Wanted to get this out before last week but time got away from me, so here now is a feature on two American chefs who specialize in vegetarian and vegan recipes. No meat, just veg.

They have both managed to become famous via a couple of celebrity daytime chat shows and on these programmes they promote and cook healthy – but especially vegan & vegetarian recipes.

Roberto Martin

Originally he never expected to be a chef, when he was growing up he was always around food. Roberto comes from a huge Mexican family and was the youngest of 15 kids. He would watch his mother cook for all his brothers, sisters, friends and family.

Roberto went to school at Cal State Fullerton as a Political Science major, and to pay for school went to work as a waiter. Eventually he got a job at a higher quality restaurant and soon convinced them to let him work in the kitchen.

After studying at the Culinary Institute of America, someone suggested that Roberto should become a personal chef and eventually found himself cooking for celebrities.

One of the families he worked for had a child with juvenile diabetes, and that is when he started focusing more on nutrition and health. Roberto revamped most of what he had learned in school and this acted as a platform for his vegan cooking.

He is now a personal chef for Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi.

» Read more

- Here is a clip of him on the EllenDeGeneres Show making a vegan pot pie:

The next chef is a favourite of the big Ope and has a cook book out.

Tal Ronnen

Tal Ronnen started the nonprofit education organization Veg Advantage in 2004 to help food-service operators integrate vegetarian options into their menus. Tal is a graduate of New York City’s Natural Gourmet Institute and has many years of experience working with food-service manufacturers, distributors and operators.

Tal has performed cooking demonstrations on numerous television shows including Oprah Winfrey, and often works with hotels, including Hyatt and Hilton; schools, including New York University; and corporate dining halls, including America Online’s headquarters and Yahoo!, to assist with vegetarian menu options.

In 2007, Tal assisted Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders in opening her restaurant, VegiTerranean in Akron, Ohio

» Read more

In this clip below Tal is seen on an entertainment show talking about vegan food.

As mentioned Tal has a recipe book out: The Conscious Cook – Which you can buy via Amazon

Additional Notes:

Both chefs above use a product called Gardein in their recipes.
(Gardein is a line of plant-based foods with a meaty texture. It is made from a blend of soy, wheat and pea proteins, vegetables and ancient grains (quinoa, amaranth, millet, and kamut). Gardein is free of cholesterol, trans fats and saturated fat; the majority of gardein foods are low fat, too. gardein products are vegan-friendly.) Wiki.

Sadly this product is only on sale in the USA and Canada, but there is
Grassingtons who produce a range of vegan foods with gardein ingredients.

Another Note:
I found the info about these two chefs via Vegetarian Star, a great website for all your vegetarian celebrity news. I embedded alternative video clips on here because the clips mentioned in the following stories might be blocked in the UK:

- Roberto Martin
- Tal Ronnen

Sir Paul McCartney has added the narration to a new PETA video on factory farming.

In the introduction to the video Sir Paul says:

“I’ve often said that if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”

“Animals raised on modern factory farms and killed in slaughterhouses endure almost unimaginable suffering.”

“I hope that once you see the routine cruelty involved in raising, transporting and killing animals for food, you’ll join the millions of people who have decided to leave meat off their plates. For good.”

*WARNING*
The video gives a brutal and graphic view at what happens in slaughterhouses everyday around the world.

» More information.

One of the films shows how man can be kind to animals and the other… well it’s difficult to watch and I’ll warn you now.

But first before that…

Peaceable Kingdom

“A riveting story of transformation and healing, PEACEABLE KINGDOM: THE JOURNEY HOME explores the awakening conscience of several people who grew up in traditional farming culture and who have now come to question the basic premises of their inherited way of life.

Presented through a woven tapestry of memories, music, and breathtaking accounts of life-altering moments, the film provides insight into the farmers’ sometimes amazing connections with the animals under their care, while also making clear the complex web of social, psychological and economic forces that have led them to their present dilemma.

Interwoven with the farmers’ stories is the dramatic animal rescue work of a newly-trained humane police officer whose sense of justice puts her at odds with the law she is charged to uphold.

With strikingly honest interviews and rare footage demonstrating the emotional lives and intense family bonds of animals most often viewed as living commodities, this groundbreaking documentary shatters stereotypical notions of farmers, farm life, and perhaps most surprisingly, farm animals themselves.”

Watch a clip:

More information:
- Peaceable Kingdom
- Wikipedia entry
- Found via Metafilter

A Shocking Look Inside Chinese Fur Farms

“Undercover investigators from Swiss Animal Protection/EAST International toured fur farms in China’s Hebei Province, and it quickly became clear why outsiders are banned from visiting. There are no regulations governing fur farms in China—farmers can house and slaughter animals however they see fit. The investigators found horrors beyond their worst imaginings and concluded, “Conditions on Chinese fur farms make a mockery of the most elementary animal welfare standards. In their lives and their unspeakable deaths, these animals have been denied even the simplest acts of kindness.”

…On these farms, foxes, minks, rabbits, and other animals pace and shiver in outdoor wire cages, exposed to driving rain, freezing nights, and, at other times, scorching sun…

The globalization of the fur trade has made it impossible to know where fur products come from. China supplies more than half of the finished fur garments imported for sale in the United States. Even if a fur garment’s label says it was made in a European country, the animals were likely raised and slaughtered elsewhere—possibly on an unregulated Chinese fur farm.”

Once again a warning: It is strong stuff:

More information:
- Pledge to go fur-free at PETA.org.
- Merseyside Animal Rights – Fur Hurts

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you… The Vegetable Orchestra:

Found via Noise Addicts:

The Vegetable Orchestra performs on instruments made of fresh vegetables.

The utilization of various ever refined vegetable instruments creates a musically and aesthetically unique sound universe. The Vegetable Orchestra was founded in 1998. It consists of 11 musicians, a sound engineer and a video artist. Based in Vienna, the Vegetable Orchestra plays concerts in Europe and Asia. From time to time workshops are given – on how to manufacture an instrument or on musical topics.

There are no musical boundaries for the Vegetable Orchestra. The most diverse music styles fuse here – contemporary music, beat-oriented House tracks, experimental Electronic, Free Jazz, Noise, Dub, Clicks’n’Cuts – the musical scope of the ensemble expands consistently, and recently developed vegetable instruments and their inherent sounds often determine the direction.

… as an encore at the end of the concert and the video performance, the audience is offered fresh vegetable soup.

Link: vegetableorchestra.org