Category Archives: Vegetarianism

Linda Knieriemen, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Holland, responds:

Wine was a staple beverage in the ancient world. Jesus consumed wine, in fact at the wedding of Cana turned water into wine! If Christians want to live like Jesus, they should enjoy their Cabernets and Chardonnays! But there are also warnings about excess consumption of alcoholic beverages in the pages of the Bible, so thoughtful consideration is prudent and has been plentiful.

In the PC(USA) there are no dietary restrictions, neither is alcohol prohibited. My congregation opens its doors to 12-step recovery group meetings for the community so the life altering effects of alcohol addiction are an omnipresent reality. Out of respect for those who choose to not consume alcohol we maintain an alcohol-free building. Similarly, out of respect for potential addictiveness, the Presbyterian Church requires that if a congregation serves wine for the Sacrament of Communion that we always provide the option of a non-fermented grapejuice. My congregation has long kept it simple by only serving Welchs grape juice. (Welchs is not specified, but it tastes the best of all the option!)

Dr. Welch, by the way was a physician, dentist and Methodist minister in New Jersey in the At the time, Methodists were strongly opposed to the consumption of alcohol which made the use of wine for communion problematic. Dr. Welch experimented and using the then new technique of pasteurization succeeded 1869 to preserve the juice of the grape without its fermenting. It wasnt until the rise of the temperance movement more than 20 years later that the beverage took off both for residential and church use.

Id summarize our position on alcohol this way:

Dr Sahibzada, the Director of Islamic Center and Imam of the Mosque of Grand Rapids, responds:

God is Creator of all things. Therefore, he also guides about the discipline of life. Food requirements are also regulated by God Himself in His words. Two terms are used in Islam for lawful and unlawful (halal & haram) food.

Muslims will eat only permitted lawful food and will not eat or drink anything that is considered unlawful. Lawful foodrequires that Gods name is invoked at the time an animal is killed. Lamb, beef, goat, and chicken arelawfulas long as they are killed by a believer invoking name of God.

Following are some items which are unlawful and forbidden to be consumed:

Intoxicants, carrion, blood, pork, animal dedicated to other than God, prohibited methods of slaughtering: an animal whose meat is lawful must be slaughtered applying Islamic methodology by invoking name of God.

Fred Stella, the Pracharak (Outreach Minister) for the West Michigan Hindu Temple, responds:

There are no absolute hard and fast rules on diet in most of Hinduism. As with many religions, there is a spectrum of observance, and individuals may place themselves anywhere within it. The only thing that is pretty much universal is refraining from eating beef. Ive never met a practicing Hindu who does. But consumption of fish, fowl, goat and lamb is not unpopular. Vegetarianism is considered the ideal, but many do not meet that high standard. There are some denominations where a plant-based diet is required for membership, but for the most part personal choice is honored.

There are also those who follow an Ayurvedic diet, which encourages the intake of certain foods and avoidance of others depending on ones constitution and body type. Ayurveda is the ancient science of healing within Hindu Dharma.

Father Kevin Niehoff, O.P., a Dominican priest who serves as Adjutant Judicial Vicar, Diocese of Grand Rapids, responds:

In the Roman Catholic Church, the only dietary restriction is abstinence from meat during the liturgical season of Lent. The action of not eating meat on Fridays in Lent is a spiritual discipline. From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onwards (www.usccb.org).

My response:

Judaism is known for its complicated dietary laws known as kashrut, based on verses from the first five books of the Bible. To be kosher, poultry or meat must be killed by kosher slaughter, severing the carotid artery with a slicing motion with a very sharp knife. The meat must then be soaked and salted to remove the blood. Dairy products and meat products may not be cooked or eaten together, or even prepared using the same utensils. Products which are neither dairy nor meat are called parve, and can be eaten with either dairy or meat. Parve products include fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, and grains. Many types of processed foods have a symbol on the label indicated that it contains no forbidden ingredients. In very traditional communities, open containers of grape juice and wine products may only be touched by Jews and bread must be prepared by Jews only. There are no other prohibitions on alcohol.

This column answers questions of Ethics and Religion by submitting them to a multi-faith panel of spiritual leaders in the Grand Rapids area. Wed love to hear about the ordinary ethical questions that come up in the course of your day as well as any questions of religion that youve wondered about. Tell us how you resolved an ethical dilemma and see how members of the Ethics and Religion Talk panel would have handled the same situation. Please send your questions to [emailprotected].

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Ethics and Religion Talk - Dietary Restrictions - The Rapidian

We predict increased levels of innovation in the sector with more plant-based products picking up awards in 2021

Meat Giant Richmond Foods has scooped the prestigious Product of the Year award for its meat-free sausages.

