Spinach

Sitting in Judgement: how to tell people that you're vegetarian

2013-04-22T03:36:00.000-07:00

I know all you meat-eaters think that giving up cheese is a gigantic, oppressive cross that vegans have chosen to wear. It's not. Life after cheese is not that hard. I rarely ever even think about cheese. But what is often truly difficult about plant-based living is dealing with the social aspects of being vegan or vegetarian. New vegetarians are often surprised at the reaction they receive from other people when announce that they follow a different diet from the norm. These reactions can range from mild disrespect to mockery, or from vitrolic insults to uncomfortable silence. Of course, it's not all bad, sometimes people are just curious, interested, politely baffled, or completely non-plussed.

I don't think I know any vegetarian hasn't had someone challenge their eating practices in a disrespectful way. And this situation is strangely contrasted by the perception that vegetarians are judgemental extremists who simply can't stop themselves from shoving carrots up the noses of all the meat-eaters they encounter.

Why on Earth would anyone care, let alone react badly when someone tells them they're a vegetarian? I've come to believe that I understand the reasons for these reactions. The key word up there is judgemental. Obviously, no one likes being judged. The realization that we don't always control other people's perceptions of us makes most of us feel panicky and defensive. Most people have a general desire to be seen as compassionate, kind, and intelligent, and it's rude awakening whenever we realise that other people have come to different conclusions about us.

But is the label of Judgy McJudgerson a fair one to slap onto vegans? Are some vegens judgemental? Sure. For a long time, 10 years or so, I would have said no. I genuinely hadn't encountered it. But since becoming vegan, and entering online VeganWorld, I've noticed a species of vegan that are absolutely up on their high, pleather-saddled horses. And this behaviour is completely misguided. None of us are perfect vegans, and very few of us became vegans or vegetarians the second it occured to us there might be something unethical about eating animals. And it's not exactly appealing behaviour that's going to convince others that veganism is a club they really want to be part of. But these vegans don't speak for the majority of us.

Truthfully? I'm absolutely a judgemental person. I judge people all the time. It's something I'm working on doing less, but I have to admit: I love judging people. And I usually find people who don't share this past-time kind of boring. It's fun. But I am really not a judgemental vegan. I don't care what you are or aren't putting in your mouth. Believe it or not, I don't spend that much time thinking about your eating habits. Do I want everyone to stop eating meat, dairy, and eggs? Yes. Absolutely. Do I waste my time judging individual people for eating meat, dairy, and eggs? No! I have bigger potatoes to fry, and I spent years ignoring the truth of the dairy and egg industries myself.

What does "judgemental" mean anyway? We all make negative moral judgements about other people all the time, and plenty of these judgements are useful. If I said that I thought we needed to take some more time to understand the reasons behind Stalin's behaviour and not be so quick to label his actions as "evil", I wouldn't arrouse much support. Because it would be idiotic. Saying that child abuse, genocide, murder, sexual assault, and not give your seat to old ladies on the bus is wrong is a judgement. But a useful one. One that lets us know what kind of behaviour we don't want to be involved in. What we really mean when we call someone judgemental is that they make a negative judgement about someone that is unfair. We take a slice of their behaviour or beliefs and using it to make a wider negative judgement about their worth as a human being, or their intelligence as a whole.

Put into perspective, if I say that I believe eating animals is morally wrong, does that make me a judgemental person? I don't believe that it does. If I say that I believe that someone is an immoral person based soley on their consumption of animals and their secretions, does that make me a judgemental person? Yes, I believe it does. And I don't honestly hear the latter judgement come around too often in vegan and vegetarian circles. I'm perfectly aware that someone who eats meat might donate plenty of his/her time to other charitable or social justice calls. Maybe they spend hours letting friends cry on their shoulders after their friends have been dumped. Maybe they call their grandmother every weekend. I don't think I'm a better person than a meat eater is. But I still think eating animals is wrong.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's perfectly possible to disagree with a moral position or lack of position that another person has, without thinking that they are an immoral person. I don't have to agree with everything someone says or does in order to think they are a kind and intelligent person.

Sooooooooo, what does all of this have to do with vegetarians telling people about their veggie munching lifestyle? I think understanding why people react against vegetarians is hugely important for us. and I think it's important for us to have the confidence to talk about these issues without feeling that we are being judgemental. And I think it's even more important that vegetarians keep telling people that they are vegetarian. Who benefits from you keeping quiet? The animals? Even the people who are supposed to be fighting for their rights are too afraid to speak up for them. You? Does it really sound reasonable that you should have to hide something important to you so that someone else doesn't feel momentarily uncomfortable? The other person in the conversation? I guess if you stay quiet they don't have to feel momentarily uncomfortable. But one of the most common things I hear vegans saying is that they wish that had known all this information before. They wish the vegan they lived or worked with 10 years ago had spoken up. They feel pain at the idea that they contributed to cruelty so often for so many years.

So my advice for speaking up and telling people that you're vegetarian? Tell them you're vegetarian. My advice for answering tactfully when people ask you why you're vegetarian? Tell. Them. Why. You're. Vegetarian. I'm so tired of hearing other vegans start threads on vegan forums asking how to "handle the conversation" with their co-workers, or their family members, or their spouse's relatives about the reasons for their veganism. As though they are supposed to squeak out their reasons quiet as a mouse and then rock the other person softly and comfortingly back to their happy place. Just tell them! But tell them YOUR reasons for becoming vegetarian. You don't need to tell them all the reasons under the sun for veganism, or tell them why they should be vegan. Tell them what made sense to you and moved you the most. If you are talking about what matters to you and what moves you, how is that judgemental?

If they react against your calm explanations of your own beliefs, recognise that you can't control their reactions. Recognise that they may feel judged and that may not be your fault (assuming you really didn't shove those carrots up their nose). You don't have to engage with anyone you don't want to. You can walk away from the conversation if they react disrespectfully. You can even point out to them that they are reacting disrespectfully. You end here. They begin there. You don't control their reaction.

We live in a world in which people don't feel comfortable telling other people that they have opinions different to the norm. We live in a world where people don't feel comfortable telling other people that they actually act in accordance with their beliefs. We live in a world where it's considered normal and reasonable to believe one thing, and behave in the opposite way. Fix that. Speak up.

Pizza Hummous!

2013-03-24T05:23:00.002-07:00

Two weeks ago I blogged about food cravings and our misconceptions about what they tell us about our bodies. So today, I give you a recipe combining the one thing all vegans crave beyond reason and one thing almost everyone craves: hummous and pizza.

A huge variety of different flavoured chickpea dips are making their way around the internet, so when I saw the idea for pizza hummous on another blog, I had to try to create my own version. I think I'm a little addicted to coming up with bastardized, creative versions of hummous now, so be warned, this probably won't be the last time I post a non-traditional garbanzo recipe.

Pizza Hummous:

1 can chickpeas
1 large spoonful tahini (1-2 tbsp)
Either 1/2 cup prepared pizza sauce OR 1/2 cup of simple sauce recipe below
4 olives, any variety
1-2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
1/2 bell pepper (in the photo above I used a PURPLE bell pepper! What???)

Tomato sauce (use only half of this recipe):
1/2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp italian seasoning (or 1 tsp dried basil, 1 tsp oregano, and a pinch each of rosemary, sage, and marjoram)
1 500g tin tomatoes
1/2 tsp salt

Blend chickpeas and tahini together in blender.

If making your own sauce, heat olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Saute garlic gloves for 1 minute, until fragrant. Add dried herbs and saute for 30 seconds, then add the tomatoes. Simmer over medium heat until reduce slightly (5 minutes or so), and then add the salt. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Add either the 1/2 cup of pizza sauce, or 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce, olives, nutritional yeast, and salt to the chickpeas and blend until smooth. Taste, and add more salt if necessary. Fold in bell pepper and serve with pita bread, or strips of plan pizza crust!

Brighton VegFest

2013-03-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

An hour into attending the annual Brighton VegFest, my omnivore boyfriend turned to me and said, "you know what I've learnt today? Vegans are just like normal people. I thought they'd be all weird, but most of them look just like people." Um, thanks, honey.

The Brighton VegFest, which I attended for the first time this year, is a happy annual event where animal products are checked at the door, and vegan food sellers, animal organisations, beauty product producers, and clothing stalls mingle happily with vegan-related workshops, speakers, and performers. The air is heady with free samples of strawberry coconut milk, vegan pastry and cake, nut cheese samples, and animal-free bath bombs.

Two years into my vegan wagon-ride, I'm starting to realise that actually associating with other vegans is an essential part of vegan well-beaning. Not being much of a joiner, this thought has mostly occurred to me and then drifted away aimlessly. But with this thought in mind, I decided to spend the afternoon among my own people.

Carrot Bubble Bar from Lush!

So, from 11-3pm I frolicked around three floors of stalls, and aquired a vegan Snickers-type bar, signed multiple petitions, tried coconut milk samples, raw chocolate samples, bought The Joy of Vegan Baking for £5 (yay!), thought about investing in a weekly delivery box of organic veggies (jury is still out on this idea, what do you think?), and gelatin-free vegan jelly candies (I'm not usually a fan of jellies, vegan or not, but these were good!), and used my feminine wiles to convince the boyfriend to buy me a carrot shaped bubble bath thingy from Lush. Okay, I just asked him to buy it for me and he did. And then I had a sugar-rush so had to have some real food, and dug into a super-yummy chickpea curry, and once full promptly spilled the remains of it over myself.

Melanie Joy and I!

By far and away, the most amazing, inspiring, and moving aspect of the event was the beautiful speech by Dr. Melanie Joy, a professor of social psychology, and author of the book that I had coincidentally just finished reading, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Melanie talks about the means through which most people are able to cultivate a gap in their consciousness, allowing them to ignore the true origins of what's on their plates. I wouldn't be able to express it as articulately as she does, so I'm not going to try, but I urge you all to read her book. I left the speech feeling motivated and re-devoted to the cause.

Ferraro Rocher Cupcakes!

After we let the speech we made one more stop to Ms. Cupcake's stand, which is the happiest place in Brixton: a vegan bakery. The boyfriend bought himself a ferrero rocher cupcake (a chocolate and hazelnut cupcake so chocolatey it might be illegal), and I got a gigantic cookie sandwich, which was a meal in itself and AMAZING. Like a big oreo cookie, but actually good.

Who knew that a rainy day in Brighton could turn into a trip to Vegan Disneyland?

For anyone interested, there is another Vegfest in Bristol in May (admission £2), and one in London in October (admission £10).

Food Cravings and Why You aren't as Smart as You Think You Are

2013-03-07T06:43:00.001-08:00

Although vegans are frequently accused of being hippies, there's plenty of hippy fodder than annoys the kale out of me. Granola, Simon and Garfunkel, and not shaving your legs, all good stuff. Slippery Elm food, people named Rain, and optimism, all bad stuff. Carob I could do with or without. But the particular New Age-y, bullshiitake concept that I'd like to talk about today is one that's seeped out of the hippie realm and into everyday usage. And it goes like this: you need to listen to your body.

I'm not talking about listening to your bodies signals for basic functions, like sleeping and washroom trips. This concept pushes forward the idea that once you strip away the conditioning of society that makes you want to chug Coke and scarf cheeseburgers, you will be beautifully intuned to your body's signals, which will always be sensible and perfectly aligned with your true nutritional needs. So if you're lacking in beta-carotene, your body will crave carrots. If you're lacking in vitamin C, you'll crave broccoli. Whatever your body needs, it will naturally crave, and if you only learn to interpret your body's signals, you'll be bouncing off the walls with vibrant, sparkling energy.

And at face value, the idea doesn't sound that crazy, does it? It sounds pretty comforting. Once you reset your body's dials, you'll never have to fight its desires again. You will want exactly what you need and you can trust yourself totally. And if you aren't craving things that are healthful, than you simply haven't learned to listen to your body yet. How nice and neat and bundled into a little package of gobledegook.

Maybe my body speaks Portuguese. Maybe I need a hearing aid. But my body doesn't do much talking to me. At least, not any talking worth listening to. And its not for lack of me trying to become attuned. For years, I toed the line between thinking one day my body would be able to communicate beautifully and flawlessly to me about its needs, and thinking that the whole idea was poppycock.

And then one day, I sat listening to someone telling me that she ate meat only in small amounts, but every once in a while she craved meat strongly, and then she figured that she really needed it. Now, immediately this line of logic struck me as fallacious. If I'm strongly craving a can of Dr. Pepper (which is frequently enough the case), does that mean my body really needs a whack of sugar and food colouring devoid of any nutritional value? I don't think so. And aren't most people's cravings for...junk? True, I often crave healthy food, like kale, or berries, or sweetcorn, or more hummous than you might think any one human could consume. But I'm pretty sure your average diabetic, angina-suffering, meat-and-potatoes guy doesn't crave any of those things. And I think it's fair to assume he'd benefit from eating them. So it seemed more likely to me, in this moment of revelation, that I crave these healthy things simply because I often eat them, and was privy to their many charms.

And thusly, after this conversation and my reaction to it, I did what I am wont to do, and researched my butternut squash off. And what I found is that once upon a time, medical researchers hypothesised that food cravings were routed in specific nutrient deficiencies. But they haven't been very successful at demonstrating this relationship in the lab. Instead, modern research points to the relationship between what we crave and what we perceive as indulgent or forbidden. We crave chocolate partly because we're told that we crave chocolate. And partly because we believe that we're not supposed to eat it.

According to research, another possible cause of our cravings could be biological instinct. Our bodies haven't exactly evolved to deal with the western world. We crave fat and sugar because things high in fat and sugar have a high level of calorie density, which used to keep us alive back when food was scarce and required actual effort to come by. Now, these cravings hindering us instead of helping, and the excess fat and sugar we are consuming is making us ill.

There's also evidence to suggest that we crave what we eat a lot of, which is why I dream about a big, lemony forkful of spinach, and the meat and potatoes heart disease patient doesn't. Western women craving chocolate is so predictable it's a little embarrassing, but in countries where chocolate is seldom consumed the inhabitants crave more savoury foods.

Those of you reading this who are involved in the online vegan community will probably have guessed why I wrote this post now. Last week, a well-known vegan health counsellor (whom I have no intention of naming) shocked everyone by revealing that after 12 years of veganism, she was going back to eating animals and their secretions. Her reasoning? She had been experiencing uncontrollable cravings for animals. Now, she has not said she was experiencing health problems, but the implied sentiment of her announcement seemed to me to be that if she was craving animals, she must need them. So, without judging, I felt it was timely to present an accurate view of cravings and their true sources, insofar as we currently understand them to be. I hope that it will help not only those who feel crippled by their cravings on their way to better health, but more importantly those who still experience cravings for animal flesh and fluids. You do not have to bow down to your cravings.

I mean, let's face it, we're just not that smart, are we? Our bodies are not insightful, magical instruments that, if we only learn to listen to them, will lead us to good health. And neither are our minds. We consciously and unconsciously continue to make stupid decisions about our health, our work, our extra-curricular activities, our relationships, and just about every aspect of our lives under the sun. We gravitate towards foods we know are bad for us, and avoid foods we know are good. We value the wrong things. We fail to appreciate people who care for us. We procrastinate on things to the level that it seriously mucks up our lives. So why do we think that our cravings for stuff indicates anything other than simple, sometimes inadvisable, desire?

So if you are reading this and experiencing omnivorous cravings, give in to them. In a way. Don't try to decode your bodies signals. Sit down and eat a big, indulgent, vegan meal. Try the chickpea patties from Veganomicon. Or the chocolate peanut butter cups from The Kind Diet. Or the scalloped potatoes from The Vegan Table. And by that I mean, eat all those things in one delicious meal. Indulge. Without being self-indulgent.

Resources

Clemens, Roger M.D. and Peter Pressman, M.D., "Are food cravings the body's way of telling us that we are lacking certain nutrients?" Scientific American, May 23 2005.

Hormes, Julia. "Towards a Socio-Cultural Model of Food Cravings: Evidence from the Case of Perimenstrual Chocolate Craving" University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons, 2010.

Pelchat, Marcia, et al, "Images of desire: food-craving activation during fMRI," NeuroImage, 2004.

"Everybody knows, Tofurkey and some mistletoe..." A Guide to a Vegan Christmas

2012-12-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

Tradition is pretty comforting. As Tevye tells us, tradition reminds us of who we are and have been. Change is terrifying. So it's no surprise to me that people don't like to imagine changing their traditions in the name of protecting animals. And so many of our holiday traditions are centered around animal flesh and bodily...outputs, that the idea of changing these rituals, ingrained in and treasured by us since early childhood, seems unnerving or even ridiculous. It's one thing to say that you believe that animals have the right to roam, fly and snooze as they please. It's quite another to give up the Christmas turkey and chocolate orange you've looked forward to all year for as long as you can remember.
I love Christmas. And I love tradition. And I understand these fears completely. But I think traditions, like everything else, are in flux. Maybe that's a depressing thought to you, but traditions can be modified to reflect the you that you are now. So those of you who are experiencing your first vegetarian or vegan Christmas, I hope the following post will help your transition be a little easier. Relatives of vegans may find some helpful ideas below for incorporating vegan food into their usual menu, and even if you're just leaning towards veganism, you might find some ideas for increasing the vegetable ratio of your Christmas.
1. Replacing the Turkey. Finding another option for the big dead bird in the centre of your table is probably the most stressful, or unimaginable part of a vegan Christmas for most people. But there are plenty of delicious options!

Vegetable Pot Pie. When I'm cooking Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner, the Winter Vegetable Pot Pie from Moosewood Celebrates is my absolute favourite. The original recipe is not vegan, but I simply replace the butter with a vegan margarine, and omit the haverti cheese. See my recipe below. There are lots of different pot pie recipes that might be to your liking. I like this option partly because it's a nice, pleasing big centrepiece in the middle of your table, that provides a focal point, just like a turkey.

Nut Roast. Maybe you've heard some mocking in the media about this vegan holiday standby. Forget everything you've heard, my friends! Nut roasts are deliciously delicious! For years now, my mother has made a really lovely nut roast with pine nuts and cashews, with a tomato gravy to go on top. I don't actually understand what sounds bad about a nut roast. Nuts. Roasted. Um, yes?

Tofurkey. You're all making a face, aren't you? If nut roasts receive mocking... Tofurkey is the classic vegan "meat" in the form and flavour of a turkey. I tried one once. It's not the kind of thing I'm really crazy about, but if you're in that transitional phase of craving animal flesh, you might find Tofurkey the thing for you. Plus, then you get to say the word tofurkey a lot.

Stuffed Squash, Pumpkin, or Sweet Potatoes. Baked starchy veggies filled with grain, spices, dried fruits and nuts...delicious, nutritious, and all familiar food. And also really easy to make super pretty.

No Main Dish. You can skip trying to find an edible centrepiece, plop your kid's weird Christmas art project in the middle of your table instead, and just have a plethora of delicious, familiar, vegan side dishes. Just make sure you make enough to feel disgustingly full afterwards.

2. Side Dishes. This is the easy part. Most of your usual side dishes are probably already vegan or effortlessly veganised. Use Pure, Vitalite, Earth Butter, or olive oil instead of butter. Soy, almond, hazelnut, rice, oat, or coconut milk instead of cow's milk. Pick up almost any vegetarian cookbook you will see an amazing array of delicious options, both traditional and creative. Roasted veggies, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, garlic green beans, cranberry sauce...YUM. Here are a few classic things you might want to think about:

Stuffing: Its so easy to make your traditional stuffing vegetarian. Just cover it in vegetable stock and bake it in the oven. I promise you it's delicious this way. And if you want to step outside the traditional bread stuffing (um, why?), I've seen many tempting stuffing recipes with nuts, dried fruit, apples, even vegan sausage!

