Right so you have  probably made it to this site because either (a) I’ve plugged it on Facebook or Twitter, and feeling bored you thought to yourself “oh bugger it, let’s see what this ramblin’ man’s on about then”; (b) you have an interest in the subject of ethical eating and have been following this blog with enthusiasm!; or (c) at some point recently we have crossed paths (possibly at the pub) and you’ve asked me to explain why I am vegan, and not just vegetarian - both of which you struggle to comprehend why anyone would bother doing (or being?), but the latter of which you consider the most ludicrous concept you’ve ever heard. Just for fun, I should mention that a bloke at the pub felt it necessary to point out to me last night that, after all, “I did suck the milk from my mum’s tits when I was a baby”. This is I guess, true, but I’m not so sure that his argument discredits my choice of being vegan…

Now, the main problem that arises when asked to justify my reasons for choosing say: veggies over beef, beans over chicken, lentils over mince, Nuttlex over ‘Extra Soft Devondale’, Bonsoy over ‘Full-Cream Dairy Farmers Milk’ (and so on) -  is that when the big “WHY!?” question is asked, the inquistive character that asked it has usually already formulated an opinion about the my forthcoming response before I’ve even had the opportunity to open my mouth. Essentially it’s a rhetorical question – i.e you’re a Moron! – yet i’m still for some reason required to respond.

This being the case, such people are not then really prepared to sit through a detailed explanation that is necessary to adequately describe my views. And what results (in my experience), is an often poorly constructed, somewhat abbreviated response, where I tend to focus on just one aspect of what is a multi-faceted thing.  This neither answers the question the way I’d like it to (since they asked), and results in the person who (apparently) wants to know why i have chosen to do this, feeling dissatisfied with the my ‘justification’. Not, of course, that I need to give one. “Why are you NOT vegan?” could be my simple and worthy response.

ANYWAY, in an effort to provide for you (and your keen interest in this matter) a well-rounded and complete reason for MY ‘veganism’, I have devised a little acronym for you to consider… H.E.A.L. (now it’s a little corny I admit, but useful nonetheless).

Humanity (‘Livestock’ production is a major contributor to famine. But also think of its environ. effects, which then effects humanity)

Environment (see “Sam Neill” blog for more, but think: deforestation & carbon emissions from ‘livestock’ production, water use, etc.  )

Animals (From a vegan perspective think: forced annual pregnancy (e.g. cows), added hormones & chemicals, exploitation… etc….)

Luke (i.e. ME – Narcissistic you might say, but by this I’m simply referring to the benefits of veganism on my own health and well-being)

[THE MEDICAL STUFF] Eating large amounts of red meat for one, can significantly contribute to colon cancer and heart disease. Dairy consumption is responsible for high cholesterol and saturated fat intake, and has been strongly linked with heart disease, and breast and prostate cancers. For the record, dairy has also proven no higher in calcium than many other food sources. Additionally, approximately 10% (of 21 million) Australians suffer from Lactose Intolerance. This is because humans generally do not have the enzymes to digest the milk sugar lactose contained in products such as milk. I personally don’t suffer from an achy belly, the farts or the liquid number two’s after a pint of milk or a tub of Yoplait, but with so many natural substitutes for dairy, I don’t reckon it’s necessary to consume those products derived from the udder of a cow, or goat etc. I leave the animals to do their business, while I do mine. No exploitation. No dependency on another living being. And, NO CHOLESTEROL!

CATCH THE 112 DOWN BRUNSWICK STREET AND GET OFF AT THE CORNER OF ROSE. Looking east you’ve got two choices – Bimbos pizza bar to your right, the Vegie Bar to your left. Now they say when in doubt go left, and if you’re hungry, it’s a solid principle to stick by. 

The Vegie Bar is a staple venue down here in the heart of fashionable Fitzroy. It’s gritty, yet oddly sophisticated, without the frills. Plastered across its cracked brick walls is an artistic collage of poster bills for upcoming gigs of bands found around town, and old copper pipes add rustic decoration too as they snake their way up to the top of its cathedral-like ceilings.

The Vegie Bar opened its doors for business in 1993. It started small (a hole in the wall take-away joint), but always had the bigger vision: to provide diverse and flavoursome food with an ethically minded edge. And it sought to do these things without breaking the banks of the bohemian characters that have flooded the streets of Fitzroy since the early ‘90s. 

