Marin VEG
December 2025


I love the song that says "Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me." Whether you celebrate, whatever you celebrate, I hope the year's end includes peace in your heart, on your plate, in your home and in the world.
 

Saturday December 6
Marin Hike with San Francisco Vegan Society
Explore Ring Mountain with the good people of the San Francisco Vegan Society at 10 AM on Saturday December 6. Find more details and RSVP at https://www.sfvs.org/events-details/132tba8vnxixwui2mlbgv6mcn0xdth-nghzn-68a2y-dbtyz


Miyoko Loses Bid to Buy Back the Company She Created
Miyoko tried in November to buy back the company she founded, but was not successful.  Here is an article from VegNews : https://vegnews.com/miyoko-schinner-loses-bid   And here is a report from Michele Simon's Breaking The Silence Substack column: https://breakthesilence.substack.com/p/rich-men-outbid-founder-to-get-richer


New Book
I have not yet read it, but hear very good things about a new book by John Sanbonmatsu that was published in July: The Omnivore’s Deception, What We Get Wrong About Meat, Animals and Ourselves.  Here is one rave review from Forbes that summarizes the book like this: A brilliantly argued dismantling of Michael Pollan and other supporters of the meat economy who lie to the public by claiming that we can have our meat and our morals, too.  https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2025/07/21/the-omnivores-deception-by-john-sanbonmatsu---review/
 

Sonoma County Veg Friendly Restaurants
Marin has Tony Tutto, and Sonoma has a plethora of vegetarian, vegan and vegan friendly restaurants. If you're traveling north, check out some of these.  The Best Sonoma County Restaurants for Delicious Vegan Meals - Sonoma Magazine


Winners of Marin Vegan Chef Challenge 
Find out which Marin restaurants and which dishes won the Marin Vegan Chef Challenge.  And try out these establishments to support their new vegan offerings.  https://patch.com/california/novato/award-winners-announced-marin-vegan-challenge


New Study Shows Power of Vegan Diet to Lessen Carbon Footprint
A new study comparing the Mediterranean diet to a vegan diet did not show significant nutritional differences, but did show tremendous differences in the carbon footprint of each group.  From the summary:  Mean daily environmental footprints decreased progressively from omnivorous to vegan diets: −46% CO₂, −6.6% deprived water and −33% land use among others.  Here is a link to the study results:  https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2025.1681512/full There were many articles about this study. Here is one: https://time.com/7333106/nutritious-vegan-diet-climate-impact/



Vegan Staples Then and Now
I found this article interesting. It's a short cultural history of vegan staples. https://vegoutmag.com/lifestyle/z-8-vegan-grocery-items-that-now-signal-wealth-but-were-working-class-staples-in-the-60s/



As always, I end the December newsletter with the 1989 quotation from C. David Coats' book Old MacDonald's Factory Farm.  Unfortunately,  C. David Coats died in April this year after a long struggle with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. He was 82.

“Isn`t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife - birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes, and dingoes - by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out a card praying for 'Peace on Earth.”
― C. David Coats




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