The last time we met up with Anne, she gave me a copy of her book “Dating Vegans – Recipes for Relationships” to review. She handed me the book and Mauro, standing beside me with question mark look on his face, exclaimed that I had no need for the book. Anne politely explained (even though Mauro was just joking) that it isn’t just about dating, but more a book for building relationships. It’s not the type of book I would pick out to read—I’m a sci-fi, fantasy, horror and graphic novel kind of gal—but I gave it a shot.

“Dating Vegans is for everyone in a relationship vegan-with-a-non-vegan or anyone who has a vegan friend. Anne Dinshah boldly tackles social issues with stories from real people, insights, and recipes.”

Dating Vegans is essentially a guide to relationships and food, with anecdotal tales, for non-vegans and vegans alike. Starting off with an introduction to the basics of what it means to be vegan, tips for dating vegan men and women, tips for novice cooks and the basics of vegan ingredients, it then moves on with recipes interspersed with stories of her flirtatious escapades with non-vegan men, relationship success stories, suggestions for sharing meals on holidays and special occasions, and more.

It is a light-hearted, quick and easy read. I read it in two sittings during a weekend. I enjoyed living vicariously through her experiences and reading about what she prepared for their shared meals, which incidentally made me grateful to have a partner who shares the same eating habits as me—not that I’m not grateful on any given day, I am. I also loved reading the success stories of couples with different or similar eating habits. The story about her parents is the best, maybe we’ll see a movie about it one day

About the Author

Anne Dinshah is a lifetime vegan and author of Healthy Hearty Helpings, a vegan cookbook for busy people who wish to eat well. She coauthored Maribeth Abrams’ cookbook The 4 Ingredient Vegan. Her career as a rowing coach takes her to a variety of locations throughout the United States where she embraces the challenges of everyday life with focus, persistence, and grace. Anne enjoys many forms of athletics from swimming to wrestling. She has been fortunate to become friends with many men and experience romantic dating adventures. With the help of non-vegan friends who appreciate her vegan cuisine, Anne is building her stone and timber-frame writer’s cabin in western New York state. She is committed to building bridges as a vegan in a culture that depends heavily on animal products.

Vegan Black Pepper Steaks

Before I begin my review, have you read my recent post “To Vegan Meat or Not Vegan Meat?”

In case you didn’t know, and I didn’t, VegeUSA has a line of food products called Vegetarian Plus, with over 20 items, 13 of them vegan. They were nice enough to send me a couple of coupons so we could try some of their vegan products. Unfortunately, only two of the vegan items, the Vegan Black Pepper Steaks and the Vegan Citrus Sparerib Cutlet, are available here in PA. Luckily, our local health food store had them both (in the freezer aisle).

We haven’t had meat in well over 20 years, so for all the recently turned vegetarians, vegans and veg curious, I couldn’t tell if the taste or texture are close. I don’t think I ever even had spareribs in my life. But I can tell you that they were good. Both items had a nice, hearty texture with a little bit of bite. If you’ve followed this blog long enough you might have noticed that a like hearty meals.

The Citrus Sparerib Cutlets are supposed to be imitation Pork in plum vinegar sauce. I honestly don’t think the packaging even needs that description (see note below). Just reading the word pork on the box is a bit of a turn-off, but we ignore it because there’s a huge “VEGAN” at the top of the box. These were super delicious. They were sweet, tangy and had a nice flavor of the spice mix used. We served it over soba noodle with sesame oil and veggies (not pictured). It was the perfect quick lunch. Soba noodles cook almost as quickly as the spareribs. When cooking them we cheated, for experimental purposes to see how they would turn out and because we were starving, by nuking them instead of cooking on the stove top. They turned out just fine.

Note: VegeUSA contacted us and informed us that the FDA requires that all vegan meat analogs must be label with the word “imitation” and what meat they are a version of. We’ll have to research why this is a requirement since it is plant-based. But there you have it. Next time one of our non-veg friends ask, we now have an answer as to why vegan analogs have animal product names.

The Black Pepper Steaks are supposed to be imitation beef in black pepper sauce. We nuked these as well, since the other turned out fine—sometimes nuking things make them soggy or rubbery. We didn’t test these on the stove top, but we know how seitan is supposed to be when it’s cooked in a pan and these were perfect. The black pepper sauce had a good kick to it. If you don’t like spicy food, steer clear of this one, it has a good amount of heat to it. We had it with some rice and veggies (not pictured). It too made for a great meal.

