (even when I know it hurt her to have to hear what I had to say), and as I've come into adulthood my mom has become my best friend.

My  mom  is my "tell-first" person - that one person that gets to hear all my news, good or bad, before anyone else. Through ups and downs (and there have been plenty, especially recently) she has always been there for me, and for my sisters. Everyone  who knows her is so lucky to have her in their lives.

Happy Birthday, Momma. I love you so much.

The thing about Canada Day

Today  is Canada Day. VOMD wants to take me to see some fireworks, but given the impact that fireworks have on animals, I'm not very excited to be part of it. Not only that, but I feel a little bit strange celebrating my belonging to a country that believes that immigrant citizens are second class, and who treat animals like property and food. I love it that I get to live in  Canada.  I love the scenery, the seasons, the people...well, lots of the people. Beyond the obvious stuff (like the right to vote, the freedom to marry who we please and all those things that are obviously excellent) I just don't feel like we have that much to celebrate.

Animal cruelty is incredibly common in Canada. Factory Farming in Canada is just as violent and cruel as it is in the United States - even though we regularly compare ourselves to the US to make ourselves feel better. In Canada, more than 95% of the animals raised for food are raised in factory farms, and disturbingly, approximately 20% of chickens in Canadian factory farms die of stress and malnutrition before they are even ready for slaughter.

Our meat consumption in Canada is among the highest in the world - around 95 kg per person per year. That's about 1/2 a pound of meat a day. Given that our population is around 35 million, that means in Canada we consume around three billion three hundred twenty-five million kilograms of meat across the country.

Can I just say that this totally disturbs me and breaks my heart completely to pieces?

Don't even get me started on pipelines and the oil sands, which threaten millions of migratory birds, have killed hundreds of black bears in Alberta, and have displaced far too many other species of animals to count, or the annual "cull" (read: murder) of seals...

So, even though I am happy that I live in Canada, unless Canada and Canadians make some major changes in terms of how they treat animals I will not ever really be able to say that I am proud to be Canadian. I love this country, but I do not love what it does to animals.

So, this Canada day I am going to celebrate with my friends and my boyfriend. But it will be a celebration that is darkened by the image of what Canada and Canadians do to animals and the planet. I will not be carrying around helium balloons (which animals mistake for food, causing intense pain and even death) and I will not be munching on beaver tails (named after one animal yet made of the stolen eggs and milk of another) and I will not be singing the national anthem, because "Glorious and Free" doesn't really describe the experience of all that live within these borders.

Enjoy your Canada Day, everyone.

-J




For more information on Canada's treatment of domestic, farmed and wild animals:
Canada's criminal code and animals: http://www.spca.bc.ca/cruelty/legislation/criminal-code-of-canada-animals.html?referrer=https://www.google.ca/

Pipelines: http://furbearerdefenders.com/blog/pipelines-are-bad-for-animals

Factory Farming: http://www.beveg.ca/factory-farming-in-canada.php

Migratory Birds: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6052

Black Bears: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/02/22/black-bears-wildlife-alberta-oil-sands-tar_n_1293109.html

Monday Happies: PIZZA

Happy Monday! 

In the spirit of continuing to find things to be happy about, I am about to share with you and awesome vegan pizza recipe. But first, can I please just rant for a moment? It has to do with watching television - something that I do far too often than I'd like to admit. I mean...I watch A LOT of television. It is a product of being unemployed and not having a desk to work at. I sit on the couch while working on my thesis all  day, and it is just too easy to turn on Netflix and power watch six seasons of Family Guy in one sitting. ...

The thing that gets me really riled up, though, is ease with which our culture throws around racism, sexist and speciesism. Given that the average North American probably watches about the same amount of television as I do, it sort of freaks me out that swathes of uncritical people are absorbing all this negative, bullshit information on the reg. It is presented in these seemingly innocuous ways - a funny character wearing a poncho, a joke about women being passive aggressive, the off-hand comment  about non-hunters being sissies. But even when it is done ironically, I don't think that the average television watcher gets  the irony. 

