One of my favorite cookbook authors just blogged the perfect recipe to make for the Super Bowl. Link.

The money quote:

I’ve written before about the importance of acknowledging people’s fears and perceived barriers about going vegan. Our job as change makers on behalf of animals is to put those fears to rest by making dietary change as easy and realistic as possible—without promoting practices that compromise health, of course.  And the nice thing about nutrition research, as opposed to popular nutrition dogma, is that it shows us that a healthy vegan diet is less challenging than most people imagine.

If more vegans took Jack and Ginny’s advice to heart, we’d have a healthier community who was better equipped to help omnivores make the transition away from animal products. Link.

Think you’ve got problems? They’re probably nothing like those facing the beef industry. Despite a near-doubling of America’s population since 1952 (from 157 to 309 million people), cattle production has receded to levels last seen nearly 60 years ago.

The USDA just released America’s cattle inventory as of January first of this year. The 90.8 million animals that were counted is the lowest number since 1952, when the number stood at 88.1 million. You’ve got to wonder about the long-term prospects of an industry whose volumes remain flat despite a doubling of the population.

But while this is good news for cows, it’s horrendous news for chickens. As more Americans have reduced or eliminated beef from their diets, they’ve switched to eating ever-increasing amounts of chicken. The number of meat chickens raised in America has shot up from 1.65 billion in 1960 to more than 8 billion last year. (Thanks, Brenda.) Link.

Annoyingly superficial reporting from NPR’s Allison Aubrey. Link.

Surprisingly solid coverage by PorkNetwork.com. Link.

A sign of the times. (Via Butler.) Link.

We all know it’s bad, but I never suspected it was this bad. Holy crap.

If you want to understand why GMO varieties have taken over America’s corn industry, look no further. (Thanks, Marty.) Link.

A collection of groups led by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) has started a campaign to rid the state of Georgia of factory chicken farms. An incredibly ambitious goal, but CIWF has a good track record in Europe when it comes to making big things happen. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this effort. (Via Pollan.) Link.

A supremely well-informed piece. Despite a number of caveats, he concludes:

This is the single most significant improvement the Obama administration has made in the realm of food.

You’ve got to celebrate whichever wins you can get. Link.

The Centers for Disease Control refused to divulge that the outbreak came from Taco Bell. Happily, Dan Flynn of Food Safety News did some digging and discovered the source of the outbreak. Taco Bell has naturally failed to respond to Flynn’s repeated efforts to obtain a comment.

James Andrews has written a great analysis piece for Food Safety News explaining the reasons behind the CDC’s refusal to name names.

What is Boar’s Head? It is the meat that will not go away.

Thanks to ruthless distribution tactics and deceptive marketing. Lots of unsavory stuff in an article that doesn’t even address animal cruelty or the lunchmeat/cancer connection. Link.

Seth Godin’s best blog post so far this year. Food for thought for any vegan advocate. What hills have you chosen so far, and which hill should you choose next? Link.

Updated to reflect Vegan.com reader purchases for the month of January. I’m excited that so many people picked up Change of Heart last month; I’d rather sell one copy of that book than a dozen cookbooks.

1. 99¢ Vegan Guide
2. Vegan for Life
3. Quick-Fix Vegan
4. Becoming Vegan
5. 1,000 Vegan Recipes
6. Forks Over Knives
7. Change of Heart
8. The 30-Minute Vegan
9. The Vegan Slow Cooker
10. Supermarket Vegan

McDonald’s refuses to credit Jamie Oliver for spurring them to take action, but the company will no longer put ammonia processed beef goop in its burgers. This reduces the number of things seriously wrong with McDonald’s from 500 to 499. Todd Bacon, one of McDonald’s double-talking Directors, says:

The decision to discontinue its use was not related to any particular event, but rather a result of our efforts to align our standards for beef around the world.

Translation: we got away with putting a dog food-style ingredient in our burgers for many years, but have reluctantly stopped after getting called out on it. Link.

The investigation, released Tuesday, spotlights gestation crate cruelties at two major Oklahoma pork facilities: Seaboard and Prestage. Some chilling images are present in an extraordinarily well produced video. It’s hard to imagine that Walmart, which buys pork from Seaboard, won’t feel compelled to reconsider its animal welfare guidelines.

Gestation crates, like battery cages, are doomed thanks to the marriage of undercover investigations and the publicity that YouTube makes possible. And assuming that the bill to ban battery cages passes, we can count on groups like the Humane Society and Mercy For Animals to continue to publicize the unconscionable cruelties of gestation crates at every turn.

Please do whatever you can to share this video through Facebook, Twitter, and email. We need to seize this moment to inform the general public about why gestation crates need to be outlawed. Gestation crates are gonna go regardless, but with your help they’ll go sooner rather than later.

