It seems like it has been a long time since the last bright raspberry newsletter. I hope this issue of the Grapevine finds all of you ready for the spring, enjoying the new year in good health and happy, productive times. I just attended a Valentine's Day wedding (congratulations, Lauren & Kevin Bond), and am delighted to hear of the many (I know of at least 5!) TVS pregnancies.

TVS had a full fall with many exciting events. For six weeks, we had at least one event every single weekend. October started with the annual Culture and Animals Foundation's annual Compassionate Living Festival, always an insightful and thought-provoking event. In addition, we had three potlucks, including perhaps our best attended (40 people? 50??) one with a fantastic all-vegan spread at Fiona Cheek's house.

The hilight of the TVS fall events was Howard Lyman's visit to the area on the first of November; see Audrey Nickel's review of the talk. There were several potlucks in November and another great Thanksgiving dinner at the Regulator Cafe with over 100 in attendance - and we were featured that night on FOX-TV in a nice story! The holiday party at Tracey Neilson's beautiful log cabin was a small but fun event.

In January's joint potluck with the Triangle Macrobiotic Association, the panel of TVSers Constie Downs, Hugh Giblin, and Amy Halberstadt, and TMAers Betsey Kimrey and Sally Weil (also in TVS) focused an interesting discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the Triangle area as relates to supporting our dietary and ethical lifestyles. The consensus seemed to be that folks like this area because of the ease of availability of organic and whole foods, as well as the existence of groups such as TVS and TMA, but also realize that elements of society as a whole could offer more progressive features. New member April Smith reminded us of social justice issues.

We have a full plate of events coming up this spring, including monthly potlucks at TVSers' homes, potlucks co-sponsored with other Triangle organizations and featuring a discussion or talk, and monthly restaurant reviews. Please refer to the Calendar section and try to actively participate in as many of these events as you can. I hope to hear from many of you who can help with the Great American Meatout, so that we can put together some meaningful events.

With this issue, we explore a bit about some of the world's religions and their support of vegetarian and animal ethics. Thanks to Rondi Elliott who contributed her expertise from her 50-page thesis in the article Christianity and Vegetarianism. I am already planning a similar article about Jainism, as well as potlucks with area Jain and Buddhist organizations. If any of you would like to share Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, or other religious perspectives on vegetarianism, please contact me.

Speaking of ethics, I had the pleasure of speaking before the Ethical Culture Society (ECS) in December on Animal Rights. I am indebted to Tom Regan and Dietrich von Haugwitz for the theoretical background that I argued from. (For those of you with internet access, I have published my presentation slides at http://www.cs.unc.edu/~barman/presentations/dkb-ar.htm.) ECS is an interesting organization that presents and discusses issues of moral and ethical relevance. TVSer and ECSer Hugh Giblin has contributed an article here on ECS, and we have a joint potluck scheduled with ECS in August.

TVS enjoyed great press coverage this fall. Ella Magers of Chapel Hill High School was presented the Farm Animal Reform Movement's annual Bill Rosenberg Award for the outstanding animal rights activist under age 18. She was given this award at the Compassionate Living Festival and subsequently appeared in the November Animal People magazine. I was delighted to see her picture and a blurb in a recent Vegetarian Times issue!

TVS enjoyed great press coverage this fall. Ella Magers of Chapel Hill High School was presented the Farm Animal Reform Movement's annual Bill Rosenberg Award. To help promote Howard Lyman's visit, we got both Ella and Valerie Copeland on FOX-TV. The reporting was excellent and focused on vegetarian nutrition. As I mentioned, FOX-TV was also at our Thanksgiving dinner and had a reasonably long piece that evening, interviewing several TVS members and featuring particularly good shots of Constance Downs and Jeremy Schreifels savoring their meals. Finally, there were several articles mentioning us in the Raleigh News and Observer and Durham Herald-Sun about vegetarian nutrition and how a non-vegetarian family might deal with a daughter or son who chooses to give up flesh.

It was a pleasure hooking up with my college friend Linda Felch, as well as working with another friend and TVSer Chris Newlon, for the articles on CoHousing and Intentional Communities. In an increasingly selfish and sterile American scene, many of us yearn for a stronger sense of community and sharing. The communities Chris and Linda have written about seem to address many of the issues vegetarians tend to be drawn to, such as attention to diet, environmental balance, and compassionate sharing. Please avail yourselves of them and the many resources that they have provided, as well as the May 3rd potluck, for more information about alternative forms of living that we have here in the Triangle.

