The Big Secret Behind the 10 Healthiest and Cheapest Foods

According to WebMD's "10 Healthy Foods Under $1," the following choices are your best bets:

1. Apples

2. Bananas

3. Bagged Baby Carrots

4. Canned Beans

5. Canned Tomatoes

6. Oranges

7. Pears

8. Dried Lentils

9. Pearl Barley (dry)

10. Yogurt

The article states, "many foods that are good for you are also cheap." What they neglect to mention is that, with the exception of number 10, which could either be cow's milk or soy milk-based or both, all of these foods just happen to be vegan.

All of the most nutrient-dense, healthful, and cheap foods are plant-based, whole foods. None contain animal products. The list represents foods full of fiber, vitamins, minerals, complex carbohydrates, and yes, calcium and protein.

Contrary to the popular myth, vegan foods are not more expensive and they aren't lacking in protein. Your wallet can never go wrong when you choose whole, plant-based foods.

For more information on the health and financial benefits of a whole foods, vegan diet:

Mutual Menu post, "Everyone Is A Little Vegan"

Vegetarian Food for Thought podcast episodes on:

Beans

The High Costs of Cheap Meat

Eat Your Vegetables

Skipping the Middle Man

Where Do I Get My Calcium If I Don't Drink Cow's Milk?

The Protein Myth and Vegetarianism

The Urban Vegan's "25 Money-Saving Kitchen Tips for Frugal Vegans"

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's resource on the New Four Food Groups: whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes.

Marion Nestle answers the question: Are veganism and vegetarianism healthier?

In a word: "Absolutely."

In more words: "They are probably healthier."

In her complete words.

As I said to my mother this weekend, no diet is perfect. Because humans are not perfect. And the world is imperfect. But certain diets are certainly more optimal than others. Very few sane people will reason that fruits and vegetables are bad for you. Eating them in abundance and in conjunction with whole grains, nuts, seeds, and some fun stuff every once in a while is, of course, healthful.

You can't go wrong eating lots of fresh, whole foods and minimizing the amount of food that comes in wrapping you have to open before you can eat it...you know, unless it's a banana or something.

Usually when people question the health of a plant-based diet, they are not concerned about health at all. They are concerned with tripping you up. Just like the person who questioned Brian's veganism and my vegetarianism even though they were on, I later found out, two cholesterol and blood pressure medication. In their thirties. And they hunted innocent animals too. 'Nuff said.

Happy Earth Day 2008

One of the many green tips in the April 2008 Green Issue of Glamour was to give up meat once a week. I sent them the following letter applauding the tip but asking them to go one further—give up eating meat entirely:

I loved the Green Guide in the April 2008 issue. I especially loved the tip about giving up meat once a week to lessen the damage meat production causes to our environment. I’d like to go one way better, though—how about giving up meat entirely? It’s not only better for the environment; it’s the only truly humane way to treat the animals so many of us love (I think most people who live with a cat or dog would agree that there’s no “humane” way to kill their beloved Fido, right?). After a lifetime of meat-eating and saying, “Oh, I could never be a vegetarian!” I finally gave it up a year ago. It’s by far one of the most rewarding, healthful, and delicious choices I’ve made in my life. Rather than limiting my options, being a vegetarian has opened up my taste buds to a world of produce, grains, and flavors I never tried when I ate grilled chicken every night. More importantly, now that I no longer eat animals, I can look my dog and any cow, chicken, or pig in the face and know that I’m finally living out my conscience.

If you’re thinking of a way to commemorate Earth Day today, consider not eating meat today. Here are some links to site with recipes. Or pick up some of the following cookbooks at your local library or buy a used copy.

* The Post-Punk Kitchen, the website of Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, the authors of the awesome cookbooks Veganomicon and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. You can enter to win a copy of Vegan Cupcakes from us just by leaving a little old comment here.
* Vegan.com Top 10 Recipes of 2008: I found this link on Elaine Vigneault’s excellent blog, which is now a daily read for me.
* VegWeb.com

* All Recipes’ vegan and vegetarian recipes
* Vegan Chef

* Eat, Drink and Be Vegan Dreena Burton's blog and her latest cookbook, which I refer to frequently and with much success.
* The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. Try making the German Apple Cake or Blueberry Coffee Cake and see if there are leftovers after just an hour. Colleen’s working on a new cookbook now and I’m going to be one of the recipe testers. I cannot wait to test and eat the sure to be delicious recipe she’ll send over.
* Compassionate Cooks is Colleen’s main site, where you can find both free and reasonably priced recipe packets, her excellent Food for Thought podcasts, and sign up for cooking classes
* Vegetarian Times I really knew I was a vegetarian when I canceled my years-long subscription to Cooking Light and signed up for Vegetarian Times. About 70–80% of their recipes are vegan. The rest are easily veganized. You can search for free recipes on the site too.
* Veg News More features than recipes but I got the recipe for a delicious chocolate chip banana bread in a back issue.
* Herbivore magazine will stop printing the magazine this year. That sucks. Issues usually feature a few recipes and you can order cookbooks at their store.

That should get you started on a very delicious and enjoyable animal-product free day. Enjoy!

Everyone Is a Little Vegan

My friend just came back from Canyon Ranch and was going on about how lovely it was, how good the food was, how restorative restorative yoga was. Just listening to her made me want to go so I checked out the web site and looked over the menu. They clearly label vegan items, like miso soup and smoothies, which is really great. However, I noticed that some clearly vegan items did not garner a vegan sign next to it. Apparently, bananas, berries, melons, rice, and potatoes are not vegan.