Media coverage:

• Chicago Tribune
• MSNBC
• Associated Press
• News 9
• Meating Place (Registration Required)
• Pork Network

A restaurant worker’s organization just published its 2012 diner’s guide, which rates restaurants based on their treatment of workers.

This is the sort of offering that vegans ought to embrace, since the people side of the food equation can be responded to without diminishing the protections our dietary choices provide to animals. The more the vegan community sets an example of breaking out of an either/or people vs. farmed animals mindset, the more success we’ll have in inspiring other compassionate eaters to drop animal products from their diets.

Taking the human cost of our food choices into account debunks the notion that vegans are misanthropes who care only about animals. And it’s simply the right thing to do.

As a related example, I only needed to read about one-third of Tomatoland before I decided that I’d never again knowingly eat a Florida winter tomato. It was as easy and as joyful a decision as the one I made in college to never again eat a chicken. (Via Pollan.) Link.

I’m out of here for a few days to relax and take care of myself. Vegans need this advice more than anybody: never lose touch with the things that bring you joy.

Worth clicking through just for his wonderful lead paragraph. Unfortunately, five of the six accompanying recipes he offers aren’t vegan. But they’re still worth checking out since they could easily be adapted. Link.

Very few animal advocates have a solid understanding of the economic structure of the meat, dairy, and egg industries. Such an understanding pays off in two ways: it allows us to speak more authoritatively about factory farming, and it enables us to perceive and exploit the industry’s primary vulnerabilities. I devoted much of my book Meat Market to this topic; one that I believe animal advocates ignore at great cost to their effectiveness.

Yesterday, Frank Morris recorded a story for NPR about the “chickenization” of the beef industry—which is slowly but surely turning independent cattle ranchers into modern day sharecroppers. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen mainstream reporting do such a good job of covering the nuances of vertical integration in the meat industry. Morris expertly explains how cattle industry bigwigs are putting short-term profits ahead of the economic survival of small ranchers.

I’ve no doubt that this means greater profits for the likes of Tyson and Cargill—but fewer stakeholders in the beef industry means fewer people to defend it against a growing animal advocacy movement. (Via Simon.) Link.

Too many people were watching for this evil law to have a chance of being passed. Link.

Brian Palmer at Slate has a wonderfully written article praising the many favorable qualities of seitan:

Wheat gluten is, admittedly, dangerous to some people and anathema to the many, many more who believe they have a gluten sensitivity. Sales of gluten-free foods continue to accelerate, forcing food industry analysts to upwardly revise even their optimistic projections.

So why should you zig while the rest of the country is zagging? Like many of the foods people tell you not to eat, gluten is delicious. Its texture is somewhere between tofu and meat—chewy but not bossy. Broiled or baked, it can serve as the center of a meal. In a sauce, it won’t hide in the background like that culinary Zelig, tofu. Honor the sacrifices of the celiacs among us by celebrating your own robust digestive health with a huge plate of seasoned gluten.

Palmer then offers detailed instructions for making seitan at home—a laborious task to say the least. But he ends the piece with this exhortation:

Is it worth the cost in time and toil? The question seems almost absurd at this point. There are people out there wasting entire afternoons making dry cakes topped with execrable fondant to look like the Chrysler building. Or baking marbled ryes that are just as good from a neighborhood baker. By that standard, making your own gluten is more than worth it. Your end product will be vastly superior to anything you can buy at the store, and at a fraction of the price.

Sign me up! Link.

The Wall Street Journal reports that yesterday’s veggie burgers and hotdogs just don’t cut it anymore, as food scientists across the industry are raising the bar in terms of giving these vegan products the flavors and mouthfeel of meat. Some vegans might consider this to be a disturbing trend, but this has to happen if we’re going to win over flexitarians to eating meat substitutes more often.

I’ll always have a warm place in my heart for first-generation meat and cheese alternatives, like those in The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook, and I can’t imagine giving up those recipes. But I’m glad that there’s an arms race in the market for vegan convenience foods, and that natural foods companies are investing heavily in R&D.

My parents always turned up their noses at the prospect of eating meat alternatives instead of the real thing, until Gardein came along and changed everything. It’s nice to know that competition in this niche is intensifying: it’s threatening the #1 reason that Americans continue to eat animals. (Via Kathy.) Link. [Paywalled.]

This looks cool: a board game for kids that teaches humane values toward animals. Sure beats Monopoly and Battleship. Link.

You want to read some food writing that beautifully describes a classic vegan dish, perfectly prepared? Scroll down to the Old Jerusalem entry. I ate there this past November, and the hummus is all that plus a bag of pita chips. Link.

is still looking pretty damned worthwhile. Have you adopted a college yet? I have. Link.