Going veg

chocolate puddle cookies; quinoa with currants, dill and zucchini

Within reading the first two chapters of Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, I gained an entirely new perspective on how I eat. We all know, the shocking facts about animal cruelty and energy wastefulness are out there, as easy to preach as they are to ignore. But Foer puts it into a moral perspective I'd never considered.

Eating animals has an invisible quality. Thinking about dogs, and their relationship to the animals we eat, is one way of looking askance and making something invisible visible...

Special pickax tools called gaffs are used to pull in large fish once they are within reach. Slamming a gaff into the side, fin, or even the eye of a fish created a bloody but effective handle to help haul it on deck... No reader of this book would tolerate someone swinging a pickax at a dog's face. Nothing could be more obvious or less in need of explanation. Is such concern morally out of place when applied to fish, or are we silly to have such unquestioning corcern about dogs? Is the suffering of a drawn-out death something that is cruel to inflict on any animal that can experience it, or just some animals?"

mixed stone fruit salsa; spring fruit and rosemary oat cobbler

Foer's book was the catalyst for my recent change of heart, but I've been doing lots of research on vegetarianism and veganism and reading pro-vegan books like Skinny Bitch and The Kind Diet. I also signed PETA's 30-day vegan pledge. I like that with vegetarianism or veganism, I'd be reducing my carbon footprint and doing my small part against animal cruelty, but I also have to admit that the promises of weight loss, renewed energy, clearer skin, stronger nails and shinier hair are alluring ones. It's only been a couple of days, so I can't attest for any big changes, but I am loving discovering the vegan blogs out there, like 101 Cookbooks, Civil Eats, Sweet Beat and Green Bean, and Alicia Silverstone's website, The Kind Life.

moroccan couscous with saffron; raddichio pizza with truffle oil