The latest from Paul Shapiro, Vice President, Farm Animal Protection at The Humane Society of the United States!
If there’s an April Fool today, it’s anyone still left in the jungle fighting alone to defend battery cages. Indeed, it was another huge week for more major announcements condemning cage confinement: Meijer and SuperValu (the country’s 12th and 13th largest grocers), PepsiCo, Walgreens, Darden (which owns Olive Garden and other chains), and the supermarket chains Stater Bros. and Weis Markets all announced pledges to end their use of eggs from caged hens.
In one of many pieces lately describing what cage-free means, Vox examines this week what these new policies will accomplish.
With so much progress for egg-laying chickens, the movement’s now turning toward other chickens: those used for meat. Some of the big problems these birds face were explained by NPR this week, and you can count on more to come, especially to also help reduce the number of chickens exploited, such as HSUS’s great chef training in Washington this week.
Video of the week: Amazing story and video about fish loyalty and companionship.
This guest review comes from the one and only Lauren Davis. We love her!
When you walk into Mr. Dewie’s Cashew Creamery, just off San Pablo on Solano Avenue in Albany, it looks like a classic ice cream shop, with marble counters and the flavors carefully printed on a blackboard. But the shop comes with an interesting backstory: Both brothers have food sensitivities that took dairy out of their diets, but when Ari started experimenting with making organic almond ice cream, Andrew was excited by the prospect of eating frozen desserts again—and he suspected other people would be too. But as the company grew and their almond ice cream made its way into natural food stores, the Cohens found themselves missing the consumer interaction. So when they had the opportunity to buy back the brand, they jumped at it and scaled down the operation. That’s also when they started introducing their cashew-based dessert. The flavors made from the fattier, less fibrous cashew proved more popular; between that and rising almond prices, the Cohens decided to focus on cashew cream. They also opened up that scoop shop in Albany where they could talk to their customers face-to-face and serve their dessert at the ideal temperature.
Andrew claims that many customers (many of whom aren’t vegan and don’t have food sensitivities) have declared their product “better than ice cream,” and I can honestly see why. The Cohens treated me to spoonfuls of each of their flavors (all but one, their lemon cookie, are vegan), and I walked away feeling like I’d had an ice cream buffet (without the bellyache). The ingredients are familiar ice cream ingredients; the Strawberry, for example, contains just strawberries, cane sugar, vanilla extract, and salt, with cashew milk substituted for animal milk. But the fat in the cashew gives each flavor a rich and satisfying mouth feel that’s more powerful than what even most dairy ice creams offer.
Even with such a rich base, I found the Strawberry and Coconut flavors to be pleasantly refreshing, but the real standout flavors harness that richness and go to town. The Caramel Almond is rightfully the shop’s bestseller, with the cashew bringing out the almond’s nuttiness. But I was particularly bowled over by the Chocolate Orange, a luxurious blend of flavors that tastes like something out of childhood. And the Banana Nut tastes like banana bread in frozen form. I was even impressed by the Coffee, which is not usually my favorite flavor of frozen dessert. Too many places load it up with sweetener in a vain attempt to balance out the bitterness. Mr. Dewie’s Coffee managed to highlight the sweeter notes of the coffee without an excessive dose of sugar.
And yes, there is cashew-flavored cashew cream. It’s currently the only flavor that isn’t completely organic, but it’s great if you love the taste of cashew butter but don’t want it stuck to the roof of your mouth.
The shop also offers vegan ice cream bonbons and ice cream sandwiches made with their own vegan cookies. And while the Cohens themselves aren’t vegan, they’re eager to learn from their vegan customers. When they initially opened, for example, they didn’t have vegan cones. But after talking to a disappointed customer, they now keep vegan cones in stock. It pays to speak up!
You can check out the Mr. Dewie’s site for nutritional info, where to find pints in grocery stores, and to order pints online. But if you’re in the East Bay, the Cohens really recommend coming into the shop at 1116 Solano Avenue in Albany, California, so you can eat the flavors at their optimal temperature and try before you buy.
