As January comes to a close, here are three pieces from around the web that I particularly recommend. Enjoy!

Representative Darrell Issa in the basement of the Capitol with a painting of Ronald Reagan by artist Steve Penley. Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call, via Getty Images.

Have you ever heard of Steve Penley? I havent, but then I guess the fact that I dont know his colorfully dappled paintings of US presidents and American flags just means that I dont watch much Fox News.

Penleys art is more than just a regular feature and symbol of all that is patriotic on Fox. You have seen his patriotic paintings all over Fox & Friends, and actually Fox News channeleverywhere you go, we see your pictures hanging up in the halls, the shows cohost, Ainsley Earhardt, enthused to an audience a few years ago, during an appearance by the world-famous painter on the show.

Its all over my radio studio nowwe took em all! another one of the friends, Brian Kilmeade, added. Its brainwashing!

That level of media exposure surely makes Penley one of the countrys most high-profile painters, whether youve heard of him or not. In a funny way, the right-wing mediasphere has a lot more use for artists than its liberal cable-media rivals.

Wetzler wades through a lot of Fox News (so you dont have to) to find the Fox News Theory of Art, and its pretty much what you think it is: Only three kinds of art exist for Fox News: patriotic, stupid, and obscene.

Any way you slice it, its a mainly instrumental view of art: a given artwork gets the spotlight either because it is useful as propaganda for the Fox News worldview; because it serves as an illustration of how dumb and empty-headed liberal elites are; or because it outrages conservative sensibilities, and so can be used to rally the troops for the culture wars.

The favored patriotic aesthetic tends to channel Norman Rockwell by way of Andy Warhol, a late-Pop recycling of comfortingly clichd American symbols. (Like Penley, the late Thomas Kinkadealso took direct inspiration from Warhols Factory and described himself as Warhols heir apparent.) The best you could say of this work is that its probably more aware of how it operates than the art-loving public thatdoesnt watch Fox Newsgives it credit for.

Conservative aesthetics are stereotypically all about taking a stand against decadent experimental art and for real traditional art. Ive made a version of this point before (about neo-Jungian philosopher of the manosphere, Jordan Peterson), but by putting this art into the context of Fox News, Wetzler makes the point even more forcefully: it shows just how classically postmodern this conservative art is, if by that you mean art reduced to hollowed out signifiers, mutable performances, and stripped of any sense of a reality outside of media.

The Fox News view of culture may slam contemporary art as deliberately valuing offense over enlightenment, spectacle over skill, ugliness over beauty. But beneath a very thin Rockwellian veneer, all of this is equally true of the Through-the-Looking-Glass sensibility of Fox Newss rearguard. You cant understand superstar Fox News artist Jon McNaughtons One Nation Under Socialism, a painting of Obama burning the Constitution, outside of the value it puts on offenseaka trolling the libs.

And you cant understand Joe Everson, whose shtick is live-painting the Statue of Libertywhile singing the national anthem, outside of the appeal to spectacle.

Patriot artist, nationally acclaimed flag muralist, and frequent Fox visitor Scott LoBaidos 20-foot-tall image of a musclebound Donald Trump isabout as farfrom the profundities of real traditional art as Andres SerranosPiss Christ.

Whats it all mean? Probably that you should take Fox News art a hair more seriously than it is normally taken. Not in the sense of plumbing it for deep meaningits meaning seems mainly to be its appeal to Fox News audiences. But as simplistic and easily mocked as it is, its much more savvy and finely calibrated to be effective than it gets credit for.

The blur in action: Donald Trump speaking before a luncheon with US and African leaders at the Palace Hotel in New York. Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images.

Petrovich, by contrast, reads political meaning in a phenomenon that youve probably seen everywhere and not read much into: the increasing presence of the blur in mainstream political photojournalism. That we dont fall off our chairs when we see this tells us how far we have come, photographically, in a very short time, he writes. We are a long way from Pete Souzas languid, almost classical compositions on the Obama-era White House Flickr account, which in retrospect feel tinged with approaching horror.

Its an observant and nuanced essay, with the implication being that all the blurring is an almost an unconscious aesthetic symptom, registering a widespread, unnamable sense of looming dread. On the other hand, such blurry images are also slightly virtuosic and carry the blush of pure expression. Petrovich writes: I have been told that what I was seeing was just the increased prowess of the telephoto lens, or merely the resurgence of shallow depth of field.

I left the essay thinking it could be both. Photojournalism is in dire straights, images are cheap and everywhere, and it stands to reason that the dedicated professionals who remainwho are going to be focused in high-profile beats like political coverage and disaster reportingfeel pressured to register the individuality of their images with an arty shot. Wonky blurring is one way to do it. Whats interesting is that either wayas a symbol of an audiences general sense of unease, or as a symbol of the photographers intensified need to register their subjectivitywe arrive at the blur through a sense of a system in crisis, just by different routes.

Peter Schjeldahl at the 2011 New Yorker Festival. Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The New Yorker.

Like a lot of people, Ive been thinking about New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl and what makes him an important figure, since his essay, The Art of Dying, was published last year. Earnests essay puts a commanding knowledge of his subjects writinghe edited Schjeldahls recent book,Hot, Cold, Heavy, Lightto try to explain Schjeldahls Olympian everyman style.

