How green is your diet?

Photo taken from here

Take this short test below.

These are my results: I’ve saved 420 animals thanks to my vegetarian diet.
If I stick to it, I will save over 15,680 more animals from dying and 184,800 pounds of CO2 emissions from polluting the Earth during my lifetime.



Happy earth day people! I know I know, earth day’s still tomorrow (at least in my time zone). For those of you who don’t know, according to our friend Wikipedia, Earth day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the earth’s environment. It was founded by peace activist John McConnell in 1969 partly to generate awareness on overpopulation.

Anyway, if you’d like to celebrate earth day in your safe bubble, why not go vegan? For the day, for the week, for 3 weeks! Slowly adapt to 1 vegan meal a day, to 2 meals, to 3, to meriendas. Get ideas from here, here, and here.

These are the reasons why veganism = environmentalism without mentioning animal cruelty, as quoted in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization 2006 Report by Vegan Outreach.

1. The livestock sector is a major player in climate change, responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is higher than emissions of transportation vehicles.
2. Livestock is responsible for 64% of anthropogenic ammonia emissions (read: POOP and URINE) which contribute to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.
3. Livestock accounts for over 8% of global human water use, mostly for irrigation of feedcrops. It is probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution. The major sources of pollution are from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides, used for feedcrops, and sediments from eroded pastures.
4. 70% of previous forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures and feedcrops cover a large part of the remainder, all for livestock production.
5. The livestock industry is the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity since it is a major driver of deforestation, land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species.

A vegan diet requires 300 gallons of water per day while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,200 gallons of water per day, says this site.

A 2006 University of Chicago study found that a person switching from the average American diet to a vegan diet would reduce CO2 emissions by 1,485 kg per year.

Something to think about, guys :)

Funerals and spreading the vegan love

Hopefully I don’t sound (too) offensive when I say that funerals and other death-related gatherings (sorry already!) are the perfect venues for spreading the vegan love. I’m serious. At least in Filipino culture, death is a reason for families, distant families, close friends, and friends you last saw 10 years ago to come together. It’s also a reason to promote veganism and dispel the myths that [a] veganism doesn’t exist and [b] vegan food tastes like crap.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my lola / grandma passed away. While my mom and her siblings were busy fixing certificates, cremation, obituary notices, etc etc, my siblings, cousins and I took care of running the thing. Someone took care of the slideshow of old pictures and documentation of the wake; another took care of getting a priest to celebrate mass (and playing the organ during said mass); another took care of flowers and I-love-you-Lola poster.

My sister, cousin and I headed the food committee and I very well made sure there was always something vegan for EVERYONE. My lola’s wake lasted for 3 full days, with the 4th day being the interment in the afternoon. So for 3 days we had to provide food for merienda / afternoon snack and dinner, for about 50 people each day. It was like a 3-day party with unlimited food.

Tips on veganizing funeral / wake food:

1. The easiest thing is provide vegetarian junk food. Roasted peanuts, oreos, Oishi’s Pods, Boy Bawang / corn nuts, salted potato chips, you get the idea.
2. For coffee – none of that instant 3-in-1 stuff! Even though a non-dairy creamer claims to be non-dairy, that devil’s powder contains milk derivatives. Brewed coffee is best so vegans can take it black. If you must cater to drinkers who can’t let go of the white stuff, have the creamer on the side.
3. Bake something and make sure it looks pretty. No one will care that it is, God forbid, vegan. If something looks good, people will eat. Then tell that person that the food he/she just ate is vegan and let them marvel at your ingenuity. I baked a coffee cake, banana bars, cookies, and mini cupcakes. Make sure to serve desserts in finger-friendly bite-sized forms. Slice the cake / bars into squares, make your cookies and cupcakes tiny.
4. Make sure you are in good terms with siblings, cousins, and aunts / uncles so they can help spread the vegan love, whether or not they’re vegan. I love that my family is supportive with my vegan baking business. They endlessly pitched the stuff I made to their relatives and friends. My goal wasn’t to promote my business but to promote veganism awareness. Now people know what veganism means and that vegan chocolate cupcakes exist in this world!
5. In terms of savory food – pasta salads are good. Fried tofu too. Vegetarian pizza.
6. Hummus is your best friend. Serve these with tortilla chips.
   

So I jumped on the bandwagon...

and joined Flickr.


