Do We Need Any More Proof That Vegetarian Food Is Unappealing?

It's hard to know what to believe anymore. Am I the only one who thought that the food pictures in magazines were the result of the accompanying recipe? Call me naive, but I truly thought that those pictures were taken right after the recipe was made.

Well, it turns out that many magazines use stock pictures and, horrors of all horrors, some of those pictures are airbrushed! No wonder my food never looks like the picture in the recipe. So how, did I find this out?

The other day I was listening to NPR when I heard that "VegNews" had been busted (by a blogger) for using stock photos of real meat ribs and claiming the picture was "Vegan Spare Ribs". And VegNews actually airbrushed the ribs out of the stock photo to make it look meatless! Using stock photos of the real food is one thing, but using stock photos of meat dishes and passing them off as vegan is a new low.

I have to say that on the radio interview the publisher did apologize but he did not sound apologetic at all. He claimed that it was standard industry practice and that they had to do it for budgetary reasons. It was clear he did not understand why his vegan readers were up in arms at this deception. How clueless! Seriously, what have these people been smoking?

600 Words Short! Calling All Writers . . .

NPR is hosting a short story competition and it’s really short! 600 words short!

Not only is it short but the judge, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, throws out an intriguing challenge: "..at some point in your story, one character must tell a joke. And, one character must cry”.

For more details on the Three-Minute Fiction competition, click here - the deadline is January 23, 2011.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of several novels including Purple Hibiscus (2003) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006).

Her most recent publication is a collection of short stories titled The Thing around Your Neck (2009), which is based on the immigrant experience in the US.

Adichie was born in Nigeria and now lives in the USA. She has won several awards including the 2007 Orange Prize for fiction. She is a winner of the 2008 MacArthur Genius Grant.