Gravy. Again, it's so easy to make a good vegan gravy. You can use miso, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, onions, mushrooms, or even just a good vegetable stock as your base, and you will not feel at all deprived of the fat laden animal-based version. And no one has to drink the fat.

3. Dessert. Most any dessert can be veganised with a little creativity. There are so many options I can't even list them all here. If you are looking for a traditional Christmas pudding recipe, try the one on The Vegan Society's website, found here. For a cream or custard option, Apro makes a nice soy custard option in both vanilla and chocolate. You can try soy cream, oat cream, or even coconut cream! Think about a cranberry and orange cake, poached pears in cinnamon red wine sauce, a chocolate and cranberry tart, or a trifle with soy custard or cashew cream. Oooh, I'm thinking about all of those things right now.

4. Christmas Cookies. Who doesn't love a Christmas cookie? It's even fun to say. There are about 1,690,313 vegan cookie recipes online. If you want to veganise your traditional recipes, here's a crash course in vegan baking: for butter, use margarine or canola oil. For milk, use...non-dairy milk. For eggs, in cookies try either a good quality egg replacer, flax gel (1 tbsp ground flax/linseeds mixed with 1 tbsp of water), or use a pre-existing recipe for vegan cookies that doesn't use a replacement as your guide for ratios. And try my super simple, healthy and delicious recipe for date rolls below. For your gingerbread needs, look at these adorable gingerbread men from PPK (Post Punk Kitchen).

5. Stuff your sorries in a sock! Also known as stocking stuffers. Candy canes, apples, oranges...already vegan! For some vegan milk chocolate ideas, try MooFree vegan chocolate. The make kid friendly, cute milk chocolates with rice milk. They also make a vegan advent calendar that I was VERY pleased to purchase. You can also use hard candy, vegan trail mix, roasted nuts, or dark chocolates.

6. Chocolates. Gifts of chocolate truffles are an unavoidable part of Christmas. Obviously, I don't mean unavoidable in a bad way. Try Booja Booja truffles, Green and Blacks dark selection, or Allison's Gourmet Vegan Truffles. Turkish Delight, although not chocolate, is another nice option that's usually vegan. You may also find that conventional chocolate shops or sellers have a range of dark chocolates that will be vegan. BUT, please don't just assume that dark chocolates are vegan, you really have to check the label to make sure there are no milk products, eggs, or gelatin in the chocolates or the fillings. And of course, you can just make your own chocolates and truffles. There are a gazillion recipes online for this purpose.

Here's the bottom line. Christmas traditions like turkey, roast beef, or chocolate oranges are completely arbitrary. They have no connection whatsoever to the birth of Jesus, or the winter solstice, or whatever you believe the real origins of this holiday to be. And they are replaceable with equally delicious alternatives that in time will come to mean as much to you, and that you will look forward to just as much. There's nothing inherently wrong with arbitrary traditions, but I think I'd like some traditions in my life that mean something to me. I'd like the tradition in my household of valuing life, my own, and that of all the other animals. Perhaps you, Dear Reader, would like to teach your children that in your house it's more important to have compassion than to have turkey. I think that sounds more like a tradition worth handing down the generations than bread cooked in a turkey's rear end.

Peace to all creatures on Earth.

Ethical Eats!

Winter Vegetable Pie

This recipe is one of my favourites. It's fairly time consuming, so I only make it a couple of times a year, but I dream about it the rest of the year. As I said above, the original recipe, found in Moosewood Celebrates, includes cheese, but just omitting it will still give you a delicious, creamy sauce. You could also add, say, a 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast to the sauce to give it a cheesy flavour, and I think it would be really scrumptious.

Pie filling

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 bay leaves
2 1/2 cups cubed potatoes (about 2 medium taters)
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
1 cup vegetable stock
2 cups cut green beans about 1 in pieces
3 cups peeled, cubed butternut squash (I'm usually not a fan of pre-prepared veggies, but if you can buy the squash already cubed, it will be a huge help to you)
2 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh dill (dill and I are going to get married one day)

Sauce

1/4 cup vegan margarine
1/3 cup unbleached white flour
2 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes (optional and untested, but potentially yummy)
salt and ground pepper to taste

Pastry

1 3/4 cup unbleached white flour
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 cup vegan margarine of vegetable shortening
1/4 cup ice water

For the filling:

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add the onions and the bay leaves and saute until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the potatoes, salt, celery, and the vegetable stock. Cover the pot and bring to a boil then lower the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the beans and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the squash and cook for 5 to 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms, parsley, dill, and cook for 5 minutes until soft. Cover the pot and lift to stir occassionally and enjoy the delicious, country soup aroma. Once the vegetables are just tender, not too mushy here because you will be cooking them again a long time in the oven, remove the bay leaves (or, as I understand it, you will choke and die). Cover the pot and set the vegetables aside while you prepare the sauce and the crust.

Preheat the oven to 375F/190C.

For the sauce:

Melt the vegan margarine in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour to make a roux. Cook for a couple minutes stirring the whole time so the roux doesn't burn. Whisk in the stock and cook on medium heat, stirring often until the sauce thickens. You know you've done it right when the sauce starts to thicken in beautiful, smooth swirls. If you're using the nooch, add it now and stir until smooth. Add the sauce to the filling, and pour it into your baking dish.

I've used a big 9x13 baking dish, a large oval Le Crueset dish, or just a large, oven proof mixing bowl, all to happy results.

For the pastry:

Mix together the flour and rosemary in a large bowl. Work in the margarine or shortening with two forks or a pastry cutter until the dough resembles course meal. Sprinkle the ice water over the dough 1 tablespoon at a time and lightly mix it in. Form a ball with the dough and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. You have a few options: you can make one big crust with a few slits to allow steam to escape, you can do a lattice top with strips, or you can cut the pastry using shapes. Fit your cutouts or crust on top of the filling and then pop the whole thing in the oven and cook for 40 or 50 minutes. The filling will get bubbly and the crust should turn golden and puff just a little.

Eek, I want to eat it now!

Healthy Chocolate Cherry Truffles

Makes 7-10

I made these one day when I realised how much money I was spending on Nakd snack bars (I think they're the same as Larabars across the pond) as snacks for work, and figured it couldn't be that hard to make my own. And it wasn't, but they're so good that I eat them all for dessert and now I still don't have any snacks at work. The flavour combinations are vast and varied here, but I thought chocolate and cherries were particularly Christmas-y.

100g (about 1/2 cup) pitted dates (if your blender or food processor isn't very strong, I'd suggest soaking the dates for an hour or so beforehand)
60g cashews (about a scant 1/2 cup)
50g dried cherries (about 1/3 cup)
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp almond extract

Roughly chop the dates and cashews. Add all ingredients into your food processor and process. Stop to savour the ambrosial smell of the almond extract. I like to leave the ingredients a little chunky so that I get nice chewy bites of dried cherries. Once blended, form the mixture into little tablespoon sized balls with your hands. If they are a little moist, you can roll them in cocoa powder.

Vegan accommodation review: Fern Tor B&B

2012-09-21T02:56:00.001-07:00

You know that daydream that you have? The one where you quit your tedious job in the city, stop unwillingly smelling other people's armpits on public transport, leave the Saturday night crowds of puking students behind, and escape into the countryside? And then you fix up a charmingly delapidated farm house, surround yourself with roaming animals, locally-grown fresh vegetables, and feed breakfast to lonely wanderers? Well, Jane and Cliff Strehlow have done just that, although even better...they've done it VEGETARIAN!

Okay, I don't actually know if Jane and Cliff were living in the city before they moved into Fern Tor Vegetarian and Vegan Guest House. And I don't know if the farm house out of which they operate was delapidated before they got to it. And I don't know if they've ever found themselves fighting through crowds of puking teenagers. But I do know that they run a beautiful bed and breakfast nestled amongst peaceful Devon fields, and I know that they serve delicious vegetarian meals chockful of local produce, and I know that they provide a loving home for many rescued farm animals.

I know this, because a little over a month ago, Dan and I took our spinachy selves out for an anniversary trip to Devon, and stayed at Fern Tor for two happy nights, right outside the little village of Meshaw, Devon, surrounded by waves of green hills dotted with snoozing sheep.

We stayed for two nights, one in the twin room upstairs and one in the lovely double room downstairs. Both rooms are spacious and comfy, with ensuite bathrooms (with bathtubs). From the twin room you get a great view of the garden where you watch the pigs happily snort. And when you wake up in the double room with the sun shining in through the windows and gaze over at the leafy garden just outside your door, you will think you've woken up in a countryside hazy morning dream.

Of course, my main reason for visitng Fern Tor was to increase my proximity to the rescued animals they give sanctuary to. On their fair banks they house a multitude of rabits, two Scottish pigs, several chickens happily snuggling with each other, at least one very disgruntled goose, several shy sheep, and a handful of friendly, curious goats, one of whom came over to me for a little cuddle. Fern Tor is no zoo; the animals need their privacy, but we couldn't resist a wee tip toe around to watch the peaceful, unthreatened animals be, well, peaceful and untreatened.

As I said, my main reason for wating to come to Fern Tor was the animals, but my over-riding memory is of the amazing, plentiful vegan food on offer. We were fed ooddles of aduki bean pie, fresh salads, butternut squash and rosemary soup, mushroom cassoulet, grilled veggie skewers, lemon and ginger "cheesecake", and vegan ice cream sundaes, alongside hearty vegan breakfasts. Amazing. We left the table in pain.

And we left Fern Tor well-rested and well-fed. Happy vegan travels.

Break the Fast with Vegans

2012-06-22T05:57:00.001-07:00

Never let it be said that I don't listen to the pleas of the masses (okay, the one-time request of one person). Here it is, an ENTIRE post devoted just to the breaking of the fast, veganly. Herein we will discuss many options for the vegan breakfaster, both healthy and indulgent, cheap and, well, mostly just cheap.

A few posts ago, I suggested that if you're looking to adopt a more healthful diet, fixing one meal at a time was a good idea, and suggested starting with breakfast first. I don't want to repeat that maxim about breakfast that we've all heard a million times since birth (you know which phrase I'm talking about), but it's true. The quality of your breakfast will affect how you feel on a particular day more than anything else you eat. That's reason one to fix breakfast first. Reason two, healthy breakfasts are often the cheapest. Reason three, when you wake up first thing in the morning, you're generally too sleepy to give into cravings for crappy foods; therefore, simply by getting yourself into the routine of eating healthy, plant-based breakfasts, you will stay in that routine. Reason four, a lot of traditional breakfast food is either already vegan, or very easily made vegan, so it's an easy adjustment.

I hear from a LOT of people that they often just don't feel like eating in the morning, or even that they feel a little nauseated if they try. I used to be one of you. I really had to force food down my throat at 7:30am, and left the table feeling queasy. But I whole-heartedly believe that once you start eating breakfast, you will eventually not only be able to eat it without any problems, you will need to eat it, or suffer for the rest of the day. And I'm sure I don't need to quote at you the many studies that have found that those who eat breakfast have higher rates of this good thing and lower rates of that bad thing, because I know you've heard them, and you all know that you're supposed to be eating breakfast.

But, you don't want to puke on your morning train in the meantime. I get it. A reasonable request. So my suggestion would be to simply start small, and start light. Grab an apple or a banana. Maybe mix together some dried fruit and nuts. Try a small fruit salad. You could even try the pre-run breakfast I used to eat in the mornings, back in another lifetime when I actually ran (ha!). Nuke a banana for a few seconds in the microwave, then add in a little spoonful of natural peanut butter and mix it together. I know it sounds gross, but it's kind of like a warm peanut butter and jam sandwich, without the bread. Once these lighter breakfasts become old hat to you, try adding a little more until your ready for a proper breakfast.

So, for the rest of you who, just like I do, think about food the second you open your eyes in the morning, here's a collection of vegan breakfast ideas. They're roughly ordered from most healthful to most indulgent.

Everyday breakfasts:

1. Porridge.

Are you sick of hearing me talk about porridge yet? Too bad, I'm not going to stop. Porridge is amazingly nutritious, easy, and cheap. And it can be dressed up in so many ways. Try it with dates, dried apricots, raisins, sliced almonds, walnuts, frozen or fresh blueberries, jam, frozen or fresh raspberries, apples and cinnamon, or even a little dark chocolate, if you're feeling indulgent.

Porridge need not be limited to oat porridge. Try a porridge of brown rice, quinoa, or cornmeal if you don't like oats, or have trouble digesting them.

2. Muesli.

When the weather turns warm, or theoretically when the weather turns warm because it doesn't happen in the UK, sometimes you don't want want a nice steaming bowl of porridge. Sometimes you want essentially the exact same thing, but cold. Try making your own out of rolled oats, dried fruit, nuts, and maybe some wheatgerm, or look for a brand that contains no added sugar. You can vary up the flavour by trying a more traditional combination of dried raisins, dried apples, and cinnamon, or you could go foresty and make one with dried blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, and strawberries, or you could go CRAZY and make a tropical version with dried pineapple, mango, papaya, and coconut. Serve with soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, coconut milk, or hazelnut milk. The oat milk might be overkill.

4. Fruit Salad.

A salad of fruit. Doesn't really need an explanation, does it? I tend to like my breakfasts a little grainier, but some people like it.

5. Fruit Smoothies

If you've got a blender or a hand held blender and a tall container, chuck in a frozen banana, some berries, a spoonful of nut butter, a splash of non-dairy milk, and a little natural sweetener. And then blend it.

7. Peanut butter and jam sandwich/peanut butter and banana sandwich

Why not, eh? Wholemeal bread, natural peanut butter, fruit juice sweetened jam. Wholefood goodness and delightfully immature, to boot.

6. Toast.

Top it with vegan, non-hydrogenated margarine, with fruit jams, with nut butters, with Marmite, with peanut butter and sliced bananas, with a little sweetener (maple syrup, agave nectar, brown rice syrup), cinnamon, and sliced apples, with vegan chocolate spread, with baked beans, or with sauteed mushrooms. Please note, the last two can only be consumed if you are living in the UK. Otherwise, too much confusion will ensue.

Commercial sliced bread is the work of the devil! It tastes like how my brothers' shoes used to smell after their various sporting activities! Even the supermarket brand unsliced stuff is so much better, and no more expensive.

3. Granola.

Granola has had a long-undeserved reputation as an undisputed health food. In truth, most commercial brands of granola are loaded with processed sugar and oil, and even a lot of healthier recipes contain large amounts of oil and concentrated sweeteners of some form. That being said, granola is generally pretty delicious, and its base is healthful oats, nuts, and dried fruit, so it's certainly not the worst option available. Try serving it with a non-dairy milk, or with a non-dairy yogurt, or with some fresh fruit. Or even some applesauce.

8. Cereal with non-dairy milk.

If you like. Plenty of commercial cereals are vegan, just check the box.

You might be reading this list right now thinking, what the heck? These are just foods I already eat for breakfast. That's because vegan food is just food.

More time-consuming, cooked, savoury breakfasts

1. Tofu scramble

Tofu scrambles are a mainstay of vegan breakfasts and brunches. They're pretty much exactly what they sound like: scrambled eggs made with tofu. Crumbled tofu is mixed usually with soy sauce and nutritional yeast for taste, and turmeric to add a yellow colour. Tofu scrambles are also normally loaded with veggies like spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms. I think they will surprise you.

2. Tofu Omelets

Similar to a tofu scramble. I've never tried one, but they sound interesting. Silken tofu, non-dairy milk, nutritional yeast, and some seasonings are mixed together and cooked to turn into a firm omelet, which you can then fill with whatever veggies you like.

3. Aga's TomMarmite Toast

See recipe below.

4. Spanish toast

I'm the only person in the world who refers to this dish as Spanish toast. When we were in Spain a year or so ago, I kept finding offerings of crispy, toasted bread topped with olive oil and pureed tomato on cafe breakfast menus. Kind of like lazy bruschetta for breakfast.

5. Full English Breakfast

Soooo...Brits do this weird thing wherein they eat a much of stuff you wouldn't think of as breakfast food as breakfast food all together on one big plate and they call it a full English, or more affectionately, a fry up. I know, it's weird. But it grows on you. Traditional components are generally bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, toast, sausages, hash browns, and baked beans. Most cafes offer some sort of vegetarian option, but making your own vegan version is certainly possible.

Vegan bacon: I mentioned this in the 5 Crazy Vegan Foods post. Fry some tempeh or tofu marinated in soy sauce, maple syrup, etc. There are also commercial vegan bacon products available.

Eggs: Try some scrambled tofu.

Sausages: Commercial vegan sausages are readily available, in various levels of processing. Some people make their own vegan sausages. This seems crazy to me. Go for it.

Obviously you can healthy this breakfast up as much as you want; cook the vegetables with a little respect, and add as many other veggies as you like.

Happy Tummy Yummy Crazy Indulgent Weekend Breakfasts

Everyone needs them.

1. Vegan muffins or quick, sweet breads

Just as easily accomplished without animal bodily fluids. Try replacing the egg in recipes with 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tbsp white or cider vinegar per egg. Replace butter with canola oil. Replace cow's milk with soy milk.

2. Vegan Pancakes

See link to recipe below.

3. Vegan Waffles

Pretty much the same replacement techniques listed above, and recipes can easily be found on the internet.

4. Vegan French toast

See link to recipe below. The recipe below is a little more complicated, but you can also try a simple mixture of non-dairy milk, vanilla extract, and cinnamon.

5. Vegan Crepes

I've never made vegan crepes, but you should be able to find recipes with ease. For gluten-freebies, buckwheat flour is apparently a very good substitute in crepe recipes.

Recessionpe

Giving you just one recipe for a breakfast post seemed kind of cheap, so you lucky ducks, you get several. Or at least links to several.

Blueberry Almond Porridge

A note about cooking porridge in the morning. It sounds time consuming, but actually porridge requires very little babysitting while cooking. Throw the oats, water, and salt in the pot, stir together, then walk back into the kitchen once or twice and stir the mixture to stop it from sticking. Then you're done.

1/2 cup oats
1.5 cups water
pinch of salt
1/3 cup frozen blueberries
2-3 tbsp sliced almonds
1 tbsp ground flax seed
splash of non-dairy milk

Put oats, water, and salt together in a small pot on medium high heat, and cook for 5-7 minutes, or until thick and sort of...burping. Pour into a bowl and add in berries, almonds, and flax seed and stir. Add in the splash of milk to taste.

Aga's TomMarmite Toast

My friend Aga is graciously lending us this recipe that she surprised and delighted me with once while I was staying with her.

1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup of cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
freshly cracked black pepper to taste
4 slices wholemeal bread
enough vegan margarine to cover 4 slices of toast (optional)
enough Marmite to cover 4 slices of toast

Heat the oil in a sauce pan on medium high heat. Add the cherry tomatoes, and black pepper (more is better), and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes are soft and juicing a bit.

In the meantime, toast the bread, and spread on the margarine, if using, and the Marmite.

Once the tomatoes are cooked to your taste, top the toast with the tomatoes and serve. Aga says "a fork and knife make this breakfast easier to eat elegantly." You heard her. Eat it elegantly!

Vegan Blueberry Pancakes

See recipe at the bottom of this post. Don't just stick to blueberries. Try any kind of berries, apples and cinnamon, chocolate chips, bananas and walnuts...let your mind and ingredients wander free and unfettered!

Vegan French Toast

This recipe is my favourite vegan French toast recipe. Chickpea flour is also known as gram flour, and you should be able to find it in any middle eastern grocery store.

