Maui's vegan Vietnamese restaurant, Fresh Mint, now open for lunch

Maui's vegan Vietnamese restaurant, Fresh Mint, is now open for lunch, Wednesday through Sunday, in addition to being open for dinner seven nights a week.

Fresh Mint is right across the street from the Patsy Takemoto Mink Post Office on Baldwin Avenue in Pa`ia.

"Dishing out more veggies" at the University of Southern California

From the Daily Trojan:

Trying to address concerns raised by vegan and vegetarian students last semester, USC Hospitality has begun an initiative to increase the presence and awareness of alternative food options on campus.

The project, called V2O — which stands for vegan, vegetarian and organic — has three goals: expanding healthy eating options, labeling food more accurately and giving free weekly cooking demonstrations for students.

The idea for V2O came about after a number of students ate tamales labeled “vegan” at Everybody’s Kitchen in April, later discovering that the tamales had been made with chicken. The incident highlighted the need for accurate marking of food in the dining halls.

Nice interview of Maui vegan Woody Harrelson

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/the_messenger/index.html?story=/ent/movies/btm/feature/2009/11/11/harrelson

I don't feel like a movie has to have a message, necessarily. If a movie's fun and funny and just great entertainment, that's enough. But it's nice to do a movie like "The Messenger" where you feel like people watch it and it's initiating conversations that are important. What more could you hope for?

Vegan Recipe Blogs

A friend asked for vegan recipes. So, I put together a short list of blogs that have recipes I've referred people to recently:

http://viveleveganrecipes.blogspot.com/

http://jennshaggy.blogspot.com/

http://veganmenu.blogspot.com/

http://www.thegluttonousvegan.com/

A thread in the awesome quarrygirl.com forum lists a bunch more:

http://forums.quarrygirl.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=87

Enjoy!

20-year HIV survivor credits vegan diet

I don't recommend the medical decisions made by State Rep. Joe Bertram, but they seem to work for him:

Bertram is . . . opposed to pharmaceuticals. He refuses to take medicines designed to boost his weakened immune system. Instead, he eats a vegan diet and hopes for the best because he says the drugs are worse than the disease.

Incidentally, Bertram introduced resolutions this year to support vegan and vegetarian entrees in public schools.

Celebratory dinner for organic farm serves meat; controversy ensues

Dr. Joel Fischer was horrified to learn that a celebratory dinner for an organic farm featured meat. The Star-Bulletin published his op-ed on the situation earlier this week:

"We are judged by how we treat our anmials"

I posted links to the piece on two of my favorite blogs, and interesting discussion threads followed:

La Vida Locavore

Daily Kos

Three great Maui animal-welfare organizations that can use your help

East Maui Animal Refuge
http://www.booboozoo.org/

Leilani Farm Sanctuary
http://www.leilanifarmsanctuary.org/

9th Life Hawaii
http://9thlifehawaii.org/