February 7, 2012

February's Awesome Vegan of the Month!

So, I'm slacking on my 365 pictures of Macy (slacking at posting... not slacking at taking them. They've just been too uninteresting lately to want to share. Ugh!)... sorry about that. I'm currently working on my senior exhibition which is both exciting and terrifying, because I want everything to be 10x more amazing than anything else I've ever done. We'll see how that all works out for me.  But! Enough about that-- I have another awesome vegan to share with you! 



Her name is Amy Ferguson and she hails out of Los Angeles, California.  She's an actress, model, writer and musician.... and is amazing at all of those things... and she's gorgeous and the sweetest person ever. I'm kind of jealous. :)  She's been vegan for 5 years in March... so a very happy early vegan birthday Amy! She learned about veganism from her sister Anna, who is a yoga teacher.  Anna taught her about "Ahimsa" (which means non-harming). She really connected with a lot of the information that Anna gave her, especially the aspect of the domination of the feminine in animal agriculture, specifically how the female dairy animal is treated and how incredibly horrific it is. She said she thought about herself as a woman, and how she would feel if she were raped, her child stolen and killed, and her milk taken from her with no regard to the pain she was suffering... all to have it continually repeated. 
"This aspect of veganism has allowed me to look deeper into the relationships I have with females, and has made me more loving and accepting of them as well as myself, and less competitive and judgmental," Amy said. "There are just so many reasons to be vegan, besides how I feel about the animals, and compassion, it’s just healthier.  I never get sick, I have tons of energy,  the major impact I was having on the environment is drastically reduced. When I was eating animals and animal products, it took 4,000 gallons of water a day to get my food to my plate. As a vegan, it takes 300 gallons. Animal agriculture creates more greenhouse gases than all of transportation combined! These are huge reasons for me to be committed to a vegan lifestyle." 
When Amy isn't playing music, acting or modeling, she enjoys being out in nature. She likes to hike, take road trips in and around L.A. as well as doing yoga.  
She really enjoys cooking and trying new vegan dishes. 
"My favorite milk is cashew milk. Blend organic raw cashews with water. Start with them being just covered with water and blend,  thicker for creamy alfredo sauces, thinner for milk in coffee or cereal. 
If you want to make the alfredo sauce, just simply blend the cashews to the consistency you want the sauce, and heat it in a pan with earth balance or other vegan butter, garlic, onion, salt, black pepper, and other spices to flavor, if you wish."  (I'm going to have to try this version of alfredo sauce... it sounds amazing).

Amy's also a huge fan of daily green smoothies because they keep her charged.
"I like to blend kale, cilantro, parsley, lemon, jalapeno (or cayenne) and 1/3 cup raw organic hemp seeds with coconut water. If you don’t have hemp seeds, avocado is nice to make it creamy.. add just a little coconut water at a time to if you want to keep it thicker."

Her favorite animal right's quote:
“all beings tremble before violence. all fear death. all love life. see yourself in others. then whom can you hurt? what harm can you do?” -buddah


You can check out Amy's music by clicking here. Amy goes by the name "Grandma Dirt" for her music, because of the nickname her mom gave her as a young child because she walked slow and refused to bathe...... awesome!





And, here is a music video I filmed & directed for her in December. LGBT equality is something I am so strongly passionate about (as is Amy), even though the video is simple, it's one of my favorite things I've done in quite awhile.  Enjoy!


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