When many people think of vegan food, they often think of tofu or fake meat strips. They are vegan and I happen to like both. We often forget that the fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, and nuts we are eating are vegan too. It’s strange that the completely unadulterated foods—almost all of which are vegan—don’t get labeled as such. Why are they not immediately deemed vegan by your average meateater, then? When Brian and I bring fruit salad to a lunch, it doesn’t get labeled vegan so everyone gobbles it right up. When we bring out the cake that doesn’t contain eggs and butter, though, trepidation often kicks in because it’s V-E-G-A-N. But it’s no more vegan than the fruit.

What makes a diet without meat and other animal products seem daunting is the idea that we will have to eat food that isn’t “real”, is too different, isn’t good enough. I certainly used to think that way and still have some of that thinking to a degree (hello, cheese). Thing is, I always ate vegan food even when I was an omnivore. The banana in my cereal, the beans on my rice, the salad for lunch—all vegan. We’re all eating vegan food all the time. Thinking that it’s an entirely foreign diet is inaccurate and makes something already familiar and available in abundance seem unnecessarily weird and lacking.

Mutual Menu is giving away one copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. To enter to win and for more details, please leave one comment here.

Guest Post: Will Death Do Us Part? by Sky Chari

This is a guest post by frequent Mutual Menu commentator and my longtime friend, Sky Chari.

It's a question posed by many who have fancied themselves philosophers over the years: are married couples really parted by death or do our souls live on together for all eternity (assuming you actually liked each other here on Earth to begin with)? When it comes to my husband and I, however, the death in question is neither his nor mine but dinner's. It’s not like I didn't know he ate meat when we started dating, or even when I married him. It’s not like he didn't know that I was a card-carrying PETA member and vegan advocate. So, how the hell does this work? To be honest, I don't even know some days. It definitely helps that we keep a vegetarian home. I just couldn't stomach having meat around. That being said, I do let in the occasional pizza or Doritos (he's not exactly into health food). When I come home from volunteering at a sanctuary for abused and neglected farm animals, Animal Place, disgusted with how people could be so reckless with themselves, the planet, and the animals, well, I let him know in the gentlest way possible exactly how I feel. He's heard my speech; he's even seen Earthlings, for goodness sake. His response? It's just not his thing.Yeah, I could kill him. I mean, I don't get how people could have all the information and still make the decision to eat meat.

In my particular case, I couldn't stomach the idea of killing animals for food from an early age, and started my journey toward veganism at age 11. Ironically, when my husband was the same age, he had never even touched meat. Raised in a traditional Hindu home, he was actually brought up as a vegetarian! However, by junior high, he'd had too many birthday parties at McDonald's to resist the temptation, and once Pandora's box was opened, it was impossible for him to close.

Don't get me wrong, my husband is a caring, kind, and insanely intelligent person. But he also happens to be a creature of habit and proximity. The reason it's easy to keep a veggie house is the same reason I can't keep a veggie husband--he'll eat whatever is in arm's length. The less he has to think about his food, the better. Granted, he's got a lot of other stuff to think about, running a company and all, but this is something about him I will never understand. I care about every single scrap that enters my mouth. I want to know where my food is from and all the ingredients that are in it so I can best judge what its effect on my person will be. He thinks I'm nuts.

So, have we just agreed to disagree and moved on? Actually, no. I still prefer that he become vegan, and he still knows it. I learned a long time ago, however, that nagging will get me nowhere. I have given him the space to make this decision for himself, all the while keeping him well informed and letting him know that I want him to live a long life with me. After all, nothing will make you live longer than letting other beings live long as well. It hasn't been easy or instantaneous by any means, but this tactic is working. He has long stretches of vegetarianism, and for now that is good enough for me. We are not unlike most couples in that we have our differences and issues. But being able to negotiate this emotionally charged subject has actually helped us through a number of other rough patches. At the end of the day, it is everything else about him that keeps me with him and thrilled to be so. This one blip on our radar is pretty major, but it is only one blip after all, and we manage it—some days better than others. Should kids ever come into the picture (not on the radar at all right now), all hell could break loose. Until then, he's my more-vegetarian-than-not husband, and I love him...to death.

Sky Chari is a flutist and teacher in San Francisco, CA, USA. When she's not dragging her husband to one of the town's great vegan restaurants, you can find her curled up on her couch watching the fog roll in (or, more preferably, out).

If you would like to share your story or tips on how you navigate being a vegan, vegetarian, or ominvore who navigates "interdietary" relationships, please leave a comment or send an e-mail to mutualmenu@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you and possibly share your story. Thank you!

The Deceptively Tricky Salad

When you think of going on a diet and eating out, do you often think that it will be a good idea to have salad for lunch? It seems so innocuous, all those leaves and crunchy bits. So, you hit up a salad bar or restaurant for some ensalada. Factor in an oily dressing--on the side or otherwise--, heaps of protein like grilled chicken (probably been grilled with oil and who knows how much), pieces of steak, some shrimps (as Brian and I like to call them), or even the innocent-seeming tofu (which is quite fattening, no, really, it is), some croutons, a generous sprinkling of nuts or seeds, maybe a heaping spoon of full-fat cheese, and you can easily go into the stratosphere, calorically-speaking. Here are ten tips to make or order a salad that's filling, wholesome, and scattered with some crunchy bits.



1. Branch out by using interesting or rarely used salad bases.
There's a world of leaves out there--romaine, escarole, endive, raddichio, even iceberg can seem exotic when you tend to use baby spinach all the time. For an even more varied spin on salad, try leftover brown rice, whole wheat couscous, red quinoa, whole wheat penne pasta, or any other whole grain as a base. This is especially useful if leaves don't entirely satsify you.


2. Beans, beans, beans.
Beans are a powerhouse of protein without the excess fat and cholesterol found in animal-based ingredients. As a bonus, they have the fiber that limp breast of chicken is lacking. Lately, I've been topping my salads with Quick Chicks. Black beans on salad that uses salsa as dressing would be great too, which leads me to...