5 Crazy "Vegan foods" and What to do with them

2012-05-27T10:54:00.002-07:00

I tell people a lot of the time that being vegan doesn't mean eating weird food that you've never heard of before. You've likely eaten vegan meals before, you just weren't thinking about it. Apples, carrots, walnuts, rice, bread, kidney beans, pasta, tomato sauce...all vegan and all "normal." On the other hand, it's absolutely true that you're culinary horizons will broaden once you become vegan, and you will almost certainly start eating some foods that you've never encountered before. And some of them sound positively, well, weird.

So in an attempt to make these foods a little more accessible, I've demystified a few of them below.

1. Tofu

Okay, I'm assuming you've all heard of tofu, but most non-vegetarians are baffled, nay, terrified of the stuff. Don't be scared. Tofu is simply made from soymilk (which is really just soybeans that are blended with water, and then strained), with a coagulant added, then formed into a solid little cake. It's kind of like making cheese, but without the pus.

You can buy blocks of tofu that usually come in soft, firm, or extra firm, or silken tofu. The first kind is what you commonly find in the refrigerated section of your supermarket. Silken tofu (the kind that almost falls apart in your hands) is usually found shelved in aseptic boxes with other Chinese/Japanese style food.

Been served tofu that tastes like, well, nothing? Or worse, used gym socks? Naughty chef. Tofu isn't usually eaten by itself. That's just weird. The point of tofu is that it's got all these little pores that suck up flavour like Paris Hilton sucks up...never mind. Even more so if the tofu is frozen beforehand and then thawed. Take a firm or extra-firm block of tofu, wrap it up in either a clean tea towel or paper towels, and press it underneath a plate or cutting board weighed down by The Joy of Cooking. Don't own The Joy of Cooking? And you think tofu's weird. Just use any big, fat book. Press it for ten minutes and then chuck it in some marinade for 30-60 minutes. Any marinade you like will do, but try a simple Asian-style one, or even an Italian marinade with white wine, Italian herbs, and tomato paste. Bake it, grill it, or fry it. Eat it as the main protein in your meal, or throw it into a curry, miso soup, stir-fry, or fried rice. Silken tofu is used a lot in desserts as an egg replacement, or as a different way to make puddings and mousses.

You can buy tofu in your regular grocery store, but in the UK I make the extra effort to buy it from an east Asian grocery store, where you will find it for about half the price.

Note: Japanese seasoned tofu, especially the tofu used to make inari sushi pockets has a secure place on my top 10 favourite foods. Ask your local Asian grocer about it.

2. Tempeh

What the what is tempeh? Still not a very commonly seen food outside of vegetarian world, tempeh is tofu's artsy little sibling. A traditional Indonesian food, it is technically a cake of fermented soybeans. And it looks weird as heck. But stick with it! Tempeh is very nutritious and even some people who have a sensitivity to soy find that they can tolerate tempeh much better. It's got a fairly unusual taste...it tastes to me of wine, nuts, and yeast. Tempeh can be used in loads of different ways. Try cutting it into the form that you want it, steaming it for 10 minutes to remove any bitterness, and then marinating it for a while and frying it. Lots of vegans like to make tempeh bacon by slicing it into strips, steaming it, marinating it in maple syrup and soy sauce, and then frying it. Uses for tempeh abound, so check out a vegan cookbook and see what looks good to you.

In the UK, it's not an easy thing to find, but independent health food shops and Wholefoods carry the Impulse brand in their refrigerated section. I've also found it in Chinese grocery stores in the freezer section, but I haven't been too keen on this type; I much prefer the Impulse kind. In Canada, I've seen it beside the tofu in regular grocery stores.

3. Seitan

Seitan rounds out what vegan gurus Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero refer to as the holy trinity of tofu, tempeh, and seitan, otherwise known as three traditional, relatively wholefood sources of protein that can kinda be used on a dinner plate in the same way meat is. Seitan is another import from Asia, created from cooked wheat gluten, the protein from wheat. And it's very yummy! And it's very, very hard to find in the UK! And don't feed it to your celiac suffering friends; it's exactly what they can't eat!

Seitan is usually sliced or cubed and used instead of meat in a multitude of dishes. It's texture is very meaty and it's taste, um, it's just kind of...savoury. It's a pretty easy sell for newbies...there's no adjustment period like there might be with tempeh or tofu.

I have only ever found seitan sold pre-made in the UK twice for £8 a jar, so I make my own. And I can't find wheat gluten (the flour used to make it) in bricks and mortar stores here, so I order it online for £5 per kilo bag. Luckily, I don't make it very often, so I've only ever had to do this once. Yes, I really needed to spend that much money on a bag of flour. You have no idea how much frustration it was causing me. My impression is that both seitan and wheat gluten are much more easily found in Canada and the States. Try Bulk Barn.

4. Agave Nectar

Ah-Gah-Vey. Not A-Gave. Agave nectar has risen in popularity as of late as a natural sweetener, famed for being very low-glycemic. Vegans often use it instead of honey. Made from the agave plant, which is also responsible for tequila (which is responsible for many poor decisions around the world), it's got a mild sweetness that makes it a good alternative to honey. Originally thought to be gentle on your blood sugar levels, resulting in the health-inclined and gullible to pour it on top of everything, a really boring debate has struck up around it, and whether or not its really any better than sugar and other sweeteners. My own, half thought-out opinion is that being less processed and closer to it's natural state, it probably is a healthier product, but I would have thought that it was common sense that any concentrated sweetener has to be consumed in moderation. Apparently not.

Agave nectar can be found in both light and dark forms, the dark being less processed and stronger flavoured, and both can be found in your regular grocery store. It costs around the same as a good quality honey.

5. Nutritional yeast

We're in VeganWorld now, my friend! Nutritional yeast, or nooch, as it's affectionately called by it's followers, is really the height of crazy vegan food world. What is it? It's a powder or flakes (the flake kind is better) made from cultured yeast. What do you do with it? High in B-complex vitamins and a complete source of protein, it's sometimes used as a vitamin supplement, but it's mostly loved by vegans for having a cheesy taste.

Some brands are fortified with vitamin B12, which has caused some confusion with people thinking it's a natural source of the nutrient, but it's just fortified with it. Not every brand does this, so be sure to check the label before your rely on it as your source of B12.

The first time I ever opened a container of this stuff I was scared and confused. To the novice nooch nose, nutritional yeast doesn't exactly smell like a round of freshly baked brie. Cut to me a few years later, and my mouth waters whenever I smell that weird, vegany, cheesy smell.

I love sprinkling it on top of pasta or a risotto in the same way you might use parmesan cheese. It's often used in cheese sauces or vegan cheeses. Throw it on top of some popcorn or kale chips, or put a few spoonfuls into your mashed potatoes. Once you start using it its very addictive and you'll want to use it in everything.

You can find nutritional yeast in your local independent health food store (Holland and Barrett's does not carrying it). It's not too expensive, usually about £2 for tub that will last you quite awhile.

Ethical Eats

Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo with Spinach*

Last night I was sternly reprimanded by a friend for making a spinach pie into a chard pie in the last edition of Market Madness, when my blog is called Spinach. How could I? Thusly, I thought I'd better make my next recipe a spinach one. This recipe is a nice way to introduce nooch into your life; it just adds a nice little savoury kick to your sauce. This sauce is also much lighter than both the dairy original and a lot of the vegan versions out there. And just because it's vegan, doesn't mean that you shouldn't eat it with the traditional golden fork. Um, you do have a golden fork, don't you?

500g of wholewheat fettuccine pasta (spaghetti or linguine will work just fine if you can't find fettuccine)

1 can of coconut milk
1 clove of garlic, minced
3 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
1 tbsp flour
1/3 cup water
2 tbsp canola oil
dash of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

approximately 250g of spinach

Cook the pasta in a pot of boiling water until al dente (or however you prefer it).

Meanwhile, steam the spinach until just wilted. Cool and try to squeeze as much liquid from it as possible.

Heat the oil in a medium-sized sauce pot over medium-high heat. Add the minced garlic and sauteed for a few minutes until it's just starting to turn brown and fragrant. Add the coconut milk and nutritional yeast flakes. Turn the head down to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes.

Mix the flour and water together in a small bowl. Add to the coconut milk mixture and stir until it reaches a thick consistency.

Add the spinach and stir until combined. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste.

Mix with the cooked pasta and serve.

*Modified from a recipe that I found on VegWeb that I can't find anymore.

What Vegans Eat/Market Madness May 5th

2012-05-05T01:53:00.000-07:00

Isn't she pretty? What we bought this week: Curly Kale, cauliflower, Swede (rutabaga--cuter word), beetroot, portabellos, one big bunch of wild garlic (heck yes!), and ruby chard.

Cost: £7.65

What I made this week:

Popeye's ~~Spinach~~ Ruby Chard Pie with Zukes and Purple Cabbage

(From The Great American Detox Diet. The first couple of times I made this I liked it, but I think I need to adjust it.)

Maple Roasted Parsnips

(Own recipe. Simple and yummy)

Wild Garlic Soup

(Own recipe. This was only the second time I've ever cooked with wild garlic and I was very pleased with the results.)

Portobello Mushroom Salad with Maple Mustard Dressing

(From Veganomicon. Delicious! Hearty too...chickpeas!)

Cauliflower Vegan Cheese

(Own recipe. Used Redwood foods' Cheezly. Yummy)

Portuguese White Bean Soup

(From Moosewood Cooks at Home. Okay, but not amazing.)

Homemade Pizza!

(Pizza-y)

What Vegans Eat/Market Madness April 28th

2012-04-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

What we bought this week: one bag of Swiss chard, one bag of curly kale, one bunch of purple sprouting broccoli, 2 freakishly large parsnips, a pile of carrots, one big leek, and four portabello mushrooms.

Cost: £8.50

Some weeks are full of culinary disappointments. Some weeks everything I make turns to gold. This week was of the latter kind.

Wholewheat Spaghetti with Marinara Sauce, topped with Swiss Chard and Carmelized Onions

(Chard recipe from The Vegan Table, rest my own recipe)

Marinated Portabello Burgers with Salad topped with Miso Tahini Dressing

(Portabello recipe from The Vegan Table, dressing from Veganomicon. Holy freaking frack this meal was amazing. It knocked my little vegan socks off.)

Three Bean Chili with Steamed Kale and Brown Rice, topped with Avocado

(Own recipe. I've made similar chilis before and they were good, but this one was delicious and I don't know what I did differently. More corn? Maybe I used more corn. I don't think I would use the kale in quite the same way though.)

Leek and Potato Cakes with a side of Steamed Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Cheezy Sauce

(Cakes own recipe. Cheezy sauce from Veganomicon. Yum! I was pleasantly surprised by the cheezy sauce.)

Waitress - "I Hate my Husband" Pie

2012-04-22T14:32:00.001-07:00

Pie. Canadians and Americans, admit it. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you're always thinking about pie a little bit. Stop giggling. I'm not talking about that kind of pie. Ever since my brother gave me the bakebook Vegan Pie in the Sky for Christmas, my obsession with making pies has taken centre stage.

In the middle of a pie reverie, I remembered the movie Waitress, in which Keri Russell plays a small town waitress, Jenna, who tries to pie-bake her way out of a bad marriage and dull life. And the pies! Oh the pies! Jenna comes up with pies that go along with significant moments in her life. And I've been pre-occupied with the idea of coming up with vegan recipes for each of the pies she names.

And I've finally put my plan into action, and started with Jenna's "I Hate my Husband" Pie: "you make it with bittersweet chocolate and don’t sweeten it. You make it into a pudding and drown it in caramel..."

This is what I tried as a recipe:

1 single crust pie crust

Bittersweet chocolate pudding:

1 bar high cocoa content dark chocolate, broken into pieces ( I used a bar of 85% Green and Blacks)
2/3 cup non-dairy milk (I used coconut milk)

Caramel topping:
1.5 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I used coconut milk again)
2 tbsp coconut oil (you could also use canola oil or vegan margarine)

I baked the pie crust for 15 minutes and then cooled it fully.

Chocolate: I melted the chocolate in a medium saucepan over low-medium heat in the milk until all melty and smooth, stirring frequently. I poured the chocolate into the pie shell and refrigerated it for an hour.

Caramel: I whisked all of the caramel ingredients together in a medium saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolved, and then turned the heat up to medium-high until the caramel was bubbling. I cooked it on this heat while whisking constantly for about 4 minutes. Then I poured the caramel into the pie shell, and refrigerated it overnight.

The results? The chocolate is BITTER, and the caramel is SWEET. But I kinda like that. It's intense. It's good coffee-time pie. But it's definitely for adult tastes. But the caramel keeps leaking! It's super thick and sticky, but it won't stay put in the pan! Anyone have any ideas for how to fix the leaky caramel problem?

Market Madness or What do Vegans Eat? April 21

2012-04-21T04:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new weekly section of Spinach, wherein I finally master the art of quick and breezy posts by showing off my weekly farmer's market haul, and bragging about what I made for dinner every week. Fun, yes?

What we bought this week: One head of cauliflower, 4 large white onions, one bag of white potatoes, one bowl of jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), one head of purple cabbage, one swede, one butternut squash

Cost: £5.30

These humble ingredients turned into:

Butternut Squash Thai Curry with Coconut Brown Rice

(own recipe)

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

(own recipe)

Pureed Swede and Potatoes with Carmelized Onions

(own recipe)

Tibetan-style Seitan Burritos

(Moosewood Celebrates)

Cauliflower and Mushroom Pot Pie

(Vegonomicon)

Hard, Cold-Pressed Truths: the Problem with Olive Oil

2012-04-17T02:25:00.000-07:00

I'm going to tell you all something, and I would like you to remain calm and not throw things at your computer screen. Olive oil is not health food. You don't need it in your diet. It's not really that good for you.

Are you still reading? Have you closed the window and walked away? I can feel you glaring these words as you read them. It's okay, I felt the same way you do. What I'm saying goes against every magazine article, every sloppy evening news story, every piece of Mediterranean ancient wisdom that you've encountered in the last 10 or 15 years.

Usually the magazine articles go something like this: "Studies have discovered that olives/sunflower seeds/walnuts/avocados contain large amounts of healthy, good fatty acids, which have been associated with a reduced risk of heart disearse and a reduction in LDL cholesterol. We recommend adding a few tablespoons of olive/sunflower/walnut/avocado oil to your daily diet to gain these benefits. Keep in mind that olive oil is high in calories, so don't eat too much of it!"

Well, what's wrong with that? The science is accurate, studies really have found those things to be true about olives, sunflower seeds, walnuts, and avocados. But there is a leap of logic here. And it's the same leap of logic that causes people to read stories about the health benefits of cacao beans, and then go delve into a box of Godiva chocolates, believing that they're doing something good for their health. The problem (and solution) with fats is the form in which we eat them.

Olives, nuts, seeds, and avocados are full of healthy mono and polyunsaturated fats, fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. As Dr. Joel Fuhrman says, they have nature's protective packaging with them. Whole, plant-based fats are necessary for our diets. They provide nutrients, essential fatty acids, and they make us feel full and satisfied. The problem with oils is that they aren't whole fats. Oil is a processed product. Olive trees exist. Olive oil trees do not. Olives whole. Olive oil processed.

But is there really always a problem with eating processed food? Are there actually specific health problems with consuming oils? Well, different oils pose different problems, but they all share the common problem of being very high in calories and very low in nutrients. This means that oils take up space in your diet that could be used for foods that contain healthy fats along with a plethora of nutrients. They are essentially junk food. One tablespoon of olive oil contains about 120 calories, and little in the way of nutrients. You would need almost a cup of olives to get up to the same amount of calories, and along with it you would be getting fiber, beta carotene, vitamin E, calcium, iron and more. As we're focussing on olive oil, it's worth mentioning that at least one study has found that meals rich in olive oil impair the dialation of arteries after said meal, a problem which can contribute to heart disease.

So why has olive oil got such a good reputation? Well, for one thing, there are health benefits that arise from switching from saturated or trans fat to olive or canola oil. That shouldn't come as any shock. But this means replacing butter or lard or hydrogenated oils with an equal amount of olive oil, and ensuring that you aren't consuming any more calories in the process. It does not mean dipping cheese laden white bread into olive oil and claiming that you're now European.

Now, I can hear you thinking, that plenty of cultures have consumed plenty of olive oil for plenty of years, and these cultures tend to have much lower rates of heart disease and other "diseases of civilisation" than other countries. Which is true. A little. Much has been made of the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet, without anyone stopping to question which of 20 plus countries with different diets we're talking about, and we've generally interpreted these health benefits to mean that we should add olive oil, fancy cheese, and red wine to our diets without altering anything else. C'mon. The thing is, the reason that some traditional (note the word traditional, not necessarily current) Mediterranean diets are good for you isn't because of single ingredients like wine or oils. The diets that have shone in research have been rich in veggies, fruits, beans and other legumes, and whole grains. The people eating these diets also walked about 9 miles a day. So a little wine and olive oil wasn't going to hurt them.

So, what does this mean in practical terms? Do I avoid oil in my own diet?

I love olive oil. I cook with it all the time. But I've definitely changed my own cooking practices since learning more about its inflated health reputation. For general, everyday use, I've limited the amount of oil I use to one tablespoon per dish (not portion), and I usually use less than that, actually. When I've been able to remove the oil without compromising the taste or texture of my dish, I have. I've also had a lot of success in cooking in just a little bit of oil, and some water. But I do fry in lots of oil, once in a blue moon, because it just makes life happier. And for a special meal, I use as much oil as I please.

And for you? Well, this information is most vital to those who are undergoing serious health issues related to heart problems or obesity. For those people, I wouldn't consume more than one teaspoon a day. And if you are someone who eats a generally healthy diet based on wholefoods and is fairly active but you can't seem to lose weight (assuming your goal isn't unrealistic or unhealthy), you might want to try limiting or cutting out oil. Try cooking in water or even a little vegetable stock instead. For salad dressings, try nut butters or tahini, or pureed nuts instead of oils. You'll be getting more nutrition, fewer calories, and more taste.

Resources:
Fuhrman, Joel, MD, Eat to Live, Little, Brown and Company, 2011.
Fuhrman, Talia, "It's About Time the Olive Oil Myth was Laid to Rest", Diseaseproof.com, 2012
"The Truth About Olive Oil", Pritikin.com, 2012

Vital Vittles

Super Simple Beet Soup with Cashew Cream

I find that soup is particularly good for oil-free cooking. As the title suggests, this is a very fuss-free soup that looks as nice as it tastes. The cashew cream is a vegan substitute for sour cream. It doesn't really taste that much like sour cream, but it's still delicious, and adds some nice whole fat into our oil free soup. I would serve this soup with a bean or lentil salad, or some nice dark rye or pumpernickel bread.

1 onion, chopped
1 beetroot, peeled and cut into 1" pieces
1 potato, peeled and cut into 1" pieces
1 tart apple (granny smith or cox), peeled and cut into 1" pieces
4-5 cups of veggie stock, or water with two stock cubes
salt and pepper to taste

3/4 cup raw cashews
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup water
salt to taste

Peel and chop the vegetables and apple and chuck them into a soup pot. Put enough water or stock in to cover the vegetables and simmer until the beetroot pieces easily with a fork about 20-30 minutes. Add the remaining stock/water and stock cubes and heat until simmering. Take off the heat and blend with a hand-held blender until completely smooth. Season to taste.

Add the cashews, lemon juice and water into a blender (if you only have an immersion or handheld blender, just use a tall container). Blend until creamy, adding water if necessary. Salt to taste.

Serve into bowls and add a spoonful of cashew cream to each bowl, and swirl it around to make it pretty as you please.