The only thing Mauro and I didn’t like is the listed serving size. The Nutrition Facts states there are 4 servings per carton, which clearly isn’t realistic unless you’re feeding 4 small children (NOTE TO MANUFACTURER: please make the serving sizes realistic! Seriously!). It was definitely only 2 servings at 420 calories for the spareribs and 340 calories for the black pepper steaks. The payoff is that you’re getting a whopping 24g and 26g of protein, respectively. The sodium levels are also pretty high if you’re converting 4 servings into two, so you may not want to eat these every day.

All-in-all, we enjoyed both of them a lot and consider keeping a couple of these in the freezer for a lazy day.

Note: In case you’re wondering, they’re made with non-GMO soy and wheat protein.

Last year I got a couple of coupons for free Soyummi puddings. I was so excited because I had seen them at my local grocery/health food store, but when I went to buy them they didn’t carry them any more

I searched all my local stores for months and they’re finally back on the shelves (in the refrigerated aisle). I got two flavors, the Soyummi dark chocolate and rice puddings. Their website lists three more flavors —tapioca, cherry and lime—but these were all I found. They’re dairy-free (of course), gluten-free, low fat, and made from non-GMO soy and other ingredients you can read. They come packaged in these cute boxes with 4 individual cup servings—perfect for dessert or an on-the-go snack.

So are they any good?

I really like the dark chocolate pudding. What I liked about it most, other than the chocolate, is that it’s a mix between a pudding and a soufflé. It has little air bubbles in it that give it a nice texture. The flavor is also really good with just a slight hint of soy—I’m not a big fan of the taste of American soy milk and I don’t like any dessert that has that beany taste—so this one was good.

Mauro loves rice pudding and he thought Soyummi’s was pretty good. I myself like rice pudding, but only the homemade kind. None of the packaged brands do it for me. This pudding however, to me (Mauro didn’t think so), tasted like a mix between rice and tapioca puddings. Maybe because of the texture (it’s more pudding than rice) and the vanilla flavoring. It’s not what I expect from a rice pudding, but I thought it was ok anyway. I’d definitely choose the dark chocolate pudding over this one, but I didn’t even have to say that, did I?

As they say, and it’s so cliché, the proof is in the pudding. We both liked them, each with a preference—I like the dark chocolate and Mauro liked the rice pudding. Try them out and let us know what you think.

I decided to write about this because we love to eat and we post a lot of food reviews, most of them including some product or dish with a vegan meat or dairy analog. Occasionally people will ask us why we eat vegan versions of typically animal-derived foods. We’ve even had a non-veg friend who was appalled when we once tweeted that we were eating vegan calamari (100% plant-based). Some think we should abstain from any such foods because we’ve made a choice to live as animal-free as possible. So, I want to clear a few things up:

1. The words meat, steak, milk, yogurt, ice cream and others aren’t exclusive to animal-derived products. The same words have been applied to describe plant-derived products for just as long—e.g. coconut milk, meat of a fruit, eggplant steaks, etc.
2. Most vegans weren’t raised as such. Some of us became vegan for ethical reasons, others for health related issues (arteriosclerosis, diabetes, food allergies, to name a few), not because we just decided we don’t like hamburgers, hotdogs and ice cream anymore. Vegan meat and dairy analogs can be a big help during the transition phase from omnivore or vegetarian to vegan. They may not be the most healthful choice if that’s all you’re going to eat, but there’s no ethical issue involved.
3. Food defines our heritage and brings us together, especially during the holidays, festivities and get-togethers. Having things like hamburgers, hotdogs and ice cream at a summer BBQ and turkey at Thanksgiving are symbolic and can easily be switched out for a vegan version (there are so many options nowadays), so everyone can keep to tradition, fill their bellies and have a good time.
4. Some vegans are weirded out by eating anything that resembles animal products/dishes, others aren’t. Just because some vegans choose to eat such products doesn’t mean they want to eat animals. It may be out of convenience (it’s already prepared or frozen and easy to make), texture or tradition (see 3 above). To vegan meat or not vegan meat is each vegan’s own prerogative.

Mauro and I don’t eat a lot of vegan analogs. We stick to more of a whole foods diet with grains, legumes, fruit and veggies—we were both raised on minimally processed, homemade food and that’s the way we like to eat—, but we’re not opposed to having vegan meats, milk, cheese, etc. every now and then at home or at a restaurant. As long as it’s vegan, and doesn’t have a long, unreadable ingredient list, we’ll give it a shot.