Winners of this award commissioned by Product of the Year, are chosen by more than 10,000 consumers.

Product of the Year is said to be the UKs biggest survey of product innovation and is considered as one of the industrys most influential awards.

Conducted in association with global research group Kantar the winners are considered a barometer of consumer behaviour and current trends, representing key consumer wants and changing habits.

Increased levels of innovation

Over the past few years, we have seen more and more plant-based products win Product of the Year awards, Helga Slater, MD of Product of the Year, said in a statement.

With Richmond meat-free sausages taking top honours this year and with a particular focus on health and wellbeing, we predict increased levels of innovation in the sector with more plant-based products picking up awards in 2021.

Factors influencing change

Slaters predictions do align with changing market trends and consumer eating habits. A study her team conducted last month found that nearly half of the British population were considering eating plant-based products for their positive health benefits.

The team determined that attitudes to vegetarianism and veganism have shifted colossally over the years based on responses received when customers were asked to identify factors that would encourage them to try a plant-based product.

Results showed that 44% considered their health, whereas 31% cited cost and 25% looked at the environmental impact when opting for plant-based alternatives.

Going plant-based for a partner

While this research found 44% considering plant-based foods for their health, another poll studying factors that influence people to adopt a specific diet revealed that nearly 40 percent of vegetarian and vegan Brits ditched animal products because of a partner.

International vegan food brand Fry Family Food Co, who carried out the survey with 2,000 people, found that 18% of the respondents adopted the lifestyle to please their partner, and a further 19% swapped to support their partners healthy eating choices.

Interestingly, 33% admitted they wouldve never considered ditching meat without their partners encouragement.

Around 16% and 19% respondents made the switch because of their children and friends respectively.

While 53% of people said they felt healthier and more energetic since going on a plant-based diet, 80% said making the switch was easier than they thought it would be.

Share this story to support the growing trend of plant-based living.

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2020's Meat-free 'Product of the Year' award goes to meat giant Richmond - Totally Vegan Buzz

The man on the phone was aggressively blas, as I suppose is wont for many millennials. But after hearing dozens of answering recordings, I began to feel like a machine myself, an automaton mechanically entering phone numbers and clicking buttons on a screen. I craved the sound of breathing; I was grateful even for hostility, because it meant a human was on the other side.

The man confirmed that he supported the candidate I was phone banking for, but his tone suggested he couldn't care less whether this person won. He hesitated before telling me, Just so you know, I think youre wasting your time. Work at a food bank, or a homeless shelter, or tutor some underprivileged kids or something. Then he hung up.

I didnt get a chance to respond, and I dont know what I would have said had he stayed on to hear my response.

Feeling unsettled, I played out the argument in my shower later that evening. (Dont lie youve done this at least once.) The careless way he listed the things I ostensibly should be doing suggested he himself hadnt done any of them. I thought it was peak American male arrogance to be completely politically disengaged but feel comfortable expressing derision at someone elses civic efforts.

Then for a while, I thought he might be right. At a food bank I could be completely confident that my efforts were fruitful: My labor would translate directly to more full bellies. If a candidate I spent hundreds of hours volunteering for lost, that time was arguably completely wasted.

Youth voter turnout or rather, the lack thereof is routinely attributed to young peoples indolence and apathy, not any specific ideology. But the man on the phone was the first of many young-ish people I spoke with this summer who expressed the belief that voting is not only ineffective but actively harmful, a charade that saps energy from radical and more material change. Cleaning steam from the mirror, I considered this argument.

From the well-intentioned pleas of the Harvard Votes Challenge to new features of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, over the past few months we have been bombarded with a deafening, one-note urge to vote. But in this final voting sprint, I want to take a step back and really address criticisms of electoral politics.

First, and most importantly, the anti-voting people I spoke with always assumed a zero-sum relationship between voting or campaigning and other forms of engagement. But this is a false trade-off: Personally, Ive found time to vote and campaign, protest and tutor; many of the folks I campaigned with are similarly engaged across the board.

More broadly, this view of electoral politics as a kind of political dead-end dismisses the way voting often acts as the gateway to deeper civic engagement. As my friends vote for the first time, I have also witnessed them realize a greater political attentiveness and a desire to get involved in demonstrations, local organizations, and campaigns.

Are there people whose only engagement with politics is the ballot they cast every four years in the presidential election? Absolutely. But we should encourage those people to participate more, not tell them that voting is pointless.

Another argument that I heard often, especially from leftists, was that voting upholds oppressive systems, namely carceral capitalism, settler-colonialism, and the patriarchy.

Those systems undeniably exist, and Im not so naive to think that voting could necessarily dismantle them. But voting in a system is not an endorsement of the system, especially if one is also active outside the system. I can call for prison abolition at a protest and vote for a candidate who at least opposes private prisons over one who doesnt.