Ho-ho-herbivore! A Guide to Vegan Christmas Shopping

2011-12-11T15:02:00.001-08:00

Got a vegan in the family? Did your teenager "go crazy" and start wearing hemp shoes and throwing your chicken pot pie out the window? Are you a new vegan and you're feeling lost and adrift in a cold, meaty world? Are you a vegan and you want to spread the green word without bashing people on the head with your soapbox? Here are a few ideas for gifts for vegans, animal rights activists, people on the fence, and people who won't stop badgering you about what you eat and you would rather a book or a DVD answered their questions for you. This list is made up mostly of books, but if your vegan refuses to read, just buy them a good chef's knife. Watching my friends try to cut up carrots with a 2 inch paring knife is a deeply painful experience.

General Vegan Guides

The 30 Day Vegan Challenge, by Colleen Patrick Goudreau

If you, or anyone you know, is thinking about becoming vegan but you have some questions about how you would accomplish such a feat, this is the book for you. Vegan activist Colleen Patrick Goudreau (you've read my raves about her marvellous podcast, Vegetarian Food for Thought) expertly lays out 30 days full of information about food, health, social situations, and practical matters such as how to stock a vegan kitchen, how to bake without eggs, and getting the right nutrients. A perfect book for anyone, man/woman, intellectual/practicalist/granola cruncher, who is interested in veganism.

The Kind Diet, by Alicia Silverstone

If vegan activists were sitting around waiting for a poster girl to champion their cause, they couldn't have asked for better than sweet, enthusiastic, and beautiful Alicia Silverstone and her gentle, occasionally slightly silly, but inspiring introduction to veganism. Coming from a semi-macrobiotic point of view, Alicia lays bare the ethical, environmental, and health reasons for veganism. She offers practical advice on making the change, allowing room for both people who want to "flirt" with a vegan diet and people who want to jump right in and eat a wholefoods vegan diet. She also includes a fair amount of recipes, some of which contain fairly unfamiliar, and sometimes pricey ingredients, but many of which are very simple and surprisingly delicious. A good, very unintimidating book for women.

Skinny Bitch, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin

While some people find the irreverant and frequently profane tone of this book a little off-putting, I have to admit that I think Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin are kind of geniuses. When you pull the book off the shelf, it reads as just another diet book, but it is actually a thorough explanation of the horrors of the animal agriculture industry and a sensible guide to wholefoods eating. Rory Freedman has point blank admited that the snappy title was simply a marketing ploy, saying "I am well aware that in this day and age, in this society, people care more about their appearance than they do about almost anything else. It’s sad that that’s the case. I wrote the book so that women who only cared about how they look would learn about what they were contributing to in terms of animal torture, how they were poisoning their own bodies, and how being skinny is bullshit meaninglessness." I can't express to you how much I f***ing love that. Another good book for women, but there is also a counterpart, Skinny Bastard, which is aimed at men.

Ethical

Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safron Foer

Fiction writer Jonathan Safron Foer had a baby, and then decided that he had to feed that baby. This thought process led him to investigate the conditions of farm animals raised in the modern agricultural system. And THIS process led to him becoming vegan. Eating Animals is personal, creatively written, and pretty devasting. The book wanders through personal experience, story-telling, and overwhelming factual information. Safron Foer remains free of judgement of the reader's choices, fairly representing multiple perspectives on the subject of animal industry, and never pushing his point. A good volume for the philosophically inclined or those on the fence who can't handle more dogmatic, black and white reasoning.

Stuff I haven't read:

Professor Gary Francione's Books

Gary Francione is the father of the abolitionist approach in animal activism, meaning he is opposed to welfare reforms in the industry, and instead focuses his time on vegan outreach and education, in an attempt to abolish animal use in our society. I follow his podcast avidly, but haven't read any of his books yet. Rain Without Thunder is the standard.

Earthlings, directed by Shaun Monson

I haven't watched this documentary, and I have no intention of watching it in the future. But that doesn't mean I don't think YOU should. This documentary, narrated by vegan actor Joaquin Pheonix, is reputedly incredibly full-on, examining animal abuse in our society without skimping on the graphics. People walk out of the movie theatre and become vegan instantly.

Health

The Great American Detox Diet, by Alex Jamieson

I really like this simple little guide to healthy eating, written by the wife of Supersize Me's Morgan Spurlock. Based on the diet she put Morgan on after his month of McGrease, Jamieson enthusiastically lays out 8 weeks of cutting out dietary nasties, including caffeine, sugar, animal, protein, trans fats, and simple carbs. The book also contains a final section of several recipes, and most of these that I've tried have been pretty yummy. This book is a good introduction for anyone who is just starting to show a burgeoning interest in a healthy diet.

The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell

Everyone needs to read this book. Now. Read this book and understand cancer growth better, just how very much our diet affects our chances of getting cancer, heart problems, and autoimmune diseases, and how collosally, infuriatingly corrupt the American Food Standards Agency is in deciding what information and regulations make it to the public. Respected Cornell medical researcher T Colin Campbell has spent his long career examing the relationship between the standard Western diet and disease and a wholefoods, plant-based diet and good health, and he chronicles many years of findings in this book. Some animal activists object to the book on the grounds that some of Campbell's earliest work involved experiments on animals. Of course I don't approve of these methods, but I think that to ignore such a compelling and important work is simply shortsighted. Like I said, this book is a good idea for everyone. EVERYONE.

Also see: Forks Over Knives, directed by Lee Fulkerson

This documentary is pretty much a summary and film version of The China Study, and talks about the work of Campbell, Dr. Carl Esseylstyn, and Dr. John Mcdougall. The movie also includes interviews with several people who were on death's door, and have used a plant-based diet to turn their lives around become healthy, active people at an older age. And some of them are just so...adorable! A great introduction to the ideas in The China Study.

Stuff I haven't read:

Becoming Vegan, by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina

I feel a little silly admitting that I haven't actually read this book, but this is the quintessential guide to the nutritional considerations of turning vegan.

Cookbooks

Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romano

Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romano are the quirky, creative kitchen goddesses of Veganworld, and this all-purpose cookbook will stand on the shelves of all vegans for years to come. The book includes a comprehensive guide to stocking your kitchen and instructions for how to cook various vegetables, grains, and beans. The recipes are amazingly creative and delicious, with options such as potato and kale enchiladas, mole skillet pie, and jelly donut cupcakes. The only drawback to the book is that a lot of the recipes are very time consuming, and I would pay close attention of the time guidelines before you decide to make one of the dishes for a weeknight dinner. A good book for any vegan or vegetarian, or anyone who is truly interested in the endless possibilities of their kitchen.

The Vegan Table, by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

The second entry on this list for a Colleen Patrick-Goudreau book, this cookbook focuses on holiday and entertaining meals for the vegan table. Ironically, most of the receipes in this book are less complicated and quicker than the recipes in Veganomicon. This book is peppered with bits of cooking tips, foodie knowledge, entertaining ideas, and advice for the social challenges of eating as a vegan. The recipes are nearly all winners, including macaroni and cashew cheese, carmelized tempeh shwarmas, and FRUIT SUSHI. Patrick-Goudreau uses mostly familar, easy to find ingredients, and thoroughly explains any unfamilar ingredients. An all around good book for those new to the diet, or those who love to entertain.

Moosewood Cooks at Home, by the Moosewood Collective

Some may find the inclusion of the Moosewood cookbooks on this list to be controversial: they aren't vegan, or even technically vegetarian, a small amount of the recipes include fish, but my formative culinary years were shaped by the Moosewood Collective, and this cookbook is such a great introduction to vegetarian cooking. Many of the dishes are vegan, and quite a few can be easily veganised (although a few are centred around eggs, dairy, and fish). The cookbook is fantastic for weekdays, full of simple, uncomplicated recipes with mostly familiar ingredients that you can find in any ol' grocery store. Some of the recipes I've already featured on this blog, but other favourites of mine include the African peanut and pineapple stew, bulger burgers, cajun skillet beans, and pan bagnet (a pressed, garlicky baguette sandwich). A great cookbook for those just starting out in the kitchen.

Moosewood Celebrates, by the Moosewood Collective

I love this cookbook! We're focussing on entertaining and celebrating again here, and reading this book will make you want to cook (and eat). Divided into season and then into different holidays, each seasonal introduction will get you excited about seasonal cooking, and each description of each holiday will make you want to entertain, travel, and learn more about world food. The various holidays include familiar Western ones, as well as, also Diwali, Chinese New Year, Tibetain-American Losar Dinner, Juneteenth, and Setsubun (Japanese Bean Day). I have many favourite recipes from this book, some of which are greens and cashew curry, Indian potato pancakes, potato latkes, Tibetan style seitan burritos, and vegetable pot pie (this one isn't vegan, but I'm determined to figure out how to veganize it). Again, a few (very few) recipes have fish in them, although several of those recipes include a vegetarian option. Vegan recipes are helpfully indexed in the back, and plenty of the LO veggie recipes are easily veganized. A great book for any cook, but especially those looking to expand their horizons.

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

We're back with Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, and this adorable little book is as cute as cupcakes themselves. This book includes many delicious and creative recipes, most of which use ingredients omnivore bakers will have on their shelves (agave nectar makes only the briefest appearance in this book*). The recipes are pretty much foolproof, but in case you are particularly foolish, there is an introductory section of helpful and clearly explained baking tips and troubleshooting. Try the banana split cupcakes (I love these and I don't even like banana), almond and apricot cupcakes, pumpkin and chocolate chip cupcakes with cinnamon icing, and the low fat vanilla cupcakes with berry topping. A great little gift for anyone...except a diabetic.

*note: I have nothing against agave nectar, but it seems odd to me that many vegans want baking books made entirely of recipes with agave, brown rice syrup, agar agar, and garbanzo bean flour, and then complain when veganism isn't mainstream enough.

Stuff I haven't read:

The Uncheese Cookbook, by Joanne Stepaniak

I don't have a copy of this, but I would like one! Stepaniak has gone through the exhaustive trouble of creating non-dairy recipes for many different kinds of cheese. My guess would be that the alternatives don't taste exactly like their dairy counterparts, but I thought I would include this book partially because cheese is the thing that omnivores cling to the most, and partly for the pure culinary innovation. And the cute title.

The Joy of Vegan Baking, by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

One more Colleen Patrick-Goudreau book (that I don't have), from what I can tell this book is exactly what it says on the tin: a comprehensive go-to book for vegan baking. UK readers, in case you're confused by the title, the Joy of Cooking and the Joy of Baking are longstanding, beloved cookbooks that every avid North Americn cook has on his or her shelf, given to them by their grandmothers.

Ethical Eats

Christmas Eve Cranberry and Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

The taste test is over, and these pink little pleasures have come through the winner. And by that I mean, I liked them the best of all the cranberry treats I tried and I'm not too bothered about what everyone else thought. These cupcakes are for more mature, intense flavour-loving palates, with bitter dark chocolate and tart cranberry. And they're ever so cute and pretty in pink. I've included a simple recipe for a cranberry jam-like concoction that you can use for a variety of purposes, but if you have a simple and sweet cranberry sauce at hand, you can just use that instead. The basic vanilla base for theses cakes are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Base:

1 cup soy millk
1 tsp cider vinegar
11/4 cups flour
2 Tbs cornstarch
3/4 baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 cup good quality dark chocolate chunks
1 cup dried cranberries

Line a muffin tin with cupcake wrappers, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Add the vinegar to the soy milk, whisk together with a fork and leave to curdle for a few minutes. Mix together the oil, sugar, soy milk mixture, and extracts. Sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet, and stir until no large lumps remain. Fold in dark chocolate chunks and dried cranberries. Using an oiled ice cream scooper or 1/4 cup measure, fill each wrapper two thirds full. Bake on the middle shelf of your oven for 20-22 minutes.

Cranberry Sauce:

This makes way more than you will need for this recipe, but you can use this sauce to fill a tart, spread on toast, or top a variety of things, including your morning porridge.

1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice

Place the cranberries in a pot on medium heat and stir until the cranberries begin to get juicy. Add the sugar and lemon juice, and simmer, stirring often, until the mixture is thick, about 10 minutes. Because you are going to use this sauce in the frosting, I pureed it quickly with a hand held blender. At this point it should be quite gelatinous, and not at all runny.

Frosting:

1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup vegan margarine
31/2 cups icing sugar
3-4 Tbs cranberry sauce

Beat the shortening and margarine together until fully combined and fluffy. Add the sugar, one cup at a time, and whisk until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the cranberry sauce, and whisk until fully combined. Taste the frosting. If it's not cranberry-y enough for you, add a little more sauce. If the frosting is to liquidy, add some more icing sugar. If it's too stiff, you can add either a little more cranberry sauce, or a little dash of soy milk.

Once the cupcakes are fully cooled, frost them to your own taste (the cranberry sauce makes this frosting not ideal for a pastry bag, use a knife instead). Top each cupcake with crumbled dark chocolate (if you don't have any left over, just chop up tiny little bits of chocolate with a knife.)

My Life - The Vegan Year

2011-11-20T14:16:00.000-08:00

Well, folks, it's coming up to that time of year when we spend too much time reflecting on our life choices and we wonder what, if anything, we've gained from the last year of our lives. Up until this point, I've been a bit hesitant to make any bold statements about my transition to veganism, but at 11 months in, I think I'm finally ready to summarise some of my thoughts and feelings about my life as a vegan so far.

So what have I gained or learned or lost?

Well, perhaps surprisingly, the food related aspects of becoming vegan have been the easiest part. No, I don't miss cheese. No, seriously, I really don't. I will admit, about a month and a half into the year (for those of you not aware, I became vegan on New Years Day), I had some pretty powerful urges to eat cheese and store-bought, dairy laden pastry. Solution? I made some cupcakes out of the super-awesome-amazing-califragalistic Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (thanks Patty!). I bought Cheezly and put it on my pizza. And amazingly, my cravings have largely disappeared. I don't even think about what I'm not eating now.

To be honest, I think I've just been having to much plain ol' fun with food to miss dairy. I thought my culinary horizons were pretty broad already, but vegan cookbooks aren't messing around when it comes to gastronomic experimentation, and I've been making at least three new dishes every week. If you really want to make something no one at your dinner table has ever had before, pick up a copy of Veganomicon. Mole skillet pie? Butternut squash summer rolls with Cranberry dipping sauce? Yes please.

My tastes have lightened up, and I've become more in tune to dishes that are full of flavour but are lacking in heavy fat. That's not to say that you can't eat very heavy, creamy, fatty food on a vegan diet; those recipes are out there in droves, but I think I've learned that even as a lacto-ovo vegetarian, I was still quite addicted to animal fat, and I think a lot of dairy and egg eating vegetarians have a similar addiction. I've stopped relying on something fatty and unhealthy to provide the happy in a recipe (note: that doesn't mean I've stopped liking fatty and unhealthy things). My palate has really opened up in the last 11 months, and I get more enjoyment out of simple, clean, flavourful food than I ever have before. A good peach isn't just a good peach anymore. It's like a religious experience of peach holiness.

By throwing food out the door that I was probably actually addicted to, as many people are addicted to the casomorphines in cheese, I think I've learned that I can give up any one food without inflicting trauma on myself. My happiness is not reliant on cheese. If this seems like an overly-obvious statement to you...well, no, I don't think this does seem like an overly-obvious statement to anyone. I've come to realise that a significant proportion of people really do believe their happiness is reliant on cheese.

The health aspects of becoming vegan are pretty self-evident, and to be honest, I don't have that much to say about my own experiences health-wise. I didn't really have any significant health problems before becoming vegan, so it's kind of difficult to report on any changes in this area. What I can say is that besides saturated fat and dangerous animal protein, there is a lot of processed junk that many people eat mindlessly at the office, or the way home from work, or at parties that is automatically left out of the vegan diet. So in a way, there is a certain amount of effortless improvement to your diet that comes along with veganism.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be doing anyone any favours if I suggested that veganism is a panacea for all health problems, and that personal responsibility doesn't factor into your health at all. There are still health traps for the vegan. Sugar, white flour, added oils, and processed vegan foods can show up much too often in many vegans' diets. If I have noticed a significant change in my health it would be that in avoiding a wider array of unhealthy foods in my diet, I have started to really notice the difference in how I feel after consuming different foods. Eat fresh green salads, vegetable soups, whole grains and beans and I feel light and happy. Eat too much sugary food, white bread, and alcohol and I feel crappy and moody.

Easily the most difficult part of the transition has been the social aspects. Dining out, going to other people's houses for dinner, or trying to navigate through the mire of misinformation out there about animal products and animal rights has not been easy.

But on a positive note, I know a lot of people run into confrontations with others when they stop eating animal products, and while I have definitely experienced some very bull-headed and flat out rude behaviour in regards to my eating habits, I haven't really encountered very much of this as a vegan. Keep in mind, I am writing this from a country famed for its polite and reserved residents, so perhaps it's not that surprising that while living in England I haven't received a lot of flak about my diet.

The most difficult thing has been dining out, particularly in any British restaurant/pub. I've had to send back a few things that came with little bits of diary even after asking for the dish without. I've encountered odd situations, such as:

Waiter: Hmm, let me see...is it a milk allergy that you have?
Me: No, I'm a vegan.
Waiter: Oh, I know we don't have anything vegan. Absolutely nothing. Even the vegetarian stuff has diary in it.
Me: Oh really? Could you ask the kitchen if they could maybe make the vegetarian tomato and basil soup without dairy?
Waiter: Wait, let me see. It might not have any dairy. Just a second." (calls down the kitchen) "Yeah, it's vegan.

Or:

Waitress: So the chef can do a soup and a tagine, and some roast potatoes.
Me: Great!
Waitress: Are potatoes vegan?

My best advice is to never use the word vegan when trying to specify what you can or can't eat at a restaurant. No one knows what it means and it seems to terrify the living daylights out of servers. And yes, if you're wondering, I managed to respond that last waitress without laughing.

What I have found is that, firstly, calling ahead to the restaurant is the best idea. Secondly, being both polite and optimistic will go a long way. If you act like you are putting people out, they may believe you. If you act like you expect people to offer you the world, you will not be well received. However, if you are polite and cheerful, clear about what you can eat, and come prepared with some ideas of how the restaurant can modify something already on their menu for you, you will find most people surprisingly accommodating. Afterwards, be grateful, and be sure to thank the chef if he or she went out of their way to make you something special.

As for going to other people's houses, I find it's best to offer to bring something for yourself. Since I like to cook, I genuinely don't mind bringing something. And if someone wants to try to make something for you, at least you've offered, so you don't have to feel like you are a burden to your host.

The last social aspect that I've mentioned can be the hardest. Listening to other people talk about meat or hunting, or watching meat being cooked on TV has become much more painful for me than it ever was before. To be honest, I haven't found a great way of avoiding it. I've become acutely aware of the many, many different ways that non-human animals are abused by humans, and sometimes I find it hard to have a conversation with people without the subject coming up. I don't want to upset anyone, and I don't want to be constantly bringing the subject of animal rights up with people. I've yet to find a balance between speaking my mind when I really need to, and leaving something alone when it's just not the time and someone isn't going to be interested or open-minded. Often people have been more interested in what I know than I expected, and I've left the situation feeling that I should have been more open and honest with them, and given them more credit.

As for the personal aspects, these have been the most powerful but also the most distressing. Discovering how much abuse is in our society, and how inherent this abuse is was, and continues to be, very disturbing to me. On the other hand, I've seen my friends be open-minded and willing to change when hearing the truth about the animal agriculture industry or the health risks of animal products, and I've been amazed and thrilled with their reactions. People want to and can change. I know this for certain.

But the bottom line is, when I think over the last year and the decision I made, and the information I now know about the abuses inherent in dairy and meat production, I'm amazed at the change in my mindset more than in my practises. Making the decision to give up all animal products and attempting to make a change in the world with one little action, or rather lack of action, has been the best decision I've made in a long, long time. I can't imagine my life, or the person I would be without veganism, and thank God, thank Buddha, thank Zorathustra, or thank pure dumb luck that I found it.

