Rhythm Behavior has started the new year by becoming a member of The Nature Conservancy which protects Earth’s most important natural places. Wanna share your resolution? Find a message you like and tweet for nature!

An inspiring event from Portland’s AIGA —

Dovetail Bakery of Portland Oregon is a vegan bakery that makes delicious vegan pastries and deserts. All their stuff is amaizingly yammy, but my absolute favorite is their pecan squares. Delicious!

Go Max Go Foods, has unveiled their line of vegan chocolate bars which bear a striking resemblance in taste to their non-vegan counterparts (I’ll let you figure out which ones). Suffice it to says these are the best tasting vegan candybars we have ever had.

They’re not health food, nor are they your usual bland vegan treats. These are good. Really good. I’m not known for having a sweet-tooth, but I could put a serious dent in box of these bars in no time. The chocolate tastes like milk chocolate, not like rice or soy, or any other of the off-tasting milk chocolate alternatives I’ve ever tried. The vegan caramel in the bars is a triumph of food engineering, it’s not too soft, not too hard, with the right amount of sweet and salty.

These bars will find a place not only with vegans, but with people trying to avoid hydrogenated oils, cut down on their cholesterol or who are lactose intolerant, and simply want really frigg’n awesome dairy-free candybars. Seriously, I can’t say enough good things about these.

You can find them in Whole Foods, and a bunch of other co-ops and online vegan stores. Hopefully they’ll be able to start stocking them in Fred Meyer, and other places accross the country. Do yourself a favor and go buy some today — you’ll be amazed!

… this Saturday, if you want to show you care about energy conservation. Simply switch off your lights tomorrow, March 28, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., local time. This is Earth Hour, and Saturday is the third annual worldwide event.

The Parlour, located in North Portland’s St Johns, is a cruelty-free vegan-friendly hair salon (& tattoo studio upstairs) with incredible customer service, unique artwork on the walls, and cool music. These guys are awesome — the best hair salon experience I ever had!

101 Things Designers Can Do to Save The Earth is an awesome blog that inspires designers do good for the environment. This web site — and the workshop that inspired it — were created by the School of Visual Concepts, Seattle, in cooperation with AIGA Seattle, Aquent, and Olympus Press. Read articles to find out of the many ways you can contibute to saving our planet, or submit a comment and recommend something YOU think could help!

Some scientists believe that some diets (such as the standard American diet) are detrimental to health, and they believe that a vegan diet represents an improvement, in part because vegan diets are often high enough in fruit and vegetables to meet or exceed the recommended fruit and vegetable intakes. According to the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada, diets that avoid meat tend to have lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein, and higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, and phytochemicals.

People who avoid meat are reported to have lower body mass index. From this follows lower death rates from ischemic heart disease; lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.

The authors of The China Study argue that osteoporosis is linked to the consumption of animal protein because animal protein, unlike plant protein, increases the acidity of blood and tissues which is then neutralized by calcium pulled from the bones. However, just not eating meat isn’t enough; it is recommended that vegans eat three servings per day of a high calcium food, such as fortified soy milk, and take a calcium supplement as necessary. American Dietetic Association has said that “appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” Poorly planned vegan diets can be deficient in nutrients such as Vitamin B, Vitamin D, Calcium, Iodine, and Omega-3 fatty acids.

A 2006 study found that in people with type 2 diabetes a low-fat vegan diet reduced weight, BMI, cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol and did so to a greater extent than the diet prescribed by the American Diabetes Association.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine recommends what they call the “Four New Food Groups.” They suggest that vegans and vegetarians eat at least three servings of vegetables a day, including dark green, leafy vegetables such as broccoli, and dark yellow and orange such as carrots; five servings of whole grains (bread, rice, pasta); three of fruit; and two of legumes (beans, peas, lentils).

Check out the latest  green vehicle from Hungary. It’s the three seater Antro Solo and it gets a sweet 150mpg. Not only that, but it can run purely on solar power for short commutes of 10-15 miles. If it’s cloudy and you still absolutely refuse to pay $4+ for gas, it can also be pedal powered(!!!). All of this plus a decent top speed of 87mph. Personally I think this thing looks pretty cool, kinda reminds me of the motorcycles from Tron.

