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From Nutrition Counseling to Vegan Activism

Some people just don’t like vegans. The fact of our ethical veganism, even if we don’t say a word about it, can be an affront to those who are still eating animal foods. We challenge the way others eat and live just by being vegan. And, understandably, most people feel discomfort when their way of life is challenged.

But it’s more than that. People expect to be scolded by vegans. How many times have you heard that vegans are judgmental, superior and unkind? Is that an unfair assessment or do some vegans alienate the very people they want to […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-07-09T14:18:00-04:00July 9th, 2009|Tags: My journey, Vegan activism|6 Comments

Can Vegans Be Fun?

My local newspaper has recently been running a string of letters to the editor about diet. I wrote last week defending the healthfulness of veganism and advocating for this way of eating. Several replies popped up on the paper’s website. They were mostly the usual stuff: Vegan diets are too hard to plan, too expensive, vegans have a moral superiority complex, how do you know that plants don’t feel pain, etc, etc.

But the comment that caught my attention was from […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-07-02T13:26:00-04:00July 2nd, 2009|Tags: Vegan activism|12 Comments

Vegan Tuna Burgers: Old-fashioned Comfort

When I attended Gregory Elementary School in West Orange, N.J., our infrequent art and cooking classes were always an exciting break from the classroom. They were held in a big activities room filled with long tables and lined on one wall with a kitchen. Once a month or so we trudged up there for “home economics,” which always involved preparation and tasting of a simple recipe.

An absolute favorite and one I always remembered was the tuna burger recipe […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-06-29T10:01:00-04:00June 29th, 2009|Tags: Recipes|5 Comments

Can a Vegan Support Meatless Monday?

I’ve been in this business a long time—as both an activist and a dietitian—and I must say, I’ve never been so confused about all of the terminology and events and opportunities surrounding plant-based eating. My head is often spinning but I’m starting to see that this is a good thing. The reason there is so much going on is that lots of people are talking about animal agriculture.

When I first became a vegan the only people who even knew the term factory farming were other vegans. Now almost everyone knows what it is and that it’s […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-06-22T11:18:00-04:00June 22nd, 2009|Tags: Meatless Mondays, Vegan activism|10 Comments

Best Vegan Nutrition Websites

I’ve been writing in my examiner column about some things to watch for when evaluating vegan nutrition resources. Today I listed my favorite websites for finding reliable information on vegan diet and, for those who don’t read the Seattle Vegan Examiner, I want to reprint them here.

Eating well—both from a culinary standpoint and a health standpoint—is good activism for animals. After all, when studies reveal health problems among vegans, it’s obviously bad for the image of vegan diets. And when vegans make diets needlessly complicated, it makes others view veganism as a chore.

So, […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-06-19T11:55:00-04:00June 19th, 2009|Tags: Nutrition, Resources|5 Comments

Easy Vegan Dinner: Tequila Tempeh & Coconut Lime Rice

I blog recipes only occasionally since there are so many great vegan cooks on the internet—and I’m merely a good-enough cook. But sometimes I stumble over a recipe that is so fantastic or I find myself pulling together such an exceptional menu that I feel compelled to share. And that’s the case with last night’s dinner. Here is the menu:

~Tempeh Marinated in Tequila

~Rice with Corn, Coconut Milk and Lime

~Spinach (fresh from the garden)

~Salad (even fresher from the garden)

I think this menu sounds a little fancy, and it would, […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-06-13T14:24:00-04:00June 13th, 2009|Tags: Fat, Heart health, Menus, Recipes|2 Comments

The Atkins Diet Goes Vegan

Dr Atkins must be turning over in his grave. Researchers from Canada and the United States have taken his diet and—yikes!—veganized it. Their findings were published in the June 8, 2009 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Everyone knows about the infamous Atkins Diet, of course. It promised weight loss to anyone who severely restricted carbohydrate intake and filled her plate with fatty meats. For whatever reasons—and the possible explanations are hotly debated among nutritionists—the diet works for weight loss.

But there are some obvious problems with the Atkins approach. First of all, while […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-06-10T12:42:00-04:00June 10th, 2009|Tags: Fat, Heart health, Nutrition|37 Comments

Supplements for Sad Vegans

Are you sad? I often am. Anyone with a genetic predisposition to depression knows what it’s like to have the blues for no earthly reason. And when you are an animal rights activist, it can make things a whole lot worse.

Let’s face it, when you care about animal suffering, it’s pretty easy to feel despondent and despairing. How many of us can read about factory farming or puppy mills or fur farms without feeling anger at the least, and more often a sense of overwhelming sadness.

Maybe we can’t change our genes or control all of the things in the world […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-06-08T09:26:00-04:00June 8th, 2009|Tags: Mental health, Nutrition, vitamin B12, Vitamin D|11 Comments

Saturated Fats, Heart Disease, and Other Things We Still Don’t Understand

What is this love affair that everyone seems to have with bacon these days? It seems to appear in every other recipe published on the internet. The most recent ones I saw were for bacon candy and bacon brownies.

Now the latest internet claim is that lard—which is rendered fat from pigs—is supposedly good for us. Ugh. The basis for this idea is that much of the fat in lard is either monounsaturated (like the fat in olive oil) or is the type of saturated fat that doesn’t affect cholesterol levels.

I don’t know–maybe so. […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-06-04T14:41:00-04:00June 4th, 2009|Tags: Fat, Heart health, Nutrition|2 Comments

Vegan Foodies: Great Recipes and Great Activism

I’ve never had a very high opinion of the foodie movement. To me it’s no great coincidence that foodie (sort of) rhymes with snooty.

Sure, I like food that tastes good. But I can’t help being turned off by an extreme and expensive obsession with luxurious foods in a world where 2 billion people don’t have access to clean water and another billion don’t get enough calories. Who cares if your goat cheese is handcrafted or your guindilla peppers were cooked in […]

By Ginny Messina|2009-05-26T09:57:00-04:00May 26th, 2009|Tags: Resources|4 Comments