vegangirl.com

It’s time to cast your vote for the 2008 Veggie Awards and this year, Asheville’s Laughing Seed Cafe has been nominated for “Favorite Vegetarian Restaurant”! VegNews Magazine will publish the winners in its 2008 Holiday edition.

I’ve eaten at about half of the restaurants on the list of nominees and I can honestly say that Laughing Seed is the best of the bunch. The only one that makes it competitive is Millenium, in San Francisco. The food at Millenium is absolutely amazing but it costs about 3 times as much to eat there and the food definitely isn’t 3 times as good as Laughing Seed. If you agree that Laughing Seed is the best vegetarian restaurant around, make sure you vote!

While you’re there, I’d like to plug some absolute favorites of mine, also up for awards:

• Pigs Peace Sanctuary – “Favorite Animal Sanctuary”
• Sidecar for Pigs Peace – “Favorite Vegan Storefront”
• Flying Apron Bakery – “Favorite Bakery”

Sidecar is a volunteer-run store and all its profits are used to support Pigs Peace Sanctuary. They need the publicity and deserve all the support you can give them. Their prices also tend to be lower than the nearby Whole Foods and PCC natural foods stores.

This video is rare in that it approaches veganism from a positive and hopeful perspective. I’m not going to knock the disturbing factory farming videos with their naked violence, and ominous music since that is what brought me to live a more compassionate lifestyle.

At this point, 15 years later, I can’t bear to watch those movies anymore. It’s too painful and I don’t feel that it helps me. My life is no longer about being angry at the awfulness of the world. It’s about what I can do, as just one person, to make things better. Maybe it isn’t enough to end all suffering everywhere, but it is all I can do. Being pissed off doesn’t help anyone but myself – it’s entirely self-indulgent. Meanwhile the animals, the planet, and the people of the world go right on suffering.

It seems to me that a lot of people are reaching a similar conclusion in their own lives. I am posting this video because I believe it is more in line with this new way of living and thinking than any other video on veganism that I have seen. I hope you will watch it with an open heart and an open mind.