I know I can just turn off the television, and there is obviously a deeper problem here for me in terms of my obvious addiction to technology, but this doesn't take away the fact that I find myself constantly wincing, and actually just genuinely feeling like crap when I watch shows like American Dad when Stan casually murders dear, or a raccoon, or whatever he kills in whatever episode; or when I watch a show like Raising Hope, which is generally a pretty funny show, but has an entire episode where they raise and learn to love a pig, and then eat him. 

Watching crap like this kind of makes me understand why it is so hard to make the decision to go vegan, or even see veganism as a valid lifestyle choice. We are constantly told by television and other media that eating animals, degrading women, and making racist jokes are completely normal and actually not that harmful - especially if presented humorously. But humour is powerful and dangerous because behind this type of humour are messages of hate. When I see my young niece imitating television characters, or my friends' kids laughing at jokes told in racist faux Chinese accents I can't help but feel a little like a tiny ant trying to knock down a mountain of  hate.  I feel a little  hopeless. 

But, then I see some of the awesome vegans out there crusading for a better world, and I see that it really isn't all that hopeless. Media presents a skewed vision of the world in which we live, and while it has a huge  influence, it obviously doesn't ensnare us all in its shitty, hate-trap. 

So, I'm going to really work on switching off the television, and spending more time with my animal friends, and my awesome vegan boyfriend. 

Anyway, that is my little rant. And now for those Monday Happies I promised! I know that I shared a recipe already on Friday, but I had to share this  one too, and what is better than pizza to chase those Monday blues away? 

VOMD and I don't eat pizza very often. There is a Pita Pizza down the street that makes this awesome vegan falafel pizza, but other than that, we tend to go for sushi or Indian food before we go for  pizza. But  I had a huge craving last week and didn't really feel like spending money, so I decided to work with what we had at home. This is what I came up with!

The dough recipe I use is exactly the same as the one I learned from my mom's partner when I was a kid,  with a few minor changes. First, I use mostly whole wheat flour; second, I used maple syrup instead of sugar;  and third, its all about the pizza stone! 

 It's a pretty simple recipe. You should grab 2 big mixing bowls before you begin.

Ingredients:
2  cups of whole wheat flour
1 2/3 cup  of white flour
1/4 tsp salt
11/2 cups of VERY warm water (NOT HOT)
1 tsp maple  syrup
1 tbsp of active dry yeast
2 tbsp olive oil

You start by prepping your yeast. Put  the yeast in a large bowl and stir in maple syrop and warm water. Stir lightly and let sit until it gets all foamy on top. While the yeast is doing it's thing mix the whole wheat flour, salt, and  1 1/3 cups of white flour together (save 1/3 for later).

Once the yeast mixture is foamy, start adding the dry ingredients, and the oil, to the wet and once it gets too thick to stir, get your hands in there.

Once it is all combine, turn the dough onto a floured surface (floured with that extra 1/3 of white flour we set aside earlier). Kneed the dough for about 8-10 minutes until you have a nice stretchy firm ball and you can see some little puffs beneath the surface. Place in an oiled bowl, ans swish around until the ball of dough is coated. This will stop it from sticking. Cover with a clean, lightly dampened cloth in a warm place (like by a sun-lit window in the summer, or in an oven with the light on in winter). Let it rise until double it's size (about an hour or so).

Once risen, punch it down and break into 2 pieces. Kneed very lightly and form 2 balls. Cover lightly with that damp towel again and let rise until these pieces are doubled.

While that is rising(which should take about 40-45 minutes) you should start preheating your oven  if you are using a pizza stone. If not, wait a bit to conserve energy.

