Category: passionblog

In 2012, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis released the song “Thrift Shop,” which took airwaves and pop-culture by storm. “Thrift Shop” ignited a wave of love for second-hand shopping, but it wasn’t the first time thrifting was popularized. In the late 1960s, hippies originated the movement as homage to vintage clothing and as protest against exploitation in the clothing industry. Later in the 1990s, the growing culture of grunge resurfaced it as an anti-fashion statement. Along with the growing mode of environmentally conscious living, these same motivations continue to keep thrift-shopping fashionable today.

In an epoch of fast-fashion, the appeal of thrifting may seem dampened. This is especially true to college students, where stores like H&M, Urban Outfitters, and even McLanahans, as well as online stores like SHEIN, offer us low prices and convenience. However, I argue that now the importance of buying second-hand is more important then ever. Here’s why:

1. The making of fast-fashion is not convenient nor cheap. Behind every muscle-tee and every pair of high-waisted jeans, a system of oppression abuses not only real people but the Earth itself, and it costs. And by buying these items, like the humorous “Pen Stat” shirts and other Penn State merchandise, we are directly supporting this abuse. As consumers, we have the power to demand ethical products, and to make them more accessible we must first stop buying unethical ones.
2. Thrifting means high-quality for less. High-quality, durable clothing is not cheap. Lasting materials and careful construction require more money to produce, thus costing more — many times more than a college student can afford. By shopping second hand, however, we can find high quality clothing for affordable prices.
3. We can find truly vintage clothing. In clothing stores across the country, vintage-style clothing is popping up — but unsurprisingly, this clothing is not truly vintage. By thrift-shopping, we can add pieces of history to our wardrobes.

While I love thrifting, I do realize that it can be more difficult than other types of shopping: the clothing isn’t always stylish, and sometimes you leave empty handed. So here a few tips for building a thrifted wardrobe:

1. Go often. The inventory of thrift stores is constantly changing, and one never knows when the perfect piece will be in store.
2. Check everywhere. Don’t be afraid to check the racks, other sizes, or even other sections. A piece may be placed in the wrong place by accident, or the sizing may vary between brands.
3. Shop online. The most difficult part of shopping at thrift-stores for college students is getting to them. With different thrifting applications and websites available, one will certainly be able to find the right item.
4. Travel. In my experience, larger cities have higher quality options in a wider variety of styles. If you find yourself with the urge to shop while traveling, try finding a second-hand store.

If you are interested in shopping second-hand here in State College, there are several options available. I recommend Goodwill, though, as they are the cheapest option with the widest variety (and on some days, they offer student discounts!).

Four cents. Four cents that would trigger a wave of protests across a country, calls for presidential impeachment, and violent military retaliation. Four cents that would change a country forever.

Early this October, the Chilean government announced another price hike to the metro — a price hike of 30 pesos, or 4 cents. This hike sparked outrage, and in response, the Minister of Economy declared those upset could wake up earlier for a cheaper rate.

Unfortunately for him, Chileans — mainly students — did listen partly to his advice: they woke up. Students from across the country began to evade and blockade the metro. But police responded with force, so Chileans took to the streets.

Suddenly, four cents destroyed the facade of wealth in Chile, leaving only the disturbing reality of inequality in the richest country of South America. Chileans across the country began, and continue, to protest the extremely high cost of living and meager wages, the horrid education system, the poor public health system, and the evasion of taxes by the rich — including the president. These protests grew and grew, and quickly, the president — Sebastian Piñera — called a state of emergency.

Suddenly, the military challenged protests across Chile, and the country flashed back to the 1980s, in which military dictator Pinochet used torture and violence to rule the country. Now, echoes of the violence which rang through Chile’s not-so-distant past has reverberated. This month, military and police have beat up, abused, water hosed, shot, run over, and killed protesters, all the while instating a curfew over Santiago, where half the country’s population lives. Examples of military violence can be seen here. While the videos are hard to stomach, I encourage you to view them — with the government against the citizens, they have only social media to broadcast these human rights violations. The media spreads lies and censors news, portraying the protesters as perpetrators of violence while the majority are peaceful. (In an attempt to remain unbiased, there have been violent protesters. Many have robbed buildings, while some have even burned down buildings.)

This topic hits close to home for me. Last year, I lived for a year as an exchange student in Chile, and now my friends are fighting for rights that they shouldn’t have to but need to, want to. Because everyone has the right to good health and education. Because everyone has the right to speak their minds. And because everyone has the right to fight for something that they believe in.

