The Discerning Brute: fashion, food & etiquette for the ethically handsome man

Trench, Espadrilles, Super Bowl Grub, Tyvek Paradox & The Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act

joshuakatcher — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:04:54 +0000

• The edgy, vegan, Berlin-based UMASAN has done a collaboration with EDDER on a pretty wicked trench coat made from the waste of soy-husks. This elegant black trench coat has a high quality, water-repellent surface. • A Bassike Shoe for some of our favorite Aussies. Close your eyes and think of summer. Soludos x bassike limited edition capsule collection, sustainably-produced jute sole, thicker than the classic soludos. Organic, vegetable -dyed cotton espadrilles. • The Super Bowl is this Sunday, and for many people it's more about hanging with friends and eating great food. Here's some recipes from Veg News Magazine and Chef Ayinde Howell to keep your party spicy and your guests full without killing them. Don't have time to cook? Check out buffalo "wings" and sliders from Gardein! • This Tyvek parka by Warsaw's UEG is pretty awesome. But it brought up a really interesting sustainability conundrum (aside from the obvious paradox of "sustainable fashion" and the $824.00 price tag).a What exactly is tyvek and is it or isn't it eco-friendly? Like many sustainability claims, it turns out that we think it's eco-friendly for the same reason many American think they need to drink the udder-secretions of a cow to grow up healthy; an effective marketing campaign. MNN's Siel Ju, Ph.D took on tyveck in 2009, saying:

"...Why are we using Tyvek to begin with?...Tyvek’s made by Dupont, which often brags about its nationwide recycling program for the 100 percent recyclable Tyvek. But while Dupont’s “Tyvek and the Environment” page makes Tyvek sound like an eco-friendly material, the reality is that Tyvek can only be recycled if YOU individually collect Tyvek envelopes and YOU pay to mail them to Dupont for not recycling, but downcycling... Isn’t it easier to just — not use Tyvek and stick to materials that are either reusable or easily recyclable through existing local programs? "

• ADI is currently working on federal legislation to ban the use of wild animals in circuses; it is called the Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act (H.R. 3359). Learn more at Break the Chain campaign at: www.breakthechainus.org

Special thanks to Partrick for today's fashion finds!

John Bartlett Sale, Ag-Gag, Race to Fake Chicken & One Degree Veganic Farm

joshuakatcher — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:57:58 +0000

• John Bartlett is having a Thank You Sale in celebration of his upcoming NYFW Eco-Fashion Collection and Presentation. I want this limited edition, cozy, eco-fleece, winter-themed sweatshirt or vintage ralgan with Tiny Tim on it! Made with organic cotton/recycled poly/rayon blend • The deadline is quickly approaching for researchers who are competing for a $1M prize in developing edible flesh that grows without the ethical consequences of being attached to a sentient being. According to The Guardian:

A small group of people will meet in Washington later this year for what they hope will be a lunch to change the world. The meal should consist of fried chicken and nothing else, but while it may look like chicken, have the texture of chicken and even taste like chicken, it will never have lived or breathed. Five years ago Peta, the world's largest animal welfare group, gave scientists until 30 June 2012 to prove they could make "cultured", or laboratory meat, in commercial quantities. The first scientist to show that artificial chicken can be grown in quantity and be indistinguishable from "real" chicken flesh will be awarded $1m.

What do you think? Is in-vitro "chicken" flesh a solution to the ethical and environmental problems inherent in meat production? Would you eat it?

• Don Hlaydich of One Degree Organics is yet another farmer practicing veganic farming - farming without the use of pesticides, animal-based or animal-sourced fertilizers.

• According to In Defense of Animals, anti-whistle-blower an anti-journalist laws like the ones defeated in 2011 are cropping up all over:

Documenting any activity on an animal farming operation my soon be a criminal offense. Last year, because of pressure from the animal agriculture lobby, four states tried to pass bills that would make it illegal to document farm activity without the owner’s consent. Although this legislative effort was defeated in all states, similar bills have cropped up in Florida, New York, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska so far in 2012, and more are expected. These bills are designed to undermine whistleblowers seeking to keep the public informed and to hold the industry accountable to basic levels of food safety and humane standards. These courageous individuals risk their personal safety to go undercover and document the egregious practices inside the closed doors of livestock facilities. But instead of being heralded as heroes, they could soon face criminal prosecution. Read the full article here:

Butchster Ideology & Veganic Farming

joshuakatcher — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:05:43 +0000

photo: Maggie Starbard/NPR

It's more clear now than ever that food production weighs heavily on people, ecosystems and animals, as well as our collective conscience. Surely, we could all do better by starting a rooftop garden, a vegetable farm, or joining a CSA. With one in seven people (that's 1 billion) currently hungry, a radical food movement is crucial. What's more, it's become a cultural requirement for enthusiastic meat-lovers to justify their meat-eating to some extent, considering where 99% of meat comes from and the resources required to raise it. Tradition, taste and special nutrition requirements are typically the fail-safe rationales.

