Raven's Restaurant - Vegan Cuisine

The Ravens’ is a nexus in the crossover from the standard North American diet to a sustainable, whole foods vegan diet. At breakfast we serve dishes prepared with eggs and dairy with the hope that guests will try a vegan version of a favorite or perhaps an entirely new dish such as Citrus Polenta.

We would clearly like the restaurant to be totally vegan. The fact that our family was once in the business of cattle ranching - specifically the production of beef - makes us more sensitive to the plight of animals which make up most North Americans' diet. I would not feel as strongly as I do about the way animals are treated had I night experienced how they should be treated. The animals on my grandfather's ranch in central Missouri were grass fed. They were not bothered by youngsters riding through their pastures as they contentedly munched the long grass. But today, few cattle are raised this way. Go to Costco or Home Depot in Santa Rosa and when the wind is from the west the stench is just awful - and it is from feedlots. We became vegetarian because we did not want to be responsible for killing animals, and vegan when we learned what really happens in most dairy operations, including highly rated organic dairies.

I naively believed that once a cow delivered her calf, she produced milk through old age. One of the most “humane” dairies describes their practices, which includes breeding their cows every 12 to 18 months. However, when a calf is born, it is immediately removed from the mother, fed colostrum and then sold. The cow cannot fulfill the birth-nurture cycle and nurse her calf. If there is an instinct that particularly defines mammals, it is the drive to nurse/nurture. The calves in many of these dairies are sold to veal operations.

All material - Copyright by The Stanford Inn by the Sea

At the Ravens’ we are guided by the fact that we live within a predatory planet. It is violent and the very way we eat fosters violence. Some of here are vegan for that very reason. However, vegan is not a another name for “righteousness.” We know that as we have compassion for the grains, fruits and vegetables we do eat, we must have compassion for those who eat animal products as well as for the animals themselves. Below is a quotation from our Ravens’ Cookbook. It speaks to this issue:

“Food is energy - it is energy trapped, bonded to life. We digest destroying the integrity of the food and freeing the proteins, carbohydrates, fats and micronutrients needed to build and sustain our bodies. We are molecular beings, transferring bits and pieces of other molecules to function molecularly - that is, to organize, replicate, regenerate and repair ourselves.

“Using energy extracted from our food, we interact, exchanging information between each other and this information exchange is most often about finding, holding, building sources of energy of one sort of another, be it money, some idea of power, or food itself.

“Food is life and we eat life - or a product of life like dairy. Life eats life in a seemingly meaningless cycle. Even in those instances where we think we might avoid eating life by drinking milk we learn that dairy and eggs are seemingly innocent foods that do not demonstrate obvious sentience and are obtained from animals who are bred for the purpose. Those unable to lay an egg or produce milk – the males – are killed, usually after a six week life in a cage for a chicken, de-beaked and pumped full of antibiotics or after a few months in a calf pen or three years in a feedlot.

“We eat life: it is transformed into our lives. Our planet appears predatory and dangerous when looked at from purely a materialistic viewpoint. This is not a happy realization. Many of us separate ourselves from the violence of procuring food: we go to the supermarket. But if we eschew violence how can we ask another to procure our food, kill for us? We cannot.
We see ourselves as a nexus of change – from a violent and not particularly conscious relationship to the food we eat to a more conscious relationship. We “know” that eating is always killing, and we believe that remembering this honors the plants, fruits and grains we eat and in so honoring these foods, we eat what we need to eat and waste far less. Here, we do not serve animals but do serve dairy and eggs with the hope that many guests will try vegan dishes. This is what we hope to be the first step for many of our diners toward conscious dining and a vegan lifestyle.”(Copyright 2006 – Used by permission.)

This morning the Today Show featured organic wines and spotlighted Ceago’s Cabernet Sauvignon, one of the wines on our list. Ceago cabernet is made with grapes from Mendocino County’s Redwood Valley which are grown using certified biodynamic methods that go beyond standard organic methods. Ceago Vinegarden is Jim Fetzer’s creation.

Our wine list features three Ceago wines as well as another 93 wines from wineries from around the world made with grapes produced by organic, biodynamic, or sustainable methods. We hold in high esteem vintners such as Jim Fetzer who emphasize the terroir – the “place” – the land and weather that characterize the grapes grown there. Growers who use pesticides and chemical fertilizers mitigate their vineyards’ terroir by homogenizing the difference between places. The chemicals kill the soil’s micro-fauna and –flora forcing the vine to be dependent on chemical fertilizers. Biodynamic and sustainable methods essentially seek to enhance the life of the soil or minimally not to interfere with the soil’s indigenous life.