AND while the oven is heating up, start making your sauce.
Bruschetta Style Pizza Sauce (you will have leftovers, so plan to have bruschetta bread tomorrow! Just add a little olive oil, some chopped parsley, and a little splash of red wine vinegar to brighten it up)
Ingredients:
1 large onion, quartered
5 cloves or garlic (or  more or less, depending on your taste
1 large can of diced tomatoes (unsalted)
1 palm full of basil
1 hand full  of nutritional yeast
A dash of salt and pepper to taste

Put  the onion and garlic in the food processor and pulse until finely diced. Then add all other ingredients. Process until saucy (see picture).

Set that sauce aside and start chopping veggies and shredding your vegan cheese, if you want that. We  used tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini and red peppers. Leggo was supervising. I find I always cook best under her watchful eye. Once the dough is risen,  roll it out until its as thin as you like (VOMD likes thin, crunchy crust, so I make it really thin, about 1/3 inch) And lay on a pan with parchment paper. If you don't want the sauce soaking into the crust, brush the crust lightly with olive oil before putting anything on it. Then, sauce it  up, lay out your veggies and toss some cheese or nutritional yeast on top. We put nutritional yeast on one  and Vegan Gourmet mozzarella cheese on the other.

Then pop those suckers in the oven. After about 3  or four minutes, the pizza will be firmed up enough to slide it off the pan (using the parchment paper) and then pull the paper out so it is resting on your pizza stone. DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT A STONE. It will be messy. Duh.

Let it cook for between 12-18 minutes (it depends on how your oven works, whether you have a stone, and how crusty you like it)

Then consume! My camera battery died before I could take the final pictures, so the last ones there are taken with my phone. Deal with it.

Happy vegan pizza eating!


-J

Friday Foodie: Mushrooms, Taters, Carrots and Cauliflower

Good Morning!

Let me preface this post by saying that I am obviously not a food blogger, nor am I a very good photographer. I'm trying to work on that because VOMD bought me a pretty awesome camera and I want to put it to good use, but I think that I might just not have the  eye for photography. Maybe I need to get a photo editing program or something. If you have any suggestions, please share! Nonetheless, I wanted to start sharing some of the delicious vegan food that we eat around here.

So, I thought I would start sharing at least one meal/recipe a week to show the amazing yummies that VOMD and I eat. One of our dinners this week was a take on your standard 'meat' and potatoes meal, but with an obvious twist. It's not the prettiest,  but it is soooooo good.

Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms, Creamy Mashed Taters, BBQ Cauliflower 'Steak' and Maple Braised Carrots!

Also, portion control is for chumps. 

Here's how you do it: WARNING I like to wing it, so when it comes to measurements, sometimes things get a bit  weird. Just go with it.

Hummus Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms

Ingredients 

2 large portabello mushrooms (get ones with big stems)

1/4 cup (or just like...a couple scoops) home made garlic hummus (I'll post that recipe some  time, but you can just used store bought...or wing it)

1 medium onion,  diced

1 handful (or so) nutritional yeast

A dash of organic basil (it just tastes better)

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Diced the stems of the  portabellos and fry the heck out  of them and the onions in a cast iron pan. Cast iron is the shit because if properly seasoned (google  that)  it is naturally non-stick. Also,  cast iron pans will stay usable for the rest of your life, and  beyond! Then add  the basil, salt and pepper.  Add the hummus and nutritional yeast and mix up. Then, scoop that  crap onto your mushrooms (smooth side  down, of course) and place on an oven-safe pan. If you  want the top super crispy, mix some crushed organic corn flakes with nutritional yeast, garlic  powder, and a little bit of salt, and put on top.  Bake for about 15 minutes (or longer, depending on the size of your mushrooms). They should be tender and juicy when ready.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes 

Ingredients (makes 2 huge servings with some leftovers for breakfast)

About 8 medium sized white potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes (about 4 cups all cut up?) (it really depends on the size you have) 

2 scoops of vegan mayonnaise (we use Vegenaise in this house, but  use your favourite) 

A splash of unsweetened almond milk (or  whatever milk alternative  you like)