I was very upset recently when I found that "natural flavors" in a gravy product that otherwise looked vegetarian was in fact from dead animals. I subsequently found, by calling manufacturers, that a packaged potato dinner kit and even a soup (the ambiguous ingredient was simply "flavoring") that looked vegetarian were both non-vegetarian. Be warned that "natural flavors" or "flavorings" can be a source for hidden animal products.

Last winter when I was in Hawaii co-hosting a radio program on vegetarianism, listeners (and my co-hosts) were surprised when I mentioned that white sugar may be processed with animal bones. Some companies use the bones as a whitener (isn't it ironic that less processed - and better tasting! - turbinado sugar actually costs more?!). The Vegetarian Resource Group (P.O. Box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203, 410-366-VEGE, TheVRG@aol.com) is supposedly publishing an article on this very topic in their upcoming March/April Vegetarian Journal.

It would certainly make life a lot easier if we had a universal labelling scheme. Perhaps a stylized V for vegan, LV for lacto, and OLV for ovo-lacto? Maybe they could appear within a green leaf to give immediate feedback that the product was vegetarian, and vegans and lactos could look for the specific insignia. This would be a great boon for us in grocery stores as well as restaurants. Does anybody have any ideas of how we could petition, perhaps the USDA or FDA, that such a system be implemented? I believe that something like this exists in the United Kingdom.

Since the last issue, we have several personnel changes. Dave Crescenzo has done a snazzy job with his monthly restaurant reviews. I know many of you turn to his reviews as soon as you get your newsletters, and I am sad to tell you that he is no longer able to run the reviews. But we are very lucky to welcome April Smith to TVS and to be the new Restaurant Review Coordinator. April enjoys writing and eating out - and we look forward to publishing her reviews! Please contact her (500-443-3580) if you would like to participate in the monthly reviews.

Audrey Nickel has agreed to serve as Media Coordinator. She has already played this role in the past, most recently for the Howard Lyman event. I can think of nobody more perfectly suited for this important job, one which can only get more people involved with our events.

We are very fortunate to have Valerie Copeland as our Nutrition Consultant. Valerie is a registered dietitian and has made a career of providing sound nutritional planning. If you have specific questions on vegetarian nutrition, please contact her. She will also try to lead an effort to look into what area school lunches are providing for vegetarians; please let her know if you can help.

A very important job in distributing the newsletter is the Membership and Mailing List Coordinator. Gary Klaus has been doing this job but now that he is in Texas, we looked for somebody local. TVS owes a great deal to Jeremy Schreifels for stepping up to this task with his excellent database and internet skills. He has enhanced the mailing labels (please check yours and if your membership is soon to expire, please remember to renew!) and made many database improvements. We couldn't have distributed this newsletter without you, Jeremy (and Constie Downs too!)!

Thanks to the good old crew of Ceil Rubino, Serenity Dixon, Becky LeClair, and Joy Anandi. Ceil takes my newsletter content and beautifully transforms it by formatting it into the Grapevine. Though she recently moved to Pittsburgh, since we work through email and because of her dedication, we continue to work closely together. Serenity has been very effective in raising advertising revenue by contacting advertisers, collecting their camera-ready ads, and billing them. Becky promptly picks up the printed newsletter and, typically overnight, folds and collates them, preparing them for mailing. Constance Downs has helped Becky to get the newsletters to the post office for bulk mailing. Joy has her phone number listed for TVS inquiries, and she helps us tremendously by interfacing to the public. Finally, a big thank you to You! for supporting TVS by hosting an event, suggesting new ideas, sharing your energies, or participating in any way!

We always need more volunteers. Please contact me if you can help with fund-raising, registering TVS as a 501(c)3 IRS organization, or if you want to host an event such as a potluck. We have immediate needs to put together events for the Meatout and staffing tables at Earth Day. I think it would be fantastic if we had a presence at area festivals such as the Eno Festival; would any of you like to help organize?

As far as I know, I believe this is the largest newsletter TVS has ever put out. I hope that you find it educational and interesting. I look forward to seeing many of you at the events we have planned and talking with you about vegetarian issues. Have a great spring!