November 13 - Guinness

Guinness is not a vegan beer. They use isinglass as a claifying agent, and isinglass is made of animal bone. Loads of beers and wines use it and true, devout vegans will avoid those beers and wines. For the first eleven and a half years of my veganism, I avoided Guinness, too, despite loving it deeply. Except on St. Patrick's Day - I would allow myself one Guinness since I am more Irish than I am vegan. It seemed fair - one beer a year in exchange for no animal products ever any other day of the year. I know vegans who eat honey because it is their weakness; Guinness was my weakness. 

And then my best guy friend and I went to Dublin, Ireland and toured the Guinness storehouse. I learned that the Guinness company was one of the first to offer paid vacation time, because they realized that people were happier when they got to spend some time with their families (or at least away from work). If a Guinness factory worker died, the company would pay for the funeral and then offer his widow, if he had one) a job at the factory so she wouldn't have to worry about being able to support herself or her kids. And Mr. Guinness signed a 900-year lease on the land wherein the storehouse now stands, in part because he believed that's where the best beer-making water was, but also in part to prevent the business, the industry, and the jobs from leaving Dublin. He wanted to do something good for his community, so he built a beer factory that treated it's workers well and promised to not leave for a really, really, really long time. That, to me, is admirable. That is the sort of company that I, as a human and as an Irishwoman, would like to support. 

So I drink Guinness now from time to time. Not all of the time, but more often than once a year. I figure, I gave a lot of thought to making the switch to veganism, and if, after careful deliberation, one product fits with all of my ethical principles except for my veganism, it's okay to bend the rules. Because as Einstein said, "The important thing is to not stop questioning."

Slainte!

October 11 - Hypothetical

Let's pretend you own a restaurant in a busy urban area. You've noticed that vegetarianism and veganism is in the rise in your area, so you decide to add some vegetarian and/or vegan options to your menu. Do you have people taste your new dishes before you add them to the menu? If so, who?

Let me preface this next section by saying I appreciate the fact that some places are trying to accommodate those with alternative dietary requests. I do sometimes wish a bit more thought was put into these dishes, though. Seasoning. Flavor. Oomph. It would be nice to find these things in prefab vegan dishes, instead of just a list of ingredients that are popular at the moment whether or not they actually work together. 

So back to our hypothetical where you own a restaurant. Yes, please have people actually taste the new dishes before putting them on the menu. And I would suggest having both vegans and non-vegans taste them. If the non-vegans like the food, then it likely just plain tastes good. If the vegans like it, other vegans will likely buy it. If the vegans don't like it, the non-vegans are probably lying about it tasting good because they have a really weird perception of what vegan food should be. Vegan food is just food. Honestly, I would have given up on veganism a long time ago if the food was not good. There is no reason why in this day and age, in a large urban area, the vegan options can't be just as tasty as the non. 

Anyway. Moving on. Enjoy your evening. And make delicious vegan food. 

March 13 - Yogurt

When I was a kid, I ate yogurt every day. Not only did I enjoy it, but it made for a very easy to assemble lunch to bring to school - grab a yogurt, grab an apple, grab a cookie, go. I must have been half made of yogurt as a kid. I've also made my fair share of jokes about owing my youthful appearance to the consumption of yogurt. 

Incidentally, yogurt is one word that always cracks me up when I try to say it with a British accent. It just sounds wrong.

But when I went vegan, I had to give up yogurt. Trust me, that one was hard. I don't miss a lot of non-vegan foods, but I miss yogurt. And most soy yogurts just don't cut it. They may taste fine, but that's because they're all sugar with very little protein, very little actual nutritional value. But I have found one recently that not only tastes really good, but actually has some protein and calcium in it! It's as if I was eating dairy yogurt again! 

Now, I think we all know that I'm not all about finding direct product-for-product vegan substitutions for non-vegan foods. I'm just as happy putting together legumes and grains to get my protein as I am hunting down a vegan burger that "tastes like meat." I actually don't want a vegan burger that tastes like meat because I don't like meat anymore. But to find a yogurt that is tasty and serves the same nutritional function as dairy yogurt...  It's bliss, you guys. Bliss. I think part of it is the texture, too - I've missed having something creamy like that in my regular diet. I bought as much as I could find and am really enjoying having a yogurt every day again. 

I realize this was a rather dull blog, but today was a particularly annoying (infuriating) day, so I thought I should enjoy something small that makes me happy and then share that little bit of happy with the interweb. It's better than sharing the frustration with the interweb, yes?

So Silk Fruity & Creamy Soy Yogurt, well done. And thank you for bringing yogurt back into my life. 

December 18 - Review

I have now officially tried Chipotle's sofritas. I applaud them for adding another vegan option to their menu - the vegan community is all over this one. And I have to say, it's pretty tasty. Spicy, so not for the feint of stomach. But tasty. 

I guess that's not much of a review. It's not an earth-shattering development in fast food; it is tofu and spices. But it is nice to have another option. I'd recommend it. 

December 4 - DIFFERENT

Social anxiety disorder is a very real thing, a disease from which many of my friends suffer, and I think I do, too, from time to time. I don't claim to be an expert on it, but I know it's a real thing. And I know it can be brought on by the oddest triggers.

For example, my eating habits. I love being vegan. I've been vegan for eleven and a half years, so I'm pretty good at it. I'm even getting better at controlling portion sizes so as my aging metabolism slows down, I hopefully won't turn into the GoodYear Blimp. Grocery shopping trips that took hours when I first converted now take just minutes as I can find the non-vegan ingredient on a package in 15 seconds or less. For me, being vegan is not a big deal. And since I'm not running around foisting veganism on anyone else, most of the time, it's not even an issue.

Until it comes time to eat with someone else. Especially for the first time.

My friends who I hang out with all of the time know I'm vegan. Most of them have only known me as a vegan and never saw me eat a cheeseburger back in the days when all I wanted was a boyfriend who would have a burger and a beer with me. They will even sometimes try their hand at making something vegan I can enjoy. But the waters of a new friendship are tricky to navigate, and when you start to feel like you're close enough friends that you could eat together, I always get these terrible pangs of anxiety. Like this person is never going to want to speak to me again when they find out that "grabbing dinner" isn't as easy as popping into a McDonald's and popping back out. If we dine in somewhere, there will inevitably be questions to ask of the server, or alterations made to the menu item I'm ordering. If it's "fast food," I'll likely be having just a salad while they have a three-course meal. There is always going to be some indicator when I dine with others that I am DIFFERENT, with a capital D, and while I know I am different in a lot of ways (and while I know that this DIFFERENT is one I chose), this is the one that will likely cause the most hassle and fuss when other people are involved. This is the biggest DIFFERENT that is visible on my sleeve, and (to some), probably the least likable.

Side note: being different is good. Being so different that you can't be friends with someone who you otherwise enjoy the company of is disappointing. Does that help clarify?

I like letting my DIFFERENT sort of sneak out in little pieces. I figure it is easier to handle that way, and often times, letting it dribble out is actually kind of endearing to new friends. The experience of dining with a vegan can be jarring for someone who is not used to dining with a vegan. I just have to hope that the sparkling conversation distracts my dinner companion from what is (or isn't) on my plate.

August 20 - Fur

So I've been wanting to write a little something about this for a while and just haven't done it yet, so here we go. 

I don't wear fur, nor do I condone the wearing of fur. I'm vegan - I don't use animal parts at all, actually. Aside from my cat who is occasionally my pillow (though I never rest the full weight of my head on him) or my teddy bear. And I think fur is slowly disappearing from the fashion world, but then I'll see someone wearing a full-length coat with matching hat and I kind of want to grab them and shake them and scream. I don't. But I want to. And I wanted to before I became vegan. 

The thing about fur for me, though, is that it is just about completely unnecessary in the contexts it is most often used. I'm not faulting Native Americans back in the day or the Inuits or people who don't have another option, and who also use the entire animal. That I can wrap my brain around. Where I see fur worn most often is in Chicago on a forty-degree Fahrenheit day, or to the theatre, or as trim on some supermodel's outfit that was designed in LA for the fancy types who live in LA where it is seldom actually even cold. It is a luxury item that costs lives. I don't get the joy therein.

Some will say fur is warm. I don't doubt that. But there are plenty of natural and synthetic alternatives that are also warm. Some will say they like how fur feels. Yes, nice, soft fur is nice and soft. But to me, at least half of the joy I take in petting or brushing my cat is knowing that he loves the attention. The happy look on his face when I scritch him under the chin. The purring that always accompanies a snuggle. I like my cat's soft fur only when it is on him and I know that by touching it, we're bonding. Why on Earth would I want to pet a dead animal who can derive no pleasure from the physical contact?

I don't get it. I just don't. And seeing people wear fur just makes me sad. Why don't they know better yet?

June 25 - Experiments in Cupcakes

I found a vegan chocolate cake recipe online many many moons ago that is probably the best chocolate cake recipe ever, vegan or not. It's light and fluffy, but still really good chocolate flavor and super easy to make. Honestly, you can go from pulling the bowl off the shelf to pulling the cake out of the oven in about 45 minutes, 30 minutes of which are baking time. Anyway. I use this recipe a lot. A LOT. My mom requests it at family gatherings. It's really yummy. I usually put a layer of blackberry jam in between the cake layers (because I'm nuts for blackberries) and my vegan buttercreme frosting on top. And it's yummy. You'll just have to take my word for it.

But then cupcakes became all the rage. So I figured, cupcakes are just small cakes, right? So I'll halve the cake recipe and get a dozen cupcakes out of it instead of a two layer cake, yes? Yes! Brilliant! This recipe also works as cupcakes! Except then there's nowhere to put the blackberry jam. You just get the vegan buttercreme frosting on top. Still yummy, but with the fruit, they'd be amazing.

So tonight, I tried putting a dollop (maybe half a dollop) of blackberry jam in each cupcake tin on top of the cake batter before baking them, hoping the cupcakes would bake around the jam and I'd get jam filled cupcakes with vegan buttercreme frosting on top. Sounds brilliant, right? I think my jam was too dense and my cupcake batter not dense enough, because the jam sank to the bottom of each cupcake. It's still there, and still ads some yummy, but a jam-bottom cupcake isn't as much fun as a jam-filled cupcake.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board.

June 11 - Dietary Issues

This is not going to be a blog about losing weight, so if that is what you are looking for, look elsewhere. Sorry.

What I do want to talk a little bit about is the trend within the United States to tout the health benefits of one particular food item for five or six years, and then debunk everything good that was said about that product for five or six years, and then add that food item back to the "it's okay to eat in moderation" food list. Honestly, I think they're all just messing with us, trying to make bigger profits on food products by coming up with new food items and then convincing the general public that all of the old food products are going to kill you so you better eat this new stuff instead.

I bring this up today because a lot of the foods I rely on to keep me healthy have come under attack lately - soy and wheat, mostly - and this bothers me. I sort of feel like I'm sure much of the world did when we were all told to avoid eggs fifteen years ago, and I am anxiously awaiting the day when either some reasonable research comes out or we get off of this "everything is bad for you for five years and then it's okay to eat again" roller coaster.

See, the thing is this - data can be interpreted in really whatever way you want to interpret it in order to support whatever hypothesis you come up with. In the simplest terms, you may have crammed all night for a big biology exam and you got an 85% which makes you proud, but your parents only focus on the 15% of the test you got wrong and ground you. Same result, different interpretations. Or, let's say two groups of scientists perform the same study under the same conditions to determine whether or not smoking is bad for you. The one group zeros in on the calming effect of nicotine, the appetite control, the lowered risk for Parkinson's disease. The other group zeros in on the prevalence of lung cancer and emphysema caused by smoking. Both publish papers on their findings. Both papers will really only talk about the things they want to highlight so it doesn't look like they spent ten years disproving their own hypotheses. No scientist wants to prove himself wrong - he'll lose funding, he'll lose respect within the community, and he'll likely lose his job. On the rare occasion, proving oneself wrong produces another, greater result that then heralds one as a genius instead of a failure (William Perkin inventing synthetic dyes instead of a malaria cure, for example), but I think most scientists would rather spend their time proving themselves right than hoping for a miracle.

So here is what I know about human biology as it relates to food:

• We need certain amounts of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, vitamins and minerals to support our basic body functions. 
• Some of these things are synthesized naturally in the body.
• What is not naturally synthesized, we get from food - the things we eat and drink are absorbed into our bodies and affect the way we function.
• Whatever we ingest that our bodies can't use is expelled as solid or liquid waste.

Based on this list, maintaining one's health by eating the right foods should not be rocket surgery. Eat things that contain the right amounts of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, vitamins and minerals and you should be all good, yes?

I say yes.

I think where the confusion comes from is that the right amounts of the right things are not easily defined across the board. In the simplest terms, a 250-lb man has different dietary requirements than a three-year-old girl. There is more of him, he has different musculature, he has different hormonal balances to maintain, and he (hopefully) isn't still trying to grow at the rate a three-year-old is. And this isn't even taking into account conditions like diabetes or lifestyle choices like extreme athleticism that will change your nutritional requirements even more. But the problem in America is that we want to find the one right answer to "how and what should I eat?" that will work for everyone. We recognize so many other differences in ourselves; why don't we recognize and honor the differences in our dietary requirements?

The one that is really amusing to me now is the gluten-free trend. Now, I'm not trying to make fun of those who have Celiac disease - this is a real autoimmune disease wherein an autoimmune response is triggered in the small intestine when gluten is ingested, and it causes bloating, fatigue, weight loss, and malnourishment. I know people who have been positively diagnosed with Celiac disease and to them, I say, "Follow your gluten-free diet." For their sake, I am glad that companies like Udi's exist. But current estimates say that only about 1% of the population in the United States actually has Celiac disease. Now, there are also those out there with a gluten sensitivity, for whom eating gluten can cause bloating or discomfort, but they do not have the autoimmune disease. If those people also choose to avoid gluten, more power to them. Even if that brings the total percentage of the United States population who have some sort of problem with gluten to 10%, that's 90% of the population that doesn't have a problem with gluten. So why are we telling everyone to avoid gluten like it is the plague?

I know, I know, it is because wheat is so processed now and natural wheat plants today are different than they were 1,000 years ago and so on and so forth. You know what? Humans are different today than we were 1,000 years ago. So there.

"Well what about GMOs?" you might ask. Recently (i.e. within the last year or so), one of the biggest crusaders against GMOs gave a talk saying he was wrong all along - that the science to prove the harmful nature of GMOs isn't really there. I'm sure there are those who would say he was coerced into changing his position or whatever, but it does make you wonder. Did he spend the last twenty years only reading studies that supported his theories, and then recently found other studies that opposed his theories? If you can prove anything you want by looking at the results of scientific study through various colored glasses, was his flip a matter of coercion, or changing his glasses?

The simple answer is, "I don't know." I am not a researcher, I am not Mark Lynas, I am not a person suffering from a gluten sensitivity. I am a person who has been living and thriving on a plant-based diet that has included a lot of soy and wheat for almost eleven years. I have just the right balance of good and bad cholesterol in my system. I sometimes get tired when I eat sugary things. I sometimes get gassy when I eat too many beans. But I think it is clear from my outward appearance - my curvy nature, my strong fingernails and hair, my glowing complexion - that I am well-nourished. So I apologize if I am not going to jump on the "say no to soy" bandwagon, the "everything gluten free" bandwagon, or the "drink a glass of wine every day" bandwagon. I am going to eat the foods that make me feel good. I am going to eat the foods that my body tells me it needs, because if I have learned one thing from being vegan, it is that my body knows better than I do what it needs to function properly and it will tell me when something is lacking. And I am also going to allow myself to not be perfect in this regard - I will eat cake every now and again knowing exactly how crappy I will feel afterward.

And my advice to you on your diet? Eat the foods you like. The ones that make your body sing out, "Thank you!" after you have consumed them. The ones that have the carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, vitamins and minerals that support your unique body chemistry. Because you are unique, and you embrace that uniqueness in every other aspect of your life. Embrace it in your dietary choices as well.

Or not. I'm not an expert, so you're free to tell me to go piss up a tree.

April 29 - Veggie Nutrition

When I first made the shift to being vegan, one of the strangest days was the one wherein I craved tofu instead of other sorts of protein. I knew then that my body had adjusted to vegetable protein instead of animal protein, and I started to think of food in a very real sense as fuel, started to think of what vitamins and minerals and whatnot I could get from different foods. I started listening to my body more to let it let me know what it needed. When I craved tofu, I needed protein, so that was what my body told me to eat. It was sort of an odd turning point in my eating career.

This is not to say I don't still eat for comfort or out of boredom sometimes. I do. But when I tend to crave a lot of one food for a while, I start to wonder what I'm missing out on that my body thinks it needs.

Which brings me to the fact that I ate two giant parsnips (roasted with cumin and cinnamon) with dinner. I've been eating a lot of parsnips lately. What could I possibly be lacking that I need to eat parsnips? Is it the fiber? The folic acid? The calcium or the potassium? They also contain some B vitamins, vitamin C, iron and zinc - am I missing those in my diet at the moment?

I suppose there are worse things I could be over-eating at the moment. It just seems odd to me that I can't get enough parsnips now since I think the first time I ever ate a parsnip was five-ish years ago. They're just so tasty and pepper-y. I've discovered roasting them in a foil packet works better than roasting them not in a foil packet. They're tasty with just salt and pepper, or you can add thyme and rosemary, or cumin and cinnamon, probably curry powder, too. And I suddenly want to try roasting them and drizzling a little bit of lime juice on them once they're cooked. Ah, the beloved parsnip. Good thing I'm craving them like nuts now that summer is almost here and they're in season and the weather is perfect for roasting vegetables...