Vegan Vs. Vegetarian

There is a happy article today in the NY Times about Ms. Moskowitz, a punk rocker woman who lives in Brooklyn, is a vegan chef, and produces her own vegan cooking TV show “The Post Punk Kitchen” and has written several cookbooks. She fell in love with Julia Child and Martha Stewart and uses her inspiration to make delicious vegan goodies.

Vegetarianism is the philosophy of eating without harming any living thing. This means vegetarians don’t eat anything you have to kill – fish, animals, birds.

VEGANS will not eat or use anything from another living creature --- no milk, eggs, cheese, honey, silk, leather, wool ….. The reason being that chicken eggs are potentially a new life, and the laying chickens are mistreated, kept in cages with no regard for their comfort or safety. The same goes for dairy cows and goats, who suffer miserable lives, never see a blade of grass or sunshine.

Silk and honey are made by insects…. And in the harvesting of the silk or honey, many of the bees or worms are killed. And obviously, wool comes from a sheep and why would a sheep volunteer to have its wool shorn off by some farm hand ?

Here are links to the NYT article and Ms. Moskowitz’s web site (includes show schedule and recipes ) :

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/dining/24vega.html?8dpc

http://www.theppk.com/recipes/