3. Make your own dressing (or use something other than "dressing" to dress it up).
Full fat dressings are delicious but you know the deal. It's so easy to pile it on when the salad base is uninteresting. And try putting it on the side and not finishing off that small delicious cup of oil. Ken's Steakhouse makes some decent lower fat varieties but don't you dare use fat-free. Why would you when you can use salsa on a salad full of black beans, roasted peppers and corn? Or use some Dijon mustard in place of oil when making homemade dressing. Mustard will still emulsify with the vinegar and adds a creamy spicyness without added fat. Add some flavored oil and vinegar--such as garlic, chili peppper, or lemon rosemary--to your salad. They are everywhere now. If you measure out a teaspoon of oil and toss it very, very well, you don't need as much.


4. The judicious use of nuts, seeds, and other crunchy bits.
Add a small handful of walnuts or almonds or some sunflower seeds to your salad for some fat, vitamins, protein, fiber, and lots of flavor. Think of them as nutrient-packed, nature-made croutons.


5. Very things can go wrong when you eat some avocado.
Instead of cheese, which is, yes, delicious, but also is quite easy to eat too much of when you're standing over big blocks of them at a salad bar. Buy a whole Haas avocado and chop up half into your salad. Just half of one is two ounces, which is just 2 Weight Watchers' points, which is very good. Avocados are full of healthful monounsaturated fat, folate, potassium, and very few things taste as good with so little adulteration, save a small sprinkling of sea salt.


6. Make a salad your side dish.
I don't think leaves are supposed to make a meal, which is why salads have become these heaving beasts chock full of bacon, eggs, and cheese. Have a traditional salad of lettuce, tomato, onions, carrots, and other veggies and help yourself to a cup of soup or a whole wheat pita lightly slathered with some hummus and filled with red onions, cucumber, and a few cubes of baked tofu.


7. Sun-dried tomatoes are like nature's bacon bits.
Skip the ones packed in oil and drop a few slivers to your salad. They have a smoky, salty flavor reminiscent of bacon and a chewy texture that's such a pleasure to eat. This with avocado? Oh so good.


8. Watch your portions.
A large salad bar container can hold up to 6 cups of food. A small one holds about 2 1/2 cups. If you're filling the large container with mostly fresh veggies, you're good. But if you enjoy the selections that clearly contain more fat and calories, use the smaller vessel.


9. Try going around the salad bar once before you start serving yourself.
This will help you decide what you really want to eat rather than randomly grabbing whatever happens to look good every two seconds. If you know you want some of that oil-drenched pasta salad with olives (it's ok, I like oil-drenched noodles too), you can help yourself to a small serving of it while you forgo the hard-boiled eggs that always have that green ring around the yoke anyway. Blech.


10. Ask.
Salad bar nutritional info for major supermarkets are often posted on their web sites. Dottie's Weight Loss Zone contains information on many chain restaurants in the US and Canada, as well as nutritional data for Wegmans and Whole Foods. You also can ask a market employee what the food is actually made of. If they don't know, a manager probabaly will. Asking is crucial not only for monitoring calories but for verifying if that pasta salad is indeed vegan. Making your needs known also increases the chances that the stores you frequent will carry the items you want to consume. When dining out at a restaurant, ask the server how the salad is prepared, if there are healthier dressing options or if you can swap the globs of blue cheese for some extra roasted red peppers.

My Food Resolutions for 2008

One of its main tenets of Brazen Careerist's latest post on making resolutions you'll keep is that you should make only one or two goals. As someone who has made only one resolution that I've ever actually kept (vowing to lose weight January 8, 2005, doing so, and then keeping most of it for those three years), I've learned that a goal is not unlike writing an outline for a school paper: break down one idea into smaller, manageable parts. My overall culinary aim this year is to eat consciously, to really think about what I eat. Not obsess or create an eating disorder but to, as often as possible, think about if what I'm eating is what I want and if it supports my beliefs. To that end, here we go:


1. Learn how to grow a container garden
I don't know what happened this New Year's Eve but while my mother and stepfather were out partying (with silly string, no less) until 3 AM, Brian and I spent the evening making and eating hot-sauced glazed tempeh (recipe courtesy of Veganomicon), roasted sweet potatoes, and too-bitter rappini; doing a crossword puzzle; watching an episode of My So-Called Life; and then setting the alarm for 11:30 PM so we wouldn't miss the ball drop at midnight. The next day, I spent a few hours at Barnes and Noble looking through gardening books and decided that, this year, I really want to grow a plant of some sort without killing it in a few weeks. I'm very much settling into my slide into domestic middle-age. Anyways, I don't want to spend $4 for a bag of out-of-season sugar snap peas anymore. And I'm sick of buying fresh parsley and only using a few sprigs of it. With the world as crazy as it is, peak oil and all that stuff, I'd better learn to grow at least some of what I eat.


2. Eat more fruit (and a little dark chocolate in moderation) and less refined, processed sweets
Before I started Weight Watchers in 2005, my downfall was greasy Chinese takeout and lots of it. I enjoyed sweets but never gorged on them. Then after dieting for a while, my sweet tooth grew. Most of the extra weight I've put on this last year is due to my need for two desserts: one after lunch and one after dinner. I'm vowing to eat more fruit throughout the day and substituting my after lunch treat with fruit and if I want to be really decadent, maybe some dried mango (yum).

3. Eat out less and cook at home more
The rest of my weight gain is due to weekends of greasy vegan Chinese takeout, not bringing my lunch to work and eating out, or bringing an Amy's Organic frozen meal or another paltry serving of food to work and supplementing it with vending machine goodies. A main culprit of eating out more is not because I have an aversion to cooking but my lack of sleep and poor menu planning. To make sure I have the energy to cook at night, I'm aiming to go to bed just an hour earlier so I am less tired and have more energy and time to devote to properly planning what I'll eat all week.


