The travelling plant eater

I'm planning a trip to Austria and Germany in March. The main reason for my holiday is that I haven't skied in two years, but I'll also be visiting family in Austria on my way back. As well as trying to organise flights, accommodation, train fares and airport parking (aaarrrgh!) my mind has also been on how I'm going to cope with my plant-based diet whilst I'm away. As a realist, I don't expect myself to avoid animal protein for the whole week. I would, however, like to eat plant-based as much as possible. As always, I think my best tactic will be to plan ahead. I'll keep you up to date on how I get on, and my adventures will also be posted on my travel blog thetravelbug.blog.uk.

A vegan cure for hungover hunger

This morning I tried out the Breakfast Homefries recipe from www.vegankickstart.org, and I discovered that it's a great hangover aid. However, it does take a bit of effort to make, so if you are genuinely hungover I'd recommend persuading someone else to make it for you while you stay in bed :)

Chewy Carrots

Due to work commitments, I was unable to make it to the real food market last week. As a result, by mid-week my kitchen was empty of food. So I went to the supermarket. As I needed some snacks to take to work with me, I thought I'd buy some carrots to nibble on. Unfortunately, I was unable to get organic, but they did have British carrots, so I bought a bag. I now understand the difference between supermarket and fresh produce. It's no wonder people say they don't like vegetables if that's all they think there is on offer. I'd never realised before that carrots can actually be chewy! Needless to say, I'm off to the real food market this morning to buy some carrots that taste like carrots. And all I have to say about the supermarket-bought carrots is - Urgh!

Forks Over Knives

Great news! Dr T. Colin Campbell and Dr Caldwell Esselstyn from Planeat have been working on a new project. Forks over Knives is a mission to teach the world about how to eat a plant-based diet and the health benefits associated with it.

Although the website, www.forksoverknives.com, is still in development, there will be a new film coming soon, and you can sign up to receive information by email.

Want to be a revolutionary?

One of my missions when I started this blog was to share my new-found confidence with as many fellow humans as I could find. Encouraging other people to try new experiences and venture out of their comfort zone really motives me.

It’s not easy to make changes in your life, especially if you’ve got into a long-term routine of doing the same things again and again. Don’t despair. Changes can be made. If you want to make a step towards a different way of life, but you’re not sure where to start or you’re finding it hard to find the motivation, Channel 4 have a great new website to give you a helping hand. www.channel4.com/revolution is a fun and inspiring one-stop shop where you can discover the new you. I first heard about the revolution whilst watching The Fat Fighters, a very entertaining show that’s based in a gym and aims to help people from all walks of life get fit. I’m addicted to all shows that encourage people to get healthy and change their lives, and the unique selling point (USP) of The Fat Fighters is the unusual methods the four trainers use with their clients. From cheerleading to bouncing on trampolines, their clients seem to genuinely train with a smile on their face.

As well as encouragement from The Fat FIghters team, you can also get tips about saving money and trying new things. If you sign up for one of the revolutions, they will even email you tips and ideas to keep you motivated.

Alternatively, why not ask a friend to write a list of new challenges for you? Or, think back to all the things you wanted to do as a child. What stopped you from doing them? Stop making excuses and give things a go. Today!

Plate to Planet

   If you're still not convinved that our dietary choices have such an effect on the environment, or you think it's all a conspiracy (although I can't think of anything they would be conspiring for), then the www.platetoplanet.org website should provide you with proof that factory farming is a very real problem. Here are just a few of the scary facts that platetoplanet highlight about the effect of factory farming in the US:

   * Agriculture generates 18% of greenhouse gas emissions.
 
   * Animals raised for food in the US produce so much manure that alot of it is stored in lagoons. When the lagoons leak, the maure enters into the environment and threatens water quality across the US.

   * Scientists at the Smithsonian Institute say that the equivalent of seven football fields is bulldozed every minute for animal agriculture.

