Tag Archives: Veganism

Jan 24

Painful Progress

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Zhong Zhong (left) and Hua Hua are the first primate clones made by somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same process that created Dolly the sheep in 1996.

I’m feeling a bit weepy over this story today. Incredible progress. Chinese scientists have cloned monkeys using the same technology as was used in the 1990s to make Dolly the sheep. The monkeys (as you can see in the photo) are absurdly, ABSURDLY cute.

But if you read the article, you learn one of the reasons this is so important is because now they may be able to make genetically identical monkeys on which to find cures for human diseases.

This means all of these creatures will be created in order to be kept in a lab, infecting them with diseases and using them as learning tools to benefit us. Having a dad who died of cancer and a mom who lives with cancer and has had a number of different treatments, and who is always hopeful the next one will be the one to cure, I understand the logic behind why that is important. Why it may be needed.

But my heart breaks over it. I mean, I feel physically sick since reading it. The same way I feel when I see a truck carrying pigs/chickens/cows to slaughter. I don’t think it helped to include the photo of the monkeys—to put faces to a monstrous future. (Which is why I included them. Does it make anyone else sad?)

I’d like to think there’s another way for us to find cures but perhaps I’m naive.

And I know many don’t care: science is more important; agriculture is more important; our appetites are more important; our tastebuds are most important.

It simply makes my heart ache.

Oct 29

Foodie odds and ends

One of the biggest changes in my life since going vegan is my willingness to cook. And, if I must say so myself, some of the recipes have turned out great. When I was with my mom last, earlier this month, I made her tofu scramble with spinach and I bought her some nutritional yeast (aka nooch) while I was there. She really enjoyed the tofu scramble and I know she wasn’t just being nice because she texted me earlier this week to say she made it again herself, using some more veggies and more spices and the nooch. How about that? Though mom is pretty open minded about these things. And she enjoys it when her kids cook for her.

I follow several vegan cooking pages on Facebook and am easily inspired by those 1 minute cooking videos shot from above, where you see the actual ingredients going in and the finished product. I save so many of those and have now made a few of the dishes. I made Broccoli and cheese soup with the cheese sauce made from potatoes, carrots and cashews. Reader, the final product was DELICIOUS and I’ve made it twice so far. My friend who was staying with us at the time said it was really good  and Spence said it was excellent, which is a high compliment. But even if they were lying and didn’t like it, I wouldn’t care because that would leave more for me. That’s how much I like it. 

I made Spaghetti squash with homemade tomato cream sauce (this recipe came from Pinterest). I don’t know how homemade it is to use a can of already chopped tomatoes, but that’s what I did and the sauce is a dream. I may start making it whenever I have a pasta dish to make. It calls for cashews, of course. (Cashews are some magical ingredient that makes everything taste cheesy and creamy without all the bad stuff that comes with actual cheese.) I think I should have cooked the spaghetti squash a bit longer because some of the noodles were crunchier than I would have liked, but overall very tasty.

The biggest challenge: mushroom pie. Again, watching them make it on the little 1 minute video made me think, I could make that! And I did! And it’s delicious! But my first mistake was buying the wrong type of dough. It called for phylum dough and I bought straight pastry dough. I would have bought phylum but I didn’t see any and when I saw this pastry dough, I thought it was the same thing (I was at a big store that should have had phylum dough, so I just assumed this pastry dough was their version). When I unwrapped it while cooking, expecting thin sheets, I instead found one thick layer of dough. But I used it and it turned out fine. The mushrooms and onions are cooked with coconut milk, soy sauce, all spice, tomato paste and maple syrup. Then you put that concoction into the dough and bake it. It’s sweet and tangy and I would never have thought maple syrup and soy sauce could go so well together! And it was such a pain to chop so many onions that I splurged and bought a cuisineart chopper. Prepping all the ingredients is always the step I most dislike, so any tool that makes it easier is one I want. 

Even last night, as I was wondering what to eat while watching The Babadook (creepy AF, by the way), I decided to make my  own black bean dip. Such an easy thing to make, but I wouldn’t have dreamt of making my own dip for a tv snack before becoming vegan. I would have grabbed some cheese and crackers and left it at that.

I take photos of these creations but they seldom look as delicious as they taste, so I’ve left them off Instagram. But they are posted below! Today, I am planning to make vegan chocolate sugar dough cookies that I’ll cut out like gingerbread men and decorate like skeletons for Halloween. I’m taking those into work for my colleagues, along with some of my very popular chocolate chip cookies. I take in chocolate chip cookies at least once a month and everyone comments on their yummyness. That is something else I made when I was home and my step-dad, who is a total meat eater and basically anti-vegetable, loved them. Not surprising since they are all sugar and flour, but small steps!

