Helping Animals and (Faux) Hot Dog Gluttony
I've met my fair share of vegetarian and vegan queers; apparently, we come out of the closet, and decide the fresh air tastes even better without meat. Really, though, there are a lot of reasons people decide to limit their animal product intake, common reasons being animal rights, the environment, allergies and, more recently, vanity. My decision to become vegan was influenced by a combination of environmental concern and food apathy.
D.C. is also a really vegan friendly city - once you know what you're looking for (and what you're looking to avoid) it's not hard to find a place to eat. As I've mentioned plenty of times before, my favorite vegan-hub is Sticky Fingers Bakery on Park Rd. across from Giant. With an ever-expanding all-vegan menu, the food is delicious and they make everything from burritos to wedding cakes. Anyway, tomorrow, a percentage of their proceeds will go to Compassion Over Killing, a nonprofit animal advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. So, if you've never been to Sticky Fingers, tomorrow is an extra good day to check it out. Or, if you've just been thinking about becoming vegan or vegetarian you can just go and see that a meatless diet really doesn't have to be a drab one full of boring salads and bowls of Kashi Good Friends (friends, pictured), while helping animals at the same time.
Bonus: If you are at Sticky Fingers at 6 P.M. you will get to see me in a vegan hot dog eating contest. For a long time, I've boasted that the gallon of milk challenge would be easy for my bottomless pit of a stomach. Alas, now I'm vegan so I guess I'll never know, but I can still eat vegan hot dogs. I'm not sure I can really walk the walk, but I'm going to humor my roommates and find out.
3 comments:
Okay, Stephanie, so are you going to update us on the competition? Don't leave us hanging here!
Yeah, what is it about queer lady vegetarians and vegans? I know way more lesbian gals who eat this way than gay men (maybe it's that bizarre need to consume the same amount of protein as a lion so we can look like Charles Atlas?).
I really don't miss eating meat so far, although making a formal commitment to vegetarianism is pretty new to me. Reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" pretty much set me on the road toward it, and then Sharon Gannon and David Life's book on Jivamukti Yoga pretty much sealed the deal.
The winner was some guy who was once on MTV True Life I'm a Competitive Eater.
All the contestants ate two dogs in the first round (I finished first in my bracket, a'hem). Then, the winner ate 16 hot dogs in 8 minutes... I ate 6.5. Let me tell you, this may not sound like much of a feat, but 8.5 hot dogs in my stomach felt near fatal.
(Un)fortunately, all my undignifying pics are locked behind the privacy controls of facebook.
Wow, 6.5 - that's totally amazing. I think I'd probably lose it.
(One of my Americana holiday guilty pleasures are eating faux hot dogs.)
Go, Stephanie!
For a disturbing, hilarious and well-written look at competitive eating, check out the book "Horsemen of the Esophagus."
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