There really are few writers who have the effect Schjeldahl has: his writing is almost untouchably on-its-own. But hes also exceptionally engaging and reader-directed, and focused on connecting the circuits of artist biography and personal experience to make comprehensible a thought, an experience, a way of seeing.

Earnest describes his articles as detective stories about feelings, which gives a name to what I feel about them. He mentions Schjeldahls own account of his method: Looking at art is like, Here are the answers. What were the questions? he once told me. I think of it like espionage, walking the cat backwhy didthathappen, andthat?until eventually you come to a point of irreducible mystery.'

See the article here:

How Fox News Weaponizes Art + Two Other Illuminating Pieces of Criticism From Around the Web - artnet News

PASADENA, CA - APRIL 17: Comedian Joe Rogan performs during his appearance at The Ice House Comedy ... [+] Club on April 17, 2019 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images)

The news that comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders for president matters just as much as The New York Times endorsing both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar; Which is to say, not at all. But all the buzz surrounding Rogans nod to the Independent U.S. senator from Vermont has taken on a life of its own, far surpassing the Wha...? moment that followed The Times hotly debated double trouble pick.

This week, the Sanders campaign embraced the endorsement, which Rogan announced during a podcast withTimesopinion writer Bari Weiss, the self-described left-leaning centrist whos described by observers of her writing as a pro-choice conservative.

Sanders acceptance of Rogans support,in the form of this video, didnt just generate a backlash. The reaction seen on Twitter was more like front-, side-, top-, bottom- and every other which way-lash. To call it a backlash would be akin to describing the movie Joker as an intimate drama about a desperate mother and her troubled son.

As Dani Di Placido explained in his own Forbes.com story, in the rush to condemn the podcast as problematic, many commentators are missing the point.

Rogan, the colorful, bombastic, actor-turned mixed martial arts commentator has become an influencer in American politics and well-known for his candid conversations with controversial figures. Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Edward Snowden, Jordan Peterson and Roseanne Barr have sat in the same studio as Dr. Cornel West, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Macaulay Culkin and Robert Downey, Jr. Elon Musk famously smoked pot there, sending Tesla stocks plummeting 9%.

But Rogan also made racist remarksthere, about a primarily African-American neighborhood where he saw the film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes: We walked into Africa, he said on his podcast in 2013. His podcast is one of the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes, and he has nearly 6 million followers on Twitter.

Ten million users follow the Sanders campaign; another nine million follow his official Senate account. The endorsement video tweeted by his campaign was seen more than 5.5 million times, and retweeted 145K times.

That endorsement tweet was swiftly followed by outrage, hand-wringing and a statement by Briahna Joy Gray, national press secretary for the Sanders campaign. She did not name Rogan but made the point that the campaign is not going to reject support from people just because they dont always share the same beliefs as Sanders, the Washington Post reported.

Sharing a big tent requires including those who do not share every one of our beliefs, while always making clear that we will never compromise our values, wrote Gray. The truth is that by standing together in solidarity, we share the values of love and respect that will move us in the direction of a more humane, more equal world.

Among the angry responses to Grays statement was this tweet from the press secretary for rapid response at Human Rights Campaign, Charlotte Clymer, in which she declared: I am a human being and a trans person. I am not another belief.

Her boss, Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David, followed-up by publicly calling for Sanders to renounce Rogan and his endorsement. David noted that Rogan has attacked transgender people, gay men, women, people of color and countless marginalized groups at every opportunity.

Given Rogans comments, it is disappointing that the Sanders campaign has accepted and promoted the endorsement, David said in the statement, which contrasted Rogans record with Sanders, applauding him for having run a campaign unabashedly supportive of the rights of LGBTQ people.

The Sanders campaign must reconsider this endorsement and the decision to publicize the views of someone who has consistently attacked and dehumanized marginalized people, David said.

Two examples of this would be Rogans podcast with Peterson in which the two men mocked respect of a trans persons pronouns as madness; more famously, Rogan misgendered the first MMA fighter to come out as transgender, Fallon Fox, in 2013. You're a f***ing man, Rogan said. That's a man, OK? Fox publicly asked for an apology; she never got one.

Moveon.org not only called for Sanders to reject the endorsement, but to also apologize for accepting it in the first place.

But like a big electoral bug zapper, Rogans endorsement didnt merely scare-off some voters; It drew some closer.

Socialist journalist, editor of Jacobin magazine and Guardian columnist Bhaskar Sunkara called Rogan the best endorsement Bernie Sanders could hope for his fans are a group of people we cant afford to cede to Trump.

And since transgender people are not a monolith, it should come as no surprise there are trans voters who welcome Rogans endorsement. Here are tweets from three trans people who refused to join the Sanders-bashing bandwagon:

@Fox_Barrett tweeted, Hey. Fellow trans folk. I REALLY don't give a sh*t if Joe Rogan is endorsing Sanders. Neither Biden nor Warren nor f***ing Buttigieg are going to meaningfully push something like Medicare for All through. Free healthcare is a queer issue. Please don't get distracted.

