Matt Ruscigno's session at Vida Vegan Con

I was thrilled to be able to attend my second Vida Vegan Con,  one of the best planned conferences I have ever been to and one filled with vegan bloggers from all over the world. This was the third (and the final) Vida Vegan Con and was held in Austin, Texas.

I will undoubtedly write more about Vida Vegan Con and wanted to start with one of the sessions I attended. Matt Ruscigno has a Master's in Public Health and is a Registered Dietitian. He is a rock star in my book. We need to know how to get and stay healthy while loving veganism, and people like Matt make that possible.

His session was about looking at the science of being vegan. It was fascinating and I could have listened for hours. I took notes, and would like to share a few nuggets of wisdom that I learned. What I am sharing here is what I got out of his talk. I want to make that clear as just because this is what I got from the talk doesn't mean I got it right!

Matt let us know that there is very little research that compares vegan and omnivore athletes. I have learned while trying to get healthier that research in vegan nutrition is key.

One of the several things he mentioned that really struck me, and mentioned a couple of times, is the phrase "what we do most often matters most". Love this. For me it means it I eat healthy most of the time, forages into vegan junk food and desserts aren't that bad. Yes, at times my life has been the opposite when eating healthy was not common! I have thought about this a lot and really want to focus on doing more around fitness and nutrition so that when I decide not to work out or decide to grab two cartons of ice cream, it's not such a bad thing.

Remember that I am not a dietitian. I do try to pay attention to what people like Matt have to say.

Matt also talked about that there is no one right way to discuss nutrition and science. That sure was  a relief!

He also mentioned that adding one food to your diet is not going to drastically change your health. I sure needed to hear that. What I am trying to do is to make eating lots of fruits and vegetables part of my norm.

One of the most important things he said was to not exaggerate in regards to veganism and nutrition. Be realistic and be careful with using nutrition as the gateway to veganism.

What Matt gets when at the market?  Leafy greens. Whole grains. Berries. Red cabbage. Quinoa. Lentils. Kale.

Check out more about Matt here.

Butterfinger milkshake

Courtesy of Carmella from The Food Duo.

 
You read the title correct. This is a quick note to you about the Butterfinger milkshake I had last night at Sweet Ritual in Austin.

I'm in Austin for Vida Vegan Con and will definitely write about my adventures here at a later time. But I just had to let you know that last night I had one of the most delicious desserts ever, Sweet Ritual's  Butterfinger milkshake.

Oh my.

If you ever have the chance, go to Sweet Ritual and order this shake.

They have a lot of other options and their staff is incredibly friendly.

For more information about Sweet Ritual, click here.

Did I say their entire line of ice cream is vegan?!?!

Thanks for reading!

Time in Austin. Texas.

I am in Austin, Texas for the third Vida Vegan Con vegan bloggers conference! Yes, a gay vegan in Texas! And by Friday there will be many of us! A whole group of gay vegans. I must come up with a term for that!

The road trip here was filled with excitement: speeding ticket in New Mexico, tornado warnings around Abilene and the loudest, longest thunder storm I have experienced about two hours north of Austin.

I am super excited to be at another Vida Vegan Con. Last time, two years ago, I learned so much about blogging and becoming a better blogger, plus I met so many people who are making the world  a better place for all living beings.

I will be taking photos and sharing experiences throughout the next five days mainly on Instagram and Twitter where I am @thegayvgeans on both.

So far the humidity is already hitting me hard!

If you have a favorite in Austin please let me know.

More to come.

Thanks for reading!

Vida Vegan Con 2013 Part II

This is Part II of a two-part post about sessions I attended at Vida Vegan Con.

Please remember that these are notes I took. My intent here is to give you a feel of what I learned n the sessions.


Restaurant reviews by Grant Butler:

NOTE: I loved this session and hope to write many more restaurant reviews than I have before Vida Vegan Con.

Writes reviews for The Oregonian and he's a vegan. It is really important for voices to be out there. Because there are a lot of folks talking about benefits of vegan diet while not being vegans themselves. We are better to tell the story.

Great vegan food is about compassion and joy. Don't believe that your perspective is the only perspective out there.

There is no serious criticism coming out from the mainstream world around vegan food. We can turn the conversation around. Champion the good food that's out there. Be willing to call bad food out. Bad vegan food is bad for veganism (Jason Das).

If you don't call out bad food, things won't change and non-vegans would check it out and wonder why they would want to eat vegan food.