On the walls of schools across the United States, muscled athletes and attractive celebrities donning white mustaches ask us “Got Milk?”  The horde of iconic photographs represent the vast dairy industry in the United States, one which uses over 9 million cows to produces the 90 billion pounds of dairy consumed by Americans each year. Unfortunately, this dairy does not only cost the consumer — it costs the cows and the Earth, as well.

The Life-Cycle of a Dairy Cow

Like humans, cows produce milk in order to feed their children — a fact of life which forces dairy cows to be constantly pregnant through artificial insemination. Unfortunately, the instant bond between mother and calf is shattered by these operators after birth, once they rip the calf from their mother, causing severe distress in both the cow and her newborn. Baby females are condemned to to the same life as their mothers, while baby males go to veal farms to be killed. They are kept in tiny pens, unmoving to prevent the hardening of their flesh; and they are fed diets low in nutrients to keep their flesh white, one which causes “anemia, diarrhea, and pneumonia” (PETA).

The Unsustainable Reality of Dairy

Each year, more than 460 billion cubic meters of water are used by the dairy industry, while “the global dairy sector contributes four percent of total global anthropogenic [green house gas] emissions (Good).”

“It is estimated that cows produce between 50 and 500 liters of methane a day. Going back to our dairy factory farm with 700 cows, that is up to 350,000 liters or 325,500 pounds of methane pumped into the atmosphere every day . . .  To put that into perspective, a single fracking well is responsible for the release of 30,684 pounds of methane a day” (Good).

Got Plant Milk?

Fortunately, an affordable, accessible, and most importantly ethical solution exists: plant milk!

Plant milk significantly reduces the environmental impact of milk: rather than growing plants to then feed animals, whose waste further pollutes the atmosphere and groundwater, only the plants themselves need to be grown.

With plant-based living growing in popularity, the variety of options is incredible: nut milks, oat milks, and others are available in regular supermarkets, as well as vegan cheeses, ice creams, and more.

You might find that you prefer almond milk in your coffee, or like the taste of coconut ice cream. At the end of the day, any transition to plant milk is helpful in transforming the Earth into a healthier, kinder place.

 

Egg whites are an essential ingredient of many dessert staples, including crisp meringues and tender cakes. But they are also the product of a horrific industry, one which kills and abuses hundreds of millions of chickens each year. Luckily, an unexpected replacement for egg-whites, aquafaba, has been discovered, and it may just be the answer to your unnamed prayers.

The Life-Cycle of a Factory Hen

Within hours of their births, female chicks are debeaked with burning blades to prevent cannibalism, as 10 hens are stuffed in tiny wire cages measuring less 2 by 2 feet. Chicks suffer extreme pain during and after the procedure, which can cause dehydration and starvation due to difficulty consuming water or food.

These cages are so small that hens cannot move, forcing them to excrete feces and urine onto each other. And as disease spreads wildly through these cages, many survivors watch as their cell-mates die and rot.

After two nightmarish years in these conditions, hens are shipped to slaughterhouses, where their exhausted legs are shackled and their bodies decapitated. At this point, many have already suffered from “broken bones resulting from neglect, osteoporosis, and rough treatment” (PETA). Their flesh, so damaged by the process, is usually used for animal food, but “some of this meat has been used in the National School Lunch Program” (PETA).

Meanwhile, male chickens, deemed valueless by the industry, are killed after birth, suffocated in plastic bags or grinded alive.

The Ethical Solution

This begs the question: if egg whites are unethical, what can we do? The solution may be sitting idly in your kitchen cabinet right now: aquafaba.

Aquafaba, or the water from chickpeas, whips just like traditional chickpeas. However, a recipe may call for the reduction, or slow simmering, of the aquafaba in order to decrease the volume of water within the solution. This reduction accomplishes two important things: (1) it increases the stability of the aquafaba meringue, and (2) it creates a starting product which has the same viscosity as an egg white.

Vegan macarons are a testament to the power of aquafaba. The French cookies are infamously ill-tempered, but their famous feet and pillowy texture can be achieved through the its use.

It may be intimidating to open a can of (or cook from dry some) chickpeas in order to bake a vegan dessert, but fortunately chickpeas are cheap and versatile. Some of my favorites include hummus, curry, and roasted chickpeas (the perfect snack). In order to decrease food waste, I recommend finding a recipe using chickpeas, and then saving the aquafaba in the fridge or freezer for later use.

