Welcome to Uproar

Wel­come to the new Up­roar web­site. If you want                                                    

to help an­i­mals, or learn about why an­i­mals need your help, you’ve come to the right place.

Up­roar (Unit­ed Pro­tec­tion and Res­cue Or­gan­i­sa­tion for An­i­mal Rights) is a new Aus­tralian group ded­i­cat­ed to end­ing the com­­plete­­ly un­ne­ces­sary abuse and suf­fer­­ing of the bil­lions of an­i­­mals who each year are raised and killed to be eat­en, ex­per­i­­men­t­ed up­­on, worn, hun­t­ed and im­pri­s­oned.

On our web­site you can find out more about the is­sues fac­ing an­i­mals, read about the work of our an­i­mal res­cue teams, and stay up to date with our exc­it­ing new cam­paigns and in­vesti­ga­tions.

Our first ma­jor cam­paign, ‘Not your typ­i­cal tree­hug­ger‘, in­­tro­­duces you to re­al ve­g­ans in the com­­mu­ni­­ty, from all                                                    

walks of life, and in the pro­cess takes a sledge­ham­mer to un­in­­formed and in­­­cor­rect pre­j­u­dices about what it is to be ve­g­an.

We will reg­u­lar­ly fea­ture recipes and re­views of great cru­el­ty free food and prod­ucts. The Up­roar blog will be up­dat­ed of­ten with re­views and recipes start­ing with this look at new cafe Monk Bod­hi Dhar­ma. Our Ve­g­an guide to Thai­land is the first in a se­ries of guides for the cru­el­ty free trav­eller.

Fi­nal­ly, we are very excit­ed to an­nounce the launch of the Ve­g­an Food Awards. To recog­nise and award the best food op­­tions in Aus­­tralia we want you to let us know your favou­rites. Vote for your favou­rite foods and places to eat and not on­­ly will you be help­ing spread the word about great ve­g­an food, you’ll be in the run­n­ing to win                                                    

one of three $50 vouch­ers to spend at a veg­­gie res­­tau­rant of your choice

We are start­ing small but will be ad­d­ing much more con­tent over the com­ing months. Please sign up to our sup­port­er list to get the lat­est news.

Not Your Typical Treehugger

Wel­come to the Not Your Typ­i­cal Tree­hug­ger cam­paign. Ve­g­ans come from all stages of life and from a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ent pro­fes­sions and so­cial groups

We are doc­tors, fire­fight­ers, pro­fes­sors, pow­er­lifters, nurs­es, en­gi­neers, par­ents, mar­tial artists, teach­ers, bank­ers, body­builders, lawy­ers, ve­t­eri­narians, so­cial work­ers, com­put­er sci­en­tists, min­ers and more.

Yet we have no­ticed over the years that many peo­ple car­ry around a tired old set of an­ti ve­g­an prej­u­dices, just wait­ing to un­load them on the first un­sus­pect­ing ve­g­an they come across. You’ll of­ten hear th­ese peo­ple mind­less­ly char­ac­terise ve­g­ans as pale, weak, wast­ing away, tree hug­ging let­tuce munch­ing hip­pies, most­ly with­out ev­er hav­ing met an ac­tu­al ve­g­an!

Some faces from the Not your typ­i­cal tree­hug­ger cam­paign

The aim of the Not Your Typ­i­cal Tree­hug­ger cam­paign is to in­tro­duce you to re­al ve­g­ans in the com­mu­ni­ty, from all walks of life, and in the pro­cess take a sledge­ham­mer to un­in­formed and in­cor­rect prej­u­dices about what it is to be ve­g­an.

In June 2010 we launched the cam­paign with this pro­file of ve­g­an body­builder Joel Kirk­ilis. Ev­ery week for the next year we will post a new pro­file to the Not Your Typ­i­cal Tree­hug­ger web­site. The pro­files will fea­ture in­for­ma-                                                    

-­tion about how and why peo­ple have gone ve­g­an, favou­rite foods and recipes, re­ac­tions of fam­i­ly and friends, and sto­ries about how go­ing ve­g­an has changed lives for the bet­ter. The cam­paign is glob­al and if you know any­one who would like to be fea­tured as part of this new and exc­it­ing cam­paign, or would like to be pro­filed your­self, please let us know.

Hearty Pasta Pronto

A quick, de­li­cious and hear­ty pas­ta sauce that’s sim­ple to pre­pare even when you’re in a hur­ry.

