Hasta La Gadget!

Packaged convenience foods can be a lifesaver on busy days. But when you look closely at their nutrition labels, many ingredients have long chemical names that seem almost designed to prevent us from understanding what we’re eating. Even more unfortunate, a number of these ingredients aren’t suitable for vegans.

You’ll find some of these animal-derived ingredients appearing in foods you’d have no reason to think weren’t vegan. To avoid unpleasant surprises, familiarize yourself with these five most common ones.

1. Gelatin

Gelatin is an animal protein that serves as a thickening agent. It’s typically made from pigskins, cattle bones and cattle hides and you’ll find it in sweets like gummy bears, Jell-O and traditional marshmallows. (Vegan alternatives often contain gelatin derived from seaweed.)

2. Whey protein isolate

Whey protein isolate is a food ingredient processed from whey, a by-product of the yogurt or cheese-making process. While you may notice it in gigantic containers at vitamin stores, it’s also in the ingredients list of cookies, granola bars, nutrition shakes and vitamins. (Note: Soy protein isolate is vegan.)

3. Casein

Casein is a milk derivative that’s a key ingredient in certain non-dairy cheeses and other processed foods. There’s also a variation of it called calcium caseinate in some frozen veggie burgers.

4. Carmine

Carmine is an insect-derived red food coloring that comes from cochineal bugs. The dye, used in both food and cosmetics, is made from grinding up the bugs. It’s commonly found in candies and maraschino cherries, as well as beverages. Note, not all food products that contain carmine are labeled as such. It’s also known as Natural Red 4 or “added color.”

5. Shellac/confectioner’s glaze

Shellac, also known as confectioner’s glaze, is an insect-derived excretion used to make surfaces shiny in both candy such as Junior Mints as well as pharmaceutical products.

It can be surprising when you realize just how pervasive these ingredients are. But try not to get overwhelmed. Simply confirm that products that appear vegan actually are by checking nutrition labels for ingredients like these. Over time, you’ll be so familiar with them that you’ll have no problem navigating packaged foods, and discovering your favorite vegan-friendly brands.

Written by Chip Colwell

Today, the King of England will be deposited back into the earth. The public ceremony will be respectful and uncontroversial. Archaeologists will not write angry editorials, sign petitions or organize protests about Richard III, who died 530 years ago.

Richard III’s body was a treasure house for science and history. Discovered in 2012 under a Leicester parking lot, the skeleton of the last English monarch to die in battle quickly became the subject of intense public scrutiny. The archaeological study of the remains provided vital historical answers to the king’s controversial life and death. Just several bones and teeth offered science a wealth of data about the king’s origins, movements, lifestyle and diet. Yet, Richard III’s fate was not to be preserved in a museum but returned to a grave.

The silence of scientists on Richard III’s reburial is deafening. It stands in stark contrast to how so many regard the reburial of Native American human remains in museums. Around the world archaeologists have resisted the return of skeletons for decades — arguing that they are needed for science. Even nearly 25 years after the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act became federal law, only 27% of the Native skeletons in U.S. museums have been offered for return. More than 100,000 skeletons continue to sit on shelves. In Europe, only in the last few years have the first sets of Native American remains come home.

Then again, the silence is not especially surprising. The double standard for White and Indian bodies has a long and established tradition.

In 1923, a Chicago journalist named Edward Page Gaston grabbed international headlines in a search for the body of the legendary “Indian-Princess” Pocahontas who died in England. In a kind of archaeological dragnet Gaston dug up 100 dead reposing in a cemetery. Britons didn’t mind the search for the Indian royalty, but the disturbance of their own bloodlines was too much. Authorities stopped the excavation and reburied the dead.

In 1971, a cemetery was discovered during an Iowa road project. Archaeologists arrived. They excavated 27 skeletons dating to the 1800s. Based on the grave goods, 26 people were deemed white. They were placed in new caskets and swiftly reburied in a local cemetery. The last body, a young woman, was believed to be Native American. She was boxed up and taken to the Iowa state archaeologist for study.

These attitudes explain why museums across the U.S. and around the world are still filled with the remains of American Indians.

By the late 1980s, most archaeologists conceded that Native Americans should be able to rebury blood relatives. The parallel here with Richard III jumps out: His family’s living relatives donated their DNA for identification and, although some disputed the location of his final resting place, helped direct the king’s reburial.

And yet, to reduce the argument to biology only extends the injustice against Native Americans. Recent genetic studies do prove that some Native peoples’ can trace their ancestry back thousands of years to people buried in their own backyard. But, the belief that a responsibility for an ancestor comes from biological connection is distinct to Western thought and law. Many Native Americans feel their ancestry is shaped as much by place (anyone who lived in their homeland), interconnectedness (all Native Americans came into being together), and spirituality (the dead, if disturbed, can harm the living). Western cultural norms should not exclusively dictate how Native Americans are allowed to be stewards of their own past.

