veganism & post punk kitchen take over the world

"strict vegan ethics, frosted with hedonism"
great article in the new york times - hells, yeah!!

- highlights -

...can a cupcake be cute and punk at the same time? In the early days of punk, bands like the Sex Pistols were notorious for nihilism, anarchism and epic consumption of drugs and alcohol — none of which would seem to lead to tofu and chamomile tea. But as punk became more political (and as bands self-destructed) in the 1990s, many punks adopted a more profoundly rebellious stance: against drugs, against alcohol and against the whole habit of mindless consumption. [note: they could've researched this part better.]

“It was about purifying the movement, about being poison-free,” said Ted Leo, of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, who led the band Chisel in the 1990s. He became vegetarian in 1988 and has been vegan since 1998. Many punks became vegetarian to protest corporate and government control of the food supply. Veganism takes vegetarianism farther into cruelty-free territory by avoiding anything produced by animals: milk, cheese, eggs, honey, etc.

“I would love to live in a world where I knew the eggs came from happy chickens,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “But in Brooklyn? That’s not going to happen.” ... “Besides, eggs are the big lie in baking. All the books say they provide structure, but that’s kind of crap.”

...“I learned knife skills by cooking for Food not Bombs,” she said, referring to the activist group that protests corporate and government food policy. “But I also learned to love Julia Child and Martha Stewart. Vegan food can and must be pretty,” she said, pounding a fist on the butcher-block counter.

...punk vegans like Ms. Moskowitz and Mr. Leo acknowledge that they are still far outside the mainstream, and that the label “vegan” — unlike “vegetarian” — can still inspire a strong negative reaction.

“Any time you confront a deeply ingrained societal norm, people are going to get upset,” Mr. Leo said.

Ms. Moskowitz agreed that the vegan movement is in need of a public-relations overhaul. “I can’t say there’s no self-righteousness in the movement, and also, a lot of the food is awful.”

She said vegans should stop whining about what they can and can’t eat, and start cooking. “When someone invites you to dinner, bring something delicious, and share it,” she said.

This peaceable approach — smoothing frosting over the rough edges of rage — might be the key to Ms. Moskowitz’s appeal.

“You can’t stay angry forever,” she said. “Either as a punk or as a vegan.”

- the ppk isa's "welcome, new vegans!" -

[edit: otoh peta, who recently gave isa a "proggy" award, can as usual kiss my progressive ass. even though i realize they can't grasp - pun intended - what "progressive" (or "ethical") means. THEY JUST NEED TO BE STOPPED.]

[double edit: here's the errata sent by ted leo to the writer of the article, which is v. good (although i would have a further qualm/nuance to add, about being drug-free perhaps automatically meaning "asceticism" - which is just as untrue as in the case of veganism; and that's the point of the article, isn't it? even if it sounds radical, one doesn't need all these things we're told we need - among them animal products and drugs - to live a good and fun life):

"...thanks for the coverage on Isa and veganism! In reading the article, though, I think that it may seem that the ideas of veganism and asceticism (for the uninitiated) or "straight edge" (for those in the know) become conflated to too great an extent, and if I contributed to that, I apologize. The "poison free" thing was a catch phrase of the straight edge movement. They don't necessarily go together, and I, as a rather hard-drinking vegan, am not much engaged with straight edge at all at this point in my life. In an article about someone like Isa, who really focuses on the fact that being vegan is more often a positive choice that offers a fun and full life with food, than it is an ascetic one, I feel like the quote ascribed to me about poison free could be single-handedly responsible for drawing many a reader back into the same old assumptions about the life we lead, and I just wanted to set the record straight a bit.
Also, I was thinking more about what makes people react so violently to the mere presence of a vegan at the table, and one thing I wish we'd talked about, because I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, is just what a personal thing food, itself, is to human beings. It's one of the major threads of our social fabric, no? Aside from the obvious survival need for it, at this point in our evolution, I wouldn't be surprised to find that we've developed direct synaptic links between sensual food experience and emotion (or at least the glands that send out the seratonin that regulates it!) So many memories, feelings, etc. are wrapped up in our relation to how, where, and when we eat, and the meals we've had throughout our lives, and for some people, the customs of "the meal" as they've known it, and "food" as they understand it, may just be too important in their lives, for whatever reason, to touch without it being sometimes even painful! It's a really interesting thing to think about at this late pint (to illustrate the Freudian way my mind works in relation to being "poison free" or not, I'm going to leave that typo, "pint," that was meant to be "point," in) in the game for me, because people are obviously going to react to things differently, and while some may be really intrigued by or at least understanding of the vegan choice, I guess for some people it's probably hard to even understand just how big the apple cart you're overturning is for them.
That, however, doesn't mean that I wouldn't still like to see it overturned... ( -insert sarcastic winking emoticon that I don't know how to make here- )..."]