The band I play in

What We've Learned about Vegan Food

vegan cupcakes by massdistraction

The vegan food blog Quarrygirl today posted the results of lab tests they did on food from various restaurants to determine whether it's really vegan, which slightly rocked the world of Los Angeles vegetarianism, though in truth the results are not too big a shock to anyone of the anti-meat persuasion: several "vegan" Thai places and other small operations that import their fake meats from elsewhere failed. The brand-name restaurants that make their stuff from scratch, like Real Food Daily and M Cafe, passed.

Here are the takeaways I got from their science experiment.

As anyone vegetarian knows, you simply cannot trust restaurants' assurances about their ingredients. Sometimes employees don't know; sometimes they just lie. Either way, there are no guarantees. There are no regulations that promise punishment if food is billed as vegan and then turns out not to be. It's only common sense that there are certain regulations for food called "kosher," that suppliers are pressed by threat of litigation to disclose when their offerings contain allergens, etc. But vegans just have to be trusting. Restaurants that claim to be vegan owe a higher duty to their customers.

Obviously, an enormous amount of effort went into doing this research on the bloggers' part. But there is still something journalistically suspect about the final product. When you're going to accuse a business of failing at its basic principles, you have to be on the high ground. First of all, that means it's just not appropriate to write anonymously. Not only is signing your name to a story like this a basic courtesy to the people you're writing about, but it also signals to your readers that you personally are standing behind your assertions. While there are drawbacks to blogging openly under your own name, readers and subjects alike are owed that courtesy.

One has to ask why there are no responses in their blog post from the people who run the restaurants in their crosshairs. With the awesome effort they undertook to put together this exposé, surely a few phone calls should have been placed? Even if you accept the science as accurate and complete, the results still raise plenty of questions: do the failing eateries know they are using nonvegan ingredients? Where do they get these ingredients and what efforts do they make to ensure that suppliers are being up-front about what goes into their food? What are they going to do now that their food has been shown to contain animal products – do they contest the truth of that claim?

Two Views of the Lakers-related Unrest

photo by tommy.chang

What people are saying about the Lakers in my Facebook feed.

One writes: "People in Iran are rioting (whether justifiably or misguidedly depends on who you talk to) for their voice, their principles, the fundamental rights they feel they have been robbed of......and people in LA riot over winning a fucking ball game?!?!?! Hey Angelinos, GROW THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!"

Another says: "lakers riot '09: metro bus on fire, garbage cans on fire, graffiti bombs, broken windshields, fistfights, striptease, cops in riot gear and then the 10 freeway was stormed. wasn't a fan before...but in light of... go lakers!"

Another One of Those Bunny Days

art by Alex Noriega

Hey, so, a few days ago Los Angeles CityBeat died. That was the 99,000-circulation alternative weekly where I spent my journalism infancy under the tutelage of some great, fantastic editors who somehow got the impression that my work was worth money. My stint there even spawned the #4 Google hit for Howard Jarvis.

It was a place that saw young reporters go on to the L.A. Times, the Daily Journal, the Star-News and a host of other places. (When I think of the list of names of young, hungry freelancers and interns, it's impressive; don't want to put them down here because I don't want this bunny drawing to be one of their top Google hits.) The editors rejected the notion that you only deserved work if you had gotten tons of work before, giving a sandbox to a lot of smart and caring reporters who had only the most noble, hare-brained goals. Such as myself.

Of course, those editors were unceremoniously canned – and a fat lot of good that did, since the paper died anyway. I'll bet 5209 Wilshire gets bulldozed to make way for a bigger Jack-in-the-Box parking lot.

Here's to CityBeat, Appleford, Klein, Epstein, Nichols, Lee and Mittelstaedt. And I hope no one minds that I'm going to take a CityBeat rack from somewhere and stick it in my room.

PS: Most of my blog energy goes to Twitter right now, see sidebar right.

HEALTH on Their Home Turf, Echo Park