Also, November 1 is World Vegan Day! I didn’t know such a day existed but there seems to be a day for everything! And the fact that it coincides with Dia de los Muertos isn’t an accident, I’ve learned. Maybe I’ll take in another treat to my colleagues to celebrate. And it’s an excellent opportunity to try veganism for a day! No commitments, just a day to see what it’s like. 

Broccoli soup

Mushroom pie outside

Slice of mushroom pie. Not pretty, but delicious!

Jan 28

Observations after a week of basically vegan

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Black bean brownies with peanut butter swirls. Weird but delish.

I feel lighter. Not in the sense that I’m losing weight, but in the sense that my gut–which has never given me problems, thankfully, feels even better (is that the right way to say it ?) than usual.

The closest example I can think of is that heavy feeling you have after eating something quite greasy, fish and chips for instance, and how it feels like a brick in your stomach. I feel the opposite of that. Make sense?

I think my stomach looks less bloated, too. I don’t expect this to be noticeable to anyone but me, but when I look at my profile in the mirror, I see a difference.

I’m becoming more thoughtful about eating because I have to (and I want to). I start thinking about what I’m making for dinner as I drive home. Typically I would plan on popping in a frozen cheese pizza because they are fast and good. Now I get home and snack on avocado and crackers to ease my hunger pangs, and then make spiced quinoa and zuchini.

Avocado. It has become my cheese replacement. Happily, it provides me with the same flavor satisfaction as cheese did. Maybe because it’s also high in fat?  I don’t know, but I plan to have our kitchen stocked with them all the time. And when they get really ripe, they can go in the refrigerator where they will stay in that state for a while.

I feel more creative in the kitchen; I feel more frustrated in the kitchen. It depends on my hunger. It’s hard to rethink my default modes (of grabbing cheese and snacking on it), but it’s also enlightening to see how automated my eating has been. I was quite proud of myself last night for making a vegan “cheese” sauce to pour over a bowl of broccoli and pasta. It tasted pretty okay–I had to diverge from the recipe a bit and deal with the ingredients we had on hand, so I think it will be tastier next time with all the proper ingredients.

It’s fun, however, finding alternatives to all the usual recipes. I’ve made brownies twice this week–once with black beans and once with bananas (plus cocoa/maple syrup/etc.) I brought the black bean brownies to a vegan dinner with friends, but didn’t tell them what they were made from until after they had all tried one. We all liked them, even if they didn’t taste precisely like dairy-based brownies; they were still good.

And thank goodness for culinary adventurous friends. The two people I spend the most time with (in addition to my husband) are the wonderful HK and MC. HK has been a vegetarian for a long time, and MC is not a vegetarian, but she likes interesting food. MC has probably cooked more vegan dishes than I have because she likes to cook and she likes to experiment. It helps so much to have friends who not only sympathize with your vegan efforts, but are willing to indulge them in their own cooking in order to have you over for dinner. And their cooking provides continual inspiration that vegan food can be delicious!

I have another lovely friend I will be seeing in Florida soon; she is moving toward vegetarianism for similar reasons I did. When I learned of a (sort of new) vegan restaurant down that way, I invited her immediately because I knew she’d be game to try it. And she is. So happy to have companions in this effort. 🙂

My next culinary experiment is making a supposedly delicious “cheese” sauce from potatoes and carrots…I don’t see how this will work, but that’s part of the fun.

Mar 21

Vegan themed words

I receive Word of the Day emails from the wordsmith, and this week’s theme are words dealing with veganism because this week’s guest wordsmith is Matt Ball, the co-founder and executive director of the non-profit organization Vegan Outreach. I didn’t immediately understand how the word Cartesian fit with the veganism theme, but, fortunately, the wordsmith provides examples of how the word is used. I liked what the example has to say, and thought I would post it.

Cartesian (kar-TEE-zhuhn) adjective

Of or relating to Descartes, his theories, methods, or philosophy,
especially its emphasis on mechanistic interpretation.

[From Cartesius, Latin form of Descartes, after philosopher René Descartes
(1596-1650).]

Today’s word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=thesaurus

“To visit a modern CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) is to enter a
world that, for all its technological sophistication, is still designed
according to Cartesian principles: animals are machines incapable of
feeling pain. Since no thinking person can possibly believe this any more,
industrial animal agriculture depends on a suspension of disbelief on the
part of the people who operate it and a willingness to avert your eyes on
the part of everyone else.”
Michael Pollan; An Animal’s Place; The New York Times; Nov 10, 2002.