   * It takes an average 16 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of beef and takes 11 times as much fossil fuel to make 1 calorie from animal protein as 1 calorie from plant protein.

   * It takes an estimated 4,000 gallons of water to produce one day of animal-based food for the average American. In comparison, one day of plant-based food only requires about 300 gallons.

   How mad is it that most factory plant farming is fertilised using chemicals, when the factory animal farms are producing tonnes of maure that goes to waste? Before any of my fellow Britons say 'That's America, not the UK', remember that the effects of factory farming are felt all over the world, the focus is just more on the US because they have more space in which to farm. Next time you're about to bite into your McDonalds burger, think about where the meat came from.
   You can also pledge to go meat free for a week, a month or forever on the platetoplanet website. So even if you only sign up for a week, please, please make a pledge today. You never know, not eating meat for a week might open up a whole new world of experiences for you.

Organic vs Vegetarian

   One of the frustrating things about being vegetarian are the odd, and to be honest sometimes downright rude, reactions you get when you utter the words ‘I’m a vegetarian’. When a lot of people hear those three simple words they seem to think it’s OK to immediately tell you what their assumptions about vegetarians are. The most common replies revolve around the feelings of animals, and my most common comeback is ‘I’m a vegetarian, not a tree-hugging hippy’. In all honesty, when I first became vegetarian I wasn’t really sure why. I just knew that it was meant to be. As I’ve grown up, I’ve learnt to understand more about my beliefs around eating and wearing animal-based products, and our impact on the planet. I suppose I consider myself to be a ‘realist vegetarian’. I’ve not really got an issue with people eating meat, as long as they know where their food comes from and it’s produced ethically. What annoys me is that, in the Western world today, most people will only eat meat if it comes pre-packaged from the supermarket. And they couldn’t care less where it comes from. They argue that it’s natural for humans to eat meat, but as soon as you suggest they go out and kill their own prey they look at you like you’ve just told them to run six marathons back-to-back. If it came down to me or the animal, I wouldn’t hesitate in slaughtering the animal. Having spent a lot of my childhood in the countryside, I grew up eating rabbit that the local farmer caught, pheasant that my uncle was paid in (he’s a pheasant beater) and fish that my dad and I caught ourselves. I even used to gut my own fish. Besides, most of the types of meat available in supermarkets were never originally eaten my humans. Cows, for example, started off as skinny bags of bones before they were fattened up during the agricultural revolution. The omnivores I respect are the ones that are aware of the origins of the meat they eat, whether they’ve caught it themselves or not, and obtain it in a way that has as little impact on the environment as possible.

   I’m not the best person to explain this belief, but I’ve found someone who is. ‘Scenes From a Smallholding’ is a book written by Chas Griffin about the experiences his family had when they decided to leave suburbia and take over a farm in West Wales. Rather than try to change his words, and get it completely wrong, I’ve decided to just copy the insert from his book into my blog. In the unlikely event that Chas Griffin reads this blog, I hope he doesn’t mind me using his material, and I apologise if he does.