What’s your view on vegan analogs?

A few weeks back I contributed to Vance Lemkuhl’s article “Vegan dining in the Philly ‘burbs” on Philly.com. Reading the final article gave me some ideas on where I wanted to go to explore some Philly burb eateries. Hang in there, ’cause we were all over the map.

Day 1

Who says the weekend has to start on Saturday? Mauro and I decided kick it off on Thursday by having lunch at the new, and only, vegan spot in Doylestown, PA (Bucks County), Doc Baker’s Farmulations. Mauro and I have been there several times since they opened in late March —review and photos coming soon— and we love how fresh the food is.

They have a huge list of fresh, cold pressed juice and smoothie formulations (Angelo, the owner used to be a pharmacist) and some appetizers, sandwiches and raw desserts. Their menu items are a mix of raw and lightly heated foods, everything is vegan, organic, soy-free and as local as possible.

We had and nice, filling lunch. We shared an appetizer (blue corn chips with guacamole, a raw hummus and cashew cream), the Moroccan and Fiesta wrap (we swapped half of each), two juices —Sucker Punch and Monkey Bite—, and shared a white chocolate raw cheesecake. The portions were larger than what we’ve gotten on previous visits, so we were pretty stuffed by the time we were done.

Day 2

TGIF and dinner with good friends. Yes, please. A friend of ours suggested we try Mad Mex since they have a large selection of vegan offerings. I’d been meaning to go there since they opened their Willow Grove (Montgomery County) location, so we gave it a shot. We’re not huge fans of going to chain restaurants —we like to support small, local businesses— but we were pleasantly surprised with everything about our experience. There were at least a dozen menu items to choose from (probably more, I didn’t count them), most vegetarian items can be made vegan by subbing with Daiya cheese and Tofutti sour cream. They even have a vegan dessert on the menu. Our waitress was very knowledgeable about what could be made vegan and she wasn’t annoyed that we were asking tons of questions or kept confirming that what we wanted would be all vegan.

When we got our food everything was great. No mix-ups, no meat, no trouble. The portions are huge and all of our dishes were delicious with tons of flavor. The dessert was delicious, too. We’ll definitely go there again.

Day3

On Saturday we had to make a special trip out to West Chester (Chester County) to our favorite board game store for a game auction. The store’s a bit of a hike for us, so why not stop by a few other places out that way.

A hungry vegan couple’s gotta eat and we had been meaning to try Vgë Café (Philadelphia County) since they opened a year ago. We’d heard a lot of good things about them. All true. Read more about it in the dedicated post.

I dropped Mauro off at the store and headed to the Artisan Exchange, just a few blocks away. I really wanted to try the raw fudge listed in the Philly.com article, but I also wanted to see what other vegan yummies were available. Read the full post, see how I made out and what I got for the delicious Sunday lunch pictured below. Getting hungry, again.

Many hours elapsed, all that driving around, exploring, treasure hunting (I even got a folding table and 4 matching chairs from a garage clearing for free!), auction selling and bidding, and what do you know? It’s dinner time! We made a little detour from our usual itinerary home and stopped by our favorite spot in Malvern, SuTao Café. We stuffed our faces, once again, with delicious food from their 100% vegan buffet. We had the pleasure of dining with the lovely Lee Hall, the perfect wrap-up to another foodilicious Vegan Gastronomy weekend!

Do you go all out in search of vegan delights where you live? Leave a comment below and tell me all about it. We’re always traveling around and would love to get the scoop on other towns and great finds.

It’s been a year since Vgë Café opened and we finally got out there to try their delicious sandwiches. Mauro and I decided to check it out on one of our drive-abouts a couple of weeks back. And let me tell you, we really missed out on some good stuff this past year.

We took a nice scenic and hilly route out there. It was a gorgeous day and perfect weather for driving around, it made me appreciate the lush, green scenery and how much I love living in this part of the country.

We were pretty hungry by the time we got there, so it was hard to pick from all the tempting menu items. Mauro went for the cream of broccoli soup, which we shared, and the Vgësteak (their vegan cheesesteak). I opted for the Bành Mí. You can get any menu item as a sandwich (on a multi-grain roll), as a wrap or a salad. We both opted for sandwiches, but loved the idea of choosing the delivery system for the delicious contents.

