Back to HoodLAB we go! Make your monthly pilgrimage out to the vegan block party on Sunday, November 18th. Nooch and Neat Market join forces to supply your Thanksgiving needs, and your community connect. The 3300 block of Larimer will be chock full of DIY vendors, all-vegan food trucks, drinks, music, groceries, and treats to bring home. Hang out with us, enjoy a coffee, stock up for the holiday, and be a part of this growing underground community. The market is open from 11am-3pm. 3354 Larimer St.

This month’s Neat Market will also have a letter-writing table for political prisoners, donation bar, and our featured nonprofit is Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Invite your friends- you can use our Facebook event if you want!

UPDATED FRIDAY 11/6: THE VENDOR LIST!

Here are the fabulous local vendors you will meet at Neat Market on Sunday:

• Pony Treats
• Yosoy Foods
• Living Edibles
• Waffleganger (food truck)
• Nom Pod
• High Country Kombucha
• The Vegan Van (food truck)
• La V Life Essentials
• Bete Noir Chocolates
• Linden Tree Foods
• Modern Gingham jams
• Classy Hippo Cuisine (hollandaise sauce!)
• Bead for Life
• Kindness Ranch (sanctuary for research animals in Hartville, WY!)
• Sea Shepherd Denver

And please join Plants & Animals volunteers in a letter-writing session for political prisoners. We will be using this opportunity to get together and show our support for these activists:

• Daniel McGowan: http://www.supportdaniel.org/whois/bio.php     
• Marie Mason: http://www.arprisoners.org/marie-jeanette-mason/
• Eric McDavid: http://www.supporteric.org/background.htm

Do something nice for somebody who fought for animals and our environment! Meet at our table at 1pm, or stop by and write a letter any time during the market. We might even have some other volunteer opportunities to sign up for, if you’re interested in getting involved with vegan outreach and P&A.

See you Sunday!

Will Potter, author of Green is the New Red, is in town for a lunchtime talk at DU’s Sturm College of Law (room 180). It is FREE and there will be vegan pizza, and you have the day off like me, right? So go!

Potter is the authority on the growing Green Scare, a disturbing trend in government that targets environmental and animal activists. If you have ever wondered why some people label animal liberators as terrorists, you should be at this talk. It is open to the public.

From Will’s blog:

Tues., October 23, 2012
University of Denver Sturm College of Law
I’ll be discussing how anti-terrorism and surveillance laws passed since 9/11 are applied to non-violent activist groups, especially in the environmental and animal rights movements.
Noon to 1pm

Gestation (pregnancy) crates are miserable both in concept and practice. This is real:

Imagine you are a sow, a female pig. You weigh hundreds of pounds, but are confined to a metal stall measuring 2 feet by 7 feet. It is so narrow that you cannot turn around. When you become exhausted from standing on the cold concrete floor, you collapse into a pile of your own waste. Infected, oozing abscesses and sores appear on your skin because you cannot escape the filth. You have lived this way since you were seven months old, so do not know anything better, but something about this place seems instinctually wrong. You are so bored you chew on the bars of your cage to try and keep from going totally mad. It doesn’t help. If you were free, you would root in the soil with your delicate nose, sink into a mud bath to cool during summer time, and spend time with your family. It’s not to be. You will undergo, continuously, cycles of artificial insemination and birth, and produce more than 20 piglets per year. Your young will be taken away, and like you, will be crowded into pens with metal bars and concrete floors. When you have had three litters, your body will be too stressed to produce more. Deemed worthless, you will be slaughtered. You died not knowing that had you been born in the European Union, or one of eight U.S. states (including CA, OH, and MI), this would be illegal. Nor did you know that everyday citizens put such pressure on McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s to end this brutal but routine practices that the fast food giants agreed.

It’s strange to think that industry and not government might lead the way in bettering the lives of animals raised for food. These improvements are a step along the way to that far-off vegan world we strive for. Join us in petitioning meat processor Tyson Foods’ use of gestation crates in the supply chain. A flood of angry individuals will hopefully make the company sit up and take notice.

On a happier note, pigs are pretty fascinating! And joyous! According to the Chinese Zodiac, people born in the year of the pig are happy and honest. Which is pretty much true – if you allow them an interesting and clean place to live, and don’t mess with their young, they won’t mess with you. I’m going to make it out to Peaceful Prairie Animal Sanctuary to hang out with some piggies as soon as I possibly can.

Vegan Drinks is coming to Denver! A new monthly get-together for animal-rights advocates, plant-based foodies, vegan entrepreneurs, 21st century philosophers, and vegans who drink! Really, anybody can come, but this is our night to geek out on the kind lifestyle and get to know others in our community. Plants & Animals Denver is stoked to team up with Vegan Coloradical, our favorite local blog and restaurant resource, to make this event happen.

Be at Denver Beer Co (1695 Platte St) on Thursday, January 12th (7-10pm) for the first ever Denver Vegan Drinks. There will be some tasty food samples and lots of good folks there. Want to know how to get the most out of Vegan Drinks? Read the tips over at Vegan Coloradical…

Wednesday, November 30th. Get your tickets.

We’re so excited to be a part of this. Gene Baur, President and Co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, is coming to speak at Denver’s Auraria campus. Anybody is welcome to attend this event, but we’re happy to make it FREE FOR STUDENTS. If you’re not a student, get your tickets for just $8 at Brown Paper Tickets. Presented by Plants & Animals Denver and Auraria Students for the Humane Treatment of Animals (ASHTA). All proceeds from tickets go to Farm Sanctuary.