Anti-capitalists still purchase food through a capitalist market system. Their solution is not to starve: It is to try to obtain food in the least harmful way be it vegetarianism, a co-op, sustainable farming while protesting capitalism through direct action. Even if there is no ethical consumption, we consume in the best way we can while pushing for a new, more ethical system.

The same should be true of voting. We can take to the streets, and create self-sufficient communities, but in the interim we have an obligation to make things just a little bit better by voting. The fact that so many are disenfranchised is even more reason to vote, to amplify a political voice that is unjustly muted. In other words, resistance shouldnt be limited to the ballot box, but it shouldnt have to reject the ballot box as an important mechanism of change either.

I want to be absolutely clear: This is not a call to vote for Joe Biden, or to vote blue no matter who, or to use harm reduction as a blanket political calculus. There are people for whom voting is personally traumatic; for example, some sexual assault survivors feel alienated in a presidential election where the two major candidates are accused of sexual misconduct. I am not suggesting that we create a political culture that shames people who choose not to vote.

But dogmatic condemnations of all electoral politics engender apathy in the privileged, and convince people that their passivity is radical. We cannot encourage people to stop voting or campaigning right now with the hope that they choose to engage in more nebulous forms of making change.

Instead, we should move towards a vision of political engagement that includes the ballot box and calls for revolution and abolition, a recognition of short term gains that does not abandon long term imagination.

Talia M. Blatt 23 is a resident of Currier House. Her column appears on alternate Tuesdays.

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Why You Can Have Your Vote and Protest it Too | Opinion - Harvard Crimson

The most inoffensive way to consume alcohol. A drinker not a thinker. A carbonated Acai bowl by any other name

Hard seltzers faced much stigma in their climb to be Americas drink of choice, with White Claw being the breakthrough basic beverage, coming to dominate the market over the past two summers.

Hard Seltzers are a type of highball drink containing carbonated water, alcohol, and often fruit flavoring. They are differentiated from a more basic premix drink by virtue of a brewed base of rice and corn, giving them a depth of flavor and viscosity vodka and neutral grain spirits dont quite have.

Moving away from the trashy connotations of other malt liquor beverages like Mikes Hard Lemonade, American hard seltzers like White Claw have used sleek, gender-neutral branding and an implied promise that its virtuous (Eater) to replace Ros as the sunny drink of choice, seen in the hands of everyone from frat boys to hipsters.

Its not just a fiscal achievement, either; even if its not indicative of super deep change, as Vox reports, hard seltzers integration into macho culture, though it was initially done ironically, is a positive sign.

Theres a performative aspect of mens somewhat ironic enthusiasm for hard seltzer In doubling down on how much they love it, men get to embrace something theyre usually discouraged from enjoying. Todays male hard seltzer drinkers are just as aware of their chosen drinks reputation as they were in the Zima days, but the difference is that in 2019, its far more culturally acceptable to embrace it.

Eater also reports on this phenomenon, remarking at the tail end of Americas 2019 summer, The success of White Claw [is] indicative of the 2019 type of hypermasculinity that is currently en vogue.

Its a drink for a more evolved bro, the type of man who isnt afraid to talk about his macros or brew kombucha. The rise of crossfit alongside paleo and keto diets gave men permission to be more publicly and proudly health and image conscious than most of their predecessors.

Which isnt to say that smart branding by powerful beverage corporations has successfully solved gender inequality, of course. Its just that hard seltzer happens to fit neatly into societys current ideas about mens consumption habits.

Speaking of consumption: hard seltzer is now poised to blow up in Australia too, with the southern hemispheres summer imminent, and the steady pssst of ice-cold VBs and Pale Ales soon to be heard all over.

That and by the looks of it the sound of hard seltzer brands like FELLR, which FELLR director and co-founder Will Morgan tells DMARGE is sold out pretty much everywhere at the moment.

Its not a carbon copy of America though; in true Aussie style FELLR (available here at Dan Murphys) is nonchalant about all this gym bro and meme culture hype and aims to neatly fit into societys current ideas about casual coastal Australians consumption habits (i.e. the majority of the population), not just F45-ers.

Mr. Morgans business partner and FELLR co-founder Andy Skora tells DMARGE: When we first started talking, the initial [Aussie] reaction was: whats a seltzer?.

Theres been a huge turnaround, however, in the last two months, where it has gone from [practically] everyone not just knowing what it is to everyone buying it.

[The trend] started in lockdown a little bit but now there are so many brands jumping on board, media getting onto it, people recognising what it is, Mr. Skora tells us.

Summer has also helped.

