Don't Fear the Vegan

Hi!

If you have followed Don’t Fear the Vegan for any length of time you probably know of our daughter Anzia. If you have been around for a long time you have been around to watch her grow up.  You may have even witnessed her activism with Girl Scout Cookie Sales, read some of the recipes she has created, been introduced to her pig Princess Astrid Porkbelly, seen the Green Acre’s Farm Sanctuary documentary that she helped her friend Indie with, and most recently, the rants she has made for public access television.  Anzia has been a voice for the animals since she could speak.

 A few months ago we were discussing summer camps. She really wanted to be able to go to one she could sleep at this summer.  We decided to do a search for camps that had vegan food options.  With Portland, Oregon being so close we figure there should be at least one. We found the camp that Anzia had always dreamed of but didn’t know existed, the Youth Empowered Action Camp, in Portland, where they only serve vegan food.

As we did more reading we found it was for kids 12-17 year olds. She was heartbroken. We then realized that eleven year olds could petition to get in.  That was all she needed to hear.  We packed up our laptop and headed to our local coffee shop, The Governors Cup, to fill out the application without any distractions. When she found out she was accepted she began dancing in the crosswalk we were walking through, no concern of holding up traffic.

Well, the YEA camp was a little pricier than we had budgeted for summer camp.  We made a deal that she would raise half and that I would cut back on my coffee purchases and eating out for lunch while at work. To help she even offered to make my lunches for me. She has been working to earn money, as well as asking for money for her birthday to put it towards the camp.

Yeah, yeah, yeah…what about the cookbook?

So to help earn money Anzia came up with the idea to create and sell a cookbook especially with kid friendly recipes or shall we say her favorite recipes. Each book will be hand bound with the art of Japanese book binding.  Each section will have a color collage of the recipes included. It will also contain blank sheets in each section so that a childs favorite recipes may be added. Then when they leave the nest they will have this great keepsake to take with them.

 Anzia has also decided to split her profit with another young vegan activist, Lila, of Earth Peace Foundation, out of Los Angeles who is also earning money towards her dream camp.  Check out her work here.

To help support Anzia and Lila and get one of the cookbooks go to http://www.gofundme.com/vhb3vg

Thanks in advance for your support for these two young vegan activist. As Anzia would say, “Peace, Love, Be Vegan! Xo”

Episode 3 will be airing tonight. After it airs on our local public access station CCTV we will post it on the blog. With the post we will announce the winner of “The Glad Cow Cookbook.” If you are interested in being in the drawing comment here: https://dontfearthevegan.com/2015/03/10/dfv-tv-episode-2-the-breakfast-show/

Recently, I have had the opportunity to meet a young adult who was raised vegan but now partakes in consuming dairy and eggs. His mom was and still is a vegan activist. This young adult knows I am vegan and confides in me that he is trying hard but is really addicted to dairy, in particular yogurt.  When he talks about it you can tell he has a sense of guilt, much like when you speak with someone who was raised very religious and they try to explain why they haven’t made it to church.

I would like to make it very clear that I am not writing this to bash this person.  I am simply trying to figure out how often this is the scenario for children raised vegan and what causes them to stray or to change the only life-style they know, once they are on their own.

We have taken a very open-minded approach about our vegan life in regards to raising our child, never wanting it to feel like it was forced.  Honestly, our daughter Anzia has always been strict by choice. When she was three we were at a BBQ and all the kids were roasting marshmallows. She presented us with a marshmallow and asked first if it had dairy in it because she is allergic. We told her no. She then asked if they were vegan and when we told her no she wanted to know why.  We then gave her a simple response to what gelatin was and she handed the marshmallow back and said, “no thanks.” That has pretty much how it has been since with everything new she considers eating.

Of course I would like to think that this approach will continue into adulthood but there is no way to really know. I would love to hear about the experiences of others. Have you raised a vegan child that is now an adult and are they still vegan? If you were raised vegan did you ever stray as an adult, switch completely or did you stay vegan without second thoughts? Is there something you would recommend to parents who are raising the vegans of the future do based on your experiences?