In­gre­di­ents

1 small Onion
3 ta­ble­spoons Soy Sauce (or Ta­mari)
250g firm To­fu
1 ta­ble­spoon Oregano or Basil (dried or fresh)
3 cloves Gar­lic
1 ta­ble­spoon fine­ly grat­ed Gin­ger
1 can italian diced To­ma­toes
2 ta­ble­spoons Red Wine or Ap­ple Cider Vine­gar
Penne pas­ta
1/2 cup chopped Conti­nen­tal Pars­ley

SERVES: 3  PRE­PA­RA­TION TIME: 20min

Pre­pa­ra­tion

Note: It’s best to use a non-stick pan to pre­vent the to­fu and other in­gre­di­ents stick­ing to the pan.

Slice the onion in half and then make thin slices – fry in a lit­tle olive oil un­til light­ly gol­d­en.

Squeeze any ex­cess wa­ter from the to­fu then crum­ble it in­to the pan with the onions – fry for about 5min stir­ring oc­ca­sio­n­al­ly – sprin­k­le soysauce (or ta­mari) over the to­fu and stir­fry for another 2 min.

Mean­while, add pas­ta to a pot of boil­ing wa­ter and stir oc­ca­sio­n­al­ly to pre­vent it stick­ing.

Sprin­k­le some basil or oregano over the to­fu, add the to-                                                    

-­ma­toes along with the fine­ly chopped gar­lic and gin­ger and red wine (or ap­ple cider vine­gar) and stir through un­til heat­ed and the sauce has re­duced a lit­tle.

Stir through a hand­ful of chopped conti­nen­tal pars­ley and serve on top of the drained pas­ta.

For ‘Cheeze’ Lovers

You can grate Chee­z­ly over the top, a ve­g­an cheese avai­l­able from some health­food stores, or in Mel­bourne try The Rad­i­cal Gro­cery Store in Brun­swick.

Savoury Yeast Flakes are great in­stead of parme­san cheese – just sprin­k­le th­ese cheesy-tast­ing flakes over your meal. They’re avai­l­able from most health­food stores.

Fresh Garden Salad

A mouth-wa­ter­ing sal­ad with in­ter­est­ing tex­tures and a sen­sa­tio­n­al dress­ing.

In­gre­di­ents

Mixed Let­tuce (Mes­clun mix is good)
1 bunch Broc­coli­ni
2 To­ma­toes cut in­to wedges
1 Av­o­ca­do diced in­to cubes
100g Pine Nuts

Dress­ing:
1/4 cup SoySauce (or Ta­mari)
2 ta­ble­spoons Gol­d­en Syrup (or Ma­ple or Agave)
Juice of 1 Le­mon
2 cloves fine­ly chopped Gar­lic
2 ta­ble­spoons Olive Oil
                                                   

1/4 cup Wa­ter

SERVES: 4-6  PRE­PA­RA­TION TIME: 20min

Pre­pa­ra­tion

Cut the broc­coli­ni in­to large strips and place  in a pan with about 1/4 cup wa­ter and 1 ta­ble­spoon olive oil – stir fry un­til the wa­ter has ab­sorbed – the broc­coli­ni should still be crunchy but wilt­ed. Trans­fer to a bowl of cold wa­ter to cool.

Pre­pare the dress­ing by com­bin­ing all dress­ing in­gre­di­ents in a bowl and stir thor­ough­ly.

In a large serv­ing bowl ar­range the mixed let­tuce leaves to cov­er, then al­ter­nate with the drained broc­coli­ni,  to-                                                    

-­ma­toes and more let­tuce leaves, sprin­k­ling lib­er­al­ly with the dress­ing as you lay­er.

Add the cubed av­o­ca­do on top, add some more dress­ing, then sprin­k­le toast­ed pine nuts over the top mid­dle sec­tion and serve.

Cherry Oreo Icecream Cake

A de­ca­dent du­al-lay­er ice­cream cake with Vanil­la and crushed Ore­os, Cho­co­late and Cher­ries.

In­gre­di­ents

1 litre tub So Good Vanil­la Soy Ice­cream (or any brand of ve­g­an ice­cream)
1 litre tub So Good Cho­co­late Soy Ice­cream
1 pack­et of Oreo Bis­cuits (Ore­os are ve­g­an)
2 cups diced Cher­ries (use a frozen pack­et with the pips al­ready re­moved)
Op­tio­n­al Ic­ing Su­gar for dust­ing
Op­tio­n­al Mint Leaves and ex­tra Cher­ries for de­c­o­ra­tion

SERVES: many  PRE­PA­RA­TION TIME: 4hrs

Pre­pa­ra­tion

Line a cake tray (or tub) with cling wrap.