Our food came out pretty quickly, served on reusable, yet compostable, plates made of bamboo fiber. The utensils are compostable as well. I love that! The sandwiches were pretty hearty and so was the soup. We probably would’ve been fine (not totally stuffed) if we hadn’t ordered the soup, but what the heck, we have to do recon and report back here We also loved that the only choice of bread is a seeded multi-grain instead of white. Mauro’s Vgësteak was tasty with great texture. My Bành Mí was crunchy and fresh like spring. At first I wasn’t sure if I liked it because I was expecting it to be hot (spicy) and hot (temperature-wise), but by the second bite the crunchiness of the veggies and creaminess of the tofu and the sauce just won me over.

Aside from the menu items, they also have a variety of bottled vegan beverages, desserts —rumor has it we saw a chocolate peanut butter mousse bomb cake in the dessert case— and a soft-serve ice cream machine. We were too full after our meal to get to dessert. That just means I’ll have to make another trip out there to try more menu items and that soft-serve.

Have you been to Vgë Café yet? What did you think?

A couple weeks back I contributed to Vance Lemkuhl’s article “Vegan dining in the Philly ‘burbs” on Philly.com and I really wanted to try the Rawsome fudge listed. I visited Artisan Exchange‘s website to see if there were any other vegan vendors and I saw that a couple other favorites listed. Since we were headed out that way one Saturday anyway, I decided to give it a shot and see how many other vegan yummies are available at this market.

I had a blast schmoozing with all the vendors and encouraging some to add vegan items to the mix. Warning to the Bucks County and Stockton Farmers Markets: vegan items aren’t just for vegans, they’re for everyone, and the guys and gals at Artisan Exchange are way ahead of you in the vegan department. Everyone was polite and cheerful. Even the vendors who don’t yet have vegan offerings were open minded (with the exception of one, and no, it wasn’t the sausage vendor) and said they were actually looking into it.

The vendor that surprised me the most was Maiale, the sausage vendor. As I politely declined his offer to try some of his products and was slowly walking away, he told me he had vegan sausage. He stopped me dead in my tracks. When I go to farmers markets in my neck of the woods I avoid the animal product vendors, they tend to be condescending when I inquire if they have any vegan items. Here was hope, smiling back at me, and friendly too Even though he’s a meat vendor he’s trying to have something for everybody. I like to support small vendors like him, because you never know where this will lead them in the future —if you had met me when I was 19, you would’ve thought I was hopeless and that I would never become vegetarian, let alone vegan years later— or simply for the fact that they have something for me.

Artisan Exchange Vendors with Vegan Offerings

From the whole list of vendors, here are the ones who have vegan items:

• MomPop’s – all vegan and allergen-free popsicles
• Dia Doce – has gluten-free vegan cupcakes
• Lancaster Hummus (FreshaPeel) – all vegan hummus and kale pesto
• Rawesome Fudge – all vegan and raw fudge
• Vera Pasta – has a couple of types of pasta without eggs
• Naughty Nutty Love – only the plain peanut butter is vegan (all other nut butters have honey or dairy)
• Taste Artisanal Market – has truffled olives
• Maiale Cured Meats – has a black bean and mushroom vegan sausage patty
• Basic Batters – has a vegan chocolate chip cookie (but didn’t have it when I was there), they’re also making the gluten-free vegan pizza dough for Take Me Bake Me (see below)
• Taste of Puebla – has salsa, guacamole, cactus salad and chips
• A  variety of farmers – fresh veggies, mushrooms and plants

This just in: (vendors keep contacting me after I wrote the post to add more items to my list —Love it!)

• Jenny & Frank’s Artisan Gelato – have dairy-free sorbetto—some of the flavors are blood orange, watermelon mint, pear with midori
• Sally B Gluten-Free – has gluten-free vegan organic cookie granola bars in Cocoa Kale and Maple Walnut Munch

Artisan Exchange Vendors Who Will Have Vegan Offerings by Summer

• Take Me Bake Me (same owners as MomPops) – should already have gluten-free vegan pizzas
• Taste Artisanal Market – says they will have vegan spreads
• Lavinia’s Cookies – said they would try to have at least one vegan cookie flavor

What I Bought at the Market

Here’s what I got and what I thought:

