Planet Friendly Treats

Back in November last year, I told you about how I had been experimenting with converting recipes into plant-based, planet friendly alternatives. Over the past few months I have started to share some of these recipes with you, but the area where I am finding this hardest is baking. I’ve been doing lots of research into healthier alternatives to oil-based products, eggs and sugar, but I’m not quite there yet with the final product. I’m glad that none of you could see some of my baking disasters so far. I have made some progress, though, and I wanted to share that with you. Below you will find my recipes for shortbread and chocolate brownies. Admittedly, they do both contain oil (in the soya spread) and sugar. However, the recipes are both vegan and if you want to treat yourself occasionally or you’re looking for a slightly healthier, but still sweet, snack for the kids, these are both great. Remember, though, if you are going to buy sugar then make sure it’s Fairtrade. We’re very lucky to have a sugar producer here in the UK called Silver Spoon who are very proud of their home-grown, Assured Food Standards sugar.

I tested the chocolate brownies on my colleagues at work, giving them both the original recipe (with eggs) and the vegan version, to see if they could taste the difference. The two are noticeably different, as xanthan gum is not as light as using fresh eggs, but I’m happy to say that my human guinea pigs said they both tasted great! Plus, both recipes are super easy to make.

Shortbread

Ingredients

125g/4oz soya spread

55g/2oz caster sugar

180g/6oz plain flour

1. Heat oven to 190º/375º/Gas 5.
2. Beat soya spread and sugar together until smooth.
3. Stir in flour to get a smooth paste. Turn onto a work surface and gently roll out until the paste is 1cm/½ in thick. Cut into rounds/fingers and place onto a baking tray.
(I can never be bothered with this bit. Instead, I roll some of the mixture into a ball in my hand and flatten into on the baking tray).

4. Sprinkle with icing sugar (still tastes OK without the icing sugar if, like me, you forget to buy it) and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
5. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until pale golden-brown.

　

Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients

125g soya spread

175g caster sugar

1 tsp xanthan gum

125g plain flour

55g cocoa powder (make sure it’s Fairtrade/local)

¼tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 170ºc/150ºc fan/325ºf/Gas 3. Use a little soya spread to grease a 15cm x 20cm deep baking tin and line the base with baking paper.
2. Melt the remaining butter and set aside to cool.
3. Put the sugar into a large bowl, and whisk in the melted butter.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Mix this together and then fold into the sugar/butter mixture. Add the xanthan gum and quickly mix in before transferring the brownie mixture to the prepared tin. The xanthan gum will start to set straight away, so you do have to be a bit speedy with this.
5. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer when inserted at the centre comes out with just a few crumbs on. Leave to cool in the tin for 20 minutes until before slicing.

Together For Trees

Tesco have a really good campaign running at the moment that helps to educate people about the importance of the rainforests and their influence on all our lives. As with my ‘one small step’ philosophy, Tesco want to encourage people to make small changes in their lives that together will have a huge impact on halting the destruction of the rainforests. If you’re looking for some inspiration to motivate yourself to start taking those small steps, I think it’s best to let the facts speak for themselves. Full information can be found at www.tesco.com/trees.

• Rainforests regulate the climate, store carbon, clean water and provide a home to animals and birds. They are often referred to as the ‘green lungs’ of the planet because much of the oxygen in our air comes from rainforests. The trees and soil also store a huge amount of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. When the trees are cut down those gases are released back into the atmosphere, heating it up and contributing to global warming. The destruction of the rainforests creates more carbon dioxide each year than the emissions from all our planes, ships and cars put together.

• An area the size of a football pitch is destroyed every four seconds. That’s almost eight million football pitches a year. 50 years ago, it is estimated that the rainforests covered 14% of the Earth. Now they cover just 6%.

• The rainforests support more than one billion of the poorest people on the planet.

• An estimated 140 animal and plant species are lost every day through the destruction of the rainforest.

• More than 70% of all land-based species exist only in the rainforest.

• There are a huge number of items that we use everyday that originate from the rainforests, including grapefruit, coffee, tomatoes, chocolate, plant ingredients for modern medicine, oils to make cosmetics and detergents, coconuts, avocados, figs, lemons, limes, bananas, squash, pepper, tumeric, cayenne, vanilla, cloves, cinnamon and ginger. There are still many more to be discovered.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Winter Warmer

It's freezing cold here in Wales (although I'm glad to say we have no snow in Cardiff yet). In an effort to win the battle against the freezing temperatures, I made a big batch of vegetable hotpot/stew this morning. A few weeks back I mentioned that I'd tried Chef Chad Sarno's Wild Mushroom Gravy recipe from the Planeat website with much success. I found a tub of it in my freezer, and it is a perfect base for my hotpot/stew. I simply defrosted the gravy with some vegetable stock to bulk it up a bit, and then added steamed vegetables. Whatever vegetables are seasonal to your area will do, personally I used the celeriac, potatoes, carrots and onions (fried in vinegar) that I bought at the market yesterday. This recipe will be of no use to anyone living in a warm climate, but for those of us currently experiencing winter it's a great way to warm up. And it means I've got my lunch sorted for the next few days. I've even got a little pot of pickled red cabbage to take into work with me and serve with my hotpot/stew.