The great phone debate has waged on for ages: if you ask a group of people whether they prefer Samsung or Apple, chances are that they will disagree — many times strongly. With constant commercials and releases for new phones, bombarding us with gigapixels and high-tech processors, it is understandable. We are so invested in the companies’ unending competition that we forget what is important: fundamentally, both phones are the same. Not in the sense of their aluminum casings nor liquid crystal displays, and not in the sense that they perform similarly complex actions. It is what we can find deep down, before we step into the store to get a better look, and before executive meetings decide how to advertise. What truly matters is the production of these phones. Across the supply chains of technological companies, unethical practices abuse unprivileged workers.

At the beginning of the chain, workers, namely child-workers, carry rocks outside of rugged crevices only their nimble bodies can pass through; and under the blazing sun, they sift through the stones, searching for cobalt that will power lithium batteries used across the globe. The reality of the filthy, lung-corroding caves deeply contrasts the sleek stores in which tablets are sold, tablets which more fortunate children across the globe use to learn things that those mining never will.

The majority of this cobalt production originates in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where children work over 12 hours a day. Along with 10 cents an hour, these children are paid with life-long diseases that will further handicap them.

“I would spend 24 hours down in the tunnels. I arrived in the morning and would leave the following morning … I had to relieve myself down in the tunnels … My foster mother planned to send me to school, but my foster father was against it, he exploited me by making me work in the mine” (Amnesty International, 2016).

Unfortunately, not all workers in these mines leave. Many workers die, crushed under collapsed rocks, their bodies and stories buried under the debris of corporate greed and our own materialism.

As the supply chain proceeds, workers continued to face abuse in factories. In a Chinese Apple factory, reporters found workers in 80-decibel factories filled with chemicals, enclosed by doors with tiny openings. Their dormitories were no better, covered in debris, without showers to clean themselves. “Chinese recruiters play up the chance to build advanced consumer electronics to attract the millions of typically impoverished, uneducated laborers without whom the production of iPhones and other digital gadgets would be impossible” (Bloomberg, 2018).

In order to help the people abused by such a horrific system, we must keep companies accountable. But companies evade these questions: “Amnesty International contacted 16 multinationals who were listed as customers of the battery manufacturers listed as sourcing processed ore from Huayou Cobalt. One company admitted the connection, while four were unable to say for certain whether they were buying cobalt from the DRC or Huayou Cobalt. Six said they were investigating the claims. Five denied sourcing cobalt from via Huayou Cobalt, though they are listed as customers in the company documents of battery manufacturers. Two multinationals denied sourcing cobalt from DRC. Crucially, none provided enough details to independently verify where the cobalt in their products came from” (Amnesty International, 2016). These statements prove highly contradictory — how can multi-billion dollar companies manufacturing such innovative technologies be unable to investigate the state of their own material producers?

Maybe that isn’t the right question to ask. Maybe we should ask how the gleam of money outshines the lives of millions.

I remember grasping the counter in attempts to relieve my outstretched legs, watching eagerly as my mother stood, her hand steadily unfurling frosting. Just as she made the cake for every family birthday, I would wait by her side for what she deemed extra — for the whisk of frosting I would eat on the porch, and for the seconds left in the bowl.

Though with time, only a taste could not satisfy my growing appetite — I had to cook. And to my surprise, with a worn out boss, I quickly received a promotion from sous-chef. Alone in the kitchen, my once benign fascination whirled into an outright fixation; and to this day, cooking provides me not only an outlet for creativity but experimenting. 

Two months ago, I transitioned to vegan. Having been vegetarian for 5 years before, I thought it would be easy, but quickly reality caught up to me. Many of my favorite dishes and baking staples had been thrown out the window, and restaurant menus dwindled into obscurity. I was now the vegan. The one who is planned around when friends go out. The one who says no to baked hand-outs (it hurts me way more than it hurts them).

Life as a Penn State student has presented a new challenge to me. I have been offered free creamery ice-cream at least eleven times, and I love ice cream; watching my friends eat flavors that define my childhood — Death by Chocolate, Bittersweet Mint, Espresso Fudge Pie  — border-line physically pains me. And sometimes, the only entree available at the buffet is steamed spinach. But challenges demand creativity, and that is just what this blog is about. In the following series, Vegan Made Easy(ish), I will write about some of my favorite vegan hacks and recipes that I have used during my transition.