Ethical Eats

Roasted Beets 'n Apples

Speaking of simple, flavourful food, this easy peasy dish will make a beet lover out of you. How can anyone not love beets anyway? Look how pretty!

Olive oil for drizzling
2 large beets or 4 small ones, peeled and sliced into centimeter thick slices
2 large apples, of a medium acidity variety, peeled and sliced into centimeter thick slices
juice of one lemon
1/4 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400/200 degrees.

Place the beet and apple slices on a large roasting tin or pan. Drizzle the olive oil and lemon juice over the beets and apples and toss to coat. Season to taste.

Roast the beets and apples in the oven for about 20 minutes or so, tossing them after 10 minutes. You can roast them until they are just tender, or a few more minutes until they are a little sticky and chewy. Toss the walnuts in for the last 5 minutes of roasting.

Serve!

Ch-Ch-Changes (the Health Edition)

2011-10-02T12:46:00.000-07:00

It's that time again, when the leaves turn orange and red, the air gets crisper, and I start to wax poetic about the bounty of the harvest. Last time around this year, I thought the autumn was a good time to talk about transitioning to vegetarianism. This time, I'm going to ask you all to put down the donuts, and think about transitioning to a more healthful diet. Here are some hows and whys.

1. Swap out your bread

This step comes first partly because it's essential to good health and partly because it's so easy. 20 years ago, dumping white bread for wholemeal might be tricky, but today you almost have to make a commitment to eating white bread to avoid wholemeal. Supermarkets bread aisles are lined with wholemeal products, and even restaurants; heck, even fast food places will often offer you the option of wholewheat bread or pizza bases. So swap out your daily bread, pizza bases, breadcrumbs, pasta, bread wraps and tortillas, couscous, and pita bread for wholemeal breads and bread products. And while you're at it, you should also oust white rice and replace it with chewy, nutty brown rice.

2. Green your life

Dark, leafy greens are the most healthful foods on the planet. Nothing else holds a candle. Kale, spinach, Swiss chard, beet greens, romaine lettuce, watercress, bok choy (pak choi), and collard greens are full of minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and phytonutrients; in fact, the only thing they don't have a lot of is calories. What's more, they are super easy to chuck into whatever you happen to be cooking. Alternatively, you can saute them up with a little garlic and olive oil, or steam them and drizzle them with a simple lemon juice dressing and serve them on the side. Try to eat them every day and feel your body glow with greeny goodness.

34. Olives are a whole food, oil is not

I know I said that we would talk about the dangers of using cooking oils rather than using the nuts, seeds, and fruits that they are sourced from in a later post, and I really meant it. But for now, I'll just tell you that there are dangers when using cooking oils rather than using the nuts, seeds, and fruits that they are sourced from, so try not to do it. In a salad dressing, use nut butters or grind up some nuts or seeds to mix in with the rest of your ingredients. Saute vegetables in water or vegetable stock (or a combination of no more than one teaspoon of oil and water) and add olives, avocado, nuts or seeds later as a component of the dish.

4. Don't eschew the cashew

This step is super fun and very delicious. Dairy is dangerous to your health, but is much beloved, partly for it's creamy manifestations. Cashews in particular are perfect for making healthy creams that don't involve saturated fat laden dairy. Try cashew sour cream, cashew cream in replace of creme fraiche, or soft cashew "cheese" spreads instead of cream cheese. The flavour is not the same as the dairy foods you are used to, but it doesn't need to be. These creams are delicious, satisfying, and healthful in their own right.

5. Five a day is a minimum

I know that it's very popular in the media right now to encourage people to aim for five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, but I just think five a day is so weak. Yeah, most people aren't even reaching that meager goal, but the mediocrity of the masses should not be the ruler with which you use to measure yourself. Aim for 10 servings a day, and you will certainly reach five. Try to get a mixture of different kinds of vegetables: leafy greens, cruciferous veggies, root vegetables, starchy vegetables, and squashes. Even better, try to eat as many different colours everyday as you can: dark green broccoli, red tomatoes, orange carrots, purple plums, and white parsnips. Fans of Rainbow Brite will enjoy this endeavour.

6. Make sugar a treat

And a treat only. Eliminate this sneaky fiend from your regular diet. Sugar does absolutely nothing beneficial for your health. Nothing. Once or twice a week in a sweet treat, or on special occasions is fine, but cutting it out of your regular meals is essential to health. Watch out for sugar in your peanut butter, canned tomato sauces, juices, and any and all processed foods.

7. Fix breakfast first

Overwhelmed by all the changes you have to make? Fix one meal at a time, and start with breakfast. Taking all the simple carbs, saturated and trans fat, animal protein, and dangerous processed additives out of one meal at time allows you to adjust slowly in bite-sized pieces of change. Why breakfast first? Well, for one thing, it's the easiest meal to fix, most people are used to eating a simple breakfast. Secondly, it's the most import...oh, you don't want to hear that again. Lets just say, try starting your day with a bowl of raisin and walnut porridge with no added sweeteners, and compare how you feel all morning to how you feel when you start the day with a bowl of frosted flakes with some sugary flavoured yogurt on the side.

8. Plan for snack attacks

We can all argue till we're blue in the face about the necessity of including snacks in our daily diet, but the bottom line is, at some point your train home is going to be delayed, or your boss is going to forget that he's not the only in the office who eats, or your roommate is going to eat your dinner when you aren't looking (Aga, I'm looking at you). Keep some fruit (sturdy fruit not prone to juicing inappropriately), trail mix, or whole grain crackers in your bag or briefcase, and you won't storm and pillage the first pizza place you see when unplanned for hunger strikes.

9. Become additive aware

Since becoming vegan, it's come to my attention that some people are really horrified by the prospect of reading labels to find out what's actually in a food product. It's not that bad, people. Get some reading glasses! Anyhoo, we all need to be on the lookout for unnecessary unhealthful additives like sugar and it's various other names (glucose, dextrose, HFCS, etc), E numbers (i.e. E102), and hydrogenated oils. Look out for subversive words like flavourings and colouring. Food should be made up of ingredients that the average person can pronounce and find in their kitchen cupboards.

10. Start your own nutrition mini-library

More reading, I know. This one is partly for your own edification, and partly for motivation. Reading books for nutrition has the obvious benefit of teaching you more about nutrition, but also when you find that you've lost your way and have gone back to chips and soda, you can read these books to remind you of how bad these foods are for your health, and why you made the change in the first place. C'mon guys, reading nutrition books is fun!

11. Tell everyone in your life what you are doing

Okay, your postman probably couldn't care less, but let your spouse, partner, roommate, best friends, coworkers, and family members know that you're trying to adopt a healthier diet; otherwise, they may unintentionally sabotage your diet by continually offering foods you shouldn't be eating, but find very hard to resist. You will have to very specific; telling people that you are eating healthier and expecting them to understand exactly what you mean isn't going to work very well. Tell them exactly what foods you are eating more of, and what foods you are avoiding.

Now, it may be the case that some people in your life will continued to try and sabotage your new diet even after this point, either because they aren't taking you seriously, or because they resent your new habits. Sit these people down and tell them exactly why you are making the change. Did you have a warning from your doctor? Have you been feeling sluggish and ill? Does your parent's failing health make you more attentive to your own? Be direct and honest, and don't be intimidated by any one's attempt to belittle your choices.

12. Remember that diet really does make a difference

There exists a common misperception that you can't really do much to control your own health; that genetics are the determining factor. Bull. Thousands of studies have confirmed that people who eat healthy diets live longer and have lower incidents of disease, and in fact, research suggests that genetics only determine about 2-3% of your total cancer risk. So why do people from the same families get the same diseases? Uh, because they eat the same diet?

13. Consider the cost of an unhealthy diet

Eating an unhealthy diet doesn't just affect you and your life. It doesn't even just affect your friends and family who have to deal with the emotional repercussions your bad heath, or even your death. Everyone in your country has to pay for your illness. Think of the relief on the healthcare system of your country if diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and autoimmune diseases stopped being a major problem. Large drug companies get rich off of the high prevalence of these diseases and struggling taxpayers shoulder the burden.

14. Don't get caught in the trap of thinking you have to "give everything good up"

How many times have you heard (or maybe said) some variation of the following statement: "Sure, if you give up white flour, sugar, meat, cheese, saturated fat, donuts, cheesecake, and alcohol, you might live longer, but who would want to?" This thought is a trap. There is plenty of pleasure, even gleeful joy, in healthy eating. Most healthy eaters I know love food way more than junk food junkies, and their love of food is broader and more adventurous.

Consider this passage from T Colin Cambpell's The China Study: "Not long ago, one of my best friends suffered a difficult surgery for cancer and spent his last years paralyzed in a nursing home. During the many visits I made to the nursing home, I never failed to come away with a deep appreciation for the health I still possess in my old age....The enjoyment of life, especially the second half of life, is greatly compromised if we can't see, if we can't think, if our kidneys don't work or if our bones are broken or fragile. I, for one, hope that I am able to fully enjoy not only the time in the present, but also the time in the future, with good health and independence." (Campbell 222)

15. Give yourself time off

Don't worry, no one is expecting you to be a nutritional martyr. Let yourself have a meal off every now and then. Feel free to bake you and your friends some treats every other week or so. Enjoy holidays and the treats that always surround them. A little bit of most things won't kill you, but if you are ill or overweight aim for no more than 10% of your calories to come from unhealthful foods.

Vital Vittles

Lunchbox Black Bean Burritos

I created these burritos one day when I was making my lunches for the week and trying to use up various things in my kitchen that looked like that were on their last legs (bad choice of phrase for a vegan burrito?) Feel free to experiment with throwing different veggies into the mix, and add some guacamole if you are so inclined.

1 cup uncooked brown rice
2 cups water
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
juice of one lime
salt and pepper to taste

3 tbsp water
1 tsp olive oil
1 onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1 courgette, grated
1/2 cup corn (frozen, fresh, or canned)
1 can (or 1.5 cups) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 small green chili, chopped, or a pinch of crushed chili flakes
salt and pepper to taste

3/4 cup raw cashews
2 tbsp lemon juice (or if you want to keep up the lime theme, lime juice)
1/4 cup water
salt to taste

4-6 wholewheat or corn tortillas

For the rice:

In a small, covered pot, bring the rice and water to a bowl and immediately lower to a simmer. Cook until the rice is tender, about 45-50 minutes. Once the rice is ready, mix in the cilantro and lime juice. Taste and add a dash of salt and pepper if you like.

For the cashew sour cream:

Add the cashews, lemon or lime juice and water into a blender (if you only have an immersion or handheld blender, just use a tall container). Blend until creamy, adding water if necessary. Salt to taste.

For the rice and vegetable mixture:

Heat the oil and water in a large frying pan, and add the onion, sauteing until soft (about 7 minutes.) Add the garlic, and saute for another minute or so. Add the cumin, coriander, and chili or chili flakes, and saute for 30 seconds, then add the carrot, courgette, and corn. Saute the vegetable mixture another 5ish minutes, or until the veggies are soft. Add the black beans and stir to heat through. Taste, adjust seasonings.

Heat each tortilla wrap gently in a clean frying pan, just until warm and pliable. Divide the rice evenly between each tortilla, then top with the veggies and bean mixture, then top with cashew cream (and guacamole, if you want). Wrap and serve immediately.

Is a Vegan Diet too Expensive?

2011-08-27T05:58:00.000-07:00

“I would eat vegetarian more often, but vegetables are so expensive.” “I can't afford to eat healthy.” “Don't vegan ingredients cost more than normal ones?” Even from vegetarians, I hear these attacks of irrationality: “our grocery bills wouldn’t be so expensive if we weren’t vegetarian,”or “it’s a sad state of affairs that meat is cheaper in this country than vegetables.” Um, no it isn’t. Granted, meat and dairy are subsidized in many countries by the government, which means that meat and dairy are much cheaper than they should be, but they still aren’t cheaper than their vegan alternatives. Stop spreading lies!

I wouldn't have thought that the fact that sources of animal protein tend be amongst the most expensive things on our shopping lists was any big secret. If I were to make the bold claim that steak is more expensive than brown rice, I don't think I would shock anyone. So I'm truly baffled when anyone claims that veganism, the base of which is vegetables (any kind you want, they don't have to be fancy), fruits (ditto), grains, beans, nuts, and spices, is more prohibitive in cost than omnivorous diets that use the most expensive items in your grocery store as their staples. Saying that you would be vegan except that the diet is too expensive is like claiming that you would watch One Tree Hill but you don't think the show takes itself seriously enough.

To demonstrate this claim to those of you who are impudent enough to not just take my word for it, I’m going to compare a typical day of vegan fare to a day of typical omnivore fare. And before you get up in arms claiming that I’ve skewed the results to my own liking, I interviewed two (not one, two!) omnivores about their daily diets as the basis for my omnivore day, and used my own diet for the vegan day.

Although I love to shop at the farmer's market and rarely do my weekly shopping at a big supermarket, for the practical purposes of the post I’ve used the website http://mysupermarket.co.uk/ to price out the day on Tesco. I’ve generally chosen the cheapest option available, unless it was too budget even for me.

Typical Vegan Day

Breakfast: Porridge with Raisins and Walnuts

Morning Snack: 1 Apple

Lunch: Vegan Caesar Salad and North African Cauliflower Soup

Afternoon snack: 2 Plums

Dinner: Butternut Squash Timbales with Walnuts and Arborio Rice

Total cost of day: £2.70

Typical Meat Eater Day

Breakfast: Cereal with Milk

Morning snack: Banana

Lunch: Ham and Cheese Baguette

Afternoon snack: Individual Sized Yogurt

Dinner: Spaghetti Bolognese

Total cost of day: £4.32

You may notice that my vegan menu does not include so-called substitutes, and most people think these foods are more expensive than their animal alternatives. But I've drawn up a little comparison to show that most vegan staple substitutes aren't really any more expensive than the cruelty-full items.
For example:

In the UK a stick of butter costs £1.60, or 64p per 100g. A container of Pure vegan butter is £1.57, or 31.4p per 100g.
A carton of 1.1 litres of cheap milk costs 89p, or 7.8p per 100ml, and a container of cheap soy milk costs 59p, or 5.9p per 100ml.
Everyone who does eat dairy should only consume organic milk, aside from the ethical considerations, as the added hormones in regular milk are very questionable substances for your health. From a gastronomic perspective, basic soy milk cannot hold a candle to higher quality soy milk brands, so I've compared the price of a carton of 1.1 litres of organic dairy milk: £1.10, or 9.7p/100ml, to the price of my favourite Alpro Original soy milk: £1.09 per litre, or 10.9p/100ml.
A 500g container of Onken yogurt costs 99p, or 19.8p per 100g. A 500g container of Alpro yogurt costs £1.00, or 20p per 100g.
While I wouldn't consider cream a basic some people do (especially you cream-loving Brits), so it's worth noting that a 300ml container of Tesco single cream costs £1.00, or 33.3p/100ml, compared to a 250ml container of Alpro soy single cream, which costs 74p, or 29.6p/100ml.

You get the idea. Sometimes a vegan product might cost a little more than the dairy alternative, but often the price is competitive. The average price per gram/millilitre for the non-vegan items listed above comes out to 26.9p per 100 grams or millilitres. The average price per gram/millilitre for the vegan items comes out to 19.5p per 100 grams or millilitres. But of course you know that these processed substitutes shouldn't make up the bulk of your diet.

In my New Year's post, I mentioned that lentils and beans were the cheapest source of protein around. Beans are not only nutritional powerhouses full of iron, protein, complex carbs, fibre, and micronutrients; they are not only versatile nutritional powerhouses; they are dirt cheap versatile nutritional powerhouses. Despite all of the attention that soy gets, I think that most vegans consider beans to be their mainstay sources of protein.

Let's compare them to a standard source of comparatively cheap animal protein. One 1.23Kg package of chicken thighs costs £3.00 or £2.44 per Kg (priced at Tesco). A 400g can of kidney beans costs 24p, or 60p per kilogram. Cans of beans are very cheap, but it's even cheaper to buy dried beans and cook them yourself. While a 500g bag of kidney beans costs 79p, or £1.59 per Kg, in order to properly compare the price of canned and dried beans we must account for the drained weight of the cans and the cooked weight of the dried beans. Isn't this fun? Would you judge me if I told you that I really think it is fun?

Since the weight of the drained canned beans is about half the original weight, and the weight of the cooked dried beans is roughly double that of their dried weight, we can estimate this difference fairly accurately simply by doubling the price of the canned beans, and halving the price of the dried beans, meaning that the canned beans cost £1.20 per kilogram and the dried beans cost 76p per kilogram. So dried beans are even cheaper than canned beans, and both are so much cheaper than the chicken it's silly. Dried beans are only a little more than one quarter of the price of cheap chicken!

I don't think that the perception that vegan foods are more expensive comes from the actual cost of vegetables, fruits, beans and grains, I think it comes from the prices at stores such as Whole Foods Market, Planet Organic, and other uber trendy, organic-esque halls of granola. I've come to realize that many people believe that doing the bulk of your shopping at these over-priced hippy traps is a requirement for your annual vegan membership. The uncomfortably well-groomed organic produce sold at Whole Foods et all is no more of a requirement for the vegan diet than it is for the omnivore diet. Most vegans shop at the same stores that meat-eaters do (unless you do all your shopping at the butcher's), and only visit these shops every once in a while for hard to find specialty items.

I have to confess, the cheapness of veganity uncovered in this post has amazed even me. Go forth and buy beans.

Recessionpe!

Butternut Squash Timbales with Walnuts and Arborio Rice

These little constructions of yum look and taste fancy enough to serve at a dinner party or holiday meal, but I've made them for weeknight suppers without much fuss. The recipe is adapted only slightly from The Vegan Table.

2 cups of peeled and cubed butternut squash
2.5 cups vegetable stock
1 cup Arborio rice (this is the kind of rice used to make risotto)
1/2 tsp salt
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp fresh parsley (2 tsp dried)
1 tsp fresh thyme
1-2 small sun-dried tomatoes
Black pepper
1/4 cup toasted, chopped walnuts
several leaves of dark greens such as kale or collard greens (about 2 per person)

Lightly oil 4 ramekins, mini-loaf pans, or smallish sized cereal bowls. Note: this step is optional. If you are making this dish for a weekday meal and aren't too fussed about presentation, you can just serve everything in a big old mess on a plate.

Steam or bake squash until just tender, about 10-12 minutes for steaming, 30 minutes for baking.

Bring stock and rice to a boil in a large saucepan. Add salt, and reduce heat to low, cover and cook about 20 minutes, stirring often (the rice should ideally be tender with some liquid remaining). Uncover, give a good stir, and take off heat.

In the meantime, toast the walnuts in a single layer on a small baking pan in the oven for about 5 minutes, or until fragrant. Saute the greens in either water or a little olive oil in a frying pan.

Heat oil or water in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Saute onion until translucent and just browning. Add garlic, parsley, and thyme, and stir for a few minutes. Add the sun dried tomatoes and squash. Remove from heat.

If serving in a big mess, simply arrange the greens on each plate, top with rice, then squash mixture, and then sprinkle with walnuts.

If serving fancy-like, place a quarter of the squash mixture in each ramekin/bowl, and press down to pack. Top with 1/4 of the rice mixture, and press down firmly again. Arrange the sauteed greens on each plate, and turn over each bowl/ramekin onto the bed of greens. If the timbale doesn't come out on its own, gently run a knife around the edge to dislodge it. Reshape carefully if needed. Sprinkle with walnuts and black pepper to taste.

I buy free-range eggs. So there's no problem, right?

2011-07-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

A Wild Chicken

Despite having eaten plenty of them in my lifetime, I've always found eggs a little disturbing. I mean, think about what an egg is, and think about what the human equivalent might be, and then think about eating that human equivalent. Now do you feel like eating frittata tonight? But I continued to eat eggs, partly out of habit and convenience, and partly because I couldn't really see a reason not to eat them.

