Need some xgfx awesomeness in your life?

If you haven't had a chance to check out the shiny new Gluten Free Vegan site, xgfx, you need to click over there as quickly as your little fingers can take you! The site was created by Allyson of Manifest Vegan, Kittee of Cake Maker to the Stars and last but not least Jessy of happyveganface. They are a badass trio!

Isn't it just the sweetest little site you've ever seen?!  You can find recipes, tips on getting rid of gluten, a blog, tutorials and some pretty fantastic product reviews. The product reviews are written by a lovely lineup of vegan ladies, some gluten free, some not. The best part is, I get to be a part of it all! Wooooooot!!!!

Seriously! I wrote my first product review for the site and it posted today! I got to nom on some deeeeelicious Liz Lovely Gluten Free cookies and write a post on whether I loved them, liked them or just hated them! I'm super stoked to announce that I LOVED them! You can read that review here. 

I don't know why you are still here.. Get your butt over the xgfx.org and start drooling over all the yummy pictures! I am so excited to be a part of this and to learn more about gluten free nomming!

VegNews - Cheap and Deceitful.

It's been just about a month since my last post, I fail at blogging lately. I wish I was coming to you with some yummy noms but sadly I am here writing about "MeatGate 2011"

If you are a vegan and spend any time on the interwebs here in our little veganverse I am sure you have heard about how the always fantastic Quarry Girl brought to light the fact the VegNews has been using stock photos in their magazine. Stock photos, no big deal right? Well when they are photoshopping rib bones out of a hunk of meat to make you think you are looking at vegan spare ribs, that's a little fucked up...

VegNews supposedly prides themselves on being an ethical magazine and has only used these photos due to expenses. Bull shit. There has been talk that people who worked for VN voiced their concerns over using these non-vegan images and were promptly let go. Coincidence? There are tons and tons of vegan blogs and a lot of them have A-MA-ZING food photog skills and I am willing to bet that the majority of them would have been more than happy to test out a recipe and provide magazine worthy photos in exchange for a little cash or even just some credit or advertising. On iStockphoto a search for 'vegan' brings up 235 pages of images. Another site, canstockphoto, has over 9,000 images labeled 'vegan'. Sure, they aren't all great but there are vegan images out there. And soon thanks to the badass couple who run Food For Lovers we will have vegan stock photo where users upload their 100% vegan photos for the rest of the veganverse to use so long as they give the photographer credit. How friggen awesome is that?!

Not only was VegNews making us all think these were their own photos taken in-house but when they were called out on it they were deleting people's comments and brushing off the entire situation. Until they posted this laughable response. No apology, no remorse and no mention of if/how they are going to take steps to change how they use their photos. I have read HUNDREDS of responses all over the web on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, PPK and on VegNews and it seems like the majority of vegans are pissed and don't want anything to do with VN anymore. There are some though who sympathize with VN and are not upset, shocked, pissed or any other adjective I can use to describe how the vegan community is feeling and are choosing to stay loyal to the publication. To each their own but I am with the majority on this one.

How do you feel about MeatGate?