The thread by Princeton professor and author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, shared by transgender athlete and journalist Karleigh Webb, actually walks the line. The scholar, who in 2017 called President Trump a racist, sexist megalomaniac and received death threats for making those remarks in a commencement address, doesnt have a problem with the endorsement. Taylor does call out the campaign for failing to take the next step, and urges Sanders supporters to adjust their focus forward, not try to rewrite what happened this week.

I think its fine to accept the endorsement even as I disagree [with] highlighting him in an ad... Solidarity cant be built on a faulty unity that assumes some of our acceptance of the repugnant ideas that continue to keep us divided. And receiving Rogans endorsement [without] publicly challenging his backward politics is effectively to accept those ideas... Stop denying Rogans bad politics, instead challenge them.

The bottom line, of course, is: Will all this hurt Sanders at the Iowa caucuses one week from Monday? Its highly doubtful, but rival Joe Biden certainly is doing what he can toward that outcome:

At last count, in 2016, Iowa had about 7,400 residents who identified as trans, or 0.31% of the states population. And for Joe Rogan, like Dave Chappelle, every trans Iowan is a punchline whose sole purpose is to make people laugh. This is, after all, America in 2020, where punching down is tolerated, so long as we defeat the bigger bully.

Medicare for all will take care of trans people, and only Bernie Sanders...

Just you wait...

Youll see...

Hell protect trans rights, as soon as hes elected...

Hey, as soon as this election is over, trans rights are next...

By the way, that reminds me, did you hear what Joe Rogan said about trannies?

Here is the original post:

Joe Rogans Endorsement: The Stain On Bernie Sanders That Some Voters Think Makes Him More Attractive - Forbes

Michael Emerson Photo: John Lamparski/Getty Images

Its always fun to get to play something that is seemingly normal but has a horrible subtext, Michael Emerson says, delivering the observation with the clipped overpronunciation that gives many of his performances their signature mixture of humor and dread. Emerson is talking about his role on CBSs Evil, the bonkers and delightful show from Good Wife creators Michelle and Robert King, in which he plays a forensic psychologist named Leland Townsend, who may be the devil incarnate, an agent of the devil, or just a weird dorky tuba player from Iowa whos trying to make himself seem important.

Either way, Leland consistently plots to mess with Evils Scooby gang of heroes, including Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers), the psychologist slash mountain climber slash paranormal investigator whos skeptical of all things supernatural. In Thursdays season finale, he even convinces Kristens mother, Sheryl (Christine Lahti), to marry him. Watching Leland, you get the feeling that hed get along with the other sinister TV characters Emerson has played on shows like Lost. As he told Vulture in advance of the Evil finale, hes comfortable playing the types of roles that make people give him the stink eye on the street, though as he discovered in playing Leland, he sometimes does have his limits.

In the episode before the finale, Kristen confronted Leland and revealed that hes just a dork named Jake Perry who grew up in Des Moines and played the tuba in his high-school marching band. You were also in your high-school marching band, right? Yeah, I wonder if the Kings have done some delving into my Iowa background. I didnt go to high school in Des Moines, but I went to undergrad in Des Moines. I went to high school in a little town in Iowa, and I was in the marching band, and I did play embarrassing instruments.

Which instruments? I started on the cymbals and I graduated to the glockenspiel. Imagine! Youre a shrimpy little 14-year-old, all the girls in your class are a head taller than you, and youre carrying around an upright xylophone with horsehair tassels on it.

But you didnt tell the Kings about that? No! I dont know where it all came from. The next time I see them, I should ask them. It cant be an accident that they chose Iowa.

After making us think that Lelands just an ordinary guy, the episode ends with a scene where hes meeting with a goat-headed devil plotting his revenge. Like a lot of the supernatural stuff in Evil, it could be imaginary or it could be totally real. How did you take it? My idea was that it was something he does every day and it no longer has any special shock value or meaning to him. Thats his shrink and hes impatient with his shrink. Hes tired of being pushed and prodded and told to do things. Hes like a kid. Its like, Yeah, okay mom. Except, in this case, it appears to be Satan.

We have the impression that he had great powers and that he was maybe the evil genius behind everything. To find out that hes not even that high on some infernal pecking order, its delicious. Even when you agree to work with the devil, you still dont get any respect.

Your wife, Carrie Preston, has a great recurring role on The Good Wife and The Good Fight playing Elsbeth the scattered lawyer. Did you know the Kings well coming into Evil? I had met them, of course. They had inquired after me for guest spots here and there over the years that I, for one reason or another, wasnt available for partly because I was on a long-running series, Person of Interest, on CBS, which is their network. Evil was easy. They said, We have this script; wed like you to read it. I read it and I liked it and that was it. That was how hard it was to sign me up, because theyre the Kings.

You dont have to read but two or three pages of any script they write to know that it is superior writing, that the language of it is very smart. Nothing trite or predictable about it. Its strong. And the fact that it is shot in New York City, where I live, that was a big plus.

