The Green Party has acknowledged that producing animal products is harmful to the environment, with this article in the latest issue of its online magazine. I just love the way they describe the fact that no major charities are prepared to mention to their supporters that animal products are bad for the environment, probably because they don't want to risk alienating (i.e. losing money from) their supporters: "The battle to save the global environment is beginning to feel a bit like the old TV comedy Fawlty Towers - an episode called Don’t Mention the Meat."
And why is it that "reduce your animal product consumption" never makes it into the Government/media 'top 10 ways to save the planet' articles that spring up everywhere these days, now that carbon footprints and whatever are in fashion? Presumably telling people to cut down on meat/dairy is not a popular newspaper-selling/vote-winning message. I also imagine that most of the people who write such articles eat meat themselves and are reluctant to acknowledge the facts in their own minds, never mind promoting them in a published article. And there's also the question of how much pressure the meat and dairy industries are putting on the Government not to say anything. I only suspect such pressure exists in a big way and I've not yet been able to find any information about how much influence these industries have over the UK Government (call yourself an information professional? Bah!) but I'd be very interested to know...
I just wish that "cut down on animal products" would make it into the list of 'green' stuff we can all recite off the top of our heads thanks to popular media articles and Government education, you know, use low-energy lightbulbs, use the car less often, buy locally-produced food, cut down on plane journeys, insulate your loft, and so on. Not everyone can insulate their loft, not everyone has time or money to donate to environmental charities, not everyone can afford a brand-new low-emission car, but pretty much everyone can cut down on animal products. It's just such an easy thing to do in your everyday life, it will probably save you money rather than costing you money, and it's even good for your health! Plus you get to eat all sorts of delicious food, it's not exactly a sacrifice! Ok, maybe non-vegans who've never considered the idea think they 'couldn't give up meat/cheese/whatever', but seriously, it's not hard once you get your head round the concept and discover lots of alternative foods to enjoy. Trust me, I enjoy food, I have a whole website about food, vegan food is not inferior! I don't feel like I'm sacrificing anything, if anything how I eat is better for my health than it would be if I was still an omnivore. OK, so before I went vegan I had some thoughts along the lines of "but if I go vegan it means I won't be able to eat stuffed pasta any more, and I really really like stuffed pasta", but then I thought, the positive reasons for becoming vegan far outweigh the negative ones against. And later I discovered that you can buy vegan stuffed pasta after all :-).
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
A positive vegan news story (almost)
Switching to a vegan diet can reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes for arthritis sufferers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7301188.stm
But I see they still have to put a token anti-vegan comment in at the end (although not from the people who carried out the research). In what way is it "difficult to get enough of some important nutrients on a vegan diet"? What nutrients can you not get from plants, exactly? Do they mean that it's a good idea to think about what you eat and maybe even incorporate some foods into your diet because they are rich in certain nutrients, rather than just because they taste nice? Because everyone who doesn't actively avoid any foods (except the ones they don't like the taste of) is automatically consuming enough of all the right nutrients...
We're allowed to be told that we should eat more fruit and vegetables, less saturated fat, less cholesterol, more fibre, less salt and sugar, more 'good fats'... yet we must discourage people from being vegan. Perhaps they think that some people might not pay enough attention to their nutrition if they tried being vegan, like just leaving the meat out of their meat and two veg meal, but the thing is, if you make changes like that to your diet you have to think of alternative things to eat (else you wouldn't have anything to eat!), which does lead you to learn a bit about nutrients and what foods they're found in, so it's hardly going to be dangerous for most people. But then again, most of the world probably thinks that being vegan is just too 'extreme' simply because it's unfamiliar and so far from what most people in this country eat by default because that's what they were brought up with. Although if you'd asked me what I thought of veganism when I was a meat eater, I may well have said the same thing.
Well, I shall be something of a living experiment. You can get away with a fair amount of unhealthiness when you're younger, but when you're older it catches up with you - the more unhealthy your lifestyle is, the younger it gets you. That's my theory, anyway. So when I'm 60 and everyone else my age is suffering from various health problems, I'm hoping that I'll be doing better than most!
But I see they still have to put a token anti-vegan comment in at the end (although not from the people who carried out the research). In what way is it "difficult to get enough of some important nutrients on a vegan diet"? What nutrients can you not get from plants, exactly? Do they mean that it's a good idea to think about what you eat and maybe even incorporate some foods into your diet because they are rich in certain nutrients, rather than just because they taste nice? Because everyone who doesn't actively avoid any foods (except the ones they don't like the taste of) is automatically consuming enough of all the right nutrients...
We're allowed to be told that we should eat more fruit and vegetables, less saturated fat, less cholesterol, more fibre, less salt and sugar, more 'good fats'... yet we must discourage people from being vegan. Perhaps they think that some people might not pay enough attention to their nutrition if they tried being vegan, like just leaving the meat out of their meat and two veg meal, but the thing is, if you make changes like that to your diet you have to think of alternative things to eat (else you wouldn't have anything to eat!), which does lead you to learn a bit about nutrients and what foods they're found in, so it's hardly going to be dangerous for most people. But then again, most of the world probably thinks that being vegan is just too 'extreme' simply because it's unfamiliar and so far from what most people in this country eat by default because that's what they were brought up with. Although if you'd asked me what I thought of veganism when I was a meat eater, I may well have said the same thing.