‘Organic vs Vegetarian?’ by Chas Griffin, Summer 1992     ‘We were vegetarian for quite some time before we moved to the smallholding, but living and working here has driven us to the unexpected and apparently harsh conclusion that as far as we can see, you can either be organic, or vegetarian, but not both.
   The logic behind this seemingly brutal claim runs like this: like all living things, plants need feeding; chemical farmers who produce the tasteless rubbish you buy at the supermarket, use chemicals; chemicals weaken the plants, kill off the micro soil life, and destroy the soil structure, so it eventually erodes away, just as it is now doing in East Anglia (Britain’s own up-and-coming dustbowl) and across the world, at the alarming rate of millions of tons a month. And once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. Now there’s a thought. Never mind global warming, soil loss is humanity’s greatest problem. And the less soil there is, the more they are going to blast it with chemicals, aren’t they? Unless you and I can persuade them to stabilise their soil by going organic.
   So chemical farming is a long-term disaster. What is the alternative?
   Organic farmers use compost, which feeds the soil that feeds the crops; so the soil is built up, not destroyed.
   But here’s the rub: it is virtually impossible to produce enough vegetable-only compost for the needs of a farm or market garden, and anyway, compost needs a nitrogen input to get it going. The nitrogen naturally comes from animal urine and dung.
   There may be a way around needing this animal input, but there is no convincing evidence that I know of that is really practically possible for an organic farmer to avoid the need for animal excreta. And anyway, it is clear that animals and plants were made for each other. The animal is designed to eat the plants, and then to fertilise the land it grazes on.
   As a by-product of the essential nitrogenous waste, a cow also produces valuable milk, and, with a bit of extra work, butter and cheese. But… and here’s the point… she will only produce milk after producing a calf.
   Unfortunately, 50 per cent of calves are male. As one bull will serve about 40 females, what is going to happen to the other 39 bull calves? They can’t be left to eat a whole herd’s worth of grass, or the price of milk would double every year (work it out for yourself). What is more, 39 testosterone-stuffed bulls in one field would soon make the Battle of Kursk look like Salad Days.
   On top of all this, the Artificial Insemination service has reduced the need for bulls even more. One super-stud can now serve hundreds or thousands of heifers, and without all that unseemly bellowing and drooling.
   So… if you want organic vegetables, and I for one think you ought to on ecological grounds alone, you must accept animals going for early slaughter, unless you can find a logical flaw in my argument.’
  
   See, I told you that Chas Griffin could explain it much better than me. Personally, I still prefer to be a vegetarian who eats a plant-based diet for health reasons. Besides, I have no desire to eat meat. I do agree with what Chas is saying, though. I think we need to take a step back and look at how we farmed before the agricultural revolution. Before the days of mass farming, everyone ate from local, small, organic smallholdings. If all omnivores thought like Chas Griffin, I for one think the world would be a better place.

Read the Label!

   In a previous job I was trained to constantly review and reassess everything I do, and it's a habit that I'm very glad to say has stayed with me. So today I had a look back at the top tips for eating a plant-based diet that I first picked up from the Planeat website. After all, I wouldn't want to revert back to any bad habits and take a small step forward and then a massive leap back.
   No 8 on Ann Esselstyn's Principles is to Read Labels. As a vegetarian this is something that I've been doing for years anyway. Even after the V logo was applied to most vegetarian foods in the UK, I still checked the ingredients out of habit. And it's the ingredients that are the important thing to read. Having worked in food retail myself, I know that food packaging can be very deceptive. This is particularly true here in the UK, where laws and rules are a little more relaxed than in other countries such as the USA and Canada. It's easy to think that if something is labelled as 'low fat' or 'diet' then it's better for you. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Personally, I try to only eat things that come in a packet if they're wholefoods and as close to their original state as possible.
  If like me, though, you're trying to start change by taking small streps, then the important thing to remember is always read the ingredients. As a general rule, if you can't pronounce it or you don't know what it is, it's probably best to put it back on the shelf.

fork2fork

   I just checked out www.fork2fork.org.uk, a great website for anyone who lives in Wales and wants to eat fresh, direct and local food. Frustratingly, the website sends you round in circles a bit and some of the links don't work, but it's a good reference point for anyone who doesn't know where to start in buying local. You can pledge to buy local, find out where your nearest farmers markets and farm shops are, and read about Welsh producers. They will even send you a seasonality calendar so you know what best to buy when. Buying local isn't just about food, either. This year I bought Christmas presents from my local farmers market and Christmas market, including Welsh ale for my dad (he gave it a definite thumbs up), Welsh wine, chutney and preserves.

Pears in soup? That's as crazy as garlic and bread!