Veganism can be a scary word. It is commonly portrayed as restrictive and extreme, and while this could be true (as for any lifestyle), it doesn’t have to be. Vegan doesn’t mean a diet of raw fruits and vegetables, and I hope to show the endless amount of opportunities that exist within it.

While I recognize that the grand majority of (all 3 of) my readers are not vegan, I hope these recipes serve as inspiration. Because just eating one vegan meal a week, or drinking almond milk in your coffee, or not eating red meat is a conscious decision that can better the world.

The world has seen a surge of feminism in the past few years: women have marched, demanding equal rights and pay; spoken out, holding sexual abusers accountable through the MeToo movement; and led, directing nations and politics on an international level. Though if one looks closer, this surge of feminism can be seen at an individual level: t-shirts, in stores across the globe and on the backs of men and women everywhere, read feminism. 

“Feminism: the radical notion that women are people.” 

“Intersectional feminism is the only feminism.” 

“It’s my body. It’s my choice.”

For a long time, clothing has represented an outlet for self-expression and protest, especially for those silenced by society. In the 1960s, Keffiyeh — or fishnet patterned — scarves came to symbolize Palestinian solidarity during Isreali conflict. In the 1970s, mini skirts exemplified defiance and sexual liberation; and later that decade, fashion designers popularized slogan t-shirts, directly merging fashion and word and giving way to the feminist t-shirts of today.  

Now, female-empowerment shirts can be found in stores across the world, including H&M, Zara, and even Walmart. With a fight for equality that has spanned millennia, it is understandable that people want to show their support for an often belittled movement, and showing pride in a  patriarchal society is nothing short of commendable. But ironically, these feminist shirts are manufactured in abusive sweatshops, where women are payed unlivable wages to work in prison-like conditions. 

In 2014, Elle UK collaborated with luxury fashion brand Whistles and the Fawcett Society, a leading women’s rights charity, to create a “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” t-shirt. However, it was revealed that these women made less than a dollar an hour, sleeping 16 per room after 12 hour days.

“‘How can this T-shirt be a symbol of feminism when we do not see ourselves as feminists? We see ourselves as trapped,’ one worker said” (Goldberg, 2014). 

The dilemma of feminist t-shirts does not only represent the abuses impacting the majority-female industry of clothes manufacturing. It also represents the use of social movements by corporations for profit, a popular advertising strategy that diminishes said movements to a dollar or a pepsi can. It is the same strategy that drives fast-fashion brands to market sustainability, and beauty companies to market body positivity after creating beauty standards. And now, it is the strategy that has driven unethical companies to abuse women in the name of equality.

I had spent so much time on my internal search for happiness that it somehow became ironic. The idea of finding my passion weighed on me daily. I was stressed. Unsure. Unhappy.

Life awaited me like an impossibly steep mountain, laid with business degrees and computer lights, and shadows of myself upon cubicle desks. And looking up at that moment, at that artificial projection of success I constructed, I felt sure for the first time in a long time. So I turned around.

I arrived in Linares, Chile, on August 9, 2018, with my stomach entwined like headphones in a pocket. I had just graduated high school, and left everything I had ever known behind. I could barely understand the new language and surroundings, but slowly I learned, and eventually I grew into the person I am now proud to be. 

In this year of pure possibility I found myself like I had tried so hard to do before. In the school library, I found a passion for human rights and public policy, for fair trade and sustainability. On rainy mornings in a quaint kitchen, I renewed my love for cooking. For dreaming up new concoctions and devouring the tried and true. And late into the night, as I marched through unlit streets with friends, asking “What happened?” but with an intangibly shared understanding of what had, I discovered my love for people. 

It took me 18 years to realize happiness is not some unreachable state of mind nor some near future. Happiness is the here and now. It is the acceptance that good comes with bad comes with ugly. It is the footed macaron and its crisp shell and its pillowy center. It is the incomprehensible dorm hallways that lead to low-lit lobbies, and the RA’s late night reminder to be quiet. It is the sight of familiar faces, and watching new ones become the same. It is gratefulness for the present: my breath. My chest rising. The tap of my fingers against the keyboard. The sticky breeze when I open the door and the leaves of trees bundled against blue, malleable with the wind.

I have several ideas for my passion blog. I may end up writing about different ethical problems, like fast fashion and unfair labor, and I may end up writing in a pseudo “Humans of New York” manner, but as of now I am leaning towards a vegan cooking blog, as it will allow me to destress during the week.