Build authority in your restaurant writing:

Never lose sight that you are there for your readers, not the restaurants.
Develop own clear philosophy that you convey in your reviews. Value, date night, whatever your perspective is convey it.
Telling it like it is.
Ethics. Dine as honestly as possible. Don't let them know you're there. Be anonymous.
Avoid opening night parties, avoid exposing yourself.
Try not to accept comps.
Order dishes that you wouldn't order otherwise. Go with folks so you can share. Get full sense of what a place does.
Inform and engage. When folks read reviews, write like you're having a conversation. Encourage comments. Encourage a conversation, a way to improve dialogue around food.
Agonize over every word. Make sure all foods are spelled correctly, times are correct of open-close, etc.
Weight of your words should weigh heavy on you.
If place has really distinctive point of view rather than a mish mash of everything. A place doing a particular thing and doing it well. Using great ingredients. The pretentious restaurant that tells you where everything comes from. Value is very important.
Best restaurants know their regulars.
Pay attention to clean toilets/bathroom. What is the kitchen like. Place takes care that everything is spic and span throughout.
Great restaurants know what to do when disaster strikes.
Best places make it right: sorry, send something to you...
Updated websites.
Bad experience? Go back over an over as you want to be as fair as you can and write something positive as a lot of these are small, family businesses.
Vegan veto power. A party has a 6 top that leaves because nothing good for the vegan.
It boils down to really good vegan food.
Serious power in omission. People will wonder why you don't write about certain places.


Tech for Effective Web Presence: Jason Das

NOTE: I admit I really needed this session and wish it had been longer. The notes might not make sense but still wanted to share them.

Javascript
H1 element. Bigger header.
Source code? Google for list of elements and what they mean.
Separation of form and content.
Style sheet is different. It covers color, size, etc.
Your content gets out of the house. - Phones, readability viewers, reblogs

SEO! You want to make sure google understands what your site is about and make sure that your site is more popular than others with same type of site, beating competition.
Act like a newspaper. Headline says here's what happened, then whole story in first sentence.
Titles are super important, say what post is about. Reading the title, you should know what the post is about. Imagine someone only seeing your title.
Design and build for human usability.
Google's own advice:
Accurately describe pages content.
Create unique title tags for each page.
Use brief but descriptive titles.
Use short title.
What do you want to be found for?
Product review or restaurant review? Use name in title. What are THEY looking for?
Landing page, page they land onto when getting to your site.
Self hosting is for nerds or chumps. Use hosted services.

Thanks for reading. I hope some of this was helpful to you!

Vida Vegan Con sessions Part I

I have written a couple of posts about my trip to Vida Vegan Con 2013 and wanted to share about a couple of more things. This post is Part I of II around some of the amazing sessions I attended. As a new blogger, I mainly spent time in sessions around blogging, writing, technical information and vegan nutrition. One of the amazing things about Vida Vegan Con 2013 was the huge variety of sessions.

Here are some notes from a couple of the sessions I attended.Please remember that these are just notes based on what I was listening to. My goal here is to give you a little look into attending a session. For more information on the folks giving the session, I included their website.

If the sentence is in quotes it's something I heard at the session from a fellow attendee.

First was Blog writing as writing by Gena Hamshaw. Gena's blog is choosingraw.com . She also currently has notes on her session at her blog.

Ideas from Gena about blog writing:

Common blunders of writing. First thing that an editor looks for is narrative scaffolding. Is there some type of architecture holding this together. A start, middle and end.

We have an obligation to make everything polished and professional.

Consult style guide.

Raise the bar.

Think about what you really want to say and what is in your heart.

About page: here is who I am. Mission statement.

Self edit. Edit yourself.Refining ideas on own. Better to sit on a post for a couple of days, edit it, then press publish.

Make post about the issue not you. Your point of view but not all about you.

Consistency matters more than frequency.

The next session I went to was Vegan Nutrition by Ginny Messina. Her website is http://www.theveganrd.com/ Here are some ideas she presented.

Know your facts.

Consider whole body of data, assign different weights to different studies.

What people think we eat: tofu, grass and granola

Demonizing food is fear based nutrition: never, ever eat this food

Science based nutrition : emphasizes foods we should have in our diet. Don't be afraid to have treats.

Supplements: calcium and B12. Collards highest in calcium.

Ethics beyond the plate: others issues beyond food: social justice, gender politics, etc

Making the most compassionate choices as possible.

Putting compassion into practice: Raising money for different causes. Being a good example. Making veganism look accessible and fun. Forgiving ourselves, forgiving others, compassionate to others.

Privilege! I can be vegan but not everyone can. We need to make veganism accessible to everyone.

Why do folks who care about social justice not care about animals? Be patient with people.

"I don't feel a lot of community with many who call themselves vegan."

"My biggest problem is people presenting a problem with no solution."

More to come. Thanks for reading!

Road trip to Portland and Vida Vegan Con 2013

It had been 10 months since I purchased my registration for the 2013 Vida Vegan Con.

