• Rabbit Food – Local source for Fair Trade, Natural, Organic and Environmentally Friendly foods and other household products paying only club prices! This cooperative buying club is now open to the public – but only on Saturdays – at 400 Park Rd., Suite 113 in Sevierville. (865?) 774-7097 <donna@therabbitfood.com
• Foundation for Global Sustainability - An environmental advocacy/activist organization for the East Tennessee & Southern Appalachian Region
• Ijams Nature Center is a city park and community nature center and a leader in environmental education for the Knoxville area. In its eighty plus acres, foot trails wind across streams, meadows, fern banks, and past bluffs overlooking Fort Loudoun Lake.
• East Tennessee Progressive Network is building a comprehensive listing of "who is here" and "what they are doing" through an organizational directory and community calendar of progressive events in East Tennessee.
• Knoxville Community Food Cooperative - The wonderful "Food Co-op" at 937 North Broadway. 
• Korrnet: The Knoxville-Oak Ridge Regional Network of Tennessee.
• Labrador Rescue of East Tennessee - A group of volunteers who rescues purebred Labrador Retrievers (and occasional, exceptional Lab mixes) from animal shelters and dogs who are homeless and place them in appropriate, forever homes
• Tennessee Valley All Breed Rescue - Non profit organization who's goal is to place unwanted, abandoned animals in suitable homes.
• Peaceful Kingdom - No more homeless pets.
• Knox County Animal Center - Check out the website for pictures and descriptions of many adoptable animals.
• Tennessee Valley Golden Retriever Rescue - Goal is to place Golden Retrievers into loving homes.
• Gretchen Roberts‘ Writing Classes - About Food  Ms. Roberts, an experienced food writer and recipe developer for national magazines including Cooking Light, Alternative Medicine, Health and more, offers classes on writing about food: compiling a family cookbook,reviewing restaurants, writing fo Gourmet Magazine, etc. Email or call (865) 544-0849.

Sister City Veggieville Just a bit East of East Tennessee, Asheville's burgeoning vegetarian group has a slick new website that's just come to my attention.This group has moved mountains in its brief existence in the Appalachians; their vendor card program already rivals that of Knoxville's VSET which has been around much longer. There's been talk of trading vendor cards for those in Knoxville fortunate enough to visit the delightful utiopia of Asheville; write Joe Walsh and Laura Broderick and encourage such a cultural exchange. You can, also, find Joe on the Manly Vegetarian™ page. Also check out the lecturing Bizarro pig on the Veggieville home page. I knew there was something about those Bizarro cartoons by Dan Piraro in the Knoxville News-Sentinel that I liked. Great site!

Vegetarianism: Compassion for Animals

• United Food and Commercial Workers Efforts to organize meat workers in East Tennessee are in their infancy. Meatpackers prefer hiring undocumented immigrants, not just to hold down wages but also because meat-packing is one of the most dangerous occupations in the country. Those here illegally have fewer legal recourses when they are mangled in meatpacking machinery.
  

• Vegetarian Union of North America promotes a strong, effective, cooperative vegetarian movement throughout North America.
• Vegetarian Awareness Network is an educational and social service organization that networks nationally to promote the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle.
• Great American Meatout is the world's largest and oldest annual grassroots diet education campaign.
• FamousVeggie.com has interviews with famous veggies ,plus much much more. By VSET's former webmistress
• FamousVeggie.com  Here's proof that vegetarianism is best: celebrities do it!
• http://www.ivu.org/people/ More vegetarian celebrities!
  
• http://www.vegetarian-restaurants.net/OtherInfo/FamousVeg.htm Still more folks we want to be just like!
• http://www.soystache.com/notso.htm What? You don't give a humanely euthanized rat's behind what celebrities do?! Well, then here's a list of totally unknown vegetarians.
  