The Kings said they were excited about Evil because they could work with a lot of the theater and TV actors theyd already used on The Good Wife all over again. Whats it like to join that extended company? Its so great because they have the deepest casting pool on the planet here in New York City, so you get astonishingly good and nuanced players coming in to play supporting roles. You get John Glover and you get Darren Pettie and Jayne Houdyshell. Every time you turn around, theres some great stage actor that you revere and theyre there to do a part on the Kings show.

Did you have a favorite guest performer? Well, of course my best scenes are with Christine and with Katja. But for a guest player, I dont know if you remember Noah Robbins, who played the young man that I was luring into being an incel shooter. He was really good. He was really professional and well prepared. Hes quite young, but man, you havent heard the last of him.

In that story arc, Leland radicalizes Noahs character through the language of mens-rights movements, like hes an internet figure in the style of Jordan Peterson. Did you do much research into that world? No, I get enough information about that world from the daily news. To me, that was the most villainous and unforgivable thing that Leland did this season. It was awful. Its the only time I have ever gotten in touch with the Kings to say, Do we really need to go this far? Because if it plays as it is on the page, I will be a hated person on the streets of New York City to those people who blur the lines between actors and characters. We had a good conversation about that and there were some little changes of tone.

What kinds of changes? Just some language.

When you talked, why did they say they wanted to do that story line? They said, Were glad you called because weve been having this discussion in the writers room. Were relieved to have a chance to talk to you and get your perspective on it. It turned out to be a good conversation. If you tackle certain themes that are very topical, youre a little bit playing with fire. You can be misunderstood. You can get a firestorm of social media reaction if you appear to be glib or unfeeling and they are neither of those things.

You didnt want yourself to be hated on the streets of New York, but of course youve played several villains in the past, like Ben Linus on Lost. Do you worry about weird in-person interactions? In my acting career on TV, I have experienced people misunderstanding who I am. Right from the get-go, when I played that serial killer on The Practice, people would scream and run away from me. Because I was a little-known actor at that time, they couldnt just say, Oh, thats just Michael Emerson. To them, Michael Emerson didnt exist. Only the character existed and there he was walking the streets of New York City.

So yes, I do think about those things. The same on Lost. People would cross the street in Honolulu to tell me how much they hated me. Some people would tell me that I had ruined the show, as if I had written it. We liked it when it was like Survivor. We dont want all this meanness and danger!

I imagine if you agreed to play a character like Leland on Evil, then youve had to come to peace with that experience? I dont mind it, unless I was confused with some sinister or horrible point of view. I would be loath to play a character who was a racist agitator. I know Id just be an actor playing a role, but I guess I just draw the line somewhere. I dont want those words to come out of my mouth.

Working on the show, the Kings said they like to keep a balance between their two perspectives on what evil is. Where do you fall on that spectrum? Im not really a believer of supernatural beings or that an incarnate devil walks the earth. I think evil is like a potentiality in the human brain. A thing thats vulnerable to persuasion or misunderstanding or fear that can turn us away from empathy and toward aggression. We can lose track of our better natures and do perhaps unthinkable things.

Although, I do think about ghosts and aliens. I dont know if youve ever had this experience, but Ill be walking down a crowded street in midtown and someone will be walking toward me, and theyre looking right at me and there is a fixed deadness in their stare, and I have this intuition that this person is not human. Maybe its just the wild imaginings of a person who tells stories for a living, but I have had a couple of those experiences.

When I was a kid I used to get sleep paralysis, where you feel the weight on your chest in the middle of the night and you think that theres some demon in the room or something, which always terrified me even if I knew the explanation of it. I have had sleep paralysis a couple of times since weve been shooting Evil. Its like the mere discussion of it in the show has brought it into play in my own mind. Were all impressionable. If we are hearing those kinds of stories, or in the business of telling them, it may be rattling around in your head.

See the rest here:

Evils Michael Emerson Isnt a Bad Guy, Hes Just Good at Playing Them - Vulture

Entrepreneurs are trial and error people, says Krishna Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Green Pepper, a Kochi-based boutique strategic consulting firm. Less than 1% makes it big in the entrepreneurship game. Some quit, some thrive, some stay, some drag, says Krishna, who has published his first book, Between Genes and Memes Life Beyond Hunts, Harvests and Hashtags.

The book, which is philosophical in treatment, has been largely drawn from Krishnas experience as a consulting entrepreneur and his many interactions with CEOs, leaders, investors, and risk-takers. What I learnt from these people is that essentially, it is the life philosophy that holds them higher than their business acumen.

An avid blogger, Krishna says most of the material for the book has come from his blogs.

Edited excerpts from an interview

Why a book on philosophy?

Philosophy is all about wisdom derived through critical thinking, which drives our decisions, habits, and results. This book is a laboratory of such thought experiments and a DJ mix of philosophical perspectives from deep conversations and experiences with leaders.

Many would say philosophers over centuries were mostly financially unsuccessful and lived miserable lives. That perception makes it an unattractive thing. Philosophy is not for losers, it is for all.

So, the book is for anyone trying to maintain their space in this world?

We are shifting from teamwork to specialist jobs; full-time jobs to the gig economy; company branding to personal branding. Never before in history, as individuals, have we faced so much pressure.

