Vegan News: TripAdvisor Ban, Milk Purge, & Gary #LastWeekInVegan
I'm so excited to launch a new segment on my YouTube channel: Last Week in Vegan! This segment will allow me to cover some of the big vegan news from the past week in a short, easily digestible video.
Impossible Burger Makes West Coast Debut
Source: VegNews
The “bleeding” vegan burger (made with coconut oil and potato starch, and appearing “bloody” because of heme) became available at two San Francisco restaurants—La Jardinière and Cockscomb—along with Los Angeles' Crossroads Kitchen last Thursday.
Until then, the Impossible Burger had been exclusively available at the New York restaurant Momofuku Nishi owned by chef David Chang who added it to the menu after he sampled the burger in July and exclaimed, “I tasted the future, and it was vegan.”
I think this is great news! While the idea of a bleeding burger doesn’t particularly appeal to me, I am not the target customer for this product. If the impossible burger and others like it can cause non-vegans/vegetarians to eat less meat, I am all for it!
TripAdvisor bans ticket sales to attractions that allow contact with wild animals
Source: The Guardian
Internet giant TripAdvisor is launching a “no touching of wild animals” policy, whereby it will no longer sell tickets to attractions where travellers come into physical contact with captive, wild or endangered animals. As well as swimming with dolphins, the policy also covers petting tigers and elephant rides.
In addition to a ban on these ticket sales, TripAdvisor is introducing an education portal with information on animal welfare practices and advice and opinion from conservation charities. In future all listings that involve any interaction with wildlife will have a button that clicks through to the portal. The company hopes that users will be encouraged to write more informed reviews after reading this information. The bookings policy and portal will be implemented in early 2017.
They’re not the first to do this (STA Travel & Intrepid), but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. The impact of this change, to go into effect in early 2017, will be far-reaching. Unfortunately SeaWorld will not be affected, as they aren’t yet tackling animal captivity. Hopefully they will realize that zoos and the like, even those that don’t allow human contact with the animals, are incredibly cruel. I’ve written a blog post on the problems with zoos, if you’re interested, as well as a post specifically about Seaworld:
http://plantbasedbride.com/blog/top-ten-problems-with-zoos
http://plantbasedbride.com/blog/seaworld
Dairy Farmers Purge 43 Million Gallons of Milk
Source: VegNews
USDA released data that indicated dairy farmers across the country dumped more than 43 million gallons of excess milk into manure lagoons, fields, and animal feed in the first eight months of 2016. This is the largest overproduction of milk recorded in the last 16 years. Wall Street Journal reports that milk producers are scrambling to find ways to sell the oversupply through dairy checkoff programs such as Dairy Management Inc. which spent $30 million last year to push excess dairy products onto consumers. Strategies include lobbying to get more milk on school lunch menus—despite increasing demands at schools for plant-based alternatives—and partnering with fast food chains such as McDonald’s, Domino's Pizza, and Taco Bell to create dairy-laden food items that effectively use up the excess—one example being the cheese-laden “Quesalupa” developed by Taco Bell in February. Similarly, the overproduction of cheese prompted the USDA to issue a $20 million bailout to dairy farmers in August and a $7 billion bailout to animal feed producers this month. Meat producers are on a similar track to overproduction, with the nation’s pig and hog herd currently estimated at 70 million individuals, which greatly outpaces the current demand for pork products.
This news is both horrifying and exciting. The good news? Demand for dairy is going WAY down. The bad news? The US government is doing its best to prevent dairy farmers from feeling the loss, which would lead to lower production and less animal cruelty.
Vegan cheese is now called Gary, here’s why
Source: SBS Australia
So apparently this woman was so mad about vegan cheese being labelled as cheese that she’s started a revolution of vegans calling cheese ‘Gary’.
'Gary' has prompted so much chatter on social media over the past few days that it now has its own Facebook page and sparked no shortage of memes. Sainsbury’s have even taken up the term and are promoting their brand of 'Gary' online.
Yup. This is a thing. You’re welcome.
The Future Is Vegan And Tyson Foods Knows It
Source: Peta
Tyson Foods invested an undisclosed amount for 5% stake in Beyond Meat.
Beyond Meat's plant-based Beyond Burger contains 20 grams of protein, is free of hormones and cholesterol, and 'bleeds' when you cook it.
PETA President Ingrid Newkirk stated: "We at PETA are beyond delighted (pun intended!) that Tyson has decided that 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
It’s no surprise that Tyson has invested in Beyond Meat, given the popularity of vegan foods. One market analysis claims that the plant-based meat market will be worth $5.17 billion by 2020. Another study found that new products with plant-based proteins grew by nearly 15 percent in 2014, while new products containing animal protein grew by only 7.5 percent.
What are your thoughts on these stories? Is there anything interesting that I missed? Let me know in the comments below!
Until next time,
