Here’s how the FX website’s 30 Days section describes the vegan episode, airing Tuesday night, June 17th:

PARTICIPANT – George Snedeker, 42
RESIDES – Chapel Hill, NC
OCCUPATION – Handyman
AIRDATE – Tuesday, June 17, 2008

George Snedeker is an avid hunter who considers it much more than just a sport; to George, hunting is a way of life. George hunts mainly for deer meat and tries to use the entire animal in order not to be wasteful.

For 30 Days, George will live in Los Angeles with vegan Melissa Karpel, 29, and her vegan family: parents Don and Madeline Karpel and her sisters Stephanie and Kimberly, who are 25-year-old twins. Melissa is a Los Angeles Campaign Coordinator for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a non-profit organization that fights for animal rights on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade and in the entertainment industry.

George will participate in PETA initiatives including a demonstration at a popular fast food chain, work at a local farm animal rescue center and meet with various organizations such as Last Chance for Animals, a non-profit group dedicated to animal rights.

Should be interesting! I hope this reaches you in time to watch and share your thoughts here afterward.

Are you up for a challenge of your own? The “Declare Your Independence From Unhealthy Foods” group cleanse starts on the 4th of July at Green Smoothie Central!

As you know, there’s a lot of buzz these days about green smoothies. Even Oprah has whipped up a blenderful or two on her show. In fact, she’s currently trying a 21-day vegan challenge! It seems all my dietary modifications started with time-bounded experiments that continued past their fourth-dimensional boxes. Let’s hope it does the same for her and her fans.

My latest personal “challenge” (the quotes because it wasn’t challenging at all) was a couple weeks on a self-designed liquid raw healing protocol. Green smoothies were front and center. While there’s nothing new under the sun, I purposely avoided reading raw food books or searching the web for ideas during this period, in order to at least attempt creating just that.

I expected to emerge with twenty-one new raw blender recipes. Instead, I was having too much fun. With the habit firmly entrenched, I just kept going. Now, a smoothie a day is back in my repertoire. Back? Indeed. Funny thing is, before I went vegan, a yogurt smoothie was my breakfast of choice.

Toss the yogurt and replace with a tossed salad and you’ve got something closer to what I enjoy today. Ultimately, I stopped compiling the recipes at just over 50. After all, I’d told everyone they were on the way. And now, they’re here! Better yet, I set about creating a community forum where members can share their own creations, modifications, and in general just get to know each other.

Check it all out at…

p.s. – My chessblog is live.