Garlic powder to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Boil potatoes until a fork slides through  easily. Drain water (you can use this for soup or gravy, if you're doing that, so don't waste it if you  don't need to). Add vegenaise and almond milk and mash it all to hell with a masher. If you have a hand mixer you  can use  that too, but don't mix too much or it will get all gluey.  Nobody likes gluey taters. Stir in salt,  pepper and garlic powder to taste. I like mine really peppery, but go with your own taste buds. To make  them super awesome, put them in a cast iron pan or other over safe dish and broil in the oven for a few minutes until the top is golden and beautiful like the ones above!  

BBQ Cauliflower "Steak"

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower (you're not going to use  it all, but start with a whole one  to get the best "steaks")

Your favourite BBQ sauce (I'll share my recipe some time, but  for now, go with what you like best)

A little olive oil 

A little sriracha sauce (to give it a little extra kick) 

Salt and pepper to taste (if your BBQ sauce is missing a little)

Preheat oven 400 degrees (you're already doing this for the mushrooms anyway, right?). Slice cauliflower into thick slices, through the core  so taht you end  up with three or four slabs. You will have some extras that break off and aren't "steaky", so put that back in the fridge or throw it into a bag in the freezer to make soup or something like that. Put a little oil on a pan  and place those suckers on the oil. Wiggle them around a bit, and flip so that both sides are a little oily. Slather as much BBQ sauce as you want on them (I don't use a ton, but it's  really up to you) and then, if you want, squirt some lines of sriracha on there too. Sprinkle a pinch of pepper on each,  and maybe some salt, and throw in the oven for about 15-20 minutes (depending on the size). They should be forkable when done, but not mushy.  

Cheaters Maple Braised Carrots (its cheating because its not actually braised)

Ingredients

About 3 large carrots, sliced into "dollars" (about 2 cups...or something)

A glug of maple syrup (maybe three tablespoons)

A little (or big) scoop of vegan butter substitute (like  vegan Becel, or Earth Balance). I only use about a table spoon. 

Salt and pepper  to taste

A sprig of Rosemary 

Boil carrots until just slightly forkable. Drain the water (or use for that  soup you're planning) and  put back into the still hot pot on the still on element. Add syrup, vegan butter, Rosemary and a little salt and pepper, stir, and let bubble a bit until really forkable. Then serve! (you can put  that used rosemary sprig in your soup base too, if you want!)

Ta da!

Happy Friday!

-J

Being Vegan is more fun with friends! (Vegan Resources)

Good Morning Herbivores (and everyone else),

Sometimes it is hard to be vegan. The choice  to not consume non-human animals and products made from their fluids is one that none of us take lightly. If you are the only one of your friends, or the only in your family who has made  the decision to be vegan, being vegan can get incredibly lonely. And even when you do have a decent support  group of fellow vegans and family members who share your lifestyle (or at least support you in your lifestyle choice) being vegan can be a marginalizing. Honestly, begin vegan is  just more fun with friends! I can't tell you how much I have struggled with being vegan, especially when I was dating a carnist! But now, with VOMD, things are amazing. I'm not trying to brag or  anything, but having a boyfriend that not only gets it but lives it is AMAZING!

Here are some resources that you might find helpful on your journey.

If you are feeling down and want to get away from it all and surround yourself with amazing animal friends and like minded humans for a while, check out Piebird Vegan Farm Sactuary and FarmStay: www.piebird.ca

If you want to learn about how to become a vegan, check out The Vegan Starter Kit: www.vegankit.com/be It's a super helpful little place to learn the basics of going vegan (and why it is so important to do so).

If you want a little cheering up, check out this new page on Facebook (created by my sister  and one of her best friends!) called Dear Vegans: www.facebook.com/DearVegans

This is a new page, but it is seriously adorable, and just makes you feel good about your choices. Sometimes as vegans we need to be reminded that we are literally saving the world. You're all superheroes! And seriously, isn't her art just cute as all damn hell?

facebook.com/DearVegans

If you prefer to consume knowledge in video form, check out the Bite Sized Vegan or The Vegan Zombie on youtube. One will give you knowledge, the other will give you yummies.