From peta.org: “Being vegan doesn’t mean you have to eat wheatgrass and alfalfa sprouts. Most grocery stores carry an array of great-tasting vegan options. Many products, including fantastic faux franks, veggie burgers, chicken-free chicken patties, flavored soy milks, nondairy ice creams, and other sensational soy-based snacks, are marketed to vegetarians and vegans. There’s also an abundance of chips, dips, cookies, candies, frozen pies, soups, and other mouth-watering items by mainstream food manufacturers that are also vegan.

Take a stroll through your local grocery store, check some ingredients, and you’ll see what we mean. You may even be surprised to find that a few of your favorite indulgences happen to be vegan! For example, did you know that Pepperidge Farm Turnovers, Murray Butter Cookies, and Cracker Jacks are all vegan? They may not all be “health foods,” but they are great for the taste buds! Just remember, one cannot live on Goldenberg Peanut Chews alone.

Happy munching!”

Summer is just around the corner and it’s time to prepare for those hot summer days. The U.S. Department of Energy has a few eco-tips on how to keep your home cool without turning on the air conditioner (and save up to $350 per year!).

· To divert up to a third of a summer hear, apply a reflective white coating to your roof (available at hardware stores).

· To reduce indoor temperature by 20 degrees, provide shade by planting native to your area plants (think of vines, bushes, and deciduous trees). Installing awnings, shutters, and exterior shades over your windows will also help.

· To keep even more heat away, insulate your attic space by installing organic batting or heat-reflecting foil with an R-value of at least 30.

Earth Day is coming on April 22; it’s time for all to get into earth-friendly activities again and get your recycling, composting, and energy-saving back on track. Also, if you want to shop for earth-friendly clothing, crafts, and sample organic local-grown food — visit the Green Festival in Seattle on April 12 and 13.

Cool phone. Made entirely of recycled materials. The casing is from upcycled aluminum cans, the plastics come from old drink bottles, and the rubber keys are made out of recycled tires. Even the electronics were developed using more environmentally friendly methods. All this and it looks cool!

There’s a short video you can watch of it. Or just read the press release from Nokia. Check out Greenpeace’s PDF guide to greener electronics while you’re at it.

Considering many people get a new cellphone on contract every two years, it’ really nice to see a company at least looking into developing greener phones. Maybe my next phone will be a Nokia.

Okay, so we were driving to downtown from St. Johns, and passed by “Pirates Tavern” yesterday, and were shocked to see that it had been replaced by a strip club. Weird. But weirder still, it’s apparently still owned by the same guy.

Here’s a snip from the Willamette Weekly:

«“Expect hairy, untamed, hippie radical bush,” my boyfriend joked when I told him I was covering the grand opening of the world’s first self-proclaimed vegan strip club in Portland.

Wrong.

Casa Diablo Gentlemen’s Club, stranded in outer industrial Northwest Portland on St. Helens Road, features attractive, well-shaven dancers, working for a man so dedicated to veganism he swears he’d rather give up sex than eat meat…»

Personally, I was hoping that Pirates Tavern would pull it together, and the business would improve… guess not. Check out some of the comments at the end of the article. Hilarious.

«Dear Mr. Diablo,

For your information, The Pirate’s Tavern most certainly did NOT go out of business because most vegans “live at or below the poverty line”. The Pirate’s Tavern went out of business because:

A) It was out in the middle of nowhere.

B) The food was both crap & massively overpriced.

C) The service sucked.

D) You, yourself walking around the restaurant, obviously intoxicated, being obnoxious & violating everyone else’s personal space.

Honestly, you’re going to need to find a decent gimmick to suck in the non-vegans to your “Gentlemen’s Club”, since all you seem to like to do with your target demographic is insult them & tell lies about them to cover your shortcomings, and then walk around & purport yourself to be vegan & make the rest of us look bad. Really bad.»