It’s already that time of year again…coming into Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving can be a stressful time for vegans (and new vegans especially). For one, it is incredibly depressing to think about the 46 million turkeys slaughtered each year in the United States for Thanksgiving day alone. That is a lot of individual lives taken for one single meal. That fact, compounded with the knowledge that turkeys are extremely curious, intelligent and social birds and that most people don’t think twice about their consumption of these beautiful animals, can make the day a real bummer to get through. But there are also the positive things about Thanksgiving, like the chance to get together with family and friends and spend a day cooking and eating together. That is really the part of Thanksgiving that I love. I love cooking all day and then sitting down at a table together to share a meal.
We’re just a little over a month away from Thanksgiving and now is the time to start thinking about how you are going to spend the holiday…Time to think about things like negotiating a vegan meal with families full of meat-eaters, deciding with whom you want to celebrate the holiday and finding new vegan versions of the dishes you love.
Last year at this time, I asked for readers to comment with their favorite Thanksgiving dishes and I worked on developing a vegan recipe for each. The recipes that came out of last year’s recipe roundup were:
And other recipes not specific to Thanksgiving, but which would be great for a Thanksgiving meal:
I am going to go ahead and challenge myself to remake the pumpkin pie because I’ve been thinking about it all year and I think it can be much better.
Now to ask you: What Thanksgiving favorites would you like to see veganized?
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Readers may find these two articles informative…
http://www.mabuhayradio.com/history/the-real-story-of-thanksgiving-from-the-american-indian-perspective
In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival, which was the tribe’s Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared “A Day of Thanksgiving” because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered.
http://archive.truthout.org/article/jacqueline-keeler-thanksgiving-a-native-american-view
This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people.
Thanks so much, Mark, for sharing the two articles. Our revisionist history is exposed again.
The more I read of the animals that we kill for our daily food and for speciall ‘celebrations’ such as Xmas and Thanksgiving I despair of the human race for their lack of understanding for the many folk who die from hunger the year round.
I found the article on the background of thanksgiving a lesson in history that we should all remember, and learn from.
Each year since 1989 I have travelled to Vietnam a country that fought for many years against major powers so that the people could have their freedom and independence, just like the native people of America. Thankfully in 1975 the Vietnamese won, in sharp contrast to the real native Americans. But the Vietnamese they were left a legacy that still haunts them today 51 years on, Agent Orange the chemical used by the US that has resulted in the deaths of many thousands of Vietnamese and left millions with horrific illnesses and deformities.