At the Ravens’ at the Stanford Inn by the Sea we are concerned with terrior and sustainable agriculture. We grow using sustainable methods and are certified organic by the USDA. We support sustainable practice by purchasing organic and, if coffee or tea, products that are proven to be fairly traded.

Wine Spectator has bestowed an Award of Excellence to our list which contains 96 organic or sustainably produced wines. To balance the list, our wine buyer, Amy Mullally, has carefully selected and additional 35 wines including seven different cabernets by our friend, Mark Carter who created Carter Cellars.

Our main, focus, however are the excellent Mendocino County organic and sustainable wines including Jim Fetzer's and other members of his family: John who owns Saracina Vineyards, Patti Fetzer who produces Pattiana wines, and Dan who created Jeriko Vineyards. In addition, two other other notable wineries are the oldest organic winery in the United States, Lolonis of Redwood Valley and Yorkville Cellars in the Yorkville Highlands.

"Sustainable" and "green" are our new buzz-words. There are conferences, seminars, magazines, websites - lots and lots about green and sustainable. Probably much of it is hype and marketing. Anyone who talks and/or writes about sustainability and eats animal products - dairy, meat, etc. is just talking. There is no action. There is no true commitment to sustainability.

To be sustainable is more than driving a Prius or switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs. Neither is enough - they are something, like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with a couple of pebbles. Recent articles in our news magazines paint a bleak picture of our future. Scientists suggest that we may never get control of CO2 emissions. There’s one place to start – with our diet. Over 10,000,000,000 (ten billion) animals are slaughtered for food in the United States alone. The “production” of these animals is not only devastating to the animals but to land and water resources. According to the a United Nations report issued at the end of 2006, animal production accounts for more emissions than all the vehicles used in global transport. 9% of all CO2 is emitted in the production and slaughter of animals as is 37% of all human sourced methane; and methane has 23 times the global warming potential of CO2. Further, animal production accounts for 65% of nitrous oxide emissions which has a disastrous multiple of 296 times CO2’s global warming potential.

Switching to a non-animal-based diet will reduced total greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 20% and switching to a whole food, plant based diet will provide greater savings by reducing the energy inputs for the production of processed foods found in our grocery stores and many of our restaurants.

Its a start - and eliminating animal production for our food will free-up 33% of our arable land for human food production.

This morning we learned that Oprah began a 21 day vegan "cleanse" based on Kathy Freston's Quantum Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness. Oprah is not only eschewing animal products but gluten, alcohol and caffeine as well. You can follow her progress on her blog http://www.oprah.com/foodhome/food/cleanse/blog/blog_1.jhtml .

There are many of us at the Ravens' and the Stanford Inn who are vegan and who eat primarily whole foods, that is we avoid processed foods, including tofu, seitan (pure gluten), white flour, rice, etc. But what we do has no impact beyond our own health and outlook: Oprah has tremendous impact and we are wishing her a successful, pleasurable, energizing experience over the next three weeks and that this experience leads her into a vegan lifestyle.

This is truly good news!

In conversations I've had with people over the years about being vegan, there have been several where people attempt to belittle, or perhaps just reduce my Veganism to just "another religion" or a religious fanaticism like any other. I've thought about this a lot , and have noticed both similarities and dissimilarities with standard religions. I thought I'd run through some, and would love some feedback on the subject.

I am in no way a religious scholar. I was raised Jewish, and was bar-mitzvahed at age 13, but that's it. When I reached adult-hood, I rejected both Judaism and all organized religion in exchange for a direct relationship with God as I understand it to be. As I read more and more on Veganism and the treatment of animals raised for food (dairy and meat), I have found it completely hypocritical for most religions to expound the virtues of compassion, while condoning the torture and suffering of innocent creatures (God's creatures, nonetheless). I mention this only to make the point that since my rejection of any collective religion, I haven't found one even remotely worth joining on that point alone. Unlike religions, Veganism isn't a collective of people searching for meaning, or worth, or the knowledge of what happens to us after we die. Surely there are Vegan groups and organizations (none of which I am a member incidentally), but I believe them to be simply ways of a very small minority of people (last I read, Vegans made up about 1% of the U.S. population) to relate and communicate on something very important to each.