You guys. We really went HAM on food this year. We criss-crossed the country to stuff our fat faces with everything delicious and picked our favorites for you. IT WAS REALLY REALLY REALLY HARD and we left out some super fucking amazing food and for that, I’m pouring out some almond nog for all my forgotten meals. I miss you, b.
Laura Beck:
1. I went to Ojai for my friend Minty’s birthday and we waffled a cinnamon roll and now I see in more vivid colors AMA (I used the ones in the cold case at Trader Joe’s! They’re vegan!)
2. This Boston Cream Pie donut from Moncai Vegan in San Diego is probably the best thing I’ve eaten in five years. It was just insane and everything from this place is worth crossing oceans to eat. Next level.
3. Everything from Blue Window in Los Angeles. All of their food is available vegan and it’s HEART IN EYES EMOJI FOREVER.
4. This INSANE strawberry and red bean mochi at Su Shian Yuang in Montreal, Canada. (Montreal in general was SO VEGAN FRIENDLY and I want to move there – lots of pics on our Instagram!)
5. The Southern Belle from Organix in L.A. Or, honestly, any of the food from their deli. Just ridiculous.
6. (BUT REALLY #1) My wedding cake!!! The genius Miel at Bramble Bakeshop made me the Bananas Foster wedding cake of my dreams and it was just so, so, so, so, so good and will forever remind me of one of the most wonderful days of my life <333333.
Megan Rascal:
1. This challah grilled cheese with homemade vegan muenster cheese from Miss Rachel’s Pantry in Philly was BANGIN’. Like, life-changingly BANGIN’.
2. 2015 also turned out to be Year of the Savory Vegan Danish thanks to Clementine Bakery in Brooklyn. I Postmated the eff outta that place this year.
3. My trip to LA was an edible rollercoaster of delicious emotions (what?) but my fave thing, and one of the best meals I had all year, was Laura and Jonas’s post-wedding brunch at Crossroads! Flaky croissants+gooey frittata…kill me now, for I shall never love again.
4. This year I scored the Vegan Treats Valentine’s chocolate box and it was both ridiculously tasty and tragically adorable. It almost warmed my cold cold heart.
And this is the year Jay Astafa’s Three Brothers Vegan Cafe opened. I totally housed the vegan capresé salad because that mofo was fantasmic! I said it before and I’ll say it again: this place is next level.
Abby Bean:
1. I’m a diehard Vegan Treats fan through and through, but even so I was blown away by the decadence of the speculoos soft serve. [Ed.: THOSE CARAMEL APPLES THO!??!!]
2. I know I sound like a broken record, but Sweet Maresa’s rainbow cookies are probably my favorite dessert ever. It’s cake and chocolate all rolled into one so you can eat two desserts at once!
4. I can’t stop gushing over by Chloe in general, but their spicy Thai salad is the stuff of dreams are made of: fresh and healthy salad generously topped with so much savory goodness.
5. AND everything I’ve made from Teff Love, still my fave food and cookbook almost a year later.
Meave:
1. Before the Snail left the streets in February, the Thanksgiving over greens was my go-to and I can’t wait to have it again when they open at penn plaza next month.
Another week, another major egg user announces plans to banish the battery cage. Dunkin’ Donuts is the latest in the no-cage avalanche, committing to source all 400 million eggs it uses annually from cage-free hens.
Perdue Farms is in the headlines this week after a Mercy For Animals video showing chickens being stomped to death at one of its suppliers led tofelony cruelty charges.
As the Paris climate talks wrap up, HSUS’s Kristie Middleton (who spoke on diet and climate in Paris this week) published a potent piece on the topic. Kristie was joined by none other than Arnold himself, who this week recommended that to address climate change, we must terminate meat part-time.
Finally, my coworker Dr. Michael Greger’s new book, How Not to Die, came out this week!