Thanks for tuning in.  Hope you enjoyed our first episode. If you would like to watch it check it out below or watch on YouTube here. We are excited to be a part of the CCTV family.

Here are the recipes from tonights episode:

Eggless Egg Salad

15oz can garbanzo beans – drained
1/2 cup vegan mayo
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp Himalayan salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp tamari
1 tsp mustard
+ any ingredients you would add to an egg salad (We like onions, fresh dill, celery, and relish)

Mash up beans so you can no longer tell they are a bean but are still somewhat chunky.  Mix in ingredients from mayo to mustard.  Stir in any other ingredients you would like to add.

Cucumber Salad

1 lb cucumber – peeled and thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup white balsamic vinegar
1 tsp raw sugar
1/4 cup vegan sour cream
1/4 cup diced onion
2 tbsp fresh dill

Mix cucumber and salt in a bowl and set aside.  In a separate bowl mix ingredients from apple cider vinegar to sour cream. Blend together. Mix dressing, onions and dill in with the cucumbers.  Chill if desired.

Berries and Creme

1 cup cashew cream
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 pounds of favorite berries

Mix cashew cream with syrup and sugar. Pour over berries.  Serve.

After months of work I show will finally be airing its first episode on February 10th.  We will post here the day after!

Here is our official commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fXR8OIpOhSI

As I wipe the dust from the blog I want to give a special shout out to all of you who have stuck around and also for the many kind words I have received hoping that I would once again return to my little space on the interwebs which I call Don’t Fear the Vegan. Knowing it sounds absolutely cliche, the past year has thrown some extreme highs and lows at the DFV family, which in turn has fortunately brought us closer together, at the same time turn me into even more of a recluse during my free time, leaving very little energy to check in. Lame excuse? Absolutely. However it’s honest and real and you don’t deserve any contrived story.

For the last month my husband, Phillip, has been gone dealing with a family situation in Florida. Anzia (formerly known as “the Little Vegan”) and I had the opportunity to meet up with him for a week. I then came home on my own to fend for myself with the animals of the house.

Okay, I promise I am getting to the pig named Astrid part.

So I am gone for work 60 hours a week which leaves me time to give the animals a pat on the back in passing. Phillip is a stay at home, homeschooling dad as well as animal caregiver/spoiler/whisperer. Needless to say the animals are missing him something awful. Our cat, Kitty Kitty seems the least bothered as long as you listen for his pleas for more food. Felix the dog gets over his melancholy when I bring out his rope and toss it a few times or when I take him to fetch the mail and he gets the opportunity to mark his territory on the neighbors rock collection. Kitty Kitty and Felix have also both taken to sleeping on my bed taking up more room than Phillip and their snores will make his seem like a beautiful opera upon his return. As for the pig named Astrid, she is absolutely pissed off about being abandoned and has excellent communication skills.

She has found clever ways of letting me know that I am not meeting her standards in the following ways:
1. It started with the tipping over of all the chairs in the kitchen in the middle of the night, strategically placing them so I had to complete the obstacle course to earn my morning coffee. I’m still curious as to how she did it without waking me up.
2. Closing herself in my bathroom and blocking the door so I couldn’t get in ultimately making me late for work.
3. Flopping down in front of the shower door while I was in the shower keeping me from being able to get out.
4. Pulling Phillip’s clothes off the hangers in his closet so she could snuggle with them.
5. Knocking over the clothes in our hamper, carefully sorting them, bringing Phillip’s clothes to her nest, leaving mine behind on the floor in a pile only to piss on them.
6. Tearing her cover on her bed, then grabbing my phone charger from the outlet, hiding it in side the torn bed, and then pretending she is asleep on top of it.

The lesson from the pig named Astrid is that she is pretty damn smart and that there is enough critical thinking going on in her brain that she can plan ahead. I have also learned that all she is really interested in, aside from food, is for me to stop what I am doing long enough to give her a rub on the belly and a kiss on the cheek.

To keep up on Astrid’s escapades follow her on Facebook here