4. Eat less cheese
This gives me no pleasure but it is an attempt at virtue. Do it for the cows. Besides, cheese has no nutritional value whatsoever, unlike eggs and fish (says the pesceovotarian). Any calcium and protein in cheese is negated by all the fat. Oh, the luscious fat. I'm no monk though so I think I'll start by just eating less of it. Rather than buying grocery store cheese every week and melting it on anything edible, I'll save my cheese indulgence for the really good stuff, the stuff that isn't neon and melted.


5. Eat more beans
Listen to the recent Food for Thought podcast on beans (the episode from December 14, 2007). Beans are a staple in many culinary traditions, including the Puerto Rican one I come from. As a child, I wasn't a fan of beans. I would only eat pigeon peas, or gandules, which my grandmother would make for me. Now there isn't a bean I won't eat. I'm particularly fond of pink beans, black beans, chickpeas, and cannellini beans . Canned or fresh, I'm going to make an effort to eat beans everyday. There's really no reason not to since canned beans are readily available, priced right and just a can opener away. My lunch salad today was elevated with the addition of chickpeas with sauteed onions (recipe below). And I'm not hungry nearly three hours later, miracle of miracles.

6. Cook and more soups and chilis
I'll concentrate on making soups, chilis, rice and beans and other large servings of beans, grains, and veggies that can go for a few days. If it tastes good, I don't mind eating the same thing three days in a row but I'll keep on hand some avocado, nuts, different sauces, already cooked tofu, an egg, etc. to keep things interesting for lunch and dinner.

7. Make my own granola and trail mix bars
This might be one of those pipe dream resolutions. I may just continue to buy Clif Nectar bars. But considering bars are just some grains, nuts and dried fruit binded together with some sticky syrupy sugar, it would be much cheaper to make it. If I get around to it, I can follow this recipe from Mother Earth Living.


8. Sign up for community-supported agriculture
With Philly's own Greens Grow right in Brian's neighborhood, we have no excuse not to buy shares in a local farm and pick up weekly boxes of fresh produce. Here's more information on their CSA.

Quick Chicks with Onions (vegan)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
¼ medium yellow onion, diced
1 can (15 ounces) organic chickpeas, drained and rinsed
sprinklings of the following spices to taste:
ground cumin
ground cayenne pepper
dried Italian seasoning
salt
freshly ground pepper

Heat olive oil in small saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until translucent and just slightly browned—about five minutes. Add chickpeas, cumin, cayenne pepper, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Stir well, cook for another 5 minutes or so (until chickpeas start to pop open) and taste and adjust seasonings to your liking as you go along. I like a lot of cumin and a generous dose of cayenne for flavor, bite, and a nice orange tinge. Chill and serve over salad or eat immediately.

What Nigella Lawson Said to Me

After hell, high water, and rush hour traffic, I made it to the Whole Foods on the Bowery by 7 pm on the dot for the Nigella Lawson book signing. I had planned to get there a bit earlier so I could eat dinner at one of the many food stops in Whole Foods--which is built more like a mammoth Jersey mall rather than even your average gargantuan supermarket--before waiting on the line. But my plans were no match for the Lincoln Tunnel at 5 pm.

When I arrived, the line was already quite long. All I wanted to do was sit and eat one of the many vegetarianorganicfreetradeglutenfree power bars I was standing by, or at least one of the scented candles, which might have tasted better. I was so hungry and tired. But I had a mission to get a book signed and knew I could hit up the food bars afterwards.

I've met a few celebrities, or at least people who are somewhat well known and do work I admire. But I never really want to sit and talk with them. What will I say that isn't incredibly dorky? And by the time I think of something great to say, my 30 seconds with the sharpie will be up. I'm over my adolescent celebrity worship, that feeling that I just know someone, that they're actually heroic. We're all just people. But some are extradordinary and get some attention for it and it would be disingenuous to say I haven't been shaped by that.

I don't think I'd be interested in food writing or even doing this blog if I hadn't come across Nigella Lawson's books a few years back. Yeah, I've always loved to eat (too much so) so it's not like I was uninterested in food before dipping my toe, just a little, in the foodie world. I've always been really aware of food. It wasn't, however, until I started cooking more than pancakes and scrambled eggs for myself, learned to read and follow recipes, and referred to various food magazines and cookbooks, that I actually brokered some sort of peace with my relationship with food. I stopped feeling as guilty about sometimes being a glutton and saw it as both a new hobby and a way to sustain my body, just as we all do. Prior to that, food was some weird, painful punishing reward. Now I'm not as controlled by food and I enjoy it more. I have to eat and I'm lucky I can afford to eat everyday and have access to such an amazing variety of food so I might as well lose the guilt trip. Funny, the seemingly two extremes of foodieness and doing Weight Watchers taught me that.

I'm by no means totally resolved. I still want chocolate, bread, and cheese, and lots of it, when I feel stressed or depressed (only really, really high levels of panic can still my appetite). I've gained some "love" pounds, as people say, since being with Brian but it's really just because I stopped running and started eating out a lot more. I, like most women, regularly plan and scheme about what I can do to be thinner. But I'm a lot happier now, and more realistic, than say, 10 years ago in the food department. Everyone has their thing. One of mine happens to be food and eating it. There are worse vices, and lesser joys.

So, here's how it went.

Nigella: Hello.
Me: [dorkily, really, really dorkily] Hello. I'm such a huge fan so it's really great to meet you.
Nigella: Thank you. [reading the post-it of my name one of the organizers put on my book so she'd know how to sign it] You have such a beautiful name.
Me: [beaming] Oh, thank you!
[silence and then someone tells me to get behind the table if I want my picture taken. Nigella tells her she's getting very good at taking pictures. The girl takes our picture].
Me: Thank you very much. Have a good night.
Nigella: Thank you. You too.