I was skeptical at first but my cousin who's really into photography convinced me to be more active. Honestly I joined a few months back just so I could comment on a few photos. I uploaded some of my food photographs a couple of days ago and am floored by the image quality! Seems like my desserts really come alive in Flickr!

Anyway, add me as your contact if you've got a Flickr account. My name is "kitchen activist".

Thanks for the push in the right direction, Rafa!

Oh yeah, just trivia. I love perusing Flickr for food porn and tattoos.

I ♥ Lola Amy

Dear Lola / Grandma Amy passed away yesterday (Saturday) at 5:15 pm. Almost everyone in my maternal clan were present praying around her as she breathed her last breath. It was a beautiful peaceful death -- I don't think she felt any pain. Her breath and heart rate just slowed down steadily.

This is a photo of her back in her younger days, probably in her 20's. She is 83 and pretty much has the same skin complexion with very few (practically non-existent) wrinkles, I kid you not.

She had a pretty rough time growing up. Her mom died from cancer when she was just a kid; her dad married a woman who could've been her older sister. Her stepmom ended up being an evil stepmother I'm sorry to say. She was destined for finishing school but was too hard headed to follow her parents. She ended up leaving home and supporting herself through college, which was pretty unheard of back in her days in the late '30s. She had only 1 sibling, my Lolo Ben, whom she took care of all this time.

She had such a passion for music. She was my piano teacher when I was a kid and she used to have 3 pianos and 1 organ in her house. She played beautiful music way until 2005 when she had a bad fall that made her bed-ridden up to yesterday.

Dear Lola Amy. I will miss you so. You were such a warm, fiery, heroic, and simple woman. I am proud to be your granddaughter. I'm going to miss our conversations. Rest well.

Rest in peace, dear sweet Lolo Ben

My dear Lolo (Grand-uncle) Ben passed away at around 3am this morning. He was the brother of my Lola (Grandma) Amy, mom of my mom. They were good companions to each other since my Lolo Doming (dad of my mom) passed away about 4 1/2 years ago and especially when Lola Amy had a fall and became bed-ridden.

He was always a jolly guy, waking up every morning at 6am for his walk around the block and his gardening duties. He would always eat 2 cups worth of oatmeal everyday.

I laugh whenever I'd see him sneakily eat a few fish crackers -- he has high uric acid and in the past he got gout from an overdose of salty fish crackers!

He was always so proud about his survival of World War II -- at 9 years old in Baguio, he and Lola Amy were running away from the Japanese; one Jap actually hit his head with a bayonet! My lola had to carry Lolo Ben on her back as she trekked the Cordillera mountains to safety.

He was the main source of our news. As a child I remember calling him early in the morning just to see if there was no school for the day (due to typhoon). He was our local newscaster, he knew every piece of news from his trusty FM radio. He could tell you the latest chismis (gossip) about politicians and local celebrities.

He loved playing solitaire and could play that game day in, day out.

There are other memories I have of my gentle Lolo Ben.

Lolo Ben, I'm sure you're in a better place now. Sleep well. We'll miss you!

Nature appreciation: La Mesa Eco Park

A bunch of coworkers and I participated in a company-sponsored tree planting activity in La Mesa Eco Park in Quezon City last February 7. La Mesa Eco Park houses a 700ha reservoir and 2000ha forest. The reservoir is Metro Manila's sole source of potable water and sadly the forest is the last remaining one of its size in Metro Manila. It's always nice to get away from the city (even though the park was in Quezon City) and see an actual forest. I stumbled across some interesting flora and fauna...

A mother duck and her little ones. A little googling and wikipedia-ing tells me that she is a Muscovy duck, aka Cairina moschata. She's not as regal looking as her Google lookalikes though (OMG someone actually cooked a muscovy duck and uploaded a photo in the image search! Beware). I'm sure she's had quite a hard knock's life.... It isn't easy being a duck in the Philippines.










Her babies are the cutest ever. She's one protective mama -- every time I'd try to get close to photograph her and the ducklings she would flap her wings and quack at me. She loved to nestle in the grass and observe her kids run around excitedly.

A kind human offers her and her kids some breakfast.















The fruit of the samak tree. People from Laoag City, Ilocos Norte commonly ferment the fruit, leaves, and bark with sugar cane to make vinegar and basi. What your eyes don't see...





