I am heartened that the descendants of King Richard III were able to rebury their ancestor. Perhaps those in England and beyond might now offer the Indian dead the same respect. As the Leicester city mayor said, speaking of the king, “It’s now our opportunity to put it right and to make sure this time that it’s done with dignity and honour.”

Why should Native Americans be treated any different?

Dr. Chip Colwell is curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and the author of the forthcoming Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Treasures.

I spend a lot of time writing about how much more producers and non-profits could be doing to encourage a new theater audience. That begins at the youngest of ages. As arts education continues to get cut across the country, someone needs to pick up the slack. There need to be more affordable shows that parents can take children to see. So I am happy that Atlantic for Kids exists.

Of course, the Atlantic Theater Company is best known for doing adult, often dark, fare. But the theater company is more than that. It also has an acting school, including after-school programs, a summer camp for kids and teens and a partnership with NYU. And Atlantic for Kids presents two shows for kids per year. The shows, which cost only $15 or $20 for non-members ($7 for members), are performed on the set of the current Atlantic for adults show. Right now, Atlantic for Kids is presenting a musical about summer camp co-written by singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb. Yup. Could anything sound better?

Recommended for ages 7-11, Camp Kappawanna, inspired by Loeb’s own nostalgic summer camp memories, portrays the fear and excitement of leaving home for the first time. The music and lyrics were written by Loeb (who also has a “Camp Lisa” album), Michelle Lewis, Dan Petty and the book was written by Cusi Cram and Peter Hirsch.

Director Alison Beatty, who is the Artistic Director of the Atlantic Acting School and oversees the Atlantic for Kids productions, said Camp Kappawanna came to them, and it is one of the first shows they’ve had a chance to develop with the creative team.

“Our mission is very tied into the Atlantic mission,” Beatty said. “The story is really primary to us. What are the messages of the piece? Will kids connect to that message? We’re finding stories that are smart, that don’t talk down to kids.”

Beatty said Camp Kappawanna came to the Atlantic through a series of connections. The writing team had changed throughout the years and “it came in a not quite completed stage.” The company did a workshop of the show before the full production currently onstage.

“I thought the theater was a good place for the show, as we associate The Atlantic Theater with doing great work, and we thought they’d do a non-schlocky version of our musical and also bring a quality team of serious actors and theater folks into the project,” Loeb stated via email. “The music and story of the show are very real and we thought they’d be able to bring a truthful, real-ness to the characters that the audience could easily connect to.”

Running now through April 12, Camp Kappawanna has public performances Saturdays and Sundays at 10:30am and also a performance April 8 and April 10 at the same time. Then, during the week, it does performances for school groups. The Atlantic provides the schools with a study guide, cast info, a description of the show and a teaching artist who comes in to work with the kids. Camp Kappawanna is performed 3-4 times during the week for these schools, which are from the city and beyond. After the show, there is a talkback between the school groups and the cast. “It is a very visceral experience for [the children],” Atlantic Director of Education Heather Baird explained. “Completely different than a movie.”

Beatty said that watching the school groups see the shows is very rewarding; they tend to be more engaged because of their background in the material, and also because they are away from their parents. The kids themselves learn something about putting on a production without much in the way of sets and costumes. After all, the Atlantic for Kids shows are required to use the set of whatever show is at Atlantic’s Linda Gross Theater. Beatty explained the entire production is set up onstage by a crew of actors 30 minutes before each performance. (As an example of the interrelation between the Atlantic for Kids show and the Atlantic mainstage show — Camp Kappawanna might extend, but only if Posterity, the current mainstage production, does.) Therefore the productions might seem like something schools themselves could do easily, encouraging them to produce their own works.

I love children’s theater. I went as a child. I think people should bring their own children. I understand the economics of it are often prohibitive, but a program like Atlantic for Kids does so much to help get children into the theater. It is at young ages that people learn to love the theater. They learn to be creative. They learn that the performing arts are a valid, joyous endeavor.

To me, nothing seems better than a Lisa Loeb camp musical, so I encourage you to go so see Camp Kappawanna. But if you can’t get there, maybe go to the Atlantic for Kids offering in the fall. Or maybe, if you have children, talk to your child’s school about reaching out to the Atlantic. Or take a child to a different show in New York City. Or if you are outside of New York, encourage your theater companies to put on more shows for children. The more young people get into the theater, the more likely it is that they will support it as they get older.