In a se­parate bowl let one litre of vanil­la soy ice­cream soft­en un­til you can mix it, then cut up a pack­et of Oreo bis­cuits in­to small pie­ces and mix them through the vanil­la ice­cream. Scoop in­to the cake tray and pat flat with a spoon or spa­t­u­la. Put in­to the freez­er for 2hrs to re-har­d­en.

Once the vanil­la ice­cream has har­d­ened, re­peat the pro­cess with the cho­co­late soy ice­cream us­ing the diced cher­ries in­stead of Ore­os. Scoop on­to the vanil­la lay­er and leave for 2hrs or overnight to har­d­en.

To serve, put a serv­ing plate in the freez­er to cool for a while, then turn the tray up­side and drop it on­to the serv­ing plate, us­ing the cling wrap to help pull it out.

You can sprin­k­le ic­ing su­gar on top and de­c­o­rate with cher­ries and mint leaves. Slice and eat!

Monk Bodhi Dharma Review

I first came across Monk Bod­hi Dhar­ma while tak­ing a                                                    

short­cut down a de­sert­ed al­ley­way in St Kil­da past a small in­dus­trial car park. I re­mem­ber think­ing what an un­for­tu­nate lo­ca­tion for a cafe, and gave them maybe a cou­ple months be­fore they went out of busi­ness. Some­thing about the cafe stuck in my mind, and a few weeks lat­er on a whim I goo­gled them and was sur­prised to learn that MBD was a veg­e­tarian and ve­g­an friend­ly cafe, spe­cial­is­ing in cof­fee and ‘heal­ing veg­e­tarian food.’

With thoughts of help­ing out a strug­gling lit­tle veg­e­tarian eatery I set out with some eat­ing com­panions, half fear­ing that the al­ley­way cafe would have al­ready gone out of busi­ness. When we stepped in­to the cosy world of Monk Bod­hi Dhar­ma, our fears were more than un­jus­ti­fied. The place was packed. There wasn’t a spare seat avai­l­able and a num­ber of peo­ple were sip­ping cof­fee at                                                    

the coun­ter, wait­ing to be seat­ed.

We soon dis­cov­ered why. MBD has an all day break­fast menu as well as dai­ly soup and stew spe­cials. All of the spe­cials of the day were ve­g­an as was most of the break­fast menu (a few dish­es with fe­ta could be eas­i­ly ve­g­an-ised). We drank hot cho­co­lates and “Huil­la”, a sweet toned colum­bian cof­fee, and for lunch or­dered Av­o­ca­do on Sour­dough and North Afri­can Ra­ta­touille and Date Stew.

I wasn’t ex­pect­ing much from a hear­ty stew but end­ed the meal want­ing to go in­to the kitchen to hug the chef.

The Av­o­ca­do on Sour­dough, with herbs and a splash of le­mon, was solid­ly tas­ty. The Stew, served with cous                                                    

cous, was amaz­ing. I wasn’t ex­pect­ing much from a hear­ty stew but end­ed the meal want­ing to go in­to the kitchen to hug the chef. We shall defi­nite­ly be back to try dish­es like the In­dian-creamy-pump­kin-man­soor-dhal-co­conut-man­go-soup (which should be sub­ti­tled ‘more than a mouth­ful’), Pump­kin gu­jerati soup, and Ja­mai­can sweet po­ta­to, red kid­ney bean and co­conut stew. Yum.

De­spite be­ing rushed off their feet, the staff were friend­ly and very help­ful. The al­ley­way cafe seats around twen­ty in a cosy at­mo­sphere with woo­d­en fitt­ings, dis­tressed brick walls, and for the cof­fee nerds, an im­pres­sive ar­ray of cof­fee mak­ing ap­para­tus­es.

Monk Bod­hi Dhar­ma is hid­den away at the rear of 202 Carlisle Street, Bal­a­cla­va in Vic­to­ria and can be reached on (03) 9534 7250.  To get there off Carlisle Street,                                                    

head down the al­ley­way next to the Safe­way load­ing dock.

If you are trav­elling from a dis­tance MBD is around the corn­er and down the street from Rishon (17 Wil­li­am Street, Bal­a­cla­va), the Jew­ish gro­cery store that is a won­der­land of ve­g­an goods, and Al­pha, the ve­g­an cho­co­late fac­to­ry (23 Wil­li­am Street, Bal­a­cla­va). Defi­nite­ly worth a com­bined vis­it.

Up­date: Monk Bod­hi Dhar­ma are now of­fer­ing a range of de­li­cious ve­g­an cookies, muffins and cup­cakes!