If you live in the GTA, check out the Toronto Vegetarian Association  website to  find veggie resources in the  area including restaurants, events and more: www.veg.ca

If you're a struggling vegan  in the GTA, visit the Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank: www.tvfb.ca

Its easy to be vegan if your  surround yourself with the right type of people and take advantage of the resources that are available to you. If all else fails, convert a friend! ...the trick is to tell them its going to make them skinny and then BAM they're saving animals and don't even know it.

It's also super easy when you have cute bunnies around! Here's Tobi discovering her new toy. Look at that face! How could you hurt anything so f#cking precious?


Good luck on your journey, Herbivores!

Happy Thursday!

-J

Books for people who give a shit about animals Part 1: Zoopolis

Good Morning! 

So, even though I am supposed to be working on my thesis, and all my time is meant to be earmarked for reading things like Queering Bathrooms and The Location of Culture I just can't stop myself from opening up some of my old faithfuls now and again. There is nothing better to do in the morning than brew a fresh pot of coffee and sit back with a thought provoking book - something to really get those brain juices flowing. 

If you're looking for a book that will get you thinking (and will probably strike up some epic debates in your household), read Zoopolis. It's written by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka. Will Kymlicka is an amazing Canadian political philosopher out of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and while I am not on board with everything in this book, it presents animal rights, and animal issues in a whole new, politically important light. Rather than appealing only the mushy mushy stuff that a lot of ethical animal theory does, this book calls on us to view animals in three interesting new ways: domesticated animals as citizens; wild animals as sovereign; and liminal animals as denizens (pigeons, squirrels etc.). This would change A LOT. It would mean that domestic animals would have the right to share in public spaces, and it would also meant that harming a domestic animal would result in criminal charges, as with any other citizen, while wild animals would be allowed to live our their sovereignty - Sovereignty being  “a form of protection against external threats of annihilation, exploitation, or assimilation". Meanwhile liminal animals like squirrels and so forth that are normally seen as pests, would be given the right to live among up, rather than being subjected to mass extermination campaigns.

They present some damn good arguments against animal abuse and subjugation,  but what is really great about this book is the completely unique way that they understand animal life as politically important. Traditional Animal Rights Theory tends to ignore liminal animals altogether, and to advocate for the "live and let live" approach to wild animals. As for domestic animals, traditional ART tends to advocate for an approach to domestic animals that would lead to the annihilation of domestic species altogether in the long run. Donaldson and Kymlicka, on the other hand, are not your standard "Spay and Neuter Your Pets"  cheerleaders. Rather, they claim that these people do not take "seriously the legitimate interests of domesticated animals” by forcing them “not to reproduce." This is something that I had previously never considered, as a strong advocate for spaying and neutering my animal friends so that they do not have to go through the pains associated with bearing children and  raising them in the wild were they to run away and become pregnant. In the case of my rabbit friends, spaying was the healthy option for an animal that is at a high risk for uterine cancer if unbred after a certain age. They encourage readers to "experiment and learn about what animals would do if given greater control over their lives", an experiment that I am hesitant to start,  for fear of the ethical implications. But perhaps they are right that the domination and paternalistic attitude we have towards non-human reproduction is deeply problematic. When it comes down to it,  I am now not sure where  I stand on the spay and neuter issue.  As a  piece of socially directed political theory, this work has done its job - I predict a tonne of excellent debates in vegan circles over this issue stemming from Donaldson and Kymlicka's work in this book.

If you  give  a shit about animals, then this book will definitely give you something to think  about. If you don't  want to take this too seriously, and just came here to see a cute animal picture, here's one of George sitting like a person.

Happy Wednesday!

-J