Our last chance to save the world

The Metro published an article on Thursday about the UN climate change summit. Government ministers and the heads of influential environmental charities from more than 190 countries are represented. Rather fittingly, on the first night of the summit the lives of six Durban residents were taken by torrential rain, unseasonal weather for that area. Our thoughts of course go to the families of the six victims, and UN climate chief Christiana Figueres used the incident to demonstrate how weather is likely to get more extreme as the planet heats up.
This is our last chance to save the planet from global warming. Perhaps one of the reasons we don't act is because the biggest impact is on the world's poorest people, despite them being the least responsible. Here in the west we are causing the problem, but so far the changes have been so gradual that we can ignore them. I'm reminded of Al Gore's comments in his book 'An Inconvenient Truth. He said 'If we experience a significant change in our circumstances gradually and slowly, we are capable of sitting still and failing to recognise the seriousness of what is happening to us until it's too late. Global warming may seem gradual in the context of a single lifetime, but in the context of the Earth's history, it is actually happening with lightning speed.'
When I was at high school we watched a film called 'Two Seconds to Midnight'. The basic theory of the film is that if you think of the entire history of Earth as a 24 hour clock, so the Big Bang is at midnight on the first night and present day at midnight on the second night, then humans only arrived on the planet at two seconds to midnight. However, we have had more impact than any other inhabitants. I saw the film in the mid-90s, and it was old then. Although our attitude to environmental concerns have changed in the past 15 years, I think 'Two Seconds to Midnight' would still be relevant today. My old high school probably are still showing it on VCR.

Scavenging for food at Heathrow Airport

The travelbug is in Austria this week, so I apologise for any spelling errors. I'm having to use a German keyboard, and the spell check is trying to correct me in German so everything is coming up in red!
Admittedly, Heathrow Airport is not on my top 50 list of favourite places on planet Earth. It is, however, a useful place to pass through if you need to get to an awkward destnation quickly. Which is how I found myself there on Saturday morning. The awkward destination being Innsbruck, where I was headed to visit family.
I thought this would be a good opportunity to see how difficult, or easy, it is to stick to a plant-based diet whilst in transit. I appreciate there are thousands of vegans out there who do this on a regular basis, and are probably telling me to shut up right now. But for me it was an interesting experience. It actually reminded me of when I first turned vegetarian, before the days of labelling foods for dietry requirements and before most people really understood what vegetarianism was. I remember many a trip where my staple diet would be fries, salad and bread, and I would constantly have to tell people that no, I don't eat fish, and I can't just pick the chicken out or eat around the beef.
So there I was in Heathrow airport, having to read every single ingredient again. I must point out here that, unfortunately, I was flying from Terminal 1. The larger terminals at Heathrow do have some excellent fresh food outlets, and I can't wait for them to make it onto the UK high street. I settled on a carrot, houmous and salad leaves on wholemeal sandwich from Boots, a fresh pear and filling my water bottle up from the water fountain. The sandwich is made by a company called fresh! (I believe the exclamation mark is an essential part of the name). The blurb on the box (which is recyclable by the way) promises 'no gunk and no junk', and I have to say it was a really tasty sandwich. The only downfall is that the houmous did contain tahini. On that note, does anyone know the correct spelling for houmous? I've come across a few different variations so far.
Extra brownie points go to Caffe Nero, where the lovely barista was more than happy to make me a latte with Alpro Soya, which I might add was one of the tastiest lattes I've ever had.
For the benefit of anyone else who is travelling through Frankfurt airport in the near future, they have a lovely fresh food outlet. The vegetarian options are still quite dairy-based, but there's a lot of fresh fruit and juices.

Eliminate Oil!

My biggest learning this week has been to remind myself of what I said in my very first posting on this blog. Rather than rushing in and trying everything at once, the key to making big changes in life is to take them one step at a time. Although I had some successes with my cookery experiments on the weekend, I also had some total disasters. Being a keen baker, I'm really interested in developing recipes for healthier, animal-free cakes and biscuits. As interested as I am, though, even I couldn't muster enough enthusiasm to eat my first attempts. So, with my 'one step at a time' mantra in mind, I've gone right back to my original recipes and started to make small changes. My first step has been to replace dairy-based butter and fat with a dairy-free option. So far it's been working well, even with recipes that call for a hard vegetable fat.
There's another small change that I've surprisingly found a lot easier than I thought I would. Ann Esselstyn's third rule on her 8 Principles is Eliminate Oil! She urges everyone to empty all oil, even virgin olive oil, out of your cupboards. Instead any liquid works. Vegetable broth (no sodium), water, wine, beer, orange juice, carrot juice, vinegar are all viable alternatives. When I first read this I was dubious, but I have since tried using orange juice, vinegar and white wine vinegar and found that they do actually work. Most vegetables also produce enough liquid that they don't need much else to cook them anyway. Chef Sarno's basting liquid for the seitan brisket on planeat.tv is also a tasty way to cook other dishes, and I roasted some delicious vegetables in my own version by mixing vegetable stock, soy sauce and a drop of marsala wine. Coincidentally, whilst conducting my own experiements with alternatives to oil, I saw an episode of Secret Millionaire where the same thing was being done but for entirely different reasons. The secret millionaire in this particular episode was trying to fry a hamburger, and asked his neighbours if he could borrow some oil. They told him he didn't need oil, and he could fry his burger using water. Theirs was a discovery borne out of necessity, as in such a poor neighbourhood oil was a luxury they could not afford. I found it interesting that in these economically challenging times, the cheapest option quite often also turns out to be the most environmentally friendly.