I decided (no surprise) that I would drive to Portland. Nineteen hours, no sweat. I was totally thrilled when Ryan Patey said he would fly into Denver and head out there with me! Ryan is the editor of T.O.F.U. Magazine and has become a great friend.

Car was packed and we set out for the road. Our goal was to try to make it to Boise, Idaho and spend the night there. A bigger goal was to make it to Boise by 7pm so we could dine at the fabulous Shangri La restaurant, a mostly vegan establishment (if not totally vegan, I honestly can't remember!).

We made it! It was so worth getting into Boise and being able to eat at Shangri La. Only about 10 minutes off of I-84, we were immediately welcomed by staff. Live music also welcomed us.  Shangri La is a wonderful vegan haven in Boise. I was surprised!

The menu had a lot of raw options and several soups. I was hoping to get a hot tofu dish, and I certainly wasn't disappointed after enjoying the mock tuna and crackers plate with a bowl of miso soup. Ryan loved hi mock tuna sandwich. Shangri La is the perfect place to be able to spend a little time after  along road trip. I highly recommend it. Oh, and a shout out to Tristan for telling me about it!

From Boise it's about a half an hour to the Oregon state line. My first time in Oregon and now I am down to six states that I haven't been to (Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Maine, Rhode Island and New Hampshire).

The main thing that you just have to know is that the drive along the Columbia River Gorge is one of the most beautiful drives I have ever taken in the U.S. Holy Cow! I loved every mile of it. Even if you are in Portland but flew there, somehow make a trip out to this amazing drive.

 We pulled into Portland mid-afternoon on the day before Vida Vegan Con began, plenty of time to check into our hotels and I had a chance to clean up before catching a cab to the unofficial welcome reception. I will go more into food and sessions in another post but I just HAVE to tell you about the White Owl Social Club bar and restaurant in Portland. All I have to say is fried mac n cheese sandwiches! Oh my! Simply mind blowing. And of course I had to try the loaded potatoes. To go with all of this was my new favorite drink, Cock & Bull Ginger Beer. Mmmmm! For non-drinkers it's not always easy finding something different and tasty out there, and Cock & Ball was it for me!

Believe it or not, the food was not the highlight of the party. I started to meet many of the hundreds of other vegan bloggers that had come to Vida Vegan Con and I immediately knew that there were going to be many new friendships! Indeed there are!

Remember, this was just my first night in Portland. Vida Vegan Con hadn't even started. More on the conference in the next post.

Thanks for reading!

Reinvigorated hope

Many times I have written about not giving up, about keeping strong in the fight to be a voice for the voiceless and in making the world a better place for all living beings.

After a few days with vegan bloggers from around the world at Vida Vegan Con 2013 in Portland, Oregon, my hope is higher than ever!

If you read any vegan blog, most likely the blogger was at Vida Vegan Con, or really wanted to be here.

And this amazing group of bloggers who are changing the world in so many ways inspired me and filled my heart and head with hope.

I am sure that the blogosphere will be filled with stories of Portland, mind-blowing vegan food (and lots of it) food,  as well as notes from sessions that covered the entire universe of what bloggers need to know to become better bloggers.

What I want to make sure you know about is that the conference rooms were filled with sweet, compassionate people. People who take time out of their lives everyday to blog about vegan food, animal rights, nutrition, recipes, human rights and so much more.

I met people from all walks of life, from small towns and big cities. People who have been vegan for a decade plus and people who have been vegan for three weeks.

The common theme was compassion and kindness.

One of my biggest surprises was how many people here actually know our blog and even asked me "Didn't you two just celebrate an anniversary?"!  I was thrilled to know that other bloggers read our blog!

So be warned people who think vegan food sucks. Be warned all of those who make a living off of the suffering of animals. Be warned those who don't want the world to know that a better world is one filled with amazing vegan food and a thought process that does not include the torture and misery of any living being. These hundreds of bloggers are going to leave here and continue to change the world. They will never stop writing about compassion and how even the simplest of actions make significant change.

To all of those who attended Vida Vegan Con 2013, thank you for the love and kindness you expressed to meet over the past few days. You changed me. You reinvigorated my hope that we indeed are making the world a better place for all living beings.

My first bloggers conference!

Next month will be the two year anniversary of The Gay Vegans blog. I feel like a new blogger, and sometimes I feel like I"m not even a blogger yet! I have had a blast with The Gay Vegans and continually try to write well thought out, interesting and hopefully engaging posts.

So I am super excited to be going to my first ever bloggers conference, and it will be an all vegan conference! Holy cow! Vida Vegan Con is May 24 - 26 in Portland, Oregon and there will be hundreds of vegan bloggers from around the world. There will be incredible vegan food, lots of sessions where I can learn all sorts of things, and for me, just being able to connect with people whose blogs I love and who I want to learn from.

First things first. I have to get there.

ROAD TRIP!