She is so gorgeous in person. Incredibly porcelain skin, great posture, lovely smile, very gracious. Brian asked if she'd really be as hot in person as she is on TV with all the lighting and yes, she was. When I told him about the signing and I said, "She's so beautiful." He said, "Should I be jealous?" Um....

The Nature of the Beast

One of my favorite sayings as a vegan and angsty quasi-pacifist living in a city with an intolerably high murder rate is Kill two humans with one bullet. It's my cynical little spin on the equally deranged Kill two birds with one stone. I've been noticing lately just how many of these types of cliches have influenced my adult vernacular, especially as they relate to the most basic of human and planetary ethics and traits. There are the diet-influenced sayings like You are what you eat and An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Then there are all those that try to capture the singular characteristics of our animal kingdom. Here are a few examples: It's the nature of the beast; Birds of a feather flock together; Don't put the cart before the horse; Don't count your eggs before they're hatched; Don't put all your eggs in one basket; or, my favorite, Happy as a clam (which---up until recently---I always thought was Happy as a clown, since clowns seem like much more jubilant folk than clams).

Like most couples, friends, neighbors, family members, or colleagues who share a good portion of their lives together, Joselle and I frequently adopt each other's sayings and thoughts. Some are cliche; some are just plain malicious; and others are suprisingly profound. I've taken to Joselle's This is a slow boat to China when I think about how far off a non-exploitative, animal-friendly world really seems---despite our modern, sophisticated, semantics-obssessed society. Joselle has also commented several times as to how everyone (including the carnivore) is a vegetarian in some capacity, whereas vegetarians will not and cannot be omnivores; something that's always struck me as insightful and poignant. Pretty much everyone eats vegetables, regardless of where people are from or what the hell they believe. Folks like their legumes (Beans, beans are good for the heart). They relish their fruit and pastas and breads and all sorts of treats, which can surely still be savory without all the animal ingredients that industries try to throw at us. If that's truly the case, why do so many omnivores get turned off by the word "vegetarian"?

Maybe it's the nature of the human beast to always want to be in control of everything. After all, A dog is [human]'s best friend---not the other way around. I mean, even the language of these cliches implies the domination of humans over the rest of the animal kingdom. Even more, there are the suggestions of our need for control in the lifestyle choices that every single one of us makes about who, what, when, where, and why we eat what we eat. Vegans choose not to consume animal flesh or byproducts out of respect for the lives of other animal species, as well as in an effort to make a statement of sociopolitical oppostition to an industry that will bleed us all dry for the right price. Contrastingly, Joselle and I can't really seem to grill-wrap our heads around why so many omnivores cringe at the thought of plant-based ingredients for vegetarian dishes; at the thought of stepping foot in a vegetarian restaurant that represents healthy living and, hopefully, environmental consciousness; at the thought of eating a Heart Thrive instead of a Snickers bar from the vending machine. Why is this? Maybe it's the nature of the beast to be selective, opinionated, obstinate, and apprehensive for no clear reason.

In order for a truly effective mutual menu to work, it seems to me that everyone involved needs to have a full understanding---not just a superficial tolerance---of why we all make the decisions that we make. Whether we do something for ethics, for self-preservation (i.e., oftentimes protecting our own individual health, rather than selflessly focusing on the health of our greater environment), or for the sheer fact that we don't really care about anything accept what feels good to us, we as humans have the special gift of verbal language; a tool set that should theoretically allow us to carefully communicate our commonalities and differences with one another. That would be the first step. Beyond that, it'd be nice if we could learn to utilize an intelligence of the "superior species" to figure out how we can all just get along.

If we don't learn to compromise, then I guess birds of a feather will continue to flock together---at least until there are no more birds to stone. In fact, if we could just be a smidgeon more thoughtful about the decisions we make, maybe humans wouldn't seem so stoned themselves.

Trying to Eat Healthfully? Eat More Junk Food

Due to stress, sleep deprivation, and PMS, I have spent the last week or so eating a ton of junk. Yesterday, I left my wallet and my breakfast at home so I had to panhandle for change at work so I could get a noxious and oily (bad oily like gasoline, not good oily like when I drizzle walnut oil and honey on sprouted whole wheat toast) honey bun from the vending machine. For lunch, I had an egg and cheese on an English Muffin from Dunkin Donuts followed by a Rice Krispie treat from the Barnes and Noble cafe. For dinner, I killed half a bag of fried, salty platanos. Then I chased that down with a cup of vanilla and chocolate ice cream with a bag of 100-calorie Oreo Thins crumbled on top (did you know that Oreos are vegan? Or at least they are 99.9% vegan). Not going to win any gourmet health awards there.

The good thing about going on a junk food fast is that it makes your body crave the wholesome simplicity of a bed of fresh spinach drizzled with the tiniest hint of extra virgin olive oil. Or a crisp and tart pink lady apple. When all you want to eat is junk but feel like you should eat virtuously, I say pile on the french fries and then just wait. You'll want to eat produce again. Right now, I am so looking forward to the dinner I have planned for tonight: tofu stir-fry over a steaming pile of red quinoa alongside some kale with garlic and peppers. The following text and recipe is from the October 2005 "Inspired Vegetarian" column in Cooking Light.

Kale with Garlic and Peppers (vegan, which means it's good for
everyone!)

Although you can find kale in supermarkets year-round, this member of
the cabbage family is at its peak flavor in cool-weather months. Kale also
brings a good dose of protein and iron to this side dish, and the jalapeño
pepper adds a pleasant kick. You can substitute collard greens for kale, if you
prefer.