Also, unlike religion, there is no text, ancient or otherwise, that Vegans follow because we believe it to be the "truth." I came to be Vegan because I read many different books (some pro-Vegan, some nutrition, some environmental, some ethical) that lead me to making this decision for myself. I began being Vegan for purely nutritional reasons--I had chronic asthma and carried an inhaler with me. I immediately felt better and have not had asthma since, but it was my subsequent reading of other books besides nutrition-based ones that led me to further solidify my choice and realize the far-reaching effects it has.

There is no doubt that my passion for Veganism bears similarities to religious fanaticism. I admit that freely. But my knowing what is happening to animals as I write this is devastating to me. I make a conscious effort to not force Veganism down people's throats, and the reality is that 99% of my conversations come from questions asked of me when people find out I am Vegan. In other words, I do not, and have never, walked around trying to start conversations with people, but when they start, I am absolutely passionate about what I believe. Do I wish that everyone were Vegan? Absolutely, because the environmental, health, and ethical ramifications would be profound and absolute. I would also argue that daily compassionate decisions such as not brutalizing animals translate into humans treating each other better as well. But I do not want everyone to be Vegan because they will end up in the same place as I after they die, or because they can be a part of my collective, or because they will follow the same rules of behavior set forth in some unified text that a 'higher-up'--a minister, preacher, reverend--has told me is the 'way.'

I guess, in the end, it really makes no difference if Veganism is a religion or not, except that it being perceived as such might turn people away from it. Similarly to religious individuals, I do believe this to be a decision of utmost importance, and would love to engage everyone on this subject. Unlike religions, though, Veganism is supported by research and facts that come from individuals of many different beliefs, many different cultures, many different lands. One thing we share typically though, is that we are profoundly passionate about being Vegan. The earth, and all life on it, is too important for us not to be.

So, in the many discussions I get in regarding Veganism, I seem to be the one on the defensive....where I get my protein (I have been asked that 1 trillion times. literally.), where do i get my calcium (asked by a guy with two hyperactive kids whom he was trying to calm down by bribing them with pizza and ice cream--hmmm, I wonder why they were hyper in the first place.), what in the world do I eat (mostly sprouts, but sometimes i sprinkle a little sand on top) etc. etc....

How about this instead....you explain why most of the people in the United States are fat, unhealthy, suffering from super high rates of bad hips/broken bones (even though we consume tons of calcium through dairy products), hyperactive, ADD, suffering from Alzheimer's (linked to animal protein), type II diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome (my bowels get irritated just watching how fat our culture is getting), ulcerative colitis, cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease....

I'm a 39 year-old man who is in better shape than most people half my age. My cholesterol is 160. I am on no drugs (including Tylenol, any over the counter comfort drugs, and herbal medicines), and feel frickin' great.

As my dad would say: put that in your pipe and smoke it.

By the way, don't smoke. it's bad for you.

(And it is knowing this that guides our work at the Ravens' Restaurant.)

My wife had an exam the other day (I'm sure she's pleased for everyone to know), and I met her there as I happened to be in town. While I was waiting I noticed a bunch of pamphlets on the wall, and zeroed in on one entitled "A Good Start/Nutrition During Pregnancy." Being interested in and fairly knowledgable on the subject (my wife was vegan throughout her pregnancy, and our 4 year old daughter is and has been completely vegan since conception--with the exception of breast feeding, and I've done tons of research on all things vegan), I grabbed it and took a look. Here are a few gems, but it gets way better at the end of the story...

1. The most readily absorbed iron is found in beef, pork, lamb, veal, poultry, and fish. (forget about the plants that those animals consumed to get their iron).
2. Milk and dairy products are the best source of calcium in the American Diet. Vegetable sources of calcium are not as readily absorbed as calcium found in milk. If you can't drink mild, check with your healthcare provider or a registered dietitian. (the implication here is that if you can't consume dairy, you have a problem for which you need help...oh, forget about the plants that those animals consumed to get their iron)
3. It is well known that beef, pork, lamb, and veal provide ample amounts of protein for the American diet. Meats are also a good source of iron, zinc, and the B vitamins, and can enhance the absorption of iron in other foods. (forget about the plants--you get the picture.)

I could go on and on...the use of vegetables is pretty much to add fiber (ever realized that there is absolutely no fiber in animal products?), but the main nutrition is from animals...In addition to the above, there was an entire chart dedicated to the different meat cuts and their nutritional content.

SO....the conclusion of this experience is that I checked the copyright, and not only was it from 1992 (no new info since then, apparently), the copyright read:

This material was developed by the Education Department of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association as part of the coordinated effort with State Beef Councils and the Beef Board. Copyright 1988, revised 1992, National Cattlement's Beef Association

Seriously.