Woo hoo! New food!

I'm so happy this week. Salad crops are starting to come into season in the UK. I've been eating salad all week - fresh tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, and I bought some amazing lettuce and spinach at Roath Real Food Market yesterday. It's so nice to have a change in diet. Don't get me wrong, I love winter vegetables, but it does get a bit tiresome by April.

I read in yesterday's Metro that the British Prime Minister David Cameron has agreed to more wind turbines being built. For me personally, this can only be good news. There are still lots of NIMBY's against this, icluding 100 MPs. Although I can sympathise with the noise levels which must be loud if you live in an otherwise quiet part of the countryside, I really don't think there is any valid argument against wind turbines. There is one near my house in Cardiff, and I think it is fantastic that we have this beautiful piece of modern engineering to provide us with clean energy. A few weeks ago, I was on a plane that flew over the wind turbines in the English Channel. It was such an incredible, awe-inspiring sight. People say that the turbines are ugly, but I disagree. If you look at the history of traditional windmills, they too were considered big, ugly, dirty machines in their time, yet we now preserve them as a piece of our heritage. I can't help but wonder if in 100 years time out descendants will be desperately trying to preserve the wind turbines that David Cameron's generation built, whilst thinking us crazy for not appreciating their beauty and benefit.

Is it natural for us to eat meat?

A thought has just occured to me. A lot of meat eaters argue that it is natural for humans to eat meat. That we would have the instinct to go out and hunt our food (or select it from Tesco) regardless of what other food is availabe. I don't know about you, but if I was living in the prehistoric world where I had to fend for myself, I would find it a lot easier to dig up a plant than to hunt and kill an animal. Maybe our predecessors only went to the trouble of chasing down other mammals because their plant supplies had dwindled.

Making a Meal Out of Sides

   Today I found myself eating in a chain restaurant with friends where the food is generally reheated rather than served fresh. My first glance at the menu led me to believe there was quite a selection for vegetarians. On closer inspection, however, it turned out that three of the vegetarian meals were the same cauliflower cheese dish that had been included under different course options. The only main I could find that included no animal protein was a jacket potato with baked beans. Tinned beans aren't ideal, I know, but sometimes you have to cheat a bit. With all the will in the world, a jacket potato with beans is never going to be an exciting meal. So, I decided to add a side of flat mushrooms to make it a bit more interesting.
   Making a meal out of starters and sides is a skill that I picked up whilst living in Greece. Whereas Greek main meals generally revolve around meat, the starters (or mese dishes) are usually vegetarian, and a lot are plant-based.
   If you are finding it hard to make a plant-based choice when eating out, why not order a combination of starters and sides instead? It gives you much more variety and your dining companions will no doubt be jealous of your personal buffet!

No-Cheese Pizza

One of the hardest things I’ve found about following a plant-based diet is eating out in restaurants. By the time you’re searched through the menu to find something you can eat, it feels like everyone is looking at you and you still aren’t any closer to getting some food. A neat trick that I have picked up is to order a vegetable pizza with no cheese. Pizza is fairly common in restaurants, most of them are cooked fresh, and it’s not such a big deal for the kitchen to prepare them with no cheese. Plus, they’re really tasty.

Take a Step Together Reminder

   A few weeks ago, I talked about my initiative to 'Take a Step Together'. In a nutshell, the idea is to get together with some like-minded friends or work colleagues and encourage and support each other to lead a healthier, more environmentally aware lifestyle. This has worked really well for me and my work colleagues, but a regression by one of our team has got me thinking that maybe I should post a reminder.
   The colleague in question will remain anonymous, but over the last few weeks the rest of us have noticed that he has taken a couple of steps back in his diet, and he has started making excuses not to got to the gym. The rest of us have banded together to remind him of why we made out pact in the first place, and what he wanted to achieve, and we hope to get him back on track as soon as possible.
   So, why not check in with your 'Take a Step Together' buddies and see how they're getting on. They might just need a little nudge to get them back on track too.

Why freerangecarrots?

I thought I should take a moment to explain where the name Free-range Carrots comes from. I first turned vegetarian when I was nine years old. Unfortunately, it being the late 1980s and a time when everyone listened to their GP unquestioningly, my doctor told my parents they should force me to eat me and they did. For another four years. Then, when I was thirteen, I told my mum that I really couldn’t eat meat anymore. I’d always felt that I was born a vegetarian, and I needed to find my way into the lifestyle where I belonged. My mum’s initial reaction was that I was just being a fussy eater. I’m glad to say her viewpoint has now radically changed and my vegetarianism has in fact encouraged her to eat a healthier diet. Due to health problems when I was born, I’d struggled with food phobias all my life, and even then I could understand her apprehension at my converting to vegetarianism. So me made a compromise. I would take the conversion one step at a time, and together we would educate ourselves about healthy vegetarianism and make sure I was doing everything properly. Red meat was the first to go, and then I gradually gave up white meat, fish, animal fats, gelatine, leather and so on until I was a complete vegetarian.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the reactions you get from people when you tell them you’re vegetarian. I never set out to convert the world, and my belief at that time was that everyone has the right to eat whatever they want. I only told people I was a vegetarian when I had to, i.e. when someone insisted I eat a cocktail sausage at a party or I was in a restaurant when the menu wasn’t labelled for dietary needs. Most people seemed to want to catch me out, to find something I did that proved I wasn’t a real vegetarian. They demanded to know what my shoes were made of (in case it was leather) and quizzed me on what sweets I ate (assuming I wouldn’t know that most jelly sweets contain animal gelatine). Bizarrely, a common response I received was ‘plants have feelings too’. Although this may one day be proved true, my survival comes first for me, and I have to eat something. Ever the sarcastic teenager, and wanting to confuse people before they could drag me into an argument, my stock answer to this comment became ‘Yes, but I only eat free-range carrots’. Hence the name freerangecarrotsJ