2 teaspoons olive oil object
2 cups sliced red bell pepper (about 2 medium)
1 tablespoon chopped seeded jalapeño pepper (about 1 small)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
14 cups chopped kale, stems removed (about 1 pound)
1/2 cup organic vegetable broth (such as Swanson Certified
Organic)
1 garlic clove, minced
Lemon wedges (optional)

Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add red bell pepper,
jalapeño, salt, and black pepper; sauté 3 minutes or until tender. Add chopped
kale and broth; cover. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook 10 minutes or until
tender, stirring once. Stir in garlic; increase heat to medium. Cook, uncovered,
for 2 minutes or until liquid evaporates. Serve with lemon wedges, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 cup kale mixture)

Nutritional Information: CALORIES 157(24% from fat); FAT 4.1g (sat
0.6g,mono 1.8g,poly 1.1g); PROTEIN 8.4g; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 323mg;
SODIUM 321mg; FIBER 4.9g; IRON 4.3mg; CARBOHYDRATE 28.2g

"But how do you get enough protein without meat?"

Two recent new stories point towards the West's--and particularly the U.S.'s--overconsumption of protein rather than our need to go more Atkins. Specifically, we overconsume animal protein (lest we forget that protein is only found in animal flesh and their secretions). A piece in this morning's Yahoo! News states the not-so-obvious to some, "Eating less meat may slow climate change." The article explains findings from a special energy and health series of the medical journal The Lancet and goes on to note that:

Reducing global red meat consumption by 10 percent, they said, would cut the gases emitted by cows, sheep and goats that contribute to global warming...

Other ways of reducing greenhouse gases from farming practices, like feeding animals higher-quality grains, would only have a limited impact on cutting emissions. Gases from animals destined for dinner plates account for nearly a quarter of all emissions worldwide…

"That leaves reducing demand for meat as the only real option," said Dr. John Powles, a public health expert at Cambridge University, one of the study's authors.

The amount of meat eaten varies considerably worldwide. In developed countries, people typically eat about 224 grams per day. But in Africa, most people only get about 31 grams a day.

Man, when I calculated how much protein I need (for healthy adults, multiply your weight in pounds times .4 or use this protein calculator), it was way, way less than freakin' 200 GRAMS! I need about 60 grams. 60, people. And that's from a nutritionist's stance, vegetarian or otherwise. We just don't need all this meat. Besides the harm it does to animals, it doesn't do human animals much better.

In an original contribution to the American Journal of Epidemiology, published online on September 4, researchers found a link between eating cured meats (such as bacon and hot dogs) and an increased risk for chronic pulmonary obstructive disease in men. Even after adjusting for age, smoking status habits, energy intake, race and ethnicity, geographic location, body mass index, and physical activity, the consumption of cured meats was positively associated with the risk of newly diagnosed COPD. The reason for this increased risk is probably due to the high amount of nitrites in cured meats. I remember trying to drink orange juice with my bacon after hearing the vitamin C could counteract the possible cancer causing effects of the nitrites. Now I just don't eat pigs (more to come on hanging out with live pigs at the Catskills Animal Sanctuary, which just further adds to my resolve to not eat animals).

But we do need protein and we do need to eat. So how? No matter your diet--vegan, vegetarian, omnivore--this next dish is super easy and tasty, chock full of protein, fiber, and flavor. I made it for dinner last night and the leftovers will be even tastier tonight, now that the ingredients have really melded all day. This is more a suggestion than a strict recipe. Just use whatever veggies you have handy:

Quick Tofu Stir Fry with Tamari and Maple Syrup, Serves about 4 (or two really hungry people)

Drain and press a block of extra-firm organic tofu (tofu and soy in general is one of those products worth springing a few extra cents for so you can have the organic. Nonorganic soybeans are otherwise highly pesticized). To press, after I've drained the water from the package, I just place the tofu on a plate, place another plate on top, and put a bottle of water atop the plate so all the water drains out. While the tofu is being drained, I cut up some of the veggies I have around--a red bell pepper, half a yellow onion, a whole bunch of broccolini. In a bowl, mix up about 1/4 cup of tamari (or soy sauce) with a few good plops of maple syrup (I'd say about no more than a tablespoon). Then add a teaspoon of canola oil and a teaspoon of sesame oil, a tiny sprinkle of kosher salt, and a good grinding of fresh pepper. Mix it all up. Use a paper towel to pat dry the pressed tofu. Cut it into smallish triangles (or cubes) and place in the tamari-maple syrup mixture, making sure to coat it well. Heat a teaspoon each of canola and sesame oil in a pan. I had some leftover recaito, an absolutely necessary flavor base in Puerto Rican cooking but only optional for this dish. Recaito is just mixed up onion, sweet chilis, a bell pepper, garlic, and cilantro. Not necessary but it's nice to have on hand (I freeze the remainder into an ice cube tray so I can use small amounts as needed). Otherwise, add your onions and red bell pepper to the oil and let them heat up and brown slightly, for about 5 minutes. Add broccolini, tofu mixture, and a handful of frozen peas. Stir-fry over medium high heat for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring often, allowing tofu to brown slightly. Pour a serving over some brown rice, making sure to get that yummy tamari and syrup mixture over everything. Eat up.

There you go. Tons of protein and no extra flatulence from cows or cancer from bologna.

Resistance

Last Saturday, Brian and I were scurrying around to feed my dog, Luckie, before heading out to visit Brian's co-worker's home and then to the 30th birthday party of his dear, old friend. My dog hasn't eaten dog food in nearly a decade, after a case of retinal detachment caused Luckie to go blind out of nowhere for nearly a week. I had read about the horrible, disgusting crap (the flesh of diseased animals, plastic, uh, other dogs) that goes into pet food and the health-related conditions that go along with eating it. But it wasn't until my seemingly healthy 4 year old dog went BLIND that I finally decided to stop feeding him the stuff. Now he's 13 years old and, other than some arthritis on his right back leg, he still runs, jumps and loves, just with a bit of a limp. And while he used to leave his dry dog food untouched for days, he always licks his bowl of real food clean. Anyways, this meandering introduction leads to this: on Saturday, I had to buy the dog a chicken.

