Martha Stewart's Vegetarian Thanksgiving Special

Martha Stewart dedicated her last week (November 19) to a Vegetarian Thanksgiving. Not only did she prepare a meat-free feast, but the domestic guru took the opportunity to educate her audience about the facts on factory farming. Author Jonathan Safran Foer (of “Eating Animals”) and filmmaker Robert Kenner (Food, INC.) joined Martha on Thursday's show to bring awareness to the truths of this terrible industry.

After the show, Foer spoke to Vegan.com saying:

“I was on Martha Stewart today, along with the director of Food, Inc., a veg chef, and a family farmer. I couldn’t possibly have been more impressed by how Martha handled things. Firstly, to devote an entire show to the horrors of the meat industry without feeling a need to offer the industry a voice. Secondly, she came right out and said the meat industry is bad. She didn’t mince her words. She wasn’t cagey or indirect. She spoke plainly and openly about the secrecy, about how they went after Oprah, about how they torture animals (her words), about how she’s going to have a vegetarian Thanksgiving. She told her audience, “You’ll probably agree with just about all of the conclusions in Jonathan’s book.” Frankly, she came off as further down the spectrum than I did.”

Missed the show? Check out Martha's website for clips on how to make Fox’s celery root stuffing and Brussels sprout side dish, and Foer’s vegetable orzo casserole. Yum!

Source: Ecorazzi

A town in Belgium introduces "Vegetarian Thursdays"

A town in Belgium has declared that every Thursday will be an official "Vegetarian Day" in order to fight climate change. This was actually announced before Paul McCartney official launched "Meat Free Monday".

The city, Ghent is 30 miles west of Brussels Belgium. Municipal restaurants are said to limit their meat to an alternative section of the menu on Thursdays. Tom Balthazar, a Ghent city councilor, says abstaining from meat one day a week "is good for the climate, your health and your taste buds."

The UN says meat production is responsible for nearly one fifth of greenhouse gasses, hence Ghent's decision for the weekly vegetarian day.

Schoolchildren are set to follow public officials with their own "veggiedag" in September.

The Ethical Vegetarian Alternative, Belgium's national vegetarian organisation, said: "Ghent, in co-operation with the vegetarian organisation EVA, is determined to go the extra mile in our common battle against climate change. Other Belgian cities have already shown interest in following Ghent's example."

I am so glad that these countries are introducing healthier alternatives and educating people on healthy eating! Hopefully America will soon follow suit as its the one country whom I believe needs the most help.

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Trainer on NBC's Biggest Loser turns Vegetarian

Photo credit: NBC

The Examiner has reported that Bob Harper from NBC's The Biggest Loser has recently gone vegetarian! In a brief interview featured in the September '09 issue of Vegetarian Times, Harper says that his cholesterol has dropped 100 points due to his change in diet.

He decided to turn vegetarian after reading books such as, The Blue Zones, Skinny Bitch (one of my favorites!) and The Engine 2 diet.

In late July, Harper posted a couple of "tweets" on Twitter that left people wondering:

Try using Almond Milk today instead of cow's milk today. It is a healthy alternative and tastes GREAT!!

Try choosing a cheese alternative today to replace your regular one. You will be surprised how great some of them taste, my fav, vegan rella.

The entire article can be read in the latest issue of Vegetarian Times.

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"Meat Free Monday" hosted by Paul McCartney

Meat Free Monday is a campaign which was launched on June 15th 2009. Its aim is to encourage people to remove meat from their diet for just one day a week, thereby reducing their carbon footprint.

The campaign was created and run by a team of environmentalists, including Sir Paul McCartney and his daughters Stella and Mary.

The dominant objective for the campaign was to fully engage with three key target groups.

a) Those with an environmental or ethical interest and motivation
b) Those who are considering reducing their meat consumption predominantly for health benefits
c) Vegetarians – who could help spread the Meat Free Monday message to their friends/colleagues/family etc

The challenge for Meat Free Monday was to address the diversity of the target groups. Vegetarians, meat eaters and those with environmental motives all have different priorities. By completely understanding the target groups, together with the campaign’s brief, Silver Chair devised a digital strategy to allow these targets to become one force with a common goal.

The hard-core environmental facts…
The UK’s Food Climate Research Network suggests that food production from farm to fork is responsible for between 20-30 percent of global green house gas emissions. Livestock production is responsible for around half of these emissions. The more meat we produce and eat the bigger that carbon footprint will get. A sustainable future demands that we cut down - and yet between 1961 and 2007 the world population increased by a factor of 2.2, but meat consumption quadrupled, and poultry consumption increased 10-fold.

As a result the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has concluded that the livestock sector is ‘one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.

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(photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images Europe June 15, 2009 )