We have now moved from thinking about mere survival to the richer meaning of existence. This book is for everyone who wishes to see life differently entrepreneurship, leadership, education, internet, meditation and more.

Did you follow any particular writing routine?

I write in the form of tweets whenever an idea strikes. Then it becomes a blog. Creating a book out of my blogs was a challenge. It took a lot of time to create a coherent flow.

Writing, to me, is unadulterated self-expression. The emotions are real. My writing routine generally involves a long walk and coming back with an idea to write. Even in the midst of chaos, I write. They are small islands of meditative moments I get during the day.

Who are your influences?

Modern science has changed the way we look at philosophy. We are equipped with better answers and solutions to the existential questions. Thinkers like Yuval Noah Harari, Steven Pinker, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Naval Ravikant, Jordan Peterson and James Clear have influenced me heavily.

Ive been reading philosophers like Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Immanuel Kant, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche and many more. I find Alain de Bottons School of Life videos enriching.

Critical thinkers look at the world to offer better solutions. The proceeds of the book will be used to create free educational content on critical thinking.

What are you working on now?

The next book is coming in 2020. It will be another version of this book, but deeper. If you write 100 words a day, in 7 months, you have material for a 200-page book. The next 3 months are for refining and brutal editing. That is the formula.

Published by Recto and Verso, the book will be launched in Amazon, Flipkart, Storytel by February 10. An audiobook is also on the anvil.

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Krishna Kumars book takes a critical look at the world to offer solutions - The Hindu

Recent polls suggest over 5 million adults follow a vegan diet in the United States alone (1).

Vegan diets exclude all animal products, including meat, dairy, eggs, and honey and most of them also eliminate any byproducts derived from animals or insects, including ones used during food processing (2).

Finding vegan alcohol can be tricky, as manufacturers arent usually required to list ingredients on labels for beer, wine, and spirits (3).

Thus, you may wonder how to tell which products are vegan.

This article provides a complete guide to vegan alcohol by highlighting non-vegan ingredients to look out for, reviewing several types of alcohol, and offering purchasing tips.

Many ⁠ but certainly not all ⁠ alcoholic beverages are vegan.

Animal products may be used during processing or as ingredients in the drink itself.

For example, animal-derived foods are often used as fining agents, which are substances that help filter out impurities and improve the clarity, flavor, and aroma of alcoholic beverages (4).

Here are some common non-vegan ingredients and fining agents used in alcohol:

Not all alcoholic beverages are vegan, as animal products may be used during processing or included in the drink itself.

The four main ingredients in beer are water, a grain like barley or wheat, yeast, and hops a flower that provides beers distinctive, bitter taste. The yeast ferments and digests the sugar from the grain to produce alcohol (13, 14).

All of these ingredients are vegan. However, some breweries add non-vegan ingredients to clarify, flavor, or color the beer.

Vegan beers do not use animal or insect products at any time during brewing.

Most commercial beers from established breweries are vegan. These include:

Keep in mind, this is not an exhaustive list numerous other vegan beers are on the market, including many craft beers.

Craft breweries may include vegan status on the product label, which is indicated by text or a vegan trademark. Microbreweries that make vegan beer include Alternation Brewing Company, Little Machine, and Modern Times Brewery.

If you have a favorite craft brewery, consider asking them whether their beers are vegan.

Any beer brewed with ingredients derived from animals or insects is not vegan.

Ingredients like isinglass and gelatin may be used as fining agents, while whey, lactose, and honey are sometimes added as ingredients (15).

It may be difficult to tell when such ingredients are used, as theyre not always listed on the label. Adding to the confusion, some companies make both vegan and non-vegan brews.

Though there are exceptions, certain types of beer typically arent vegan, including:

While many beers are vegan, others may be brewed with non-vegan ingredients, such as isinglass, gelatin, whey, lactose, and honey.

Wine is made from grapes, which are crushed and fermented to form alcohol.

After the juice is fermented, fining agents may be added to remove unwanted substances, such as bitter plant compounds called tannins (20).

If animal-based fining agents are used, the wine cannot be considered vegan.

There are many vegan wines on the market.

Vegan wines use clay-based fining agents, such as bentonite, or proteins derived from wheat, corn, legumes, potatoes, or other plants (21).

Plenty of brands make solely vegan wine, including:

Many wineries also include their vegan status on the label, which is indicated by text or a vegan trademark.

Keep in mind that some wineries produce both vegan and non-vegan wines. For example, Yellow Tail and Charles Shaw produce vegan red varieties, but their white wines arent vegan-friendly.

Some wineries may use animal products, such as isinglass, gelatin, albumin, and casein, for fining. Carmine, a red dye made from insects called cochineal, may also be added as a colorant (22).

Except for carmine and cochineal, wineries arent always required to list ingredients including fining agents on the label (23).

Most wines from the following brands are not vegan:

Keep in mind, this list is not all-encompassing. Many other companies produce non-vegan wines.

Some wineries use animal products like carmine for coloring or isinglass, gelatin, albumin, and casein during processing. All the same, plenty of vegan wines are available.