I bought him one of those readymade grocery store rotisserie chickens that I used to pick up for myself when I couldn't be bothered to cook after work. They are convenient and pretty tasty. Brian and I are hungry ourselves so we pick up Amy's Organic roasted veggie pockets for 2 for $4. But I buy the dog an $8 roasted chicken. Brian is floored.

While cutting up the dog's meat--with a knife and then shredding it with my hands and fingers--I tell Brian that it doesn't gross me out to handle meat but that I no longer have the urge to eat it. That wasn't entirely true. For about five seconds, I wanted to eat a little wing, something I used to snack on while cutting up the main pieces for my dinner. I just wanted a little bite. I didn't have one and the urge passed quickly but I had the thought: a life without ever eating roasted chicken again. Can I do it? Well, I do. For now.

I'm still in one day at a time mode. It's been three months since I've ingested chicken, beef, or pork. Perhaps this transition has been made easier by my "fish are vegetables" stance, but that too is starting to wane. Life without shrimp? Maybe.

I sometimes think, one day I'll eat "humanely" raised meat every once in a blue moon. It's not that bad. Or, when I finally get over to Spain, I have to eat meat. I want chorizo. Sometimes I think maybe I do need to eat meat. Not just want to but need to. Need the protein, after all. But I know I don't. I know I'm tired because I'm a sleep-deprived insomniac, not because I didn't eat a steak. I was an insomniac when I ate meat and I'll probably be one for all of my days. Besides, I get plenty of protein from beans, cashew butter, veggie burgers, quinoa and kamut pasta spirals, soy milk, cheese, cow's milk, eggs, and yes, fish. If anything I suffer from a vegetable deficiency. My health is not being compromised by an overabundance of broccoli.

I've been reading less vegetarian literature lately. In the first month of my dietary and belief transition, I ordered back issues of Veg News, read vegan cookbooks on my lunch break, read excerpts of Slaughterhouse, and I listened to the Compassionate Cooks' podcasts, Food for Thought. That last tool really cinched it for me. So much so that I stopped listening, that's how effective the podcasts are. I can read a vegetarian cookbook and still think about the eggs I'll use in a cake. But listening to Food for Thought makes me feel guilty for not being vegan. Because Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is right. Her discussions are imapssioned, thoughtful, well-researched, thorough, and incredibly persuasive. I currently have "The High Costs of Cheap Meat" on pause and will play it once this post goes up.

One bad, bad day last when I was just angry at the world, I really wanted a bacon double cheeseburger. I thought, fuck this, I'm eating one. I want to eat all the fat and grease there is, make myself feel as sick physically as I feel emotionally. I planned on picking one up for lunch. While opening my e-mail that morning, the Compassionate Cooks newsletter was in my inbox. The picture on the top of this post was in the newsletter. I just couldn't eat a burger. The thought of eating one just made me sick.

picture courtesy of the blog, Food For Thought

Life Swap

Have you ever seen television's Wife Swap? Joselle and I managed to watch an episode together last night, thanks to telephone technology. As seems typical, the show focuses on oddly-paired people who breathe fire at each other while learning valuable life lessons. Joselle and I learned a lesson or two of our own by watching this Wife Swap program: 1.) Most people are not terribly functional in our society; and 2.) No two people eat the same exact way.

Couple A idolizes its miniature doggies with fancy feasts and hand-knitted sweaters, all while worshiping the convenience of gas-guzzling automobiles and gas-inducing, meat-based fast food. Couple B is the epitome of West-Coast American environmentalism with its freegan dumpster-diving, human-waste-recycling backyard agriculture, and overall placidity. Both couples are a hoot---and quite extreme in their own idiosynchratic ways. When dumped together under one roof, the mutual menu is a hard sell. Mom from Couple A thinks that people who "pee on their garden" are "sick." Mom from Couple B thinks that fried chicken is definitely not the way to a household at peace with itself---and the lazy SUV in the garage sure isn't helping any.

Can't we all just get along? Yeah, I find myself leaning more toward the green-grass side of Couple B, but I like to think that Couple A isn't completely diabolical for living out a microculture that's so popularly acceptable at the macrocultural level (even though Dad from Couple B said something about Mom from Couple A being birthed when "Lucifer lifted his leg"). As difficult as a mutual menu can be to achieve, it's not that far off from the multiculturalism that's broadcast to a modern, democratic American society in the form of racial ethnicity, national origin, spiritual belief system, etc. The possibilities for balance are well within our grasp, but the world is definitely spinning out of control.

In the end, the question will stand: Who will be the most grounded in our shared reality? Hopefully, we all will; not just humans, but also the hipster canines in their tight sweaters, and chickens in the fryer at your favorite fast-food restaurant.

The Ambivalent (Sorta) Vegetarian

Kim of The Lazy Vegan posted about a great essay on July 10th's MSNBC Health, "Ambivalent Vegitarian faces meat of the matter," by Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn. The author initially became a vegetarian as a weight loss strategy (as someone who lost over 40 pounds by eating lots of pork tenderloin, chicken breast, sirloin steak, and eggs, I'm astonished at how any vegetarian achieves and maintains a svelte figure. But I'm guessing that those are the ones who put the "veg" in vegetarian by actually eating a lot of vegetables). Upon resuming meat-eating years later, she suddenly finds herself feeling guilty about eating the flesh of animals:

Increasingly, when I looked at a piece of beef on my plate, I no longer
saw
the calories I’d have to jog off the next day. I saw something that looked
unnervingly like flesh — flesh not all that different from my own. This
tugged
my mind to uncomfortable comparisons. Skinned and butchered, how
different would I look on a plate? How different was this piece of meat from me?