Diverse it is. Walking in day or night, you’ll witness a venue bustling with an often eccentric, always eclectic mix of hipsters, cool kids and urban professionals. Men and women meet there with glad eyes, as do ‘women and women’ likewise.

 SO WHAT’S ON THE MENU? 

There are the gourmet pizzas with a twist – the kind that’d have Rafaele Esposito turning in his grave. Oh and what a picture it’d be to see Queen Margherita of Savoy wrapping her laughing gear around a slab of wood-fire cooked dough with hummus and smoked tofu on top.

Then there’s the selection of spice infused Indian curries, including one of the most delicious chickpea dhals in Melbourne. Moroccan flavours too are thrown in for good measure, such as the Vegie Bar’s special rendition of the traditional cous cous. Thai and Singaporean style stir-frys share a portion of the menu, and make tasty use of ginger, garlic, lemon grass and chilli. And there are even three choices of home-style burgers, served up with chunky fries and a dollop of classic relish that would give your own grandma’s a run for its money.

 And all of this wonderful grub is minus the one usually uber-present ingredient – MEAT. There’d have to be a couple of hundred diners sitting down for a good feed on a daily basis in this place, and this clearly suggests that a menu without ‘the slaughter’ is no longer equated with un-wholesomeness. So if you were ever sceptical of vegetarian statistics, say like those found on the website of Vegetarian Network Victoria, you merely need to step into the Vegie Bar any night of the week to see these figures being represented by bums on seats.

If you weren’t aware, it seems Australians (and definitely Melburnians) are embracing ‘vego’ meals more than ever before (are you listening Sam Neill?). As Sanitarium’s ‘Vegetarian Study’ for Newspoll discovered, more than 44% of Australians now eat at least one meat-free dish per week, with a further 18% saying they eat at least three ‘vego’ meals or more per seven days.

BUT ALL OF THAT ASIDE, EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS JOINT JUST SEEMS TO WORK. We’re all jammed in their together, yet it’s relaxing and comfy at the same time. Most of the tables are communal, so this often means sitting opposite your lunch or dinner date, but right beside a complete stranger. A bit of unavoidable eaves dropping then is just a given, but might just be part of the overall charm. Because it’s kind of like we’re all just one big crazy family down here at the Vegie Bar, and we’re all just enjoying the experience of a warm environment and a cracking good menu.

Tonight I’ll be ordering myself the Mee Goreng – spicy marinated tofu and mixed vegetables, served with a peanut sauce, hokien noodles, fresh bean sprouts and a sprinkle of dried garlic flakes.Yum. And for desert – if I can fit it in – I shall lick my lips to a slice of the Vegie Bar’s vegan-friendly chocolate cake.

Happy eating.

I’ll see you at the bar out back for a G&T and post-meal smoke.

Image sourced from- http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/87REXBTNNSzOzVK4XkV9jA

Visit the Official Vegie Bar website @ http://www.vegiebar.com.au 

and the Vegetarian Network Victoria @ http://www.vnv.org.au

Lord of The Fries is possibly the funkiest take-away burger joint in town, and has 2 outlets within a block of each other – one snug on the corner of Elizabeth Street & Flinders Street, the other right out front of Flinders Street station. The ‘meat’ patties of their delicious home-style burgers are made from our dear friend TVP – Textured Vegetable Protein – and in all honesty, you’d have to be Matt Preston to know that it wasn’t the ‘real McCoy’ if you weren’t in on the secret.

Lord of the Fries has a lot more going for it though than merely the lack of a cooked cow’s clacker slapped inside a bread bun (although they are definitely proud of their 100% vegetarianism). The burgers in fact, were initially some what of an after thought. As its name suggests, the business has built its reputation on serving up some of the best hot chips in town, drenched if you choose, in any one of their tasty and original sauces including: ‘Indian’ – a spicy mango chutney with sour cream; ‘Asian’ – euro-mayo, peanut sauce and chopped onions; ‘French-Canadian’ – cheese melted by hot brown gravy; and (naturally) ‘American’ – southern bbq sauce, just to name a few. For those keen on avoiding dairy products, they also have non-dairy cheese and mayonnaise choices too.