Key to seltzers success in Australia, should it continue to blow up, is the style of drink, people understanding what it is, as well as valuing the health trends associated (think: low sugar, gluten free, keto, all natural).

Image: FELLR

On that front, there doesnt seem to be any danger of those values changing (by our reckoning the Bondi Byron Bali triangle would sooner implode).

Mr. Morgan tells DMARGE the craft beer boom aided too, getting people trying new things; [making them] more inquisitive.

There was no craft in this space nothing youd be proud to serve, Mr. Morgan tells us.

You wouldnt take premix to nice BBQ, or a nice dinner; we saw that gap there.

It takes us four weeks to brew the alcohol we dont just buy neutral grain spirits from god knows where.

As for whether hard seltzer will become the trademark drink of Australias evolved bros like it has in America, Mr. Morgan says: Its not necessarily for guys that are counting their macros like a gym buff, its for people from all walks of life.

People have heard of White Claw but were not important [enough for] that whole Tik Tok culture yet people just see hard seltzer as a healthy alternative.

As such, FELLR is made with trending Australian lifestyle choices like vegetarianism; going organic in mind, not just gym people counting calories.

Especially in coastal areas, people are really dialling in on their health and all aspects of it.

With just about a month since Dan Murphys launched their full seltzer range, only time (and pssts per capita) will tell where the hard seltzer trend lands down under.

Just remember: though hard seltzers are lower in carbs and calories than beer, alcohol is still alcohol

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The 'Evolved' American Alcohol Trend About To Blow Up In Australia - DMARGE

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is encouraging his followers around the globe to adopt a vegetarian dietin an effort to alleviate suffering on World Animal Day, which took place this past Sunday, October 4th. In a recorded message, the Buddhist leader said, "It is very useful to promote vegetarianism. We should pay more attention towards developing more vegetable [-based diets]," adding that factory farming is "environmentally very harmful." The Dalai Lama also urged kitchens of Buddhist monasteries and Tibetan schools to forgo meat in favor of more vegetables.

Buddhismhas a long history of vegetarianism and different sects of the religion hold different values and observe different diets. In Buddha's final teachings in the Mahayana school, it is said that he told his followers that they should not eat meat or fish. TheLankavatara Sutra states, "So as not to become a source of terror, bodhisattvas (a person on the path toward Buddhahood) established in benevolence should not eat food containing meat...People kill animals for profit and exchange goods for the meat. One person kills, another person buysboth are at fault."

Strict vegetarianism is not a belief that all Buddhists hold, for example, theTheravada school allowsmonks to eat pork, chicken, and fish but only if the animals were not killed for their consumption, rather offered and not specifically prepared for the person, similar to food donations the Buddha would accept, which sometimes contained meat.

Other schools such asVajrayana are not all vegetarian, but one overarching theme of the Buddhist religion is compassion, and in this time of climate change, vegetarianism can offer both compassion for the planet as well as for the animals inhabiting it.

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The Dalai Lama Encourages a Switch to Vegetarianism on World Animal Day - The Beet

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The launches that have acquired the greatest fame for vegan entrepreneurship have historically originated, for the most part, from Anglo-Saxon countries such as the UK, Germany, the USA, and Australia. At least until now.

There is no doubt that many of the pioneers of plant-based foods have come from these parts of the world, such as Beyond Meat, The Vegetarian Butcher and V2 Food, among others. However, vegetarianism and veganism are gaining strength in other parts of the world as well, both in the area of consumption and in production and innovation.

About 8% of people in Latin America identify themselves as vegetarian or vegan, similar to the number in the United States. But one reality stands out that would surprise many people: in Mexico the figure is a staggering 20%, more than double the US and many of the countries mentioned above. Sixty to seventy percent of these are women seeking to improve their diet.

These figures are important because Mexico is a country with a population of about 130 million people and has a GDP of 1.2 trillion dollars. This means that the country south of the US border has immense potential.

To cultivate that potential, the Association of Vegan Entrepreneurs of Mexico (AEVM) was created this year, which, according to its website, is a business community that seeks to empower consumers to adopt conscious and healthy lifestyles. This community includes Mexican vegan companies such as Heartbest Foods, which uses 100% Mexican technology and innovation to create alternatives to dairy.

One of the most successful Mexican companies in the vegan field to date is not surprisingly in the food market, but in fashion. The Guadalajara-based company Desserto has won countless awards for its extravagant cactus leather.

Its no longer a secret that vegan entrepreneurship is on fire around the world, but Mexico may well end up being the best-kept secret in this area, and its a country worth keeping an eye on.

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Mexico: The Cradle of Vegan Entrepreneurship in Latin America? - vegconomist - the vegan business magazine