1. Rawsome Fudge for $7 for a small box, comparable to other raw chocolate products. I wasn’t ever a fan of conventional fudge because it’s usually way too sweet for my taste, but the Rawsome fudge was perfect. It’s actually so much better. It has a rich raw chocolate flavor and the right amount of sweetness.
2. Tomato basil fresh pasta from Vera Pasta, $5 for a 1lb bag. Delicious homemade texture and flavor. Great price compared to store bought gourmet pasta.
3. Cranberry Apple hummus for $5 a container. I love all the FreshaPeel hummus flavors. This was my favorite from the sweet ones. It tasted like applesauce with a heartier texture. I made a PB and CAH (cranberry apple hummus) sandwich and it was super yum. I also ate it by the spoonfuls
4. And last but not least, the black bean and mushroom vegan sausage, $5 for a package with 2 patties. How could I not? The vendor was nice enough to even give me an ice pack to keep the sausages frozen while I schlepped around the Philly burbs the rest of the day. The portion size and texture of the patty was good and it held up well while pan frying. I don’t think it would hold up well on the grill, though. The only suggestion I have for the vendor is to season it more, with some herbs and spices and maybe hot pepper flakes. Sausages need to be flavorful. With some minor adjustments I think he’ll have a great product.

Dia Doce was out of vegan cupcakes by the time I got there, at 1:00 pm. Be sure to get there early for those. I also passed on the popsicles, they just weren’t going to last until I got home.

We had a wonderful lunch on Sunday with the spoils of my adventures at the market. I made the fresh pasta and topped it with mushrooms in a white wine apricot chipotle sauce and the black bean sausage on the side.

If you live in or around West Chester, PA, I highly recommend a trip to the Artisan Exchange. I’ll definitely stop by again.

If you are like me and basically every single vegan I know, you read the ingredient labels of everything you buy, even when the package says “vegan”. Besides the obvious precautions to avoid consuming animal products by accident, a lot of vegans tend to develop an aversion to long, unreadable ingredient lists. So, when you’re faced with a label like the one in the picture below and you really want to buy that item, what do you do? Most people, unless they’re Chemistry majors, probably have no idea what most of the ingredients listed are, much less if said ingredients are vegan or not.

Don’t worry, there’s help. Thanks to Reuben Proctor and Lars Thomsen, authors of “Veganissimo A to Z“, you can look up those weird names and figure out where they came from. Well… mostly. It’s complicated — but I’ll get to that.

“Veganissimo A to Z” provides a very, very extensive list of all kinds of ingredients, additives and other kinds of substances that go into everything we consume: food, cosmetics, drugs, even electronics (it surprised me to learn that my electronic gadgets are most likely not vegan). The bulk of the book consists of an ingredient list in alphabetical order. A typical entry reads like this:

The icons indicate the origin (animal/plant/mineral/synthetic/bacterial), and the color indicates whether the ingredient is always/often (red) or sometimes/rarely (black) of that origin. There is a brief explanation about what kind of substance it is and what it’s used for, and also points out any cross-references to other ingredients in the list. Sometimes there are multiple names grouped up, that indicate the same ingredient.

The rest of the book contains some information about other topics of interest like details about product labeling in several industries, alternatives to non-vegan ingredients, references, etc.

And here’s where it gets complicated: you’ll learn they put animal-derived ingredients in everything. Looking through the book, it seems that most of the stuff, even when derived from plants/bacteria most of the time, can still contain some animal products, or might have actually been made from animals. It’s a little overwhelming, seeing the little red/black cow icon on almost every entry, page after page, even on some things that are supposed to be vegan (if there’s a chance there were animals involved, the authors add the little black cow icon and mention it in the description).

“Veganissimo A to Z” is very useful and will help you make better informed decisions when buying anything from clothing to electronics to food, even if those decisions involve learning that you don’t have much of a choice when buying certain products. Hopefully that will change someday.

One more thing: dear mr. Proctor and Thomsen, PLEASE MAKE A SMARTPHONE APP OUT OF THIS BOOK. I reviewed an app like that some time ago (which is more geared toward grocery shopping), but there is a lot more information in this book that would be nice to have on the go.

Mildly interesting aside: it took me a while to find a package listing a lot of ingredients with weird names here at home, so I could snap a picture to use in this post. I had to look through all the kitchen cabinets, fridge and freezer. I guess that’s a good thing.

The lovely folks at Om Nom Nom Cookies were sweet enough to send me a few samples of their, well, appropriately named cookies to sample and review. The name says it all for sure!

