Today John and Colleen discussed the phenomenon that is Earth Hour. There are lots of cool events in Toronto for the evening including a free concert by Nelly Furtado to celebrate this initiative.

There was also discussion about some really good raw food recipes such as Rawesome Nut Dip from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan, Zucchini Hummus from Raw Food Make Easy, and a raw brazil nut cake from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. You'll have to listen to get the tips on these.

There were a bunch of new additions to our library, which some anonymous person left at TVA's front door. Thanks!

There was also a call all the way from Jerusalem about the Jewish Vegetarian Society. The Resource Centre crew often deals with a wide variety of questions; so if you feel like you've got an obscure question, feel free to contact us.

Today's question of the week: "What's your favourite vegetarian themed t-shirt?"

John's favourite is Colleen's Please Don't Eat Birds t-shirt. She recalls a funny story where she went into a health food store and the women at the cash looked at her shirt and asked: "Oh my God, do people eat birds?" Colleen replied: "Ah yaaa, chickens and turkeys!" In the podcast, Colleen points out that birds are a symbol of freedom on one hand and also the most tortured animals on Earth.

For t-shirts, Colleen likes Powered by Tofu and a few others. If Jason were here, he would probably pick OMG BSE, a t-shirt showing a license plate that refers to mad cow disease. For more photos of veggie t-shirts see Steve's Flickr set that was taken at the 2005 Annual Vegetarian Food Fair.

This week's show is a carbon-neutral 28 minutes.

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Today Jason and John ate some seriously phenomenal cookies from Vegan Sweeties. Jason and John really love their job when it requires them to sample and review some vegan mail-order cookies – especially when the cookies are so good that they make you swoon.  If you would like to send the podcast crew cookies to sample you're more than welcome to do so, but to be honest, you're going to have a tough time competing against Laurie's Vegan Sweeties.

There were a number of visitors today with lots of good questions:

What about vegan make-up? Visit the Wednesday night Resource Centre crew, or try CaringConsumer.com and DownBound.ca.

What to do when your ten-year-old is questioning their vegetarian diet? Tell them the reasons why you are vegetarian, so that they can make an informed choice. Also, if possible, get them involved in the process of shopping and cooking.

What about vegan/organic wines? Many beers, wines and other alcoholic beverages are filtered with animal ingredients such as isinglass (derived from fish) or bone char. Check out TasteBetter's vegan booze directory.

Delina wrote in to tell us the difference between what constitutes a fruit and a vegetable, thereby clarifying last week's podcast discussion. A fruit is the womb of the plant wherein lie the seeds. Tomatoes are technically fruits. See Wikipedia for more info.

This week's question of the week: What is your least favourite vegetarian product? Related: Veggie Challenge participants weigh in with their Best (and worst) veggie meals.

This week's podcast is a cookielicious 31 minutes.

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Today Jason, John and Colleen were in full effect and awesomer than their bad selves despite the fact that Colleen is feeling sick. She does however have a great recipe for making herself feel better. Jason's solution is the typical "rest and drink plenty of fluids" while John likes to rest and drink plenty of fluids and whine as much as possible.

However, if laughter can cure anything, Colleen will be feeling better in no time because "curved yellow fruit" had all three of the hosts cracking up.

There was some vegetarian product discussion which included bacon salt and truth belts. Did you know that people make cheese smell the way it does by wiping their feet on it?

Jason was the food provider for the day. Can any day really be that bad when you're eating vegan pizza by the slice?

The trios favourite dining option, that they've yet to try, has a new website that you can check out. Hot Yam! Hot Yam!! Hot Yam!!!

Lastly, the question of the week: What is the best part of being vegan? As usual, John made Colleen and Jason look as deep as a puddle in Phoenix.

This show's run time is a curved yellow 28 minutes.

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Today John and Colleen discussed sports like a couple of dudes pounding back brews (but not root beer for breakfast).  Specifically, Salim Stoudamire is vegan and claims that his diet has improved his endurance on the basketball court. Raja Bell also feels similarly as he too is a vegetarian. However, both John and Colleen feel that it's not necessarily wise to look up to celebrities solely on the basis of their dietary claims as the two discuss in the podcast.

In other news, the two hosts talked about their favourite non-Toronto vegetarian restaurants.  John's (unsurprisingly) was in New York City – actually he has two.  Colleen's was in Philly – no Vegan Philly Cheesesteak sandwich though.

Both John and Colleen are surprised by the large number of listeners who want to tune in to listen to the podcast. Phenomenal!

However, the TVP is not the only podcast on the planet. Let's Get Baked is in Halifax and you should really give them a listen. 

This week's show is a spectacular 25 minutes.

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Today, John and Colleen were here to give you what you want. And what you want is vegetarian restaurant reviews. Colleen recently ate at Camros Organic Eatery just south of Yonge and Bloor. She gives them two thumbs up: "Fantastically good! The food made me feel quite healthy and energized." She especially recommends the kale salad with beets. For those of you on the right side of Canada, Heartwood Bakery and Cafe in Halifax has a new set menu with some delicious options. 

BlogTO recently wrote about The Best Vegetarian Restaurants in Toronto – namely: Fresh, Cafe 668, Urban Herbivore, Fressen, Pulp Kitchen, Live, Jean's, and Cafe Vert (which is not entirely veg). Commenters chip in with Sadie's, Vegetarian Haven and Get Real. And one person says: "I've been on hunger strike until Bo De Duyen reopens. So far I've been fasting since October 1st." Colleen and John think Camros, Simon's Wok, and Buddha's should be on the list. [Note: Buddha's will be closed from Feb. 25 to Mar 20 for renovations, and there is still no sign of life at Bo De Duyen's new location].

In other restaurant news, don't order the garlic pan bread at Jack Astor's as they put chicken broth in their butter. Which makes as much sense as putting beef in your French fries – McDs we're looking at you.

This week's surprise question: What famous vegetarian would you date? Colleen apparently likes tortured artists, while John likes 'em smart. You'll have to listen to find out who we're talking about, but our least favourite to go on a date with would be Moby [Steve comes to his rescue with this Moby quote: "Could you look an animal in the eyes and say to it, 'My appetite is more important than your suffering'?"]  We decided, for no apparent reason, that Jason would have picked Carrie Underwood. Carrie was voted sexiest vegetarian celebrity by PETA in 2007.

This week's show is a-veg-stock-in-your-Earth-Balance 19 minutes. Testing. Testing.

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