Contrary to a popular stereotype, vegetarians are not all champions of self-denial, pathetically munching a sprout on the sidelines while watching the omnivores have all the culinary fun. Instead, the vegetarians we know love good food and know where to get it. They aren't about to settle for a bland meal, either at home or at a restaurant.
Monday, January 28, 2008
An Eye-Opener
The New York Times ran an excellent article yesterday about the high environmental costs of meat, ”Rethinking the Meat Guzzler.”
In a well-documented, well-written article, author Mark Bittman lays out such facts as that the U.N.’s Food And Agriculture Organization estimates that “an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production” and that “livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases - more than transportation.”
And as Bittman, says, “Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production.”
Articles like this should help bring about that awareness.
I was lazing about on the sofa this past Saturday, waiting for the “blizzard” to arrive and looking for something to watch on TV. Scrolling through my DVR guide, I saw that an episode of Simply Ming was about to start and that its theme was Tofu and Parsley. Ming made a green goddess dressing using tofu, which sounded great. But it wasn’t vegetarian, because he used fish sauce in it. He layered it in a salad that included chicken and bacon. But then he mentioned that you could just leave out the meat and add more veggies to make it vegetarian. Uh, no, I thought, because you put fish sauce in the dressing! I was pretty surprised, but I gave him in the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe he just forgot to mention that you’d need to leave out the fish sauce, too.
Later in the episode, Ken Oringer—a chef and owner of several Boston restaurants—joined Ming to make a dish of his own with tofu and parsley. He made a Malaysian Curry Noodle Hot Pot, which also included fish sauce. And then he mentioned what a great vegetarian dish it was! I was pretty shocked that two noted chefs would imply or outright state that a dish was vegetarian when it contained fish sauce. Surely they’d know better than that!
Of course, this made me think that I’d be leery to eat in their restaurants, because how could I trust any description of something as vegetarian if they don’t think a little fish sauce makes a difference? I guess it just goes to show that you can never be too careful and that even chefs who should know better sometimes just don’t “get it.” So it’s always best to double-check and ask how something is prepared—Does this soup have chicken stock in it? Does the curry have fish sauce in it? Are there bacon bits on this salad?
Did you know that there’s a company just up the road in Black Mountain, N.C., that offers home-delivered vegan, organic meals? At the Hungry Vegan you can order a week’s or a month’s worth of meals for one or two people, or you can subscribe to the service. The cost starts at $75 for meals for one for a week, plus shipping. And the meals sound fabulous. Next week, for example, the menu will include such dishes as Thai Vegetable Stew; Lemon Risotto with Peas and Scallions; Firecracker Red Beans, and Chocolate Mousse Cake. This could be a lifesaver for vegans who don’t like or have time to cook. I want to try it, next time I have a very busy week coming up. Readers, have any of you tried this service (or any similar services?)
Countess Von Dreck (wow, nobility reads our blog! ;-) suggested this in a comment to an earlier post, and I thought it was a fine idea. Want a Trader Joe’s in Winston-Salem? They solicit location requests on their Web site, so maybe they’d pay attention if a bunch of Winston-Salem residents sent in requests. To send in yours, go here and fill out the short form.
I saw a mention of a recipe for Pumpkin-Chardonnay-Mushroom Risotto in the latest issue of Delicious Living and was so intrigued by the concept, I had to go to the magazine’s Web site to look up the recipe. It’s full of things I love, so I made it this past weekend, and I think it turned out great. I used butternut squash instead of the pumpkin. (Obviously, I also vegetized the original by changing the called-for chicken stock to vegetable stock.) I’m sure you could also use a vegan cheese or leave that out if you wanted to make it vegan.
This was only the second time I’ve made risotto. For some reason, I had it in my head that risotto is difficult to make, but it’s really not. It can be a little labor-intensive because you have to keep stirring it for 20 minutes or so as you add the liquid in stages. But stirring certainly isn’t difficult or complicated, and as Julie remarked, it can actually be kind of relaxing or meditative. And you don’t have to stir every single second—it’s OK to walk away for a minute to change the TV channel, pour yourself a glass of wine or get something out of the fridge. In a bonus for vegans, it gets its creaminess from the arborio rice rather than a dairy ingredient.
The New York Times’ Dining section this week has a fascinating and disturbing story on a growing number of chefs who are developing “a new intimacy with the animals they cook.” Such chefs are trying to learn about - and educate their customers or audiences about - the lives and deaths of farmed animals.
A prime example is celebrity British chef Jamie Oliver, who recently slaughtered a chicken on air as part of a media campaign to show viewers the high cost - paid in animal suffering - of cheap, factory-farmed chickens.
Part of me thinks that anything that raises public awareness of these issues must be a good thing for the animals. Another part is saddened that people can speak, as Oliver does, of any form of slaughter as “a reasonably pleasant death.” And part just wants to shout that it’s all so unnecessary: Why do none of these chefs, nor anyone quoted in this article, even raise the point that people can lead perfectly healthy, fulfilled lives without eating animals at all?
Readers, do you think this sort of attention likely to have any good effects for the animals?
You may have seen in the news that Maila Nurmi, the actress known for her TV horror-hostess character Vampira and her role in Ed Wood’s classic Plan 9 From Outer Space, died on January 10. She was 86 years old.
So Vampira appears to have been firmly a part of the tradition of animal-friendly horror queens. Her rival Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) has long been a supporter of animal rights, and is a once and (she hopes) future vegetarian. (See the Oct. 11, 2007, Veggin’ Out post for more from Elvira.) Linda Blair, of Exorcist fame, is a vegan and animal advocate, as is Linnea Quigley of Return of the Living Dead.
I wonder if there is some link between these roles and animal advocacy? Perhaps it is as Quigley says in a Vegetarian Journal article, “When asked about the movie industry, she replied that she’s found it to be ‘more animal friendly. ... They seem to have a more sensitive nature.’”
A seemingly endless number of lists of “Top 10 Super Foods” - that you should eat every day! That make you happy! That prevent cancer, that prevent wrinkles, that help you lose weight, and so on - are floating around out there. All these different lists are pretty consistent, though - very heavy on the colorful vegetables and fruits, with nuts, seeds, beans and whole grains also getting good notices.
Fish - especially salmon - frequently appears on these lists, too, praised as a source of omega-3 fats. So I mentally substitute vegan sources of omega-3s, and go from there. The Vegetarian Journal has an up-to-date, comprehensive article, “Questions and Answers About Omega-3 Fatty Acids for Vegans,” available online here. Scroll to page 22 of the issue for that article. And also check out the article directly afterward - another list, of “10 Ways to Improve Your Vegetarian Lifestyle.”
Anyway, the latest super-food list to catch my attention was a Men’s Health article on ”The 10 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating.” The list includes beets, cabbage, guava, swiss chard, cinnamon, purslane, pomegranate juice, goji berries, dried plums (aka prunes), and pumpkin seeds.
I do like beets, but the article is right, I wasn’t eating them because they can be a little bit perplexing to prepare. Men’s Health comes to the rescue, suggesting that beets be eaten “Fresh and raw, not from a jar. Heating beets actually decreases their antioxidant power. For a simple single-serving salad, wash and peel one beet, and then grate it on the widest blade of a box grater. Toss with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and the juice of half a lemon.”
After grating the beets as described, my hands were redder than Sweeny Todd’s, but in general this worked out well. Of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, and combined this suggestion with a recipe for “Shaved Beet Salad” from Jennifer Cornbleet’s book Raw Food Made Easy for One or Two People and added a few more “super foods” to come up with …
“Top 10” Beet Salad
1 raw beet, scrubbed, peeled and sliced paper-thin on a box grater
1 cup lettuce leaves
1 TBSP walnuts
1 tangerine (leafy greens, walnuts and citrus fruits are all frequent stars on the super-food lists.)
Dressing (recipe below)
Make a dressing by mixing:
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp. flax oil (for omega 3; you can omit this and use more olive oil if desired)
1 1/2 TBSP lemon juice
1/4 tsp.each dried tarragon and dill (substitute any herbs you like; even better if you have fresh herbs on hand)
1/4 clove garlic, minced (touted as an immune booster)
1/4 tsp. kelp powder (good source of iodine)
A splash of ume plum vinegar (omit the kelp and/or ume vinegar if you don’t have any, and season the dressing with salt and pepper to taste)
Thoroughly mix the sliced beets and dressing, and let marinate at room temperature for a half-hour or so. When ready to serve, pile the beets on a bed of lettuce, sprinkle with the walnuts, and surround with tangerine segments.
Here’s some people who clearly don’t abide by the old rule “Don’t play with your food.” The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra is a group whose instruments solely consist of fresh vegetables—such as a flute made from a carrot or bongos made from celeriac. Check out one of their performances—as well as some footage of them making their instruments—here, or click on the image below:
Now, I’m not about to pop a CD of their music into my CD player anytime soon, but it is utterly charming and fascinating.
Thanks to Michael Y. Park at the epi-log for the link.
I need another teapot like I need another hole in my head, but every so often one is just too cool/cute/beautiful to pass up. So the other day a lovely white teapot decorated with goldfish (one of the blue-eyed fish was atop the lid, and his swirling tail formed the handle) and delicate water weeds caught my eye. It was half-price, too. It was going to be mine. Then the tea-shop proprietor mentioned that it was made of bone china.
Upon further inquiry, he explained that bone china really does contain animal bones. This was quite a surprise, since I always thought that “bone china” was a figurative term - referring to the hardness and whiteness of the china - not the literal inclusion of animal bones. (For the curious, this article explains how and why bone - bone ash, really - is included in bone china.)
I didn’t feel that I would enjoy the teapot, knowing that it contained bones. So back on the shelf it went. That’s a personal preference, though. Other vegans might make a different choice.
For example, some vegans avoid white sugar because some sugar is filtered through bone char - very similar to the stuff in bone china. But as Matt Ball of Vegan Outreach points out in his fascinating essay ”Activism and Veganism,” “Bone char is also used as a source of activated carbon in some water filters and by some municipal water treatment plants. (These plants also use tests that involve animal products, and water itself has been tested on animals.) So should we say water isn’t ‘vegan’?”
The point, as I understand it, is that to take such an extreme position as to argue that water isn’t vegan will hurt the vegan movement and its goal of reducing the suffering of animals. A section of Ball’s article, “Busting the Vegan Police” is worth quoting in full:
It is imperative for us to realize that if our veganism is a statement for animal liberation, veganism cannot be an exclusive, ego-boosting club. Rather, we must become the mainstream. Fostering the impression that “it’s so hard to be vegan–animal products are in everything,” and emphasizing animal products where the connection to animal suffering is tenuous, works against this by allowing most to ignore us and causing others to give up the whole process out of frustration.
The way veganism is presented to a potential vegan is of major importance. The attractive idea behind being a ‘vegan’ is reducing one’s contribution to animal exploitation. Buying meat, eggs, and/or dairy creates animal suffering–animals will be raised and slaughtered specifically for these products. But if the by-products are not sold, they will be thrown out or given away. As more people stop eating animals, the by-products will naturally fade, so there is no real reason to force other people to worry about them in order to call themselves ‘vegan.’
We want a vegan world, not a vegan club.
So although my feelings about animals led to my decision to avoid bone china, other vegans or vegetarians might make a different, but equally valid choice. Readers, how do you feel about such less clear-cut examples of “non-vegan” items?
P.S. - Thank you to friend Tim for the title of this post. After observing my surprise at learning the truth about bone china, he said, “I’ve got bad news about skull pudding….”