Unlike beer and wine, spirits rely on a process called distillation, in which the alcohol is concentrated from fermented ingredients (24).

Most unflavored spirits are vegan. However, some flavored liquors and several cocktail recipes arent.

Vegan liquor is relatively easy to find. Unflavored versions of the following spirits are usually free of animal-based ingredients, including during processing:

However, there are exceptions in each category. Whether a particular spirit is vegan ultimately depends on the manufacturer.

Flavored liquors and cordials may contain non-vegan ingredients, such as milk, cream, and honey.

Although uncommon, carmine may be used as a dye in some red spirits. Non-vegan ingredients may also be introduced to spirits when making cocktails.

Potential non-vegan spirits and cocktails include:

Remember, this list isnt comprehensive. Other spirits and cocktails may not be vegan depending on the ingredients used.

While unflavored spirits are generally vegan, flavored varieties and numerous cocktails may contain non-vegan ingredients like milk, cream, honey, and carmine.

Finding vegan alcohol isnt always straightforward.

While some companies list ingredients voluntarily, its not mandatory in the United States or Europe to do so for most alcoholic beverages (25).

Regardless, companies rarely list fining agents. Substances that have been used during processing and later removed, such as isinglass and gelatin, seldom make it onto labels (26).

Here are a few tips for identifying vegan alcohol:

If youre still unsure whether a certain alcoholic beverage is vegan, its best to avoid those that dont have a vegan claim on the label.

If youre unsure whether your drink of choice is vegan, contact the manufacturer. You can also check the packaging or search online databases.

Many alcoholic beverages are naturally vegan. Nonetheless, some include animal products as ingredients or during processing.

Some non-vegan ingredients may be obvious, such as honey in honey beer or lactose in milk stouts. However, many others arent revealed in the name and may be difficult to detect, particularly if theyre used as fining agents to filter or clarify the drink.

Due to lax labeling requirements, manufacturers rarely list ingredients. As such, you should check the product for a vegan icon or contact the manufacturer directly if youre still unsure.

Here is the original post:

Is Alcohol Vegan? A Complete Guide to Beer, Wine, and Spirits - Healthline

As with all things plant-based, Portlands vegan pizza scene is in the midst of a mini growth spurt, one that started in 2017, with the arrival of the Canadian pizza and ice cream mini chain Virtuous Pie (1126 S.E. Division St., #200), and was followed last year by the stoner-friendly pizza wraps at Secret Pizza Society (7201 N.E. Glisan St.).

Add to that the tomato or nut cheese or sauce-less market veggie pies found at non-vegan pizzerias from Checkerboard (126 S.W. Second Ave) to Sizzle Pie (various locations) to Tastebud (7783 S.W. Capitol Highway) and you already have yourself the makings of a dynamic meat- and dairy-free pizza landscape.

Yet even among this glut of options, Baby Blue stands out for the quality of its chewy, blistered dough. The 7-month-old food cart comes from Odie OConnor, who trained at Gracies Apizza, and the lineage -- not to mention the connection between Gracies and Handsome Pizza -- show through.

As a carnivore, not all of Baby Blues topping combinations work for me (the vegan mozzarella comes off as unpleasantly glue-y). But order a mozzarella-free pie, the simple marinara, say, or the mushroom and truffle oil-topped truffle shuffle, and pay extra attention to the tangy sourdough base, which can hold its own with any of Portlands best new pizzerias.

Baby Blue is open noon to 7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday-Monday; 3207 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. (next to Matts BBQ Tacos); babybluepizza.com

-- Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell

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Portland is in the midst of a vegan pizza boomlet, and Baby Blue Pizza is leading the charge - OregonLive

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - Burger King, saying it never billed its "Impossible Whoppers" as vegan or promised to cook them a particular way, said a proposed class action by a vegan customer over the plant-based patties being cooked on the same grills as meat burgers should be thrown out.

In a court filing on Thursday, Burger King said plaintiff Phillip Williams should have asked how Impossible Whoppers were cooked before ordering one that he said was "coated in meat by-products" at an Atlanta drive-through.

Burger King said reasonable customers would ask about its cooking methods, and Williams would have known he could request an alternative method had he done even "the smallest amount of investigation" on its website or by reading media reports.

Williams "assumed that an Impossible Whopper would satisfy his own particularly strict form of veganism ... solely because he asked a Burger King restaurant employee to 'hold the mayo,'" Burger King said. "This claim has no basis."

Lawyers for Williams did not respond on Friday to requests for comment.

Williams claimed in his Nov. 18 lawsuit in Miami federal court that Burger King "duped" him into buying the Impossible Whopper at a premium price and is seeking damages on behalf of all U.S. consumers who bought it.

Burger King is a unit of Toronto-based Restaurant Brands International Inc , which also owns the Canadian coffee and restaurant chain Tim Hortons and is overseen by Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital.

Impossible Foods Inc, which helped create the Impossible Whopper, has said it was designed for meat eaters who want to consume less animal protein, not for vegans or vegetarians.

Burger King advertises the Impossible Whopper on its website at $4, down from its original suggested price of $5.59, and in mid-January added it to its two-for-$6 menu. In a statement, a spokesman said the product "continues to exceed expectations."