Well, I shall be something of a living experiment. You can get away with a fair amount of unhealthiness when you're younger, but when you're older it catches up with you - the more unhealthy your lifestyle is, the younger it gets you. That's my theory, anyway. So when I'm 60 and everyone else my age is suffering from various health problems, I'm hoping that I'll be doing better than most!
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Banana curry
Niiice... Last night's tea: http://www.trifles.nl/2006/04/12/banana-curry/ Different to the sort of stuff I usually make, even though I make a fair amount of curry of various types. Bananas, sweet potato, coconut milk, tamarind paste and curry leaves are the main flavours. Sweet and creamy. Tonight's tea was chestnut, mushroom and tofu pie made with puff pastry.
Friday, 8 February 2008
Very easy vegan pancakes
Surely making pancakes shouldn't be this simple?
250g plain flour
650ml soya milk
Sieve flour into a bowl. Add soya milk gradually and whisk until the batter is smooth. Heat frying pan, fry mixture. Eat. Easy! And they didn't fall apart like eggy pancakes sometimes do when you try and lift them out of the pan. And they tasted just as good :-).
250g plain flour
650ml soya milk
Sieve flour into a bowl. Add soya milk gradually and whisk until the batter is smooth. Heat frying pan, fry mixture. Eat. Easy! And they didn't fall apart like eggy pancakes sometimes do when you try and lift them out of the pan. And they tasted just as good :-).
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Encouragement to vegans and vegetarians
From Peter Singer's book 'Animal Liberation'.
"Of course, it is possible that you will encounter people who consider you a crank. This is much less likely now that it was a few years ago, because there are so many more vegetarians. But if it should happen, remember that you are in good company. All the best reformers - those who first opposed the slave trade, nationalistic wars, and the exploitation of children working a fourteen-hour day in the factories of the Industrial Revolution - were first derided as cranks by those who had an interest in the abuses they were opposing."
"Of course, it is possible that you will encounter people who consider you a crank. This is much less likely now that it was a few years ago, because there are so many more vegetarians. But if it should happen, remember that you are in good company. All the best reformers - those who first opposed the slave trade, nationalistic wars, and the exploitation of children working a fourteen-hour day in the factories of the Industrial Revolution - were first derided as cranks by those who had an interest in the abuses they were opposing."
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Pot Noodles and Fat Cats
Why is it that the Beef and Tomato flavour Pot Noodles are vegan but the generic Curry flavour ones aren't? I discovered this highly interesting fact in the interval at last Saturday's gig, where the entire band spent about 20 minutes driving round in search of a chippy, finding at least two closed ones and eventually going back to the local Co-op for some junk food for tea. Not that chips aren't junk food.
Went to the Fat Cat pub for lunch (well, breakfast for us, lunch for them) with the FIL and SMIL last Sunday. Think they might have been having an off day as they appeared to have run out of food by 1pm, there had been a beer festival on Thursday-Saturday, which might explain it. They had three vegan options and four meat options on the menu, plus three desserts which didn't look like they would be vegan. We were going to go for the potato and spinach pie and the leek and mushroom dumplings, but apparently they'd run out so we had bean casserole. It was acceptable as bean casseroles go, but personally when I go out for food I like to have something that wouldn't take me less than 20 minutes to make at home, or ideally something I wouldn't normally bother making at home. Annoyingly enough, after we'd got our food they put the dumplings back on the menu. I did get my bottle of Kriek though, so it wasn't all bad.
Went to the Fat Cat pub for lunch (well, breakfast for us, lunch for them) with the FIL and SMIL last Sunday. Think they might have been having an off day as they appeared to have run out of food by 1pm, there had been a beer festival on Thursday-Saturday, which might explain it. They had three vegan options and four meat options on the menu, plus three desserts which didn't look like they would be vegan. We were going to go for the potato and spinach pie and the leek and mushroom dumplings, but apparently they'd run out so we had bean casserole. It was acceptable as bean casseroles go, but personally when I go out for food I like to have something that wouldn't take me less than 20 minutes to make at home, or ideally something I wouldn't normally bother making at home. Annoyingly enough, after we'd got our food they put the dumplings back on the menu. I did get my bottle of Kriek though, so it wasn't all bad.
Sunday, 6 January 2008
Recently I have been mostly eating...
Tofu, spinach, ginger and coconut curry. It's a Thai-style curry: paste of red onions, garlic, fresh ginger, red chillies, lemongrass and tomatoes all fried in sesame oil, then add tofu, coconut milk, a bit of water and spinach and simmer for a few minutes then serve with rice. So tasty! I got it from a recipe book I was supposed to be covering at work but it was Friday afternoon and nearly hometime so was pretending not to read it instead (see, there are some advantages to working in a library!).
Stuffed crust "ham" and pineapple pizza. Underestimated the amount of Cheezly required to make it Pizza Hut style (should have used two blocks instead of one) but still, proper vegan junk food :-). Kind of put an end to my healthy day, after I'd had 10 hours' sleep, gone swimming and in the sauna and had a massive vegetable, cashew nut and pumpkin seed stir fry for lunch, but it's all in the name of research. Recipe appearing on the website any day now!
Stuffed crust "ham" and pineapple pizza. Underestimated the amount of Cheezly required to make it Pizza Hut style (should have used two blocks instead of one) but still, proper vegan junk food :-). Kind of put an end to my healthy day, after I'd had 10 hours' sleep, gone swimming and in the sauna and had a massive vegetable, cashew nut and pumpkin seed stir fry for lunch, but it's all in the name of research. Recipe appearing on the website any day now!
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