• Pangea Vegan Products wonder vegan products.
• Vegetarian Hosting offers deluxe web hosting features at economy prices. You get your own domain name, 400 megs of space (!), 100 email accounts, unlimited mailing lists, perl support, and much more, all for less than $8 a month! So why are they linked here? If you're a vegetarian or animal rights non-profit, it's all free!!!
• The Wholefood Farmacy comes highly recommended by a number of VSETers. They state that they “supply healthy, convenient, whole food based meals & snacks, non-toxic personal care items, and to educate the public regarding a preventative based lifestyle.“
  
  
  Un-Butchers: Meat Analog Vendors A list of merchants, all of whom have the faux guarding the henhouse:
  • www.nomeat.com
  • www.vegecyber.com
  • www.healthy-eating.com
    
    And, from our totally unbiased viewpoint, the best of them all, our own Chi Chen (no kidding, your humble web monkey, speaking as a former meat-eating farm boy, attests that her stuff is great). She has tasty veggie versions of almost every kind of meat, even fish! She doesn't currently have a website, but you can usually purchase from her directly at our monthly potlucks. That'll give you one more good reason to come.

Love and the Vegetarian

Free Love! Well, at least some of these sites are free… So your friends and family think your vegetarianism is nuts. Who cares, so long as that one special significant other understands. In case you haven't met that person yet, you might find them in one of these groups, where quality trumps quantity. And get some pointers about linking up online in the article Meet Your Meatless Mate at VeggieHeadOnline. VeggieDate.com Find other veggies online. Green Singles Personal ads for singles in the environmental, vegetarian, and animal rights community.

• Veggie Matchmakers VMM has a long history of bringing vegetarians and vegans together. Free trial.
• Living and Raw Food Personals For those who like it raw!  Free, but you're on your honor 50% of your food is raw.
• Vegetarian Love is a completely free dating website for all singles looking to meet other genuine singles for friendship and dating. Free profile uploads, free searches, and free contacting.
• Veg Singles provides a totally free chat page for singles everywhere. I even found a Knoxvillian there!
• Jewish Vegan and Vegetarian Singles Just what it says, and there are also links to traditional Jewish matchmakers.

And, once you've found that very special vegetarian, •Vegetarian Weddings Online is ready to make your special day go smoothly. The About Us link says, "When I married my husband Jeff 9 years ago, I came accross all kinds of vegetarian obstacles. Everything from the vegan cake to vegan dishes to even the thought of a vegan dress... I decided that I wanted to make things easier for other people..."

For Vegetarian Sprouts

Vegetarian Children's Books There are a lot of antagonistic influences for a vegetarian kid to resist in sticking to a humane and healthful diet: the stigma of being "different," meat-centered cafeteria lunches, slick burger joint advertising on tv, the machinations of an evil, meat-eating ex-spouse… there are even children's books mocking vegetarianism. Happily, there are also some that help frame the issue in entertaining, age-appropriate ways. Below are some links to a few of those. (Thanks to vegetarian contractor, auto repairman and chef Mark Cannon and his son Ocean for suggesting this section) Dragon Illo by your humble webgrasshopper: © 2003 John Mayer

• Vegan Family Recommended Kids' Books A good, long list of vegetarian-friendly kids' books and tapes available in the US and the UK.
• Veggie & Animal Welfare Books A link to kids' books - all, apparently, on Amazon - from the vast Rabbit resource.
• Veggie Kids 9-12 Links to books for tween kids at the International Vegetarian Union; more kids' resources listed from the IVU homepage..
• Bill Peet A page devoted to the subtle pro-animal works of long-time Disney animator Bill Peet.
• Vegetarian Baby and Child A general resource on rearing healthy, caring children.
• We're All God's Creataures   Karen Hill - A book with a lesson a lot of grown-ups need to learn: even animals that don't get much love from humans are still beautiful in their own way, and an important part of nature... though she somewhat undermines her message with phrases like "Creepy, crawly, icky spider." The gentle religioius associations are unlikely to offend most parents.

 

• Children's Radio

• The Cinnamon Bear   Well, okay, this isn't specifically a vegetarian children's story, but it's a favorite of my childhood and now I've had the opportunity to supply artwork for it (see dragon, above). A wonderful Christmas serial that first aired in 1938 the day after Thanskgiving for 15 minutes and each day thereafter till Christmas Eve. It's been on the radio somewhere in the US every years since and still delights kids today. A great way, in this day of spoon-fed entertainment, to develop children's imaginations. First Generation Radio Archives, as their name suggests, recorded this version right off the original transcript disks and added some extras. This can be a great new Christmas tradition. Note: my friend, international prize-winning quilter Barbara Andrews has done a quilt based on the same art.

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Roommates

• EcoRoomates is a new service that will link up those veggies looking to save living expenses by bunking with other like-minded folks. Prefer not to have your refrigerator turned into a charnel house by your roomy? List with these guys.