Well, I've found some reasons.

Most of you probably already know what's wrong with battery farm eggs. We've seen the images of the tiny cages, the dark, dismal barns, and the crowds of birds smothering each other, often resulting in injury and death. We all know that in these systems, injured birds often go unnoticed, and are left to die a slow death while being trampled on by other birds. We all know that sometimes the corpses of these birds are not removed quickly, disturbing and distressing the other birds, and spreading disease.

We all know that a hen living in one of the cramped cages will often suffer from osteoporosis, broken bones, and sores on her body. We know that, despite being a very social animal, she will be cut off from any contact with other birds. We know that the feces from other birds will drop down on her constantly. We know that she will never see daylight.

You all ready have all of this information, so I didn't need to tell you. When I first saw the images of caged hens, I did the same thing a lot of other people did. I felt a wave of guilt, and started buying free range eggs instead. I thought the problem was largely solved. Was it? Is there a problem with free-range eggs?

Well, for starters, although hens would normally live more than 10 years, in the egg-laying industry they are considered spent (a charming expression) after 1-2 years, and are sent to die an unimaginably cruel death in a slaughterhouse. Just as with the dairy industry, the egg industry props up the meat industry, and anyone who has a problem with the meat industry must qualifying have a problem with the egg industry.

Unbeknownst to many, the free-range label also doesn't mean a heck of a lot. In the USA, in order to label their eggs free-range, a farm simply has to open a window or a door for some part of the day. The cramped conditions can remain the same, the unbearable temperatures can remain the same, everything else stays the same. Does anyone really think that the hens care or even notice whether or not a window is open? In Canada, there is no regulation whatsoever on what gets labelled free-range.

In the UK, regulations are a little stricter, but the living (and dying) conditions for these birds are still a cruel joke. Under UK law, free-range birds supposedly have access to the outside throughout the day, and under European Union law, each bird must have 4 square metres of space in the open-air range. Inside the barn, hens may be "stocked" (another charming expression) at a density of 9 hens per square metre.

In free-range systems, there are several factors that make regulations ineffective. The first of these factors should be obvious: farmers don't always do what they are told. Undercover investigations have shown farms that proudly proclaim the term free-range, or even Freedom Food stamps from the RSPCA, blatantly disregarding the rules of these terms, keeping the birds in cramped conditions, failing to remove the corpses of dead birds, and allowing injury and disease to run rampant.

Undercover operations have taken video footage of some of these farms, and some of that footage is available for you to see. The UK group Viva! and Sky News have done an expose on a free range farm here. Five News has done an expose on a free range farm in Norfolk that can be found here, and the sanctuary Peaceful Prairie has done a video on free-range farming in the US that can be found here.

A Wild Hen and Her Chicks

Although chickens are social animals, the flocks that farms keep them in are unnaturally large, and large flocks result in aggression in some of the birds. Aggressive birds will often guard the opening to the open air range, stopping other birds from getting outside, and keeping them in the cramped conditions indoors. As a consequence, many of the birds will rarely, if ever, see the outdoors.

Another consequence of aggression in these birds is a tendency towards pecking, which is not as cute as it sounds. Aggressive birds will give other hens sores and defeather them by pecking at them. They may also engage in cannibalistic behaviour that sometimes causes these birds to wound other birds fatally. This destructive pecking is stereotypic behaviour that occurs because of the stressful conditions the birds are kept in; it is not natural behaviour.

In order to combat pecking, one of the cruelest practices in chicken egg farming is almost universally used in free range systems. At a young age, each hen will have her beak seared off with a hot blade. Hen's beaks have a large nerve supply, and debeaking is a painful process that will often stop a hen from engaging in natural behaviour such as preening, indicating that she feels the pain of the hot blade long after the procedure has been completed.

Rats, mice, and red mite infestations can run rampant in free range systems, causing panic in flocks, often leading to hens been trampled and suffocating to death. These infestations spread disease, and make the hens stressed, increasing aggressive pecking behaviour.

In our society, baby chicks are admired not only for their fuzzy and adorable appearance, but also as symbols of innocence, youth, and spring fertility. Most people would agree that to hurt one of these sweet birds would be an act of incredible brutality. But what happens to these male chicks is perhaps the most shocking aspect of egg farming, and this aspect is something that occurs across the board in every single kind of egg farm: battery farms, free range farms, or organic farms. Considered useless by the egg-farming industry, each male chick is killed at one to two days old. Many are killed by being thrown alive into a macerator that grinds them alive. Many are gassed to death. Many are killed by being thrown alive into a garbage and left to suffocate.

If you feel compelled to eliminate eggs from your diet after reading this information, great. If you feel disturbed by the information, but are not ready to completely stop eating eggs, don't bother buying into the clever marketing lie known as free range eggs. Just eat fewer eggs, and keep your mind open to the possibility of an egg-free life.

References

DEFRA, "Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Livestock: Laying Hens," London: DEFRA, 2002. http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb7274-laying-hens-020717.pdf

DEFRA, "The Welfare of Hens in Free Range Systems," London: DEFRA, 2001. http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb7274-laying-hens-020717.pdf

Farm Animal Welfare Council, "Report on the Welfare of Laying Hens," London: FAWC, 1997. http://www.fawc.org.uk/reports/layhens/lhgretoc.htm

The Vegan Society, "Hens and Eggs," Birmingham: The Vegan Society, accessed July 2011.

http://www.vegansociety.com/resources/animals/hens-and-eggs.aspx.

United Poultry Concerns, "Chickens," Machipongo: UPC, accessed July 2011. http://www.upc-online.org/chickens/chickensbro.html

What's the deal with B12?

2011-05-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

It's said by some that in in the vegan community the issue of vitamin B12 is sometimes swept under the carpet, or mentioned as an afterthought. The vegan diet has a lot going for it from a health perspective, including lower rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases, and a good vegan diet will have ample amounts of all nutrients, but there is one dastardly little vitamin that escapes a plant-based diet: vitamin B12. Yes, it's true. The vegan diet is lacking in one nutrient. And the kicker is that we need such a tiny amount of it. In a whole lifetime, the average person only needs about 40 milligrams of B12! But I personally don't think we should ignore this problem and pretend it's not there, but rather bring the issue out into the forefront. Everyone starting out as a vegan needs to be aware of the need to either consume B12 fortified foods, or take a supplement.

When I first starting contemplating veganism, I was well-aware that vegans needed to supplement with B12. But it was only when I was collecting a plethora of positive health claims about veganism that I started to wonder why. Why would such a tiny nutrient, required in only micrograms a day, be left out of this otherwise incredibly healthy diet? So I looked the subject up, and here's what I found.

B12 is not inherent in animal products. It grows on bacteria. Meat is rich in bacteria because the bacteria is attracted to...dead flesh. Aren't we all? The story goes that herbivore animals usually obtain B12 from eating their own feces. Now, apparently in communities where a plant-based diet is the norm, such as in certain parts of India, B12 deficiency does not seem to occur; however, when people from these cultures migrate to more developed countries, they develop a deficiency. The culprit appears to be our "lifeless" soil that has been overly sterilised from pesticides, herbicides, and chemicals. Since B12 is produced by bacteria, it doesn't seem to want to grow in this squeaky clean soil. Studies have also noted that countries such as India often seem to have water that is contaminated with bacteria, including bacteria from feces, and that B12 is sometimes obtained from that water.

Personally, upon hearing that my options are either eating bacteria-ridden dead flesh, my own feces, or drinking water contaminated with other people's feces, my reaction is, um, I'll take the little supplement pill, thanks. I don't know about you.

Some people have suggested that several plant-based sources of B12 might be used instead, including seaweeds and our own intestinal bacteria, but none of them have been found to be very reliable sources so far. There is some evidence that organic produce, a certain type of algae, or tempeh might turn out to be reliable, but at the moment, the best we know is that vegans should take either a supplement, or be sure to eat sufficient amounts of B12 fortified food. I myself take a supplement. I don't want to be bothered to try and drink a certain amount of non-dairy milk a day, and I don't eat a lot of meat analogues, nutritional yeast, or breakfast cereals, which are the foods typically fortified with B12. If you are abstaining from both meat and dairy, you really need to be doing one of the following: eat fortified foods with at least 3 micrograms of B12 per day, take a B12 supplement of 10 micrograms a day, or take weekly supplement of 2000 micrograms.*

Even though it's true that many people have a built up store of B12 for several years when they first become vegan, assuming that you are one of these people is not very wise. Overt B12 deficiency is no sweeping-under-the-carpet matter; it can ultimately result in blindness, deafness, or dementia. Early symptoms can include fatigue and a tingling in the hands and feet. Mild B12 deficiency may not come along with any symptoms, but will cause elevated levels of homocysteine, which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.

If there is any tendency in the vegan community to keep quiet about the need for B12, I think it may be due to the concern that in lacking one little vitamin, veganism might seem like an "unnatural" diet. I think this supposition is illogical on three counts. First of all, vegans are not the only people who get B12 deficiency. Lacto-ovo vegetarians and meat-eaters also suffer from it. In fact, doctors recommend that people older than 50 years take a B12 supplement anyway. Secondly, while we don't know for sure, the evidence certainly seems to suggest that our soil is the problem, not the vegan diet. Thirdly, and here's the part where I give these members of the vegan community a little tough love, who cares? Don't monkey around with your health like that! You're worried that people won't think veganism is a natural diet? What does a natural diet even mean? None of us are eating what our cave people ancestors ate. We've moved past that. And I think we need to give people a little credit. If people are compelled by the ethical reasons of veganism, have heard of all of the fantastic health benefits, and they're at the point where they think they might be willing to actually change their diet, they're not going to be dissuaded from doing so by the fact that they have to take a pill once a week. And if they are, they were never serious about the change in the first place.

Vegans should be supplementing with B12, and we don't need to make this recommendation in a whisper. Take the supplement, and tell others to take the supplement. Unhealthy vegans are a much worse advertisement for veganism than a pill. And keep in mind that when you are taking that supplement, you are missing the saturated fat, unhealthy animal protein, trans fat, and cholesterol that come along with the B12 in meat and dairy.

*click here to see a complete list of age appropriate B12 recommendations.

Vital Vittles

Vegan Caesar Salad

Since we're talking about a nutrient that's not really food based, there isn't really a related recipe. So instead I'm giving you Alicia Silverstone's recipe for vegan caesar salad, only slightly modified, because I've been obsessed with it lately. It's quite salty and tart, so if you're sensitive to these tastes, you might want to add the mustard and soy sauce sparingly. The original recipe can be found in The Kind Diet, (UK), (Can).

Croutons
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp sea salt
3-4 slices wholemeal bread, cut into cubes
Olive oil

Dressing
2 tbsp blanched or roasted almonds
3 garlic cloves, minced
1.5 tbsp mustard
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil

1 large head romaine lettuce, washed, torn and patted dry

Preheat the oven to 325 F/160 C. Toss together the bread cubes, rosemary, and salt in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil, and then toss again. Spread bread cubes onto a baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until dry and toasted. Cool completely.

Combine the almonds, garlic, mustard, soy sauce, tahini, lemon juice, and oil together in a food processor or blender, process until well-blended.

Toss the lettuce, croutons, and dressing together in a serving bowl. Serve immediately.

References
Campbell, T. Colin, The China Study:The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health. Dallas: BenBella Books, 2006.
National Institutes of Health, "Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Vitamin B12," http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitaminb12/, accessed 17 May 2011.
Norris, Jack, R.D., "B12: Are you getting it?" Veganhealth.org, accessed 17 May 2011.
Norris, Jack, R.D., "What every vegan should know about B12," Veganhealth.org, accessed 17 May 2011.

What do I need to give up and how do I do it? A guide to vegan substitutes

2011-04-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

When people are contemplating veganism, I don't think it's any secret that a lot of people get stuck dwelling on what they have to "give up." The popular public perception of vegans is one of asceticism; apparently we all sit around joylessly chewing on dry spinach leaves, waiting for Anna Wintour to walk by in her fur coat, so that we can throw red paint on her (c'mon, who wouldn't throw red paint at Anna Wintour?)

I assume that you, dear reader, are informed enough on the subject to know that there is an amazingly broad world of delicious vegan food out there. But I know that plenty of people still get confused, and even a little scared, at the prospect of giving up food that they have eaten since childhood, and a lot of people aren't really sure what exactly vegans do or do not eat.

OK, so, here is the basic lesson. Vegans do not eat meat, fish, eggs, dairy, and some do not eat honey. In this post I will explain and recommend some substitutions for these products; as well as, put your minds at ease regarding some items of confusion. Some of the products I'll recommend to you will be things that I haven't tried myself, but that are so highly regarded in the vegan community that I feel pretty confident in including them. The recommendations are as multi-regional as I can make them.

Let's start with the easy stuff. Milk: Substitutes for milk are Plentiful with a capital P. There are many different kinds: soy milk, rice milk, oat milk, almond milk, hemp milk, hazelnut milk, quinoa milk...I'm sure I've left some out. If you don't like one, keep trying others. Soy milk is most common, and is still my favourite, especially for putting in my tea and coffee. Note that while many people find the initial taste of soy a little off-putting, after drinking soy milk regularly, they either don't notice the same taste anymore, or they start to enjoy it.
Brand: Quality varies hugely from brand to brand, even for the same variety of milk. In the UK, I would recommend Alpro Soy Milk (I'm particularly fond of the long-life original), Rice Dream, So Good, and Oatly. In Canada and the States, I would recommend Silk and Rice Dream.
Uses: Pretty much the same as dairy milk.
Where to buy: Soy milk is available EVERYWHERE, even corner shops and gas stations. I really doubt that you live somewhere with no access to soy milk. Rice milk is probably the second most common, and can often still be found in your regular grocery store. For other varieties, try a health food store.

Butter: Butter is easily substituted by margarine, or canola oil in baking. Be careful when you are buying margarine, most brands use some amount of milk as a cheap filler or texture regulator.
Brands: In the UK, I buy Pure, which comes in either a soy version or a sunflower version. In Canada and the States, I haven't ever tried it, but I've heard many, MANY recommendations for Earth Balance.
Uses: Same as dairy butter. Canola oil works very well in many baked good recipes.
Where to buy: Your regular grocery store. In the UK canola oil is usually labelled as rapeseed oil or just vegetable oil.

Eggs: Replacing eggs in cooking in baking is probably a large enough subject that I'll do a separate post on it one day, so I won't really go into detail here. In cooking, tofu is often used to substitute eggs successfully in a variety of different dishes. In baking, a multitude of techniques exist, including a mixture of baking powder/soda and vinegar, a commercial egg replacer, flax gel, or fruit puree such as applesauce or mashed banana.

Meat: This topic also begs it's own post, so this is a very brief overview. Meat is sometimes very successfully replicated, sometimes not. I would recommend veggie burgers, vegan sausages, and ground/minced not-beef pretty confidently. However, if you are looking to replicate having a hunk of meat at the centre of your plate, meat substitutes might be a little hit and miss. Besides commercial meat subs, try tofu, tempeh, and seitan as the hunk of meaty protein in your meal (again I will do a separate post on these items).
Brands: In the UK, try Redwood, Fry's, and Goodlife. Quorn and Cauldron, the major meat substitutes available in UK grocery stores are NOT vegan, and have outright rejected proposals develop a vegan line (should this make us suspicious of their ethical motives? I think so). In Canada and the States, Yves veggie burgers and veggie ground round are pretty dead on replicates of fast food burgers and ground cow, but without the blood and gristle. You should also try Gardein and Boca products.
Where to Buy: Try your local healthfood store for Redwood and Fry's. Goodlife can be found in Waitrose. Yves, Gardein, and Boca can be found at regular grocery stores.

Cheese: Oh, the quest to find a true cheese replicate. I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but again, cheese deserves it's own post. Cheese subs also vary hugely in quality from brand to brand, and work best as a component of a meal, rather than as the focus. Cheese subs are often made from soy, rice, and nuts. You can also make your own substitutes at home (try Joanne Stepaniak's The Uncheese Cookbook, UK, CAN).
Brands: In the UK, I quite like Cheezly, although I think differing opinions exist. Scheese is also controversial, while I haven't tried it, I've really good things about their cheddar subs, and really bad things about their blue cheese subs. Tofutti makes a cream cheese substitute that'll do. In Canada and the States, I've heard good things about Daiya, Follow your Heart, and the pricier Dr. Cow.
Where to Buy: Tofutti, Cheezly, and Scheese are both available in health food stores, Cheezly more widely that Scheese. Daiya is available in health food stores in Canada, and I think more widely available in the US.

Yogurt: Soy yogurt is a good substitute for dairy yogurt, and I think you won't notice much of a difference. I've heard rave reviews of coconut milk yogurt, which I haven't found yet in the UK.
Brands: In the UK, Alpro yogurt is the standard, and comes both in large tubs of plain, and individual servings of flavoured. In the States, I've heard recommendations for So Delicious Coconut Yogurt. In both Canada and the States, Silk has a soygurt product.
Where to buy: Alpro and Silk are ubiquituously available.

Mayonaise: Commerical non-dairy mayos are good replicas. You can also try making your own, just search online for a recipe.
Brands: In the UK, Plamil makes a variety of different vegan mayos. In Canada and the States, Vegenaise is the gold standard.
Where to buy: Plamil is sold in health food stores. Your local chain grocery store will probably carry vegan mayo in their Free From aisle. Veganaise is widely available.

Sour Cream: Sour cream is also something that can be made at home using tofu or ground up cashews and lemon juice. Like I said before, yogurt can be substituted for several different uses, such as a dollop in your borscht.
Brands: Tofutti makes a non-dairy sour cream I haven't tried but that seems to be well-liked.
Where to buy: Health food store.

Now that we're done with the obvious stuff, here's the confusing stuff:

Bread: Vegans eat bread. 99% of the bread available is probably vegan, but occasionally milk products are used as cheap filler, so check the ingredients list just in case. Note: egg bread contains eggs.

Chocolate: Fear not, you will not have to put down the chocolate, but you might have to switch brands. Good quality dark chocolate will almost never contain any milk products, but crappy dark chocolate brands sometimes use it again as...cheap filler. I don't want to blow anybody's mind, but milk chocolate contains milk. In terms of baking with chocolate, or making hot chocolate at home, you won't notice a difference, as cocoa powder is vegan. Cocoa butter, in case the inclusion of the word butter incites confusion, is also vegan. Smile.

Peanut butter: This misconception is a pet peeve of mine. Peanut butter DOESN'T CONTAIN ANY BUTTER! On the same note, neither does apple butter, pumpkin butter, or other similar foods wherein butter is used to refer to the texture, not the ingredients.

Pizza bases, pre-prepared pastry, and other surprises: Traditional Italian pizza bases never, ever contain dairy or eggs, but we here in the modern world are in the business of bastardising other cultures' cuisine, so check with your local pizza place to make sure. Phyllo pastry is also traditionally and typically vegan. Surprisingly enough, in the UK, Jus-Rol makes vegan puff pastry and shortcrust pastry, and in Canada and the US, Pepperidge farm frozen puff pastry is vegan as well.

In short, check the label, and you might be surprised what is vegan. Of course, sometimes you might be surprised at what isn't. But no matter what the product is, chances are, someone has come along to make a vegan version.

If anyone reading this has any brand recommendations, feel free to add them in the comments. Next time we revisit this subject, I'll talk about vegan clothing and other inedible products. Excited?

Recessionpe

Asparagus and Thyme Quiche-ish

This recipe is timely for this post for two ways: one, the very short asparagus season is in swing right now; grab 'em while you can. Two, this recipe is a good example of a way to create an equally pleasing vegan version of a traditional, non-vegan dish.