With humble beginnings as a mobile hot chips van working the music festival route, LotF has come along way, baby. And I’m very pleased to learn that it will also soon be more widely accessible, with plans of opening a new store in Preston (northern suburbs of Melbourne), and additional franchising opportunities becoming available too.

So my friends, if you can now get your dirty paws on a mouth-wateringly good burger, that’s ethical, and comes with the best fries you ever did taste, why might I ask, would you wanna pour any more greasy cash into some of those more, let’s say, ‘less concerned’ burger corporations that have had a monopoly on the industry for far too long?

Full menus and further info. can be found at the official site http://www.lordofthefries.com.au.

And ‘FYI’, Ethical Avenues has no affiliation with this business (including financial or other interests). E.A. endorses this business  because we genuinely believe that it’s doing something unique and worthwhile for the world of fast food.

Sam Neill - Dinosaur Mentality

It is no secret that television, radio and newspaper mediums in Australia have traditionally peddled meat eating as a social norm, where non-meat eaters represent that zany group of ‘others’ (the blunter implication being something more like “animal-huggin’ hippies”). In more recent years though, the mainstream media seems to have taken all of this a step further. Now days, their endorsements have also begun beating the drum to a string of nationalistic-type agendas, which sees the practise of eating meat portrayed as a symbol of being a ‘dinky-di’ Australian. ‘Foodism’, as it were, seems a ripe source of exclusion in Australian (and perhaps western) culture!

Of course all these perceptions of eating meat, or not, are complete rubbish. But what is perhaps more concerning is the neglect by the mainstream media, to properly provide information on some of the serious, negative affects of the practise. There is increasing evidence, for instance, directly linking meat consumption (particularly red meat) to a host of health problems in humans, including colon cancer and heart disease. And then there is the dilemma of ‘livestock’ production, which indisputably has a range of ill effects on the environment. ‘Livestock’ production is in fact a leading contributor to carbon emissions, on par with energy and transportation related pollution. The industry also requires a massive amount of water usage – a resource that Australians in particular can no longer take for granted. And all of these consequences are before even any (valid) animal rights or humanitarian arguments come into play. If we really stop for a moment to consider these things, surely this continual one-sided presentation by the mainstream media of the meat and livestock industry having a positive effect on our livelihoods is a tad dismissive and quite irresponsible.

Oddly, one key player in the Australian media’s promotion of meat consumption is Hollywood actor Sam Neill. With Aussie (and Kiwi) roots, Sam is apparently a man who likes his meat, having lent his name and image to a series of ‘Meat and Livestock Australia’ (MLA) advertising campaigns such as “Meat. We were meant to eat it”. Frankly, Sam Neill’s motivations for endorsing Meat and Livestock Australia elude me. Surely, with 100-odd film credits under his belt, including Steven Spielberg’s grandiose ‘dino’ flick ‘Jurassic Park’, his association with MLA cannot be a simple case of “everyone’s got their price” (although I’d be surprised if Sam hadn’t been served up a fairly tidy sum by the MLA in exchange for his appearances in their ads).

Unfortunately Sam, like his JP character Dr. Alan Grant, appears to be stuck in his own archaic lost world of frightening and hostile dinosaur mentalities. For instance, Sam Neill and the MLA campaigns attribute human evolution to our carnivorous way of life. But are we really to swallow that the physiological progress of Homo sapiens is a direct consequence of a high intake of iron? I don’t think so.

The fact of the matter is that in modern society, our science and our wisdom clearly indicate that with a balanced diet, meat consumption no longer needs to be a vital part of our lives. With our ability to cultivate so many varying nutritious (not to mention delicious) alternatives to the foods that are increasingly causing ourselves, our populations, and our environment more harm than good, we should really ask just how necessary the consumption of meat really is.

Now I could be mistaken, but something tells me that a government endorsed QUIT campaign, not unlike the one that encourages us to put down our cigarettes, advising us that “every piece of meat is doing damage”, is a very long way off. Go figure.

For more information on the negative effects of red meat consumption, check out the following article found at crikey.com…

“Eating red meat: like smoke from a hungry anus”

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/04/21/eating-red-meat-like-smoke-from-a-hungry-anus/