Many who choose seitan scaloppini over sirloin steak from an animal rights perspective balk at most attempts to vindicate killing animals for pleasure, when there are so many alternatives. But does a DIY approach to meat resolve the debate for those who subscribe to the notion that "if you couldn't kill it yourself, you shouldn't eat it"? For a rising number of young butchsters (butcher-hipsters), as I like to call them, the task of killing, carving, and cooking a pig is easy to excuse when the result is ultimately based in accommodating pleasure, power and praxis. In other words, it's easy to rationalize violence when the results are yummy and even easier when the victim's perspective is invalidated. In a recent NPR article by Kristofor Husted entitled " How One Former Vegan Learned To Embrace Butchering", Andrew Plotsky is profiled as just one of many young people who are taking the life and death of the animals they eat into their own hands, leaving their vegan naivete in the dust. The press loves an ex-vegan who returns to bacon, as we've seen time and time again over the last few years. It's become popular enough for butchers to be proud that they were once vegetarians or vegans - to the extent that I wonder if some make the claim just so their cleaver gleams in even sharper contrast to what they perceive as misled do-goodery. They wear their former vegetarianism like a boyscout patch. Others treat it like an awful condition from which they only barely managed to escape (they "got SO sick!"). And now that veganism is more popular than ever, the lure of counter-culture street cred just doesn't tempt the rebels like it used to. Your parents won't freak out anymore - in fact, they might even be happy. The novelty of reviving a "lost art" like slaughter and butchery has it's place on the shelf right next to the typewriter and a vintage Davy Crockett hat. Aesthetically alluring in it's homage to simpler times, to pre-industrial working-class values, to the agrarian golden era - slaughtering also has the lure of something quite distinct that a mere fruit and vegetable farm might not: domination over beings that comes with an arsenal. Tools used to kill and chop up bodies are glamorized in images of Butchsters. They stand, in a blood-stained apron, arms crossed, in one fist a cleaver, in the other a boning knife. They look dangerous. They could kill you, and it can't be denied that the lure of that power; being the feared killer and the visual metaphor it creates, plays a large part in the fascination with this trend. If I see one more photo of people wearing a pigs face like a mask, I'm going to... yawn. The NPR article suggests that, "By killing the animal himself, Plotsky says he strengthens his bond to that animal." In other words, by committing a violent act... you don't actually harm your victim (just ignore their perspective), you instead strengthen your bond with them! Phew, I was worried that harming was harmful, but if it's good for the perpetrator, then it must be good for all parties involved. Who really cares what an intelligent animal like a pig might want, anyway, like to get away from someone who's trying to slit their throat or shoot them in the head. Bonding, for Plotsky, is a monologue, not a dialogue. And if "killing the animal weighs heavy on Plotsky's heart", why not "harvest" something else and get said bonding done as an animal sanctuary? Perhaps it's the simple answer; growing kale makes a much less exciting video for Plotsky's media production company than killing a pig. The agrarian renaissance is crucial if we're ever to escape from the clutches of Big Ag like Monsanto et al, and I fully support the notion of growing our own food and having a relationship with the soil, but it seems that all the media hype is about the bloody killing. The saying, If it bleeds it leads holds true for the Farm to Table movement, maximizing on the macabre. When ecologist Garret Hardin wrote "The Tragedy of the Commons", was it a coincidence that he used cows on graze-land to represent "a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen" (Hardin (1968)) ? I acknowledge that small-scale meat slaughterers and butchsters like Plotsky are not responsible for the ethical and ecological crises of CFAs, but all I can think is that history will repeat itself. The growing demands for meat continue to increase at a rate that small-scale farmers can not accommodate while maintaining sustainable and welfare-based approaches. When money is to be be made, corners will always be cut. What I'd like to see is more of the vegetable, grain and fruit farmers also celebrated, and not just the high-drama of slaughter. In fact, another small-farm revolution is happening. In Veganic farming, instead of using chemical fertilizers or animal products like farmed animal manure, plants are grown using plants and minerals.

