Letters to the Editor

What You Say

Veg Out

It's encouraging to see City Paper addressing the concerns of vegan readers [News, "Veganomics," Boyce Upholt, Aug. 14, 2008].

Despite the general rise in food prices due to increased fuel costs, vegan staples like beans, pasta, vegetables and fruit are generally much less expensive than meat. Animal-derived foods are likely to suffer larger price increases due to the huge amounts of fuel required for the many stages of factory farming: growing, harvesting and transporting feed; taking animals to and from auctions, farms, feed lots and slaughterhouses; and shipping the final product to stores.

Today, most supermarkets carry a variety of vegan items, such as veggie burgers and soy milk. In addition, many packaged products are vegan — even though they may not be marketed as such — so it's easier than ever for vegans to complete their shopping in one trip. For information about "accidentally vegan" foods and tips for shopping on a budget, visit goveg.com and vegcooking.com.

Jeff Mackey
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Norfolk, VA

It's possible to eat right, and be a vegan, and eat badly, and be a vegan. Sure, a restaurant serving vegans might have increased costs due to oil prices, that doesn't necessarily translate to an individual vegan. Restaurants don't often serve "common food" so to say. They lean towards higher-priced and often non-seasonal/non-local items.

I've been vegan seven years, vegetarian 20 before that. Since I don't eat eggs, drink milk or consume cheese — all of which have been increasing drastically in price — the only major price changes I've seen (and they are relatively small) is in grains.

Of course, if one is buying a lot of fake cheeses, fake meats ... in other words, highly processed "food" (even if it's vegan), prices are higher (and certainly the healthiness of said products is lower — due to their salt and fat, primarily).

As such, by "grouping" my driving errands, by growing some of my own produce and by eschewing highly processed foods, the increase in oil prices has hardly dented my budget.

Don't equate the needs of chefs or restaurants with those of individuals. It's a very faulty comparison. Eat locally grown and seasonal foods as much as possible. Your health will be better for it and your wallet not so light.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

Mark Sutton
Via Citypaper.net

Today (Sunday, Aug. 17) I picked up a City Paper off my kitchen table, wanting to check listings for any interesting events that might be happening today. Since I pick up the City Paper often, I wasn't sure if it was this week's issue or not. This was much harder to figure out than it should have been. The date (as well as the Web address) was completely obscured by the head of the comic-book character featured on the cover. I guess it's stylish and hip to have cover art overlaying boring details like the date of publication, but I found it annoying. It was still hard to find on the first four or five pages. Finally I found it on the fourth page, in very fine print, vertically, along the very edge of the page. I guess it's not sexy to put the date up top in bold print but it would have been helpful. I guess I could have eventually figured it out by paging through the rest of the magazine ... maybe that's the whole point, to get readers to look through the whole thing? You guys might be much savvier than I give you credit for.

Ed Groff
West Mount Airy

Awesome pick with Beth Heinly's comic [Cover Story, The Count, Aug. 14, 2008]! Check out more of her work at the3oclockbook.com. You can check out some of my work there, too. ... I suppose the disembodied breasts [I submitted] are not funny enough for CP. Oh well! Love ya anyway. Where else would I go to get my tranny hooker services?

Maureen Cummins
Via CityPaper.net