I sampled five flavors: orange zested chocolate chip, chocolate snickerdoodle, spicy Mexican snickerdoodle, chocolate chip, and ultimate peanut butter. I actually managed to contain myself to sample them over the course of 2 days and even share them with Mauro—oh my!

We started out with the spicier cookies (the first three flavors listed), which may have been a mistake. They were so flavorful that they overshadowed the classics (chocolate chip and peanut butter), which I absolutely love. But hey, that’s a good problem to have. All the cookies were moist and chewy, the perfect size to have as a snack with a glass of almond milk, and they all tasted homemade. This last feature is what made a lasting impression on me.

Another plus, that will have me coming back for more, is that all of the cookies we sampled were palm oil-free!* But they had me at Om Nom Nom and vegan

These scrumptious cookies are adorably packaged and perfect for gifting to yourself, significant other or friend. They are available on Om Nom Nom’s site and on VeganCuts.

*If you don’t know what the problem with palm oil is, read about it here, here and here.

Laura has teamed up with Main Line Animal Rescue in Chester Springs, PA, which checks out the dogs she rescues from the mills. I really liked how the viewer is encouraged to rescue and never purchase dogs (or other mill animals, like cats) in a store. It’s an extremely important message to keep driving home—these mills are breeding facilities, the dogs are numbers and dollar signs to the breeders, and there’s no consistent oversight of these facilities. The mother dogs are bred twice a year, every year, until they can’t be bred any longer—and then, as in our industrial agricultural facilities, they are put to death. The correlations between these mills and our industrial farms can’t be more obvious—we do the exact same thing to chickens, turkeys, pigs, goats, and cows in this country.

It’s clear from the movie and other web sites I’ve visited that Laura and the other people who are involved in these rescues are striving to educate people about how the puppy mills work and encourage them to get their dogs elsewhere. There’s a woman in the film who mentions that she saw a billboard by Main Line Animal Rescue on the highway and went home and did a web search about puppy mills. She had never heard of puppy mills before she read the billboard. It was encouraging to see her educate herself about this atrocity.

The dogs at the mills are kept in wire rabbit hutches (so I would imagine that their paws are constantly in pain) and don’t have the pleasure of romping outside. Because of the close confinement, most of the dogs have parasites (they mention chronic stomach problems in the movie). One of the dogs profiled in the movie, Vivien Leigh, had a severe ear infection (the entire inside of her ear was black) and countless more have emotional scars from never being handled. They don’t know how to be dogs. How can this possibly be legal? Just look at the way we breed and confine our industrial animals and you’ll see that we don’t make exceptions for any of them, including Man’s Best Friend.

The beautiful dogs who are profiled in the movie are a testament to the tenacity and love that Laura and the other rescuers have in rehabilitating these animals. Maisy is a cocker spaniel who has a genetic disease. She was expected to only live a few short months, but with love and patience she’s been living a terrific dog’s life in New Jersey. Maisy was de-barked as a puppy, which many breeders do on a regular basis. I learned in the movie that de-barking consists of crushing a dog’s voice box with a lead pipe. Does that sound ethical to anyone? (I immediately thought of the process of force feeding ducks to make foie gras) Danny, who is now a NYC dog, was so terrified when he was rescued that he didn’t want to leave his cage. He is now the proud companion for an autistic young man and his family—and gets the respect and love he deserves. Of the four dogs profiled, I cried the most when I watched Liberty sitting in a corner and burying her face in it, trying to get away from people. She was clearly neglected as a puppy, and her forever mom helped nurse her back to health with dog therapy sessions. Kudos to all the kind folks who have adopted these troubled dogs. It’s a great feeling to see that their love and patience is helping these dogs to find their inner canine and live healthy and happy lives.

I knew what to expect when they showed footage at the mills, but what I wasn’t expecting were the stories about how physically and emotionally broken these beautiful dogs were when they were first rescued. I think what shocks me the most is that our care standards for these facilities are below subpar and that breeders can amass multiple violations and still continue to breed and sell these animals. This should not be legal and is frankly unethical. If you or someone you know is considering a companion animal for your family, please consider adoption. Do your research and either find a reputable breeder (who never puts their animals in pet stores) or find a local shelter and adopt an animal. I’m the proud mom of several rescue cats, and despite some dental issues, they are healthy and boisterous creatures with lots of love to share. A few minutes of research could mean that we put these puppy mills out of business for good and give these animals a fighting chance in this world.