For the pastry:
3/4 cup whole wheat flour (whole wheat pastry flour if you have it)
1/2 cup white flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup vegan margarine
1/4 cup ice cold water

For the filling:
1 tbsp olive oil, or water
1 leek, sliced into half-moons
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch asparagus, chopped into inch-ish long pieces*
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 of a 420g package of extra-firm tofu (not silken)
3/4 cup non-dairy milk
2.5 tbsp flour
1 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes (optional)

For the pastry, combine the two flours and salt in a mixing bowl. Divide the margarine into small chunks, and toss into the flour mixture, and work quickly with your fingers or a pastry cutter to combine until small crumbs form. Sprinkle in the water a few spoonfuls at a time, and combine until the dough holds together in a firm ball. Refrigerate until you are ready to use it.

Preheat the oven to 375/190 degrees. Heat the oil in a medium sized pan, and add the leeks and garlic. Saute for 5 minutes or so, until soft. Add the asparagus, thyme and 1/4 tsp salt, and saute for another five minutes or so, or until the asparagus is tender-crisp.

Blend together the tofu, non-dairy milk, flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and nutritional yeast, until smooth. You can do this with either a food processor or a hand-held immersion blender. Combine the tofu mixture with the leek and asparagus mixture.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and place it into a pie plate. Prick some holes in the bottom of the crust with a fork, make the edges of the crust look as fancy as you like, and then add the filling, and bake for 45 minutes, or until the filling is set and the pie pleasingly golden.

*to stem the woody ends of asparagus easily, bend the lower half of each stalk with your hands. The stalk will naturally and crisply snap right where the woody part ends.

Why won't those wacky vegans eat cheese?

2011-03-07T06:12:00.000-08:00

"Ok," people say to vegans, "I get the idea behind not eating meat. But dairy? How on earth can you give up cheese?"

This post details the ethical problems with dairy, and the powerful industry that's painting milk across the upper lips of teen idols and pouring it into our cereal bowls. While I think that there is a plethora of scientifically sound reasons to give up dairy for health reasons, I'll talk about those in a different post.

I can hear you rolling your eyes. And I can hear you thinking, "milk is a natural food. Cows give it to us naturally. They need to be milked; farmers are doing them a favour. And cheese is awesome." I can hear you, because these thoughts are all things I thought myself before I discovered the truth behind the cheese.

Natural, eh? We are the only species on earth that drinks the breast milk of another species, and the only species that continues to drink this breast milk past infancy. Doesn't that sound kind of...icky? And certainly not natural. Lactose intolerance is often referred to as some kind of disease or condition, but in fact, we stop producing the enzyme that our body needs to properly digest milk around the age of 18, because we aren't supposed to be drinking it anymore. If you are lactose intolerant, you don't have a special medical condition, your body is just behaving the way it should.

When I was a LO vegetarian, I thought that cows needed to be milked, or else they would be in physical pain. Someone told me this once, (probably one of my parents, I don't really remember), and I just believed them. And I think most people are told this pleasant fiction at some point or another, and most people just accept it as fact. Why does the cow need to be milked? That part we don't really think too hard about. Cows are just milk machines, right?

We don't think too hard about why cows need to be milked, because the idea that cows produce milk for no reason is a load of bull. Cows don't constantly produce a never ending stream of milk just waiting to be turned into your next pint of Ben and Jerry's. They are artificially impregnated 90 days after they give birth, every time that they give birth, so that they can be constantly milked with the use of an artificial insemination instrument called a rape rack. Think of the stress that a human female body undergoes from just one pregnancy, and now imagine that she is forced to undergo this every year, with no time to recover, and no choice.

This photo comes from Blaikiewell Animal Sanctuary

Dairy cows are fed Bovine Grown Hormone (BGH), a synthetic hormone developed to produce more milk, and through a combination of messing around with their genetics and intensive production technology they produce 100lb of milk a day, which is ten times more than they would normally produce with a natural pregnancy. A dairy cow is often forced to produce so much milk that her swollen udder will drag on the floor.

After about 3-6 years of this unnatural cycle, the cows are spent. Normally a cow would live to about 25 years of age, but in the dairy industry when a cow stops producing milk, she is sold for meat and sent for slaughter. The dairy industry props up the meat industry in a very real way.

A dairy cow is hooked up to a milking machine several times a day. The constant stress of this unnatural cycle will put her at risk for numerous health problems, including Bovine Leukemia Virus, Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus, and Johne's disease (which is like the human Crohn's disease). This milking machine will suck her udders dry and often transmit bacterial infections to her, such as the very painful infection of the udders called mastitis.

Do you like drinking pus? Good. Because thanks to mastitis, a condition from which 30% of all British dairy cows suffer, pus is in your milk. Under governmental regulations 400 million pus cells are allowed into every litre of milk. If this disgusts you for your sake, think of the cow that has to put up with having her swollen, infected udder sucked dry several times a day, every day of her life, until she is sent to slaughter.

The dairy industry, like any profitable industry, is a business. Businesses are after money, and the welfare of cows will never be more important in a dairy farm than the financial bottom line. Therefore, cows will always be treated as machines, not living, sentient beings. In one type of milking system, cows are confined to windowless sheds and chained by the neck for the duration of their lives. In another, they are crowded into outdoor enclosures where they must continuously stand or lie on feces and urine caked soil. Their painful medical problems often go unnoticed and untended; the cows simply suffer through infections, illnesses, and injuries. Investigators have documented that animals who are so sick or injured that they are unable to walk or even stand are routinely beaten, dragged, or pushed with bulldozers in attempts to move them to slaughter.

I am by no means a maternal person, but the part of the dairy industry that affects me the most is the manipulated of the relationship between mother cows and their calves. The bond between a mother and child is undoubtedly one of the most sacred, primitive, and natural in our society, and as egocentric as our species can be, we all recognise that we as humans do not have a monopoly on this bond. We know that this bond exists between all mothers and their offspring, regardless of species.

So if cows are continuously impregnated, what happens to their calves? The calves produced by these pregnancies are taken away from their mothers immediately after birth. The females will be used as dairy cows. The males will be kept in unthinkable conditions for a few weeks, and then sold for veal meat or other beef. Mother cows, normally docile, will fight against their calves being taken away from them, and will search and call out for their children for days after they are taken away. The painful image of mother cows frantically calling out for their children affects me and stays with me the most, possibly because in the end, it would be better for her really to not know what happened to her child.

So, I don't think that milk is a natural food. I don't think that cows give it to us freely. And I don't think that farmers are doing them a favour.

Ethical Eats

Vegan Blueberry Pancakes

Tomorrow is Pancake Tuesday, and don't think that vegans have to opt out of it! Here is a dairy free, egg free recipe for delicious blueberry pancakes. Please note these are in the style of the fluffier Canadian pancakes, rather than the more crepe-like British pancakes. Blueberries aren't in season right now, so look in the freezer section of your local store for frozen berries. Of course you can substitute any kind of berries you like, or take them out completely if you have something against fiber and phytonutrients. Double the recipe for a family.

1 cup plain flour (or 1/2 cup plain flour and 1/2 cup whole-wheat)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup soy milk
2.5 Tablespoons canola oil (also known as rapeseed oil)
1/2 cup thawed blueberries

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl. Stir in soy milk and oil, and mix until just combined (lumps are ok). Gently fold in the blueberries.

Heat a frying pan on medium-high heat, and add a small amount of oil. I use a 1/4 cup measure to spoon out the batter into the frying pan. Cook about 2-3 minutes on each side, bubbles will form on the top side. Flip, and cook 2 minutes on the other side. Don't worry if the fist pancake looks a little funky, the first pancake in any batch of pancakes you will ever make is usually a "throwaway" pancake. Except I throw it away by eating it while the others are cooking.

Top with more fresh fruit, maple syrup, non-dairy margarine, brown rice syrup, jam (preferably sugar free), or applesauce.

References
Butler, Justine, White Lies, Bristol: Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation, 2006. Available at http://www.vegetarian.org.uk/campaigns/whitelies/wlreport01.shtml.
Farm Animal Welfare Council, "Report on the Welfare of Dairy Cattle," LFAC, 1997. Available at http://www.fawc.org.uk/reports/dairycow/dcowrtoc.htm.
Farm Sanctuary, The Welfare of Cattle in Dairy Production, NY: Farm Sanctuary, 2006. Available at http://www.farmsanctuary.org/mediacenter/dairy_report.html.
Vernelli, Toni, The Dark Side of Dairy: A report on the UK Dairy Industry, Bristol: Viva!, 2005. Available at http://milkmyths.org.uk/report/index.php.

Spinach goes to Spain: Travelling as a Vegan

2011-02-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

If off-season flight prices hadn't been involved, I probably wouldn't have chosed Spain as my first trip abroad after transitioning to veganism. Spanish food is often cited as the worst for vegetarians, let alone vegans, with Spanish vegetable dishes often containing hunks of pigs. But when my boyfriend proposed a trip at the end of January, flights to Madrid were so cheap that I kind of forgot I was vegan.

I'm not going to tell you that Spanish menus aren't mostly made up of pigs and squid, because they certainly are. But at every meal, I wondered if my task of finding vegan food in Spain was about to become arduous. It never did. I was never told that a restaurant couldn't accommodate me, and most restaurants had several things on their menus that were already vegan.

This happy experience occurred in part because of the wondrous miracle that is http://happycow.net/, a very useful site that lists the vegan, vegetarian, and veg-friendly restaurants in pretty much every city in the world. I just printed off the listings for our two destinations, Madrid and Granada, and shoved them into our travel guide.

Because I was travelling with my meat-loving boyfriend, I didn't solely visit vegetarian restaurants, but I did go to a few, and I'm very excited to tell you about the three delicious, veggie restaurants we found.

1. For lunch our second day in Madrid, we went to an awesome vegetarian cafe called Viva la Vida (they have two locations, we went to the one in La Latina), that was my favourite place for the whole trip, so much so, that we ended up going twice. Viva la Vida is a buffet place (you pay by weight), and there are plenty of clearly marked vegan options. Over the course of two visits, I stuffed my face with polenta, paella topped with a really delicious smoky tomato sauce, roasted potatoes, vegan croquettes (swoon), sushi with a creamy, dreamy carrot mousse filling, Thai rice paper rolls, spanish rice, and a seitan dish.

2. For dinner that same night, we went to another vegetarian place, called El Estragon. Because vegetarians like to move in packs, El Estragon is in the same square in the La Latina region as Viva la Vida. I had a really good dish of soy and lentil meatballs with a paprika-seasoned tomato and bell pepper sauce, and perfectly crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, sliced potatoes.

3. Our first day in Granada, we got lunch from a take-out salad bar called El Piano. This place was all vegan, all gluten free, all organic, and you get your selection of salad in a little biodegradable wooden boat! You heard me right, a vegan, gluten-free, organic, environmentally conscious salad bar IN SPAIN. It was also all delicious: I had a seitan estofida and rice with eggplant, and a brownie.

If you are heading off to Espana, I would remember a few things. Firstly, there are several traditional Spanish delights that are already vegan: freshly squeezed orange juice; green olives; fresh oranges, figs, and other fruit; gazpatcho; and other cold soups (not always prepared vegan, but traditionally should be). Secondly, you will want to learn the names of things you don't eat and just ask for the dish without them, rather than assuming waiters will know exactly what vegano or vegetariano means. No one made a fuss when we asked for a dish without something. Lastly, your life will be so much easier if you just research ahead.

If you remember from Mon Histoire, travelling and still being able to enjoy different food from different cultures was one of the things I was most concerned about when becoming vegan. The pleasant irony of the trip was that food was the thing I was concerned about when we set sail, but thinking back on the trip now, our culinary experience was one of the best parts. Buen provecho!

Receta

Vegan Churros with Chilli-Orange Chocolate Sauce

The only thing I really regretted in Spain was not being able to have churros! Churros, if you are sadly unacquainted with them, are little Spanish doughnuts that are fried, and then rolled in cinnamon sugar, and served with a thick chocolate sauce. Interested? Since I couldn't eat these in Spain, I couldn't wait to get home and make a vegan version of them.

1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup boiling water

3 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup dark chocolate pieces
1 cup soy (or other non-dairy) milk
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp orange zest
1 dash cayenne pepper

Canola oil for frying

Mix together the flour, salt, and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Pour in the cup of boiling water and mix together quickly. Stir constantly until a firm dough forms, about five minutes.

In a small plate or bowl, combine the 3 tbsp of sugar and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon with a fork.

Heat the oil over medium heat in a small saucepan. If you drop a small piece of bread in the oil, it should be brown in about 30 seconds.

You have two alternatives: piping the churros onto a plate first and chilling it before frying, or piping them in shapes directly into the oil. Not trusting my ability to pipe into boiling hot water without losing a hand, I chose the former option, if less pretty, option. If you have a pastry bag, now is the time to break it out, and use a large star tip. If not, just cut the tip off a plastic sandwich bag. Whichever method you choose, churros are usually made into long oval shapes. If you pipe them onto a plate, carefully lift thim off the plate with a knife (you might want to brush the plate with a bit of oil first), and carefully drop them into the oil. Fry them for a few minutes, until golden brown on each side.

Lift the shapes out of the oil, and place them on a plate covered in paper towels. Once cooled for a minute or two, roll them in the cinnamon sugar, then put them aside.

To make the chocolate sauce, carefully melt the chocolate pieces either in a double boiler, or over low heat in a saucepan. Watch the chocolate carefully or it will burn. Add the soy milk (or any dairy alternative you like), and whisk together. Add the cornstarch and whisk together. Add the orange zest and dash of cayenne, and continue to whisk constantly until the mixture thickens up a bit, about 5 minutes or so. If you want it thicker, whisk for longer, or add a bit more starch, but I find that I don't like it too thick.

Serve the sauce in a small bowl or cup (if you have cappuchino cups, this is a perfect use for them) for dipping, and the churros on the side.

Big Fat Post

2011-01-30T09:43:00.000-08:00

Fat. The word doesn't sound like a hallmark of good health. The only thing most of us know for sure about fat is that we love it, but we don't want to BE it. The low-fat craze in the 90's died down once we realized that all of those low-fat products just contained a load of sugar, and we then decided to stop thinking about it so much. Fat tastes awesome, and besides, saturated fat turned out not to be that bad, right? Doctors don't really know if fat is good or bad, anyway, so I can just eat whatever I want.

Wrong. Here's the thing I think most people don't understand. Many different things can be bad for you all at the same time. Because one kind of fat starts making headlines about causing diabetes and heart disease, doesn't mean that another kind of fat has stopped causing diabetes and heart disease. It means that both kinds of fat are causing diabetes and heart disease. That's why there's so much, um, diabetes and heart disease in our society. Medical researchers know exactly what kind of fat you should be eating or avoiding. But there are big, powerful, scary industries that really don't want you to be well-informed on the situation, and the media, which revels in public confusion, plays along.

So do we need fat at all? Fat is absolutely a necessary nutrient. When we talk about fat as a nutrient, we use the term essential fatty acids, or EFA's. You know from the protein blog, that in health terms the word essential means a nutrient that we need, and that we have to get from food. EFA's help in blood clotting, vitamin absorption, brain function, cell and hormone production, and they provide energy. Fat is in almost all foods, in varying amounts, so having a fat-free diet is actually impossible, and good thing too, because you need EFA's to live. However, our confusion mostly centers around which kinds and how much we need. Kinds of fat can be divided into three main categories: saturated fat, trans fat, and unsaturated fat.

Does saturating your arteries in a mostly solid, greasy substance sound like a good thing? Okay, that might not be a technically accurate description of what happens when you consume saturated fat, but the fact remains that you should be eating as little saturated fat as possible. Saturated fat increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, high cholesterol, and atherosclerosis. SatFat causes high blood pressure, depresses the immune system, and increases the risk of cancer. Wait a second...something that we're doing could be causing cancer? It's not some inevitable punishment from the gods that has randomly increased every year for the last 80 years for no reason? Weird.

So where does saturated fat come from? Herein lies the clue why we're being fed misinformation: the main sources of saturated fat are meat, dairy, and eggs. Surprise! Coconut and palm oils are mostly made up of saturated fat as well, although in the western world, most of us don't eat very much tropical oil, so these are not as much of a concern. The American Heart Association recommends consuming no more than 7% of your calories from saturated fat, but those of us who consume meat, dairy, and eggs usually consume almost double that amount. Saturated fat is not kinda, sorta bad. Saturated fat has killed so many people it makes Charles Manson look like Father Christmas.

Trans fat is much better understood by the public, and we receive a clearer message about it, I think. Trans fats were the Big Bad for the last few years. They are naturally found in small amounts in meat and dairy, but they are also found in hydrogenated oils and partially hydrogenated oils, which are an entirely human innovation. Hydrogenated oils are formed during, well, hydrogenation, a process with forces hydrogen gas into oil at a high pressure. This process came into being in order to prolong the shelf life of packaged foods, as hydrogenated oils don't go rancid as quickly. Trading our health for longer lasting cookies was such a great idea. Trans fats lower your good HDL cholesterol, and raise your bad LDL cholesterol. They increase your risk of heart disease and stroke, clog up those arteries, and increase your risk of diabetes.

So how to you avoid this junk? Under European law, trans fat doesn't have to be listed in the nutritional info of a product, but hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oil do have to be listed in the ingredients, so if you have a product that does not list dead flesh or animal juices in the ingredients, and also does not contain hydrogenated oils, you have a trans fat free product. You will want to carefully check the labels of pre-packaged cookies, biscuits, crackers, and other baked goods, and of course, fried fast food (including chips!) are usually fried in partially hydrogenated oil.

Health experts recommend consuming no more than 2% of your daily calories from trans fatty acids, but honestly, you don't need any trans fats in your diet. Aim to consume none. If you live in UK (A.K.A Chiptoria), and you ever socialise, you won't succeed, but try.

Over the past several decades we've been swept up in a muddle debate over which is superior from a health standpoint: margarine or butter? One year, we hear margarine is the only way to go, the next year butter is not that bad, and margarine is the new taboo. The bottom line is, in reference to most commercial margarines, neither butter nor margarine are healthful, and both carry some concerning health risks. Butter contains small amounts of trans fats and concerning amounts of saturated fat, most margarines

LDL cholesterol (the bad one) and raise your HDL cholesterol (the good one). They contain circulation promoting arginine, antioxidants, fiber, protein, calcium, magnesium, and other minerals. They lower your risk of heart disease, and extend your lifespan and protect against common disease of aging. In fact, studies have found that those who consume one little ounce of nuts a day lower their risk of getting fatal coronary heart disease by 59%. A fifty nine percent decrease in risk of the biggest killer in any developed country today wrapped up in a delicious little package? Yes please.

In Dan Buettner's book, The Blue Zones, he studies four different areas of the world that have an unusually large percentage of inhabitants who live past 100 years of age. One of the areas he visits is the Seventh Day Adventist's region, Loma Linda, California. The mostly vegetarian residents had a love affair with nuts (stop giggling), and this love affair was pin-pointed as one of the main factors contributing to their long lifespans.

I know some people have a fear of nuts and avocados, due to their high-fat content. Some of you may fear that eating these items will give you a high-fat content yourself. Relax. Studies have shown that people who consume nuts actually have lower BMI's than those who don't. Nuts satiate hunger better than animal fats or plant oils, and actually aid in weight control. Now, it's true that a gram of fat contains 9 calories, as opposed to the 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate or protein. So obviously, you don't want to go, well, nuts on any source of fat, especially if you are watching your weight. A few handfuls a day of nuts or seeds, or a few slices of avocado should suffice.