Here is a list of veganic farms in The United States and Canada (source: http://www.goveganic.net): • Victoria Farm 60 fruit and nut trees, which will act as a canopy for a future forest garden. Details of their forest garden establishment can be read online. • Hesperides Organica The farm is located in the Black Dirt region of Orange County, an area with extremely fertile soil. The black dirt is left over from an ancient glacial lake, and has a high degree of organic matter (50%). • Unexpected Farm They have used veganic practices since they began farming in 2001. On a separate part of their holding live two rescued animals, a cow and a goat, who enjoy 4 acres of fenced pasture. • Huguenot Street Farm 77 acres in New Paltz, New York. Growing over 125 varieties of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, including heirloom varieties, Huguenot Street Farm runs a 21-week CSA for 200 families in the region. CSA members can also take advantage of a large U-Pick garden. • Honey Brook Organic Farm A veganic CSA in Pennington, New Jersey, and was profiled in the Winter 2008 edition of the American Vegan newsletter. With 2,200 CSA memberships, feeding between 3000 and 4000 people in total, Honey Brook Organic Farm is called the largest organic CSA in the United States. • Santa Cruz Farm Santa Cruz Farm is an example of year-round veganic growing in a region with little water and wide temperature variance. The temperature can fluctuate significantly, changing by upwards of 25°C or 40°F from daytime to nighttime • Reverence Gardens Located in Round Lake, Illinois, about an hour north of Chicago. Reverence Gardens was run as a commercial veganic farm through a customer subscription program in 2007 and 2008, and was Certified Naturally Grown in 2008. • Sunizona Family Farms Specializes in greenhouse tomatoes, herbs, and salad greens, and they have recently started growing field crops. In 2008 they began to transition their farm to veganic agriculture, and now the main greenhouse and fields are completely veganic • Spirit of the Earth The centre includes herb gardens, vegetable gardens, forest gardens, orchards, a cherry grove, and an edible medicine trail, all grown veganically. • Glascott Farm Formerly using pigs as part of their biodynamic farming, Glascott Farm in Ontario is in the transition process to veganic agriculture. •Ark Gardens An off-grid farm, deriving their power from wind and solar, and they are focused on growing fruits that are high in phytonutrients. • Janlau Farm Began as a dairy farm in 1973, they decided to stop farming animals in 1997 and concentrate exclusively on field crops. With their fields Certified Organic since the 1980’s, they soon gave up animal-based fertilizer and used field rotation. • Groleau Garden The garden produces a wide variety of vegetables, and also herbs and berries. It is currently non-commercial, although some of the produce is exchanged with friends and family during the growing season. Much of the harvest is placed in cold storage to be eaten during the winter months, or preserved by canning, freezing, and dehydrating.

Blackout

joshuakatcher — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:49:52 +0000

Many websites are blacked out today to protest proposed U.S. legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). From personal blogs to Wikipedia, sites all over the web — including this one — are asking you to help stop this dangerous legislation from being passed. Please watch the video below to learn how this legislation will affect internet freedom, then scroll down to take action. PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

From Wikipedia:

Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more.

SunRise, R44 & The Doctors

joshuakatcher — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:49:05 +0000

• This unbleached, organic cotton, Japanese SunRise crew neck sweatshirt is a keeper. The contrast stitching, the simple construction and the panels of darker cotton all add up to a shirt that is masculine, functional and timeless. The 'R44' Rogan Standard Issue line for Nordstrom combines organic cotton with military and work-wear design. The collection is made in America and features this fantastic organic cotton "Uniform Jacket" (now 50% off), and "Echo Defense" organic cotton plaid shirt. Not everything is suitable for animal-defenders (watch out for the leather tabs on the pants as well as some "yak down") but most of the tops are.

• Dr. Neal Barnard of The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine appeared on the daytime talk show The Doctors a couple weeks ago. He presents a pretty compelling case for a plant based diet, but is met by skepticism and opinion-based responses form the pane of experperts. Strangely, sisters Kelly and Kaitlin - who got all dressed up and came out the show, didn't even get a chance to speak! •

Matt & Nat for Apple Europe

joshuakatcher — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:08:05 +0000

• Matt & Nat was commissioned by Apple Europe to create some exclusive bags that are only available on the Apple Europe webstore, and the Matt & Nat webstore. The three below are my personal picks: the crinkled, waxy black 'Creed', the stark white and black 'Phoenix', and the preppy, professorial 'Fujiya'. As always, Matt & Nat accessories are totally vegan and lined with microfiber suede made from recycled plastic bottles.

New York Times Cover Gets Pumped With Vegan Bodybuilders

joshuakatcher — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:23:00 +0000

photo: Robert Rausch for The New York Times Guys, we have arrived. And the pale, frail stereotype might finally be getting kicked-to-the-curb by some seriously strong warriors. The New York Times today gave Jimi Sitko and a slew of other "antibeef beefcakes" like Robert Cheeke, Lisa Koehn, Giacomo Marchese, Dani Taylor, and Kenneth G. Williams a cover story.

His apartment is filled with medals and trophies from bodybuilding competitions, snapshots of his tanned, rippled physique in full flex. His uniform is an assortment of sweat pants and hoodies, which he occasionally lifts when his abs look particularly fierce. But most surprising is what is inside Sitko’s stomach: tofu, fresh greens and plant-based protein powder.... “I’m no longer an athlete", said, "I’m a warrior now. There’s a big difference. The athletes are just out to get paid. Warriors stand for something.” Read the full story here NYT video: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/01/04/multimedia/100000001232617/the-competitive-vegan-bodybuilder.html

A Union Suit

joshuakatcher — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:36:22 +0000

Remember that time we had a business meeting in our union suits? The union suit is a great way to stay warm in the colder months. The name union suit comes from the fact that the tops and bottoms of the garment are united (not because of any association with unionized workers). Here are a few union suits made ethically: • These striped classics from American Essentials, in organic cotton:

• John Bartlett's union suit with 10% of proceeds going to the Tiny Tim dog rescue fund: