Last Blog

This is it, the final blog entry for this blog.

My 40 days as a pseudo-vegan ended yesterday when I was able to spread butter on my toast (admittedly cashew butter was rather yummy on the toast) for breakfast and I was able to eat roast pheasant with my parents. So time to look back at the time and consider the successes and failures.

I think the ultimate failure was that I was not a very strict vegan, partly because being a pure vegan anywhere is bloody difficult. It wasn't just that in the traditional meat-free European recipes cheese and butter were sometimes essential, but it's also that I love cakes, which always contain milk and eggs. And when I eat pancakes (which I should have cut off) whipped cream is always an accompaniment. And how can you enjoy being a vegan if you can't eat ice cream?

The other big failure was that this blog didn't exactly get tons of attention. The main problem, I believe, is that I don't really hang around the foodie crowd much, and this is the kind of thing they would be interested in more than anyone else.

BUT I did succeed in widening my own cooking palette and providing ideas for recipes to other people. My biggest success I can point to is my brother. He has to eat meat all the time (so he says) so meat is almost always featured in his cooking and pork pie is an essential feature in his lunches. Even he was intrigued by some of my recipes.

Also, did the diet make me feel any different? Not really. Although I did notice that with the absence of meat I started desiring more spicey foods, and more of my food was coloured red or brown. That was until my yearning for green food sprouted.

Knowing a vegan makes life inconvenient

The above title is inspired by something IGN's Podcast Beyond host Colin Moriarty said back in Autumn: he said that a vegan diet is very exclusive. He said this when recounting a story of meeting his best friend, who would soon be getting married and became a vegan for health reasons. While Colin acknowledged that the health benefits were obvious and was proud of his friend for his achievement, it was not easy finding a restaurant to eat out at.

Mind you, the USA's food industry appears to have not learned the lesson the UK has: have vegetarian/vegan options on your menu, or lose customers and face bankruptcy. I remember when I was in the US, how difficult it was for my vegetarian friends to find food in outlets, despite the masses of such people living in the US today. When I went out on Friday night with my best friend, we really didn't need to be so careful when picking our restaurant; we just walked in and I stared at the vegetarian options.

But this leads to the time I've experienced with my parents in these final few days. While my dad was supportive of my endeavour, my mum had no comment (as usual), but I didn't experience any negativity. No, the reason why these final few days were interesting for me was that my mum deals with the food provision in the household and she's not the most flexible when it comes to sudden or drastic changes. While we have had some non-meat-eating guests in the past, we...actually don't know very many vegans or vegetarians. And we always had fore-warning so their needs could be planned for.

In this instance, I had brought home my own supply of soy milk, all the way from Ostrava, making it easier for all involved as I'm assuming mum doesn't know where to look for such things. The other reason is that I had barely used the litre carton and didn't want it wasted. The day I arrived in London, dad was working at home so he picked me up and asked me to survey the food stocks, in case we needed to do a spontaneous shopping trip. Well, as I would be out of the house Friday evening, that was the perfect opportunity for mum to cook some meat pies. Wednesday evening I cooked some spaghetti, Thursday evening I cooked a stir-fry with Thai sweet chili sauce.

You can pretty much spot the resolution of this problem: in order to avoid cooking something I won't be able to eat, I just cook for everyone else. Except Saturday. Saturday is the one evening when we have chips with something, either fish, burgers or fried eggs. It's always some sort of animal product. I suggested I cook something else, to avoid this conundrum of what to have with my chips, but mum is fully aware of my love for Asian food. Her suggestion was to find some prepared vegetable spring rolls to cook up with my chips. That was genius and I agreed. But she couldn't find any. So sticking with the Asian snacks, I was overjoyed to discover she had bought a packet of Thai vegetable sacks. 10 of them, all for me! :D

Addendum: The Taste of Soy Milk

Many apologies for not writing anything new for a week. This week was spent travelling to London to visit family for the Easter tide and then...I honestly had nothing else to talk about.

HOWEVER, I had brought my soy milk home and decided to eat my most favourite of cereals: Cheerios. For some reason, among the tiny range of cereals in the Czech Republic, Cheerios can never be found. NOW, with Cheerios, the taste of soy milk is blatantly obvious.

It tastes like...stale water cream. It's not horrible per say, but with the first spoonful of Cheerios it's a shock. The obviousness of the taste then ebbs away. So it seems I accidentally discovered the best way to enjoy/consume soy milk: use it with muesli, and nothing else.

Discussion: Milk Alternatives

1) Oat Milk

I'm getting this one out of the way quickly as I didn't actually try this one. The reason? My friend tried it and said it tasted like porridge. I really don't fancy porridge-flavoured milk and I highly doubt it would mix well with my strawberry muesli.

2) Soy Milk

This is the obvious alternative. So obvious I bought it without thinking when lent began. The biggest complaint against soy milk is that it doesn't taste like milk. And here is when I make a shocking statement: I can't taste the difference. I really can't. If I try hard then...I guess I can taste cream in the soy milk somewhere? I dunno, maybe I'm just not that partial to milk? The biggest drawback to this milk as I can see is its price. Soy milk isn't commonly sold in the Czech Republic, so almost the only brand available is Alpro Soya.

It is a quality product, of course, but being priced at 60 koruna (crowns) or the equivalent of £2, makes this a luxury product to many. For a third of that price (in either currency) you can buy the same amount of organic milk. In the UK, there are at least competing soy dairy manufacturers, so UK consumers don't lose out so much.

3) Rice Milk

Unfortunately, the carton doesn't specify which kind of rice, but whatever. I bought this for 33 koruna (just over £1) from DM, a German chain of chemists that also sells organic products. It's god-awful. There's barely any flavour and the fluid itself is so thin and watery. It was easily coloured by the strawberry bits in my muesli, which also meant their flavour was drained. I was so happy when I finally used this up.

4) Soy Rice Milk

I guess the main difference between this one and soy milk is that soy milk uses the beans. I bought this from DM at the same price as the rice milk. It wasn't as viscous/'creamy' as the soy milk, but it wasn't watery either. It gets brownie points for not interfering with the muesli flavour; as for the milk itself I swear I taste a whiff of vanilla.

Of the three I've tried, my personal favourite is soy milk. No surprise there.

Discussion: Our Dependence on Milk

A long long time ago, our ancient ancestors living in what would become Europe, discovered milk freely provided (by cows) and its versatility. Playing around with milk and its offshoot products like yoghurt and cheese meant our ancestors widened their sources of food, so they could hunt and forage less frequently. Notice I specified Europe; Europeans have a bizarrely low level of lactose intolerance; in fact, beyond a certain age, it is usually a bad idea for humans to consume so much milk. Or dairy. Yet we have it in our cereals every day.

So milk has ended up being an intrinsic part of our diets, our society. Is it on the same level as bread? Does a lack of milk in supermarkets signal an imminent collapse of society? Well, in most cases it doesn't, it normally means the usual freight carriers haven't arrived due to a natural disaster or something. But I would like to share with you a case from Australia.

When I was in Australia this time last year, one of the more important news stories was the supermarket rivalries forcing down the price of milk. It was possible to buy 1 litre of milk for AUS$1. That is actually ridiculously cheap. So you not only have rival supermarkets using milk - an everyday essential - as leverage to get shoppers, but the authorities had to step in since this was undercutting the actual value, meaning dairy farmers were being forced to lose money.

Most of us actually don't realise how cheap milk really is. I find this interesting, because you would think that milk made from plant material would be a lot cheaper. To get fresh cows' milk, you need land to grow animal feed, which is then transported to a shop/warehouse, transported to a farm, then the produced milk is transported to shops up and down the country and beyond. I suppose the real reason why fresh milk remains cheap is that, for the most part, milk comes straight out of the cow and is then bottled/packaged, after a pasteurising process. Also, milk is rarely exported beyond a country's borders. Plant milk, such as soy milk, is grown as a crop, put through a lengthy production process, packaged and then exported.

Of course, while cost is the main factor, unless they're lactose intolerant or health freaks, people stay away from 'fake' milk because...well, it's not 'real' milk. Tomorrow I'll be comparing different milk products and seeing how they measure up.

Recipe: Bean Chili

I cooked this up tonight just to see if I could make my own bean chili, considering I've already eaten ready-made ones over the years. I managed to make enough for 5 people by the looks of things and the best part is that it can be eaten with either rice or potato wedges. It went great with the salad I made yesterday :D.

INGREDIENTS

Tinned beans of your choice (I had white, red kidney and butter beans)

Runner Beans

Chopped tomatoes

Garlic

Cooking oil (of your choice)

Lots of different herbs and spices, chili is essential

Step 1: Chop up 3/4 cloves of garlic into small chunky 'cubes'. Start boiling or steaming the runner beans, depending on how crunchy you want them to be.

Step 2: Heat up the frying pan on moderate heat, glazed with oil, and pour in garlic.

Step 3: Open and drain the tins of beans. If they are not completely drained, don't worry. Add the beans to the pan once it is warmed and stir frequently.

Step 4: Between the stirring, add in the various spices. I used plenty of mixed ground pepper and enough chili. Add the runner beans to the frying pan (not with the boiled water they were in/on top of).

Step 5: Once everything has been mixed and heated, turn the heat up higher and pour in the chopped tomatoes (canned or fresh, doesn't matter). Stir the mixture then leave to sizzle. Add more chili if you wish, though personally I added oregano at this point.

Step 6: The smell test should be enough to tell you when to serve it; if not, taste. Can be served with either rice, potato wedges, chips, tortilla chips, with or without salad.

Recipe?: Salad

I don't think I'll file this one under recipes since, well, this one is rather lazy and uncomplicated. I had 4 key components: pre-packed salad mix (you know, the typical lettuce, spinach and carrot bits pack), radishes, an onion and Italian salad dressing. I mixed the salad mix with sliced-and-diced onion and 'quartered' radishes. The complicated bit was the salad dressing.

I went into the supermarket thinking I could find a small bottle of the stuff, you know, like in Britain. But no, this is Czech. Here you buy a powder sachet of 10g, then mix it with some olive oil and water. I have to say, it brought excellent results. The only trouble was that I had too little. I had a third of a bowl compared to a large tupperware container of salad. I managed to get most of the salad glazed but next time I think I'll buy 2 sachets, or 3 if I want the salad drenched. Or maybe I'll just buy balsamic vinegar and make up my own damn dressing.

Ah well, could be worse. At least I have enough salad to last a week.

As for why I wanted a salad? It was towards the end of last week that I got a hard reminder of how few greens I was eating. That is one of the traits/stereotypes of a non-meat eater: eating lots of salad. Although the main reason for that is simply due to many places not offering vegetarian main meals, so salad is the safe option/refuge food. But I'm digressing. I had lunch with a colleague, who had brought in the epitome of a European 'good meal': meat (chicken), boiled potatoes and a salad. And I don't mean a decorative garnish, which is usually a bland side of lettuce and tomato and is something no one ever eats. This salad had been properly prepared, with diced onion, mixed lettuce and properly covered in salad dressing. It made my mouth water and he let me try some. How yummy.

Piroggi!!!

Piroggi are dumplings that are typically eaten in much of the Slavic-speaking world. They can either be sweet, with a jam filling, or savoury, with a meat and/or veg filling, which is actually more common.

If you're wondering why I'm talking about this, it's because a Polish coworker brought in some piroggi for lunch. They were freshly cooked by his mother, and he was willing to offer some. They were very hot, but my God, so yummy!

The filling was cabbage and mushroom. Both myself and another coworker demanded the recipe. Once I have it, I will submit it here.

Recipe: Basic Rice Meal

I can't believe I haven't actually cooked this during my lenttide yet, it's the easiest thing and what I cook the most often. The key elements are: 1) rice (basmati is my favourite) 2) cooking sauce and 3) anything you want in the stir-fry. My favourite cooking sauces to use include teriyaki, black bean and hoi sin. When using hoi sin, I love to include sweet pepper. For some reason these very Asian (influenced) sauces aren't that easy to find in the Czech Republic, despite Uncle Ben's jars being a common feature. For some reason, the biggest range of exotic food is Mexican. Anyway, back to what I was talking about: the sauce I use most frequently here is 'Provences' sauce. The major ingredients are tomatoes, courgettes aka. zucchinis and herbs de provences. I do seem to have become rather enamoured with that herb.

On with the recipe!

INGREDIENTS

Cooking sauce ('provensalska' in this case)

Rice (basmati in this case)

Cooking oil (doesn't matter which)

Potatoes

Carrot(s)

Onion

White kidney beans

Garlic (2 cloves in this case)

Ground Pepper, Chili if you feel like adding it

Step 0: Peel the potatoes if you feel like it. Carrots too I guess. If the potato skin is smooth and clean, like on salad potatoes, I don't bother peeling.

Step 1: Get the rice boiling and keep half an eye on it. The rice will be done before the main dish, so once it is or nearly done, cut off the heat to the rice and let it stand. Rice can stay hot for a very long time when covered.

Step 2: Chop up the hard vegetables into cubic chunks and warm them in the frying pan. The heat should be just above moderate.

Step 3: Open the tin of beans and drain. What I normally do is have the tin lid only opened 3/4 of the way, then hold it down as I pour out the liquid.

Step 4: Stir the vegetables and add the pepper. Once they are sizzling immediately after a stir, turn down the heat. Pour in the beans a minute or two later.

Step 5: Chop up the garlic and onion. The onion should be quartered, then each quartered segment chopped. Then separate the layers. This makes sure the onion pieces are crunchy when you eat them.

Step 6: After a couple of stirs with the beans, add more pepper if you wish, then pour in the onion and garlic. A couple more minutes of sizzling and stirring will follow.

Step 7: The rice is likely to be ready by this point, so cut the heat. Pour into the frying pan the cooking sauce. It will only need a few minutes to heat up, so stir regularly and then serve. As always, taste test to insure its readiness.

Recipe: Mushroom and Butter Bean Stew

Like I said in my last blog post, this is a work in progress as stew was what I had intended to cook, but clear soup was what I ended up with. Still tasted great though, and it looked very appetising to my colleagues when I had some at work.

INGREDIENTS

Mushrooms

Butter Beans

Potatoes

Carrots, or 1 large Carrot

Onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

Vegetable Stock

Herbs de Provences

Oil (preferably olive)

Step 1: Boil some water for the vegetable broth; if you don't have a kettle handy, boil the water in the pot/saucepan you will use to cook your stew in. Once the water is boiled, dissolve the vegetable stock cube in it.

Step 2: Peel and chop the potato and carrot into chunks.

Step 3: Warm up the stew pot/your largest saucepan with enough oil to cover the base. For most stews, olive oil is recommended, but I didn't have any at the time and used standard cooking oil, which worked fine.

Step 4: Once the pot/pan is warmed up, on a med-high heat, pour in the carrot and potato and stir frequently. If you haven't already, dice or chop the onion and garlic.

Step 5: After about 3-5 minutes of shallow-frying the hard vegetables, add in the garlic and onion and continue to stir frequently. It's recommended to turn down the heat a little. Also feel free to add the herbs de provences at this point, also use some black pepper and salt if you wish.

Step 6: Between the stirring, open and part-drain the tin of butter beans and chop the mushrooms. After a minute or two of stirring in the onion and garlic, as well as herbs/seasonings, the mushrooms and butter beans can be added in.

Step 7: The preserving liquid that accompanied the butter beans should begin to boil slightly, as the oil should have been used up by this point. The aroma from the cooking ingredients (as well as some cream coming out of the mushrooms - allegedly) should give away that everything is cooking nicely. Add more herbs if the smell isn't to your liking.

Step 8: Pour in the vegetable broth and turn heat down to relatively low once it begins to boil. Leave the stew to - um - stew for around 20 minutes or so. Smell and taste test in order to make sure it's ready.

Step 9: Serve with bread. :D

The key to good cooking is knowing what you like

So tonight I have made my first attempt at cooking a stew. Notice the word attempt. I succeeded in making a watery yet very tasty soup. In order to make it a stew I need to have the broth be quite a bit creamier and thicker. If I've read the recipes correctly, the way to do that is to make sure I use fresh mushrooms as opposed to the tinned mushrooms.

Ironically, the inspiration for attempting to make a stew was finding tins of butter beans and mushrooms in the same aisle at a supermarket. Butter beans are my favourite kind of bean, and I always enjoy them in my Mum's stews. Or in Whetherspoon's Five Bean Chili. But I think I prefer them in my Mum's stews.

As for mushrooms...they are not the most obvious ingredient to cook with for me. I like them, but only if they're cooked correctly, so I can never outright say whether I like or hate mushrooms. Usually it's the former. I like mushrooms covered in garlic butter and breadcrumbs. I like mushrooms stirred in a stir-fry. I like them properly sliced and grilled. I like them covered in batter ala. the Japanese tempura. I don't like them boiled on their own and then served. And I don't like them when the cook didn't take care of them, because in those cases they taste rubbery and slippery.

I'll write up the recipe for my soup attempting to be a stew tomorrow, I'll just have to label it as a work-in-progress, like my strawberry turnovers.

Discussion: Could other bad habits be encouraged by eating meat?

The general philosophy in Hinduism is that willingly eating meat encourages you to be more violent, more cruel. If you eat meat, you are eating the remains of an animal that was killed, which had suffered and died to provide you your food. Such energies can permeate to elsewhere, so if you are cruel to animals, you are likely to be cruel to other humans as well. Basically, the idea is that you have to respect all life, and being cruel to one form of life means you will be cruel to another at some point.

It's an interesting way of looking at the relationship between us, our food and each other. But this mindset obviously does not explain a lot of exceptions: many harsh and cruel soldiers have been loving to their families, many who eat meat regularly could never harm a fly and many slave owners of the old British Empire committed absolutely abhorrent acts toward their slaves while being the most genteel of people to their white acquaintances.

I did start to wonder though if, maybe by eating processed meat on a frequent basis, people slide into other bad habits. I have already mentioned junk food but, let's be honest, eating junk food is a simple consequence of being lazy most of the time. What I was wondering was if there could possibly be a link between meat-eaters and litterbugs. You see, while many Hindu philosophers consider those who eat meat frequently (or ever) to be cruel to others - or will inevitably be cruel to others - I can't help but wonder at the background of those who'll buy a bunch of food from a chippy or kebab shop somewhere, not finish it, and then dump it on the ground. There is no stronger statement of how little you care for others or your environment.

But hey, all individuals are products of their culture. So why is it that many a respectable person can eat a lot of meat (or even junk food) and still be able to respect others and everything around them? It's all to do with mindset: there are things some people take for granted. A lot of people who litter a lot and get wasted on alcohol in the mistaken belief that they have a "good time" probably have no clue where any of their food comes from and probably don't care. I have no idea who said this, but there is a certain saying floating around: if the majority of the world had to kill the animals for their meat, or at least witness their slaughter, a great many of them would be vegetarian instantly. Ditto for the people I'm talking about here, I can guarantee that.

Discussion: The future of crop-growing

My brother already gave an idea of having multi-level greenhouses growing fruit and vegetables in the future. In some places they already do that. And hey, what better way of keeping out pests than with walls or windows?

There are other ways of course. During the second World War, the moat around the Tower of London was turned into one large vegetable patch. I'm not necessarily suggesting we do that now, I'm just pointing out that farmland can be found or placed anywhere. Newer blocks of flats these days have gardens on the rooftops. In other building designs, you find gardens in an open-air area halfway up the building. These can also be turned into viable allotments.

There are also some science fiction stories that have space ships with airponics bays or garden chambers. One key purpose of these is to produce oxygen for the ship. The other is to grow food. In the future, when we do manage to colonise our moon and beyond, I can easily see crops grown on space stations being a key trade commodity.

Traditional Czech Vegetarian Food

Huh, so that was 2 days without a blog post. Inexcusable!

But then, that is what happens when I find myself going for drinks after work on a whim, thinking I'll only be out about 2 hours and 2 turn into 6...

As for yesterday, well, my trip home was delayed when I was playing Monopoly at a friend's flat. Granted it was the shortest game of Monopoly I had ever played, but still. The same set of friends took me to a restaurant and recommended I try the local Czech potato pancakes, better known around here as bramboraky. They were yummy!

Now remember I had that loophole in place for trying new recipes: it's the only instance where dairy products are allowed. I only found out the recipe for these pancakes just now, so good thing that loophole's in place. In case you haven't clicked on the link: milk and eggs are among the ingredients, so it's suitable for vegetarians but not vegans.

Discussion: Genetically Modified Crops

Genetically Modified Crops.

These 3 words in the same sentence get the strongest reaction out of people. The obvious reason is that there are those who instantly fear them: there are weird substances being put in the foods, lots of chemicals that can endanger and poison us! And then there's the unobvious: frustration and anger at an ignorant populace that refuses to acknowledge that GM crops are the best answer for securing our food supply and possibly ending world hunger!

The more vocal, obvious, former crowd always has leverage in the forms of news stories that prove we are eating dangerous chemicals that endanger our children or that show GM crops will be the doom of the world's poorest. I want to focus on that second article in particular, as it links back to what I was talking about in my discussion piece about pesticides. That second article looks at the various tragedies in Paraguay as a result of the rapid and vicious expansion of GM soy fields there; it is a sad picture of terrible regulation, chemical misuse, environmental distruction, lack of proper legal protection for the vulnerable and corruption. However, the article is never blaming the actual GM crop; as ever, these tragedies are the result of human greed and misuse (and lack of empathy with their community). Even more reason to stamp out GM crops, so the alarmists would claim.

But it's articles like this that make people lodge pesticides and GM foods together in a messy clump, without prying the two apart and investigating closely. Separating the elements and investigating closely is precisely what a good scientist does. But what a good scientist, who wishes to proclaim the (possible) virtues of GM crops, doesn't understand, is that those who don't properly understand how science works hear the terms 'genetically modified/engineered/altered/produced' and instantly conjure up an image of Resident Evil-style monsters. Sad but true.

Now if that article explaining the situation in Paraguay was a straight forward one saying: "This innocent kidney bean, which has been genetically altered but grown organically, was launched as a brand new product yesterday and was hailed as a great stride forward in biochemical science. However, when consumed by a healthy family, said family died the next day." Well then, yes! GM products the world over would be classed as Satan's spawn and banned like no tomorrow. Except that has never happened. In fact, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you at least chuckled at my crappy faux-newspaper report.

I found this helpful article that summarises both the pros and cons of GM crops without taking a side. The key reasons why many in the scientific community believe this avenue of crop-growing should at the very least be investigated are that they can be grown in non-arable areas (erego reducing the impact of droughts) and less or no pesticides can be used to grow them. Such reasons make me a tentative supporter of GM crops, but don't get me wrong. Such products need to be rigorously tested, properly researched, highly regulated and internationally licensed before being made available on the market. It is even more important that these stringent guidelines are followed and enforced in our day and age, since this technology is still very new and young and we certainly don't want a zombie apocalypse brought about by a careless idiot.

Also, just because GM versions of crops become available on the market, doesn't mean organic will stop being profitable or popular.

Discussion: The problem with pesticides

If you read my discussion piece from 2 days ago, you'd notice the comment my brother made. I thank him for pointing out why it is I'm specifically separating the topics of crops grown with chemical assistance and genetically-modified crops. What he was talking about isn't necessarily how most eco-warriors regard GM food...of any kind.

So, pesticides. Why are they used? They began to be used when farmers realised they could keep away weeds, bugs and pests with little effort and have a stronger crop yield. So pesticides double up as fertilisers in a weird way. Fair enough. A quick history of the chemical DDT, found at the top of this quick list of pesticides, pretty much sums up the general attitudes towards pesticides.

But they're still being used. The question is why. Is it because manufacturers and users have no empathy for others in their society? Do they have little care about the disappearing bees and the massive effect this will have on most ecosystems? As is always the case with us silly humans, I don't think the answer is so black and white.

Since chemical fertilisers are a man-made manufacture, which happen to be consumed by humans, they need to be rigorously tested and registered as safe before being sold on the wider market. The majority are. So the divide between those that do or don't use such products doesn't actually illustrate a divide between the evil agricultural corporations and the saintly organic farmers, it's rather that there are people who feel that a tiny amount of poison doesn't do anyone any harm while there are others who would rather not ingest any at all. I'm more in the latter camp, but I've noticed with my buying habits that I seem to prioritise the shortest distance a food product has travelled rather than the method with which it was grown. That I find interesting in itself.

This does raise another question: if various societies wish to know whether a product has been organically produced or if it is filled with sugar and fat, why don't products display information regarding which chemicals were used in their production? Or would that be too complicated?

Mind you, there are additional problems with using chemicals in crop production, not just limited to how safe their ingestion is. The article I've already mentioned does briefly skim over the wider problems and spread of such chemicals: they can remain in soil for a long time thus slowly poisoning soil used for crops, they spread through natural waterways and within creatures, they infect various creatures that ingest them... these genuine consequences make chemical products harder to defend.

Such products are even more difficult to defend when they have directly harmed humans. Click on this link and scroll down to "It's safer in a hive". What makes the various stories of being damaged by reckless chemical use even more tragic is that they highlight a lack of stringency in regulations of such products. Well...back in 2004 at least, but I haven't heard of any new laws strengthening these regulations in the UK. I mean, really? You're not obliged to warn those nearby if you're using chemicals with possibly damaging effects?

Discussion: The Fruit and Veg trade isn't exactly innocent

There is argument upon argument as to why the meat, seafood and dairy trades are not ethical. I briefly mentioned the land-loss scenario in my introduction video to this blog, which is also linked to the 'lots of fuel is wasted transporting such products for thousands of miles before they reach their destination' statement. There are also other issues linked with such trades, such as diseases spreading into natural waters from fish farms (fish factory farms more like, since the fish are kept crammed so close together and are highly treated with drugs to combat common infections), as well as the overuse of chemicals in the treatment of animals in factory farms. That was how Swine Flu evolved.

So there are people out there who believe that our food supply, health and environment would be better safeguarded if meat, seafood and dairy were cut out entirely. But that would ignore the various problems affecting the fruit and veg trades. Not to mention the chocolate trades, but there have been tons about those so I really don't feel the need to elaborate on them.

We can now enjoy eating summer fruits all year round because of warmer countries exporting their fruits. This not only means more demand for products to be eaten out of season, but more fuel on transport and there is the question of whether such products meet correct industry standards. This then ties into organic vs 'unnatural' products, which tend to have GM and pesticide-grown products lumped together. It also ties into more developed countries not paying enough attention to a sensible agricultural policy at home, meaning a stronger dependence on imports (*cough* UK *cough*).

As you can see, even looking at fruit and veg trades in particular opens a massive can of worms. So that will be the topic I'll stick with for the next couple of discussions...

Recipe: Cauliflower and Leek Auflauf

The 3rd day in a row, in which I've uploaded a recipe. I'm going to have to seriously work on my discussion pieces, the column is looking pretty small.

Anyway, this recipe is a German one and one that I discovered during my year spent studying at Heidelberg. It's an oven bake, in which you can put anything you want. The key thing all Auflauf recipes have in common, is that either potato or pasta is utilised as the core ingredient, while you're also almost always (alliteration!!!) using cheese. That's right, I'm using my loophole again. That's the problem with traditional non-meat European recipes, they almost always demand the use of some product derived from milk. In theory, you can make the recipe I'm about to share suitable for vegans by using soy cheese, but I don't know where/how to get any in the Czech Republic. I'm also uncertain if that would work (does soy cheese even taste nice?).

INGREDIENTS

Pasta (any kind)

Cauliflower and/or Broccoli

Leek

slices of Edam Cheese

Parsley

Step 1: Take the glass oven/roasting dish that you will be using and pour out the pasta. You don't want to fill the dish with pasta, just pour out enough pasta so that it covers the bottom. Once you have measured out the amount of pasta you will need, pour all of it into the saucepan.

Step 2: As much as you can, slice the cauliflower and/or broccoli but only cut the amount you will need. Once that is done, add the vegetable 'slices' to the same saucepan as the pasta. Fill with water and set to boil.

Step 3: Chop up the leek, add the pieces to a steamer and place on top of the saucepan. All contents should need roughly 10 minutes to boil but stir frequently in the meantime to make sure. Just before you're ready to add these ingredients to the roasting dish, pour the leeks into the boiling water to make sure they're soft enough.

Step 4: While the pasta and veggies are boiling, grease the roasting dish. Once the roasting dish is prepared and the ingredients are nearly ready, pre-heat the oven to 175˚C or gas mark 5 (I think).

Step 5: Once the boiled ingredients are ready, drain the water away. Put all of them into the roasting dish, spreading them so that the oven bake will be (mostly) even.

Step 6: Cover the ingredients with sheets of Edam cheese. Over the cheese, sprinkle with parsley. Place the dish in the oven and leave to cook for roughly 15 minutes. You know it is done when the cheese has completely molded onto its contents.

Recipe: Strawberry Turnovers

Unlike my veggie/savoury turnovers, these ones...um...had a snafu. As you can see, the 2 strawberry turnovers on the left burst and leaked. I think I added too much honey and had the strawberry pieces far too small. They still tasted nice so I'll share my recipe, just bare in mind I'm still perfecting the process...

INGREDIENTS

Strawberries

Honey

The already-prepared dough (see my turnover dough recipe)

Step 1: Take the dough out of the fridge and be ready with the strawberries. Grease the baking tray or cover it with tin foil if you prefer.

Step 2: Start preparing the individual turnover dough wraps by separating each section along the fold lines; they should be somewhat rectangular but failing that, have them round for rounded turnovers. Don't be afraid to roll each sheet into a ball and roll them out again, with help from flour and a rolling pin.

Step 3: Pre-heat the oven to roughly 200˚C, or gas mark 6 (I think).

Step 4: Chop up the strawberries, then place the pieces in the middle of the small dough sheets. Add small amounts of honey, but not the spreadable kind (see photo).

Step 5: Fold the dough sheets in half. Just to make sure they don't fall apart, I personally have the upper half fall short and fold over the lower part to seal in the filling. If you want to, you can sprinkle some sugar on top of them (icing sugar is my favourite).

Step 6: Place on baking tray and press fork along turnover edges (if you want). Put loaded baking tray into oven and leave to bake for 15-20 minutes (or maybe just half that time?). Once they take on a brown tinge they're ready to take out the oven and leave to cool.

Recipe: Vegetable Turnovers

So I made some veggie-filled turnovers today. These have possibly been my best yet. They look great in this photo, don't they? My previous experimentations of this recipe included parsnip and onion; I don't think there's ever been anything wrong with onion but parsnip has always been a bit too sweet, so it tastes too sour if it goes off.

The one I ate just now was pretty darn yummy, so on to the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

Carrot

Potato

Leek

Parsley

Vegetable Oil

The dough you've already made (see my recipe for turnover dough)

Step 1: Peel the potato and dice both it and the carrot, chop up the leek.

Step 2: Warm up the frying pan greased with some oil, add in the hard vegetables (potato and carrot) and heat up. Make sure the temperature is not too high (moderate will do) and stir before they sizzle.

Step 3: Grease the baking tray, or cover it with tin foil if you prefer. Keep stirring the vegetables and once the carrot begins to turn yellow, add the leek.

Step 4: Once the leek has been added, only about 5 minutes more should be needed before the vegetables are ready to be wrapped. Add parsley, or if you want something more reminiscent of Cornish pasties, use pepper instead.

Step 5: Bring out the hardened dough from the fridge. The fold lines should give you a good idea where to separate the sections. Have the rolling pin and flour ready in case you need to reshape each bit of dough before folding it around its filling (which I always do).

Step 6: Check the vegetables and if you think they're ready (taste test if unsure, since they're about to be baked you don't want them too soft), cut off the heat. If you're using a gas cooker, then have the heat at the lowest setting.

Step 7: Pre-heat the oven to roughly 200˚C, or gas mark 6 (I think). Finish preparing the individual turnover dough wraps; they should be somewhat rectangular but failing that, have them round for rounded turnovers.

Step 8: Put the filling in the centre of each dough sheet. Fold the sheets in half. Just to make sure they don't fall apart, I personally have the upper half fall short and fold over the lower part to seal in the filling.

Step 9: Place on baking tray and press fork along turnover edges (if you want). Put loaded baking tray into oven and leave to bake for 25-30 minutes. Once they take on a brown tinge they're ready to take out the oven and leave to cool.

Recipe: Turnover Dough

I've decided I'll make turnovers tomorrow, so I needed to prepare the dough today. Admittedly, this is one of the foods I went out of my way to practice when I was planning this project, since I wasn't too confident with baking and I wasn't too sure where to start when it came to making turnovers. It turned out that the part most people focussed on in a turnover recipe was the filling, with many online recipes recommending the purchase of pre-made puff pastry dough.

No such thing is on sale in the Czech Republic, in fact, considering the amount of bake-it-yourself kits there are on sale in the supermarkets, the Czechs, it seems, are still preoccuppied with cooking everything yourself. From scratch if possible. So it was a life-saver when I found a basic recipe for the dough that I could make myself.

INGREDIENTS

Flour

Butter (not spreadable! traditional)

Some cold water

Step 1: Find yourself a mixing bowl, or a large plastic tupperware container. Depending on if you want to make 4 or 8 turnovers, you will either need 1 mug full of flour (for 4) or 2 mugs (for 8). Pour said flour into container/mixing bowl.

Step 2: Cut 'sticks' of butter and add them to the mix. Not necessarily all at once. Have 8 sticks if you prepared 1 mug of flour, 12 if you prepared 2 mugs. Add those sticks to the mixture, have extra sticks prepared.

Step 3: Trickle in little amounts of water. Take a stirrer and quickly mix together the mixture. Once it stiffens, abandon the stirrer and knead the forming dough with your hands. The idea is that all the flour you've added earlier should become part of the dough.

Step 4: Continue kneading until all the flour is used. Trickle in more water to make the mixture stick, add more butter to increase the mass of the dough. If you find you have poured in too much water and the ball of dough is becoming too sticky, add more flour to dry it.

Step 5: Once the ball of dough has been formed of all the contents in the mixing bowl (or large tupperware) and it's dry enough, sprinkle flour onto a table top, plonk the dough ball on it and take a rolling pin. Roll out the dough until it is an even sheet about a fingertip thick (said fingertip pressing against a table), try to keep it as rectangular as possible. (My dough sheets tend to be ovals.)

Step 6: Fold into quarters and either a) wrap it in cling film or b) place the folded sheet in an uncovered, exposed container. Put the sheet in the fridge. It has to be left there for either a few hours or overnight, to make sure it hardens.

Discussion: Vegan Junk Food

So what is one of the most well-known, commonly eaten, simplest to make food types that can be included in all diets?

Chips. (or French Fries)

Go on, try and deny it. Unless animal oil is somehow used, there is nothing that stops chips getting eaten in a vegan diet. But even then, people can still point out that a vegan diet is generally healthier than one including meat, since it still avoids all those chemicals and preservatives found in junk-food meat.

Hmm, but the vegan junk food list isn't limited to just chips. Sweet potato chips, prawn crackers, pancakes with syrup, non-meat and cheese subs from Subway... well, whether Subway sells junk food is still hotly debated, but it's certainly fast food, so I'm counting it.

Pasta...2 guesses what I had for dinner tonight

So, one of the most vegan-friendly, easiest to cook meals is your bog standard boil pasta then add sauce spaghettis. It's yummy and refreshing when you have it once in a while, but when you have it frequently - like I did when I was roaming between hostels in Australia - it gets rather boring.

Recently, I discovered that pasta is a good way of using up spare ingredients you have lying around. Don't have any further use for that garlic? Chop it up and stir it into the sauce. Add some chili too. Have broccoli that needs using up? Cut it into florets and boil with the pasta. I've discovered broccoli goes great with napolitana sauce. Chopped kohlrabi boiled with the pasta is also great. There's even other sauces to accompany pasta that include carrot as an ingredient.

There are also the obvious accompaniments like olives, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, shrimps... ok I'm starting to wander away from the vegan-friendly motif. I will say though, that parsnip never seems to go well. It's always a bit too...sweet.

Thinking about sandwiches

I played Badminton for only the 3rd ever time in my life today, the last time being nearly 8 years ago at my school. I had so much fun, even if I did have to learn how to serve properly.

Linking that to what I want to write about here, well, I came home rather hungry and the first thing I did was reach for my remaining slices of bread and pickled gherkins. That's when I got to thinking about sandwiches: their simplicity and versatility.

Now, you can easily make them vegan-friendly by not spreading butter or margerine on the slices of bread. While not a full-time vegan myself, I frankly never do, mainly because I discovered many years ago that the marg interferes with the natural flavour of the filling. I blame this on an incident while on holiday in Germany a great many Summers ago. My mum was preparing brötchen (hardened bread rolls) for our lunch while we embarked on our 8-hour car ride from Germany back to London, and that's a rough time estimate including the time to cross the Channel, in either the tunnel or on the ferry. So for our lunch, we stopped at a minimal service station, basically a place with a petrol station, a shop, some toilets and lots of park benches. I was looking forward to my brötchen of sliced sausage and hated the overbearing taste of margerine that came with it. Yuck.

So if I do spread anything on bread slices for sandwiches these days, it's paté as an accompaniment to sliced gherkins. And maybe some sort of flavoured cream cheese with sliced salmon, but that's unlikely. Whenever I'm fortunate enough to have salmon as a sandwich filling, I just slice it up and have it between soft white bread slices.

What else do I like as a sandwich filling? Hmm, let's see. Egg mayonnaise, despite not being a mayo fan. I'll also admit that I much prefer my mother's home made egg mayo than the stuff she buys at Sainsbury's. If only she'd make it again...

While at uni, I got into the habit of buying paninis at least once a week from the union canteen. I ate either prawn mayo or cajun chicken as the filling. But there was a good reason I didn't eat too many paninis: every single one got stuffed with tons of cheese, which got melted. Not exactly healthy. (I would have personally preferred having less cheese, but oh well.)

I'm kind of glad I'm not at uni anymore, I would have failed this lent exercise instantly. Now here's something to think about: is Nutella suitable for vegans?

Recipe: Potato Wedges

Tonight has ended up being my evening of chores, so it's only fitting that I share with you a recipe perfect for cooking a lazy meal in a short amount of time.

INGREDIENTS

Potatoes

Spices and Herbs

Olive Oil (out of all the oils, this one heats up the quickest)

Step 1: Without peeling the potatoes, chop them up into wedge-shapes. About 2 fist-sized potatoes should provide a decent portion.

Step 2: Pour in to the frying pan a thick amount of olive oil and heat the pan to the highest temperature. When adding the chopped potatoes, stir them round the pan to make sure all are covered in oil.

Step 3: Once the pan is heated, turn down the heat to medium temperature (don't want the wedges to burn). Stir frequently, and add in the desired herbs and spices, even a little salt if you wish. My favourite spice mix to use is the cajun chicken spice mix - looks, smells and tastes very authentic.

Step 4: Serve the wedges when they're ready. They should look golden and roasted with brown edges. If you're not certain, taste test ;).

Messed-up experiment

So sorry I didn't put a new post up yesterday. I went out for the afternoon and found myself occuppied half the day, it was pretty late when I got back.

I had to use up the vegetables I had, so I attempted to make some sort of soup with the rice noodles. I screwed that up when I drained too much of the water away, so I ended up eating mixed noodles and veggies. It tasted nice, but I'm not writing the recipe here as it needs refining. I'll no doubt try again during the next 40 days.

Discussion: Are there any health reasons preventing us from giving up meat?

When researching for my blog entry 2 nights ago, I came across this article: http://www.earthsave.org/health/bloodtyp.htm

I actually want you to read this before reading my thoughts. You see, I found it when trying to find any scientific evidence that those with blood type O have to eat meat, since I remember reading one such account in a newspaper years ago. While the article doesn't rule out the theory completely that the best diet is one suited to your blood type, it completely strips away the credibility of a published book on the subject. So I'm not so certain that whether a person can or cannot eat meat is that dependent on their blood type.

But the article I linked 2 days ago that talked about the health benefits of red meat did say that a regular meal including red meat is very beneficial for those with some sort of blood anaemia. That I can buy, since such people have a bit of an iron deficiency compared to most. My friend at work also told me today that she actually doesn't like the taste of red meat very much, but has to eat it at least once a week due to her unusually low blood pressure. Without that regular red meat consumption, her energy would be very low.

Recipe: Veggie and Bean Coriander Curry

This recipe was something I created accidentally some time ago. I dare you to guess which part that is.

INGREDIENTS

Potato

Carrot

Parsnip

Green Pepper

Spring Onion

Garlic

Tin of red/white kidney beans

Tin of chick peas

Herb mix: coriander and chili curry

Rice

Note: Large hard vegetables mixed with all of the other ingredients listed means you cook enough to make 3/4 portions.

Step 1: Chop/dice the hard vegetables (potato, carrot and parsnip) while starting to boil the desired amount of rice.

Step 2: Take a large frying pan, lightly grease it with some oil and warm. Begin cutting the pepper and sweet onion, while the chopped hard vegetables begin frying in the pan.

Step 3: Stir the rice frequently. Add the chopped soft vegetables to the frying pan, once the hard vegetables are a bit softer and coloured. At this point, you can add ground pepper to the mix if you want.

Step 4: Open the tins of beans and chick peas and drain away about half the preserving liquid. Begin chopping some garlic. Add the garlic and beans/peas, including the remaining liquid.

Step 5: Add the coriander curry mix. The spices should mix with the liquid that came with the beans. Stir well until ready to serve. Taste test if unsure.

Step 6: Serve with rice.

Discussion: Do we need meat in our diets?

What I find the most interesting points of contention in the topic of 'meat vs vegetarian: which diet is healthier' are the 2 claims that (1) humans must eat meat in order to get certain nutrients and (2) vegetarians/vegans are generally healthier. Both are claims put forward while also backed by scientific evidence, so I personally tried to conclude why such claims are the case.

I did have a theory a while ago that the reason why non-meat-eaters are often healthier than meat-eaters is that few vegetarians/vegans eat junk food on a regular basis. But there has to be something else behind the research, since I have personally witnessed very fit dancers constantly eating McDonald's due to the massive amounts of calories needed.

I found this interesting article that detailed the pros and cons of eating meat, or kinds of meat. Pretty much everyone can tell you that meat is eaten for the protein, but the specifically beneficial nutrients of red meat are vitamin B12, zinc and iron. The article recommends using lean cuts of red meat in order to avoid consuming excessive fat and also explains that the best way of cooking red meat is to bake or broil. The article also provides the common-sense advice to avoid eating grilled or charred meat too often, but I never knew why this was a bad idea: it turns out that high-heat treatment of meat produces cancer-producing compounds. So even an article trying to encourage people to eat meat as part of a healthy diet recommends not eating fried meat too often. There is also the recommendation to try and find common meat-types that are not preserved with nitrites, as frequent consumption of them can also cause cancer.

What I also found good about the article was its list of red meat alternatives, including white meat, fish, tofu and beans. It doesn't provide specific amounts regarding how much of each you should eat in a week, because let's face it, each person is different, but it really does give the sense that red meat really doesn't have to be eaten that often, nor should it be in most cases.

Anyway, the fact that the article discussing meat nutrition also recommends eating beans and tofu as valid sources of the same nutrients led me to wanting to find non-meat sources of iron. Why iron? Because in the discussion of whether vegetarians/vegans are lacking essential nutrients in their diets, there is always the claim that iron is necessary (which is true) and substantial amounts of it cannot be found in vegetables. So I found this article, which helpfully provides graphs showing the amounts of iron in each food type. It also explains that more iron is absorbed when vitamin C is included in a meal (such as can be found in tomatoes), so while the tables helpfully reveal the impressive amounts of iron in spinach, lentils and soybeans, compared to the poultry (ha ha) amounts in meat, there is little in the article to stop the ardent meat-lover from saying: 'I'll just have more veggies with my meat-meals then'.

This makes me laugh a little, as reading both articles led to my conclusion that one of the healthiest meals you can cook is a minced meat with spinach and chopped tomato spaghetti bolognaise, with wheat pasta to make it healthier. Or you can just have strips of lean meat in a spinach and tomato salad, thereby cutting out the carbs if you're trying to shed weight.

The overall conclusion from reading both of these articles is that eating different foods every day really is the key to a healthy diet. In all fairness, that statement produces the instant reaction of "well, duh!", but it's important to know why variety is key. Indulging in too much fried meat means consuming too many nitrites and carcinogens (that cause cancer), while indulging in meat-free meals that contain a mix of veggies and beans adds some variety to your food and a boost of iron, protein and vitamins without the fat.

Recipe: Basic Vegetable Noodles

I've cooked my first meal, so I thought I'd share it with you:

INGREDIENTS

Potato

Carrot

Parsnip

Red Pepper

Spring Onion

Ground (Black) Pepper

Soy Sauce

Noodles

Note: These are just the ingredients I used tonight, you can actually mix and match your own desired veggies.

Step 1: Boil water in a saucepan, ready for the noodles. Which kind of noodles? Really doesn't matter, you choose. Tonight I used rice noodles, as those are the only authentic noodles you can buy in the Czech Republic; my personal favourite to use are the Japanese udon noodles.

Step 2: Begin dicing the hard vegetables: potato, carrot and parsnip in this case. To make the noodles look a little more authentically Asian, I recommend peeling along the carrot to make carrot strips. It's easy, once the carrot skin is peeled away, just chop away one end, grip the other, and slide the peeler as deeply into the carrot as possible.

Step 3: Now is the perfect time to put the noodles into the boiling water and to warm up the frying pan. Lightly grease the frying pan with a drop of oil (don't use olive oil, it heats up far too easily) and pour in the hard vegetables. If you had peeled the carrot for carrot strips, don't add those just yet.

Step 4: Stir the hard vegetables every so often while cutting the soft vegetables (half of the red pepper and a stalk of spring onion in this case). Once the potato has turned a deep yellow and appears to be nearly roasting, add the rest of the vegetables.

Step 5: At this point, the boiling water cooking the noodles should have its heat turned down. While stirring the frying vegetables, mix in black pepper and light amounts of soy sauce. If you prefer to have other kinds of ground pepper put into the mix, go right ahead.

Step 6: Once the noodles are done and the vegetables almost ready, drain the water from the noodles. When using udon noodles, I like to add them to the frying pan after the water has been drained away, stirring some more for a minute or two until the meal is ready. This should also work with ramen, phad thai or ho fun noodles. With the rice noodles though, they seemed appetising on their own, so I just served the food as it was.

Bon appetit!

My final meaty meal

Yes, you read that right: tonight I ate my final meal that includes meat. What did I eat? Chicken fajitas.

Tomorrow I begin my foray into the world of (mostly) vegan diets. And incessant blogging.

The Rules

1. No meat or seafood whatsoever will be eaten.

2. All regular dairy intake will have to be substituted.

3. Such a diet will be followed for 40 days, beginning on Shrove Tuesday and ending on Palm Sunday.

Explanations:

1. None needed.

2. The thing about milk, eggs and butter is that traces of it are found in many recipes, baking ones in particular. So since I am focussing on cutting out animal products from my regular diet, if I need to use butter in a baking recipe, I will. The most obvious example of regular dairy intake is the milk I pour into my bowl of muesli every morning, I'll need to buy soy milk for the next month-and-a-bit.

3. Bizarrely enough, the 40 days bit stirs up quite a bit of debate. A lot of people think Lent runs right up to Easter Sunday, but if you actually count 40 days on your calendar (and I have), you'll find it finishes on Palm Sunday. I also remember reading last year that Lent does run up to Easter Sunday if you believe that you get a 'day off' Lent every Sunday. Frankly I think that's just rather stupid, it's not like Jesus got a day off wandering the desert.

So there you go, these are my rules and I hope I have made them clear. Questions in the post comments if they're not.

My Introduction Video

Now you can learn my inspiration for this shindig!

DISCLAIMER

I do not claim to own any of these images and I freely admit that a number of them have been used in a completely false context, I simply wished to find effective and, at times, humorous images in order to illustrate the various points I wished to make. If you recognise an image as your own and you feel it has been misused, please speak to me about it first and I will amend the video.

LINKS

http://merryfarmer.net/2011/11/14/medieval-monday-the-peasant-diet/ - Offers an interesting insight into the kinds of foods eaten by medieval peasants

http://www.vegsoc.org/page.aspx?pid=520

http://www.vegansociety.com/resources/environment.aspx - Some places to begin research into environmental and health impacts of meat and dairy trades