Spider and Ruby Cuddle on Earth Day 2012
It’s Earth Day! I love the animals, but the earth, not as much. I am a horrible recycler (excuse: my ancient NYC walk up is not recycle friendly. plus, it takes up so much space!), Andy is still training me to turn off lights in rooms I am not actually in (excuse: I like to feel like the apartment is bustling with activity, even when I am all alone), and I never say no to a plastic bag (excuse: I have a dog, and she shits). And my biggest and WORST excuse of all is ‘whatever, I am not making that big of a difference.’ But I am pledging to be better to the earth this year. 
And so I have identified the things that motivate me the most: money and critters. This list of super easy ways to go green from The Daily Green claims that I can save $90 a year on my electric bill just by shutting down my computer every night. Done and done. And what is more, I know that climate change is having devastating effects on all sorts of species as it jacks up the delicate eco systems that insects, birds and mammals depend on for survival. Just look at this polar bear. What the f*ck?! NOT okay. I MUST get my recycling situation in order. Apartment Therapy has some chic, simple and space efficient solutions to my problem. So does this site, which made me wonder if I don’t just need to haul my butt to Ikea and think of my recycling ‘problem’ as a retail decorating ‘opportunity’. Happy Earth Day people!
Predictably, people are freaking out over a children’s book about being vegan. Vegan is Love includes illustrations of animals in cages in an animal testing lab. The Today Show captioned their piece on the book and its author, Ruby Roth, “Extreme Parenting”, even though pretty much everyone, including he Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, can now agree that a balanced vegan diet is perfectly safe and nutritionally sufficient for children. The most horrifying part of the Today show piece? The author’s 7-year old step daughter says her favorite food is kale. Yikes! Today
Bookmarking it for my next trip to LA: The 10 Best Vegan-Friendly LA Restaurants (Ed note: If you live in LA and you haven’t been to Stuff I Eat RUN-don’t walk- there. I used to eat their jerk tofu sandwich for lunch every day. Every. Day. Yes, It’s in Inglewood. But it’s worth it.) LA Weekly
I think it’s great that Starbucks isn’t going to use the red dye derived from cochineal insects, or ‘carmine’, in it’s strawberry frapps anymore. But i think it’s pretty hilarious that people were outraged to begin with. The stuff (it takes 70,000 bugs to make 1 pound of it) is in just about everything that is red- from cosmetics to strawberry yogurt. The whole crushed red bugs controversy was exposed on This Dish is Veg after a vegan barista sent them a list of the frapp mix’s ingredients.
Mayim Bialik, outspoken actress, vegan, blogger, jew and all around smartie, has gotten a lot of flack for breastfeeding her three year old. May I point out that this does not help our tribe’s reputation for being out there. May I also point out that no one would have noticed (she has been writing about this shit for awhile) unless she was snapped actually doing it. On the New York City subway. What?!
Vegan in Vogue 