Hummus is my new favourite snack

Without wanting to sound like a stereotypical vegetarian, I'm going to talk about the merits of hummus. Over the years I've tried various types and brands of pre-packed hummus and, whilst it is perfectly edible, I've never been a huge fan. Inspired by Ann Esselstyn's 8 Principles on www.planeat.tv, I decided to give in another shot. Number 8 on Ann's List is Eat Beans and Lentils instead of meat and dairy. You should, however, avoid hummus that contains tahini, and Ann has a great, simple recipe for making your own hummus. Blend together chick peas, lemon and garlic and add cumin, vinegar, red peppers, parsley or cilantro (coriander to us Brits) to taste. On a personal note, I'm alergic to garlic (I know, it's a nightmare) so instead I use chilli which tastes great. My top tips are to boil the chick peas for 5 minutes first for a smoother texture, and grate a bit of the lemon zest into the blender for an extra tangy taste. Whilst we're on the subject of blenders, it's an important piece of kit for any whole food home cook. I got mine for Christmas last year and it's probably been used more than anything else in my kitchen. When I'm trying new recipes, I always find that I have lots of vegetables left over that I'm not going to use up before they go off. Just fry some chopped onion and chilli in a large pan, chop the leftover veg and add to the pan with some vegetable stock (2:3 ratio is about right). Leave it to boil until all the veg is soft, and then once it's cooled down blend it to make a tasty soup. I then freeze the soup into batches so that I can reheat it at a later date when I don't have time to cook.
Anyway, I've finished my hummus and oat cakes that I've been eating whilst typing this, so I'm off to the fridge to get some more.

The first step is always the hardest, and sometimes tastes a bit funny

Aaaarrrrggggh! It's Ok saying that you're going to make a conscious effort to eat a plant-based diet and be more environmentally friendly, but where do you start? My biggest dairy crime is probably skimmed milk, so I decided to start there.
In the past I have made quite a few attempts to switch from cows milk to soya milk. As I was born with eczema, I've always been aware that dairy isn't good for me as it makes my skin break out and blocks my throat up. But, as a vegetarian, I've always been told that I should have more dairy. My most successful attempt was for a few months whilst I was living in Austria, where due to my vegetarianism I was fed so much cheese that I almost couldn't breathe.
Admittedly, though, the taste of soya milk does take a bit of getting used to if you usually drink cows milk. You can buy sweetened soya milk if you prefer, and you can also choose to buy organic. And if anyone can tell my why the soya milk sometimes looks like it's gone off when I put it in coffee, I'll be eternally grateful.

Dyfal Donc i dyr y Garreg

Apologies to anyone who can't read Welsh, and rest assured that 'Dyfal donc i dyr y garreg' isn't offensive. At least, my Welsh tutor told me it isn't. The phrase translates into English as 'It's a steady tapping that breaks the stone', and I thought it an apt mantra to adopt whilst tackling my latest challenge. Having been a vegetarian for the past seventeen(ish) years, I know a few facts about the impact our diet has on the environment. However, I'm always keen to broaden my knowledge, and with that in mind, last week I watched the Planeat film (www.planeat.tv). According to the scientists in Planeat the less animal-based foods and the more plant-based foods you eat the better, both on a health and environmental level. Their mission is to create awareness of the benefits of a plant-based diet, encourage consumers to reduce their meat and dairy consumption and be inspired by plant-based cuisine.
Already being a vegetarian, I fully admit that at the start of the film I was quitely confident that my diet was already pretty environmentally friendly. I was soon brought down a peg or two though, when Gidon Eshel, prof. of Physics and Geosciences at Bard College, explained that vegetarian diets aren't actually that much better than an average omnivore diet, and in fact a poultry-based diet can have less impact on the environment. This is due to us veggies tending to over-compensate by eating more dairy products and eggs. Which brings me neatly to another important message that I learnt from Planeat. In the Western world we are brought up to believe that we should eat lots of animal-based protein.The research of T Colin Campbell shows that too much protein from an animal-based diet is damaging to our health (As you may have guessed already, I'm no scientist, so please watch the film or visit the website for a more coherent explanation of this theory).
So, where am I going with this? I'm not saying that I'm going to turn vegan overnight, but what I am interested in, though, is to see if it's possible to make small changes towards the Planeat philosophy. I will use the free-range carrots blog to chart my ups and down, and also to share any tips and plant-based recipes that I come across. And I'll take it one small step at a time, because as we say in Wales 'Dyfal donc i dyr y garreg'.