The case is Williams v Burger King Corp, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, No. 19-24755.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler and Matthew Lewis)

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Burger King says it never promised Impossible Whoppers were vegan - Yahoo Finance

British Retail Consortium (BRC) recently drafted new guidelines to ensure that items marketed as vegan in the United Kingdom fashion industry are truly animal-free. The BRC created the new ruleswhich only allow items to be labeled vegan if all materials used, including dyes, waxes, and glues, do not contain animal productsafter fashion buyers reached out to the organization in search of vegan products for the first time. Additionally, the BRCs new guidelines prohibit retailers from claiming a product is sustainable based solely on the fact that it is vegan. A recent Mintel study found that two thirds of British people between the ages of 16 and 24 aim to make ethical fashion choices. Its no longer enough for clothing to be priced well or to reference the latest trends, Mintel Retail Analyst Chana Baram said. Many young people today are likely to be influenced by the Attenborough or Greta effects and are becoming far more aware of the negative effects of fast fashion. As a sign of the changing times, last year, the Queen of England pledged in her memoir that she would no longer wear animal fur.

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New UK Guidelines to Ensure Vegan Fashion Is Animal-Free, Down to the Glue - VegNews

Some elite athletes, like Venus Williams, adhere to a vegan diet.

Maybe you've seen the Netflix documentary The Game Changers, or you've heard of Scott Jurek, a man who trains for and wins 100-mile footraces without eating animal products. Even Tom Brady reportedly eats a diet that's 80% plant-based. Everywhere you turn, there seem to be more and more elite athletes going vegan, or at least vegetarian.

Common sense has long said that high-level athletes need as much protein and calories as possible -- and many people assume a vegan diet is lacking in both. But then why do we keep seeing athletes pop up like Patrik Baboumian, a world-record holding powerlifter who follows a strict vegan diet?

It turns out that a lot of popular ideas surrounding veganism, vegetarianism and plant-based diets in general may be false. Elite athletes can and commonly do excel at their sport without eating animal products -- and it may work for you too.

Patrik Baboumian is the world's strongest man, and he's vegan.

I spoke to Registered Dietician Brittany Modell to learn more. She told me that athletes have different reasons for adopting a plant-based diet, including health, environmental and ethical concerns. Although various athletes have their own motivations, many have been public about the benefits they've seen.

Andre Patton, a wide receiver who plays in the NFL, has said that he feels the difference from eating a vegan diet, and that he wakes up in the morning more energetic and ready to go.

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American tennis legend Venus Williams eats a vegan diet to reduce fatigue and joint pain associated with Sjgren's syndrome, an incurable autoimmune disease she was diagnosed with in 2011.

Patrick Baboumian -- who once carried the heaviest weight ever recorded -- has said that he has lowered his blood pressure and increased his recovery time by avoiding all animal products. Babomian also cites environmental concerns for his decision to go vegan.

A plant-based diet is more than capable of giving you the nutrients that you need.

This is just anecdotal evidence -- but there's research that seems to support the claims.

Harvard Medical School says that a vegan diet reduces heart-damaging inflammation, and a meta-analysis of various studies concluded that vegetarian diets are helpful in managing long-term inflammation. Multiple other outlets have echoed the same thing -- eating more plants and less animal products will help lower your inflammation.

Medical researchers are thinking more and more about inflammation as a root cause of a lot of our ailments. Inflammation is a necessary immune response, but sometimes it goes too far. It's been proposed to be a common factor in heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and cancer. Stress, anxiety and other mental health challenges have also been linked to inflammation.

On a day-to-day level, inflammation can cause swollen and painful joints, chronic bloating and fatigue -- three things that would make any athlete's performance suffer. Hence, it makes perfect sense why so many people say they feel better when they switch to a more plant-based diet.

Carbs are more important for athletic success than you may think.

While both personal experience and research supports a vegan diet being possible even for athletes, beliefs about animal products being necessary for performance still float around.

One common mistaken idea is that animal protein is critical to athletic performance. Muscles need protein and amino acids to repair themselves and grow, but the exact amount of protein we should be consuming has been under some debate. While some athletes try to consume as much protein as possible, Modell tells me that most Americans end up eating more than the daily recommended amount of protein, which is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. For someone who weighs 150 pounds or 68 kilograms, that's about 55 grams of protein per day.

Modell explained that athletes actually need sufficient carbohydrates to perform, especially in endurance sports. Carbs are often overlooked, especially because of the pervasive rumor that eating them makes you gain weight. But your body stores the glucose from carbohydrates as high muscle glycogen.

Glycogen is essentially the fuel your muscles use to perform, and more readily available fuel means a higher energy output. So, a higher intake of healthy carbohydrates allows athletes to perform at high intensity levels. A plant-based diet filled with whole grains, fruits and vegetables typically gives people the fuel they need when exercising.

Another common belief is that you can't get all of the essential amino acids without eating meat. While animal protein, like meat and eggs, does contain all of the amino acids your body can't produce on its own, simply combining two sources of plant protein -- like beans and rice -- will also give you all the amino acids you need.

