e&e

I had the privilege of volunteering for two weeks at Mino Valley Farm Sanctuary in northern Spain this summer. They are doing some truly beautiful and important work [...]

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We live in small worlds. Despite the opportunities for connection that our modern age affords, we each—stubbornly—still occupy such a tiny little bubble in the sea of humanity. I’ve glimpsed too many of these worlds to count: the man taking his buffalo for a walk at dusk in Vietnam; the woman making noodles from scratch in the mountains of [...]

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I spent two weeks volunteering at an all-vegan organic farm and stray animal recovery center in Himachal Pradesh, NE India. I put together this video about my experience with these beautiful animals and compassionate people [...]

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At first I thought it was a just a legend. I had heard of it in a late night conversation with a fellow volunteer at an elephant sanctuary in rural Thailand. Somewhere in India, the story goes, is a city where meat is against the law. Within the city limits, no meat is bought or sold, and no animals are killed, or kept captive for the purpose of eventually being killed. The world’s first 100% vegetarian city. Could this be real? [...]

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On the first day of the new year, I made a pilgrimage to the world's first 100% vegetarian city in southern Gujarat, India. I went to Palitana with high hopes of finding a utopian city, free from suffering, but I spent most of my time with some buffalo on a local dairy farm. The first Earth & Eats video feature tells their story [...]

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Or how 75 elephants, 470 dogs, 133 monkeys, 4 bears, and one baby water buffalo taught me how to face the world as it is. ∾ At times the world can be a brutal and unforgiving place, especially for the defenseless among us. And at times this brutality has crushed my spirit and left me desperate for escape. In these times, it's hard to know how to engage the world, or how to take care of myself. I've struggled with these questions quite a bit recently, but the most recent leg of my journey—spanning 46 days, 2 countries, and 4 animal sanctuaries—dare I say [...]

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I can always live on rice and fruit for a while, but coming to terms with a violent world can be an unbearable challenge. ∾ When people ask me about traveling they often ask if I'm still going to be vegan on the road. This innocent but misguided question illustrates a common misconception about ethical veganism. So, briefly, this is the confusion [...]

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After a pretty challenging experience in northern Vietnam I was more than ready to head south, which I had heard was more vegan-friendly. I only had to cross half the country before I met Cat, the fabulous founder and doer-of-every-damn-thing at Vietnam Animal Aid & Rescue. VAAR operates a dog, cat, and farm animal shelter, a community clinic, and provides [...]

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Upon arriving in Vietnam I had essentially no plan, or idea of what I was doing, except I knew the first couple nights I would be crashing with a young, Russian, aspiring vegan chef. As it happens, it was one of the luckiest choices I've made on the road [...]

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Upon leaving the country, if Japan had given me a feedback form, this is what it would look like: As you know, in Japan we value cuteness above all else. With 1 being "meh, only American-style cute" and 5 being "OMG! KAWAIIIII!!!!," how would you rate [...]

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Okay, so maybe it's not poor man's mochi so much as lazy man's mochi—or "lazy person's mochi," but that doesn't have much of a ring to it, now does it? Mochi is a traditional Japanese sweet, typically made from sticky mochi rice. It is a long, labor-intensive process that involves cooking, and then pounding rice into a sticky mush with a gigantic mallet. This recipe, however [...]

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This installment of the Vegan Eats Project comes from Fukui Prefecture, where I stayed for two weeks in a village of only three people (four including me), in the mountains overlooking the Sea of Japan. My hosts are vegan, members of Itadakizen, and I was lucky enough to eat what Akiko-san cooked up three times a day! This was some of the most amazing [...]

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Well I guess I'm really getting back to my hippie roots here. It wasn't my intention to start the Vegan Eats Project with such basic staples, but as the saying goes: "When in Japan, eat all the tofus [...]

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I'd write about the whole thing, but Australia is enormous! To put it in perspective, it's only about 25% smaller in area than all of the European countries combined! After my time in Tasmania I spent 3 weeks in a camper van driving from Melbourne north to Brisbane, catching all the [...]

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The first installment of my Vegan Eats Project, featuring an adorable Aussie kiddo! — Tempeh is a cultured soybean cake—but it’s better than it sounds, I promise. The culturing process holds the beans together, adds flavor, and makes the soybeans more easily digestible by reducing their phytic acid content. Tempeh is a traditional Indonesian staple, but has [...]

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I’m pretty sure I’ve wanted to go to Tasmania since I was a little boy, because well, it’s called TASMANIA! And what’s cooler than Tasmanian Devils and platypuses?! I didn’t manage to spot either in my month there, but I’ve still got some pretty great highlights to [...]

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