Gene will be presenting a talk entitled “Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food,” and signing copies of his book, Farm Sanctuary. Learn new ways to interact with others for the benefit of animals, and see how Farm Sanctuary’s work is making a difference. We’ll even have some tasty vegan food available for you. Here are the details:

“Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food,” a special speaking engagement with Gene Baur.

Wednesday, November 30th 2011, 6pm.

St. Cajetan’s Center at Auraria Campus (1298 Lawrence Way, Denver)

- St. Cajetan’s is the former church located just south of the King Center

Tickets: $8 for non-students

Auraria students may attend this event for FREE with student ID (tickets not required).

Tickets can be purchased online through Brown Paper Tickets or at the door

Hit the jump for a video of Gene on this year’s Just Eats Tour… Read the rest of this entry →

The 2011 Denver Walk for Farm Animals is coming quick. On Sunday, October 30, join Farm Sanctuary for a morning of animal advocacy with Denver’s kindest community. This year the walk kicks off at 9am at Washington Park. There was a crowd of around 100 people walking in 2010. Let’s see if we can double it this year. All proceeds go to Farm Sanctuary, and all awareness goes to the people who see us standing up for the voiceless.

Walk 2010

Denver represent.

Watch out for a post-walk event with P&A! Details coming soon…

We started a lending library. Come get educated!

Borrow a book from us!

Plants & Animals Denver presents the Veg-Curious Lending Library! Anybody interested in learning about plant-based eating, activism, or conservation is welcome to borrow a book from our collection. We’ve only got about 20 books so far, but there are some great resources available. The lending library is located at Green Spaces (1368 26th St), the venue of our monthly dinners. The library is on the bookshelf near the entrance. You may stop in anytime to browse, or you can check out a book elementary-school style:

• Find the card for your book in the black recipe box.
• Write down your name, phone #, and e-mail address.
• We’ll send you a due date. You may borrow a book for 2 weeks.

Simple as that. We’ve got some good stuff, too. Books and DVDs on animals, health, fitness, cooking, philosophy, nutrition, the environment, and animal rights.

Hit the jump to see our current selection and wishlist. If you’ve got any books lying around that you’d like to donate, let us know. We’ll take anything related to animals and/or veganism.

Read the rest of this entry →

The Denver Post Underground Music Showcase was over the weekend. Over 300 local and national bands played venues along Broadway from July 21st-24th. Plants & Animals were there on Friday doing a feed-in.

We posted up in the little entryway nook of Fancy Tiger on Broadway + Ellsworth, right next to the heavy foot traffic at the Hi-Dive. One of our goals was to show off how good homemade vegan food can be, so our diligent volunteers made an awesome array of treats to give out. We gave away around 300 free vegan samples, each one with a piece of literature from Vegan Outreach or Mercy For Animals. There were savory tempeh sausage puff pastries, cinnamon rolls, chocolate peanut butter cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes with peach buttercream frosting, and zucchini bread. And when the cupcakes ran out, we bought a bunch of Tofutti Cuties ice cream sandwiches for a cool treat on a hot night. Everybody who stopped by the table was really nice, and seemed happy we were there. The best part was how everybody was happy to take some literature with them.

Feed-ins are a really fun and positive way to connect with people on the street, and talk to them about veganism. It gives volunteers a chance to show that vegans eat really well,  and that transitioning into plant-based eating is really easy. Any chance to hand somebody a pamphlet that shows the truth about eating animals is a victory, so we felt that this was a very successful outing. We’ll do it again soon, so let us know if you’d like to cook for a feed-in or work the table. Write us at info(at)plantsanimals(dot)org to be added to our volunteer e-mail list, and find out about future volunteer opportunities.

More pictures of Donald and Kellie after the jump. Read the rest of this entry →

VegFest Colorado will be Saturday, July 2nd at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. Plants & Animals Denver will have a booth there, so be sure to stop by and say hi. But you really want to be there for all the amazing food samples and guest speakers (including Colleen Patrick Goudreau and Howard Lyman). It’s only 10 bucks. And you can even help out with the fest if you want- they need volunteers and there is a meeting this weekend… Read the rest of this entry →

I’m sitting on my break at work as I write this, and I’ve got that antsy feeling. That urge to do more- to do good. As frustrating as it is to have this feeling while trapped at my day job, it is one my favorite feelings to have. It feels good to have that fight in you. And it also feels good because I have an outlet to express my desire to create change: this group we have here, Plants & Animals Denver. P&A was born from these types of mid-day inspirations. Maybe you have similar moments at your job- times when a news story or coworker pisses you off, and you just wish there was something you could do to make things better- for the environment, for animals, for our own misguided culture. I get it. It can be tough sitting at a desk grinding out a living while wishing there was something more you could do. Lucky for you, P&A is your outlet too. We want you to channel that passion into action. If you’ve got a good idea to promote veganism, help animals, or protest injustice, we’ve got your back. Want to help, but don’t know how? We have stuff planned for you to volunteer for: carrotmobs, bake sales, feed-ins, leafleting, demos, Chomp… Step by step, bit by bit, we can make things happen in Denver, if we get together. I’ve seen the power we can have when just a few of us fight for a cause or team up for an an event, It’s exciting, empowering, inspiring, satisfying, and fucking addictive.

Read the rest of this entry →