Over the past few months, I have had the opportunity to knock on doors throughout Chicago for our mayoral and aldermanic candidates. What stood out in almost every conversation I had was the length and breadth of disappointment with the policies of Mayor Rahm Emanuel from voters.

The response I heard most frequently on the doors was, in one form or the other: “Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.”

Mostly, people felt they had been fooled by Rahm.

Along with our allies in United Working Families (UWF) and Grassroots Illinois Action (GIA), our over 4,000 volunteers knocked on over 150,000 doors and spoke to hundreds of thousands of voters — we mailed to over 100,000 households and called over 70,000 voters (1,2).

The dissatisfaction with the mayor and his policies and those of his rubber-stamp aldermen was fully revealed on Election Day when Jesus “Chuy” Garcia defied all the polls and ended with 34 percent of the vote, almost double what most polls were predicting (3). The election forced the mayor into a runoff — along with many aldermen previously assumed to be “safe” — a ringing denunciation of both the mayor and his policies and of his aldermanic allies.

From the epidemic of violence with over 10,000 shootings since Emanuel took office (4) and an intolerable murder rate, to the closing of 50 schools in African-American and Latino neighborhoods (5) and the closing of mental health clinics across the city (6), to his widespread privatization policies that eliminated thousands of living wage jobs and his TIF (tax increment financing) subsidies (7) to his well-heeled donors, the mayor is backing policies that inflict pain on working Chicagoans.

On pensions and bank swaps, the mayor continues to reward his banking buddies, the same bankers who drove public pensions into the ground during the financial crisis — among them newly-elected Governor, Bruce Rauner, who in his previous career as venture capitalist helped the mayor become a millionaire by engaging in similar financial trickery.

Despite his $15 million war chest, most of it coming from huge donations from the corporate elite, and his public pulpit by virtue of being mayor, the voters are seeing that the Emperor is quickly losing his clothes.

Chuy’s victory and forcing the mayor into a runoff was a surprise to the political pundits, however, it was not a surprise to those of us who marshaled a grassroots field organization for Chuy. Nor was it a surprise that Chuy Garcia outperformed almost every pollster’s prediction on Election Day. It was a result of people over big money!

Downtown Chicago is a gleaming “city on the hill,” yet the neighborhoods are littered with vacant school buildings and failing charter schools. Voters took note that the mayor, though taking credit for a $13 city minimum wage, at first offered only $9.25 per hour (8) until he was forced to raise it to $13 by the Raise Chicago community-labor coalition. Voters were also responding to the lack of affordable housing and Mayor’s pathetic low- and moderate-income housing policy, while at the same time continuing to finance his favorite downtown projects.

Despite sometimes being criticized for electing strong, iron-fisted “machine” mayors, there have been times when Chicago voters have turned their backs to the “machine” to support someone from the neighborhoods who is for the people. They did it by voting for Jane Byrne in 1979 and for Harold Washington in 1983 and 1987. The movement leading up to the February 24th primary that forced a runoff election for mayor is an indication that they are primed to do it again.

This time, voters have a clear choice: Vote for an abrasive, out-of-touch mayor propped up by many millions in commercials, financed by corporate support, or vote for a candidate who represents working Chicagoans in all of the city’s neighborhoods — Chuy Garcia.

Chuy Garcia is a political progressive, and a former community organizer and leader in the Harold Washington movement who knows how to build coalitions. He’s also a “neighborhood guy” who supports a real minimum wage of $15 an hour. He is for adequately resourced public schools and believes that the corporate elite, who enjoy so much of our city’s largesse, should pay their fair share to bring in badly needed revenue. And he believes that the mayor’s job is to take an active part in stopping the violence in our communities.

On April 7th, Chicagoans will have a clear choice: Vote for the status quo, favoring the corporations and the wealthy, or VOTE FOR CHANGE for Our Chicago.

It’s looking like on April 7th Chicagoans will not be fooled again.

_____

Sources:

1) SEIU Healthcare Illinois
2) In These Times, March 5, 12015, “How Chicago’s Grassroots Movement Defeated Rahm Emanuel at the Polls”
3) Chicago Tribune election center
4) Chicago Tribune
5) Chicago Sun Times, “Emanuel unveils second term education agenda, confronts school closings.”
6) Chicago Tribune, Aug. 19, 2014, “Council to hold hearings on closing of city mental health clinics.”
7) Chicago Reader, July 18, 2012, “The Shrinking slush fund.”
8) Chicago Reader, Dec. 4, 2014, “Rahm Emanuel’s evolving position on the minimum wage.”

On Friday night at 10 p.m. ET, the Pebble Time ended its month-long crowdfunding campaign with over $20 million in pledges, making it the most funded Kickstarter in Kickstarter history by roughly 7 million dollars.

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