   Today I'm going to share with you a cooking tip that my mum shared with me recently.
My favourite soup is sweet potato and butternut squash (either of these can be substituted for pumpkin depending on what is seasonal to your area), and it is super easy to make. Chop an onion and a chilli and fry them in a large pan. Add the sweet potato and squash, chopped, and enough vegetable stock to cover the vegtables. Give it a stir, and leave to simmer until the veggies are soft. Leave to cool, and then blend in batches.
   Thanks to my mum, I now add an extra ingredient to my soup. Pears! That's right, adding some chopped pairs to the mix gives the soup a sweeter taste. British conference pears are really tasty at the moment, too, so it's the perfect winter warmer.

What to do in a hummus emergency

   I had a bit of a hummus incident a few weeks ago. I put a can of chickpeas into the blender, then my intention was to add a little water to make it smoother and to prevent my blender from catching fire. Unfortunately, I accidently added too much water, so I then had to add another can of chickpeas to thicken it up again. I was left with way more hummus than I could ever eat in a week.
   As you know, I'm always keen to try a new kitchen experiment. So I thought I'd put some of the hummus into the freezer and see if it survived. Well, the results are in, and I'm pleased to say I've been eating defrosted hummus since Saturday and I haven't been sick yet.

Buy Local

I've been trying hard recently to only buy fresh produce that is grown as locally as possible. As I've previously said , this is relatively easy for me because I live in a city where we have weekly real food markets and a local farm shop. I did have a slight panic on Saturday, though, when I discovered the market was closed for New Years Eve. Aaaaarrrgghh! Where was I going to shop? I headed into the local Tesco, and in all honesty I wasn't expecting to find much Britsh produce. I have to say, though, I was pleasantly surprised. As well as some Braeburn apples to snack on, I picked up some parsnips, carrots, potatoes, onions, leeks and mushrooms. All grown in the UK, and perfect to make a huge stew (I think I bought a bit too much veg - it only just fitted into my stew pot) for my lunches this week.

The Latest Accessories for 2012 - A flask and a water bottle:)

The purpose of this blog is to see if making small changes to our lifestyle as individuals can have a bigger impact to us as a species. Although I have generally been good at sticking to the changes I have made, I will admit that over Christmas I ended up consuming more dairy products than I would have liked. With the combination of visiting restaurants for Christmas meals, where vegetarian meals are pretty much guaranteed to contain cheese because they think we'll keel over without it, and staying with family who are not yet fully aware of what a plant-based diet is, it became too much of an effort to avoid it. In a way I'm glad I did, though, because it made me notice how ill dairy products make me feel. Admittedly, due to my eczema I am more prone than most people to having a reaction to dairy, but I'll deifinitely avoid it as much as possible in the future.
If you feel you can only make one change to your lifestyle at the moment (and don't worry, it all counts) than my tip would be this - buy a water bottle and a thermos flask. I carry both almost everywhere with me, including to work. Compared to my colleagues, who waste countless disposable cups and bottles everyday by buying drinks from vending machines and the coffee shop, I wash and refill my water bottle and flask everyday. I also carry some herbal teabags with me, so I can refill my flask during the day. As well as the environmental advantages, there are two other huge benefits to using your own water bottle and flask. The first is that it's healthier. The best thing you can drink is water (although, depending on where you live in the world, your tap water may not be good). Any soft drink that comes in a bottle, regardless of whether it says 'diet', 'sugar free' or anything else on the bottle, will never as good for you as water is. I promise you, if you cut out soft drinks from your diet, you will notice weight loss within a couple of weeks. Plus, if you cut down on caffeine and start drinking herbal tea instead, you'll sleep a lot sounder at night and feel much better when you're awake.
The other benefit is that you save a lot of money. When I see how much my colleagues spend throughout the day on bottles of cola and take-out coffees, I can't believe that I used to do the same. If you work out how much you spend on these items over the course of a month, I'm sure you'll find something else much more worthwhile to spend the money on.