Yellow orchid. I think it is a Odontocidium. From this website: Odontocidium Tiger Crow 'Golden Girl' is an intergeneric hybrid consisting of Odontoglossum and Oncidium. It grows in a wide range of temperature conditions from warm to cool. The flower spikes emerge often twice per year and are colored in yellow and burgundy. The species behind the cross include Oncidium tigerinum, Onc. leucochilum, Odm. crispum, Odm. pescatorei, Odm. hallii, Odm. harryanum, and a host of odontoglossum hybrids.

I think it's so interesting to find out the scientific names of plants and animals, and learn more about them.

NB / disclaimer:
The La Mesa website says it has a "butterfly trail and hatchery" -- I didn't get a chance to visit this place. Oh and La Mesa has horseback riding = not vegan! It has a pond and boating lagoon -- I honestly have no idea if it's manmade or not and whether it has natural fish (versus fish bought from some Cartimar vendor). And, I have no idea if the duck was endemic to that area (or again, bought from Cartimar as a baby in a paper bag).

Defying Gravity

Some Broadway musicals may be fluffy brainless stories about tap dancing but a lot of them really have solid storylines that dissect serious issues. Romance aside, a myriad of musicals have tackled the war in Vietnam, prostitution, poverty, AIDS, relationships, and rebelling against society…

I’m listening to the soundtrack of Wicked, one of my favorite musicals, and I felt like I just had to blog about it. For those not in the know, Wicked is a story about the life of the Wicked Witch of the West, aka Elphaba. It’s a twist on the character, who in The Wizard of Oz is depicted as the ugly green-skinned witch who was the wizard’s enemy and who is the epitome of all evil… A green Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty), if you will.

Gregory Maguire wrote the novel Wicked, the unofficial prequel to The Wizard of Oz. The book was such a hit that it was turned into a musical, which won a lot of Tony Awards (Broadway’s Oscars). I haven’t had the honor of watching the play but I’ve seen the song “Defying Gravity” performed during the Tony Awards a couple of years ago, shown in Star World. Seriously, that song is so good. It gave me goose bumps just watching Idina Menzel (Elphaba) and Kristin Chenoweth (Glinda) perform.

The lyrics of the song are literally awe-some. If you think Elphaba was a mean old green witch, think again. She was a misunderstood brilliant beautiful woman, whose only fault was that she was born with green skin and loved animals. She was more brilliant and had more magic than the Wizard (who if you remember was a fake). She also had a big heart – she became more misunderstood and was considered a witch when she defied the norm and publicly denounced the wizard. She was an accidental animal rights activist: if I remember the story correctly, the wizard tricked her into performing some magic and before she knew it, she turned monkeys into winged monkeys. She also found out that the wizard was conducting experiments on other animals! In the fantastic city of Oz, non-human animals could talk English, were just as intelligent as humans and were treated as citizens of society.

Everyone in Oz was so in awe of the wizard and never knew the truth… When Elphaba found out (that the wizard was a fake, kidnapped animals and performed cruel tests on them), she knew she couldn’t be part of that society anymore. She freed the monkeys who ended up living with her and helped her out… She wasn’t causing destruction in the city as what everyone thought, she was freeing the animals. Such a powerful story!

Anyway, here are the awesome lyrics. They really mirror the passion I feel about veganism and animals. Once you learn the truth, you really can’t turn your back on it, no matter how inconvenient, how “radical”, and how unpopular. Elphaba knew that by becoming a non-conformist she would be considered the evil one.

By the way, if you were curious… Her sister, Nessa Rose, was the real wicked witch who in The Wizard of Oz had a house fall on her. When Boq her boyfriend broke up with her, she put a curse on him… Elphaba tried to save him and ended up turning him into the Tin Man. Elphaba’s lover, Fiyero, was being set on fire by Nessa Rose (I think, can’t remember) and Elphaba had to turn him into a Scarecrow to save him… I forgot what happened to the Lion.

“Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down...

I'm through accepting limits
'Cuz someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But til I try, I'll never know
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love - I guess I have lost
Well, if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost

So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky
As someone told me lately -
Everyone deserves the chance to fly
And if I'm flying solo
At least I'm flying free
To those who'd ground me
Take a message back from me -

Tell them how I
Am defying gravity!
I'm flying high
Defying gravity!
And soon I'll match them in renown
And nobody in all of Oz
No wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down!"