A Very Veggie Halloween Party at Kris & Chris's House (Pictures)

(Aurelia, Lisa, Dill, Michele)

(Barry, Aurelia, George, Raylon, Michele)

(Dimitria, Peter)

(Kris)

(Joe, Brenda)

(Sandra, Mike)

(Bri, not the cheese)

(Kris & Chris)

(Andreas, Mike, Sandra, Joe, Brenda, Lisa)

VegSarasota October Meetup at Whole Foods

So another month, and another great meetup at Whole Foods Market in Sarasota. About 25 people came out on a nice cool Florida evening to hang out and have a good time meeting and socializing with members of their community.

Raylon started out by welcoming a couple of first timers like Don, Brian, and Donald, re-iterating how thankful we always are for folks just taking the time to come and connect. Since Halloween is right around the corner, Raylon mentioned a list of vegan Halloween candies to fill the bowls of all the little ghouls & goblins this weekend. My personal favs are the chick-o-sticks, which until this week I never realized were vegan. Raylon also mentioned an article by Mary Martin that he found through Erik's Diner that had a really unique way to think about supply & demand and how your dollar is your vote.

Dill then lead off talking about all the great events that are just around the corner. Sunday November 5th will be the 4th annual Vegetarian & Compassionate Living festival starting at 1pm. We had a wonderful showing last year giving out food samples and spreading love into the community. This year it will be particularly interesting as it is held in the location of our wedding just this May - sweet!

Also just around the corner is VegSarasota.com's 2nd annual Thanksgiving celebration. Last year we held it in a smaller location and catered food for a limited number of people, mostly using self-funding. This year we're glad to have sponsors like Better World Media, the East West College of Natural Medicine, Jessica's Organic Farm, Center of Integrated Medicine as well as local restaurants, and another great speaking engagement - Reiki master Kimberly Braun of Urthdance LLC. We're really stepping it up with entertainment by Radio Free Carmela, raffle prizes, and more excellent food than you can imagine!

Dill gave a very impassioned and impromptu talk about how labeling people and products and branding and marketing really serve in a lot of cases to get people into a rut and reduce the act of actually thinking about where their consumed goods come from.

Brittany mentioned a new play coming up at the Booker VPA, and we talked about the importance of Voting NO on amendment 3 this November 7th. (Early voting has begun!)

Things wrapped up with new attendee Brian mentioning his wife is ready to give birth and that they would like to raise their child veggie (congrats Brian!). Also Donald revealed that he drove all the way down from Orlando to attend the meeting, what a trooper! He is a great fellow and a member / youth organizer at an Orlando Buddhist Temple named the Guang Ming Temple. They have weekly service at noon on Sundays and afterwards offer a vegetarian meal free of charge to anyone who wishes to attend. They're almost completed building their new location, and from the pictures he showed me it looks amazing.

That's Brian on the left, Donald (lifetime vegetarian) in the middle, and the thing that looks like giant candy corn is my back :)



Everyone kindly agreed to organize themselves to closely resemble the new wall Bush approved for the Mexican-American border and Dill snapped this shot. Neat eh?



Thanks again everyone!

E. coli strain traced to ranch near spinach fields

Well in a totally un-shocking chain of events, the now famous spinach e. coli bacteria was all but proven to be caused by animal agriculture. Yes, if it were not for the raising of animals destined to become food this could never have happened.


Read the whole article here:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/10/12/tainted.spinach.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- -- The same strain of deadly bacteria that sickened dozens of people nationwide has been found at a cattle ranch in California's Salinas Valley within a mile of spinach fields, investigators said Thursday.

"We do not have a smoking cow at this point," said Dr. Kevin Reilly, deputy director of the Prevention Services Division of the California Department of Health Services. Nevertheless, Reilly called the match an important finding.

Investigators still do not know how the feces could have contaminated the spinach implicated in the bacterial outbreak. They also do not know whether the ranch used manure from the cattle to fertilize its fields. Nor is there evidence that livestock entered the spinach fields on the ranch. However, wild pigs roamed the property, they said.

"There's lots of wildlife and lots of potential for breakdown in the fencing," Reilly told reporters.

The strain of pathogenic E. coli O157:H7 was found in three cattle fecal samples collected at the ranch, one of four under investigation, the officials said. It matched the strain found in sick patients and in bags of recalled spinach.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

etc... etc...

Now do you think that they've found the root cause of the outbreak it will be broadcast on every media outlet like it was when it was first detected? No way in hell. If the same thing happened with beef, you would NEVER hear about this, it's freakin ridiculous. Thanks to my friend Chris for linking me this article.