Opinions do vary quite a bit in regards to what percentage of your calorie intake should come from fat. The standard, government approved figure is around 30%, other health experts working with people who have a specific reason to worry about heart problems would tell you try to keep it closer to 10%. However, assuming you are already in reasonably good health, I would spend more time focusing on the quality of your nuts, rather than quantity, and simply don't buy nuts in large quantities (they go rancid fairly quickly anyway).

The next time we chew the fat about fat, we'll talk about the health benefits of plant foods and oils made from plant foods. But right now, I'm pretty proud that I made it through the whole post with only two nut puns, so I'm going to leave on a high note. Only two puns? That's peanuts!

Vital Vittles

African Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew

While I was writing this blog, I was racking my brain trying to think of the perfect recipe for this post: one that would be focused on healthy fats without using oils. And completely by co-incidence, I made this stew that evening, having found it in The Vegan Table, UK, Can. Delicious and nutritious, the recipe features peanut butter, and uses water for sauteing, rather than oil. Serve it with either whole-wheat couscous or brown rice.

Serves 6-10

3 tbsp water, for sauteing
2 yellow onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 red peppers, chopped
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp minced fresh ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/3 to 1/2 cup natural peanut butter (either crunchy or smooth will work, but look for a brand without sugar or added oils)
3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 can kidney beans (or 1.5 cups cooked beans from scratch)
1 can diced tomatoes
4 cups veggie stock
1 tsp salt (or too taste)

Head water in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add bell pepper, cover, and cook for another minutes. Stir in brown sugar, finger, cumin, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper, and stir constantly for 30 seconds. Stir in peanut butter, distributing evenly throughout. Ad sweet potatoes, kidney beans, and tomatoes, and stir to coat. Add veggie stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until sweet potatoes are soft, about 30 minutes. Salt to taste, and serve.

Notice that this recipe makes a large amount, and the stew is fairly filling, so unless you're throwing a dinner party, or you're a Huxtable, you will have copious leftovers. Which can't possibly be a bad thing.

New Year, More Money!

2011-01-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

I know some people don't like New Year's resolutions, but I don't think there's anything wrong with a little self-improvement. I also know that today is 5 days after New Year's, but I think you get the whole of January to make them. Especially if you only keep them a week, deciding on them later in the month will make people think that you actually kept them longer. Frankly, there are enough resolutions running around about losing weight and eating better, so instead I thought I would propose a few penny-saving resolutions instead. January, being cold and dark, is a crappy time to try to lose a bunch of weight, but most of you probably spent to much money over the holidays, making January an excellent, and possibly compulsory time to save some money. So here are some ideas for running a cost-efficient home kitchen.

Resolve to:

1. Replace more expensive protein-rich foods with beans and legumes. Beans and lentils are not only nutritional powerhouses, they are the cheapest sources of protein you will find. If you don't eat them very often, resolve to keep some cans in your cupboard and eat them at least couple of times a week. Eat the beans, I mean, not the cans. Cans of beans are very cheap, but if you really want to spend next to nothing, buy dried beans and soak and cook them yourself. I like to cook beans myself, not only for the financial benefits, but also because something about the practise makes me feel pleasantly medieval.

2. Start throwing dinner parties instead of going out to eat. You might think that you will spend more hosting dinner for other people than going out, but I find that as long as you keep costs in mind (and your guests bring the drinks), you can entertain very cheaply in your own home, without sacrificing deliciousness or fun. Consider starting a dinner party ritual with your friends, alternating the host. If you decide on potluck dinners your bank account won't even notice that you're having fun. And while playing tipsy charades (an essential part of any dinner party) is frowned upon in restaurants, no one but your loved ones will judge you in the privacy of your own home. And even if you live in squalor, you will be amazed at what a thorough cleaning and some tealights can do.

3. Replace sugary cereals with porridge. Porridge is the cheapest breakfast imaginable, while most processed cereals are simply charging you stupid amounts of money to give you diabetes. Sure, you might not want a bowl of steaming hot porridge in the middle of July, but for most of the year, porridge is the healthiest, and most economical breakfast around. Endless ways to prepare porridge abound, from dried fruits and nuts, to fresh berries, apples and cinnamon, jam, and natural syrups.

4. Start packing your lunch 4 days a week. Granted, this piece of advice might not be terribly original. But no one's doing it. Having been in plenty of different offices in the last couple of years, I can confirm that the only time most people bring their lunch is when buying their lunch would involve walking long distances. If you struggle to remember to prepare lunches, you have two alternatives. Either make extra dinner and bring the leftovers the next day for lunch, or make large batches of substantial dishes on Sundays, and store them in individual portions. Brain surgery, right? But no one's doing it.

5. Learn a few soup bases. Learning the basics of how to make soup is oh-so-important. You will save money and eat less by adding lots of soup to your diet. And the possibilities are capital E Endless. Anything! You can put anything in soup! Dig through some cookbooks or the internet for recipes for blended vegetable soups, chunky vegetable soups, minestrone, miso soups (my recipe is for one is at the bottom of this post), lentil soups, bean soups, and whatever-else-you-can-imagine soups. Once you understand the basic formats of a few different soups you can play around with them and add whatever you have on hand that will compliment the recipe. Such flexibility and improvisation allows you to avoid that huge drain on your wallet known as wasted produce.

6. Save and use everything. Preposterous amounts of food get wasted by the foolish everyday. Join the ranks of the elite group of people who know how to recognise when a vegetable is about to go off (without the use of meaningless supermarket best before dates), and can put the middle-aged veggie to use. If you have some produce that is going off and you can't find an immediate use for it, throw the produce in a resealable bag and chuck the bag in the freezer. Prioritise your weekly produce: use up things that expire quickly, like leafy greens, at the beginning of the week, and save more robust things, like squash, for the end of your shopping week. Always save leftovers for later; even small bits of dishes can be put away for an easy snack later on. Even the skins and ends of your veggies can be saved for compost if you have your own garden, or for soup stock. Read Stone Soup (UK), (CAN), for inspiration! Hey, that book works for Resolution 5, too.

7. Keep some homemade frozen dinners in your freezer. Note the word homemade. I do not condone or encourage you to buy or eat factory-produced frozen dinners! Keeping some delicious, healthy dinners in your freezer at all times will help you out on those evenings when you are too tired to cook, and the take-out menu drawer looms dangerously near. I'm not suggesting that you never get take-out or go out for dinner, but any such indulgences should be planned into your week and budget. Make sure that the dinners are something you will actually want to eat as well, and your hunger will stop ruling your debit card on lazy, tired evenings.

May you enjoy pain-free frugality this year. And quit smoking. Blech.

Recessionpe!

Rainbow Red Lentil Soup

This wholesome, homey soup is based on another recipe in Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, (UK), (CAN), that I've modified only a little, to make it rainbow-y. And better. Having unintentionally made the soup multi-coloured once, I fell in love with the pretty pastels of the purple "red" onion, yellow bell pepper, and orange carrots and lentils. You also get red from the tomatoes, and green from the spinach. Feel free to play around with the recipe, and add different vegetables or spices. This soup is works for this post on different levels, because lentils are traditionally served at New Years, as their coin-like shape is seen as representative of good luck, abundance, and wealth. See, that's what you get when you take recipe suggestions from an English grad. Double-metaphor soup.

1.5 cups red lentils
6 cups vegetable stock (or 6 cups water and 1-2 stock cubes)
3 bay leaves
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 slices fresh ginger root, each about the size of a quarter

2 medium carrots, chopped
1 cup canned tomatoes
1 yellow bell pepper

1 large red onion
1 tbs olive oil
1.5 tsp ground cumin
1.5 tsp ground coriander
pinch of cayenne
2 tbs fresh lemon juice
1-2 cups baby spinach
salt and pepper to taste

Chuck the lentils, stock, bay leaves, garlic, and ginger in a pot, cover and heat on high. Add the carrots, tomatoes, and bell peppers. Bring to a boil, stir, and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, covered, until the lentils are tender. Add the spinach a few minutes before the lentils are done cooking.

In the meantime, saute the onions in the olive oil until soft, for 5 to 10 minutes. Add the cumin, coriander, and cayenne, and cook for another minute, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat.

Remove the ginger and bay leaves from the lentils. Supposedly, people have choked on bay leaves before, so make sure you get all three. Stir in the onions and lemon juice, and season to taste.

Some crusty whole grain bread and a fresh salad will make this soup a complete, wholesome lunch.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2010-11-30T14:15:00.000-08:00

I love the autumn. Something really amazing happens to the earth at this time of year: trees burst into brilliant colour (yes, even in London this year), we bring out coats and gloves and become immediately more stylish, and the farmer's markets suddenly become laden with plump and cheerful squashes and pumpkins. All of these seasonal evolutions remind me that change is more exciting than it is scary. So I thought this would be an appropriate time of the year to talk about transitioning from meat eating to vegetarianism.

If you are looking to make the leap from omnivore to herbivore, there are a myriad of approaches. You could start by having three vegetarian days a week, and then add more. You could turn around one day, and immediately eliminate all animal products from your diet. You could set a day in the future to be your last meat eating day. If your diet has been riddled with tons of animal products up to now, throwing them out the door immediately might be a shock for your body. On the other hand, if you already eat a lot of fresh, wholesome food, an immediate meat-out might feel fantastically freeing.

Regardless of how you decide to make the change, you are going to encounter some splendiferous benefits, and some causes for concern. Here are some tips to guide you through the first couple of months:

DO:

Learn to cook. I've said it before, and I meant it. Don't be scared. If you can read and follow directions, make slicing motions with a knife, and turn on a burner, you can cook. Everyone should cook, obviously, but preparing your own food is particularly important for anyone not eating a standard western diet, because most processed, pre-packaged food is aimed at people who do eat a standard western diet. So unless you really, really, really like toast, you need to start cooking.

Buy a good vegetarian cookbook. So, you've decided you don't want to eat meat anymore. You've decided you want to turn over a new leaf both for yourself and for the victims of the meat industry. You're excited and raring to go, but like many people, you were raised eating a slab of meat with some boiled carrots for dinner What the face are you supposed to eat? Enter the glorious and inventive array of vegetarian cookbooks. Buy a good, all-purpose vegetarian cookbook, and try to make every recipe in it (not all at once. Well, maybe all at once). To start off with, one all-purpose everyday vegetarian cookbook, one special occasion-oriented cookbook, and one baking book will serve your purposes very well. I could spend the entire blog recommending books, but for newbie vegetarians I would recommend the Moosewood Collective, (UK), (CAN), Colleen Patrick Goudreau, (UK), (CAN), or Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, (UK), (CAN).

Scouts and new vegetarians need to be prepared. I've never really figured out what Scouts need to be prepared for (some sort of Lord of the Flies situation, I guess?), but new vegetarians need to be prepared for the hostility they will encounter from some awesome geniuses who think it's ok to question other people's food choices. To deal with people who are trying to convince you that carrots have feelings too, I would recommend my boyfriend's method of ending arguments he doesn't want to have: while the other person is arguing, shut your eyes and emit a high-pitched, child-like squeal until they stop talking. After a few moments of stunned silence, change the subject to TV.

Feed your friends and family. Your parents might be frustrated, worried about you, or even feel rejected, as you suddenly refuse to eat the food they've been preparing you since you were small. Your friends might not understand, and might feel that you are getting high and mighty. Most of my friends and family were very supportive of me, but I know that not everyone is so lucky. The solution? Patience and deliciousness. Cook and bake food for everyone. They will get off your case once you've made them sweet potato burritos. Happy tummies do more good than all of the animal rights literature in the world.

If you are still living with your parents, help them with the cooking, especially if they haven't cooked a lot of vegetarian meals in the past.

When people ask you about the change that you've made, be sure to explain it personally. Saying, "I gave up meat because eating dead animals is wrong and disgusting, and anyone who participates in the meat industry horror show should be ashamed of being culpable in the slaughtering of sentient beings, and will die of obesity-driven heart disease at 45" is being kind of confrontational. I am by no means recommending that you shy away from giving your real reasons for your change; I think you should be absolutely honest, but people are much more likely to be on your side if you explains things in the context of personal decisions, ie "I really love animals, and I found that for me, eating them didn't feel right anymore," or "I personally feel so healthy and clean now."

Research nutrition. We've talked about this before. Everyone needs to research his or her health, but now you've got an opportunity to become more informed. Learn what will need to plan for, in particular, vegans need to start supplementing with vitamin B12. Researching your health will also set your family's mind at ease. Once they see that plenty of reputable studies and doctors recommend vegetarianism and veganism, and once you've made them sweet potato burritos, they will really get off your case.

Draw your own line in the sand. Do I eat/wear red meat, white meat, fish, dairy,eggs, free-range, honey, gelatin, stearic acid, or wool? There are a million different stances that people take on their diet. Many veg*ns (vegetarians and vegans) debate constantly about these issues with no real answer in sight. You have to make up your own mind as to what you think is wrong or right, unhealthy or not a big deal, or a manageable change. That doesn't mean that other people won't come up with arguments that make sense and help you refine your diet, but ultimately it's your decision.

Learn how to shop. If you are converting to lacto-ovo vegetarianism and you live in the UK, you don't really have to worry about this one. Every single truly vegetarian food item in the UK is labelled as such by law. Amazing! However, if you live elsewhere, or if you are also giving up dairy and eggs, you may want to learn the names of the different additives in food. The most significant sneaky dead animal additive is gelatin, which is made from boiled pig fat and horse hooves, and is found in jelly candies and the like. For vegans, the big ones are casein and whey. Some people choose to worry about every little additive in their food, and some people take the attitude that these things are the byproducts of the meat industry, not the cause of it.

Get familiar with www.happycow.net. Happy Cow is a very comprehensive website and has many uses, my favourite of which is their database of vegetarian restaurants from around the world. You'll be amazed at the vegetarian restaurants you can find in Paris, Texas, Dubai, or anywhere else in the world!

Feel free to experiment with different meat substitutes. I don't eat a lot of them now, but meat substitutes are perfect for your transitional phase. Some are amazing, some are disgusting, and some will simply suffice. If you ever feel yourself craving a meat dish, trust me, someone somewhere has vegetarianised it. Example? Vegan meat cake. Veggie burgers are great for satisfying meat cravings. They are familiar, they can be dressed up just like their meat versions, they are easy to find even in the middle of nowhere, and there are a million different versions for you to try. I've also had good veggie mince, chicken pieces, chicken nuggets, and meatballs. In fact, I like them much better than the meat versions. Vegans be warned: some vegetarian meat substitutes contain eggs, so check the label.

Focus on what you are gaining, not losing. Most vegetarians find that they have more options than meat eaters, not less. There are hundreds of different plant foods to explore. There are only a handful of different kinds of meat. When you start cooking vegetarian, you start to think outside of the box, and discover culinary creativity you didn't even know existed.

Have fun! Seriously, I'm a little envious of new vegetarians. The world is your artichoke! When people go vegetarian, they will inevitably try new cuisines, new vegetables, new flavours, new recipes, and new products. So many people say that they feel cleaner and lighter, and have more energy.

DON'T:

Stress. If you're met with opposition from friends and family, don't worry about it. They will come around. Be patient, and feed them. Trust me.

Expect everyone to jump onboard. You might have watched Food, Inc, (UK), (CAN), or Earthlings and had an irreversible epiphany, but others might not have the same reaction to new information. You might have been moved by The China Study, (UK), (CAN), to make a change in your own health, others might be moved to go to Burger King. Your choices are your choices, you can't force them on anyone else. Don't bother trying.

Assume everyone knows what you can or can't eat. Right at this very moment, someone's grandmother is trying to convince them that vegetarians can eat chicken, because chicken is fowl, not meat. Plenty of people still genuinely don't really know what vegetarians/vegans can or can't eat. If someone else is preparing you a meal, you may have to be very specific about your diet, and don't forget to mention things like chicken stock and gelatin.

Get on your soapbox. When you first find out what's going on behind closed slaughterhouse doors, you might think that if only you could share this information with the world, you could single-handedly bring peace to our furry and feathered friends. Cut to you berating everyone you meet with animal rights slogans, UN statistics, and World Health Organisation reports. Cut to you playing Jenga with your cat on Saturday night. Educating people is all very well and good, but you might want to wait until they ask.

Try to be perfect. Vegetarianism is not a perfect science. Period. You will never be a perfect vegetarian. Ever. Excluding every little tiny bit of animal products from your life isn't the point. And when you take a bite of something you didn't realise contained meat, you can't beat yourself up about it. That bite won't be the last bit of animal you accidentally ingest. Shrug it off and move on.

Don't OD on processed substitutes or cheese. I know I said earlier to have fun with substitutes, but at the same time, a lot of the pre-made meat/cheese substitutes aren't exactly health food, so don't go too nuts. On cheese, don't make the mistake of 1970's LO vegetarianism, and substitute the meat you've taken out with a whole buncha cheese. Eating silly amounts of cheese isn't going to help your health or the dairy cows.

Worry about going out for dinner. Almost everywhere has lacto-ovo vegetarian options, so if you are still eating eggs and dairy, you will nearly always have at least one option on the menu, even at steakhouses. Vegans, eating out at restaurants that focus on British or French food isn't going to be the easiest, and both vegans and vegetarians will find more options at ethnic restaurants. But don't that stop you from going to western-style place; restaurants do not exist merely as glorified butchers. If you don't see options for you on the menu, ask for them! Restaurants are there to serve their customers. They aren't there so that we can beg a meal from them and eat whatever they are willing to serve us.

This post seems like a good time to give an update on my own transition from lacto-ovo veggie to vegan.
I like gradual changes. When I gave up meat, I cut out red meat for a year before I cut out white meat and fish as well. Now that I'm giving up eggs, dairy, and honey, I'm taking a year to say goodbye to those things I love the most. I like slow changes because I think it makes me less likely to feel wistful cravings for the things I've decided not to eat anymore. I won't be turning around saying to a tub of cookie dough ice cream, "we never even got to say goodbye," because I have every intention of slowly and deliberately saying goodbye to Ben and Jerry's. Thirteen years ago, on New Years, I gave up meat entirely. I've set the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve as my cut-off point for eggs and dairy.

I thought at this point I would be dragging my heels, desperately clinging onto some brie, but actually, I'm really excited to make the change. I think I'm going to feel amazing. I think I'm going to relieved not to be eating any animal products at all, and I'm looking forward to exploring more vegan food. I'm already noticing that I've stopped thinking of dairy as a staple food, and as for eggs, giving them up is a non-issue.

I'm also really, really looking forward to those vegan superpowers I heard so much about in Scott Pilgrim vs the World, (UK), (CAN). Who knew?

Karing Kitchen

Dan Gerou's Meatless Spaghetti Bolognese

This yummy recipe is my boyfriend's culinary pride and joy, and with it's familiar, meaty texture, pretty perfect for your transitional phase. He is reluctantly letting me borrow it. I asked him if he wanted to contribute an introduction for the recipe, and his contribution is, "don't mess it up."

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 carrot, grated
4 mushrooms, chopped
400g of veggie mince*
2 tins tomatoes
1/4 cup red wine
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt (or to taste)
pepper to taste

100g spaghetti per person

Heat the oil a frying pan over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, saute until onions are golden brown. Add mince, season with first tsp of salt, mix together. Add carrot and mushrooms and saute together for a minute or two. Add two tins of tomatoes and mix together. Add herbs, remaining salt, pepper, sugar, and red wine. Bring to a boil, then simmer. Dan says to simmer for a minimum of an hour, but he's done it for 20 minutes or so before and it's been good. In the meantime, bring a pot of water to a boil, and cook the pasta until al dente. Plate the spaghetti and top with the sauce.

This recipe makes a large amount of sauce, and will keep well for a few days.

*Choose your favourite veggie mince, but be warned that Quorn contains eggs. If you are in Canada, Yves Veggie Ground Round is a good option.