I have never been to Oregon, or much of Idaho, so I am ecstatic to be able to cover new terrain. My friend and fellow blogger Ryan is flying in to Denver to join me for this trip that will take us from Denver to Portland via Boise, Idaho. So exciting.

I know we have plenty of blog readers in Idaho, so please let me know if there is a place we simply must eat at while driving through. We will spend the night in Boise so most likely will have dinner there. If we are making good time heading west on I 80 we might even take a quick meal break in Salt Lake City which would totally rock it!

I love road trips. I write about road trips.

This road trip will end in Portland, where I will immerse myself into an intense, vegan blogger's dream. So much to do, so much to learn, so many people I want to meet. I feel like a gay teenager going to his first Black Sabbath concert! (that was me by the way, back in 1982!)

Fortunately there are several folks attending Vida Vegan Con who are from Portland and they have been keeping all of informed as to the multitude of vegan experiences possible in Portland. It seems like there will not be enough time in the day! 

And on Saturday night, the Galarama! A huge party to raise money for Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest!

Whew!

My return trip will be solo so I am bringing camping gear to hit a place I haven't camped before, which won't be difficult to find.

Thanks so much for reading. I will keep you updated for sure.

The big world of blogging

I'm enjoying a relaxing morning at home. It is snowing outside, Mike is at his boot camp, and the furries are stretched out all over me.

I have not been able to put as much time into my blog since starting my new job back in February. Crazy busy is an understatement. And this morning, as I read notes from our readers and other bloggers I feel so fortunate to be part of this community.

I am also preparing to go to my first blogger's conference. Back in 2011 I went to a blogger's reception as part of Creating Change, an annual conference presented by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and I was thrilled to chat with national bloggers from all over the place. At that time I was just starting my fundraising blog and really had no clue about blogging. The Gay Vegans blog wouldn't come around for another few months.

By the way, my profession is fundraising. I use my fundraising blog, Adventures in Fundraising, to support other fundraisers and to show folks in activist communities how fun fundraising can be.

Now, The Gay Vegans blog will be two years old in June. Just before that I will be attending this blogger's conference, Vida Vegan Con, in Portland, Oregon. I am beyond super stoked, if you can imagine what that looks like! There will be a ton of other vegan bloggers, from all over the world. There will be sessions on just about every topic imaginable, and most of all there will be other bloggers who I can learn from and who currently are or in their past have been right where I am in wanting to learn more, make my blog (especially the visual part of it) better and see what their ups and downs are in their world of blogging.

It's going to be a blast.

I am also looking forward to going to other blogger conferences, ones that will include different topics and different focuses. I know there are a ton of bloggers out there who blog about the same things I do, like compassion, equality, marriage, activism and politics, and meeting up with those folks with be just as much fun.

What are your favorite blogs? I would love to know.

If you are going to be at Vida Vegan Con, let me know. I will look forward to meeting you. And if you live in the Portland, OR area, I will be there for five days during the conference.

Thanks to all of you who read our blog, who take action when we ask for help, and who each day work towards making this world a better place for all living beings.

A vegan blogger's conference?

Oh yeah!

The first time I read about Vida Vegan Con was just before I decided to create The Gay Vegans.  As a new blogger I am always looking at opportunities for meeting other bloggers and learning about blogging. I went to the blogger's reception at Creating Change last year and walked out with so many ideas I had to run to my hotel room to write them all down.

I don't know the people who created Vida Vegan Con and I don't know why they created this conference. Yet I think it's a spectacular idea!

Yep. I'm going! On July 1st they sold some early-bird tickets and I was lucky to get one. Now I have many months to be excited about meeting bloggers I have only communicated with online face to face.

As a new blogger I have found a ton of support out there. So many people ready to give an idea, suggest a change, talk about their experiences. It's a wonderful world. I remember reading about how amazing Vida Vegan Con 2011 was, it just wasn't my time to go.

2013 is the year.

And you guessed it: I'll be road-tripping! Denver to Portland! So much time to plan. And workout. With all of the incredible food at the conference, in Portland, and in Salt Lake City (one of my for sure stops during the road trip, I will be eating A LOT! Time to prepare for that now!

I'm not sure how many registrations will be available for Vida Vegan Con 2013. I highly recommend going. Or sponsoring. Imagine getting your vegan product, idea, or business in front of hundreds of vegan bloggers! Holy Cow! I'm sure they have some sponsorship space available and I'm also pretty sure they sell vendor space. Maybe I'll find my next favorite vegan food there!

I will keep you posted as I make my plans.

Thank you for reading! If you are going to Vida Vegan Con or have attended another blogger conference I should know about, please let me know: vegandude@msn.com

For more information on Vida Vegan Con: http://vidavegancon.com/ or click the link on our blog!