Obesity can't be ignored

On Friday 24^th February 2012, The Metro newspaper published an article about the rising numbers if hospital admissions due to obesity. The statistics they quote are scary:

‘The number of weight-loss stomach operations has risen 12 per cent in one year as fatter people try to reverse the rising tide of obesity.
There were 8,087 operations in England’s hospitals in 2010/11, up from 7,214 the previous year, according to NHS data.’
The Metro 24/02/2012

Even if you don’t believe in climate change, and you think that the way we eat does not have an impact on the planet we live on, you cannot deny that obesity is a problem in the western world. Every week in the UK there are numerous documentaries on television about people who are literally eating themselves to death. Although it’s commendable that these documentaries are getting the message out to the wider world, it’s sadly ironic that they do it via one of the sources of obesity, the television. We live in a world where technology is so advanced that we don’t even have to leave the sofa.

One in four people in the UK are now classed as obese. What is even scarier is that in the child population, the figure is three in ten. We are teaching our children how to live unhealthy lives and become overweight. Only 25% of the population eat the recommended 5-a-day of fruit and vegetables, which by the way is supposed to be a recommended minimum. What shocked me the most in the data was that 20% of people said they walk less than 20 minutes a year. I can’t even comprehend how that can be possible.

I’m reminded of when I worked with children about ten years ago. Serving dinner to a group of young boys one night, I asked them if they wanted carrots and one of the boys asked me what a carrot was. I was stunned that a child could not recognise what is a very common vegetable in the UK. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. The boy tried the carrots and liked them so much that the next night he asked for just a plate of carrots. Unfortunately, though, there are a lot of children out there who do not get the right advice.

So, what’s the answer? A good start is to watch those documentaries on TV, as long as you make sure you get up off the sofa and take their advice afterwards.

Vegan Bodybuilders

One of my biggest pet hates is people who stereotype and make assumptions, but I must admit that as much as I try I am sometimes guilty of it myself. Whilst browsing through the www.meatlessmonday.com website I was pleasantly surprised to find an article which provides advice for vegan bodybuilders. Apparently there are over 5,000 bodybuilders who use fruit, vegetables, beans and wholegrains to aid their training. What I find even more interesting is that they manage to consume the same amount of protein (what you need to make your muscles look really big) as their omnivore competitors, but consume less fat and toxins.

Personally, I don’t think I could physically eat the 4,000 calories a day needed by bodybuilders, wherever it came from, but it’s interesting to know that a plant-based diet is an option for different groups of people.

The Plant-Based Traveller

   Before I go any further, apologies for being absent for so long. Unfortunately, it wasn't so easy to find internet access on my trip to Germany, and since I've been back I've fallen victim to the dreaded flu that has been making its way round Cardiff. I must point out, though, that this is the first time I've been ill since converting to a plant-based diet, and there's not many people in the UK who can say they've gone almost a whole winter illness-free.
   During my absence I have been doing lots of reading and learning, and I have so much I want to share with you. First, though, a bit about my adventures in Germany. If you want to read more about my adventures, there will be a full blog on http://thetravelbug.blog.co.uk/ soon.
   OK, I'm not going to pretend that on my 4 day skiing trip to Garmisch I stuck to a completely plant-based, organic, wholefood diet. I did, however, as always, do my best to be conscious of what I was eating and made small changes wherever I could. It surprised me how little effort it took. The excellent continental buffet that my hostel provided made it very easy for me to choose a suitable breakfast. I was happy to drink black coffee, although I know from my experience working in the Alps that hotels and guesthouses will provide soya milk if you request it. Along with my coffee, I had a fresh semmel with jam, no butter. For those who haven't visited the Alps, a semmel is a small, round bread roll and is present at pretty much every meal. Believe me, when you work there you soon get sick of eating semmels everyday, but I'd had long enough away for them to be tasty again.
   Lunchtime up the mountain is generally spent in a self-service restaurant, most of which offer spaghetti and tomato sauce as an option. Remember to ask for no parmesan, though, Austrians and Germans seem to like putting cheese on top of everything. One thing that self-service restaurants in the Alps do very well are salad bars. So there's no excuse not to fill up on the fresh, tasty food available. You can also have yet another semmel to go with it if you choose.
   Most restaurants have at least one vegan option on the menu, you just have to ask. The range of dishes available might not leave you spoilt for choice, and in ski resorts will most probably revolve around pasta, but at least the options are there.

   I know I repeat this all the time, but I've learnt that the best way with a plant-based diet is to be prepared. Health food shops are really popular in Austria and Germany, so stock up on things to snack on. Most supermarkets now stock a 'bio' range, and they will highlight what is organic and what has been grown in the local region. In German speaking countries, look out for the 'bio' sign and 'aus unsere region' (from our region).