Plant-based food is still incredibly delicious.

If you're wondering whether cutting out more animal products can work for you, the answer is almost certainly yes -- assuming you're still eating a varied diet with plenty of whole grains, fruits, vegetables and plant protein sources. While a plant-based diet won't turn you from a pickup soccer player into Cristiano Ronaldo, you may see athletic performance gains stemming from quicker recovery times. Plus, you have a good likelihood of enjoying outcomes like lowered cholesterol and a healthier heart.

You certainly don't have to go full vegan to reap the benefits of a plant-based diet. Start with just one day a week where you eat a vegetarian diet, like a "Meatless Monday," and see how your body responds. Or, just try cutting out junk food in your diet and replacing empty calories with plant-based foods like nuts, legumes or veggies.

The bottom line is that if you're interested in the benefits of a plant-based diet, you should experiment with what you're eating, try to add more plant-based whole foods and figure out what makes you feel best.

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The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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These pro athletes are vegan -- why they switched and how you can benefit too - CNET

From glitzy all-vegan galas to recycled red carpet outfits, Hollywood has stepped up efforts to reduce its carbon footprintthis awards season, which will soon wrap up with the Oscars.

But while some scientists have welcomed A-listers' renewed zeal on climate change, others have questioned whether Tinseltown's jet-set elite are any sort of example to follow.

The Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and Critics' Choice Awards galas this month all served plant-based menus, instead of the steak dinners typical of celebrity-packed events.

Oscar nominees were offered roasted maitake mushrooms and vegan cheese at their annual luncheon this week, and will be served a "70 percent plant-based" menu at the February 9 show.

The "brave and compassionate" moves have drawn glowing praise from actor Joaquin Phoenix, who said it was the first time he'd ever eaten at the Globes, as well as environmental actor-activist stalwarts Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo.

Inside the star-studded events, few had any complaints -- even if comedian Seth Meyers wryly observed it was lucky that "food critics" weren't invited to the Critics' Choice Awards.

Climate scientists and activists have also welcomed the trend.

Brenda Ekwurzel, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it was "really important for Hollywood" to make an effortand "very exciting to me as a climate scientist".

Convincing people to change their food choices is one of the best ways to immediately reduce carbon emissions, she added.

Switching the diet of 1,500 guests at the Globes would have reduced the event's footprint roughly tenfold -- saving 10 to 15 tons of CO2 equivalents -- according to climate scientist Peter Kalmus.

By contrast, an average person in Bangladesh generates about one ton per year.

The "ripple effects" of even one famous attendee taking up climate activism as a result could have far greater benefits, influencing public awareness and even policy, Kalmus added.

'Walk the talk'

The highly publicized steps taken by Hollywood have not however drawn universal praise.

Few winners and presenters approached the mic at the Globes without offering "thoughts and prayers" expressed for those suffering in Australia's wildfires, while singer Lizzo recently helped pack food hampers for those affected during her world tour.

But accusations of hypocrisy have been leveled at many showbiz stars, with the movie industry as a whole decamping each year to a string of globe-trotting festivals spanning the globe from Cannes to Venice to Toronto to Park City, Utah.

"It is problematic to speak out on the climate emergency if you're flying on private jets" and have a huge overall climate footprint, said Kalmus.

While anyone -- with or without a celebrity platform -- raising awareness about climate issues should be welcomed, it is those who "walk the talk" who have the biggest impact, he added.

Kalmus singled out for praise Australian actress Yael Stone (Orange is the New Black), who this month pledged to give up her US acting career because "it's unethical for us to set up a life in two countries, knowing what we know."

"It's not about keeping those direct emissions from those flights out of the atmosphere," said Kalmus, estimating two first-class round trips per year at between 12-24 tons of CO2.

"Putting the planet above your career" makes a highly public statement that climate change "is indeed an emergency," he added.

Lost in the wash

According to Ekwurzel, celebrity actors would be most effective if they were to insist on reducing the carbon footprints of gas-guzzling movie productions.

"People who have resources, like those at the Golden Globes, have the most economic power to reduce their high emissions," she noted.

Ekwurzel pointed to renewable electricity usage on film sets as one way to improve the status quo, while singling out transportation and packaging used in movie catering as problematic.

Ultimately, the measures available to Hollywood celebrities are very different to those facing the public.

"When there are thousands of ways we individually can reduce emissions, picking one and getting on a pulpit saying 'this is the way everyone has to do it' will never work," she said.

And however well-meaning, some of those celebrities' efforts may simply be lost in the wash.

Fashion designer Stella McCartney tweeted her delight at Phoenix's decision to wear the same tuxedo -- one of hers -- "for the entire award season to reduce waste."

The move drew a mocking response from some, including Globes host Ricky Gervais, who responded: "That's nothing. I darn my own socks and you should see the state of my... underpants."

Asked to quantify the carbon emissions impact of Phoenix's thrifty wardrobe, Kalmus admitted it was "tough for a T-shirt-and-jeans-wearing scientist" but concluded: "I'm going to go with zero."

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Vegan meals and old tuxedos: Hollywood red carpets go green - The Jakarta Post - Jakarta Post