When I ate meat, it wasn't unusual for me to pick up a nice steak and bottle of red wine whenever I was feeling sluggish and lifeless. I remember reading about French doctors prescribing this remedy to patients whenever they needed some pep in their step and that made sense to me. I'd just barely cook the steak, leaving it pretty bloody, pink and red within and charred without, thinking that the bloodier the steak, the more restorative it would be. I never winced. Never really thought about the fact that I was eating dead cow. On the rare occassions that preparing steak or removing the gizzards from a chicken I was about to roast prompted me to get a little, well, grossed-out, I'd quickly put it out of my mind. It's just food. I'm just feeding myself. Get over it. Or, don't get over it. Face what it is. Yes, prepping a dead, plucked, headless chicken for roasting can be a little unseemly. But it will taste so good. And I went on with it. I remember my grandmother butchering and scaling whole fish and thought, a real cook doesn't mind the blood and guts of it. My mother sucked the marrow out of bones before it became haute cuisine. I was used to thinking of eating animals as just something you do. Yes, how admirable to be a vegetarian but who could live like that? I never thought I could. Now I am not eating land animals and I am not buying cheese if it has rennet and I am thinking about when or if I'll eventually give up fish too, a food I didn't even really crave back when I was eating meat. I'm a freaking pescetarian. One of those dumbasses who classifies fish as vegetarian-friendly.

Today I'm feeling rather slow and my old steak and wine remedy as popped into mind. I'm quickly tiring of veggie burgers and salads for lunch. I am craving meat. Much as I abhor what we do to animals to eat their bodies and drink their milk, I still love the way all of that tastes--butter, a steak, fried chicken. I am most definitely on the fence. Disgusted by the fact that the flesh I want has been procured in such horrific ways and yet still able to say it tastes good. And beyond the flavor, I remember meat satisfying me, feeling like a complete meal in my stomach--roast chicken, potatoes or rice, some asparagus or snow peas tossed in olive oil, fresh garlic, salt, pepper, and a splash of soy sauce. That's a meal. Then again, it was one of my favorites--the roast chicken--that made me gag and hand over the meat to the dog when I connected what was on my plate to what happened on a farm in god knows where.

I could be romanticizing meat's powers to satisfy and rejuvenate, like an ex who looks better after a few months or years have passed. Truthfully, I've always had a problem with lunch. I've never been able to quite figure out what to pack for work that will keep me tied over for 6 hours. I pretty much get hungry every 2 to 3 hours, with or without meat. And that's all thanks to dieting, which has shrunk my stomach so that I get full very quickly but then hungry again just as soon. And the steak and wine routine? While tasty, the wine probably made me too sleepy to allow the steak to revitalize my energy levels, if it could even do that at all.

In many ways, my transition into vegetarianism isn't unlike dieting. Lifestyle change? Whatever. I'm concentrated on what I can't eat rather than what I can. Deprivation is a means to an ends and I've done it before. Like a diet, it hasn't been all pleasurable. I had the Cuban Platter at Caravan of Dreams this past weekend with Brian and Sky, and, yes, the grilled bananas were great, rice and beans passable for a non-Cuban joint, and the vegan sour cream-- though I couldn't mistake it for the real thing--it was nice. But those blocks of tofu standing in for what? Pork? Chicken? Nothing? It just didn't do it for me. Something was missing. I grabbed a few bites of Brian's seitan, which was pretty good, a much more accurate meat-substitute but not meat. Sometimes I do wonder if I can pull this off for a lifetime. Food is the one thing I wholeheartedly enjoy (would I need to diet if I didn't?) and yet, it's been the most fraught, complicated, and sometimes painful area of my life.

I remind myself that I don't need to give up meat forever. I won't know how I'll feel about this in 5, 10, 20 years. I mean, I should just wait and see how this Thanksgiving goes. Maybe I'll completely fall off the wagon today or November or 4 years from now, finally buying a pair of leather shoes again while I down a burger. Maybe I'll become a militant vegan, swearing off my beloeved cheese. I don't know yet. I don't feel like a "real" vegetarian (or even pescetarian), completely at peace with what I've decided to eat and not eat. And yet, I don't completely relate to being the meat-eater who doesn't at least pause to think about what passes their lips. I am in limbo, a dietary purgatory. It's not unlike being in a 12-step program. One day at a time. Today, I won't eat meat. We'll deal with the day I'm chasing down a bucket of fried chicken when it comes but for now, it hasn't.

The last paragraph of the essay has a very particular resonance for me:

Of course, I can continue to live a conflicted life, and no one will judge me
but me. But though I crave resolution, so far, I am unable (or unwilling) to
make the sacrifice. What does this say about me? Am I incapable of exercising empathy when it’s inconvenient? Which leaves me
to contemplate a particular irony: It is not other people but animals
who are forcing me to consider the depth and breadth of my humanity.
Every time I pick up a menu.

Skeletons in the Closet

No one's perfect. As The Lazy Vegan brings to light, even the most pious of vegans/vegetarians are faced with hardships in our daily choices. I've been vegan now for about a decade, and continue to face the dilemma of when to say when. Which fights are really worth fighting, especially when you're also a pacifist who's tired of defending his passion for said fighting?

The fact remains that I have a violent, bloody history---and there are times when part of me misses it. My mom's cheesteaks were champions. Even better, Double Whoppers with cheese, sides of onion rings, and chocolate milkshakes were a frequent favorite at the Burger King in my neighborhood (and every neighborhood I encountered, for that matter). And, like most Philadelphians, Tastykakes were an obsession (it was not uncommon for me to stuff my face with two-for-a-dollar Tasty-Klair pies). Ah, the memories!

Am I proud that I perpetuated a consumerism of gluttony and greed for the sake of filling my adolescent gut? No. Am I happy to have gained an omnivore's perspective on the human diet to better inform my eating into the future? Definitely.

Wow, my eyes are misting over with nostalgia as I continue to stuff my lunchtime face. That part hasn't changed. What has changed is the sloppy goodness between my slabs of bread; still meat-like, but much more friendly to one and all.