Hot Vegans

This is not new news, but it's ongoing and I still wanted to do a post on our Austin vegan firefighters. Team C at Engine House 2 wanted to get their cholesteral down, particularly one of them whose male relatives had all died from heart disease by age 59 - and he himself had triple bypass surgery in his 50s. Firefighters have been know for their cooking, and so are these. Their website has the whole story, plus pictures and a whole bunch of recipes. It's a great success story in the health category, and they even sell "Hot 4 Vegans" shirts and hats (you know you want one!). Plus, these guys REALLY need to put together a calendar if they haven't already done it.

I really admire vegans. It's harder than vegetarian, we tried it for about a week... once... and I think eventually will get there... someday. There is dairy and egg in everything!! Reading labels will provide surprises. I wanted a little jar of horseradish and could not find one without eggs in it. Yup. And you have to read all the fine fine print for lacto-this and whey-that. We have both cut way down on both items but haven't been as strict as I would like.

It would be a good way to lose weight -- no muffins, cookies or cake temptations in the break area (yes, they are out there in the shops but not usually in the break room), no ice cream, no milk chocolate, no cheeeeeeze (sorry, I don't do vegan cheese, I would rather do without or with a substitute like olive oil).

An article in last week's Houston Chronicle claims that according to a poll, vegetarianism has gone up from 1% to 3% in the past year. It didn't cite specifics on the poll, and I want to see more data, but if that's true it's great news. A percent of that many people is a hell of a lot. (This is Houston we're talking about, and I am trying to imagine being vegetarian in Houston! In Austin I know the percentage is much higher, but don't have the numbers to back it up -- not with me anyway, all I know is that I've never run into this much vegetarianism anywhere but California)

Their website - NYT article - Austin - Texas - vegan - vegetarian -